The Moon's Fall (Worm AU, The Wolf Time sequel)

What if it's actually canon Khepri and this is literally an Alternate Universe?
Possible, but it seems really unlikely. It'd have to be a parallel universe where it's a few years earlier, with a parallel Cauldron, in a dimension that Doormaker can reach, yet the two Cauldrons aren't in contact with each other despite mining the same pile of Eden. And also everyone but Taylor somehow has the same power.
 
...That is quite possibly the highest holy shit quotient I have ever encountered. Wow. I still feel kind of shocked. Just. What.

Ok so someone other then Taylor has QA and is going full Khephri. This is going to end messily. If it hasn't already. Anyway, this is the first time I've seen a Golden Morning scenario come out of absolutely nowhere, and also the first time I've seen a non-Taylor Khephri, so kudos on those.
 
Well, at least Danny is ok-was ok.

So, I assume the Gold Morning is indeed happening, but Taylor isn't its center. An interesting turn of events.

In the end Sophia was right: this is about survival. And the ones with numbers and cooperation win.

Edit: now, an odd thing: Taylor isn't Khepri here, doesn't have QA in any way, shape or form. But on the other side of the portal is a bug controlling cape, with eyes that remind Taylor of herself (I can only assume it's herself from the way she spoke about it). What's going on with that? Are alternate Taylors meeting?
 
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Edit: now, an odd thing: Taylor isn't Khepri here, doesn't have QA in any way, shape or form. But on the other side of the portal is a bug controlling cape, with eyes that remind Taylor of herself (I can only assume it's herself from the way she spoke about it). What's going on with that? Are alternate Taylors meeting?

Or the eyes remind her of Sophia's on account of both seeing her as beneath them?
 
Welp, that's the first time I've seen an Endbringer fight be the 'calm beginning' to a battle.
 
I want to be happy about this being an awesome update, but I just have to damn many questions about what the fuck is going on. And given that the author seems to be in no rush to explain what the fuck is going on... I reserve judgment until the next update... which will hopefully explain things.
 
...That is quite possibly the highest holy shit quotient I have ever encountered. Wow. I still feel kind of shocked. Just. What.

Ok so someone other then Taylor has QA and is going full Khephri. This is going to end messily. If it hasn't already. Anyway, this is the first time I've seen a Golden Morning scenario come out of absolutely nowhere, and also the first time I've seen a non-Taylor Khephri, so kudos on those.

You have no idea how happy this comment makes me. That was exactly the effect I was hoping for. Glad to hear that someone got the full effect of it.
 
What in the blazing hells just happened. I did not see that coming at all! One moment Leviathan might or might not be getting his arse handed to him and then BAM you're on the forest moon of Endor because Zion decided to be a bitch. Jesus christ, this gave me goosebumps. That was awesome
 
What in the blazing hells just happened. I did not see that coming at all! One moment Leviathan might or might not be getting his arse handed to him and then BAM you're on the forest moon of Endor because Zion decided to be a bitch. Jesus christ, this gave me goosebumps. That was awesome
That last chapter was serious "fog of war" level of activity. Our view through Runt\Taylor gives next to no information on what the rest of the battlefront had happening. It looks like in this universe, Cauldron might've been using what they found out from Thinker analysis of her power to fine-tune Eidolon's power, which I've always considered as being an improperly implimented QA from Eden.

In this world, something in how Taylor affects other people gave Doctor Mother and Cauldron the push they needed to bump Eidolon into Khepri, or feed the tuned vial into another of their "volunteers". That would explain why Legend had instructions not to allow Runt's boost to be generally applied, her active Scion Shard would block the inactive Eden one from affecting the same individuals, and Cauldron didn't want their attack force reduced any more than absolutely necessary.

In fact, the Leviathan attack could very well have been used as bait to draw in Scion for the final assault if they felt they had sufficient grasp on how to manage their Khepri. Legend, as seems usual, was only given enough information to manage the standard attack, though it looks like he also got fed a ration of the BS as well about exact timing.

As for the wholesale relocation of the Wolves, their headquarters, and whatever civilians they had scooped up to safeguard? That could've been a planned move to take the disruptive elements off the board for Khepri's sake, but I could also see it as a last resort option from Contessa's PtV if it showed her that the main Cauldron assault wouldn't carry the day.

