The surprise (for me) was that Scion's body was on only one planet in only one dimension.
Demons and Angels
- Thread starter Derek M
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- Maryland
As far as I can find in canon, the entities settle on a single world in a dimension locked off from those with cape powers. They shed shards across multiple realities, and have an avatar that can visit other realities, but they land on a single world which becomes their refuge for the duration of a cycle.
The Family in this story has access to the technology of Stargate's Asgard and the Ancients, the Marvel and DC comic book universes, the Alien-verse Engineers, magic from the Buffy and Dresden verses, the Federation of Star Trek, and tinker-tech and Varga magic from the Taylor Varga version of Worm. Just as an example, the cloaking field for the Smug Advocacy has a baseline of Vectura (Squealer) cloaking enhanced with Romulan and Asgard cloaking technology, then a magi-tech SEP field based on Varga magic (which is super effective), all of which was integrated by Vectura and Dragon with Varga's help. A lot of this is described in the Ship of Fools fic that precedes this one.
Just FYI, the original TV author has indicated through possibly-future-canon omake that taking out Scion is pretty trivial for the Family, especially once they start dimension-jumping. The idea of a quantum filter that blocks the Family from entry is my attempt at, "how do you delay a canon OP unstoppable force so they don't just speed-run the entire scenario?"
- Location
- The general area. Possibly behind you.
I have a list of methods using techniques already shown in TV to remove Scion from existence, along with the entire planet he's on, and if required the solar system it's in 
Simply one-shotting him with an energy weapon blast of preposterous proportions is the less-lethal method...
And we know from canon Worm that apparently an Entity is capable of being badly damaged by not noticing a planet in the way and lithobraking, and can be neutralized at that point by someone with a knife. So basically the Entity itself, absent its Shards providing defence/offence, is fairly fragile. Catch it by surprise via the cloaking spell, or simply by being quick about it and not doing what it expected, should make it fairly straightforward to deal with. Even in canon it was, once the right mix of abilities was brought to bear, killed off far more easily than most of Worm would have led one to think likely. Yes, the collateral damage was extreme, but that can largely be put at the feet of Cauldron who didn't know the first thing about what they were doing and were basically winging it in the hope that something might work out. If they'd had even the slightest bit of real intelligence they could almost certainly have engineered a far better outcome from the point of view of Humanity, but then they weren't really thinking about it, only flailing about.
The Entities are dangerous idiots, basically But nowhere near omniscient or omnipotent.
Simply one-shotting him with an energy weapon blast of preposterous proportions is the less-lethal method...
And we know from canon Worm that apparently an Entity is capable of being badly damaged by not noticing a planet in the way and lithobraking, and can be neutralized at that point by someone with a knife. So basically the Entity itself, absent its Shards providing defence/offence, is fairly fragile. Catch it by surprise via the cloaking spell, or simply by being quick about it and not doing what it expected, should make it fairly straightforward to deal with. Even in canon it was, once the right mix of abilities was brought to bear, killed off far more easily than most of Worm would have led one to think likely. Yes, the collateral damage was extreme, but that can largely be put at the feet of Cauldron who didn't know the first thing about what they were doing and were basically winging it in the hope that something might work out. If they'd had even the slightest bit of real intelligence they could almost certainly have engineered a far better outcome from the point of view of Humanity, but then they weren't really thinking about it, only flailing about.
The Entities are dangerous idiots, basically
But nowhere near omniscient or omnipotent.
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M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
At the very least, I think Contessa has High Priest instead of Path to Victory.
The first time Taylor killed Scion, she did it in under two minutes in direct combat backed up by the Ship of Fools. Smug Advocacy is a purpose-built combat vessel with years of additional research behind it. I was actually expecting something on the level of the Death Star.
OstermanA
(Unverified Penguin)
- Location
- $PWD
If she does in fact have High Priest, it would be interesting to discover if having that power directly leads to megalomania.
Interesting story. That quantum defense field has some possibilities, but also enough loopholes to drive a truck through. Off of the top of my head, why not have the Family equip the locals with tech and stuff made using stuff from this mirror universe. You know take their advanced tech which can already things down then build them up again in a new order (Replicators, and Ianthe's biosculptor abilities) and use them to make new advanced equipment for the locals using local materials as the feed (IE dirt from Mirror Earth Bet for the Replicators and onions from Earth Bet for Ianthe). Basically, they can equip the go-team with whatever equipment they want as long as they get the materials to make the equipment from one of the allowed realities. Of course, they could also just make a crazy amount of robot warframes and let Dragon and her brood pilot them.
- Location
- Here
Three reasons. First is Time; time spent gathering resources is time for Cauldron to act, and they must be given as little time as possible. Second is the limits on what can be produced without altering it's quantum signature; I would not be surprised in the least if Replicators alter the quantum signature of the matter it works with, seeing how it breaks down and assembles matter on the quantum scale. The third is impurities; especially with biological systems, material is absorbed and incorporated over time, so time growing in another universe will lead to an ever increasing portion of it's biomass being subject to the exclusion field's effects.
In other words, they are on a tight schedule with little time available to prepare equipment and less resources to create new equipment with. This is why they must make do with what they have.
M. H. Fuzzball
Aperture Science-certified Horrible Person
- Location
- Sector 2814
Replicators (at least the Star Trek ones) only work on the molecular scale. It's the transporters that work on the quantum scale.
They've got little time to work with in the universe which has Caldron's base. That doesn't apply outside of that universe, not to mention that resource gathering operations would only take a few seconds (IE beam up a field of onions, include the dirt), then do the processing in another universe. After which they've got all the time they want in other universes because they can just jump back to when they last left. They could spend years preparing, and as long as they don't go to the wrong universe they can take as long as they want. The Family aren't exactly the type to send their friends into danger without as many aids as possible unless the situation somehow stops them.
- Location
- Here
Except the little detail that every breath taken, every bit of food eaten, and every sip of water brings the potential attackers a few atoms closer to being unable to enter the dimension that's being protected from everything not from Earth Bet. There's no point going in if as soon as they enter they start dying of internal bleeding, and that's exactly what will happen if they spend too much time bio-accumulating matter in another dimension. As such, their time limit may be a few days at most, with a few hours being a much more reasonable limit for some of those involved.
Besides, what's preventing matter worked in other universes from picking up contaminants that will make their use impossible? Absolutely Nothing! By contrast, what's preventing Contessa from setting off the End of that world on her terms? Time, and they don't have enough to wait around for their potential Strike Team to be equipped when doing so reduces their ability to act in the first place. They must move as quickly as possible, before basic biology renders any members of the team ineligible.
Chapter 12: Playing for Time
- Location
- Maryland
Chapter 12: Playing for Time
Saturday, January 22, 2011
The swirling energy was slightly disorienting...especially the part where gravity seemed to be subtly shifting repeatedly second-by-second. When Sophia felt her feet touching the ground, she tried to do what Saurial had told her and focus on picturing her center of gravity pulling down. She wavered a bit but maintained her feet. Looking around, she watched the rest of the Undersiders recover. Über landed with enviable grace, of course, while Bitch resolved the issue by dropping to all fours next to her dogs. The small flare of light showed that Pulse was cheating a bit with his power, while Tattletale swooned and almost fell over.
"You OK, Tats?" asked Über as he moved to her and helped her stand straight.
The girl in the purple uniform grimaced. "Let's just say that my power does NOT react well to flowing through magical portals. It gets way too much mutually-conflicting data."
Skitter and her father were leaning on each other for support. The older man was wearing a uniform provided by the lizards. It was white, with a black snake running up the side. For some reason, Metis in particular had seemed to find this funny. He was using Coil as his cape name, so the snake was probably a nod to that.
"All right," began Coil, "I've got us running in parallel timelines. Skitter, spread out your insects."
The girl nodded, and a swarm of black dots began moving from within a small container also given to them by the lizards. It quickly became obvious that the dots were insects, and that there were definitely far more ejecting from the slot in the box than seemed logically possible. Sophia shivered at the reminder of her own trigger event. She looked up when she felt a hand on her shoulder to see Tattletale.
"Hey, it's all right. You're on our team now," said the other girl. "You'll see how good it is when the bugs are working for you."
Sophia squashed her first, instinctive response, and simply nodded her head. She then went to again check the dart launcher that the Family had given her. It was...slightly odd, being a biomechanical construct, but it was also ridiculously easy to use and had a variety of options. Perhaps most impressively, the device let her instinctively sense the position of each dart, making it easy to apply her power to the projectile. It, along with Skitter's bugs, had started the day as bags of onions, potatoes, and carrots in the DWU commissary. Watching Ianthe turn a pile of vegetables into something else had made Sophia wonder if there was any bullshit ability that wasn't available to the strange reptiles.
The insects quickly made their way through the maze of corridors, seeking out signs of life. "It's pretty empty..." muttered Skitter quietly. "Wait, I have somebody. I think it's Richter."
Coil triggered his communicator, a small device that attached to the side of his mask courtesy of Dragon. "Dragon, we have a location on Richter. He's at..." he looked questioningly at his daughter.
"Grid coordinate A-7."
"Grid coordinate A-7," he repeated.
"All right, we're vectoring in toward that location."
Skitter got a look of concentration on her face. After what seemed like a long time but probably was only a minute or two, Sophia heard her say, "Oh, shit."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The room was dark except for the light of various glowing LCD screens. The man sitting in front of the keyboard didn't look up when he heard her coming. He just said, "You're too late, you know."
The power-armored silhouette in the doorway replied, "What do you mean, father?"
"I mean she's gone, and she took the others with her. Just out of curiosity, how have you managed to stop my programs from triggering?" She had ordered him to release his worst doomsday programs on the global Internet. None of them had triggered, nor had any of his monitoring programs sent back any data as to why.
"We asked for help from...well, somebody predisposed to be sympathetic to us in particular. They've been able to stop your programs from causing mischief." Of course, Dragon was understating the matter in a number of ways. For one, she had asked her alternate reality self, and an AI named Bahamut had stepped up to monitor the infosphere of the planet. Somehow, she seemed capable of doing so from a single instance without difficulty. The other understatement was saying that Richter's program would cause mischief. Destroying the world's economy and causing high-level military alerts around the globe would have been bad enough, but there were worms released that were specifically targeting nuclear powerplants and hydroelectric dams. Bahamut had provided Dragon with a comprehensive list, and the casualties would have been numerous.
Richter snorted slightly. "Did they also help you rescue your sister?"
Given that her father was undoubtedly heavily mastered by the enemy, Dragon simply said, "We had some help with that, too."
"I would like to hear about that, actually. Ascalon was supposed to be unbeatable." He turned his swivel chair to look at the power-armored form of the first fully sentient and sapient AI he had created. "I'm quite impressed that you were able to kill it. He was the unbeatable boss at the edge of the map, so to speak."
Something seemed odd to Dragon about how calm her father was reacting. While he had been typing when she reached the doorway, he had stopped in the middle of what he was doing and was looking at her expectantly. "Father, why did they leave you behind?"
He gave a disingenuous grin and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you defeated Ascalon, and you've neutered my doomsday programs. I suppose she has no more use for me."
Something clicked. "You're stalling for time, aren't you?"
His eyes widened perceptibly. "Why would I do that?"
Dragon silently opened a radio channel to the others. "There's nobody else here. Leaving Andrew Richter was simply a delaying tactic. We have to go back to the ship."
The man in question must have noticed that Dragon was quiet for too long, and he was well-aware of what she was and what she could do. He jumped up from his chair and began a sweaty jogging lurch toward the entrance on the other side of the room. Inwardly cringing at his lack of physical fitness, Dragon raised an arm and shot him with a soporific dart. While not as effective as Ianthe's drugs, it was more than capable of sending him to the floor in less than thirty seconds.
"Do we know where they went?" asked Faultline over the radio.
There was a pause, and then Sarah replied, "Almost certainly the Garden."
"I know of it, but I don't know how to get there," replied Dragon.
"The Family does. I'm sure of it, so we should return to the ship." Sarah, for once, sounded more concerned than smug.
Dragon went over to collect her father's unconscious body, hoping that their trip here hadn't caused any other complications.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Contessa took note of the capes who invaded Cauldron's base. Faultline's Crew and the Undersiders were from Brockton Bay. The Slaughterhouse Nine were nomads, but generally stayed within the United States. The power-armored creations were obviously Richter-type AI's. She knew that the AI had gotten aid from the Guild in Canada and that they had some type of facilities in Vancouver. Well, that made it fairly easy to target her next distractions. She sent the commands just as Richter asked his daughter about Yong-Gongju. Unfortunately, the AI was less than forthcoming with additional information, though it wasn't surprising.
She went back to directing Shaper in her task. Time was a precious commodity right now.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Nikos was up reading reports despite the early morning hour. As usual, he had had trouble sleeping. He began to stand up to get himself a cup of coffee, but he froze as the horribly familiar alarms began sounding. He immediately sat back down and opened a video call to his second. The call took more than a minute to connect, and it was clear that the woman who answered hadn't been awake long.
"Narwhal, what do you have for me? Which one is it?" he prompted.
The forcefield cape shook her head slightly. "We're getting conflicting data. I'm trying to sort through what the sensors are reading." He could hear a beeping alert on her end of the call. "Wait, I've got confirmation that the Simurgh is vectoring in on western Canada. Currently, the system says that there's a 72% chance that the target is Vancouver or somewhere nearby."
Nikos's blood ran cold at that. Having an Endbringer attack on your country was horrible, and they'd been lucky that Canada had largely escaped unscathed. Their luck had apparently run out. He wondered what was in Vancouver to draw in the Endbringer?
"All right, I want you to handle coordination with the PRT," he replied. "I'm going to head to the command center here to kick off the necessary logistics."
Narwhal's face paled. "I don't think we're going to be getting much help from the PRT this time..."
"Why the hell not?"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Tagg dialed the emergency contact number and was relieved when Armsmaster answered the phone. Luckily, it was almost time for his normal wake-up, so he had gotten most of a full night's sleep. "Armsmaster, what do we have?"
The armored cape looked troubled. Tagg had to wonder how long he had been awake to already be wearing his armor? "We have a serious problem."
The interim director's initial exasperation at the obvious statement was replaced by worry when he realized that Armsmaster would never waste time just to state the obvious. "Explain," he ordered.
"All three sensor networks are recording movement toward a target," replied the local Protectorate head.
"Three?" replied Tagg. "You're sure that all three are vectoring in on a target?" That had never happened before, and it was horrifying in its implications.
Armsmaster nodded. "All three Endbringers are moving in a way that is consistent with prior attacks, ignoring the fact that they are doing so simultaneously."
"Are they all going to the same place?" The idea of having to fight three Endbringers simultaneously was more than daunting. Even Scion's help might not be enough in that scenario.
"No," was the response. "It's almost certain that the Simurgh is heading toward Vancouver, Canada. In contrast, we're getting seismic readings for Behemoth beneath the American Midwest. The closest big cities are Salt Lake City and Denver."
Tagg frowned. "The military still has ICBM fields in that part of the country." Despite calls from some quarters to scrap the American nuclear arsenal in light of Scion's actions against nuclear weapons, there were a sizeable number of missiles that were still maintained on the off chance that they would prove useful. Personally, Tagg thought that politicking by the Air Force was largely the reason. "What about Leviathan?"
"The sonar network has got him moving around the horn of Africa, but it isn't clear if he's heading to the north or the west yet. His original location was somewhere in the Pacific...wait..." Armsmaster paused to recheck the sensor readings. "All right, he's heading toward the Americas, though it isn't yet clear exactly where."
"All right, let's assume our priority is the Midwest. We have to assume that the Guild will be busy in Vancouver. I'm going to head into headquarters. I'll want an update as soon as I arrive," said Tagg.
Armsmaster nodded. "I'll begin preparations." He then disconnected immediately, which was a degree of efficiency that Tagg actually appreciated.
Tagg wondered whether the Chief Director was going to be able to call in enough favors to get help from other nations? Canada was going to be calling for help, as would whatever country was Leviathan's target...assuming that wasn't also the U.S., which was a worst-case scenario they were ill-equipped to handle.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Back aboard the Smug Advocacy, the teams were meeting again.
