Leviathan
Leviathan is one of the Endbringers. He is the second of the Endbringers to appear, making him the middle child between Behemoth and the Simurgh. His powers involve hydrokinesis, super-speed while swimming, and the extreme durability and regeneration associated with Endbringers. Despite not having as much sheer power as Behemoth or being as intelligent as the Simurgh, he is still a very destructive and dangerous threat that is far more intelligent than he appears to be. His first direct appearance in the plot was in Buzz 7.12.
Appearance
Leviathan is thirty feet tall with a seemingly disproportionate body and scaly skin. He has a top-heavy appearance due to his hunched shoulders and the large cords of "muscles" standing out on his neck, upper torso, and shoulders. However these muscles are superficial only as his strength and movement are not impaired when they're damaged. The top heavy appearance is only strengthened by his much thinner forearms and calves, topped off with massive claws and digitigrade feet. The face lacks any kind of mouth, nose, or ears, the only recognizable feature being 4 green orbs acting as eyes (three on the left side, one on the right). At the rear end of his body is a prehensile whip-like tail around 40-50 feet long.
When walking on two legs he sways his upper body back and forth in sync with the swaying of his arms, using his tail for balance. However he is far more balanced and significantly faster once on four legs, fast enough to run on the surface of the water. Within water he moves faster than any speedster, almost appearing to teleport. He constantly has his after echo appearing whenever he moves, perpetually shrouding him in water.
Abilities and Powers
Macro-Hydrokinesis:
Leviathan's main power (and by far is his most powerful) is the manipulation of water on a massive scale. He often preludes his arrival to his target with a torrential downpour and a tsunami, which he continuously creates throughout the battle. Each one of these waves is more powerful than the last, eventually becoming powerful enough to topple entire buildings. The frequency of these is dependent on whether he is able to focus his ability on them, meaning a sustained attack can delay them. He often uses these to cripple strategic areas like evacuation centers or and smaller ones to change the balance of the battlefield if he begins to lose the advantage.
However the true strength of this ability is to create extreme amounts of water pressure and movement in unseen places such as underground aquifers or coastlines. If not stopped soon enough he can create forces tremendous enough to collapse cities or even sink entire islands as seen with the complete destruction and disappearance of Newfoundland and certain parts of Japan.
The only weakness to this ability is that it lacks fine control. When working with relatively small amounts of water the best he can do is create shield-like geysers or send smaller waves to throw off opponents. This means he can't do things like manipulating water within the body or pinpoint high pressure drilling.
After-Echo
Along with his hydrokinesis, Leviathan has an "echo" of water that appears whenever he moves. For any body part moved, voluntarily or being attacked, water will appear seemingly out of nowhere to fill the space in the air where that body part just was. This water will maintain the speed and direction of the area that created it, even if the movement of that area changes. For example if he whips his tail then quickly stops it, the water produced from that movement will continue forward at the same deadly speed as the tail was moving (something he uses to greatly increase the range of his attacks). Normal physics still apply to this water and it can be manipulated by him afterwards.
Super-Speed
Leviathan also possesses extremely fast speed, allowing him to move around the battlefield faster than most heroes can retreat and rapidly dodge the slower ranged attacks. Dodging his attacks is nearly impossible given this amount of speed. Combined with his other two main powers he can flood the battlefield with his after-echo very quickly and run on the top of water when it's too shallow to dive into. Once submerged though these combine to allow him to move at speeds so fast it resembles teleportation.
Fins
Leviathan's fins are just as tough as the rest of his body. Following the Simurgh's upgrades to him in preparation for the fight against Scion, they also sport nano-thorns, a blur of microscopic blades of Defiant's design, which turns things to dust on contact. This is the reason the water around him turns to mist with the fins unfolded.
Other Powers
Leviathan has the standard Endbringer powers as well. These include extremely durable skin, stronger than tungsten only 6% towards the core, regeneration that only quickens the deeper the wound is, massive strength, great intelligence, and a core so dense as to break laws of physics.
Notable Attacks
Oslo, Norway
On June 9th, 1996 was the first appearance of Leviathan. After 5 consecutive attacks by Behemoth over the past 4 years this most likely caught defending forces off guard. Other than that few details are known.
Kyushu, Japan
On November 2nd-3rd 1999 Leviathan attacked the southernmost island of Japan, Kyushu, while pummeling the entire country with tsunamis. In a display of his intelligence he strategically cut off and destroyed evacuation efforts. This attack was incredibly devastating as most of Japan's native heroes were killed along with 9,500,000 civilians. The battle finally ended when Lung fought him to a standstill and he collapsed Kyushu as he retreated. 3,000,000 evacuees were left homeless and Japan was effectively reduced to a third world country.
