- Location
- Chula Vista
That's the idea of course, spiritual shenanigans allows for a lot of unique scenarios that aren't typical for Earth Bet. And I think I recognize the Warp, but not Fade…where is that from?
Victories of the Soul [Worm/Avatar/ME/Multicrossover] [SI]
- Thread starter AEM
- Start date
- Crossover Mature Sci-Fi
If I recall correctly the fade is a reference to the Dragon age series. Similar to the warp but somewhat less threatening. no chaos gods or anything, but it's inhabited with benign spirits and malicious demons (who embody negative traits/emotions) who'll try and possess mages while they sleep to escape the fade. Normal people are at less risk, until the demons get out. Cue this.
- Location
- Chula Vista
Huh…so that's why it sounded familiar, and reading up on it, it's very much similar in nature to the spirit world, though a little more benevolent. Then again that's going to vary on location and planet, other worlds have or had far harsher and vicious metaphysical planes. Like Tuchanka for example…now that's a bad place to try to navigate.
Edit:
As for Taylor's orientation, while I could go for a more dramatic storyline that's more or less a waste of time and I prefer moving on to other stories. So…I guess she would be bi? To be fair in canon, she had one relationship and it didn't last, so it can made more ambiguous. Either way, it's a yes on that.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well in canon worm Taylor is clearly only into guys for the most part but yeah I can see your point but anyway I'm fine with it especially in comparison to other Yuri Taylor stories also how similar is your self insert and yourself and Taylor in this story what is the difference between this Taylor and canon one
- Location
- Chula Vista
Hmm...I would say they were similar enough, they've got more or less the same background, but she's had more time to process certain things like her mother's death. Unfortunately the timeline is a bit of a mess, but I've tried to make minor changes here and there. But to be honest the main difference is that she never suffered the problems that Skitter did in the months coming up to Canon. She's not going to Winslow so she doesn't have to deal with a shitty school, her dad is a little more active, and she has actual friends to help her.
Taylor did used to be a happy blabbermouth, and while that's probably not going to make a big come back, she's had more time to decompress and no conflict drive nagging at her. She's still more aggressive than the average person, thus her more consistent hero work but she's just doing better than Canon Taylor did.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ah okay also I find it funny that Taylor find happy blabbermouths annoying when she used to be one still I like this is a heroic Taylor that is still similar to her the only other ones I seen close to that are Essence of Silver and Steel and Railgun and also basilla is pretty cool albeit is she bi since she seemed to be attractive to armsmater before and dated a dude
- Location
- Chula Vista
Funny enough…she's never actually dated someone, she didn't realize she had a crush on a guy until long after the fact. And yes she is bi, though with a strong preference towards woman.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hmm makes sense also it's pretty funny that Taylor is essentially able to lift up basilla like it's nothing (especially considering she was a dude) and also good work with the story really like the uniqueness of all of it but another question is this Taylor ever going to be as proficient in her bugs control as Weaver and why is she taller (like much taller)
- Location
- Chula Vista
Heh yeah…even if Basilia was still a guy it wouldn't be any harder for Taylor to pick them up, she was actually way shorter as a guy but only ten pounds lighter. As for her proficiency, she's not really that far behind where Weaver was. It's just that since this is from Basilia's perspective there won't always be a mention of Taylor's improvements. She did pretty much destroy the Merchant's(not that it was hard) on her own, and beat down both Uber and Leet offscreen. Which involved a lot of screaming and many kicks to the gut.
And most mooks are worthless against her since she can just mob them with bugs that are ten times tougher than normal, can shoot beams of energy, or form up into shields to defend herself. As well the swarm clones though she can only focus on enhancing single Queen at a time. Only benders or Parahumans stand a chance against her.
Though some of her reduced talent comes from just focusing on more than just her but powers. But if you want to know about her height, it's mostly because a tall Taylor sounded neat(plus she's two years older)
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- Location
- Chula Vista
To be…very charitable to her, her spirits would have been easily dealt with without an outside player interfering.
