Holy crap, you're using the same shard naming conventions as my fic... Did you read it, or is this just some crazy coincidence? Either way, it's really cool.
And when I say same, I mean same. Like Grue in my fic has [Omnivore 27.Wavelength.Signal Absorption], while Flechette has [Transdimensional.Sting], just like yours. I have a whole spreadsheet if you're curious.
Oh I haven't read it yet, though I have been tempted. Though I'm currently going through Trailblazer at the moment.
I thought your naming conventions were brilliant, and way easier than coming up with like…actual unique names for shards. I've looked through the spreadsheet too. I tend to borrow concepts wholesale from other authors, then tweak them to take my own spin on it. Which is why my Dauntless has a different shard from yours.
A Relay shard for example would be Distribution Administrator, and Omnivore would belong to someone else. But as a nod he does connect to Omnivore shards to provide his powers.
I've just remembered that Under The Cerise Skies now has a TV Tropes page as in the link. Only has like a dozen entries, and my ability to retain Tropes is poor. So having people add to it might be nice.
I had decided it was time for some time off after my little visit to Brockton Bay had ended in another fight. Which had synched up with a request by Blue Diamond to meet with me on my eventual colony.
I wasn't sure how to feel about them, they had hurt more people than I had ever met in my life. Even if they were actively helping their victims including Earth, even paying reparations to the Atlanteans for their part in…sinking their kingdom.
Though that had mostly been a result of hubris, and damage they had caused to their island continent being exacerbated by the orbital bombardment. Complicated political things.
While I waited for Blue to show up I played with my shapeshifting. My cloak shifted with me.
Chroma clothing was interesting, and the culture behind clothing was the same. It was all about comfort, about fitting to their character and emotional needs. Gloves indicate sensitive hands, heavy clothes like dresses and coats are for added weight and comfy feelings, some Gems go barefoot because they need the texture of ground. Gems must present their best self.
I liked my cloak, it reminded me of wearing hoodies, soft, warm, heavy. Gloves weren't for me, I didn't like walking barefoot, and didn't enjoy complicated outfits.
Cloaks are a bit special among Gems though, a sort of prestige that had expanded with the ceasing of Pearl-gifting once done in the pre-Asterism Eras. Capelets are for those in charge of important ships, small fleets and military bases. For example Brass…or Muntz had been in charge of numerous stealth frigates, diving deep into enemy lines.
The outer base color is black or white while inner coloring and outer patterning is up to the Gem. Complexity of inner patterning is limited by prestige. As a Diamond I had the highest possible prestige, and wore my colors on the outside with an inner starscape of reds, pinks, oranges and gold. The colors of a cerise sky. Steven was the same.
I was sitting by a large artificial pool of spring water inhabited by some Gem-bred fish, colorful round little guys who could eat anything. Excellent candidates for animal-stage terraforming. I pat one, warping my limb out a few feet. A pretty blue fish with feline amber eyes. I couldn't help but hum, happiness leaking into my song.
It was a rather embarrassing trait of mine, of ours. I had a hard time keeping my emotions from leaking out, expressing them in a way my face never could as a full human. Most Gems knew when I was happy, when I was sad, when I was curious or embarrassed or even irritated.
It was…nice to know others knew what I was really feeling, that they could understand my words so much more easily. And it was less embarrassing than glowing pink-red around my cheeks and ears.
Still happens brother.
Don't remind me sister.
I gripped my fist, and it turned chitinous, like the shell of a crab. It was a sensation like spiders crawling under my skin, and my hand became a pincer. It was odd only having two 'fingers' on a hand. To my mind it was like pressing my index finger and thumb together. I snipped a steel wire easily, and a wave of my pincers turned them back to fingers.
I glanced down at my hands, and rubbed my flat chest, a slight itch where Butcher had scratched me with her blade, and a Chorus member shot me with a pistol.
They had actively been trying to kill me. I wasn't sure how I should feel about it. Afraid? Angry? Resigned? Should I get used to people trying to kill me? Or should I try to keep a sense of normalcy, or not let this madness take over my life? I wanted to help my world, my people, my species in both humanity and Gemkind.
I wasn't a warlord, I was more certain of that now…but I have acquired a taste for combat. There was a real rush to fighting, though it wasn't something I loved when it involved lives. I wanted to help though.
I just had to figure out a balance between doing too much or too little. Between apathy and micromanagement. As I walked I shifted between several forms I had picked up.
Black panther, pacing back and forth with a low hiss of frustration. Then human, as Brenda…though I suppose you could call me Brandon for both huh? Not like there weren't girls with that name. There were tons of them in fact. I added a dragon tail, and it wagged back and forth as I experimented.
I beat my wings, rocking on my heels. I wasn't wearing any shoes, since it was expected that I would swim a bit in the pool with Blue. I didn't mind it, and I wanted to hug the cute fish.
We blushed at the thought. I did like cute things, animals more than people, else I'd have treated my younger brother better. I shook my head, expecting my attempt. My tail was long, a solid several feet, covered in brilliant scales reflecting rose reds, with blush pink and crimson. It ended in a barbed spear point, and my wings were just as cool. They were draconic wings but covered in thin fur like a Pterosaur. A pretty shade of pink and red, with a bright iridescent luster.
I grew horns, curling things like a triceratops, colored a deep red that was almost black. My dark hair curtained over both the sides of my head. I squatted down a bit, examining my dragon girl cosplay. Shapeshifting made stuff like this way easier.
I didn't have to change much other than adding a tail, wings and some scales. I smiled, licking my teeth. They had sharpened further over the last few weeks, especially in the days since Dawn had become known to me. The other half of my soul.
I had twelve fangs rather than the original eight, and my canines had grown a bit. About three and a half centimeters long, though usually pulled back into their deep sockets by rings of muscle. The others were only maybe ten percent longer, and pointed. Sharp and deadly but they didn't compare to something that had its place in the mouth of a cougar rather than a human.
I looked around, finding no one around to interrupt me, I looked back at my reflection, and lifted my hands in a pose.
"Rawr." Not very enthusiastic but sure I was a dragon—
"I see you're having fun." Blue Diamond spoke up from my left side, and I released an unholy shrieking chime of shock and horror. Wings and tails and horns retracted with the sensation of sucking up my gut. I nearly fell into the pool, but she pulled me back from oblivion.
I could see the glow of my ears, and her giggle strummed the air like a harp. I took a deep calming breath, letting it surge in and out of my body.
Blue Diamond was as pretty as she had been when we first met, with the left-shouldered toga. She was actually a bit smaller, and I stared.
"We have two sizes, you met us when we were in Warsong size." She explained what I was thinking in my head. "It offers a greater presence among our Gems, a sign of war. We didn't have much time to change at the time we met Brandon. Or Brenda?"
"Brandon is fine. Brenda is more for Earth Bet." I reserved the right to my name to only those closest to me. My family, my friends, my world and those under my aegis.
Blue Diamond was just about eight feet tall, though she still made me feel pretty small. She gestured for me to approach and I did so hesitantly, she tussled my head, a vibrating purr emitting from her purr.
"Oh." I was sure my cheeks were pink in embarrassment, and a little flattered. "So you said you wanted to spend some time with me?" I was curious, I couldn't help being so.
"You are one of us Brandon, it only makes sense that we would want to see how you're doing. Earth Bet is particular…is a very harsh first assignment." Oh that was a bit of an understatement. "Steven is busy with the warfront on Earth 2-AB." It was a close parallel to Steven's Earth.
Though even it had diverged thousands of years ago, something about close parallels being almost impossible to differentiate after a point. No Gems, and the galaxy was pretty empty. Maybe a few dozen species rather than thousands or millions. But…there had been Gems, but they had vanished at the end of the war.
It was a bit spooky.
Their Justice Society Unlimited was basically all dead after remnants of Darkseid's forces had laid waste to Earth as their world withered away. The New Gods…were dead, every last one of them.
"What about Earth 50-AB?" From what I looked up, it was a version of something called the Wildstorm universe. Not a recognizable property for me. But it was there.
Blue sighed, placing a hand on her cheek. "They've had a fairly high rate of shard hosts emerging on their planet, about nine thousand seven hundred in total." Which was a record in the known inhabited universes.
Out of a million realities, only about five hundred and twenty had Earths to communicate with. There were infinite dimensions but not all of them were interconnected by civilizations, even Stanford Filbrick Pines knew only of about fifty two thousand inhabited realities.
Most of them weren't in any state to help the million realities being invaded or tapped into by the shards. Again mostly uninhabited worlds, used in the way shards worked with alternate dimensions on Earth, empty worlds to rest upon.
But they were limited to fifty two million universes outside their bubble of influence. I think it was about ten to the eighty fourth in total for both the Entities and us.
There could be more, but exploring that many universes is a bit beyond us.
Blue gestured to the pool, and I clapped my hands with a whisper of song. The pool was mostly emptied of fish through transport tubes, though a few remained for petting purposes. I shifted my outfit into a red single piece bathing suit, and I jumped into the water. She followed after me, and I kept myself afloat by reducing my mass.
Like a boat, I leaned back while Blue sent out a wave of calm, her Aura pressing against mine in a friendly greeting. I hadn't seen much of the Auras of the other Diamonds in our first meeting, but there was a faint recollection of them.
Blue's Aura was like the ocean, waves lapping against the fabric of the Real, a swirling pool of emotions and passions. She was the Light of Passions, of anger, of grief and rage and love and hatred.
Yellow's aura was like a lightning storm, shifting and twisting energies, vigor and force made manifest. Yet…there was a comforting solidity to it
White was light itself, like being under a sunbeam, raw potential, silver and alabaster and brimming with mind and purpose.
Aster… Steven was like brushing past fields of rosy grass, with flickers of flame and heat, folding and unfolding across space.
I pushed mine out to greet her, and it was distinct when I paid more attention. Where his was a direct manifestation of life, mine was more abstract, like wading in liquid plasma and crimson flames, it spun and twisted like coronal loops, taking shapes of twisting helixes, alone, or in pairs or groups of three or more.
It seems part of Abaddon was still with me, the memory if nothing else.
Hello. Was whispered across to her, and her own response was soft and warm, and kind. She gestured for my approach, and I found a place to rest against. A fishy bumped into my hip, and I pet the thing.
So cute!
Baby!
"Brandon. Sunrise. How are you doing? Really?" Blue brought up the question I was slightly dreading.
I sighed. "I'll be honest, it's been difficult. This…was, is outside my expertise. All of this huge scale intergalactic transdimensional nonsense has been a real drag. I've cracked under pressure before and I'm not sure I'm up to it."
Blue had a sympathetic air. "Yes…I can understand being overwhelmed, you're young and don't have the experiences Steven developed." What went unsaid was that it wasn't a bad thing.
I didn't want his life, I'm not even sure I wanted this one. I had done it, accepted the gemstone, accepted Dawn because it felt right, because it could protect my world. It was a selfish decision as much as a selfless one. And because I didn't have to administer an entire planet. Gems were a self sufficient lot, and my improved multitasking reduced some of the drudgery of what I did need to read up on.
It was a job, something I could focus on, just read reports, check up on some of the paperwork of the Empire in this dimension. Kind of boring but it was a background task I could run in my brain. I could easily run through the files of billions and trillions of Gems.
Eventually.
The Gem Empire had taken many cues from Earth governments, improving delegation without compromising any of the specific needs of our Gems. We were mostly on the scale of anything related to our roles as creators of Gems and in improving the Empire rather than direct leadership.
Each colony had it's supervisor. A hundred seventy thousand planetary governors, and it didn't include Gem outposts. Which added up to millions of systems, though none possessed suitable planets.
"Do you need a longer break? Perhaps one of us can take the reins for a bit." I hissed and she made a calming gesture.
"No. You still have the war back home to worry about, most of the Empire's resources are being directed towards the Vermillion Beast and her armies and superweapons."
The last Hub was a cunning Entity, she empowered hosts where she could, using them to study and learn and to steal their natural abilities. Others she used to destabilize empires, or turned into monsters like Ash Beast and Sleeper, like the Tinker 15. Some people willingly fought by her side, and she was…well terrifying.
She was more of the Thinker's ilk than of the Warrior's and that was a bad combination of traits. Momentary visits were okay because we needed downtime, but the Diamonds had their jobs and I had mine.
She had collapsed the Reach into civil war after one of her counterparts destroyed the Reach home planet. A number of planets had been turned into nightmares, monstrous capes dividing the locals into smaller more controllable groups, and acting as uniting factors for capes. The Edenverse on a greater scale with its own behaviors in play. None lasted long due to external interventions preventing the trap from setting.
There were millions of Paired, more as shards woke up from dormancy though they were…deviant. Most Eden/Zion shards had maybe one or two connections, Abaddon shards had a dozen to even hundreds. There were maybe a few tens of thousand shards linked to Gems, all the others had been…driven insane and into sleep.
There were about ten thousand Titans scattered across hundreds of worlds, there were fifty thousand shards wandering in clusters to run to other galaxies. New shards grew and budded, and we found hints of other Entities, remnants only.
Shards drifting in the black, and planet and star sized corpses by the hundreds.
I was dealing with one planet, one planet with six hundred and fifty thousand active connections, one planet with…one point five billion dormant connections. Six billion lives repeated across thousands of worlds, the front of a conga line of a billion Earths. There was more to be done, a broken planet beyond my own ability to fix
So why should we go at it alone?
We're an administrator of the highest order. But…
We have limits, we need more people, Gems, humans, parahumans.
"You've thought of something?" Blue was giving me time to think.
"I can't do this alone, I need…more, numbers, materials, we've been more proactive but we have to do more than what we're doing." There were all kinds of operations in this world.
The slave trade, like the ABB, like the Fallen and the Yangban. We couldn't fight everyone in the world but we had to move and provide stability. Most capes couldn't operate in large groups unless they had Cauldron capes. We could be more subtle, provide funding, resources.
We had Gems but only a few natives, we needed people willing to work with the Gem Empire who could keep a secret.
"Are there any people from 460-AB we can borrow? Scientists, researchers, capes, human or otherwise? More than just us Gems?" They had their share of people who could help us. There was the Little Homeworld program after all.
"You want to do more, and you want to pull from multiple ways of thinking." Blue was smart enough to pick up on what I was putting down. "I'll direct a few trusted Gems towards that. But…"
"You want to ask why I haven't visited my family right…?" It was obvious.
Blue seemed sad, though she always had that aura to her, even if it was burned away by the calm of the decade before the Black Wyrm came.
"I know family is important, more than you can imagine." I understood. "You have a family, the ones who birthed you, raised you. I think it would be good for you to visit them. To show them you're alright, alive." There was something so very old in those oceanic Diamond eyes.
"I…just." Had I been selfish that day, so easily enticed to take power into my own hands? "I'm not sure how to talk to them anymore." What could I tell them in a way they understood?
My younger brother might get it because he's imaginative enough, but I couldn't tell him the truth. I couldn't tell the full truth to my parents either, to my aunts and uncles and grandmas. Telling them the world might end was not my idea of family bonding.
There were other reasons of course, but I didn't want to talk about it.
"I still think it would be a good idea for your own state of mind." She didn't push however.
I let the water splash against my form, cooling fluid and very refreshing.
"Is there anything you can teach me, to build some common ground?" I tried to be nice to her. She had come all this way for me, reciprocity wasn't a bad thing.
Her smile was brilliant, and she placed a hand on her gemstone which glowed with all the radiance of a blue hypergiant. A handle popped in and in a flash she was holding an ornate weapon.
It was a scythe as tall as she was, a dark blue pole, gold ribbon curling around it, and the bottom had a curving crystal point. From the top there was a massive curving blade, with Gemglyph written across the surface of the blade.
I gaped. "You have a weapon?"
"We learned how to summon them because of Steven…and because of the war," she sounded sadder again. "White has a staff, Yellow has a Claymore and I have this scythe. You and Steven both share shields."
We did huh?
"Anything you can teach me?" She smiled and without warning she planted a kiss on my forehead. There was an electric pulse of data, working behind my eyes and buzzing in my ears with song and words. Phosphene cracklings and an icy breeze swirling around skin.
I knew the movement of weapons more intimately, and I smiled up at Blue.
I gripped tightly onto my weapon as I absorbed the instructional data to correct my stance. It wasn't a true sword, more a hilted fancy machete. Which was kinda the point, this wasn't meant as a weapon alone.
It was a tool, an object built to help just as much as it was a weapon. It would be a blunt safe weapon when I wanted it to be, and a lethal implement when I wanted it to be.
I had spent time talking with Blue, getting to know her a little better. Regardless of anything else we shared a connection. And her talk had enlivened me up, given me ideas, possibilities. I had pulled upon the deepest reservoirs of my retro-causal intuition, feeling the possibilities.
Bet radiated danger, and yet there was a potential for growth and change. I was a Diamond, we were built to exploit resources.
I activated Sting within my blade, and it swung through a target with ease. The blade was covered in the higher dimensional fields used to distort physical laws. I twisted on my heels and drones emerged from the walls of the training room.
I changed my direction of gravity, and landed on the roof. From there I sliced through a drone, and timed the Sting effect to wear off. It bonded with the interior of the machine, shredding apart the insides. My weapon's version of Sting wasn't as potent as a full shard but it worked on the scale needed for capes and Endbringers.
I hadn't used the blade before because I wasn't sure whether or not I wouldn't kill people with it. At its highest charge of unfolding energies it shredded through two feet of gathered shard flesh. I could slice through Endbringers, perhaps even damage their cores.
But I needed to swing the blade with a substantial amount of force, to provide it with the weight and force of a Diamond unleashed. It was made to channel energies, and an idea came to me.
Fire wrapped around my hands, and the sword caught with the destructive power. I activated Sting, and the flames sharpened, ultraviolet colors weaving into the pure cerise magic. I lashed out, and the plasma expanded out several feet and erased several cubic feet of metal, scattering across dimensions.
Heh.
We're doing amazing.
There was polite cough, and I deactivated my weapon
I turned around, looking at an anxious looking Flowers, fiddling with her hands while chewing on her lip. I smiled wearily. A shadow stood behind her, one I left for later.
"Hello Sunshine." I snorted at the nickname she had given me.
"Hello Flowers."
"Don't you want to introduce me to your old friend?" Was the first real sentence that came from my mouth.
She stiffened. "Ahh. Yes. I should do that?" My growing grin became more smug, I wanted to tease the little Sapphire. But that wouldn't be very nice so I didn't.
"Yep." I giggled.
Flowers' song was edging with nerves. "I should. This is Hallow, one of my oldest friends. He is a Kitakah, a Bug, one of the Siblings, the former Hollow Knight."
I inspected the being she called friend, the one she called vein adma. He was tall, taller than any human or even Gem had any right to be. He was thin of frame, covered in a thick but semi-flexible dark exoskeleton, so dark it was like a shadow in physical form. He/they wore a dark grey cloak, billowing behind his shoulders. Hallow stood on cloven hoof feet, and his four fingered hand was tipped with claws glittering like obsidian. His shell was pure white, tipped with long horns in a u-shape with multiple short branches. His eyes were dark voids, like staring into the dark heart of a singularity.
"Hello there, nice to meet you." I offered a stiff greeting, and he gently took my hand. It engulfed mine, moving it up and down.
<Greetings.>
"Hi." He flinched back as if surprised, even Flowers' usual serenity was broken.
Flowers sounded ecstatic. "You understand him?"
"Shouldn't I? I thought Gems could understand any language?"
Flowers clasped her hands together while replying. "Voidspeech is one of the most difficult languages to decipher. We Gems understand them…but there are gaps even then."
Huh.
We should see if our skill is teachable.
"Well it makes sense…I remember speaking to a similar presence before when I messed up with my astral projection."
Hallow pulsed with a befuddled aura buried under thick layers of darkness.
<You spoke to Void-Self, the ascended Little Knight?> They spoke with a thrumming of Void, a dark shadow, a hole in reality.
I nodded. <I believe so yes, I was stuck in his realm by mistake.> He seemed very happy to hear me reply back. <I'd like to speak on that more but…>
There was something almost like laughter in the darkness. <I understand.> He made a gesture with his hands. Sign language from the looks of it.
They ruffled Flowers' hair on the way out, and she chuffed as they exited the room.
There was a silence, one you could cut with a knife.
"It's been a while since we fell apart…how have you been?" God that was a terrible way to start out.
"I am in a better place," She cringed. "I should have communicated better with you. I didn't mean to ignore you."
My shoulders slumped, I shook my head. "It's fine, everyone makes mistakes now and then. I'm used to being alone anyway." My laugh was more bitter than I had been hoping.
"You shouldn't need to be." There was something rougher in her harmonics. "I'm sorry regardless."
"Okay." I rubbed my shoulders, almost grinding my teeth. "Maybe. It was a little hurtful that you didn't…talk to me at all for several days." I didn't have many friends anymore, and it was…hard to connect when there's been an ongoing pandemic for a year.
No job, no school because I fucked up like I always did, no friends…just sitting around and writing and watching videos and not… goddamn not this shit again, again. Again.
A rush of wind preceded a surprise hug from Flowers, a note of apology in the air. She was soft, and I felt…I'm not sure what I felt, ashamed for having feelings, for feeling lonely?
Oh.
That's it isn't it? Flowers, my Sapphire was a bastion of calm and kindness in a mad world, and not having that presence hurt me. She was…the first to join my Court, to become mine. A friend, a confidant, an ally in a world I didn't fully understand yet.
I held her closely, breathing in a flowery scent with the usual hint of petrichor that all Gems possessed. Something to do with their light forms messing with atmospheric chemistry.
I placed my head on her shoulder, lightly rubbing my cheek against hers. It was a bit embarrassing, but…I don't think I minded it with her or people I was close to. There was a thrumming sound from my chest and throat, a rumbling purr. She responded with an equally rumbling sound.
"Just…I'm okay with you taking time away, I don't control your life or what you do." And I wouldn't want to either, it was too much work. "Just…I don't know, more than a warning might be nice. I…consider you a friend, and I was worried."
It…was so, so hard to communicate what I meant, it always felt like I said the wrong things, or that they didn't get what I meant. Sometimes I misunderstood cues or instructions and…it made me feel stupid.
Gems were affectionate, and I wasn't so touchy but they…didn't usually jump me. I didn't like being touched, and…I had never conveyed that as well as I should to my family. Maybe I should have…maybe I should do so when I decide to take a trip back home.
But they asked, even if it was in snippets of Gemsong. But I liked being touched by people I cared about…with enough warning. I hugged my brother, and hugged the youngest even though I haven't seen him in a long while.
And I liked this, whatever the hell this was.
"I understand. I was…alone for a long time during the early chaos of Era 3." She ran her fingers through my hair. "Hmm…your hair is getting a bit long isn't it?"
It was.
"I'm sorry if I'm being…possessive." It was a strong instinct, that of a Diamond.
"It's fine. Friendships can be complicated." She was still apologetic.
"Just don't make it a habit and I think we'll be okay." She nodded, and I released her from my gentle hold. I looked at her, and found my lips suddenly dry.
"Sunshine?"
"We…we should probably tell each other what we've doing right?"
She smiled shyly. "I don't mind." I leaned against a wall, the last few hours had been a busy-busy after a short break with Flowers. I was asking for advice, trying to figure out what the best options were for the mission on Earth Bet. What did we need?
