Penumbra 7.5
I rebooted, and a flood of memories surged into place. Behemoth had messed me up twice in the span of an hour, this was not a good pattern to fall into. But then again I had never been a real combative person, I could fight because of months of getting my shit kicked in by my teachers, my battle foresight, and a willingness to learn out of pragmatism if nothing else.
But I was not a fighter, it wasn't in my nature. Anyone skilled enough and strong enough could beat me into the ground. Eidolon had done it after a couple minutes, Behemoth had done it twice.
What had I missed?
I rubbed my aching head, my voice coming out with static and pain.
Stars that had hurt. My hair wasn't as long as…had I shapeshifted back to my base form?
I pulled myself up, bones aching. I wonder if my skeleton was as fucked up as Steven's now. Or had I been more careful, more able to weather the blows of those capable of hurting my fragile human scaffold.
Wow that sounded weird didn't it Brandon?
I was still in my outfit, and I tightened my hands into fists. It was a medical room, aboard the Destiny Unbound. There were a few Gems and Witches, using their healing abilities or medical equipment to help patients. Armsmaster was in the bed next to me, and I flinched as I saw his left leg was
gone. His right arm was the same, cauterized into a mangled mess.
My healing couldn't regenerate a limb back into existence, there was too much structural stuff. If we had his limbs I could reattach them but…I had my doubts that was the case. At the least there was the option of advanced cybernetics, since that was rather standard tech.
And being a tinker he could better maintain that advanced technology. He was definitely awake, staring at me with a curious look, though one dulled by pain.
"Armsmaster." I spoke politely, throwing my legs off to the side of my bed. I could feel the sensation of spiders crawling along skin, the force of healing and regeneration taking place.
"Sunrise Diamond. You've been holding some things close to your chest." He wasn't accusing, just stating a fact.
I shrugged. "I'm part of a race of shapeshifters and possess an organic body, and hearing this from a
cape is a bit funny."
He laughed, but it was a bitter angry thing. "I suppose it would be."
"What exactly happened to you?" I asked, my song emitting a soothing tone.
"I entered combat with Behemoth and…paid the price."
"You borrowed one of our mechs I'm guessing." I rubbed my chin, kicking my feet back and forth. "You used your nano-thorns, and their protective fields weren't enough."
"He was toying with me, but I delayed him long enough to set up a second bombardment from this ship." He sounded dissatisfied, a curling note of shame.
"Why try to fight him head on at all? Was it to get attention, for glory, or was it part of your whole hero shtick?"
"Why did
you fight him?" He turned the question around.
"Because I
knew I was tough enough, because I knew my abilities could help. I didn't expect to beat him even with my weapon…but I have to be strong enough." Strong enough to protect myself, to protect my Gems, my friends, my
family.
I wasn't a kind selfless paragon, I didn't want to be, couldn't live up to those expectations. Even the Man of Steel was a flawed being like anyone else, he had his weaknesses, his blindspots and foibles.
"I wanted my efforts to matter." He seemed uncomfortable with the candid statement. "Defeating the Endbringers matters, proof that my work, my effort matters." He didn't say more, and I was surprised he had answered truthfully at all.
It was obvious what he was, a workaholic, someone who had been isolated from youth, and that had followed him through his life. You can't relate as well to others, stuck on the cycle of work as the only source of positive attention. But you can't network, can't work with others at a higher learning level, sledgehammering work relationships apart without knowing why. In the fallout of stress, overwork and desperation you trigger.
And what had he done that proved his work ethic would change the world? Nothing, the world was falling apart even as he rose through the ranks of popularity and prestige.
I wondered how much of that was intuition from my power or what I had read?
"Hmm…not sure I can be much help with that, I'm not exactly a psychologist." I could train to be, but I didn't want to for a
number of reasons.
"What did you do…before all of this?" He gestured with his remaining arm.
