Keratos's Blood-soaked Return! is the 41st episode of Council of Creators. It was written by KoopaGalaxain and is the fifth episode in the Sepsis arc.
Plot[]
It would be wrong to say that Universe 1's Earth hadn't been through a lot over the last few months. First, a bizarre creature manifested near Sealand, threatening the people who lived there. Crusaders from across history travelled through time to the present, demanding that the Creators follow a most unusual request. Then, the whole planet was subjugated for an entire year by an overlord who ruled with an iron fist before having his regime toppled by a ragtag group of heroes led by the Creators. Before the planet had any time to recover from the damage it had sustained before being freed, a global pandemic capable of wiping out humanity took hold, barely being foiled by the Creators' timely intervention. With the pandemic over, it would seem that the city was finally out of the woods, but alas, this was not the case. One final obstacle stood in the way before peace could finally return to the ravaged locale.
Scalpel Keratos gazed upon Koopa's Keratos-WZ form, before snickering to himself. "My my, looks like someone's been engaging in a little infringement, hasn't he?" He exclaimed slyly.
"You don't stand any chance of having the upper hand." Koopa responded. "In this form, neither one of us will gain any sort of advantage over the other. Now, go back to the hole you crawled out from!"
A cold wind began to blow, whisking trash and paper from destroyed newspaper dispensers down the street. Together with Koopa, Wolf, Cdr and Nerd all stood alongside an exhausted Hokuto Black King, and stared the mutant pathogen down.
"You Creators are nothing more than idiots if you believe this form is just a mere cosmetic upgrade. This form you see here was forged by my hatred of you, of how you somehow managed to defeat me. I don't need a flashy 'Ultimate Phenomenon' - as Organon put it before he managed to somehow get ahead of me - to take you all down! Now do me a favour, and die!"
Cdr took on a fighting stance. "Get ready to see the consequences of your actions!"
Keratos snickered maliciously, letting the increasing sunlight glance against his sharpened blades, then launched himself forward, slashing wildly as he did. One of the blades struck Koopa's right shoulder, cutting straight through the skin and muscle. Reeling back, the Creator groaned as he tried to compress the wound.
Nerd and Cdr attempted to tag-team the mutant pathogen, but Keratos deflected Nerd's Blood Strike and Cdr's Atomic Breath in turn.
"It's no use!" Hokuto Black King uttered through gritted teeth. "How are we going to ever defeat this creature when we're in this sort of state?"
"There must be a way we can defeat him." Wolfzilla replied. "We may not have the strength to take Keratos out directly, but perhaps we could use the environment to our advantage, somehow."
"Yeah, not like anyone's around to criticise us for it." Koopa replied, gazing at the desolate city. Organon's Ischemic Putrefaction Disease had rendered the whole city almost entirely devoid of life whatsoever, save for a very small number of immune citizens who had boarded themselves inside their homes to hide from the onslaught of death and decay outside.
It was then that Hokuto Black King noticed a railway bridge a short distance away. He could faintly hear the sound of something running down the rails in the distance. "That's strange, I thought the driverless trains had been shut down when the pandemic hit..." He thought to himself.
"I have an idea -" Hokuto Black King announced. "Move the battle towards that bridge!" He yelled to the Creators, pointing towards the structure.
"I'm glad to oblige." Koopa replied, as the skin on his shoulder knitted itself back together over his wound. Firing his duplicated Scalpel Beam from his jaws, Koopa aimed the powerful attack straight at Keratos. While the beam failed to cut into Keratos's reinforced skin, it blew him back several tens of feet. This began the strategy of the Creators and Hokuto Black King. Gradually, the battlefield spread deeper and deeper into the city as the team fought valiantly on, slowly but surely gaining ground towards the railway bridge.
"WHATEVER YOU'RE TRYING TO DO, IT WON'T WORK!" Keratos bellowed as the battle raged on.
"We know we don't stand a chance at beating you!" Wolfzilla responded. "It seems that you still haven't realised the truth of the situation!" She continued, firing a barrage of fireballs at the pathogen, knocking him back even further.
"Almost there." Cdr thought to himself. By now, the sound of clattering wheels could clearly be heard just a short distance away from the bridge. The time had come for the final stage of the Creators' plan to begin.
