27 – Ostinato and Hydra
After exchanging some stories, heavily edited on Kaleidus' part, and relaxing a bit, the CRUCIBLE team got to work again.
With Kaleidus' return, they had access to untraceable magic-based portals again, so they started investigating all the bases they had abandoned because of the Simurgh.
Soon they discovered that everything had been destroyed, as if the Simurgh had systematically dismantled all their operations. The capes had all mysteriously disappeared too.
On Earth M2, there were signs of a huge battle between Eidolon, Legend, Offensive Bias and the Simurgh.
However, they'd pieced together that Eidolon and Legend were unable to follow the Simurgh out of the atmosphere onto the moon, as the dark side moon base didn't show any signs of Eidolon or Legend's powers.
Finally the team portalled back to Brockton Bay.
To their relief, the city was largely untouched. For whatever reason, the Simurgh hadn't tried to take out their operations in the city. They'd found Majors Heroux, Reynolds, the Coil body double, and the mercenary captains running the CRUCIBLE organization as normal, despite the lack of communication from the top brass.
This wasn't unexpected—Kaleidus had set up the hierarchy of CRUCIBLE in such a way that the former mercenary leaders had actually been sworn to a "secret" master, the "Lord Infinity", rather than Polychromic, Araliac, Skitter, and Canary.
They were also being paid via automatic deposits on a regular basis, so from their perspective, the loss of CRUCIBLE's public leaders didn't change anything for them.
"Lord Infinity" made contact and complimented them on a job well done before the CRUCIBLE leaders arrived.
Another positive point was that Leet, Uber, and Chariot had all been in Brockton Bay at the time of the attack, rather than in one of the other CRUCIBLE worlds, so they were safe and accounted for.
The only significant issues were with Skitter and her bugs. Because she
still hadn't told her father about her hero activities, she went off nervously to talk to her father. As for her bugs, the ones that had been garrisoned across the city had lost the command signal from her, so they defaulted to cannibalism and suicide.
CRUCIBLE soldiers did their best to clean up the bugs once they noticed the behavior of the ones garrisoned at the base, but many were left to die on the streets and wound up captured for study by the PRT.
This also had the consequence of causing rampant rumors and speculation about what happened to CRUCIBLE, particularly with none of the team's capes making any appearances.
Nevertheless, because the soldiers still operated as if nothing was out of the ordinary, and because the remaining Protectorate heroes were still at full strength with major gang presence left in the city, few villains dared to make any moves to encroach on the city, and the city remained peaceful. This was especially so because Boston, after the destruction by the Simurgh, became a much more tempting target for villains.
CRUCIBLE's participation in the Echidna and Simurgh battles had been well publicized, and it was now commonly accepted that the Simurgh had been specifically targeting the rising hero team.
Their access to portals and other worlds had been revealed in the Echidna fight, and the Triumvirate also made statements regarding the battle after the Simurgh portaled out of Boston. Officially, Eidolon and Legend had engaged the Simurgh together with the CRUCIBLE team on another world, but lost both the Simurgh and the CRUCIBLE leadership in the ensuing chaos as the battle moved across multiple dimensions. Then Eidolon returned with Legend after one of his powers gave him a portal back.
The next part of the official story picked up where the Simurgh returned to Boston along with Echidna, the clones, and the wounded Protectorate capes from the Echidna battle.
After a short but difficult fight, Scion returned and chased off the Simurgh, while Echidna was captured by the PRT and moved to an unspecified location.
No mention had been made about any of the other capes CRUCIBLE had mastered and/or kept prisoner, or about the Morrigan, so the CRUCIBLE leaders were still unable to determine their status.
CRUCIBLE's fame had reached new heights in the process, and while many theories abounded as to whether the CRUCIBLE capes were still alive or not, there was one thing that most agreed on: if the Simurgh targeted them, they must have been even powerful than they had revealed to the public.
Eidolon and Legend were inundated with questions as to what the battle with the Simurgh with CRUCIBLE was like, and what little they described spurred the public imagination. A hidden Tinker capable of controlling an army of combat drones and building nuclear-level weaponry. A vast operation that seemingly spanned multiple worlds and even reached the moon. Such descriptions elicited equal amounts of awe and criticism.
After a strategy meeting with a sullen Taylor that came back from a tearful but angry reunion with her father, it was decided that Skitter would stay in Brockton Bay while Amelia and Paige went back to the secret worlds being rebuilt.
Additionally, with Kaleidus making portals to bring over supplies and advanced equipment from Earth Bet, along with Leet, Uber, and Chariot assisting, their rebuild effort was sped up dramatically.
Some of the wreckage from the old bases had also been recycled, and they even started rebuilding the Earth M2 facilities.
The reason for that was that they couldn't yet maintain a continuous connection to Earth M2B. In order to build up more backup worlds that were fully untraceable, they had to keep it isolated as much as possible.
But in the meantime, they couldn't just hide away for months while they built up world after world, or else the situation in Brockton Bay might deteriorate.