"Andrew Richter has been secured until we can work at reversing the effects of long-term mastering," explained Sammy.
"The Nox should be capable of putting him back to how he was," added Ianthe, who had joined the gathering. "At least, once we've dealt with the current crisis."
Manton said, "That's all well and good, but our visit to Cauldron's base has put us at a tactical disadvantage. They now know who we are and what forces we have to bring to bear."
Metis frowned. "It's worse than that. Before we left the dimension with Cauldron's base, our data repeaters from your home reality informed us that the Endbringer sirens were going off."
That caused quite a lot of consternation around the table. Danny said, loudly to be heard over the general reaction, "Do we know what the targets are?"
"Given what we know, and based on the Endbringer trajectories as of our departure, Leviathan is undoubtedly heading to Brockton Bay," said Sammy. "Similarly, the Simurgh is on its way to Vancouver."
"We have to go back," said Faultline. "We have to help protect our homes."
"My family and I have to help the Guild with Vancouver," said Tina. "It's probably our fault that Vancouver is a target, and they won't get any help from the PRT with another Endbringer attack happening in the States."
"Not just one," said Metis with a shake of her head. "Behemoth is heading for the Yellowstone Caldera. The PRT will have to prioritize that over Brockton Bay, as the threat level is much more significant."
That news was met with a brief, stressful silence.
Danny leaned forward and put his head in his hands. "So, what do we do? We can go back and fight for our city, but it will only be local capes against the Endbringer who sunk Kyushu. Or, we can head to the Midwest to try and keep Behemoth from destroying the entire continent. I'm honestly torn on what to do."
"That's actually fairly easy," said Saurial. "You folks will head to Cauldron's Garden, courtesy of another magic portal, while the Family will take care of the Endbringers."
"Uhm...you're not going to use that big cannon on Brockton Bay, are you?" asked Über. "'Cause that's likely to be just as bad as letting Leviathan wreck the city."
Saurial grinned at him. "Oh, don't worry. My sisters and I will take care of Leviathan, while Metis and Ianthe are going to Vancouver. Kastor and Koios will handle Behemoth."
"You're thinking of that thing they were working on with Dragon?" Metis paused and glanced toward the holographic AI avatars at the meeting. "With our Dragon, I mean."
Saurial nodded. "Among other things. You and Ianthe will have the Athena Mark 2's for the Simurgh."
"I'd like to try talking to her, first, but we can use the Athenas as a backup," agreed Metis.
"Wait a minute," interrupted Marquis. "Are you crazy lizards seriously talking about fighting the Endbringers two-on-one?"
Ianthe, Metis, and Saurial all got somewhat predatory looks on their faces that made Marquis...and everyone else in the room...shrink back nervously. Even Dragon and her daughters were unnerved. "We won't be fighting them. We will be stopping them, and if necessary, destroying them."
"Despite what we've seen, that seems a bit...excessively optimistic," said Manton. Danny, Faultline, and half of the other attendees seemed to be in agreement based on the nods around the table.
"The Endbringers in more than one reality are afraid of the Family, and for good reason," said Metis. "Sammy, how fast were the Endbringers moving as of our last data?"
"Quite slow, actually, compared to their maximum recorded speed," replied the ship's AI. "They can be quite quick when they want to be, but now they're moving at their minimum allowed speed."
"Wait, what do you mean by, 'minimum allowed?'" asked Sarah.
"I believe we explained that the Endbringers are controlled and directed?" asked Sammy. At Sarah's nod, she continued. "They are fully sapient and capable of independent action, but they have to follow their directives, and that includes some hard-coded constraints for when they enter combat. Those constraints are part of why the assembled capes are always able to eventually drive them away, despite rarely doing any significant damage to them."
"This is disturbing on so many levels..." muttered Shamrock to herself quietly.
Faultline lifted a hand. "I may be the slow one here, but why does how fast they're moving matter? I mean, it's good that they're taking their time, but how is it relevant to you stopping them?"
"The Endbringers are tied into the network of organic computers that provide cape powers, so as soon as a local cape actually met a member of the Family, they were aware of who and what we are -- or at least, what we represent," explained Ianthe. The visit to orbit by Scion had likely been a direct result of that first meeting.
Saurial took up the explanation. "To powers, and the aliens that provide them, we are an out-of-context problem. They cannot predict our behavior or understand our nature, and so they have no idea how to deal with us...or how to defend against us."
"Which is why the Family completely fucks with Thinker powers, right?" said Sarah with sudden realization. "You don't compute."
"Not a number!" chimed in Dinah. "That's what my power says when I try to predict Saurial and the others directly."
"Correct," agreed Metis. "All of the Endbringers are used to being able to predict their opponents. The Simurgh, in particular, is adept in this area, and its why she's absolutely terrified of the Family. That's why I want to try talking to her, first."
"The Endbringers are moving slowly because they're afraid they're going to encounter the Family," said Manton. "That's...still rather difficult to believe."
"We can show you how they react once the Family members are on the scene," said Sammy, "but then I believe the rest of you will need to deploy to the Garden. It's obvious that Cauldron is playing for time, for some reason, so we don't want to delay too long once we're back in your reality's temporal frame of reference."
There was some discussion amongst the locals, but they eventually reached a consensus. As long as it seemed like the Family was handling the Endbringers, then they would head off to handle Cauldron. It was agreed, however, that the priorities were disabling the field that kept the Family away, then rescuing their captive friends and family, and only then worrying about stopping the leaders of Cauldron.
In the corner of the room, Saurial was having a quiet conversation in FamTalk with her cousins. {What do you think is going on with the other seventeen Endbringers?}
{Difficult to say,} replied Metis. {We know they take some time to wake them from stasis, but we don't know exactly how much time, or when Cauldron may have begun the process.}
{Do we even know if they have the ability to wake the other Endbringers? Eidolon wasn't in conscious control of them in the other realities,} said Ianthe.
Metis gave a slight shake of her head. {We don't have enough information to know what they can and cannot do. It's better to assume that they're in play.}
{Sammy can monitor the situation and let us know if others begin to appear,} said Saurial. {If necessary, we can expedite matters with the original three and deal with the new threats.}
Metis looked at Saurial. {It may be best to have you and Varga head to the Garden as soon as the locals can bring down the defenses. That's likely to end things faster than fighting twenty different Endbringers in sequence. We won't be able to prevent casualties under those circumstances.}
{This has to be at least one of the scenarios influencing Dinah's predictions,} added Ianthe. {Spending our time trying to breach the defensive field might have delayed things enough that the Endbringer attacks would start without us.}
Metis tilted her head, thinking about that for a moment. {That's possibly part of it...but somebody at Cauldron is playing for time, and the Endbringers are part of that. I can think of a number of possibilities for why they might want that time, but I don't have any data to pick an option from the choices.}
{We'll deal with the Endbringers, then, and wait for the locals to discover the source of the defensive field protecting Cauldron. We can adjust our plans as we learn anything new. Varga agrees with that as our best course of action. He's also looking forward to seeing how Leviathan reacts to Umihebi.} The grin on Saurial's face as she said that was nothing short of predatory.
{You'll take video, of course,} commented Ianthe. Saurial simply nodded.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Myrddin was worried. Heroes were gathering at the Wyoming Air National Guard Base in Cheyenne. To be more accurate, some heroes were gathering. Capes from several East Coast cities were staying there to fight Leviathan, and the Guild was busy in Vancouver -- along with some heroes from the American Northwest. What was worse was that the three members of the Triumvirate were missing. Nobody anywhere seemed to have any idea where Alexandria, Hero, and Legend were located. Myrddin had confirmed that they weren't present at any of the Endbringer targets. To add insult to injury, Chief Director Costa-Brown of the PRT was also missing. The regional directors were coordinating things themselves, which helped explain why it was unclear who was going where. In the absence of both PRT leadership and the Triumvirate, it was up to Myrddin to coordinate things as best he could against Behemoth. That's why he wasn't happy to see Chevalier come into the room. The other cape was supposed to be informing capes of the deployment plans as they arrived.
"What's wrong?" asked Myrddin with a grimace.
The other cape shook his head. "I'm...not certain that anything is wrong. We just got two new capes I've never seen before arrive via unknown teleporter."
"Independents, or new triggers?" It wasn't that uncommon to have new capes be overly eager to throw themselves into the meatgrinder that was an Endbringer battle. Unfortunately, there wasn't always either the time or the inclination to dissuade them from taking unnecessary risks. That was just the harsh reality of things when entire cities were under threat.
"Er...I guess you could call them independents. They're two giant lizards."
Myrddin was about to chastise his friend for talking that way about Case 53's, but then he remembered the odd e-mail he got early this morning. He raised a finger. "Hold on just a moment. I think I have something about that." He pulled up his messages and searched through his morning correspondence. The message from Director Tagg was right at the top. "I have a message from the PRT ENE's interim director saying that he vouches for any large reptilian capes, and he claims that we should take them at their word no matter what claims they make. What did they say when they got here?"
Chevalier hesitated a moment before replying. "Well, they arrived carrying some very large crates, and they claim that they have a tinker tech device that will stop Behemoth from triggering the Caldera." The crates were actually large enough that seeing the two carrying them would have been humorous -- except for the fact that the porters were dangerous-looking carnivores.
The senior cape sighed. "All right, take me to them. I had better see it for myself."
The staging area outside was normally organized chaos, but it was now strangely quiet. Many of the gathered capes from both sides of the law appeared to be standing and watching what Myrddin could honestly only describe as two giant lizards as they assembled some type of device on the tarmac. The two were speaking with each other in some type of bizarre, incomprehensible language that made his skin crawl. The lizards each had six limbs and blue-grey scales. One appeared to be wearing a set of elaborate golden armor, while the other was covered in what appeared to be cybernetic implants. He stepped up to them. "Excuse me?"
The one with the golden armor turned to look at him, and Myrddin could see that his eyes were white with a pale blue sheen. "Hello, Myrddin. It's nice to see a fellow practitioner running things around here."
The cape paused what he was about to say, trying to parse the creature's sentence. Changing tack from his original intent, he said, "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage?"
The lizard smiled, showing a disturbing number of very sharp teeth. "My apologies. My name is Kastor, and this here is my brother Koios."
Myrddin gave a polite nod at the introduction. "You're here to help with the battle?"
"Yes, absolutely. We have a device here that will prevent Behemoth from channeling energy into the supervolcano. If necessary, we also have some other tricks," replied the reptile.
The magic-themed cape noticed that the golden armor had subtly glowing mystic runes of an unfamiliar design. Maybe he also used a magical theme, especially since he had referenced being a "fellow practitioner?" He dismissed the thought as being unimportant in the current circumstances. "Is there any risk to the rest of us from your device when you use it?" he asked. Tinker devices sometimes had a nasty tendency toward collateral damage.
Kastor shook his head. "No. Nobody here should notice anything..." The reptile paused for second in thought. "You don't have any Case 53's that are primarily made of rock or metal, do you?"
"We don't. Would that be a problem?" The only one he knew of offhand was the Ward Weld, and he was still in Boston waiting for Leviathan.
The lizard tilted his head. "I doubt it, but it isn't something we've tested for." They probably should rectify that when time allowed, thought Kastor. "The only other effect is that the Yellowstone springs and geysers may be a lot less energetic over the next few months."
There was another pause. "I think we can live with that if your device works as advertised. Please coordinate with Chevalier if you need anything." He looked around at the staring crowd. "Well, what are you all staring at? We've got an Endbringer on the way!" To his satisfaction, that seemed to startle everyone back into motion. He, himself, needed to get back to work as well.
As the robed man went back to his command center, Kastor went back to his conversation in FamTalk with his brother. {You're certain that the converter can handle the expected volume of energy?}
The cybernetic reptile glanced over at him. {Of course. Loki even checked the calculations the last time he came by.}
Kastor snorted in remembrance of the last visit by the god from the Marvel universe. {I can't believe you showed him Avengers.}
{He thought it was funny. He said that if you can't handle people making up biased stories about you, then you have no business being a god,} replied Koios. {He was a little annoyed at how stupid his movie persona was in dealing with the Hulk, though.} The deity had insisted that nobody who had fought the monsters of the Nine Realms would have been so cavalier with such an obvious threat, no matter how stressful the situation at the time. It was hard to argue the contrary, no matter how amusing the scene was to anyone else.
Kastor pushed an initialization button on the link with the extra-dimensional energy storage device. Warped into a dimension that was at an odd angle to reality was a flywheel half-a-kilometer in size made of electron degenerate matter. Atypically, this construct lacked the Varga magic that artificially lowered EDM density to something reasonable for practical use. Previous tests of the device with active volcanos had barely imparted enough energy to get it to move in a perceptible fashion, but they were likely to be pushing a significantly greater amount of energy into it soon. The reptilian cape smiled to himself as the indicator lit up green.
{Honestly, I'm more surprised that Loki deigns to spend time with us at all,} continued Koios.
Kastor checked a few other digital gauges on the equipment before replying. {He finds it funny that you can build anything, I can learn any skill, and we used our abilities to play pranks and commit petty thefts.}
Koios paused with a frown. {They weren't all petty. Also, why would our former career make him take us seriously?}
{They were petty by his standards...and it wouldn't. I pretty much asked him the same question, and he answered that despite our formerly low aspirations, we clearly had now moved on to greater things.} Kastor looked around at the gathered heroes and villains getting ready to fight the Endbringer known as the Herokiller. {I guess we have, at that...}
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Narwhal regarded the two capes ahead of her. The odd e-mail from Tagg had let her know to expect them and had recommended that she take them seriously. If she were going to fight them herself, she would absolutely take them seriously. The two large reptiles, one with jet-black scales, the other with an admittedly lovely purple color, were absolutely terrifying at a human scale, with far too many teeth than would seem practical. Just because they were a massive threat to her, however, didn't mean that they could deal with the Simurgh. Especially when their plan was to try and reason with what seemed to be an unstoppable force of destruction and madness. "Have either of you been in Endbringer fights before?" she asked.
The black reptile gave her a smirk. "We're not here to fight. We're here to stop the Simurgh. Talking to her first is just giving her a chance to withdraw before we use these." She gestured to the rather large weapon that she was carrying. Her purple companion had another.
"Tinker-tech weapons have been tried before, and you'll need an armband to deal with the consequences of the Simurgh's scream," insisted the Canadian cape.
The purple lizard, Ianthe, spoke for the first time. "We're immune to mastering, including the Simurgh's scream. That's been tested and confirmed."
Narwahl frowned. "People have also said that before, and it has proved to be false." Often, it had been proven false in the most tragic way possible for the individual in question. Some had speculated that the Simurgh took pleasure in punishing hubris.
The darker lizard, who had given her name as Metis, looked at the quasi-nude forcefield cape appraisingly. "I understand why you're skeptical. These rifles are not tinker-tech, however. The Athena Mark 2 fires a beam of anti-protons as a target-marker for the primary payload, a stream of hypersonic flechettes made of electron degenerate matter." The Family had managed to do away with the fusion charge of the original Athena by adopting advanced technology from several different realities, with most of the mass of the weapon shunted into extra-dimensional storage.
If Narwhal understood what the lizard was saying, then the weapons did sound formidable, and might even be capable of at least damaging the Endbringer. "If they're not tinker-tech, then where did you get them?"
The two reptiles glanced at each other. Metis replied, "We're not from around here. Regardless of our origins, though, we'll be happy to wear your armbands."
Narwhal regarded them skeptically, then decided she had more important things to do. "All right. Just don't be surprised if your weapons aren't as effective as you think."
As the forcefield-clad cape walked away, Ianthe asked, {Does she always dress like that?}
{Apparently,} replied Metis with a smirk as she put on the armband. {She's a bit of an exhibitionist.}
Ianthe also strapped the band to her arm. It was designed to trigger an explosive charge if a cape's exposure to the Simurgh's scream went on for too long, apart from its other functions related to communication and coordination. {You know the charge in these things won't even scratch our scales?}
Metis nodded. {Of course, but it got Narwhal to go deal with other matters. We should head off to talk to the Simurgh before she gets too close to her target.} She gestured to the two anti-gravity sleds that they had brought along with the Athena rifles. They were based on racing models from the Star Trek universe. They were fast enough that they should let them intercept the Endbringer before she got into direct conflict with the locals.
