A/N: With the Anime finally here, I've decided there aren't enough fics out there for One Punch Man. So I decided to try one. It should be obvious that I've changed a couple of things about Worm Canon. Not sure how long this will be, I'm pretty much just winging it, but for OPM, that's the best way to go, right?

Disclaimer: One Punch Man belongs to ONE. Worm belongs to Wildbow. The only thing that belongs to me is my muse.

"I'm not going to lie," Tattletale grimaced, "This looks bad for us."

Regent snorted. "I see your power is really pulling it's weight, there. That's obvious to any of us."

And it was. It really, really was.

The Undersiders had, up to this point, been a low-risk, low-reward gang, taking on relatively 'safe' jobs and staying under the radar.

Until their mysterious 'boss' called Tattletale with an offer: a huge cash reward if you rob a casino. Normally, they would have been extremely enthusiastic about doing so. However, there was a caveat: This casino belonged to one of the two largest and most powerful criminal gangs in the city of Brockton Bay: the Azn Bad Boyz, or ABB for short, and by extension, it also belonged to their boss, Lung, widely recognised as the single most powerful Parahuman in the city.

Unfortunately, they didn't manage to get away cleanly in their 'little heist', and Lung caught wind of it. Said gang leader was now gunning for them.

"Tattletale," Grue, the black-clad leader of the team said urgently, "We need a plan. That's usually your forte."

The blonde-haired girl thought furiously. "If we try to run, he'll smoke us out," she mused, "Leaving the city obviously isn't an option..." she looked up at Grue, "I think our best chance may be to do something he doesn't expect."

"Like what?" Regent asked.

"...Hitting him head-on," Grue realised, "If we go after him, we might catch him off-guard."

"It's not much, but it's better than nothing," Tattletale said grimly.

The final member of the team merely nodded in approval. Bitch was always one for the direct course of action.

"...Seriously? You want us to go and poke the giant rage dragon and see if we hit his weak spot," Regent said weakly, "Am I the only one who thinks this is a spectacularly bad idea?"

"No," Tattletale replied in annoyance, "You aren't. But it's less spectacularly bad than any of the alternatives. Now stop bitching and let's go… if we can hit him hard enough before he ramps up, we can get out of this alive."

"Fine, fine..." Regent sighed, "But when we all die, I'm going to say 'I told you so'."

"If we all die," Grue said evenly, "I'll be dead, so I won't care."

Lung observed his underlings with mild approval. They looked ready to kill, at least – and that's what he wanted, after those little insects decided to reach out of the dirt and take things that belonged to their betters.

Up to now, the Undersiders had never received any of his attention, because, sensibly, he didn't believe they were foolish enough to try any kind of large-scale action against him. How wrong he was – apparently they really were that foolish.

It was time to demonstrate that they were in a very, very big pond and they were very, very small fish. They would be an example for all others to fear.

"Alright," he growled and his men instantly snapped to attention, "We're going to find those kids, and we're going to kill them. You see one, you shoot them dead! If they're lying on the ground, you put a bullet in their skull for good measure! They're tricky little bitches, I'm not about to give one of them the chance to get away. Do you understand?"

His men gave various nods and signs of understanding.

"Good. Move out and-"

His order went unfinished as a large, heavy impact shook the ground in the alley, kicking up a huge amount of dust and shattering the ground. Many of his men lost their footing with startled yelps, as Lung held an arm up in irritation to try and keep the dust from getting in his eyes. "What the fuck?"

"In this age of falling populations worldwide, I can't let you kill children," a female voice declared, and Lung narrowed his eyes as the dust began to clear.

Standing in the middle of a small crater was a rather unusual black-haired young woman, dressed in cargo pants and a tank-top. While her face was clearly skin-toned and her body was clearly that of a slim human female, several of her body parts, including her arms and neck, looked completely cybernetic. A tinker, maybe?

"I don't know who the hell you are," Lung grunted, "But you have one chance to leave before you die."

In response, she raised her arms to a fighting position. Her cybernetic eyes, black with yellow irises, locked onto him. "Acquiring target."

