Supervillain Idol System: My Sidekick Is A Yandere-Chapter 522: Show Of Force (Part 4)

As the vine came down.

Dr. Gadget lifted his arm on instinct, watch raised toward the shadow swallowing them.

Then the air tore.

A streak of fire ripped out of the treeline at impossible speed—WHOOOM~—and slammed into the descending vine from the side. The impact sheared through it cleanly, the cut line glowing white-hot as the severed flesh blackened and split apart.

Pyro.

He tore straight through the vine’s body, momentum carrying him past as embers scattered behind him like slag. The point of contact burned through instantly, the smell hitting a second later—scorched organic matter, bitter and choking.

But the cut didn’t save them.

Half the vine kept falling.

Pyro twisted midair, boots flaring as he tried to pivot back—

"Oh no—!" someone shouted.

Dr. Gadget’s watch flared.

A single point of light snapped into existence at its face—thin, precise—and fired.

The beam struck the falling mass and bloomed outward on contact—FWOOOOSH~—expanding into a wide lattice of energy that chewed through the vine in a blink. Ninety percent of it vanished, reduced to drifting vapor and ash.

What remained fell in wet chunks, slapping against the ground with thick, meaty impacts.

Pyro dropped hard, then caught himself, hovering a meter above the ground as debris settled around them.

A man near Dr. Gadget staggered forward, voice breaking. "Pyro! Thank God—you’re okay! Where—where’s Elliot? And the others?"

Pyro didn’t look at him for long.

"No time," he said, words clipped and urgent. "You need to go that way." He pointed past the ruined camp. "There’s another camp near a tunnel entrance that hasn’t been hit yet. They’re evacuating. Join them—now—before—"

He stopped.

His head turned.

The color drained from his face as he stared toward the woods.

One of the tunnel entrances was tearing itself apart.

The reinforced ground buckled inward, concrete plates snapping loose as the earth beneath them ballooned upward. Metal bent as braces twisted free—and the soil began to glow faintly from friction alone.

Pyro swallowed.

"It’s too late," he said, barely audible.

Then he shouted, "RUN!"

The word hadn’t finished echoing when the world lurched.

Not a tremor.

An uprising.

The ground convulsed so violently that people were thrown off their feet, bodies lifted and slammed down as if gravity had gone and come. Trees snapped at the base and were hurled skyward, roots still clinging. Vehicles bounced, then flipped, then vanished beneath flying earth.

And from the tunnel—

BOOOOOOM~.

Something erupted.

Not a vine.

A stem.

It tore straight up from the ground, vertical and unstoppable, rising past the treeline in seconds.

By the time it stopped, it towered roughly three hundred and some meters high. Its main body was grotesquely thick—nearly one hundred and twenty meters across at the base—a column of layered flesh, fibrous and ridged, steaming where friction had cooked its surface.

Its tip swelled wider still—twice the stem’s diameter—bulbous, folded, and wrong. At a distance, it resembled a flower about to bloom.

Up close, it was anything but.

Human remains were fused throughout it.

A ribcage stretched across one side like warped scaffolding. A torso was half-embedded near the crown, spine bent backward, arms missing. Hands jutted out of the surface at random angles, fingers locked in frozen grips. Faces were pressed beneath translucent layers, mouths open in shapes that no longer knew breath.

The massive vines that had been ravaging the camps were yanked back toward it, ripped free from the ground and dragged inward. They wrapped around the base of the structure, coiling together with newly erupted growths.

Four colossal legs formed.

Each was a braided mass of vine and flesh, compacting as they twisted together until they reached a width nearly equal to a basketball court.

The ground beneath them collapsed under the pressure, soil liquefying as the legs planted themselves one by one—sending shockwaves that flattened what little still stood.

Debris filled the air.

Rocks the size of trucks spun end over end. Trees shattered mid-flight. Metal made noise as equipment was flung outward in wide arcs before crashing down beyond recognition. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Dr. Gadget stared upward, blood streaking down his face as the impossible shape finished assembling itself.

The structure loomed, casting a shadow that swallowed the camp whole as the ground continued to break apart beneath it.

———

The effects of the eruption didn’t stop at the camps.

Some distance away, the town of Havenridge came apart in real time.

People spilled into the streets as the ground rolled beneath them, storefront windows shattering outward while bricks slid loose from aging facades.

