In case you guys forgot, I was dying.

Remember, a couple chapters ago? An entire skyscraper flattening me? A javelin chilling in my chest? A deranged telekinetic supervillain deciding he didn't like me all that much anymore? 

I was on both knees, my vision going in and out of focus, the blood from the gaping cavity in what I think was the left half of my body oozing into a pool beneath me.

I could barely hear my thoughts over my desperate wheezing attempts at breathing, looking around frantically for anything that could give me a fighting chance out of this hopeless situation. 

"There's no point, you know," Tenebros growled smugly, advancing towards me in a menacing saunter, just as my eyes landed upon the fancy disintegrator ray thingamajig about twenty feet away from me.

Shit, that's probably my only hope, I told myself.

"Stop telling yourself you have any hope," smirked Tenebros, rubbing his chin absentmindedly and surveying the destruction around him with delight.

The entire main road was rubble, and vehicles and buildings had been decimated as far as the eye could see. The occasional fire didn't help the look of things, and I could hear screams in the distance, presumably originating from the area where two entire freaking skyscrapers had been plucked out of their spots and thrown at even more buildings, resulting in even more death and destruction. 

What in Buttercup Crumblesnatch's name am I up against? Should I just die? Dying seems pretty good right about now. Seriously what in the actual heck is this dude? Why won't he even get tired? He's still smiling ohmygod-

These were the thoughts running through my head, only with a lot more cursing.

More screams- from much closer?

No- they weren't  ahead of me- they were above me. From inside the building that was slowly but surely turning me into filo dough, I heard hundreds of mortified voices screaming for help.

I gritted my teeth. 

I was The City's hero. The people needed me, and all I'd been doing the entire time was trying to prove that I was better than some psychic psycho? Lives had been in danger, and I didn't doubt that I was unable to save them all, but they still were about to be snuffed out, and like Mr. Wen had said in the previous chapter, it was my duty to do what was right and try my best to save th-

Tenebros made one nonchalant hand gesture and the skyscraper somehow became even heavier, crushing me further into the smashed concrete and onto my hands and knees.

Oof. 

Yeah never mind. 

Screw valour and honour and all that nonsense.

My back, the only thing preventing the untimely death of who knows how many poor souls via Humongous Tower Pancake Squash, me included, had a seven-foot piece of steel sticking through it. 

I was so done with it all. 

What would everyone think of a university kid being The Paladin?- oh wait, Tenebros would probably kill them all before they would ever have the chance to find out. Heh, I don't even have any loved ones to think about if this really is the end. Wen, if you're reading this, you're a pretty cool history teacher, I guess. The other MCs seem pretty chill too. Except the one who's successfully killing me right now. You suck.

Author, you suck too.

The sheer weight forced me to bow my head.

Tenebros probably batted his eyelashes innocently at me but I was too busy dying to notice. "Can't even look me in the eye- when you're about to die?" 

I coughed up more blood. "The rhyme ch-chapter," I spat, "It j-just ended. You m-missed it by th-this much." I would've made a gesture with my hands, but they were just a bit preoccupied right about then.

He laughed at that. Delightful. At least someone gets a laugh out of this chapter.

All I could hear was screaming and his horrible laughter and the sirens of idiotic policemen in the distance. 

All I could feel was the pain washing all over me and my nerves burning up and the involuntary tears dripping down my cheeks. Or was it blood? I couldn't tell.

And all I could see was blood and the rubble inches away from my face and The Author's depressing descriptive abilities and a sudden dazzling golden light appearing from somewhere in front of me.

Wait, a sudden dazzling golden light appearing from somewhere in front of me?

"Who in the world are you supposed to be?" I managed to hear Tenebros' demanding voice over the blood rushing past my ears (and onto the ground), followed by a WHOOMPH and a low CRASH somewhere to my right.

The weight on my back lifted slightly- just enough for me to be able to glance upwards to see what all the fuss was about.

To say I was immediately blinded would be an understatement.

I willed my pupils to get as small as they physically could, and they did.

I could still barely see anything at all.

