The BalanceKeeper

9 Years Ago..

The hall was silent.

A man named Charles Varn stood stiffly, head bowed beneath the towering presence of the man whose name carried weight like death itself. The only sound was the rhythmic hum of machines—fluid pulsing through tubes, the faint hiss of a breathing apparatus.

All for One didn't need to speak loudly. His voice, calm and surgical, pressed against the mayor's mind like cold steel.

"The future will be forged from conflict. Each generation will be stronger than the last, and each Quirk will become more perilous. Society will crumble under the weight of its own evolution."

He stepped forward slowly, hand outstretched, a vial of black liquid swirling in his grip.

"You don't have to be burdened by that weight, Varn. Rule the chaos. I offer power and wealth. All you need to do is provide me with those who would become too powerful—the children. Take them from their parents, homes, filter them, and deliver them to me."

Varn's eyes trembled. He was once an ambitious politician, blessed with a minor Quirk that made him just slightly more intelligent than others—enough to manipulate, to scheme. But he was cast aside due to his ruthless behavior, and Carthis became his cage.

He lifted his hand—and took the vial.

"If that's all it takes then I will gladly do it."

All for One smirked, turning into black fog as he vanished from Varn's eyes. Varn stood up, adjusted his tie, and walked away, saying,

"Let the show begin."

Now — Rooftop Overlooking Carthis Docks

The wind howled across the rooftop.

Kael stood still, coat billowing behind him. His black eyes locked on the beast that writhed below, coiling through shipping containers and fractured concrete like a living natural disaster.

A serpent, 60 meters long, glistened with jagged diamonds as its scales shimmered. Poison oozed from its mouth.

Varn.

The man who had sold his people—and their children—for power, fame, wealth.

Kael said nothing at first. His silence was heavier than the crashing waves beyond the docks. Below, the monstrosity of a former mayor laughed, his voice a deep, mutated growl as toxic mist hissed from his open jaws.

"You ruined my plans, you insignificant piece of shit!" Varn bellowed, his elongated body slithering through the wreckage. "I had the perfect life! Order amidst chaos!"

He slammed his coils into a stack of cargo crates, flattening them into scrap.

"You call all of this order?" Kael's voice rang out across the docks, smooth and unshaken. "Feeding children to All for One for your own personal gain? Injecting them with technology far too advanced for any one person to control?"

"Spare me your self-righteous act!" Varn roared, rearing back. "You're a thief—just like me. But I took power and made something of it. You… You take just to satisfy your own ego!"

Kael's eyes narrowed.

"No. You sold your soul to the devil for a tiny piece of power. All for One owns you like the animal you are. I would never kneel to a man who doesn't even protect his own people."

Varn's massive head reared back—and exhaled a cloud of luminous green mist. It's breath melted through the air and buildings as it made its way towards Kael.

'Poison'

The cloud surged upward, swallowing the rooftop in seconds. Kael's silhouette vanished in the toxic haze.

"DIE!"

But the voice that responded was closer than expected.

"You're so slow."

Kael reappeared behind Varn's head in a flicker—Flashstep—his fingers glowing with Rustfang and Quartzlash.

He slashed across the joint of Varn's armored neck. The diamond scales cracked. Poison splattered across a rusted crane behind them.

Varn shrieked and twisted his massive form upward, smashing Kael with his tail. Kael crashed through a shipping container, rebounded using Vaultpulse, and flipped to his feet atop a broken gantry.

His shoulder bled. He didn't care though.

"You act as though you're better than everyone," Kael muttered under his breath, watching the monstrous serpent writhe through the streets. "Like you were above the rest of the crowd where no one could touch you."

Varn slithered through a crumbling tower with a guttural laugh, venom dripping from his maw.

"Maybe at some point you truly were someone to look up to," Kael continued, voice low. "But somewhere along the way, you decided that wasn't enough. You wanted more power. So you sold everything for it."

Varn growled, "I have ascended."

"No," Kael replied. "You turned into a mad man."

With a howl, the serpent lunged again. Kael twisted midair, leaving a Flickerroot tag mid-leap before teleporting onto a destroyed crate flying behind Varn's head. He leaped off the crated and onto the snake, grabbing one of the beast's scale-edges and used Kinetic Forge that absorb the impact from his earlier crash, channeling the momentum into a devastating punch.

