Chapter 41: Gold Dusk
The
Ship of Fools came out into orbit while already cloaked, leaving no trace other than the unavoidable flare of the wormhole. This time, the ship was crewed solely by Family and close associates -- Saurial and Varga, Ianthe, Metis, Randall and Kevin. Using the Ancient-derived and Asgard-enhanced sensor suite, the ship began to scan for signs of dimensional breaches on the Earth below. Between the Nox and Ianthe's experimentation, they knew exactly how powered individuals would appear on the sensors.
"This is amazing," said Metis. "Assuming you know what to look for, you can find the location of pretty much every single parahuman on the planet." She brought up a map on the view screen. "Do you see this cluster in British Columbia? That's the Birdcage. You can also see clusters around New York City, Brockton Bay, and a few other cities."
"Look for unusually powerful connections," said Saurial. There was an implicit assumption that most human capes would have somewhat equivalent connections to their agents, regardless of how powerful the ability granted by the agent might be.
Metis adjusted the sensor readings to try and filter out the weaker signals. "I've got three strong dimensional breaches that correspond to the position of the Endbringers. This is a much more accurate way of tracking Behemoth than seismic readings, by the way. I've also got a very strong one over Eastern Europe -- somewhere near Prague."
"PHO has Scion in Prague rescuing people from an apartment complex fire," commented Randall, reading from a screen tied into the local Internet.
"That's him, then. Metis, can you figure out the location of the other side of that breach?" said Saurial.
Metis frowned. "I...yes, I think so. Make a sequence of jumps to the following coordinates." Metis sent a series of three different destinations to Saurial console. Saurial then took the ship through a series of wormhole jumps, stopping only long enough in each reality to take sensor readings. They paused in the third reality, and Metis said, "OK, that gave me the information I needed on variance. Try this one," she ordered, sending over another set of coordinates.
The ship jumped, still under cloak, to yet another dimension. The map on the screen changed. Instead of the hundreds of breach locations pinpointing parahumans all over the globe, there was instead a massive cluster of them covering a sizable chunk of South America.
"I'm not reading any humans at all on this Earth," commented Randall. "Not even in South America."
"That's because those aren't human capes. That's Scion in his true form," explained Metis.
Randall looked over at her. "Holy shit, really?"
"He's a big mother," said Saurial. "Are we sure there isn't anything else intelligent down there?"
"I'm not seeing any signs of habitation or development, apart from the absence of human life signs," replied Metis.
"All right, we've got a plan. I'm going to go talk to Kevin and Ianthe." Saurial left the bridge and went down to the cargo hold, near the teleporters.
"Did you find it?" asked Ianthe. She and Kevin were taking care of handling the teleportation console. It was a key part of the plan.
Saurial nodded. "Yep. I want you to send me down to these coordinates," she said, handing over a pad. "Send down the other packages at the other coordinates listed after I arrive."
Kevin looked askance at her. "Are you sure you're going to be all right with all of that firepower?"
Saurial grinned. "I'll be fine. Just make sure the spread is accurate."
Ianthe and Kevin shared a look, but began making preparations without arguing.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Zion's avatar on Earth Bet paused in mid-air, half-way to a brush fire in Zimbabwe. He redirected his attention to the version of Earth where his real body resided. Something had opened a wormhole into that reality close to Earth. He immediately began scanning local space, but there was nothing nearby. That was concerning. If it had been another one of his kind, then there were protocols that would have been followed -- different ones depending upon whether that entity was looking to trade or fight. Zion began to ready an attack, just as a precaution. It was possible the wormhole was created by humans, though nothing based on cape powers would access Zion's home base. That was a hard-coded precaution for all of the agents. It was theoretically possible that an alternate Earth had begun experimenting with wormhole technology. If that turned out to be the case, then Zion would have to take action to ensure that they didn't become a threat to him.
There were no ships or radio signals, however, detectable nearby. It was possible that the wormhole was either an accident or a test, in which case he would have to backtrack the point of origin. Zion made his avatar on Earth Bet continue to the fire while forming a second avatar to backtrack the wormhole.
He paused momentarily in shock when a being of great power appeared on the surface
right next to him...
* * * * *
Upon appearing, Varga and Taylor instantly reverted to full size. While Taylor was used to thinking of Varga's full size as massive, it was still small in comparison to the gigantic mass of the alien entity that was Scion. Varga's vision shifted into a specific frame useful for doing multidimensional work.