- Location
- Book Fort
- Pronouns
- They/Them
When you and the bomb tinker are of a similar mind, you know you're doing well!
An evolution of her shielding power? Does it somehow merge with her Master/Shaker power?
This is so very cute ^.^
It actually feels really similar to my own mind, when my partner smiles. My mind (which is normally juggling 80 different things at once) just kinda blue-screens for a moment.
...
*snicker*
Dragon's their probation officer? Oh, now that's hilarious!
IRS is a group that even Cauldron are terrified of!
Aw, shy?
Parian?
Shard-babies!
Okay, this guy's cute!
For real though, we can't let anything happen to this little medic. Medilla? Medite? Either way, he's precious and adorable and sweet. He must be protected at all costs, can't let him be consumed by a larger spirit.
...This is a Sophia-spawn, isn't it?
The odor-identifying parts of the brain are pretty close to the memory storage bits, which is why certain scents can evoke vivid memories or emotions. I really like how you've extrapolated this into your fic!
Yeah, heading back to the place of your trauma is difficult enough without literal manifestations of trauma causing a downwards spiral/feedback loop.
Goddamn it, Sophia. Outside intervention or not, this is simply going to drive home to everyone "in the know" how much of a shitstain she is. Glad she and the other ones aren't going to be prominent feature in this fic. They're simply not worth the time or attention. Glad that the Protectorate capes were equally stunned and horrified by Sophia's actions. They should be forced to understand the things that Sophia was able to get away with under their watch.
- Location
- Koszalin, Poland
In this case I think it's a bit more complicated. We know MC was a guy and Taylor also knows this, so she may still think in categories of 'Basilia is pretty much a guy in a woman body'. Plus it's actually pretty rare to find someone who is completely what we would call Kinsey 0/Kinsey 6 (depending on which sexuality spectrum you are on). Basilia possibly may act so much like a guy, that Taylor by instinct doesn't mind her being of the same gender.
But again, this is pretty much AU at this point, so whatever author decides here, I'm fine with it.
Explosions are awesome. As long as you aren't inside of them.
Her shield is really strong and it can tank pretty much anything once. Including Scion's Fuck You Beam. So maybe this 'evolution' is that she may regulate is and make it stronger or weaker, possibly for the price of overall strenght of forcefield. I prefer more stable, but weaker shield, then one time use thing that can tank anything.
Taking into account how powerful Purity alone is (Blaster 8 with some pretty good Mover rating), I think Dragon is absolute minimum for this kind of powerful parahumans.
No one fucks with the true leader of IRS, Gatherer! The strongest Trump / Anti-Thinker cape on the planet that almost no one knows about. You will pay your taxes or ELSE!
League of Legends Void is also something I could compare to as well in that creepy feelings of some spirits and realms/places they come from/are in.
- Location
- Chula Vista
Vicky's shield basically works the same way as the Wretch does in Ward, and can be shaped however she wants, though she needs to practice to manage anything bigger. She can even get sensory data through her shield and aura, and givens enough time she'll develop Thinker powers. Dean's shard was built for analyzing, studying and manipulating emotion after all, and that's a piece of Fragile One's own essence.
And Tantra is Parian's shard, a rather quiet and unassuming entity fragment. And for how I use smells, I've always found the need to be as descriptive as possible without being absurdly wordy even though the fanfic that inspired this one averaged about 20K words a chapter. A scene requires a clear picture, the location, the size and depth, the sounds and smell and the positioning of objects and people in that piece. It helps that smell is an important shaman sense.
Yeah…and for what the Protectorate capes have realized, is that they need a change of perspective, one that has to be forced upon by the emergence of the spirits. They're born from our actions as humans, and in a world like Earth Bet…there are a lot of negative emotions and negative events going on. How many spirits are born from common and petty human actions, from acts of hate between ethnic groups and classes and nations. How many spirits are born from Cauldron's own immoral actions, from the countless villains across the world?
