Chapter 14: Confrontations
Contessa was preparing to support the Triumvirate's attack on the invaders now that certain other tasks were proceeding, the first wave of disposable capes having served their purpose as distractions. That intent had to be put on hold when a powerful presence arrived far too close to her. Of course, she recognized it for who it was. The girl had been a massively disruptive force for years, now, and her powers made her hard to pin down or predict. "Hello, Ciara," she said as she turned.
A young teen-aged girl with blonde hair and green eyes was standing there. Her costume, such as it was, was a shroud-like affair that cloaked her body. "I thought it was time we finally met in person, 'Contessa.'" Her voice had an odd reverberation to it, a side-effect of the agents she had co-opted. The final word was said in a tone that suggested it was a shared fiction...almost but not quite bordering on humor.
"You pick an inopportune moment, of course," commented the older woman. "You know, your power is broken? It was never intended to work the way that it does." For one thing, this new variation was much too powerful to be given to a host.
The girl smirked. "Not by your kind, perhaps. Who knows how destiny really works?"
Contessa began to ready several offensive powers. "I've seen nothing that convinces me that such a force actually exists in the universe." If there had been such an organizing force in the universe, then there would be no need for the Cycle...no need to find a counter to ultimate entropy.
The blonde girl lifted silently off the ground and her hands started to glow. "Sometimes you see only what you expect to see. It is a peculiar kind of blindness."
Contessa frowned as a bolt of not-energy that should have removed the girl from existence instead vaporized part of the back wall and ceiling. As she began to move, she replied, "We shall find out who sees better, girl."
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Jacob blinked as the high-speed body of Alexandria bounced off of his face. The attack had come without warning and would easily have taken his head clean off if the Siberian wasn't holding on to his arm. The Protectorate hero made two more passes before she paused to speak with them, hovering in the air. "You can't win against her," she said. "All you're doing is prolonging the inevitable."
"Of course, the great Alexandria is speaking from personal experience. How many times did you fail in your attempts to deny her?" said Jacob. His power was whispering tidbits of information to him, fed to him by Alexandria's agent. "How long did it take before you started justifying your actions on her behalf? The Great Hero Library of Alexandria, keeping a heroic facade despite the immoral things you did? Starting to believe your own press, are you?"
Her eyes narrowed, then she frowned. Her own thinker ability told her he was baiting her. "This impasse is simply a temporary setback."
Jacob shrugged. "That's true enough. I guess it depends upon whose allies arrive first." He doubted Legend or Hero had anything in their arsenal that could penetrate the Siberian's invulnerability, but that didn't mean that Cauldron didn't have access to something that could. The short-term issue was resolved in their favor, however, as a rapidly-moving form jumped out from cover to grab Alexandria, blades slashing. The two brawled with each other, held aloft by Alexandria's flight. Crawler couldn't penetrate her invulnerability, but then she also couldn't do enough damage to overwhelm his regeneration. The distraction was enough, however, for Siberian to appear behind the woman and grab one of her arms. The look of shock on normally-invulnerable Alexandria's face as she was literally disarmed might have been funny under other circumstances. She quickly disappeared, flying away at top speed in a spray of blood.
"She's probably going to try and heal herself, or at least stop the bleeding. Her invulnerability may make her as hard to heal as she is to hurt," commented William, the Siberian appearing back between the two of them, having disappeared before the projection had dropped to the ground. Crawler, of course, had landed hard but quickly healed his minor injuries.
Jacob wouldn't be surprised if William was right about Alexandria's invulnerability. A lot of powers had a negative side to them that was just as big as their positives. The important thing was that Alexandria was at least temporarily out of the fight.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Marquis kept building walls of bone, dodging between them as Hero kept sending shots into them to break them apart. Despite the situation, he couldn't help but be impressed by how the golden-armored tinker was managing to engage Mannequin in hand-to-hand while continuously firing bolts of energy at him. The cape's armor seemed capable of controlling the shoulder-mounted blaster autonomously, but it either had a very good predictive algorithm or the cape was making manual adjustments to the targeting as the fight continued. Bonesaw had been sending shards of bone at the Triumvirate tinker, but they seemed completely ineffective against his tinker-built power suit. Hero had obviously come to the same conclusion because he was starting to focus his attention and his shots on Mannequin and Marquis.
That turned out to be a mistake. Just as the armored hero was slicing through a cable that Mannequin had sent out to restrain him, he stumbled. He tried to recover, then looked down at his elbow as if shocked. He then fell forward onto his face and stopped moving.
