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Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Reader mode
Peanuckle said:
Pantheon and Cauldron hold a teambuilding exercise; they do the "catch me when I fall" thing.
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"Waah!" There was a thump, along with the startled cry, as they hit the ground.
"Why didn't you catch me?" They said.
"No one here is actually capable of taking damage from this sort of thing. Either they can survive it perfectly regardless, know how to fall perfectly to avoid damage, have a girlfriend that can heal them, or have a clone backup waiting just in case. Why are we doing this again?"

TanaNari said:
I'd been to a handful of Endbringer fights before Pantheon, and in retrospect they were shameful. There was no discipline, there was no order, and there was no plan. Just a bunch of people thrown into a meat grinder and told to try not to die. It was nothing short of a miracle that anyone ever survived one.
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Thank you. Thank you so much for having a character point this out.

TanaNari said:
On the front lines, Victoria, Alexandria, Sveta and Zach
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On the front lines, someone with broken combat thinker powers, someone who was virtually indestructible and had broken combat thinker powers, someone who was virtually indestructible and had broken combat thinker instincts, and whatever the fuck we were calling what Zack did. Crazy bastard.

TanaNari said:
The Endbringer materialized out of nowhere, and it easily ranked at the top of the 'hideous' meter. A tarantula-like thing that stood about ten feet tall, but its limbs extended out far further than that.
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"No Taylor, you can't have one." CrushingDispairDisapointment. "... Look, I'll talk to Riley about it, but I don't think it's a good idea to copy endbringer monsters." AnnoyanceDesireCute. "Stop looking at it like that!"

TanaNari said:
"Disposable minions," Zach spoke over the com. "If they don't solve your problem, you aren't using enough of them."
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Maybe the disposable minion isn't the best person to be saying this :D
 
Coruscant Knave said:
I'm not 100%, but I think this story is loosely based on Worm.

This poor attempt at humor is in no way a cover for the fact that I spotted nothing and have no idea what the EB is planning. Unless it is about to attack Avalon.
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I laughed pretty hard at that, actually. I don't know why, but I just found it funny.

Possibly because I'm another one of the people who don't get most references.

I'm kind of waiting for lots of alerts to come through because it attacks multiple places with multiple swarms of monsters.
 
TanaNari said:
If we can't find its actual body, there's nothing we can do to kill the fucker.
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You know after reading this line I can't help but picture Eidolon's shard rubbing its metaphorical hands together and thinking O.K. they now have the minimum power needed to find them. Now I just need to teach everyone how to fight someone using projections from different dimensions. Excellent.


I am now picturing Eidolon's shard as Montgomery Burns and the reason his powers are weakening is because Burns is embezzling all the money power.

Also rampant speculation time: The Endbringers control shard is actually totally autonomous. The Endbingers were conflict engines so they are only acting to ensure that there was a high level of conflict on Earth Bet. In cannon the Endbringers only fought Scion because he was going to put an end to conflict, and then they went dormant because humanity would not survive any more attacks. The Endbringers also only became tractable after Eidolon's death because he had an actual chance of winning against Scion.

So, in this fic, a group of hard people making hard choices are going to eventually become convinced that Eidolon needs to die. They will then kill him but to everyone's horror the Endbringers will keep attacking and they just killed the strongest parahuman for nothing. Maybe this is what fractures the current cape alliances into the possible groups that Dinah saw.
 
I'm game to guess. . .

A massive crocodilian creature covered in hedgehog spines manifested below us. It fired several quills at us with speeds that easily broke the speed of sound. I dived downward, spreading Azrael's wings and shielding the sky from the thing's fire. I didn't know who above needed the protection, but it certainly wasn't me. I managed to land on the monster feet first, disintegrating it not unlike what I did to leviathan.
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Bowser/Mario

A moment later, another monster appeared. This one a large fishlike creature that manifested above the blasters that had moved to attack the blood spider. It exhaled a stream of energy that resembled the Frost Lance weapon down upon the defenders. Several shunted automatically, saved by the emergency protocols built into the armor.
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I'm betting an Ice fish pokemon

The Endbringer materialized out of nowhere, and it easily ranked at the top of the 'hideous' meter. A tarantula-like thing that stood about ten feet tall, but its limbs extended out far further than that. It was hairless composed of a reddish brown material that even from here looked somehow sticky. As it scuttled along, it left behind pools of the red liquid oozing across the pavement. Okay, if the Endbringers all rely on someone's symbolic mindset, what the fuck were they smoking when they came up with this atrocity?
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Eh. . . .I'm guessing something from the Resident Evil franchise?
My suit alerted me to movement as a kind of deformed tree monster rushed toward me, heedless of the occasional blast of energy that struck it.
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Groot?