As a result, it was decided that the Earth M2 base would be rebuilt and a continuous connection maintained from there, seeing as it was already compromised and they wouldn't lose anything by it.
As such, Offensive Bias took charge of the M2 rebuild effort and re-entered the Brockton Bay base systems, while Enduring Witness was assigned to continue the build up of the secret worlds alone.
Finally, the CRUCIBLE team made their public return to Brockton Bay with much fanfare, and debuted new additions to their team.
Canary went under the new cape name of Ostinato, while Offensive Bias's fabricated male Tinker public cape persona took the name Hydra.
The return was accompanied by a public concert featuring Ostinato for vocals, Hydra for synthetic instrumentals (that also modulated Ostinato's power effect), and cute dancing bugs controlled by Skitter.
While Ostinato and her concert took center stage for regular media, the introduction of Hydra exploded on PHO. Now they had confirmation of Eidolon and Legend's description of an incredibly powerful secret Tinker, and speculation abounded as to whether Dragon's top spot in the Tinker rankings would be overtaken.
This was after all, a Tinker whom the Simurgh had apparently felt threatened by, and one of the prevailing theories of why the Simurgh had attacked was that Hydra had already succeeded where Sphere had failed, to build a base on the moon for CRUCIBLE, in addition to the other combat feats Eidolon and Legend had described.
Little did they know…like the monster of legend, Hydra
was Dragon except capable of running numerous copies of itself and endlessly reviving.
Meanwhile, two other organizations received the news with varying degrees of wariness and celebration.
The PRT and its council of Directors were mostly displeased that CRUCIBLE had seemingly survived with no significant losses, and had shown themselves to be even more powerful than before. Public sentiment had turned against CRUCIBLE somewhat as many were alarmed at the thought of a multiple-world spanning organization openly violating the laws regarding alternate dimensions created after Professor Haywire, but their supporters had grown even more fervent following their contribution to the Echidna and Simurgh fights, and the revelation of Hydra, whose survival many interpreted as a major victory against the Simurgh. Even Director Piggot had largely become a supporter now that her city had benefited greatly from CRUCIBLE's work.
Cauldron on the other hand, continued to support project Terminus and had secretly pulled strings to keep the city peaceful in CRUCIBLE's absence. They were aware of much more than either the PRT or CRUCIBLE knew regarding the Simurgh battle, and had captured a number of capes formerly in CRUCIBLE custody.
Having received confirmation that CRUCIBLE's top leadership survived the Simurgh, they felt increasingly comfortable that humanity's greatest could rise up even without Cauldron themselves manipulating events behind the scenes.
When the Simurgh had targeted their own operations, it had been a major setback for them. Each time the Simurgh acted, it dealt a major blow to humanity as a whole. As such, Cauldron determined that it was appropriate to help CRUCIBLE a little, if the Simurgh considered them to be a threat.
The Triumvirate in particular were hopeful that Hydra would prove to be as powerful as their deceased comrade Hero once was, while Doctor Mother and Contessa decided not to reveal the truth behind Offensive Bias just yet.
But perhaps the biggest surprise to them came from the re-appearance of Polychromic. Both Contessa, Dinah, and all the other Thinkers they had access to had confirmed—Polychromic had simply vanished from all Thinker senses almost right when the Simurgh had started moving.
At the time, they hadn't noticed, but later when Contessa tried to determine whether CRUCIBLE had survived the Simurgh, her power suggested a high likelihood of survival for the other CRUCIBLE leaders, but uncertain due to the anti-Thinker device they used.
Polychromic himself, though, was a different story.
It was not as though he'd died or was simply in hiding. Even though Contessa's Agent couldn't tell her specifically where CRUCIBLE leaders had gone, it had been able to suggest that they'd gone into outer space and were in hiding.
But the Agent was genuinely confused as to what happened to him, and gave unprecedented nonsensical answers, like 'teleported beyond the Hubble limit', 'entered black hole', or Contessa's, favorite, 'traveled forward in time'.
Something similar happened with Dinah, where she was unable to give any answer at all regarding probabilities that involved him. Other less powerful Thinkers were also unable to analyze him at all.
This behavior (not Contessa's power's responses, that was unprecedented) had been seen before with attempting to directly scry on Scion, the Endbringers, or Eidolon, so they were forced to conclude that Polychromic was indeed a Thinker blindspot, and apparently able to turn his immunity on or off at will, because once he'd returned, their Thinker powers worked on him again.
With his immunity coinciding with the Simurgh's movement towards Boston, and taking in all the other bits of evidence they'd had, a new picture began to form.
If Polychromic was as powerful a Thinker himself as the PRT reports suggested, then his actions took on a new meaning.
He turned on his immunity for the duration of battle against the Simurgh, which made sense, but why had he ever turned it off?
Was it because there were certain constraints on his use of it, or did he do it deliberately?
If it was deliberate, then was it conceivable that he was using it to communicate with Cauldron without openly making contact? Had Doctor Mother been right about the Simurgh trying to stop the two organizations from cooperating directly?