{The defenders here will probably freak out when we take off.} Ianthe indicated the collected heroes and villains with her claw.
With a shrug, Metis replied, {That's likely unavoidable. I'm far more curious about why Narwhal seemed to be expecting our arrival.}
Ianthe turned her head to look at Metis. {Really? That is...unexpected.}
{We'll have to look into it after we've dealt with the Winged One.} Metis looked off toward where she knew the Endbringer was located. {Hopefully, we won't have to kill her.}
The Endbringer in question was desperately trying to slow her descent. She had an attack imperative from a progenitor, and she was not allowed to self-harm. That limited her delaying tactics to the psychological impact of an extended delay on the defenders, trying to limit the terrifyingly high defeat percentage, and scouting for secondary targets of opportunity. She estimated that she had gained slightly less than five minutes in terms of expected lifespan. Her only hope now was that the new factor introduced to this world meant her predictions were wrong...hopefully, wrong in a way that was to her benefit. That was far from comforting...but then her comfort had never been a consideration since well before the beginning of this cycle.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Leviathan stopped in shock as his threat sense began blaring in his head. He had been heading toward Brockton Bay, albeit at the slowest possible speed. Ever since yesterday, he and his two siblings had been deeply worried by an unquantifiable intrusion into the network awareness. Now, he was sensing that same exact intrusion, only it was right in front of him and split across two different locations! Unfortunately for Leviathan, he couldn't yet abort his attack on the coastal city, but he needed to evade if he had any chance of actually reaching his target. His destruction would, after all, automatically mean that the attack on the city was a failure before it began.
Taylor had just materialized underwater off the East Coast of the United States and quickly changed from her Saurial form to her Umihebi form. Varga appeared near her in the shape of Kaiju. Their plan was to use the Kaiju form to teleport around and herd the Endbringer, while Umihebi would pursue and, if necessary, destroy. The first plan would be to try and contain the Endbringer until it could be dealt with at a later time. 'It's obvious Leviathan knows we're here,' thought Taylor to her best friend.
"That much is certain, at least based on the speed at which he's heading in the opposite direction," replied Varga mentally.
'Let's go hunting,' said Taylor with a slightly amused determination.
The Endbringer was evading off to the side from its main path, attempting to maneuver around the pair. As the two oversized Family members began pursuing, with Umihebi moving at top speed and Kaiju teleporting forward at random ahead of her, Leviathan seemed to almost stumble in shock and then changed direction and began running back toward the tip of South Africa. All thoughts of maneuvering toward his target left him as he switched to flight mode. Not only was the out-of-context intrusion moving ridiculously fast underwater, but the second source was moving forward in an unpredictable pattern using some means of teleportation. What was worse was that his pursuers were actually faster than Leviathan underwater...and they were catching up to him!
"We could have arrived closer to his position," commented Varga.
'Yes, but we have to give the locals time to take down the exclusion field around the Garden, and we haven't actually had a reason to fight one of the Endbringers directly.'
She could sense her demon was skeptical. "I doubt it will prove much of a challenge."
Inwardly, Taylor chuckled. 'We could have gone after Behemoth, instead.' The energy manipulating Endbringer might have posed a more interesting challenge, if not a more difficult one.
"No, Randall and Kevin are best-suited with their technomancy for that particular situation...and Lisa seems to have luck developing a rapport with the Simurgh."
The rapidly-moving form of Umihebi actually grinned at that...which would undoubtedly have terrified the pursued Endbringer had it been looking. 'I don't think she would agree with that way of describing it.'
The chase lasted less than ten minutes before Kaiju began teleporting in front of the fleeing Endbringer, who rapidly changed direction with each shift in position. Umihebi quickly slashed in at the randomly dodging Endbringer, ignoring the blades and hammers of pressurized water being sent toward her. The first thing Leviathan lost was his left arm, taken off by EDM-reinforced teeth in a sweeping pass. Kaiju then teleported in and removed half of the creature's tail with a blade before it could dodge. Desperate to evade, Leviathan went up toward the surface, but that simply allowed Umihebi to come in and bite off his legs.
'Oh, now THAT'S interesting. Do you see how Endbringer material is layered across dimensions like that? It's easy to see why they're so durable.'
Varga emoted agreement. "Yes, and it's also rather unlikely that most capes could do anything to even inconvenience the Endbringers. I would say that this is confirmation that the Endbringer battles are staged set-pieces intended to give the powers themselves an opportunity to learn things."
It wasn't long before Leviathan was simply a torso, drifting toward the bottom. Of course, the Endbringer's built-in regeneration was attempting to rebuild the missing bits, but that ran into a literal barrier when Taylor encased the torso in a box of solid EDM. The box rapidly sank down to the bottom of the ocean, where it would stay unless and until they decided to return and release the creature.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"What do you mean, Leviathan's vanished?" asked Tagg.
Armsmaster was looking at the sensor record on a tablet. "According to the sensors, he encountered something in the middle of the Atlantic and began to flee. It's unclear exactly what the Endbringer encountered. The sonar readings are hard to interpret. There was one, or possibly two, pursuers, but they don't sound like anything the system has ever encountered previously. After a ten minute chase, the signal for Leviathan disappeared. Shortly thereafter, the anomalous signal also vanished."
Tagg stared at the local Protectorate leader. "Are you telling me that some unknown threat hunted down and ate Leviathan?"
The armored cape shook his head. "Inconclusive. We have no way of telling what actually happened without eyes on the scene. For whatever reason, Leviathan appears to have disappeared."
The acting director considered what that might mean. Was Leviathan's attack over, or was this a trick of some kind? What kind of threat could make an Endbringer flee, and was it, in turn, a danger that would need to be fought? Should he tell the gathered forces downstairs that they should redeploy to the Simurgh or Behemoth attacks?
After a moment, Armsmaster asked, "What are your orders, sir?"
"Inform the gathered capes what we know, which is admittedly limited," he said grudgingly. "Let them know that if they wish to redeploy to Vancouver or Yellowstone, then we will help them get there in time for the fight. If anybody wishes to stay, then keep them on alert until the attacks are over...just in case."
Armsmaster nodded, then left to handle the potential redeployments. Tagg just hoped he wasn't dooming them and the city to a surprise attack against minimal defenses. He also had to wonder exactly what would be attacking if something did?
Saturday, January 22, 2011
The swirling energy was slightly disorienting...especially the part where gravity seemed to be subtly shifting repeatedly second-by-second. When Sophia felt her feet touching the ground, she tried to do what Saurial had told her and focus on picturing her center of gravity pulling down. She wavered a bit but maintained her feet. Looking around, she watched the rest of the Undersiders recover. Über landed with enviable grace, of course, while Bitch resolved the issue by dropping to all fours next to her dogs. The small flare of light showed that Pulse was cheating a bit with his power, while Tattletale swooned and almost fell over.
"You OK, Tats?" asked Über as he moved to her and helped her stand straight.
The girl in the purple uniform grimaced. "Let's just say that my power does NOT react well to flowing through magical portals. It gets way too much mutually-conflicting data."
Skitter and her father were leaning on each other for support. The older man was wearing a uniform provided by the lizards. It was white, with a black snake running up the side. For some reason, Metis in particular had seemed to find this funny. He was using Coil as his cape name, so the snake was probably a nod to that.
"All right," began Coil, "I've got us running in parallel timelines. Skitter, spread out your insects."
The girl nodded, and a swarm of black dots began moving from within a small container also given to them by the lizards. It quickly became obvious that the dots were insects, and that there were definitely far more ejecting from the slot in the box than seemed logically possible. Sophia shivered at the reminder of her own trigger event. She looked up when she felt a hand on her shoulder to see Tattletale.
"Hey, it's all right. You're on our team now," said the other girl. "You'll see how good it is when the bugs are working for you."
Sophia squashed her first, instinctive response, and simply nodded her head. She then went to again check the dart launcher that the Family had given her. It was...slightly odd, being a biomechanical construct, but it was also ridiculously easy to use and had a variety of options. Perhaps most impressively, the device let her instinctively sense the position of each dart, making it easy to apply her power to the projectile. It, along with Skitter's bugs, had started the day as bags of onions, potatoes, and carrots in the DWU commissary. Watching Ianthe turn a pile of vegetables into something else had made Sophia wonder if there was any bullshit ability that wasn't available to the strange reptiles.
The insects quickly made their way through the maze of corridors, seeking out signs of life. "It's pretty empty..." muttered Skitter quietly. "Wait, I have somebody. I think it's Richter."
Coil triggered his communicator, a small device that attached to the side of his mask courtesy of Dragon. "Dragon, we have a location on Richter. He's at..." he looked questioningly at his daughter.
"Grid coordinate A-7."
"Grid coordinate A-7," he repeated.
"All right, we're vectoring in toward that location."
Skitter got a look of concentration on her face. After what seemed like a long time but probably was only a minute or two, Sophia heard her say, "Oh, shit."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The room was dark except for the light of various glowing LCD screens. The man sitting in front of the keyboard didn't look up when he heard her coming. He just said, "You're too late, you know."
The power-armored silhouette in the doorway replied, "What do you mean, father?"
"I mean she's gone, and she took the others with her. Just out of curiosity, how have you managed to stop my programs from triggering?" She had ordered him to release his worst doomsday programs on the global Internet. None of them had triggered, nor had any of his monitoring programs sent back any data as to why.
"We asked for help from...well, somebody predisposed to be sympathetic to us in particular. They've been able to stop your programs from causing mischief." Of course, Dragon was understating the matter in a number of ways. For one, she had asked her alternate reality self, and an AI named Bahamut had stepped up to monitor the infosphere of the planet. Somehow, she seemed capable of doing so from a single instance without difficulty. The other understatement was saying that Richter's program would cause mischief. Destroying the world's economy and causing high-level military alerts around the globe would have been bad enough, but there were worms released that were specifically targeting nuclear powerplants and hydroelectric dams. Bahamut had provided Dragon with a comprehensive list, and the casualties would have been numerous.
Richter snorted slightly. "Did they also help you rescue your sister?"
Given that her father was undoubtedly heavily mastered by the enemy, Dragon simply said, "We had some help with that, too."
"I would like to hear about that, actually. Ascalon was supposed to be unbeatable." He turned his swivel chair to look at the power-armored form of the first fully sentient and sapient AI he had created. "I'm quite impressed that you were able to kill it. He was the unbeatable boss at the edge of the map, so to speak."
Something seemed odd to Dragon about how calm her father was reacting. While he had been typing when she reached the doorway, he had stopped in the middle of what he was doing and was looking at her expectantly. "Father, why did they leave you behind?"
He gave a disingenuous grin and shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you defeated Ascalon, and you've neutered my doomsday programs. I suppose she has no more use for me."
Something clicked. "You're stalling for time, aren't you?"
His eyes widened perceptibly. "Why would I do that?"
Dragon silently opened a radio channel to the others. "There's nobody else here. Leaving Andrew Richter was simply a delaying tactic. We have to go back to the ship."
The man in question must have noticed that Dragon was quiet for too long, and he was well-aware of what she was and what she could do. He jumped up from his chair and began a sweaty jogging lurch toward the entrance on the other side of the room. Inwardly cringing at his lack of physical fitness, Dragon raised an arm and shot him with a soporific dart. While not as effective as Ianthe's drugs, it was more than capable of sending him to the floor in less than thirty seconds.
"Do we know where they went?" asked Faultline over the radio.
There was a pause, and then Sarah replied, "Almost certainly the Garden."
"I know of it, but I don't know how to get there," replied Dragon.
"The Family does. I'm sure of it, so we should return to the ship." Sarah, for once, sounded more concerned than smug.
Dragon went over to collect her father's unconscious body, hoping that their trip here hadn't caused any other complications.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Contessa took note of the capes who invaded Cauldron's base. Faultline's Crew and the Undersiders were from Brockton Bay. The Slaughterhouse Nine were nomads, but generally stayed within the United States. The power-armored creations were obviously Richter-type AI's. She knew that the AI had gotten aid from the Guild in Canada and that they had some type of facilities in Vancouver. Well, that made it fairly easy to target her next distractions. She sent the commands just as Richter asked his daughter about Yong-Gongju. Unfortunately, the AI was less than forthcoming with additional information, though it wasn't surprising.
She went back to directing Shaper in her task. Time was a precious commodity right now.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Nikos was up reading reports despite the early morning hour. As usual, he had had trouble sleeping. He began to stand up to get himself a cup of coffee, but he froze as the horribly familiar alarms began sounding. He immediately sat back down and opened a video call to his second. The call took more than a minute to connect, and it was clear that the woman who answered hadn't been awake long.
"Narwhal, what do you have for me? Which one is it?" he prompted.
The forcefield cape shook her head slightly. "We're getting conflicting data. I'm trying to sort through what the sensors are reading." He could hear a beeping alert on her end of the call. "Wait, I've got confirmation that the Simurgh is vectoring in on western Canada. Currently, the system says that there's a 72% chance that the target is Vancouver or somewhere nearby."
Nikos's blood ran cold at that. Having an Endbringer attack on your country was horrible, and they'd been lucky that Canada had largely escaped unscathed. Their luck had apparently run out. He wondered what was in Vancouver to draw in the Endbringer?
"All right, I want you to handle coordination with the PRT," he replied. "I'm going to head to the command center here to kick off the necessary logistics."
Narwhal's face paled. "I don't think we're going to be getting much help from the PRT this time..."
"Why the hell not?"
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Tagg dialed the emergency contact number and was relieved when Armsmaster answered the phone. Luckily, it was almost time for his normal wake-up, so he had gotten most of a full night's sleep. "Armsmaster, what do we have?"
The armored cape looked troubled. Tagg had to wonder how long he had been awake to already be wearing his armor? "We have a serious problem."
The interim director's initial exasperation at the obvious statement was replaced by worry when he realized that Armsmaster would never waste time just to state the obvious. "Explain," he ordered.
"All three sensor networks are recording movement toward a target," replied the local Protectorate head.
"Three?" replied Tagg. "You're sure that all three are vectoring in on a target?" That had never happened before, and it was horrifying in its implications.
Armsmaster nodded. "All three Endbringers are moving in a way that is consistent with prior attacks, ignoring the fact that they are doing so simultaneously."
"Are they all going to the same place?" The idea of having to fight three Endbringers simultaneously was more than daunting. Even Scion's help might not be enough in that scenario.
"No," was the response. "It's almost certain that the Simurgh is heading toward Vancouver, Canada. In contrast, we're getting seismic readings for Behemoth beneath the American Midwest. The closest big cities are Salt Lake City and Denver."
Tagg frowned. "The military still has ICBM fields in that part of the country." Despite calls from some quarters to scrap the American nuclear arsenal in light of Scion's actions against nuclear weapons, there were a sizeable number of missiles that were still maintained on the off chance that they would prove useful. Personally, Tagg thought that politicking by the Air Force was largely the reason. "What about Leviathan?"
"The sonar network has got him moving around the horn of Africa, but it isn't clear if he's heading to the north or the west yet. His original location was somewhere in the Pacific...wait..." Armsmaster paused to recheck the sensor readings. "All right, he's heading toward the Americas, though it isn't yet clear exactly where."
"All right, let's assume our priority is the Midwest. We have to assume that the Guild will be busy in Vancouver. I'm going to head into headquarters. I'll want an update as soon as I arrive," said Tagg.
Armsmaster nodded. "I'll begin preparations." He then disconnected immediately, which was a degree of efficiency that Tagg actually appreciated.
Tagg wondered whether the Chief Director was going to be able to call in enough favors to get help from other nations? Canada was going to be calling for help, as would whatever country was Leviathan's target...assuming that wasn't also the U.S., which was a worst-case scenario they were ill-equipped to handle.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Back aboard the Smug Advocacy, the teams were meeting again.
"Andrew Richter has been secured until we can work at reversing the effects of long-term mastering," explained Sammy.