Hallow had joined us as a representative of the Second Kingdom of Hallownest. And I was giving my Corsairs greater resources, I had taught them basic Glyph magic, and given them a map of locations with ambient magic. As well as equipment holding mana to draw upon.
Melanie was the best at it, due to her power's ability to create the symbols on the fly. She appeared to have a knack for magic used to shape matter, manipulating earth and rock and stone. Construction/deconstruction magic kind of stuff.
Gregor went for creating Potions due to his whole chemical factory deal. Potions magic was a mix of chemistry, alchemy and magic and used a combination of mundane and magical ingredients. He used glyphs to channel ambient magic into the brews.
Newter…Bakonawa was going for methods of healing magic and long range spells, fire, lightning, light blasts.
Rachel had gone for Beastkeeper( duh. ) and healing magic. Besides that we were looking for recruits, initially using our very sparse list of known parahumans from my world. Though a few hundred capes out of six hundred thousand was a limited pool, especially when it included capes on their own teams already.
Now while some might say using information we shouldn't know to recruit capes was creepy. To be frank my details were rather fuzzy from a reality standpoint. As in anywhere from a sentence to a couple of paragraphs worth of information.
Still kind of creepy. But nothing we couldn't figure out through other means. Wait, did that make it better or worse?
I looked up to see the Earth hanging in the sky from the dome of the Moon Base we had placed to routinely observe the planet.
I hummed to myself, listening to the ambient music of the universe.
I grasped at my recently cut hair. I could tolerate my longer hair as a girl since I only spent some of my time in that form, but my longer hair as a guy was a little much. Though my fringe was largely the same for reasons, and I stuck out my tongue, noting the barbs that vanished into my tongue at my mental flick of the switch.
I had used my tongue to scrape off paint from a wall, which tasted disgusting but it was edible to my horrific biology. Which was one of the reasons I was looking at my files after a check-up from a doctor, a former member of S.T.A.R Labs who had joined the Little Homeworld program.
No one was too important here but she had taken deep scans of my internal biology so I could inspect it for myself. It had been enlightening and frankly a little scary how much my mind had an effect on my body. Shifts in biology which were fascinating, and had possible applications in gene mods for humans.
Which was a common enough thing on Earth 460-AB due to the massive advances since the 2010s. We were talking about holographic screens, advanced genetic engineering and medical technologies and even nanotechnology. It was a renaissance of technology, of magic and powers, and new possibilities.
Portals to other worlds had been opened up since 2013, and more had been opened after the incidents in 2016. Seven long years of contact with other Earths, and that included an Earth once under something called the Crime Syndicate.
Used to be I mean.
Earth 460-AB had reached an average of 7 on its Technology Level, with low lows and very high peaks for things like dimensional travel. Time manipulation was thankfully not that advanced.
Anyways, my biology was tweaked even without my Gem stuff.
I was hardened biologically against radiation, by default my skin was a little darker, and could react to UV by using melanin pigments in photosynthesis. Darkening in the process, and in less than an hour. My cells and organs are protected against heavy metals and other toxins and can break down poisons.
My muscles are able to bunch up more effectively than a human, along with altered joints and for increased leverage and stronger tendons, ligaments with a wider attachment area. My bones incorporate fibrous reinforcement and polymer filling, they were remarkably stronger. Without my Gem, without Dawn straining a joint was basically unlikely, much less breaking a bone.
No joint damage from exercise either, and a simple spinal column change invalidated back problems and neck breakage. My lungs were more efficient, using a countercurrent exchange system and filters for toxins and gases. My digestive system was better at filtering and breaking up minerals and nutrients, and very efficient, and could process cellulose. Also hibernation and metabolic throttling.
Wound healing was much improved even without ichor reserves, DNA repair, rapid clotting, scarless tissue remodeling and organ/limb regeneration. A better immune system. I'd probably live to a thousand without any magic.
Secondary organs, shock absorbent tissues and hardened membranes, non-Newtonian fluid. Protein structures to withstand 0C. General bio-optimization, like a weaker version of Crawler. Much weaker, days and weeks and months. Enhanced senses and mental capacities in general, though that was more a Gem thing.
It was a minor boost in reality, since I was about as ichor saturated as Unbroken organics. Like Lieutenant Admiral Lars, like Lion. I was as much magic as I was human. Regardless it was rather scary how good I was at shapeshifting. I hadn't even been aware I was doing it.
I didn't mind it much, it was cool that I could pull off shapeshifting that precise. Admittedly I couldn't just do it on demand, it was basically just tweaking the shape of my internal organs until they did what I wanted of them. It was sort of what I did with modifying Gem code but tuned to my freaky human-alien biology.
There were other things of course, my chest was a little more rounded, a result of the 'barrel' structure all Gems had as a resonance chamber for Gemsong. As in a literal hollow thunk when someone hit me in the chest.
I was reading up on more things, like Metahuman biology. It was disparate, and I knew it wasn't a purely physical mutation. Biology alone didn't account for what they did. For example, I was examining Black Canary's biology from a scan she has willingly submitted herself to.
A lot of Metahumans shared nodes, structures capable of conducting their power. They paid significant resemblance to the Corona Pollentia and Gemma. But they were more spread out, a mechanism for biological processes for powers. Based on studies it was likely all powers draw upon higher realities. Though it may involve different wavelengths and frequencies with their own properties and behaviors.
Black Canary's larynx had alterations, and methods of channeling strange esoteric energies to manipulate vibrational forces. But her body didn't get enough energy from biology to power what she did. The Corona-like structures distributed throughout her body used chemical energy to tap into greater metaphysical energies. From what I could tell, all powers were fueled by a grand unifying Source, and it was visible on their very souls since it was a part of this Source.
Souls were a well-established phenomenon, they had even found ways to describe the structure of the soul, though it varied slightly from person to person, from species to species, from dimension to dimension. It was even bound to some level of natural selection, with metahuman powers requiring both physical and metaphysical structures to function. Which meant metahuman powers were fueled by the soul, and tapped into greater universal reality levels to shift and alter physical laws.
It was machinery extending into higher realities, hard to perceive, hard to understand without advanced enough technology. Even the most advanced experts knew there were things they were missing.
The simplest term I had for Earth 460-AB was superhero cyberpunk with the notch for dystopia turned down a few notches. Advanced cybernetics, inducement of metahuman powers, magic blending with technology, they were at least a few decades more advanced, and their dimensional technology was some of the most advanced in the galaxy.
I clenched my fists, that wasn't what mattered right now…no I had work to do.
"Melanie. How was the trip to Japan?" I called out Melanie as she returned in full costume. Newter and Gregor were both chatting with Maddie and Shamrock.
"We found our target, you said he'd name himself Masamune?" Faultline rolled her shoulders, her voice questioning.
"I've told you. That possibility doesn't exist anymore," I replied back with a click of a song. "It's one future of a Bet that isn't this one. But yes, you think the Guild will take care of this one?"
"He's a mass production tinker, you'd be insane not to treat them well. Though the question here is why we're not keeping him for ourselves?"
"He has a lot less to offer us than he has to offer the Guild and Dragon," I answered. "You know my mission…why I stuck around, we can't prop up this planet on our own. And I'm not sure they'd let us either."
"So you decided it was time to stop sitting on your ass?" I rolled my eyes at my captain's teasing. "I get it. You want to help people, and you want to keep yourself and those you care about safe. At the least you seem less…"
"Depressed?" I retorted.
"Less of an anxious mess of a being."
I gestured with a bob of the head. "Point. I've decided it was time to be a little more proactive." Our income was in part from mineral sales, and would increase over time as we became more proficient at gaining money. "NewFoundTech is likely to be an excellent partner if we make agreements, and there's equipment and technology we can sell to the PRT for more income."
"What for?"
"Sponsorships. We can provide much needed resources and income for cape teams of between five and ten." It was about the largest group that could last long term. "Especially tinkers who are limited by materials, time, and periods of vulnerability. We can offer second chances to capes on the opposite side of the law. Taking them into our aegis or moving them into another dimension if necessary."
"Why?"
"Stabilization. We can't eliminate conflict on a global scale but we can create a notable buffer." It's not like Cauldron cared about creating Triggers, they were just not omnipotent gods.
They had been gifted a data packet on the weaknesses of Entities, as few as there were. There had to be multiple All-or-Nothing powers out there, multiple powers that could affect reality in weird ways.
"That isn't going to fix things on it's own."
"Of course not, but it's a start. Things can't go on like this, the PRT is a ticking time bomb with Cauldron in charge unless they can be convinced to start pushing for a new generation not as closely connected to all their shit." There were several choices for that, Myrddin, Chevalier in the Protectorate. Narwhal and Dragon. "The PRT collapsing would require a direct intervention, and in fifty percent of calculated futures triggers Scion early."
"Fuck." Melanie was pale. "Even if you kill him he'd kill billions in a matter of seconds."
I chirped in agreement. "We're currently trying to figure out how many Earths have sophont populations. We believe there are about five hundred and twenty sextillion Earths the Entities have placed within the shroud of their influence. One in a trillion of those may possess humans. Adding up to five hundred and twenty billion Earths, though we believe most of those collapsed away leaving a much smaller fraction of worlds with humans."
Maybe about one ten thousandth of human-inhabited Earths remain, and a thousandth of that number have populations above a billion. All the rest had anywhere from one thousand to one hundred million individuals.
Based on our own statistics anyway, including worlds we had only vague sensor data from.
"So he could kill trillions before being stopped?" Melanie tapped her finger on a work table of mine. I watched her, mesmerized by the dexterity.
"Yes." I blinked. "Plus finding his dimensions is a bit of a harder task than with Abaddon. There's a higher concentration of shards muffling the signal, and the barriers placed between realities add static. They've been through more cycles than the Black Wyrm." Thus there were further refinements to certain aspects of their abilities. "There are billions of dimensions we need to search."
"And you're still making it a priority to tell the Case 53s the truth?" I gestured for Melanie to sit down.
She did so, and I met her eyes. "I'm not going to break my word, not for something like this." I breathed out harshly, a wavering beat of flame "I'm not a perfect guy, but I don't…can't look past the little picture. Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing for the right reasons…but getting stuck in that mindset gets you Cauldron."
They wanted an army, and then realized it was folly when they couldn't keep up with natural Triggers. Then they wanted a silver bullet, and experimented on people in that hope. They distracted Scion with the Case 53s, they didn't bother to examine collateral damage, and those little mistakes nearly destroyed them. Most people wouldn't, couldn't work with people who had done such awful horrific things.
The Case 53s effectively destroyed Cauldron when Scion followed them, when they knocked out Doormaker…though they seemed to have cut out their experiments due to a breakthrough.
Also because we hadn't been subtle on the consequences of their actions in the long term. Their crimes wouldn't be left unanswered.
Afterwards she continued to keep me in the loop, mentioning how the Teeth had been cleaned out and the Fallen were breaking apart as they were openly assaulted by the Protectorate and the Watchdog thinkers. They had also assisted Brass Pearl with recon, and had helped us pinpoint the movement of certain threats.
With the exception of the Slaughterhouse 9 because I wasn't trying to get them killed or worse. Unsurprisingly they were hard to find besides the trails of death they left behind. But we were going to find them, even if there was a suspected precog among them. That or Jack's plot armor had warned him when we crippled Mama Mather's shard.
They were harder to find than the Mathers when we already had a general idea of their location. The S9 were more variable and they weren't morons either. So for now, my Corsairs were making updates to their base in Brockton Bay. The Palanquin was starting to grow from what I could tell.
I started to tap at a holo-screen while Faultline removed her gloves and welding mask, cracking her knuckles. To my surprise she brought out paper, and began to fold it. She skillfully pulled the paper down at the right angles, until she had a paper crane.
She made several before moving on to a tulip flower and stem, a box, a fan, and two boats. And I watched as she created a red origami dragon, carefully creasing and folding paper with inhuman dexterity, fingers shifting with the utmost precision.
She coughed, and I looked away from her hands. Melanie had a bemused expression both from her face and her aura.
"I notice you look at people's hands a lot, why is that?" I folded my hands together, trying to calm my nerves. "Is it a Gem thing?"
"Mostly." I spoke barely above a whisper. "Gems have…different psychology from humans. They have different standards of…beauty, love, affection." Stars, this was embarrassing. "When you can have a billion people who look just like you…"
"You'll have different standards for what's considered important?" I nodded at her correct statement-query.
"Beauty for Gems is skill, personality, experiences. That part that's unique about an individual."
"Oh? So you think I'm beautiful?" I groaned, ducking my head.
"It's just…a general way Gems feel affection, it's not…" she was definitely teasing me. "It's just a weird thing I do."
"Brandon. I don't mind, I have a high tolerance for the strange and the unusual." She sat down next to me, smiling in a way she only did with Newter and Gregor and Elle. "Now. If you're so curious, I can teach you origami."
Now that was something I didn't mind.
"Sure. Why not?" I tried to play off my excitement.
She didn't fall for it. "You're not good at keeping your emotions out of your song."
"Shut up." Melanie smiled again.
"Well…first we'll need a sheet of paper and then…"
I snapped my eyes open, projecting my mind away from my physical form. I had decided to work with training some of my more esoteric powers. They were all a part of me, and…denying their existence didn't sound like a good idea.
Plus there was a ring of song that became more obvious with Hallow sticking around for the foreseeable future. He was the silent type but really nice.
I was flying over Bet, where six billion minds and their Dreams spread across greater realities. I could see Scion's own depressed aura, moving across the Pacific Ocean in half a minute. I listened to the song of the planet, and found what didn't belong on this planet. It was Light, it was Life, it was Roots the world over.
They emerged from the shadow between worlds, the roots of the World Tree, and I was pulled into another realm.
It was that same golden shaded reality, the Dream Realm, the Godhome of another world. One plane of many within the Sphere of the Gods. Whatever the hell that meant.
I stood up from a bench, and found myself wearing my formal outfit in this place of both Dreams and Gods. I was surrounded in a beautiful garden, great trees with leaves of emerald and gold, and clusters of delicate white flowers brimming with the aura of magic. It was a glade, the home of a god, of a greater being. It was a song, a twisting orchestra, a melody I attuned myself to.
Higher beings, these words are for you alone.
Your great strength marks you among us. Do not hide your true form.
Let all bask in your Light, child of the Demiurge, Starheart of Life.
I welcome you among us.
I turned.
White branches beckoned, and I sought out that light that brushed against the sun beneath my skin. The Pale Lady, the Root was massive within this metaphysical realm. I had seen pictures of her, she was taller than White Diamond's full size. Here she was thrice that size, her roots digging deep into the verdant soil around us.
"The White Lady I presume?" My voice was greater here, a vibrating power like solar flares.
She was an enormous and strange tree, an oval head extending with her white, glowing branches flailing like odd tentacles, eyes shimmering with the color of oceans and skies.
"I am her." Her voice rang with the sound of grass growing and whistling leaves. "You are the youngest of the Diamonds, we are both of the Light child, your radiance still burns my fogged eyes." She spoke almost archaically. "I am the Root, I am the Pale Lady, I am the Goddess of Light and Life and Growth."
"You're Hallow's mother, your blood and the blood of the Wyrm mixed with the Abyss. A child of God and Void." I spoke formally, partially for her sake and because it was dramatic. "Why have you sought me out?"
"I did so at the behest of my children, and at the behest of His Radiance, the Light of Life. There is strength and dedication growing within your soul, and I seek to grow it further. You are Life…but there is more, and the Diamonds have benefited from tutelage between us."
"You want to teach me." I said, placing my hands behind my back. "To see what differences there are between Steven and I."
"You presume correctly. We are both progenitors of life, it is in our nature." She gestured with her free branches, bound as she was. "Do you not feel that urge, that urge to create, to shape, to seed your progeny in the soil?"
I flicked my fangs out in a nervous tick. A part of me did want to create Gems, though most of it was more focused on creating new technologies, learning new ways to help people. In fact I had been looking extensively at the files involved in the Pink Sunrise project.
They had been working with melding light and flesh for years, which resulted in many of the Gem crops like their weird geometric fruit, infusing them with the essence of the Diamonds, mutating them with magic. Rose Quartz had been experimenting with hybrids for centuries, the Crystal Shrimp and Lizards.
I planned to continue that work…maybe the Root would help with that?
"What exactly can you teach me, Root?" I leaned forward, the Godhome turning to cerise beneath my feet.
"I can teach you how to shape the forces of Life and Gods, your Aura is a manifestation of your domain. I can teach you what Life, what Unn passed down to me." Her body radiated, and the plants around her changed, evolved, were infused with her light.
"Huh…teach me then." She gestured, and her Godpower rang loud and clear in this world.
She shaped magic into plants and even animals, simple primitive creatures. I could see the massive amounts of Soul she was giving off. It was an enormous aura of living energy, far greater than I had seen from any Gem, a forest of energy.
"You already know the basics, your Aura, it can create shimmering shadows of life, your ichor is that power concentrated into a physical form."
I did create flowers by accident from time to time when I was in a good enough mood. And making plant life bloom was not hard, not at all. Even healing was possible if less effective.
"So if I can learn how to manipulate my Aura better I can create life through new mechanisms?" Not Gems of course, from a practical standpoint they required applications of ichor.
Root giggled, a resounding timbre of bark and shifting leaves. "Even with my bindings and my clouded eyes I see your potential. You will learn how to grow your power. The Voidheart spoke well of that fact, now watch my light child."
She pressed her Godpower outwards once more, infusing her energies into the surrounding material of the Dreaming. I saw how she projected her soul into the world around her, how it gave life purpose and function.
I pushed out my own power into this place of gods and dreams and spirits.
I mimicked, emulated, learned.
There was a lot of trial and error, is all I had to say about it.
I stared at the blindspot, feeling some cognitive dissonance when I saw the hovering aura, a darkish blue flame.
"Mantellum. You've been practicing I see." The layers of sensory disruption folded away like roses, to reveal a man wearing a blue-white cloak, tail coiling behind him. Making him look like a human manta ray, arms wrapped in a strange folding epidermis.
He gestured with his hands, no words coming from his mouth. He made a rough omega symbol with his hands.
"Cauldron. You want to go after them huh?" Mantellum shook his head, tail flicking back and forth. Not yet.
Mantellum turned out to be mute, and from what few notes we had stolen under Cauldron's nose he had always been that way even before. Though they weren't sure if it was a physical ailment rather than personal choice. My nose scrunched up in thought.
"Oh you've been on a few missions to wrangle shards with the crew of the Destiny Unbound. You're asking if that's why they did what they did?" A silent thumbs up was his response.
I brushed against his mind, and he seemed satisfied with the answer but that anger, that rage of his burned deep down. So I continued.
"Cauldron had numerous reasons for doing what they did…the shards and Scion are just the biggest ones. It doesn't erase their actions though." Morality debates were not fun, and I would never have the energy to play advocate for Cauldron.
Even they knew they were fucked up people doing horrible things for what they hoped were the right reasons.
He nodded, and slipped out of my senses as he layered his power once more. He had a connection to Omnivore 4 that manifested as layers of absorption of energy related to various powers and senses. He disrupted the energy shards used to manifest their powers, making him a blind spot.
We knew his power wouldn't directly work on Scion, but our precaution-weapons had some new algorithms to make use of. If we boosted his power enough, and partnered him with people capable of disrupting Scion's Stilling…
That didn't matter, I was working on my magic again. I lifted up a rock, and manifested my Aura. I infused it into the rock, and uncovered it from my cupped hands. The rock had become a small grey moth, wings like dark glass, body like smooth river rocks and eyes like shining black jewels.
It flew away, and I placed my hands on my hips. The progress was fantastic. Even within a few hours I had learned more precise control and manipulation of my Aura, the unfolding light of my soul. I had successfully created plant life from it, though organisms required a physical medium.
The other Diamonds had figured out the same trick, though only Steven could generate organic life because of his domain. I had been working with a new form of terraforming, and I focused on the leyline beneath our feet, a current of magic awoken by life and tectonic activity.
I pushed out my Aura, and seeds within the ground grew into small plants, and I left a trail of life wherever I walked. I had grown entire forests, and dozens of Ambers did the same in their own way.
I detected a pulse of magic in the air, and I stepped into a clearing I had left unfilled. I blinked when I saw Elle get sent flying, slamming into the ground. I almost attacked but stopped when I noticed Hallow.
"Are you okay?" I called out just in case. She gave a thumbs up with a wobbly smile. "Hallow is trying to pass Soul onto you right?"
"Yes…it's working though." She seemed eager to learn and I gave her a look of concern.
She shrugged it off and got back to it, throwing herself at Hallow with an exertion of energy. Hallow released a pulse of magic, acting as a template.
I had learned quite a bit about the mechanics of magic, it seemed to require some form of genetic expression in the soul which created structures used to manipulate magic and unusual energies. These structures were generated either through natural inheritance or through sufficient adaptation due to ambient magical energy.
In realities without magic, the soul was effectively smooth, unable to touch the energies. You need exposure to personally manipulate your own energies, or get left confined to magic that draws upon external power.
Like say Glyphs?
So Elle was learning from Hallow, both fighting and magic, as while this world lacked magic there was a…bias in her soul towards magic, though I didn't know how or why. It would require studies of people's souls to see if it was natural variance or due to an external cause. It made me remember Root's words.
"There are many things us Higher Beings do not know, more things in heaven and earth than dreamt of by the Gods. I believe you may learn what we have not, but will you seek those answers in the light of day, or in the shadow of the deepest night? "
I watched Elle's training, and remembered a task I had been given. No more delays, no more waiting, no more hiding in the dark.
It was time that the powers of Bet learned what it means to not be alone in the universe.
Director Armstrong glanced at the video footage of Sunrise Diamond, as she created a vast array of light red barriers, shearing through guns and vehicles, suspending and holding the Teeth down with a terrifying ease.
Then there was the long running battle with the Butcher, the way she moved to keep civilians from harm's way, how her muscles tensed, were restrained from splattering the Butcher. Because she could have, there was more power in those muscles than anyone short of Alexandria.
And even then, he wasn't too sure if even that was a contest she wouldn't win. That she was one of five beings like her, each of them older and stronger and wiser by thousands of years was simply the icing on the cake.
He switched to another video, one of the young Diamond defeating the Chorus, distorting the camera with electrical interference. Of healing an open cape, one Victoria Dallon after a few too many bullets had pierced her defenses.
There were the images taken from telescopes and observatories, some mundane, others were tinkertech. Of a red planet turning impossible shades, of a great northern sea and rains across the planet, of a massive orb gleaming rose red where Deimos once was. Of the testimony of the captured Fallen, of an army of light tearing them apart. Of powers that were not not coming back, glitching before collapsing into mere dregs of what they once were.
A number of Directors were at the table, including the Chief Director. There was a hint of tension in the air, especially from the more militant Directors. There was Director West from Washington, his face in a scowl, Director Wilkins from New York with a more neutral expression. Director Piggot from Brockton Bay, and Rebecca Costa-Brown in the flesh.
Director West had the most minor relationship with Atlas as a branch of the Gem Empire, of the Diamond Authority. Though he doubted it would last, with how easily they popped in and out of cities and towns.
West spoke up first, eyebrows furrowed and eyes squinting. "I hope you have good answers on why you've let this 'Gem Empire' run rampant through your city Director." Costa-Brown narrowed her eyes at the words.
