Worm Wiki
Register
Advertisement
This is how Behemoth fights. Indomitable. Never slowing. Always progressing forward.

Chevalier, Interlude 24.x

Behemoth (pronounced: "bih-HEE-moth"[21]) is the first of the Endbringers to appear. He is a dynakinetic capable of manipulating energy in all of its forms.[3] A physical powerhouse, Behemoth is infamous for his ability to ignore the Manton effect within a radius of 32 feet.[4] Although he is very slow and incapable of dodging most attacks, he can render a region into a radioactive, uninhabitable, magma-ridden wasteland over the course of a few hours if not stopped.[22]

Appearance[]

Standing at nearly 50 feet tall,[23] Behemoth is a 45-foot tall horned abomination.[24] He has gray, leathery skin topped with cooled magma and obsidian-like crags, some of which can even reach 10 feet in length. His body is described as a muscle-bound caricature midway between a human and a bear. Behemoth's hands are merely mangled growths of obsidian-looking material and his arms are as thick as oak trees. In a gap between two obsidian-like horns is a single red, glowing eye. His mouth is a jagged gap, lined by irregular horn-like growths.[25]

Abilities and Powers[]

Besides the regeneration[26][27] and incredible durability[28] associated with his Endbringer physiology that lets him fight as a skeleton despite tanking a blast that would have destroyed India[29] and losing around 80% of his body,[30] Behemoth is a destructive engine built to break stasis.[31] Most of his powers are simply variations of his dynakinesis, an all-encompassing ability capable of producing and manipulating all kinds of energy.[32] What makes this ability even more dangerous is his lack of a Manton limitation within a radius of 32 feet,[4] meaning he can affect living matter as easily as any other material. The most common expressions of this are:

Lightning[]

One of Behemoth's most iconic and feared abilities is his ability to generate and guide lightning. If he has line of sight,[33] Behemoth can launch lightning, typically from the tip of his claws, to strike targets over long distances.[34][35] He can also strike across a distance and set indiscriminate fires with his lightning.[36] By redirecting the natural course of electricity, he can cut a Dragon-craft in half in only five hits despite the insulation.[37] If Behemoth focuses, he can either concentrate on quantity[38] such as a storm of lightning centered around himself,[39] or really heavy hits such as:

  • A stream of lightning 20 feet across that can blow apart a Dragon-craft in one hit.[40]
  • A bolt with the diameter of an apartment building.[41]
  • Reddish bolts big enough to erase a small house.[42]

Behemoth can guide his bolts to hit pinpoint targets[43] or a group of targets.[44] His lightning can defy the normal laws of conduction and arc out of metal objects when normally they'd ground out.[45] Although Behemoth's lightning does not appear to follow regular channels,[46] it is possible to redirect his lightning by creating a path of least resistance and/or ionizing the air.[47][48][49]

Kill Aura[]

Behemoth can bypass the Manton effect and manifest energy within anyone who ventures within a 32-foot radius of him, burning them from the inside out.[4][32] He typically produces a 1400°C flame inside his targets; however, he can make this flame hotter if he focuses.[50]

The recommended distance from Behemoth is at least 100 feet so that there is less risk of him closing the gap before one can escape. This ability makes anyone without extreme durability or ranged attacks nearly worthless in the fight; capes that cannot engage Behemoth will typically operate as search, rescue, and support.[33]

Radiation[]

Another signature ability of Behemoth's is to project radiation around himself. Capes fighting him typically take radiation pills.[51] When Behemoth uses this ability, he glows with white light.[52] His ability to emit concentrated radiation is limited to a radius of around 100 feet, which is enough to saturate the area with radiation and inflict acute radiation syndrome.[53]

As a last resort and if not stopped, Behemoth can turn himself into a bomb with enough time.[54]

Shockwaves[]

Behemoth can produce shockwaves, often in quick succession, by clapping his hands or claws together. These shockwaves can be powerful enough to knock over nearby buildings[55][56] and liquefy people in close proximity.[57][58] The concussive shock can even travel far enough sometimes to be weakly felt halfway across a city.[59] However, enough cover and/or distance can mitigate the effects of the shockwave.[60][61][62]

Behemoth can use a shockwave when leaping to cover short distances.[63] He can also use shockwaves to help spread the radiation he produces.[64]

Behemoth can deliver massive impacts by slamming an appendage against targets.[65][66] The resulting shockwave can be powerful enough to level a whole row of buildings.[67] If given enough time underground, he can possibly use shockwaves in key areas to set up fissures and shatter the above landscape.[68]

Roar[]

By manipulating sonic energy, Behemoth can unleash a roar that grows steadily more powerful.[69] The force of the noise is so powerful at its crescendo that with enough time, he can topple nearby buildings.[70] To people close by, Behemoth's roar can obliterate eyeballs, rupture eardrums, induce vomiting and fainting, and turn organs into jelly with enough time.[71][72] Even with some distance and cover, his roar can mess with the sense of balance and cause buildings to shudder.[73][74][75] However, it is possible to block or suppress this noise.[76] Enough distance and/or cover can stop the sound from reaching someone.[77]

Fire and Heat[]

Behemoth can turn any target who comes within a 200-foot radius[78][79] of him into cinders by unleashing a wave or stream of flame from his hands.[80][81] He can use dynakinesis to fuel flames, make them more intense, and manipulate their spread in an intelligent manner.[82][83][84] However, it is possible to catch and redirect his flame with enough opposing pyrokinetics.[85]

To strike targets at a distance, Behemoth can superheat debris into lumps of magma to hurl as projectiles.[86][87] He can also create waves of heated wind capable of blasting small drones out of the air.[88]

Behemoth can generate explosions in mid-air to redirect falls and build momentum for movement.[89] If given enough time, he can also manipulate nearby volcanos.[90][91]

Energy Redirection[]

Although Behemoth prefers to focus on offense and can tank many attacks thrown at him, he can compound his natural durability by absorbing and redirecting the energy from a given attack.[32] He can redirect the energy of an attack into the ground around him[92] or into the air.[93] He also notably redirected the energy from Pretender's charge into his Alexandria body.[94] However, Behemoth has to be ready and know when an attack is coming.[95] If he is distracted or his focus is elsewhere, his ability to redirect the energy from a given attack is reduced.[96][97]

Other Abilities[]

Even with an empty eye socket, Behemoth is not blind because he relies on another sense.[98] Like other Endbringers, Behemoth cannot be predicted easily with the typical Thinker danger sense[99] and is also a blind spot to the typical precognition,[100] including Contessa.[101]

Behemoth can generate electromagnetic waves capable of wiping out electronics. He can even wipe out some reinforced electronics if he is close enough.[102]

While Behemoth typically walks, he is capable of running to an extent.[103] He can also burrow to move underground and set up ambushes[104] or retreat.[20][105]

History[]

Background[]

Behemoth has attacked the most times out of any Endbringer since he was the first. Almost all of his attacks result in massive casualties, earning him the name Herokiller. The average rate of death for heroes fighting him is, probably, more than one in four.[5] This is mostly due to his sheer durability and attacks that easily kill non-invincible heroes. Attacks include:

On December 13th, 1992 Behemoth, or Hadhayosh[3] as he was called, appeared for the first time to attack Marun, Iran's second largest oil field. However he appeared miles away from it rather than simply coming up directly underneath it. The Triumvirate that were present at the time was caught off guard since their purpose for being there was only "earthquake relief." Several of the local heroes died almost immediately but the Triumvirate managed to put up a fight. Eidolon used laser and sand powers to fight Behemoth[106], before resorting to his matter deletion power to drive off the Endbringer.[107] On television, it was shown that Scion flew right past the fight to visit Kevin Norton.[9]

Post-Echidna[]

Although he was discussed before, Behemoth's first direct appearance in the plot was in Drone 23.5. He was detected as he emerged in New Delhi, India. All available heroes were rushed to the area on Dragon craft making for the highest attendance for any Endbringer battle to date. This included the Undersiders, Dragon and Defiant, Weaver, and even the Yangban. The Indian "hot" capes who attacked him first were quickly and ruthlessly killed. Nearly a dozen Dragon-craft attacked him with containment foam bombs, cryogenic beams, and devices that pulled the ground from beneath him. All of these ultimately failed and he took down several of the craft but drones managed to ionize the air to redirect the lightning. However he managed to free his lightning from this and he obliterated the drones with heated air. Afterwards he destroyed several more Dragon-craft.

