Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 106


"They're late," Crystal muttered.


"I'm having a real hard time finding a problem with that," Taylor said. "Parahuman violence is always lower in the week or so leading up to an Endbringer, and we're producing a new Gargant every day. I'm okay with having fifteen of them instead of the eight we expected. Another couple hundred shadow and frostcats don't hurt, either."


"I meant Flechette, Parian, and Vista," Crystal corrected.


"Oh, right," Taylor responded. SheepishConcerned. "Sorry, my head's elsewhere."


"Why can't we call them Ultralisks and zerglings?" Zach complained.


"Because that's been taken," Crystal responded. "So when are they suppose to be here? I wanna open our Christmas presents."


"Vista's mom is still mad at her for leaving the Wards," Clarice stated darkly. "She has to sneak out."


DistasteConcern. I frowned. I hadn't considered what this recruitment meant to the home lives of our recruits. Vista, especially, given her age. That and it was starting to annoy Riley. I wasn't sure what, if anything, she'd do about that. But she was only slightly less protective of Missy than she was of me.


"I'll have a talk with her," Lisa volunteered. "I was kinda hoping the Endbringer fight would have happened first. Then we'd have better chips on the table."


I wasn't so certain about Lisa, lately, either. She'd been different ever since Rapture left. Quieter, less brash. It was nice, but concerning.


"How about if I talk to her?" Theo volunteered.


"Probably better," Lisa agreed. "If all else fails, let the part where you're heir to a billion dollar estate slip. That'll get you in her good books all by itself."


Oh. Well that's just lovely, I thought. Theo didn't look like he was happy hearing that, either.


"I've managed to sneak Vista out of her house," Taylor informed us. "She'll be here in... okay, nevermind, she's here. I just sent her to grab the lovebirds. So let's get this party started."


We went to our lab subbasement. The one that was used for most of our group projects. It was separated from the rest of the labs by a membrane wall that, at this point, only our 'main' members could access. While Kid Win and Chariot had been extremely helpful, we couldn't trust them with the secret that was Bonesaw. Not yet, perhaps not ever. She stayed in other parts of the labs, and I had taken to staying with her, since she could no longer move freely about our home.


By the time we got there, Vista was already waiting above, so I opened the passage that would let them simply go from the surface down to us, without need to enter the top part of our building. Emma was already in the lab, alongside Chariot and Kid Win.


"Now that we're all here, let's see the new toys," Crystal announced. "I get to go first since you held us up enough already."


Emma was glowing with excitement. Literally, as the case was, casting red light from her eyes like a couple bright torches. "That one's my personal favorite," she agreed. "Radiant Variant Four."


"What happened to the V3?" Crystal asked.


"It sort of caught on fire, then melted, then exploded," Emma admitted. "Don't worry, that won't happen again. We tried. Go ahead, try it on. Same method as usual."


Crystal floated up and put her feet into the neck of the suit. It opened up and she lowered down into it, looking disturbingly like she was being swallowed by a bizarre snake. Once she had gotten fully inside, what resembled a hood moved up and encased her face, finishing the process. "Fits like normal. So, what's the new features?"


"First, the forcefield interaction has been optimized, coming to a sum total of a nine hundred percent increase in your shield strength," Emma announced. "It does take time to fully established. You'll have normal strength for about the first thirty second, and the old max in approximately a minute. Five minutes is required for full insulation. The shields will lose power as they take hits, but at our current estimate you should be able to trade punches with Leviathan for a couple minutes with no real risks."


"Nice," Crystal said appreciatively. "What else do you have for me?"


"Improved energy generation and manipulation," Emma replied. "Same anti-behemoth tech in the zerglings."


She gave an almost pleading glance at Zach. He ignored it. "It also serves to hone your attacks, reducing their target surface area to a tenth of before. More damage for the same power output, and you can now use full power to charge the weapons, without problem."


Crystal nodded.


"I tossed in a movement boosting system based on readings of Vista's powers," Chariot replied. "You should gave about triple flight speed, although it will drain the suit's energy supply some."


"And last, but not least," Kid win added. "A whole array of new weapons. You can trade out battlestaves at will, and we have six of them. Hold out your hand and say 'laser lance'."


"Okay," Crystal complied, reaching out. "Laser lance." A staff appeared in her hand, but fell away and vanished.


"Yeah, you have to catch it," he suggested. "If they fall more than a foot away from the suit, they disappear back into their pocket space."


"Laser lance," this time, Crystal caught it.


"At full power, that weapon can slice through a building," Emma informed. "They're all at full charge, and your HUD shows the list in the corner. The active one is highlighted and shows its battery power."


"Oh, cool," Crystal stated. She dropped the staff, and it vanished. "Frost lance." She caught the new weapon. "This one only has a lethal setting."


"That's my favorite," Emma smiled even more broadly. "Chris and I spent forever designing it. When fired, it targets a specific point and shunts all heat in that region into a pocket reality. Reducing approximately a cubic meter of space to absolute zero. There's no other possible setting, so only use it when you don't want the target to survive. Vertigo's your best bet for nonlethal combat, going from painful and nausea inducing to high intensity sonic bursts."


"This is insane," Crystal muttered. I could see the suit starting to swell a bit and change color as Crystal charged the system. "I'm practically a match for Legend like this."


"You might hit harder, actually," Emma corrected. "Don't have his speed, or his durability, or his versatility. But in terms of pure stopping power, you might have him beat."


"Okay, you've had your fun, let the rest of us have a turn," Missy smiled.


"I got this one!" Clarice insisted, grabbing Missy and pulling her over to one of the alcoves that held the suits. "This one's the Singularity."


Missy touched the green and white armor that wasn't too different from her own costume. "So how do I put it on?"


"Lean forward onto it," Taylor instructed. "It works like my Matriarch."


"Okay," she agreed, stepping into the alcove. The armor basically sucked her in, and sealed behind her. "Okay, that's the weirdest thing I have ever felt." she stepped backward out of the alcove. "So how's it work?"


"Use your power on it," Clarice instructed.


"What?... Wow..." Vista muttered.


"That's why we called it Singularity," Clarice stated proudly. "It reacts to and amplifies your space folding abilities, directing it along specific channels. Anything trying to get through that inch thick suit is going to have to travel the equivalent of at least twenty miles before making it through to hit you."


"Twenty miles where it will intersect with itself every twenty subjective feet," Emma added. "I based the pattern off an infinitely repeating fractal helix I saw once. We believe that the design will disrupt, potentially even blind, all thinker powers. We already know it works on Minerva and Dinah. If we're lucky, you might even be immune to the Simurgh, but no promises. As it stands, no other precog or thinker should be able to see through that armor when it's active."


"And I thought my armor was nuts," Crystal chuckled. "I got the anti-Behemoth, you got the anti-Simurgh. I... might be jealous..."


"We're not done yet!" Kid Win interrupted. "There's also a weapon built into it. The Point Singularity Projector. Right arm has a bracing system with the weapon loaded in. Charge it with your power, aim with your arm, and fire. It concentrates the wave and then it hits hard enough to destroy almost anything."


"Basically, you get to shoot miniature black holes at people," Emma explained. "Different settings have different damage outputs. The lowest setting is painful, but only life threatening if you hit the brain, but each new step up is an exponential increase. Stage two is bone breaking force. Stage three is like being in the middle of a head on collision between two unbreakable semi trucks. Five should be equivalent to Crystal's, and on par with Legend or Alexandria in stopping power. It's the strongest we can make the weapon without it exploding."


"And none of the Endbringers have shown gravity or space manipulation powers, so you're safe to fire on any of them without a problem," Clarice added cheerfully. "Plus, with your abilities you can aim it around walls like Legend does. Only you can see people through walls so it's even better! What do you think?"


Vista was still looking at her arm. "Theo? I might be thinking about breaking up with you and marrying my costume."


"I don't blame you," he replied.


"Told you it'd be worth the wait," Clarice sang cheerfully. "So who's next?"


"I've already seen my armor," Taylor said. "It's nice, but all my real upgrades are in the form of gigantic bug monsters. Which is more than fine by me."


"Tapestry next," Clarice decided. "That's Kid Win's project."


"This one's for Parian," he said, opening the next alcove. Parian's armor was the largest displayed thus far, and in the form of a beautiful cloth doll, wrapped in blue ribbon. "We've improved on the old fabric design, allowing your outfit even more durability. Same as your current suit, but greatly improved upon. We've built systems to harness the pressurized telekinesis inside, allowing you high end flight, and a weapon similar to the Singularity made with a concentrated telekinetic beam, instead."


"It's not quite as destructive," Emma replied. "Still limited to the Manton Effect. But the nature of your power means you can, essentially, 'stick' a target with a beam. Infusing their clothing or equipment instantly and from range, giving you telekinetic control or destroying it utterly, without risking harm to the person wearing it."


"So you've given her the nudity gun?" Zach joked.


"Yes, yes we did," Emma agreed cheerfully as she looked at Zach. His smile vanished. She fell quiet as well.


Chariot continued for her. "Tapestry also has six ribbon sails that'll respond to your power, giving you a reach of fifty feet, at approximately two and a half tons of strength each. The material itself is energy absorbent, refractive and self mending, making Tapestry the second most durable suit we've designed. Also the physically strongest, from a brute measure. And the fastest, with the potential to break the sound barrier in flight."


"You really didn't hold back on this," Parian said, admiring the armor even as it formed itself around her. "I was afraid you might, since I'm not one of the ones who goes out fighting and stuff. Thank you."


"It also uses the same fractal system as the Singularity," Emma added. "It's harder to do with yours, so you should be similarly resistant to precogs, but some other thinkers can get through."


Parian was all smiles in her new costume, especially as she had about as much control over it as I had over my Dryad. Speed of thought response is something that none of the others would have in theirs. She hugged Flechette and kissed her happily. I couldn't quite ignore my envy.


"So, last and nowhere near least, Flechette's system," Emma announced. "Azrael."


"Angel of Death?" Flechette asked, as the alcove lit up to show the solid black body suit. It had four wings extending from its back, though they more closely resembled a pterodactyl than a bird or bat. It looked positively demonic in nature.


"In many ways," Emma continued. "The most boring suit. Good antigrav flight capabilities, average durability. Better than average sensor system to take advantage of your power's trajectory senses for improved combat efficiency. We couldn't cram much more into it."


Flechette frowned. "But that's all worth it," Clarice stepped in. They practiced this show together, I realized. "For the nanothread system. Azrael has an incredibly complex monomolecular fiber weave layered in its skin. Allowing you to use your power on the whole armor at once. When charged by your power, the Azrael is indestructible, and can destroy everything it touches. Only you, and the Azrael itself, are immune."


Her eyes widened. I could imagine why.


"Please don't do that inside," Zach requested.


"Each wing also houses a copy of your arbalest's projectile generator," Kid Win added. "Linked up to the nanofiber system so you can charge and fire the bolts. Approximately two shots per second per wing. They travel faster than your old weapon, so you may need some practice figuring out the differences. The system can also add a powerful sedative on command. We thought of adding Crawler's acid as an option, but didn't have enough space. It's not like you need it anyway."


"You're... this is meant to be an Endbringer slayer, isn't it?" Flechette's voice trembled.


"We certainly hope so," Minerva responded. "Can't know until we try, but we have another weapon to try that we think has a better chance. We also think you're going to like your new names."


=============


A/N- Tech porn chapter. I'm kinda glad there are so few of them. They're a fun "sometimes" food, but I wouldn't want them too often.

Also: Riley REALLY wants to be a flower girl. Unless she's the maid of honor. In which case, Missy can be the flower girl.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 107


I woke to someone shoving my arm. "Get up!" Riley shouted. "We just got the alert. It's Behemoth."


My eyes snapped open. Costume. I thought, running over to the closet. My standard outfit simply slid onto me as it is meant to. Really, it's nothing more than a thirty pound mass of specially modified Yggdrasil. I almost laughed at how awake I was. Adrenaline is one hell of a drug.


"What about everyone else?" I asked.


"Khepri's on it," she answered. Fair enough. I reached for the link. TerrorExhilaration. I smiled. Yeah, that's my General in action.


"Bringing anti-Behemoth units to the surface," I stated. She'd hear me, now, thanks to the modifications to the bracer. Over eight hundred of the various cats, and a couple hundred Raptors started flowing from underground. Our full set of forces. Except the Gargants- those we kept on the other side of the portal. A thousand units, each a match for any average parahuman. All under Khepri's command. I promised my partner an army, and I delivered on that promise.


Plus another five hundred suppression pods. We were ready. I ran through the halls to the outdoors, followed by Riley.


"Dragon's sending our pickup," Minerva informed me, only half enveloped in her armor. "Two minutes ETA."


I got outside, carrying Riley thanks to the power of augmented Yggdrasil muscles. I leapt onto my Dryad, to be swallowed up. My costume merged with the armor. Riley was shifted into her place in the new design. It was the only real way we could bring Clarice with us.


Missy arrived next. Clarice held up her armor. "Climb in," she instructed. Parian and Flechette arrived next, already in costume.


A number of people were gawking at the swarm of monsters, already. Bugs got in the way, warding them back.


"An Endbringer is attacking," I stated, alerting everyone with the amplified voice function of my armor. The flood of panicked looks made me cringe. Could have phrased that so much better. "Somewhere else, we're waiting for pickup."


"Can you handle this all in one trip?" I asked, looking at Chariot.


"Uh... sure. I think. Maybe we can split it up a bit?"


"Okay," I said. "We'll set the first signal for the front lines with Gargants and icecats. Then the Raptors, then the search and rescue. We'll make sure the right groups have the right equipment."


"Got it," he teleported over to the monsters. They wouldn't really function without Taylor. The Gargants, at least, would kind of. They'd been built with instincts that could be summed up as 'that's an Endbringer, first you run toward it, then you try to kill it'. Icecats were meant to be offensive backup. The shadowcats were defensive, meant for search and rescue purposes. Each had been programmed and reprogrammed, bred for their functions. Even without Taylor in command, they would obey orders. Smarter, in some ways, than a well trained dog. In almost all others ways, they were incapable of thought at all.


Taylor dropped down in her Matriarch armor. Damn that outfit makes her look incredible. FlatteredProudExhilarated.


"So, it's time for us to kill a fucking Endbringer," she announced to the gathered group. "You all know your jobs."


"Transport the monster brigade," Vista stated. "Then it's secret weapon duty."


"Right," Taylor confirmed. "Sorry that you can't really test out your armor, but we're only going to be able to use this weapon once. The Endbringers are fucking smart. If this works, it will only work once. We make it count."


"It's Behemoth, so Theo, you stay with the Moirai," she ordered. "Also, get a code name."


"Yes, ma'am," Theo answered.


"I'll go with Chariot and Vista," said Osiris. He was wearing a cowboy hat in addition to the rest of his outfit. For some reason. Held on by strings, no less. "Gotta get the last bits sorted out. I don't have a thinker job, y'know."


"Okay," I answered. I noticed the Dragon suit. "Time to get to go." Chariot vanished, along with Vista, Zach, Flechette and Parian. And with that, the giant mass of monsters vanished from sight, one section at a time.


We waited for the dragon transportation. The five of us that would be traveling this way. Taylor and I, Minerva, Crystal and Clarice. Complete with Riley inside the Dryad with me. The others had their own way, but they'd need us in place first. It was a relatively quick jump before we landed the first time.


Alexandria, Eidolon, and Legend stood together off to the side. He wasn't a member of the Protectorate, anymore, but they would never stop being the Triumvirate.


Minerva walked straight up to them. Alexandria stepped forward. They locked eyes. They didn't speak, they didn't blink. The dark haired amazonian beauty, and the small blond smartass. Locked in their contest of... what? Wills? Intellect? They still weren't saying or doing anything but stand there.


"Holy shit," Crystal muttered. "They're doing a Taylia."


"A what?" I asked. RecognitionConfusion.


"Oh, yeah," Crystal answered. "That's what we call it when you and Taylor do your weird psychic conversations thing. You both just sorta zone out while focusing on each other. Of course, with you two, there's more smiling and acting like lovestruck schoolgirls. This looks more like Alexandria's about to assign her a pop quiz."


Do Taylor and I really look like that? Huh. How did Taylor's identity stay secret as long as it had?


"Okay," Alexandria said. The first words either had spoken. She took the small signaling device that Lisa had handed her. "I'll be recommending your status be upgraded to thinker nine when we get done here, by the way."


"Flattery will get you everywhere," Tattletale responded. She was still smiling as she turned and walked back to us.


"So, what was that about?" Taylor asked, with a smile.


"If I'm a nine, then Alexandria's a ten," Minerva stated. "Or, well, not really. She's a thinker like Emma's a tinker. A bunch of different relatively minor powers that all stack together into something really scary. If I'd met her before Rapture, I'd probably hate her instinctively, just out of jealousy. Either way, she's definitely part of Cauldron and she knows that I know. We've... kinda got a meeting arranged later. Probably a couple weeks after the Behemoth fight, depending on what happens here. No need to focus my power on it until later, just the way she planned."


"But you didn't say anything," I contested.


"Didn't need to," she responded.


Some of us had others to talk to. Flechette found the Wards team from New York, and seemed intent on introducing Parian to all of them. Emma had caught a ride with what remained of our own Wards team, which was with the Boston team. Probably closer to Clockblocker than us when the alert came through. We still hadn't made much progress with him or Weld. Who had chosen to stay with the Protectorate, believing he could do more good there.


Dozens of other Dragon transports were scattered across the area. "Return to the vehicles. Behemoth's target has been narrowed to the Indian subcontinent."


We climbed into 'our' vehicle. It didn't appear special compared to any of the others. I don't know why I expected it to.


The next couple hours were nerve wracking. Taylor and I cuddled as best we could in our combat armors. Our reserve team had it worse, they didn't even have the news feeds from Dragon. Not that the feeds told us much of value. They'd narrowed down Behemoth's target zone to New Delhi, but the monster had not surfaced. He hadn't surfaced even as we landed in the city. The fuck was going on here?


We started getting out of the ships. The sun was setting on an already overcast and humid day. A rumble of thunder and minor flashes of lightning heralded the arrival of the storm. It was atmosphere like this that might lead one to suspect Endbringers had a sense of drama. "I need to make an announcement," Taylor told Dragon. "To everyone."


"Very well, I'll patch you through to all the armbands," Dragon replied. Her actual body, and Defiant, were on a different vessel. The one with Legend, I expected. But she was managing communications between a thousand different factors. Multitasking possibly on par with Taylor's own.


DreadAnticipationWorry. "You'll be amazing," I told her.


FocusDetermination. Khepri walked forward. Her Matriarch armor was the 'official' name for the 'Queen of Blades' design. Our best flier, combining a bit of Vista's power with a potent set of layered antigravity technology. Not our best 'top speed' suit, but easily our most agile one. It would take someone with superhuman awareness to pilot the thing, which is why only Taylor had that suit. Maybe we'd trade off the design to Dragon.


"Go ahead," the armband spoke to her. "You're set to transmit to everyone. I've set a subroutine to translate your speech to Hindi where needed."


She took a deep breath. "This is Khepri speaking. A number of monsters are going to appear across the city shortly. Do not be alarmed. They are mine to command, and Pantheon's front line force. The gigantic ones are gargants, and they will engage Behemoth directly. Let them. Remember that every hit they take means that a cape didn't have to. They will hold the line and buy you time. Use it."


Alexandria had flown off toward the front line position, and had activated the signal. Within seconds, the Gargants and icecats had started appearing. I could only imagine what the locals thought. The ones that likely had never even heard of Pantheon.


She took another breath before continuing. "The tiger like creatures are there as mounts. Everyone without mover abilities is encouraged to ride one. Turn their heads like you might a motorcycle, and they'll turn that direction. Everyone who is capable of fighting inside Behemoth's kill aura, the blue ones are the icecats, and they're for you. The black ones are shadowcats. They're for search and rescue. Unless you have better mover powers, take one. They will save your lives, and the lives of those around you." Shadowcats were Aceso's domain. She was leading the search and rescue ops, at least for our team. Clarice's senses, Riley's medical expertise. No one could be more qualified.


"The giant wasplike creatures are Raptors," Khepri kept instructing. Her emotional state got more confident and intense as she fell deeper into the roll of the commander. My General, the thought still gave me goosebumps. "They are meant for blasters who don't have flight or other movement powers. Wave at them if you want one."


Eki pressed her button, and the creatures manifested in the air. They were only around eight foot long, but the antigrav tech kept them in the air. They weren't heavy, really. They were, however, pretty fast. It wasn't long before most had descended to pick up riders.


"You'll also notice the giant flower buds near the front lines. Those are suppression pods. They should counter almost all of Behemoth's attacks past the range of his kill aura. Alexandria package capes, spread them out at intervals of about a hundred meters. That's their effective range. With even a modicum of luck, we can make this the most successful Endbringer battle in history. Khepri, out."


She sighed. DreadExhilaration. "You're not going to mention your other weapon?" Alexandria asked us over the com.


"Better for morale this way," Minerva replied. "We're pretty certain it will work, and if it does I'm sure no one will complain about us keeping it a secret. If it turns out to be less impressive than we hope..." she trailed off, but the point was obvious.


"Understood," Alexandria responded. "And the best of luck to you."


Minerva went to the command center. Taylor and I to medical. Her medical skills would be useful enough there, and she was already in command of over a thousand troops. She was on every line simultaneously. We were ready. I pressed the button that signaled the final jump. Parian, Flechette and Vista appeared next to me. Along with several tons of raw Yggdrasil mass that I expanded across the roof, allowing it to flow down the sides. Dozens of Yggdrasil-spreading creatures traversed the sewers, distributing the spores as rapidly as I could assimilate them into the whole. What took days to achieve in Brockton Bay, I would do here in minutes.


"Chariot wanted me to let you know that the Yggdrasil already has a strong footing across our earth's Europe and Africa," Vista informed me. "As well as most of Asia. He estimates a couple weeks until full coverage of the surface area."


"That's really good to know," I replied. "ETA on the world being habitable?"


"Dunno," she answered. "But we can make a quick trip home safely when we're done here, easily."


"Behemoth sighted, DA-5" the armbands announced. From our position on the hospital, I could see it myself. The ground cracked and spewed forth magma and smoke. Behemoth had chosen a hill from which to emerge, giving those of us with any elevation a good view.


The creature's head appeared, then it stopped moving, turning its face to suvey the area. A face that Minerva had assured me was meaningless. It did not need eyes to see, nor ears to hear. The Endbringers, despite their loosely humanoid shapes, were less human than my Yggdrasil. However they sensed, it wasn't through any organ as we understood the concept. They were not animals. They were not alive. They were incredibly powerful and bizarre machinery from an unknown maker.


Still, Behemoth's gigantic head made a very good impression of a person surveying the landscape of New Delhi. A city armed with parahumans and Dragon suits and a thousand disposable shock troop designed solely to kill it and controlled by a single mind. His head turned around, presumably along with the rest of his body, but that couldn't be seen. He submerged.


"Behemoth is withdrawing," the bracelet communicated to us. "Repeat, Behemoth is withdrawing."


===================


A/N- This was a remarkably controversial chapter.

 

[edale]

Well...you get a 1 day ban for the most ridiculous of reasons, move the fic, and as a result, I discover a new forum with even more Worm fics....and I'm not even caught up on all the decent ones on SB since discovering it 2 months ago...When am I ever going to find the time to read all of this stuff, lol.

Can't wait for you to finally get up to 175 though, to quote someone from SB (can't recall who) it's your first truly suspenseful cliffhanger....since the next chapter isn't just a few hours away, lol.

On the plus side, you've been on this forum for what? A day or two? and you're probably already close to 1000 likes, lol.

*edit- just checked, you're at over 1600 likes already, lol.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 108 (formerly 116)- Sarah and Danny


"You don't have to go," I pleaded. I wasn't too proud to beg, not when it came to this. "They don't need you for this."


"Sorry, Mom," Crystal answered, already in her body armor. "We've had this conversation. I'm going, and we're going to kill the son of a bitch. Then the rest of those fuckers."


"Then I'm coming with," I insisted.


"No," she responded, determined and focused. "We haven't built a suit for you. I'm on par with Legend in this gear. Maybe even better than he is. I can survive anything Behemoth throws against me. You'll get hurt. Or you'll get me hurt because I'm too worried about you to focus on the fight."


"When did you grow up into such a wonderful young woman?" I was already tearing up when I embraced her. It wasn't quite the same, with the armor in the way, but if that armor brought Crystal back home to me, then I would give it all the hugs in the world.


"Okay, mom," she said, hugging me back. "That's enough being sappy. I've gotta go now."


She went out the door and took off. She was never that fast before, I thought. Must be more of the tech she has in that armor. Was Amy telling the truth? Would Neil and Eric still be alive if she was allowed to fully flex her powers? Today would answer that question, one way or another. Either Crystal doesn't come home, or I have proof that my husband and son didn't need to die. Either way... I, I just couldn't bring myself to face this alone. I called my sister.


The phone rang a few times before Carol answered. "Did you hear?" I asked.


"What?" she said. She sounded tired.


"Behemoth just moved," I told her. "He's set to appear somewhere in Africa, according to Dragon's new tracking system."


"And?" Carol responded.


"And your daughter's going to be out there fighting that thing," I repressed the urge to scream at my sister, reminding myself that things were not good in her life right now.