'Are those individual powers?' asked Taylor.
"Yes," replied Varga.
"I think we can confirm that Scion is the ultimate point of origin for the agents that convey powers to humans."
The entity in front of them, apart from being large, was also extraordinarily alien. It's brain tissue appeared to be distributed throughout its massive bulk, connected to various dense clusters of agents.
'Do you feel that? Those clusters over there are firing. They...feel like local space is being warped,' said Taylor.
Varga focused on those clusters. They reminded him of sensory organs.
"I believe Scion detected our arrival in this dimension, and is scanning space for the source of the wormhole."
'Nice to know that our cloak works against him,' commented Taylor.
'Both the ship and ourselves seem to be invisible.'
Do you see these three clusters of neural tissue? They seem to be grouped with important clusters of agents." Varga was pointing to clumps of tissue that seemed denser than elsewhere. They were directly linked to a variety of active agent groupings. One of them was the cluster being used to scan surrounding space.
"I suggest we target those elements first."
Taylor gave the mental equivalent of a nod.
'We've got three seconds before our first surprise, so let's make them count.'
* * * * *
Zion's shock at having a large, powerful entity appear right next to his physical body was overwhelmed by the sudden feeling of PAIN as a lance of energy tore through one of his primary nerve clusters. This was quickly followed by a second, but he was able to deflect the third strike. Quickly checking damage, he realized that his primary sensor cluster was torn into shreds, with some critical agents destroyed. Jumping dimensions without their abilities would be completely random, and possibly dangerous. To his mounting alarm, he also found that much of his precognitive cluster had been similarly shredded. He was handicapped before this fight even truly began, and that wasn't counting the secondary damage from the kilometers-long entry and exit wounds that had damaged other tissues.
Zion quickly teleported his forming avatar behind the threat, and pulled his avatar back from Earth Bet to help defend himself. Then he unleashed his own attack back at his attacker.
* * * * *
Varga sensed that two versions of Scion's human form were appearing behind him. Two thin spheres of EDM set to their normal weight immediately had the both of them plummeting down through the crust of the Earth. Varga then shifted through space to dodge an oncoming golden ray coming from the injured alien in front of him.
'Is it just me, or do Scion's attacks seem...slow?' asked Taylor. Varga was moving far faster than a human, despite his size, but they had expected a similar response from Scion.
"Indeed. I would suspect that he is accustomed to being able to use brute force to overcome most threats," agreed Varga. That level of overconfidence was a massive weakness to exploit.
At that moment, Scion used an area effect on them that doused the entire area in a massive electrical discharge accompanied by hard gamma radiation. While it would have undoubtedly been lethal to humans, including a lot of brute capes, Varga just shrugged it off. Varga used his Blast Voice to vaporize another large chunk of flesh and tissue, though Scion was able to just barely deflect it off of another large nerve cluster using a force-field creating power.
* * * * *
For the first time in a long time, Scion was starting to feel afraid. His force field had done almost nothing to stop those energy blasts. In desperation, he started creating hundreds of small copies of his humanoid avatar, each of which sent a
sting-empowered dart of depleted uranium straight at the reptilian creature assaulting him. His relief when the attacks struck was short-lived, as it appeared to do little more than scuff the creature's skin. It also didn't stop it from launching another beam of energy from its mouth in a burst that actually carved a square kilometer of flesh from Zion's body.
The entity decided that a random jump to another dimension was preferable to what would happen if it remained here, as it was losing, and losing badly. Of course, that was when the first quantum torpedo detonated.
* * * * *
The firestorm washed over Varga. Quantum torpedos were
not meant to be used within atmosphere, and the effect upon the local biome was easily an extinction level event. Scion managed to partially shield itself from some of the impact, but it was clear that these entities hid their primary forms for good reasons. They had a lot of powers upon which to call -- perhaps even one that could have eventually seriously injured Varga. They also had a truly massive bulk. By the standards of Varga's kind, however, they were not especially resilient.
It was somewhat impressive that Scion survived that attack while already injured. Unfortunately for Scion, the next five torpedoes dropping on a ballistic trajectory from low orbit were more than enough to finish him off, even if they hadn't effectively set the atmosphere of the planet on fire.