Guess we have to wait for the next installment to see if any of this is even close to being on target.
 
I have no fucking clue what just happened and somehow, that is a good thing.
 
Eleventh Letter


Arthur,

I'm sure you've imagined reading this letter. I'm imagining you reading it right now.

You're not crying. I am, of course. Not my photogenic teary face either. I'm sniffling and dripping snot all over my desk and if Cape Scene got a picture of this I'd drop a dozen places in those stupid hotness rankings of theirs.

But you already knew that, just like I know that you're not crying. You're sitting up straight, with your reading glasses perched atop that perfect poker face you wear when you're dying inside. You've already put Keith to bed, or taken him to school, or you just have him playing at your feet. An educational toy of course, not one of those awful tablet games you keep telling me not to buy him.

You'll sit like that for hours, never shedding a tear, then you'll stand up and get on with the things that need doing.

I know all of that, because I know you. Enough to know that you won't move on no matter what I say to you. You'll just turn into a gorgeous old man who sits in the corners of bars and breaks the hearts of idiots who can't stop staring at you.

Telling you to take care of our little crayon-wielding bioweapon would be an insult to the man who's actually been around to raise him, instead of the man who missed birthdays and bedtimes and tried to make up for it by spoiling him.

You can stop looking so shocked. You already won the argument by default, so admitting it just makes me look gracious.

And there's the smile.

It's a hell of a smile Arthur. You stole my heart with it, that first night and every time I've seen it since. So the one thing I will ask is that you make sure it still comes out every now and again.

I can't make you be happy all the time, and I want so badly that I could, but I can at least tell you not to be miserable all the time. Do it for me.

Even if it didn't always seem like it, I was always fighting for the two of you. If I ever did any good in the world, then it was because of you. If I was ever really a Hero, it was because you found me when I wasn't, and you saved me.

So please, please, smile.

You deserve to. More than anyone.

The sealed package in the safe has another twenty three letters. They're for Keith. The labels say when to give them to him.

Tell him that his daddy loves him. Tell him every goddamn day.

And all of that is basically the same letter that I wrote to you three years ago. A few updates here and there, but nothing's really changed. You haven't changed, because it's hard to improve on perfection.

Go ahead and roll your eyes dumbass, we both know it was the cheese that got you into bed with me, too late to pretend you don't love it.

I'm not changing the parts you've already read because none of that has changed. It's everything else that has. Everything has changed Arthur, and I don't know what to do any more.

Do you remember when we first met? In that filthy shack in Guatemala?

I was running then, and I want to run again. I want to grab you and Keith and run as far and as fast as I can. I want to take you both in my arms and pick a star to fly to.

But I can't do that.

I can't run from this, because it's just like last time. It's my fault. My failing. My blindness, wilful fucking blindness.

I didn't want to see the signs that they were hiding something. So I let them keep lying to me, and now that they've handed me the truth I don't think that's something I can ever be forgiven for. Their sins are too great not to spread beyond them. I'm responsible for what they've created, just like they are.

But that's not really why I'm going to fight beside them.

The truth is, I just want to save the two of you. You're the only reason I need.

If I could come talk to you I would. Unfortunately getting them to agree to wait until I'm ready was already close to impossible. There's no chance they'll let me tell you anything before the fight is done with.

If I make it to the other side, I'll tell you everything and beg you not to hate me for it.

If not, then this letter should reach you with a file that explains in my place.

I'm sorry I couldn't be more worthy of you.

Yours, Legend aka Rainbow Bear aka Daddy aka Howard

I'm always with you



If this has reached you then I am deceased. Command of the Los Angeles Protectorate now passes to you Rime.

Assuming you're still alive, and that Los Angeles still exists.

The second of those is far from certain. Which has been, more or less, the driving force behind almost every decision I have made for a very long time. Including the decision not to fight Leviathan. A decision that could very well have meant your death.

However I know that, with the proper explanation, you will agree with my reasoning.

You see the threats we fight? The threats our organisation has been shaped in opposition to?