The blow struck the serpent in the side of the jaw—cracking scales and forcing Varn's massive head sideways. A geyser of poison erupted, missing Kael by inches.

"That punch…" Varn hissed, recovering. "You've absorbed more than just Quirks, huh. Seems like your overall body has been strengthened and enhanced."

Kael didn't answer.

He launched a Sound Spike from his left hand, disorienting the beast. It writhed, tail thrashing violently, destroying a nearby cargo crane.

Kael leapt again—this time aiming higher. Above the battlefield

He hovered for a brief second—Floating activating just enough to keep him suspended.

Then he spoke.

"You chose power over your very own people. You preyed on the powerless. And now… you answer to me."

Kael's body glowed faintly, crackling as his stolen arsenal primed itself. Tendrils of DarkBind, arcs of Joltvine, and the shimmer of Balancekeeper all converged in his stance.

"Let's finish this."

Kael launched himself downward—fist cocked back, his entire body a streak of vengeance hurtling toward the serpent that once wore a mayor's smile

Zone Blackridge — Satellite Room

Footsteps pounded against the rusted metal floor.

Mira and Reina tore down the dim corridor, past flickering lights and startled followers. Behind them, the rescued children were being rushed to the infirmary by the medics and volunteers, but neither of them slowed. Not for a second.

The steel door to the satellite room hissed open as they shoved through it, and the static buzz of monitors filled the air.

"Bring up Kael's signal," Mira barked to the nearest tech operative.

"Already scanning," replied a wiry young man with grease-slicked goggles. "His bodycam's active—signal's weak since we're too far from his location, but it's holding."

The main monitor pulsed to life.

The image flickered at first—glitching with lines of static—before stabilizing.

And then… there he was.

Kael.

From his point of view.

They saw jagged shipping containers jutting at odd angles. Smoke. Shadows. And ahead, the gleaming diamond coils of the serpent that had once been Mayor Varn.

"Holy shit! W-What is that thing?! A giant fucking snake?!" one technician tried whispering, but his fear was undeniable.

Mira said nothing. She stepped closer to the screen, her lavender eyes locked in, arms crossed tightly. Reina stood beside her, her fingers twitching with instinctive aggression.

From the feed, Kael's voice came through low and steady, distorted just slightly by static.

"It's fast for something so big. His tail's his blind spot."

Reina smirked. "That's our Kael. Already dissecting him like a lab rat."

The next second, the feed tilted hard as Kael Flashstepped behind the serpent again—dark blue tendrils of DarkBind curling outward as he launched another strike. Varn howled as Kael's claws dug into a thinner patch beneath one of the serpent's gleaming fangs.

"He's playing offense without hesitation," Mira murmured. "He's not giving Varn a second to think."

The screen shook violently as Kael was flung across the docks by a sudden whip of Varn's tail. Reina's jaw clenched. Mira stepped forward.

"Zoom in. Is he—"

The feed leveled again. Kael rolled to his feet on a high beam, coughing, his coat torn at the sleeve. He didn't pause. Already his hand was glowing with Quartzlash, energy whips forming.

"Good," Mira whispered, nodding once.

Reina leaned forward. "He's gonna make that bastard bleed."

Another roar shook the feed. Poison gas spewed into the air. From Kael's view, droplets of acid sizzled where they landed—melting metal like it was paper.

The techs at the back adjusted controls rapidly.

"Poison density's climbing… he's not using its natural poisoning properties. That's got to be Quirk-enhanced version," one muttered.

"Doesn't matter," Reina said sharply. "Kael's not gonna let him keep breathing long enough to matter."

The room fell silent again as the serpent lunged, and Kael fired a Glimmersting dart directly into the beast's exposed left eye. The recoil sent the camera staggering, Kael backflipping midair onto a collapsing scaffold. The structure creaked beneath him.

"He's drawing him away from the docks," Mira realized aloud. "He's isolating him—so civilians don't get caught if this spreads."

The camera panned slightly as Kael looked up toward a crane above. He leapt, tapping a Flickerroot tag mid-motion.

The image snapped again—Kael teleporting just as the serpent's jaws slammed shut where he'd been standing.

"He's trying to wear Varn down," Mira murmured. "Not just physically either. Psychologically as well."

Reina chuckled darkly. "Good. Let that overgrown lizard realize he picked the wrong damn fight."

A moment later, Kael's voice came through again, low and sharp.