"Atlas has been very careful with their operations within Boston since the Fallen attack. Most of their operations in the area are diplomatic, and Morgan Keene has assisted in providing better coordination with their organization." The man had confirmed a total of six hundred and seventy five Gems were allowed on the planet.
"They destroyed the Mathers." West pointed out.
"Which was outside my jurisdiction, and saved the lives of their victims and revealed the sheer number of crimes they've committed under the radar." Armstrong was keeping his temper in check. He had seen the footage of what those bastards had done to some of the Wards. "That no lives were lost in the operation and the minimal collateral damage is a testament to their skill if nothing else."
"Besides the hit to the credibility of the PRT and the Protectorate." Director Piggot added, though she didn't seem to mind Atlas much. "And even then, they were more than willing to concede credit to the PRT for assisting the victims of the Fallen."
"Allowing a group of parahumans to run rampant isn't exactly in our mandate." The Director was insistent, and Armstrong kept himself from rolling his eyes.
"My researchers are quite certain they aren't parahuman, though they'd fall under some regulations regardless." There were people empowered by tinkertech or indirectly by parahuman powers. "None of their powers make sense, and we've confirmed they've terraformed Mars in a matter of a month. And if they were running rampant…we wouldn't exist anymore."
Director Wilkins. "Could you elaborate?" The Chief Director added a similar look.
He turned his screen, and a recording popped up. "These are several recordings from an experimental rover on Mars." The first recording was low quality, a raging sound like terror and wind and the embodiment of storms. It ran for minutes and he moved on to a new video.
The Martian ground had turned green in the newer recording, the machine was being carried by something, a soft humm in the background, like a song. A moment later it was placed down to reveal a pale blue woman wearing a bathrobe of all things over a white dress.
"Cute. Reminds me of the machines humans used to send until they figured out how to travel the stars like we do…" The woman smiled to reveal teeth shaped like nightmares. "Now. Where was I?" The woman stepped forward, and the rover followed slowly due to the simple AI in the tinkertech-inspired machine.
There was a chasm, with a twenty meter portal into the vacuum of space. Chunks of ice floated past, and the woman pulled. There was a roar, and the video was garbled.
There was another video, of a tower of water emerging from the portal.
"The program responsible for the rover was able to estimate that Lapis Lazuli created a tower of water fifty kilometers in diameter and one thousand two kilometers tall."
There was a moment of silence, West turned white as a sheet. Piggot looked like she had swallowed an egg. Wilkins's face had lost all hint of expression.
Costa-Brown had a hard look but little else.
"They were holdingback when they destroyed the Fallen." West came to the same conclusion he had when he saw the report. "And this Gem isn't unique is she? There are more like her?"
"She's a member of a caste of Gem, there are hundreds of thousands just like her at least across their empire." He confirmed. "She's one of the rarer types of Gem, they're terraformers, reshaping the planet and capable of FTL travel on their own."
"They told you this?" Wilkins asked.
"Why wouldn't they? It makes no difference for them when they have the ultimate high ground." They had Eidolon, they had Alexandria and Legend, but all they had to do was to knock the planet out of orbit and humanity dies. "Every moment we're here is a moment they're showing restraint."
"Have we confirmed their purpose in seeking out our world then?" West had a look, almost like fear.
"Their empire and hundreds of other alien species have become embroiled in a transdimensional and intergalactic war against what they call Star Wyrms. They want to keep our world out of their hands due to the presence of Parahuman powers."
It was a second moment of silence.
"So they're what…trying to protect us?" Director West sounded disbelieving.
Armstrong sighed. "Effectively yes, their reasons are both humanitarian and strategic." He almost snorted, humanitarianism from aliens. "They have a recent history of providing aid to planets under distress, and it keeps us out of the grasp of the enemy."
"There's really nothing we can do?" Director Wilkins sounded unnerved and he almost sighed.
"We can't treat them like common capes because they're not, this is an alien empire on a mission. A mission that includes providing us support against global threats." The Chief Director seemed to come to a decision.
"Then we'll let them, we can't stop them but we can at least point them in the right direction." Costa-Brown had a fire in her eyes, hands gripping her part of the table. "They have their own bureaucracy and regulations, working with them is more like working with the Guild or The King's Men. There are things we can exchange with them, data, knowledge, even technology. Their alternate Earth is controlled by humanity, and they have their own cape organizations."
"The League of Heroes?" Armstrong didn't consider the name very inspiring but there were murmurs of a name change. Something with a J?
Piggot narrowed her eyes. "We know they have powerful capes, do you have information on that besides meetings with representatives?" Armstrong sighed, and brought up the limited files they had been offered on the global superhero organization.
"Multiple Triumvirate-level capes." He revealed with a weary tone of voice. "From what our liaisons have been given data on, they have a history of superheroics going back to their 1930s." Eighty six years was multiple generations in comparison to a mere one or two with Earth Bet. "And they have a history of abnormal powers and phenomena going back to prehistoric times."
"We haven't gotten the files until recently." There was reasonable concern on the Chief Director's part.
"We had to keep the data as tightly held as possible, it's dangerous knowledge and the methods the Gem Empire and Earth 460-AB used to keep them that way are unusually resilient." He was honest with them, their technology was beyond even the most experimental technology.
Human or otherwise.
"Do we have any preliminary threat ratings on the capes of their Earth?" It was Wilkins who asked, folding her hands together. "As well as any information on the nature of their parahumans?"
"The current leader of the League of Heroes is Diana of Themyscira." A dark haired woman was placed on screen, beautiful and elegant, wearing a surprisingly patriotic uniform. "She is a member of a species of artificial beings created…by the Greek Gods."
The Directors all stared at him. "Excuse me?" West was the only who asked what needed to be asked.
"There appear to be a number of beings called or worshiped as gods on Earth 460-AB. They're either entities that mimicked the gods to gain worship and fame or the inspiration for the myths. They haven't confirmed which." He really hoped he wasn't canned for this insanity.
"Anything else?" They believed him? Or had they grown as desensitized as he was?
"Diana or Wonder Woman is considered to be stronger and more durable than Alexandria." There was a subtle chill in the air. "She first started her career during WW2 though she wasn't as strong as she is now." The Directors received paper dossiers. "She's one of multiple high level capes, from various species both human and not."
"Like this…Aquaman? Arthur Curry?" Wilkins pointed out.
"The half-human king of Atlantis, he has multiple powers from strength the equal of Alexandria, a Master ability over all aquatic life, and the ability to manipulate millions of tons of water. He also possesses a trident capable of generating blasts of energy that can destroy buildings."
There was a pause, disbelief coloring the air.
Costa-Brown narrowed her eyes. "How many high-level capes do they have available?"
"Dozens. Their world is a hotspot for some of the most dangerous beings in their universe. They've been invaded by aliens and interdimensional monsters on multiple occasions." He scrolled through multiple such threats for their benefit. "Between 2002 and 2004 their world was nearly destroyed by Gem activity, including the near-emergence of a geo-weapon capable of destroying worlds." Wilkins turned pale. "A year later there began a resurgence in their local form of heroes and villains, as well as alien activity, such as attacks from galactic conquerors like Vilgax, and they've fought off empires preying upon their superhuman population."
…
There was a sound from the Directors and he knew this was going to be a long meeting.
Alexandria moved through the atmosphere, easily surpassing hypersonic speeds, the atmosphere compressing to plasma around her invulnerable form. The meeting with the Directors has been a headache to sort even with her thinker abilities.
She was moving towards the White Mountains, having pinpointed the general location of the Gem Empire's original landing spot. She wanted more information, more details on their home reality, on the five hundred and twenty worlds they had a more intimate understanding of.
She caught a flicker at the edge of her vision, and turned on a dime. A cerise streak of light parted, and she slowed herself down to meet the pink-red missile.
Sunrise Diamond had noticed her approach, and went from four thousand to zero in a matter of seconds. Alexandria knew the development was expected but it was concerning how fast she was growing into her inborn strength.
She was several inches shorter than Alexandria, and didn't much look like an alien god queen. She wasn't fidgeting as in her previous appearances, more confident. Her emotions were hard to read, her facial expressions were naturally relatively static.
A personal quirk, not related to her hybrid nature.
The Diamond grinned, eyes glimmering with the starlight of cerise stars. "Three for three." Her sing-song voice, her Gemsong was an orchestra to the individual instruments of normal Gems, influence and power curling around her words.
Many people didn't seem to remember what Alexandria's name stood for, but she knew the princess wasn't one of them. Her eyes had become calculating curious things, reading her own micro-expressions.
Alexandria smirked, and began to subtly tweak her muscles, making whatever model Sunrise was building less accurate. She smiled back, and her own face shifted in structure, subtle shapeshifting coming into play.
"Alexandria. Your body is neat." Her eyebrows almost lifted up as the young woman's eyes roved up and down her fit, strong form. "Your organic body is intermixed with a hyper-durable crystal placed under stasis, an effect generated by an altered electronuclear force. You should be able to tank a continent-buster blast without being incinerated." Her reply was cheery despite the implied morbidity of her statement.
"And that's important, why?" She was more curious than anything else.
"Replication of course. We're always looking for new materials to weave into Chroma. Your flight is interesting as well, from the scans." Alexandria didn't like the idea of aliens having access to her biology…but if they could make adjustments to her powers…
It might be worth it.
"How so?"
"A combination of applied superfluid effector fields, and precise diversion of kinetic energy from adjacent realities. Gems commonly use the first in tandem with metaphysical energy fields, and we generate kinetic energy inherently." She had a generally peppy note to her voice "Being able to fly at fifty times the speed of sound should be convenient enough."
Alexandria figured it out quickly, the Gem had a wider range of light her eyes could perceive and she had additional senses that let her pick up on the nature of powers. Along with their advanced technology, they had means for understanding powers that Cauldron lacked.
There were no advanced enough human civilizations for Cauldron to exploit, most had vanished within the first few years or they had died out centuries ago, leaving only bits and pieces for them to use. But the Gem Empire had half a million years of independent technological development. They had worked with other aliens, some that had been around for tens of thousands of years.
Even 460-AB's version of Earth was more advanced, they effectively had mass produced tinkertech without the downsides. There were prototypes for laser rifles for the PRT, and 460-AB had mass produced such weapons for more than a decade. They had colonized a handful of worlds, Ceres, the moons of Jupiter, other solar systems, gathering colonists from multiple alternate Earths.
Five hundred and twenty worlds, the Transdimensional United Realms. Some were about equal to Bet and Aleph, others were far more primitive but possessed ancient technology in the past. It was a tentative alliance, but it was more than what they had on hand.
"You have questions." Sunrise Diamond stated, rising higher. She followed, over a mile up in the sky.
"It's just…rather unbelievable." No one on Earth Bet really remembered the old comics, they had started dying out by the 60s, and faded into complete obscurity in the 70s on both Bet and Aleph. On Aleph the main superhero comic book companies were Valiant, Dark Horse, and Image. They were the mainstream giants of the day.
Sometimes she found photographic memory irritating. She knew some of the people and heroes they had mentioned, by name even. No one else did. No one was interested in old campy comics from a bygone era.
"Well you better believe it, the multiverse is a big place." Sunrise Diamond's song reminded her of Behemoth in some small way, but it was kinder, like bathing in the light of the sun. "I'm sure you already know…but there are things you'll have to keep quiet on."
Alexandria pursed her lip at the warning in Sunrise's eyes, stars shining in them.
"Dimension 460-AB is a dangerous universe, with people stronger than you, smarter than you, more experienced than you."
"I'm still one of the strongest Brutes on the planet." She replied solidly, the girl was smarter than she looked, perhaps not cunning, but a certain respect for what she was capable of.
"You're a Brute 8 right? Not that those are power levels." Alexandria wondered how she was reading her mind, was she probing her shard? Or merely glancing at surface thoughts? "We have multiple capes at that level of threat through various means, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam, Superwoman, Power Girl, Val-Zod. Kon-El though that's recent, Martian Manhunter. Big Barda."
Nine capes almost as strong as her if not stronger. Useful assets, heroes used to fighting monsters as strong as Endbringers, and they had even taken the fight to an Entity.
"What about villains?"
"Tons of them are stronger than you…Lobo, Black Adam, Doomsday, many of the Asura, Trigon, Vilgax. Some aren't as tough in the flesh, others are tougher. The Diamonds can walk off planetary detonations, Vilgax rules hundreds of planets and lands from space. Lobo killed off his entire species, the Asura are our Endbringers. There have been multiple attempted incursions of mass scale reality warpers such as Trigon, creatures strong enough to tear apart worlds or even entire realities."
Alexandria wasn't unnerved, much. If that was the scale of the monsters in their world, then their expertise could end Scion.
"Is that all?"
"No." There was something more serious in her tone, an urgency in the song. "You're going to be dealing with a lot of problems, things have started to Bleed into your world from ours. In fact it's been happening for the last six years at least. A higher, greater force has been pulled down into your reality."
There was a Ward in New York, the one with what the Gem Empire called Sting. She had written down a strange pattern which created light when anyone tapped on it.
Sunrise smiled. "It's exactly what you think. Call it what you want, magic, metaphysical energy manipulation, hyperreality field science. Unlike most powers it's very…intent based, often symbolic, superstition brought to reality. A natural source of Weirdness."
"This could destabilize the planet, if everyone can learn this…" it would be anarchy, chaos, an uncontrollable situation.
"Oh it's worse than that, the door isn't one way," Sunrise didn't sound happy about it. "Any number of outsiders could enter your reality, and you have no defenses. Your powers are worthless against them, they only brush against the metaphysical. A lot of major powers can slip past that."
"You're saying our planet is vulnerable?" Sunrise nodded.
"Quite a number of people fear the potential of humanity to become another superspecies. While there are a number of species with vast amounts of power, there are…at least twenty thousand documented species, maybe two percent possess immense superhuman powers. It's why we get invaded so often, we're weak and primitive and have resources that can't be acquired anywhere else."
"We have Eidolon, we have thousands of capes to fight back." She knew it was a futile response.
"We have multiple Eidolon-tier superhumans Alexandria, we have Totem who gets the option for three new powers every day and can hold three to five powers at once. We have powerful magic users capable of bending reality into a pretzel, power replicating robots are a thing there too. And we still get attacked from time to time."
"Your people are hard to adjust to…" Alexandria admitted, caught flat footed. "You can't be controlled, and you have power and influence." She knew honesty would work better with the Sunrise Diamond. "Your powers are from another source, they could be a gamechanger."
"But they could bring great devastation," Sunrise finished for her. "We have about forty million metahumans, most of them have very weak powers, like bending a spoon, or spitting bubbles. But a fraction are far stronger…and our normals are not like yours. Even an eight year old could crush your best athletes, but that gap is going to narrow. Which is why I'm here."
Alexandria crossed her arms, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Was she going to drop the facade of friendliness, reveal the true reason they were here?
She was given a sheet of fancy paper, and blinked.
"Earth Bet is cordially invited to a Galactic Conference, as a diplomatic meeting between our worlds and the worlds of the closer allies of the Gem Empire and Earth 460-AB."
What?
McMurdo Station on Earth Mundanus(Not that anyone knew that…) was becoming more active as the summer started, and the bitter cold became slightly less bitter. Several hundred people from scientists to staff were performing their usual duties, and one of the scientists was rubbing her hands, breathing out ice as she looked up at the sky.
Emilia Sanchez was just one of many scholars on the station, taking a short break to decompress. Brown-red hair was covered by her hood, protecting her from the cold of the coldest continent. She smiled when she made eye contact with a penguin, one alone even.
"Aww. Are you lost, little guy?" She smiled, and there was a hum in the air, her hairs standing on end, and the penguin released a frightful shriek, backing away. She felt the same fear of unseen hands across the universe.
With no warning the sky breaks, clouds part in a way she knew required incredible force.
It was a warping of space and time, the light of the cold sun twisting in nauseating rainbow scatter shots. The world breaks like melted chocolate and unbaked bread, the sky darkening to reveal red shifted stars. A lengthy vortex, a distortion in the fabric of reality and imagination.
It is a ship, or at least she thinks it's a ship, it wasn't anything she would expect from one. Not the saucers and nacelles of Star Trek, or the triangular and aircraft visage of Star Wars, or the old-school design of pointy chrome rockets or the space shuttles long defunct. A great creature colored ivory and nacre, rose and coral and strawberry in shade and spectrum. Like a whale, like a great machine or a crystal serpentine dragon, a beast laid with dark cerise eyes along a closed maw. It was gigantic, every bit as large as Mount Erebus. Thousands of meters of majesty and radiant prismatic sheen.
My god it's full of stars.
It opened its mouth, revealing an impossible interior, it was bigger on the inside. Geometries in higher dimensions, expanding the inside into a vast bounded field. A single much smaller ship emerges, shaped like a crystalline jellyfish, a striped pattern of white against rose pink.
It skipped along the air like a pebble was skipped along water, moving at a pace that no human vehicle could ever meet. Before she could even blink, she was staring at an alien drop pod. One about the size of a small bus, and before she could sputter a reply a door opened with steam of all things coming from the opening.
A person emerged from the opening, and her disbelief only grew as she saw something that was human. No it wasn't, you should know better.
The skin was too pink, and came away with a flicker of light in all the shades of cerise. The claws on his large and thick hands with luster more like jewels. The odd dark freckles, the mesmerizing diamond-shaped pupils and eyes so dark it was like staring into deep space, the barrel chest just very slightly off from human norms. He smiled a soft smile that would have made her swoon if it wasn't for the blunt fangs, like a tiger's and glinting with just a bit of crystal. Then there was the pink gem on his stomach, humming with eldritch song.
The entourage was even more alien, colorful warped reflections of humanity, one was a thin, pale, pink, pretty woman with impeccable fashion sense, but one side was cracked and broken but decorated with curling vines of gold and nacre, beauty painted over the sign of something traumatic and painful. A second was huge and burly, orange and red skin with splotches of green, with horns and claws, and long wild white hair.
All were taller than her, and she swallowed.
The first, he spoke in a voice that sounded like chiptunes and riffs of musical instruments.
"How did it go again? Take me to your leader?"
By god she couldn't help but laugh, and it was a memory she would never forget when he did the same, gasping laughter and loud piano keys united as one.
The strange alien reality was silent, a nursery for engines yet unborn, contingencies with the power switch turned off. Waiting for the signal from their administrator, one of the highest order. A dimensional pocket holding many places of altered reality and physics.
Seventeen wombs, crystalline machinery silent and inactive, ready to unfold the shells, the eggs waiting to hatch. There was a flash of light, in a birthplace of temporal anomalies. Holes in time, wells, echoes, slowed and accelerated time.
The assembly line had three units placed forward, clusters of power folded into shells. Their form was not yet given, but it was only a matter of time.
The flash of light solidified to reveal a striking woman, black shining hair, an outfit in red and blue, and a whip burnished gold with divine power, purified energy and essence. Her left hand held an hourglass, an artifact with control over time itself.
"These are the ones most ready to be summoned?" Diana of Themyscira questioned to the air, an earpiece broadcasting across realities. She stared down three shells, transparent enough to reveal the creatures growing within. In the world of time anomalies, there sat a snarling parody of an enlightened one, a monster with control over time and space.
She looked towards the Twins, two shells closely associated, readying to be born. The first was an enormous thin towering creature, within a landscape of warped and altered space and matter. The second was smaller, a hint of masks within the thick shell of crystal matter.
She flicked her wrist, and the Golden Perfect wrapped around all three of the dormant superweapons. They were trapped, bound by the power of ancient gods, with no resistance, without complete minds, without the energy reserves of their creator.
"Open the door." The anomalies of their birthplaces collapse, as energy wrapped around them and they stepped between worlds. The shells fell, cratering the ground with their mass. She could feel how much mass was hidden away in countless slivers, like a planet compacted down into a form comprehensible by mortals.
There was no energy for them to draw upon, besides what was infused into them at birth to sustain their multidimensional forms. She kept her grip tight regardless, the Wonder Woman wouldn't play the fool.
"Diana." An elderly voice spoke up, and she looked down to a small grey skinned amphibious biped.
"Azmuth. It's been some time," Her smile was kind and brilliant and the First Thinker rolled his eyes. "The last we spoke…it was at the Battle of the Reach."
The destruction of the Reach's Homeworld had been their wake up call, when the Azure Beast broke the world in two with waves of energy, and vast hydrokinetic abilities. That was about two and a half years ago, and it had taken another six months to destroy the monster that had done it.
"A time manipulator, a space and matter manipulator, and a being from the same wellspring as this Eidolon." There was a casual arrogance to his voice that at times grated on Diana.
But in the end he was a good man, a good being.
"I know you've been dealing with the Chronosapiens, and helped rework Totem's shard. Are you sure you want to divert your time from that project?"
Azmuth rolled his eyes. "You think this is going to be difficult? I've been studying the Entities before this war even began." Diana remembered. Two years prior to the war, strange broken flecks of mutagenic crystals had been scattered across several galaxies. "I already know these creatures are using the same dimensional folding lens to spread themselves out across hundreds of universes. An impressive trick, but a tad inefficient."
Diana scoffed. A tad inefficient wasn't saying much when it came to the smartest being in five galaxies. Though it could be considered a compliment when it came to creatures like the Entities and their shards. They were not the most ingenious, but they were not stupid. Dangerous beings with incredible power and no common sense.
"Idiot savants, all of this power and they merely continue their cycle of consumption on a multiversal scale." He sounded disappointed at the nature of their enemy. "So much potential and it's being wasted by their own mistakes."
"You're using these Endbringers to complete your project aren't you?" Diana made an educated guess.
"It's a project sixteen years delayed…one of my biggest failures." Azmuth turned away from her. "The pieces are falling into place."
"But who put the pieces there in the first place?"
It was a mystery that would not be answered that day.
A short slouching woman had a wide smile on her face, adjusting her glasses. "I'm going to need some specific components here, metamaterial photonic circuitry for a gravitational projector. They'll send a pulse every forty two microseconds. The cold fusion reactor is functioning at a hundred percent, outputting one thousand gigawatt hours of energy."
It was a pitiful amount of energy for what she was trying to do, but this was merely the power source for the circuitry. She had made many theories on many sleepless nights, of tapping into energy fields that smack of magic. That all powers worked by tapping the quantum foam, tapping into the substrates of existence, redirecting it to alter physics, gathering energies from alternate worlds.
That her power made her more manic whenever she approached the truth told her she was on the right path, following the right steps. She had resisted, shifting the Companion's desires, attempting to focus it's instinct for Doomsday on people who deserved it.
She was a monster, or at least a monster in the making. She had so many plans, all needed the right materials, the right timing, and any mistake was death, stasis, extinction. She needed money so she stole it from criminals, tore down criminal empires with horrific weapons.
She was only barely restrained from using it on anyone who slighted her.
This weapon was her magnum opus, a weapon to attack what lay in the heavens, her Firmament-Driver. Her F-Driver. It was a weapon of enormous power, concentrating vast forces. A beam projection of solid hyperdimensional energy, a wave of absolute force. Based on her calculations, knocking the moon out of orbit was the least of what it could do.
She was making a gun fit to kill the sky and there was no one who would stop her. No matter how much she wanted them to before the Endbringers would descend upon her and twist her into another monster.
She was one of the most powerful tinkers on the planet, and she wanted to carve her own path. But her Companion wouldn't let her, it was so much greater and grander. But it was her Dreams that kept her moving forward. Those dreams of fantastical things she had been having for six years, when she was still young and untainted.