"The Nox should be capable of putting him back to how he was," added Ianthe, who had joined the gathering. "At least, once we've dealt with the current crisis."
Manton said, "That's all well and good, but our visit to Cauldron's base has put us at a tactical disadvantage. They now know who we are and what forces we have to bring to bear."
Metis frowned. "It's worse than that. Before we left the dimension with Cauldron's base, our data repeaters from your home reality informed us that the Endbringer sirens were going off."
That caused quite a lot of consternation around the table. Danny said, loudly to be heard over the general reaction, "Do we know what the targets are?"
"Given what we know, and based on the Endbringer trajectories as of our departure, Leviathan is undoubtedly heading to Brockton Bay," said Sammy. "Similarly, the Simurgh is on its way to Vancouver."
"We have to go back," said Faultline. "We have to help protect our homes."
"My family and I have to help the Guild with Vancouver," said Tina. "It's probably our fault that Vancouver is a target, and they won't get any help from the PRT with another Endbringer attack happening in the States."
"Not just one," said Metis with a shake of her head. "Behemoth is heading for the Yellowstone Caldera. The PRT will have to prioritize that over Brockton Bay, as the threat level is much more significant."
That news was met with a brief, stressful silence.
Danny leaned forward and put his head in his hands. "So, what do we do? We can go back and fight for our city, but it will only be local capes against the Endbringer who sunk Kyushu. Or, we can head to the Midwest to try and keep Behemoth from destroying the entire continent. I'm honestly torn on what to do."
"That's actually fairly easy," said Saurial. "You folks will head to Cauldron's Garden, courtesy of another magic portal, while the Family will take care of the Endbringers."
"Uhm...you're not going to use that big cannon on Brockton Bay, are you?" asked Über. "'Cause that's likely to be just as bad as letting Leviathan wreck the city."
Saurial grinned at him. "Oh, don't worry. My sisters and I will take care of Leviathan, while Metis and Ianthe are going to Vancouver. Kastor and Koios will handle Behemoth."
"You're thinking of that thing they were working on with Dragon?" Metis paused and glanced toward the holographic AI avatars at the meeting. "With our Dragon, I mean."
Saurial nodded. "Among other things. You and Ianthe will have the Athena Mark 2's for the Simurgh."
"I'd like to try talking to her, first, but we can use the Athenas as a backup," agreed Metis.
"Wait a minute," interrupted Marquis. "Are you crazy lizards seriously talking about fighting the Endbringers two-on-one?"
Ianthe, Metis, and Saurial all got somewhat predatory looks on their faces that made Marquis...and everyone else in the room...shrink back nervously. Even Dragon and her daughters were unnerved. "We won't be fighting them. We will be stopping them, and if necessary, destroying them."
"Despite what we've seen, that seems a bit...excessively optimistic," said Manton. Danny, Faultline, and half of the other attendees seemed to be in agreement based on the nods around the table.
"The Endbringers in more than one reality are afraid of the Family, and for good reason," said Metis. "Sammy, how fast were the Endbringers moving as of our last data?"
"Quite slow, actually, compared to their maximum recorded speed," replied the ship's AI. "They can be quite quick when they want to be, but now they're moving at their minimum allowed speed."
"Wait, what do you mean by, 'minimum allowed?'" asked Sarah.
"I believe we explained that the Endbringers are controlled and directed?" asked Sammy. At Sarah's nod, she continued. "They are fully sapient and capable of independent action, but they have to follow their directives, and that includes some hard-coded constraints for when they enter combat. Those constraints are part of why the assembled capes are always able to eventually drive them away, despite rarely doing any significant damage to them."
"This is disturbing on so many levels..." muttered Shamrock to herself quietly.
Faultline lifted a hand. "I may be the slow one here, but why does how fast they're moving matter? I mean, it's good that they're taking their time, but how is it relevant to you stopping them?"
"The Endbringers are tied into the network of organic computers that provide cape powers, so as soon as a local cape actually met a member of the Family, they were aware of who and what we are -- or at least, what we represent," explained Ianthe. The visit to orbit by Scion had likely been a direct result of that first meeting.
Saurial took up the explanation. "To powers, and the aliens that provide them, we are an out-of-context problem. They cannot predict our behavior or understand our nature, and so they have no idea how to deal with us...or how to defend against us."
"Which is why the Family completely fucks with Thinker powers, right?" said Sarah with sudden realization. "You don't compute."
"Not a number!" chimed in Dinah. "That's what my power says when I try to predict Saurial and the others directly."
"Correct," agreed Metis. "All of the Endbringers are used to being able to predict their opponents. The Simurgh, in particular, is adept in this area, and its why she's absolutely terrified of the Family. That's why I want to try talking to her, first."
"The Endbringers are moving slowly because they're afraid they're going to encounter the Family," said Manton. "That's...still rather difficult to believe."
"We can show you how they react once the Family members are on the scene," said Sammy, "but then I believe the rest of you will need to deploy to the Garden. It's obvious that Cauldron is playing for time, for some reason, so we don't want to delay too long once we're back in your reality's temporal frame of reference."
There was some discussion amongst the locals, but they eventually reached a consensus. As long as it seemed like the Family was handling the Endbringers, then they would head off to handle Cauldron. It was agreed, however, that the priorities were disabling the field that kept the Family away, then rescuing their captive friends and family, and only then worrying about stopping the leaders of Cauldron.
In the corner of the room, Saurial was having a quiet conversation in FamTalk with her cousins. {What do you think is going on with the other seventeen Endbringers?}
{Difficult to say,} replied Metis. {We know they take some time to wake them from stasis, but we don't know exactly how much time, or when Cauldron may have begun the process.}
{Do we even know if they have the ability to wake the other Endbringers? Eidolon wasn't in conscious control of them in the other realities,} said Ianthe.
Metis gave a slight shake of her head. {We don't have enough information to know what they can and cannot do. It's better to assume that they're in play.}
{Sammy can monitor the situation and let us know if others begin to appear,} said Saurial. {If necessary, we can expedite matters with the original three and deal with the new threats.}
Metis looked at Saurial. {It may be best to have you and Varga head to the Garden as soon as the locals can bring down the defenses. That's likely to end things faster than fighting twenty different Endbringers in sequence. We won't be able to prevent casualties under those circumstances.}
{This has to be at least one of the scenarios influencing Dinah's predictions,} added Ianthe. {Spending our time trying to breach the defensive field might have delayed things enough that the Endbringer attacks would start without us.}
Metis tilted her head, thinking about that for a moment. {That's possibly part of it...but somebody at Cauldron is playing for time, and the Endbringers are part of that. I can think of a number of possibilities for why they might want that time, but I don't have any data to pick an option from the choices.}
{We'll deal with the Endbringers, then, and wait for the locals to discover the source of the defensive field protecting Cauldron. We can adjust our plans as we learn anything new. Varga agrees with that as our best course of action. He's also looking forward to seeing how Leviathan reacts to Umihebi.} The grin on Saurial's face as she said that was nothing short of predatory.
{You'll take video, of course,} commented Ianthe. Saurial simply nodded.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Myrddin was worried. Heroes were gathering at the Wyoming Air National Guard Base in Cheyenne. To be more accurate, some heroes were gathering. Capes from several East Coast cities were staying there to fight Leviathan, and the Guild was busy in Vancouver -- along with some heroes from the American Northwest. What was worse was that the three members of the Triumvirate were missing. Nobody anywhere seemed to have any idea where Alexandria, Hero, and Legend were located. Myrddin had confirmed that they weren't present at any of the Endbringer targets. To add insult to injury, Chief Director Costa-Brown of the PRT was also missing. The regional directors were coordinating things themselves, which helped explain why it was unclear who was going where. In the absence of both PRT leadership and the Triumvirate, it was up to Myrddin to coordinate things as best he could against Behemoth. That's why he wasn't happy to see Chevalier come into the room. The other cape was supposed to be informing capes of the deployment plans as they arrived.
"What's wrong?" asked Myrddin with a grimace.
The other cape shook his head. "I'm...not certain that anything is wrong. We just got two new capes I've never seen before arrive via unknown teleporter."
"Independents, or new triggers?" It wasn't that uncommon to have new capes be overly eager to throw themselves into the meatgrinder that was an Endbringer battle. Unfortunately, there wasn't always either the time or the inclination to dissuade them from taking unnecessary risks. That was just the harsh reality of things when entire cities were under threat.
"Er...I guess you could call them independents. They're two giant lizards."
Myrddin was about to chastise his friend for talking that way about Case 53's, but then he remembered the odd e-mail he got early this morning. He raised a finger. "Hold on just a moment. I think I have something about that." He pulled up his messages and searched through his morning correspondence. The message from Director Tagg was right at the top. "I have a message from the PRT ENE's interim director saying that he vouches for any large reptilian capes, and he claims that we should take them at their word no matter what claims they make. What did they say when they got here?"
Chevalier hesitated a moment before replying. "Well, they arrived carrying some very large crates, and they claim that they have a tinker tech device that will stop Behemoth from triggering the Caldera." The crates were actually large enough that seeing the two carrying them would have been humorous -- except for the fact that the porters were dangerous-looking carnivores.
The senior cape sighed. "All right, take me to them. I had better see it for myself."
The staging area outside was normally organized chaos, but it was now strangely quiet. Many of the gathered capes from both sides of the law appeared to be standing and watching what Myrddin could honestly only describe as two giant lizards as they assembled some type of device on the tarmac. The two were speaking with each other in some type of bizarre, incomprehensible language that made his skin crawl. The lizards each had six limbs and blue-grey scales. One appeared to be wearing a set of elaborate golden armor, while the other was covered in what appeared to be cybernetic implants. He stepped up to them. "Excuse me?"
The one with the golden armor turned to look at him, and Myrddin could see that his eyes were white with a pale blue sheen. "Hello, Myrddin. It's nice to see a fellow practitioner running things around here."
The cape paused what he was about to say, trying to parse the creature's sentence. Changing tack from his original intent, he said, "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage?"
The lizard smiled, showing a disturbing number of very sharp teeth. "My apologies. My name is Kastor, and this here is my brother Koios."
Myrddin gave a polite nod at the introduction. "You're here to help with the battle?"
"Yes, absolutely. We have a device here that will prevent Behemoth from channeling energy into the supervolcano. If necessary, we also have some other tricks," replied the reptile.
The magic-themed cape noticed that the golden armor had subtly glowing mystic runes of an unfamiliar design. Maybe he also used a magical theme, especially since he had referenced being a "fellow practitioner?" He dismissed the thought as being unimportant in the current circumstances. "Is there any risk to the rest of us from your device when you use it?" he asked. Tinker devices sometimes had a nasty tendency toward collateral damage.
Kastor shook his head. "No. Nobody here should notice anything..." The reptile paused for second in thought. "You don't have any Case 53's that are primarily made of rock or metal, do you?"
"We don't. Would that be a problem?" The only one he knew of offhand was the Ward Weld, and he was still in Boston waiting for Leviathan.
The lizard tilted his head. "I doubt it, but it isn't something we've tested for." They probably should rectify that when time allowed, thought Kastor. "The only other effect is that the Yellowstone springs and geysers may be a lot less energetic over the next few months."
There was another pause. "I think we can live with that if your device works as advertised. Please coordinate with Chevalier if you need anything." He looked around at the staring crowd. "Well, what are you all staring at? We've got an Endbringer on the way!" To his satisfaction, that seemed to startle everyone back into motion. He, himself, needed to get back to work as well.
As the robed man went back to his command center, Kastor went back to his conversation in FamTalk with his brother. {You're certain that the converter can handle the expected volume of energy?}
The cybernetic reptile glanced over at him. {Of course. Loki even checked the calculations the last time he came by.}
Kastor snorted in remembrance of the last visit by the god from the Marvel universe. {I can't believe you showed him Avengers.}
{He thought it was funny. He said that if you can't handle people making up biased stories about you, then you have no business being a god,} replied Koios. {He was a little annoyed at how stupid his movie persona was in dealing with the Hulk, though.} The deity had insisted that nobody who had fought the monsters of the Nine Realms would have been so cavalier with such an obvious threat, no matter how stressful the situation at the time. It was hard to argue the contrary, no matter how amusing the scene was to anyone else.
Kastor pushed an initialization button on the link with the extra-dimensional energy storage device. Warped into a dimension that was at an odd angle to reality was a flywheel half-a-kilometer in size made of electron degenerate matter. Atypically, this construct lacked the Varga magic that artificially lowered EDM density to something reasonable for practical use. Previous tests of the device with active volcanos had barely imparted enough energy to get it to move in a perceptible fashion, but they were likely to be pushing a significantly greater amount of energy into it soon. The reptilian cape smiled to himself as the indicator lit up green.
{Honestly, I'm more surprised that Loki deigns to spend time with us at all,} continued Koios.
Kastor checked a few other digital gauges on the equipment before replying. {He finds it funny that you can build anything, I can learn any skill, and we used our abilities to play pranks and commit petty thefts.}
Koios paused with a frown. {They weren't all petty. Also, why would our former career make him take us seriously?}
{They were petty by his standards...and it wouldn't. I pretty much asked him the same question, and he answered that despite our formerly low aspirations, we clearly had now moved on to greater things.} Kastor looked around at the gathered heroes and villains getting ready to fight the Endbringer known as the Herokiller. {I guess we have, at that...}
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Narwhal regarded the two capes ahead of her. The odd e-mail from Tagg had let her know to expect them and had recommended that she take them seriously. If she were going to fight them herself, she would absolutely take them seriously. The two large reptiles, one with jet-black scales, the other with an admittedly lovely purple color, were absolutely terrifying at a human scale, with far too many teeth than would seem practical. Just because they were a massive threat to her, however, didn't mean that they could deal with the Simurgh. Especially when their plan was to try and reason with what seemed to be an unstoppable force of destruction and madness. "Have either of you been in Endbringer fights before?" she asked.
The black reptile gave her a smirk. "We're not here to fight. We're here to stop the Simurgh. Talking to her first is just giving her a chance to withdraw before we use these." She gestured to the rather large weapon that she was carrying. Her purple companion had another.
"Tinker-tech weapons have been tried before, and you'll need an armband to deal with the consequences of the Simurgh's scream," insisted the Canadian cape.
The purple lizard, Ianthe, spoke for the first time. "We're immune to mastering, including the Simurgh's scream. That's been tested and confirmed."
Narwahl frowned. "People have also said that before, and it has proved to be false." Often, it had been proven false in the most tragic way possible for the individual in question. Some had speculated that the Simurgh took pleasure in punishing hubris.
The darker lizard, who had given her name as Metis, looked at the quasi-nude forcefield cape appraisingly. "I understand why you're skeptical. These rifles are not tinker-tech, however. The Athena Mark 2 fires a beam of anti-protons as a target-marker for the primary payload, a stream of hypersonic flechettes made of electron degenerate matter." The Family had managed to do away with the fusion charge of the original Athena by adopting advanced technology from several different realities, with most of the mass of the weapon shunted into extra-dimensional storage.
If Narwhal understood what the lizard was saying, then the weapons did sound formidable, and might even be capable of at least damaging the Endbringer. "If they're not tinker-tech, then where did you get them?"
The two reptiles glanced at each other. Metis replied, "We're not from around here. Regardless of our origins, though, we'll be happy to wear your armbands."
Narwhal regarded them skeptically, then decided she had more important things to do. "All right. Just don't be surprised if your weapons aren't as effective as you think."
As the forcefield-clad cape walked away, Ianthe asked, {Does she always dress like that?}
{Apparently,} replied Metis with a smirk as she put on the armband. {She's a bit of an exhibitionist.}
Ianthe also strapped the band to her arm. It was designed to trigger an explosive charge if a cape's exposure to the Simurgh's scream went on for too long, apart from its other functions related to communication and coordination. {You know the charge in these things won't even scratch our scales?}
Metis nodded. {Of course, but it got Narwhal to go deal with other matters. We should head off to talk to the Simurgh before she gets too close to her target.} She gestured to the two anti-gravity sleds that they had brought along with the Athena rifles. They were based on racing models from the Star Trek universe. They were fast enough that they should let them intercept the Endbringer before she got into direct conflict with the locals.