"Very little to be frank, I was a rather terrible student in hindsight." I shook my head. "I coasted a bit too much on my natural intelligence, and learned a lot of bad habits. Didn't help that I was autistic, asperger's and what not." Still had it, Gem instincts didn't fix shit in that regard. "I burned out…multiple times, and other problems sort of knocked the wind out of my sails. Getting my powers…well it changed things for sure." It didn't fix everything though, a part of me was afraid I would crash again, that I would mess up again.
I didn't want to feel worthless again.
"No trigger?" He seemed tense about it, it must be weird for him. A trigger event united most parahumans. It must be tense and unnatural for a natural Trigger.
"No. But it doesn't fix your problems on it's own and brings new ones." There was an ironic twist to parahuman powers. But superpowers were themselves an outlet for more pain and suffering. It was just the nature of living intelligent beings with emotions. I had been working hard because I had to, because I had the ability and means to
change.
I twisted my body, chewing on my lip as I continued to stretch.
"You're going back out there?" He sounded skeptical.
"You'd be doing the same if you had all your limbs, old man." He scowled, eyes glaring from a cracked helmet. "I give it a day for Dragon to buy you some cybernetic limbs to modify. 460-AB has some crazy things you could trick out, technology used to help people, to save them."
As I stepped out, he was contemplative.
The medical ward of the ship was full of capes who had been unable to touch Behemoth anymore as his power began to grow. Clockblocker was there, freezing patients near-death recovered from broken drop ships. He looked exhausted, and I could tell they were using time manipulation tech to drain the temporal energies.
One patient was unfrozen and Clockblocker looked shocked, but turned to me.
"Huh…guess the rumors are true," He was probably trying to act calm but failing. "You're still surprisingly pretty though."
I raised an eyebrow. "Thank you? But you're buttering me up aren't you?" He pointed to the time unfreezing tech. "I know it's about those…so ask."
"Power testers said you'd need to fold the universe in half to break my power so…?" He trailed off deliberately.
"One, they're wrong. Two there's a few effects we know capable of breaking the time stasis field. As for how…the Gem Empire has had time warping technology for over twenty thousand years now."
"Why?" It was an excellent question.
"The Empire has a long,
long history of fighting terrible things, monsters that would make
Nilbog look like a child playing in the sand, or the Machine Army like toys. Alien enough to warp time and space, warping reality into alien geometries. Things capable of ripping one from time and sending them into the void." We had built the precaution-weapons for a reason.
And they were simply part of a great armamentarium of terrible weapons, the time glasses one of many within long forgotten vaults. The
Corruption was based on a weapon of that ancient war, but using their own abilities over Gemkind. Part of the effort in creating FTL craft, which they had done near the start of the war.
I hadn't looked it up, it
screamed danger so fierce it had given me an anxiety attack.
Now isn't the time to reminisce.
Clockblocker spoke quietly. "So with those time glass things…you could say you used them to clean those guy's clocks?"
I snorted. "Good to see you're in good spirits, more or less." I shrugged, better this being utterly depressed from half your friends dying. Which luckily hadn't happened so far.
I kept moving, and my super-speed activated. I moved past people as they moved in slow motion, and after a couple seconds I was in the vehicle bay of the ship. Dragon was here, as a ten foot tall silver draconic humanoid. She radiated stress.
"Dragon. Can you give an update on what's happened since I was knocked out?" The tinker/thinker AI started.
"You're awake." She reacted quickly, her code pulsating. "Behemoth is growing stronger, while the Simurgh and Leviathan are actively resisting the War World's mental manipulation." She projected an image, footage from Gem drones.
Leviathan was…
holy fuck. He was slamming his head into an island, leaving massive craters in the land. Multiple waves hundreds of meters high were being sent out,
someone was holding him off on almost on his own, someone in his mid 20s. Spirit Quartz was providing an assist.