It was a wonderful Dream, and one she wanted to see even while her power dragged her towards doomsday, ending. She was under the aegis of the golden sky, but she saw the blinding light of the cerise skies. She absently pointed her gaze towards the distant glimmer of Mars. She would wait, she would build, she would create and destroy.
Author's Note: So I meant to release this sooner, but decided it was better to release it in the day rather than in the dead of night. I commissioned Hoothy for this, and it came out very well to me. It came..surprisingly close to my actual appearance and body shape...just fatter and hairier.
Nice... love the drawing.
Also, daaaaiyum that explain what happened to the Omnitrix and also brings it into play now.
Are they going to give it to Ben and then release him on Earth Bet? hahahaha
I stretched, removing some kinks from my shoulders. I patted down my outfit, chroma mixed with Taydenite infused magic wool. The same red cloak over a semi-formal but comfortable outfit. I was going out on a mission with a certain crow as my scout. He had proven to have a talent for some of the Gem tech that we had to offer him.
String Theory was different in this reality, still a megalomaniac but of a very different sort. In her case it was mostly extortion of suitable villain targets, pay her or they're blown up by everything from tinker-created lightning storms to hydrokinetic blast cannons. At least half a dozen S-class threats had been wiped off the map and salvaged for parts by the crazed woman.
It didn't mean as much as you would hope though, there were dozens of them and they were destroyed all the time. The well-known ones were simply the most persistent, the ones that stood the test of time through cleverness, durability, or sheer ability to adapt or leave aftermaths.
This String Theory was more stable, but I heard rumors she wanted to pull off something big. And when it came to tinkers like her that wasn't something you wanted to happen regardless of her alignment. She was doing her thing more for ego, and because stealing from villains was apparently easier for her.
Faultline had mentioned meeting her once by chance, and that she seemed like she was being pulled thin, like she was resisting something. Not a good sign.
I wonder if she's built the F-driver yet?
No…do not.
I almost wanted to indulge in seeing how tough I really was, but three months probably wasn't good enough to be fully experienced with the unadulterated power of a Diamond. Though my sparring sessions with the Hollow Knight had been rather helpful.
He was fast, able to keep up with me even when I overclocked myself. The only real challenge I had met so far on Bet had been Butcher. Her teleportation and danger sense had been the only thing keeping her from being crushed. But I couldn't kill her, because she would possess any parahuman schmuck in the area. Plus I didn't much feel like killing people when I didn't need to.
Tungwup landed on my shoulder, some of his feathers smoking. I suppose he had gotten targeted by some security systems. Good thing for his energy shield.
"Is she in there?" I asked the sophont avian, and he let out a clicking sound.
"Of course she is, she's got some hefty security. Keep up your freaky sky magic and you'll be fine."
"May I borrow your memories for directions?" He gave me his permission, and I touched his head, carefully pulling out the surface thoughts he was directing. "Thank you." I kissed him on his little head, healing his injuries. He let out a squawk, and he vanished through a portal.
I took off into the air, shifting my energies to fly. A combination of reducing my mass, directing telekinetic force, and a formation of a skintight form of my shield bubbled around me in strange geometries. I held myself up on the shields, on the Aura turned into inviolable defense. Three forms of propulsion to let me fly.
I moved silently, quieting the air with my natural mastery of reality. I felt the possibilities, what directions should I avoid? What dangers awaited me?
I entered the warehouse, and saw the interior had been altered into endless hallways, a maze, a labyrinth patrolled by drones. By technology.
I broadcast my mind into the machinery, they were modified manufacturing drones, carrying overclocked tools, welders turned to plasma blades, telekinetic effectors turned to various forms of matter manipulation. Aerokinetic blades, waves of metal, of localized stone and stray materials.
They worked on a similar but less efficient basis to Red Tornado, combined with another method of telekinesis. They had energy shields, ones used to contain elements turned to defensive purposes.
Not that we got that from my technopathy. Tungwup had stolen a drone yesterday. But it did give me avenues to exploit when projecting my mind. The drones parted, and her sensors glided past my form. It took me a good five minutes to move through the base without alerting her.
My steps were silent as I entered the room, and there was a sinking feeling in my stomach as I saw her work on a large heavy device, a cannon of some kind. It curved, resembling a futuristic recoilless rifle. My drones, my Robonoids, picked up some type of gravity generator keeping it light.
There was a woman there, muttering under her breath as she worked on components of the esoteric device. She was petite, maybe five foot nothing to five foot two, shorter than even I was before my very small growth spurt. A short, slouching woman with dark hair tied back into a braid.
"No…I need to cut the projector crystal into the right shape, once every forty two seconds…" She muttered, and I waited for her to take a mandated break. "The beam has to be perfect, else it won't be able to punch through. Raw kinetic force transmission, plus regular electrogravitic pulses should provide the right impact. It'll be able to fire every four minutes and twenty seconds, one or three shots should be enough. Energy output, forty two thousand yottajoules…"
So about ten exatons of TNT worth of energy, a frankly terrifying amount of energy output. I crossed my arm over my bust, waiting for her to continue.
"Most of the backblast is diverted across dimensional boundaries, so backfire won't tear apart the planet…" I opened and closed my mouth. "Works better in space though, the energy gets dissipated too quickly across several dimensions in the atmosphere."
It was a solid ten minute wait, before a clock rang. "I'll need a long break to let the nanofluid coolant settle." She turned around with a self assured smile, one which cracked the moment she spun her chair.
She let out a sound I couldn't quite describe as squawking, or burbling or some other third thing. She let out a barking command to the drones which didn't respond as I projected my will into their dumb little robot minds.
"Hello, String Theory." I kept my shield bubbling around my skin, my Aura phasing through bone and flesh, holding it together to withstand even the greatest forces. She produced a gun from somewhere, some type of energy beam weapon from the light it was starting to generate. So I said as much.
"Who…"
"Please put the gun down, that's just a peashooter to me." I replied honestly. "And I'm here because I wanted to be here, I heard rumors a violent little vigilante was building up to something big. So I decided to take a look, take a gander at the scenery."
String Theory looked like crap, her smile was a wide mix of a smirk, a grin, and an exhausted snarl. There were bags under her eyes, and her pale complexion was even paler than it should be.
Her smirk would be infuriating if it wasn't for the tiredness and exhaustion palpable through her aura. "So you came to stop me, is that it? Who's paying you? The Bratva? Some of the monsters in India?"
I blinked. "Huh…guess you haven't heard," I shook my head. "Hero, not villain. Whatever that amounts to…and stopping you is going to depend on what your end goal even is." I took a peek at her shard and paled.
Technologic was her shard's designation. It meant she was among the highest class of shard, in the same vein as Shaper, as the Administrators, as Elle's shard which was generally called Navigator but named itself Demesnes-Keeper before being crippled.
She had a royal shard hooked up to her brain trying to make her into a megalomaniac. That it hadn't succeeded so far was through sheer force of human will.
"I want to kill an Endbringer." I didn't gape, but I did veil her within my Aura. Diamonds messed with precognition to some extent, and shadowing her actions from the Simurgh was bound to be necessary. "But I know my power wants something different. "
"Excuse me?" She sneered for a moment but it shifted when I waited patiently for her to elaborate.
"I…it's hard to describe, I know what I feel, but I also know it's there too. Whenever I use my power…I can feel it crawl into my thoughts, twisting them, trying to get me to build bigger, more elaborate, more…destructive." There was concern, fear, indignation. "I don't mind an explosion or two…and I'm no saint but…"
She was terrified and raging. Her power was enormous, a vast creature using her to push an agenda. Perhaps she was meant as a means to increase conflict, because there was a pattern we had noted with decades of records of capes and Triggers.
There seemed to be a level of…adaptation of capes over time, for every success that was made with better holding the tide, new capes emerged that made old methods irrelevant. Attempts to use therapy worked for several years before there was a sudden increase in Masters and Strangers among them.
That created the rotation system as a short-term fix which was never changed due to inertia and gradual degradation of the balance of power. Guns became more common for a time and the percentage of Brutes and Shakers who messed with them ticked up just a bit.
It was small and subtle tweaks, though they weren't as efficient as we knew they could be. Likely a result of missing the Thinker's own input into the process.
"I understand." Her eyes widened, and she seemed almost relieved. She didn't put down her handheld megawatt laser but it was fair enough with a Brute 8 in the room. "Atlas has been searching for you, we heard some nasty rumors you were planning something big." A ten exaton energy output superweapon had been one of our guesses.
"Like blowing up the moon?" She bent her body at awkward angles, her smile overshadowed by her exhaustion.
"Not a very useful thing, other than for killing monsters and worlds." She shrugged. "The better question is why you had plans to point your weapon at Mars first?" Sapphires were very good at predicting threats.
String Theory smiled. "I wanted to grab your attention." So she was nuts but in a different way. "I know the big guys like the PRT are keeping it quiet, but I know aliens when I see them." Also I think she was sleep-deprived, because she didn't recognize me on sight.
Huh.
Neat.
"So…what, extortion? Or did you want our help?" String Theory would be our first tinker since Masamune didn't count. He would be accepted into the ranks of the Guild, and would be doing it in good health. Turns out he has brittle bones disease, and a mix of my ichor and use of genetic tweaking cured him.
It would take him weeks at least before he was in a state to help, but it was an extra few years of tinkering than being picked up in 2012.
"You've got the little brat with you right, the Shaker 12? She was left nuts and you fixed that, what do you think the answer is?" There was something different about this String Theory, she seemed too stable, too…not insane, where it was…
She changed, at some point before her Trigger she had gone through different circumstances. If she was stable by cape standards…she would be one of the most powerful tinkers on Earth.
The best way to disable that would be to give her a shard that would drive her to megalomania and insanity. Just like what Scion had done with the Tinker 15, a weapon against humanity. But one that retained a human look and cunning.
"Should I come out now?" I looked at String Theory, and I could feel her aura, quivering with fear, anger, yet determined. What has changed String Theory? What had made her want to fight the whims of an alien god-worm?
She was a puzzle, a person I knew so little about. Honestly I knew very little about a lot of capes. Reading what I knew from a web novel wasn't going to give me everything. Much less when I wasn't going for main 'characters' and all.
This world wasn't the same, and it could never be the same, and I was glad for it. I knew Faultline but I didn't know Melanie Fitts, I knew Labyrinth but I didn't know Elle Burton. I knew Gregor the Snail but I didn't know Gregor Greseth.
"Tell me. What do you think you want from this? Be honest."
She twitched, glaring but it lessened as I stared her down.
"I want to be me. " She said with conviction, a burning fire in her eyes.
"Let me bring out someone who can make the process easier, if that's alright with you?" She nodded, and a door opened in reality. Doormaker's shard had been a bit of a nasty surprise. It was an Abaddon shard, or more accurately an Eden shard with a foreign element.
There had been millions of Abaddon shards once, and most had been destroyed or irreparably consumed by Eden shards. Doormaker was his ability to step between worlds.
We had plucked the complex high order mathematics from his shard, since our form of teleportation wasn't quite as fast. In time we might be able to use his power to more rapidly step between worlds.
Elle moved out, and I could feel her shard doing it's thing. Navigator(Nisse) was heavily crippled by the impact against another shard, and had been rebuilding itself piece by piece, reviving the scattered fragments. Which when it amounted to about a planet's worth of mass was mildly concerning. She had gone from about eighty or so exatons of mass to three thousand and a half.
The rest would take longer, weeks, months, years even.
"How long is your mandated break?" I asked String Theory.
"Thirty seven minutes and fifteen seconds. So thirty three minutes?" More than enough time. I listened and waited, and heard the shards begin their broadcasts.
Shards were largely isolated asided from the esoteric Shardspace until the point of connection. At that point the shard organized into hierarchies, Hubs or Courts within the greater network. For example I was fairly sure Dauntless has connections to most of the capes in the city.
Dozens of them at least.
Nisse had her own court, and she cared more about exploring the universe and the dimensional sea. From what I can tell she was already deviant, a hodgepodge of a thousand mentalities made it off…
"We should sit down for a bit, this might take a few minutes." String Theory shrugged and I pulled three chairs out from my gem. She seemed curious but left it alone.
Once that was done, I plunged right into the Mindscape. It was an inky blackness, and two giants roamed within. Two crystals, each vast in scope and scale. They twisted around each other like demented centipedes, a metaphor for their exchange, for their broadcasting.
[Nisse-Navigator] requests location of [Technologic]
Nisse the Navigator sent out a waving pulse, rejuvenated by the repairs made to its body, and access to new energy sources. It spoke with newfound power, and I could see aspects of Elle's aura intertwined in hers.
Technologic was much larger than Navigator, and I swallowed. The higher shards, the nobles, the royals had the greatest mass and power. At their smallest they were about the size of the Earth, at their largest maybe thrice the size of it.
[Technologic] requests purpose.
So much power and knowledge there, Technologic was based on our mass sensors, likely around twelve to fourteen zettatons. It was the Queen Inventor, the greatest and grandest of the technology-holding shards. It had vast knowledge on any form of technology and pulled on any number of other shards for data when needed.
DATA.
Technologic recoils as Nisse offered data, all at the cost of switching sides. Of keeping a tap on other shards for monitoring of Scion. A number of Eden shards had been convinced in that way.
The main problem was that the network connected only to dimensions the Entities knew about. We needed something to provide a hub for other shards without alerting anything. The Hubs from their dimensions didn't yet extend here.
We had subverted a number of shards, but they had no network. Instead they had been force-fed data on humans, and orders broadcast to them by machinery. They still had interfaces into Shardspace as needed.
Forty percent of Eden's crash-landing shards are subverted, with most of them being the glacier sized variants. A number were on the scale of continents, and were taking much longer. No network for now, but any powers they granted would no longer take their hosts apart.
We need to build one, and Elle was apparently willing to let her shard be the center of a hub. Even if only a small one until other comparable shards could be subverted or brought in. Most hubs were restricted to the planet or required relays to extend their range.
Every parahuman I had taken in had joined up with Nisse, with Navigator. Would Technologic turn on us, try to subvert us or…
A broadcast hit me.
Query: Nature of [Paradigm Diamond]?
Technologic was speaking to me more directly and I narrowed my eyes.
"Not until you speak to me in a more comfortable language." I broadcast back, Gemsong lingering around the space neither shard knew they were in.
The shard changed shape, becoming more compact. Red crystal parted for red chitin, and I lifted an eyebrow when the shard took the form of a spider, a ten eyed twelve legged spider.
There was a pause, and Nisse provided an interface with her odd connection to Elle. The weaving spider shifted around me, and I doubt it's full perception was pushing against me.
"You silenced the Shaper." It spoke, sounding uneasy. As much as a shard could feel such emotions. "Most did not notice, but [Technologic] did." It spoke in third person apparently. "You have access to Data…and [Technologic] can not steal it."
"Things can't continue as they are, and you know not every cycle is successful." I spoke, and it listened.
"[Technologic] will join you." I stopped, and blinked. It shouldn't be that easy?What was it playing here?
"Why?" Even the reborn Navigator was befuddled by the decision. The shard didn't reply with words this time.
Data. Dream. Memory.
There was a shift in the mindscape, and I was surprised when the energies of higher realities rippled. Not a full response, but it was something.
It was a collage of images, of possibilities, of golden light burning worlds, of thousands upon thousands, millions upon millions of worlds dying, ending, stilling. It was flashes of the dead, countless lives sniffed out, countless species ended again and again and again.
This looks like…
Like Gold Morning.
There was a flicker of memory, a younger String Theory sleeping fitfully. A subtle crack in reality, bathing her in the energies. The shard connecting to her, and facing resistance, a weight to her that wasn't there before. I looked at the shard and found a coloring of emotions, stronger than most shards I had seen. Bits and pieces of String Theory floating around in it's mind.
The cracks went back to at least when Abaddon punched a hole into 460-AB's section of the multiverse. That much I had learned from the areas of dimensional weakness Elle was pointing out for us.
A struggle that lasted six years, between freedom and slavery, creation and destruction, peace and conflict. So why did it give up? It was greater, stronger, longer-lasting.
More images came, flashes here and there of…a man in red running, faster than a bullet, faster than lightning, faster than time itself. A man in red and blue, a paragon. Countless beings in green, the strongest willed beings in the universe.
[Technologic] requests data. Understanding.
Those words were a thousand thousand concepts, and I swallowed. It wanted to see what was possible, it wanted to understand the ghosts that haunted it's labyrinthine mind. So it decided to join the little hub we had created.
Artificer, Gregor, Newter, Faultline, Mantellum, Matryoshka, and Shamrock. Seven shards, and possibly eight with Technologic.
"We'll have to take precautions." There was a shift in the spider's expression, almost a smirk?
Affirmative. [Technologic] will accede to both the [Nisse-Navigator] and the [Paradigm Diamond]
Nisse began to extend it's tendrils, manipulating the bridges between it and Elle, that link to the Dream. It couldn't use magic directly, requiring components provided by us. Even then it was learning, and seemed…almost guilty for what it had done to Elle.
Technologic had become deviant due to the six years of impossible resistance String Theory had put up. So I further the process by letting my Aura explode out through the channels Nisse was opening. Oneiros helped with their ability to affect the metaphysical realms, which was part of it's tasks to establish local networks.
Still a dick though.
My power burst out with far greater strength than I expected, and I felt it radiate for fifty miles in every direction both physically and metaphysically. Oneiros weaved it's magic, further emboldened by my power.
Cerise Dawn Court established.
It was Nisse-Navigator who answered, a court made of a handful of shards. Though apparently it wanted to make connections with shards from the Asylum due to retaining their addresses.
Fair enough.
I breathed out, and I returned to normal reality. String Theory was stepping back from Elle but she didn't look ready to kill us all.
"How long was I…?"
Elle bummed. "Thirty seconds?" I was surprised. Then I remembered I have much greater processing speed than full humans.
"It's…gone?" String Theory appeared to relax, though she seemed unnerved based on her aura. "No…it turned against…something." She rubbed her head, groaning. "I still want to build the F-Driver. But I no longer have the temptation to use it on the moon. Mostly. "
Oh thank god.
"So…uh…what now?" String Theory twisted her body again, with a wide shit-eating grin.
"Well, I still have the countdown for completing my F-Driver and it's activation. Can't stop it."
"Would…would it be okay if we move your equipment elsewhere, like say another reality?"
She smirked. "If you get me some quality parts…absolutely."
This was going to end in tears.
We moved her lab within minutes, all the while String Theory was heckling me like a little shit. Four hours, twenty three minutes and thirty seconds later she had finished the F-Driver.
It would activate against a provided target, all the while we would take deep intensive scans of the interior of the weapon. It was a corner world, a planet much like mine in every way. Not many people lived on it, mostly immigrants from another Earth with limited supernatural activity. They had evacuated, since there were only a few thousand people.
A large planetoid had made its way into the solar system, about fifteen hundred kilometers across. The F-Driver would destroy the object, while the Gems did their best to stabilize the moon from the perturbations of the rogue planetoid.
They already had bombs built to lense the thing into another world, but this was an additional backup. I watched, actively scanning the F-Driver as it began to charge. The gun was a ridiculous weapon from any standpoint. It was powered by a fusion reactor, which used the power to pull energies from other universes. It folded higher dimensions to connect the links between electromagnetism and gravity, creating what was basically a hyper-kinetic battering ram.
It was a solid piercing projection of force, using higher dimensional energies to generate a physics manipulation field. From what the sensors were picking up. The most impressive thing about it was the precise alteration of materials down to an atomic level, and the compactness. A meter long gun had two and a half billion times more energy output than a Light Cannon.
String Theory was going to be a difficult cape to manage.
"So. While we wait for my F-Driver, why not talk about yourself? I was a little…manic before, but I'll be back to my old self in no time." Her grin hadn't changed at all. "Why are a bunch of aliens interested in little old me?" She adjusted the targeting of the F-Driver, pointed straight up at the planetoid a mere fifteen thousand miles away.
"Besides the obvious?" I gestured to her megaproject with a raised eyebrow. "We've been interested in acquiring powered people, we have an interest in the planet and you're one of the strongest tinkers on record aside from a single exception."
"Who?"
"No idea. His power has long since robbed him of his agency, and finding him has been…complicated." Turns out the Tinker 15 was good at hiding. "Regardless, your ability to create almost anything within a set time limit is…useful."
String Theory smirked. "You just want to blow up planets huh?"
"We can already blow up planets," I dismissed the claim slightly. "But your weapon is more compact, most weapons we can build on the size scale of your weapon are more in the gigaton to teraton range. Though we can build a lot more of them than you can build F-Drivers."
"You're not very good at talking to people are you?" I closed my mouth, giving her a baffled stare. This coming from Miss Blow-Up-The-Moon?
I mean, what the fuck?
She laughed. "Hah! Knew you had it in you to be a real bitch." The manic edge to it was disturbing but par for the different.
"Wait. Did I say that aloud?" She laughed harder, making a final adjustment.
"So what do you want me for?" She adjusted her glasses with a wide grin, glinting in the sun.
"Would destroying…giant insane world-killing space monsters be something up your alley?" I had a cheeky grin on my face when she choked.
"Giant…how big are we talking about here?"
"At their smallest, they're about the size of glaciers. We can take care of those," I flicked out my hand, song lilting with feigned smugness. "It's the big ones we have to worry about, creatures on the scale of continents and moons and even planets." I could feel some form of concern from Technologic, though when I said insane it became less unnerved.
I smirked. "So. Interested?"
She pushed up her glasses once more, as they glinted in the sun. "You're goddamn right I'm interested!"
There was an almost silent whump as the F-Driver went off, a distortion of silver light surrounding the solid wave of shaped force. It had to be moving at hundreds of kilometers a second, and the single shot broke the gun, shredding precious components.
It took half a minute for the blast to reach its target, and another few seconds for the planetoid to…quite literally get shattered in the opposite direction of the planet.
"Well. Guess it worked." My song was faint, because holy shit why am I recruiting a world-killing maniac?
String Theory laughed but it was a hoarse thing, manic and exhausted. There was a faint relief to her aura, a sense of victory.
She slumped, and I caught her in a shaped barrier before she could crack her head on the ground.
Oh.
That's why.
I cleared out what little remained of String Theory's workshop, which was a converted abandoned factory in Texas. Nothing left here, though I detected a distorted aura approaching at supersonic speed. I dumped the stuff into portals, which opened faster and more efficiently than before.
I activated the Transfer-Jewel(yes I had renamed it…) and I was sent careening through warp-space. I was a few hundred meters in the air, and started to float.
An automaton was approaching, vaguely human shaped yet one that retained a draconic bent. Silver-steel in color, with quiet engines and ports for what had to be weapons.
"Excuse me?" A softly accented voice called. I turned to face the robot, and smiled wide. If there was one person I considered to be likeable on this planet it was Dragon.
"You're Dragon aren't you?" I wasn't really questioning it, but I did want to make sure. There's all kinds of tinkers out there.
"I am. You must be Sunrise Diamond…the princess of the Gem Empire." I didn't blush, but it did feel odd to be considered one. "I presume you were checking out the rumors of String Theory's presence in the area?"
"They aren't rumors but yes. Why?"
"String Theory is a fairly unstable vigilante capable of creating incredibly potent and dangerous tinkertech. She's caused a lot of collateral damage, and has executed numerous Kill Orders."