"Finally!" exclaimed Riley. "It took forever for that acid to work through his armor seals so the paralytic drug could reach his skin." She had worked up the combination specifically for dealing with power armor, though Hero's had resisted for much longer than she had expected. She would have to work on that.
Marquis shook his head. "I have to admit that I was wondering what you were trying to accomplish by shooting ineffectual darts at him repeatedly."
"I guessed what she was doing," countered Mannequin, slightly smugly. "I was trying to damage his armor to help, but he was too good at avoiding my blows. How long will he be incapacitated?"
Riley looked assessingly at the fallen hero. "It should keep him under for at least four hours, but he may have countermeasures built into his suit that cuts that time down. Hopefully, it will be long enough. We can signal Dragon to come and secure him with the others."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ada was trying to thaw out the armor being "worn" by Maris and Tina. Legend's lasers had somehow had a freezing effect on the equipment, just proving how utterly bullshit they were in Ada's opinion. Her aunt, Yong-Gongju, was working with Shatterbird to keep the flying hero engaged. The girls' mother was off dealing with the various capes that had surrendered or been captured or incapacitated, a role for which she had volunteered. That had surprised Ada slightly, but her mother had been pensive ever since they got grandfather back. It was better to not try and fight on the front-line while you were distracted if the option was available.
"I think that's good enough for the self-repair systems to kick in fully," commented Maris. "How's Tina doing?" She was flexing the semi-frozen joints on her left leg.
"I can still speak, you know," replied their acerbic younger sibling. "Repair systems are working, but I'm freezing my bits off. How the hell does a laser even DO that?"
Maris emoted exasperation. "They're obviously not lasers. Lasers don't turn corners, for one thing."
As she continued to apply heat to Maris's right arm, Ada commented, "I'm more concerned about why the Triumvirate members are attacking us individually. They're obviously more effective as a team. That suggests to me that they're more concerned about delaying us than stopping us."
"Maybe they're not acting effectively because they don't really want to help Cauldron?" suggested Tina. There was still a tiny thread of hero worship in her tone, despite the circumstances.
Ada frowned. While possible, she wasn't sure the mastering would allow for even that level of insubordination. How much of Legend was still there after years of being mastered to serve Cauldron?
"Oh, shit," muttered Tina. Ada looked up, only to see her aunt and Shatterbird both falling from the sky. Legend turned his head to look at the sisters on the ground, and he almost instantly was standing right in front of them.
"I would say this fight is over. There's no shame in surrendering to a superior opponent," said Legend grimly. Ada thought that if he was saying that instead of just continuing to attack them, then at least some of what made him a true hero had to be present.
Ada shook her head. "This is only a small part of the overall battle, Legend."
"That's fair, but..." began the flying hero, but he suddenly dropped to the ground from ten feet in the air. He managed to land without injury, but he was still caught by surprise when Hatchet Face tackled him from behind. The power nullifier pushed him down and then punched him in the back of his head, at which point he slumped to the ground.
"Don't kill him, Bobby," said Ada with concern.
He looked up and grinned at her. "I pulled that punch by quite a bit. Heroes like Lightbulb here are too used to relying on their powers, so they have a glass jaw when they lose them."
Tina stood up from where she was sitting and frowned. She hated seeing Legend beaten, even when she was the one fighting him. "I'm surprised you were able to sneak up on him."
The S9 member was in the process of standing himself as she spoke. When he was upright again, he said, "I'm not sure I did. I'm pretty sure he saw me at least once. This guy's supposed to have eyes like a hawk."
Tina just looked over at Ada while emoting a certain smugness, which the older sister tacitly ignored.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Faultline motioned her team to a stop as the small prefabricated hut came into view. There were a few structures scattered around the landscape, but the vast majority of them were currently empty. Skitter had let them know that this one had two people inside, and it fell to Faultline and her team to find out if they were a threat and deal with that threat if necessary. As she moved up to the door with Flashbang on one side and Gregor on the other, a male voice called out, "You can come in! We're not fighters. We surrender peacefully." Mel and Mark exchanged a glance, and then she reached out for the doorknob and pulled the door open.