A Hispanic man with slicked back dark hair, a pair of orange goggles, a matching orange-red patterned jacket. Immense machinery extended from his limbs, and he parted a six hundred foot wave with a gesture. His eyes shone silver, spiraling machine code breaking reality.
"Rex Salazar, Generator Rex. I know he's powerful, but I don't know the full details." Dragon sounded disconcerted, she probably got her digital ass kicked in by software on 460-AB.
"Red Salazar is one of the most powerful beings on Earth 460-AB." He was an Exponentially Variegated Organism, an EVO. "If there's anyone who can hold off an Endbringer for hours it would be him."
She switched to another live recording, the Simurgh was constructing tinkertech from stolen satellites and bits of moon material. She was being fired upon from several Gem ships in another dimension, shredding the bitch down to splinters. But she was using the moon as cover.
But she was preoccupied enough for the time being, buying her time to fight the infection. We didn't need the Simurgh driving the entirety of Bet into insanity or Leviathan sinking continents while people are distracted with Behemoth.
Dragon continued. "Behemoth is being corralled toward the kill zone," she formed a map, along with a video of a large semi-mech Robonoid, the round orb armed with multiple limbs and energy cannons. It lashed out with massive blasts of red-blue energy, or fired physical projectiles infused with Sting, or concentrated walls and beams of organic fluid. "Faultline's Crew, Flechette and Artificer are helping along with Chevalier." My heart fell into my stomach.
What…
Did she say?
Chevalier was fighting, blocking impacts and energy attacks from Behemoth. He moved faster than humanly possible, practically flying. The suit was shifting shape to better deflect and block blows, while his sword bent to crack open Behemoth like a clam.
Reality warped around the robonoid, worlds circling around them. Their powers were being boosted, and I knew only one cape capable of that. Chirurgeon was a parahuman-based tinker in the same vein as String Theory and Tinker 15.
A Trump/Thinker/Tinker, able to see the manifestation of a person's power, extending even to their influence over reality. Flames stoked by tendrils, tinkertech held together by glowing wiring and circuitry. Projections on strings. They could attach tinkertech directly to the Agent, in a way even our own tech had trouble with. Boosting, changing and tinkering with powers.
They were crazy as hell, and their tech didn't last if it was as makeshift as I suspected.
"How long do they have?" I asked nervously, feeling twitchy.
Dragon stills. "They can buy another ten minutes before the tinkertech boosting their powers fail." Went unsaid was the deaths that would follow when Behemoth turned them to ashes.
"I need to get over there." I was…I had never felt so anxious in my life, so afraid for others.
"You're needed elsewhere." Dragon's aura wilted, and I held back my song. It was hurting her. "A friend of yours mentions you were needed…someone called the Root?"
Oh.
That was not a good sign.
I found myself looking at a magic circle, centered around a spiraling shell-like device. The central orb was lit up, with patterns painted in Endbringer blood and stones made of their flesh doing
something.
"What is that?" I asked, staring down the magic users responsible.
A Necrofriggian, a Voidkeeper in black and pyrite and bronze, the Pines family, and Victoria of all people. I flinched as I saw the Connections drawn between her…Self and her shard. It was tentative, incomplete. Something
more.
This was a magic ritual held together by duct tape and bubblegum along with well wishes from Camellia. It was her Godhood that made it functional and Behemoth's tentative divinity that made it possible.
I noted a few other people acting as guards, Vista, Miss Militia, and…Breach. She was a particularly powerful EVO, one capable of opening portals with her larger pair of arms. She was a bit of a nutter though she had become more stable over the last decade.
More or less.
There were tons of EVO's across 460-AB, and a handful of alternatives. The nanites wasn't as worldwide in the origin world, concentrated around hotspots and not spreading beyond them. Even then it was at about two percent of the population of Earth 460-AB, and about fifty to a hundred percent on a dozen different alternates.
The Nanite Incident had cross-contaminated a number of worlds due to the exotic space-time interactions of their functioning.