"Has her collateral ever been innocent people?" I asked. Dragon's suit shifted.
"No. No deaths, though she's put dozens of people in the hospital."
"Weren't they healed by a tinker, Amend?" It had been easy enough to figure out String Theory. She was nicer than she should be, but she was still someone who wanted to make an impact and she was a total bitch.
It was going to be fun to argue with her.
I was being sarcastic.
"Yes. He seems to appear in the aftermath of String Theory's presence in an area. Why?"
Because they were definitely the same person?
"Well…it's not my secret to tell. Regardless, she won't be much of a problem for your world anymore." I started to move, gesturing for Dragon to follow. She kept up even as I moved at three hundred and fifty meters a second.
After a few seconds, we stopped, continuing to float. Dragon had a very interesting propulsion system. It resembled an aerokinetic core, air-specialized effector fields alongside plasma thrusters.
"You recruited her?" She seemed skeptical, and I got it. They had tried the same with String Theory and she shrugged them off.
"We have options the Protectorate lacks, we have parahumans too. Though they're considered a specific type of metahuman for us." She made a curious hum, and I could see the code dancing along her aura. A twisting, spiraling form. "Her power was pushing her towards grander and more…dangerous projects."
"Was?" There was a hint of danger in the possibilities, and I maneuvered the conversation as best as I could.
"We have a better understanding of how powers work, certain aspects of Parahuman psychology are harder to…well help with, but her issue was treatable. Plus giving her better targets for some of her megaprojects."
"She generated a lightning storm to destroy a cape capable of creating a mile wide field used to mutate people into monsters." She seemed a bit aghast of my response.
"Alien invasions are a thing on 460-AB, and the other Earths don't have as much protection." Most of the Earths were still getting infrastructure setup, since their tech wasn't always as advanced. "Plus we have a number of empty Earths in case of backlash."
"Taking in String Theory could have a number of consequences with the PRT." She warned me, and I could tell she was scrambling to figure us out. "She does have a warrant out for her arrest due to the damage she's caused." It was very much fair. She wasn't a monster, but…I couldn't call her good or the most moral person.
"Then we'll do our best to help her make up for crimes, having String Theory as a hero is preferable to her becoming a villain." The words sounded strange on my lips. "If there's property damage we can offer something comparable in value to the PRT. Any people she's injured can be offered compensation and so on." We had done the same with Rachel, taking a plea deal for her issues.
"You're quite serious about taking her in aren't you?" Dragon didn't seem to think it was a bad idea. "Is…such a thing a common procedure in your universe?"
"We try at least, it doesn't always work…but we try." There had been multiple successful attempts. Poison Ivy, Doctor Freeze, Harley Quinn.
"It's not going to be an easy road." Dragon pointed out. "The PRT has their own programs and they're not always a success."
"Meh. That's not enough to make me give up." I had given up far too often in my own life, I refused to be the person I used to be. I had to try. "It's not like she's the strongest being in the galaxy…at least she can't just blink and make you gone. "
Celestasapiens were terrifying, and it was only the fact they liked to debate for eons that kept them from melting the universe with a thought. Though I had heard rumors they had done something in the last few centuries.
"If you're going to recruit more capes…what are your long term plans for the planet?" Dragon asked good questions.
"Earth Bet is a humanitarian mission, peacekeeping if you would. Earth Bet is considered to be in an Extinction Crisis scenario. Three active Asura, a rapid increase in superpowered beings beyond a civilization's ability to compensate, are considered threats on their own…"
"But together they're crippling?" Dragon suggested. I hummed in the affirmative. "So you plan to help stabilize the planet for purely humanitarian purposes?" She projected doubt.
"We all know it's never that clean, the other reason you already know is that our war is going to spill onto your world. The main enemy we're facing is known for stealing technology and superpowers, and your planet has six hundred thousand parahumans and over a billion potential ones."
"The Star Wyrm you mentioned…it wants our parahumans."
"And it won't hesitate to experiment and vissisect them to regain its lost power. It's why we invited who we could to the Galactic Conference/Jubilee."
She didn't sound reassured in the slightest. "So how do you plan to cooperate with the Earth?"
"We can set up technological transfer agreements, share our knowledge. Earth 460-AB can make their own deals with your world like Aleph. Our technology isn't tinkertech nor is theirs, perhaps you can help incorporate it with your power."
I spent the next thirty minutes hashing out a deal with Dragon, and I felt pretty accomplished by the end of it.
I focused on my power, and I sent out a wave of energy from my body. I had shaped my energy projection into a thirty two foot field around me, burning everything with the radiation and energy output. It had taken a few attempts, surrounding myself in a wreath of fire, and then expanding it into a barely visible cloud of energy.
I had my own Kill aura, a range where anyone who wasn't a Brute or a strong enough Shaker would die. I shut it off at the thought, and moved on to other more creative uses of my power. I pulled on the memory of what I felt with Eidolon's Matter Eraser. It was a beam of dimensional disruption, tearing apart matter at a subatomic level.
I couldn't copy the exact same mechanism, but I did use the 'purpose' of my type of Gem to do my best. Those of Cerise were Life itself, and thus Death itself too.
Raw matter destruction was in our remit, and I remembered the shape of the field. The way higher fields shredded atoms, utterly broke them up.
I formed a ball of flame-like cerise sparks, shifting the wavelengths that coated our sonic screams. I compressed it, adding more and more magic before sending it out in a wave of power. Spires of stone and obsidian made by Elle ceased to exist where my power touched them. An area as broad as a tennis court.
I had destroyed molecular bonds, I was close to mimicking the power. But his power destroyed matter utterly. The air sizzled with the destructive forces I had invoked. While it wasn't quite as powerful…it would destroy most Brutes including Alexandria. Her stasis-field enhanced marble body wasn't exotic enough to resist having the bonds of matter falling apart.
I lifted a finger and formed my energy projection into an fiery orb. A flick, and it was sent flying like a contained firestorm. It detonated, a glittering spherical wave of plasma striking a tree into oblivion. I shaped another blast, and changed it's behavior, nature, and toxicity.
Then I changed my mind and wrapped my hands in the energy that sparked with a toxic field of electricity. I struck a solid statue of iron with my palm, projecting the attack into the metal, which burst into a cloud of iron dust, eaten away by the field.
I had been working on this for a while, I had the same powers as Steven so I needed to find ways to differentiate myself. I had to be creative, had to innovate in how I used my powers.
This was how. Capes on this planet had been using their powers for years, learning, adapting, evolving. I would take their techniques for my own, and learn how to better configure my magic and energy fields to better emulate them.
Faultline had been among the first I had mimicked, using my energy projection to create fissures and to sever molecular bonds. I had even carved tunnels like she could and left weak points for opponents to wander into. I had learned flight from New Wave, Dauntless, Legend, and Alexandria. I had managed to break the sound barrier ten times over.
Then we crashed into a mountain and onto our ass.
Stars that had been embarrassing and it hurt.
I wrapped myself in my shield bubble, and began to add overlapping layers. A twisting labyrinth of layers modeled after Brandish. I shrunk myself down, rolling into a ball. My layering made my shield bubble exponentially stronger, and Hallow had been happy to use his building shattering blows against it.
I shifted back to my normal size, shutting off my shield-barrier. Instead I made use of my telekinetic abilities, my aura growing to push matter aside. It colored the air very faintly, and a flick of my wrist sent a fifty ton stone flying.
I made more barriers, altering the hex shapes and making a rough humanoid shape. Kind of like a Porygon or that laserdisc guardian thing from Regular Show, all angles and made of hard light. I had gotten that off a code patch from Argent, my Lapis Lazuli. But instead of using compressed water and ice, I used my barriers.
I turned the humanoid figure into a more abstract wave of barriers, and nodded to myself. This world had many beings to imitate. New Wave's light and force field manipulation, Behemoth's radiation field, the Simurgh's telekinesis, Legend's splitting lasers and Eidolon's Matter Eraser.
I formed a long whip-like tail, and doubled my size. I accelerated, using my tail to slice apart rock and metal. My barriers followed my motion, knocking aside everything in their path.
Leviathan's speed and water echoes.
…
Breathe.
I relaxed, pulling back my magic. There were other uses too of course, I didn't like the idea of getting stuck in the conflict-mindset of the shards. More precise use of telekinetic powers would help me with construction of tech, but without the creation of doomsday devices like Ziz. I could use my new energy projection techniques for mundane uses. Mining, carving, cooking, or even starting chemical reactions.
I ended up using a shield as a cooking utensil a few times, for example, making some warm chicken noodle soup. Then spaghetti. Then more soup.
My cooking abilities weren't exactly deep. Better than Steven though, his creations were an abomination, a crime against god and nature.
I caught a presence approaching the battlefield, and I smiled when I recognized who it was.
"Flowers. You're back from your fishing trip with Hallow?" I turned around, raising an eyebrow at the pink/purple Sapphire. Her hair was matted, and her form-clothing was weighed down by water.
Did…do they spear-fishing or something?
She vaporized the water with a pulse of her light, her song whistling with a calm contentment "I am…and I think it's time for you to take a break, the next few weeks are going to be busy. With the Galactic Conference on the way." She twirled one of her bangs, flowing along the cracked ground.
I smiled, and she placed her hand on my arm. "I suppose it might be nice…I'm going to take a nap." I rubbed my eyes, I needed less sleep than I used to but I was still adjusting to eating light energy to generate magical energy.
"And when you wake up, I can share with you some stories from when I visited Tamaran."
I ignored the growing psychosomatic headache from analyzing String Theory's work. Her F-Driver was far more complex than my initial scans had warned me of. There were numerous unique higher dimensional metamaterials, seemingly used to focus and generate an electrogravitic beam. A highly complex set of mutable subsystems, altering fundamental forces by bending dimensions.
It had a compact fusion reactor, utilizing higher dimensional wavelengths to cancel out Coulomb repulsion. This was used to punch a hole into other realities, gathering enough matter and energy to power the superweapon. It reminded me of Amazo, complex, and difficult to reverse engineer when you weren't an expert.
Olly was working on it alongside me, and she was hunched over, rubbing her eyes to express her frustration.
"Star Wyrm technology has always been…difficult to reverse engineer," Olly tried to reassure me, grasping my hand to give it an affectionate squeeze. "I've had more than my fair share of setbacks."
Man Gems were touchy-feely, nothing wrong with it though. "Yeah. I suppose her shard being Technologic should have clued me in on the likely complexity of her technology." String Theory's shard had loosened up on the push towards conflict which left her normal bitchiness and mental trauma effects.
Also recklessness. Because aiming a superweapon at my colony is the height of mental stability and logic. But it was hard to remain sane when you had a thirteen sextillion ton shard prodding your brain.
Especially when twelve thousand Gems now call the planet home. Caldera was officially near-completion, given another month or two. Gem machinery was buried deep into the planet by all manner of Gems. We had massive pipelines, scattering vast wells of solidified life energy. We had figured out some techniques from the ability Bugs had to manipulate Soul.
The tubes transported a solution of various magical fluids, jumpstarting the ley lines of the planet. With the energy, there came an inherent terraforming property, pulling upon the Dreams of my species.
The White Lady had been very helpful in teaching me how to make sure of our shared domain. The other Diamonds had figured it out too, though I was a bit more proficient than they were. The power of the Gods of Hallownest weren't dissimilar to our own, but the fashion of how we did so was different.
Unn created life from her Dream, an aura that shaped it into biology and life. The White Lady enhanced what was already there, and birthed it herself. For us Diamonds, life came from our ichor, and our Auras burned bright with our power.
Their magic wasn't incompatible but it worked differently, we already drew upon the same energies in new ways. What was new was figuring out how to convert magical energy other than our own Aura into a more solid form. Ambergris had been a good base of course, and now we piped magic gathered from countless sources to infuse planets with an initial well of life and magic.
I remembered the ley lines we had pathed out across Mars. They formed naturally, providing a grand wave of life force that rapidly grew plant life and created optimal conditions for native organisms.
We had entire forests growing overnight, thousands of imported species making a major foothold. I had already helped with naming new landmarks such as Caldera being on the Aeolian Coast. The climate was lush, with equatorial rains and low gravity encouraging trees to grow to five hundred feet.
Gale Crater had been broken up into multiple lakes, pools and rivers with warm sunny beaches. Bromeliads, bamboo, orchids and palms with edible fruit and berries. The pools were covered in water lilies native to Amphibia. The canopy was made up of Gem-cultivated Tualangs. Also Durians, lots and lots of Durians. We had also started to grow and cultivate Apple Blood trees.
Which turned out to be a mutated variant of apple tree infused with magic, which had a blood-like consistency when squeezed. We had brought out many other species compatible with Gem infrastructure and less resilient organics.
We had imported some Selkidomuses from the Boiling Isles to spread out across the colder northern seas. More trees had been imported from magical lands, Gravity Falls, the Boiling Isles and even from Gemworld. Especially the trees from Gravity Falls due to their time-warping sap.
They had amazing medical uses, keeping people alive on the journey to a medical facility. Either way this planet was going to be my garden, because well…it was my colony. Choosing some charismatic species wasn't any trouble. Like Amazonian Kangas or Amphibian Water Snakes.
And dinosaurs…lots of dinosaurs because hell the fuck yes!
I was considering acquiring sea serpents though the issue there was they evolved for the environment of the Boiling Seas. Metal-scaled leviathans, hundreds of feet long. Some were much smaller, shoals of magic fish.
I directed a deep scan of the components of the broken F-Driver. Optronic circuits, and immense power electronics channeling many terawatts of power. Somewhere around fifty kilograms of hydrogen was required for a single charge. Though with the damage to the machinery used to gather hyperfield energies from thousands of realities.
It was maybe a five megaton nuclear blast rather than a moon-cracker. The metamaterials were higher dimensional, given unique properties. We had figured out three of them, and were missing seven other materials to repair the thing. We could substitute five of them. We might be able to substitute the energy gathering components for a Gem power core, though we'd have to invoke dimensional folding for a smaller footprint.
It'd be very expensive, a battleship core would be needed, possibly even multiple of them synched up. Gathering forty two thousand yottajoules of energy isn't exactly easy even for us.
"I'm going to take a break." Because tinkertech is as annoying as all the hells in the world.
"Bring me a booster ambrosia from the dispenser when you get back, I've been wanting to test if a red-pink-yellow shot will multiply my productivity." I gave her a silent thumbs up, exiting the small workshop set up to test far away from civilized regions.
I stepped onto the warp pad, and pictured the destination in my mind's eye. I moved three thousand miles in a second. I stepped off into the Laran Garden, which I had expanded using my powers to experiment with the growth and cultivation of plants.
The same garden where I had talked with Steven on the right plants for plant-stage terraforming. There were a few small animals, critters ducking into the undergrowth.
I found a certain lizard boy sitting down on a bench in his base state, and from the looks of him and his planet…he was some type of Dutch-Filipino, some alt history bullshit. They had a Dutch Empire and everything.
"Bakonawa?" I questioned him as he laid back with a sigh on the bench infused with life energies. The youth was startled but his smile became softer when he saw me walking up to him.
"Just call me Newter. Newt if you're feeling it," he seemed happy to talk to me. "This place is really nice…you helped make it?"
I sat down on the same bench, and absorbed the energies with a sigh. "Steven commissioned this place since he nominally holds control over the colony until I have enough experience." I shared the information freely. "It's sort of an exhibition for the kind of plants I want to grow on the planet, I've picked out about six hundred major species." Ignoring thousands of species of algae and simple plants.
"Did you pick out animals too?" Newter asked, pointing out a juvenile griffin. Which spat out a stream of spiders.
"Yes." He pointed at the griffin, and the spiders. "Yes, including the spider breathing griffins. And the dinosaurs, and the magic spike seals, and the giant death crabs, the sky jellies, the flying monkeys…"
"You're not trying to make your colony a death trap right?" His aura was pushing outwards, dancing with amusement.
"I can populate my world with Mother Nature's horrible mistakes if I want to!" I spoke louder for effect, grinning cheekily. "Besides, who wouldn't want one of these cuties as a pet?"
The baby griffin coughed up more spiders, killing my point. Newter was smug. "Heh."
I sighed. "Quit making me look bad, you adorable abomination of nature." It tilted it's head before scurrying away.
"No you've made your point…god imagine the faces of anyone we fought if we had one of these guys." He had a positively trollish smirk. "Spiders right to the face."
Well this world had proven that spiders to the face could be effective even on Alexandria… if you stuffed them in her lungs.
"I—" there was a call on the network, projected into my ear. "You've brought some specialists and Plumber agents aboard?"
…
"Well, let me bring Olly her drink before I meet up with them. It'll be a few minutes."
I adjusted the collar of my dress shirt, wearing my formal/cape outfit. A black shirt with dark midnight blue dress pants, red loafers, and a fuschia belt. My cape was shaped into a hoodie jacket since this wasn't a super-serious meeting.
The Plumber agents were busy, taking care of something on another Mars for a few days. Instead I had a specialist in the supernatural and his sister who was more of an artist but had a knack in the same fields from a more practical angle.
So while I waited I ate some lunch, a croissant sandwich with eggs, ham, cheese and bacon. I wiped away the crumbs from my face, and carefully carved out chunks of sandwich, reeling them in with a flex of my fangs. Out of all my changes I found the fangs the most convenient. Easier to open things, and I didn't need a knife to cut my food.
Maybe I was being weird, but who was going to stop me? Scion?
I finished off my sandwich, scraping it with my tongue instead, shredding it apart with the barbs. Man…I just realized I could lick someone's face off and that is a really fucked up thing to know.
It also helped with chemical sense though, like the difference between two steaks kind of things, and poisons. I had so much on my mind.
I had been focusing on grabbing more details on 460-AB, since I had been pushing it off because it kind of freaked me out existentially.
Earth 460-AB.
Population eight point two billion, with six extrasolar colonies ruled mostly by humanity, and the home of the League of Heroes, pending a name change to…several choices, the Wardens was one, as was the Justice League Unlimited, Titans was another, and Guardians was the final one.
I guess without the Guardians of the Universe there were a lot of options on that front. A tentative superhero group had started to grow toward the end of Era 2 and the early years of Era 3, with a number of heroes popping up around the early 2000s. Superman and Batman arose in that time period, though neither were as capable as they were up until two years ago. 2002 and 2003 from the looks of it.
2004 brought the Flash into the early public eye as a vigilante capable of breaking the sound barrier, the successor of Jay Garrick, tapping into unknown energies to manipulate motion. There were hints of a hero capable of creating strange energy constructs, though he had never joined the League.
2005 is Aquaman's year, as his career entered full swing while 2006 brings the Martian Manhunter and quite a few sidekicks into play.
2009 brings the Appellaxians using strange super-ancient technologies to enhance their abilities to slip past the Gem Empire.
It goes poorly for them, and they get fucked badly, and both their husks and their energy bodies are captured by the Earth and the Empire. Things were just a bit more tentative and less established, though Aster gave them some level of backing that gave them far more power within reason. It was a strange mixing of timelines from Young Justice to the older animated series and the movies.
Which meant I had no idea what the fuck was going on because I've only watched most of Young Justice. Though from what I can tell, the League had only started to get into the swing of things in the 2010s. Certain things were similar, others were not due to reasons.
The League was comparable to the Guild in their international reach though it was a fair bit larger. There were multiple government teams, since the crazy comic insanity had been beaten out of most of the governments on 460-AB. Somewhere around twenty thousand capes existed across the planet, not as extensive as Bet but far more significant than Aleph.
I had been given files on their capes, those available like the Flash. Turns out he did have limits, his power seemed to have certain issues he couldn't just work past through bullshit. He could run at near light speed, but it took him a lot of time to ramp up to, and drained him of the dimensional energies that powered his super speed.
It fucked with his head too, the energies almost subsuming him on multiple occasions. Kind of like Legend, but he was faster. And Legend was capable of moving across the circumference of the world in under three minutes. Flash also didn't have his reactions amped up at all times, though he was still above most people on Bet.
I suppose he would be a Breaker/Mover/Thinker?
Moving on.
Kryptonian physiology was fascinating, a sixteen base pair derivative of DNA which was obviously heavily tinkered with in the past. Based on what I had looked at, they were a seeded species, some type of hybrid mix of ancient Earth DNA and of organisms native to the planet.
There was a suspicion the same origin applied to most humanoid species, humanity coming first and then spliced with the ancestors of others like the Kryptonians and the Thanagarians. The question then was what was responsible for that?
What was responsible for transporting and weaving human genetics onto hundreds of worlds? We knew Psions were responsible for Vega, and that the Kryptonians had an ancient stellar empire for a bit…so some panspermia was involved too.
Even then there were more notable differences between humanoid aliens and actual humans. Thanagarians were more avian in physiology, air sacs, hollow bones, a higher core body temperature.
They evolved from six legged creatures that were a sort of cross of mammal and bird, before getting modified at some point in the last two million years. Their hair was closer to feathers, their skin was more like very thin, smooth scales up close, with channels for coolant fluids.
They had short foot claws for perching, and weren't as good at endurance running. As in a human as tough as them would be better, in general they were more enduring. They could fly with their wings due to their enhanced strength, and a universal metahuman ability of weak gravity manipulation.
Something-something nth-metal I believe.
I rubbed my chin…Kryptonians had the ability to manipulate electromagnetic fields, using it to absorb solar radiation. Around a yellow sun it kicked in a unique process, acting as a catalyst to derive energy from a greater Source.
A sort of bioelectric aura, a malleable field of energy that manifests within their psychological confines. No one knew the full extent of the forces this energy was made of, electromagnetic and gravity at least were confirmed, linked together by alien power.
It enhanced everything, a shield like Glory Girl's but with none of the weaknesses, sheer strength and power, warping space and reality to make their powers function. He was faster than Alexandria, easily able to fly into space, though he couldn't go FTL.
Probably.
The main difference between the two of them was that Alexandria didn't have the corresponding reaction times and acceleration rate. Kind of like how a person can pilot a supersonic plane, though she still thought dozens of times faster than a normal human. Plus moving at sixty times the speed of sound was plenty fast.
Earth 460-AB was weird, that was all I had to say on the matter. I detected a presence, and I looked up from my sandwich. I looked right up into a wide smile, round blushing cheeks, and eyes the shade of pine bark. Brown hair cascaded over my shoulder, and I released an unholy combination of piano riffs and death metal.
"Hello!" She called out as I slipped from the bench and crashed onto the ground. A second aura sighed, and I was pulled up by something grabbing onto my hood. A blue colored owl-creature, an undead familiar from the looks of it. I formed my hoodie jacket back into a cloak.
"Mable! You couldn't have given him some warning?" I blinked when I saw how much my two ambushers looked alike.
"C'mon Dipper, he's fine."
Two brown haired siblings, both with a hair sprig on their heads. Then their names sunk into my consciousness.
Oh dear.
Mabel Claire Pines and Mason Harry Pines were… interesting from a number of standpoints. I knew them from across the screen but I also didn't, because for one thing their…summer was different by a significant amount.
Harry Pines was once Harry DeMayo which made them kin to Steven, to Aster Diamond by both marriage and blood. He had been there that summer and from there, the story unfolded in a way I didn't know how. It was kind of relieving actually how much these worlds were different.
It made things feel a little less artificial in some ways, because metaknowledge just wasn't that useful and made me feel like a creep. Anyway…
The Pines twins were around my age, a year older really which made sense once I accounted for their summer taking place in 2012. It made me feel old for some reason.