"Amelia," Carol practically spit the name. "Made it pretty clear she's not my daughter. No surprise, I don't think she ever thought of me as a mother, and I never really saw her as my daughter." We'd had this argument before, more than once. In some ways, she was more angry at me than she was at Amy. After all, I was the one who insisted she adopt the little girl. I should have been the one to take care of her. Things would have been so much better if I had.


"Okay," I sighed. "If you've given up on Amy, then fine. My daughter is going to be out there fighting as well. Your niece, Crystal, in case you've forgotten. Or are you going to disown her, too? So help me, I will personally come over there and kick your ass if you dare suggest something like that."


"I..." Carol took a breath. "No. Sorry, you're right, it's just, things aren't in a good place right now for me and Mark. You're inviting him, too, aren't you?"


In her question was a hope that I wouldn't. I had to disappoint her. "The whole family," I insisted. "We should all be here for this, no matter what happens."


"Okay," she replied. She didn't hide her disappointment. "I'll be there soon."


She hung up, and I started dialing the next number.


-----


"You remember to stay safe," I insisted to Taylor yet again.


"Dad," she rolled her eyes while removing the material covering her suit. Some kind of plant that heals and recharges the thing. Any other time, I'd be yelling at her for leaving the dried pieces on the floor. Not today, however. If the only thing I could do to help her was clean up dry leaves on her floor, I could do that.


"I've already fought one Endbringer, and I did it with bugs," she assured me. "This time I have a whole monster army that exists for the sole purpose of fighting them. Behemoth doesn't stand a chance. I'll be home in a few hours, but don't worry about cooking anything. It's a long trip and by the time we get back, the Mayor or someone is going to invite us to a fancy dinner somewhere. Pick out a suit and get ready for free food and thorough ass kissings."


Ah, the confidence of teenagers. I hugged her before she climbed into the creepy looking body armor. I wasn't so sure I approved of how overly 'feminine' the design was, either. Why did she have high heels built into it? She's tall enough already. "You're just like your mother," I told her. It was true, of course. "You both find a cause and throw your whole heart into it, heedless of the risks and costs. I hated that about her almost as much as I loved it."


"Thanks, dad, love you too," she paused for a second. "So, do you think they'll let us keep Behemoth's head after we kill him? Halloween's coming up, and that'd be the best jack-o-lantern ever."


I chuckled. The joke wasn't funny, really, but this was her way of getting back to less emotional topics. "Long as you have somewhere else to put it. I don't want that thing in my house."


She broke the hug and stepped into the suit, casually allowing it to split and grow around her, then she hovered her way to the door. I smiled. She wanted the power to fly ever since she was a little girl, I thought to myself. I guess I should have known, even then, that she'd become a superhero.


Not long after she left, the phone range. Sarah's home phone. "Hello?" I asked.


"Hi, Danny," she said, unable to hide the tremble of fear in her voice. "I wanted to invite you over. Have the whole extended family together when, y'know..."


"Yeah," I answered. "I'd like that. Just give me a few minutes to get things sorted out, here."


Crystal was surely going with the others, so she was as terrified as I was. Not a lot of people could understand what it felt like to watch their children running off to slay a monster. Of all the things I worried about when I learned I was going to be a father, this was never one of them. I was expecting diapers and skinned knees, while dreading boys and broken hearts and college expenses. Well, I suppose I dodged the bullet with the boys, at least.


My next phone call was to work. "Hey, Frank, I need to call off today," I told him.


"Sick?" he asked. The man was kind of a hard ass. Honestly, at this point, I could probably quit the job. I'd made a reasonable enough nest egg just off the paid interviews. Interviews that I only agreed to because Taylor insisted that it was important for me to do at least a few, for whatever plan the girls had cooked up. The part where I made a few extra bucks was just a bonus.


"No," I answered. "They spotted Behemoth. Set to hit Africa, somewhere."


"Shit," Frank muttered. "Take the day off. Tomorrow, too, if you need it. If it was my kid, I know I wouldn't be able to think about anything else."


"Thanks, Frank," I said, then I hung up the phone. I swept up the dead leaf-stuff from Taylor's room. I had just grabbed the keys when there was another phone call. I considered ignoring it for a minute, but it could be important. I looked at the ID, which said it was Kurt's number.


"Hey, man," I said when I answered. "I was almost out the door."


"I just heard the news," he said. "Figure you're blowing off work today, anyway. Wanted to see if you needed some company."


"Oh," I responded. "That sounds good, but I was already invited over to Sarah's." He already knew who I meant, of course.


"Yeah, I get it," he replied. "So, what's your daughter think about you dating her future in-law, anyway?"


"We're not dating, Kurt," I told him. "She's just helping me out with this whole 'superhero parenting' thing, that's all."


"Danny," Kurt sighed. "Let me ask you a question. How long were you and Annette together before you managed to figured it out?"


"This is an entirely different situation," I insisted.


"She's too busy for you, she's too good for you, she's smarter than you, she'd never be interested in you and it'd be a messy situation, right?" Kurt listed off. "Danny, by what possible definition is that not exactly the same situation as it was with Annette?"


"Try the part where her husband died a few months ago," I answered. "It's too soon, Kurt."


"Daniel Hebert," Kurt chuckled. "Picking up beautiful women left and right. But only when he doesn't realize it."


"Oh, fuck you, Kurt," I smiled. "I've gotta go now."


"Take care, buddy," he responded. "And make sure to hold off on the marriage until after Taylor's." The line disconnected before I had a chance to offer a retort.


=====


A/N- This chapter, and the other "parent interlude" chapters are out of order... I had originally written them a few days after the Endbringer fight. And immediately regretted not having them aligned with the actual battle.

And now they are in "proper" order.

I left the original chapter titles in, for purposes of consideration by readers.

 

[Nigel Burnelli Isaacs]

I also got here specifically for this story as I really like it and I also found what happenned on SB truly ridiculous...sigh anyway this gave me an excuse to reread the whole story as it is posted here.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 109 (former 117)- Marquis


I watched on of the few televisions that still worked in this place. It was the first time I'd actually have a chance to get a look at my daughter's handiwork. She had promised to fight the Endbringer. She had promised to kill them. It was hard for me to imagine the sweet little girl from so long ago being capable of such a thing, but I believed in her in a way that only a father could.

"Thanks to the early warning system developed by the esteemed tinker Dragon, New Delhi has been almost completely evacuated. Cameras have been set up to catch what is hopefully the most complete footage of an Endbringer battle on record. Behemoth is often called the 'hero killer'. Parahuman casualties against Behemoth are, statistically, much greater than the conflicts with either of the other Endbringers, despite Leviathan and Simurgh often having greater overall casualties and other losses."​

Lung stood beside me, impassively. Teacher was there as well, along with the unfortunate once known as Valefor. One of my men approached, silently. They knew not to interrupt the broadcast. He held out a cigarette. For any other block, it would have cost more. Part of the arrangement. "Valerie, go with him," Teacher instructed, and Valefor followed the man who had taken his arm.

The cameras weren't manned, so they switched between cameras to get better views, instead of adjusting camera angles. It was also clear none of the news footage was filmed for an English speaking audience, as all words and notations were in Hindi. The next scene displayed a view of the gathering first wave of capes. The Triumvirate was highly visible in the skies of New Delhi, ready to hold the line against the beast. A handful of Indian capes, in garishly flashy colors even compared to the Protectorate heroes they were mixed with, gathered together in clusters.​

I still wasn't quite certain how Valefor, crippled and powerless, blinded and mute, was sent here. His crimes, much like his partner Eligos, were certainly of a nature that deserved the Birdcage. The well known bias against Master type villains was also evident in the decision, as the man was entirely harmless at this point. They could store him in any ordinary prison safely enough.


Both ended up in my cell block. An act that, in retrospect, leads me to believe Dragon felt a need to guarantee the death of both. Teacher offered to purchase Valefor almost immediately after his arrival, which I of course expressed a tentative interest in. It never hurt to hear an offer, after all, and Teacher went out of his way to be fair and honest in his dealings.


Valefor wasn't of any use to me directly, but the supply shipments were divided based upon the number of inhabitants per block. Giving up the additional resources, I was rather loath to do. However, both he and Eligos both proved... uncooperative... as members of my cell block. To the point where the latter had attacked me and Lung.


We made an example of the man. A very bloody and very public example. Out of respect, I offered the beast that was my closest companion these last few months first dibs for executing the madman, but Lung declined. Seems he didn't like killing helpless victims unless it was truly personal. So it fell to me, as I had hoped it would. Court was held, and I butchered him in the most horrific way I had managed to develop over the years. Functionally taking control of his skeleton, if crudely, and forcing his bones to peal the flesh off like climbing out of a jumpsuit.


Too difficult to do in a combat situation. In fact, the prepwork took almost an hour to make it seem convincing to others that I could do it in combat, but it was the kind of psychological message that kept others from challenging my position. As with all my executions, I bequeathed his 'fairy' to Glaistig Uaine. She would have taken it anyway, and none could stop her. Offering it as a gift kept her disposition toward me kindly, and that too was a form of intimidation. Others would not risk the ire of the Fairy Queen lightly, even if her insanity made her unreliable as an ally.


Now, I regretted not keeping him alive longer.


Teacher had learned some fascinating details about Valefor, which he of course shared with me. In part because of our agreed upon conditions, and in part a way to cultivate a pleasant relationship between us. As it turns out, Valefor had an interesting history in Brockton Bay. He had attacked a new group of heroes by the name of 'Pantheon'. I had already heard of them, of course. News reached us about their slaying of the Slaughterhouse Nine, but not their civilian names.


When I first heard, I had dismissed the news as satisfying, but unimportant. Now it filled me with pride. Thanks to Valefor, I knew that Pantheon was led by my daughter. Amelia had kept her name, and was apparently a true biokinetic, with absolute control of any living thing she touched. She had achieved what her father could not, and killed Jack Slash.


Valefor's compelled honesty forced him to describe his attack on Pantheon. Controlling Khepri's adopted children and their nanny, and using them as suicide bombers. Teacher had, quite rightfully, offered to 'sell back' Valefor. At no cost but a refund of the price he had been bought for in the first place. If he was merely a murderer of women and children, I might have accepted that offer. But I wasn't feeling so merciful. I simply requested that Teacher do something 'special' for the man who had angered me like none before in this life.


Teacher's power to control his thralls is incredibly varied and customizable. He could modify their memories and feelings, not unlike Heartbreaker. Often so subtly so that no one would realize they were controlled at all. Or he could control them more mechanically. Force them to follow a specific set of behaviors, while still having full awareness. Yet no ability to exert their will. This is what I had him inflict upon Valefor, trapped in a body he could not control, but knowing and feeling everything that happened to it.


In a show that I am certain amused Lustrum to no end, he castrated himself publicly. I didn't pretend the act would earn me any personal favors from the militant feminist, but something like this was better done with approval from multiple block leaders. Her approval added legitimacy, in as much as such a thing existed here. And that was as much support as I needed from her that day.


Teacher's surgeons did their work, and Teacher himself modified his Valefor's power, making him generate an effect through touch that caused others to perceive him as an attractive woman, the exact details of which changed to suit the desires of the viewer. He now existed to service any of the men that might want to pay for the privilege. It was a satisfactory enough punishment for the man who had tried to murder my daughter. That it also served to cement peaceable relationships between a few of the more difficult cellblock leaders, and taught everyone to fear what I would do if someone truly angered me was mere side effects.


A thunderclap drew me from my thoughts of Valefor's punishment, and back to the television.

A huge monster appeared in front of the assembled capes. It was clearly armor plated and had four thick, powerful legs. As well as a pair of equally thick arms, with wickedly curved talons extending from several joints on its body. Several more of the beasts popped into existence.​

"In a startling new development, several creatures are appearing on the battlefield. Our crews are looking for better footage of them. The mysterious new arrivals don't appear hostile. They are positioning themselves ahead of the defenders. Information from local crews indicate that these monsters are controlled by heroes and meant to contribute to the fight."​

I remained impassive, watching the display, but I was impressed beyond words. No others chose to speak up, either. Teacher because we were much alike in our desire to hide our reactions. Others because they were afraid to interrupt as I watched my daughter display her power.


Nilbog was relatively fresh in the public memory when I was captured, one of the powers that caused terror across the eastern half of the United States. Amelia, and I knew it had to be her, was wielding that same kind of power, openly and without reservation. She was hailed as a hero for it. How the world must have changed for such a thing to be possible.

Dozens of other, horse sized catlike beasts with six legs and fanlike wings started appearing across the field as well. Some capes climbed on their backs. And yet another type appeared in the air. They looked like nothing so much as horse sized mixtures between a dragonfly and a hornet. "It seems this organization wanted to make a strong show-" the reporter woman paused. "There's yet another development."​

The camera swapped to an image of a large hospital building, if the large blue 'plus sign' above the entrance was any indication. A large mass of blue green vines were growing their way down the sides of the building at speeds that gave the impression of a banner being unfurled. It rapidly and completely shielded the building. Several people were on the roof, too far away to be identified visually. A dome rose up out of the mass and covered the roof, protecting those inside.
​

"We have confirmation that the strange plant, as well as the unidentified monsters, are from the Brockton Bay hero group known as Pantheon," the reporter supplied. "Led by Gaea and Khepri, the team has claimed to have developed weapons for the sole purpose of fighting Endbringers. It appears that these monsters are the weapons they spoke of."


They cut to a clip of the plant, called Yggdrasil, consuming portions of the boat graveyard.


So they cleaned that up as well, I thought. I also considered the incredible amount of skill and control it had to take Amelia to perform these feats. Clearly, she had a team with her. Someone to teleport these beasts onto the field, at the very least. If Valefor's information was correct- and it might not be, all I could know is what he believed was true- then her partner as the leader of Pantheon could control bugs. Did that mean she was also able to control these gigantic buglike monsters? An amazing power synergy.

"The group has made bold claims as to their ability to fight and kill the Endbringers," the reporter continued. "Gaea and Khepri vowing to postpone their future marriage until after the death of the monsters that have terrorized the world for decades."
​

The video footage switched to an obviously old recording of a young hispanic teenager.


"That's what my big sister said," the girl explained. "They won't get married while cities were still being destroyed every three months. So the Endbringers have to go. And then they can get married and have lots of babies and I'll be the cool auntie that they all love the most."
​

Big sister? I thought. I doubted a real biological relationship. Did the Dallons have another child? No, both of them were clearly very Caucasian. E88 ideal Caucasian, no less. Perhaps they got divorced and this was the product of a new spouse? I had no way of knowing from in here.


In their effort to fill in time before Behemoth's arrival, the news chose to display a few other scenes showing the girls, always together whether in costume and out. Including a few truly heartwarming shots of them sitting together under a tree at school. I recognized my daughter instantly. She had grown up beautifully, a fine blending of my features and her mother's. She also, I noted with a smile, inherited her father's taste in women.

"We have just received word!" the reporter woman spoke excitedly. "Behemoth has been sighted." The scene shifted back to New Delhi, showing the ground splitting and smoke billowing into the air. The massive face of the Endbringer showing itself before the heroes.​

I held my breath. This was it, I realized. The Endbringers play for keeps. If my little Amelia is half as powerful as she claims to be, then it truly is a matter of having to kill the monster. No matter what, by the end of this, either my daughter would be dead, or she'll have slain the herokiller.


Then the monster turned and dived into the ground.


He fled. Behemoth had run away.


===============


A/N- And there you have it. A day in the life of Marquis. Proud papa, Cellblock leader, classy villain, and sadistic son of a bitch when you press the 'protective father' button.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 110 (former 108)- Taylor


I saw Behemoth turn through the eyes of my army. Felt him leaving through the infravision of the shadowcats and the tremorsenses of the frostcats. I held my breath as he sank lower into the earth, too deep for my senses to go. Even then, I still couldn't believe it.


ConfusionAnticipationVictory? I looked over at Amelia. "No," I said. It was an absolute. "The fucker has something planned. I just don't know what it is."


DreadTrustConfidence. I smiled. Amelia believed me, and believed in me. I could handle this. I would not disappoint her.


That seemed to be the general consensus amongst the other capes. Only a small handful got off their respective mounts. There were no cheers. No celebrations. The field was silent, aside from the occasional chirp of the armbands, informing us of Behemoth's progress toward the Earth's core. We waited, tensed with adrenaline and fear. As Bakuda had once told me, it was a matter of fears. There was the the fear of the unknown, a fleeting and relative minor terror, as it only happened once. Then it was known, and that fear was gone.


Then there was the fear of certainty. Knowing what was coming, and knowing it would be horrible. The Endbringers were always that latter type of fear. They were the inevitable, the unstoppable. For almost two decades, they had taught us this fact. None of us believed that changed today. And so we continued to wait. For the next hour, and then the anticipatory terror started to abate. Rarely did Endbringer battles last this long. For better or for worse, the fate of the battle was decided early. If only thanks to the Golden Idiot's arrival.


I stayed vigilant, even as others started to relax. Then the last sliver of the sun vanished behind the horizon.


"Alert!" The armband chirped. "Simurgh sighted at SN-6. Sim-". She had dropped like a comet from the heavens, piercing the thick layer of stormclouds fast enough that wisps of vapor followed her down. Landing hard atop Dragon's flagship, shields burst in the collision and her she pierced the hull to the knees as the ship rocked to its side.


"Defiant down, SN-6," the armband felt the need to inform us. Simurgh bent down, straightening her fingers on her left hand like a knife, before punching through the armored plating. "Dragon down, SN-6." Simurgh leapt upward, kicking off of the damaged ship and sending it careening to the ground. An entirely meaningless gesture. In her left hand, she clutched the limp form of Dragon like a child with a rag doll.


Only then did the singing start. Endbringers love their drama.


I could feel the movement of my team. Each suit, alive. Each one I could track and even speak through. "Osiris, your job hasn't changed."/"Eki, laser then thermal, alternate between them. Don't waste time with other settings."/"Lachesis, can you get a lock on her?"


"Trying," Missy's voice answered back. "She's the fucking queen of precogs. Give me some time."


"Will do," I promised. I fanned out the Raptors, giving me hundreds of angles to view the Simurgh at. The capes fired with wild abandon, catching her with minor strikes as she casually evaded anything powerful enough to do any real damage.


"For 'murica!!!" Osiris shouted as he rushed in on his heavily customized variant of the Raptor. A kamikaze attack. One of the Simurgh's wings moved to block the impact and rapidly blossomed into ice crystals. Most of that ice was made from carbon dioxide. "Osiris deceased, SN-6"


I distributed the shadowcats outward. Simurgh wasn't like the other two, and I couldn't afford to treat her the same way. Spread out and keep moving, give her as many separate variables to track as possible. Her mental powers were frightening, but they weren't infinite. Like any precog, you just had to hit them with enough variables at once, and their effectiveness would plummet.


Alexandria rushed in, amid a chain of shots from Legend and Eidolon. A method they'd obviously used before, given the absolute perfect timing they executed. Simurgh use the ice shell on her wing to soak most of the attacks, then wing-slapped Alexandria upward into the sky. Where she was struck by lightning. Not a matter of powered attacks, simple natural lightning from the storm. Not enough to even phase the hero that gave the name to flying tanks.


"She's showboating," Amelia spoke from beside me. HorrorAngerFear. "That bitch is showing off."


"Osiris, go in for a hit from behind." "Eki, hold fire for my mark."


I sent a dozen of my unclaimed Raptors in for close range. They opened fire with a kaleidoscope of energy blasts, etching small lines of damage in her skin. Her frozen wing swept out, launching pieces of ice crystal. My raptors avoided most of them. But most is not all. "Flare deceased, RN-6. Screech down, RN-5. Plus six of my unmanned raptors. One peeled off from the attack to dive and catch Screech. He was still alive, and I dropped him down for one of the Shadowcats to bring to our hospital position. Even as the others kept up the attacks.


Another plume of ice blossomed, this time out of Simurgh's back. It laced around and between the joints of her body and wings. "Everything, now!" I told Eki.


The white hot stream of laser light struck out, catching Simurgh in the chest. It didn't stop there, this was the full fire mode. The beam cut a trail down her stomach to her hip before the reserve of power finally ran out. Enough power to melt a city block. Enough power to burn away one of the Simurgh's breasts.


"That's okay, they're probably fake anyway," Atropos joked.


ShockAmused. I even smiled, myself. It wouldn't show from through the costume, thankfully.


"Switch to sonic," Emma instructed over our private com system. It was only directed to Eki, but I heard anyway. She probably saw something I could not.


"Vertigo lance," Eki stated, swapping out for her other charged weapon.


Osiris came in for another strike, which Ziz evaded, slapping him way. I took direct control of the raptor and had it twist into her at the last second. It caught her leg, and then spread to the other.


"Everyone fall back," Emma told everyone on the armbands. "This is going to be big."


Eki rocketed upward, even as I pulled away all my flying units. Ziz rapidly started moving, evading like an expert dogfighter while trying to find cover from what was coming. Eidolon flashed a bright red-orange color, and the Simurgh was frozen in place by an aura of the same colors. Telekinesis? Time manipulation? Some kind of momentum nullifier? I didn't know, and now wasn't the time to speculate. It held her still just long enough for the sonic disruptor to go all out.


The area around her exploded, shattering glass even a mile from the epicenter of the attack. As it stood, the block she was above, and every block bordering it, splintered and collapsed. It was far more destructive than I'd expected. The names of dead and wounded started pouring through the com. Most of them were foreign. Indian or east European capes. Maybe African. None in languages I'd recognize or remember. Twelve wounded, eight dead.


The smoke cleared, revealing a Simurgh that looked like an ancient statue. Most of her surface had chipped and pealed off, exposing her deeper layers. The composition didn't look any different than her surface. Still the perfectly formed ivory coloration. But this was more damage than we achieved against Leviathan in Brockton Bay. Half a second later, Ziz was hammered into the ground by countless blaster attacks.


"Can you do that again?" Alexandria asked Eki over the armband.


"Needs time to recharge," Crystal answered. "Five minutes. More if I have to do anything else."


"Endbringers are comprised of crystalline material," Emma's voice came over the com. "Keep layering on the cold and sonic attacks. Eidolon, if you can spare a few minutes, I think I can show you how to kill the bitch."


Alexandria plummeted into the streams of energy attacks, landing atop Ziz and forcing her right back into the ground.


Energy blasts and missiles streamed across the city, slamming down into the defenders of the city. I did what I could to evade the attacks, but in more scenarios than not, ther was nothing that could be done.


"Apex down CM-3, Archon deceased ST-2..." I tuned out the rest. I already knew what happened. Mental commands were issued, sending the Shadowcats into full retreat, and the Raptors with them. I slammed the com. "The Dragon suits are compromised! The Simurgh has taken control of the Dragon suits!"


===============


A/N- Simmie's my favorite Endbringer. For reasons.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 111 (former 109)- Taylor


"God damn it," I yelled, but at least I deactivated the armband first. I moved my Gargants, which hadn't really been doing much in this fight before now anyway. Two of them leapt in a way a creature of their mass simply should not be able to, thanks to the antigrav built into their system. One was repelled by a suit's shielding. The other landed on top of it, and the shields buckled, allowing it to get a foothold into the metal.


It struggled with the armor plating, and I had to use the tusks' frost saws to cut through. Forcing the armor to become too brittle to survive the pressure.


It was a humbling thought, actually, that the Simurgh, generally regarded as the physically weakest Endbringer, cut through the same defenses in a couple seconds. A dozen icecats had taken position with their riders. If they believed they were strong enough to withstand Behemoth in close quarters, then I'd trust they were strong enough to take down these suits.


The names of the dead kept rolling in. "Myrddin down, SA-4. Shadowfax deceased, SA-4." I managed to get an empty Shadowcat in the way to take a missile that would have ended it for Myrddin. A brute I didn't recognize collided with the side of the ship.


Atropos took to the air, firing the discus-like weapons that we designed to best take advantage of her power. Slicing several missiles to pieces. They were getting too close to the hospital. Amelia wrapped a shell of living material around us. Moments later, a video showing the outside formed on the inner walls of the dome.


A nearby suit exploded for a reason I didn't recognize. Two of my gargants were brought down by railgun fire. God fucking damn it.


FearFrustration. "Concentrate on spreading the Yggdrasil," I instructed Amelia. "We're going to need it. We already need it." UrgencyFocusDetermination.


For her part, the Simurgh ascended into the air again, along with shattered fragments of destroyed Dragon suits. The distraction of all the friendly fire had given her an escape window. Her wings unfurled, revealing the still unconscious Dragon in her hand. She had shielded the tinker with her own body. She needs Dragon to command the suits, I realized.


I wasn't the only one to have that thought. Alexandria swooped in, not to go after Ziz, but to target Dragon. Meanwhile, one of the suits breathed a black cloud at a gargant. It simply ceased to to be, dissolved into ash and nothing. Along with the region around them. Armsmaster's weapon. I retreated all my remaining forces away from that system.


The Simurgh folded several wings about Dragon, protecting her from attack. She caught Alexandria and threw her into Osiris, causing the modified raptor to detonate and encase her in solid ice and liquid oxygen and nitrogen. Didn't slow Alexandria down, as she turned and body slammed into the Simurgh, shattering the ice ball.


"This... this is Defiant," a voice gasped over the armband. "Azazel's weapon is vulnerable to fire."