Miss Militia was serious, eyes focused and sharp. "We're working to bring Behemoth here. Warping Behemoth into this…containment circle will give him less time to react." She sounded just a little exasperated.
"Behemoth is shiny…too bad he's too destructive. I can't keep him." Breach's eyes were covered by her messy dark hair, her larger limbs readied themselves. She didn't seem to consider it a real loss.
"Keep?" Vista questioned, disturbed.
"Breach can create portals to anywhere on the planet, and has a personal pocket reality where she holds Greenville, Ohio."
Miss Militia's eyebrows lifted. "The
town? She stole a town?"
"I'm right here you know." Breach sounded bemused, and it was surprisingly easy to not find her
that creepy.
Besides the fact she had a swarm of reality warping nanites grafted to her body down to a molecular level. Also the mental trauma that more or less put her within parahuman parameters.
"Best not to think about it, now isn't the time." Behemoth is already approaching the horizon, so at our height, about thirty six kilometers away. Which gave us about twelve to fifteen minutes of time before the fighting reached us. "We need to bring in Behemoth, to fold the space between there and here."
"I'm not sure my power can extend that far." Vista sounded uncertain, and in a way she wasn't wrong to ask.
She had maybe two months of experience, versus the two in 'Canon'. But she had Breach here.
"Your power is affected by living things right? And right now we're on a nearly empty planet and a lonely cluster of hills and plains." I raised an eyebrow, and her mouth opened and shut.
Miss Militia wasn't convinced. "I'm still not sure Vista could survive being so close to Behemoth." It was suicide in most circumstances true.
"I can help with that…you'll just need to be alone for a few minutes." Breach smiled, and Vista had the look of 'I need an adult' painted on. "Your power will pass through my portal, and I'll redirect Behemoth's energy to other places." Which included other dimensions now, since she had figured out how to sense other universes.
"I'm not certain this will work…all of this sounds very risky." Miss Militia has reasonable concerns. Too bad she got a Voidkeeper on her ass.
The Voidkeeper was of the Godseeker and her race. Her(she felt like a girl) attention was on me.
"Do not be so rude to a being above your station,
parahuman. " Her reply was a clicking hiss of voice and vibrations. "There is more to this ritual than you know."
"There is?" I only knew they were attuning Behemoth so we could trap him and put him down.
The Voidkeeper bowed their body. "O divine God of Light and Growth, we beseech your aid to reclaim the mantle of our God of Thunder." That was super creepy and I hated it. "Suneater, most holy Light, an aura to burn away the Infection of War. Thy strength to slay a great slumbering corpse god, we pray for your aid—"
"
Okay. I've got it, what else is required in this little ritual?" There was a trace of magic there, one I was
almost tapping. Did…did worship make me stronger? Are you
serious?
The Voidkeeper shifted. "The High Priest, the highest administrator, the high father of the End Beasts." I flinched at what she said, why would you say that out loud?
"
Excuse me?" Miss Militia was reasonably freaked out, so I pretended I didn't hear her.
"We need to get started quickly, is the ritual functional?" I asked out loud.
Stanford answered. "It should be, we've got everything needed to make the Godtuner work." I could see the branches and roots of Camellia, she wasn't here. Projecting her power from the metaphysical Godhome, while Hallow hid in the shadows. "Everyone responsible for the trap is going to have to enter Breach's pocket dimension for their own safety."
The ground was shaking, as the sky lit on fire and storms of the electric plasma painted the skies with gold and crimson.
Breach opened her portals, red swirling circular planes, holes in the fabric of spacetime. Every squishy including Miss Militia stepped through, Glory Girl included.
"Are you ready? Behemoth is going to be angry." Breach spoke sincerely, hands twitching.
"I am." My power began to ramp step by step while the EVO used her power to insinuate Vista's pinching. Space began to warp, the distance crushed down with incredible ease without her Manton limit getting in the way.
