"Serenity was...kindness. Purity. Passion. Earnestness. Hope. Courage and strength. She was the physical embodiment of justice in the world. That's what everyone always said about her and it was true. Of all of the heroes of ages past, she was the very model of justice and compassion. When you were around her, you could just feel that everything was going to be fine. She had an aura around her that just made you feel at ease. That everything was going to be fine when she was around. You've probably heard the same thing from anybody who's ever met her after all but it was the truth. Let me tell you as someone who has met her in person. It's the absolute truth. I'd never met anyone so kind before." Davina paused to reflect on that day before continuing. "Lets see. Lenora Barrineau. She was interviewing Lenora Barrineau from News Storm at the time. Haha. It was one of the few interviews she was able to stick around for. Normally she had to cut in and out of the interviews to go save someone. Serenity couldn't sit still for a second. Buuut the other heroes were handling business and it was a quiet day for once so she had some free time. A lot of it was the usual fair. Cracking some good natured jokes about fellow heroes like Physikḗ, Empyrean Man, Royal Sentinel, The Majestic Magician, Rosethron and Nightbolt. Telling a funny story about all the work that went into settling on a team name."
"The Guardian Champions. I remember. They also considered The Apex Legion, The Justice Defenders, The Justice Marvels and The Infinity Battalion were also in the running."
"You know your history. Coming up with the name was one thing but the real fun came from choosing one. There was a lot of debating before they settled on The Guardian Champions. A Super Team formed from Heroes around the world dedicated to defending it from all manners of threats. Until The Vanishing happened they were unbeatable. The Dark Lord Equilibrium's Conglomerate Of Crime, the autocratic superpower of the criminal world, were their only real opposition. The real power behind the Conglomerate was of course The Church Of Terror. A literal religion of evil ruled over by The Council Of The Cataclysm. Dismantling them was Serenity's lifelong goal."
I couldn't help but laugh. "I know that story. I still can't believe Serenity's final battle with them was on the freaking Moon!"
"The Lunar Battle. The battle so awesome it could be seen from Earth!" Davina declared. "That was one for the history books. She even surfed that giant bio-weapon from the Moon down to Earth!"
"Kakothūmin (Malevolence, Κᾰκοθῡμῐ́Ᾱ.)"
"She might've been the embodiment of kindness but that didn't mean that Serenity didn't have style."
"Oh I know she did. She was amazing. Ah, getting back to the interview though?"
"Right. So she was in the interview right, just generally answering questions about life, her hero work, her recent missions, her greatest battles, stuff like that. She answered everything in a good natured tone of voice. Well, almost everything. Naturally the subject of her nemesis eventually came up. Equilibrium. The moment the subject of that monster came up you could feel the mood in the room change. She kept a strong front up of course but I could feel it affecting her. She described him as The Emperor Of Darkness. An Archdevil. An Infernal Tyrant. Among other names. A gluttonous hope crusher who gorged himself on the powers of others while drinking in their despair. According to Serenity, he once told her that fear and despair just made the process feel so much better for him."
"I see. Those were her words, huh?"
"Yes but everything we've been able to dig up on him, the reports of people who encountered him, video footage...yeah that sounds about right. Satan on Earth."
"But, what's with the name then? Equilibrium?"
"That. Yeah, I asked her that myself. Originally, he represented the idea that as long as good and evil both exist in the world, there needs to be a "balance" between them. As long as evil exists in the world, there needs to be good as well, and the only way that an absolute good can exist is for an absolute evil to simultaneously exist. The ultimate evil to counter the absolute good that was Serenity in order to force the world to focus on him as a threat and unite together. That's what he wanted. Originally. According to Serenity at least. Problem with designating yourself as the ultimate evil of course is that he got lost in the darkness at some point and before anybody knew it he went mad with power and became exactly what he wanted to be."
She paused before continuing. "Potentially it's a result of his absorption ability. Think about how many changes he must've done to his own DNA with all of the modifications it had to keep up with. Every time he ripped a power out of someone, he forcibly modified his own genome to be able to include them, damaging them in the process, resulting in mental and physical instability."
"Wait, wait, wait. Physical instability? The guy who could throw hands with Serenity was physically unstable?" I asked in disbelief.
"Power Stealing is a double edged sword, Penelope. If you make too many changes to your body too fast it results in a breakdown. The human body isn't built for many changes and the user will get physically ill if they overuse it. The effect is different for everyone depending on a variety of factors but its never pleasant. That's why Equilibrium had to steal the abilities of regenerators to compensate. His body wouldn't have been able to keep up with the demands he was putting on it and would've begun rapidly deteriorating or even melting down. Eventually, even that couldn't keep up with the damage that Serenity did to him in their final battle while still stabilizing him and his body gave in. His healing factor burned out, resulting in his final mutations and meltdown at the end."
"Power Degeneration." I realized.
"Imagine cancer, that slow insidious death that kills you from the inside, but which is also intrinsically you; it is a body eating itself, and unable to heal. Now imagine that cancer can grow faster whenever you do what you're best at: dancing, painting, coding software, kayaking. This is what happens with Power Degeneration. It's especially nasty with Power Thieves. Look it up. It's a rare power but anybody who gets too big for their britches with it will find themselves stuck in a healing vat or desperately hunting down regenerators to stabilize themselves."
I went quiet and hung my head as I took all of this in. (Holy fucking shit this...this is some irony isn't it? There really is a price for everything. Oh Father, is that why you abandoned me? Did you not want me to get involved in this mad plan of yours? Did you not want me to experience that with you? Did you want to keep me out of the crossfire? Or...did you not want to see it happen to me? Is that it? Is that...all of that...going to happen me?)
"Penelope, are you okay?"
"Huh, oh, yeah. I'm fine. This is cool stuff. It's the best history lesson I've ever had! Please continue." I assured her with a smile.