Squinting just like this book's readers when Zac tells them he's not gay, I was just about able to make out a figure standing before me.

A.

That was it. That was all I could see or think.

A.

A brilliant, radiant, mesmerising capital A was glowing on the figure's forehead, brighter than anything I'd ever seen before in my entire life.

I couldn't make out anything else- was this person a man or woman? Child or adult? Heck, was it even a person at all?

Everything else just seemed a dull shade of whitish-gold. I almost couldn't see the bottom of the skyscraper I was holding up, and my blood running down my costume looked as if it was some sort of golden elixir.

And, for some reason I can't explain, the presence of this... thing made me feel absolutely incredible. I have no idea what it was, but the moment I saw it, I was filled with what I can only accurately describe as pure, overwhelming awe.

"I'm sorry, I'm still getting used to this," I heard the figure say, and I almost didn't notice the blinding intensity of the light from the dazzling A dialing down because I was too focused on the voice I had just heard.

Or should I say, voices. Two voices, one male, deep, grand and spellbinding, a voice even Morgan Freeman would be proud to be the owner of, and the other female, soft, soothing, melodious, hypnotic- both spoken together in perfect harmony.

"Wh-what are you?" I asked, captivated, momentarily forgetting everything else.

I could have sworn that with the overpowering light having faded slightly, I was just about able to see a slight smile form on this person's (I think it was a person) face. 

"A friend, I suppose," the voices came unanimously, and I felt a strange wave of déjà vu wash over me.

It was only then that I realized that he or she was casually helping me lift up the building I was being crushed under with one hand, and from the corner of my eye, I noticed Tenebros crumpled up in a corner.

"Did... did you do that to him?!" I felt my voice quaver, but I don't think it was in fear.

The figure's smile was now unmistakable, but I didn't get the privilege of hearing the perfect dual voices reply, probably because Tenebros was back on his feet and towering over us faster than you could say 'This guy just won't freaking die'.

"You. Back off." Tenebros' snarl was nothing like I'd ever heard from him before. There was much more anger than usual, but what really caught my attention was that I thought, just for a second, that I had picked up a hint of fear in his voice.

The mysterious figure, still shrouded in golden light, stepped back from the building, but with Tenebros' attention no longer completely focused on crushing me, the skyscraper went back to a manageable number of kilotons. If it wasn't for the javelin still in my chest, I would have comfortably been able to regenerate all my wounds and ease the building to the ground without any further casualties.

Of course, we all know it isn't that easy.

I, the Paladin, the protector of The City, was forced to watch the second superpowered showdown that day, this time a helpless bystander.

So watch I did.

And let me tell you, it was a sight to behold.

One second Tenebros is making a hand gesture and a car begins to budge on the pavement, no doubt in an effort to crush the new challenger into marmalade, and the next a shining golden arm has jabbed him somewhere on the side of the neck.

What really gets me is that when I punched him straight in the face, I used so much force that the road beneath me crumbled into pieces, but everybody's least favourite villain shrugged it off like it was the first blow in a pillow fight.

This? This was no forceful blow. There was no truckloads of power behind it. The road underneath the glowing newcomer wasn't affected one bit.

And Tenebros was still sent flying.

What. The. Hell?!

He stopped himself midair the same way he had when I had tried my luck at punching him, but this time, instead of it seeming to have no effect whatsoever on him, Tenebros looked visibly concerned.

I heard him curse under his breath as he clutched his neck and flinched.

Sure, that jab to the neck the incandescent visitor had delivered had been fast. As in, scary fast, just about fast enough to seem potentially superhuman, but not fast enough to be a convincing superpower, and definitely not fast enough to be able to injure Tenebros with sheer velocity.

Tenebros' calm, collected visage that had slowly been eroded throughout our brawl finally shattered completely. 

"GGGRRRAAHHHHH!!!" he howled, and dozens of cars and concrete slabs and bricks and who knows what even lifted themselves up into the air.

"Look upon your DOOM!" Tenebros cried, now floating twenty feet up in the air, his face contorted into a scowl so furious Vin Diesel could have made a movie out of it.