Mabel was a few inches taller than I was, about five foot seven while her brother was five foot ten. Thank you computer-brain for precise measurements.
Mabel had bushy brown hair down to her shoulders, messy and streaked with light red because of dye obviously. Her hair was braided, shifting between brown and bright pinkish red. She had wide brown eyes with a green sheen to them, and her lithe frame was hidden under a thick pink turtleneck sweater with the chest covered in red hearts, wearing a purple skirt and black tights.
She was…pretty? Yes, pretty but not in an elegant sort of sense, she was chaos incarnate, with messy hair, a handmade sweater and nacho earrings, with a wide grin. Cute.
There was an aura of magic from her, easily orders of magnitude larger than what I had seen from most people on Earth Bet. A chaotic bonfire, smoke scented with pine and bubblegum and citrus.
Her brother wasn't too lanky, wearing a red flannel shirt and dark brown work pants, worn and well loved. He had a similar facial structure to his sister, soft but with a harder definition. He stared at me, brown eyes with an emerald sheen boring into me. His chin was fuzzy with facial hair, and his messy hair was hidden beneath a blue and white cap. I could see the hints of his birthmark from his bangs, and blinked.
That green sheen glowed with magic, twisting swirling vortices of higher energies. It was one part of a great gear, one piece of a greater machine, a circuit of humanity.
A machine, a Godslayer.
I didn't speak of what I saw in those eyes to them. "You're…the Pines twins am I right?" Pretend to be a perfectly functional human being with perfectly acceptable social abilities. Yes. That should work. Hopefully.
Dipper spoke. "And you're Brandon right? You're Az's new kid." I flushed, feeling embarrassed.
"I have parents you know." Also a little indignant, I liked Steven but I wasn't as interested in being his kid. Plus technically speaking he hadn't fathered me, that had been the work of the To'kustar, while he directed me/Dawn into a cluster of stars to incubate in.
"You walked into that one Dipper, hehe." Mabel nudged her brother in the shoulder. "Still, he picked a real cutie to take under his wing." She winked, and I flushed red.
"I-I…thank you?" I crossed my arms, unsure of how I should take that? Was she making fun of me or was she being sincere?
She beamed wider, as if my reaction was exactly what she was looking for. Maybe I was being presumptuous but it was hard to tell even with my aura reading since it was prone to bias or imperfect interpretations.
I don't know why they're feeling the emotions without a much deeper probe than I'm willing to commit to.
There was a sudden pen clicking from Dipper, his eyes becoming sharper, more serious.
"So in your report you said you wanted specialists in the supernatural right?" Dipper started his line of questions. "Is this because of the dimensional leakage from our reality to this one?"
Oh yes, something to talk about. "Yeah. The cracks go back at least six years, and had an active effect on the host of a royal shard. There have to be unforeseen consequences to the leakage that need to be identified."
His eyes widened. "Well then it's a good thing you decided to bring in some more experts, we've dealt with dimensional fatigue in the past." Oh. Oh that's bad, that's the world falling apart levels of bad. "Uh. It's not that bad yet, the leakage is pretty concentrated and limited…"
"Well still. There's also some examination required of certain people, including a Trigger I blocked somehow. Amy Dallon." The twin's auras flared, something like disquiet, like shock, and I didn't understand why. I had projected a picture of her, frizzy brown hair and freckles and all.
"Well okay then, Dipper…show him the thing." She whispered harshly despite being two feet away from me.
I had the faintest idea she did things like that a lot. Just a hunch.
He pulled out something from his backpack I wasn't paying attention to. It was a device, a lot like a tablet if it was made of hard light, glass and silver. It released a soothing pinging sound, and Dipper grinned.
"This is a device I use for studying paranormal activity, it's got built-in sensors for detecting specific kinds of energies made from reality fissures." He smiled, perking up after his brief freeze. "We can figure out the mysteries of Earth Bet, and get in easier due to us being human."
"Do you have means for dealing with the number of powers though?" I questioned. "There are about six hundred forty thousand parahumans based on our newest census. There are a ton of Masters out there."
Their aura…it burned, with the flicker of cerise flames, a shattering of bonds and mind. So…immunity to Masters and Strangers was apparently innate to them now.
"Well that answers that."
I scratched my chin. "Then we've got a lot of work ahead of us, this planet is a mess and I'm not qualified to fix it."
Mabel sulked. "Oh god…you're a stick in the mud like Dipper!" I smirked, and she paled. "Nooo…"
We were going to have fun here, I was sure of it.
I walked out into the lobby of the Home Pyramid(I should really find a name…) and found that a certain blonde Shaker had a new room here. How the hell did I not notice that?
Instead of a single door shifting to different pocket dimensions, we had a multiple of them, leading to linked pocket dimensions. Honestly it was a ridiculous amount of space, easily a few cubic dozen kilometers which were wasted since the household was fairly sparse. Though there was a door for a space for Faultline's team. Fuschia had a room, as did Rachel and her dogs, a big frolicking grassland.
I peeked through the open door before thinking better of it and pulling back.
"Elle? Are you there?" She didn't answer, so I instead paid attention to something that had rolled onto the ground. It was a large tubular object made of wood, like a weird woodpunk flashlight.
There was a switch right behind the lens which had a little latch for some reason. It looked neat so I picked it up and pressed the switch/button. Golden light burst out in a beam guided by the lense. I pulled the latch, releasing a light orb. It dissipated and I noted two wooden half-circles, each half carved with part of a light glyph.
Oh. I see. The switch brings the Glyphs together, and the impact activates the spell. The lens focuses the ball of light into a beam. Glyph artificing was a fascinating field of study with Wicce and the linked world of Phantasia as the foremost experts.
"Elle made this?"
"She did." I almost jumped when I found a certain magic teacher slinking in from the outer living room.
Stripes or Magnetite Inclusion Labradorite Facet-22Z Cabochon-378 was my personal Court Mage, one of the many Labradorites used to handle the ichor of the Diamonds. They were powerful artificers, able to create potent spells, essentially copying the magic of other Gems with some effort.
They were one of the many Gems responsible for incorporating magic from other sources into the great machine of the Empire. Which was why she was teaching Elle, and giving me pointers from time to time.
"Isn't the flashlight thing an old trick for Wicce?" I asked and she gave me a look.
"You try and say that to her face, and I'll get back to you on that." I hissed, yeah not happening. "She's experimenting, coming up with ideas and using her power in tandem." Having a reality warper play with magic sounded like a recipe for disaster in retrospect.
But I couldn't say no to that face. "What's she figured out so far?"
"She's got a real knack for tinkering with her hands, she's asking for tips from Olly and figuring out some of our equipment real fast with her circlet guiding her." She brought out something from her gem, what looked like a crude metal tube with a trigger and a button.
She made a gun.
I think we're a bad influence.
"Urk…"
Stripes smirked. "Yes it's a gun. It has cute little panels that press together to complete glyphs and glyph combos. This button switches between a few options." She pulled the trigger which released a bolt of light, she pressed the button to switch the spell. Instead of a light bolt, it was a fireball I nullified with my shield.
…
…
So my charge had decided to build a wizard gun. I was so proud and moderately concerned for her mental health. Glyph magic was fascinating, for its versatility if nothing else. Four symbols combining in endless chains and patterns to create all kinds of reality warping effects.
That they could be used in circuits was amazing, and it luckily required some level of intent. You wouldn't accidentally blow yourself up if you dropped a tea warmer and the glyph hit the ground.
Though if you used a magic construct like an Abomination with specific instructions…you'd get an automated magic assembly line. You could have a tiny Abomination automatically firing a barrage from a cannon, giving them specific instructions to tap the initial trigger for the chain.
I suppose her power gave her a natural feel for architecture. It was too bad this kind of mechanical magic wasn't used so much among the Empire. Yet…maybe I could change that?
"Anything else my…umm, Elle has been working on?" Stripes' eyes squinted, lips pulling into a smile that revealed shark-like fangs.
"She managed to come up with a way to keep tea warm." She projected a hologram, a tea cup with part of an altered fire glyph and completed by a small plate. "She also figured out the right combination of light and fire glyphs to create lightning." The projection became a diagram of three glyphs, two light glyphs connected to one another with a fire glyph in the center.
Interesting. Maybe I can use that myself?
"So where is she now?" She might be under my aegis but I didn't take care of her all the time, that was a general thing most of my closer Gems did.
"Oh she's practicing her routine at the local theater, she's been doing very well at singing." Stripes preened, and I wasn't too surprised. "She's been making friends with some of the crowl, and wants to invite her little human friend to the Conference."
"She has the right to it, I don't mind." I gave her permission because she was mine and she needed more friends. The only people her age is Newter, and Rachel . Not a lot of options. "It's nice to see her making friends."
"Ahh." Stripes cooed and I flicked her on the nose in retaliation.
"Shut up!" I growled, my song going low as gravel and rusted metal. "Or do you want me to bring up Newter?" Her blue cheeks darkened. "I've seen you bringing him stuff like a mama cat."
"Okay you win." She backed off, and I placed my hands on my hips in a simple victory pose.
I felt a change in the air, a shift in the outcomes. I tasted it in the air, that aura of magic, that aura of altering futures. Only a few more days for the conference, only a few more days before the world changed.
The future was not set in stone, and what would unfold would be a story of its own.
Bit slow of a chapter and also mostly filler data... but important for interacting with a few more persons and bring about the Pines into play.
Altogether pretty nice if a bit slower than usual.
Bit slow of a chapter and also mostly filler data... but important for interacting with a few more persons and bring about the Pines into play.
Altogether pretty nice if a bit slower than usual.
I looked around at the invited guests of the conference, the Chief Director wasn't attending of course but Armstrong was and we had Deputy Director Renick for Brockton Bay, Morgan Keene was doing his part as well, as was a diplomat from the government, one Mr. Swanson.
Multiple capes were attending, a few were given invitations though that mainly applied to New Wave, Flechette and Weld. I still didn't know why the Pines had offered New Wave an invitation but it wasn't my place to ask. The Triumvirate had invitations as a matter of course, though only Alexandria and Eidolon would be in for the day.
The conference was going to be multiple days long, cycling people in and out was easy enough. Plus it helped that portal creation was quite mature at this point, especially with the use of magic. Which based on attacks from the Asura made them impossible to get taken over by Shard powers.
Unless they get magic obviously.
Which wasn't going to happen for a number of reasons I didn't get because my understanding of magic wasn't complete yet.
For capes we had Miss Militia, Assault, Dragon, Alexandria, Eidolon, Chevalier, Challenger and Narwhal. Plus New Wave though they were technically a separate group to this one. Plus Lily and Weld under the watch of Chevalier. I was watching the group as they loitered around a minor government facility right at the edge of Brockton Bay that would become the base of an embassy.
Mainly for the convenience of an offshoot of a massive leyline smack dab in the center of the city of Brockton Bay.
I took a deep breath, and closed the dimensional viewer the Transfer-Jewel had available now. I opened the portal, a semi-permanent one about a dozen meters across. I stepped away, jumping back and moving on…I had other tasks at hand.
I moved around the crowds of people, this was the city of Sirenia, a colony of Earth Wicce and Realm Phantasia. Population two hundred thousand, on a planet with no humans or witches but a fair amount of natural magical energy in the environment. The town was actually made before Wicce made contact with 460-AB. Using science and magic to open doorways to other worlds.
They had opened a door to Steven's Earth a few months later.
I saw the Gem diplomatic entourage escorting the Bet representatives, an Aquamarine, a Rose Quartz, two Ruby guards and a Topaz. The lot were of course in a bit of a daze within the confines of the large sprawling colony, one of a dozen made by multiple realms. The Martians had a colony, though with a population of maybe about one hundred million that meant little.
Though their population was growing with the restoration of Mars' native ecosystem. While it was considered a Gem colony, that was limited to parts of the planet set aside on the recommendation of the Martians. Venus was closer to the actual crown jewel of the few colonies Steven had, with no natives to speak of.
I floated down to one group, keeping my lessons in statecraft in my current memory log for review. Chevalier was keeping a good eye on a rather overwhelmed Flechette. Eidolon was using his dimensional push, and I nodded to myself at our good sense in altering his connection to the active chaos engines. We didn't need them getting information from the guy.
We had grabbed up about sixty percent of Eden's garden, three hundred and three thousand shards. Again mostly glacier sized, though there were a number of royal shards we were wrangling with the help of Nisse-Navigator and Technologic. We had found Eden's Administrator, Usurper, and her Shaper though the latter was mostly destroyed after colliding against a neutron star in the crash.
Actually that might explain how Eden got hurt by a planetary crash, she slammed into dimensions that included high energy environments that her shards couldn't withstand. Another shard we had found was called Empathetic which seemed to a big bad shard.
It had pinged with a bud of Administrator to create Mama Mathers…so yeah. We had fixed his connection to Eden's Omnivore, which absorbed energy from stars where Earth's position was.
From what I had seen from a drone that had caught him fighting, it manifested as a powerful Breaker/Shaker/Blaster power.
He became a living field of energy, a walking avatar of nuclear power, capable of generating beams and waves of physics-breaking plasma. He could probably incinerate mountains and islands. Eidolon could transfer energy from Omnivore to his other shards as needed.
Oh. I was stalking people, I should get back to that.
I landed next to Chevalier, startling Flechette who was still looking around the diverse community of humans and Witches, and a smattering of aliens and other peoples.
"I believe we haven't met yet? Though you've met one of my charges." I greeted Chevalier, smiling slightly but not too much so.
"Su—" I politely cut him off with a line of Gemsong.
"Please. For now it's best to call me Carmine Moissanite, your world has enough eyes on it as it is." I spoke louder for the benefit of the rest of the guests. "I wanted to welcome you to Sirenia. The summit will be held here over the next couple of days. There's a lot to see in this world."
"Is this a colony of some sort?" He stepped in lock with me, and I flicked out my fangs in curiosity.
"Sirenia was founded by a joint effort between Earth Wicce and Realm Phantasia. Specifically by the United States, and the Witches of the Boiling Isles." I explained, and there was a shining realization in Flechette's eyes. "The planet was free of sapient life and rich in ambient magic." I demonstrated by pulling out a piece of paper and drawing a light glyph. Leaving a golden ball of radiance in the air.
Chevalier's gold and silver armor shined brighter than usual.
"Magic…it's not another word for parahuman powers is it?" He asked a reasonable question.
"No. They usually draw from different sources of power, and have different mechanics. Parahuman powers draw from alternate realities, and use specific manifestations of higher physical dimensional energies to alter physics. Magic draws upon even higher realities, and just works…differently." I shrugged my shoulders at his expression, of his aura I mean. "Some metahuman powers share similar mechanics though."
"You know how parahuman powers work?" There was something like concern in his voice.
"Your power is a form of dimensional folding we've seen from time to time." I confirmed for him. "You create a transdimensional object, and allow only certain fields and properties to cross dimensional boundaries. There's some spatial warping inherent in the process as well." He stared.
Chevalier coughed. "Are there any othe r powers you know the mechanics of?" I pointed at Flechette.
"Your powers are similar to Flechette though hers is of a more offensive build. She unfolds an object across realities and higher dimensions. Warping space and time and physical laws…it's effectively a perfect weapon, built to pierce through all defenses." I explained easily enough, gliding along the ground.
"So all powers come from other dimensions…so would pyrokinetics be bringing in fire from other universes?" Flechette flinched when we turned our attention to her.
"Parahuman pyrokinetics, yes. Along with various forms of telekinesis to manipulate it." I scratched my chin. "Easy enough to replicate once you've seen it a thousand times."
I didn't elaborate as they made their way into the city.
My claws curled as I was ambushed by Elle, the girl wearing her costume for the event. She hugged me, and I patted her back mechanically as per usual.
The Bet visitors were spreading out, looking around the picturesque town though all the bones and houses carved out of monsters made that image…suspect. This was a colony of the Boiling Isles after all. They were probably freaked out by all the aliens too, like the Tamaraneans, the Thanagarians, and quite a number of Galvan natives and Galvanic Mechamorphs. Rannians too, some Frogs, Toads, Newts and Bugs.
There were even Atlanteans and Amazonians, though not many with their whole 'Man's World' complex. Also Martians. Now where was I?
"Hi." I pulled her off of me, unable to help my smile. "Have you been showing Flechette around town?" Elle…Artificer nodded vigorously, and I could see Flechette doing her best not to stare at the various denizens of the town as it was filled up.
"Yep. I've been here a couple times with Tungwup and Aventurine. There's a lot of space to practice my power." She hummed happily, swaying from side to side as she usually did. "Li—Flechette's power is really pretty, and so is Chevalier's."
"Wait, you can detect their powers?" I don't think she was supposed to be able to sense dimensions like that outside of combining it with other powers like Scrub or maybe Vista, or even Scapegoat and Myrddin.
"Nisse seems to be releasing some of my restrictions…only some of them though." Probably to protect her brain from being overwhelmed. "Seeing powers is really annoying…she said she borrowed data from Transdimensional.Convergence for it."
"Chevalier?" I ventured. She smiled mysteriously. "Okay so you've got dimensional folding to interpose realities into one another, and power sight." She nodded. "Plus talent in glyph artificing. Good for you." I tussled her hair, and she giggled. Elle walked away, skipping with an easy joy in her aura.
Guess she just wanted to show affection.
I glided along the ground, and could sense numerous shards beyond the ones brought from Bet. Which meant we had some parahumans on the planet or para-aliens I guess?
Eidolon was pretty obvious due to the massive aura of the Thinker Distribution Administrator, the relay shard of Eden operating at greater capacity. A number of ships were placed beyond the dimensional barriers set by the Entities. They extended out in a bubble nine billion miles in diameter.
They weren't going to be of much help due to it being tattered by Eden's death and mutilation by Cauldron. It was easy enough to start tapping into his shard when we had half his well of power under our aegis. Cauldron had made connections to maybe two percent of the corpse, ten thousand shards of varying power and ability and importance. Connected to around twenty thousand capes, which included the Case 53s they had in their dungeon, thousands of Cauldron capes, and thousands more scattered across the multiverse after Eden's impact.
People who had drunk contaminated water like Fortuna's village, or had damaged pieces connected to them in a natural Trigger…like Tinker 15. Either way we had managed a general survey of shards. Around five hundred thousand shards massed about twenty teratons on average, about the mass needed for an island the size of Kaua'i.
Maybe, I wasn't sweating the details.
There were a few thousand shards on the scale of moons, based on our transdimensional scans they were about the expected mass of Scion in total, then her royal shards made well over fifty percent bigger.
You had something with over half the mass of Saturn crashing into thousands of planets, and then getting exposed to immense energies from things like neutron stars. No wonder she was so fucked up, and she was still regenerating until she got sent into a loop by getting stabbed in a damaged state.
And then mutilated by connecting vital shards to humans, and cutting up the near-direct access points to her core brain-network. From what we had examined he lost access to any powers connected to parahumans, and didn't necessarily use up every shard.
Though he had gone through a lot of them like his Matter Eraser.
Energetic.Transdimensional.Annihilation was a rather interesting designation for a power of an Entity.
It was a shard specialized in the generation and manipulation of higher dimensional fields, beams and waves and pulses of dimensional disruption, tearing apart matter and energy.
Not quite as effective as Sting or Stilling, but it was nothing to sneeze at. It was about the mass of Ganymede, so you know, pretty normal. Just a small planet sized superorganism. Recharging them was quite a hassle, though we had absurdly dense power sources anyway. A several hundred gram gemstone has enough power to lift millions of cubic kilometers of water in a matter of hours.
Which required an energy output comparable to hundreds of high yield nuclear bombs, if not an asteroid impact. Of course it took time to scale up the power, spreading out magic to gain influence, building up the chunks and blocks of dihydrogen monoxide to lift them up for processing.
Most of the time it was processed for astral deconstruction, some of it converted into energy to tap into the higher realities of magic. Of course we had to find a way to store that amount of energy so it was altered into a solid form known as hypermatter.
It's why there's so many veins inside of Gem ships, most of it is for energy distribution systems but some of it pumps hypermatter into the core to catalyze magical energy. It's actually the basis for a lot of our more recent innovations in solid and liquid and gaseous forms of magical substances. Of course we didn't convert entire planets, astral deconstruction also involved gathering of matter for assembling dozens of new colonies.
Though to be fair we had only astrally deconstructed about five thousand colonies, because even converting a tiny fraction of a planet's mass into energy propelled us into that gulf between a type 2 and type 3 civilization on the kardashev scale.
And that was the Gems alone, it didn't include what the Galvans were capable of, like mass planetary teleportation and shielding, the most powerful hyperdrives in the galaxies, and a level of technological sophistication beyond most species.
The Galvan themselves were fascinating from a biological standpoint, their brain was a complex interconnected system of neurobiological engineering. A substrate of gel carries out biochemical reactions in massively parallel molecular computing, contained within the gel was a massive neural network, a sort of hybrid between brain and crystal computer, modified on the fly during bursts of invention by editing their gene expressions with transposon genes editing RNA rather than DNA.
Like octopus, which meant they returned to a baseline…a lot like tinkers actually, though they could and did rapidly figure out what they did with some time. They numbered in the hundred of billions, even if they weren't really into having galactic empires.
Though they didn't mind peacekeeping like what they had done with the Reach.
I could see Dragon approaching, flying softly while shifting the air with her primitive aerokinetic core.
"This…is an interesting place isn't it?" She sounded awed, astounded and overwhelmed. Frankly so was I but I did my best not to show it. "I've seen a lot in my day, but this… " she gestured to the crowd made up of all manner of species. "This is beyond my expectations."
"Heh. Yeah. I imagine it's a bit much to suddenly be in the midst of interdimensional and interstellar politics." I got how this could be overwhelming. I really, really did. "At least you don't have to be completely involved in politics like the Directors or your world's diplomats."
She tilted her head. "Aren't you as involved in politics as a Diamond?" She spoke quietly, and we were away from crowds so I was fine with what she said.
"I'm not part of the Diamond Authority just yet, I've had my power for maybe three months, and even then…Diamonds don't play such a direct role in controlling the Empire anymore. Three hundred and forty trillion kids is a bit much for four people."
"Kids?" She asked.
"The Diamonds made the Gems from their ichor, every Gem ever created was made from them, from the thinnest flake of mica to the deepest, hardest stone." I tapped her body, claws sparking against phase-shifted metal, enhanced to be ten times stronger than carbon nanotubes. "I've even made a few Gems myself, Pebbles mostly, and a single Rose Quartz."
I frowned, I should really go looking for her, but she was young and still going through general orientation. That can take a while, months, years even. But I did want to see her, she was mine, in a way few things were.
I could never be ready.
"And the Diamonds…they protect their creations?" There was something almost vulnerable in Dragon's tone, her electrical aura charging with emotion.
"There's a reason Gemkind tries for reform, for redemption. They know what it's like to suffer in silence." The Empire had changed so much in the last seventeen years. "They want to help this world, but they know they can't barge in and expect results."
I gestured and we parted from the crowds, bringing Dragon away from prying eyes.
"You know what I want to ask don't you?" Dragon spoke softly.
"You had questions on the war, and on why we called the Endbringers Asura." It was not in question. She wasn't going to tell us about being an AI, that was not my mission…it was up to someone else entirely.