Lung rolled his eyes. "Kill her."

His men began to open fire on the strange cyborg, filling the area she had been standing in with bullets – had being the key word. She had already began moving, moving forward in a blur to hit one of his men in the gut, doubling him over in pain – she swiftly began moving amongst his men, darting around gunfire and lashing out with pinpoint strikes to disable them all. He noted that none of his men were dead. He also noted that she took all two dozen or so of them out in less than a minute.

He eyed his new opponent a bit more seriously now. "All right… who the hell are you supposed to be?"

She held out a palm towards him. "My name is Dragon. I am a hero," her palm lit up, "And my target is acquired."

A blast of fire shot out from her palm, colliding directly with him with significant force, knocking him to the ground. Feeling his power kicking in to regenerate the damage, he got to his feet with a dark chuckle. "Dragon? You call yourself a dragon? While you fight ME!?"

He felt the metallic scales begin to form across his chest. "I will teach you what a dragon really is, little girl."

Dragon frowned as she observed the change in her opponent. He had pronounced scales across his torso, centred around where her shot had connected, and "I see. You are the criminal 'Lung'. Your ability allows you to regenerate damage, growing steadily stronger and more powerful as the fight wears on," she crouched down into a sprinter's ready stance, "Then I need to finish this quickly."

Two explosive blasts left her feet as she kicked off toward Lung, leaving two large craters in the ground – she rocketed toward the slowly-growing man and let loose with a powerful punch, hitting him straight in the cheek and lifting him off his feet. Not wasting any time letting him recover, she continued forward with a cry of exertion, her knee catching him directly to the chest and sending him flying backward. With a roar, a large burst of flame shot from Lung's mouth, forcing her to break off her attack and propel herself to the side with another blast. Rolling to one knee, her hand rose again to point at Lung, who collided with the opposite building with a huge crash.

Holding her right arm with her left to keep her aim steady, it seemed to light up with light-blue energy, before a blast of light-blue energy shot at the impact sight. The results were apparent instantly – a relatively large block of solid ice had frozen over the large hole in the base of the building.

She paused, wondering if the cryo-shot had done the trick.

It hadn't.

"I… 'ill… ooo!" The parahuman crime-boss gave a bestial growl as he smashed his way out of the ice and glared furiously at her. She estimated he was twelve feet tall now, and presumably more powerful than he had been before.

Arm snapping to a firing position again, she fired off several more cryo-blasts at Lung – who responded with a roar and several bursts of flame to match them. The two blasts collided with bursts of steam, fogging up the battlefield.

'This isn't working,' Dragon thought, glancing around, 'This is bad. I was able to confirm there was nobody else nearby but the criminals before I intervened, but if he gets much bigger, the fight will spill over onto the city. I need to put him down now, but how can I do that without killing any innocent people?'

Her pupils flicked left, right, down… and up. 'That could work!'

Her eyes then widened as a system alert popped up. Ducking franticly down onto both palms, she managed to avoid the claw-swipe of the furious Lung. As it passed over her back, her right arm changed again, and she fired all of her limb boosters – colliding bodily with Lung and lifting him up into the air.

She continued firing all four boosters as much as she could – the two fighters quickly gaining height until they found themselves above the buildings they had previously been duelling between. Not giving the still-transforming Lung a chance to get his bearings, she kicked off underneath him, arms fusing together and morphing into what could only be described as a large, complex-looking cannon. Her entire body seemed to light up with sparking electricity as the two combatants hung in mid-air, before, with a roar, she opened fire.

The enormous beam blasted out from her arm-cannon, engulfing Lung entirely as it continued up toward the heavens like an enormous pillar of light, stretching up past the clouds and wider than a large building. The beam seemed to light up the night for all of a few moments.

The recoil from the beam blasted Dragon down towards the earth – angling her thrusters, she tried to aim her landing in the same uninhabited section of the alleys she had initially encountered Lung in. Landing close to her original landing crater, the impact was far larger this time, making a crater several meters across.