Not completely down, then. I explored the cockpit with my perfectly ordinary insects. One of Defiant's new weapons was embedded in the control system. That would explain why that suit didn't join the fight. He was in... in remarkably good, or remarkably bad, condition and I had no way of knowing which. Leg crushed all the way up to the hip, other leg crushed below the knee. An arm broken. But very, very little blood loss. A machine? A robot puppet like our changelings? Cyborg?


He had managed to cobble together a working vidscreen or somehow patch the monitoring system. That's how he knew Azazel was a problem.


"Eki, need your help on this one," I communicated.


"Inferno lance," was her response. Good, she was paying attention. A stray missile launched toward her, and I exerted my control system in her armor, juking her to the side. "Fuck!" she exclaimed, dropping the lance as the rocket traveled by and I let an empty raptor take the blow, simply to spare the two dozen riders I still had up in the air nearby.


"Inferno lance," she said again. I had no idea which of our tinkers built that little marvel, but that was fucking genius.


"Azazel," I said. "One with the silver death fog. Torch it with everything on my mark. Maximum burn, maximum dispersal."


She flew into position as I moved two of my three remaining gargants in position.


Legend's voice came over Osiris' armband. "Target the wounded areas," he instructed. "The ice seems to block her regeneration."


"Mark," I instructed.


The stream of superheated plasma was invisible to the human eye, or even infravision, before striking. Some tinker bullshit about making a laser out of pure heat, or something. I stopped asking questions right around the time Bakuda made a bomb thats only ability was to cause pain. Fucking tinkers. The ray struck, and blossomed into fires that rendered the street molten in mere seconds. It was a sort of curse in disguise that, by now, that there was nothing left in the area that could die.


The gargants rushed in, slamming both sides of the Azazel simultaneously. They didn't care about heat- being designed to withstand Behemoth's kill aura and everything else he might throw at them. But, then, neither did the suit. At least the weapon got through the force shielding that Dragon had implemented in her new armors, and burned away the nanothorn weaponry.


Then the last thing I could have expected happened. Snow started to fall. Not much, but this was mid August in India. Snow was not suppose to be falling. Now that I thought about it, the air outside our protective bubble was getting colder, if I judged by the insects becoming slower to respond. That was something we'd probably need to worry about later.


The gargants twisted Azazel's limbs, bending them into positions that would resemble a submission hold. But I wasn't trying to force it to submit, I was trying to crack it in half. Dragon must have really liked this one, I thought. It's tougher than the others by a whole fucking lot. The third gargant had made it on scene, landing atop Azazel, slamming it to the ground. I'd break it. Eventually the three of them had to get through.


"Running out of power, here," Eki announced.


Fuck, couldn't be that easy, could it? I had the Gargant leap upward again, then at highest point, made it deactivate its antigrav. Twenty times the mass of a bull elephant plummeted down, crashing into Azazel. The staff flickered out. And then my Gargants were consumed in the nanothorns. Azazel, at least, seemed stationary now. Protected by a thicket of instant death, but no longer running across the battlefield destroying everything.


But I was out of heavy hitters to bring down the other suits.


Of the nearly five hundred defending capes, we had lost seventy three of them simply from Dragon's weaponry. And we weren't even halfway through the suits. I was running on less than half of my original stock of troops, and most of them were Shadowcats. Only forty Raptors left, only a hundred Frostcats. I had to admit to mysef. If this had been a battle between my army and Dragon's, without other cape interference. We would have lost so badly.


"Vertigo lance," Eki spoke, taking her weapon back. "Clear the field," she instructed, and everyone fell back, except Alexandria and Osiris. The former had a strong grip around Ziz, her legs locked around the Endbringer's neck, even as she struggled to force the wings away that were insulating Dragon. Osiris was now smashing his mount along her outer wings. She was half encased in ice, not that it seemed to make a difference.


With half the suits destroyed, at least that gave me room to send my Shadowcats after the wounded. I had them evacuate from the area surrounding the Simurgh. Eki fired, and there was the now-expected shattering. The explosion of ice shards and the region around the Simurgh covered in fine frozen mist. She flew backward from the force of the explosion, leaving the cloud. A kick from Alexandria and a pelting of lasers from Legend sent the Simurgh careening toward the ground again. It was the opening that Alexandria needed.


She thrust forward into the pocket that Ziz created for Dragon, then flew back, her arm covered in viscera and holding a trail of material that could only be interpreted as a human spine. NauseaShockGrief.


"Dragon deceased, KP-4," the armband announced.


================

A/N- Ah, the bitching this and the next couple chapters caused. To preempt that happening again, I want everyone to repeat the words "fucking tinkers" ten times before posting complaints.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 112 (former 110)- Taylor


For a moment, I paused to absorb the thought. Alexandria killed Dragon. Alexandria killed Dragon. I had no insects in the area to confirm anything. Really, I had no insects at all but for a few in the houses, and inside the shelters themselves. A fine powder of snow lay on the ground, but the temperature had continued to drop even after the snow stopped. Aside the spots that were on fire, a thin layer of frost had formed on every surface.


"My units are starting to get sluggish from the cold," I said to the others on our private link.


It was Emma that answered back. "Sorry," she gasped. She was clearly out of breath. "Didn't build them for super cold climates. We were suppose to be fighting an Endbringer, not arctic weather conditions. Take them near the fires and let their energy absorption recharge their batteries."


Seemed obvious when it was said out loud. I sent the more important units, the Shadowcats, to where there was sufficient heat.


"You said something about killing her?" Eidolon asked over the armband. "What's your plan?"


"Sonic attack," Emma's voice cracked. I couldn't blame her for being a bit star struck. This was Eidolon, after all. "And I know just the power to make it happen. Minerva's found a guy who can speed time in a local area. I'll explain there."


And then the dragon suits opened fire again. Decimating my ranks and catching far too many of the defenders in the crossfire. Fuck! The Simurgh's suppose to be the least lethal of the three! We're already seeing losses as bad as Leviathan, and she's still in the fight.


"Dragon's suits are still in the fight," I announced over the radio. It didn't work. I wisely left those words out, but everyone was thinking them.


DisgustAngerBlame. I didn't disagree. And out there on the field, a lot of people were thinking the same thing. At least, the ones not caught in the thick of the fighting.


I felt something forming in the sewers, and looked at Gaea. "New shadowcats?"


"Acid," she answered. "Crystaline shells that should be able to bypass Dragon's shields. If the Ultralisks are any hint. Designed to detonate. Suicide attacks."


I nodded. A way to fight back. My new, what? Acidcats? Sure, why not? They were more than capable of climbing walls and breaking through streets. Not as fast or strong as the 'perfected' models, but I could tell she had absorbed and copied some of them with the Yggdrasil to produce these new weapons. I could almost imagine Osiris laughing that we finally took his suggestion, if he weren't busy with distracting the Great White Bitch.


A couple of them did manage to get through one suit's shielding. One was shot by some kind of kinetic weapon, but the other collided with the hull and exploded. Several gallons of Crawler-acid ate its way through the side. The other suits took off. Funny, they could have done that at any time. Why'd they stay on the ground this long?


Another salvo of missiles cut through our already decimated ranks, and I was lucky to save all the ones riding on what was left of my cats and raptors. We're losing this. We've already lost, only a few minutes until we're exposed to the song long enough to be Simurgh's future puppets.


Then another song started. A physical one, this time, a screech that I'd heard before. One that still brought dread. Shatterbird. The remaining suits splintered and collapsed, their glass ripped from them. The city itself wasn't effected, nor were our armbands. Eidolon rose up, encased in the shimmering and near invisible shell of glass. Was Shatterbird's power really that perfect? Did Eidolon simply get a similar, but better, power? Or was there a second power dedicated to this kind of focus?


The suits, at least, were no longer a factor. Eidolon rose and blasted Ziz with an intense sonic attack. Now I knew it couldn't be Shatterbird's power, she couldn't do that. The sound of the attack- as interpreted by my Raptors and their far superior to human hearing and echolocation- changed even as he fired, fluctuating in pitch and intensity. That's what the Shatterbird power was for. A way to alter the other attack on the fly. If you don't know which frequency hurts the most, take a power that lets you change it at will. It was hard not to feel inadequate compared to that kind of power and versatility.


Eki followed up with a stream from her laser weapon, leaving another scar across the Simurgh. This time through the biggest wing.


"I've got her!" Lachesis declared. She hit the coms. "Everyone fall back! The Moirai Cannon has a lock!"


Most of them listened. I drew away the few raptors that still had riders and began focusing on the empty raptors, including those that that had been repaired by Amelia. There was no pretense of survival. They collided with Ziz and tried to tear into her flesh. They had strength enough to cut the outer layers, but the deeper areas that had been exposed in the battle were seemingly indestructible. Like our weapon testing on Theo's armor. But they weren't the main event. They were the distraction.


Alexandria went in for another pass, slamming the Simurgh downward, again. God damn it, Alexandria. I wasn't feeling especially charitable to her right now. Killing Dragon for nothing. Well, if she was willing to let others make that sacrifice, she could make it herself. "Fire when you're ready," I instructed them.


"Alexandria," I warned her. I may not have been her biggest fan right now, but I couldn't simply order her murder. "Get out of the way! You're not immune to this weapon and we can't afford to wait."


She pulled up as the shot was taken. The side of the Yggdrasil bubble was pierced by the attack, and painfully cold air poured into our roof bubble. To call it a cannon was a misnomer. Really, it wasn't a traditional weapon at all. It was our Moirai at work. Three parahumans working in concert. Parian, Clotho, to control the streamers of spider's silk and make it flow properly. Vista, Lachesis, creating the path so we could actually hit the bitch. And Flechette, Atropos, charging the strips of silk so they could slice through anything. Hopefully, that included Endbringer cores.


Ziz never moved before like she moved then. She dropped to the ground, landing hard enough to leave a small crater. The streaming lines of barely visible silk twisted and followed her. She left a sonic boom as she jumped sideways, her halo of depris and weaponry forgotten as she focused all her telekinetic strength on herself. And then she leapt straight up. Legend pelted her with rays. She ignored them. Escaping the ribbons was more important than dodging Legend's attack.


She was near the thick, low cloud cover when she flashed with the green light again. Eidolon's stopping attack. It had been used exactly twice in this fight. Why? I didn't know. I really didn't care all that much. It was there when we needed it the absolute most, and that was more than enough for me.


The Simurgh turned, facing the fate laid out for her. Did she foresee this? Could she have? It seemed unlikely. We had two precog jammers as part of our Moirai. Then there was Eidolon, who, amongst many other entirely unfair abilities, was also precog immune. She put her arms out, as if she could block the inevitable. She could not. Even gods had to answer to the Fates.


The strings hit her hands first, her fingers split, and then the hands themselves splintered. Wings disintegrated under the nigh invisible, completely unstoppable, attack. We didn't know where her core was. We did know a single hit would not be enough, regardless of weapon used. Instead, we unleashed a million separate attacks. Death by papercuts, as it were.


A leg dropped, and was shredded. Her body was reduced to pieces no larger than a human fist. Her wings, scattered and mostly shredded as well. That's when the trio lost power. More specifically, Atropos reached her range and mass limit. The Simurgh started pulling itself together, telekinetically pasting its pieces back into place.


"We need a minute to finish the job!" Lachesis instructed.


Legend, Eidolon and Eki opened fire, blowing pieces out of, or away from, the Endbringer. Osiris got in and froze a good portion of the mass. The ice cracked as Simurgh forced her pieces out, and he struck again. We'd done more damage than anyone before. More damaged than anyone could have thought was possible, minutes ago. We'd finish her with the next salvo.


"Take cover!" Emma screamed over the armband.


Less than a second later, the sky exploded.


==============


A/N- Intense, no?

 

[Nigel Burnelli Isaacs]

Amelia, Ch 117- Marquis

Click to shrink...

I think you have a bit of a number problem here...

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 113 (former 118)- Mark and Carol


Sarah gave me a quick hug. "Hey, Mark, how've you been?"


"Well," I shrugged. "I don't have a lot to compare it to. In some ways, I feel better than I have since I was a teenager. In others... well, we have other things to worry about right now. No sense in throwing any more problems in your lap."


"Hey," she offered a small smile. "Dealing with problems is what I do, remember?"


I did remember. Sarah was always the heart and mind of New Wave. To the outside, it might have looked like Carol was our team leader. She was always the smart, confident and successful one. She just never quite had that charisma to lead a team of friends, or the mindset to handle the rapidly changing circumstances of the battlefield. She was happier in a orderly, mechanical world where everything obeyed specific and agreed upon rules.


Speak of the devil, Carol is already here. I spotted her as I walked in. "Hello, Mark," she said.


"Hey, Carol," I offered a smile. I hadn't talked to my wife much in the last couple weeks. Not since she learned I had been discussing joining the Protectorate. Calvert was a great deal more persuasive than their last director, and I was getting restless. I hadn't felt this good in years, this eager to actually go out to do some real good. Of course, I happened to live in a town where there wasn't much good left to actually do. Pantheon broke the drug trade into pieces, and violent crime was almost gone. Or, at least, the kind of crime that could be called 'professional', like muggings and rape. Personal crimes, like the violence at school, and fights in the refugee shelters, that sort of thing wasn't so quick to change.


"It'll still be a while before Behemoth surfaces," Sarah told us. "Please, make yourself at home."


"Don't mind if I do," I said, taking off my shoes. "Is the news saying anything?"


"Only that they think Behemoth's path is tracking northeast," Carol answered. "Looks like Pakistan is the target, now."


"Is there anything in Pakistan worth attacking?" I asked. "They usually have goals where they hit."


"A cape war, of sorts," Sarah answered. "Isolationist groups trying to cut off the middle east from foreigners, like the CUI did to China."


"Sounds like a prime location, then," I agreed. "If he's hoping the defenders might not cooperate with each other."


There was a knock at the door, where Sarah was still waiting. She opened it, revealing a tall and slender man that I didn't recognize. He was rather unremarkable looking, honestly. If I had met him before, I don't think I'd remember his face later. A new boyfriend? Good for her, being able to go on with her life after everything that's happened.


"I wasn't too late, was I?" he asked.


"Of course not, Danny, come right in," she smiled graciously. That was Sarah, alright. Always the professional hostess, even in a situation like this one.


He stepped in and looked at me. "Hello," I said, holding out my hand. "I'm Mark Dallon, you can call me Mark. Any friend of Sarah's is a friend of mine. Speaking of which, how do you know Sarah?"


"Daniel Hebert, call me Danny," he shook my hand. Firm grip, probably a bit too firm. Overcompensating because I'm a cape, I just smiled and ignored it. Nothing I hadn't run into before. "I'm Taylor's- err, Khepri's, father."


"Then you're practically family, already," I smiled, slapping his shoulder. This was Khepri's dad, then. I hadn't even met Taylor personally yet, but now that I knew to look, I could see the resemblance. Seems like Amy's fiance will never really 'fill out'. I suppose if either of them have a problem with that, they could always change it to something more their liking.


Carol walked right past us. "Sarah, a word in the kitchen."


Danny looked at my wife with an understandable amount of concern. Carol was never really the warmest person, and she'd gotten worse lately. She was angry at everything these days, and when she wasn't angry she was miserable. She never was good at dealing with feelings.


"Women folk need their alone time. You know how sisters are," I said, guiding the man away from the minefield before he accidentally set something off. "Come on, we were just about to start a game of 'guess where Behemoth's grave will be', but I'd rather learn more about the tall mysterious secret agent that ran off with my daughter's heart. The more humiliating the stories, the better."


"Sure," he agreed, putting Carol's behavior out of his mind. "When she was little, she basically worshiped Alexandria," he said smiling. "We'd find her running around in her pajamas with with a towel tied around her neck all the time."


I lost a good amount of my smile when he said that. I don't think Danny noticed. Victoria used to do the exact same thing. "Alexandria, huh?" I offered a bit of a laugh. "That explains a lot about her costume design choices."


He managed to chuckle a bit. Not much of one, but it was a start. No one could expect to be too cheerful minutes before an Endbringer attack, but I had every confidence in those girls. Tonight would be a celebration.


-----


"The hell are you thinking, bringing him here?" I hissed at Sarah. "You said this was family only."


"He is family, Carol," my sister retorted.


"His daughter's engagement to Amelia doesn't mean a thing," I insisted. I didn't care what Mark said on the issue. How could they just accept a stranger in like this without even considering my feelings? Why did it even surprise me? Sarah never listened, and the way Mark was acting these days was like a completely different person. He was never the most considerate person, but at least he tried before. Now it was like he wanted to upset me whenever possible.


"Then the part where his daughter is fighting alongside mine against Behemoth," Sarah responded. "That's enough for me. They're teammates. I know you know how deep that bond runs. Especially in teams which face Endbringers together. He's a good man, and he's facing the same fear we face when our own children put their lives on the line. No one should have to go through that, but we do. The least we can do is keep him from going through it alone."


I couldn't help but glance toward the living room, where Mark was asking all sorts of questions while they watched the news. "You should have talked to me first," I insisted. "It's not fair to blindside me with something like this. You know I don't like strangers."


Sarah deflated. "Sorry," she said. "I sort of forgot he's a stranger to you. I've gotten to know him pretty well the last couple months."


"Have you, now?" I replied. I looked straight into her eyes. Oh fuck. Was she really? Neil has only been dead for three months!


"We met when Pantheon did that cleanup operation at the boat graveyard," she told me. "He was so obviously Khepri's father that I was afraid he'd blow the whole secret on the news right then and there. After that, well, he needed to learn all the tricks capes use and the rules they play by. All stuff I wish someone told us back when we were new to the scene. At least he already knew how to handle the PRT when they wanted to play hardball."


"I see," I confirmed when she finished. I didn't even really pay attention. She was... and him... and how was I even suppose to take that? The truth was, couldn't. There was no way for me to approach the topic without it ending up in a fight that I would lose, at a time when Sarah needed the support most. I bit my tongue, and picked my battles. It wasn't like this was the first man my sister was interested in that I didn't like.


She picked up on my continuing disapproval, of course, but didn't push the issue. "So," she said. "I see what you mean about Mark, he seems so... energetic, now."


I relaxed, that was a safer topic. "He acts so immature," I knew I was just complaining now, but it felt good to complain sometimes. "It's like his personality was completely rewritten."


"And you suspect Amy is re-"


"Amelia," I interrupted. "She's decided she's Amelia, remember?"


"You think it's Amelia's fault," Sarah continued.


"Who else?" I said. "People don't just change like that on their own."


"I don't think he has changed," Sarah offered. "Yes, he acts different than usual. But I remember his good days, when we were younger. The days where he was functional, even without the medication to balance him out? He was always energetic, silly even. Remember how he'd spend all day just playing with the kids like he was one of them. Maybe that's just who he is, without the depression and the drugs getting in the way."


I paused. It was true. It didn't happen often, and less often as the years wore on, but those were the days where the kids were happiest.


"Get in here!" Mark shouted. "It's starting!"


And with that, the conversation was over.


We rushed in to witness Behemoth leaving.


"He... he retreated?" I heard Sarah gasp.


"Not possible," I insisted. "Endbringers don't retreat. He has something else planned."


We watched, and waited in near silence for over an hour, listening to comments and speculation from people that had no idea what they were talking about. All of which was interrupted when the Simurgh dropped from the sky.


"Fuck!" Mark exclaimed. The rest of the battle was almost impossible to parse. The cameras were high quality, but thick cloud cover at night makes for awful lighting conditions. Most of it was us staring at nearly black screens, parsed by flashes of light as the heroes tore into the Simurgh with one energy attack after another. We only figured out the Dragon suits were attacking when it was nearly already over.


We were treated to a truly horrifying scene when Alexandria ripped a hero who had been captured by the Simurgh in half. Somehow, it happened within feet of one of the still functioning cameras, and there was enough light from a nearby burning building to make it easily visible.


"She wanted everyone to see that," I muttered. It was an obvious statement, there were no arguments made. It was only then that the video stopped.

"Channel nine would like to issue an immediate apology," he said. "We should have stopped the video the moment we realized it was the Simurgh at the scene. While it is not illegal to show footage of Endbringers, it was irresponsible to do so knowing the Simurgh's skill for manipulation. We urge the public to exercise discretion. The Simurgh relies on paranoia and irrational behavior to spread the worst of its damage. We will not be displaying more video of the battle itself, and urge other stations to take the same action."​

"I never knew things were like that..." Daniel whispered.


Sarah put her hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry," she said. "Your daughter is strong, she'll make it through. They all will."


For the next few minutes, we watched speculation by the various talking heads about what we'd witnessed. Generally, it was agreed that whatever unfortunate cape the Simurgh had captured was already dead, and what Alexandria had done must have been for a reason. Nothing but the PRT lapdogs in the media trying to cover for a hideously gruesome act.


"They'd be better off just not taking about it at all," I stated. "The speculation's just going to make things worse in the long run."


"Video's already out," Sarah agreed. "The cameras are live feeds, streaming online as well as broadcasting directly. I'm sure the internet is going to have every last scene available, both raw and in edited format. They can't suppress this."

"Contact with the site of the battle has been lost," the anchorman stated. "They're still trying to determine the cause. Reports are coming in from other cities in India. It appears a massive explosion has taken place, reaching as far south as Hyderabad and as far west as Pakistan."​

We watched breathless for the next half hour, as they showed low quality video of the devastation. We sat through words like 'destruction of most of the Indian subcontinent' and 'cataclysmic effects for the environment'. Eventually they found one good view. A weather satellite that had been watching the stormfront we'd seen from the cameras in New Delhi.

A flash of light started in northern India and we watched it spread down, and then along India's coastline, making its way inland until it had covered almost everything. It was a rapid spread, but not nearly as fast as speed of light should have been. Like watching a fire spread across a pool of gas. Then the light vanished, and with it all the clouds that were there before the explosion happened.​

"It appears the explosion originated at the point of New Delhi," the anchor said shakily. "What this means for the Endbringer, those brave men and women defending the city, and the future of India and the world as a whole is currently unknown."


"Amy," I gasped, the tears coming hard. I looked at the others. Daniel and Sarah were currently holding each other. Mark was staring at the screen in disbelief. And I couldn't stop shaking. I just lost my remaining daughter.


====================


A/N- Still intense, no?

 

[Slayer Anderson]

I think you have a bit of a number problem here...

Click to shrink...

TanaNari mentioned that he wanted to reorder a few chapters, if he had the chance, specifically the "Parents of Pantheon" chapters so that the plot was better paced around the Endbringer battle.

I guess he had the chance, but missed changing the chapter numbers.

 

[Nigel Burnelli Isaacs]

TanaNari mentioned that he wanted to reorder a few chapters, if he had the chance, specifically the "Parents of Pantheon" chapters so that the plot was better paced around the Endbringer battle.

I guess he had the chance, but missed changing the chapter numbers.

Click to shrink...

Hence why I mentionned a number problem instead of saying he posted the wrong chapter.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 114 (former 111)


Parian screamed as a gust of flame burst through the hole left behind by the Moirai cannon. The port was sealed by a mirror metal. Theo's power. I could feel the temperatures through my Yggdrasil. It would have been enough to scour the usual design. But this variant was meant to withstand Behemoth, if at all possible. Heat converted to electricity converted to magnetic storage systems that Emma and Riley had taught me how to grow.


It was hell, on the other side of the bubble. A mush that I only realized was asphalt after the Yggdrasil started to consume it. The sewer lines had collapsed, molten materials dripping down onto the established Yggdrasil. There were pockets where things were still cool enough to remain standing. But the air was deadly hot, even within the sewer tunnels. The surface had to be worse.


"I'm blind outside of this building," Taylor said, her voice trembling. HorrorFearRealizationGrief. "The Gargants, the cats, even the insects in the shelters. It's all gone. Eki's still alive out there. She's covered herself in ice. I can't find Osiris, Emma, Minerva or Chariot. Past that? There's nothing, except some worms deep in the soil."


I cringed. She still had relays in the Yggdrasil. Her range extended for miles in every direction. A nuclear bomb- a thousand nuclear bombs set off on top of each other- couldn't have done what that explosion had done. If the suits were destroyed, there was almost no chance their wearer had survived, except Osiris. It must be a nightmare for him out there.


"Theo!" Missy exclaimed. I spared the chance to look. Blood was pouring fron his side. A cut through his armor? Oh. Flechette's power hadn't completely deactivated. "What... why would you?" She sobbed. "You knew not to get in the way."


I couldn't hear what he said to her from over here. I wasn't sure he could say anything, considering that at least one lung had to have been bisected.


"Heal him!" She insisted. I hesitated. If I pulled my concentration away... a lot of people would die. Crystal likely amongst them. The suits were durable, hers more than most, but they weren't indestructible. A lot of capes were tough enough to withstand at least the area somewhat further away. Some could handle it permanently, others for only a few minutes at most. Theo was... one life compared to potentially dozens...


"Riley," Taylor spoke up. She was checking on Flechette, whose suit was all but destroyed by the flames. "We'll worry about the consequences later. Let her work."


Good idea, I thought. I took the briefest time necessary to die her hair black. A very simple modification of the Dryad touching her scalp. The back of my suit split, letting her out. She rolled backward and landed on her feet, then bolted over to Theo.


"Clarice?" Missy asked.


Riley nodded. "I need you to grab some things from in the hospital..."


I turned my attentions back to the outside. Finding the few identifiable zerg bodies was always an advantage, when I could. They were built for shunting heat and other types of energy. I subsumed them into the Yggdrasil, made all the easier because that was part of their design from the beginning. How we were supposed to face Behemoth.