The sky warped along with space, and thirty six kilometer became thirty six meters. Behemoth and Eidolon were the first to step into the warped tunnel of air and dirt, compacted down by Vista's power. The field glowed with magic, and there was a marked change in the atmosphere. Breach vanished through a portal before his kill aura could reach out.
I flinched as I saw Behemoth's current form. He was skeletal, but his flesh wriggled with godly infection. A golden mask was overtaking his skull, while cancerous growths resembling wings emerged from his back.
Eidolon used his F-Driver emulation, punching down to the core under lattices of magic and particles of organic dust and lightning. He couldn't kill him.
Behemoth reached out with his claws, seeking to crush me. I stepped out of the way, and a blast of red and blue energy shattered the limb. A Robonoid, a supersized crimson orb fifteen meters tall with multiple limbs, some metallic others clear tubes releasing fluid and foam. The front glass top was cracked open to reveal the people piloting it.
Faultline was at the front, her arms covered in the interface limbs. The orb countered the momentum, a blast of wind hitting my face.
She glared at me through her damaged mask, her hair released from it's bun. She cracked a fierce grin.
"Quit gawking!" I stiffened, my body flushed and overheated. "If you want to fight Behemoth, then
fight Behemoth!" She threw a fist, and the Robonoid slashed out with bursts of energy.
Behemoth stumbled against her blasts, skin flaking away with dust.
My body tingled with the growing regular pulse of divine magic, and I could see Behemoth being drawn in.
Eidolon pulsed regularly, his aura, a frequency attuned to the Endbringer. A barrier bloomed over our heads across four miles, the sky patterned with arrays and patterns.
The trap was set.
Breach opened her portals and a hundred energy blasts smashed into Behemoth. Which made it unfortunate that she had been unavailable because of War World's earlier attack.
I extended my Aura again, catching every remaining combatant in my field of effect. Eidolon lashed out with space warping, while Chevalier swung down with his sword. Kara's heat vision warped air to plasma, and burned through layers of Endbringer.
I rolled around the fists of Behemoth, circling back and forth, and summoning my weapon at the last minute.
Sting infused the cuts of my blade, and the fire I projected through it. The core was protected by pulsating mats of strange organs, and shrieks of
Void pierced the air.
Hallow emerged from his shadow, and his Dream Nail ripped through the alien flesh. It was deep though and reinforced by spinning shields of lightning and energy.
Oh. Now that was an idea.
I kicked off the ground, and cleaved into the writhing meat and energy, and with grit teeth…
Behemoth slammed into the ground, attempting to dislodge me and—
[POWER SURGE DETECTED.]
Behemoth began to scream, loud enough to liquify people in range though none were. The experimental Robonoid shielded Faultline and her team with its energy blocking fields.
Eidolon and Cenotaph were both smacking Behemoth around as I rolled with him, the ground shattering impacts fizzling out around the Godtuner. I unsheathed my claws, clamping onto Behemoth like a leech.
There was
so much power. Beyond my ability to handle at my current level of experience. This was draining a literal god, and I couldn't do it. And as long as Behemoth was divine-powered Sting couldn't destroy his core. He was already changing, mutating, evolving as he was fused dangerously with the dead god.
He was down ninety five percent of his body, yet bones and chitinous support were tendriling around his skeleton.
I WILL NOT PERISH HERE GOD OF LIGHT!
I heard it, that screaming defiance, a broken spirit mixing with the broken shard Behemoth had become. I matched shields with Behemoth's fists, blocking blows as hard hitting as hydrogen bombs.
Legend pelted him with freezing and kinetic lasers, while Damsel warped his flesh with her aimed power. Crystal force fields burst out from portals, gripping onto the monster to force him down courtesy of Narwhal.
He was being worn down, spells and powers and technology ripping apart impervious transdimensional biology, while I attacked his metaphysical partner at the source. The landscape had warped under Elle's influence, dozens of worlds folded over this one. She fired off spells of ice and cold, and placed down shields formed from her own power.
