Dimension Worm [A.U./Multi XrosOver]

[CalumTraveler]

A.N.: In which Bad Luck strikes Twice.

MIRACULOUS 4.0

--

EARTH ALEPH. PARIS, FRANCE. MARCH, 2012

There are some days that I love being Chat Noir. Those are the days that the Akuma don't attack, and I get to go on a rather uneventful patrol with My Lady. You know her best as Ladybug, that dashing Heroine who everyone loves.

Then, there are the really, really, REALLY bad days that I... still kind of like? But there's a lot more running, and screaming. Can't forget the screaming. Definitely a whole lot more puns being thrown about on the S-purr of the moment. Oh, sure, you laugh at the claw-fulness of it, but maybe you're just not feline like a-paw-receating the effort I Tail-or into making these Purr-riffic puns!

Eh? Eh?

Hey, I'm being honest here. Coming up with puns like that is HARD WORK! Even Plagg gets in on it from time to time. ...Who's Plagg? My Kwami- the spirit/physical manifestation/Cheese Lover of Bad Luck. Yes, Cheese Lover is a way to describe Plagg. He's tiny, but he eats just about every piece of stinky cheese he can get his tiny little fins on. Once, I saw him swallow an entire wheel of cheese- WHOLE. The thing was ten times the size of his entire body!

I'm tempted to make a meme reference, but I've already allotted my daily internal pun quota, and I really shouldn't waste it on internal dialogue.

So you're probably wondering, who's the guy beneath the cat suit? Well, sorry, but I'm not telling. What I will say is that THAT GUY is more of the mask than Chat Noir. I'm Chat Noir. Chat Noir Chat Noir Chat Noir. That's my name. It was the first thing that came to my mind when I met My Lady, and it's what I'm sticking to.

Also... there's the very tantalizing dangling string dancing about in front of us here. The fact that Hawkmoth's latest Akuma happens to be a giant shadow-looking vortex cloud taking up the entire Parissian night sky.

And she just. Won't. Stop. SCREAMING.

Did I mention the screaming part already?

"YES, CHAT! I KNOW!" Ladybug yells at me over the sound of that damned Akuma's screams. She's covering her human ears. Her one, lovely, and only set of ears. "IT'S REALLY LOUD."

Fun Fact: The cat ears I wear may look fake and be attached like hair clips, but they actually work like real ears. Thus, I have two sets of ears, and only one set of hands. So no matter which I cover, one set of ears is going to really, REALLY hurt because of it.

"SO WHAT DO YOU THINK MADE HER SO MAD?" I try to ask.

"HUH? WHAT MADE HER INTO A CLOUD?" Ladybug's confusion is adorable, and in any other situation I'd be head over heels because of it. But this is a pretty bad situation right now.

"NO," I shake my head. "MAD. EM. AY. DEE. WHAT MADE HER MAD."

"OHHH!!" Ladybug nods once she gets what I said, then thinks for a few moments. "...I'VE GOT NOTHING."

Admittedly, it's pretty hard to think because of all the screaming. I bet Hawkmoth is really regretting his choice of Akuma Victim on this one. I mean, what was he thinking? Turning a person into a cloud...

Wait. "What DID make her into a cloud?" I don't even bother yelling it, and it's mainly just to vocalize the thought, but it helps get the ball of yarn rolling, so to speak. The Akuma is a Cloud. Why is she a cloud? And why does it give off the impression that it's made out of a shadow? Thunder rolls above, dancing between the Akuma's doubled up screaming. And what is up with THAT, too?

"I SWEAR," Ladybug begins, "THIS IS WORSE THAN THE TIME WITH THE HORRIFICATOR."

"EH? HOW SO?" I ask.

"AT LEAST WITH HER WE KNEW SOMETHING PERSONAL TO CALM HER DOWN," Ladybug answers. "BUT EVERYONE AT MY SCHOOL'S ACCOUNTED FOR. WHAT ABOUT YOU?"

"YEAH, MINE TOO," I agree. "SO IT'S SOMEONE OFF THE STREETS, PROBABLY." I wonder. "TOURIST, MAYBE?"

"MAYBE," Ladybug gives as best of a shrug as she can while covering her ears.

And so we just stand there, looking up at the Akuma and wondering how we're going to take care of this thing...

Well, first of all we'll need to reach it.

"I'LL BE RIGHT BACK!" I say, and then use my baton staff to launch towards the nearest rooftop.

Ladybug calls out, "CHAT!" in what sounds like an annoyed tone. Or maybe concerned. I hope it's concerned, because it's really hard to tell what tone of voice she's using when I have all of my ears uncovered.

Once I land, I look around Paris to see what might be tall enough to reach that cloud above us. Of course, there's the Eiffel Tower, but that idea seems kind of bad now that I'm at a higher angle and can see what the cloud's doing to it.

"That... is not good." I'm stating the obvious, really.

The Eiffel Tower, from where it's touching the cloud, seems to slowly be turning into a ghostly version of itself... Or maybe it's just being moved? There's an echo of the tower sort of floating-- aw, really? Right over my house? That's just not fair!

I move back down towards Ladybug to report what I saw.

"SHE'S SOME KIND OF TELEPORTER OR DUPLICATOR," I say, once more covering my human ears, because those were really starting to hurt.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?" She asks.

"THE TOWER IS TOUCHING THE CLOUD, AND IT'S SORTA..." How to describe it? "BEING DISPLACED? BUT KINDA NOT."

"SO DON'T TOUCH THE CLOUD?" Ladybug frowns. "HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET THE AKUMA THEN?"

"MAYBE WE'LL GET LUCKY AND IT'LL COME DOWN TO GREET US LIKE A BOLT OF LIGHTNING?" Sometimes, I talk without thinking. Plagg's bad luck seems to take delight in twisting things like this sentence around, because, proving the fable true about black cats being bad luck, I'm suddenly struck by a bolt of lightning from the Akuma-storm for absolutely no other reason than because I'd tempted fate.

Ow.

For a few moments, I'm just lying there on the ground, staring up at the swirling, angry, black cloud.

Then I come to the startling realization- the screaming has... well, rather, not stopped per-say, but lessened? Not as loud. Like it's more of an echo than the actual thing.... or a Shadow of itself?

Also, the temperature's dropped rather considerably.

"Is it just me, My Lady, or did I just get transported to another world- again?" I ask before sitting up. Ladybug doesn't respond, because she's not there with me. Also, the ground beneath me is almost certainly covered with ice. "Seriously, what is it with Akuma and their prison worlds?"

That's when the ground shakes and I hear a roar that sounds way too different from the Akuma. From the ground, I can't see where I am or what's going on, so I decide to return to the rooftop I'd been on before... Or, well, I try to, anyways.

"So the Akuma's recreation of Paris isn't a one to one replica." I mew-se. "I wonder if there's some reason for that."

Instead of the tall office building that had been there before, there's now a hair salon. The surrounding buildings seem a bit different too, but in a strange way I can't quite place. At least one of them is as tall as the one I'd originally wanted, though. One pole vault later, and I look out towards the Eiffel Tower once more. It's the same as in my Paris, except the situation is reversed. The misplaced Tower is being replaced by the one from my world, which is now, for some reason, centered over a shopping mall that I've never seen before.

"...Well, that's not right."

Plus, there are also giant monsters brawling across Paris. To be exact, two sets of physically identical monsters, one of which happen to be opposite colors. The two identical Godzilla wannabes are fighting the brown one, while a giant robot with a heavy Dinosaur theme is fighting the one that looks like a walking iceberg.

"Is... this a video game? I wonder if Marinette or Max would recognize it? Because I sure don't. Maybe it's one of those Earth Bet Imporrrr...."

That's when it clicks.

"I'm on Earth Bet." I say the words, barely believing it, but, lo and behold, I turn around to look behind me and sure enough... There's a giant towering structure that doesn't exist in my world, marked with a logo proclaiming it to be owned by 'Protectorate Energy.'

Protectorate Energy- also known as the people who held an inter-dimensional copy-right on Unlimited Energy, mainly thanks to the Inter-world Trade Treaty that had been written into law before I'd even been born. The Treaty that said no technology could be brought through from either world to the other. The Treaty that heavily restricted traveling from one world to another, and limited any transfer of goods between the world to being in a digital format only. And, it was the treaty that pretty much said "You shall not physically cross over to your neighboring world or there will be consequences."

Okay, good. That's fine and all, but I've got a quick question for the class back home... What happens in a case of Villainous Intent and Unintentional and Unwilling Crossovers? Because, I'm pretty sure that this Akuma just breached a hole in space and time and is trying its hardest to swap one Paris with another.

--

A.N.: I give you our third P.O.V. character, Chat Noir, ladies and gentlemen.

Power Notes: Sophia's canon power has remained unchanged in this timeline. Her power still works the same by shifting most of the mass from her home dimension (Earth Bet) to another, alternate earth. All of what you see above is the Akuma taking that power and stretching it through an already existing crack between the worlds, redirecting that shadow mass to Earth Aleph, where it normally doesn't go.

It even works the same for objects Sophia's touching- in this case the Eiffel Tower being the most prominent divergence. For some reason, across the two earths, they were built just *slightly* in different places from each other. The lightning targeting attack, however... That is something new provided by the Akuma. Since it's turned Sophia into a literal cloud of shadow, this has negated her usual electricity weakness, and likely did that as a direct counter to said weakness.

TL;DR: Evil Akuma + Shadow Stalker Shard = Giant Dimensional Storm between worlds.

 

[CalumTraveler]

A.N: In today's section, TALKING! Also: Apologies for the long delay in what is a kinda short section. I've had a surprisingly busy last couple of days. >_<;

MIRACULOUS 4.1

--

Okay, Chat. There's no reason to panic. Just think it through. So, same question as always. What's the Akuma hiding in, and where do I look for it? First step is figuring out just who the Akuma Victim even is. Victims? I can't rule it out, and I'm not going to discount that possibility: especially given the double screaming thing it's doing.

That brings me to its powers. You're on a Parallel Earth, separated from Ladybug, and you're dealing with an Akuma that's existing in two worlds at the same time and MAY be two people at the same time. What to call it? It's a big cloud, and it looks like a shadow. So... Cloudshadow, I guess. That sounds like the kind of Evil name Hawkmoth might come up with. Cloudscreamer would honestly be what I'd go with, but, I get the feeling the "shadow" modifyer has to be something important.

The Eiffel Tower situation is probably my best bet at getting back to Earth Aleph. I climb up the one in this world, and drop back down on the other side. But... is that what Hawkmoth wants? If Ladybug figures out what happened to me then she's probably going to try that exact thing.

Does Hawkmoth want us stuck on Earth Bet so we'll get in trouble? Maybe, but that's a really risky plan for him. If it works out wrong, he'd never get his hands on our Miraculouses. I glance to my ring- still fully charge. Good, whatever interdimensional whatevers happened to bring me here, it didn't mess with Plagg enough to force our transformation to break.

"So what do I do now?" I can't help but watch as lightning strikes come down across the city- each one becoming more frequent than the last. If it hits a building- it usually replaces it with whatever is there in my world. I can't help but hope that any people caught inside the transported buildings are alright. But if they are, I also hope they've still got heating. Because the iceberg monster- one of Bet's Endbringers, I guess- is causing everything in the immediate area around it to freeze over.

But for the people outside buildings, if lightning has hit a person on my side, they're transported if they didn't have a dimensional copy on the other side (Like me). There are strikes dragging people from my world over and they're totally caught unaware by all of this. I'm seeing some masked girl teleporting around rescuing people faster than I can even reach them. Probably one of the world-local Capes, with a really awesome power. It reminds me just a little bit of Lady WiFi, though, with her phone-shuffle games.

So, if this is an Endbringer attack, then it's likely that people from my world are the only ones being brought through. Because the people native to the Bet Paris are probably hiding in a shelter. Right, makes sense... So does Hawkmoth want to force a migration from our Paris to this Paris? That would explain the odd choice of Akuma, which now that I think about it, is probably a Parahuman on this side. Bet certainly had the higher cape population compared to Aleph- and they seemed to get all the fancy Technology Tinker Capes too, for some reason. But, in return, Earth Aleph got the more magical seeming powers, even if in fewer number, and definitely had the monopoly on Powers that were held in trinkets and let people be Capes even without a Corona whatevers. People like me and Ladybug, for example... Or Hawkmoth and his stupid Akumas.

Speaking of Akumas, how did one even get to this side in the first place? If I assume that the Akuma possession happened here to start with, and maybe spread over to my Paris afterwards, then what am I looking for here?

Oh, there's a girl in a purple costume bounding over the rooftops towards me. I'll just ask her!

"HI!" I wave, cheerfully.

"Who the hell are you, and what are you doing just standing around for!?" The girl stops, and readies what looks like a sword of some kind. Aw, come on.

"The name's Chat Noir, and I got hit by lightning," I answer truthfully. "Then, I woke up here!"

"What?" She asks. "So those Lightning bolts are dragging Capes through too?"

"Yup!" I nod, "Although, I gotta say, Paris has really given me the Cold Shoulder this time!" The girl either doesn't get the joke or is ignoring it, instead, she just face palms and mutters a few curses. "So... uh, is this an Endbringer battle?" I ask.

"Yes, It is!" the girl answers, turning to face me. "I get it, you didn't sign up for this. But it's the first time Kelvin and Behemoth have teamed up together and we had no idea it was going to cause Shadow Stalker's powers to go haywire like this!"

"Shadow Stalker?" I ask. Finally, a Lead!

"A girl whose power is to phase into a shadow and be able to leap through solid matter," the girl- whose name I've still yet to learn- explains. "She was assigned bodyguard duty to Shadowport-" I'm guessing the girl I saw teleporting around town before. "-but then she suddenly started yelling really loudly and then PWOOF!" She pointed upwards. "Giant Shadow Cloud!"

"More of a Cloud's Shadow, I'd say," I counter, and the girl just waves it off with a 'Yeah, That!' Then, she processes, and asks, 'What?' So I elaborate, "She was hanging over my city when I got hit. So. Two Clouds; one's a shadow of the other. A Cloudshadow."

And then this girl gave me a look. It was hard to tell with her full-face mask, but the way her face contorted was familiar, like I'd seen it somewhere before. It wasn't a look I'd seen from Ladybug before, so that ruled her out.

"That's..." She begins. "One of the weirdest renames I've ever heard of, but fine. Whatever. It's sound logic at any rate." She pauses, then looks over at the Eiffel Tower, then asks, "So... got any idea what's up with the Second Eiffel Tower?"