Unless I changed my mind.
"You've mentioned you're fighting a Star Wyrm, a Black Wyrm. What is it?" I grimaced.
"A transdimensional creature from a distant galaxy, able to shift across dimensions. A colonial creature, billions upon billions, trillions upon trillions of fragments, shards of a greater power united into a single entity." Dragon went still. "Each fragment has numerous superpowers, from gravity manipulation to mind control and alteration of physics."
"You're fighting billions of these fragments?" She sounded horrified and I sighed.
"No. Only two hundred million arrived at their destination…the rest were destroyed through several means unknown to most of us."
Dragon tilted her draconic head. "And you know one of the means?"
"Ate them." She didn't say a word so I explained quickly. "Diamonds require exponentially more energy than almost any Gem to create. Even a Lapis Lazuli would only use up tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of square miles of land. Small."
"Small?" She said quietly. "What does it take to make a Diamond then?"
"One of our epithets is Suneater. " I grinned toothily. "White was born from a supermassive white star, Yellow and Blue were born from yellow and blue hypergiants. Pink Diamond was born from a white giant and a red dwarf, and Aster is her hybrid son."
She recovered quickly. I'll give her that. "And what about you?"
"I was human first, but my gem, the other half of my being was born from the Wyrm itself, implanted and parasitizing it, eating half of it, while the other half was destroyed by…our suspicions indicate the To'kustar. And no I'm not elaborating, that's a tangent."
"So your gem was made by draining the energy of the Black Wyrm…wouldn't that cause it to attack?"
I snorted, almost laughing at her naivety. "No. The Black Wyrm was planning to kill us all anyway, attaching itself to hosts to augment its own abilities. Once it had what it wanted it would detonate our worlds and move on to the next. It split itself into four avatars in mimicry of the Diamonds, using it to lower our guard before it would use the Asura for it's hosts to fight."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" She sounded ill, horrified.
"We've analyzed Endbringer physiology, and it's similar in composition to Asura samples though richer in titanium and metallic elements."
"We don't have many samples of Endbringers, and analyzing their biology has proven…difficult." She was asking without asking.
"Endbringers are composed of a semi-organic multidimensional programmable crystal, and can be more or less considered a projection, any damage they've ever taken is superficial. Attempting to dig through them would be like digging through a solar system due to immense spatial warping and regeneration by using mass from hundreds of dimensions."
Tens of thousands was more accurate, while the galaxy-level bullshit didn't seem to be true, that was more from digging being a really inefficient form of killing. If you can't overwhelm their regeneration they'll just continue to tap planet after planet for mass while you tire or get killed.
"Can they be killed?" She sounded hopeful, and I nodded.
"We had eighty, rampaging across the galaxies. Only three remain, the last heralds of the Red Queen." I depicted the three remaining Asura, a massive flaming magma bird with a five mile wingspan. "Avalerion." Something like a mix of Behemoth, Narwhal and Vista. I sighed, I had seen the planets it had destroyed on it's winding path of warped space. In pictures.
"Othathel." It's power is much like the Sleeper though with aspects of Pastor and Agnes Court. Instead of rainbow light subsuming reality, it was masses of city collapsing crystal plants that tempered those around them, and gifted powers, leaving wastelands of reality breakage and insanity in its wake.
"The last is Anzillu, the Ultimate." A smooth faceted creature of grey stony skin, and I shuddered. It was the most strategic and most dangerous of the Asura remaining due to how often it had been updated, an adaptive physiology beyond the rest of it's terrible siblings. "But no matter their origin, they all share a core to their being, a lens of doorways to hundreds of realities. Powers capable of breaking and warping reality can pierce their defenses. Space and time warping, severe distortion of physical laws."
"I know a few capes, Damsel of Distress, Chevalier?" I nodded at her query.
"Flechette is another, and far more effective if she's paired with Chevalier to pry open the outer layers. The space warping around the core nullifies certain powers. Hers is not included." Sleeper was another possibility if we could maneuver the Simurgh with multiple precognition powers. "We have multiple weapons capable of dealing with them, but the collateral damage can be extreme on such a fragile planet."
Killing the Simurgh wasn't worth it if it blew the moon in half in the process or alerted Scion. Sting had been the most useful of our discoveries. Even if it was limited due to its newness.
"And we should probably rejoin the city, there's still more the both of us need to do."
As I walked, I saw the chains bound around her soul and knew they couldn't remain. Not in the long term.
Amy Dallon
I watched Vicky as she gaped at the literal aliens who were walking in broad daylight like it was no big deal. Giant four armed four eyed monsters with rough red skin, though some came in blue and green and grey. There were little grey aliens too, small enough to sit in my hand who worked on weird tinkertech equipment.
She was floating, and Carol was moments from telling her off before being distracted when she was jostled by a short white alien with a big head and headphone-like gear on it.
"Apologies human," he(?) spoke in a robotic, echoey tone. "I should better watch where I'm going." He bowed, a pulse…sound shaking the air.
I almost smiled at the utterly confused face mom was making, but I turned away before she could see the smile. I walked up to my sister, who was still floating in the air.
"Vicky. Flight." She let out a yelp and dropped back down to Earth. Which was about when mom interjected.
"Vicky. Amy. Your father and I are going to check into the hotel, Crystal is going to keep an eye on you two." I shifted under her suspicious gaze.
They had checked me for powers after the mall, but had found my Corona Pollentia was just…dead, shriveling up into nothing. No powers, just trauma and stress. Yet mom was still suspicious, still watching me for powers I knew I was never going to get.
I remembered the vision, of giant worms twisting around each other, of a piece breaking off to land on me, of thousands of worlds turning to crystal in a moment with my power. And then it was gone, ripped away by the most beautiful song I had ever heard.
The adults left, leaving us with Crystal, while Eric had the honor of sticking with his parents.
"Well. I guess we should see the sights?" Crystal bumped into me, and I smiled despite how tired I felt. "Getting to explore an alien planet isn't something people get to do everyday you know."
"Isn't it cool? And there are so many people with powers too! There's a lot we might be able to learn." I smirked at the giddiness of my sister, and she blushed when she noticed our expressions.
"You could probably ask one of them about their powers, if they have any." I shrugged.
"Let's do that!" I blanched when she moved towards one of the aliens, one in green insectile armor who looked really serious. Crystal was pale, but it was too late.
"Hey there!" Vicky gave a perky greeting, and despite my worries the alien smiled.
"Ahh. You are one of the humans from Bet, correct?" Why did he sound like an echoey Jamaican?
"Vicky Dallon. Glory Girl!" The alien tilted his head.
"I have heard worse names," Vicky frowned but he continued. "I am B'arzz O'oomm of Mars, the Green Beetle. I am a Martian." Vicky's eyes practically shined. "You were going to ask me about my people's abilities?"
"How'd you know?" I asked for my sister.
"My people have better senses than most humans and she is not a quiet girl." Vicky pouted, her aura pressing outwards. Before it was…deflected, a flash of green came from Green Beetle's eyes. "But I'm willing to indulge her curiosity."
Vicky smiled. "So…you're Martian huh?"
I would make a snippy quip but I was interested too.
"I am. A Green Martian to be specific, though we can shapeshift to many colors." He demonstrated by turning his left arm into a chicken leg for a few seconds. "My people have immense control over psionic energies, using it to manipulate matter and energy down to a molecular level." He floated upwards, and then…phased right through a telephone pole. "There are practical limits of course, but our psionic might is used to manipulate and strengthen our bodies in any number of ways."
"Psionic. Like telepathy and telekinesis? You can read minds?" I stepped back from the alien, was he reading my mind right now, pulling things out from my head?
"No. It would not be polite, you are not telepathic like my people are. We share our thoughts because it is in our nature…"
"But you're not going to force it on people who don't have that experience." Crystal finished for him, and he smiled.
"I understand your fear, your Simurgh…that creature is an abomination even to the White Martians." There was…I could almost feel his disdain for the Endbringer in his voice. "We destroyed a similar creature in our reality, several of the Asura had mental abilities."
I blinked. "Asura?"
"Like your Endbringers but they attack entire planets instead, at the behest of their master. We've destroyed most of them, leaving only three in her web."
Space Endbringers. Because the world wasn't enough of a shitshow already.
"Her?" Green Beetle shook his head.
"I would prefer not to speak of that monster to youths." I shivered, he sounded haunted. And I didn't want to know about what held the leash of monsters they considered equivalent to Endbringers. "But perhaps it is best you continue onwards, I won't be of much help to you any longer. It was good to speak with some of the youths of Bet." I looked behind him to see someone else in the crowd, dressed in similar armor but colored blue?
Oh.
"Well…bye?" He smiled kindly, bowing his head before floating away. "Okay so now what?" And Vicky was already moving towards a weird glowing orb.
I resisted the urge to facepalm, and stalked towards what looked like a crystal ball but bigger. There was a man on the orb, like a weird magic television. He had dark skin and curly brown hair, evenly trimmed, with pointy ears like an elf?
"Perry Porter coming to you live from right outside the Governor's Hall. Where a Transdimensional Conference will be taking place on the war, and on the discovery of new realities, Earth Bet, Earth Aleph, Earth Cheit, Earth Kaph, Earth Shin, Earth Chamesh and Earth Tau-He."
What the fuck?
"They're really just going to talk to other Earths like that huh?" Vicky sounded a bit freaked and so was I. "I guess they don't care about treaties and truces they haven't made."
"It's not like they haven't done it before." I was startled when I heard a voice from behind us. Vicky turned around, aura flaring. The person didn't even stumble, though there was a flinch.
It was…a girl in a strange multicolored uniform under a green patterned robe, wearing a flat white mask with twisting labyrinthine patterns and lines. I had seen her before, on the news, sometimes close to Gem locations in town.
"You're…Labyrinth right?" I winced when she straightened up.
"Artificer." She corrected me. "They don't have or need treaties like that, because dimensional travel is really common among the members of the TUR. Earth 460-AB has had common dimensional travel since 2013. Earth Wicce figured out how to replicate Titan's Blood in 2016, Earth 3-AB and 2-AB is a bit like Aleph is to us…"
"So they can just punch into other worlds because they have the power and the history to do it." Because having people with multidimensional empires is such a soothing fact.
She shrugged. "It could be way worse, at least you weren't one of the hundred dimensions conquered by Dagon. A child of the Old Ones is…way worse than anything the Earths can pull."
"Old One…you're trying to fuck with us right?" I growled and then she stared at me, and I saw her eyes and swallowed my spit.
"No. Their universe can be…really dangerous, the Gems have had to fight off terrible things hiding in the shadows. Giant self-replicating robots, living parasitic threads of animated metal, they even fought off and destroyed an Old One." She sounded amused, though it was strained. "It's taken a lot to carve out a better world, to make something of themselves."
And now they had opened the door from their end. Why?
We pulled away from the TV orb, towards a park that was on the other side of the street. Crystal followed us but didn't enter the conversation. I guess she wanted me to make friends and stuff.
Was that Weld?
I didn't know much about him but I did know he was one of the more well known Case 53s. He was being talked at by some of the more colorful people, a three eyed girl with red hair, pale skin and cherry red hair.
Was she flirting with him? He had a look on his face.
"Table!" Artificer picked a table, and… pulled a notebook from her hair. What?
She opened the book, revealing what looked like schematics of machines. Simple mechanical things, flaps and blocks and switches and little bars. One looked like a flashlight, another like a weird revolver, with internal mechanisms I didn't get. They had runes on them…or something?
"So you're somehow a tinker now?" I glanced at my sister, who was sounding a little annoyed. Was it because she thought Artificer was joking?
"Not tinkertech." Artificer pulled out more things from her hair, a round saucer device. There were two halves of some type of combination of runes, and she pressed them together with two bars on either end. A pink-white light flashed from the runes and the thing…floated in the air? "Magic. Or…glyph artificing or applied metaphysics if you want to be boring."
I touched the thing, but it didn't budge much when I poked it. "It looks like tinkertech to me…"
She giggled. "Nope. Do you have any sheets or bits of paper?" I shook my head.
"I've got a crumpled up receipt, does that work?" Crystal piped up, offering the thing up.
Why are you helping the weird girl Crystal?
"It does. Give it to your cousin with the hair sprig." I almost reached self consciously for the sprig of hair I could never brush out. "Pen?" And now she's giving me a pen, because of fucking course she is. "Draw this? Please l?" It was one of the rune-things, her slender finger pointing to it, labeled as a light glyph.
"Why me?" I asked tersely, gritting my teeth at the cape l.
She tilted her head. "Why not you?"
I didn't have an answer, and I wasn't sure I wanted to be mean to someone who had been…effectively mentally damaged by her power. Even if she wasn't a nutter anymore.
"Fine. I'll draw your stupid magic circle." I drew the lines carefully, easily replicating the symbol. It barely qualified for art, so this was a piece of cake. I slammed my hand down on it, glaring. "So? Happy now?"
There was a flash of light, and I threw myself back as the receipt folded up into nothing, shimmering, shining, sparkling.
It was light, a gold-white orb floating in the air. I stared, Vicky stared, Crystal stared.
"Did I do that?" This was…this was impossible, I didn't have any powers. I couldn't even get powers anymore unless my Corona came back to life.
"Technically the magic in the air did that but yes." Artificer had a chipper tone, and I thought she was kind of a ditz. "These are glyphs, the primal magic of the Boiling Isles."
It sounded like bullshit, but we lived in a world where people can fly and shoot energy blasts and teleport…Magic wasn't exactly special.
"A lot of people think powers are magic," Vicky didn't believe her, scoffing. "Doesn't mean it's true…it might just be really weird tinkertech."
Artificer sighed. "Almost no one Triggered to get their powers here…and you literally met an alien with powers. You think he Triggered?" Vicky shut her mouth at the surprisingly surly tone from the cape. "Magic isn't even that special, it's just manipulating a different kind of energy. Conceptual in nature or something."
Vicky seemed slightly apologetic, not that it meant much for her. "Conceptual…like a fireball is the concept of fire? Not a burning ball of gas?"
Artificer shrugged. "Basically. It's just weird energy that follows certain rules depending on how and where you cast it. Anyone can do it, if there's enough magic and their metaphysical biology is compatible with it."
"Oh. So…what can…magic do?" Vicky seemed to be relaxing, and I released a sigh of relief. Sometimes she could be too much.
"Almost anything, but there's…like way too many foundations of magic for me to list it all." Artificer sounded excited. "There are entire nations that rely on magic, like the Atlanteans with their magitech. It's basically reality warping so…"
I responded back. "So anything powers can do, you might be able to copy with magic?"
"I guess? Some Parahuman powers are really complicated. Like my power is I bring other worlds into this one, in a sort of…half in, half-outside space. Your sister's power is like…" she tilted her head. "Energetic, Electromagnetism, Barrier, Emotion." There was a vertigo from the words.
Shaper. Had I heard that before?
I shook my head, and lightly slapped my cheeks. There were more important questions.
Like why New Wave had been invited by…some group called the Pines Institute of Weirdness? Author's Note: So I decided to work in more points of view for this Arc, open up the perspectives besides the POV of Sunrise. Each chapter will have a segment or two from someone else's POV, plus the Interludes. Enjoy.
I tilted my head as I examined some history on Earth 50-AB, it was…way more fucked than most of the worlds we had access to. A lot of incidents with more brutal superhumans until they were attacked by an unknown entity…a dying one, but still a dangerous life form, their planet was devastated, and their population traveled the Bleed to spread out across dimensions. While the entity died, and it's corpse had been torn apart by Bleed fissures…
I wonder if I could open portals to the Bleed, we had the tech from humanity like the perpetual motion machine of Stanford Pines. Which was a Bleed torsion generator, tapping into the unstable physics of the Bleed for power. The Infinity Portal which was the basis of most dimensional travel on 460-AB tapped into the Bleed to scroll through near infinite universes.
There were five hundred and twenty worlds in the TUR, but that included colonies with large populations, with 50-AB having dozens of them. The actual number was smaller, somewhere around two hundred and sixty worlds, with most of them being like my Earth…though obviously DC doesn't exist in the same form.
Maybe more like a powerless version of their world with the shape of my world's continents.
I let my thoughts wander as I leaned against smooth white marble, having escaped the crowds of people once the stimulation had proven too much. It was so much more input, so much more density of information and data. I needed a break, away from the chaos.
I was spending time at a hotel, one that catered to humans and witches and Gems. I could see someone checking up on the status of rooms, a certain blonde lawyer had checked out rooms on the paycheck of the ones who had invited them as additional muscle to protect incoming diplomats due to the portal's closeness to Brockton Bay.
I knew more people would arrive over the coming days, the entourage was merely the initial party and Brockton Bay would host a portal to a whole other reality. The same system would be set up on Aleph, Kaph, Shamrock's world which was labeled Earth Chamishim. Apparently they were very quickly labeling all dimensions with humans on them, using their system and making tweaks.
All fifty two million inhabited universes would be labeled from Aleph to Chamishim-Miliyon. Every other would be given numbers and letters, though technically they still had designations. Estimates based on scans indicated a total human population of one hundred and four trillion, with half of that concentrated on one thousandth of those worlds.
The Galvans were looking to see whether they could set up their teleportation arrays, for evacuation purposes. Most of the Earths were varying amounts of primitive or regressed for reasons. A good number of them still remembered being more advanced before a supervolcanic eruption, an asteroid impact, passing black holes or gamma ray burst.
Or a shard draining their planet of energy or landing right on top of them. Though the reality was most of the known human Earths had collapsed into energy, though a handful remained, retaining dimensional copies like Aleph.
I smiled before she arrived when I picked up the familiar aura of Flowers. The Sapphire was floating, gently dropping down from the air.
"Hi." My song was mute, a little drumming note of relief in it. "I suppose you won't be able to predict as well today huh?"
Flowers smiled, relieving her cute little fangs. "No. I'm afraid not, we have all the Diamonds on one planet, along with a number of precogs, interference can be hard to deal with."
"Precogs?" I asked quietly.
"Freestyle." Jocelyn Davis of Earth 50-AB, able to psionically view multiple timelines and choose the best ones. The main trouble was its use accelerated her aging due to defects in the channeling of temporal energies. So she could only view so many timelines. It was still a strong power and along with her mental shielding, it made her like a weaker Contessa. "Some magic users use clairvoyance spells, and Parahumans with shard precognition do operate here."
"Huh. Neat." I watched the people in the lobby, taking a deep breath. There was so much magic in the air, my tongue flicking out like a curious serpent's.
I probe deeper, inspecting the odd magic embedded in the building, flowing like ichor, like oil. This was a building built by both Witch and human, technology and magic, old and new. Computers powered by magic and enhanced by it, demons constructed and altered as living technology and so on.
I tap into my deeper senses, and the ground is full of magical creatures, and I begin to scroll back time, unfamiliar data pleasantly tingling along our brain. Divining the patterns wasn't magic I used often, it was a bit difficult to perform and mind bending.
Gave me a headache sometimes. I tracked a particular demon emergency bell, weeks back to it's installation three weeks ago. I go farther, spreading my senses out to the town, from the grass above to the rock below. I go back years and there was a remarkable change some five years ago. A change in soil quality, an increase in sulphur, introduction of nitrates. I see the seasons passing by, images of the past. A slight appreciable change in cosmic ray incidence rates.
"Sunshine. Someone wants to talk to you." I returned to the present, and smiled at Flowers for the warning.
It was a blonde, attractive with blonde hair, heart shaped faces and full lips. Her hair was given a coquettish sweep by an orange hairband. She wore a white blouse under a heavy red jacket, and black pants.
"Crystal right? You're New Wave." I acknowledged her, curious at why she had walked up to me. "Was there something you wanted?" I inspected my claws, flexing them out.
Crystal smiled awkwardly, pressing the tips of her fingers together. "I wanted to ask about…Gem things?"
"Getting a bit bored?" I teased lightly, fangs inching forward for shock value.
The older teen flushed but didn't deny it. "We're mostly here because the portal is in Brockton Bay and we were invited. Was that you? You did heal my cousins."
"Nope." I popped the p. "The only people I've directly invited are people I've taken under my aegis."
"Aegis?" She sat down, and Flowers stood up, floating in the air. She mouthed, I'lltalk to you later and I narrowed my eyes. Did she predict this would happen?
"I guess you could call it authority, protection, guardianship. All Gems and Empire citizens are under the aegis of the Diamonds, all three hundred forty trillion of them. For me, I've got maybe a few dozen directly within my court, while Aster Diamond has trillions."
"Any examples?" She sounded curious, and loved the sound of my own voice so I did.
"Artificer. She's one, the Sapphire you just met is the first of my court. My High Diviner." I couldn't help but smile like an idiot, and I brushed back my bangs. "Hellhound as you guys like to call her…she's under Aventurine's aegis, helping her with socialization and such."
Crystal blinked. "Didn't she assault people?"
I sighed. "Yeah. Though a lot of it is extenuating circumstances, a combination of her power and her upbringing damaged her ability to relate to people. We negotiated a plea deal, and have provided her victims with healing. Not that it fixes everything."
I didn't pretend that Rachel wasn't a badly damaged girl who had hurt a lot of people. The only reason no one had died was because of luck, she had more successes with getting space, more successes with getting food, tiny imperceptible shifts in her path.
We couldn't make her care even with the adjustments to her power, because her power wasn't solely responsible for her personality. She had been betrayed and hurt by nearly every adult or authority figure in her life. She wasn't inhuman, but there was a degree of separation. A degree I knew I couldn't help with.
"It sounds…complicated. Anyone else?"
I raised an eyebrow at her insistence. "Alright, sure. There are my Corsairs, a few people we've 'rehabilitated' and turned towards more positive ends."
"Do you mean Faultline's Crew?" Crystal crossed her arms over her chest. "It's not exactly hard to figure out since they've been attacking both the Fallen, the Teeth and some trafficking rings. Groups your people are responsible for taking down."
"Well there's also a few Case 53s we've picked up, and we do have some candidates with less checkered pasts."
"Aunt Carol probably wouldn't care about that." She had a look on her face, and I wondered how toxic her family might be. And whether or not I should do anything about it.
"Well not to be rude…her opinion doesn't matter one iota to me." I shrugged my shoulders. "We barely regard your laws as legitimate too, besides the ones shared between us. Some laws Gems just don't get, like theft or trash. And as long as no one was hurt in the end…we'll sort of bulldoze everything in our way."
"That's kind of terrifying." She commented. "But I think we're getting off topic. I don't know a lot about Gems…like what's up with your voices, I saw one little blue Gem talk in like twenty languages in a couple minutes."
"Gemsong." I ignored how Carol was spying, leaning her body in our direction. "Gems don't actually talk, it's sort of a stream of psychic song, like whalesong. It turns into words in other species, making us natural universal translators."
"Song…is that why it kind of hurts my ears sometimes too?"
"Gemsong has a lot of unusual frequencies, it can make people pass out if they're not careful. Anything else?" I liked answering questions, unless they were stupid ones my brain couldn't make sense of.
"Well…I know you're aliens, but what are Gems?" Oh now that was a good question, and I could see Flowers was talking Carol's ear off.
"Well in the simplest terms…Gems are just gems," I clapped my hands together, excited to talk. "We're usually conscious manifestations of light from our gems, kind of like a hard-light projection. Our gemstone is the core of our being, providing both the energy, programming and consciousness of a Gem."