As he moved on Behemoth used his lightning to light fires in areas that burn the fastest and cut off evacuation routes. This combined with the fact there was no advanced warning or evacuation meant the hundreds of thousands in the area were nearly helpless. Since only the ultra-durable capes could even get near him any other group of capes was forced to traverse the fire and smoke choked streets. Behemoth continued his rampage with shock-waves, lightning, fire, and even super-heating balls of debris into lava balls to hit further away areas.

Several staging areas were set up throughout the city along his predicted path, the largest one being in the field in front of India Gate. Behemoth continued along his trail of destruction, taking minimum damage despite constant barrages from Eidolon and Legend. His lightning was temporarily countered by Weaver's lightning rod but he quickly destroyed this. However "Alexandria" returned and engaged him. She got in a few good hits but he redirected most of her attacks into the ground. And because of Perdition's attack on the HQ he plowed through the defensive perimeters with ease.

Meanwhile it seemed Scion was going out of his way to avoid the battle. Behemoth managed to get close to the command center and slowly tore his way through the defending capes and forcefields with his roar and lightning. Tattletale eventually revealed that Behemoth, and all other Endbringers, were purposely holding back on a tactical and strategic level.[108][10] Behemoth also had a goal in mind, which turned out to be an Indian cape Phir Sē who was created a massive ball of energy that took him three days to make.

Once Behemoth reached India Gate he was only delayed after he got pushed into wires frozen by Clockblocker. He eventually took out "Alexandria" by redirecting her own attack into his fist. Behemoth was then engaged by Weaver, Tecton's group, and the Undersiders. He zapped Regent to death after he used himself as a distraction to save Imp. Eventually Foil used her power on a chain, strung it between two of Rachel's dogs, and charged him, managing to cut one of Behemoth's legs off. Then the blast from Phir Sē came along and scraped off several layers of Behemoth.

It was then discovered that the outside appearance of him and all the Endbringers was vestigial and his powers worked as normal. He burrowed away and killed Phir Sē in his underground bunker. Then he moved on and attacked a temple where the wounded were being held, forcing the 70 or so remaining heroes to make a last stand. By the time he decided to retreat there was barely 40-50 heroes left and the area was doused in radiation.

However Scion arrived just as Behemoth retreated. He used his powers to slightly heal the heroes and remove the radiation then he raced after Behemoth as he burrowed underground. Scion pulled him back up to blast him with golden light then threw him into the ground. This repeated several times until he tore Behemoth in half. Behemoth tried to turn his remaining chunk into a super-massive bomb but Scion simply disintegrated him, making him the first Endbringer ever killed.

Chapter Appearances[]

Worm Chapter Appearances
Extermination
1. Extermination 8.1 Absent
2. Extermination 8.2 Mentioned
y. Interlude 8.y Absent
3. Extermination 8.3 Absent
4. Extermination 8.4 Mentioned
5. Extermination 8.5 Absent
6. Extermination 8.6 Mentioned
7. Extermination 8.7 Absent
8. Extermination 8.8 Absent
z. Interlude 8.z Absent
Parasite
1. Parasite 10.1 Absent
2. Parasite 10.2 Absent
3. Parasite 10.3 Absent
4. Parasite 10.4 Absent
5. Parasite 10.5 Absent
6. Parasite 10.6 Absent
x. Interlude 10 Absent
x. Interlude 10.5 Mentioned
Infestation
1. Infestation 11.1 Absent
2. Infestation 11.2 Absent
3. Infestation 11.3 Absent
4. Infestation 11.4 Absent
5. Infestation 11.5 Absent
6. Infestation 11.6 Absent
7. Infestation 11.7 Absent
8. Infestation 11.8 Absent
a. Interlude 11a Absent
b. Interlude 11b Absent
c. Interlude 11c Absent
d. Interlude 11d Mentioned
e. Interlude 11e Absent
f. Interlude 11f Absent
g. Interlude 11g Absent
h. Interlude 11h Absent
Prey
1. Prey 14.1 Absent
2. Prey 14.2 Absent
3. Prey 14.3 Absent
4. Prey 14.4 Absent
5. Prey 14.5 Absent
6. Prey 14.6 Absent
7. Prey 14.7 Absent
8. Prey 14.8 Absent
9. Prey 14.9 Absent
10. Prey 14.10 Absent
11. Prey 14.11 Absent
x. Interlude 14.x Absent
y. Interlude 14.y Mentioned
Colony
1. Colony 15.1 Absent
x. Interlude 15.x Absent
2. Colony 15.2 Absent
3. Colony 15.3 Absent
y. Interlude 15.y Absent
4. Colony 15.4 Absent
5. Colony 15.5 Absent
6. Colony 15.6 Absent
7. Colony 15.7 Absent
z. Interlude 15.z Debut
8. Colony 15.8 Absent
9. Colony 15.9 Absent
10. Colony 15.10 Absent
i. Interlude 15 Absent
Migration
1. Migration 17.1 Absent
2. Migration 17.2 Absent
3. Migration 17.3 Absent
4. Migration 17.4 Absent
5. Migration 17.5 Mentioned
6. Migration 17.6 Absent
7. Migration 17.7 Absent
8. Migration 17.8 Absent
Queen
1. Queen 18.1 Absent
2. Queen 18.2 Mentioned
x. Interlude 18.x Mentioned
3. Queen 18.3 Absent
4. Queen 18.4 Mentioned
y. Interlude 18.y Absent
5. Queen 18.5 Absent
6. Queen 18.6 Absent
z. Interlude 18.z Absent
7. Queen 18.7 Absent
8. Queen 18.8 Absent
f. Interlude 18.f Absent
i. Interlude 18 Absent
Scourge
1. Scourge 19.1 Absent
2. Scourge 19.2 Absent
3. Scourge 19.3 Absent
x. Interlude 19.x Mentioned
4. Scourge 19.4 Absent
5. Scourge 19.5 Absent
6. Scourge 19.6 Absent
7. Scourge 19.7 Mentioned
y. Interlude 19.y Mentioned
z. Interlude 19.z Absent
Chrysalis
1. Chrysalis 20.1 Absent
2. Chrysalis 20.2 Absent
3. Chrysalis 20.3 Absent
4. Chrysalis 20.4 Absent
5. Chrysalis 20.5 Absent
x. Interlude 20.x Absent
y. Interlude 20.y Mentioned
Cell
1. Cell 22.1 Absent
2. Cell 22.2 Absent
3. Cell 22.3 Absent
4. Cell 22.4 Absent
5. Cell 22.5 Absent
6. Cell 22.6 Mentioned
x. Interlude 22.x Absent
y. Interlude 22.y Absent
Drone
1. Drone 23.1 Absent
2. Drone 23.2 Absent
3. Drone 23.3 Absent
4. Drone 23.4 Mentioned
5. Drone 23.5 Appears
x. Interlude 23 Appears
Crushed
1. Crushed 24.1 Appears
2. Crushed 24.2 Appears
3. Crushed 24.3 Appears
4. Crushed 24.4 Appears
5. Crushed 24.5 Appears
x. Interlude 24.x Death
y. Interlude 24.y Mentioned
Scarab
1. Scarab 25.1 Mentioned
2. Scarab 25.2 Mentioned
3. Scarab 25.3 Mentioned
4. Scarab 25.4 Mentioned
5. Scarab 25.5 Mentioned
6. Scarab 25.6 Mentioned
x. Interlude 25 Absent
Sting
1. Sting 26.1 Absent
2. Sting 26.2 Absent
3. Sting 26.3 Absent
x. Interlude 26.x Absent
4. Sting 26.4 Absent
5. Sting 26.5 Mentioned
6. Sting 26.6 Absent
a. Interlude 26a Absent
b. Interlude 26b Absent
y. Interlude 26 Absent
Extinction
1. Extinction 27.1 Mentioned
2. Extinction 27.2 Absent
3. Extinction 27.3 Mentioned
4. Extinction 27.4 Mentioned
5. Extinction 27.5 Absent
x. Interlude 27.x Absent
y. Interlude 27.y Absent
Cockroaches
1. Cockroaches 28.1 Absent
2. Cockroaches 28.2 Absent
3. Cockroaches 28.3 Absent
4. Cockroaches 28.4 Absent
5. Cockroaches 28.5 Mentioned
6. Cockroaches 28.6 Absent
x. Interlude 28 Absent
Venom
1. Venom 29.1 Absent
2. Venom 29.2 Absent
3. Venom 29.3 Absent
4. Venom 29.4 Absent
5. Venom 29.5 Absent
6. Venom 29.6 Absent
7. Venom 29.7 Absent
8. Venom 29.8 Mentioned
9. Venom 29.9 Absent
x. Interlude 29 Absent