'That was...harder on the planet than I had hoped,' commented Taylor as the firestorm swirled around them, intermixed with the dust and ash that was all that was left of the Brazilian rain forests.
"Based on this battle, I believe that we can be more judicious with our application of force when we battle alternate Scions or other members of his species." It was better to be safe than sorry, but even Varga could tell that the torpedo barrage had been overkill, and would likely sterilize this entire Earth.
"With slightly better targeting, we could certainly destroy such a creature by ourselves without requiring a quantum antimatter bombardment."
Varga and Taylor continued to stare at the devastated landscape for a few moments before shrinking in size and teleporting back to the
Ship of Fools. There was still much to do.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Do
you have any idea what this is about?" asked Eidolon, looking at Alexandria.
Alexandria rolled her eyes. "As I said when I called you, Legend just said to get all of us together."
"Perhaps he has information on the disappearance of Scion?" suggested Number Man. The golden man had disappeared from sight yesterday afternoon and hadn't been seen since.
"It's more likely a continuation of the discussion of the Case 53's," suggested Doctor Mother. "Do you know anything, Contessa?"
The fifth and final senior leader of Cauldron simply pursed her lips and shook her head. She was having great difficulty with the Path to Victory. For some reason, she was no longer getting answers on how to minimize the impact of Scion's future rampage.
A doorway opened in the open portion of the conference room. Legend stepped out. "Hello, everybody," greeted the leader of the Protectorate.
Alexandria frowned for a moment. Something...was off. "Legend. What is this about?"
"I've got confirmation that Scion has been destroyed," replied Legend.
That was clearly not what any of the other members of Cauldron had been expecting. "You're joking?" asked Doctor Mother with a raised eyebrow.
Legend shook his head, his face grim. "I'm not. Scion and the Family fought a battle yesterday, and the Family won. They ended up scorching the surface of the alternate Earth where Scion's real body was located."
"How many people died?" asked Eidolon.
"The planet was uninhabited," said Legend. He had asked the same question when he was told, and was relieved at the response.
Alexandria pushed that worry about casualties aside in favor of other concerns. "How do you know about this, and that it's true?"
"The Family showed me recordings of the fight, and even took me to the Earth in question. I'm satisfied that what they've said is true," said the hero. He was also terribly impressed and slightly frightened by the capabilities of the Family. As soon as they had confirmed knowledge of the actual threat, they had acted in a swift and brutal fashion to eliminate it. Underestimating them and then earning their ire would be a serious mistake -- one he was determined to keep Cauldron from making.
There was a moment of quiet while each of them absorbed that. "What does that mean for us, now that Scion is dead?" asked Number Man, giving voice to everybody's thoughts.
"There are still the Endbringers to deal with," said Eidolon. It occurred to him that he might actually be the most powerful cape on the planet now that Scion was gone.
"Actually," said an unfamiliar voice, "the Endbringers are also no longer a problem."
Alexandria turned and saw the member of the Family known as Saurial standing in the room. She glanced at Legend with a frown, realizing now that the oddity she noticed before she was distracted by Legend's news was a delay in the closing of Legend's doorway. Obviously, the lizard woman had followed him through using some kind of stranger effect. Before she could say anything, Eidolon spoke.
"Did you defeat the Endbringers, as well?" Eidolon's voice was strange, as if he was afraid of the answer.
"No," said Saurial, shaking her head. "We just discovered who was controlling them."
"Scion?" asked Doctor Mother. She noticed as she spoke that Contessa appeared to be in a great deal of pain, and was resting her forehead on her hands on the conference table.
"Unfortunately, no. Ianthe?" asked Saurial.
Suddenly, there was another lizard standing next to Eidolon. Alexandria assumed all of the lizards were using the same stranger effect. She glanced at Contessa, wondering what they had done to debilitate the thinker, who was obviously in pain. The purple lizard said, "I've temporarily disabled his power."
Eidolon stood up from the table, a look of alarm on his face. That look turned into one of panic as he attempted to reach for his power, only to fail. "What have you done?" he asked Ianthe.
Ianthe looked at him as if she doubted his intelligence. "As I just said, I have
temporarily disabled your power."
"Give it back," said Alexandria, firmly, her temper starting to rise. Number Man and Doctor Mother both glanced at each other, both obviously concerned by what was happening, but willing to take a wait-and-see attitude. Both of them noticed that Legend was simply standing there, not interfering.