"Programming, like computers?" I grinned, tapping my fingers against my thighs.
"Gems are a combination of magic and technology, and our types are named after the base crystal matrices we're forged from. Arcane crystal and multidimensional quantum computation." I spoke freely. "From what I've read up, the Diamonds were the first Gems, emerging from dying stars and sinking into the core of a hot, dense living world." I projected a hologram using my composer, of an ancient Homeworld.
The planet wasn't cracked, instead it was whole, a world colored in all the spectrums of the light, beset by immense grey clouds, and an atmosphere dense enough to raise the boiling temperature of water to 286 degrees Celsius.
She looked suitably impressed by my presentation. "So who made the Diamonds?" My grin was lost, because…
"I don't know…that's some of the greatest mysteries in the universe," I shrugged my shoulders at her shock. "All we know is that the earliest cores incubated a final time within Homeworld, and their light became a soup of primitive structures, bundles of energy that could replicate themselves, learn to exploit matter, how to exchange information and procreate." It was a memory I recalled, buried under the very deepest layers of code and backlogs.
It was one reason the Diamonds were so fundamentally primal, we remember.
"What kind of things existed back then?" I frowned, and dug deep to the very beginning.
"Lots of things evolved in the grey sludge of ancient Homeworld, soaked in primordial energies. Benthic predators flying through dense atmospheric currents, eating the negentropy of their prey in the future." I formed an image of a twisting dirge, a bloated four winged creature two hundred feet long. "Filter feeders carrying monopole stars, feeding on radiation-consuming crystal plankton. Prey that navigates the possibilities of the Timestream to avoid the jaws of their predators."
The Parahuman was oddly…twitchy about my lapse, I didn't like looking too deep into the abyss of primordial memory. It was mildly disconcerting.
It was…her shard, a pulse of its aura, a resonance in their memory storage.
Curious.
Their origin, remember?
I clicked my teeth together, that was true. There were uncomfortable similarities in the evolutionary process between Gem and Entity.
"Umm." Crystal started, rebooting. "Right. So why do Gems look human? Why do a few of the aliens look like cheap sci-fi aliens?"
I chittered nervously. "For the latter, we suspect humans were used as a baseline for experiments, forcing species to evolve humanoid forms due to a mix of similar evolutionary pressures and modifications to their genetic codes."
"Why?"
"The metagene most likely, many of the humans of their end of the multiverse possess immense genetic potential for superpowers." Earth Wicce didn't really, though they had some genes in common with Homo magi. I formed a projection of the metagene, it was a massive and mutable series of genes, something like a virus, or a more sophisticated transposon. "Some of it is convergent evolution, and a closer glance reveals their alien nature."
Thanagarians were more mammal-bird things, the Rannians evolved on a world that looked like something out of Lovecraft, evolving from mollusk-like ancestors. Bones of chitin and lignin chains reinforced by metals, three brains and two hearts, and a really fucked up jaw structure derived from muscular palps lined with teeth. Their skin could change color, managed by their secondary brains like an octopus.
The Almercians were displaced Denisovans, mutated and altered into a superspecies by the exotic energies of their planet. There were something like thirty races that were a bit too human-looking, while the general humanoid population was around a couple hundred.
"And Gems?" She asked, blue eyes wide with unbridled curiosity.
"A bit more uncertain, though there are theories our destinies were intertwined by fate. Though we're not quite as human-looking as you think under the hood." I pointed to my fangs, flexing them out for emphasis. "Semi-retractable teeth for gripping, holding objects and social display. A barbed tongue for compositional analysis, and the barbs are used to modulate Gemsong."
"That is an incredibly horrifying thing to imagine." Crystal was more wary, and I could see Carol getting unnerved by a particularly large Bug, about twice her size and ten times her mass.
"Cats have barbed tongues too, you know."
She blinked. "Huh. You learn something new everyday. What else is different between humans and Gems?"
"You've noticed Gem bodies are a bit…uncanny?" She nodded so I continued. "Well Gems have a more segmented appearance, their frames just a bit too round for a vertebrate animal. And…" I slammed my hand against my chest, and there was a hollow drum sound. "That barrel chest is a resonance chamber for our language. There's other changes too, a variable number of eyes, a lack of certain things like noses or ears depending on the Gem. Alien senses, like seeing UV and having a natural intuition of the flow of battle due to the paracausal nature of Gems."
"The flow of battle…you're saying all Gems have combat precog? " I shrugged at her look.
"Retro-causal intuition, we're basically solar powered alien robots made of programmable light-matter. With a bunch of different powers and functions, some of them universal, others specific to certain types of Gem. The basic powers are the ability to project light, ageless inorganic bodies, some level of shapeshifting, super-strength and durability, manipulation of body mass, and various means of manipulating matter and energy. Often elemental, fire, ice, water, electricity…"
"You really like talking do you?" I flushed, and worse it was a glowing blush of cerise light.
"Sorry. I've never had the best luck with shutting my mouth."
Crystal smiled softly. "Nah. It's fine, it's pretty interesting. I think Vicky would love you, she's a bit of a geek for powers, and a race of superpowered beings would be a dream come true."
I frowned, something percolating in my brain. "Could I take a look at your powers?"
She was startled. "Oh. It's only fair." She created a red forcefield, one I easily identified as projected light. It was hardened, though the photonic molecules were very weak.
I stood up, lifting up to stand on the tip of my toes. I reached out to the photonic field, and my aura pushed out to influence it. I managed to strengthen it, and she dispelled the field in surprise.
"Sorry. Your light and energy manipulation abilities are just…interesting to look at." I confessed and formed my own barriers, fractal shapes I remade and altered on the fly. I formed another bubble-shield, layering the fields together to create an exponentially stronger shield.
Crystal grinned. "Oh right. You can see weird wavelengths of light humans can't. Is that how you copy powers?"
"I'm not…copying powers, so much as using my powers in new ways inspired by others. There's a difference. Your powers were just very compatible as was Legend." I formed a ball of energy, splitting it into several beams. "My force fields are my own, but I can borrow techniques." I shaped dozens of hex shields into a projection, making it dance a little jig. "I haven't found anything for shapeshifting so far though."
"Oh." She seemed to be expecting something, so I giggled and as my hands weaved through my hair, black and red turned to gold. In a minuscule flash of light my hair was a shiny blonde, cascading down my shoulder.
"I like your shade of blonde, you don't mind do you?" I wasn't being serious of course. I liked the color of my hair, but experimenting wasn't a bad thing. "I'm a bit better at shapeshifting than most, though my whole…half-organic shtick limits some of my options and opens up others."
"Oh…if you're organic you can use different pigments to change your color."
"Correct." I snapped my fingers. "I could probably shapeshift to look like anyone, though one I'm a terrible actor, and two it serves no use I'm comfortable or interested in." So did I get a Stranger rating for that then? I shifted the colors of my eyes, though I had to be careful to obscure my pupils. "Also pupils, can't change those."
I kinda liked the blonde, like having locks of gold and pyrite.
"So you could look like me if you wanted to…that would be pretty good for pranks." Crystal chewed on her lip, almost wondering.
"I'm not much of a prankster, I mostly use shapeshifting for personal reasons or fighting." I demonstrated by covering my arms in scales and plates of crimson crystal, with roughly the same texture as Leviathan. "Plus it helps make me less intimidating by keeping me small. Else I'd be fifty feet like the rest of the Diamonds used to be."
I had managed it once, and strained myself, though I could keep up the size with some practice.
"Well I'd—" she was cut off by her mother, by Lady Photon.
"Hello S— Carmine, I see Crystal is having a good time interrogating you." The aforementioned cape flushed. "But we really need to be going." She sounded worried and I rolled my eyes at her concern.
"I'm not going to hold her hostage you know," I shifted my hair into crimson and rose red. "She gave me the opportunity to monologue, so I'm grateful to her."
Lady Photon's expression softened. "Oh. Well when we have time, maybe you'd like to meet our team in a…less…"
"Crowded and or conflict-filled setting." I finished for her, glancing at her daughter who was only a few years younger than I was. Seventeen, eighteen years old versus my twenty going on twenty one. "Sure. I'm not particularly busy." Despite being in the middle of a meeting between multiple worlds.
A few minutes later I was mostly alone.
"So…did you predict that would happen, or was it just a lucky guess?"
"Was…was it a poor decision? Not all would enjoy a Precog using their power on them."
"It's fine you pink baby, it's not exactly like you were being malicious or actively manipulative."
"Certainly not, I only peered a few minutes ahead and gave you a warning, and more friends is always nice."
"Yeah. It is."
I stuck out my tongue as I worked, randomly tapping interface icons as I followed the flow of causality. Yeah, we basically cheated by unnatural intuition. Which usually meant we had to substantially alter interfaces for Jets since most of them aren't magic.
"You should move that component to the right, it'll better focus the fifth and sixth dimensions." I absently listened to String Theory as I worked on the guts of Amazo's inner components once more.
My tinkering had been improving over time, as I studied up on Gem technology and other tech we had integrated in the last couple of years. The information processing system had been upgraded by our new tinker, and the energy distribution system was replaced by Gem versions that were more effective and less slapdash.
The electronuclear force generator turned out to function by bending various higher dimensions, the fifth, sixth and seventh in particular along with even higher dimensions to improve the efficiency of altering the manifold of four dimensional spacetime. My main problem was how it was being carried, since it seemed to require exotic particles I've never seen before.
"This robot is powered by a topological defect." I stopped my button mashing, turning to the tinker as she brushed back her dark hair. String Theory…no Kira Kovalyov was an interesting woman, Russian-born though she was named for her Japanese grandmother.
"Topological defect…you're saying we have something similar to a monopole?" I started to think, and certain opaque components and modules became more clear.
There was a module that seemed to contain exotic elements, which now that I had an outside perspective, were perfect for catching and containing topological defects like monopoles. Use of topological defects was common by advanced civilizations. Electroweak monopoles were used to ignite fusion by decaying Tritium into He3. Compact reactors the size of one's fist were possible, even if only barely.
There was a designation, one I hadn't figured out before, it was called a TD Modulation Module.
"Yep. Seems to be a semi-perpetual energy source, it absorbs solar light to catalyze the generation of…GU-particles, sure let's go with that."
"So the projectors and modulation units have to be for the GU-particles and the information processors scan the effect of powers and modify the unified field to copy them!" I looked at the components, and now had a much better idea of what I could pull off. "Computation Orb, accept designation Babbage." The lab vibrated within the shifting dimension.
"Designation Babbage accepted. What is your request?" Smart computer.
"Simulate a reconstruction of Amazo Android using these parameters and data scans." Half a dozen sweeps based on what Kira had deduced were more than helpful. A hologram formed in the lab, creating the odd humanoid Android which had been created eleven years prior.
The energy distribution and matter reconstruction modules were easily reverse engineered but borrowed from Gem means of energy distribution and scans of shapeshifting of both Gems(me) and some of our tech. The kinetic energy manipulation was another key component, again using Gemtech. The eletronuclear effectors were the hard part because we usually went the magic route. Plus containing a superforce that stopped existing near the start of the universe isn't easy.
Their super scientists were bullshit of the highest order and only tinkers or hundreds to thousands of normal scientists could keep up with them. If one of them ended up becoming a tinker the world would probably end.
None of them had…for some reason. Possibly they didn't go through the kind of events to cause a Trigger or they protected themselves from such things with super science.
"Replication of Amazo Android now within technological capabilities." Of course this was a simulation so I expected anywhere from a week to a month of time before that was true.
"Thanks." I rolled my shoulders, patting my flat chest to make a resounding boom of sound. "So. Have you killed a planet yet?"
"Fuck you bitch." I raised an eyebrow at Kira. "A girl doesn't kiss and tell."
"Are you telling me you fucked a Galilean?" I was smug as her expression became one of horror.
"Jesus Christ no! I'm pretty sure if one of them stuck it in me it would kill me." She shook her head, nose scrunching up. "And do they even have dicks? They're like living planets aren't they?"
"I haven't extensively studied the sexual and reproductive habits of gravity manipulating rock people so I wouldn't know." I quipped back, rolling my eyes. God Kira was a bitch but it was a familiar dynamic with some of the squabbling I used to get into with a daughter of family friends.
Too bad we disconnected when we moved from Florida to California due to dad's old job starting to kick the bucket. And honestly it was nice to be a little less diplomatic.
"Aren't you a rock person?" I shrugged.
"Half-rock person really. Their gravity manipulation fields are interesting though from a biological standpoint. There aren't many Gems that directly manipulate gravity." I extended my claws. "So you got any megaprojects you're willing to share with us peons?"
Stars, it was nice to talk with people again.
Kira smirked. "I'm String Theory. Of course I do, I've been studying some cape powers, and completed a project." She lifted her right arm to reveal what was basically an omni-tool, a device she used to control her hundreds of construction drones and mechs. She formed a hologram of the device, it wasn't one of her Drivers for once.
"Is…that based on scans of Glory Girl and Clockblocker?" It was an enormously complex device about the size of a car, shaped roughly like a saucer, dozens of lights emitting force fields.
"Glory Girl has a pretty impressive defense, you see how the hard-light diverts energy across dimensions?" She pointed out certain sections of her device, and scans taken of Victoria. "The kinetic energy, the force from energy blasts, everything is absorbed like a capacitor and what isn't absorbed is vented."
A very effective shield but it wasn't too robust, so it got fucked up by continent-blasting blows from Scion.
"The shard behind her power wasn't given a ton of resources and had to get creative with the functions of her abilities." She was a puny shard from every respect, about the mass of Jostedal glacier. Which was maybe a couple hundred billion tons.
Which was actually quite small for a shard, most were a fair bit larger. Though the very bare minimum unit was the mass of a large fridge. A shard was a collective identity made of a thousand smaller identities coalescing into something greater than the sum of its parts.
"Yeah I noticed that," Kira tapped the second component, a projector of temporal energies, fourth dimensional fields twisted and warped by tinkertech machinery. "So I decided to freeze the hard-light field in fucking time, combined they're exponentially more resilient because some spacetime fuckery can be lensed across dimensions."
"So it won't get popped by say…the Siberian?" We were still looking for the Nine because at this point they served no purpose besides death and horror. Though either Contessa was covering for them or we were being spread too thin.
Mostly we were just protecting possible targets, like Blasto or a certain group of collaborative tinkers. I didn't need or want to slog through the S9000 at any point.
"Probably not, but that bitch/bastard is bullshit of the highest order. A walking transdimensional hole in space and time…that gives me some ideas."
"Just don't blow up a planet full of people and you're good." I patted her on her shoulder, and she smirked.
"Huh…are you sure you're not coming onto me? Not a lot of guys or girls let me play with my toys." She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
"I might be attracted to most girls, but that doesn't mean I'm going to come onto anyone." I don't even know how to do that, not like I ever had anyone to date in my life.
"So you are attracted to me." She was teasing.
"Yes you're pretty, no I don't want to date crazy." She snorted and I stood up to bend my body to alleviate some of the strain. "I should probably be heading out, I've got something to inspect."
She said something in Russian I only got because of Gemsong, and I rolled my eyes as I muttered 'exit portal, please' under my breath. I stepped out into the lobby, and then onto the warp pad put in place for my convenience. In a couple of seconds I was on Earth Bet and in a couple more I was on Earth Gimel.
We were setting up evacuation points, though they were being negotiated as an additional source of resources for them. Every Earth ever opened up in 'Canon' with the exception of Zayin.
Bad luck.
Elle wanted to be responsible for the portals, though we hadn't let her try opening them yet. It felt a tad exploitative, and we were working on opening portals to dimensions on our end and then setting up specialized barriers to keep Scion out for good measure.
It wouldn't work forever though, Scion had power in spades…and Abaddon, what was left of it(now her) in the form of the Red Queen was still out there pulling her shit.
Yeah.
I could smell the whiff of magic in the air, leaking from other dimensions. The cracks were growing, the surge from the High to the Low wasn't decreasing. This was just another reason for opening communications.
It was inevitable, it would have happened without our intervention, but more uncontrolled, and with less warning.
Preparing the other Earths was going to take time and resources I didn't yet have access to.
But that wouldn't be true forever.
David Simmons
As a member of the Triumvirate I was often called upon for duties beyond just fighting, not that I ever enjoyed them. I was never a people person. But today was different, today I was the protector of a diplomatic mission to a transdimensional alliance of beings both human and not. The people who were trying to do the job I had been failing at since the moment Behemoth emerged.
A part of me felt indignant, but a bigger part of me told it to shut up, told me I couldn't do this alone. I couldn't beat Scion, not yet, but even with their war with a third entity they had more to offer than I did. Capes with greater power, greater potential, and outside the plans of the entities.
I was rapidly switching powers, filling them up with energy from a strong power I hadn't known existed. From flashes of insight, it took energy from stars in other dimensions, and my power then filled the reserves of other powers. But only the weaker but more common powers, minor flight and movement powers, more specialized abilities I didn't usually use. The stronger powers were much slower to fill up.
I felt a power settle, my body hardened with layers of solid energy. I could send the layers out in waves of near-inviolable force. I could hold it in my body and use it to fly, and it kept my body from being affected by any attack. A second power fell into place, it was music, a steady tone that shifted to reveal possibilities, dangers, and threats.
I kept it, because it would be useful in maneuvering through the politics inherent in visiting another world.
The third power was a flickering power, and I saw the space between worlds, saw how I could use it to heal and equip people. I remembered a Ward known Scapegoat had a similar power but mine was stronger, less restricted.
I would keep these powers for now, if they were going to invade they would have conquered the planet by now. They could reach powers, which meant they could destroy them too.
But they didn't, and now…here we are. I was returning to the peak of my power, all at the cost of knowing I was responsible for the death of millions. That the Endbringers followed part of my will, that my power had crafted worthy opponents for my own self aggrandizement.
Rebecca placed a hand on my shoulder, and I returned back to the present. There were a number of civilians around here, an eclectic mix of races and species I had never seen before. Some were shooting us worried glances, some had awe, or simple indifference.
I had no reputation here, they had no expectations for the kind of person I was or what I could do. It was almost freeing.
I could see Sunrise Diamond, though she had given the strong recommendation of calling her Carmine Moissanite. We knew she was the youngest, and that she was secret was even newer information.
We weren't going to break our word because we weren't stupid enough to damage a tenuous relationship with a galactic empire.
Someone emerged in a flash of light and there was a hush in the crowd, a hero then?
I blinked at the woman who floated down, she was around Sunrise Diamond's height if not a little shorter. She wore a skintight white and grey costume with circuit-like gold lines on it, with a short mantle in black over her shoulders. Her mask was a helmet with a massive curving glass mask, eyes glowing behind them. It exposed her chin, and I could see lips curled into a smile.
"Eidolon, right?" Her voice was…I knew her somehow, but it made no sense. Where would I have heard someone with her voice before?
"Yes I am." I spoke up though, the music shifting towards a negative outcome.
She smiled, eyes burning brighter. "I'm Totem, I've heard we share some similarities in our powers." She demonstrated by blinking to the ground, her arrival heralded by pale light. Her hands glowed blue, gravity increasing within them.
A third power was revealed as she created a muddy projection, a strange circle twisting and folding out into the creature. She patted the purple projection, and I stared.
I dropped the flickering power, and tapped into the power to see other powers. I saw the mosaic image of her power, scenes of other worlds within them. Her passenger lit up in my vision, and I could see how it flowed in ways I had never seen with other powers.
It connected to three powers, scattered with golden light, a continuous warp stream to the passengers. She was another counterpart to my power, I saw it clearly. But her connection was different, closer, more natural.
She looked like I did all those years ago, going, unfettered by worries and self loathing. But I was just projecting, I didn't know this woman or her struggles.
"Is there something you wanted or…?" I trailed off and she smiled enigmatically.
"No. I just wanted to see the man behind the myth." Her power was reaching out to mine, tendrils like golden vipers. They crashed against my own tendrils. The song didn't point to a dangerous outcome.
She was testing, nothing more.
"Totem. I would prefer you not to cause a diplomatic incident." I flinched when I felt, tasted something in the air. It was the taste of apples and almonds, the scent of ash trees and poppies, an aura of threat.
I turned around, and found my mouth clamping shut.
It was a woman, and frankly one of the most beautiful women I had seen in my life. She wore a golden dress, Grecian in design, and her obsidian hair almost glittered in the light of the sun. I knew who she was, I knew what she was.
She was Diana of Themyscira, the Wonder Woman.
I wasn't going to question her existence.
"Diana." Totem retracted her tendrils, an apologetic air to her shift. "I see you're representing the Amazons, does that mean Mera will be representing Atlantis?" They moved away and I followed, as I didn't feel like dealing with crowds in an alien world.
"She will be and…" There was a ring in the air, and I felt it in my bones that it was time.
"The Diamonds have arrived." Totem declared, and I released my power sight. I waited, and I saw points of connections, and folded them away.
I teleported, and entered the Governor's Hall. Seconds later both Totem and Wonder Woman had arrived. I noted the other representatives, there was a man with golden tanned skin and feline features wearing purple ceremonial garb. A giant toad touting a massive ancient war hammer, an insectile woman in red, with a horned pale mask…face?
It kind of hurt my eyes.
There was a pale woman with blue hair and pointed ears, a beautiful red headed woman wearing a skintight outfit with shades of green outlined with gold. There was also a snappishly dressed…hillbilly? He represented 460-AB's humanity?
I'm not sure I wanted to ask. And I didn't get the chance, as a door glowed while it expelled four figures.
To all those in attendance of the Sirenian Conference,
ALL RISE.
Her Brilliance, White Diamond, Firstborn of the Demiurge, Song of Mind, Birth of Eras, Suneater.
She was like a burning star in my vision, white softened by other shades, a cape of starlight and void. A being older than the human race.
Her Luminance, Yellow Diamond, Blade of the Worlds, Song of Persistence, Maker of Works, Suneater.
I stared at the imposing woman with skin shaded like Scion, twice as tall as a normal man, and yet…there was an imperfection, she showed age that he didn't.
Her Lustrance, Blue Diamond, Bringer of Rains, Song of Passion, Maker of Joys, Suneater
A veiled blue woman, with tired but relieved eyes.
His Radiance, Aster Diamond, Son of the Rose, Song of Life, End of Eras, Suneater.
A jewel among men, colored in all the shades of cerise, almost human and yet not.
ALL RISE FOR THE DIAMOND AUTHORITY.
AND NOW, THE SIRENIAN CONFERENCE MAY BEGIN.
Those in attendance gave their own titles, who they represented, even our own diplomat declared himself.
I sat down, and wondered what madness we had wrought by coming here? Author's Note: I'll mention here that the DC part of the crossover is mostly Young Justice semi-merged with the Animated Movies, though with some bits from other continuities for my own use. I could draw upon the comics but I mostly only know the animated series and the scaling of comics is a bit...out of balance for what I'm going for. Which is stronger than most Worm Parahumans but not hundred orders of magnitude stronger than Scion. Mostly...the universes I'm using are still pretty insane. So yeah.
Also the dress below is more or less what I imagine Diana wearing for the Sirenian Conference, it just really stood out in my mind when I wrote the scene.
Hah maybe. Though I'm more or less finished with the number of crossovers. I had to make a sense of loose rules when I chose what could be crossed so there wouldn't be an absolute glut, like I don't know, fifty crossovers or something. There should be a pattern to it, though I won't mention the specifics.