According to Contessa, the cape knew a lot about Cauldron, but hadn't made any moves against them. He had furthermore claimed at one point that he knew a method of restoring Eidolon's powers.
When Eidolon had first heard this, he was shocked and hopeful, but Polychromic had never disclosed the actual method, so Contessa couldn't tell him, much to his disappointment.
But then, upon Polychromic's return, and Contessa's power could track him again in Brockton Bay, Cauldron received another huge shock.
Polychromic had written down a message addressed to Contessa herself, which was immediately noticed by one of her Paths.
"
Dear Fortuna and Cauldron friends, thank you for your assistance in fighting Ziz. It was a difficult battle and we have lost much, but we will bounce back stronger than ever. Your timely intervention and pursuit of the Ziz in our fortress world may have saved the lives of my comrades, buying them time to escape. Therefore, I give you this knowledge to show our thanks. There is a power that can drain energy from other capes, and from capes' dead bodies through their Corona Pollentia and Gemma. The High Priest can command this power to restore his own diminishing strength."
She immediately guessed what the message was referring to and informed Eidolon at their next Cauldron meeting. High Priest was the term Glaistig Uaine used to refer to Eidolon.
Eidolon gasped with excitement. "It's true! It just came to me as soon as I thought of it. I can restore my powers!"
"Congratulations, David! I know how much it's been worrying you. This is really going to change things for the better," said Legend.
"You'll be able to fight at your best in Endbringer battles all the time again, without holding back," said Alexandria.
"That's great, now you don't need vials anymore. There are plenty of dead capes around that you can use instead," said Doctor Mother. "You can probably more than fully refill after every Endbringer battle."
After that, the Cauldron inner circle debated how their cooperation with CRUCIBLE might evolve.
O O O
[Kaleidus]
Two weeks after my return to Worm, I decided to leave for the next plane.
We were less than a week from building another AAPV, but I decided not to wait for it, given my experience at the Ring of Deterrence, and to avoid unnecessary attention wherever I landed. If I really needed it, I could always come back to Worm to get it, but it was safer to just take what I could carry with me on my person.
I left a number of biological samples I'd collected from mages and other creatures from Familiar of Zero with Amelia to experiment on, though I didn't expect much out of it. Magic was probably not a purely biological or genetic phenomenon, but it was still worth researching.
I'd spent a week longer than I'd originally intended, mostly due to the recovery time involved after the battle against the Beast, but it was time to move on.
Some supplies replenished, Derflinger recharged, and having stocked 8 trips' worth of Primordial GRAIN again, I set off to the next great adventure.
O O O
A/N: We're about to start a new arc in the next chapter. First, I want to thank my beta readers
@Nidhogg ,
@Trek and
@inphernalmenace for their help on all these chapters since the "Rising" portion of the story began.
Now I'd like to share some thoughts about writing this arc and plans for the future.
When writing the FoZ arc, my intention was for the MC to have an easier time compared to Worm, and show how he could make use of things from Worm, while also put in a balance of limitations to be discovered. In the context of the broader story, I would like to retain this feeling of exploration and discovery. At the core, this story isn't about MC going around shocking locals with his strange powers, though there will be plenty of that too. This is a story about adventuring in new places, with unlimited possibilities.
The return to Worm was important for the MC and the story, but the events on Worm, while interesting, are no longer MC's main concern, so I chose not to cover them in detail. I may write some side stories on it in the future, but for now, we will be focused on MC's journey across the multiverse. That is not to say that every world will be "finished" in an arc, but that MC will visit them as appropriate depending on his circumstances and events will continue developing without him as well.
Agate's disappearance was originally planned for later, but in the course of writing, I felt that the character of Agate did not contribute much to the story, and with the appearance of the Beast, there was a good opportunity to fire that event early, so I did. With the Beast and the Ring of Deterrence, I also wanted to show that the method of travel, the structure of the multiverse, these things matter to the overarching story more than just being a mechanism for hopping into different stories. Far off it may be, the concept of planar travel and other entities capable of such things that reside outside of known reality will be revisited at various times in the future.
Finally, I want to touch on something I've been considering for some time, a new multiverse travelling story with different mechanics that would employ more of an "Infinity" style system. I feel that this story has in many ways failed to realize my original goals, while also showing me issues I had not considered when I first started it. The mechanics or limitations of planar travel, and the things that drive the plot are very important to get right from the beginning. The new story is still in brainstorming and worldbuilding stages but I hope to create a better balance of challenge, character motivations, world-hopping frequency, and the scope of the plot/world. The multiverse is
too large, and working with the canons is quite difficult, both in the sense of conforming to it, or filling in blanks on things that never mattered in the canon, but could matter for a multiverse story. For example, does Familiar of Zero have space? Other continents/races/planets? Ultimately I think too much freedom is a burden, and having a better structure to limit the scope of what can be interacted with would enhance the story. Hopefully one day I can share a new story with you that solves all these issues in an interesting way.
That's all for now, see you all in the new arc on Tower of God next week!