Seeing this gives people a nice reflection, a realization of their own faults.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
To the first one: hahahahahaha okay you need to turn the MC into a guy just so I can see that
But on a serious note this is pretty good to hear especially since Taylor has been training a lot with basilla so i kinda expected this still it's pretty cool to hear hmm also how is Taylor relationship with Victoria and Amy like now
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hmm good point according to the Author Taylor is bisexual but even then I still your explanation is right since basilla is basically a guy in a girl body albeit will Taylor ever admit her feelings
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Interesting no wonder silla is so stressed also have you read much of Ward? Before
- Location
- Chula Vista
At this point they're more or less friends, perhaps not the closest possible of friends but still friends.
Not…really? I've sorta checked out bits and pieces from looking at other threads. Since it's more or less longer than Worm, and I haven't even finished Worm so I haven't checked it out myself. I only managed up to one third of Arc 13 and then lost my interest. But I do sorta like the shard mechanics that get better explained here, since it's useful for my story.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Interesting really hope Taylor gains more friends in the future and yeah I really like the new shard mechanics
Tisaku
Head Chief Thinkomancer
gleaned
doped
plane
chaste
Exorcism 6.2
- Location
- Chula Vista
Exorcism 6.2
April 20th, 2011. 11:16AM
Kaida Bushida
My eyes snapped open, and I stood up, blinking away the sleep as I felt deftly aware about where I was and why I was here. I had been staying with two of my father's friends…the men that came and went whenever I had a moment or chance to leave the house outside of school. And sometimes they would show up even then. They had turned out to have strange powers though that didn't really prove to be very special when I had found my own abilities.
"Is something wrong?" I stared up at the superhero that was apparently assigned to guard me.
Miss Battery was a nice lady. She had been keeping an eye out for me, to protect me from the Empire cape who wanted to use me against my father.
I pursed my lip, not sure if I should tell her. But I did tell her. "I can feel…there's something very wrong here. Can you feel it?"
"I don't…" she stopped, and her costume sparked for a moment. "Is this a spirit thing?" I stood up from my bed that they had placed near the Wards.
"Yes. There's…an awful smell…like death is close by." I confided in her, and she took a few steps forward, looking around to scan the room. I felt thankful that she was willing to help me, even if she obviously didn't like my father. They never talked, but I had already deduced that he had to be Lung. Why else would the Empire be after me?
The room started to shake, and an awful shriek like a banshee made my small heart die in my chest. I could hear angry shouting, and then there was an intake of breath from Battery.
"MOVE!" She grabbed me and the world blurred around me, even then my eyes honed in on the phantom that had emerged from the walls, a rotting corpse with no face, and long saber-like fingers. It glanced at its empty hands and made an awful rattle with its hundreds of bones.
I screamed.
A blast of fire launched against a wall, and we flew out of the room at top speed into chaos. All around us I could see people panicking as darkened spirits attacked. One of the PRT officers was throwing down with a red chained demon, his punches cracking through the thing's fragile flesh. He grabbed at the angry face of the demon, and burned its face off with a single gout of fire.
"Keep moving." I was put down, and I followed after her, eyes straining to see her as she bounced across the walls, kicking and breaking spirits down into motes of red and black. I could hear gunfire, the sound of bullets hitting flesh and bone.
Every single spirit tried to grab at me, and I threw my own weak fireballs. I could hear their screams, hear their roars and pleas in my head.
I shook my head, taking a deep breath like Elle had said when I had met her for the first time. She was like me…she could hear the whispers of the creatures from the reverse side of the world, could understand the nature of the soul of all things.
With every spirit I could see into their nature, an echo of something beyond ancient, of pain beyond comparison, of hatred that would swallow up even a dragon. There was a voice threading reality, desperate and afraid.
A black mass dropped from the ground, its maw splitting open like a flower. Battery shouted angrily, and the metal around her vibrated and rippled as she launched a fist wreathed in flames and electricity into the beast's face.