The golden figure did what any sane person would do in the face of certain death.

It yawned.

Now if that isn't a power move, I don't know what is.

Tenebros snarled, and with one swift arm gesture, all the paraphernalia shot towards golden fella in a raging tempest twice as destructive as the one he had caught me in.

The shining figure cracked its neck to both sides and then leapt straight up in the air, and in that moment, I wished, more than anything, that I could have recorded the spectacle unfolding before me.

Mystery person effortlessly dodged a Hyundai, sidestepped the truck that had hit me from behind in the ninth chapter, blocked a barrage of bricks by stylishly catching a fire hydrant, somersaulted off of a concrete slab and swung off a motorcycle handle with one hand, evading a manhole cover in the process, all while moving straight at Tenebros while suspended in the freaking air, using his own oversized projectiles against him as platforms to perform mind-boggling acrobatics on, and being so elegant while doing so that it made my eyes hurt.

Yes, I had to describe that in one sentence.

Before I knew it, the figure was dashing straight at Tenebros- still six metres up in the air, don't forget- now barely inches away from planting another fist right into the baddie's face.

How the hell was it made to look so easy?

"Stop right there!" Tenebros snapped, clenching both fists, and everything other than the dazzling stranger fell to the ground immediately.

If my lungs hadn't been screaming, I would have let out a small gasp.

Tenebros had frozen the stranger... right in the air??

The villain smirked, but the veritable rage on his face didn't dissipate one bit.

"Now, what should I do with you?" he snickered maniacally. "Crush you under a different skyscraper? Throw you into a vat of flaming gasoli-?"

A.

If I, a person at least fifty metres away from the radiant figure had to shut my eyes as hard as I could because the glowing A had suddenly become unbearably bright, I can only imagine how much of an impact it must have had on poor ol' Tenebros, just a couple inches from his no-longer-gloating face.

By the time the intensity diminished and I managed to open my eyes, Tenebros was already spread out on the ground, clutching his face and howling in agony.

"Get up," the figure commanded, and there was no trace of any of the kindness in its beautiful double voices that it spoke to me with, only sheer authority.

Tenebros' eyes shot open and for a second I thought they looked bloodshot. He struggled to his feet, gasping for breath.

"You..." he panted, looking more dazed than I do in calculus class, "YOU DARE MAKE A FOOL OF THE MIGHTY TENEB-"

He was halted by a flurry of blows so spectacularly quick, so blindingly majestic, so astoundingly precise that I couldn't help but mouth the word 'wow'.

Hit after hit after hit, every single golden motion connected with a rib or a side of the neck or the nose or the throat or a temple, like a burst of deadly accurate bullets fired from a machine gun.

Pressure points. 

At one point, I think I saw the stranger stop just short of kneeing him in the unspeakables just to show off.

The burst of punches and kicks and jabs felt like an eternity but it must have been only a few seconds long.

Tenebros crumpled onto the ground like a sack of potatoes, twitching violently.

The figure ignored his suffering convulsions outright and sauntered over to me. I remembered to close my gaping mouth but decided to continue staring because the sense of awe welling up inside of me wasn't something I was able, or wanted for that matter, to suppress.

"Y-you d-didn't answer my question," I stuttered, but just as the stranger was about to help me move the skyscraper on top of me, and perhaps even give me an answer to what exactly he or she was, the police cars whose sirens I had subconsciously been tuning out screeched into view.

"Hands up and step away from the... building?!" I heard a policeman yell, presumably drawing his firearm.

I deadpanned. "Buddy, believe me, if I could have, I would've done it in the last hour when you weren't here.  And for the record, I liked it much better that way."

"Not you!" he retorted, exasperated. "Whoever this glowing idiot is!"

"Don't flatter yourself, you're really not bright at all."

The man was about to yell some more, but he was probably caught off guard by the overwhelmingly blinding light that suddenly reappeared from a certain someone's forehead.

And the next thing anybody knew, that certain someone was gone.