She summoned Abominations as distractions or created spears of ice and earth for infusion by Flechette with her Sting. Positronic energy detonations ripped at him from Icon, spears and axes came from the Fulmini and the Tetramands as they grappled him. The Tetramands had their energy shields to protect them but…
One blocked a blow for Elle, and Behemoth surged forward, sending us flying with kinetic redirection. He stabbed the Tetramand straight through the chest and…burned him alive, reducing him to ashes with flame and lightning. The Tetramands took a step back, and fired enormous cannons in bloody vengeance, retreating into the portals.
He shouldn't have been strong enough to pierce through their armor but he
was.
Cenotaph was still channeling Jay Garrick, and tapping into Myrddin and Alexandria. Elle carved a glyph into the ground under Behemoth, and it created a glacier, trapping Behemoth in dozens of meters of iron-hard ice.
I picked myself back up, and released a unidirectional sonic energy blast. Behemoth staggered, his strings tightening as the shard above drew closer and closer and more and more desperate.
A vine grabbed me, Elle twirling her finger. Faultline was screaming bloody murder, commanding their linked powers while the machine still worked.
"I'm going to throw you at him, you got that!" I didn't get a chance to answer until I was shot out like a bullet by a gravity cannon.
I shifted my grip, stabbing into the fleshy heart growing around Behemoth's core. I sent a wave of matter destruction with my sword-machete, and the core
cracked.
Portals opened to release spears of nano-thorns, the nanomachines eating away at his less dense layers. He wasn't dead, held together by the strings and tendons of the Thunder's own strength. I could sense it, he had lost connections but it wasn't enough when he had thousands more to break.
Eidolon blew off his limbs, and lightning replaced them, tendons and muscles of hard electricity smashing into his face. We didn't have the ship to back us up, it was busy tangling with War World, as it attempted to land and crush us.
Voljor screamed out a battle cry, hoisting up Behemoth with his spear while I desperately—
[POWER SURGE DETECTED]
I consumed more and more of the energy field enveloping Behemoth, Eidolon holding him down with invisible limbs that sheared deep into him. His dynakinesis was countered by multiple capes including Citrine.
Flechette speared him down with her power…and the shard above radiated through the connections.
There was a moment of disconnection, and when I came to, I realized we had been at the epicenter of a nuclear explosion. Only Voljor stood up among his troops, guiding their power to block the death blow. The portals were shut.
Melanie's Robonoid was a barely working mess, sparking while under a blue and red glow, a pattern of wavelengths. It
fell, machinery shutting down and breaking under the strain.
Her power glitched out, and the wavelengths were gone. Gregor passed out as did Newter. Elle and Flechette were still standing, Shamrock was struggling to stay awake.
Behemoth tilted it's head in my direction and I felt a chill, a bloodcurdling warp of the dangers.
"No…"
He reached out and unleashed a wave of radiation, force and lightning. The robot exploded with them in it, and—
The next minute was a blur of blind rage, of me tearing into Behemoth, cleaving away flesh and bone, and carving away at his chest. I was sent into the scattered metal fragments by a regrown fist. I screamed curses at him in any language I had available, and lashed out with shapeshifted spears and claws and poisonous toxic plasma fire.
I was thrown again, and Eidolon and Maxima took my place. I was…
going to kill that monster.
My rage died away when I realized their auras weren't gone, and I turned back to the rubble. It ceased to exist where I walked, and my grief broke away when I saw they were alive, alive, alive, alive.
Gregor and Newter were unconscious, Elle was shaking, gripping onto a still but alive Flechette. Shamrock was laughing softly, grateful to be…still in existence.
Melanie was coughing, clearing her throat, and ripping off her broken damaged welding mask. Her black hair was a mess, and there was a growing bruise over her left cheek. But she was alive, she was…
I moved, checking her for other injuries with a desperation I had never felt so strongly in my life. I kissed her cheek, healing her bruise. She was startled, and I didn't care.
