How to Beat Fried Worms
Disclaimer: Worm is owned by Wildbow because nobody was willing to abuse themselves with it.
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Chapter 99: Hope
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Covered by the aura of Accelerate, Alec moved. Magic coursed through his armor, through the body he currently inhabited and, for the first time in the last month and a half, he felt free.
High in the sky, the Simurgh slowly descended.
Honestly? Alec had only really given it fifty-fifty odds of her continuing her assault on Canberra. She was often considered to be the least predictable of the current set of Endbringers. Alec knew, however, that she was both the most and least adaptable of them all.
When she was in between attacks, the Simurgh was actually acquiring targeting data. She was screaming, silently, to view both the past and future of her intended victims. But, during her hibernation phases, her scream was 'infrasonic' and far less effective. It took her a considerable amount of time, often dozens of passes above any given target, to gain enough intelligence to act.
That was the part that made her comparatively static to her brothers.
On the ground, however? Where she was screaming her damn head off like a whole herd of goats?
She would swiftly learn the past and future in excruciating, exacting detail. Which was something Alec was directly impervious to. He wouldn't bet on the Ziz being unable to find a way around that, however.
Probably some kind of contrived bullshit about seeing every possible future she could take, then performing the one action she didn't.
The false angel was getting closer and closer to her touchdown point and Alec was about halfway to meeting her when he dropped into a partial crouch and Jumped, shattering the pavement underneath of his boots.
A yellow field of force appeared beneath Alec's feet as he started to descend and he Jumped off of it as well, launching himself higher and higher into the air as the wall he'd summoned shattered from the recoil of his Jump.
Three more such leaps saw Alec above the Simurgh.
Now, it was time for the show to start.
Earth Bet didn't need to see an Endbringer die.
Earth Bet needed to see an Endbringer beaten.
The Simurgh's face didn't change in the slightest as Alec's sword pierced through her naked breast, as his greater size slammed into her to little effect. Why would she care when virtually all of her flesh was unnecessary? When she felt no pain and couldn't even see what had happened?
She didn't know Alec was even there. She didn't know she was being attacked, didn't know she was supposed to be playing along.
Anchoring himself to the winged horror, Alec reared back his left arm, the ruby in the bracer glowing dully, and slammed a fist into her face, aimed straight down, as the local dimension was isolated.
The Ziz flew off of Alec's sword with such speed that her very passing left a sonic boom. She hit the ground hard enough to crater it!
And Alec fell after her. Slower, especially with the spells cooked into his armor, and it gave him more than enough time to see the Endbringer's reaction.
It started slowly. The debris field around the Simurgh... wobbled. The broken chunks of concrete and cement jumped and danced for a moment before lifting into the air. Some started flying to the left, some went up, some went right. It wasn't just a whirling death spiral that went in one direction.
Alec landed with a muffled 'Thud!' as he realized that Wildbow must have based the Simurgh's debris field on the Rasengan from Naruto. He ignored the quiet *Pings!* and *Dings!* as the chunks of rock bounced off of him.
What held his attention was the Scream. There was no build up. The Ziz started at full force, her voice ripping through the air at a pitch and volume that was painful, even without him having ears.
With a gust of wind and a flap of her accessory wings, the Simurgh returned to the air.
And, with a mighty Jump, Alec followed her.
The debris made it difficult to accurately get after the false angel. Intentionally or not, it attempted to knock him off course.
It didn't matter. Alec's flight may have been among the weakest spells in his suit, moving him at a whopping 3.3 meters per second, but it was still more than enough when combined with Focus to correct his course.
"Blasters!" Alexandria shouted from the side. "Prepare volley!"
Alec's blade smoked, gray wisps surrounding it as Decimate and Pierce took effect. The Simurgh was turning towards Alexandria when Alec reached her and slashed down!
One of the Simurgh's arms dropped from her body, along with roughly a third of her wings as well as the tips of most of the rest.
The false angel froze, for a second. Her expression never changed but the minor twitches of her blank eyes spoke volumes.
She'd figured out that whatever had happened to her before, it wasn't a fluke. The most arrogant of the Endbringers realized that something else was going on. That whatever she couldn't account for, couldn't see...
That Alec was still on top of her.
The Simurgh juked back and up, dodging as a swarm of lasers, bolts, blasts and more tore into the spot she'd previously occupied. That Alec still occupied.
When the smoke cleared, Alec was unharmed. The Simurgh was, likewise, unphased by the barrage of light and fire.
But the wounds he'd inflicted on her, the stump of her arm and her clipped wings, they'd turned black.
And the wounds were spreading. Leeching into the false body, centimeter after centimeter.
"Pathetic," Alec declared as he watched the storm intensify. The Simurgh was ripping windows free from buildings and dozens of vehicles, parked haphazardly around the streets where they'd been abandoned, were being disassembled. Some of the parts were added to the debris field whilst others were twisting and warping, joining together under the Simurgh's direction.
The mage dropped his sword, the blade fading away before it hit the ground, and a pitch-black knife appeared in his hands. With a twist of his wrist, it expanded out and formed a staff of inviolate steel, topped with a simple orb.
"Raise your face to the skies, Sinner, and the heavens may be merciful!" Alchemist intoned as he raised the staff up high. "For I will not- Holy!"