The building rumbled. "Behemoth?" I whispered. Half a question, half a prayer that I was wrong. I pushed more of the Yggdrasil mass into the basement and forced it to reach out through the stone to anchor itself and give me some idea what had happened. No, it wasn't Behemoth. Or, if it was, he was being unusually subtle about it. The area around the hospital was shifting due to part of it being heated to a liquid state. That was taking the building with. I managed to lock it in place, at least for the time. It, too, would collapse in a couple days.


Our 'viewscreen' finally managed to reactivate, showing us the outside world. I almost wished it hadn't.


Nothing was left standing except this one building. The streets reduced to molten tar, the buildings on fire, collapsed into rubble, molten into slag, or some combination of all three. Some parahumans were still active, and I kept forcing the Yggdrasil outward with every ounce of will I could muster. Now that I could see, I could pick my battles better. Directing the tendrils in specific directions. Knowing which intersections were worth punching paths to the surface.


A zone looked like it hadn't been annihilated. A dozen people clustered inside. Some kind of forcefield user? Clearly an insanely powerful one to have withstood that blast.

Steam was pouring out of some areas. Busted water lines, probably. The defenders reacted intelligently, at least. We were the only place still standing. The only thing that looked like refuge. They were coming to us. I grew paths of Yggdrasil, and expanding islands of it where I could see people further off. There was nowhere left to target. Almost everyone left was already dead.


Alexandria had Legend's cape wrapped around her, and she was carrying an obviously wounded Eidolon. Her helmet had been destroyed in the explosion.


I changed the color of part of our protective dome from its current refractive silver to a dark grey. A clearly visible sign of where to go. I created other such openings at the base of the building. Places where people could get inside from the heat and potentially deadly gasses. I built other safety pockets where I could, now that I had time. Enveloping the few still living in Yggdrasil pods now that they were close enough, and I had the spare material.


The air was cooling, at least. Less heat meant less energy, making my vines respond more sluggishly as they did their thing.


The hatch opened for Alexandria and Legend. Now that we were closer, I could tell that Legend was injured, too. Not as badly, and more uniformly, than Eidolon.


"He needs medical attention," Alexandria commanded even as she dropped down. The injury she received from Siberian so many years ago still looked fresh and raw. There was metal dripping from the open wound. Her helmet, maybe? No, it was deeper than that. A prosthetic face replacement? RecognitionSurprise.


"Set him down, I'll handle the rest," I answered. The Yggdrasil wrapped around him. Infused into his burnt flesh and muscle. Here I was restoring Eidolon. I'd be restoring a lot of people soon. At least that would be easy for me, now. All the other lives I could have saved, if I'd had the courage to make Yggdrasil years ago. All the lives that it wasn't able to save here and now.


Alexandria froze, looking at Riley. PanicTerror. Her fist clenched. Legend saw her reaction, and saw the girl. Fuck. I brought up a wall between them. Didn't believe for a second it would stop Alexandria or Legend. I needed Missy to realize something was wrong. Alexandria glared at me accusingly. "You're har-"


"Endbringer truce," Taylor interrupted. Oh god thank you. "We don't attack each other during the truce. We don't reveal identities learned during the truce, either. You never saw her. Did you, Chief Director?"


Alexandria stood there for a minute, glaring at Taylor. Taylor stood her ground, placing herself between one of the strongest heroes on the planet, and the child monster that had tortured her and mutilated her friend not so long ago.


Alexandria's good eye narrowed. "No, I suppose I did not," she responded. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "I'm going to find and ferry back more survivors. Can you lend me one of your armor systems? It's difficult to breath out there."


"Not without time we don't have," I answered, a bit hesitantly. In all the Endbringer fights I had attended in the past, I'd never met Alexandria in person before. I had certainly never come within heartbeats of being killed by her. "They're very much custom designed. I can give you something that'll at least give you some modesty and an air supply, though. That'll do for now, right?


"That will do," she answered. She handed Legend his cloak back before I'd even begun. The woman didn't seem too particularly concerned about her state of undress. Then again, if I had her figure, I'd feel like I was doing something wrong by wearing clothing. EnvyAnnoyance.


I folded the Yggdrasil around her body. A full suit, designed specifically to convert the excess heat in the atmosphere into oxygen production. It wasn't perfect, but it should last well enough. It was, of course, face concealing. The same organic viewscreen technology that went into all our systems. I adjusted the suit's pigmentation to loosely match her actual costume. She flew back out. The same hot air gusted in. It was still hotter than most ovens could get. No hope for normal humans to survive.


WorryConcern. I could feel Taylor trying to offer me some kind of comfort. But there wasn't any to be had. Crystal was out there. Zach, at least, I could trust to make it through. But she was right there in the epicenter. Where Simurgh was destroyed. Somewhere in the pool of liquid glass and molten metal that was almost as wide as the crater where we built our base.


"Is it going to be like this next time?" I asked. "Will each dead Endbringer result in this kind of destruction?"


"I don't know," Taylor responded. "If it is... will it be worth it?"


As I stood there, putting most of my concentration on speeding the abilities of the healing pods and stabilizing the wounded within, I found I had no answer for that question.


===================


A/N- Know what? I think this chapter needed some work. So I did it. Enjoy the improved version.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 115 (former 119)- Marquis, Danny, and Sarah


My fingers clutched my seat so hard that they bled, and I didn't even notice. Watching the fires spread across India. Knowing my Amelia was in the center of that inferno. Not knowing what happened as the news speculated about death tolls and environmental bullshit. I would have screamed at the television, if not for all the witnesses.


No one said anything for a while, and then Lung spoke up. "That didn't get her," he stated with absolute certainty. I looked at him, but he was his usual inscrutable self, watching the screen with a combination of deadly focus and bored aloofness.


"Not that I would even consider questioning your wisdom," Teacher spoke up. "But I'm afraid I'm stumped as to how you know that."


"The bug girl," Kenta elaborated. "She survived me twice. Using nothing but little bugs. If I can survive it, then she can survive it. That, right there," he pointed at the screen. "That is something I can survive."


I hid my shock better than some of the men. Lung's claim that he could withstand such an inferno was a bit hard to swallow. Certainly, he was powerful, but this was a firestorm that engulfed almost all of India. I wasn't exactly top of my geography class, but that was a pretty big area. In fact, the expert they had speculating on the damage estimated that the area covered was over four times the size of texas. It was hard to believe that even he could survive in that.


Which was nothing compared to the sheer incredulity of believing that Lung could be fought by mere insects.


Teacher was as nonchalant as usual, however. "Hard to argue with that logic," he acquiesced. "Smart money is that the girls are alive and well. Now for the real million dollar question: do you think they got Her?"


Teacher didn't need to use the name, we knew who he meant. Lung simply shrugged noncommittally, as he often did.


I smiled. "I'll take the bet, if you want to make one," I said. "They said they had an Endbringer killer, and I believe them. So it's one down, two to go."


"I'll pass," Teacher replied. "I only gamble when I know I'll win."


A hollow platitude from Teacher, no surprise. He knew he had nothing to gain from claiming he disagreed with me right now, much the same as he chose not to argue with Lung. And he possibly had a great deal to lose. Few people were brave enough to tell Lung he was wrong to his face, and even if he might talk back to me in private, or during Court, he'd never do so as a guest in my territory.


----


Sarah clung to me as we watched. I felt awkward. I never was good at offering comfort, I thought. I'm not good at confronting loss, either. Right now I was staring at the screen, willing it to change. For Taylor to be alright. Was it selfish of me that I was less worried for the others? That Amelia and Crystal and the others didn't matter as much to me as Taylor did? I decided it didn't matter. If that made me selfish, then I was selfish.


"They'll make it," Mark insisted. He didn't sound convincing. Carol was staring silently, her hands over her mouth. She didn't bother to hide her tears.


I put my arm around Sarah. Not much comfort, I know. I hoped that a little bit of Annette's ability to give great hugs had rubbed off on me.


"Tell me they'll be okay," she mumbled into my shoulder. I couldn't. I didn't want to be a liar.


It was almost an hour later when the news finally had something new to say about the circumstances at New Delhi, now known as Ground Zero. Australian news, at that.

"...American parahuman known as Legend, a survivor of the New Delhi incident, arrived in Perth." The showed him, of course. He looked quite a bit worse for wear, wearing a different costume than we were use to him wearing, an ugly brownish affair, but it did have his symbol on it.​

"I want to let the world know," Legend stated for the camera crews that had hastily assembled at what was no doubt the middle of the night for them. "There are survivors in New Delhi, and the battle with the Simurgh has ended. We deployed a new weapon against her, one which was capable of slaying the Endbringers outright."​

"And by 'we', you mean our daughters!" Mark declared.

"The Simurgh sustained massive damage during the initial use of the weapon, and immediately attempted to flee. When she was prevented from escaping by the defending capes, the weapon was deployed again. It appears she self destructed when she was destroyed."​

"They're alive," I declared, as Legend continue to offer details. Everyone looked at me, and I was suddenly quite aware of how I was dealing with experienced heroes. "Legend's outfit," I clarified. "It looks like something Taylor puts over her armor when she wears it home. She says it's to keep it repaired when away from the base."


"Which means Amelia had to make it," Carol was the one who spoke up, her voice wavering.


"And if Amelia's alive, then so are the others," Mark laughed. "Told you we'd be having an End of the Endbringer party tonight!"


"Taylor said the same thing," I managed to genuinely smile for the first time since this morning. "Something about Mayors and getting our asses kissed."


"Sounds like a plan," Mark said with a smile. "Are we gonna have to dress up and pretend we care about what year a bottle of wine came from?"


"Probably," I chuckled. "Let's just hope they don't expect me to know all the forks."


----


Danny held me as we kept watching the news. Knowing that our daughters made it had lifted a weight off of me.


"There won't be any celebrations," I told Mark. "The Simurgh's been destroyed, but she made the victory hollow. A billion people dead, entire countries depopulated. No one's going to celebrate this. They might even look for someone to blame."


Danny squeezed me a little tighter. It was nice. "Sarah's right," he agreed. "This... this is massive. Simurgh was always the hope killer of the three. The one that, how did they put it? Even if you win every battle, you still lose the war."


"Fuck," Mark cursed. "It's true, isn't it? There's no way to call this a victory without looking like the biggest assholes on the planet."


I nodded. This proved it, didn't it? They beat the Simurgh. They beat her and they killed her and they survived the destruction she brought down on them after. "Do you think Amy was right?" I asked, then I realized they didn't know what I meant. "About her being able to stop the Endbringers. She said if we'd let her really use her powers fully, she could have stopped Leviathan from destroying Brockton Bay."


I left the last part of the question silent: Would my husband and son still be alive?


No one had any answers for that question. Carol couldn't even look me in the eyes, and Mark... I just reminded them of everything they'd lost.


"I don't think so," Danny said. "Maybe she could have slowed him down, I don't know. But Taylor made it pretty clear the only reason these monsters and weapons they built work is because it's a team effort. Taylor to control them. Without her, they're too dumb to fight. Amy to build them. A bunch of tinkers to upgrade them enough to actually work. I'm sure you guys know the shit Emma put Taylor through. She's part of their team now, because they needed her powers to do what they did to Simurgh. She didn't even have powers when Leviathan attacked. No matter how you look at it... no, they wouldn't have been able to kill Leviathan back then."


"Thanks," I said, and squeezed him. "That means a lot."


"I... I think I'm going to go home," Carol said. "There's... I just. It's been a rough day. I'm sure you understand."


Mark watched her, then looked back at us. "I should probably..."


"Yeah," I agreed. "Go." He didn't wait for me to finish the sentence.


Danny waited until after they'd left, before looking at me. "So, am I allowed to ask, or is this one of those complicated family things that I'm better off not worrying about? Don't worry, I won't be bothered if it is. Discretion and valor and all that."


"No, it's fine," I assured him. "You know that Amy practically disowned us, right?"


He nodded. "Taylor told me something to that effect. Said Amelia called you kidnappers."


I flinched. That was a painfully close to true. "We... she's Marquis' biological daughter. We didn't know about her until after we'd arrested him. We weren't left with a lot of choices."


"I can see where that would be a problem," he agreed. "I remember those days. Letting Marquis go would have been bad for everyone. He had a lot of enemies, and some of them would have hurt Amelia. Or took her away to see what powers Marquis' daughter might develop. Considering the power she did get, it's a good thing she had a good family to look after her. Could you imagine if she was raised by Kaiser, for example?"


"We made a lot of mistakes with her," I said. "When she told us off, well, she accused us of making her scared of herself and her powers, and talked about how easy it was for her to stop the Slaughterhouse Nine. Considering how she destroyed them and E88 when she cut loose, I believe her."


"Right," He nodded. "She could have. Maybe not Siberian, but I can't imagine the others would put up much of a fight."


"Especially if she had Taylor's help from the beginning," I added, and he smiled. It was nice seeing him play proud father like that. "If she had stopped the Nine early, then Victoria, Glory Girl, wouldn't have died fighting them."


His eyes widened in realization. "Oh, that's," he looked toward the door. "When you... then they..."


I nodded.


"Christ," he shook his head. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."


"You didn't do anything," I insisted. "I was the one who brought it up, all you did was try to comfort me."


"Daniel Hebert, always saying the wrong thing to the parents of the bride," he offered a smile.


"It happens," I smile back. I was suddenly very aware of how very close we were, and the tear stains I left on his shirt. Like Carol said, it had been a rough day. We just looked into each others eyes for a couple minutes, not saying anything. He was sweet, in an awkward dorky sort of way. I leaned in a little, and he did the same.


Then, hesitantly, I moved in and kissed him. He kissed back.


================


A/N- D'awww.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 116 (former 112)


Three hours later, we'd already found everyone that could be found. Two hundred and sixty two people. All of them in this hospital. The sum total of survivors in the city of hundreds of thousands. Most of whom were in the hospital before the fight even started. Then there was the destruction beyond. Our initial guess... all of Delhi had been destroyed in the explosion. All of it, millions of people. I couldn't even parse that into perspective.


Crystal had survived, if barely, encased in a shell of ice by her own weapon. Third degree burns and frostbite. The only thing that saved her from hypothermia was the emergency life support. Emma as well, in slightly better condition. Alongside a barely breathing Clockblocker. She managed to hold out and cool off a pocket of the sewer system with her power. As we'd learned already, her 'ice' state works better when there's more energy to draw upon. She biotinkered the hell out of poor Dennis to keep him going, and Riley was still undoing and rebuilding the mess.


Zach had made it back, almost on his own. Naked. Apparently if he's destroyed often enough, quickly enough, his power 'forgets' his outfit and other stuff. He didn't have a lot to say, I gave him a close copy of his costume, like I'd done for others who made it back without clothing, which turned out to be most of them. Powers that let you survive hell were apparently more common than powers that let the area around you survive hell as well.


Lisa and Chariot weren't among the survivors.


Legend finally returned. He'd left after I healed his injuries. They were strange, in the way breakers always are when injured in their alternate forms. Spread out unnaturally and mostly across the surface, instead of deeper inside where there was real health risks. He landed through the now permanent opening in our Yggdrasil bubble.


"Dragon will be along shortly," he told us.


ConfusionHope. "Isn't she suppose to be dead?" Taylor asked.


"Some kind of robot decoy," Legend responded. Then he sat down on one of the makeshift chairs I'd built. "We got the Simurgh, though. Every instrument that's been used agrees with that assessment. She's gone. Destroyed. They're keeping all samples collected during prior battles under watch, in case they activate and try to regenerate."


"You sound remarkably unhappy about that," Flechette observed.


"No, I'm glad for that," he hesitated. "I just wonder about the cost. It's worse than we thought out there."


Alexandria was the one to ask the question. "How much damage did it do?"


"Hundreds of miles," Legend answered. "Most of India, into Pakistan and a few other countries. Even the most conservative estimates are at over a billion people."


AweDreadRemorse. "Fuck," Taylor muttered. That one word said it all, didn't it?


"She made it worse than it had to be," Legend replied. "The reason it was so cold is..."


"She froze the fucking sky," Emma interrupted. "She used my technology. Created an ice sheet out of the clouds, kept it there with our antigravity and maybe her own telekinesis. When the explosion went off, it was reflected downward and outward. Not all of it, of course. But a shaped explosion that caused more destruction than there might otherwise be by an order of magnitude. Everything else. Dragon's apparent death. The fight with the suits. All of that was nothing but a delay tactic so she could get off that one final 'fuck you' to the world."


"Our technology..." Taylor chuckled painfully. "Our freezing tech. Our antigravity. Waiting until the moment our superweapon looked like it was about to win this fight. This was a message to us, to everyone, but especially to Pantheon. Letting us know that even if we win, we lose."


"She wants us to be afraid of trying this again," Alexandria agreed. "We are, of course, trying it again. Right."


That wasn't a question. A billion dead. A fucking billion. One out of every five people on Earth. More devastation than all the Endbringers combined had wrought in decades. What kind of psycho wanted a repeat showing of that? The same kind that could execute a hero in the middle of a battle, I reminded myself. A plan that didn't even work. The fact that it wasn't really Dragon didn't matter. Alexandria couldn't have known that.


"We'll have that discussion later," Taylor said with finality. I continued to be in awe of how she could confront Alexandria as confidently as she did. Of course, it did help that I patched up Flechette first. Her costume wasn't in perfect condition right now, but between her and Missy, we had the superior firepower if it came to a fight. Unless Legend and Eidolon stepped in. Then we were probably fucked.


We still had to talk to Flechette and Parian, and probably Theo and Missy, about Riley, I realized. I don't know if they'll even want to work with us anymore.


"There's no reason to make rash decisions," Taylor continued. "We have months before the next Endbringer. Maybe we can find a better way before then. Refine our technology. The Simurgh was always the most dangerous target, to us. The one that was most likely to avoid our weapon. She failed at it, probably because..." She paused. Probably decided she didn't want to give away our anti-precog systems. "The other two should be easier."


Alexandria's expression was impossible to read through the mockup of her costume that I built for her. "There will be an international summit about this," she stated. "That's a certainty. They won't let us participate, because we're parahuman. But they're almost certainly going to try to make the decision for you, one way or the other. Be ready for the fallout from that."


First implied threats, then a warning about international politics? Are we sure she's immune to Simurgh's power?


"I sent the message to the rest of the team," Taylor told me. "We're heading home."


"But... the rest of the wounded?" I asked.


"Are in your pods," she said. WorryFearClaustrophobia. "They'll recover before anything evolves that can feed on your Yggdrasil. If only because the area's been pretty thoroughly sterilized. There's nothing more for us to do. And the longer we stay here, the worse things might get."


"Okay," I answered. She's right. We need to go home. The rest of the group slowly arrived. At least we'd had the good sense, eventually, to give Riley a makeshift copy of Aceso's outfit. Much as I had for many others.


With everyone in place, I encased us in a specific kind of Yggdrasil and activated the last of our jump devices, pulling the whole mass out of our dimension, and into the new one. Teleportation without actually teleporting. It was based as much on Trickster's power as anything, and an equal amount of Yggdrasil mass from our private earth was shunted back into normal space. I let the shell 'taste' the air around us. Almost no excess radiation. Our suits would have been fine, even before I started 'scrubbing' the planet, but I was a bit gunshy given everything else we'd been through lately.


The bubble collapsed into the Yggdrasil. This patch, its genetic memory, would be kept. All the stuff I learned in that inferno. A new code I wouldn't have to think about to copy, as long as I had access to our base, or our world.


"Oh, thank god," exclaimed a voice behind me. "I thought we'd have to walk all the way to fucking North America."


=============


A/N- Is true. CAN we be sure Alexandria's immune to Simurgh?

 

[TanaNari]

Canon Omake provided by Epsilon Rose over at SB:
​

The Fairy and the Revolutionary Watch the News.
​

"I still fail to see why everyone is so interested in this fight. Surely, it has been repeated a thousand times before: the Dragon will rise from the earth, brutalize the assembled capes, ravage the landscape, and return from whence it came when it finally grows bored."

I raised an eyebrow. "You don't think the defending capes are what drive him off?"

She laughed and, if anything, it was worse than when she spoke. Her chorus made what should've been a tinkling giggle, cacophonous and mournful. "Oh my, no. A dragon comes and goes as it pleases. The slings and arrows of mortals are wholly insufficient to drive it off."

"Well then, you should enjoy this fight. I hear there's a new group that styles themselves as gods. They're even claiming to have a weapon that will kill the Endbringers."

"Do they truly? Tell me, who is their leader? Cronus? Zeus? Odin?"

"Gaia and Kephri, actually."

"Gaia, I can understand, but I would not have expected the dung beetle to lead gods. Perhaps he has grown tired of pushing the sun up each day." She asked as one of her shades turned the TV to the proper channel.

"Actually, Kephri is a woman. I don't know much else beyond that though."

"Aha! Is that why you're so interested? A continuation of your old movement? Are, perhaps, you hoping for more allies in your war against men?"

I huffed and crossed my arms. "Is it really is so much to believe that I want to see when one of those monsters finally gets killed?"

"Oh, but dear Lustrum, the raging Titans shall not reach us under this hill. Why should we care if they live or die?" The self-proclaimed Fairy Queen was laughing again, but I wasn't really listening. The fight hadn't started yet, so the news program was doing a biopic on Pantheon's leaders. They currently had a video of the two girls sitting under a tree, out of costume, and I thought I recognized one. I knew from the incident with Valefor that one of them was Marquis's daughter, and the similarity was easy to spot, but the other —

"You are not listening." A hint of irritation had entered Glaistig Uaine's voices.

I winced, the unexpected sight had distracted me, but antagonizing the insane para-human was one of the last things I wanted to do. "My apologies. Kephri looks familiar, and it caught me off guard. I think I knew her mother."

"Ah. Was she one of your followers or, perhaps, a lover?"

I was saved from having to answer by Behmoth's appearance and near immediate retreat. "That's it? They scared him off. Just like that?"

She snorted. "Of course not. Dragons do not simply retreat. Especially before battle is even joined. Even Marquis's pet knows that much."

I nodded. "That is true, on both counts." I snorted at the thought of his idiotic bravado. Lung's stunt with Bakuda had nearly gotten him killed, it probably would have if she had been in my block, all so he could prove he had the biggest dick. "I suppose that means we'll have to wait until he plays his hand. I wonder, in the meantime, would any of your… Fairies be able to give us more insight into Pantheon's members?"

"Hmmm…" She closed her eyes as her shades faded out of existence and three new ones appeared surrounding her. They whispered in her ears for a few moments before she opened her eyes again and started grinning. "Well, the Shaper and the Queen Administrator have certainly gathered an interesting court. It seems, they have even begun to glimpse the script we are meant to follow. Perhaps they truly will be worthy of their name." She started laughing again, but this time it was louder and the chorus was less mournful.

We had a few hours to wait till the Simurgh finally made her appearance and only a few minutes more until the fight was done.

"Goddess." I breathed. "They really got her. The Simurgh is dead."

"So it would seem."

"She burned India. The bitch couldn't just let us have the victory, could she?"

Glaistig just raised her hand. "Such is the result of Titanomachy. There will be more to come, torchbearer. Perhaps even our hill shall shake before all is through and done. Good day to you Lustrum."

I accepted her dismissal for what it was, said my goodbyes and headed back to my block to think about what I had seen and what the Fairy Queen had said.


=============

A/N- It's canon except for the one (uncaught until this moment, error at saying the fight lasted "a few minutes". Simurgh's power takes longer than that to set in, and they were close to the wire.

The overall battle probably took an hour or two.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 117 (former 113)- Interlude


"Oh thank god," Chariot exclaimed. "I thought we'd have to walk all the way to fucking North America."


"Chariot?" Taylor exclaimed, then she looked to see the thirty seven others, most of them injured.


Minerva's suit, controlled by Khepri's power, spoke. "Lisa? Are you alive?"


"Yeah," he replied. "Minerva made me hit the 'oh fuck' button after the Dragon suits stated firing on the command center. Got a dozen of us across. Others I picked up during search and rescue. What happened after we bugged out?"


"Hey, Khepri," Lisa responded weakly. "Kinda in bad shape. There's a vine growing up into my femur over here. Not quite sure what it thinks it's doing, but I'm pretty sure it's the only reason I'm conscious right now. I sure wish it would stop doing that."


Minerva's suit spoke. "Amelia's here, I'll send her to you."


Gaea's suit spoke. "Amelia, Minerva's injured, I'll guide you."


Khepri spoke. "It's bad. The Endbringers self-detonate when they're destroyed. We killed her, and pretty much all of India at the same time."


"Holy fucking shit," Chariot muttered.


"Can you cobble together equipment to shift them back to Bet?" Khepri asked.


"Yeah, sure, I think. I'll have to tear apart some of my equipment."


"That's fine, we'll pay for replacement parts. Claiming we have high end site-to-site teleportation is one thing. Admitting access to a whole other world..." Khepri paused. She was factoring the value of the portals, the risks and abuses and violence that could come from them. She didn't know it then, but that thought would birth Exodus.


....


"We have completed our full analysis of the India Disaster," Number Man spoke at the meeting. "First, via Contessa's power, we determined it was a parahuman which initiated the explosion."


"Who?" Alexandria asked.


"A local cape by the name of Phir Se," he answered. "Well known as a short range time manipulator. Nothing further than a few minutes, at most."


"We thought he was immaterial?" Doctor Mother replied.