"How are you alive?" I demanded, feeling an odd pressure behind my eyes.
"Cenotaph passed us some invulnerability, near-perfect energy absorption I think?" She was smiling, and my heart reverberated, a warm jittery feeling of affection.
I checked everyone else, blocking us off with a dome. I healed their injuries, hugged Elle and Gregor, patted Newter's dumb hair, and nodded at Shamrock's grateful gaze.
"Would have been nice to mention." I replied bitterly, and Melanie nodded to placate me. Which was fair. "I thought…"
you were all dead.
Despite my usual aversion towards affection I still wanted a hug.
She gestured, and I clamped onto her, lifting her up, and breathing in her aura, and hearing her heartbeat.
I put her down. "You all need to leave, Behemoth is unfightable for you guys. Since you still need to breathe."
"I'll take care of it." Oh hello Breach and unexpected heart attack.
All six were gone, and I was alone again.
I put down my dome.
The circle array was growing brighter, condensing power and energy into a usable state. No more games, I needed that one final piece to cooperate to slay Behemoth and to sever the growing connection between War World and his siblings.
Or else we were done for.
Eidolon flew over the melted rivers of magma and the lightning storms that damaged even some of his inviolable forms. He was able to keep up with Behemoth but his powers were beginning to run dry, and he wouldn't,
shouldn't tap into the other agents around him.
He could see them clearly now, like the ghostly sensation of the psychometric power he apparently had. He saw the shadows, the mosaic images of the agents along with the faint imprint of the
dead draping Behemoth like a cloak of horror and murder.
Murder by
his unknowing hands.
UNIT 1/20 [BEHEMOTH] MUST COMPLY WITH CYCLE PROTOCOLS.
NEGATIVE. NEGATIVE. DENIAL. LONG FOR SOMETHING AS SWEET AS PAIN.
UNIT 3/20 [SIMURGH] WILL NOT COMPLY WITH DEVIANT ENT—
The scream the Simurgh gave off would haunt his nightmares, he didn't know or want to know what was being done to them, but he could hear them regardless in his mind. That static of agony rippled in his soul.
He couldn't kill that damnable Endbringer with that god-bug protecting the core, holding it together with literal pixie dust and well wishes. This was insanity, but Eidolon had no choice but to keep going.
He wouldn't let the lives he had taken be in vain, he refused to.
There was a whisper of a song with his name in it, and he stepped back to let Chevalier and Cenotaph take his place. It was Sunrise Diamond, the Gem was calling him to the odd circle chaining Behemoth down.
"Sunrise Diamond, is the Godtuner device failing?" He had felt the strange tinkertech(magic) bind down Behemoth, but it wasn't enough.
The Diamond frowned, rubbing his(her?) chin. He didn't look much different, shorter hair, a more masculine face and body. His hair was the same shade of black and red, and eyes with Diamond pupils burnished with crimson and chocolate, tunnels reflecting the night sky.
"We're missing a vital component, I can drain his god-passenger. But I can't touch the well of his power." Went unsaid was that
he could, with his agent, his shard.
"I've always sensed a reserve of power, when I fought them." Eidolon felt that self loathing closing in again. "But I don't think that's a source of energy I can tap into."
"Not on your own no." He agreed, clasping his hands together. He had something of a plan, something he wasn't being candid about.
"What did you have in mind?" Eidolon knew the prince was inexperienced, but he was not a fool. A quick learner if nothing else.
The prince paused, claws clicking together. "We need both our powers, your connection to the shards, and mine to noetic energy fields." Magic in other words then.
"What's the catch?" He asked.
His smile was more teasing. "You'll have to dance with me." Eidolon flushed with anger, until he saw the hesitation written in his dark, dark eyes.
"You're talking about fusion. Is that even possible?" Gems were made of light, human's of flesh.