Light erupted from the ground, swallowing the Simurgh whole. The pure-white power under Alec's command rose to the sky, dozens upon dozens of kilometers high. He held the spell, his gaze locked on the withering shadow of the Simurgh, barely visible through the intensity of the spell's glare.
After nearly thirty seconds, the storm surrounding the false angel petered out and Alec released his grip on the spell.
The Simurgh, or at least the remaining chunk of her, dropped to the ground with a heavy, meaty thud. Alec began to approach, purpose in his steps.
"Brutes!" Alexandria shouted. "Charge!"
Alec tapped his staff against the ground and the ruby in his right gauntlet glowed, forming a barrier around himself and the Simurgh-
The mage barely turned his head to the side when he heard a deep, resounding *Gong!* and saw Alexandria sliding down the crimson forcefield. With a subtle shake of his head, the man simply continued his approach.
The Simurgh's eyes were empty and its body was still falling apart, [Decimation] continued to work its ruin on her body. All that remained of the entity was a single wing, its breasts, neck and head. For all intents and purposes, one could mistake her for being dead.
"What are you doing?!" a new voice demanded. Looking up, Alec saw a familiar man in a brown cloak shouting at him.
Rather than waste his time answering, Alec slipped his staff to his left hand, drew his right hand back, used Pierce upon it and thrust-
Through the Simurgh's chest and into the wing joint of her one remaining appendage. He drew his hand back, a sphere held tight in his grip.
The object jerked in his hands, the true form of the Simurgh finally, finally exposed to the light.
"I said I would finish this," Alchemist stated as his staff disappeared and he pressed the index finger of his left hand against the sphere. It jerked away, trying to escape, but Alec's grip was unyielding.
Charge, Alec cast, his gaze unwavering on the sphere. Regenerate followed, twisted with the Entanglement effect, untargeted and unlimited. The spell spread through the Simurgh, into the Shard fueling her, through that Shard and into the rest of the network-
And into every Parahuman touched, by design or accident, with Eden's power.
The Simurgh's core froze in its struggles, likely confused by the new energy.
Alec was not done, however. Pulling his left hand away, he extracted a diamond from his inventory, a pink fancy that he'd ripped from the stomach of a hard-light foe inside of one of the rubies. Charged and Entangled, it was used to cast Wish, used to cast Heart's Ease.
Dozens of nearby capes froze. Some stopped what they were doing, stopped pounding on the walls Alec had erected.
"...What?" Alexandria whispered as she pulled off her visor, as her false eye was rejected from her body. "What have I done?"
Alec didn't have an answer for her. He was still focused on the orb in his hands.
If he had eyes, he would close them. If he had lungs, he would breathe deeply just so he could sigh.
He almost wished he had mastered the spell that would let him rip out a soul. He would have been tempted to trap the Simurgh and use her to ensorcel a Magic 8-Ball.
It would have been... fitting.
Instead he just lifted his left hand into the air and snapped his fingers, casting Toad on the orb in his hand. And, through it, casting Toad on the rest of the Shards that made up Eden.
Alec looked at the toad now sitting in his hands, considering the abomination as he let the forcefield fade away. His shoulders drooped as he shook his head and cast [Break] on the toad, stowing it away in his inventory.
Instead, Alec looked up. He saw dozens of capes suffering severe seizures, Alexandria and Eidolon among them. Their powers were gone. Their Shards were gone.
He didn't see Legend but that didn't mean the Blaster wasn't nearby, suffering the same as his friends.
But Alec did see as the world turned gold, as an interloper appeared in the air, high above the battlefield.
Zion had arrived.
The golden man surveyed the battlefield. The nearly-nude alien slowly scanned the various capes, taking in more than Alec could properly comprehend.
Finally, Zion locked his eyes on to Alec. The entity examined him for several long, long seconds before tilting his head. Finally, however, he said one word.
[KIN?]
And the Capes that weren't seizing violently dropped to the ground, blood leaking from their eyes and ears in violent rivers.
If he'd had lips, Alec would have pursed them in thought. As he didn't, he needed to do something else.
"Ting!"
Solution.
Zion observed him still, hovering in the air, surrounded by an air of grief and pain. Finally, after several moments, the alien nodded his head.
[QUERY?]
Alec didn't grin. He couldn't. But glee did fill his heart.
Zion had just given him permission, after a fashion.
Reaching into the inventory, Alchemist extracted a small, slimy lump of gray matter.
Burnscar's Corona Pollentia.
Alec followed the same set of spells as he'd used on the Simurgh, at least at first. Charge and entangled Regenerate. Charge and entangled Wish used to cast Heart's Ease using a fancy yellow diamond this time.
Then he pulled out a white diamond, much larger than the others and perfectly cut, perfectly clear. He held it up in the air as Zion watched, fascinated.
"I Wish that you, and every distinct part of you," Alec intoned as the Vial capes he'd dropped began to recover. "Were plane-shifted straight to Hell!"
In the sky, Zion... disappeared.
Around the world, countless capes, many in hiding or watching the television or listening to the radio with nervous anxiety, suffered major seizures. Tinkertech, universally, failed. People died, though the number was limited to those who had hidden themselves in power-expanded spaces. Others were swiftly healed of whatever physical maladies they suffered under.
And, through it all, Alchemist laughed.
He laughed and laughed, his voice manic, until...
It stopped.