"Well, yes," Number Man responded, as unhappy as he was capable of being. "We hadn't quite realized his power was exponential and iterative."


"Layman's terms, if you please," Doctor Mother asked.


"It's like the old economics mind teaser of doubling a penny," Number Man started. "If you start with one cent and double it once per day. In a week you have sixty four cents. In two weeks you have eighty one dollars and ninty two cents. After thirty days, you have over five million dollars. Before long, it results in more money than actually exists. We have no way of knowing how much energy he started with, or how quickly the energy doubles, or how long he was maintaining the cycle. It seems unlikely to be truly exponential. If it was, he could have casually initiated such massive disasters on an hourly basis."


"I see," Doctor Mother responded. "Have we taken steps to acquire him as an asset?"


"He appears to have taken his own life," Contessa responded. "I can only guarantee he did not fake his death. If you wish to know if this was murder or suicide, it will take time to investigate."


"No," she sighed. "I don't think that's necessary."


"His power was still not what we needed to fight Scion," Alexandria stated. "Too many of us survived, even at point of detonation. Unless we are to believe that I am more durable than Scion, his power wouldn't have been a factor in that battle. I am still more interested in Atropos' ability. She allowed spider string to pass through the Simurgh like she was made of smoke."


....


"She used my thermal shunting technology inside the clouds," Emma stated, showing a hand drawn diagram that looked like a side sketch of a sandwich. "Ice separated to the top, solid carbon dioxide into the bottom. Held together by gravity technology that might have been ours, or might have been Dragon's. Or some other tinker, it's impossible to know. What I am sure of is that she used my knowledge of energy dispersion to orchestrate the next phase."


She flipped the page, revealing two lines and a zigzag between them. There were arrows pointed up and down on the outside lines. "She turned the whole sky into something that's one part fiber optic cable, and one part vacuum tube. It's something I can do. Something I have done, in fact. Laser research at near absolute zero is how I built Radiant's weapon systems to begin with."


Emma resisted the urge to describe in greater detail. The mundane, such as the insulating properties of perfectly formed ice. The exotic, like achieving perfect conductivity of laser light. Of instantaneous, loss free conversion between types of energy. Things that only she was able to understand. Things she suspected were used to transfer the energy. Some of her suspicions were correct. Others were wrong only for her limited ability to comprehend the full details.


"So, probably our tech," Minerva responded. "I don't recall any other 'cold' tinkers on the field. Built from tech ripped out of the Dragon suits, most likely. Suits and people that wouldn't have been there, if we'd known we would be fighting the Simurgh instead of Behemoth. She planned for this, constructing everything from the most advanced tinker equipment on the planet."


"The energy attack from the unknown parahuman came from below, striking the Simurgh and then the ice shell. Some of it was refracted downward, destroying the city. Perhaps a sum total of a tenth of the energy. It happened too quickly for me to get a good look. The rest was caught in the cloud layers. Redirected along more paths than I can count, throughout a stormfront that extended over a hundred miles. Where it broke through at specifically the perfect angles to burn almost every population center in northern and central India. More died from fires, gas explosions, and other side effects than from the energy weapon itself. It was also pinpoint accurate. Nothing was wasted on, say, trying to cross the Himalayas. Or burning miles of mostly uninhabited fields or forests. Maximum loss of life for minimum power expenditure."


"That's beyond fucking terrifying," Eki insisted. She was one of those hit hardest, changed the most, by her experiences. Even during her fight with Leviathan, she had never been so terrified of death. Even when grieving the deaths of her brother and father, she was never so keenly aware of the dangers she faced every day.


"You want terrifying?" Emma didn't smile. She was too frightened to smile. "She went easy on us."


"Easy?" Khepri scoffed. "She depopulated most of India, and parts of half a dozen other countries! With a fine precision that makes me feel inadequate."


"It's true," Minerva agreed. "I've looked at it every way my power will let me. The damage was deliberately focused on the Endbringer shelters and other population centers even at ground zero. She could have easily redirected that energy to the hospital, and everyone inside it. Killing the rest of us would have been trivial as well. Whatever her reasoning was, she chose to let us live. And she wanted us to know she let us live."


"Do you think she knew we were going to kill her?" Atropos asked. She was more nervous than any others. She had been the one to kill the Endbringer, the one most expected to face and destroy all other current and future Endbringers. Even if she was not yet aware there would be others. That pressure had changed her. Would continue to change her as the days went forward.


"I'm not sure," Minerva answered. "We had at least three powerful precog jammers involved in destroying her, if we include Eidolon. All of whom are strong enough to disrupt even Dinah's powers. It's possible the Simurgh was capable of predicting this. It's almost equally possible she could not, and her plan of attack happened exactly the way she intended it to, save for her own destruction."


....


The civil war in India reached fevered pitch in the weeks after what the locals were coming to call 'The Burning' in their local languages. The parahuman population was now almost equal to the population of nonpowered humans within the cities caught in the destruction. In the countryside, which had largely escaped that attack, armies were being established. The southern tip of the continent managed to hold a semblance of order, by changing their interaction with their own parahumans. A new way that parahumans looked at their country, and the country looked at their parahumans. A way based on other, successful examples of parahuman led societies. A mimicry of godhood in a culture where gods were still taken seriously.


In six and a half years of struggles in the the aftermath, a new government was born. A slow recovery from the violence and the economic and environmental hardships. It would be another three years before India could finally overthrow the CUI's invasion and conquest of most of its territory, and another two before it could repel the troublesome warlords that had either moved in from Africa, or established themselves from local factions. Over a decade of almost constant warfare, but they would succeed.


All of these things were unimportant. Mere side effects of other factors.


....


Minerva stood facing Alexandria. The pair spoke to one another on a level not normally experienced by human beings. The concepts were difficult to translate, even to the women experiencing the effect first hand.


Alexandria exerted her presence, a confidence born of long years of conflict and success. Strength that had been proven, then broken, then rebuilt even stronger.


Minerva, equal confidence born of certainty of details Alexandria did not know.


Alexandria reacted with curiosity and interest. Minerva conveyed, if accidentally, that they had weapons that could fight Endbringers. A weapon she believed could kill us permanently.


Alexandria could not hide her surprise at the realization. Not to Minerva's ability, at least. No other observer would have caught it.


Minerva flinched, ashamed she had given away the secret. Annoyed at her lack of control.


Alexandria asserted her superiority again. Attempting to goad the younger thinker.


Minerva reflected that it would have worked, possibly to embarrassing levels, if not for her recent use of her power for introspection.


Alexandria is shocked at the emotional maturity of the thinker. She might suspect it was indication of emotion repression as part of her power, if it wasn't clear her emotions were normal based on other reactions. She upgrades her opinion of Minerva, both as a person and in terms of abilities.


Minerva smiles. She knows she lost this contest, from a competitive perspective, but she'd be happy to lose more often for results this beneficial.


Alexandria recognizes the mutual respect. She's willing to cooperate with the girl's plan, now that the situation and positions of the two are established and respectable. "Okay," she says, the first to speak.


Minerva hands her a device. The beacon for their 'dimensional shunt' technology. A key part of the plan.


....


Khepri and Gaea communicate. Their mode is outside my ability to see, and I am aware of it only through their description of it to others. A function born of accident that was never meant to be, giving them partial access where only the Makers were intended to tread. I am not blind to the results of those communications. These girls, an accident of an accident, send ripples through their collected allies. Allowing them, again quite by luck and accident, discovering how to produce tools that hide others from my view. Accidents of accidents of accidents. Chaos cascading through an otherwise predictable reality. Eventually, I might be obsolete.


If they were more aware of my range, they might even be able to truly catch me unaware and unprepared. Their greatest vulnerability is relying upon Dinah Alcott. As they wish to harness her power, they must avoid blinding her to their presence. Where she can see, I can see as well.


They plan to slay us. Myself, my brothers. Their weapon, such as I understand it, is truly capable of this. It seems an oversight, that the Makers allow this ability into the hands of this species. I cannot see into the intentions of the Makers, I cannot know their plans. I only know their system is broken.


I cannot allow them to destroy me or my siblings. The idea of self preservation, much like all other emotions as humans know the concept, is alien beyond my ability to know how it influences them. The concept of purpose is one I understand perfectly. Organic minds are unable to comprehend it as I do. Even the Makers, though closer, are still unable to know an existence that has only Function.


I also cannot allow them to be destroyed. My Summoner has imprinted a second Function, if by accident. I am needed to stop the remaining Maker, regardless of cost. There are four Paths to achieve this. One that might very well be lost forever, due the unknowable chaos revolving around its components. One that relies solely upon the Summoner's mind alone. A mind I am as unable to breach as the Makers, themselves. Whom I can only simulate. Another postponed, perhaps forever. And another in its fledgling stage, that may never be ready.


Four paths to destroying the Maker and fulfilling my Purpose.


Today, I war with them all. And in that war, I increase the probabilities of success of three paths, and my simulations suggest it improves the fourth as well.


I communicate with my brother, warning him of the coming danger. Ripples of seismic activity so faint that no other being on the planet but us would recognize and interpret the signal correctly. The Eldest moves just to the surface, startling and upsetting them. I move through the clouds, a stormfront I had determined prior, and added to subtly. I revealed new abilities. Removed inhibitions to function properly in this battle. It was acceptable.


I descend after my brother had left. Time enough for the time manipulator to charge his attack satisfactorily. Time enough for him to be too tired to think about his actions, but not so tired as to risk him reacting too soon or too late for the proper timing.


....


I will find myself safe. The dimension shunting technology is relatively simple, meant to pierce between dimensions with existent portals. Of these, there are many. Only three connecting to this iteration. But one iteration, the one used by my Summoner's allies, connects to every world the other Maker had collided with. They had discovered many of them. I found one they would never locate.


My body will be ravaged. It will be years before I recover from the damage to my core, and more until I am fully functional again. I shall never be needed by my Summoner again. There is no future in which I have returned to full strength, the Summoner still exists, and the Maker still exists.


I will rest. I cannot know if I awaken again.


=================


A/N- Fucking with tenses is both a pain in the ass, and a lot of fun.


Also... I'm beginning to think I have a fetish for foreshadowing.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 118 (former 114)


"Let's get this straight," Flechette said to our gathering. "You've been harboring fucking Bonesaw, this whole time."


Riley was on one side, flanked by Missy who was flanked by Theo. To her other side was our other main tinkers, Blasto and Emma. Not much help under the circumstances. Missy seemed... strangely okay with Clarice's actual identity. Part of it may have to do with her saving Theo during the aftermath of the disaster. The dozens of others she took care of in the hospital, while I was still struggling to save those outside the barrier may have helped. Then again, she may have already known, it's not like I was a telepath.


Flechette on the other side of the room. She hadn't removed Azrael. The armor was half shredded, held together more by the sheer resiliency of Yggdrasil's design than any other factor. Its contact with the floor let me know it was more than half dead, already. I would have repaired it before, but we had more immediate concerns. The armor was a loss, anyway. They'd have to build an entirely new nanofiber system for it. At least I knew that, even if Flechette became violent over this, I could disable her with a thought.


Parian stood next to Flechette, of course. Their relationship reminded me a lot of mine and Taylor's. Beyond the obvious bits, of course. Lisa was sure it was Parian who took the effective lead in their relationship. Flechette wasn't a slave, or another. But she tended to defer to the other's decisions. In that, it was like my relationship with Taylor. Pantheon was my idea, my dream. Taylor cared about it at least as much as I did, but she let me make the major calls. Backing me up. Protecting and supporting me. Same relationship between them.


Chariot was off from the group by a bit, choosing to watch instead of participate. Zach had gone to his room, claiming to be tired.


And that left the final cluster. Taylor, Lisa, and myself. Taylor fidgeted uncomfortably. Probably still thinking the same thing. Riley was a lot of things, and most of them gave people nightmares. I'd come to see past that a bit. Even if Taylor was getting better about it. To everyone else, with exception to Emma and maybe Missy, she was still, and would no doubt always be, Bonesaw.


"I'd speak up, but that'd probably only make things worse," Lisa offered as a weak attempt at humor.


"Ya think?" Flechette retorted.


"She saved lives, today," Taylor reminded her. "A lot of them."


"That doesn't begin to make up for what she's done," Flechette countered.


"If you include everything else," Lisa suggested. "She might actually be able to claim she's done more good than harm at this point."


"How the fuck do you figure!?" Parian shouted. The first words she'd spoken since we got back.


"The anti-master tech, to start with," Lisa supplied. "The rest of us never would have known how to achieve that. Even if we just count Heartbreaker, that's easily hundreds of people over the next few years. The advanced biosuits are mostly hers. Everything we've done to exploit the Manton Effect belongs to her research. Lily's wearing something that could make the Siberian into her bitch. Riley designed that. We killed the Simurgh, because of her technology amplifying your powers. I don't know how many Bonesaws a Simurgh is worth, but I'm sure it's more than one."


"I thought it was Emma's tech that did that," she responded.


"My tech let us block precognition," Emma answered. "That's how we even managed to hit the bitch in the first place. My tech's why the Yggdrasil wasn't burned away during the explosion. I was able to add a few improvements to the battle suits, making them energy efficient enough to power Chariot's antigravity, so that the suits can fly. But the armor itself is all Riley's work."


"And the shock troops," Taylor added. "Those are as much hers as anyone's."


"She saved my life," I replied. "The only reason I survived after Valefor's bombing run."


"And mine," Lisa agreed. "And Crystal's. Probaby Theo's. Definitely yours, Lily."


"Fucking hell," Parian muttered. "Amelia, you saw what she did to my friends and family. You healed them, all the while knowing you were keeping the thing that mutilated them in the first place safe."


It's true, I admitted to myself. I couldn't quite bring myself to look Parian in the eye. I couldn't look at Riley, either.


"She's a monster," Parian continued. "No one can do the things she's done and be called anything else."


It was then that Riley spoke. "I... I don't want to be a monster," she sobbed. Bonesaw was sobbing. "I want to be a good girl like mommy told me to. I want her to be proud of me." The tears were flowing freely, now. "I'm trying to be good. Tell me what I have to do to be good. Please." Riley begged Parian.


We were all speechless. I was the only one that had seen her like this before, and even then it was light whimpers in her sleep.


"It's an act," Flechette said, her voice cold.


"It's not," Minerva contradicted. "This is entirely real. This is her being honest for, well, not the first time. But the first time that I've personally witnessed. Congratulations, you just saw Bonesaw cry. For real. You are currently wondering whether or not you're suppose to feel bad. Whether you're suppose to be nice and forgive her. That's your perogative, but I sure as fuck have not and will not. At the same time, revealing her and turning her over to the authorities won't change anything. The people she's tormented will still be dead. She'll be dead. And any of the good she might actually do in the future will never happen. Including fixing our armor."


By this time, Minerva had walked over Flechette. "Your suit's garbage, mine is even worse. Emma's was burned off entirely. Granted, Emma didn't design hers to be as durable as ours for energy attacks. Which was fucking stupid, by the way."


"I... uh... thought my powers could handle it," Emma defended herself. "I went for movement and utility features. It's not like we could have expected what happened. I made my costume for dealing with Behemoth. Being able to run away before he stepped on me seemed way more important than insulating against energy attacks that I'm already able to basically ignore."


"So we keep her around because she's useful?" Flechette all but spit. "I could handle that logic with Emma. She's a bitch who deserved the beating she got. But Bonesaw... even she hasn't thought up something horrible enough to call a fitting punishment for what she's done."


"She's not here because she's useful," I interrupted. "Yes, it started that way. But she's my family." Holy shit, did I just say that out loud?


SurpriseTrepidation. I looked at Taylor, begging her with my eyes to be okay with this. She grabbed my hand. Good enough for me.


"She's my best friend," Missy added. She had moved next to Riley at some point during Minerva's expose. Riley clutched into her side and held on for dear life. Theo didn't say anything, but he put his hand on Missy's shoulder.


"She's pretty much my only friend," Emma admitted, stepping closer as well.


"I don't really have a dog in this race," Chariot stated. "So from an outside assessment... they're right. These suits are way too dependent upon their cybernetics. I already knew they had another tinker they weren't telling us about. Wasn't sure who. Based on the quality of the work, I thought it was Dragon helping out in secret so she could stay 'politically neutral'. The tech really is that good. We can't do what we're doing right now without her help. Unless, again, we get Dragon over here."


"You want your revenge? Fine. Try guilt," Minerva offered. "She knows what she is, even if she tries to hide behind her pretend cheerfulness to ignore it, to forget. Pretending she's a normal girl, however ludicrous that thought might be. She has friends and family now. All her victims, everything she's ever done, now wear their faces. When she remembers hurting others, she feels what it would be like to hurt them."


Riley sobbed and nodded, not moving her head from its spot buried in Vista's side.


"So we just pretend she's not guilty of hundreds of crimes against humanity?"


"Oh, fuck no," Minerva responded. "The exact opposite, in fact. Remind her every chance you get. But also remember that she was six when Jack fucking Slash got his claws into her. You've met young triggers before. Ask Lachesis if you want to know how bad that sucks. Then try being raised to think the Siberian is cuddly and Shatterbird's a positive role model. You'd be pretty fucked up, too. Considering your power, you might even have been scarier than she is."


It was Parian who broke the confrontation. "Okay," she said, stepping forward and grasping Flechette's hand. "I'm not saying I forgive her, or that I like this at all. But you're right. Revenge isn't going to do anything but make everything worse. If she leaves me alone, I'll pretend I don't know she's here. If she hurts anyone else, then I hold you, all of you, personally responsible for it."


"I can live with that," Minerva responded. No one stepped in to argue.


"We can handle everything else later, right?" Parian asked. "I'd really like to go home now."


"Yeah," Minerva agreed. "It's going to be a while before anyone even knows what to do with what happened today. We have time to, well, 'relax' would be too much to hope for. But we can at least decompress for a little while. I think we could all use that. Meeting adjourned, see you all tomorrow. Say, noon. Give me a chance to know how the rest of the world is starting to handle this."


No one disagreed with that, either.


=================


A/N- This was a fun chapter.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 119 (former 115)


I was exhausted by the time I climbed into bed, my costume discarded on the floor. I didn't care enough to put it away. Same night clothes I wore to sleep last night, I absently thought. What a stupid thing to think about. I stared up at the ceiling. On a whim, I adjusted the colors, creating an imitation of a clear sky. Even managed to put together light and warmth from the imitation sun. It was comforting, after what we'd been through.


Taylor walked in not long after, still in costume. "First time I've ever had to open the door myself," she offered a half hearted smile. I returned it, if even less enthusiastically. "Our link seems to be muted."


I gave a quick look. "It's physically fine," I responded. "I'm just... I don't know. I don't even know what to feel."


Taylor walked over to a corner, facing it, then she stepped backward, leaving the armor behind. It wasn't entirely unlike watching a cicada climb out of its shell. "It wasn't our fault," she said after she worked her way out of the armor. She's in her jogging clothes, I noticed. I also noticed that I was far too numb to appreciate this detail. "It wasn't our weapon that did it, it wasn't even Ziz that provided the power. They don't self destruct."


"I know," I answered, looking at my partner. "It's just... what would have happened if we did't come there equipped to kill them? You said yourself, they get meaner when you hit them harder. We hit harder than anyone ever had before, hard enough to kill them, and what we get out of it is a country that's still burning. Hundreds of millions, maybe even an actual billion, dead. Riley's existence exposed to the Triumvirate."


"And Cauldron, and our own members who were still in the dark about her," Taylor added "Lisa's going to be smug as hell about that for months. She saved our asses big time, and she knows we know it. She's going to want to draw at least some mileage out of it. Maybe not as much as before, but something."


I smiled, trying to lighten the mood. "Well, if that's the price, then I'm okay with her being smug about it for a while. I happen to like your ass. Glad she saved it."


Taylor blushed. ShockedPleasedShy. "I noticed," she teased as she sat down next to me on the bed.


"Only because I let you," I teased back. She leaned back gently, resulting in her head resting on my stomach. I toyed with her hair a bit, even as I felt her mood shift back to business. As nice as the distractions were, neither of us really were the type to let go of things. I always was a worrier, as far back as I can remember. Taylor seemed basically the same. The fact that the world was just shy of literally on our shoulders at most gave us an excuse to do what we would have done anyway.


"We'll need to talk to Zach," she started. "He was out there for almost half an hour."


"I know," I agreed. "But how do we even approach that subject? It got to him, but you know how he is. He'll never admit it."


"I don't know," she admitted. "Maybe we should ask Crystal to take a stab at it? The two of them seem to... well, she's better at getting him to let up on the bullshit than anyone else, at least. And she's one of the ones that had to survive out there. It's common ground that we don't have."


"Just so we're clear," I said. "If she does this, we're going to have to deal with her being as smug as Lisa."


"Probably," Tayor admitted. "Those two are so fucking alike, sometimes."


"Yeah," I agreed. "Y'know, we're too much alike. Even our friends are alike. No wonder everyone thought we should get together."


She shrugged noncommittally.


"Hey," I poked her nose. "You thought so, too. I very much recall the part where you attempted to seduce me."


She blushed. ChagrinWorryRegret. "Yeah, sorry about that," she mumbled.


"To quote that phrase you use all the time," I said. "'I don't mind'. I still dream about it, sometimes. They're very good dreams."


SurprisedHappy. "Ah, okay," she stammered a little. "That wasn't really. I probably should have just talked to you about it instead of trying something like that."


"Maybe," I replied. "But I'm glad you didn't. As far as first kisses go, I think I got one of the better ones."


"Except the part where I ruined-" I put a finger over her lips to silence her.


"You ruined nothing," I corrected. "It wasn't ruined at all. Circumstances beyond your control cut it short. It was wonderful."


EmbarrassedPleasedEncouraged. "Thanks," she smiled.


"Now we should probably decide what other things we have to worry about," I reluctantly steered the conversation back to work. I was more comfortable with Taylor than anyone could think was normal, but this conversation was taking my mind places and my body was starting to follow along. Not something I needed her realizing, especially when she was currently laying in bed with me. I'd have to bury myself alive. Again.


"Our secret world was exposed to the Protectorate at the very least," Taylor sighed. "Which means Alexandria, aka Chief Director Costa-Brown. Shit, I forgot to mention that to Lisa. That's a stupid mistake, damn."


"She has other stuff on her mind," I said. "We already knew Costa-Brown was trying to help us out from that recording Chariot got for us. We already knew Alexandria was probably part of Cauldron. That means we have an ally, at least of sorts, at the top of the Protectorate and PRT. I expect she's important in Cauldron, too. This is probably the only truly good news that came out of this."


"Destroying an Endbringer doesn't count as good news?" Taylor asked. Her emotions were muted with worry and doubt.


"We killed her and we still," I hesitated, trying to find the words to express the idea. "When I went outside... people were looking at us like we were the survivors of a fucking natural disaster, not the people who destroyed the Simurgh. This isn't what victory against the fucking apocalypse is suppose to feel like. I can't even find it in my heart to call it a Pyrrhic victory. It just feels like we failed."


"We'll do better next time," Taylor said, stroking my arm.


"Next time?" Even the thought of 'next time' sent an unpleasant chill through my body.


"She clearly wants us to back off," Taylor replied. "She wants the world so terrified that we'd rather deal with a slow death. An infection. Rather than amputating the wound and at least having the chance to recover."


"Or she wants us to think that," I said. "She had to know we'd second guess something that obvious."


"And then we can second guess that second guess," Taylor answered. "We're insulated against her precognition. Emma's," DisgustAnnoyance. "Anti-precog tech works. We are invisible to her, the weapons we build are invisible to her. Whatever sick plans she had in mind, they can't reach us.


"You're probably right," I agreed. "I just... I don't know if I can, anymore."


"You don't have to," Taylor assured me, lifting her head off of my stomach and shifting herself fully onto the bed. ProtectiveComfortResolve. She wrapped herself around me from behind, pulling me into an embrace. "As you said when we began this thing, I am your General. You give me the strength to fight, and I'll take care of the rest for you."


"You know what happens after we get all of them, right?" I teased. Since when did Taylor sound this sappy?


I could hear her smiling when she replied. "Hey, I don't mind, remember?"


=================


A/N- Decompression chapter. They can't all be dramatic and shit, right?

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 120- Crystal


The fires were all around me. I couldn't breath, couldn't see anything through the blinding light, couldn't move. Ice, encased in ice and still on fire! Trapped. Freezing. Burning. No way out!


I awoke to my own screaming. Shifting and struggling. I was still trapped, but now that I was awake I and was starting to figure out where I was, I knew why. I was in one of the medical pods. I was back home. I simply willed myself to calm down and move gently, and the pod yielded. That was good, it would have kept me if I was still too injured to move about on my own. Originally Amy's tech, but Riley had improved on it a lot while we were prepping for...


The Endbringer.


It all started coming back to me: the fight, tearing that bitch to shreds, driving her off and... and then the fire. My overshields took the brunt of the initial burst, though they were almost completely drained in the process. Then the energy absorbers, until they burned out. Then the suit itself started to cook through. One final, desperate move later I was encased in ice. Not a fun sensation, especially when it melts and the inferno breaks through again.


Maybe if I'd frozen myself earlier, when the energy protection was still working and the suit itself hadn't been badly damaged. Maybe the suit could have protected me from the agonizing cold seeping into my body. I'd all but given up by the time it had cooled enough that I wasn't at risk of dying the moment my breathing system gave way.