I didn't want to die.
Battery offered a hand, and I was dragged to safety as the rogue spirits fought back with mad enthusiasm. I flinched when their chains were broken, screams of anguish as well as cheers of freedom made the air shudder and oscillate painfully.
I could see one of the Wards that had stayed behind, Kid Win, wrestling a spirit for control of some type of gigantic cannon as big as a car. I launched a fireball, and I smiled when he launched a cautious kick into its stomach. Pieces began to teleport in from somewhere, until it was fully assembled. He glanced at Battery and after a moment of trepidation she nodded.
BWOOM!
I blinked spots out of my eyes as a solid blue beam sliced through a dozen spirits. They broke apart into motes like all the others and I could see Kid Win's excited look.
His smile weakened, and I felt no better even as his cool Tinkertech tore through another dozen weak spirits. Battery continued to lead me away from the fighting, barreling through the twisting cackling demons with ease. She was trying to find some safe place, but there weren't any around. There was only fighting, and screaming and monsters.
There had to be something else, something more…something less sad and depressing and horrible.
I started to whisper, tried to follow the lessons that Elle had given me, that she had learned from another. The land of the spirits wasn't just one of nightmares and violence and destruction, there was peace and love and pacifism.
But love and pacifism wasn't what I needed right now. I needed the will to fight, to defend and protect and serve. I needed something strong.
Please…
Battery shook my shoulder, and something she saw in my eyes made her recoil back. I started to whisper again, finding the right words to talk to what I wanted to find, what I needed to find.
"Arise…I…call to the Guardians." I spoke the words that came from within, and there was a ripple that spread through the building. A ripple of power, of authority and justice, of duty to the people. "Come to my aid, come to the aid of the people." I struggled, and Battery opened her mouth to reply.
The Ephemeral pressed down on the Corporeal, and the demons hissed in fear and in anger. They came from the walls, from the air, and from the places where men and women had worked to keep the city safe. I began to blabber nonsense, spoke ancient tongues forgotten by humanity.
They were creatures that resembled the PRT people themselves, Myrmidons of growing power and influence, sharpening their weapons that were both physical and projected. Battery stared as one of them approached her, lightning dancing across the spirit's stern face.
"Speak your orders…are we to repel these invaders?" It saluted her, pointed teeth being exposed as it smiled.
"Y-Yes?" The spirit tilted its head and Battery coughed. "I mean…yes repel them as best as you can." The Myrmidon let out a shout of joy, and vanished into a stream of electricity slicing apart six spirits in the span of seconds.
Why was she looking at me that way? Stop it.
"Let's go." Despite my embarrassment, I childishly grabbed her hand pulling her away from the battle as more and more spirits of duty and justice joined the fray. As we ran through the halls, Battery shattered enemy spirits along the way with her superpowers, and I could see the fight expanding.
A giant armored spirit that looked like a power ranger lashed out with a giant buzzing halberd, sweeping up monsters like it was nothing. Another smaller and thinner one moved like a bullet, an angry gust of wind that would knock the spirits down for the stronger of its kin to deal with. Another defensive spirit instead unleashed a beam of light, incinerating some smaller destruction spirits with its cleansing beam.
We were stopped in the hallway, as six spirits crawled from every side, glowing and hiss laughing as they cornered us. "Stay behind me." Battery lightly commanded me, and her body crackled with electricity.
The spirits raced towards us, toothy maws wide open as they attacked at full force.
April 20th, 2011. 11:25AM
Lisa Wilborn
PHO was going nuts over the past few minutes.
When monsters out of someone's fucked up nightmares start showing up out of the blue it tends to get a lot of attention. We had been stuck in the loft after Grue took a bad hit. None of us had the strength or the powerset to deal with something that gave my power an aneurysm.
At first anyway.
There had to have been more than a hundred of them, and most of them had been attacking any group with any amount of power in the city. What was left of the old Empire, the ABB, the PRT and even Athena…though that last one failed almost immediately, they were pretty much torn apart on the spot by…something.