Just like that.

One moment he was standing there, in all his bedazzling glory of an aura, the next we were blinking our eyes open only to find that he had vanished. 

"Wh-" the officer started, but he didn't bother saying anything else because we were all thinking the same thing.

Who the hell was that?

The disappearance of the mysterious stranger from the scene would have perfectly set up the end to this chapter. Unfortunately for our lazyass Author, Tenebros chose this exact moment to stir.

"Wow," he breathed raggedly, still sprawled face-down. 

Still vibrating like the crappy washing machine in your basement, Tenebros lifted his head off the smashed tarmac just enough to glare at me.

Or at least, somewhere a few yards to my right.

"I-" he started, then gasped for air and continued, "I... am going to m-make you... bleed."

I blinked. "Buddy," I said, covered from head to toe in blood, "I'm covered from head to toe in blood."

Tenebros paused. "Oh." 

A few seconds of awkward silence passed.

"My bad," he coughed, "I s-still can't see for shit." Painstakingly slowly, he rolled onto his back and let out a guttural groan. "I think... my mind hurts." He flinched again. "Okay, thinking about how b-bad it hurts... makes it hurt worse."

He stopped talking because it was probably making his mind hurt or whatever. 

For those few seconds, nobody did anything. The police switched between staring at him and me, gulping, and peeing their pants, probably expecting Tenebros to do something crazy, and not daring to move a muscle, let alone fire their weapons. This was because they were easily the most cowardly people to walk the planet, but even if they hadn't been, I doubt they would've made any impact on this story anyway.

I continued to ignore them and narrowed my eyes at him. The mighty Tenebros, suffering. On the ground. Defeated.

Funny how this chaotic, sadistic, insane monster actually seemed human after he had lost a little skirmish.

I looked around, wondering how everybody left on the battlefield was a loser. Tenebros, laying on the shattered ground like your average puny mortal; me, having stayed squished under this damn building for the entirety of this chapter, still bleeding out and being unable to do anything about it; and the police, just being losers in general.

The weight of the skyscraper slowly overpowered my aching muscles.

Was this it? Was this the end? If I survive this, what's for breakfast tomorrow? Questions of utmost importance filled my mind. Oh well, there's worse ways of going ou-

My eyes fell upon the disintegrator ray gun thingy that had turned a building into dust the last time I had seen it. It was now barely a foot away from me, just within reach if I was fast enough. 

Huh. How convenient.

I could have sworn it was nowhere near me before that moment, but hey, I wasn't complaining.

Tenebros was struggling to his feet and seemed to be in no position to fight, and it dawned on me that this was a now-or-never kind of deal. If the plot was pushing me towards certain death, then so be it.

But then again, eleven chapters is too short for a book, so I decided it was worth taking my chances.

Gathering whatever scraps of energy I still had left, I shifted as much of the overhead building's weight onto the right half of my back and grabbed the ray gun with my left hand, ignoring the shooting pain the javelin in my chest was causing me as best as I could.

Tenebros wobbled on his feet and twisted around just in time to see me begin to lift the gun up, pointing straight at him, at the exact same time as the building on top of me began to finally have the satisfaction of flattening me.

His face was a potpourri of expressions. Shock. Was I really going to sacrifice myself just to destroy him once and for all? Rage. Had he lost not once but twice in the span of five minutes? Disbelief. Was I willing to bet on my aim being good enough to hit him from this distance, with my non-dominant hand, while being squashed by hundreds of tons? And fear. Loads of it. And that was the satisfying part. Tenebros was scared. Of me. Finally.

My left hand aimed higher and pointed straight at his face.

Heh. It felt good to see him scared. But it felt even better to be one up on him for once.

He thought I was going to fire at him and let myself, along with the hundreds of terrified people above me, perish, didn't he? 

Typical supervillain. Doesn't see the big picture. Thinks everything is about him and is only worried about himself. The story's not about you and whether you die or not, idiot. That's right. It's about the hero and his actions.  And guess who that is?

Me.

With possibly the smuggest expression my face has