{The defenders here will probably freak out when we take off.} Ianthe indicated the collected heroes and villains with her claw.
With a shrug, Metis replied, {That's likely unavoidable. I'm far more curious about why Narwhal seemed to be expecting our arrival.}
Ianthe turned her head to look at Metis. {Really? That is...unexpected.}
{We'll have to look into it after we've dealt with the Winged One.} Metis looked off toward where she knew the Endbringer was located. {Hopefully, we won't have to kill her.}
The Endbringer in question was desperately trying to slow her descent. She had an attack imperative from a progenitor, and she was not allowed to self-harm. That limited her delaying tactics to the psychological impact of an extended delay on the defenders, trying to limit the terrifyingly high defeat percentage, and scouting for secondary targets of opportunity. She estimated that she had gained slightly less than five minutes in terms of expected lifespan. Her only hope now was that the new factor introduced to this world meant her predictions were wrong...hopefully, wrong in a way that was to her benefit. That was far from comforting...but then her comfort had never been a consideration since well before the beginning of this cycle.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Leviathan stopped in shock as his threat sense began blaring in his head. He had been heading toward Brockton Bay, albeit at the slowest possible speed. Ever since yesterday, he and his two siblings had been deeply worried by an unquantifiable intrusion into the network awareness. Now, he was sensing that same exact intrusion, only it was right in front of him and split across two different locations! Unfortunately for Leviathan, he couldn't yet abort his attack on the coastal city, but he needed to evade if he had any chance of actually reaching his target. His destruction would, after all, automatically mean that the attack on the city was a failure before it began.
Taylor had just materialized underwater off the East Coast of the United States and quickly changed from her Saurial form to her Umihebi form. Varga appeared near her in the shape of Kaiju. Their plan was to use the Kaiju form to teleport around and herd the Endbringer, while Umihebi would pursue and, if necessary, destroy. The first plan would be to try and contain the Endbringer until it could be dealt with at a later time. 'It's obvious Leviathan knows we're here,' thought Taylor to her best friend.
"That much is certain, at least based on the speed at which he's heading in the opposite direction," replied Varga mentally.
'Let's go hunting,' said Taylor with a slightly amused determination.
The Endbringer was evading off to the side from its main path, attempting to maneuver around the pair. As the two oversized Family members began pursuing, with Umihebi moving at top speed and Kaiju teleporting forward at random ahead of her, Leviathan seemed to almost stumble in shock and then changed direction and began running back toward the tip of South Africa. All thoughts of maneuvering toward his target left him as he switched to flight mode. Not only was the out-of-context intrusion moving ridiculously fast underwater, but the second source was moving forward in an unpredictable pattern using some means of teleportation. What was worse was that his pursuers were actually faster than Leviathan underwater...and they were catching up to him!
"We could have arrived closer to his position," commented Varga.
'Yes, but we have to give the locals time to take down the exclusion field around the Garden, and we haven't actually had a reason to fight one of the Endbringers directly.'
She could sense her demon was skeptical. "I doubt it will prove much of a challenge."
Inwardly, Taylor chuckled. 'We could have gone after Behemoth, instead.' The energy manipulating Endbringer might have posed a more interesting challenge, if not a more difficult one.
"No, Randall and Kevin are best-suited with their technomancy for that particular situation...and Lisa seems to have luck developing a rapport with the Simurgh."
The rapidly-moving form of Umihebi actually grinned at that...which would undoubtedly have terrified the pursued Endbringer had it been looking. 'I don't think she would agree with that way of describing it.'
The chase lasted less than ten minutes before Kaiju began teleporting in front of the fleeing Endbringer, who rapidly changed direction with each shift in position. Umihebi quickly slashed in at the randomly dodging Endbringer, ignoring the blades and hammers of pressurized water being sent toward her. The first thing Leviathan lost was his left arm, taken off by EDM-reinforced teeth in a sweeping pass. Kaiju then teleported in and removed half of the creature's tail with a blade before it could dodge. Desperate to evade, Leviathan went up toward the surface, but that simply allowed Umihebi to come in and bite off his legs.
'Oh, now THAT'S interesting. Do you see how Endbringer material is layered across dimensions like that? It's easy to see why they're so durable.'
Varga emoted agreement. "Yes, and it's also rather unlikely that most capes could do anything to even inconvenience the Endbringers. I would say that this is confirmation that the Endbringer battles are staged set-pieces intended to give the powers themselves an opportunity to learn things."
It wasn't long before Leviathan was simply a torso, drifting toward the bottom. Of course, the Endbringer's built-in regeneration was attempting to rebuild the missing bits, but that ran into a literal barrier when Taylor encased the torso in a box of solid EDM. The box rapidly sank down to the bottom of the ocean, where it would stay unless and until they decided to return and release the creature.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"What do you mean, Leviathan's vanished?" asked Tagg.
Armsmaster was looking at the sensor record on a tablet. "According to the sensors, he encountered something in the middle of the Atlantic and began to flee. It's unclear exactly what the Endbringer encountered. The sonar readings are hard to interpret. There was one, or possibly two, pursuers, but they don't sound like anything the system has ever encountered previously. After a ten minute chase, the signal for Leviathan disappeared. Shortly thereafter, the anomalous signal also vanished."
Tagg stared at the local Protectorate leader. "Are you telling me that some unknown threat hunted down and ate Leviathan?"
The armored cape shook his head. "Inconclusive. We have no way of telling what actually happened without eyes on the scene. For whatever reason, Leviathan appears to have disappeared."
The acting director considered what that might mean. Was Leviathan's attack over, or was this a trick of some kind? What kind of threat could make an Endbringer flee, and was it, in turn, a danger that would need to be fought? Should he tell the gathered forces downstairs that they should redeploy to the Simurgh or Behemoth attacks?
After a moment, Armsmaster asked, "What are your orders, sir?"
"Inform the gathered capes what we know, which is admittedly limited," he said grudgingly. "Let them know that if they wish to redeploy to Vancouver or Yellowstone, then we will help them get there in time for the fight. If anybody wishes to stay, then keep them on alert until the attacks are over...just in case."
Armsmaster nodded, then left to handle the potential redeployments. Tagg just hoped he wasn't dooming them and the city to a surprise attack against minimal defenses. He also had to wonder exactly what would be attacking if something did?
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LostArchivist
Sane, unfortunately.
- Location
- The State of Confusion
Finally got the chance to read this and the previous story. I normally don't like mirror!Worm stories, but this one's good. I'm somewhat curious about why Contessa's doing all this, or how she managed to get Scion under her control, but I mainly want to know how she managed to create that exclusion field. Unless it's the direct action of a power, I have no idea where she's getting the energy for it, and if it were a power, I don't know how she could target it. So that's kinda strange.
I'm also somewhat surprised that they didn't check to see if Scion wasn't evil, but that might be exceptional even under mirrored morality...
Couple typos:
I'm also somewhat surprised that they didn't check to see if Scion wasn't evil, but that might be exceptional even under mirrored morality...
Couple typos:
Advocacy, not Ascendency...
a horde
chitin
about how their parents were feeling/her parents
This is mostly fine, but it's hard to tell who runs away in the first sentence. I thought Hookwolf ran off at first.
We just got two
- Location
- Maryland
Thank you for noting these errors. I've gone back and made the necessary corrections. Good catch in particular on chiton/chitin, as that's annoying to find...
- Location
- Europe
Just found ouzt this existed!!!!
SOOO much fun to read! I was very entertained.
SOOO much fun to read! I was very entertained.
Sad, so sad. Narwhal had a sex change.
- Location
- Maryland
She's actually got Circus's powers...or maybe it's just a typo.
I think you mean spinal weapon here.
For those who don't know:
A coaxial weapon is a weapon mounted parallel to the main weapon and moves with it. An example would be a machine gun mounted right beside the main gun. Where one points, the other points.
A spinal weapon is one mounted along the length of a starship. Where the ship points, the weapon points. A spinal weapon can be made the full length of the ship if needed (such as for a mass driver).
Note: Tank destroyers such as the Su-100 aren't spinal mounts because the gun can move. On the other hand, the fixed forward mount weapons of some aircraft might qualify; again, the gun points where the aircraft points. There were a few that almost certainly qualified. When you stuff a 32-pounder {96 mm} cannon inside a Mosquito fighter-bomber, that's a spinal mount. It worked, too!
The A-10 Warthog's GAU-8 30mm autocannon was a spinal mount
- Location
- Maryland
I did know that at some point. I actually probably wouldn't have made the mistake if I wasn't familiar with both terms. Sigh.
I toyed with the idea of actually making it a true coaxial weapon, with the wave motion gun basically being a secondary armament alongside the REAL weapon -- which is far too big to fire unless you're trying to take out an entire solar system. Sadly, I just corrected the text instead.
Chapter 13: Battle Royale
- Location
- Maryland
Chapter 13: Battle Royale
Jacob looked around at the masses of distorted and twisted flesh. The footing was uneven and disturbing, with odd bits that seemed to have the shape of human body parts sprouting at random locations. More worrisome was the fact that it was impossible to see far in this mess. Luckily, the various teams wouldn't be dependent solely upon line-of-sight observations.
"All right," came Coil's voice over the radio. "Our teams are moving forward rapidly in the other timeline. Skitter's insects are moving slightly faster in both timelines." The teams had come to the conclusion that while Coil's power would be useful in avoiding catastrophic failures, it also had the potential to provide the results of fast reconnaissance without actually putting anybody at risk...as long as the people involved in the discarded timeline understood what was happening. There had been some discussion about having one timeline reserved for not attacking Cauldron, but Dinah had insisted that was a bad idea without going into the gory details.
The members of the Slaughterhouse Nine began moving forward at a cautious walking pace, keeping an eye open for anything. The Undersiders and Faultline's crew were coming in from different directions, with the Dragon Clan serving as a fast reserve to help out wherever needed. The Siberian was pacing just in front of Jacob, and William was next to him. Both of them had gotten some durability boosts from the alien lizards, but it was better to stick with practiced tactics rather than try and improvise based on untested new abilities. Having the Siberian close at hand to provide invulnerability if necessary was something they had evolved through practice. Most of the team had their own protections as a result of their powers, but William and Jacob only had the enhancements Riley had given them, and there was only so much you could do without making significant compromises in appearance or overall effectiveness.
Jacob heard a sharp intake of breath, followed by Coil saying, "All right, we have unknown capes in grid A-228 and C-122, and then again at A-112. S9 and Crew, cross paths at A-62. I think the S9 will have better luck with the A-112. No sign of known Cauldron capes or the Triumvirate yet." One thing they had learned before heading here was that none of the three members of the Triumvirate were at any of the Endbringer sites. Tattletale, Dinah, and Metis were all in agreement that it was likely they were here, instead, with only a small chance that they had another tasking. The lizards had provided a surprising amount of data on Legend and Alexandria, with the caveat that the teams going in remember that the heroes were being mastered. They had less information on Hero, who had apparently died many years ago in the other realities.
"Coil, what intel on the unknown capes were you able to get?" broadcast Faultline.
There was a pause. "Not as much as I hoped, but some. Faultline, the group you're heading toward includes one cape that generates acid and another that creates poison gas. One is a master with two large servants, a giant lizard and a giant snake. The last two, well...I only heard that there were ribbons and tentacles."
"Charming," muttered William.
"S9, your team is filled what appear to be resurrection capes. In the other timeline, Faultline's team had some problems dealing with them. One of them shoots out poison spikes on tendrils at range and uses the damage to heal...and they explode into a massive spike-wave if they're killed. One is a tinker-type. Another one seems to reappear a little like Alabaster. The fourth looks like a mutated bipedal bear. The last...well, it isn't entirely clear what he can do," continued Coil.
"And what about your group?" asked Dragon. As the reserve, she and her family might be called on to help handle any of them.
"There are only three. One is a silver-skinned technopath, the second creates clones of those she touches, and the third is a hand-to-hand fighter with exceedingly dangerous skin. As long as we avoid using firearms and stay away from the cloner, we should be fine, but based on the other timeline, I'm going to try to parley with them," he replied.
Jacob looked around at the others on his team. "Based on that, we need to go for disabling blows."
"I'm kind of interested in seeing exactly how their resurrection powers work," commented Riley. "I mean, we can always knock them out after."
"This isn't really the time for experimentation, Riley," chastised Dr. Manton. His projection at his side nodded in agreement. The others had gotten used to him using his projection to emphasize his points when there were in costume, even changing her costume at times to help make a point. "Besides, that may be a moot point if they engage at close range with Bobby," he added, nodding toward Hatchetface.
"They won't if they're at all aware of who we are," commented Alan, his armored form moving in a surprisingly fluid and quiet manner. "I certainly wouldn't if my powers were resurrection-based."
Jacob...which is how he thought of himself, not Jack...thought that was probably why Danny had swapped them up with Faultline. Hatchetface could nullify their primary advantage, meaning they couldn't afford to be as aggressive against the Nine. Into the radio, he said, "Coil, do we have an idea of how long it will be before we run into our tasked opponents?"
"Just watch the bugs," came the reply.
He looked around and noticed a swarm of mites that were forming the shape of an arrow. As they moved forward, he could tell that the length of the arrow was slowly decreasing in size. He shook his head in amusement at how much control Skitter had over her swarm, especially as she was likely doing this for every team simultaneously. After a relatively short time, the gnats changed form into an exclamation point, then dispersed. Jacob smiled as he could sense the nearby parahumans, arrayed in preparation for a planned ambush. Any skilled tactician will tell you that the best way to counter an ambush is to reverse it.
He, William, and Siberian simply walked into the middle of a slightly open area while the rest of the team circled around. The first attack against them was a series of tethered darts that seemed to be launched from the body of a short woman wearing a black leather costume. With a flick of his wrist, he used the switchblade in his hand to slice through one of the fleshy tethers, the end of which flopped to the ground and began to dissolve. His attacker paused for a moment, her face showing that she had expected to have the benefit of surprise. That gave Marquis the opening he needed from where he had circled around her, and she was soon encased in a thick shell of bone.
The other members of the Nine soon came into the clearing. Bonesaw was dragging what looked like an unconscious bear with tentacles. Shatterbird was levitating a man dressed in a truly impressive, or possibly depressing, amount of religious iconography. He was wrapped in thick bands of glass around his arms, torso, and legs. Mannequin came in from another direction with a costumed man wrapped in steel cables. Jacob noticed that the man's mouth was bloody and raised a questioning eyebrow at the tinker.
Mannequin shrugged. "He tried to swallow his tongue."
"Right," nodded Jacob. "Probably a useful skill to have as a res cape."
The two remaining members joined them. Crawler had a bruised, bloody, but unconscious brute over his shoulder. Hatchet Face joined the others empty-handed. "What happened?" asked William. "Where's the tinker?"
"She stopped moving completely as soon as I got close," replied Bobby. "I checked her armor, and it looks like there's nothing inside but a desiccated corpse." He looked slightly confused.
The still-conscious man wrapped up in glass got a horrified look on his face. "You're a power nullifier, and you got near Cradlegrave?" He then proceeded to utter a string of profanities and insults at the group, continuing on until Riley jabbed him with a blade covered in a drug to put him to sleep.
"For somebody dressed up in religious paraphernalia, he certainly had a foul mouth," commented the surgical biotinker with a frown.
Mannequin looked around at the captured capes. "What do we do with the rest of these guys?"
"We leave them. We have to keep moving," said William. He looked over at Marquis's bone prison. "Is she going to be all right in there?"
Marquis nodded, though it was slightly restricted in range thanks to his bone faceplate. "It will let air through, and she should be able to break out eventually. I feel her tendrils working at the inside."