Fanart Gallery[]

References[]

  1. “We aren’t supposed to talk to the patients.”

    “Why not?”

    “While back, some cape sued the rescue workers after a battle much like this. Hadhayosh, I think.”

    “That’s one of the other names for Behemoth. Like Ziz is for the Simurgh?”

    “Yes, some heroes got hurt badly enough they wouldn’t recover, they knew they had no more income from their costume career, so suing, it was a way-” she stopped, closed her mouth deliberately, as if reminding herself to stay silent. - Extermination 8.6
  2. For the time being, we will be operating with the same protocols and plans that we employ against Hadhayosh. Hit and run, maintain a safe distance as priority number one, and employ continuous attacks. We’ll be dividing you into teams-” - Queen 18.4
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Behemoth, originally called Hadhayosh, is a forty-five foot tall horned brute with incredible strength and durability, regeneration and dynakinesis; the ability to manipulate energy in all its forms. Creates shockwaves, lightning, thunder and delivers massive impacts, and can ignore the Manton effect within a radius of about thirty feet, allowing him to roast capes from the inside-out. He has racked up the most cape kills during the fights, and is consequently nicknamed ‘Herokiller’. - Cast (in-depth)
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Using Behemoth’s tissues would be just as problematic. The Herokiller could ignore the Manton effect at a range of up to thirty-two feet. Even semi-conscious inside a glass case, it was too risky. - Interlude 19.x
  5. 5.0 5.1 “Is it really a one in four chance?” he asked.

    “Those are the numbers they gave me when I fought Leviathan,” I said. “They probably won’t be so generous this time around.”

    “They call him the herokiller,” Reynard added. - Drone 23.4
  6. “We handle enemy you don’t see, you costumes help enemies above ground. Scare Prathama away.” - Crushed 24.2
  7. “We watch the First,” Phir Sē said. “He let his guard down, I strike.” - Crushed 24.3
  8. Case two was Behemoth, his rise had incited the creation of the PRT. - Shadow 5.10
  9. 9.0 9.1 “He’d visit regular, right? Stop by, like he was checking if I had anything else to say. Maybe I’d tell him to be more gentle with people when saving them from a car crash, or after that horned bastard came climbing out of the ground and the golden man flew right past it to visit me, I told him he needed to help next time, to fight that monster and anything like it. - Interlude 18.x
  10. 10.0 10.1 Another note:
    they want to lose I think. set themselves up to fail. but not fail so bad they risk dying. levi was after something, noelle I think. but why didn’t he show up closer to downtown?
    “I don’t know,” I said. I felt a little chilled at the idea that this was the Endbringers pulling their punches.
    big b wants something. not at india gate. somewhere past it. why not come up right underneath it?
    “I don’t know,” I repeated myself. “It doesn’t matter.
    matters. looked at past attacks. pattern. small pattern. behe attacks nuclear reactor, appears some distance away. attacks birdcage, appears in rockies, no sign he was close or beneath cage. pattern says he wouldn’t emerge this close if he just wanted to attack india gate. He attacking something north of it. - Crushed 24.3
  11. “Hey Shitcrumb!” Regent hollered, backing away from cover. “Easy-” - Crushed 24.4
  12. 12.0 12.1 “…Do it for the psychological impact, leave a mark. Or do it because Scion killed Behemoth, your brother, and some part of you is programmed with a sense of kinship or whatever. But above all else, I’m hoping you’ll help us murder that golden alien motherfucker because he killed Eidolon, and he stripped you of your purpose.” - Cockroaches 28.4
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 The younger sister needs only a tremor, the very same wavelength their oldest living brother received. She responds in kind.

    The youngest sister needs only an expression of any power. By the time the others are alerted, the youngest is prepared. - Interlude 28
  14. Pahan: “Leviathan leaped to hsi feet” should be “Leviathan leaped to his feet”.

    By the way, why is Leviathan a “he”? Why not at an “it”?

    wildbow: You’re not the only one to comment on the gendering of Leviathan.

    In short? Convenience of language, and there’s a kind of security in humanizing an inhuman threat, the same way one gives names to hurricanes. - Comment by Wildbow on Extermination 8.5, archived on Spacebattles
  15. December 13th, 1992 - Interlude 15.z
  16. The younger siblings are harder to target, but their birthplace is studded with temporal anomalies. Holes in time, wells, echoes, slowed time and accelerated time, from confrontations that have occurred, even confrontations she participated in. She manipulates the wind as she affected the water. A stirring that prompts another stirring, and the temporal effects that can be affected are struck in a particular pattern, strained in a particular order, from the fastest to the slowest. Again, she repeats the process emphasizing the anomalies with individuals trapped within. As communications go, it is crude, but she knows her siblings like she knows any other target. Slow, calm, the subjects.

    More communications, to get the point across. - Interlude 28
  17. A current of water in a particular set of wavelengths, to her brother who sees the world as water – living things as balloons of meat largely made up of water, moisture in the air, moisture running over every available surface as he uses his abilities to move clouds and fog into place. - Interlude 28
  18. Behemoth/Hadhayosh is a ten. - Comment by Wildbow on Scourge 19.5
  19. “I don’t know why the hell not. Where’s his center?”