"Eidolon's power has a side effect. The Endbringers were designed as weapons to promote conflict on worlds they visited. When you gave Eidolon his power, you accidentally also gave him the ability to subconsciously control the Endbringers," explained Saurial.
"That's ridiculous!" exclaimed Eidolon.
Doctor Mother interrupted with her own question. "What do you mean when you say the Endbringers are weapons designed to promote conflict?"
A third voice began speaking from another part of the room. Heads turned to see the black lizard, Metis. "The two entities that came to this world did so specifically to distribute powers and allow humans to use them. Their goal was to have their users teach the powers new things and collect data. In order to facilitate that, the agents that grant powers also were programmed to promote conflict, and the Endbringers were present to provide scenarios that would push capes to their limit."
"If Eidolon has been controlling them subconsciously, then why have they been attacking?" asked Number Man.
"Ever since Eidolon received his powers, he has been trying to prove himself," explained Metis. She looked at the angry trump. "Your subconscious has been summoning them in an attempt to provide you with a worthy challenge."
Eidolon's mouth dropped open in shock. Finally, he said, "You can't be serious."
"David," said Legend. "You have been kind of obsessive in trying to prove you're the strongest of us."
Alexandria rose to her feet. "Legend, you cannot seriously tell me you believe this garbage? The Family are obviously trying to..." She continued to mouth words for a few seconds until she realized that she was no longer making any sound. She looked toward Saurial, furious.
"The adults are talking now, Rebecca," said Saurial.
Alexandria made a motion as if she were trying to rise into the air and come over the table at Saurial, only to fall flat onto her face in the middle of the table, nearly breaking the wood. She looked down, and saw that her feet were enclosed in a dull grey metal. She made several attempts to bend or lift the metal, to no effect.
"How do you know that?" asked Number Man of Metis, tacitly ignoring both Alexandria's attempts to free herself and Saurial's use of the cape's civilian name.
"The Simurgh has actually been alluding to it for some time on PHO. After we defeated Scion, we went and had a talk with her," said Metis in a tone that was far too measured for those revelations. It had been a calculated risk that had paid off as they learned a number of things, such as
why the alien Scion was acting as he was, and how Cauldron had formed out of the ruins of another, smarter, entity.
"You had a TALK with the Simurgh?" asked Doctor Mother incredulously.
"I'm actually more disturbed by the fact that the Simurgh was posting on PHO," commented Number Man.
"The Endbringers have not been in control of their own actions. Somehow, you managed to give Eidolon command access to the Endbringers that he didn't realize he had," added Metis.
"Do you understand what that means?" demanded Eidolon. "You're saying I'm responsible for literally millions of deaths."
"Not deliberately, but yes," said Saurial. Eidolon stared at her for a moment, then sat back into his chair with a slightly confused look on his face. Saurial nodded to Ianthe, who reached forward and touched Eidolon. He immediately fell into a deep sleep. She also reached out and grabbed the still-struggling Alexandria, and soon she too was sleeping. "All right, we'll help fix them later. We have other things to deal with right now," said Saurial.
"What are you going to do to them?" asked Contessa, who was still resting her head on her hands and looking at them with a pale face.
"They both have issues they need to work through. Luckily, the Family happens to know the best therapists in the multiverse. By the way, do you want us to fix your headache?" asked Saurial.
Contessa looked at her for a moment without blinking. Then she said, "If you can?"
Ianthe reached over and touched Contessa, whose face immediately relaxed. "Your power will come back in about ten minutes. When it does, I
strongly suggest that you don't attempt to use your power on the Family. Thinkers and precogs have a great deal of difficulty with us." Contessa simply nodded in reply. Based on the crushing pain she got with her first attempt, another one was likely to cause a stroke.
"All right, now as for the rest of you," started Saurial, "you folks have a job to do -- fixing some of the things that you've broken in your attempts to fight Scion with his own weapons. That, by the way, was an incredibly stupid idea."
"To be fair, we had no idea how to prevent the end of the world, and were willing to try anything," said Doctor Mother.
"Except that instead of trying everything, you let yourselves be guided by a precognitive power that was biased in favor of continuing the entities' cycle," replied Metis.