They are children playing with things they do not even begin to understand. Just like children they are selfish and short-sighted, using their powers for their petty personal gains and ideologies. Never understanding the true harshness of their world.

I did not have the same luxury. Some years ago I learned the truth, about our powers, and about the being that grants them to us. The one most know as Scion.

The so called Golden Man is a monster, one that will inevitably turn on us when he grows tired of playing human. He is totally inhuman, alien beyond any hope of negotiation, and more powerful than every hero on Earth Bet combined.

It was knowledge of this that drove my loyalty to the group known as Cauldron, a group that has been readying to fight this threat since before most of the planet even knew that parahumans existed.

Our methods in pursuit of that goal may be hard to understand. As the files attached to this missive will show, we have kidnapped and imprisoned a great many people. We have experimented on our captives using things we do not understand. No matter how my associates like to claim otherwise, I refuse to pretend differently.

We have killed many. Mutilated almost all of the others. Inflicted pain and suffering on a scale that would humble most villains.

In doing this, we have created an army. In creating that army, we have justified atrocities a million times greater than those we have committed to do so.

We set out to make ready to save the species from being snuffed out. For decades we have being making ready.

As of three days ago, we completed the final step in that process.

With the application of a formula (explanations in the attached file) to a captured female civilian from Earth Twelve Beta Beta, we were finally able to create the key to our army.

You see, between the powers we have granted, and the strongest of the natural parahumans, we have long had the strength to fight. It is the capacity to control that strength that has eluded us.

While she is hardly the only solution we pursued, Subject 59011 is the perfect embodiment of my own favoured route, for it is not strength that we have lacked. It is unity.

Our army, despite having the threat explained to them, have almost all refused to fall in line. As for the more powerful figures out in the world, I don't need to tell you how likely they would be to fight for anything but their damned egos.

There are methods to control a person, but for all our resources we have never had the capacity to scale them to so many. Until now.

Through her, we can control a single cape, and control every cape.

With her, we can fight at last. We can finally stop waiting, growing weaker with every day. We can save the world. We will save the world.

All of them.

Given the import of her task, I felt it unsuitable for her to have only a designation. I named her Khepri, for the god that would drive the sun to its inevitable end each day, or so I claimed. Honestly I simply liked the sound of it. Given how long I have been working towards this achievement it seemed a harmless affection.

Now we only have to wait for Legend to return from his fool's errand. I doubt it will surprise you to hear that he was not aware of much of this, nor that when he learned the truth he immediately justified our decision to hide the truth from him. Running off to fight Leviathan as if the Endbringers mean anything with Scion so close to his end.

Unfortunately, we lack the means to take control of them as we will the other S-Class threats. It hardly matters though. If we can defeat Scion then we will hold power enough to crush the beasts and if we don't then it will be irrelevant in any case.

On the subject of which, don't worry about the Birdcage, we intend to recruit its residents as well.

Not to mention much of the stronger figures across the world. Warlords and criminals alike will serve humanity. Something to be proud of I think.

Hopefully this letter will turn out to be an unnecessary precaution and I may explain in person. In either case, I know you will understand Rime. If anyone could then it would be you.




Day Seven Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirteen. Begin Journal Entry.

(Speech to Text Conversion at 98.7% accuracy)

It is a heady feeling, to be myself again at long last.

Khepri, as Becca has decided she is to be named, is a miracle. Twleve years of failed attempts to coerce Amp, also known as Subject 24602, into using his powers to do something other than try to kill me. Twelve years of failure and Khepri turns a dead end into success without any apparent effort.

He was so totally in her thrall that he did not stop until he had given me everything he had to give. By the time I came down from my euphoria he was past any hope of saving him, and the losing his power is no small thing. Yet I cannot find it in myself to hate Khepri for her mistake, not when she has returned so much to me.

I suppose I have no choice but to honour what has been lost by fighting well.

If he could only see the bigger picture in all of this, I'm sure Amp would have agreed with me.

Even as I record this Alexandria is overseeing the preparation of our forces. Once Leviathan makes landfall we will recruit as many as we can while the eyes of the world and our foe are both focused elsewhere.

By the time he returns we will be ready to whumph

What? Who is it? Why the hell are you using Doormaker to

.

.

.


