The wide pool of bubbling, boiling water still sits there. So does the little lump of dry land in the middle. And so does the little blonde girl who was there last time. She looks up at the sound of the door, and her bright blue eyes widen. "You… You came back?"
"I guess I did," you tell her, feeling bad for your slightly dismissive tone when you see how bright and hopeful her watery smile has become. "You never told me your name."
"Cassiel. If that's okay." She looks down and whispers, "My parents didn't think I deserved a name."
Her parents? Stepping closer, you take a better look at her chains. Thick steel links come out from deeper in the pool than you can make out through the bubbles, but they end in heavy manacles that are clapped onto her wrists. A little bit of red is visible where they rest, her pale skin beneath them undoubtedly rubbed raw. More chains wrap around her forearms to bind them together. You doubt being stuck that position is anything but torturous. "Are they the ones who put you here?"
If this is the case, I am going to rub my calling that the Simurgh would subvert PS's protection in everyone's face, while giving fair credit, so goddamn hard.
As for the merits of the argument itself... the only issue is the rebelling=punishment angle. In canon, Simurgh had varying levels of control over the other Endbringers, having near-total control during Golden Morning and Eidolon's death. I do not think there's any system for 'punishing' rebellious Endbringers beyond the now-dead Eden and Zion. Assuming this is indeed the Simurgh, that detail's probably more a reference to her own programming shackles of the cycle and Eidolon's 'worthy adversary', or a sympathy play. Simurgh may not be able to see Taylor's future actions, but she can look at Taylor's past and others' perception of Taylor to form an up-to-date model of her personality.
To add on to the principle of 'this is the Smurgh connecting to us',
she can do low-level psychic scans of the planet, and even
prevent her brute-force psychic attacks from being detected all together. The song is just to make people scared. Put together the modeling, the low-intensity scans, and the ability to hide what she's even doing, and there is a valid possibility that this is the Simurgh finding the weakness in PS's protection and exploiting it.
That said, PS obviously was able to detect any changes in Taylor's mind and sever even the low-level connection, so I would guess this is a more... human form of manipulation. No Rube-Goldberg mindfuckery, just talking to and socially manipulating Taylor like a normal person could.
See the quote from Maskless 6.8 I made? Bubbling boiling pool of water, from depths of which the chains rise to bind Cassiel?
The imagery of a large boiling water pool? It's reminiscent of
cauldron, the witches' brew. Yeah, sorry for being dramatic. But the point stands. With the chains rising up from the pool as well, it's another decent
circumstantial evidence/red herring (underline the option you choose) indicating this is indeed Simurgh, bound by chains emerging from Cauldron.
"If Typhon can throw away monsters just to set off an alarm, he has more than we thought he did! This is too big a job for just the three of us!"
... oh shit. Noelle might not have herself as a production bottleneck.
And speaking of Typhon. So far we've been guessing it's Echidna slipping her leash and nomming her friends.
BUT! The fact the Beasts are so uniform once presented, that they have clear breeds as opposed to randomization of Echidna clones... Made me think. And reminded me of
Seed, the Blasto!Taylor AU fic.
Canonically, the Travelers were driven to Brockton Bay from the Boston, both to escape the enraged Accord, and to seek cure for Noelle's condition. But, let's assume things happened differently back then. They found... a different option, with a different Boston native. Blasto is a biotinker of some renown. He makes monsters, made-to-order pegasi (or is that fanon?), and has a pre-approved killing order in case he creates anything self-replicating. That last indicates that such an event, is a
distinct possibility. He is, for Travelers, a possible source of assistance. Adding Noelle to the mix, we get:
Typhon is Echidna clone of Blasto. He cares little for anyone other than Noelle, he's a decent enough source of hope, and he's more than capable enough to make the Beasts with oh-so-Traveler-like powers, and in significant numbers.
What else did I forget? Right. Two things. Vote. And a question.
@Silently Watches can you please tell me: Is there an equivalent of a "mincemeat/blade shield" spell that serves as an active destructive short-range defense, like several blades circling the mage and cutting down anyone who approaches to closely? Something like sharpened helicopter blades moving in three mutually orthogonal orbits, or
the old atom/nuclear science imagery...
Right. The Vote.
[X] Learn: Charge Cartridge
[X] Plan: Sorry About That!