Inside the hut were two people, a man and a woman. The man was middle-aged with short blonde hair and thin-rimmed glasses. His button-down shirt was wrinkled and looked like he had been wearing it for slightly too long, and his face had at least half-a-days worth of stubble. The woman was younger and dressed more casually in blue jeans and a slightly ratty concert t-shirt from a band that Faultline didn't recognize. Her most striking feature though was the scattering of yellow feathers poking through her mane of blonde hair. She also appeared to be wearing a gag tied tightly over her mouth. "Hello," said the man with a tentative smile. "You'll note that Paige here is not in any position to try and master anybody with her mouth covered."
"That's unexpectedly...thoughtful of you?" commented Mark, who had followed Mel through the door.
The bespectacled man shook his head. "Neither of us are combat capes, Flashbang. More importantly, we haven't been ordered by Contessa to fight against you. Our presence here is simply another distraction to slow down the attackers."
"You would be Kurt Wynn, the Number Man, and this is Paige Mcabee, also known as Bad Canary?" asked Faultline.
The other man's eyes widened slightly. "You appear to be very well informed. It makes me glad I suggested the gag to my companion, here, as I would assume you know our powers. The last thing we wanted is for you to feel the need to...neutralize her power in an aggressive fashion." The number of people who knew the real name of the Number Man was vanishingly small.
Faultline regarded him for a moment, and then asked, "Why are you both surrendering so readily? I'm sure you've both been key assets for Cauldron over the years."
Number Man grimaced. "Neither of us was here voluntarily...and it doesn't really matter anymore."
"Meaning what?" prompted Flashbang.
"Meaning that either you and your allies are successful in stopping Contessa, in which case our work with Cauldron is finished, or you are not. If you are not...then more than our work will be finished," explained Kurt. "If Contessa's plans are realized, then I fear our time as a species may be over."
Even though Faultline knew from their visitors that Number Man's assertion was not literally correct in terms of the human race, which apparently was pervasive across the multiverse, she got a chill down her spine because of the consequences for her version of Earth and its inhabitants.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Sophia had followed along as the Undersiders made their way forward. She had hyped herself up to expect a huge battle, but the one group of opposing capes they had encountered had surrendered without a single punch being thrown. Intellectually, she knew that was a good outcome, both morally and tactically. Despite that, a part of her was disappointed at the lack of conflict (possibly her power, if the lizards were correct). There was another part of her that was wondering whether Dinah had gotten the importance of her inclusion on this expedition wrong. Was she supposed to actually DO anything, or was she along just to serve as an opportune distraction that would cause the other side to make a mistake? For lack of a nail, they lost the war...wasn't that what her Social Studies teacher had said last year?
She had plenty of time to think about it, as she was sitting on a box outside a Quonset hut while Coil, Tattletale, and Taylor...Skitter, rather...were inside talking to the inhabitants. In theory, she was, "guarding the perimeter," but between Bitch's dogs, Pulse's regular high-speed circuits, Skitter's swarm, and the tactical expertise of Über, she felt pretty much useless. These guys were union, so maybe she should say she was, "superfluous to current requirements?" However you put it, nobody was depending on her to watch for incoming attackers. She wasn't even trying to listen in on the conversation inside, as she was the outsider here and didn't want to do anything that might be regarded as suspicious. Maybe in comic books, cape team-ups led to fast friends, but there was way too much still between her and Taylor to make anybody comfortable enough for that in this situation.
The sound of the door opening made her look up to see the three Undersiders exit with a black woman and a white girl among them. It took her a second to place them as the oddly-named Doctor Mother and the girl who in another reality was known as Panacea. Both looked slightly haggard, and the girl, Amelia, was also slightly emaciated, looking like one of those girls who suffered from an eating disorder. Tattletale, who had been the friendliest of the team toward her, came over to where Sophia was sitting.
"We've figured out why you need to be here," said the purple-clad girl without preamble.
Sophia waited for her to continue, but she seemed to expect a reply, so she said, "OK. What do I need to do?"
Tattletale quirked her mouth in a sad smile. "Contessa has been trying to resurrect Scion's counterpart, the one called Eden. She's been using Panacea and Doctor Mother toward that end. Part of that has been getting sets of powers...hooked up properly, I guess you could say. She can access some of them, and that's how she put up the field that dropped Saurial into another dimension. We need to disable the biological hardware that controls the field. The problem with that is that that hardware is buried within a huge mass of protected tissue."
Sophia could see where this was going. "But with my phasing power, I can go in and destroy it?"
"You shouldn't have to go, yourself. Just phase a crossbow bolt for the right amount of time and that will do the trick...and don't worry, my power can tell you how long the phase needs to last," replied Tattletale.
The girl shrugged. It sounded fairly simple. "All right. Where is this, 'mass of tissue'?"