"Two cities, two towers, and your girl up there is merging them together," I gesture up at the cloud-based Akuma. "Or at least, that's what I'm assuming she's trying to do. For all I know she's just trying to swap them around. Akumas can be weird like that."

"What's an Akuma?" for a moment, I swear I just heard Plagg's voice asking a very obvious question and I nearly react to it like I would Plagg.

The cape before me does it instead- face palming while giving off a groan that I'm definitely familiar with. It's almost exactly what my own exasperated groans sound like whenever Plagg acts up. "Damn it. Now we're going to have to change Identities again," she whines.

"Maybe not, Lil'!" And then a tiny little grey thing about the same size as Plagg phases through a cargo pocket on her leg. "I smell an Energem on him, just like those Ranger kids!" It's a Kwami, for sure, but... It's not one like I've ever seen, though.

It's got the flippers sure, and the tiny body compared to its larger head- but it's more detailed than Plagg. Ridges and extra details all sort of stick out and give the Kwami a metal-plated look to it. Actually, it looks almost like one of those giant dinosaurs over in the city, but just shrunken down to a ridiculous size. I can't tell if it's meant to be a modern-day animal or maybe something more ancient like an actual Dinosaur. Its head looks kind of like a shark, but its got a mouth full of golden teeth.

"An Energem?" The girl asks. "You're sure about that?"

"Just as sure as I am that he's also got something ancient like ME hanging around him too!" The Kwami states, baring those previously mentioned teeth. Even without that, he still sounds like Plagg. What the...?

"Okay, two questions," I raise a hand before the girl can say anything more. "First, what's an Energem, and second, why aren't you transformed!? Don't you know how dangerous that is?"

"Trans...formed?" Both girl and Kwami ask with identical head tilts.

That happens to be when a bolt of lightning strikes the rooftop beneath us and takes the building- plus us two standing on it- through another rough ride across dimensions.

Okay, it's official. This girl has to be some alternate universe version of me- bad luck included. And now the loud screaming is back. Yay? Also a buzzing sound. So are my ears ringing from the screaming or- Oh. Wait, no, that's my Chat-Phone.

While the girl and her Kwami recover from the dimensional jump, I take the moment to check the messages from Ladybug (Because who else would have my phone number?).

Chat. Chat? Where are you, Chat? Earth to Chat Noir. Please tell me you're okay. Are you stuck in a prison dimension? What do I do now? Chat. Please answer. Pick up. I'm guessing you're okay for now but just stuck somewhere I can't reach you. Going to find something to deal with this screaming. Call or text when you get back...

Wow, that's a lot of texts for the short time I was gone. I just decide to video-call her instead.

-"Chat? Oh thank god you're alright."- Ladybug's face appears on the screen. She's wearing a set of Ladybug themed headphones, and looks like she's standing inside a store of some kind. She's also not yelling.

"Are those noise canceling headphones, or are you just glad to see me?" I ask, flashing a grin at the screen.

She winces at the loudness I had to use to even get picked up by the phone, but then adjusts some volume knob on them before she responds, -"Yeah. Noise cancelers. Ayla's posted on the Ladyblog suggesting people wear them because of the screaming. I came to grab a couple sets for us. I figured you'd show up again sooner or later."- Ladybug gives me a flirty smile though, -"I didn't expect you to land on your feet this soon, though."-

"Haah," I laugh. "Good one. But you might wanna grab another set of headphones while you're at it. I picked up a tag along on the way back." And so I turn the Chat-phone so that its camera is looking at the girl in purple and her grey Kwami.

-"Chat, is that a-?"-

"I'll tell you when we find you," I say. "Although, I kind of doubt he's able to really hear anything with all this racket. I don't want to risk it if Hawkmoth is listening in."

--

It's a "Buy More"- a general electronics goods store- that Ladybug's holstered herself away in. I manage to get there all while dodging questions from the Earth Bet girl. "Just wait until we have some peace and quiet and then we can talk!" I end up repeating myself until we get there, and Ladybug offers us both a set of noise canceling headphones.

Of course, My Lady got me the black colored ones with de-cat-orative cat ears attached. Plagg is aware enough of the distinction that he's able to make my fake cat-ears disappear from the transformation, letting me put them on. Once I get them plugged into the Chat-phone and turned on, the noise from the Akuma seems to just fade away.

"Oh thank you, My Lady," I smile at her. "My head's killing me from all that yelling."

"And the Lightning strikes too, I'd imagine," she replies. It's a bit surreal at the moment, since we're talking through the noise-cancelers, which are connected to our phones, and are picking up our voices and broadcasting them back to the speakers in the headphones. It's like watching an online video when the audio is just ever so slightly delayed by a second.

"Okay, now that we can talk- spill! What's going on?" Our mysterious visitor from another world- "Foil," as she's introduced herself while donning the headphones- seems to have her own phone that's working in a similar way, although hers looks considerably more cobbled together than our magically generated ones do.

"Long story short," I explain, "you're now in the Paris of Earth Aleph."

"You mean this isn't anywhere on Earth Bet-?" She asks, then looks to her Kwami for confirmation. The little shark thing nods.

"There are Energem auras here too, but they're different and really weird," it says. "I sensed the Red one for sure back on our world, but here it is with this Ladybug chick, too!"

"What's an Energem?" Ladybug asks, ignoring the Kwami's comment.

"This," Foil pulls out a small grey colored crystal out from the same pocket her Kwami had been hiding in. "This is the Graphite Energem. I found it about... oh... somewhere in the early 1800s? Apparently they make you ageless and immortal. I haven't aged a day over 15 since I got it."

"Hmmm," Ladybug looks at the crystal in Foil's hand for a moment, then looks to me and asks for my hand.

"What?" I'm sure I missheard her.

"Let me see your Ring," Ladybug clarifies with a roll of her eyes. Ah. That makes more sense.

"Right, right." I hold my right hand out, and Ladybug compares between the Miraculous Stone in my ring, and Foil's Energem. Foil's Kwami also swoops in for a closer look- or smell, as the case may be, as two tiny nostrils on his large nose flare open as he smells both objects.

"I'm pretty sure they're the same type of crystal," Ladybug declares.

"Agreed," The Kwami says, then zipps up to Ladybug's earrings. A sniff later, and he retreats back to Foil's shoulder. "Yup! Those are Energems alright! Horribly compressed and mutilated, but definitely got the same general aura as the Energems too. I don't think they'll bond to their users quite like they used to, though."

"Yeah," I say. "If you got immortality out of the deal, then we definitely didn't. There have been Ladybugs and Chat Noirs all throughout history, but it's more of a legacy title between each generation and the next."

"So somewhere in the past before our two worlds diverged too greatly, our Miraculous stones looked like those Energems," Ladybug theorizes. "For now, let's put aside figuring out the who-did-it, and focus on defeating the Akuma."

"Right, putting aside that we're dimensional cousins on the power-tree," Foil agrees. "I still don't know what an Akuma is."

"There's a Miraculous User named Hawkmoth," Ladybug explains, "he takes Butterflies and corrupts them, then sends them after people who are having an extremely emotional moment- usually the negative kind. Those butterflies then give the person in question powers and they go on a revenge quest of some kind. We call those powered people and the butterflies Akumas."

"He can give people powers?" Foil asks. "That sounds like something out of a dream."

"It's not permanent," Ladybug shakes her head. "If we break the object the Akuma is hiding in, we can purify the butterfly and save the person who's been attacked."

"They may or may not trigger afterwards from the emotional stress of being body-jacked, and if they do, it's possible they might get powers similar to what they had as an Akuma, or they might get something completely different," I add in. "All of that really depends on how much the victim remembers from when they were an Akuma, though."

"And what happens if this guy Akumatizes a Cape with existing powers?" Foil asks. Good question.

"Almost always, the Akumatizing counts as a Second Trigger event, even if it's nowhere near related to the original Trigger," Ladybug explains. "The victim always end up keeping the powers the Akuma granted them, if in a somewhat more restrained manner. Our running theory is the Akuma does something to the powers themselves, but we're not really sure what."

"So... Shadow Stalker up there's going to keep the power to turn into a giant inter dimensional bridge?" Foil asks, sounding both amused and concerned all at the same time.

"That all depends on where the Akuma is, and who got turned first," I say. "The screaming is louder on this side- but on both sides it's definitely double sided. It's possible the Akuma's bridging two different people together."

"In which case we'll need to figure out what the Akuma's hiding in," Ladybug decides. "What can you tell me about this Shadow Stalker?"

While Foil begins explaining everything she knows, the little grey Kwami floats over to me and starts looking my suit over.

"If that suit's made up out of the same energy as the Energem," He begins, "does that mean you've got something like me, too?"

"Yup. A little black cat named Plagg who loves cheese," I nod. "I get the feeling you two would get along pretty well."

"Hmm..." The little kwami muses for a moment, then introduces himself with a salute of a flipper, "The name's Baiin. Pleasure to meet you, mister Black Cat."

"Buy-in?" I repeat the pronunciation.

"Buh-eye-ihn." The Kwami corrects. I nod in confirmation, then he asks, "So how does it work? The suit thing?"

"Plagg goes into my ring and I get the suit," I explain. "I don't really know much else about how it works beyond that. Plagg never wants to explain the finer details."

"So the ring serves as the transformation device," Baiin muses. "I wonder what those Rangers were using?"

"Rangers?" I ask. "Like Power Rangers?" I blink. "Does that mean that Giant Dino Robot was a Megazord?"

"That 'giant dino robot' as you so kindly put it," Baiin rolls his shining red eyes, "is made up of resurrected spirits like me, except... younger. Much younger. I'd say the oldest is barely a decade old. It took me about twenty years or so to gain enough sentience to be able to talk with Lil', and even then I had to shrink down my default size in order to do that."

"Really?" I ask. "Why's that?"

"I'm literally a solid mass projection from the Energem and this is about as energy efficient as I can get in terms of size," Baiin says, shrugging some of his flippers. "I can go giant sized like the others you saw, but I can't exactly talk like that since all of my spare energy is going into maintaining that form, and I like talking."

"And who doesn't?" I ask.

"Besides that," Baiin continues, "the default size I had originally was more like a very large house cat, which is surprisingly inefficient when it comes to floating around like this. I was eating like, twenty-six very large fish in a single meal just to keep my energy up! Now-a-days all I need is just one moderately small fish a day and I'm good to go."

"I guess that makes sense," I say. "Plagg always-"

"That's It!" Ladybug's cheer interrupts that line of thought.

"What is, My Lady?" I ask.

"Foil says there's a Cape that came in with Shadow Stalker on the other side, and she can TELEPORT through shadows," Ladybug explains, looking excited about the idea. "If the Akuma's transformed shape counts as one giant living shadow, then we might be able to use that girl's powers to get inside the Akuma's cloud form, destroy the possessed object, and safely get back out before Shadow Stalker reverts to human form!"

"That's great!" And then I realize... "But that cape's back on Earth Bet, right?"

"Well, we need to get Foil back to her world anyways," Ladybug says. "Besides that, we can't let Hawkmoth get his hands on the Proto-Miraculous Energem Stone Things on her world, and I'll bet you that those are exactly what Hawkmoth is after in this endeavor."

"Why go after the weakened versions when you can go straight to the source?" Baiin nods. "Yeah, that sounds like an evil plan alright. Certainly one worth breaking across a dimensional wall, at any rate."

A lightning strike and a resounding, brick and mortar sounding crash accompanied by some car alarms from outside deposits what sounds like a sky scraper into the parking lot outside.

"Well, whatever we're going to do," I say, "we need to get on it quick, 'cause I don't think either Paris has any extra lives to spare."

"Good point," Ladybug nods. "Let's go!"

And so, we go.

--

A.N.: Baiin is a Futabasaurus, not a Plesiosaurus- making this another divergence from the canon Power Rangers Dino Charge Energem assignments. He looks like the solid grey dinosaur toy in this picture (The one next to Dino Charger #23). His name comes from the Kyoryuger name for this particular Dino Charger- "Futabain"- which gave the effect of duplication: cloning whatever was hit by the power. As this power hasn't even shown up yet in Dino Charge proper (at the time of writing this), I decided to go ahead and give this dinosaur the lime light instead of a recolored Plesiosaurus.

Why is Baiin so animated and sentient compared to the other Dinozords? Speaking in terms of personal experience, Baiin has been around for almost 200 years now, where as the others, collectively, have only between ten or so years to only a few days of being "awake" (Spinozord is the youngest). Even Rachel's Raptor, who IS the oldest in terms of physically being active, spent most of his time sleeping along with the frozen Rachel, and only has about ten years of physical memory experienced.

In the Miraculous Ladybug TV Canon, the Kwami's are *at least* 5,000 years old, going back to the time of Ancient Egypt, and are probably older. We don't know much about their actual history, but I'm taking this ancient power idea and running with it.

It's going to be fairly obvious by now that the divergence point between Earth Bet and Earth Aleph is what the Lady in Black did with the Energems. In Earth Bet, she left them to the Dinosaurs, in Earth Aleph, she turned them into the Miraculous stones. They are still INCREDIBLY powerful in this new form, but are more confined and restricted than they were as Energems, as they have lost the "Immortality" Bonus they once had.

 

[CalumTraveler]

A.N.: In which things go from bad to worse.

MIRACULOUS 4.2.I

--

Emma Barnes had no idea what the hell was going on.

One minute, she'd been off teleporting around, searching for anyone not inside an Endbringer shelter, and the next, the sky had turned dark and practically split open with a dual-toned cry of pain and anger that she recognized all too well. Hearing Sophia in so much pain was enough to make Emma bolt and try to find her. Try, because for whatever reason, Emma could not find Sophia anywhere in Paris.

Then, the teleporting began.

Each bolt of lightning was like a mile marker for Emma's power. Each flash of light created such dark shadows that she just KNEW when someone had been pulled through from-- somewhere else. These were people she needed to rescue- people she COULD rescue. And so she went to work, getting people out of the cold caused by Kelvin's frost aura. Even that was chilling to Emma's skin, for the brief moments she spent exposed to it. If people being brought into this world were flashbulbs decrying attention, each building sent away was a dangerous pit that she had to avoid lest she become lost to the same pull that had sent that individual something away and left behind something else entirely.

She was in the middle of rescuing someone from their frozen fate when a bolt of lightning dropped down upon the two Vivizords Fury had spawned- and they were gone. Behemoth was now free to wreak havok, as no more giant monsters arose to restrain him. The flying capes that had up until now been staying out of Behemoth's kill aura quickly backed off to a far away distance. It did them little good as Behemoth roared, and plowed his way through buildings and streets to get to Kelvin, still being held at bay by the Spino Charge Megazord.