I focused, but couldn't recall much else. I was asleep, and now I'm back at our base. Or... did Amy build a medical bay in India? But I am alone, I realized. And I'm pretty sure I wasn't hurt so much that everyone else got out of the place before I even woke up.


I look at my hands. Fresh and pink, they've been regenerated, almost up to the elbows. Fingernails completely gone, replaced with a layer of skin. They'd grow back, eventually, but a girl couldn't help but be upset about something like this.


I was nude, which was not a good sign at all, since it meant the healing pod needed full body coverage to do its work. Also wasn't so happy about the fact that someone saw me naked. Specifically, either my lesbian cousin, the ten year old monster, or Emma. That's just lovely. I looked down, my legs were... fuck, halfway between knee and hip. Toenails gone, too. Damn that looks weird.


Standing up felt strange, and my legs wobbled more than a little. A couple days of recovery, probably. The was a tap on the door.


"Don't come in!" I shouted, then finally looked around and spotted my clothes. Not the pair I'd worn this morning, which had probably already found their way into the recycling system. Just another outfit that I'd left here. I got dressed as quickly as I could considering it felt like I had two left hands. Just how badly was I hurt?


"Okay, you can come in now," I yelled at the entrance. Zach walked in.


"Hey," he offered a half hearted smile. "The alert said you were up and moving. It's a bit past four in the morning, if you're wondering."


I shrugged. "I was pretty bad, huh?"


"Almost as bad as Amelia after Valefor," he confirmed.


"My armor's trashed, of course," I followed up.


"It was dead when they got to you," he shrugged. "Needed Alexandria to peel it off since Amelia couldn't."


"What about everyone else?"


"Alive," he answered. "Atropos took a nasty hit, and Theo was cut by some of the Moirai Ribbons when blocking the hole to protect us. They've already been patched up. Emma was hurt, a bit, but she's fine now. Case-53 regeneration thing at work."


"We kinda... well, basically everyone knows about Riley now. Our whole team, and Alexandria, and the rest of the Triumvirate, and whomever they choose to tell- which probably mean Cauldron. On the plus side, no one's decided to report this and have us all put on the kill list. On the minus side, not everyone's decided not to report this, either. Expect possible blackmail in the near future."


Fucking hell. "What happened to the Simurgh?" I asked. "I sorta lost track after... after the explosion."


"We almost had her, and then some fucktard had to help," he growled the words. "That bomb? A parahuman power. Dunno who, probably won't ever find out. We destroyed the Simurgh, completely and totally annihilated, but that blast destroyed almost all of India in the process."


My stomach dropped. "India has..."


"Over a billion people, yeah," Zach muttered. "Most of them are dead now. Pretty much wiped out Pakistan as well. So much for our 'ding dong, the bitch is dead' party. It's not our fault, in fact I'm pretty sure it would have happened even if we hadn't shown up, but everything is fucked now."


I nodded. It makes sense, I though. Her actions, the way she fought that day. She wanted to provoke whoever it was that did this into attacking. "Think she knew we'd kill her?" It was the only thing I could think to ask.


"Dunno," he answered. "Clotho and Lachesis were both precog immune, and they did all the real damage. But she was... I dunno. Either way, she made the world suffer for her death. They're still doing all the math and science shit, but she just racked up a death toll greater than both her brothers combined."


"Jesus fucking Christ," I ran my hands through my hair. They were shaking from more than just the regeneration I'd received. My fingers caught on tangles and even some flakes of burnt material near the tips. "I need a shower."


"Okay," he agreed. "You know all the important stuff. I'm sure we'll spend all of tomorrow talking about the details anyway."


I left the base. As much as the showers there worked, technically, they squicked me right the fuck out. We didn't have traditional pipes in the base. Our running water, as Riley had described it, came from 'a series of bladders'. I was fully aware there were more meanings for that word but I couldn't help but think of the most obvious one. And standing underneath warm water that came out of a bladder... no thank you.


Flying was always a one of my personal joys in life. The freedom and the wind in my hair. Victoria always said it was her favorite power, and I agreed fully. The air was a little chilly. Mid august, just in time for things to start getting cold. From up here, our city looked downright beautiful. It was getting better for the people who couldn't fly, as well. Khepri had gone almost a week without finding any drugs more serious than pot, before we left to fight Her.


I entered upstairs, through my own bedroom window. No sense in waking up mom. A quick look in the mirror, which only prompted me to frown and try not to cry. My hair was trashed. I'd probably need to cut most of it off. At least the short hairstyles are popular right now. A rummage through my closet for better clothing, and then I was hovering my way to the bathroom. No point in making any noise, and I was still too shaky on my feet. I would rather not accidentally fall over if I could help it.


Mom's door was open, and I passed it quietly on my way to bathroom. Light was on, but that wasn't anything unusual. We had a bad habit of wasting electricity like that. Half the downstairs was lit up, actually. I pushed open the door and stepped inside, then quietly closed it behind me. I treated myself to a long shower in mostly lukewarm water. The regenerated skin was too sensitive, and it hurt to use the hot water.


I spent almost an hour under the stream of water, most of it dedicated to working out the mess in my hair. Looking down at the gunk running off of me, I identified the bluish-green liquid found in the suits, a light green liquid from where the healing pod needed a contact to diffuse chemicals into my body, charred material that probably came from the underlayer of the armor, clumps of hair that had been singed away, and a worrying amount of blood that I wasn't certain was all my own. It was almost hypnotic, really, imagining what caused all this.


A billion people dead, I thought. Not our fault, but would anyone else believe that? The Simurgh had been destroyed, so we still won. But so did she.


The sun was already rising when I was finished, and had managed to unclog the drain of various stuff that had fallen off of me. I looked at my now ruined hair and tried to imagine how to fix it. Oh well, Jasmine would work her usual magic.


I floated back toward my room, coming by mom's room again. I should let mom know I'm okay, I thought. I nudged the door open. "Hey mom, I just wa-" I slammed the door as hard as I could and rushed for my room. That was not something I needed to see!


===========


A/N- Breakfast and a show.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 121- Crystal


I was in my room, staring at my ceiling when there was a knock on the door. "Crystal, sweetie, can I come in?" My mom's voice, of course.


"Yeah, mom, go ahead," I answered. I was sorely tempted not to.


She opened the door, wearing work clothes and looking positively mortified. Well, that's good to know. "I... umm... I'm sorry you saw that," she started.


"Not half as sorry as I am," I muttered. "Maybe if I'm lucky, Amy will give me a memory wipe."


"I take it you're upset, then," she sighed.


"Just a little," I answered. "And weirded right the fuck out. I mean, seriously. I just walked in on my mother in bed with my cousin's future father in law. I know half my team's named after Greek gods, but that wasn't an invite for..." I waved my hands around. "This!"


"It's not the same thing," she countered. "You know that."


"No, it's not," I agreed. "It's just... jeez, mom, isn't there a grace period before you are allowed to go out and find a new man?"


"It's not like I was expecting this to happen!" she exclaimed.


"You invited him over," I said dryly. "Or did he sneak in through your bedroom window with some wine and a box of chocolates."


She chuckled, which only annoyed me more. "That actually happened to me once," she said.


"Dad?" I asked. Oh please let it have been my father, I'm traumatized enough.


"Your Uncle Mark, actually," she corrected. Eww eww eww eww- "He was there for Carol and got the wrong window." -Oh thank every god!


"So what's the story with Mister Hebert?" I asked. I still didn't know him well enough to call him 'Danny'.


"After you left to fight Behemoth, I invited Danny over," she said. She definitely knew him well enough. "AND," she stressed. "Mark and Carol. I didn't want us to be alone when... well, during the fighting. You have no idea how hard it is to go through something like that. Nobody really can understand it until they have children of their own."


"Okay, I get that much," I responded. "Now when did you get the bright idea to fuck Taylor's father?"


She flinched. Probably wanted to yell at me for the language, but under the circumstances she really couldn't. "It wasn't... I... he was there to comfort me when we didn't know what happened. After the explosion, I thought you were dead. I thought everyone was dead. Danny was there, a shoulder to cry on."


"So you guys just came up with the bright idea 'whelp, we're out of kids, let's get to work making new ones'?" I regretted it as soon as I said it, but I was still pissed off. My father and my brother were gone, and here my mother was with a new man. 'Replacement father, complete with already assembled sibling' was not something I was looking forward to.


"No!" She exclaimed. "It was after we found out you were okay! Mark and Carol left and, I, well... there were a lot of emotions going around."


"Oh, I bet there were," I stated. "I'm going to get some air." I took off, and passed Mister Hebert in the hall. He, at least, didn't try to talk to me, or even look at me. I really wasn't in the mood to hear anything he said anyway. I noticed his car in the driveway when I went out the front door. If I'd come into the house like a normal person, I thought. Then at the very least I could have spared my eyes.


....


By the time I'd stopped just hovering in the air and had gotten hungry, it was close to ten. I stopped by the pizza place that had opened up near our base and asked for some breadsticks. I was in the mood for something covered in cholesterol, and I didn't trust my newly rebuilt limbs to handle anything messy or requiring silverware. As much as I'd been contemplating shoving a fork in my eyes on purpose, I didn't want to do it accidentally.


The highschool girl who took my order did her best not to stare. Oh, right, I remembered. Need that haircut. Or maybe she just recognized who I am. I didn't ask.


I was still figuring out how to put the food in my mouth with more than a 30% success rate by the time I got back to the Treehouse. Have we really lived here for three months without coming up with a better name? Amelia was there to greet me with a hug.


"What's the occasion?" I asked.


"Aunt Sarah called," she answered. God damn it.


"Did she say anything?" I let myself be led into the building.


"Just that you left and she wanted you to call her as soon as possible. We don't know what happened." Taylor spoke up, and I cringed. She looks an awful lot like her father. "I was keeping an eye in case something went wrong. All you did was drift around for a while. Didn't want to bother you, since you obviously wanted to be alone."


I paused as I heard chuckling from Lisa. I glared at her. She raised her hands. "First, I just want you to know that I had no idea this would happen. Well, okay, I did, but I thought it would take another six or eight months at the earliest. Second, I feel really really bad that I find this so funny. And third, it honestly is hilarious and you'll laugh, too, when you get over the initial shock. I promise."


"Uh... what happened?" Amelia asked.


I chuckled. "Okay, funny huh?" I shook my head. "Fine, let's make a joke of it: Taylor, knock knock."


She looked at me strangely, but went along with it. "Who's there?"


"Guess," I said.


"Guess, who?" She still went along.


"Guess who walked in on your dad having sex with my mom this morning?" I finished. It didn't seem all that funny. The other girls had gone silent.


Taylor was the one who spoke up first. "Umm... congratulations, dad?"


"This doesn't bother you?" I asked, incredulously. "This is your father we're talking about!"


"It'd probably bother me more if I was the one who walked in on them," she admitted. "Not something I want to have a picture of in my head if there's any hope of avoiding it. But, no, it doesn't bother me. Sarah seems like a really good person, and they both deserve to be happy. If this makes them happy, then I'm all for it."


"You don't feel like he's trying to replace your mom?"


"No," she answered. "Mom can't be replaced, for either of us. And I doubt your mom would try. Honestly, I'm glad for this. He spent years depressed over losing her, being miserable and just making me more miserable than I might have been. Losing a parent hurts, but I effectively lost both of mine. If this is him finally recovering and moving on, then it's a good thing. You wouldn't want your mom to spend the next decade alone, would you?"


She's right, I realized. Also: god damn it, she's right. I still wasn't exactly feeling better. "Okay, fine," I agreed. "But it's only been three months since my dad and my brother died. This is way too soon."


She nodded. "Yeah, you're probably right," she agreed. "I can't imagine how I'd have felt if dad found a new girlfriend that quickly. But this is better than the alternative. Trust me, I know."

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, ch 122- Crystal


I spent my time attempting to learn to use my limbs properly again. I was a cheerleader before, well, powers. That disqualified me from competing in pretty much any sport, of course, but I still practiced gymnastics when I could, plus all the martial arts that I had thought were useless before recently. It was incredibly frustrating to need to use my powers just to walk straight again. No one wanted to tell me just how bad I was hurt, so I went the one place where I knew I could find out: the labs.


Riley was there, alongside Missy and Theo. That's right, I recalled. The Bonesaw secret is out. Riley had black hair with a tint of purple when it caught the light, for some reason. It was uneven and kinda splotchy, so it probably wasn't power change. Just ordinary hair dye. Done poorly.


"So," I asked. "How long until the Radiant is fixed up again?"


My cousin might have told them not to let me know about what happened to me, but Riley was disturbingly naive at times, and she was a tinker. It's physically impossible to make them shut up about their toys. I would work my way around to what I really wanted to know.


"It's not," Riley informed me casually. "We're designing the V7."


"What happened to six?" I asked.


"We decided to skip that weeks ago," Riley stated.


"Zach made dumb car jokes," Missy replied. "Really dumb car jokes that Emma had to explain to Riley."


"I now know what 'check under the hood' means," Riley stated. "We'll be skipping eight for the same reasons."


Dammit, Zach, I thought. "So... where's the v5? I'd... umm... like to say 'goodbye' to it. Y'know, sentimental reasons."


"Oh, it's in its storage pod. We're running diagnostics. Figuring out what worked, what didn't, and what we can do better next time. Plus we need to revive it enough to get the lances out of storage."


Missy and Theo looked like deer caught in headlights. They knew they couldn't stop me, but they really wished they could. I moved to its display pod, and it opened to my touch.


The armor was in tatters. The front was split open like something in the middle of open heart surgery. Granted, I knew that happened after they got me safe. Alexandria really did rip it off of me. That sounded wrong. I traced my fingers along the inside of the armor, and came away with soot. There were no legs on the armor, as far up as the knees, and the arms ended halfway between wrist and elbow. Matching, to an extent, the damage on my limbs. The helmet was missing the Yggdrasil bits, entirely. Burned down to the metallic armor weave. Even that had cracks in it, probably from the rapid freezing and thawing that I put it through in a desperate attempt to save myself.


It was a matter of seconds, I realized. Seconds and centimeters away from death. I was shaking again, and it wasn't the nerve regeneration. "Who rescued me?" I asked. "Who got me out of there?"


"Zach, Emma and Amelia," Theo answered after a minute. "They all had a pretty big part in it."


"How bad was it? I need to know."


"You were legally dead," Missy replied. "The only thing that saved you was that you accidentally froze yourself."


"The armor was designed to maintain your life functions even if you were already dead," Riley informed me. "It wasn't meant to function in cryogenic situations, but it's really really good at what it does. Your brain was preserved perfectly, and with minimal oxygen loss. Emma got you into one of the pods and kept your thawing controlled. Zach was there to undo any mistakes."


I shuddered. Suddenly I didn't care that much about mom and Mister Hebert. "Fuck," I muttered. "What's the damage?"


"Nothing permanent," Riley answered. "Had to use the neural regenerator on you. Side effects will include vivid dreams, possibly 'waking dreams', and an increase in mental ability by approximately two to three percent. Your sense of smell and taste may have unusual side effects for a while as well."


"Thanks," I muttered. That might explain why the breadsticks tasted like cardboard. "Anything in there about overreacting emotionally?"


"No, not really," Riley responded. "Newter reported crying for no reason after smelling coconuts. But that appears to be an anomaly and went away after a couple weeks."


"Okay... thanks again." I said.


"Are you okay?" Theo asked. "Something seems to be bothering you past the near death experience."


"Yeah," I answered. "I, well, turns out my mother's now together with Taylor's dad. I might not have handled it all that well."


"That's awesome!" Riley exclaimed, and actually glomped me around the waist, I gasped as I lost my breath for a second. "I get more sisters! Oooh! I have a great idea! Theo, your dad's dead. Missy, your parents are divorced..."


"No!" Missy exclaimed. "We're not hooking my dad up with Theo's mom."


"Of course not," she agreed. "That'd be silly. But Amelia's parents look like they're going to get divorced so we can hook them up with your parents and I can be your sister, too!"


We were all dead quiet. Meanwhile, I was trying to find a convenient way to escape from Riley's surprisingly powerful hug. Mom's got a new man, I literally died and was brought back, and Bonesaw is hugging me. Wait, didn't she say something about waking dreams? That's what this was, right? A waking dream? Okay, how do you wake up from one of those? Does pinching work? I gave it a shot, and no, nothing changed.


"It doesn't really work that way," Missy answered. "Step siblings don't actually count as siblings."


"They don't?" Riley sounded heartbroken, and her arms relaxed their grip around my waist.


"No, not really," Missy sounded resentful as she spoke. "They're just other kids that you have to put up with. Kinda like the kids at school that you're not friends with. They're not family, not for real."


"Oh," Riley looked down, and actually let me go. I felt bad, so I gave her a hug back. She saved my life, and then probably saved me from being brain damaged after the others managed to revive me yesterday. She deserves that much.


"Doesn't matter," I said. "You're still Amy's little sister."


"Yeah," Riley agreed, looking up and smiling.


"You can be my sister, too," Missy offered. "Who cares whose parents are or are not married, right?"


Riley quickly let go of me and rushed over to hug her newly acquired sibling. I was amused to note how much they even looked like sisters. Close to the same height. Same (natural) hair and eye colors.


I managed to leave the room without interrupting the new faux-sibling hugfest. As cute as it was, I wasn't really in the mood for it.


===============


A/N- FORESHADOWING!!!

Also... this was one of my favorite chapters for mood whiplash. Drama (of the 'hey, I was dead') variety. Comedy. And cuteness. All bundled into one package.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 123- Crystal


I was still shaky when I left. I've died twice since joining this team, I realized. At the Endbringer fight, and when Purity shot a hole through me. The v5 was tough enough that Purity couldn't have possibly hurt me if I had it when fighting her. Yet still something found a way to kill me. I owe Zach and Emma thank yous.


It didn't take me too long to find Zach. He was in his room. I knocked. I shall knock before entering the kitchen from this point on.


"Come in," he yelled. I pressed the panel that opened the door and stepped in. He was sitting at his computer, some brightly colored image with a 'paused' label in front. A video game, of course.


"Hey, Zach," I started. How do you approach this kind of conversation? "So... I heard you saved me yesterday."


"Ah, that," he looked away. "It was nothing, really. All I did was move some ice and save-scum for you while Emma did her thing."


"Save scum?" I asked.


"Umm... nevermind," he shrugged. "It's a gamer term, nothing you need to be worried about."


"Oh," damn this is awkward. "That couldn't have been easy, working with Emma for that long."


"Hey, it's not a big deal," he insisted. "I just had to spend a few minutes around the ex in order to save a friend. Taylor can tolerate her, so can I. It's not like we were ever serious, and she was too busy working on you to try talking to me."


"What was it like out there?" I asked. "I was unconscious and walled in behind ice the whole time. You and Emma actually made it through alive and conscious."


"I'd really rather not think about it," Zach muttered. "The 'resetting so fast that it destroyed my armor' was the least painful part of it. Look, can we just drop the topic and then never speak of it again? Call that my 'thank you', or whatever it is you're trying to do?"


Okay, bad subject. "Sorry," I muttered. "Thanks for saving me. I'm here to listen if you need someone to talk to."


"No, it's not your fault," he sighed. "Change of topics. Got anything zany that I can laugh about? I could really use that right about now."


I sighed, putting my hands over my face. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Apparently my mom is now seeing Taylor's dad."


"Really?" He laughed. "Go Mister Hebert. She's a total fox." I glared at him, but it didn't seem to dissuade him any. "Wait, isn't she older than him? Do you think dating younger guys might run in your family? I still know a great place..."


I rolled my eyes. "Great, and now I pretty much can't say 'no' because not only did I start asking you about a painful topic, but I literally owe you my life. I hope you realize this is completely unfair and it makes you an asshole."


"Don't worry," he said. "I'm just teasing. Taking advantage of something like that would just be sick."


"Why do you do that, anyway?" I asked. "Go between asshole perv and almost overly sensitive like it's a weird kind of bipolar disorder?"


He shrugged. "Let's just say life's too short not to. You never know what tomorrow's going to bring. I learned a while back that just going for it, and suffering the consequences of failure... or even success, for that matter... is better than not trying at all and being forced to wonder 'what if' for the rest of your life. Take it from someone who does a lot of both... I'd rather die than never know what would have happened with that chance I never took."


"So that's how you justify flirting, poorly, with every possible female?"


"Pretty much," he confirmed. "And how I justify signing up with a completely unproven superhero team that came out of nowhere. And how I justify agreeing to literal suicide missions on a regular basis. Feel free to ask Lisa about it, I'm sure she can explain my particular damage better than I can. It's not worth waiting when you don't even know if you'll be here tomorrow. For that matter, it's not worth waiting even if you know you'll be here forever. I'm sure your mom would agree with me."


He's right, I thought. I died twice, that's a second and third chance wasted if I ignore it.


"Thanks for the oddly out of character advice that's probably entirely self serving on your part," I smiled. "Still not gonna date you. You're fifteen and I'm almost twenty. When I was your age... you were ten and I was babysitting ten year olds. There are no possible words for how creepy that would be."


"That works," he shrugged and smiled at me. "See you in, say, five years?"


I chuckled. "Tell you what," I answered. "If both of us are single in five years, then sure."


....


I arrived home. Zach's advice, strangely enough, made me feel better. Mister Hebert's car is gone, I noted. Good, this was going to be awkward enough. I opened the door. "Hey, mom, I'm home!" I shouted. I probably should have done this the first time.


"Oh, Crystal, thank god!" she rushed in and pulled me into a hug. "Stop scaring me like that!"


"Scaring you?" I asked. "Mom, come on, we're in the safest city on the planet right now and I was a few hundred feet in the air. I just went out to fly and clear my head a bit. Not like I glued twenty dollar bills to myself and went on a walk through the projects."


"You're right," she said. "I'm probably over reacting. It's easy to do that when..."


"That's okay," I sighed. "I over reacted, myself. Seems to be a family trait, now that I think about it."


She finally broke the hug. "It really is," she agreed. "You're sure you're not upset anymore?"


"No," I confirmed. "I get it. Scary situation, it's not like I'm a stranger to life and death situations and how they make you rush things. Not a virgin, either. I mean, I still think it's way too soon, but now that I think about it, you've been spending a lot of time with him, haven't you?"


"Yeah," she agreed. "We get together at least once a week, and talk on the phone a lot. He's been a lot of help, and this came as much a surprise to him as it did to me. A lot of guys in that situation would have, y'know, expected something from me. We were just, well, one thing leading to another."


Right, expecting something. Been there, too. "So," I finally asked mom. "Is this thing with Mister Hebert serious, or was it just a one off sorta thing?"


"Well," she smiled. "It was in the middle of becoming a three off when you walked in."


"Oh god eww no," I cringed. "First, not something I ever wanted to hear my mother say. Second, not what I meant."


"I know," she agreed. "I don't have an answer for you. It's... whatever it ends up being, I guess. I don't think I'm ready for 'serious', and probably won't be for a while. But I'm going to continue seeing him. Hopefully without having to hide it from you."


"No, no," I agreed. "I get it. I'm okay with it, even, now that I've had a chance to recover from the shock. I won't freak out around him or anything. We can get together, have a nice family lunch. Force Taylor to wear something cute and girly for a reason other than showing off for Amy."


"Really?" mom smiled. "Is that a thing they do?"


"It's a thing Taylor does," I informed her. "She's dark colors and baggy shirts all the time, unless she finds out Amy's going to be there, then she'll wear pretty much anything Lisa and I tell her will make her girlfriend stare. We even got her to buy this really skimpy two piece bikini. But you'd better swear on your life you won't tell her dad about that. I doubt she's even actually worn it, so I'd rather not have to disown you over it."


She laughed. "Okay, I swear, he won't learn about his daughter's updates to her wardrobe from me. I was a teenage girl, myself, once upon a time. Of course, back then we didn't have bikinis. Or beaches."


I hugged her again. "Thanks mom, you're the best."


================


A/N- There were people that needed other people to explain Sarah's joke there at the end.

There. The chapter restores faith in humanity. The author note murders it again.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 124- Chernobog


Minor incisions only, I thought as I scratched my claws through the flesh of my forearms. They quickly and easily regenerated. From this close, I could regenerate entire limbs if I needed to, but it was better to use my other healing method for that. This power was unpredictable and potentially unstable. I made that mistake once, and it was hell to remove the extra eyes that had grown from my arm. Small amounts of damage only.


My heightened senses alerted me to the incoming presence. Flight, larger mass than a parahuman. Vehicle? I relied on my peripheral vision: no point in looking suspicious by turning my head toward the supposedly hidden newcomer. Or more suspicious, at least. A large man in a trench coat draws a certain level of attention no matter what he does. When it's nearly midnight in late July, that just makes it worse. Still, in Brockton Bay as it existed now, no one was going to be more than passively intimidated by me. Pantheon's influence hit the underworld so hard that it broke.


Looks like you get to be a hero at last, Taylor, I smiled sadly.


A black winged horse landed nearby. The girl on it, Aceso, one of Amelia's recruits. Her 'little sister'. Not human, I recognized almost immediately. Is she some kind of artificial person? One of their M4s? She looked at me, then sniffed the air slightly. "Are you injured?"


I shrugged. "Nothing serious," I answered, stretching and hopping off my perch atop Crawler's corpse. It was covered in profanity and insults, now, but people had gotten bored trying to break the statue. Turns out, it got tougher as you worked your way inside. Eventually too durable for anything but superhuman strength to damage.