Tattletale pointed off to the left. It looked pretty much like every other direction in this bizarre landscape. "About a five-minute walk that-away. I can take you straight there."
As the two costumed girls walked off toward their destination, Über and Pulse fell in behind them as a rear-guard. Once they were out of sight, Doctor Mother regarded Coil critically. "Do you regularly lie to your team?"
"She didn't lie to the girl," replied Coil shortly.
Doctor Mother scoffed. "She also didn't tell her the whole truth."
"Would her knowing the details change what needs to happen?" he asked.
The woman shook her head. "Of course not. It's still somewhat unethical."
Coil actually turned his head to look at her, his mask covering his incredulous reaction. "That's rich, considering the source."
In an icy tone, Doctor Mother replied, "Believe me, I am well-acquainted with the ethics and morality of this situation, including my role in it."
The man who up until his meeting with a certain group of lizards had been Danny Hebert considered that and relaxed slightly. "She doesn't need the burden of knowing the truth. Besides, didn't you say he was catatonic?"
With a frown, she replied, "I said we hadn't sensed any activity or attempts to communicate in more than eight months. I have no idea whether David is still aware or lucid."
"I'm surprised you refer to him by name. Don't mad scientists usually give their creations grand titles?" asked Danny somewhat unkindly.
Quietly, her eyes downcast, she replied, "I remember the names of every person who has suffered under my care. Remembering them is literally the least I can do."
As the two girls walked toward their destination, Sophia asked, "So, how do you resurrect something like this?" As she said it, she waved one of her hands around to the surrounding flesh-scape.
"From what Doctor Mother said, a little at a time. I'm surprised you're not asking why Cauldron would do it?" replied Sarah.
The black girl made what was a mix between a snort and a disgusted noise. "Same reasons people in power do stupid shit all the time. They think they can get something out of it and don't care about what happens to anybody else."
Sarah pondered that. In some respects, it was that simple...from a certain point of view. How very Obi-wan.
"So what am I really doing?" asked Sophia.
The Undersider sighed. "I didn't think you would just leave it alone."
"Come on," said Sophia chidingly. "If this was really as simple as breaking some piece of hardware, you guys would have come out of that hut all excited and ready to go. Instead, you came over to talk to me with your serious face on, and you're the one who's been nicest to me so far."
It definitely wasn't a good idea to underestimate this girl, thought Sarah. "It's easier for me to be nice to you. Taylor and I already have a strained relationship for a variety of reasons."
"I get that," said the girl, "but don't try and change the subject."
Sarah considered how to explain it. "There's been a lot of experimentation. It's not like Cauldron knew exactly how to bring Eden back to life. The Case 53's were part of that...injecting bits of the alien into people and seeing what happened."
Sophia's eyes widened. "That's why they can't remember anything? Cauldron kidnapped them and ran experiments on them, and then wiped their memory?"
"Some of them were taken," agreed Sarah. "Some of them were desperate volunteers. A side effect of getting powers is that it tends to heal you of anything fatal or debilitating, and some would accept the risk of death or mutation. Doctor Mother explained that the memory wipes were mostly for the results that were unfortunate in some respect, with bad side effects or an inhuman appearance." They didn't want a bitter Case 53 revealing their secrets.
"So, all the Case 53's, including the ones on Faultline's team, were created by Cauldron." Sophia's face took on a look of consideration. "Good for them that they're helping us do this, then. What's that got to do with what you want me to do?"
Now Tattletale frowned. This was going to be the unpleasant part. "In a few cases, the powers granted were extremely powerful and useful. Apparently, there's a hierarchy of power sets, and the aliens reserve the best stuff for themselves. At least, the ones who aren't splattered across the landscape do that. Contessa apparently saw an opportunity to speed up the recreation of Eden."
Sophia got a sinking feeling. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"
The blonde girl shook her head. "I don't like it. Hell, the people who actually did it didn't like doing it. The shortcut was to merge the new capes into the body of the alien, using their brains as a quick and easy connection to the power set."
The other girl stopped walking. "So...you're taking me to kill somebody? Is there a reason we can't just set them free?"
Tattletale shook her head again. "Amelia, that girl you saw, only kept the...parts...that were necessary to maintain the connection."
"So he's already pretty much dead?"
Now the blonde visibly winced. "For a long time, they think he was still conscious. They could feel him trying to communicate."