The whole of Paris just seemed to have stopped to watch the spectacle, and so did Emma Barnes. She watched as the two Endbringers pile ontop of the dinosaur mecha combination. The mecha that contained at least one person who, according to Fury, could send Lung flying into the bay. A person that she'd known only sort of vaguely from school, but a person she knew none the less.

It was frightening, in that sense. Just as she knew Sophia was in trouble (But where was she? How? What could she do to help?), she knew that Madison was in there, face to face with Behemoth and Kelvin. And then, while pinned to the ground, the Megazord swaps the red raptor arm for the cyan Ankylosaur and *KLANG*- Kelvin and Behemoth go sprawling across the city streets by way of the hammer springing out from the tail.

The Megazord gets up onto its feet, and then takes aim with the blaster, even as the Ankylosaurus's tail folds back up onto its back and the whole shield assembly shifts down into the hand grip.

-SPINO CHARGE MEGAZORD: QUAKE FORMATION!-

With the giant shield raised and the gun arm pointing out from just behind it, Emma could almost imagine the whole robot being decked out with police sirens. The image was ruined by the sight of the two Endbringers detangling themselves and both bull rushing at the Megazord. The Raptor leaped onto Kelvin's back and began biting and clawing- aborting that charge the moment it began, but Behemoth continued on.

With a resounding PTHWAM; Behemoth ran head first into an energy projection from the Ankylosaurus shield. The Endbringer recoiled onto its back legs as it roared in frustration and then brought its arms down at the shield projection, clawing and digging at it, but making no real progress.

Behemoth thus distracted, the Megazord turned its fire power back to Kelvin, who was struggling to knock the Raptor Zord off.

Kelvin yelped as fire bolt after fire bolt hit him, and Behemoth paused in his attempted mauling of the shield to look over his shoulder at Kelvin.

That was when the Raptor Zord leaped off of Kelvin and onto Behemoth's back. The Kill Aura was completely ignored by the mechanical robot, even though Behemoth's Aura was starting to visibly flare up where it clashed with Kelvin's frost aura. It really was a sight to behold. Kelvin being peppered by laser blasts, Behemoth struggling against a shield he could not break, and one team being the sole cause of the Endbringer's frustrations.

It... It caused Emma to feel as if there was finally hope in the world. Sure, Fury's Vivizords could stall an Endbringer for some tume, but they couldn't really hurt the damned things. Yet here was Behemoth getting clawed up by a crimson blooded Velociraptor while being pressed up against a shield. Yet here was Kelvin trying to form an ice shield to protect him from the storm of energy blasts that melted through his ice the moment it formed.

The sounds the Endbringers were making were nothing like Emma had heard before during any of the previous fight. Kelvin was whimpering- Behemoth was frustrated. And even as lightning strikes down rapidly and repeatedly from above, misplacing people and buildings, the Capes that had come to fight just... watched.

Then, the Green Parasaur disconnected, and the Red Raptor jumped into its place. Simultaneously, the projected shield flared up and the entire backside of the Ankylosaurus flipped down like a spring- leaving the hammer wielded in hand and forcing the shield to squash Behemoth into the ground. The First Endbringer was suddenly pancaked against the Parisian streets for the few moments that the shield remained projected, and Kelvin had taken the brief respite from the laser barrage to...

"Huh." Emma wasn't sure how much time had passed in that single moment, because Kelvin was actively fleeing, and had already gotten half way across the city.

That was when a lightning bolt struck him, and Emma suddenly felt like she'd been tossed into a blender with a bunch of baseball bats instead of blades.

--

Hakwmoth was beginning to regret reaching across the void to Earth Bet just to evilize a girl. For starters, he barely could see into the girl's mind even though most of her mass was projected above his version of Paris. That made her lightning bolt targets rather hard to choose, and it was mostly left up to random chance.

Or sheer bad luck.

First the two giant Godzilla clones had appeared, looking dazed and confused and just generally stood there like idiots waiting for orders. That was fine.

Then? Oh, THEN his Akuma of the day had transported over an ENDBRINGER, and THAT had been no easy feat. It wasn't just any Endbringer either- but the one who absorbed energy. He'd barely gotten a sense of what the alien geometry involved with the Endbringer's Biology had been before realizing that there was something wrong.

That was when Kelvin emerged not in his known form, but rather, something... Halved.

It was a ghostly echo of the Endbringer, and whatever alien monstrosity had conceived of the Endbringer as a concept obviously had designed the things to be multi-dimensional as a whole. And that was exactly why even the Akuma-augmented Shadow Stalker power- to shift mass between dimensions- just wasn't enough to transfer ALL of Kelvin, because ALL of Kelvin wasn't even present to be shifted in the first place.

It was like pulling a spring in two separate directions, the metaphor came to Hawkmoth in an instant. Kelvin was the Spring, Earth Aleph's Paris was one end, and Earth Bet's Paris was the other.

And a Spring can only stretch so far before it snaps back together.

--

Marinette Dupain-Cheng, also known as Ladybug to the citizens of Paris, was having a very strange day.

She'd woken up that morning with the strangest feeling in her stomach, like something bad was going to happen- or maybe already had. She'd had to have a very light breakfast because for some reason the fridge had broken down during the night and her Parents were in full damage control mode trying to get it working again. Then, due to the subtle headache building behind her forehead, like a pressure wave warning her of a storm incoming, she'd done a complete role reversal during school- being completely calm around her crush, Adrien Agreste, even while he seemed oddly flustered about something or other.

For a moment, she'd not wondered if maybe she'd traded Ladybug's good luck with Chat Noir's bad. Quickly dispelling that thought, however, the Akuma rapidly appeared over Paris' skies during lunch and Chat Noir had gotten struck by lightning. Then, when Chat Noir returned with a cape from Earth BET's Paris- a Cape who happened to be immortal and had a Sea faring Dinosaur type Kwami- the idea of her good luck being replaced with bad came back with full force.

She had a plan, yes, and that plan was the same as always, if a tiny bit more complex in that she really had no idea how to get to the Earth Bet side of things other than "Get struck by Lightning" and that didn't seem like a safe thing to do.

Chat had suggested the idea of climbing up their version of the Eiffel Tower to get to the other side, and Ladybug had thought it a good one... But then the Akuma bit off more than it could chew and literally tore a hole in space and time that the Endbringer Kelvin came running through as it tried to get away from a Dinosaur themed Robot.

"OH COME ON!" the Earth Bet Cape, Foil, cried out in frustration as Kelvin proceeded to curl up into a ball beneath one of the Eiffel Towers- the one being brought over from Earth Bet. "SERIOUSLY!?" She and her Kwami shared similar dumbfounded expressions.

"What kind of Endbringer just curls up like that!?" The Kwami- Baiin- yelled. "You're a fearsome monster of destruction! Not a giant sized puppy dog!"

"While I'd say we should let him take his cat nap for now," Chat pointed at the rather stable looking rift. "He just purr-esented us with a rather tempting paw-sibility."

"Let's hope it stays open long enough for us to do the usual thing, then," Ladybug tried her best to sound hopeful, but after the way today has gone... She turns to Foil and Baiin, and asks a question. The answer is the one she wanted and hoped for, and so the Lady of Luck makes a plan. It's a quick and dirty plan, but one that should work for the short term.

Maybe she just needs to get the ball rolling for her good luck to kick in.

--

Fury felt the strangest emotion as he watched Kelvin get struck by lightning and punch a hole through space.

It was the feeling he got when he heard Sledge announce that he was going after the Energems. It was the feeling he'd gotten right before an explosion had completely vaporized Sledge and Poisandra. It was the feeling of someone going after the Energems and paying the price of 'Nothing Ever Going According To Plan' (Trade Mark).

And damn it, if he ever found out who set today's cluster-failure of a plan in motion, he was going to run his sword straight up their-

"This is why we insist people use Coils," Miss Militia remarked as Hero's tinkertech helicopter landed on the Protectorate tower for refueling his flame thrower.

"Oh?" Fury wanted to raise an eyebrow at her, but his face-mask was as stock still as it ever was. "Why's that?"

"We had to send Strider off on an errand just to snatch up some reserve of flame thrower fuel," She says. "I've seen Coil powered flame throwers that don't need refueling."

"There's something more to it than that, though," Fury didn't need to guess. He could practically see the irritation radiating off of woman like an aura of her own.

"That!" She gestures at the fight going on in the city streets between a Megazord and an Endbringer. "What kind of power source are they using that lets them power giant robots like that!? Something really unstable obviously, since Shadow Stalker suddenly went into her own Endbringer mode because of it and now we've got THAT in the middle of Paris-" The 'That' being the rift in space that had oh-so recently been opened- "all because Shadow Stalker's shooting 'Teleport Lightning' at everything!" Clearly Militia needs to rant, because she continues on with barely a breath taken. "Seriously! Unknown Power Sources are DANGEROUS! At-least with the Coils we know that when they go unstable they KILL ENDBRINGERS and not causing THAT!" The 'That' still being the rift in space that was floating in the middle of Paris. Still, Miss Militia takes long enough of a pause to give Fury an opportunity to refute her logic.

"No, it's not the power source that's caused this," Fury could say it with confidence. "This? This is someone being really, REALLY stupid and blatant about wanting to punch a hole in space and time and using an Endbringer attack to cover it all up."

"And what makes you say That!?" This time, the 'That' is Fury's own observations.

"Please," Fury scoffs, "years ago, Shadow Stalker and Shadowport were at ground zero of a Coil Destabilization while under Lung's command. It doesn't take a genius to see that the whole shipment was rigged to explode on them."

"And they told you this?" Miss Militia askes.

"Told an associate of mine who then told me, but yes, basically." Fury neglects to mention that he had a radio hidden on Wrench that let him hear everything, because it's really not an important detail. "But that's beside the point, and That point is," he pauses briefly for dramatic effect, which is important in a situation like this, and also to point at the rift to declare the next 'That' as "That Rift is someone rigging a situation to punch a hole in space, and using Shadow Stalker to do it. Twice."

Miss Militia considers it for a moment, but shakes her head and dismisses the idea. "No. That's insane. Anyone with their head on straight knows that trying to punch a hole in space is Illegal and has Consequences! Protectorate Energy insists people use Coils because that's the only way to use that kind of energy safely. We can't punch holes in space willy-nilly or we end up with this exact kind of situation! We have to stop using power sources that aren't tested and confirmed otherwise we'll end up crashing ALL of our home dimension into another- Aleph or DImension W or something else- it doesn't matter because we'll all be dead when that happens!"

"And is that really what they tell you, or is it just what you've come to believe after hearing the same excuses time and time again?" Fury asks, because he's quite honestly curious. Miss Militia turns on her heels and storms off, unwilling to ask herself that question. In response, Fury just laughs, knowing that at some time in the future, she would have to confront his words and realize that her faith in the current organization was misplaced.

However, Fury had no way of knowing that a certain Director Calvert had happened to be listening in to that conversation, and that the seeds of doubt had been planted in his head. Nor could Fury understand that the idea of a chess master organizing the whole situation would soon be firmly settled and growing roots by the time this fight was over.

Yes, it could be said that all of this was just one giant coincidence of bad luck converging on Paris on this rather random day.

Except, Thomas Calvert would soon start to reason, it really wasn't all that random.

--

A.N.: Gears upon Gears, layered on end. One turns the next until finally you have a machine. But what will that machine do, make power, or play music?

Perhaps, then, the dangerous ones are those who can make it do both.

 

[CalumTraveler]

A.N.: In which we finally get to see Foil's powers in use.


MIRACULOUS 4.3

--

The Eiffel Tower (Towers? Meow-ers? T-Paw-ers? Dang it, no way to work a cat pun into this one) from both worlds had basically swapped places by now. Not that it mattered much, because an Endbringer was currently squatting on top of my house, crying, bawling its eyes out, and generally making everything around it frozen. What had fully shifted from Earth Bet of their Tower was rapidly frosting over around him.

Of course, Kelvin's appearance had drawn those two Godzilla clones out of doing nothing, and they'd converged on the spot to try and... do what, I don't know, because Kelvin's ice aura frozen them solid in an instant. I'm seriously hoping nobody's still at home at this point, because I'm really sure that my house is going to be a total wreck by the time all of this is over.

"This really is quite the Cat-astrophe, My Lady," I observe as we head down the frozen part of town that Kelvin left behind in his wake. "Look, there's a bank! I hope nobody's been frozen out of their accounts!"

Ladybug gives me a look. The one that asks, 'Did you really just make a joke about a frozen bank?' I smile at her in return. Sheepishly? What's a good re-pun-lacement for Sheepishly? Because Catishly has its own connotations that don't quite go for the emotions I'm trying to express. Or maybe Catishly works? I dunno, maybe I can twist my upper lip into a sort of sideways three shape?

Eh, furget it. I shouldn't be working that hard on an internal joke anyways.

We come to a halt on top of a slippery frozen rooftop. We're close enough now that we can feel the frost aura from the Endbringer who.... sounds like it's sniffling and crying. I can't help but to use my phone's camera to zoom in and see if... Yup. He is. "So... would you be surprised by the fact that we have an Endbringer whose sole power is to freeze everything around him solid... and he's crying literal rivers of tears that aren't even freezing at all?" I ask.

"Honestly," Ladybug leans over to look at my phone's screen. "I just feel sorry for what we're about to do to him. He's so upset that he doesn't even want to use his power on himself!" And there's Ladybug for you, kittens and gentle-cats. Caring about everyone we end up fighting about, even if they're a giant monster normally hell bent on destroying everything. "I will admit that it IS odd, though. I've always heard that Endbringers were emotionless. Is that just something we were told to try and keep Aleph people from crossing over to Bet? Or did something weird happen to make them more... emotional?"

"Like what?" I ask. "Did the guy who made the Endbringers suffer a loss in the family and he shunted all of his emotions into the deadly killers of the world?" If there were a way for that to be possible, I wonder if my dad ever figured out how to do that. Well, probably not. Actually, though, that does make me wonder about how the Akumas work. Does Hawkmoth empower them with his own negative emotions? Does he just generate those feelings to overload the victim? Or is he just amplifying the feelings already in a person? "It's a really disturbing concept when you think about it."

"What is?" Ladybug asks. Ah, apparently I said that last part out loud. Welp, Time to Cover your Tracks, Chat! Quick, say the first thing that comes to mind!

"What if Hawkmoth tried Akumatizing an Endbringer?" OH, GOD, WHY DID I EVEN SAY THAT? That is super terrifying and-

"Let's hope Hawkmoth doesn't try that," Ladybug shudders. "I don't want to know where an Akuma would even try to hide on an Endbringer."