Sighing in relief as the fight seemed to be over, she got to her feet. "That was intense," she mused, "But I knew of Lung's reputation. If I can defeat someone on his level… I'm that much closer to being able to stop them."

She clenched her fist in determination as memories flicked through her mind – her father's panicked face, telling her to leave, the entire world falling apart as Newfoundland sank into the sea, the scaled monster that haunted her memories…

The system alert was the only thing that saved her as the claw smashed down onto the position she had just been standing in. As it was, she still lost one of her arms, completely skewered on one of Lung's massive claws as he growled at her.

Now something between twenty-five and thirty feet tall, with two huge wings emerging from his back, Lung looked more like an Endbringer than a cape. His head shot up toward her – then he burst forward, far faster than he had at any previous point in the fight.

'What?' She barely managed to think as one of his claws tore through her abdomen – while she couldn't feel pain, the loss of combat functionality was something she was instantly aware of. Desperately trying to bring her other arm up to blast the monster, his other arm swatted her away, sending her flying toward one of the buildings and tearing off her left leg.

She didn't make it to the building. She was intercepted – by Lung's outstretched hand again, batting her down to the concrete. She bounced off the floor, yet more parts flying away from her body, before her eyes registered his intake of breath, presumably for another fire attack.

'I see… I underestimated him, and overestimated myself,' Dragon thought in regret, 'There is no way to survive this attack. I can not self-destruct, or I will destroy a significant part of the city and end many innocent lives. Father… I'm sorry. I have failed.'

Lung reared back, ready to unleash the flames that would end her life.

Then a fist collided with his solar plexus.

And reduced the top half of his body to something resembling a dark red milkshake.

"Man, I guess that fight wasn't going to drag-on," the newcomer said in monotone, a dopey smile fixed on her face as Lung's legs, now the largest single part of him, fell to the ground, "Ba-dum-tiss."

The cyborg gaped in uncomprehending shock as her mangled body hit the ground.

It was a girl, a teenager, with brown hair, an utterly bland face that made her look completely uninterested with the world around her, and wearing a rather low-budget superhero costume – a yellow spandex body-suit, with red boots and gloves, a belt with a round, bronze buckle, and -was that an actual cape?

Apparently totally unconcerned with her handiwork, the unknown girl turned around and began walking away.

"W-wait!" Dragon managed to cry out from her rather pathetic position on the ground.

"Uh, yes?" the unknown girl turned to stare at her.

"Who are you?" the cyborg asked desperately.

"Oh, I'm Taylor," the girl replied plainly, "I'm a girl who is a hero for a hobby."

"Please!" Dragon pleaded, "Take me as your student!"

The girl blinked. "Eh? OK." She then started walking away, before pausing and turning back to Dragon again.

"Wait, what?"

Meanwhile, from their position atop a nearby roof, four criminal teens stared in shock.

"Tattletale," Regent finally said, "This super-villain thing? You know, tweaking the nose of the superheroes, committing crimes, generally doing anything that might piss either one of those two off… I'm not really feeling it anymore."

"Not really feeling it?" Grue snorted weakly, "Starting tomorrow, I'm looking for a legal job, I'm hanging up this mask and I'm never committing crime again."

Bitch and her dogs cowered over in the corner. Seeing a multi-ton monstrosity whining with it's tail between it's legs was quite surreal.

"...Tattletale?" Regent asked, "You're unusually quiet over there. What the hell just happened?"

"She..." Tattletale managed to sputter, "She was holding back. She blew away a ramped-up Lung in one punch and she was fucking holding back. What the fuck would happen if she didn't hold back – oh god," she got dizzy, falling to her knees as her power started filling in the blanks, "Oh god. Fuck. No. No. Nope. I'm not doing this any more. No more crime, I'm going legit, I don't care how many guns he points at my head, fuck him, nope, nope, nope..."

Glancing at their team-mate, then sharing a look of unusual concern, Regent and Grue picked up the near-catatonic Thinker and started the arduous task of making their escape - before the Protectorate got there in inevitable force.

After all, there was no way in hell they wanted to be found at this scene.