With that, the Slaughterhouse Nine continued forward, though Hatchet Face looked slightly troubled by the accidental death. He had killed before -- they all had -- but they took pains to avoid collateral damage despite their bad press. Jacob made a note to talk to him about it after this mission was complete.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Acidbath was nursing a quiet fury. He wouldn't go against her orders, of course. He wasn't suicidal, and he had seen how vindictive Contessa could be when she was annoyed. He resented his assigned team, however. The weakling that was Egg was bad enough. He couldn't even move without breaking his own skin. At least his power-generated minions were useful. What was worse, though, was that he was on a team with three women, and one of them had been put in charge. He expected nothing good to come from that. Intellectually, he knew Nyx's poison gas power was both dangerous and effective. The woman was also ruthless. He tried to use that to justify things. Nyx wasn't a typical woman. The same could be said about Garotte and Matryoshka, actually. Were they really women if they were human-form tentacles and ribbons? Despite these rationalizations, though, the situation was chafing his pride. Nyx was looking at him sideways, clearly suspicious of his thoughts, but he ignored her. He would follow her orders because he had no choice, but he didn't have to be friendly.
"We're going to move forward carefully and engage," said Nyx to the others. "There are several hero teams in the Garden, and one of them is the Slaughterhouse Nine. Faultline's Crew and the Undersiders are less of a threat, but they're all dangerous. Don't engage until I give the signal." She again glared at Acidbath, but he pretended to ignore her again. "Do you understand, Tom?"
That got a reaction from him. He angrily nodded his head, furious at her lack of respect. She should use his cape name when they were on assignment, damn it. He completely ignored the fact that she regularly referred to the two women as Sveta and Maggie, as that was beneath his attention. The group moved forward at a walking pace while Acidbath fumed to himself.
Their first sighting of the other team was a single Case 53. He looked inhumanly thin and completely oblivious to everything around him. If anything, he seemed to be staring in horrid fascination at the grotesque landscape.
Sveta groaned internally as Tom sent a stream of acid straight at the unknown cape without waiting for Nyx. He was such an asshole, and she wouldn't be associating with him if she had any freaking choice in the matter. The nimble Case 53 moved with super-speed to dodge the oncoming stream of acid, and then another cape stepped out. This one had semi-transparent skin, and he was shooting a stream of something that appeared to neutralize Acidbath's acid. This had to be Faultline's team given the pair of Case 53's. That was good for her, as they didn't really have any brutes that might give her trouble.
With a snarl and some quick hand signals, Nyx sent her and Maggie off to flank around to the right, while Egg's creatures went in the other direction. The team leader also began sending clouds of poison gas forward to try and support Tom's ill-considered attack. Sveta could hear Matryoshka muttering to herself quietly, which worried her a little. The woman had been forced to absorb several people in service to Cauldron, and each time the process changed her. Sveta was worried that it would eventually drive her friend completely insane but wasn't sure what to do about it.
The two of them stopped when they came face-to-face with two unknown capes. One was a normal-looking woman dressed in some kind of Irish-themed costume. The other was yet another Case 53, but this one was orange and had a tail. Sveta thought it was an unusual appearance, but it wasn't like she was in any position to start body shaming other people. She could already feel her tentacles twitching to try and attack the two, but she used sheer willpower to force them to do her bidding. If nothing else had benefited her from working with them, Cauldron at least had methods to teach you control, harsh though they might be.
With a glance at Maggie, they silently agreed on targets with a few nods and gestures. She rushed forward, quicker than most would think possible, looking to grapple with the green-clad woman. She wasn't sure the woman would survive her tentacles, but her orders were to stop the intruders by any means necessary. Sveta's feelings on the matter weren't a consideration and never had been. The woman stood perfectly still until the last minute, then jumped out of the way in a manner that should have been impossible if not for sheer luck. As she jumped, she smashed a glass vial of something against her attacker's skin. Sveta ignored that, as she was immune to most acids, poisons...pretty much anything she could imagine.
The two women danced around each other, and an outside observer could be forgiven for describing it as a dance. Of course, the two seemed to be dancing to different music in different styles. The green-clad cape appeared to be doing an energetic ballet in a mosh pit made of writhing tentacles. Sveta found it frustrating at how good the woman was at completely avoiding her, and she was puzzled as to why she kept tossing liquid on her when the first attack hadn't had any apparent effect. It wasn't until the fourth bottle that she realized the closing trap, as her tentacles began slowing as whatever it was hardened in the air. She could break the substance, but it took a surprising amount of effort, and as she slowed, she kept getting more and more of it thrown on her. She wasn't quite sure where the woman was getting all of these small bottles. The pack on her belt didn't seem to be big enough to hold them all.
Finally, it got to the point where she was effectively frozen in place after being hit by close to two-dozen of the little bottles. As she struggled, she could hear Maggie giggling in a very strange way, though her friend was out of sight, behind where Garotte's head was frozen. As she heard explosions coming from the direction of the others, she wondered if any of the rest of her team were having more success. If she saw Acidbath again, she was going to strangle him until his head popped off. It would be worth whatever punishment she received to see the look on his misogynistic face.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Danny was considering their luck, which had been quite good so far. He had been able to plot positive timelines for the other teams for their first combat encounters. Now it was time for the Undersiders. The three capes ahead had seemed to be reluctant combatants. He split a new pair of timelines. In one timeline, they held back slightly. In the second, he walked forward straight toward the opposing team. "We wish to parley," he called out.
After a few seconds, a man stepped out from behind an outcropping of flesh. He looked mostly human, though his skin had an oddly metallic silver gleam to it. "I don't see that we have anything to discuss."
Beneath his mask, Danny smiled slightly. There was always something to negotiate, and the fact that the other cape had replied instead of just attacking was proof of it in this case. "There's no reason for us to fight. I'm sure we can work out an arrangement that would be mutually beneficial."
The man frowned, then paused as if he was trying to muddle through a moment of confusion. "I doubt you can give us what we need, and we can't go against her." There seemed to be an undercurrent of deep concern beneath the confusion in his voice as he spoke.
"She won't matter soon, and you would be surprised what our associates can do. Money isn't an issue..." he paused as the other man's mouth tightened. "Or maybe you need help with problems caused by your powers?"
This caused the silver man to stiffen slightly. He opened his mouth to speak when another voice, this one female, said, "Geoff, just tell him." The woman who stepped up next to him was covered in spines. The silver man almost habitually reached out to touch her hand, then stopped himself as he remembered the risk. Then he looked at Danny.
"She said she would remove our powers if we did as she asked," he said, looking at the woman meaningfully.
"At least, she would remove mine. My powers have...issues that keep me from touching other people," she added. Her companion frowned at how forthcoming she was being. She seemed to sense this, and said to him, "Geoff, she's been lying to us. That music that they pipe through to everyone? It's affecting you and Mischa. My power seems to make me partially immune. At least, I seem to be less affected than you two." In truth, Geoff seemed to fall to the mastering more easily than any of them, which worried her.
In the second timeline, the Undersiders were engaged in combat with this same group. In that timeline, while they were winning, the thorny woman had managed to touch Sarah and Randall and created evil clones of them. Internally, Danny grimaced slightly at some of the things the evil Sarah was saying. Better to keep this group talking instead of fighting. "They have a master cape here that controls people through singing. It's part of how they control people. I doubt Contessa was doing anything other than waiting for you to be completely controlled.
The silver man was now frowning deeply and shaking his head. "We can't go against her."
Another voice came in from the side, this one with a Russian accent. "Mags is right, Geoff. That's the music talking." The speaker also stepped into sight, and he also had abnormal skin. In his case, it seemed to be slightly blurred. He looked to Coil. "I am called Kolyuchka. These two are Silver Saint and Echidna...at least in costume. Do you have a way to counteract mastering?"
"Our associates do," agreed Danny. This was going far better than he had any right to expect. "We can take you to them. They can help you and take you back to Earth Bet."
Echidna nodded but looked worryingly at Silver Saint. "I agree...but it might be a good idea to sedate us until the mastering can be countered."
"I can call in a friend to help with that," agreed Danny. On his radio, he said, "Dragon, can you send somebody here with the tranquilizers? These three are willing to stand down in return for help from the Family but at least two of them have issues thanks to Canary's song."
"I'll go myself," she replied. "For some reason that I can't explain, I feel the need to attend to this in person."
Danny dropped the other timeline. The battle had ended already and they were moving on, but the psychological trauma suffered by his team wasn't worth the time saved. "We'll wait here until our associate arrives to help you," he told them. Silver Saint looked slightly troubled by this, but the other two nodded.
He looked at the Russian. "I'm afraid I don't speak Russian. What does Kolyuchka mean?" Given Silver Saint's uncertainty, it would be better to keep them talking.
"Thorn," replied the man. Then he gave a slight grin. "My first choice was Bogatyr, but the name was already taken."
"Bogatyr?" asked Coil.
"It means, 'hero,'" explained Echidna.
Danny's eyes widened, and he simply said, "Ah."
It didn't take long for Dragon to arrive, her suit landing slightly apart from them to avoid catching them in the thruster backwash. "This is Dragon," said Danny in a slightly louder voice.
Silver Saint turned his head to look at Dragon, then he got a very strange expression on his face. He thrust his hand out palm up, and suddenly Dragon's suit froze.
"Geoff!" called out Echidna worriedly, "Stop doing that!"
Coil was debating what to do when Kolyuchka stepped forward and simply put his hand on his teammate's arm. There was a spray of blood as Silver Saint jerked his arm away from the contact with the other cape's skin. That was enough for Dragon, who unfroze and raised an arm with a dart launcher. There was a quiet *thwit* and a dart appeared on Silver Saint's chest. It took a few seconds, but his eyes slowly rolled up and he fell forward, flopping on the ground.
"I'm surprised you didn't catch him," commented Dragon.
Both Echidna and Kolyuchka grimaced. "Neither of us can safely touch him," explained Echidna. "Do you think your family can really help us?"
"It's the Family...that's their name...and I'm absolutely certain that they can," replied Dragon on Danny's behalf. "Coil, you and your team can start moving forward again."
Danny nodded and said into the radio, "All right, let's go." They would have to move quickly to make up for the lost time.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Simurgh had stopped moving forward and was apparently waiting for them to come to her. Metis wasn't sure if it was because she was delaying the inevitable, or if it was part of some other type of stratagem. Regardless, it would at least keep the other capes in Vancouver from engaging with the Endbringer for the time being, which would undoubtedly save lives. The Endbringer was also not singing, which was encouraging. They continued moving forward until they were only a mile from the floating Endbringer.
The black lizard took a moment to regard the heavily-winged woman hovering in the air. "You don't have to fight. Just find some way to delay for a time, and we will deal with your master," she said. She spoke in a normal tone of voice, certain that the Endbringer's hearing was more than capable of hearing her. The Simurgh tilted her head to the side as if considering.
{I've got two projectiles heading to us from the ground. They're moving fairly slowly...I think they're trees?} came Ianthe's voice in FamTalk over the communicator.
Her power was telling her that the Simurgh was using the excuse of testing their defenses as a delaying tactic, probably because her programming wouldn't allow her to go against a direct order from her controller. At least, she hoped that was the reason. With the Simurgh, there was always the chance that whatever you thought was happening was just part of a convoluted trap. It's what made the winged one the most feared of the three Endbringers. {Let the automated defenses in the sled take care of them,} she replied. It took the better part of a minute for the two pine trees to reach the range of the point defense system, at which time two quick shots from the built-in phaser array effectively vaporized them, leaving little but hot gas and a few errant pine needles. A lone pine cone dropped, startling a seagull that happened to be flying near its trajectory.
Metis felt the sled lurch beneath her. Ziz was now trying to take out their transport, which was an expected tactic. Metis was somewhat impressed that the anti-telekinesis measures they had implemented was working so effectively. The programming of the sled was designed to use inertial compensators and anti-gravity to offset telekinetic influence. That wasn't a standard feature, but it was a prudent after-market add-on given the number of powerful telekinetics in the different universes. The resulting motion was the equivalent of riding a mechanical bull, although her and Ianthe's sleds were slowly moving closer to each other with each lurch. After about five minutes of semi-random movements, which might have actually been fun under different circumstances, Metis nodded to Ianthe. In unison, the two reptiles flipped off of the sleds and deployed new sleds from their storage rings. Once free of riders, the two abandoned sleds immediately made straight for the Endbringer, firing a full spread of phasers. The Simurgh intercepted the beams with her wings, which were easily able to withstand the force of the rifle-grade weapons on the sled. The sleds themselves eventually exploded as the power plants went critical in response to the opposing telekinetic grip.
The whole attempt had burned another fifteen minutes of time. Metis wondered if she would try attacking the sleds again. They had another nineteen sleds in the storage rings each, but eventually, they would run out. Maybe they should have just used the dragon bioconstructs? They were more awkward to use on the ship, but they had independent flight capability. Maybe they should look at integrating anti-gravity into their deployable armor. It was probably an oversight that they hadn't already done so.
The sensors on the sled raised an alert and showed that there were two more projectiles now heading toward them, only this time from the ocean. Metis peered down toward their point of origin, then widened her eyes in surprise. {Are those...whales?} asked Ianthe.
{Yes...they are,} she answered. The Simurgh was throwing cetaceans at them.
Ianthe frowned angrily. {Fire a warning shot at that bitch. I'm going to go save the whales.}
Metis brought up the Athena Mark 2 and triggered the targeting beam. She could see the effect on the atmosphere as the antiparticle beam speared out toward the Simurgh, almost instantly burning a small crater in the skin of her abdomen. That was followed immediately by the main payload, which led to hundreds of EDM slivers burning through the air so quickly that she was barely able to follow it, even with her enhanced senses. She also felt a slight tingle as the area around the rifle had a slight spike in radiation. Even with most of the explosion in dimensional storage, there was some leakage, but the exposure was well below the danger threshold for the Metis construct.
The Simurgh dodged to the side, but not fast enough to completely avoid the danger. Metis couldn't help but smirk as the tip of one of the Endbringer's larger wings was severed, the heavy appendage falling down through the air. Both she and the Simurgh paused a moment and watched it plummet. Then, the Simurgh began moving away rapidly, though she remained facing the two lizards on their sleds. It was odd to watch, but the creature's flight capability obviously had little to do with aerodynamics.
{Is she retreating?} asked Ianthe. The purple reptile was in the process of using the maneuvering tractor beam on her sled to slow the fall of the two whales back into the water. They seemed to be orcas, and her power was telling her they were quite alarmed at their unexpected flight. Someday, thought Metis, she would break it of its habit of telling her the blatantly obvious.
Metis shook her head, despite the fact that Ianthe wasn't even looking in her direction, and replied, {No. She's not gaining altitude. She's just evading. I'm going to go after her. Catch up when you can.} She triggered her sled as Ianthe acknowledged her message. If the Simurgh was stalling for time, then they needed to also play the game to give her the excuse for her programming. Back when she was just Tattletale of the Undersiders, she would have thought it was crazy to worry about an Endbringer fight becoming boring, but this was definitely heading in that direction.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
{It looks like Behemoth has finally located the source of his emasculation,} commented Kastor. The sensors showed that the Endbringer was beginning to move toward the position of their energy absorber after several minutes of attempting to pump energy into the Yellowstone Caldera without effect.
Koios actually turned to look at his brother. {I...don't think that word works for Behemoth. I mean, it's not like the Endbringers actually have a gender.}
Kastor rolled his eyes. {It's just a metaphor. Anyway, I'll keep him busy while you turn on the phase cloak.} The cloaking device would reduce the efficiency of the device, but it would also protect it from direct attack by the Endbringer. The trade-off was that while Behemoth still wouldn't be able to channel enough energy to trigger the super-volcano, which was his ultimate objective, he would be a lot more dangerous in a one-on-one fight.
His brother waved him away. {Fine. You go have fun going Endgame on his ass. I'll just stay here and monitor the equipment.}
The magical giant lizard gave a chuckle and channeled magic into the flight runes on his armor. The enchanted armor would effectively function like Dr. Strange's cape, responding to his mental commands and allowing him to focus on his opponent. Of course, it had less personality than Strange's garment, but that would likely change after a few centuries of use by its creator. When he reached the appropriate altitude, the area around their techno-magical device became slightly fuzzy and transparent. He could still see Koios and the device, but only because of his heightened magical senses, and because he knew what he was looking for.