And so, we waited for Foil to begin her part of the plan. And on that note...

"Changing to a lighter and fluffier subject," I say. "What do you think about all this Energem business?"

"I'm scared," Ladybug admits, "and excited, and confused, and..." She shrugs. "Tikki never went into how the Miraculous stones were made, or how she was bound to the ear-rings. And after we found out about our predecessors in Egypt, I just assumed that it was just a given that they'd always existed. I never stopped to wonder, 'What came before?' or 'What really is a Miraculous Stone?' because, it just never seemed to be something to worry about. Who-ever made them has to be long dead by now. Except now..."

"Exceptions are made for Immortality," I supply.

"Exceptions are definitely being made for Immortality," she agrees, "that's just... nothing I ever expected from what came before the Miraculous Stones. And Foil's really over 200 years old? Her Kwami too? They're practically babies compared to our Kwami, but at the same time they seem so much older than Tikki. It's weird, and it's terrifying."

"And now we have to keep Hawkmoth from getting his hands on that kind of power," I sigh.

"As if keeping his hands off our Miraculous Stones wasn't enough. Now we have to worry about what his plans are for a whole other world. It's kind of funny when you think about it," Ladybug laughs, but it's hollow, not with any real emotion behind it. "How bad our luck can be sometimes."

"It's just like our luck, huh?" I can't help but to agree.

A few moments later, Foil comes sneaking up behind Kelvin from three different directions. This, we were told, is her Primary Power, one that she'd had long before Parahumans ever existed on either Earth. It's a power that comes directly from the Energem- the power to Copy something. She'd copied herself, and sent those clones after Kelvin. Each one held glowing rocks that looked like they would hurt. That was her secondary power, one that she'd gained only semi-recently during the wake of Parahumans apppearing world wide. This one was definitely a Parahuman power for sure, she'd insisted, because of how late on in her life span it had first manifested.

Those glowing rocks were reared back, and then flung at Kelvin like you'd skipp a rock. They flew through the air, bouncing off of absolutlely nothing, and skipped their merry way straight into Kelvin's ice-covered hide.

Baiin called the power "Sting," and Kelvin's reaction told us why.

He suddenly shot upwards- knocking over that Eiffel Tower that had formed around him into a near by building- and let loose a terrified cry, much like a child would if stung by a bee.

The Foil copies all yelled different things at Kelvin to get his attention, and together, they ran in one direction, down the same street. No matter which Foil had gotten Kelvin's attention first, all three were heading in the same direction, so he would follow. At least, that had been the plan before we saw the Endbringer actually crying. Now, it was so very much up in the air if he would follow them or not.

Kelvin, however, seemed to have not liked being stung like that- more so than whatever the Megazord on Bet had done to him- and his mood seemed to shift from upset to angry in a very quick turn about. I couldn't help but think that, if Kelvin thought in human terms, he'd probably be yelling, "Alright, that is IT. I have had it up to HERE with all these Pesky Stinging Stingers in this Pesky Stinging Stinger covered TOWN!"

Eh, okay, yeah, that movie reference doesn't work out so well for this situation. I'm way off my game today when it comes to puns.

Kelvin roars, and he takes chase after the Foil's... er, Foiles? Filed Foils? A Roll of Aluminum Foil?... Her duplicate clones. As he chases, more Foils pop out of the woodwork to throw more glowing stones that sting him something fierce before running in the same direction. Kelvin swipes at some of them, and they're frozen nigh instantly, but poof into smoke just as fast.

Ladybug and I followed over the rooftops after them, and I can't help but think that it's a good thing we'd planned this out and gave Foil the chance to generate as many clones as possible, otherwise this wouldn't work at all. And so, the Foils finally herded the Endbringer back to the rift that he'd come through in the first place, where he came face to face with all of the remaining Foil clones, each armed with glowing rocks- all of them identical in nature.

Kelvin seemed to take a moment to pause, and mimic a gulp as he realized he'd just been baited into a trap.

"NOW!" Ladybug roars, and in that moment, the Foils let loose with their rocks.

Kelvin gives off a whine as he's pelted with the glowing, stinging rocks, and he doesn't even pay attention to the giant Rocket-ship sized Dinozord pretending to be a building right next to him. A giant Rocket-ship sized Dinozord that the original Foil, Ladybug, and I are now standing on top of as the rocket engines fire up to full power and Baiin's shark-like maw gleams with anticipation.

"LET'S ROCKET!" Foil calls out, and then her clones on the ground disappear, clearing the way for the giant dinozord to blast ahead and ram its hammer-shaped head straight into the dazed Kelvin's chest. The acceleration is intense, the wind is chilling from being so close to Kelvin's aura, but there's no doubt it my mind that the sight of us pushing Kelvin back through the rift and launching the frosty Endbringer straight into Behemoth is one that will go down in the history books for the most dramatic entrance of all time.

It's made all the more epic by Ladybug and I dismounting so that Baiin can transform into his own Robot mode. Flippers merge into legs, rocket engines shift into shoulders, the extended neck and hammer shaped head transform to become an arm, something becomes a rocket fist to fill out the other arm, and to top it all off, the tail spins around to transform into a head.

Foil is pulled into it somewhere along there, but at the moment it happened, Ladybug and I were more concerned with getting to another rooftop so we could find the cape called "Shadowport."

Then, we hear Baiin's voice yelling out for the first time since he became giant sized: -"ROCKET CHARGE MEGAZORD! REE~AAADY TO ROCK AND ROLL!!"- It's a completely startling difference- hearing such a squeaky voice yelling so dramaticly and triumphantly.

I'm sure quite a few people are going to be caught off guard by that, let alone by the fight that follows. And as much as I want to watch the fight, I've got a job to do. "C'mon, My Lady, let's go find us that teleporter!"

"You know who we're looking for, so lead on, Kitten," Ladybug says with a flirty smile that says she's finally having fun with this.

Ironically, before we can even go anywhere, Shadowport is the one who finds us first, appearing from the shadows on the very rooftop we'd landed on.

"Found her," I can't help but laugh.

Shadowport looks at us oddly, then says something I don't quite catch... Wait. Right. Noise Cancelers. I reluctantly pull them off, and of course Plagg makes my normal cat ears reappear.

"Sorry, can you repeat that?" I ask.

"Do you know Madison?" She repeats, cautiously, and probably surprised by a second set of ears appearing on my head by magic. "Because you rode in on one of those weird spirit dinosaur things."

"Sorry, we're actually from Earth Aleph," Ladybug explains. "a Villain from our world is behind that." She points upwards at the Akuma, Cloudshadow. "We're here to save the person inside and we were actually looking for you to try to help them."

"She's a Cape from this world called Shadow Stal-" I'm cut off by Shadowport stepping up rather quickly towards us with a purpose.

"You're here to help Sophia?" She asks, sounding very hopeful.

"If that's who Shadow Stalker is, then yes," Ladybug nods. "We just need to find an object of hers that's been infected by an evil butterfly and destroy it. It'll be something personal and she won't want to let go of it even when possessed. If we destroy it and cleanse the butterfly, that will stop the possession and put an end to all of this."

"Her Crossbow," Shadowport says with a resound nod. "That's the only thing Fury let her keep from her old costume. She's had it for years."

"A Crossbow, okay..." I look up at the cloud. "So where's a Crossbow hiding in all of that?"

"You mean she's up there?" Shadowport looks upwards at the cloud, and she sounds like she's just missed something obvious. The face palm and the muttered "How did I miss that?" clinches it.

"That's why we need your help," Ladybug explains. "Do you hear how quiet her yelling is here?" Shadowport nods. "It's a LOT louder on our side of things, and I'm willing to bet she's shifted almost all of her physical mass over to our side of the world. We don't have any way of getting up to her on our own, so we need you to teleport us up there."

Shadowport considers it for a moment, her eyes seem to narrow up at the cloud-type Akuma and then she says just one word.

"Okay."

The next thing I know, I get the feeling like I'm supposed to be in two places at the same time, and then... not. We're in a vast, purple space that looks like what I'd imagine the inside of a thunder cloud would look like. We're standing on some kind of invisible floor, or maybe it's just the clouds beneath our feet being stable enough to stand on. Who knows.

Also, the screaming returns with a vengeance, and this time, it's much, much louder than it had been in our Paris.

Ladybug and I pull our Noise Cancelers up in a heartbeat, and while it lessens the effect, it doesn't quite work as well as it did before. I can still hear the screaming even with them on, for one thing.

"AAAHH!!" Shadowport doesn't have any protection from it, however. She screams and I really hope that's not blood coming from her ears.

"LUCKY CHARM!" Thankfully, Ladybug is always on top of the situation, and she summons up an identical copy of her own noise cancelers, with an included phone already hooked up via cable. She puts them on over Shadowport's ears, and thankfully, Shadowport stops screaming from the loudness.

I look to Ladybug's ear-rings, however, and see one of the five spots on it starting to flash. I don't even need to say anything, she just nods in understanding. We're on the clock now. We need to beat the Akuma before Ladybug's transformation runs out.

--

A.N.: Another limitation of the Miraculous Stones that's straight from MLB cannon- once the special skill (Cataclysm for Chat Noir and Lucky Charm for Ladybug) is used, the Miraculous stone begins counting down until the Kwami can no longer hold the transformation in place and needs to eat in order to recharge their energy.

Foil/Lilly is a new case of an Energem bonded user triggering well after they've bonded to an Energem. Naturally, she gets Sting like in Canon, and it's even more over powered because of the Energem included cloning ability. Oh, but you can be sure that Sting is getting a lot of lovely data just by having chosen this girl as a host. It's also ironic, in a sense. Sting is the power to hit anything *everywhere* at the same time, and it's being added onto a power to let Foil be in multiple places at the same time. If she ever hit herself with her power, that would really *sting,* wouldn't it? XD

Heh. Okay, bad puns aside... Let's just say that there's some really weird physics going on with this combination. If it had just been Sting on its own, Kelvin likely would have just run off again to hide somewhere else. But since it's the same stone that's been duplicated along with Foil and has had Sting used on it as well, those tiny stone throws have become *really* annoying very quickly. It's like the Entity equivalent of Lag in an MMO.

Just in case it doesn't come up in the next chapter, here's how Shadowport's teleport works in getting them into the Akuma:

It's a bud of Shadow Stalker's shard, primarily, and that means it works in pretty much the same way. There is mass that she is shifting from one place to another, but where Sophia's shard was originally limited to "Self Use Only," Emma's shard is a bit wider in scope, thanks to Oni Lee's Clone Shard having pinged during the trigger event. Her power lets her select a targeted mass, and then shift said mass temporarily into another dimension. As it's finishing shifting the first bit of the target mass and bringing in the second bit of the target mass, the shard begins siphoning the target mass into the new target destination. It's essentially a relay system of teleporting, similar in nature to the Xen Relay teleports used in Half Life 2. (This is also why the Spinosaurus skeleton teleport *failed* way back in the last arc. The Energem was still connecting the Spinosaurus bones as a whole despite them being scattered all over the place. Emma was focusing on each bone as an individual item instead of as a whole, and so... scattering! Much like a spring being pulled apart at both ends.)

Due to how the Akumatizing process has jail-broken Shadow Stalker's shard, "Cloudshadow" is essentially serving as a similar relay at the moment, being able to draw mass from one of the earths, relay it through herself, and drop it into the other earth. Emma teleporting them into the Akuma is basically doing the first step of her usual teleportation effect, going to the relay destination, but bringing ALL of the mass there at once without sending it anywhere else as it arrives. It's not how the power is meant to be used, normally, but it's a trick that Emma could potentially learn to exploit to make herself a hammerspace pocket.

 

[CalumTraveler]

A.N.: where did today even go? ._.;


MIRACULOUS 4.4.I

--

The screaming was reverberating inside her ears, even after the flash of magic had generated a set of headphones to block out the sound. It didn't work that well, all things considered, but it was enough. It was enough that Emma Barnes was sure she was probably going to go deaf by the end of today. Teleporting them here had been a feat. She'd managed it in one try, yes, but she wasn't even sure if it was going to work. It had felt like squeezing herself through a bottleneck, and they were here now, but... even so. It almost might not have worked. As it stood, Emma wasn't quite sure where they even were. It was like being in two places at the same time and yet... not.

It was sheer luck that it had worked at all, she supposed.

Now, they were running through a giant storm cloud that told Emma's powers that it was alive and it was Sophia. This whole time it was Sophia. Just, spread across two different worlds. And here they were at the point where two Sophia's met and became one. What were they running towards, though? Emma couldn't quite tell, but this Ladybug themed cape seemed to have some idea of where they were going. Everything was somewhat darker now than when they'd arrived, though and it was feeling a bit more harder to breathe, just a little bit.

It was with a start that Emma realized that they were heading towards where the clouds were the densest- the storm of emotions that was Sophia's mind state. It made sense, really. If that was where the possession was centered, then that would be where the crossbow would be too.

Suddenly, they reached a rather thick wall of cloud-like matter. It was different from everything else, though- it gave off the presence of something evil and angry and watching.

The cat themed Cape drew out an extending baton staff- "I think it's time we show Hawkmoth what its like when it's HIS walls that are getting torn down!" The boy then started twirling the baton like a helicopter blade and then began pushing through the wall. Miraculously, the weapon cut through the cloud-like wall and let them punch a hole straight into the center of of the cloud-storm they were in.

Darkness suddenly gave way to blinding white light, and all of it was focused on a single object in the center of what was a very small cylindrical room:

Sophia's Crossbow.

It was there, intact, and beyond the sickly coat of purple paint on it, looked exactly as it had when Emma had last seen it. Currently, it was being held by a very skeletal looking Sophia- barely any of her physical body was present, instead being made up of a thin layer of dark colored fog that barely concealed a skeleton made up of flickering lightning.

There was an irony in there, Emma was sure, given Sophia's weakness to electricity.

"Get out of that Crossbow, you evil little Akuma!" The Ladybug ordered.

"Yeah, leave that girl alone!" The Cat seconded.

The "Akuma" before them just started to scream and then aimed the crossbow at them.

BZAP!

Instead of the usual arrow bolts, however, out shot a bolt of lightning. The three of them dodged the shot, and when it struck something behind them, Emma had the premonition of a pair of buildings being swapped- one from Earth Bet's Paris to Earth Aleph's Paris, and the same way around.

"That's what's teleporting things!" She said it aloud without realizing it, and nearly got lightning bolted again for her troubles.