All of this had been caused by Coil in a last ditch move to screw everyone over, and god did he succeed. While most of those…spirit things could be brought down by bullets, at least a few of them would need heavy weapons or a strong Blaster to take them out.
I was making use of the money I had stolen from Coil, and bought an expensive desktop that was top of the line in every way. Our dear leader was laying down on a chair, taking a nice rest while recovering from a bad hit to the chest. The one thing that made this different was the little dog made out of bubbles that whined softly, making his injury glow. -Water sprite, wants to heal, likes Aisha more than Grue.-
I startled and pushed back Aisha when she got right up in my face, her lips widening into a smirk. I had forgotten she was even here to begin with, and had only remembered because that weird dog thing remembered. A lot of powers just didn't work on them to begin with unless you were talking about physically hurting them.
"Sorry…" she smirked and I sighed when she moved over to her brother, patting the water dog like it was some pet instead of an abomination that shouldn't exist in this world.
Aisha had been picked up about two days, she had apparently Triggered because of some Empire thugs…along with a dark spirit that had been tagging along. Bitch had found her, and killed the spirit and knocked out the thugs, she ended up bringing her to us before leaving…grumbling about stupid voices.
She was a Stranger, and I had a hard time even remembering she even existed if her power was going at full blast. But it's not her only power, she can make clouds of darkness that she can shape into monsters she can control. Along with being able to manipulate earth for 'some' reason…I think I had found something about that in a file I managed to pilfer from the PRT before they fixed their security.
It was going to take me weeks to get my fingers back in the pie…though I don't think our new warden is going to let us.
I sighed when my five browser windows with their dozen tabs each were shunted to the side. A digital face emerged, and I leaned back and forced my lips into a coy smile.
"Hello Dragon." The Tinker raised an eyebrow, and I sighed at the developments of the past few days. Once Coil had been taken out of the picture there wasn't a lot left for us, and sticking to a life of crime wouldn't be long lasting with the warning I got from Erudition. She decided to be nice enough to 'help' me with cutting off Coil, and her subtle warnings to keep clean were easy to follow when I couldn't even trace her, like the internet itself was afraid of her and wiped off traces of however she broke into Coil's systems.
We had ended up getting the attention of Dragon, who apparently could pick up the activity of moving money around a lot easier than before. That was about what I could pick up with my power and some investigation of my own. Some of that was probably because of what happened with Purity too…
Now that was a weird team up that I hope never happens again. We pretty much had to go white hat or else, but at least we didn't have to go to prison. But we were under probation until we weren't considered a 'danger' to society anymore.
"So…how have all of you been?" Dragon asked the question with what I think was genuine concern. "Have you had any trouble so far?" I groaned but decided to play along with her little game.
"Oh it's been fun I guess? It's a lot less robbery and a lot more investigation than my old gig but…you win some you lose some." She didn't change her expression, and I couldn't get as much information as I hoped. Dragon somehow obscured herself from my power though what had to be Tinker bullshit. She could tear through code just as fast as Erudition could though she was a little more obvious.
"That's good, I imagine that Rachel has been out walking her dogs?" There was a current of amusement in her voice, and I nodded slowly.
"She's been trying to settle in a few dogs she's adopted." I answered her, stretching out my back as I looked around our modified warehouse. Dragon had been generous enough to provide us with some upgrades to our amenities, which was pretty nice actually.
"And…Regent?" Dragon switched to another question.
"He's playing video games and acting pretty busy…" it felt a little galling to have someone else as our boss only a few days after Coil had been…well I wasn't sure what had happened to him in the end. I only knew that the heroes hadn't caught him, but that he probably wasn't going to do much more than what he already did.
I…had a bad feeling about it myself.
"And all of you have adjusted to your new…conditions?" I bristled at her tone.
"I don't need you to sugarcoat it." Or to be so weirdly supportive. "We're on a tight leash and the only reason we aren't being shipped off across other cities is because you said you'd keep an eye out for us." For some reason Aisha started to laugh and I jumped again.