    She pointed with two fingers, at her collarbone. The base of the throat, between the shoulders. Quite possibly the deepest set part of his body. - Interlude 24.x
  20. 20.0 20.1 Behemoth, location unknown. When injured, it was his habit to descend into the earth and burrow deeper than his enemies were able to go, and experiments run on the trace earth and minerals he shed on his arrivals suggested he habitually stayed close to the Earth’s core. - Interlude 10.5
  21. Worm Audiobook pronunciation guide (confirmed by Wildbow)
  22. Either way, it was a delaying tactic. Holding off the damage, in the hopes that we could end this or get reinforcements before Brockton Bay became another Newfoundland.

    We were hoping for Scion. The first cape, the golden skinned man. The guy that could go toe to toe with an Endbringer and win, if things hadn’t already gone too far south. If Behemoth hadn’t already turned the area into a radioactive, magma-ridden wasteland. - Extermination 8.4
  23. Behemoth, nearly fifty feet tall, was still standing in the midst of a collapsed building. The structure had no doubt fallen on top of him as he emerged, and the debris was ablaze, casting his gray skin in hues of red and orange. He didn’t seem to care about the building. - Drone 23.5
  24. Behemoth – A forty-five foot tall horned abomination with dynakinesis.
    [...]
    Hadhayosh – Another name for Behemoth (see above) - Cast (spoiler-free)
  25. Big.

    The clawed hand speared toward the sky, followed by an arm the size of an oak tree. When it turned to slam against the ground, bracing for leverage, she could feel the impact rippling through the air. The dry ground shifted, bulged and cracked as he shouldered his way up and out from underground.

    Really big.

    Forty-five feet tall at the very least, he climbed forth from underground. His skin was crusted with black stone that might have been obsidian, layers of what might have been cooled magma sloughing off of him as he planted his feet on the ground and stood straight.

    ‘Straight’ might have been too generous. He was built like a caricature of a bodybuilder, or a bear-human hybrid. He rippled with muscle, his skin gray, thick and leathery like the hide of a rhinoceros or elephant. His black obsidian horns were so heavy his head hung down. They weren’t rooted in his forehead, but in the middle of his face, a half-dozen curved shafts of black crystal twisting their way out of his face and back over the top of his head, some ten feet long. A single red eye glowed from between the gap in two horns, positioned too low. His mouth was a jagged gap in his lower face, twisting up to a point near his temple, lined by jagged horn-like growths that were too irregular to be called teeth.

    His claws were the same, not hands in the conventional sense, but mangled growths of the same material that made up his horns, many of the growths as large as Alexandria herself. He could flex them, move them, but they were clearly weapons and nothing else. - Interlude 15.z
  26. As much as he was wounded [after losing around 80% of his body], he was healing. Even from where we stood, I could see him healing, flesh expanding, swelling, regenerating. - Crushed 24.4
  27. He was more robust than he had been, but that wasn’t saying much. Seventy percent burned away, perhaps. The regeneration had slowed, but it was still functioning to a degree. He’d recuperated, built his strength, and he’d used the time to, what? - Crushed 24.5
  28. he still at full strength. shouldn’t be. he’s an onion, inner rings progressively tougher. next 15% way tougher than rest combined.
    [...]
    outer body is cosmetc only. why? because he supposed to scare us. behemoth was fashioned. unnatural life. - Interlude 24.x
  29. “Indiscriminate,” Phir Sē echoed me. “India gone. You die, even down here.” - Crushed 24.3
  30. Phir Sē’s light faded, and the barrier collapsed.

    Dust continued to fill the area, plumes of it.

    Behemoth lurched forward.

    Not quite Behemoth, but a skeleton, something like a skeleton. Emaciated, a black-red frame dripping with ichor, it had all of the key features, the basic underlying structure with the horns and the gaping mouth, the claws and the way the shoulders were broad enough to host his bulky frame, but a good eighty percent of him had been torn away, shredded. A skeleton covered in a veneer of meat.
    [...]
    Behemoth wasn’t any weaker than he had been. Not in terms of what he could dish out. - Crushed 24.4
  31. Her creator was an administrator of the highest order, and she had been selected out of a pool of emergency resources. All of her kind had. Behemoth had been created to break stasis, Leviathan to take away resources in space and land, forcing communities into conflict as they were made to relocate.
    [...]
    That was her drive, as much as water and food were necessary for this life she farmed out and put to task in a greater system.

    She had other drives. To go to war against her creator. - Infrared 19.z
  32. 32.0 32.1 32.2 Behemoth is the first, he's a dynakinetic, capable of absorbing and producing energy in its various forms. Fire, electricity, sound, kinetic energy and radiation, as well as more alien forms of energy. This compounds his natural toughness as he can simply absorb and redirect the energy from a given attack, and can do it for all forms of energy, though he prefers to focus more on offense and leave gaps to draw people in closer/feint. He's a walking, lumbering piece of artillery and he's gotten up from a blast that would have wiped India off the map. If anyone gets within 30 feet of him he can blow past standard defenses and simply manifest energy within them, burning them to a crisp from the inside out (best interpreted as disintegration). Behemoth is also known as 'herokiller' as he's removed several notable heroes using this radius of death. - Wildbow on Reddit
  33. 33.0 33.1 “We’ve already notified you if we believe you have the capacity to engage Behemoth. Anyone else is operating as search, rescue, and support. Maintain a distance of at least a hundred feet from Behemoth at the very minimum. Get any closer, you probably won’t have a chance of escaping if he decides to close the gap. Be mindful of line of sight, because he can and will tag you with a lightning bolt, and it’s not something you can dodge. Assume every structure will fall down in a heartbeat, and know that there’s no good place to hide and wait for this to be over. Keep moving and move smart.” - Drone 23.5
  34. One managed to escape, taking flight. He got a full four city blocks away before Behemoth reached out. He was struck out of the air by a visible arc of lightning that extended from a claw’s tip. - Drone 23.5
  35. “Last stand!” a male cape I didn’t know hollered the words, his voice ragged with fear and emotion.

    Behemoth, three or four hundred feet away, responded to the shout with a lightning strike. Our capes were too slow to erect barriers, and the protection insufficient. Capes died. For the first time, I averted my eyes. I didn’t want to know how bad the casualties were. Our numbers were too thin. - Crushed 24.5
  36. On the screen, Behemoth wasn’t even slowing down. Another arc of lightning lanced across the cityscape, setting a dozen fires. The houses looked shoddy, dirty, and were apparently very flammable. The flames spread quickly, and plumes of smoke were streaming towards the overcast sky. - Drone 23.5
  37. He struck the wheel-dragon with a bolt of lightning, flaying off a few plates of armor and destroying the wheel. It opened its mouth and launched cannon-fire at him. The shells exploded into blobs of containment foam, fireproof, sticky, virtually impossible to remove.

    But not capable of holding back something like Behemoth.

    More lightning was unleashed, each doing successively more damage to the craft. By the fourth blast, it wasn’t operational. The fifth split it down the middle. Insulation was little use against a dynakinetic that could redirect the natural course of electricity. - Drone 23.5
  38. “Listen,” I said. I flinched as lightning touched nearby. He was focusing more on a quantity of bolts than on the really heavy hits. Cleaning up the remanants of our defenses. - Crushed 24.4
  39. Golem’s hands absorbed some of the lightning that crackled around us. Not one stream, but a storm, with Behemoth at the eye of it. - Crushed 24.5
  40. Behemoth brought both hands together, but it wasn’t to clap. Instead, he directed a stream of lightning at the nearest craft, easily twenty feet across. It was splintered in an instant.