"Yup! Akuma's definitely in the crossbow!" the Ladybug grit her teeth and started swinging a Yo-Yo around like a shield, deflecting any lightning bolts that hit it into the surrounding environment. "HEY! HEY! LOOK AT ME!" She yelled, distracting the... Akuma?... further. "Yeah! That's right, look at my ears! You want those ear-rings, don't you!?"

And so the Ladybug kept yelling, trying to keep the Akuma's attention away from the Cat, who was now sneaking up from behind, ready to pounce. Then it all fell to pieces when the Akuma- The possessed Sophia- just let out another inhumane dual-toned shriek that nearly overwhelmed the noise canceling headphones. The Cat had to drop his run and had to dodge as the Akuma suddenly turned around and fired a shot off a close range shot that nearly teleported the boy away from this place.

"CHAT!" The Ladybug cried out, and then had to dodge another bolt of her own.

"She can hear us, My Lady!" 'Chat' griped as he rolled to a stop and began whirling his baton-staff again- this time for shielding purposes. "I can't sneak up on her if she can hear me coming!"

Sophia... or the Akuma, or whatever it was, was switching targets with every shot now, keeping both of them relatively pinned in place, but nothing came after Emma.

"But how?" the Ladybug frowned, and then looked towards Emma. "Oh you've gotta be kitten me!" Chat's reaction was to grin, but he couldn't do anything else, and neither could Ladybug.

Emma wondered for a moment what it was they were talking about before she remembered the headphones she'd been given upon arriving in this weird place. Sophia was ignoring her, and so... "SOPHIA!" Emma cried out, which made the Akuma flinch, and turn to aim at her.

Emma teleported when the shot fired. She appeared behind Sophia and threw the headphones over her friend's ears. Almost immediately, the noise cancelers became just as phased as the rest of Sophia, and the Akuma turned on her heels to shriek at Emma.... But Emma heard nothing more.

In fact, the whole room had gone eerily silent.

"...What the...?" Ladybug began, then her eyes widened. Emma's too, because she'd heard that. It hadn't been Emma's hearing going deaf, but in fact the Akuma's shrieks had somehow been muted by the headphones being dispersed across the... everywhere? "CHAT!" She suddenly ordered, but it was just a formality, as Chat was already leaping forwards in the moment that he'd realized what had happened.

The Akuma raised the crossbow at Emma-

"CATACLYSM!"

-And suddenly, a burst of black magic coated Chat's right hand as it swept through the Crossbow. For a moment, everything went still. And then the Crossbow exploded in Sophia's hands. She shrieked and dropped it to the invisible floor, where, once it landed, a dazed looking purple butterfly emerged from the wreckage.

"No more evil doing for you, little Akuma!" Ladybug brought out her Yo-Yo, and threw it at the Akumatized Butterfly. Surprisingly, the top half split open like a ladybug's shell, and then snapped closed around the Akuma. A few moments passed, and then the YoYo opened, and a cleansed Butterfly flew out. "Bye Bye, Little Butterfly," Ladybug gave a wave at it.

Naturally, that was when the cloud zone around them began to destabilize and then- like a whirlpool sucking in all the water around, all of the storm clouds that had been around them began to be pulled back into Sophia.

Emma closed her eyes as everything rushed past, and when she opened them again, she found herself, Sophia, Ladybug, and Chat all free falling towards Earth Bet's Paris. The city was illuminated by daylight, and looked amazing even despite the ice that covered a large portion of it. In fact, the Ice even seemed to make all of Paris sparkle and shine in the gleaming light.

"And you say I never take you anywhere Romantic, My Lady!" Chat laughed out as they fell.

"Chaton! This is Not the time for flirting!" Ladybug was laughing, though, as she dove towards Sophia, or rather, the ladybug printed headphones Emma had put on her head. She grabbed them off of Sophia, and then threw them towards the ground ahead of them with a cry of: "MIRACULOUS LADYBUG!"

Emma watched as the Headphones exploded into magical Ladybugs and began swarming over Paris as a whole- a chunk of them even branched off and shot through the rift in space to go into Earth Aleph's Paris. The swarms of magical ladybugs shot through the city- dissolving away the ice, replacing the buildings that had been swapped, fixing damage done to the streets by the giants that had been stomping around in them, and then, even more amazingly: Kelvin and Behemoth were covered in the little bugs- and then with an explosion of light, both Endbringers were sent hurtling upwards past the falling heroes with speeds that seemed to be surpassing the speed of sound itself.

"Looks like Team Rocket's Blasting Off Again!" Chat laughed as the two Endbringers then disappeared into the distant horizon with a flashing twinkle of light.

"Chat!" Ladybug laughed despite herself. "This is serious! They're Endbringers, not Poke-!"

That was when the Rocket Charge Megazord's left hand and forearm shot up like a, well, a rocket from below and caught the four of them swiftly, and more importantly, softly enough that they weren't hurt by the catch. From there, it circled down and re-attached itself to the Megazord's upper arm.

Chat wriggled his eyebrows at Ladybug and then said, "You were saying?"

--

As his lair suddenly became defrosted thanks to a horde of ladybugs, Hawkmoth could only grimly accept the fact that he'd lost, once more, and that it was the most spectacular failure yet.

"How..." He breathed out in the still slightly chilled air. "How are you so Lucky to be able to save TWO versions of Paris at the same time!?" he fell to his knees, and threw his hands to his head. "HOW CAN YOU BE SO MIRACULOUS THAT---?!" He stopped himself as soon as he realized the the word had came out of his moth. Miraculous. The Stones. Those Damned POWERS were getting in his way even when he wasn't going after them directly!

Hawkmoth just let out a frustrated cry of anger and threw his cane at the observation window. The metal head hit one of the segments and sent a crack clean through that one specific pane of glass. It was a perfectly clean split, despite being shaped exactly like a bolt of lightning.

--

Fury waited by the rift as he watched the heroes of the day return to the last bit of damage to the city that remained un-fixed.

"So... you're the ones who helped save my girl, hm?" He asked towards the two Capes he didn't recognize. With them was that girl, Foil, along with Emma and somewhat confused Sophia. Trailing a bit behind were the Rangers, whose body language seemed rather confused by the whole situation.

"That we are," Ladybug nodded. "And you must be 'Fury'?"

"You've got a smell about you..." He said. "Energems. Fah. So they have them even on Earth Aleph?"

"You could tell that's where that leads?" Chat Noir asked, indicating the rift.

"It's not hard to put it together," Fury said, looking to Emma and Sophia. "I trust you've already said your thank yous?"

"Yes," Emma nodded, while Sophia still looked confused.

"Then we're leaving," Fury turned to leave, before pausing and saying, "oh, and if you're ever in the Brockton Bay of your world, do drop by and give the me there a message from the me from here, would you?"

"What message?" Ladybug asked, frowning.

"'Stay out of Paris,'" Fury said in a half-joking, half serious tone. He then motioned for Emma and Sophia to follow him, and together, they left.

"I wonder what that was all about?" Foil asked.

"No idea," Chat Noir stretched his arms out, even as his ring beeped at him. "We've got to get going before we turn back into pumpkins, though."

"Wait," The Cyan Ranger stepped forwards, and held out his removable belt buckle, "take this with you. Our boss is positive that the transmission signals should be able to reach across the barriers between our Earths. Even if we're from different worlds, we're still using the Energems as a common power source. Our boss is going to want to compare notes."

"And since I'll be going with them for the time being," Foil adds, "you can keep in contact with me and Baiin that way too."

"Thanks," Ladybug takes the belt buckle. "We'll be sure to test it out once we're safe and sound back home."

And so, the two heroes of Aleph's Paris leaped through the rift in space. They then did their signature closing move- a fist bump with a cheerful cry of: "Pound It!"

A moment later, a horde of magical ladybugs swarmed over it from the other side and sealed it up like one zips up a zipper, and that was the last Foil would see of her interdimensional friends for the time being.

"So then!" Foil turns to the Rangers. "You mentioned a Boss! I want to meet them."

"Trust me on this," Green Ranger began, "she's itchin' to meet you too."

--

January 7th, 2011. Director Calvert's Office.

"'The Rangers had disappeared after the fight.'" Thomas Calvert read the report from Miss Militia over again. "'The Rangers had disappeared after the fight. They did not return to the Protectorate Tower for transport back to the Bay area, nor could they be reached for questioning over their power source.'" He looked her in the eye as he quoted the last line without reading it, "'They are considered to be armed with an extremely dangerous power source.'"

"Sir, they caused Shadow Stalker to-" Miss Militia began to explain herself when Calvert raised a hand.

"They caused nothing. The fault of that lies with another Villain elsewhere. I'm not questioning the fact that the Rangers have an interesting little power source," He frowns, "but they have just proven themselves to be better at handling the Endbringers than Fury has ever managed in years. I've gotten orders from above to not antagonize them. Especially considering the high likely hood of who they made friends with because of this encounter."

"But that's not procedure!" Miss Milita protested.

"It's not, but we are walking on a VERY tight leash because of that Endbringer battle, Miss Washington." Calvert explained, "This incident spanned across Aleph and Bet's versions of Paris, and drew out the attention of both of our world's governments due to the Capes involved. We are not allowed to do anything."

He wasn't allowed to explain to her the strange healing wave that had overtaken the city. It was a miracle he'd even found out about who they were anyways. Earth Aleph's French Government reluctantly confirmed the healing ladybugs had been the work of one of their local Capes, named Ladybug, who apparently had been inadvertently drawn into their Endbringer battle by way of the possession of Shadow Stalker, and that possession had in turn been caused by one of Aleph-Paris's local Villains, some douche calling himself Hawkmoth. Hawkmoth was a villainous Master that hid himself very well and only targeted people through corrupted butterflies. Not much was known about him beyond that, and even if it was known, it wasn't like any of Aleph's governments were going to tell Bet's governments about what amounted to a local problem. And because Shadow Stalker was listed as "Independent" thanks to her working with that bastard Fury, that in turn meant that Protectorate Energy was intentionally being left in the dark.

All of that was classified information that Calvert wasn't supposed to be allowed access to, and he'd only gotten it thanks to his contacts in Cauldron. One of the downsides of their conversion to Private Enterprise, he supposed. If he'd had controlling major stake in Cauldron, Calvert never would have allowed the Protectorate to become the Power Providers, instead they would have just started some new front company.

But he hadn't had any influence in that decision. Thomas Calvert had very much been left to lurch as plans made by a dead woman were put into motion without her added insights and ability to plan around changes. All Cauldron could do now was plow ahead stubbornly on the same path that they'd been set on in Newfoundland.

Suddenly, he began to doubt that Cauldron, or Protectorate Energy for that matter, could sustain itself long term. Their Monopoly on the Coils alone had been a point of tension between Bet and Aleph ever since the Coils had been first developed by Andrew Richter all those years ago.

"Look, Miss Washington," Calvert began, "we're dealing with problems that are WAY above our pay grades now. I agree, we should bring the Rangers in for questioning, but we can't. As of right now? They. Are. Heroes. To both worlds." He appeases her hurt expression with, "Now, if they show up at another Endbringer battle and this kind of incident happens again? Yes, we may be allowed to question them. But given the extremely extenuating circumstances that led to what happened in Paris, it's unlikely this will ever happen again."

And wasn't that the rub of it all. "Extenuating Circumstances" didn't even begin to cover half of what had happened in Paris.

It was like someone had plotted the whole thing out to be a constant series of dominoes, but to what end? Even that ending visual- of the rift closing up like someone pulling a zipper- was one that implied a greater intelligence to this whole fiasco.

For starters, what had prompted this Hawkmoth towards attacking a Cape on the Earth Bet side of things?

That was what had set everything in motion in Paris, and had kicked off the whole mess of inter-dimensional politicking between the two worlds once again. Who was truly at fault for breaching the dimensional wall like that? Hawkmoth or Shadow Stalker? Was it just Behemoth and Kelvin? Or what of the debut of the Rangers? What had timed all of this so perfectly like this? Then, there was the fact of the Rangers Spino Zord appearing to fight Lung several days ago- just before the battle in Paris, in fact. Obviously, the Undersiders had tried to cover for the Rangers unleashing their one Zord in private like that by broadcasting Hellhound's voice like they had...

Or had they? Everyone had insisted that Hellhound had been controlling the Spinosaurus that had appeared but now Calvert was wondering if-

"Sir?" Miss Militia asked, clearly wondering if she could be let go.

"You're dismissed," and so he waved her off so he could resume his mental wanderings. As she left, he knew that she wasn't going to let this go any time soon. Her memory was too perfect for that. She could hold a grudge.

But then again, so could a whole planet.

--

A.N.: One more part to this arc, which will return us to 2016.

 

[CalumTraveler]

A.N.: And', we're back'.

MIRACULOUS 4.5.E

--

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2016. EARTH BET.

"Wait- the blast affected Earth Aleph's Brockton Bay TOO?" Sarah Morgan- holder of the Gold Energem, and partner to the spirit of a mighty Brachiosaurus- asked over a badly static filled radio transmission.

-"Yeah, it did."- on the other end was Lilly- holder of the Graphite Energem- who had been on the other world working on a historical research mission on the Energems in that world. -"Just, BAM, pillar of green light out of nowhere that pulled in a bunch of buildings and people before it vanished. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself."-

-"I haven't felt that disoriented since Paris!"- Baiin, Lilly's Dinosaur spirit partner, remarked. -"Whatever the hell that was, it was HUGE to punch through dimensions like that!"-

"I know," Sarah sighed. "Coils are out all over town. I'm just lucky my parents splurged and got an old fashioned solar generator for the Museum in case something like this happened. Being rich and paranoid has its benefits, I guess."

-"So I guess you want us to investigate the damages here?"- Lilly asked. -"Or should we come home."-

"Yes to the former. No on the latter," Sarah shakes her head despite it not being seen. "The Protectorate's all over the rift here. They'll definitely detect if we try using the dimensional bridge again while they're doing their thing."

-"Great, guess that means I gotta go shopping for some spare clothes,"- Lilly laughs a sarcastic laugh. -"'Cause I definitely wasn't expecting this trip to last this long, let alone how long it's going to take us to investigate whatever's going on here, plus how ever long you think we need to stay until it's safe?"-

"I'll talk with Rose to see how long she thinks we need to wait," Sarah says, "but rough estimate? I'm thinking we might need to wait at least a month, max, before we try another crossover."

-"Ehhh, at that rate we might as well just splurge and buy a plane ticket to Paris and hang out with our Miraculous pals over there,"- Baiin remarks.

-"You just want to have another 'who can eat the stinkiest food' contest with Plagg, don't you?"- Lilly rebuked her partner.

-"Hey! We were so rudely interrupted from our last one by an Akuma! We NEED a rematch!"- Baiin whined.