A low, endless groan carried through the town as asphalt split open, long cracks moving down main roads and branching into side streets.

One sedan sank nose-first as the earth gave way beneath it, tires spinning uselessly before the front end disappeared.

Children stood frozen on sidewalks, small hands clutching toys or backpacks, pointing up at the towering shape that had risen way beyond the treeline. The massive stem loomed against the sky like a twisted monument, impossible to look away from.

Adults snapped out of it first.

"Inside—now!"

"Get in the car, move!"

"Leave it, leave everything!"

Parents dragged kids into houses, some shoving them into basements, others rushing them into vehicles already dented from falling debris. A few people—hands shaking—still held their phones up, recording, whispering prayers or narrating through broken voices.

Sirens wailed from every direction as police cruisers slid through cracked intersections, officers shouting evacuation orders through megaphones.

Fire trucks barreled past collapsed awnings.

Ambulances stopped only long enough to load the injured—bloodied faces, broken limbs, people sobbing over bodies laid out on sidewalks under jackets.

A woman knelt in the street, clutching a man whose chest no longer moved, screaming his name until someone pulled her away.

———

At a smaller camp not too far out from the main, the chaos had settled into a grim atmosphere.

A container lay on its side, doors blown open, its interior turned into a makeshift triage area.

Men and women in lab coats moved quickly between the wounded, hands covered with blood as they applied pressure, wrapped bandages, injected stabilizers. Others in tactical gear worked nearby, loading what still ran into trucks, abandoning the rest.

Many simply stood and stared.

The sprout dominated the sky even from here, rising beyond some hills.

Don stood near Charles, watching as he was treated.

A thick blanket had been pulled around his shoulders, wings fully retracted, though one side of his back showed a dark, narrow slit where what remained of an injured wing had been forced in.

Blood had soaked through the fabric there, drying stiff against his blanket.

The woman tending to him was older, hair pulled into a tight bun streaked with gray, glasses perched low on her nose as she worked with calm movements despite the chaos around them. "You’re going to be just fine, Silverwing," she said, tightening a wrap. "Anything beyond this will need a physician trained for your physiology."

Charles nodded, eyes still fixed on the distant structure. "Thank you," he said quietly. "That won’t be a problem."

He turned his head toward Don. "I managed to reach the chopper. It’ll be here soon."

Don looked away toward the skyline. "Good. Take as many people as you can."

Charles smiled faintly. "Somehow, I knew you’d want to stay."

Don didn’t answer right away.

He had wanted nothing more than to leave the moment they broke free of the tunnels. To put distance between himself and everything beneath the ground.

But standing there now, staring at what had emerged, he knew he couldn’t walk away—not yet. He wasn’t sure he could handle it, not alone, maybe not at all.

But beastshift sharpened everything.

He could see the losses scattered across the camps. Bodies laid out beneath tarps. Survivors wandering in shock. He could hear it too—the panic carried on the air, distant screams from Havenridge, voices crying for help that hadn’t reached any responder yet.

This hero work had always been a means to an end for him.

But he couldn’t convince himself to leave.

Don stepped away from the container, boots crunching over broken glass and dirt as the ground shuddered again beneath him. "Believe me," he said, voice low, "I want nothing more than to leave. But some of us have to stay until backup arrives. Otherwise the town—the people—"

He didn’t finish.

Charles didn’t need him to.

"I’ll make sure capable help is on the way," Charles said, nodding once.

Footsteps approached behind them.

Starboy came into view, tipping back a white bottle and draining it in one long pull before tossing it aside. "I’m staying too," he said.

Don turned. "You’re exhausted," he said flatly. "You’ll get yourself killed."

Starboy frowned. "I’m not asking for permission." He glanced away toward the sprout. "I was just low on electrolytes. I’m fine."

Don studied him for a second, then nodded. He didn’t have the energy to argue—and if Starboy staying eased even a fraction of what was coming, he’d take it.

"Let’s go," Don said.

He broke into a controlled sprint, careful not to drive too much force into the unstable ground. The earth bucked beneath him, dust puffing up with every step.

Starboy hovered, rose a few meters, then glanced back at Charles before flying after Don.

Charles watched them go.

He then turned his head toward Frostbite, standing behind an overturned Escalade as another medic worked on her. She didn’t look back. Her eyes stayed locked on the two figures shrinking into the distance.