-Is amused at something. Is amused at your denial. Thinks you're uncomfortable with Dragon because she's acting like a parent.-
I…decided not to respond to that, and glanced back over to Dragon. With a sigh I tried to read her again. It was getting easier to cut away the fog around her, but she was good.
-Dragon is distracted but happy to see the Undersiders settling in…is having trouble with another group. Likely rebranded former Empire members, PRT likely taking a heavier hand on them than us. Her face only a simulation, not her real appearance.-
I scoffed at that last one, I already knew that since she never showed up in person. I might not be able to get everything out of her, but the smaller things were still a possibility.
Dragon's eyes lit up, and I didn't need my power to know that she was going to start talking. "So how have your investigations gone? With both the Empire and other things?"
"Well I've found a lot of very interesting little facts," I grinned smugly. "Jotunn has actually been in the city since around the 20th of March. Which was only a couple of days after a massacre during a fight between Gesellschaft and the German government. He's been biding his time, waiting for the Empire to be vulnerable enough to get his claws into them."
The fact that he had shown up while the Empire was being harassed by a spirit was a bad omen, and it couldn't be just a coincidence. Which made finding out as much as I could about him a little cathartic, if he was responsible for that thing attacking Brian…
I smirked. He wasn't going to take this city while I had any say, I still lived in it after all.
"And the other things?" I rolled my eyes at how coy she was being about this and simply demonstrated, and with a light wave of my arm I shot out a blast of wind. A very cool party trick if I didn't know I could use it to slice a car in half.
Eventually.
"Well I can do this now…and my powers don't give me as many headaches as they used to." My power could also be flicked on and off which made using it a lot less annoying than before. "If you're asking how many people are being affected, I'd say at least a couple thousand in the city, the only reason no one has noticed is because they don't know how to use their bending." Apparently it was a lot less intuitive than powers that someone like me would get from Triggering, at least until they found out about their power or someone taught them.
"Yes tha—" she was cut off, and I stiffened when I heard someone come in. Brian adjusted himself on the couch, briefly opening his eyes before closing them again.
The door was shut behind Rachel, and she grunted loudly as two of her dogs followed her, one of them trailing shadows and the other trailing with fire. Her powers had been the most changed, and we had been lucky that she hadn't lashed out as much as usual.
She had been a lot less…herself recently, a bit spacey even like she was seeing things that none of us could see in the same way. But then being a shaman tended to make people act…differently. That was all that Dragon had been willing to tell us, and Bitch had been spending a lot of time communing with the spirits. Apparently it helped with training her dogs, and she was ruthlessly willing to learn everything she could with her new power.
The only people she really ever talked to were some of the smarter spirits and some other person that she hadn't mentioned by name. It wasn't Erudition or Amy of the other shamans I had found out about, it was someone new. Whoever it was it had made Rachel start opening up to us, even if only a little. It had helped me figure out why Rachel was the way she was, though I hadn't mentioned how her power had rewired her brain.
It wouldn't end well.
Something jingled, catching my attention with the sound. Rachel grumbled but wasn't able to hide what she was holding in her hand. It was a small dog toy, written over with childish writings that obviously didn't belong to her. I smiled, and I could hear a low growl build in her throat.
"Oh…? Did you make a friend?" My smile was wiped from my face when I saw her expression and I lifted my arms in front of me.
She didn't look away, her snarl fading. "No. Some dumb brat wanted to pat my dog, and got attacked by a spirit. Tried to drag him off, so I grew Brutus and killed it. She still tried to pet him…stupid kid." I raised an eyebrow as she walked off, grumbling under her breath as her dog loyally followed her.
"Rachel seems to be doing well." Was all that Dragon had to say. I leaned back on my seat, mulling over how the attitude toward Rachel had changed over the past couple weeks.