"AHHEM," Sarah coughs, "Anyways, back to the subject matter at hand?"

-"Right, right, the research,"- Lilly pauses, then says, -"Notes have been sent."-

"Aaand..." Sarah checks her very private work related email inbox, and a moment later, a new message arrives, from Lilly, subject 'Canada V. Zandar Part 12.' Sarah smiles. "Got it."

-"Right, well, that's about everything we can figure out given the divergences for them,"- Lilly explains, -"Spoiler Alert, there was a Ladybug and Chat Noir involved."-

"Not surprising," Sarah muses as she opens the email and downloads the PDF attachment. "Just about every major divergence on Aleph from Bet has those two involved somewhere, even if it's as subtle as an actual Ladybug." She smiled, though. "Speaking of! If you get a chance to talk to them before I do, be sure to send them our regards."

-"Will do!"- Lilly said with an audible smile.

--

Bakuda had swore like a pirate without rum at the doctors as they pulled the metal spike out of her arm, and quite frankly, Rachel Morgan was glad they'd been able to turn her over to the Protectorate for an interrogation on what the bomb they'd designed was meant to do.

Because now Bakuda was swearing like a pirate without rum at the Protectorate and was entirely their problem.

Now that that was dealt with, Rachel had another problem on her hands. The vision she, the other Rangers, the Collector, and Bakuda had all seen during the green fire explosion.

From what Rachel could dig up (ha) on Trigger events online, it was very, very rare for anyone to remember a Trigger Event, especially one that wasn't theirs, but those that were remembered were strikingly similar to the one they'd seen that night.

A field of some kind with either one or two corpses (Two became the standard after Newfoundland, it seemed) while a humanoid being of varrying identity sent out a shard of light to the recipient. Only Miss Militia's trigger event was different- and wasn't she just a special snowflake because of it?- in that it showed those two corpses when they were alive. Nobody knew what this meant, but the running theory on the online discussion forums was that most forgotten trigger events had been like Miss Militia's, and only her perfect memory had allowed her to remember it afterwards. What, then, did that mean for those that were of the corpses?

It was a Mystery, and one that Earth Bet's internet had no answers for. And so, Rachel went to the computer terminal they'd rigged to connect to Aleph's internet instead.

The home page was constantly set to the "Ladyblog," an online news site run by a Parissian native who cataglogued every Akuma attack in Paris and recorded as much of Ladybug's climatic resolutions of it as possible. The girl, Ayla, had even been a victim of the Akumatizing butterflies once, and there was a second site listed to the side that was called "Akuma Vic's Anon." It was something of a support group, apparently, but was password protected for Akuma Victim's privacy. It was nice of that to be available, and normally she just ignored it, but today it made Rachel frown slightly because of that password lock at the moment. One perfectly good avenue of research locked off. 'Oh well.'

Rachel didn't bother paying much more attention to the Ladyblog other than seeing what the headlines were. No recent Akuma attacks either in Paris, or the rest of Aleph, it seemed. Instead, the headline was focused on Ayla theorizing that the green explosion seen in the America's was a new type of Akuma threat and that Ladybug might be going international once more to take care of the problem. That really wasn't the case, and Rachel knew that Ladybug and Chat Noir had received the message that the explosion had been started on their end of the dimensional divide.

Her brief trip into their interdimensional friend's recent activities over, Rachel switched to Aleph's top web-search program, and began looking up details on trigger events.

Aleph had a somewhat different problem than Bet did in that regard- most Trigger events in recent years had been centered around Paris. It was pretty much the Cape capital of Aleph, given the Akumas and their tendency to give people powers even after being freed from a possession. Rachel knew from first hand reports that people who were Akumatized didn't really retain any memories of when they'd been possessed, so that was an outlier she had to ignore.

Of the trigger events from before Paris had become such a hot spot, they had been relatively rarer, and occurred less often than on Earth Bet. Interestingly, a good portion of them were of the corpse party variety, while only a smaller portion had been of the 'don't remember anything' kind. Going back to Paris's triggers, Rachel was fairly certain that going by the pattern of recent years, the Akuma triggers were most likely of the same ones that would otherwise have been remembered.

She moved onto the theories of what the visions meant next.

It was an interesting conundrum, Rachel read people pondering what it all meant. Two corpses, one from before Newfoundland, and one after, plus humanoid beings who gave the powers. The original, memory-less triggers were likely from the first two beings who were dead. Since Newfoundland held many deaths on that day, the second one appearing afterwards wasn't too surprising, but that left the question of who was it supposed to be. Nobody had commented on it, or, if they had, it had been expunged from both world's internets.

That was a terrifying feat, if it had been done. But given the presence of so many other theories, it wasn't too likely.

Generally, Aleph agreed with Bet in this respect: It stood to reason that there were beings that gave powers, and that some of them were now dead. But why the difference in Trigger Visions? That implied a difference in methodology and logic. Rachel agred with that concept, since it was like how two different groups of hunters would target a woolly mammoth in two distinct ways. Given the visions of a single corpse appearing during the time that one of the original power givers was still alive, that further implied... conflict. Like two hunter groups targeting the SAME mammoth. Similarly, it wasn't hard for both worlds' conspiracy forums to come to the general conclusion that the worlds were being manipulated by these beings. The Rangers' own investigations into the divergences between Aleph and Bet had already uncovered that much. Someone was playing the development of these two earths for some unknown reason, and it made Rachel tense.

And now, there was the green fire explosion, and that.... That held it's own implications. Like the Paris Rift in 2011, this was something that affected both earths. What was the endgame that these rifts were building up to? Did it have something to do with Dimension W? Nobody was covering any of these questions on either world, because the green fire explosion had only JUST happened. Give it time, and the theories would start pouring in.

That was when Rachel came across a thread on the Aleph Internet, Titled: 'Conspiracy Theory: Pawns in Chess,' started by someone named... Oh, that was cute. They were calling themselves "Coil." They weren't getting much positive attention from the Alpeh Internet because of that.

If there was one thing the Rangers had learned over the years since they'd begun regular communication with the Miraculous Holders? It was that Aleph as a whole hated the anti-technology export treaty, and a vast majority of people resented Bet for holding onto the Coil technology as they had since its inception.

Still, the opening post was what got her attention. It was a random, meandering theory with a lot of coincidental and circumstantial evidence, but the ending line was thus: "What if the person behind all of this is playing even the power giving beings? A third one who then is the true mastermind behind all of this? Who is playing who, and who wants what outcome based on all of these dominoes?"

Despite the intriguing question, the majority of this Coil's conspiracy thread was filled with ridicule over his name choice. Still, there were a few interesting comments and concerns that were generally on topic. One guy going by the name of "KyoumaGrendel" insisted that the Coils were given so that their power would "consume Earth Bet entirely and then there will be nothing left, making the trade treaty moot, and us still without unlimited energy."

There wasn't anything else really of note, and so having made no real progress on her problem, Rachel closed the page down and went back to the Ladyblog, just because she could.

"Oh!" There was a new video. It was of a night-time Parisian playground, and there was a barely visible Chat Noir waiting atop a merry-go-round's rooftop for- Rachel was assuming- Ladybug to show up for a patrol. He was singing loud enough to be heard clearly on camera, even despite the somewhat-far-away distance of the camera.

-"Bring your wife and trouble it will never trouble you! Make her a Member of the Midnight Crew!"-

Rachel was inclined to agree with Ladybug's opinion, he really did have a nice singing voice.

--

A.N.: Back to the Future, that is. Next Arc is 5: Resisting Resonance.

 

[CalumTraveler]

And... we're back! Sorry for the long delay, life and writer's block got in the way of writing a good portion of the following updates, so here's a few of them right in a row!


Resisting Resonance: 5.0.I

--

>REBOOTING.

Your name is DRAGON RICHTER, and you just went offline to replace the car battery with an alternative power source disguised as a Coil.

Your internal clock estimates you were offline for a grand total of one minute thirty seconds. In that time, it appears that... that... Time itself has come to a complete stop. That's really the only way you can describe it. That time has been frozen in place.

You are currently sitting in the laboratory beneath the MARCH, the Marquis' business office slash fight ring slash bar club? You honestly really have no idea what the place should be called, but at the same time you find that it doesn't really matter.

Because it appears that time has stopped.

You're still in a sitting position from when you went offline, so you're able to look around without much effort. Colin and the Marquis are both looking upwards at the ceiling for some reason. Perhaps they heard something?

Whatever it was, time is now frozen, potentially because of it.

You attempt moving something other than your eyes, and find that it's relatively easy to do such. Whatever is affecting reality around you, it's not affecting you what-so-ever. You jump off of the chair you were sitting in, and turn in supririse when you hear it fall backwards from the effort exerted.

"That's Curious," you speak the thought aloud to see if sound carries at a normal rate. Surprisingly, your ears hear the sentence as intended. There was no delay at all.

You easily pick up the chair and right it back on its feet. Then, to test it again, you kick the chair over. It falls as if time were functioning normally.

You go over to Colin, and lightly poke him in the shoulder with a finger. This effort, however, seems to be rebuked by a forcefield of some kind.

You come to the assumption that it is not truly time that is frozen, but something else is going on to simulate the effects. You rack your memories of Parahuman powers, and begin to remember that there was one cape who, from the outside perspective, could apparently freeze time inside a solid bubble of space, and every living person in it except for him would be frozen solid.

If you're inside one of these 'time bubbles,' then it's entirely likely that you don't count as a living organic being to those powers.

You quickly leave a note for Colin on the chair you were sitting in, then head up the stairs back to the Marquis' office. As you ascend, you hear someone moaning and grumbling, "What do I do now?"

You clear your throat for the sake of effort, and then greet, "Hello," as you clear the last of the stairs into the Marquis' office.

"What the-?!" There's a man who jumps at your intrusion- he's in his late teens or early twenties, and that fits your memory of the cape in question. Next to him, there's a blonde haired girl trying to shake Amelia off of her back. This girl is standing in the remains of the office doors. "Who are you!? How are you moving around?"

"My name is Dragon," You introduce, "I was here doing the paperwork to become a Collector-" among other things- "and then suddenly everything stopped? That's your doing, I'm guessing?"

The apparent Cape lets out a hybrid of a sigh and a nod, "Yeah, name's Clockblocker. Or Dennis, I guess, if you're going to be working as a Collector. I'm one too. I was working with Vicky here on a retrieval job when she suddenly went insane and threw me into a wall." Dennis- or Clockblocker, you're not sure which you'll designate him as just yet- rubs at his left shoulder with a wince when he mentions that fact. "I think she's been mastered by someone. She just marched up here and started trying to pry the door open. That's about when I caught up with her and, well..." He shrugged. "I panicked. Guess I made the bubble a bit too big if I accidentally caught the lab up in it." He frowns, "Never had someone besides me moving in here before, though. Wonder if that's just because I made it so big, or what?"

"I don't know," You shake your head. "Do you have any idea what's controlling her?"

"Amy was shouting something about an eye implant just before I froze everything," Clockblocker- no, that's too long of a consistent designation- says. "But I can't really do anything about that particular thing while Vicky's frozen. And if I unfreeze her entirely..."

"She'll just start rampaging again?" You frown. "Maybe I can do something then, since I'm not affected?"

"Maybe." Dennis then asks, "What can you even try, exactly?"

"If it's possible," You muse, "I could be able to connect to the Eye Implant if that's what's mastering her."

"Try the arm," Dennis says, pointing at one of Victoria's arms. "Should have a connection port on it somewhere."

I nod, and then search the arm for said port. It's found easily enough- a bog standard data port for all Coil powered devices. A port that my tail has the opposite end of, but can't access because of that stasis force field. "Can you make a bubble of normal time around the port?"

Dennis grunts an affirmative, and I'm able to connect a moment later.

>[CONNECT]

There is a moment's pause as you're given access to a directory of all systems that are connected together. There, at the very bottom of the list, almost unobtrusive in its seemingly simple existence, is the eye implant. It's using too much data and power, however, to be a normal implant.

This is likely what Amelia was seeing when she told Dennis about the implant.

>[R/W ACCESS: PROGRAMMING]

A list of programs on the implant activate. It's a short list, as most eye implants have, but there, in the tray's bottom, is the culprit for the excess power consumption, along with the apparent Mastering of the girl it was implanted in.

Light.MNG
PWRCNSP.MNG
DataCnvrsn.MNG
Butterfly.EXM

You tap into the active program and--

You suddenly find your virtual avatar falling butt first into a digital floor of ones and zeroes.

"Well, now isn't this a surprise," There is a voice, echoing around the darkened room as a sort of strange window opens up in the far wall. Digital Butterflies made up of ones and zeroes of all font types appear and begin fluttering about like a swarm. "So a hacker managed to find their way through the rift? Interesting. It seems the Marquis has hired some interesting people to work for him."

"Who are you?" You prompt, looking around the visual representation of the "Butterfly" program. "What do you want?"

"Nobody you will have known," a ghostly avatar of a man forms as many of the digital butterflies swarm together to create it. "You might call me a-"

"I don't care." You interrupt. "Who are you and what do you want?"

If this is an A.I., it's an incredibly well written A.I.

"If you absolutely must have a name, you can call me Hawkmoth," The A.I. responds. "As for what I want?" The avatar solidifies into an actual human being wearing a suit and a mask that left his smirking mouth exposed. "You work for the Marquis, yes?" 'Hawkmoth' says. "I want you to tell him that I will no longer be requiring his services... not after he destroyed my previous messenger."

"You mastered a girl just to deliver a message?" You inquire.

"No, not just that," the man says, pointing his cane's head at you. It glows with the power of a firewall. "I mastered a girl... so I could start a war."

That is when he lets the firewall loose and you are thrown physically backwards from Victoria as the Eye Implant in her brain suddenly overloads and fries its circuitry.

You vaguely hear Dennis asking what happened, but that doesn't matter much. Your whole attention is on Victoria as the time bubble collapses and everything resumes motion.

Victoria falls to the ground, much to the surprise of Amelia, and a moment later, she begins convulsing from a the destruction to her brain caused by that overload.

"Vicky?!" Amelia cries out... and a moment later, everything goes dark.
--

A.N.: This particular opening took several draft attempts to get to this form. Still not 100% happy with it, but happier than I was with the first few attempts.

 

[CalumTraveler]

This arc is going to mostly be stage setting, as well as a bit of backstory hinting. Colin is the primary POV for this arc.


Resisting Resonance: 5.1

--

Three days after that incident, Victoria Dallon's obituary listed her as having died on Sunday, February 14th, 2016, by way of a bad neural implant overloading. This sent shock waves through the Cape and Collector communities- as she had been a well known part of both. Despite this, however, the man known as the Marquis- the man who ran the local division of the Collection House, who had acted as a surrogate father to the woman... to the people who knew him best, he seemed incredibly and suspiciously calm about the death.