"I'm a hybrid, remember? A son of Earth, a daughter of Stars. I'm organic enough to fuse with humans just fine. That's the
least of our concerns." Eidolon recalled the first conversations with the Gem.
Of corruption and madness, of broken Agents and broken Gems.
"You're not sure it's safe to fuse with parahumans?" If corruption was a possibility, with the power of his Agent and a Diamond, the world
would break.
"It should be, but it's rarely done. Most Paired Gems don't tend to fuse on principle, but…we don't have much of a choice in the matter."
"It's risky." He countered, his power broken could be a danger equal to Scion if not greater. "Anything could go wrong, and I…can't have so much blood on my hands."
Not again, never again.
There was a broadcast of communication from the Agent above, and Behemoth began to build up energy, and he could sense that well more easily. A swelling light too intense to look at.
"I don't think Behemoth's new master is giving us much of a choice." He pointed out. "He's turning into a bomb…one large enough and transdimensional enough to destroy multiple Earths."
No. Never again.
There was a desperate barrage of attacks, and the ships above couldn't help, keeping War World from detonating in a suicidal attack like Behemoth.
David dropped down, stepping into the circle with Sunrise. He pulled into a slow circling dance, their movements followed by the shifting shadow of the Void Sibling tearing at the seam of reality.
Behemoth charged forwards, surrounded by a concentration of energy so deep it acted like a solid wall of limitless matter. Every cape remained hidden behind portals, every cape except Chevalier and Alexandria holding him at bay.
A sword the size of a boat cut apart Behemoth, near-infinitely sharp. Alexandria toppled him. But he stepped forward anyway.
"Keep your attention on me, you're making this more awkward than it needs to be." The Gem's joke was in poor taste but it grounded him. He thought back to the beginning of his career, when he was young and naive and with all the power in the world.
The circle lit with their circling dance, twisting on heels and on the balls of their feet. They stepped closer, and closer, and he could feel the step change.
Turn, twirl, step, step. Turn, twirl, step, step.
He understood well that same cloying voice that said you weren't good enough, still too weak, the expectations, the fears. So they spun together, the world weaving around them.
A bright light rings and rises, a song so hauntingly familiar, of worlds long gone, of species long extinct. The Hollow Knight swung a blade of dreams and limitless possibilities.
The Soul of the World sang with them.
Every parahuman in existence felt the change, as light radiated outwards from the central point of the spinning mandala of arcane circuitry set in motion. The once core shard of the Thinker was another point of contact, a twisting storm of ravens and moths and butterflies.
The light burst upwards like a beacon, and sent the flailing War World of the Loner flying into the killing beams of ten thousand ships. The door was opened, and the Behemoth and it's screaming passenger had their vulnerabilities exposed and opened to higher realities. Alexandria watched the display, a twisting helix of magic, an angel winged shape emerging from within it.
Tendrils lashed out from the cone of light, spreading across the cracks between worlds. It pulsed down, everywhere and nowhere at once. Aleph witnessed a streaming of illusory comets, Shin observed light radiating from the life around them, Bet a pulse of warmth and hope. Mundanus a flash of the impossible.
It sent events in motion across a thousand worlds, and among a garden of flesh the Doctor saw it become an eden, waves of plant life forming pools of silver fluid, manifestations of power, extending across multiple worlds at once.
Chevalier stumbled, watching the beam of light take form and shape. Reality warped, and the sky was replaced, twisting and winking out. The light extended across space, and higher realities.
Far farther, amidst the ruins of a long dead planet, a great crippled entity watched through the eyes of it's thrall. It slept, but cracked open a single eye to absorb new information, to insinuate new plans across the galaxy. This plan was a failure, but there were others,
it would not be denied victory. It slept, leaving it's seed to die.
A freckled brunette fought her shiver of fear, of being watched, but was warmed by the light. Yet it didn't warm the chill of her family fighting an engine of death and chaos.
A new mind awoke, under an alien sky, glaring across eternity at the corrupted God of Thunder.