The three conscious people at the table all looked troubled by that. "You're saying that the Path to Victory was furthering the aliens' agenda?" asked Contessa with a pinched face.
"Of course it was," replied Ianthe. "As part of giving you a hard reboot for your power, I've also dialed down the conflict prioritization. You'll no longer suffer from power-driven blindness to less conflict-prone solutions to problems."
"Legend, we'll be depending upon you to start fixing things, starting with the Case 53's. We can help with some of the more difficult cases to either remove powers or fix them," said Saurial. She looked at the others. "I'm sure there are other problems that could use correction, as well."
"Like the laws that essentially force capes into a cops and robbers game between heroes and villains, or the S-class threats that Cauldron has allowed to wander the landscape," contributed Metis.
Legend looked a little confused. "What do you mean, the threats that we've
allowed to wander?" The Triumvirate had engaged serious threats when circumstances allowed for it.
Saurial looked at him with a frown. "What do you think would have happened if Contessa had asked for steps to stop the Slaughterhouse Nine?"
The lizards could see the look of realization dawn on Legend's face. Then he grew serious and thoughtful and looked down at Eidolon and Alexandria. "Fixing all of that's going to be harder without those two."
"We'll help, and those two need some perspective and time to deal with a few realizations," replied Ianthe. "Plus, I'm sure Dragon will be willing to assist. She's already aware of what's been happening."
Saurial pulled out a small device and handed it to Legend. "Here, Legend. Think about it and give us a call. That phone will let you contact us, regardless of what reality you're in."
"Is that all?" he asked, slightly stunned.
"It also has WiFi and Bluetooth," deliberately misinterpretted Metis, "among a few others than only work in different universes."
"Doorway to the
Ship of Fools," said Saurial out loud. To the slight surprise of the Cauldron members, the requested doorway opened. Ianthe picked up Eidolon and Alexandria, one over each shoulder, and the Family quickly left.
"Well...that happened," commented Legend.
"On the plus side, our entire species and civilization are no longer doomed to annihilation," said Number Man.
Doctor Mother got up from the table. "Well, regardless of that, I still have a lot of work to do."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Back at the BBFO office, the Family was considering their next steps. "Our version of Scion is still out and about?" asked Saurial.
"Yes. The Endbringers are also where they were when we left," confirmed Metis.
"So we have to do that all over again?" asked Ianthe. "We have to take out Scion and deal with Cauldron."
"I would suggest we wait to see what Alexandria and Eidolon have to say after they've had a chance to work through their issues," suggested Metis.
"That will help us determine whether or not the two of them are worth the time investment. If not, we can simply take away their powers and rely on Legend, who at least appears to have a moral compass," commented Varga.
Saurial shook her head. "I think we want to avoid depowering two-thirds of the Triumvirate if we can avoid it, as that would cause a drastic change in the balance of power. While I'm not terribly sympathetic to Cauldron, I don't want us to have to step up in order to keep the peace."
"Alexandria needs to step down as the head of the PRT, however," added Ianthe. "That aspect of the conspiracy is just broken. The head of the PRT also needs to not hate capes."
"Which rules out many of the current regional directors, Piggot included," agreed Metis. "We may want to ask Legend his opinion if we don't want to end up
replacing Cauldron instead of just removing them."
Varga shifted from Raptaur's form into the smaller tiny dragon form and rested on Saurial's shoulder.
"Callous as it may seem, Skitter's universe does provide us with an opportunity to test out solutions before applying them to our own reality...and any others we may happen across that happen to be infested with Scion's kind." Varga expected that they would end up exploring the multiverse once their immediate problems were addressed, and it was quite likely that if Skitter's alternate version of Earth existed, then so did others that replicated the basic structure and populace of their home reality.
"We should also discuss some options that have become available now that at least one version of Scion is eliminated."
Saurial glanced down at the little dragon curiously. "What kind of options?" Saurial's eyes widened as Varga shared his ideas. "Oh, my, that's interesting."
Metis and Ianthe looked at each other, then looked at Saurial and Varga. "All right," complained Metis, "spill. What are you contemplating?"
Saurial smiled, and began explaining Varga's thoughts on certain problematic issues.
Somewhere far away in the Nevernever, Mab sneezed. The action was so atypical that a nearby member of the Winter Court actually fell down, much to the amusement of his fellows.