The feeling of her stomach contents coming back up took Sophia by surprise, and she quickly turned away from Tattletale and went down on her knees. Luckily, there wasn't much inside her stomach, but what was there was soon outside. She could vaguely feel the other girl patting her on the back and holding her hair. She also heard Über come up and ask if everything was all right. The other girl produced a bottle of water from somewhere and handed it to her once she was done heaving, and she swirled the water around in her mouth a few times and spat, repeating until the worst of the taste was gone.
Sitting back up, the black girl looked at Tattletale and got her breathing under control. "That's totally fucked up." She paused for a few more breaths to recover her equilibrium. "So you want me to kill what's left of this guy?"
"It would be putting him out of his misery, assuming he's not too far gone to still be aware of his prison," agreed Sarah. "It's still a hard thing to ask, I know. My power agrees that its the best way to allow the Family to come here, though, even if it isn't entirely sure what they're going to do when they get here."
Sophia thought about what she had learned about the Family and their people, deliberately not thinking about the upcoming task. "They'll fix things. It's what they do."
"You think it will be that easy?" asked Tattletale, wondering at the confidence the other girl had in the strange lizards. "You haven't actually known them that long, so how can you be so sure?" She herself had seen the power of their technology, and they were an odd blindspot to her power, but the alien entities that were responsible for cape powers shared those characteristics.
Sophia shrugged. "I'm pretty sure. Either way, it doesn't change what I have to do, so where is this spot you want me to shoot?"
Tattletale helped the other girl back to her feet. "We're almost there." In fact, it took less than a minute to find the right area. There was a large mound of flesh, covered in what looked like layers of shell or chitin. The thinker regarded the mound, then pointed down at a steep angle. "That direction. About twelve and a half meters."
Raising the crossbow given to her by the reptiles, Sophia sighted down the shaft and looked to the other girl for confirmation.
"Down a little...about five degrees," corrected the thinker.
Sophia moved the bow down until she got a nod. Then she took a breath and said quietly, "Sorry about this." Then she pulled the trigger.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
A long time ago...
The girl raised her arm, the knife held with the point down. Before she could act, a gray fog descended on her mind, blinding her. It had done something...set the limitation on her foresight more firmly in place?
The godling smiled. It knew...because the power she was using was the same power it had used to glimpse the future. The smile faltered slightly, as alternate paths presented themselves. Fortuna staggered as she felt a burst of...something...in her mind, a small seed that already was beginning to send tentacles into her brain.
From behind her, a voice shouted something in a foreign language, distracting her. It was the black-skinned foreigner from before. 'I want to understand her...'
The girl tried to follow through on her objective. She just had to stab it. She just had to think of stabbing it. Indecision gripped her. She nearly dropped the little trimming knife. Her power was no longer guiding her, caught in the blindspot of the restrictions put in place by the godling.
'I want to tell her...' Her mouth formed sounds that she didn't understand, but that the other woman did. "I- I can't."
She felt hands on her shoulders, and a body pressed itself against her back, supporting her.
"I- I have seen visions. Things I was not meant to see, thing this...godling wanted to keep to itself. I...have to stop it." Despite her intentions, she couldn't bring herself to move...and a small voice was starting to tell her that she was mistaken...that the godling needed to live. She shook her head in confusion.
The woman behind her said, "I believe you. It's dangerous?"
Fortuna nodded, ignoring the insistent thought that it wasn't dangerous. Where had that come from? She remembered what would happen if the being lived...
"Are you sure?"
"I- I would stake everything on it." Would she though? Wasn't she just confused? She grit her teeth. 'STOP trying to change me!'
"Where were you going to stab it?" asked the woman.
The godling continued to form pieces of itself. Legs, arms...hair that was too long. It bent over, head hanging, arms out to either side. Before she could second-guess her action, Fortuna pointed at the top of the being's neck, the longest finger on her left hand pointing to the base of the skull.
The woman behind her took hold of the hand with the knife. She stepped forward and plunged the hand and the knife down toward the neck, plunging deep and severing the spine. The garden of flesh around them surged, various disembodied parts writhing, and then everything went still. The godling wasn't dead...not completely. It also wasn't quite alive, having received a devastating blow when it was at its most vulnerable.
Fortuna made sure the woman made it home. She also explained what she knew about the entities, and how they were still a threat. She asked for help. She insisted on it. The danger made it much easier to convince people to help her. The path to correcting her mistake was a long one. Eventually, though, the godling would be reborn.
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which fic? My favorite duck ponds were from Desperately Seeking Ranma.