    A second craft perished a second later. - Drone 23.5
  41. In the distance, a column of lightning cut through the wall of smoke above the city, as big around as an apartment building. Cody could feel the vibrations shudder through the building, as sturdy as it was, though the lightning was miles away. - Interlude 23
  42. Another lightning strike made the ground shake. Cuff shrieked, and I grit my teeth. We barely had two seconds of reprieve between flashes of lightning. They lanced down from the dark clouds of smoke overhead, more red than yellow, and the thunder seemed more intense than it should be. That wasn’t the worrisome part. Behemoth was periodically hitting us with something bigger. Bolts of lightning big enough to erase a small house from the landscape. - Crushed 24.1
  43. He pointed his claw once more, and she braced herself, gritting her teeth. Time to see how invincible I am.

    But it wasn’t fire. A lightning bolt flashed from the tip of Behemoth’s claw, arcing around her and striking one of her subordinates in a single heartbeat, before leaving only the smell of ozone. - Interlude 15.z
  44. They started to clear the way for retreat, and Behemoth punished them with a series of lightning strikes.
    [...]
    Until the Endbringer struck out, targeting one group of capes with a series of lightning strikes so intense that I was momentarily left breathless. - Crushed 24.2
  45. Lightning ripped across the landscape, following its own path, independent, breaking every rule that electricity was supposed to follow. It danced over the outside surfaces of houses, running across concrete and leaving glassy scorch marks in its wake. It touched objects that should have grounded it, channeling it into the earth, but leaped for another target instead. - Interlude 23
  46. “I don’t think you’re any safer or worse off than anyone else,” I said, trying to inject a note of confidence into the discussion. I raised myself a step off the ground to get a better view of what lay ahead. The ground was shaking, a steady, perpetual tremor. “His lightning doesn’t follow regular channels. We’re all lightning rods to him.” - Crushed 24.1
  47. Before he could turn his attention to a third, the stream of lightning shifted, curving off to one side. Drones, the annoying little bastard spheres that had electorcuted me on multiple occasions, the same ones that had been built into the ceilings of the cells and prison hallways in the PRT headquarters, were in flight, deployed by a drone-ship like the one I’d fought in Brockton Bay, and they were channeling the lightning along a different path.

    Behemoth wasn’t one to roar, but I could see the effort at work as he began to draw the lightning away from the remote drones, forcing it to take another path, beyond the route of ionized air or the electromagnetic charge that they were using to catch it and harmlessly redirect it into an area that was already rubble. He was taking abuse from the airborne craft, unable to move without giving ground. More containment foam and more ice built around him, tearing and melting, respectively, in response to his lesser movements.

    They moved closer together, strengthening the bond, and the lightning was caught once more. - Drone 23.5
  48. “Good. And we were talking about lightning rods,” I said.

    “You said they don’t matter.”

    “The drones Dragon used redirected his lightning. Golem? How big can you go? Optimal conditions?”
    [...]
    A lightning bolt lanced out from the midst of the cloud of smoke, striking the hand.

    There were whoops and cheers from the Chicago Wards. I managed a smile.

    Another lightning strike, curving in the air, hit the hand. Residual electricity danced between the two extended fingers.

    It was working, and as much as it was a success in helping against the lightning, it was working to help morale. To contribute something, anything, it mattered.

    “Air’s ionized now,” Tecton said, as if that was a sufficient explanation for everyone present. I got the gist of what he meant. The lightning would be more likely to strike there again. Lightning did strike the same place twice. - Crushed 24.1
  49. “I wish,” I said. “More lightning rods, maybe, if we get the opportunity.”

    The smoke was clearing towards the battle’s epicenter. Legend and Eidolon were a part of that, as were the craft that supported them. The fires were dying out, extinguished or stamped out.

    Behemoth wasn’t that tall, hard to make out above the buildings that still stood. I chanced a look, and flinched as another bolt of electricity made its way to the lightning rod.

    The path of least resistance. - Crushed 24.1
  50. How exactly does Behemoth kill someone in his 30 ft radius?

    i_dont_like_my_name: Maybe it just never really stuck with me while I was reading, but looking back I’m still not quite sure how he exactly does it. I’ve always assumed that his kill field acts as like the world’s most powerful magnetron, and that him killing you is like microwaving a piece of meat. I’m not exactly sure where to look for this info so I’d figure I’d post my question here. Thanks!

    Wildbow: He has the ability to generate and manipulate energy. This can manifest as fire, lightning, radiation, kinetic force, etc.

    His fires can get hot, if he focuses them. If you're in his radius he'll be able to ignore the manton effect and he can produce a 1400C flame inside you (or less, or more, depending on the jobbing). - Wildbow on Reddit
  51. “Did last… time,” Dragon said, her words bearing an odd cadence. She approached me, holding an armband and a silver packet.

    I accepted them, turning both over in my hands. “Radiation pills?”

    She nodded, holding up one finger.

    “Take one?”

    “Yes,” she said. “Still.” - Drone 23.5
  52. Behemoth was glowing, his gray skin tending more towards white, a stark contrast to his obsidian horns and claws. The heroes were backing off a measure, and Behemoth was taking advantage of the situation to stampede forward, tearing past buildings and barricades.

    “Grue!” I shouted. The noise in the distance was getting worse. If Behemoth was continuing the path I’d seen him traveling, he was wading through a series of buildings. Grue didn’t hear me. I raised my voice, waited until the noise died down, “Radiation! Use darkness!”
    [...]
    And just beyond this point, Behemoth, in the flesh.  He glowed white, marking the radioactive glow, and Grue’s darkness wreathed him, containing it. - Crushed 24.2
  53. They were the lucky ones, Chevalier thought. The radiation was generally observed to be concentrated, limited to a certain range, manipulated to strike only those within a hundred feet or so of Behemoth, to saturate the landscape and render it uninhabitable. These capes were close enough. Their deaths would be slow, painful. - Interlude 24.x
  54. Scion followed up with another shaft of light, and the forcefield shattered in an instant. Behemoth was slammed into the road, three streets down from the gathered heroes outside the temple.

    The Endbringer glowed, and the swelling light was too intense to look at.

    Just seeing it, there was no question of what he was doing. A final act of spite. Turning himself into a bomb.

    A stream of darkness poured from one of the helicopters, filling the street Behemoth lay in. For an instant, the Endbringer was almost entirely obscured.

    Scion fired one more beam, and the darkness was obliterated, swept away.

    The silhouette of the Endbringer flickered, then disintegrated. There was no detonation, no destruction to the landscape. Only the cleansing light. - Interlude 24.x
  55. Behemoth clapped again, then again, each collision of claw against claw serving to extend the damage one step further, clearing obstructions out of the way for the next. - Interlude 23
  56. Grue shook his head. He started to reply, but was cut off as Behemoth generated another shockwave. A rumble drowned everything out, as every building without something to protect it fell. - Crushed 24.1
  57. Behemoth slammed his claws together. The Yàngbǎn responded by creating forcefields en-masse, one for every person, overlapping with those to either side of them. The shockwave of the clap ripped through them, shattering the first two rows of forcefields and virtually liquefying the unfortunate capes who no longer had protection.

    The Yàngbǎn in the back rows were already dropping their forcefields, extending their hands forward, open palms aimed at their comrades.