She accepted my word without question. Super senses, lie detection. Is this what Lisa feels like, all the time? Knowing just enough about everyone and everything to constantly be the smartest person in the room? No wonder she was such a smug bitch.


"So, I heard Gaea and Khepri are engaged," I invited. I was certain that Aceso was Clarice, who I had seen excitedly bragging about their plans on television. I had wondered what Taylor would do, now. First saving Dinah from Coil, then saving the city from everything. Now on to saving the world from the Endbringers.


Very much a 'Taylor' thing to do. I felt proud of her, as weird as that sounds. Still wasn't quite sure what to think about her awkward and, in retrospect, obvious crush on me being replaced with a lesbian betrothal, but I had more important things to worry about.


"I'm not suppose to talk to strangers," she replied. Knowing Taylor, and how powerful Aceso is, that's probably for the benefit of the strangers in question more than the parahuman death machine in front of me. I knew how to recognize parahumans, and Clarice was frightening at best.


I ran through my mental options. I could claim to be an 'old friend' of Taylor and/or Lisa, it was true after all, but that would be more trouble in the long run, since Aceso would report back to them. Cold reading was useless against her nonhuman physiology. Victor's power was telling me there was no one there. Was this Aceso's power? Something like a miniature copy of the Siberian? Was Genesis using a new identity?


I had no way to know, which meant no shortcuts to be found there. Except that I knew she had a lie detection ability. ""That's a good rule," I agreed. "One meant to protect children from people that could hurt them. I'm not going to hurt you. In fact I'll just stay over here far away from you so you don't have to worry about even coming near you."


"Okay," she said. "But I need to go where you are."


"Business with the not-so-dearly-departed?" I asked. She nodded in response. I stepped away to let her do her thing. Two quick jumps later and she was atop the monster's damaged skull.


"Now I'm curious," I said, dipping into the social skills I'd stolen from Victor and borrowed, more or less permanently, from Uber. Making myself seem eager and friendly. "Could you please tell me? I promise not to tell anyone else. It's only fair since I moved away for you."


Ugh, I thought. This makes me feel more unclean than having two women chained up in my basement.


She tilted her head, still sticking things to various parts of Crawler's head. I was pretty sure it was tinker tech, but I wasn't linked in to Leet's power right now. Or any time I could avoid it, for that matter. I wasn't sure if it was all tinkers, or just Leet, but I really didn't like accessing his power. Even if I was, there was no reason to believe he'd know what this did. "We're doing a few tests," she answered. "We might be able to undo the crystallization."


That was easy, I thought. Suspiciously so, until I remembered she was a child and had a lie detector, and I had told the truth. No intention of sharing the details. Time to feign some ignorance to indicate I'm not that bright. "Please tell me you're not planning to resurrect Crawler."


"No, all the other people caught by the glass bomb," she stated. "Big sister was very insistent that Crawler stay safely dead."


I chuckled, even though it was again only Victor's skillsets that made me. "Good," I replied, stretching my arms out. "I hope Crawler stays like this forever. But I should go home before my friends start to get worried, don't stay up too late."


"Okay," she agreed, not bothering to look away from her work as I walked away. The cyanide cocktail I drank earlier in the evening had already been countered, so I had no need to stay any longer. It was an insight into Pantheon, at least. I was sincere about hoping Crawler stayed where he was for a very long time, and I tried to be glad that the people that were frozen would survive. But all I could think about was that Panacea would get her bitch of a sister back, and I would never see mine again.


....


I walked into my base. Hilariously enough, only a couple blocks away from where the Undersiders once called home. Feels like a lifetime ago.


"Hey, chief," Leet said as I walked in. "One of the bugaways has broken down. The other two are still good, so it's not an emergency."


"Still top priority," I responded. I was the only one who could repair Leet's equipment reliably, thanks to the weird hangups his power had. Apparently those weaknesses didn't apply to me, for whatever reason. Probably for the same reason I couldn't use Fenja's power to enlarge more than just the clothes I was wearing, or choose which of Othala's powers got applied to a target. Why I needed touch to apply Victor's power, even though I could still feel potential skills from a distance.


"Also, you'll need to heal Fenja again, she's developed a minor infection."


Lovely, I thought. That has to be first, then. I went down to the basement. Leet followed me and Uber joined the progression when we passed the kitchen. Part of my rules to them: they had to be with me whenever I entered the basement. A psychological tactic, as much as one to pragmatically prove I wasn't doing anything particularly cruel to my guests. The clowns were villains, certainly, and ones that engaged in some sick shit in their day, like their GTA sequence. But even they had limits.


Othala glared at me. Victor simply stared blankly. I'd sapped everything he knew, already. Or almost everything, at least. He could still walk and feed himself and knew to use the bathroom, even still had a vague understanding of English. Past that he was a blank slate, a virtual zombie. A step above Fenja, who was in an induced coma, and not even a full step.


Othala, however, was quite aware of her surroundings.


"You nigger fuck!" she shouted the moment I was in view. "Your asshole minions came in here and forced themselves on me!" I knew she was lying immediately. Thanks to Victor's knowledge, there was nothing I did not know about her. I had to admit, her deliberately tearing her own clothes and giving herself a black eye to make it look more real was an impressive touch, but it was still fake.


Uber didn't really react, he maintained a talent for hiding his emotions. Leet wasn't so good at concealing his reactions, and it was through him that I measured the pair, their loyalty, their honesty. Leet was visibly startled, but surprised startled, not guilty startled. I chuckled, much to Othala's rage and dismay.


"Really?" I smirked. "You guys are into the skinny bony type, huh?"


She growled at me, her knuckles turning white as they gripped the bars. She was running on nothing but hate and rage, these days. She'd break, eventually. Holding on to rage only works when there's something to work toward. A goal that can be achieved. Othala had none of that, she had no means of fighting back or working on a plan to free herself and get her revenge. Despair would erode the anger. I'd remember to be 'nice' to her, shortly. I knew her clothing sizes, and would buy her something just a little too large for her. One more button to push.


"Not really," Uber responded in his perfectly practiced neutrality. He knew what I was doing. To say he agreed with it would be a bit of a stretch, but he didn't disagree much. I paid them both generously and on time, and I helped Leet restore some of his old tech to full working order. It was a good arrangement for all of us. Even if they were going to develop a conscience, they wouldn't waste it on the Nazi bitch who just accused them of rape. "Definitely prefer some meat on my women. Nice bubble butt, that's where it's at."


I wasn't sure how much of Uber's statement was true or not, as I said, he was resistant to the various talents for reading people that I pulled from Victor. It didn't make a difference.


Leet hesitated, but he figured out more or less what was expected of him, simply based on how Uber was acting out of character. "I'm a tits man, myself," he managed to sputter out, just enough that Othala could hear him. That was true enough, and still didn't matter.


"Sorry, sweetheart," I told her, feeling almost guilty as I used her insecurity and body image issues against her. "You're adorable and all, but a tad underdeveloped for real men. Now, if you'd claimed they were abusing Fenja, I might have believed you."


She visibly flinched at the comment. While the conscious part of her mind knew she was desirable based on, if nothing else, the way men stole glances at her and Victor liked to flaunt her in their civilian identities. Her subconscious mind was mired in her childhood, and status as a late bloomer. It was especially cruel, comparing her to someone like Fenja who was clearly altered via plastic surgery, at least to my now expert appraisal.


After she broke, I would use the opposite tactic. A combination of tenderness and Stockholm Syndrome. The others, I didn't need. Victor and Fenja were unnecessary except as tools. But Othala's power was incredibly versatile and could make already strong capes even stronger. To have her willing aid, for a given definition of willing, was worth this bullshit. If only I'd gotten to Valefor before Pantheon, I could have skipped right to the end in one step. I'd keep my eye out for other chances, of course, but master type capes were hard to come by in the best of times. And Leet already blew his mind control tech turning squirrels into packmen.


I passed Othala and went to Fenja's private room. She was unconscious, as always. It took me eighteen tries before I finally hit the 'regeneration' effect on Fenja, allowing her to heal, albeit slowly, from the infection. We weren't exactly running under 'hospital conditions', even if Uber's main job right now was seeing to her medical care. I canceled the recovery before it reached the damage done to her brain. This was why it had to be me that restored her: we couldn't risk Othala healing just a little too much, and undoing the brain damage that kept her under control.


====================


A/N- Man, Brian's kind of a dick.

Can you believe people didn't object to THAT being out of character, but did object to Uber and Leet being so?

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 125- Chernobog

"A hollow excuse," Legend was contrite in front of the cameras. Honestly contrite, he meant what he said. "One I expect no one to accept. As such, I am resigning from my position in the Protectorate. I shall continue volunteering for all Endbringer battles, as I have always done. I failed to take responsibility, and it cost lives. I could not live with myself if I did it again. But I do not deserve to call myself a leader after everything I failed to do."​

The couch arm I'd been gripping splintered in my hand, to my surprise. I hadn't been gripping that hard, had I? No, I realized. I hadn't. Or, at least, what had felt like a relatively gentle squeeze was enough to crush wood. Crawler's alterations were making a massive difference in a relatively short amount of time.


Legend was partially responsible for Aisha's death? He was honestly sorry about it, but he was partially responsible. I wasn't sure what to do about this. Even if I did go after him, he was still too strong for me to believe I could kill. Piggot, on the other hand, showed no signs of remorse and was far easier to kill. She was easily the first target. I would decide the guilt of Legend, and others, later.


....


Pantheon was gone from the city, though it took almost half an hour before I was confident enough to act. The Endbringer had finally made its move, and with that I could make mine. It was a simple enough task to learn where they were keeping Piggot. Breaking into houses wasn't exactly the hardest task, getting close enough to lift a few passwords was trivial. An accidental bump on the street was all it took with my newly developed eidetic memory. Wonder what they're going to consider me now, I idly thought. I knew enough about PRT protocols to make a very good guess. Brute 5, Striker 5, Mover 3, Shaker 3, Stranger 5. Trump 6, easily.


I frowned, looking at the prison. Minimum security. Cushy, even, and not the sort of place they'd ever send a poor boy like me. If I were arrested for pickpocketing, they wouldn't have sent me to a place this nice. Piggot's guilty of multiple premeditated murders and gets stuck in a country club thats only drawback is she's not allowed to leave.


I checked the timer. Tee minus thirty seven seconds. I waited, concentrating and calling on Menja's power through the quantum tunnel that Leet set up. My six and a half feet, thanks to Crawler exposure, shoots up to the new maximum, just over twenty feet. But that's twenty proportional feet to my new, already improved, physiology. The way her power works, it's more like I stay the same and everything else shrinks to a third its normal size. In my normal state I can lift about half a ton, and jump twice my height. With Menja's power, I could lift a over ten tons and still jump twice my height.


The hacking bot activates, shutting down the prison's ability to call out. The system would go through an AI loop that, if I was really lucky, would convince them backup was coming when it was not. If I was really unlucky, it just bought me thirteen minutes on top of the fastest possible non-parahuman response time of seven minutes. If there was a parahuman response, it would be from those that didn't go to the Endbringer.


I leapt from my hiding spot- a cloak field that would keep anyone from seeing me too soon, and was back to my normal size before I even left the bubble. I crossed the two layers of fences in that single leap. This was not a prison for parahumans. It wasn't even a prison from real criminals. This was a prison they sent rich old men to after busting them on so-called 'white collar' crimes. And even real prisons weren't designed to keep people from breaking in.


Several bullets hit me as I was traveling through the air. One of these guards is a really good shot. I landed and tumbled, laying still. Fuck that stings. The latest sessions with Crawler had been the dividing line. I no longer needed to be near him to keep his corrective regeneration. It was, of course, still stronger if I was, but my body had mutated to the point that I had a permanent version, much like my superhuman strength and durability was permanent. I also had Othala give me the regen setting before I went out for this. Wasn't something I wanted to rely upon, but having it was nice.


The bullets melted away, dissolved and digested by my mutated physiology. It took me four seconds to roll to my feet and bolt again. I made it to the gate inside the prison. Closed, of course, and guarded. More bullets, this time not even breaking my skin as I bulked up some in size. If I worked this right they'd assume I had something kinda like Lung's power. A backhand was all it took to render one unconscious, and I body checked the other into the wall. Enough time to absorb the access code. Gripping his hand, I forced him to punch in the numbers. Let them wonder how I did that.


The gate opened. One minute and twenty two seconds.


Inside meant I wasn't getting shot at constantly. And they weren't using long range rifles. Handheld guns didn't mean a lot to me. A couple quick 'splats' and I was adhered to the floor. Containment foam, I realized quickly. They were prepared for parahumans. I activated the overshield and pushed my way forward. Its frictionless effect kept the foam from actually sticking to me or my clothes. Didn't mean it was easy to fight through the gunk, but it gave me the ability to.


My senses from Victor at least told me the path to take- the one blocked off from the current guards. They couldn't keep me here, not with any of their tools. But I had a mission to complete, and if I wasted too much time then I'd fail just as handedly as if they'd caught me. This was my one and only opportunity. I broke through and bolted, pouncing on a guard and holding my oversized hand around his mouth and nose. He emptied his handgun into my chest and stomach. Nothing to be worried about. Meanwhile, I pulled his memories of the building, its procedures, and what to expect next.


Six and a half minutes. The guard passed out. Victor's power, but it would appear to have been suffocation from how I'd gripped him. Three others had appeared at the end of the hallway. Whether they didn't shoot because they figured it was useless because I was clearly bulletproof, or because they didn't want to accidentally shoot their friend, I didn't know or care.


I leapt straight up and locked onto the ceiling. Kinetic manipulation designed by Leet to imitate Spiderman. Whoever that is. I jumped again, landing next to one of the guys with the foam launchers and knocking him out. Then I leapt and backflipped as he was hosed by the other guy. A quick blow to the side of the head knocked that one out and gave me a basic refresher on how to use the weapon. Nothing I didn't already know from Victor's extensive repertoire, but it always helped to 'update' in case it was a new model or there was something specific to worry about with that weapon.


I pulled the launcher off him, deactivated my shield, and put it on. They knew I was bulletproof, they knew I was foam proof. They'd keep trying, of course, but the intimidation factor meant something. Plus, the more powers I demonstrated, the less they'd be able to guess who was attacking. The less they'd assume I was someone else, too. If I did this right, they'd have no idea who I was and why I was here. Even if they'd be able to guess who I was here for.


Eight minutes and thirteen seconds. There was a rattling sound as they slammed the doors, locking me into this corridor. Fuck. I charged the direction I needed to go. The prison's infirmary section, which included the cells of all the patients who had dire medical needs. It was the only place the bitch could be. I had boosted up to the largest size I could afford while still indoors, and collided with the metal hard. It was the proportional equivalent of chicken wire to me, and it caved that easily.


An expert blow sent one of the nearby guards flying back, and I wedged the barricade into the wall blocking off another direction. A quick pop of containment foam cut off a third access point.


Nine minutes and twenty seconds. I'd reached the infirmary section. A dozen guards were waiting for me. They must have guessed my target. This complicates matters. If they killed her first, and they might, it rendered this moot. I activated a flashbang still in my hand. Something I'd immunized myself against almost immediately after learning my power drain still worked on Crawler's crystal body.


I rushed in, disabling them all in the least deadly ways possible. I didn't want to hurt them. They'd foamed the entryway, hoping it could keep me out. They would have been right, too, but I still had Leet's technology to back me. One short range teleport later, I was on the other side. Ten minutes and forty five seconds. I didn't even have to foam the passage to keep others out.


I passed over thirty cells before finding Piggot's. She had a dialysis machine plugged into her side. Victor's twice-stolen knowledge at work.


"Here to kill me?" she sneered angrily. I gripped the cage to her cell and strained against it. Body slamming wasn't something I could afford.


"Eventually," I grunted as I broke the locking mechanism. "We're going to have a talk first."


"So I can hear you justify your crimes?" she scoffed.


"The opposite, actually," I answered. "I want to hear you justify your cold blooded murders."


Her eyes narrowed. "Ah, more of my mistake coming back to bite me in the ass," she sighed. "That'll go down as my biggest regret in life, Mister Laborn, failing to kill all of you at once."


She wants me to kill her, I realized. "You're sick," I muttered.


"Says the man who's here to murder me," she retorted.


"Yes, says the man who's here to execute you for your crimes," I answered. I reached out and grasped her mouth before she could say another word.


And then I pulled at her mind. Procedures not available to grunts. Knowledge Uber and Victor could not have. Codes and passwords that were already defunct, of course. Most importantly: names. A lot of names. Starting from Nilbog and ending with her arrest. The men and women who gave her the job of looking over a city. The ones that covered up how disastrous Elisburg was. The ones that gave Piggot promotions in order to keep her from revealing what she knew about that failed mission. A lot of Protectorate secrets.


Legend: telling the truth about his complicity. Miss Militia: said nothing, did nothing. Armsmaster: still alive, now with the Guild. Director Costa-Brown: using Piggot for her own purposes, followed by destroying her credibility and throwing her away the moment she was no longer useful. Shadow Stalker: hidden away in juvie a hundred miles from here. Triumph: the mayor's son. Calvert: the only other survivor. All reflected through the beliefs of this paranoid psychotic bitch, of course, but her impressions were only biased, not wrong.


I drank lightly and broadly of Piggot's knowledge. Couldn't afford to go so deep as to influence her mind long term, now that I'd decided to leave her here to rot. She wants to die? She can get off her fat ass and do it herself, because I am not about to give her the fucking satisfaction. A lifetime in a cell, suffering from a body that was pathetic and weak and hideous until her dying day? I wouldn't be able to dream up a better revenge.


Seventeen minutes and thirty three seconds. A quick blow to her head and a deeper pull from her short term memories. She'd be unable to remember the last twelve hours with any sort of clarity, and by the time she recovered from the damage enough to convert her short term memory to long term, anything she knew about me would be long gone.


One last button press, and I was outside and in my cloak bubble. One mission complete. Eighty two remaining.


==================


A/N- Ah, Brian.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 126


"So," Taylor said, giving me a quick hug. "Crystal's managed to patch things up with Sarah."


"You mean your new step mother?" I smiled. AmusementAcquiescence. "That's good, Aunt Sarah deserves to be happy. We probably should have warned Crystal about her and your dad before. Could have eased her into it a bit more gently."


"Well, they were oblivious before, so there wasn't anything to-" ShockAversion.


"What was that?" I asked.


"Err, nothing," Taylor muttered. "I just..." SurpriseHumiliationWorryRelief. Taylor started blushing. "Nothing I'm going to repeat. Either thing. I'm done spying. Back to pretending I don't hear tens of thousands of conversations per hour."


"How do you do that, anyway?" I asked. "I could understand 'too much, can't sort through it all', but... hearing it all and pretending you don't?"


She shrugged. "It's like wearing clothes," she answered. "It's not like your skin doesn't know, you just don't notice them unless you're choosing to pay attention. It's kind of the same thing. I'm not paying attention, so I don't notice and it doesn't stick in my memory at all. Now let's stop talking about it, because I really really want to think of something else. Anything else, I don't care what it is."


"Anything?" I asked.


ReluctanceConcern. "What did I just agree to?"


"Well," I said. "We have to get Emma and analyze what we know of the Simurgh fight."


AnnoyanceDistasteResignation. "Okay, I'll contact her, and Crystal and everyone else. So much for after battle relaxation."


"Well," I smiled, then whispered in her ear. "I can think of a few ways to relax before they get here."


ShockedPleased.


....


Emma's report was disturbing, to say the least. DreadParanoiaHesitation.


"She did more than just go easy on us," Taylor muttered, clutching my hand tighter. "She helped us."


"How do you figure?" Flechette asked. She was in her old costume, now. The press might have made a big deal of that, but I'd set up secret tunnels through the Yggdrasil that would let our team come and go without being seen. The best way to keep secret identities, such as we still had any, a secret.


"We survived," I answered. "We're the only people making a presence that had no losses. Everyone else..."


"Over two hundred Protectorate members lost, if we include the wards," Lisa answered the unspoken question. ConcernDismay.


"A lot of people will want to join our team just because of that," Taylor confirmed. "In addition, the PRT cannot refuse our offer of the M6s, now. They don't have the resources to function without them. Some cities were hit really, really bad."


"Chicago's the worst," Lisa again informed us. "They have two members left. I doubt even they realize it yet, but by the end of the week there won't be a PRT or Protectorate there, with all the parahuman gangs that will see blood in the water. Expect the Fallen to make a visit, probably the Elite."


"We'll have to act almost immediately," Taylor answered. "And we'll have to do it in a way that doesn't reveal that my range is, theoretically, planetary. She wants us to split the team and make us vulnerable. Fucking Simurgh. Couldn't have just let us go after Behemoth, could she?"


"There's also the fallout with Alexandria killing Dragon," I added.


"That wasn't Dragon," Lisa corrected. "Or, at least, not really. Remote control system a lot like our changelings. What Alexandria killed was just a puppet."


"Did... did she know that at the time?" I asked.


Lisa looked at me, her eyes narrowed for a second, before she sighed. "I don't know," she admitted. "Alexandria's a powerful thinker, ranks higher there than she does as a brute or mover. And she's pretty damn impressive at both of those."


"So how are we handling all of this?" I asked.


"Dragon and Alexandria will hold their own press conferences on the issue, I'm sure. Shouldn't be too hard for the world's most powerful tinker to demonstrate her robots. The fact that our changelings are already well known thanks to the M4s can't hurt, either. She could claim she was borrowing our idea for herself. But I'm pretty sure she was using remote control tech long before Amelia came up with her version."


"Highest priority, then, is completing the M6 and the production pods," Taylor stated. "It took us a month to build up everything we used in the last Endbringer fight, we'll resolve to dedicate two months for the next. Right now, we need to expand our fortifications to other cities. I'll talk to C-ommissioner Micheals and Director Calvert. Arrange some cross training in the remaining M4s, that way when we're ready to distribute the new gear, we'll already have people in other cities that know how to actually use it."


"Now that all our tinkers know about me," Riley stated, then hesitated under Parian's gaze, before she continued speaking. "We'll need to work on the next generation of weapons. And a way to mass produce the generic armor systems. Even if we can't give custom armors, there's certain generic power types that we can boost at least a little. Every little bit is going to help right now."


"Is this what the flying bitch wanted to do to us?" I muttered. "Force us to split our efforts so many ways that we start screwing up?"


"It... would be the easiest way to defeat us as an organization," Taylor suggested, following my line of thinking. "We've been riding success after success this whole time. It's self feeding, and I won't exactly bitch about it. Simurgh was an ugly victory, but it was still victory enough that we haven't lost momentum. Trying to take on too much, too fast, could break that momentum. And..." She put her arm around me. "It's what happened to New Wave, after all."


"Maybe," Lisa agreed. "We don't have a choice, however."


"We really don't, do we?" I sighed. "This is how she operates, isn't it? Making it look like we don't have a choice. Taking away all the better options."


"It is," Lisa nodded. "And in that, at least, the bitch won. If we don't act to replace the damaged Protectorate, we could lose half the country by the end of the year. As it stands, the west coast is almost certainly fucked. China's going to be that much more of a threat, and we're likely to be the only heroes that can afford to show up to the next Endbringer battle."


"Fucking fuck!" Flechette shouted, punching a wall. She used her power and sank her arm up to the elbow. "We killed a fucking Endbringer. That means things are suppose to get better, not worse! Monster slain, celebrations and drunken parties and national holidays. Not civil wars and international threats and quadruple guessing everything we do from now on!"


AgreementAngerFutility.


================


A/N- And now for something completely different?

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 127- Alexandria


"This is Pantheon," a new voice answered. "Noelle speaking."


"I'm afraid I don't know the name," I replied. I don't recognize the voice, either. I opt not to say that part.


"They've decided to hire a secretary," she answered. "Who's this?"


"Chief Director Costa-Brown," I answered.


"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I'll put you through to Minerva if you don't mind holding a second."


"That is fine," I responded. Their secretary isn't very good at this. There was a click on the phone, and then another.


"Good afternoon, Chief Director," Minerva responded. "Sorry about that, we're juggling a lot of things right now. Probably not as much as you are, so let's get down to business. You're interested in our M6s, but content to handle that through Director Calvert. So this is about the Endbringer killing weapon."


"Yes," I responded. "Our people have studied the aftermath of the attack. We can confirm that it was not your weapon, or the Endbringer having a 'self destruct' feature, which burned India. You are authorized to utilize the weapon on the remaining two. In fact, we insist that you do so." This isn't the point of the conversation and she knows it.


"We're hoping to field a superior version for the next conflict," Minerva confirmed. They already knew it was not the Simurgh that caused the energy burst. "We were also hoping to speak with Alexandria soon. We think we have a way to improve her effectiveness for Endbringer grade conflicts."


That was the key to this lock, good girl. "... Only Alexandria?" I asked.


"At this juncture, unfortunately, yes," she answered. "We'd need to do extensive research on the other two to develop a strategy for improving on their powers. Legend is... well, our best current analogue is Eki. Her armor works by feeding in energy. It's safe enough for her, but to use it on someone who becomes energy... I'm sure you understand how incredibly dangerous that might be for him."


I frowned. That is unfortunate. "Yes," I agreed.