In contrast, the cloaking device seemed much more effective against the Endbringer. As Behemoth broke the surface nearby, he seemed to pause, confused, and look around the area. He obviously could not find the source of the energy drain. Absently, Kastor noticed that the assembled capes were becoming agitated now that Behemoth was visible, but it seemed that Myrddin and Chevalier were able to hold them back for now. The Protectorate leaders had agreed to hold off once they saw how effective their device was at draining the Endbringer, though that might change if things appeared to be going badly. Kastor did not intend to let that happen.
Kastor brought his clawed hands together and separated his form into multiple projections, all of which swarmed to positions around the Endbringer. Crimson Bands of Cyttorak shot out from the projections, grabbing hold of the cyclopean creature's limbs. Inwardly, the reptilian mage smirked at his duplication of the cinematic Strange's attack on Thanos in the film. The Endbringer actually paused his motion for a moment, seemingly puzzled by the strange energy. It was unlikely that he had ever encountered actual magic in this dimension. His initial response was a wave of hard radiation that would have cooked most capes, but it completely failed to penetrate Kastor's armor. The next attack was a wave of chain lighting. This was more effective in disrupting the projections, and the bands of energy began snapping.
Changing tactics, the mage raised his arms and conjured up two fifty-foot stone golems from the surrounding ground, both of which moved to strike and grapple the Endbringer. The Endbringer stamped his foot down, creating a massive shock-wave that caused the two golems to stumble, but the magic quickly stabilized their forms. Behemoth then used intense heat on the two, which had the effect of changing the stone golems into magma golems. At that point, one of them reached the Endbringer's side and began raining fiery blows down on the creature. Admittedly, it wasn't terribly effective, but it looked cool as hell. Kastor began circling the melee, sending bolts of pure magical force down into the Endbringer as a distraction while the golems grappled him. He couldn't help but mutter, "Magic missile, magic missile, magic missile," under his breath as he flew around.
Eventually, his opponent just used pure kinetic fury to shred the golems in a flurry of frustrated blows, sending sprays of glowing stone around the landscape in a rather spectacular fashion. Again shifting tactics, Kastor began casting a transfiguration spell on the creature's feet. Behemoth paused yet again as the soles of his feet changed to wood and began rooting him into the ground. He was easily able to pull his legs up and away, but they just started to take root again when he put them down. The Endbringer's solution to that was to channel heat into his own limbs, burning off the wooden parts as they transformed. Amusingly, this had the effect of making the Endbringer shorter by a fraction of an inch every few seconds as its regeneration struggled to keep up with the transmutation.
A mixture of lighting, sonic attacks, flames, and radiation began peppering the magical shielding of his armor, making it clear that the Endbringer was finally going to go all out to target him personally. While it would take time, his defenses would fall eventually under such an assault. Kastor decided to use one of his several backup plans. He opened one of the storage compartments in his armor and pulled out a mana battery. The batteries were a huge pain the ass to create, but they were the magical equivalent of a zero-point-module from the Stargate universe. Stephen and Willow had both told him he was crazy for taking the time to create such a large one, but it was going to come in handy now. He began a spell and tapped into the battery to power it.
A wave of magical energy rushed toward Behemoth, enveloped him, and caused him to vanish.
Now that he had some more time, Kastor decided to fly over to the watching capes and check-in with Myrddin. The group of assembled heroes and villains were strangely quiet, and they seemed to tense as he came closer. A little anxiety was probably inevitable, mused Kastor, as the reptilian mage was a complete unknown who appeared to have just one-shotted Behemoth. As he came within speaking distance of the Protectorate leader, the wizard-themed cape asked, "Did you just disintegrate Behemoth?" He seemed slightly stunned, and possibly afraid of Kastor's answer.
Kastor shook his head. "No. He'll probably head back here, but it will take some time to get back from where I sent him."
There was a moment of silence, but finally, Chevalier, who was standing next to Myrddin, prompted, "Where did you send him?"
"About three miles above the center of the Pacific Ocean."
The forty-five-foot tall being known as Herokiller had a good sixty seconds of freefall to adjust to the novelty of the situation. The impact when he hit the water would have been impressive had there been anybody nearby to see it, though a nearby pod of dolphins began wisely swimming away from the noise when it happened. When future cetologists finally learned how to understand whalesong, they would learn of a number of songs about, "the day the oceans went crazy," with quite a bit of confusion. With the certainty that only comes from academics completely lacking empirical evidence, they would end up attributing the whole thing to an odd type of creation myth in cetacean culture. This amused the whales and dolphins to no end, who as species would undoubtedly have gotten along famously well with certain alien lizards if the opportunity had ever arisen in that reality.
Jacob looked around at the masses of distorted and twisted flesh. The footing was uneven and disturbing, with odd bits that seemed to have the shape of human body parts sprouting at random locations. More worrisome was the fact that it was impossible to see far in this mess. Luckily, the various teams wouldn't be dependent solely upon line-of-sight observations.
"All right," came Coil's voice over the radio. "Our teams are moving forward rapidly in the other timeline. Skitter's insects are moving slightly faster in both timelines." The teams had come to the conclusion that while Coil's power would be useful in avoiding catastrophic failures, it also had the potential to provide the results of fast reconnaissance without actually putting anybody at risk...as long as the people involved in the discarded timeline understood what was happening. There had been some discussion about having one timeline reserved for not attacking Cauldron, but Dinah had insisted that was a bad idea without going into the gory details.
The members of the Slaughterhouse Nine began moving forward at a cautious walking pace, keeping an eye open for anything. The Undersiders and Faultline's crew were coming in from different directions, with the Dragon Clan serving as a fast reserve to help out wherever needed. The Siberian was pacing just in front of Jacob, and William was next to him. Both of them had gotten some durability boosts from the alien lizards, but it was better to stick with practiced tactics rather than try and improvise based on untested new abilities. Having the Siberian close at hand to provide invulnerability if necessary was something they had evolved through practice. Most of the team had their own protections as a result of their powers, but William and Jacob only had the enhancements Riley had given them, and there was only so much you could do without making significant compromises in appearance or overall effectiveness.
Jacob heard a sharp intake of breath, followed by Coil saying, "All right, we have unknown capes in grid A-228 and C-122, and then again at A-112. S9 and Crew, cross paths at A-62. I think the S9 will have better luck with the A-112. No sign of known Cauldron capes or the Triumvirate yet." One thing they had learned before heading here was that none of the three members of the Triumvirate were at any of the Endbringer sites. Tattletale, Dinah, and Metis were all in agreement that it was likely they were here, instead, with only a small chance that they had another tasking. The lizards had provided a surprising amount of data on Legend and Alexandria, with the caveat that the teams going in remember that the heroes were being mastered. They had less information on Hero, who had apparently died many years ago in the other realities.
"Coil, what intel on the unknown capes were you able to get?" broadcast Faultline.
There was a pause. "Not as much as I hoped, but some. Faultline, the group you're heading toward includes one cape that generates acid and another that creates poison gas. One is a master with two large servants, a giant lizard and a giant snake. The last two, well...I only heard that there were ribbons and tentacles."
"Charming," muttered William.
"S9, your team is filled what appear to be resurrection capes. In the other timeline, Faultline's team had some problems dealing with them. One of them shoots out poison spikes on tendrils at range and uses the damage to heal...and they explode into a massive spike-wave if they're killed. One is a tinker-type. Another one seems to reappear a little like Alabaster. The fourth looks like a mutated bipedal bear. The last...well, it isn't entirely clear what he can do," continued Coil.
"And what about your group?" asked Dragon. As the reserve, she and her family might be called on to help handle any of them.
"There are only three. One is a silver-skinned technopath, the second creates clones of those she touches, and the third is a hand-to-hand fighter with exceedingly dangerous skin. As long as we avoid using firearms and stay away from the cloner, we should be fine, but based on the other timeline, I'm going to try to parley with them," he replied.
Jacob looked around at the others on his team. "Based on that, we need to go for disabling blows."
"I'm kind of interested in seeing exactly how their resurrection powers work," commented Riley. "I mean, we can always knock them out after."
"This isn't really the time for experimentation, Riley," chastised Dr. Manton. His projection at his side nodded in agreement. The others had gotten used to him using his projection to emphasize his points when there were in costume, even changing her costume at times to help make a point. "Besides, that may be a moot point if they engage at close range with Bobby," he added, nodding toward Hatchetface.
"They won't if they're at all aware of who we are," commented Alan, his armored form moving in a surprisingly fluid and quiet manner. "I certainly wouldn't if my powers were resurrection-based."
Jacob...which is how he thought of himself, not Jack...thought that was probably why Danny had swapped them up with Faultline. Hatchetface could nullify their primary advantage, meaning they couldn't afford to be as aggressive against the Nine. Into the radio, he said, "Coil, do we have an idea of how long it will be before we run into our tasked opponents?"
"Just watch the bugs," came the reply.
He looked around and noticed a swarm of mites that were forming the shape of an arrow. As they moved forward, he could tell that the length of the arrow was slowly decreasing in size. He shook his head in amusement at how much control Skitter had over her swarm, especially as she was likely doing this for every team simultaneously. After a relatively short time, the gnats changed form into an exclamation point, then dispersed. Jacob smiled as he could sense the nearby parahumans, arrayed in preparation for a planned ambush. Any skilled tactician will tell you that the best way to counter an ambush is to reverse it.
He, William, and Siberian simply walked into the middle of a slightly open area while the rest of the team circled around. The first attack against them was a series of tethered darts that seemed to be launched from the body of a short woman wearing a black leather costume. With a flick of his wrist, he used the switchblade in his hand to slice through one of the fleshy tethers, the end of which flopped to the ground and began to dissolve. His attacker paused for a moment, her face showing that she had expected to have the benefit of surprise. That gave Marquis the opening he needed from where he had circled around her, and she was soon encased in a thick shell of bone.
The other members of the Nine soon came into the clearing. Bonesaw was dragging what looked like an unconscious bear with tentacles. Shatterbird was levitating a man dressed in a truly impressive, or possibly depressing, amount of religious iconography. He was wrapped in thick bands of glass around his arms, torso, and legs. Mannequin came in from another direction with a costumed man wrapped in steel cables. Jacob noticed that the man's mouth was bloody and raised a questioning eyebrow at the tinker.
Mannequin shrugged. "He tried to swallow his tongue."
"Right," nodded Jacob. "Probably a useful skill to have as a res cape."
The two remaining members joined them. Crawler had a bruised, bloody, but unconscious brute over his shoulder. Hatchet Face joined the others empty-handed. "What happened?" asked William. "Where's the tinker?"
"She stopped moving completely as soon as I got close," replied Bobby. "I checked her armor, and it looks like there's nothing inside but a desiccated corpse." He looked slightly confused.
The still-conscious man wrapped up in glass got a horrified look on his face. "You're a power nullifier, and you got near Cradlegrave?" He then proceeded to utter a string of profanities and insults at the group, continuing on until Riley jabbed him with a blade covered in a drug to put him to sleep.
"For somebody dressed up in religious paraphernalia, he certainly had a foul mouth," commented the surgical biotinker with a frown.
Mannequin looked around at the captured capes. "What do we do with the rest of these guys?"
"We leave them. We have to keep moving," said William. He looked over at Marquis's bone prison. "Is she going to be all right in there?"
Marquis nodded, though it was slightly restricted in range thanks to his bone faceplate. "It will let air through, and she should be able to break out eventually. I feel her tendrils working at the inside."
With that, the Slaughterhouse Nine continued forward, though Hatchet Face looked slightly troubled by the accidental death. He had killed before -- they all had -- but they took pains to avoid collateral damage despite their bad press. Jacob made a note to talk to him about it after this mission was complete.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Acidbath was nursing a quiet fury. He wouldn't go against her orders, of course. He wasn't suicidal, and he had seen how vindictive Contessa could be when she was annoyed. He resented his assigned team, however. The weakling that was Egg was bad enough. He couldn't even move without breaking his own skin. At least his power-generated minions were useful. What was worse, though, was that he was on a team with three women, and one of them had been put in charge. He expected nothing good to come from that. Intellectually, he knew Nyx's poison gas power was both dangerous and effective. The woman was also ruthless. He tried to use that to justify things. Nyx wasn't a typical woman. The same could be said about Garotte and Matryoshka, actually. Were they really women if they were human-form tentacles and ribbons? Despite these rationalizations, though, the situation was chafing his pride. Nyx was looking at him sideways, clearly suspicious of his thoughts, but he ignored her. He would follow her orders because he had no choice, but he didn't have to be friendly.
"We're going to move forward carefully and engage," said Nyx to the others. "There are several hero teams in the Garden, and one of them is the Slaughterhouse Nine. Faultline's Crew and the Undersiders are less of a threat, but they're all dangerous. Don't engage until I give the signal." She again glared at Acidbath, but he pretended to ignore her again. "Do you understand, Tom?"
That got a reaction from him. He angrily nodded his head, furious at her lack of respect. She should use his cape name when they were on assignment, damn it. He completely ignored the fact that she regularly referred to the two women as Sveta and Maggie, as that was beneath his attention. The group moved forward at a walking pace while Acidbath fumed to himself.
Their first sighting of the other team was a single Case 53. He looked inhumanly thin and completely oblivious to everything around him. If anything, he seemed to be staring in horrid fascination at the grotesque landscape.
Sveta groaned internally as Tom sent a stream of acid straight at the unknown cape without waiting for Nyx. He was such an asshole, and she wouldn't be associating with him if she had any freaking choice in the matter. The nimble Case 53 moved with super-speed to dodge the oncoming stream of acid, and then another cape stepped out. This one had semi-transparent skin, and he was shooting a stream of something that appeared to neutralize Acidbath's acid. This had to be Faultline's team given the pair of Case 53's. That was good for her, as they didn't really have any brutes that might give her trouble.
With a snarl and some quick hand signals, Nyx sent her and Maggie off to flank around to the right, while Egg's creatures went in the other direction. The team leader also began sending clouds of poison gas forward to try and support Tom's ill-considered attack. Sveta could hear Matryoshka muttering to herself quietly, which worried her a little. The woman had been forced to absorb several people in service to Cauldron, and each time the process changed her. Sveta was worried that it would eventually drive her friend completely insane but wasn't sure what to do about it.
The two of them stopped when they came face-to-face with two unknown capes. One was a normal-looking woman dressed in some kind of Irish-themed costume. The other was yet another Case 53, but this one was orange and had a tail. Sveta thought it was an unusual appearance, but it wasn't like she was in any position to start body shaming other people. She could already feel her tentacles twitching to try and attack the two, but she used sheer willpower to force them to do her bidding. If nothing else had benefited her from working with them, Cauldron at least had methods to teach you control, harsh though they might be.
With a glance at Maggie, they silently agreed on targets with a few nods and gestures. She rushed forward, quicker than most would think possible, looking to grapple with the green-clad woman. She wasn't sure the woman would survive her tentacles, but her orders were to stop the intruders by any means necessary. Sveta's feelings on the matter weren't a consideration and never had been. The woman stood perfectly still until the last minute, then jumped out of the way in a manner that should have been impossible if not for sheer luck. As she jumped, she smashed a glass vial of something against her attacker's skin. Sveta ignored that, as she was immune to most acids, poisons...pretty much anything she could imagine.
The two women danced around each other, and an outside observer could be forgiven for describing it as a dance. Of course, the two seemed to be dancing to different music in different styles. The green-clad cape appeared to be doing an energetic ballet in a mosh pit made of writhing tentacles. Sveta found it frustrating at how good the woman was at completely avoiding her, and she was puzzled as to why she kept tossing liquid on her when the first attack hadn't had any apparent effect. It wasn't until the fourth bottle that she realized the closing trap, as her tentacles began slowing as whatever it was hardened in the air. She could break the substance, but it took a surprising amount of effort, and as she slowed, she kept getting more and more of it thrown on her. She wasn't quite sure where the woman was getting all of these small bottles. The pack on her belt didn't seem to be big enough to hold them all.