    The shockwave’s effects reversed in an instant, and the injured were whole, holding the positions they’d been in an instant before. Here and there, the reaction had been a fraction too slow, and the Yàngbǎn members were only reversed to the instant the shockwave made contact. They were thrown back and caught by the ones in the back row, blood streaming from their eyes, noses and ears. One was saved much too late, and the process of being liquefied was only repeated, splattering the Yàngbǎn soldier who’d failed to react in time to rescue him.- Drone 23.5
  58. The Endbringer clapped his hands together, and forcefields went down, defenses and defending capes falling in response to the impact. - Crushed 24.4
  59. The windows briefly rattled with the shockwave of one of Behemoth’s attacks, halfway across the city. - Interlude 23
  60. A shockwave ripped past us, harsher, briefer and more intense than a strong wind, not quite the organ-pulverizing impact it might be if Behemoth were closer, or if there were less buildings in the way. I ventured up to a rooftop where I might be able to see beyond the darkness.

    The shockwave had parted the clouds of smoke, but they began to close together once again. I could make out a form, maybe one of the Indian capes, swiftly growing. Ethereal, translucent, his features vague, the light he emitted only barely cutting through the smoke cover. He slammed hands into Behemoth’s face and chest.

    Behemoth parted his hands, then swung them together. I didn’t wait for them to make contact. I ducked behind cover before the shockwave could hit me directly. All around me, the smoke was dashed out of the sky by the impact’s reach. With the front of my body hugging the building, I could feel not only the shockwave, but the vibrations that followed it, as buildings fell and debris settled in new locations.

    He delivered shockwave after shockwave, and I was forced to abandon the cover of the building for something a little more distant. - Crushed 24.2
  61. Behemoth generated a shockwave, and I could sense the heroes reacting to it. The only cover here was cover heroes like Golem were creating, and the concussive shock traveled through the air, knocking capes off their feet or out of the air.

    I grit my teeth and pressed my back to a building as it rolled past me, fell over at the impact. - Crushed 24.3
  62. He clapped, and a shockwave tore through the area. Rachel was already directing the dogs; they moved so there was cover, buildings between them and Behemoth. The chain, imbued by Foil’s ability to shear through anything, cut through the buildings as though there was nothing there. - Crushed 24.4
  63. Defiant declined to fill me in, staring at the screen. His voice was almost pained as he muttered, “They’re too close.”

    One Dragon suit was unleashing what looked like a freeze ray at the Endbringer, while another of the Dragon suits was turning a laser on the ground beneath Behemoth’s broad feet. It wasn’t enough to take away his footing. He set one ‘claw’ -a growth of obsidian-like black shards- onto solid earth, then half-loped, half-hopped forward. With his claws and feet now on firm ground, he leaped. The shockwave of his departure toppled the slipshod buildings around him in his wake.

    The landing as he arrived flattened another set of buildings. The heroes started to run. They were too slow, when compared to the length of Behemoth’s legs, the sheer power he was capable of putting into the simple act of walking. One by one, they fell within his kill range. Two were scorched from the inside, a brawny-looking cape seized up with smoke billowing from his corpse as he struck ground, his arms and limbs still twitching in death. - Drone 23.5
  64. “Radiation,” Thirty-two said, her English perfect, unaccented. It was for Cody’s benefit, and the benefit of the other two English-speaking members of the group, who might not understand the more complicated words. She got glances from the other members of their squad, but continued speaking. “He’s using the shockwaves to spread irradiated material across the city. We’re retreating, okay?” - Interlude 23
  65. Behemoth slammed his claw into the glowing hero, and the shockwave tore him free of Scion’s grip. - Interlude 24.x
  66. She flew in close, slamming her hands into his face, driving him back, throwing him off-balance.

    He struck her and drove her into the ground. His flame burned through her, the sand was turning to glass around her, burning her costume, but it didn’t burn her.
    [...]
    Fire, sonic, lightning. And he hit me harder than he should have, even being as big as he is. Kinetic energy, too. - Interlude 15.z
  67. An instant later, he resumed destroying the craft. Three in as many seconds, and then a slam of one claw against a building. The shockwave that followed leveled a whole row of buildings. - Drone 23.5
  68. As if reminding us of the culprit, there was a distant rumble. It grew steadily in intensity, then stopped abruptly. As far as I could tell, with bugs spread out over the area within two thousand feet or so, the Endbringer wasn’t moving any closer to us.
    [...]
    There was a rumble, with a shaking that affected the whole structure. Something distant, beyond my power’s range. A heavy crash. Somewhere in a northwesterly direction.
    [...]
    Behemoth emerged with a plume of gray-brown smoke, and the landscape shattered. It was Tecton’s natural power, taken to an extreme. Fissures lanced out in every direction and disappeared into each horizon. Secondary fissures crossed between each of the major ones, like the threads of a spider’s web.

    As far as the eye could see in every direction, terrain shifted. Hillsides abruptly tilted, standing structures fell like collapsing houses of cards.

    A full quarter of the temple collapsed. The bugs I’d kept to the edges of the room could sense it as a small share of the capes who were in the entry hall were caught beneath the falling rubble. The ones furthest towards the back. Eidolon’s protective effect kept the remainder intact.

    Behemoth emerged from the smoke. He was more robust than he had been, but that wasn’t saying much. Seventy percent burned away, perhaps. The regeneration had slowed, but it was still functioning to a degree. He’d recuperated, built his strength, and he’d used the time to, what? Burrow through strategic areas? Had the distant rumbles been controlled detonations or collapses at key areas?

    The temple was the one building that stood. Everywhere else, there was devastation. - Crushed 24.5
  69. His ‘mouth’ opened, the craggy spikes of obsidian ‘teeth’ parting.

    And he roared. A sound that was slow at first, growing steadily more powerful. - Crushed 24.3
  70. She turned to the capes, but a heavy crash interrupted her before she could speak.

    A building had fallen, toppling, and Behemoth hadn’t done anything to precipitate it. Nothing except the roaring.

    Was that enough? Was this building coming apart beneath us? - Crushed 24.3
  71. The creature roared, and as invulnerable as she was, it almost hurt. A whirlwind blast of sand ripped past them. Kaveh stumbled back, collapsed, blood pouring from his ears, one of his eyeballs obliterated.

    The fight hadn’t even started, and they’d lost someone. - Interlude 15.z
  72. Closer to Behemoth, capes were bleeding from their ears, vomiting, passing out. Organs and brains would be reduced to jelly as he continued. My bugs weren’t doing much to muffle the noise or soften the damage, if they were helping at all. - Crushed 24.3
  73. I fled, cranking my antigrav to ‘high’ and risking unfolding my wings to use the propulsion systems as I made my way to for cover, putting as many buildings between Behemoth and I as I could.

    My swarm responded to my call, assisting the capes who weren’t fleeing fast enough. They rose as a singular mass, a wall of tens of thousands, and absorbed the worst of the scream. I wasn’t sure it was enough. Even with some distance and a dozen buildings between Behemoth and I, I had no defenses as it reached a crescendo. My sense of balance went out the window, my very bones hurt.
    [...]
    The roaring made it impossible to hear. Even seeing was difficult, as my vision distorted and lost focus. I very nearly tipped over, until I turned to my swarm sense. Not perfect. Even they were suffering, scattered and dying, at close range to the roar. But it gave me an orientation, a plane to compare the tilt and angle of my body with.