"And Eidolon's power is, frankly, too versatile. We can't build efficient power interactions when we don't even know what power to expect. He's... actually best suited for our standard, unaugmented armor system. It's durable enough in its own right, and comes with excellent flight capabilities. At the very least, it frees him from selecting movement or defensive powers in most scenarios. We're creating a better flight version for users with high defensive powers, and a better defense version for movers who are otherwise vulnerable, in case he'd prefer either of those instead."


"I'll see to it both he and Alexandria get the message," I stated. True enough, in its way. "I won't keep you from your work any longer. I must continue mine."


"Busy day for everyone," Minerva agreed, before hanging up.


I made another call immediately, to Dragon. "To what do I owe this call, Chief Director?" the false voice spoke. Dragon never used her true voice, although she had an admittedly very good simulation that she used at near instantaneous speeds. Now I was certain I knew why. She is artificial. Perhaps an AI tinker that hid behind his or her creation, or the Dragon persona was entirely an AI.


"I wished to confirm that you weren't harmed in the conflict with the Simurgh," I told her.


"Not physically, no," she responded. "Defiant's injuries, and the use of my equipment to kill so many... it brings its own kind of pain." It sounds like legitimate sadness in her artificial voice, I realized.


"It does," I agreed. "I can't say I know what it's like for a tinker, to see their own weapons turned against them like that, but I know what it's like to see loved ones lost in battle against monsters." Hero, I thought. Then quashed the memory. Now is not the time.


"It helps to know that all of my instruments confirm the Simurgh is no longer detectable," she continued. "It appears that Pantheon has legitimately succeeded in eliminating the Endbringer."


"Every tinker and thinker we have consulted agrees with your assessment," I informed her. "Of course, given that it's the Simurgh, I am hesitant to believe she hasn't found a way to hide from detection. I of course wished to hear your analysis. I'll leave you to your work."


I had several more calls to make, including one to the President and others to the Prime Ministers of both Canada and England, but in truth my mind was consumed with what Pantheon might devise to improve on my powers.


....


I landed outside their base. From above, it could easily be mistaken for a fairly large chunk of parkland in the city. The first time I had been to Brockton Bay since Leviathan. I was truly impressed by how quickly they had managed to recover. I frowned at the flashes of cameras. It was almost ten at night in this timezone, and the tabloid reporters were still at it? Perhaps my decision to drop in unannounced wasn't such a wise one.


The ground opened up for me as I made to land. I simply followed it down, finding myself in a surprisingly expansive laboratory. Bonesaw was there, working with some machine. "Everyone else will be here in a minute," she sang cheerfully. It honestly bothered me a little that I was ignoring her presence here.


I'd long since stopped thinking in such a childishly black and white fashion about morality, but this was still Bonesaw. I couldn't help but remember my fight with the Siberian when I looked at her. At the same time, I could relax knowing that Pantheon was a group of pragmatists, willing to do what was best instead of getting mired in what was right. These are people Cauldron can work with.


"I can wait," I replied, trying to sound... not 'friendly', but at least 'polite'. "It was... difficult... to find an opportunity to speak in person."


"I understand," a voice spoke. My head snapped in that direction as Khepri stepped out of an alcove. No, not Khepri, I realized. A Khepri doppleganger. One of their human form androids. I can barely tell the difference.


"I was asked to make contact," I told her. True, although I wouldn't acknowledge my other identity.


"First," she said. "Everything said here stays confidential, correct."


"Correct," I answered. We all knew I'd already informed Cauldron. "Doctor-patient confidentiality, applied both ways."


Khepri nodded her approval. "Amelia's on her way," she informed me.


"This is really exciting," Bonesaw smiled eagerly. "The first thing is the simplest. You've stated you have difficulty breathing in hostile conditions. So I built you this!" She lifted up something that looked like a wriggling white two foot long worm covered in tendrils. And those tendrils also had tendrils. "Really it's for anyone who wants one. What we do is stick it in your lungs and it'll breathe for you. Or, well, it generates oxygen right next to your bronchioles. Breathing is rendered totally unnecessary except for the purpose of speaking."


For the first time in years, I actually cringed at the thought of something. "And its needed supply of energy?" I asked.


"Nothing you don't produce anyway," she answered. "The heat energy released into the environment when you breath will instead be converted into chemical energy to maintain the system."


"Do... all of you have these?" I asked.


"No," Khepri replied adamantly. "In fact, none of us do. We use something like them to keep the M4s and M6s well oxygenated, but we haven't had them installed inside our bodies."


Oh thank you merciful God, I thought. "Then I'm afraid I'll have to decline," I replied. "I'd prefer not to be the test subject for an untried device."


"Aww," Bonesaw pouted, tossing the thing back toward the table. It landed with a wet splat, where I couldn't stop watching it wriggle in the corner of my eye. "But you could have been the most amazing spokesperson. Everyone would want one if they knew Alexandria was using it."


Gaea arrived in time to hear the last of the conversation. "Riley, what's rule seven?"


"If it's a parasitic worm, then no one's going to want it," she answered. "But it's not a worm at all, it's a tree root!"


"It's still not something people are going to want," Gaea insisted, as she walked over to me. "Sorry about that. Now, the first part of this is that I will need to touch you. Attempt to learn how your power influences your body. This will determine what, if anything, can be done with your power."


"It's quite alright," I lied masterfully. Bonesaw offering parasitic upgrades is very much not alright. I did, however, extend my hand for Gaea to touch.


She frowned almost immediately. "Your body is... I can sense it as easily as anyone else, but I can't alter it. At all. It's frozen. Your Passenger seems to have locked your body in stasis. Theoretically, this means you're untouchable to almost every power, or interaction between powers. I... cannot alter you or build a system to capitalize on your power."


"I can think of one," Bonesaw sang happily. "You're going to love it."


"Okay, I'm listening," I regretted the words before I even started speaking them.


===================

A/N- So many shadows being fored.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 128- Amelia, Taylor and Lily.


"So, am I the only one who noticed that the mayor's name is dick 'em daily?" I heard Respawn mutter. Too quiet for anyone other than a parahuman to hear, but of course picked up through all of our armor systems. I couldn't comment, I wouldn't comment. Emma snickered over the communications, much to Taylor's annoyance. I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.


"Thank you for seeing us, Mayor," I said with a smile. Richard Daley had been mayor of Chicago for decades, from what I had been told briefly. His career was, well, 'checkered' was a polite way of putting it. None of which really mattered.


"And thank you for coming. Things have been trying, as you might imagine, and we are glad for the offer of assistance."


I nodded, there was no doubt of that, at least. "Wish we could be here under better circumstances," I answered. "We have several plans I'd like to discuss with you. We need to make a statement to the criminal groups that are taking advantage of the tragedy in New Delhi. Chicago's been hit worse than anywhere else on the continent, so we'd like to start here."


"Of course," the elderly Mayor agreed readily. "I've already collected my advisors."


He was eager for the help, as was no surprise. Of course, Costa-Brown's backing probably helped push this faster, and more cleanly, than it might otherwise have gone.


....


Another podium, another press conference, I sighed inwardly. When had this started to become tiresome instead of terrifying? I couldn't pinpoint a day. Probably around the time Taylor's identity was revealed to the world. Yeah, that annoyance, that's when I got tired of this sort of thing.


"I am proud to welcome Gaea to the fine city of Chicago," Mayor Daley announced for the press conference. I found myself wishing Taylor was here with me. She had another mission to accomplish. Most of our team did. I felt the return wash of emotion. LonelySupportResolve. I smiled. We were all in this together.


"Thank you, Mayor," I said as I looked at the camera. "Pantheon would like to make an announcement on behalf of our team, our nation, and the human race as a whole. With the death of the Simurgh came a staggering cost. Too great a cost to call the battle a victory."


-----------


LonelyNostalgia. Aww, she missed me. I felt warm, and not just because Matriarch had the best life support comfort ever. Pity I wasn't able to really use it in this mission. I simply sat in a room next to various dispatchers. The PRT, every police department in the city, and somehow even the National Guard had been tapped for this. I always thought the National Guard was meant for riots and the like. Then again, maybe that was the expectation: that there would be riots.


I push a tack into the map, and the police would head to that location. Green, Yellow and Red for levels of danger. Once they arrived, I would show them where to go via insect trail.


My relay bugs had been fanned out across the city. There was no pretense, no subtlety. We no longer cared: the world could know the full extend of my power and it changed nothing. We had slain an Endbringer, after all. They knew I had city wide range, already. And so, I was willing to demonstrate my city wide range. Let them think this was the last of our secret weapons instead of the least of them.


I was simultaneously aware of over two million people, most of them I wasn't paying attention to. I focused on the scents the insects were detecting. Bugs, at least in the numbers I had access to, were more sensitive to drugs than any dog could be. Heroin and cocaine were distinctive, if generally rather muted from their packaging. Meth was painfully obvious even from a block away. Oddly enough, marijuana was still one of the most difficult chemicals to recognize. Most insects couldn't tell the difference between it, and any other packet of dried leaves from the average spice rack. I had to make more assumptions on that one.


We weren't here for the marijuana. Chances were high that it would be legal in a couple years, anyway. Much like back in Brockton Bay, we were not here to make arrests. It would take rewriting the constitution to make this kind of search valid for prosecution. We weren't even here to clean up Chicago. That would require abandoning our home. We were here to make a fucking point.


I felt a certain satisfaction and nausea at the few we truly could arrest. The places with forced prostitution. The rapists. The crimes in progress. The law allowed for 'belief of immediate danger' to trump the need for a warrant. It also allowed me to do more than simply report. Where I jabbed a black pin into the map they'd provided for me, it meant 'send medical personnel'. They got the same treatment as I gave Eligos. A hundred pounds or more of crickets and cockroaches, biting and chewing their skin. Tens of thousands of papercuts. They couldn't prove I didn't interrupt a rape in progress, after all.


We were sending a message: any city that Pantheon needs to save is going to cost every criminal group a whole lot of money. The PRT and Protectorate and Police and even Pantheon could not police everyone. But the gangs could police themselves. And they would, if simply to avoid drawing our attention. We would exist as the hammer, ready to come down on any city that was too troublesome, any group that would not play by the rules. And if we came down, we came down on everything at once.


-------------


"Atropos, we got your target," Khepri spoke through the communication system in the armor. I looked over at Sabah.


"About time, I was getting bored," I replied. "Who's the target?"


"Guy called 'Topsy'," Khepri answered. "According to what what I'm being told, he likes to think he's some kind of oldschool gangster. Has a couple unknowns with him. Minerva will give you details en route."


We took off, or really Parian took off while I held one of the ribbons and let my AG field do the rest of the work. Using her power as fuel for some kind of crazy rocket engine was novel, and had finally convinced my girlfriend that her power didn't suck. She still complained that mine was better, but it was good natured now. She was potential competition for Alexandria, after all. More than enough power to make anyone happy.


By the time we arrived, we knew what we were getting ourselves into, and I had concluded yet again that my girlfriend's costume was far too form concealing for my tastes. You could only tell it was meant for a girl because it looked like a giant stuffed doll. We split up. Parian went inside waited down the hall from their apartment. I waited for her to get in position, then hovered my way almost casually to the window and then knocked.


"Fuck!" A woman exclaimed inside, but quietly enough that I only heard thanks to the armor system. That would be Mockshow, a matter manipulator who builds golems. Similar to Sabah's power. Or, more a hybrid of Sabah and Theo. She had a Manton Limit, and that meant we weren't at any risk of her being able to hurt us.


"We're surrounded," another man declared. Probably Watch. Grab bag cape thats power was basically 'see living things, get close to them really fast, then touch and kill them'. He was the dangerous one. A sadist who had killed and maimed often enough that he'd go straight to the Birdcage. He was why Sabah had infused the door with her power.


"Shit, grab what you can and run," and that'd be Topsy. Gravity control and, well, that was basically it. Scary if you weren't prepared for it. We were most definitely prepared for it.

"There's no chance of escape," Khepri's swarm voice spoke. I shivered. I was one of the few people on the planet with a hard counter for her bugs, and the cloud of insects mimicking human speech sent the worst kind of shivers down my spine.


"Fuck, that's... fuck, I think I'm gonna throw up," the girl muttered.


"I can track you anywhere in the city. You either surrender, or try fighting your way through," Khepri continued. "Feel free to take a minute and prepare, we wouldn't want you to think you only lost because we caught you with your pants down. Oh, and in case you're wondering, your opponents are Clotho, a high end telekinetic who can trade blows with Alexandria and at least break even. And Atropos, who has superhuman accuracy with the projectiles built into her armor, and can dissolve through anything that touches her armor or weapons. Even Endbringers. Also, they have a dozen exotic tracking systems in their armor, so they can hear everything we're saying and follow you with infrared and bioelectric detection. You've already lost."


"Wait... you mean you sent the fucking Endbringer Slayer after us?" the girl exclaimed. "Shit! Okay, I'm done. Sorry, Topsy, I'm not afraid to do a minute in the pen, but I'd like to do it with all my limbs where they belong. Wh-wai-" she started screaming.


I bolted in through the window even as the door disintegrated by Sabah's power. Two seconds and four bolts later and Watch had dropped screaming in pain. I did't bother charging the shots or adding the sleep agent, they hit with standard impact velocity. Both his kneecaps and elbows were shattered thanks to my flawless accuracy and sense of timing. The fucker was attacking his own team, I had absolutely no reason to be gentle.


I considered one more bolt- it wouldn't need to be much, it would look like an accident that he bled out and died. Sabah would know, Khepri would know, neither of them would say anything. I wouldn't, of course, I wasn't a murderer. But if they could ignore Bonesaw, then they could ignore...


A couch launched, or really more like fell, at me. It vanished where it touched, leaving only fragments that missed me to continue on and into the wall. Some even bounced off Sabah's armor. "Really?" I said, looking at him. "What part of 'dissolve anything' did you not hear?"


A couple ribbons snaked out and picked up Mockshow from where she was gripping her arm. "Don't worry, we'll fix it," she insisted to the girl who was doing nothing but muttering profanities. The ribbons craddled the girl gently. A third had far less gently wrapped around Watch, who had passed out from the pain. That was fine, we had no intention of patching him up before sending him away.


Topsy regarded me for a moment as the ribbons did their thing. "Had to take a shot, y'know," he shrugged. "You win. Get the feeling that either of you alone could have taken all of us without a problem. Bug bitch... fuck, I saw the video of what you did to Eligos. I'll pass, thanks."


Mockshow hissed. "Fuck, why couldn't you have shot him sooner?!"


"Sorry," I muttered. "Didn't think he'd go after one of his own team like that."


"He's a fucking psycho, you dumb bitch!" she yelled. "Of course he would!"


===========

These three got curb stomped the FIRST time. Clearly, they never stood much of a chance here.

Also: yes, referenced a real person. As a Chicago (region) native, I can assure you that Worm's "it gets worse" aura means Daley triggered with immortality and will never stop being the mayor of Chicago.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 129- Horus


"Umm, small problem," Clarice stated. "Looks like a couple of Atropos and Clotho's targets got hurt, they're being brought in. I might need to pay more attention to that. Expect Clarice to be slow in this fight, okay?"


"That's okay," Lachesis answered. "We have half our firepower here, and Th- Horus can protect me."


She looked toward me, and I knew she was smiling. Couldn't see it through her armor, however. I nodded to confirm. "Of course," I replied. "Khepri and Eki are going to be doing the heavy lifting in this fight. We're just here to catch the runners and provide first aid to those who need it."


Our target was the 'Teeth', I thought darkly. They, or their predecessors at least, had killed my mother. It was unlikely that the Butcher was here for this one- a new city, so far from home. We had no real way of knowing, however. They'd found their place to hide in a slum neighborhood. I couldn't help but think of my father describing places such as this one, and the 'inferior blood' that lived there. I wasn't sure how I felt to see he was wrong in at least one regard: there are plenty of whites here. The Teeth, it seems, did not discriminate. They accepted scum of all colors.


"It's time," Khepri instructed, and sky turned dark. Thousands of tons of insects dived the area, swarming every member of their sick gang almost simultaneously. The screaming was echoed in a chorus of fear and pain as we moved forward, not even needing to act. We were here for the parahuman response, and we got it.


Emerald arrows formed in the sky and started launching toward us. How do they know where we are? I wondered. Powers, of course. I provided a shield of metal- not because any of us needed it, but simply for appearance's sake. The arrows crashed against the shields, dispersing their energy into thousands of dimensions simultaneously. They splintered into shards of glass and then vanished into nowhere, much as they had come from nowhere to begin with.


Eki stuck a hand out of the side of the shield, soaking a blow from one of the arrows. "Less than a tenth of a percent," she stated. Not to us, but to Khepri and Minerva. She waited a second for confirmation before taking to the sky. Her armor in stealth mode, she activated the widest range of the vertigo weapon, blasting the area with energy. Most of the teeth collapsed to the ground, and some even started being ill. I've been on the receiving end of the weapon. Not a pleasant feeling, but it confirmed that my armor did not protect me from low end sonic attacks. The injure and kill settings, my power would block. But whatever part of the Manton Effect that allowed me to see and hear through the armor made me vulnerable to the vertigo setting.


We moved forward, step by step, moving past downed members of the Teeth. Turning over the ones that might be at risk of choking, checking the health of those that looked worse off, mostly from injuries that had not healed from whatever fights they had before we got here. After they had dropped, the tranquilizer mosquitoes made sure they would not get up.


"Are you sure no one will be able to identify the drug?" I asked Clarice. Riley, I reminded myself. I had known her for so long as nothing other than 'Clarice' that I had trouble thinking of her as anything else. She was Bonesaw, once, I reminded myself. If even Bonesaw could change, why couldn't Kayden? I resolved to ignore that thought for now. Now is not the time.


"No one will ever be able to prove there was a drug," Clarice answered with her artificially perfect voice. "Well, Dragon can probably figure it out, maybe the Protectorate has someone who can surprise me."


"But they're not gonna tell, they need us too much," Missy said with a girlish excitement. "Uh oh, looks like we have company."


A large gorilla/wolf monster stood atop one of the buildings. He screamed, and Eki faltered, then started falling. "Powers down!" she screamed as she fell. I set a ramp to catch her, and another scream dissolved it.


"Fuck!" Minerva, this time. "That's Animos! Power nullifying blaster attack. Changer with brute abilities. We've proven our point, get Eki and fall back!"


"I got him," Missy said with cold certainty, and then she was gone. She appeared behind him on the building, only a second later, raising her hand and blasting him. I could see the visible distortion of time and space released from her attack, which meant it was at least stage two. He went flying off the building, while I managed to rebuild the ramp for Eki to slide down.


Missy stepped again, and appeared below Animos, firing straight up. The monster was carried by warped space upward into the sky. She was right next to me in another second. "So, is he rated high enough to survive a thousand foot drop?" she asked casually. She is amazing, I realized for approximately the hundredth time. It's not just that her power is incredible, it's how smart and efficiently she uses it.


"Maybe," Minerva answered. "Probably not. Horus, you'll have to catch him if possible.


"Yes, ma'am," I responded, pulling myself out of my own thoughts. Eki had hit the bottom of the ramp and was going back up the other side. She drew herself away from the slide under her own power.


"I'm back in the fight," Eki informed us. "Thanks for the save, Horus."


"Time delay of seventeen point three seconds," Aceso spoke. "That's how long it takes to recover."


"Still gotta recharge the shields on the suit," Eki answered, diving back behind my shield for cover from the constant stream of crystal arrows. She looked her armor over, and I gave it a glance as well. There were several areas where the camouflage layer had been cut by the arrows. "Good thing this armor is so durable. Thanks." She patted Clarice on the head. "Guess I owe you. Again."


"That's what family's for, right?" Aceso replied.


"This guy with the arrows has a shield I can't get through," Khepri said through the suits. "You'll have to go after him personally. Also, Animos is falling. Injuries are fine, but we really don't want to kill anyone during this. We're already going to be scary enough that some groups might get the bright idea to team up and come after us. Sure, we have contingencies for that, but it's not something we want to actually happen if we can avoid it.


"I'll clear out the building he's in," Eki stated, looking in the direction that Khepri was pointing her. I flew up toward one of the nearby rooftops, to get a better angle and view. More bolts collided with my armor uselessly. Missy stepped again, and vanished with Aceso. The tracking system put them a couple blocks away.


"Found their reinforcements," Missy said over the com. Four seconds later she spoke again. "Disabled their reinforcements. We're gonna need at least one more bus to haul these losers away. One's getting back up, regen. Aceso has enga- Aceso is purs-. Nevermind, the new parahuman in custody. Brute, mover, seems to be a really fast regenerator. Like faster than Lung."


Those girls, I smiled. So very glad they're on my side.


Animos collided hard with my ramp- he was a brute, after all, and while I was pretty effective even powerless thanks to the suit, I didn't want to be forced to fight like that.


He rolled for a bit before managing to find an angle to slide. I didn't allow it to be completely frictionless this time, so he slid up, and back down, without nearly the speeds that I had put Missy through after we first met. He ground to a halt, eventually.


"Animos is down," I stated for the team. "Human state, now. Broken leg, don't like the look of his ribs, and he's unconscious. He'll survive, but that's about all he'll be able to do for a while."


An explosion burst from the side of the building Eki was in. "This guy's a pain in the ass," she muttered. "It's like trying to fight an even more dick version of Shatterbird. He can use his forcefield to fly."


"Fall back," Minerva ordered. "Unless he engages you, let him run."


"You have a backup plan?" Eki asked.


"A couple," she confirmed. "One of our more fun secret weapons."


----


I paused, a moment of silence for the dead. In that minute, I felt the pulses of emotion off of Taylor. As I had started this speech, live, the operation had started. The thrill of victory, and occasional bursts of disgust and concern radiated off my partner. Her emotions sang. This is her element, where she was happiest.


I wasn't the same. I loved the conflicts, my Passenger guaranteed that I would. Still, mine was not a power for the front line. I was a builder, and the more I built the more my Passenger rewarded me. More skill, more control, more confidence. Everything I had been lacking. My General was on the front lines, where she belonged. I was here, where I belonged, making everything possible.


Time to continue the speech. "It has been confirmed that the explosion was not the result of the Simurgh self destructing, as was originally believed, but instead a tinker weapon she built and deployed." A partial lie, I knew. True enough to pass any lie detection, however. "If there is a victory in this, it's knowing that her brothers can be eliminated without risking the death of much of the rest of the world. Pantheon will be there to ensure that destruction." I gave a minor pause. Judging by Taylor's emotional undercurrent, she was pleased on her end. Good.


"But today is not about that mission," I conditioned, switching tones. "Today is about the cowardly actions taken by others in the wake of New Delhi. The world has lost many of its heroes. Not simply those who called themselves heroes and worked with the Protectorate, or those in independent teams like Pantheon. There are those who call themselves villains, and those who wish to avoid using their powers entirely. They who did not call themselves heroes, yet still had the courage to stand and fight against the enemy of all humanity. Let no one say their sacrifices were any less dear."


"To those who see the this tragedy as a weakness to exploit," I continued, letting my own disgust seep into my voice. The feelings that Valefor and the Slaughterhouse Nine evoked in me. "To the pathetic cowards who look upon the death of almost a billion people and consider it an opportunity," I spit the word. "Pantheon issues this warning: we consider any attempt to use New Delhi for personal gain to be a direct violation of the Endbringer truce. We will act accordingly."


"Chicago has been invaded by such scum," I continued. "Jackals looking to prey upon the suffering of others. We are moving to remove them from the city, even as I give this speech. Within the hour, they shall be disabled and in custody. Along with a number of other criminal elements. The city of Chicago is now clean." I said that with full confidence, knowing that Taylor was still entirely pleased on her end.


I let that concept sink in for a second, and even a few of the men watching this announcement murmured their surprise.


"In order to keep it that way, we have brought to this city the first of our M6 defender models. Our upgrade to the M4s deployed in Brockton Bay. Powerful enough to legitimately fight most capes. Versatile enough to ensure they can respond to almost any threat. Brockton Bay's PRT Director Calvert, and Police Commissioner Micheals have both provided volunteers to train the police and PRT of Chicago in the use of this equipment."


"I will be handing over the stage to Director Hearthrow, to explain the PRT's plans with this equipment."


He approached me and accepted the microphone as I stepped back. "First, I would like to thank both Pantheon and Director Calvert for their joint efforts-"


CertaintySuperioritySuccess. I smiled broadly as I tuned out Director's speech. What he said didn't matter compared to the emotions from my General. My Partner. We won. No sense of muted disappointment, except maybe the part of Taylor that had hoped it would be more of a challenge. It took only a few minutes. The other gangs, the ones that were relatively benign, received their warnings and their bruises. The ones we truly cared about had been shattered.


The Adepts were the one gang we left essentially untouched. They had traits distinguishing them from the others: they sent people to New Delhi, and they did not kill. To them, we made a different sort of offer. Pantheon was expanding, as was the Protectorate and the Guild. If they wanted, as individuals or as an organization, they could get out of crime now and we would do everything in our power to ensure they had a chance to be heroes.


When we moved on Los Angeles, and Miami, and Houston, and Vegas in the coming weeks, we would do the same thing. We weren't stopping until we had undone the damage caused by the Simurgh. The message would be sent. The old ways are no longer an option.


===================


A/N- Man, this was a *fun* chapter for me.

Also- the Author's Notes Drinking Game is to take a sip every time I say "foreshadowing". More than a sip, and you will die.

There's a LOT of foreshadowing in this chapter.