"Power without purpose is empty. Ruling with cruelty doesn't strengthen you; it corrupts you."

The tech specialist nearest the board glanced up.

"He's… really talking to him?"

"No," Reina corrected. "He's judging him."

…

The city burned.

Towers of smoke and greenish vapor curled into the sky like the fingers of something unholy, choking the stars and cloaking Carthis in a poisoned twilight. Below, rooftops cracked and streets split open beneath the violent slither of a monstrous shape—Mayor Varn, now a glimmering serpent of diamond-hard scales and venomous breath, tearing through the city in pursuit of a single man.

And then there was Kael.

He sprinted across a tilted rooftop, his coat whipping behind him, ash falling like snow in the air. The beast roared behind him, its venomous breath flooding the streets, spewing from its jaws in boiling torrents.

Civilians weren't fast enough.

Men, women, and children screamed as the poison rolled through alleyways like a sick fog, coating lungs and eyes in agony. Some were crawling on the cold, hard ground, while others fell lifeless. Sirens didn't wail in this city. No heroes or police came to their rescue. There was no savior in Carthis. Everyone could only fend for themselves.

But Kael's lungs didn't falter under the poisonous effects—Breath lock surged to life within him. His breath held steady. His steps were precise. And due to his regeneration, the poisonous mist couldn't melt through his skin completely.

He wasn't dying there today. But the same couldn't be said for the people within the city.

"You're killing them all!" he shouted behind him, voice echoing off twisted metal and scorched brick. "They're innocent and don't deserve any of this."

The serpent slithered across the tower above like a living landslide. Its voice rumbled through the fog like thunder.

"So what? They're fodder!" Varn's voice bellowed from within the beast's maw, warped and monstrous. "You think I ever cared? They were always numbers on a sheet. Cogs in a system. If they die here today then they were weak!"

Kael ground to a stop on a crumbling rooftop. The words rang like lead in his ears. His black eyes narrowed.

"Tch."

He looked down at the street below. More people collapsing. Trapped. Suffocating.

His jaw tightened.

"I'm ending this now. I wanted to toy with you, but you've gone too far!"

The building beneath him creaked as the serpent lunged once more, jaws wide with a hiss that shook the skyline.

Kael crouched.

Kinetic Forge ignited in his core—energy from every impact absorbed earlier surging through his limbs. His boots cracked the rooftop. Wind howled in a rising funnel as the building groaned—

And then exploded.

Kael launched forward with titanic force, shattering the rooftop beneath him into pulverized concrete and dust. The air screamed around him as he kicked off, a streak of black and white in the dark.

He met the serpent mid-lunge, his fist drawn back.

A heartbeat of stillness hung between them.

"Rot in Hell." Kael whispered.

Then contact.

Kael's fist smashed into the serpent's skull with bone-crushing force, unleashing a shockwave that rattled the air like a thunderclap. The beast's massive head jerked violently to the side, its enormous body whipping in a frenzied arc, gouging a deep furrow through the city streets. Buildings shuddered and collapsed in its wake, windows shattering into sparkling dust as steel groaned under the strain of the serpent's devastating impact.

"Pathetic.."

Kael murmured, hovering in the sky, breathing heavy. His knuckles bled. But slowly, the skin began to mend—Minor Regeneration weaving tissue back into place.

He didn't look at the destruction he and the snake caused.

Didn't have the time to.

The snake was unconscious—but the city was not.

Screams echoed through alleys and towers. Cries for help. Choking sobs. Panic. Footsteps. Collapses.

Kael dropped like a bullet, using Float to slow his descent. The moment his boots hit pavement, he was gone again—Dimensional Rift swirling around him as he tore open portals.

One by one, he moved through them.

A child pinned beneath a collapsed fire escape—vanished into a portal.

A woman hiding in a sewer, barely breathing—gone.

A man clawing at the concrete, bleeding from his mouth—saved.

Over and over, Kael's figure shimmered through the chaos, rescuing those too broken, too trapped, or too forgotten to move.

"Keep moving…" he muttered to himself, breath still held. "One more. One more. One more."

He didn't stop.

Not as his coat became soaked in blood and soot.

Not as cries pulled him deeper into the hell that Varn had unleashed.

He was Equinox.

While he couldn't save the world at this moment.

He could at least save the broken pieces.

And tonight, Carthis would not shatter.

Not while he was there.

…