    I looped to one side to intercept some of my bugs, collecting the strands of silk they’d woven in one hand, then made my way around to the back of the building the heroes were clustered on. Flying capes were settled on the ground, pausing to recuperate from the roar. I took a second, myself, to get my bearings. My back against the concrete, I could feel the building shuddering in response to the roar. But at least there was a small degree of reprieve, here. - Crushed 24.3
  74. We took off, moving behind cover, running, as Behemoth crashed through a line of buildings.
    [...]
    Behemoth roared, and I could see the Wards and Undersiders suffering. A dog shook its head in an attempt to shake off the noise, and lost its sense of direction. It crashed into a bike and sprawled. Parian, Foil and Grace were dismounted. - Crushed 24.5
  75. She shook herself free of glass and dirt and threw herself back into the fray. A bad situation was suddenly critical. The creature roared again, and the force of the noise threw her flight off course. Eidolon’s makeshift walls collapsed and more heroes fell, bleeding from heavy internal damage. - Interlude 15.z
  76. Sound was a bitch of a thing. It could be muffled, but blocking it entirely? We didn’t have Grue.
    [...]
    Still, he was more focused on picking off the defending capes, the ones who were suppressing the noise. Was Citrine among them? I could see the golden glow of her power in the distance.
    [...]
    I bit my tongue as the roar abruptly intensified, jarring me enough that my jaw was slammed shut. It wasn’t that he was roaring louder; one of the capes who’d been keeping the worst of the noise at bay had fallen. - Crushed 24.3
  77. Behemoth was roaring, a sound that didn’t reach us underground. With the monitors on mute, it didn’t translate there either. Still, the images vibrated, the flickering intensified, and the defenses the heroes had established were crumbling. India Gate was damaged, an incidental casualty of the fight more than a target. - Crushed 24.4
  78. Behemoth can turn people to cinders if they’re within two hundred feet of him, Leviathan has sunk or leveled major landmasses. - Migration 17.5
  79. randomsoul2: Idle question about something from earlier in the story…During Migration, Jess says that Behemoth “turns people to cinders if they’re within 200 feet”. Blasto later mentions that Behemoth can ignore the Manton effect at 32 feet. Is there a distinction between the turning-to-cinders and Behemoth’s point-and-click death ray?

    Wildbow: Yep. - Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 19.y
  80. Behemoth unleashed a rolling tide of flame, and the remaining twenty-eight Yàngbǎn fled, using a combination of enhanced speed and flight. The remains of the dead member were left behind. - Drone 23.5
  81. Imp screamed again as he directed another wave of flame her way. It was a scream of pain this time.

    Foil shot him, but he didn’t turn away from Imp and the Yàngbǎn member. Instead, one hand stretched out, casting flame towards her. The cloth goats blocked it, and were promptly set aflame. He maintained two columns of flame from his hands, one directed at Imp, one at Foil and Parian. - Crushed 24.4
  82. Fire roared around Behemoth as he got away from the area that had already been scorched and blasted clear of any fuel sources. His dynakinesis fueled the flames, driving them to burn hotter, larger, and with more intensity. With a kind of intelligence, the fires spread to nearby buildings, ensuring that no place was safe, nor untouched.

    I could see the blaze making its way closer to us. Not a concern in the next minute, maybe not even the next five, but we’d have to move soonish. - Crushed 24.1
  83. A blast of flame caught the defending capes off guard. Their forcefields and walls of stone blocked the flame from reaching the capes, but did nothing to stop it from spreading as it set fire to nearby buildings, grass and the stumps of trees that had been freshly cut, if the sawdust was any indication.

    As if alive, the fires reached forward, extended to nearby flammable surfaces, and cut off a formation. - Crushed 24.2
  84. Behemoth had stopped his endless roaring. He was using fire, now. There was none of the uncanny precision the lightning had, but the fire moved with intelligence, spread easily, burned hotter than it should have, and it was virtually impossible to stop all of it. It slipped between force fields, between the fingers of Golem’s stone hands, and it ignited any fabric and wood it touched, set grass alight. - Crushed 24.3
  85. He changed tacks, throwing flame, and a team composed entirely of pyrokinetics caught and redirected it with a concerted effort. - Crushed 24.5
  86. The glowing projectile swiftly grew in his perspective, giving him only a second to brace himself before it crashed down on the wall of forcefields.

    The wave of heat was intense, even on the other side of the barrier. It seemed almost liquid as it spilled out over the edges. In seconds, they were surrounded in flame. The forcefields sealed it off, prevented superheated air from burning them alive, but the viscosity meant it was resting against the forcefield.

    Magma?
    [...]
    Another sphere was already in the air, aimed close to them, if not at the exact same spot.

    Without even thinking about it, he trained a laser on it. Others were doing the same, or following suit. The glob of magma, still mid-air, was separated into loose pieces, no longer as aerodynamic as it had been. It expanded, fell short, disappeared into the cityscape between them and Behemoth.
    [...]
    The Yàngbǎn passed through the worst of the smoke, into the blasted, shattered ruins of the city. In the moment they joined the fight, Cody held back.

    They sensed he was gone, but they couldn’t disengage, not as Behemoth gathered up a ruined section of building and melted it down, hurled massive globs of melted plastic, metal and stone at them. - Interlude 23
  87. In the distance, a glowing orange sphere flew into the sky. It reached a peak, then descended, crashing into the distant skyline.

    I reoriented myself and flew up to the edge of the roof to peek at the battle. Behemoth had melted down part of the metal arm and fashioned the melted metal into a superheated lump. A second lump, cooler and not yet fabricated into an aerodynamic shape, was sitting beside him. Alexandria tried to strike it away, but he caught it with one claw. He superheated it, shielding it from Legend and Eidolon’s fire with his body, then heaved it into the air. The projectile flared intensely as it left his kill range, following nearly the same path as before.

    Lasers from capes in the distance sliced the second sphere into shreds before it could strike its intended target. - Crushed 24.2
  88. He gave up on the lightning and blasted the drones out of the air with a wave of heated wind. - Drone 23.5
  89. Behemoth slammed his claw into the glowing hero, and the shockwave tore him free of Scion’s grip. Scion followed him with a glowing sphere of light, and Behemoth redirected his fall, generating an explosion in mid-air, hurling himself towards the assembled crowd.

    Eidolon stopped him with a violet forcefield that spread across the sky, a solid obstacle to arrest Behemoth’s momentum, stopping him dead in his tracks and leaving him suspended a hundred feet up in the air. His one intact claw clutched the edge. - Interlude 24.x
  90. If he was massing his strength for one good retaliatory hit, how would he do it?

    Volcanos? Earthquake? - Crushed 24.5
  91. Wildbow: Hawaii's gone. Volcanos + Behemoth = bad times. - Comment by Wildbow on Discord, archived on Spacebattles
  92. If I’d had any doubt it was Alexandria, it was banished when she followed up the attack. Behemoth started to rise to his feet, and Alexandria struck. It wasn’t a punch with a great deal of wind-up, and she only crossed fifty or sixty feet before driving it home, but the impact was undeniable.

    Behemoth absorbed the blow, and redirected it into the ground. He didn’t move, as though the blow had never struck home, but the ground around him shattered like the surface of a mirror. Fragments of rock and clouds of dust flew up around him, and a three-story building on its last legs tumbled over. The damage to the ground made him sink a fraction. - Crushed 24.2
  93. He lurched forward, and even a direct hit from Alexandria wasn’t quite enough to stop him. The shockwave dissipated into the air, rather than the ground, and flying capes throughout the skies were driven back. - Crushed 24.2
  94. On the monitors, a successful hit on Eidolon’s part struck Behemoth into the grid of wires. It had taken time for the Endbringer to approach the wires, set safely outside of his kill range, and some were already coming free of Clockblocker’s power. Still, they sank deep, cutting a diamond-shaped pattern into his hide, shoulder to heel. Alexandria charged, trying to drive it home, and Behemoth struck out with one claw, a swipe.