Finally, it got to the point where she was effectively frozen in place after being hit by close to two-dozen of the little bottles. As she struggled, she could hear Maggie giggling in a very strange way, though her friend was out of sight, behind where Garotte's head was frozen. As she heard explosions coming from the direction of the others, she wondered if any of the rest of her team were having more success. If she saw Acidbath again, she was going to strangle him until his head popped off. It would be worth whatever punishment she received to see the look on his misogynistic face.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Danny was considering their luck, which had been quite good so far. He had been able to plot positive timelines for the other teams for their first combat encounters. Now it was time for the Undersiders. The three capes ahead had seemed to be reluctant combatants. He split a new pair of timelines. In one timeline, they held back slightly. In the second, he walked forward straight toward the opposing team. "We wish to parley," he called out.
After a few seconds, a man stepped out from behind an outcropping of flesh. He looked mostly human, though his skin had an oddly metallic silver gleam to it. "I don't see that we have anything to discuss."
Beneath his mask, Danny smiled slightly. There was always something to negotiate, and the fact that the other cape had replied instead of just attacking was proof of it in this case. "There's no reason for us to fight. I'm sure we can work out an arrangement that would be mutually beneficial."
The man frowned, then paused as if he was trying to muddle through a moment of confusion. "I doubt you can give us what we need, and we can't go against her." There seemed to be an undercurrent of deep concern beneath the confusion in his voice as he spoke.
"She won't matter soon, and you would be surprised what our associates can do. Money isn't an issue..." he paused as the other man's mouth tightened. "Or maybe you need help with problems caused by your powers?"
This caused the silver man to stiffen slightly. He opened his mouth to speak when another voice, this one female, said, "Geoff, just tell him." The woman who stepped up next to him was covered in spines. The silver man almost habitually reached out to touch her hand, then stopped himself as he remembered the risk. Then he looked at Danny.
"She said she would remove our powers if we did as she asked," he said, looking at the woman meaningfully.
"At least, she would remove mine. My powers have...issues that keep me from touching other people," she added. Her companion frowned at how forthcoming she was being. She seemed to sense this, and said to him, "Geoff, she's been lying to us. That music that they pipe through to everyone? It's affecting you and Mischa. My power seems to make me partially immune. At least, I seem to be less affected than you two." In truth, Geoff seemed to fall to the mastering more easily than any of them, which worried her.
In the second timeline, the Undersiders were engaged in combat with this same group. In that timeline, while they were winning, the thorny woman had managed to touch Sarah and Randall and created evil clones of them. Internally, Danny grimaced slightly at some of the things the evil Sarah was saying. Better to keep this group talking instead of fighting. "They have a master cape here that controls people through singing. It's part of how they control people. I doubt Contessa was doing anything other than waiting for you to be completely controlled.
The silver man was now frowning deeply and shaking his head. "We can't go against her."
Another voice came in from the side, this one with a Russian accent. "Mags is right, Geoff. That's the music talking." The speaker also stepped into sight, and he also had abnormal skin. In his case, it seemed to be slightly blurred. He looked to Coil. "I am called Kolyuchka. These two are Silver Saint and Echidna...at least in costume. Do you have a way to counteract mastering?"
"Our associates do," agreed Danny. This was going far better than he had any right to expect. "We can take you to them. They can help you and take you back to Earth Bet."
Echidna nodded but looked worryingly at Silver Saint. "I agree...but it might be a good idea to sedate us until the mastering can be countered."
"I can call in a friend to help with that," agreed Danny. On his radio, he said, "Dragon, can you send somebody here with the tranquilizers? These three are willing to stand down in return for help from the Family but at least two of them have issues thanks to Canary's song."
"I'll go myself," she replied. "For some reason that I can't explain, I feel the need to attend to this in person."
Danny dropped the other timeline. The battle had ended already and they were moving on, but the psychological trauma suffered by his team wasn't worth the time saved. "We'll wait here until our associate arrives to help you," he told them. Silver Saint looked slightly troubled by this, but the other two nodded.
He looked at the Russian. "I'm afraid I don't speak Russian. What does Kolyuchka mean?" Given Silver Saint's uncertainty, it would be better to keep them talking.
"Thorn," replied the man. Then he gave a slight grin. "My first choice was Bogatyr, but the name was already taken."
"Bogatyr?" asked Coil.
"It means, 'hero,'" explained Echidna.
Danny's eyes widened, and he simply said, "Ah."
It didn't take long for Dragon to arrive, her suit landing slightly apart from them to avoid catching them in the thruster backwash. "This is Dragon," said Danny in a slightly louder voice.
Silver Saint turned his head to look at Dragon, then he got a very strange expression on his face. He thrust his hand out palm up, and suddenly Dragon's suit froze.
"Geoff!" called out Echidna worriedly, "Stop doing that!"
Coil was debating what to do when Kolyuchka stepped forward and simply put his hand on his teammate's arm. There was a spray of blood as Silver Saint jerked his arm away from the contact with the other cape's skin. That was enough for Dragon, who unfroze and raised an arm with a dart launcher. There was a quiet *thwit* and a dart appeared on Silver Saint's chest. It took a few seconds, but his eyes slowly rolled up and he fell forward, flopping on the ground.
"I'm surprised you didn't catch him," commented Dragon.
Both Echidna and Kolyuchka grimaced. "Neither of us can safely touch him," explained Echidna. "Do you think your family can really help us?"
"It's the Family...that's their name...and I'm absolutely certain that they can," replied Dragon on Danny's behalf. "Coil, you and your team can start moving forward again."
Danny nodded and said into the radio, "All right, let's go." They would have to move quickly to make up for the lost time.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Simurgh had stopped moving forward and was apparently waiting for them to come to her. Metis wasn't sure if it was because she was delaying the inevitable, or if it was part of some other type of stratagem. Regardless, it would at least keep the other capes in Vancouver from engaging with the Endbringer for the time being, which would undoubtedly save lives. The Endbringer was also not singing, which was encouraging. They continued moving forward until they were only a mile from the floating Endbringer.
The black lizard took a moment to regard the heavily-winged woman hovering in the air. "You don't have to fight. Just find some way to delay for a time, and we will deal with your master," she said. She spoke in a normal tone of voice, certain that the Endbringer's hearing was more than capable of hearing her. The Simurgh tilted her head to the side as if considering.
{I've got two projectiles heading to us from the ground. They're moving fairly slowly...I think they're trees?} came Ianthe's voice in FamTalk over the communicator.
Her power was telling her that the Simurgh was using the excuse of testing their defenses as a delaying tactic, probably because her programming wouldn't allow her to go against a direct order from her controller. At least, she hoped that was the reason. With the Simurgh, there was always the chance that whatever you thought was happening was just part of a convoluted trap. It's what made the winged one the most feared of the three Endbringers. {Let the automated defenses in the sled take care of them,} she replied. It took the better part of a minute for the two pine trees to reach the range of the point defense system, at which time two quick shots from the built-in phaser array effectively vaporized them, leaving little but hot gas and a few errant pine needles. A lone pine cone dropped, startling a seagull that happened to be flying near its trajectory.
Metis felt the sled lurch beneath her. Ziz was now trying to take out their transport, which was an expected tactic. Metis was somewhat impressed that the anti-telekinesis measures they had implemented was working so effectively. The programming of the sled was designed to use inertial compensators and anti-gravity to offset telekinetic influence. That wasn't a standard feature, but it was a prudent after-market add-on given the number of powerful telekinetics in the different universes. The resulting motion was the equivalent of riding a mechanical bull, although her and Ianthe's sleds were slowly moving closer to each other with each lurch. After about five minutes of semi-random movements, which might have actually been fun under different circumstances, Metis nodded to Ianthe. In unison, the two reptiles flipped off of the sleds and deployed new sleds from their storage rings. Once free of riders, the two abandoned sleds immediately made straight for the Endbringer, firing a full spread of phasers. The Simurgh intercepted the beams with her wings, which were easily able to withstand the force of the rifle-grade weapons on the sled. The sleds themselves eventually exploded as the power plants went critical in response to the opposing telekinetic grip.
The whole attempt had burned another fifteen minutes of time. Metis wondered if she would try attacking the sleds again. They had another nineteen sleds in the storage rings each, but eventually, they would run out. Maybe they should have just used the dragon bioconstructs? They were more awkward to use on the ship, but they had independent flight capability. Maybe they should look at integrating anti-gravity into their deployable armor. It was probably an oversight that they hadn't already done so.
The sensors on the sled raised an alert and showed that there were two more projectiles now heading toward them, only this time from the ocean. Metis peered down toward their point of origin, then widened her eyes in surprise. {Are those...whales?} asked Ianthe.
{Yes...they are,} she answered. The Simurgh was throwing cetaceans at them.
Ianthe frowned angrily. {Fire a warning shot at that bitch. I'm going to go save the whales.}
Metis brought up the Athena Mark 2 and triggered the targeting beam. She could see the effect on the atmosphere as the antiparticle beam speared out toward the Simurgh, almost instantly burning a small crater in the skin of her abdomen. That was followed immediately by the main payload, which led to hundreds of EDM slivers burning through the air so quickly that she was barely able to follow it, even with her enhanced senses. She also felt a slight tingle as the area around the rifle had a slight spike in radiation. Even with most of the explosion in dimensional storage, there was some leakage, but the exposure was well below the danger threshold for the Metis construct.
The Simurgh dodged to the side, but not fast enough to completely avoid the danger. Metis couldn't help but smirk as the tip of one of the Endbringer's larger wings was severed, the heavy appendage falling down through the air. Both she and the Simurgh paused a moment and watched it plummet. Then, the Simurgh began moving away rapidly, though she remained facing the two lizards on their sleds. It was odd to watch, but the creature's flight capability obviously had little to do with aerodynamics.
{Is she retreating?} asked Ianthe. The purple reptile was in the process of using the maneuvering tractor beam on her sled to slow the fall of the two whales back into the water. They seemed to be orcas, and her power was telling her they were quite alarmed at their unexpected flight. Someday, thought Metis, she would break it of its habit of telling her the blatantly obvious.
Metis shook her head, despite the fact that Ianthe wasn't even looking in her direction, and replied, {No. She's not gaining altitude. She's just evading. I'm going to go after her. Catch up when you can.} She triggered her sled as Ianthe acknowledged her message. If the Simurgh was stalling for time, then they needed to also play the game to give her the excuse for her programming. Back when she was just Tattletale of the Undersiders, she would have thought it was crazy to worry about an Endbringer fight becoming boring, but this was definitely heading in that direction.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
{It looks like Behemoth has finally located the source of his emasculation,} commented Kastor. The sensors showed that the Endbringer was beginning to move toward the position of their energy absorber after several minutes of attempting to pump energy into the Yellowstone Caldera without effect.
Koios actually turned to look at his brother. {I...don't think that word works for Behemoth. I mean, it's not like the Endbringers actually have a gender.}
Kastor rolled his eyes. {It's just a metaphor. Anyway, I'll keep him busy while you turn on the phase cloak.} The cloaking device would reduce the efficiency of the device, but it would also protect it from direct attack by the Endbringer. The trade-off was that while Behemoth still wouldn't be able to channel enough energy to trigger the super-volcano, which was his ultimate objective, he would be a lot more dangerous in a one-on-one fight.
His brother waved him away. {Fine. You go have fun going Endgame on his ass. I'll just stay here and monitor the equipment.}
The magical giant lizard gave a chuckle and channeled magic into the flight runes on his armor. The enchanted armor would effectively function like Dr. Strange's cape, responding to his mental commands and allowing him to focus on his opponent. Of course, it had less personality than Strange's garment, but that would likely change after a few centuries of use by its creator. When he reached the appropriate altitude, the area around their techno-magical device became slightly fuzzy and transparent. He could still see Koios and the device, but only because of his heightened magical senses, and because he knew what he was looking for.
In contrast, the cloaking device seemed much more effective against the Endbringer. As Behemoth broke the surface nearby, he seemed to pause, confused, and look around the area. He obviously could not find the source of the energy drain. Absently, Kastor noticed that the assembled capes were becoming agitated now that Behemoth was visible, but it seemed that Myrddin and Chevalier were able to hold them back for now. The Protectorate leaders had agreed to hold off once they saw how effective their device was at draining the Endbringer, though that might change if things appeared to be going badly. Kastor did not intend to let that happen.
Kastor brought his clawed hands together and separated his form into multiple projections, all of which swarmed to positions around the Endbringer. Crimson Bands of Cyttorak shot out from the projections, grabbing hold of the cyclopean creature's limbs. Inwardly, the reptilian mage smirked at his duplication of the cinematic Strange's attack on Thanos in the film. The Endbringer actually paused his motion for a moment, seemingly puzzled by the strange energy. It was unlikely that he had ever encountered actual magic in this dimension. His initial response was a wave of hard radiation that would have cooked most capes, but it completely failed to penetrate Kastor's armor. The next attack was a wave of chain lighting. This was more effective in disrupting the projections, and the bands of energy began snapping.
Changing tactics, the mage raised his arms and conjured up two fifty-foot stone golems from the surrounding ground, both of which moved to strike and grapple the Endbringer. The Endbringer stamped his foot down, creating a massive shock-wave that caused the two golems to stumble, but the magic quickly stabilized their forms. Behemoth then used intense heat on the two, which had the effect of changing the stone golems into magma golems. At that point, one of them reached the Endbringer's side and began raining fiery blows down on the creature. Admittedly, it wasn't terribly effective, but it looked cool as hell. Kastor began circling the melee, sending bolts of pure magical force down into the Endbringer as a distraction while the golems grappled him. He couldn't help but mutter, "Magic missile, magic missile, magic missile," under his breath as he flew around.
Eventually, his opponent just used pure kinetic fury to shred the golems in a flurry of frustrated blows, sending sprays of glowing stone around the landscape in a rather spectacular fashion. Again shifting tactics, Kastor began casting a transfiguration spell on the creature's feet. Behemoth paused yet again as the soles of his feet changed to wood and began rooting him into the ground. He was easily able to pull his legs up and away, but they just started to take root again when he put them down. The Endbringer's solution to that was to channel heat into his own limbs, burning off the wooden parts as they transformed. Amusingly, this had the effect of making the Endbringer shorter by a fraction of an inch every few seconds as its regeneration struggled to keep up with the transmutation.
A mixture of lighting, sonic attacks, flames, and radiation began peppering the magical shielding of his armor, making it clear that the Endbringer was finally going to go all out to target him personally. While it would take time, his defenses would fall eventually under such an assault. Kastor decided to use one of his several backup plans. He opened one of the storage compartments in his armor and pulled out a mana battery. The batteries were a huge pain the ass to create, but they were the magical equivalent of a zero-point-module from the Stargate universe. Stephen and Willow had both told him he was crazy for taking the time to create such a large one, but it was going to come in handy now. He began a spell and tapped into the battery to power it.
A wave of magical energy rushed toward Behemoth, enveloped him, and caused him to vanish.
Now that he had some more time, Kastor decided to fly over to the watching capes and check-in with Myrddin. The group of assembled heroes and villains were strangely quiet, and they seemed to tense as he came closer. A little anxiety was probably inevitable, mused Kastor, as the reptilian mage was a complete unknown who appeared to have just one-shotted Behemoth. As he came within speaking distance of the Protectorate leader, the wizard-themed cape asked, "Did you just disintegrate Behemoth?" He seemed slightly stunned, and possibly afraid of Kastor's answer.
Kastor shook his head. "No. He'll probably head back here, but it will take some time to get back from where I sent him."
There was a moment of silence, but finally, Chevalier, who was standing next to Myrddin, prompted, "Where did you send him?"
"About three miles above the center of the Pacific Ocean."
The forty-five-foot tall being known as Herokiller had a good sixty seconds of freefall to adjust to the novelty of the situation. The impact when he hit the water would have been impressive had there been anybody nearby to see it, though a nearby pod of dolphins began wisely swimming away from the noise when it happened. When future cetologists finally learned how to understand whalesong, they would learn of a number of songs about, "the day the oceans went crazy," with quite a bit of confusion. With the certainty that only comes from academics completely lacking empirical evidence, they would end up attributing the whole thing to an odd type of creation myth in cetacean culture. This amused the whales and dolphins to no end, who as species would undoubtedly have gotten along famously well with certain alien lizards if the opportunity had ever arisen in that reality.
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Well, at least it's better than having created another duck pond.