The reason for that was that she had not really died. Instead, Amelia had suddenly experienced a second trigger, transforming her minor observation and subtle alteration power into a full fledged biokenetic manipulation. In the seconds following the second trigger, Amelia had managed to heal the damage to Victoria's brain and somehow had removed the eye implant in the process. And that incredible feat aside, Amelia's powers now reached into incredible levels well beyond just that. Slowly, day after day, Amelia was healing Victoria of every major wound that had resulted in a robotic replacement. Eventually, she would be back to being 100% human, and likely would end up with a radically different body appearance. Why? Because Victoria Dallon was supposed to be dead, now, and because she was meant to be dead, she thus had to look like someone completely different lest our ruse be caught... and that meant I had to play dumb about the whole situation.

You might be wondering then, why was the Marquis acting like Victoria wasn't dead when she was supposed to be?

The reason was that we were playing a game against the Cape who had done all of this. His message relayed through Dragon had been one of declaration of intent; our reply was somewhat simpler, but no less focused on intent. We had foiled "Hawkmoth"'s plans, but had done so in a way that we were daring him to continue with them as if we hadn't.

And so far, almost two weeks after that obituary had been posted, the man had yet to make another move.

Life in the Bay had resumed its normal pulse and flow, and, the occasional small time Illegal Coil fetching mission aside, for me, that meant working on my cars and helping teach Parahuman kids how to use their powers.

"Annnnd.... FAIL!" Aisha Laborn lamented as her attempts at making an embiggened soda bottle invisible failed with a resounding POP as the bottle returned to both visibility and it's size reverting to normal all at the same time. "Seriously!? I think that was even shorter than the last time, Missy! What the fuuuhhhreaking hell?!" She changed words even without my needing to reprimand her. I consider that progress.

"Yeah, our powers really hate each other for some reason." Missy nods, then looks to Dinah. "I don't think we'll be able to really do any combo moves, but what do you think, Dinah?"

"Agreed," Dinah muses. "Your powers both use a type of mental visibility. Missy's adjusting a Space's Size, and thus needs to visualize it, and Aisha's making a certain space invisible, and also needs to visualize the space in question. If they were computers fighting over territory, I'd liken it to two administrators fighting over who gets to change what settings."

"You'll both have to practice more," I decide. "Getting your powers to synergize well, even if they don't like to work together, is going to be a key thing if you all really want to start your own team."

That was a new thing they'd only really started talking about within the last couple of days. As much as I hated to admit it, their powers really did synergize well together; with Missy and Theo's powers being an especially potent combination. One of their first tests had been for Missy to craft a maze of twisted space, and to have Theo run through it with his Mover power. Incredibly, Theo's limitations of moving only in a straight line could be overcome by simply making that 'straight line' loop around in any direction Missy wanted it to. After that disorienting success, we'd moved onto making sure Aisha was catching up with the rest of her friends. This was the first session she'd managed to get to since that first day she'd missed and I'd had to go on the mission that...

That lead to me meeting Dragon.

I glanced over at her while Aisha gave a pep talk to Missy and Aisha. My new Partner in Coil Collecting was sitting on the front step of a small metal trailer she'd insisted she buy with her own money. It wasn't to live in, though. Over the last two weeks, Dragon and I had done serious testing on what the Marquis suspected was a Tinker power, but actually turned out to be a curious hybrid between that and a Thinker power. A robot had become a Parahuman. An incredibly life like robot had been so life like that she had become an actual Parahuamn. The Trailer then, rather than taking up space in my own lab with her stuff, was Dragon's own space to work on her own time without intruding. I'd had no problem with sharing space with her, a fellow Tinker, but she'd insisted.

Presently, Dragon was intent on studying any confiscated and broken Coil-powered gear I'd kept after a retrieval mission, and she thought it would be safer for everyone involved if it were inside a metal trailer incase something bad happened.

There was stuff in there I was certain neither of us wanted anyone finding, not the kids who I was helping 'train', and most certainly not anyone from Protectorate Ene-

"Someone's coming our way!" Missy informed us suddenly. This was a new aspect of her existing power that we'd started training her to use, the ability to sense where her power wouldn't work, and use it to track people who were moving through it. As long as an organic being- in this case a person walking towards my garrage- was in an unaltered space within Missy's range, Missy could not alter that space. It was both a liability to her in-field range, as well as an asset in keeping track of where people actually were.

There were very few people who made their way out here to my humble abode these days- most of the time it was just these four kids. The only other people were either drifters wandering around without aim, or...

"Alright, Aisha, time to practice on field length," I decide. "Everyone, crowd around the trailer, and Aisha, make it invisible."

Dragon gives me a bemused look as this happens, while Missy gives a count down of how long before the person will be in visible range.

"In five... four... three... tw-" And then the entire trailer, as well as the kids surrounding it, disappeared from sight and sound. ...Trailer? What trailer? I see no trailer.

That's when Miss Militia rounds the corner and steps into the parking lot.

"I... Huh..." She blinks, looks around, then fixes her gaze upon me. "Colin, I could have sworn I heard you talking with someone?"

"I had someone on speaker phone," I lie curtly. My replacement cellphone isn't even on me right now- it's instead charging inside.

Miss Militia looks at me for a moment, then she shakes her head and says, "Never mind. I wanted to know if you'd made any progress on my request?"

Request? Request... "Oh." I ask, "The thing about the green pillar of light?"

"Yes, that," Miss Militia nods.

"Sorry, I didn't get much of a chance to do anything," I answer. "I had a funeral to deal with."

At least one good thing's come out of this game we're playing with the Aleph Master- I have a prebuilt excuse to ignore her request to.... Ah...

"What was the request exactly, again?"

If there was one thing I'd thought I'd never see again after Newfoundland, it was Hannah Washington- Miss Militia of all people- face palming.

"Colin, I can't believe you!"

"To be completely honest, I've been really busy," I reply. "The last couple of weeks have just blown by like a leaf on the wind."

"Fine," she glares at me. "It doesn't matter. I was coming here to tell you that you don't need to worry about puzzling over it anyways. We figured out what it did. Or, at least, I have a working theory as to what it did."

"You did?" I'm surprised. "And I'm guessing you're not going to tell me?"

"If I'd told anyone at Protectorate about my theory, it would be Classified to the point even I wouldn't know about it, however..." She quickly scans over the parking lot. "Are you sure you weren't talking to anyone before I came in?"

"Told you, I was on the phone," I answer. "Come on, Hannah, you're being especially paranoid today. What's got you spooked?"

"It's..." More nervous glancing around. Please hold that invisibility shield, Aisha. Just a bit longer... "The Newfoundland Coil is sending out a status signal again."

What? But that's impossible. The thing stopped broadcasting the minute the dimensional collapse had completed and Newfoundland became an interdimensional energy dead zone...So how could it...? No, it really wasn't possible at all.... but then again, Coils.

"That shouldn't possible," I state my reaction as efficiently as possible.

"I think the explosion we saw here jump-started the Coil," she says, "and not just that, I think it shoved the Coil out of our dimension entirely."

"What makes you say that?" I ask.

"The signal is almost identical to the Newfoundland Coil, except it's buried under the same corruption garbage that we get from Aleph transmissions," Hannah explains. "We started receiving the signal almost immediately after the explosion, but nobody was able to trace where it was coming from until this morning. When I left about an hour ago, the techs were still trying to narrow down a specific dimension."

"While I won't deny the possibility of the Coil activating again," I allow, "it's entirely possible that the interference you're reading is just from the Dimensional Collapse around the Coil itself. Because if the Coil gets loose, then..." I don't want to say it.

"Then it's possible Leviathan might get loose as well."

Damn it. I really didn't want to voice that possibility.

"Why are you telling me this?" I ask her.

"Because..." She sighs. "Because I can't trust anyone inside the system right now."

Well that's a far cry from what you said after Newfoundland.

"You don't think I know that!?" She snaps at me. (Had I said that out loud? Evidently so.) "I know what a hypocrite I sound like right now and as much as it pains me to admit it, you were right.... You were both right."

"Both?" I ask.

"...That's not important." She shakes her head. Whatever is nagging at her is clearly something she's not going to dive into right now. "What is important is that... I have no idea how Protectorate Energy is going to react once they figure out where that Coil wound up. I wanted your opinion on what you think they're going to do."

"If it's fallen into Dimension W," I say after a few moment of consideration, "then it's almost likely that it won't be worth a retrieval attempt. If it's still here on Earth Bet, or if it's landed on another Earth entirely..." I shake my head. "They're going to send people to recover it."

The Coil that killed Leviathan and Scion. Of course they'd want it, especially if that weird double ring Coil from Dragon's father really had any part in reactivating it.

We stand there in silence for what feels like an eternity before Hannah speaks again. "I should get going. I don't know how long it's going to take the technicians to narrow down the interference to a specific Dimension. They might have even found it already, who knows."

And with that, she's left.

A few moments later, the invisibility bubble around the trailer pops and Aisha lets out an exasperated sigh of relief. "Oooohh God, I am never doing that many people at once again," She laments while sitting down on her knees.

"Um, Mister Wallis?" Dinah begins as she and Dragon walk over towards me. "What was that all about?"

Dragon just gives me a look that says she's thinking the same thing, except more. She doesn't dare voice her thoughts around the kids. I give her a look that says, 'later.' She nods. Even so, I have a suspicion as to what she's thinking. Was her father aware of this 'side effect' of the explosion when he set it off?

"What was that about? That, Dinah, would be the past rising up to bite us in the future," I answer. "Just what we needed. That Coil powering on again..." I look over to Theo, who is helping Missy pull Aisha back to her feet, despite Aisha's protests about wanting to 'sit right there for the rest of time.' Theo had mentioned that his father had been at Newfoundland when he died... I wonder who it was? Would he have made it if there had just been a few extra seconds of time?

And just like that, I can't help but think backwards into the past.

--

A.N.: It was around this point that I began wishing I'd waited to see all of Dimension W before starting to write this story. XD

 

[CalumTraveler]

Meanwhile, in the past...

Resisting Resonance: 5.2

--

FEBRUARY, 2008. BROCKTON BAY.

--

In the early hours of the morning, my cellphone rang with a ringtone I knew I'd never set for it. It was an accordion remix of some Aleph pop song. There was only one person I could think of who would do such a thing on today of all days.

Half asleep, I answered the phone. "M.P."

-"Happy Birthday, Armsy!"- Mouse Protector said with too much energy for this early in the morning. -"How do you like your new ring tone?"-

"How did you do it this time?" I ask.

-"I asked that new guy on your team to do it for me,"- she admits. -"What was his name? Asphalt?"-

"Assault," I correct with a groan. Of course she'd rope in that guy into one of her pranks. "And to answer your question, accordion isn't really something I like. While the melody isn't too bad, I don't think it's something I'll be able to keep long term."

-"Aw, swing and a miss...!"- Mouse Protector snapped her fingers, as the sound traveled through the speaker. -"So! Anyways! I'm sorry I couldn't give you your gift in person today, so I'm going to send you-"- That was the moment when the accursed Endbringer sirens sounded in stereo between our two different locations. -"Nevermind. Actually. I think I might be able to give it to you in person then. Tootles!"- and thus, she hung up before I could get a word in edgewise.

--

NEWFOUNDLAND AIRSPACE- HERO'S TINKER TECH AIRSHIP; ABOVE COIL PROTOTYPE TOWER 00.

--

While we waited on Strider to teleport in other capes from around the world, Mouse Protector jumped over to me with a small wrapped present in hand. "Here ya go, Armsy! Happy Birthday!"

I put down my halberd, and removed enough of the brightly colored wrapping to see inside the box. It was a set of metal skewers, typically used in grilling. "...I don't have a grill," I aim a slightly annoyed glance at her.

"Who says you won't?" She just grins back at me while wriggling her eyebrows up and down.

"You got me a grill?" I ask. "What am I supposed to do with that?"

"I'm not sayin'!" Mouse Protector just laughs. "It'll ruin the surprise!" A moment later, she starts looking around the room. "Speaking of surprises, where's Ol' Militia hanging around at? I wanted to give her a surprise hug!"

"She was at the last one," I say, "Simurgh. She was told to sit this one out just in case."

"Ah," Mouse Protector nods. "Too bad, I was hoping to see her around today."

"Yeah," I shake my head. "Really, Leviathan? On my Birthday no less?"

"That's just life, Armsy," she says, smiling. "Anyways, let's wrap this fight up quickly and get back in time to have a barbecue! Oooh! Maybe I could get Strider to pick up the old team and we could make it a huge party!!"

"You're insane, you know that, right?" I jokingly ask.

"You know you love me!" She just continues to smile.

That was when the last of the foreign capes were teleported in, and now Legend stepped forwards to give his speech.

I put the box of skewers into an empty pocket in my armor, then picked up my halberd again.

--

Despite Scion showing up early, Leviathan wasn't backing down. Yes, that was exactly what was going on and I could barely believe it myself. Despite the First and Most Powerful Cape's appearance, Leviathan was steadfastly determined to destroy what would be the first Tower of the Coil World System. If this was destroyed, then there would be no chance for Earth Bet to fight its way out of the destruction the Endbringers sought to bring upon us all.

Leviathan was willing to take the risk of being destroyed to get rid of the Tower.

Capes of all walks of life- from heroes like Alexandria to villains like Kaiser- were protecting the tower from Leviathan's destructive rampage. Many good people were dying today, and it was a fair chance that many more people would die before it was all over.

That was when a woman in a lab coat came running out of the tower, carrying a large device with a Numbered Coil inside its center.

The numbers read 666.

It's the tiny details that stick out to you when you realize that the end of everything you knew was upon you.

Alexandria and Eidolon lead a mighty charge up towards Scion and Leviathan, leading the way for this one scientist to power up the Coil device and then...

"SCION!" She screamed. "LOOK AT ME YOU BASTARD!" she roared- "I KILLED YOUR MATE!"

Scion paused in his tussle with Leviathan to look down at the scientist- and for a moment, pure rage took over the golden man's face.

"AND NOW!" the woman yelled. "I WILL KILL YOU!"

And then Eidolon used a telekentic power to throw the woman and the device straight at Scion. The First Cape went to do something, only to have Leviathan take an attack of opportunity and caught the Golden Man Scion in his hands- clamping down over him like a bear trap.

I wasn't sure what was more surprising, that Leviathan was seemingly in on this suicide attack, or the fact that Scion seemed to be just as surprised by this turn of events.