    He must have captured all of her forward momentum and motive impact and redirected it at her, because he didn’t move an inch in response to the hit, and she crashed into the ground at a shallow diagonal angle. Her body carved a trench a few hundred feet long, judging by the cloud of dust that rose in her wake. - Crushed 24.4
  95. “You want to hit Behemoth with this… time bomb,” I said. “But… I think that’s what he wants. He’s holding back. My thinker friend, she said so. He’s taking more hits than he should, and I’m just now realizing he might be doing it because he wants to be ready for when you hit him with this. He’ll push it out into the ground, or into the air.” - Crushed 24.3
  96. It was a fight involving four individuals who couldn’t hope to do substantial damage to their opponents. The dragon suits and other capes were a peripheral thing. Alexandria circled, just beyond the perimeter of Behemoth’s kill range, her teammates and their supporting cast bombarding him in the meantime. They destroying the ground beneath his feet, trying to get him when his focus was elsewhere and his ability to redirect the energies of a given attack was reduced.

    He couldn’t keep her in mind at all times. She waited until he focused on a different combatant, heaving out lightning or creating flame to attack the ones in the air, and then she struck. Nine times, he simply deflected the strike into the ground, as a rumble and a series of spiderwebbing cracks in the streets, or into the air as a shockwave. Again and again, he came within a heartbeat of getting his hands on her in retaliation, not even flinching as she struck him, reacting with an unnatural quickness as he reached out, to try to pin her using his claws, to strike her into the ground or to time the collapses of buildings to briefly bury her, so he could close the distance.

    The times her strikes did get past his defenses, her tiny form in the distance with the black cape trailing behind her lunging into his kill range to deliver a blow or a series of blows, Behemoth stumbled, caught briefly at the mercy of physics. - Crushed 24.2
  97. Eidolon and Alexandria had settled into something of a rhythm. Though his powerset was similar to Alexandria’s on the surface, the eerie noises and the dimming of the light around the areas his punches landed suggested he was transmuting the kinetic energy of his punches into something else altogether. Between Eidolon’s strikes and Alexandria’s, Behemoth couldn’t quite adapt to the point where he was redirecting every strike, let alone the barrage of ranged attacks that the other capes in the area were directing his way. - Crushed 24.3
  98. Few bugs had managed to keep up, much less the ones with wires, but I brought a curtain between us and Behemoth. I was past the point where I wanted to conserve them. If it was lightning, I could only hope that Golem’s makeshift lightning rods and my wires would protect us.

    But it was flame. It sheared through my swarm, and it splashed down around Parian, Foil and the dog.

    The Endbringer had more aim than I’d expected. He wasn’t blind, despite the fact that his eye socket was empty. But he wasn’t entirely on target otherwise. Was he relying on another sense? - Crushed 24.5
  99. “Could it be an Endbringer?” Rain asked.

    “Jesus,” Byron said. “Don’t even joke. They’ve been dormant.”

    “They can’t be predicted easily with danger sense either,” I said. - Gleaming 9.12
  100. It wasn’t Jeanne who answered. Cinereal gave me my reply. “Thinkers say no. They’re either drawing blanks or they don’t like what they see.”

    “Nothing specific? No details?”

    “No,” Cinereal said. “But if you look at some of the other major thinker blind spots, you’re going to find yourself running into topics like Eidolon, Sleeper, the Endbringers, Valkyrie, the Island-state, the Pastor incident…”

    “Concentrations of power,” I said.

    Jeanne shook her head. “Complexity of power, most often. Whatever thinker powers come into play, with these cases, there’s often too many variables to fully consider, thinkers report that their powers are fuzzy, inconsistent, or blacked out.” - Blinding 11.4
  101. “Right, that wasn’t my second question. What I want to know is why the hell you haven’t used a power like yours to figure out how to beat the Endbringers.”

    “My power is a form of precognition,” she said. “Unlike most such powers, other precognitive abilities do not confuse it. That said, there are certain individuals it does not work against, the Endbringers included.”

    “Why?” Tecton asked.

    “No way to know for sure,” she said, “But we have theories. The first is that they have a built-in immunity, something their origins granted them.” - Crushed 24.2
  102. Miss Militia shook her head. “There’ll be doubts, it’s not enough. Behemoth can generate electromagnetic waves that wipe out electronics. Even many reinforced electronics, if he’s close enough. - Cell 22.6
  103. The Endbringer broke into a run, insofar as he could run, and nobody was quite in position to bar his way. He ignored capes and struck out across the area behind them, hitting a building with two massive guns on it, a clearing, a rooftop with what looked like a tesla coil. - Crushed 24.2
  104. “He went underground,” Eidolon informed us.

    “He ran? It’s over?”

    “No,” Eidolon said.
    [...]
    I didn’t deny it. “There’s one more reason we should go, though. He’s going to-”

    Retaliate.

    Behemoth rose from beneath the ground a distance away. In a heartbeat, things shifted from a near-quiet to chaos. He was still glowing, and his claws crackled with electricity as he struck quickly, violently, and indiscriminately.

    Three capes taken down, struck out of the sky by the bolts of electricity. Even if they’d survived that much, the kill aura and the radiation would end them. - Crushed 24.5
  105. The light ceased. Behemoth was gone. A plume of dust rose from the earth, at the very limits of their vision.

    Scion plunged beneath the ground, heedless of the intervening terrain.

    Again, Scion rose from a point beneath the shattered surface of the city.

    Again, he held Behemoth in his hands. Thinner than a skeleton, the Endbringer was little more than a stick figure from Chevalier’s vantage point. - Interlude 24.x
  106. Eidolon was manipulating the sand, creating barriers while simultaneously drawing sand out from beneath their enemy, while pelting it with laser blasts that he spat from his mouth. - Interlude 15.z
  107. He tapped into an erasure power he hadn’t had since he had fought Behemoth the first time. - Interlude 27.x
  108. She only grinned. She reached over to the bedside table and retrieved a pen and notepad. Her grin fell from her face as she wrote something, then tore the page free, handing it to me.
    he’s going easy on us. all Endbringers are. but Behemoth holding back, even from moment he arrive. taking more hits than he should.
    “We already knew that they’re holding back for some reason,” I said. “The way they space out attacks, they could accelerate the timetable or coordinate their strikes if they wanted to fuck us over.” - Crushed 24.3

Site Navigation[]

Endbringers
Behemoth Leviathan The SimurghKhonsu *Tohu *Bohu *
S-Class Threats
Endbringers Behemoth Leviathan The SimurghKhonsu *Tohu *Bohu *
Titans The Kronos Titan Titan Eve Titan Fortuna The Nemean Titan Titan Arachne Titan Oberon The Ashen Titan Titan Skadi The Ophion Titan The Strange Titan Auger Titaness Amenonuhoko The Flowing Titan Drillbit The Liminal Titan Pouffe Valkyrie  • Morgana  • Yakshini  • Ashoka  • Ghast 
Groups The Slaughterhouse Nine Three BlasphemiesThe Machine Army
Parahumans Ash Beast Echidna Khepri NilbogPastor Scion SleeperThe Tower 
Case Files
Case 00: ScionCase 01: The Siberian IncidentCase 02: BehemothCase 04: The PlayerCase 12: The Old ManCase 53Case 70
Advertisement