I'm drawing blanks on the Fire skeleton and the Human/ant unless the whole pack of them are from the Rig Vedas and associated Hindu mythology, but the Bowser one got me wanting to do an archive trawl to see if Elidoen has been joining in Zach's video game marathons, or saw a trailer for 8 bit.
 
So, maybe the motherfucker sucks the blood out of people in a certain zone, and that zone is pointed at the Endbringer shelters?

Whoo! You saved the town! Too bad there's no one left to live in it!
 
TanaNari said:
Okay, if the Endbringers all rely on someone's symbolic mindset, what the fuck were they smoking when they came up with this atrocity?
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Eidolon, you're not allowed to watch scary movies before bed.
TanaNari said:
A series of missiles streamed overhead, Dragon's weapons removing a few of the monsters from the air. They fell in pieces, destroyed by whatever insanity the Tinker to End All Tinkers had devised this time.
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So, if this is the Endbringer that mirrors Taylia, what would an Endbringer that mirror Dragon look like?
 
GiftofLove said:
So, maybe the motherfucker sucks the blood out of people in a certain zone, and that zone is pointed at the Endbringer shelters?

Whoo! You saved the town! Too bad there's no one left to live in it!
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Dammit, I was hoping nobody would mention it!

Since it's close enough I might as well go for it.

It's made of the blood from all of the refugee colonies.

Congratulations, everyone you tried to save from the Endbringers now comprise the next one. Every time they destroy one projection, more blood is drained to make two more.

They were willing to sacrifice their city to destroy the last Endbringer and save the people, now they must sacrifice their people directly to fight this one.
 
What if the Endbringer is actually attacking Avalon once everyone has gone to Bet to fight its mindless pawns?

Did someone already say this? I think I saw something at least similar to it.

Does Dragon still have the "one consciousness" limitation or did I accidentally forget whenever that was solved?
 
Two possibilities I can think of:

The blood endbringer turns enemy capes and the rest is a distraction ooooor
It's an endless wave attack. They're never going to stop sending more and more monsters until everyone is too worn down to fight
 
Two pronged attack.

The Endbringer is slaughtering one of the colony worlds and harvesting their blood as minions which it then shunts over to also attack another dimension.
 
I'd want to say it's a Master EB creating minions that resemble mythological creatures, to put the negative spin on the whole "Let's name ourselves after gods!" thing, but I'm stumped finding anything that resembles the ice fish or the blood spider. Spiny alligator could well be the Aztec cipactli, harpy is obvious, tree-men/spirits are common and, well, fire-skeleton seems like a pretty standard one. I feel like the ant-centaur creature ought to be a thing, but can't find any mythological creatures, only a Dungeons and Dragons creature.

...

I swear to god, if this Endbringer is a Dungeon Master...
 
Maybe the minions scatter their blood and parts, and after so many of them have been slaughtered, it all comes back together into one true Endbringer who's power scales with the number of minions slain?

You have a choice between defending people from the minions and fighting a harder endbringer, or letting the minions run rampant.
 
Could be taking shards and fashioning bodies for them, limiting access to future parahumans.

Meh, will wait and see.
 
Eidolon played too much D&D as a teen, apparently. This latest Endbringer is throwing half the monster manual at them.
 
RedX said:
Eidolon played too much D&D as a teen, apparently. This latest Endbringer is throwing half the monster manual at them.
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I think this is more of Eidolon's fear of Pantheon in general and Taylia in specific. They are/have dethroned him from his position of greatest parahuman on the planet. He may still have more power(s), but that is fading, and Pantheon's cooperative power synergies have accomplished more in a year than he has in his entire career.