Hyderabad, India
No details on this battle were revealed except that that it took place on July 6th, 2001. The interesting thing is though is that Hyderabad is over 217 miles inland from the Indian Ocean. But upon closer examination there is a route to the city from the ocean. Leviathan would have had to snake his way up the Krishna River and the Musi River, the latter of which is barely 10 feet deep in some places, requiring tremendous effort just to attack this one city.
Newfoundland, Canada
On May 9th, 2005 Leviathan began an attack on the Canadian island of Newfoundland. However the defending heroes once again didn't stop him soon enough and he managed to sink the entire island, killing 500,000 people, including Andrew Richter. From this point on his targets were classified as hard, meaning heroes could stand their ground and gradually wear him down, and soft, meaning he must be attacked quickly and not given a chance to build up his attacks.
Biography
Arc 8
At the end of Buzz 7.12 a program designed to predict Endbringer attacks anticipated his arrival in Brockton Bay. Air raid sirens were activated to alert the public and allow them to evacuate to the local Endbringer shelters. Meanwhile every major Protectorate and Wards group began teleporting in along with the local heroes and villains, including Skitter and the Undersiders.
By the start of Arc 8 Armsmaster separated the participants into groups based on their powers and abilities while others handed out armbands. These were designed to alert participants to Leviathan's and teammates' locations, call out casualties and tidal waves as they came, and direct people to the wounded. They suspected his end goal was to use the water in an underground aquifer to sink the city. The storm and initial tsunami hit the city and forced the heroes to teleport outside. Leviathan entered the city and sped towards the heroes once he saw them.
During the first half of the battle Leviathan slaughtered any heroes he got close to by pulverizing them with his sheer mass and after-echo or tearing down the buildings they were standing on. Throughout the battle he dodged most of the ranged attacks thrown at him and simply tanked the rest, including Legend's lasers which made his skin glow from the heat. Leviathan was barely damaged after a direct attack from Alexandria and didn't slow down even after one of Dragon's suits doused him in plasma and self-destructed on him. Eventually, Leviathan did get slightly damaged from the sustained attack, the worst wound being a deep gash across the neck. However every time the heroes even started to get the upper-hand he called in a tidal wave to regain the advantage, killing dozens of participants in the process.
Eventually he got pinned down enough that Miss Militia was able to use some of Bakuda's left over bombs on him. This included one that stuck him to the ground, one that crystallized part of his shoulder, and one that stopped time. Before he could be trapped for good he managed to break free and even threw some heroes into the time-field as he left. He injured Legend and Miss Militia to prevent further attacks before he attacked a group of clustered heroes and villains. Before he could finish them off Clockblocker managed to freeze him and give the heroes time to organize. Once the effect wore off he continued his rampaged.
After killing several villains he got into a one-on-one fight with Armsmaster. Leviathan wasn't able to kill him at first because Armsmaster had a program that predicted his every movement and allowed him to cut chunks of him off with his nano-blade, including his tail. However once Leviathan changed his tactics he was able to defeat Armsmaster and escape. He continued to slaughter heroes and villains alike before disappearing for a time. He later emerged at a damaged shelter and started to slaughter the helpless people inside.
Skitter however distracted him by stabbing him with the nano-blade and drew him back outside. He was further hampered by Bitch's dogs attacking him, but even with him being as damaged as he had ever been he still killed most of them. Finally Scion arrived and began fighting him with the help of Eidolon, forcing a severely injured Leviathan to flee the city.
Golden Morning
Around the same time Tattletale "recruited" Simurgh, Leviathan joined the fight against Scion too. Leviathan was first "assigned" to go to a city created and controlled by the Elite through the powers of one of their members to destroy it. Within an hour he had demolished and flooded the entire city with his after-echo and a torrential downpour, killing almost all of the Elite.
When Skitter's group arrived he was resting on top of one of the skyscrapers. Once Simurgh arrived in the area she immediately slammed into Leviathan and stabbed a long black blade she had built into his core. They remained frozen in place at the top of the tower until she let Leviathan crash to the ground. It soon became apparent that she had upgraded him with the sword as he sprouted collapsible nano-blade fins over his body. A serrated growth of fins sprouted along his spine and tail, ending in a bulb of blades at the tip. Several more grew along his neck and up the length of his forearms.
During the final battle he managed to fight Scion head-on for a little bit before he retreated. As the battle moved over the ocean he took to suppressing the tidal waves caused by it as he regenerated. At the final staging area at New York, Earth Beta, he took Scion on directly with the support of the other Endbringers. However Scion still managed to tear open his chest and obliterate his core with a sphere of golden light, killing him instantly.
References
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