(No Sound Detected, Program Entering Sleep Mode)



I don't know why I'm writing this.

Nobody is going to read it. There's no point in addressing it whoever is reading, because nobody will ever read it.

I suppose I'm doing it to distract myself. Certainly my hands shake a little less when I hold the pen. Even less when I write with it.

Unfortunately I will likely run out of things to write soon. Having already run through much of the minutia I suppose all that remains are the events that came after Khepri suborned Custodian and broke free of her containment. After she walked through our countermeasures and took our very bodies away from us.

It's strange. It is hard to write about the events. Yet I cannot bring myself to stop now that I have started, except for when I hear movement outside the room I have barricaded myself within.

What I just wrote was partially false. My body was not taken. The others were. All of them, even Fortuna, though I do not know even now if she was truly surprised at that moment or if her expression was just one more step playing out.

However, I remained free. My body still my own.

It took an embarrassing length of time, and three attempts at communication with Khepri, before I understood why.

I was not worth controlling. There is no other explanation that fits. Khepri judged me useless for her task, so she left me to my own devices.

Being a scientist and a human determined to advance our knowledge of the vast cosmos in which we are so very small, I used that free will to find a good place from which to watch the battle. That place being a small room within our facilities in which Khepri had directed one of Doormaker's portals to form.

The other side was well positioned and moved with Khepri and her entourage as they changed positions. I could hardly have asked for a better vantage point on the battle or humanities champion.

She did just as we wanted despite having freed herself. I wonder why?

Certainly she showed an admirable ruthlessness in doing so. Her very first action was an alpha strike that wiped all life from the continent she had lured Scion to. A thriving population centre on a populated world. What human could have extinguished in so readily for the sake of victory?

I thought she had won with that. If anything might stand as testament to our insignificance compared to these creatures, let it be that.

Soon I learned Scion's true capabilities. Yet where I trembled, Khepri didn't so much as wince. Where I thought defeat certain, she continued to fight.

The battle spread out across too many worlds for me to keep track, with the focus of the battle shifting often. Too often for me to track it most of the time if I am honest.

Perhaps that was why the end caught me off guard so badly.

I wasn't even looking in the right direction. Too distracted by a portal that opened briefly to a world of crystal, only when a strange ripple of energy erased that door did I look to the source.

If what I saw was the effect of a weapon, or merely the natural death throes of an entity, or something far stranger…I cannot say. What I say with certainty is that the Golden Man died and I saw it with my own eyes, for as little sense as I could make of the sight beyond those basics.

Lost in fascination, I very nearly stepped forward. I very nearly died.

Certainly I did not show much in the way of survival skills, staring at the kaleidoscopic blast wave that swept towards me. Lost in the worlds I saw in it, glimpses of places beyond description, cycling with such speed that only their strangeness keeps me certain I never saw a repetition.

As the blast came closer I realised that Khepri and her forces had dispersed through the portals. Shortly thereafter I noted the effects of the blast on the ground ahead of it. Something I can only describe as extremely forceful teleportation.

Given my physical abilities, and the miniscule chance that such a phenomenon would not pass through the portal before me, I made a conscious decision not to run. Sinking to my knees and watching as my end approached.

It caught my entirely by surprise when the door vanished and I was left alone. Trapped in our facility on a world inhabited only by those among our subjects who were also on the near side of doors as they closed.

Subjects who I have had to take great pains to avoid.

Still, I was able to examine the footage of the cameras Hero set up, long before Custodian made them obsolete. Confirming my suspicion that all of Doormaker's portals closed simultaneously. A coincidence that can be best explained by his demise.

As unfortunate as his loss is for my own situation, it does occur that it might be for the best if facility remained out of reach of whatever new powers are emerging.

Assuming that anything has survived beyond the small patch of this single world that I can observe.

Given how close she kept Doormaker, I believe Khepri to be dead at least. A mercy to be sure.

Whatever the state of the world, it hardly matters to me. Trapped in a place that was designed to be navigated with access to a portal creator. A place inhabited only by myself and a great many deformed failures, all of who wish

There are voices on the other side of the door. It seems my hiding place has been found at last.

I have placed all but this sheet in an elevated position across the room. Perhaps that will keep them from being ruined by my viscera.