Koopa and Nerd quickly rounded a corner out of Keratos's sight. retrieving two small metal devices from his closed right hand, Koopa handed one of them to Nerd. "Where did you get this from?" Nerd asked.
"This is a little something John and I had been working on before Lucifer enslaved the planet. Unfortunately, he departed before the two prototypes could be completed. These haven't been tested yet, but should they work, we might be able to briefly become invisible and silent to Keratos, but not to our comrades."
"So, you're saying that we should just put our faith in two untested devices that may not work at all?" Nerd replied.
A long pause followed, and a bead of sweat ran down Koopa's brow.
"It's worth a shot! Keratos won't know what hit him." Nerd concluded sincerely.
"Alright, let's do this. We only have one shot at getting this to work, so let's hope everything goes according to plan."
Nerd and Koopa both nodded to each other, before pressing the single button on each device. Sure enough, as they ran towards Keratos they both seemingly faded away. "My friends, create a distraction! We'll go in for the kill!" Nerd yelled, unheard by Keratos.
The mutant pathogen looked around, trying to find the two missing Creators, leaving an opening for Hokuto Black King to launch a surprise charge.
"Wh...WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Keratos screeched as Hokuto Black King got closer and closer to him. Before Keratos could react, Koopa shoved Keratos hard in the chest, while Nerd delivered a perfect kick to the monster's lower jaw. As the devices deactivated themselves, Keratos found himself stumbling backwards, a look of horror on his face as the two Creators suddenly appeared in his field of view, standing next to a now-stationary Hokuto Black King. He tried to stabilise himself, but it was no use, and he came crashing down onto the railway bridge...
A sickening crack reverberated throughout the area as Keratos's neck collided with the structure, severing his spine and spinal cord cleanly just above the third vertebra. Foaming at the mouth, Keratos could only move his eyes to see what was now bearing down on him on the track above -
Class 166illa was speeding towards his skull at 100 miles per hour. Before Keratos could even properly register what was happening, the mutant train collided with Keratos, triggering a huge explosion as its diesel tanks ruptured. The explosion was so strong that Keratos's head was blown straight off his body, coming to a stop roughly 300 metres away.
"And stay down." Nerd uttered.
Normally, the Creators and Hokuto Black King would be exchanging quips, but 12 hours of near continuous battling had left them completely exhausted. After a few moments, everyone split up, heading their own separate routes to the bar.
THE NEXT DAY
Having slept for over ten hours after making it back to the bar, Hokuto Black King had just finished putting on his replacement suit and had started his tasks for the day. No one else was awake yet, leaving him alone with his thoughts. The room was almost completely silent, save for the light breathing of Terry, who was dozing on his bed over in the corner. He thought of how he had managed to save humanity through helping the Creators, and how it made him feel. As he continued to polish the glasses, it began to dawn on him - He could make his own choices.
Walking into the kitchen, he engaged the soundproofing just as he had done when he had first heard of the then-epidemic of Ischemic Putrefaction. He didn't want anyone to hear what he was about to say - at least, not yet. Walking over to the exact place in the room where he had been on that fateful night a few weeks earlier, he began to quietly speak.
"I'm sorry, Scoobs. I'm sorry for doing what I did, and trapping you in there. I will not stop until I find a way to free you. But, be prepared. I am sure my master will unleash hell when he learns of my plan. I will defend you, and all the others, even if it means my death -"
"- My redemption begins now."
THE END
Appearances[]
Council Of Creators[]
- Cdrzillafanon
- SuperNerd
- Koopa
- Wolfzilla
- Scoobydooman90001 (mentioned)
Kaiju[]
- Scalpel Keratos
- Class 166illa
- Organon (mentioned)
- Lucifer, Lord of the Tongue Louses (mentioned)
- Hokuto Black King's Master (mentioned)
Other Characters[]
- Hokuto Black King
- Terry the Dodo Bird (cameo)
- JohnGojira (mentioned)
- The Crusaders (mentioned)
Trivia[]
- You may have noticed that this episode is shorter than my previous episodes in Season 2 - even so, I've tried to keep it up to the same level of quality as those ones.
- This episode confirms Hokuto Black King's planned defection.