The blood spider especially struck me as representative of Taylia with Taylor being the spider part, and Amelia being the blood part. Granted, the blood spider isn't the true Endbringer, just an agent. And it's stated that this Endbringer is coping the Pantheon technique of hide in one universe and drop artificial monsters into another. This 'Bringer seems to correlate to Pantheon specifically. I'm wondering if each of these monsters the Bringer is spitting out each represent a member of Pantheon some how.
 
tordg said:
The question "what is the most infuriating possible way to phrase this?" was at the forefront of your mind, wasn't it?
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Did it work?

Peanuckle said:
some exploration into that other world Pantheon got
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It's already been described. See the Butcher arc. :p

Peanuckle said:
maybe an interlude about the various colonies and how nations are dealing with the population shift and resource boost.
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Honestly, that sounds incredibly boring. Plus it's only been a few months since the portals were announced. There hasn't been *time* to see the effects or acquire any resource boosts.

Peanuckle said:
a bit of political drama as some politician lobbies for the extradition of villains that fled to Avalon
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That also sounds incredibly boring. Also stupid and borderline impossible.

Ack said:
She's using double entendres like other people use sledgehammers.
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I don't know about you, but it's been almost four years since I've used a sledgehammer for anything.

Jack of Olives said:
Also, I know it's been said, but I'd just like to reiterate: You're awesome at making horrifying Endbringers.
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Thank you, it's nice to see my genius appreciated.

Daunmi said:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having a character point this out.
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Spending time around Taylia reduces shard-induced idiot balls.

Daunmi said:
"No Taylor, you can't have one." CrushingDispairDisapointment. "... Look, I'll talk to Riley about it, but I don't think it's a good idea to copy endbringer monsters." AnnoyanceDesireCute. "Stop looking at it like that!"
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That's more a Heredity!Taylor thing. Still hilarious.

Daunmi said:
Maybe the disposable minion isn't the best person to be saying this :D
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It was also foreshadowing!

Ack said:
I'm thinking the pig-like monsters are orcs from Anima's stable of fantasy critters. (Anima does those, right?)
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She can, an apparently does.

doomlord9 said:
I think I have an idea about what the EB is and what it is doing. I really hope I'm wrong though and I'm leery about posting it in case it gives Tananari ideas of how to make this even more horrible than it is already going to be.
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Oh, don't be such a pansy. Besides, I got a better (worse) idea. :D

cosoco said:
what would an Endbringer that mirror Dragon look like?
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The Death Star.

Izicata said:
These Endminions remind me of Dwarf Fortress's Forgotten Beasts. Especially the hairless tarantula made of blood, that's something straight out of procedural generation.
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And we have a winner!!!

sephlington said:
I swear to god, if this Endbringer is a Dungeon Master...
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Nah, that's Eden. The Endbringers just Epic Level Challenges.

KaiserDrgn said:
I think this is more of Eidolon's fear of Pantheon in general and Taylia in specific. They are/have dethroned him from his position of greatest parahuman on the planet. He may still have more power(s), but that is fading, and Pantheon's cooperative power synergies have accomplished more in a year than he has in his entire career.

The blood spider especially struck me as representative of Taylia with Taylor being the spider part, and Amelia being the blood part.
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And we have the other winner!!!


... Also... since no one got the reference to the horror movie before. Here you go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creeping_Terror

In a shocking twist that comes as a surprise to absolutely no one, Zach's an MST3K fan.
 
TanaNari said:
Honestly, that sounds incredibly boring.
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TanaNari said:
That also sounds incredibly boring.
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Yeah, dry, boring, political bullshit. I can't see a reason to do that.
TanaNari said:
Amelia, Ch 249- Avalon Constitution
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Uhhh, I mean nobody would like things like that.
Zarohk said:
Avalon's constitution is amazing!
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Well, it wouldn't generate discussion anyway.
Lantalia said:
What prevents a City State from
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abyssmal_kismet said:
Is this governing body wide or planet wide?
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... well it wouldn't have people... spell checking it?
cosoco said:
double word
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Fine! Whatever!

If you write it, we'll read it :p

TanaNari said:
And we have the other winner!!!
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Damn, I thought Eidolon might have subconsciously wanted this one to use up other shards so that he couldn't be outclassed :(
 
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