It would appear I have soiled myself. I suppose, without the spectre of Scion looming over us all, I am actually quite terrified of what is to come.

Perhaps if I beg, they might spare me.




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Number Man Decoder Ring is missing a decimal after the first 3.

Number Man's last thoughts were of Pi.
 
Soooo, Cauldron's Final Option totally slipped the leash, took them over and used them like a condom.

Survey says: WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED???
 
Can anyone interpret the number code at the end? I get the feeling... Wait. It's Pi? That's all? No coded message? I don't believe it. It can't be just Number Man calculating Pi to as many decimal places as he can for the hell of it? Can it?

Soooo, Cauldron's Final Option totally slipped the leash, took them over and used them like a condom.

Survey says: WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED???

They got exactly what they wanted. They just failed to take sufficient precautions. Once she snagged The Custodian, all your base were belong to her, and with it, Doormaker and every cape in the multiverse. At least now we know why Golden Morning kicked off before the Leviathan fight was finished: Khepri got impatient.
 
They got exactly what they wanted. They just failed to take sufficient precautions. Once she snagged The Custodian, all your base were belong to her, and with it, Doormaker and every cape in the multiverse. At least now we know why Golden Morning kicked off before the Leviathan fight was finished: Khepri got impatient.

Any Trigger capable of taking on Scion -- both due to power, intellect and creativity -- is that it is a GIVEN they will slip the leash. If they cannot, then Cauldron didn't get what they needed. THAT is why you treat said Trigger with kindness and decency -- HAHAHAHAHA OH RIGHT this is CAULDRON we're talking about here. Cauldron is so imcompetent they can't even fuck up properly.

:whistle:

They keep missing the ceiling!


....I regret nothing.
 
So they managed to create a cape with similar power to canon!Khepri, but she got out of control, took control of every cape she could and enacted Golden Morning prematurely, but actually managed to kill Scion (or at least it looks like that), but whatever they used to kill him caused a teleportation wave, dispersing everyone it touched across different alternate Earths. Makes you wonder how Earth Bet is actually doing, how bad was the damage.
 
Can anyone interpret the number code at the end? I get the feeling... Wait. It's Pi? That's all? No coded message? I don't believe it. It can't be just Number Man calculating Pi to as many decimal places as he can for the hell of it? Can it?

I'm afraid anyone who wants to know is going to have to work for it.

So they managed to create a cape with similar power to canon!Khepri, but she got out of control, took control of every cape she could and enacted Golden Morning prematurely, but actually managed to kill Scion (or at least it looks like that), but whatever they used to kill him caused a teleportation wave, dispersing everyone it touched across different alternate Earths. Makes you wonder how Earth Bet is actually doing, how bad was the damage.

Bad.
 
I'm afraid anyone who wants to know is going to have to work for it.
Urgh. I'm no good with codes. I'll just have to wait for someone to decipher it.

On another note, is this actually the end? As in, the end of the story. It looks that way, but doesn't feel like it. I mean, why would you create a whole new thread, for just a few chapters that you could have posted in the previous one. Will it continue as a crossover or will we see them returning to Earth Bet or something else.

Actually, that might have been answered before, but I haven't seen it.

edit: Also, that letter from Legend was heartbreaking. Good job.
 
Urgh. I'm no good with codes. I'll just have to wait for someone to decipher it.

On another note, is this actually the end? As in, the end of the story. It looks that way, but doesn't feel like it. I mean, why would you create a whole new thread, for just a few chapters that you could have posted in the previous one. Will it continue as a crossover or will we see them returning to Earth Bet or something else.

Actually, that might have been answered before, but I haven't seen it.

edit: Also, that letter from Legend was heartbreaking. Good job.

What? No. Not even close. This is basically the beginning of book two. Two out of three, do we're not even halfway done yet.

The new thread was in part because we're gonna have a bit of a genre shift to survival and base-building stuff.
 
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What? No. Not even close. This is basically the beginning of book two. Two out of three, do we're not even halfway done yet.

The new thread was in part because we're gonna have a bit of a genre shift to survival and base-building stuff.
Wooo! This makes me really happy.
What a joyous time to be alive
 
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