The Coil device flashed red with an angry, pulsing light and a loud, hissing whine.

The Dimensional Wall exploded, reality begun to collapse inwards like a waterfall of cascading glass, and then... The next thing I saw was Mouse Protector, jumping into view and lightly smiling as she tagged me with her powers--

Then, I was suddenly back on the airship overlooking the battle.... And I Saw. I saw Newfoundland began to sink into a void- a massive black hole caused by two dimensions merging into the same spot. Spikes of dimensional energy would shoot upwards before solidifying into hardened rock.

But the worst part was that I could Hear The Screams of the damned could be heard despite the distance- sounding as if they were right next to me.

A few more capes were appearing behind me the entire time with the same Jumping effect that came with Mouse Protector's powers- then, they abruptly stopped. A young female cape, possibly no older than sixteen, was the last to appear, falling to her knees and crying. "She... she saved me... And then she... she..."

The 'Who' needed no explanation. The 'What' was obvious.

Mouse Protector had died saving as many Capes as she could.

I never saw Alexandria or Eidolon on the airship, and yet... they would be counted among the few survivors of what would be called Leviathan's demise.

--

SEVERAL DAYS LATER...

Andrew Richter was interviewing the survivors to see what they knew of the Coil. Apparently, I was the only one who saw the number on the Coil.

"Wait- You're sure it was the Number '666'?" Andrew Richter asked of me, frowning. "I don't know how that girl got hold of that Coil, or how she knew it even existed." then, in a lower tone of voice, he muttered, "That explains who took it, at least... but why would they do this?"

I had no idea what to say to that for the rest of the interview, but afterwards, I'd been asked to join a private meeting with Chief Director Brown herself.

If I continued working for the Protectorate- or Protectorate Energy as it would soon become- I was told I could never tell anyone what I'd seen, in exactly those words, or else I'd wish I'd died with everyone else.

My choice was made easy, then.

--

MARCH, 2008. BROCKTON BAY.

I was leaving, thus I had no problems telling Hannah what I'd been told, and what I had seen. There wasn't anything worse they could do to me that they hadn't done already.

"You can't seriously be quitting because of a conspiracy theory!" Hannah cried out in surprise at my explanation. "There's No Way that they would be targeting Scion with such a massive weapon!"

"I saw it with my own eyes, Hannah," I said as I finished packing the last of my tinker gear away into a box. "I can't be a part of an organization that would willingly sacrifice so many like that." I looked her in the eyes. "They used a Coil as a weapon... not against Leviathan, but against Scion. A HERO. A fellow Cape! And they survived a Ground Zero blast that they shouldn't have survived. I don't know how they did it and I don't care to know."

"Then why didn't you tell Chief Director Brown?!" Hannah asked, sounding hysterical. "If Alexandria and Eidolon did that then they sho-"

"I *DID* Tell her!" I nearly exploded at her. "I had a meeting with her personally and she told me that my choices were either leave now, or stay on, and if I stayed on, I would have to sign a massive non disclosure agreement."

"Why would they make you sign an NDA if you stayed on?" She asked me.

"Then you haven't heard?" I asked in return.

"Heard what?" She asked in return to that return, and damn if that wasn't a confusing sentence.

"The Protectorate is being restructured into a Privately Company," I answered. "The dust is barely settling on Newfoundland and they're... they're going to be making money off of it. They're using that disaster to turn themselves into something else entirely." I look her in the eyes. "It's not about 'oversight' of Parahumans anymore. The Chief Director made it pretty clear they don't give a crap about that if they're willing to do what they did." I say to her, "Even if Scion wasn't their intended target, they were still willing to kill Scion. If I stayed on and told anyone in this 'new' organization about what I knew, I'd be next." I start moving boxes onto the trolley. "That's why I'm leaving. The new contracts haven't rolled out yet and for the moment, you're still free to leave. I'd suggest you do it."

For a moment, she's stunned into silence. Then, a moment later, she starts berating me for my 'conspiracy theory' as I finish packing.

"You're Delusional!" She yells at me. "All of this is just... You're so distraught by Mouse's death that you don't have any idea of what's really happening! The Protectorate is a Government Agency! Why the hell would we turn into a private company all of a sudden!? It's not possible and never would happen in a million years!! If there really is a restructuring going on, then why don't you trust the system to change for the better?"

"And why do you believe with such blind faith in the people who flat out threatened my life?" I ask her, stopping for just a moment to turn to look her in the eyes once more. "Is that really what you think? That I'm making it all up? That I don't trust the system that I just saw kill people in cold blood? That threatened me with my life or my job?" The expression on her face is no longer Hannah, instead, it's all Miss Militia. It's a mask without a physical mask. She's closed herself off, and I don't know why. "You're the one who's delusional if you're that blind to the truth around you." I shake my head and leave with some parting words, "Tell me when you've finally seen the light, Militia."

--

A.N. It's hard writing someone being so stubborn. It's hard and my natural inclination is to make someone pay attention when presented with such damning evidence.... I could play the Simurgh card, though. Buuut that's kind of overused. SHRUGS.

 

[CalumTraveler]

Last post for the night.


Resisting Resonance: 5.3.I

--

The report came onto Thomas Calvert's desk that evening.

"Newfoundland's Coil, active once again?" He frowned as he read over the report- and once he finished, he double checked who it was carbon copied to. A scowl formed upon his face as he saw "Chief Director R. Brown" listed at the top.

What would her reaction to this even be, he wondered. Would she try to sweep it under the rug once more? Pretend that Newfoundland's Coil was someoneelses problem? No, that wouldn't work this time. Not at all. And that had to do with where the Coil's signal was coming from.

Earth Aleph.

The Newfoundland Coil had been banished from Earth Bet to Earth Aleph, and that meant trouble. Not just politically speaking, of course, but also dimensionally.

Newfoundland, following the collapse, had become what was known as a Void Zone. The hole torn into Dimension W had become so large that it had essentially reversed the energy flow connection. Instead of a limitless supply of energy flowing from Dimension W into Earth Bet, instead a limited supply of energy was being funneled into Dimension W.

Thankfully, the energy drain only occurred within the Void Zone and hadn't expanded past those obvious borders, but anything that wandered inside of it would have its energy drained almost instantly.

It made the idea of retrieving the Numbered Coil from that time impossible, but now that it had been shunted into Earth Aleph... the chances of such an incident happening again were vastly increased, and if that happened again on Aleph... there was no telling what could possibly happen on the Dimensional Scale.

...Then, there was the Political side of things. Tensions between Bet and Aleph had been growing higher on the Aleph side of things for the last few weeks, seemingly for no real reason. Well, Thomas Calvert had his theories.

The Villain from Paris, Hawkmoth, was surely to blame. He had made his opening move by Akumatizing an Earth Bet Cape, making his claim that neither world was safe from his grasp. He had yet to make such a similarly large move, but if this man got his hands on the Newfoundland Coil?

Politically, there was only one real certain outcome.

War.

If Bet sent collectors to retrieve the Coil, it would be seen as a breach of the treaty. If Bet hired Aleph Capes to do the job, there would be no telling if the job would ever actually be done... If Bet remained silent and Aleph simply found the Coil on its own...? It could be seen as an act of war- sending such a destructive Coil into another world.

If a war broke out between the two Earths... Thomas Calvert shuddered at the thought, but he had a plan to abort this disaster's launch sequence.

Knowing what he did now, Thomas Calvert sent an innocuous email to a random contact. This email was a coded message only the person on the other side could decipher. It was a place and a time. Calvert left his office later that evening, and made his way to that location, thinking over the plan once more.

There was one Cape in all of Earth Bet that Calvert knew could cross his people between worlds. That man was the one who held a strangle hold on Amber Beach Bay since it had first been Brockton Bay.

It should go without surprise that this man and his people were Fury and his Sledge Hammers.

The meeting place was an old warehouse on the docks- a place Calvert knew was hidden from Cauldron's view. He'd tested it personally. It also went without surprise that Fury had beat Calvert there.

"And so, the Prodigal Coil calls in yet another favor," Fury's tone indicated a grin, despite his lion face mask. "I wonder what you want this time, snake?"

Calvert frowned. His few dealings with Fury had always been tense, following Paris, and almost all of them involved the Illegal Coils to some degree.

This time would be different.

"You're a villain, Fury," Calvert began. "I think it should go without saying that I want you to do something illegal."

"Highly so if you're willing to risk associating with me so soon after we all watched Lung make a fool of himself," Fury chuckled. "But we're not here to talk about that dragon, now are we?"

"No, we're not." Calvert shook his head. "You remember Newfoundland, yes?"

"Hard not to," Fury scoffed. "One of the few fights I skipped before the Rangers showed up. Glad I did, though. It always pays to have Good Intelligence backing up your gut feelings."

"You'll have to introduce me to your source of 'Good Intel', one of these days," Calvert mused.

"Maybe. So, what about Newfoundland?" Fury asked. "You don't want me going to that dead zone, do you?"

"No, something far worse has happened." Calvert explains. "The Coil has reactivated, and it's fallen through the wall to land somewhere unknown on Earth Aleph."

"Ahh, so that kind of illegal," Fury nodded. "I see what you want, then." A feral grin came through in his voice, "I'll collect your Illegal Coil, and make it seem like I've personally done all the dirty work of breaking interdimensional laws. I'm just a villain, after all. Right? No way any retaliation will fall upon Earth Bet because of one of its villains, right?"

"Collecting? Yes and no," Calvert smirks. "I want you to collect it, yes, but then I want you to destroy it."

"Best to keep it out of everyone's hands, I assume?" Fury scoffed. "You act as if you expect me to actually do this the way you want. What's stopping me from marking up an Illegal Coil to look like the Numbers and giving you that instead?"

"Nothing," Calvert put his hands out to the side. "I don't even want the corpse to prove it's gone. I just want the damned thing GONE."

"Why?" Fury asked. "Seems to me something like that would fetch an awfully high price."

"You're welcome to do whatever you want with it once you have it- just so long as you FIRST make sure it never functions again."

"You're awfully persistent about that," Fury's eyes likely narrowed beneath the mask. "Why do you want it destroyed so badly?"

"...Consider it a way to prevent a war," Calvert answered. "Because war is the only thing we'll have if that Coil remains active and intact."

"You're really serious about this," Fury mused. "What, you don't trust your own people to retrieve it?"

"Not without starting the war I want to prevent," Calvert shookj his head. "I wouldn't even trust myself to collect it personally. This... this has the potential to be very bad for everyone everywhere. It reeks of a power play and I don't want whoever is playing us to get what they want."

"And what if my destroying it is exactly what they want?"

Calvert considered that question for a moment, then he says, "Ask that question to your source of "Good Intel.'"

--

Fury does such, despite knowing she will never give him a straight answer.

"You think I could predict something like that?" Twinstreams asks. "I need more info than just 'what is the chessmaster's plans', Fury." She glares at him through her mask. "We're lucky we avoided Newfoundland. To think you could get it to happen again just by asking is foolish!"

Fury comes to a decision, "Then maybe it's time we took a page from Lung's playbook and played the fools?"

--

And speaking of Lung...

Lung breathed laboriously as he hid in the basement of one of his hideaways. His left arm was gone, and his regeneration refused to regrow it with his very meager levels of will power. He would need to face some threat- any kind of threat- just to get his arm regrown...

Countless days had passed and yet he could not do it. His monolith of a gang- the Azn Bay Merchants- had been torn to shreds following that disaster. Bakuda was in custody, as were a decent chunk of his Cape roster. The rest? Hah. The rest had been scooped up by Fury and integrated into his 'Sledge Hammers.'

It made Lung's blood boil, and yet he could not work up the willpower to regrow his arm.

Lung was beginning to suspect something was wrong with him.

"There is."

And that was when the hallucination made their appearance.

It was a girl, brown hair, brown eyes, teenaged, if he had to guess, but wearing a skin tight black leather suit. A Cape? But no, she was no Cape. She did not physically exist, he'd checked.

For countless days now, every time he started to try and gather up the strength to regrow his arm... he started seeing her.

The first time, he'd tried running her through with his remaining arm. She'd simply taken it like the illusion she was and emerged unscathed. Day, Night, and the very concept of Time held no meaning when this girl was around. Which was almost constantly. It also wasn't enough to get him enough internal willpower to ramp up and heal.

Because she wasn't real.

"Go Away," He growled at her in Japanese.

"No," she replied in Chinese.

"Go Away, Demon, leave me alone and never return." Korean this time.

"That will not happen, Kenta," still in Chinese. And damn if that wasn't the worst part about hallucinations. They said things they shouldn't know.

"Go. Away. Leave. Me. Be." Lung- Kenta- who he was truly did not matter when facing this girl because she was not real and thus his reactions should also not matter.

And yet....

He'd ignored her once- and she'd made him suffer with the pain of a thousand suns and moons crashing into him from all angles like a thousand pins and needles digging into his skin.

He still could not ramp up.

"That is because you are dying. You would be dead already not for my intervention." She said it as a sharp pain began to drag itself across his back.

"YOU ARE NOT REAL." He didn't care what language he yelled- it very well could have been every language he knew at once and it still would not matter.

Because she continued to speak in Chinese and tormented him with the mockery of his mother's voice that was this hallucination's way of speaking.

"Ssssh. Any louder, Kenta, and you'll wake the neighbors," The girl said, smiling cryptically.

Lung's stomach growled at him, and he decided that enough was enough. Illusion of the Mind or not... Lung would beat this Girl and he would retake his throne as the head of the Mer-... ch....an....t.........

*FWUMP.*

Lung collapsed to the ground with a massive slashing claw mark freshly bleeding across his back. A moment later the girl's pet made itself visible to the naked eye, it's right hand still sticking in Lung's spine. It was the same animal as it had been in the ancient past, except now it was bigger. Almost the same height as the girl, where as before it could fit in her arms.

"Good girl, Mira," the girl in black said as she reformed her helmet. "Do make sure not to waste any of that delicious Corona in the brain. It would be a shame if Kenta's powers were lost and not able to be added to our own because you were being a sloppy eater again." She then petted the muzzle of the white scaled dinosaur like it was a horse.

It's crimson eyes held no offense, however, and instead gleamed with anticipation of the next meal.

It goes without saying that the neighbors did not hear a thing the entire night. After all, this entire block was firmly lodged in an abandoned part of town.

There were no neighbors to hear anything at all.

--

A.N.: Wow, did that get dark rather quickly. Yeah. Lung is dead. Calvert is gonna Calvert even without timeline powers. Annnd Fury has gotten a job offer. What happens next? Who knows!