Once she stopped attacking people as often they apparently started to be a little less abrasive towards her, and the less abrasive they were, the less that Rachel would get moody. It was basically the opposite of the loop that had made her into a supervillain. Especially with how often she dealt with Empire thugs trying to muscle their way into anywhere that she walked her dogs or near the shelters.
Now that she was on probation, Dragon was helping her with the shelters since Bitch wouldn't really fit in as hero. Even then the people around here were starting to hate her a lot less, since a lot of what she did…somehow made everything run better.
My computer was at least 40% faster than a week ago, and I hadn't had Dragon upgrade it yet. Rachel would literally talk or intimidate spirits into working better, and made everything run better. It could do the opposite too…since she made my gun misfire one time.
I tapped my fingers on my desk, biting my lip as I thought back to how everything was so different now.
…
If all of this was happening in a few months, what would it like in a few years?
April 20th, 2011. 11:20AM
Basilia Rubio
I took deep breaths, batting aside a car with a burst of potent airbending. The battle had dragged on for minutes now, and what was left of the school was barely even standing. It was only the will of the spirits themselves that anything remained in place, quite literally holding down the fort with their own corpus and essence. The Verge had expanded out from the school, extending about one hundred meters on every side.
Even so Vista had done an incredible job turning this into a confusing maze for our opponents, with each and every intense bending of spacetime being reinforced and enhanced by the angry territorial spirits of the area.
A banshee shriek alerted me to one of the spirits, and I flipped in the air as claws failed to tear off my head. One of the Stalkers, the humanoid shadow spirits let out a low moan, it's restraints swelling as it floated down. The chains were no longer a weakness to be exploited, but unfortunately for them being in the halfway point between the physical and the spiritual had weakened them.
I ducked under a bolt of frozen acid which exploded on contact with the ground, leaving a mess of destroyed concrete wherever it hit. I cocked my weapon and didn't hesitate to fire.
BOOM!
The spirit was discombobulated by the particle blast, chunks of its goopy corpus shredded by the high energy attack. The Stalker was tall, but much more fragile than what would be expected from a spirit of that size.
Which meant that it's contract was a large strain on its corpus but granted it excessive physical strength and spiritual gifts at the expense of durability. The head spirit that I had labeled as Tyrant didn't have the same problem, clearly getting a much better deal out of their new master. It was a tough son of a bitch, I had knocked it down with walls of concrete and biotic blasts with little effect. I needed to find a weak spot because they had to have them.
It was a gut feeling you could say.
It raced towards me, flaring a powerful aura of killing intent that at this point did nothing but piss me the hell off. I fired two more times in rapid succession, with the first blowing off a limb while the second only did partial damage as the spirit phased itself.
The Stalkers all shared some basic abilities and traits, the standard toughness of a spirit, the ability to project their malice, a penchant for sadism, acid projectiles, shadow projectiles and the ability to phase out of sync with reality.
Like Shadow Stalker, but slightly less effective and not quite as intelligent.
We had succeeded in destroying four of them with brute force, damaging their corpus enough to destabilize them. But all of this would be a lot easier if they had a weak spot.
BWOOM!
A purple laser tore through the ground where I had been standing, and I took the time to pull on the Stalker shifting it into the blast. It let out a shrill scream before popping like a water balloon under the intense kinetic and gravitic energy of the spirit beam. The Tyrant was fast, strong and far more clever than the rest of its brethren, using its beams and mass to forcefully separate us into smaller groups.
Unfortunately for it I was not at all going to play it's little game of cat and mouse.
The Kodiak emerged in a burst of light, and two 5mm mass accelerator cannons made their debut in style. There was a flash as rounds tore through the atmosphere at Mach 25, shredding flesh and bone and armor wherever they struck. It was being piloted by Bakuda, and I could hear her war screech as she did several flips, the shuttle acting more like a fighter than the shuttle it was.
Then again a real fighter would be a monster that would flip and maneuver with enough G force to reduce a pilot to red mist.
An adhoc launcher pioneered by a partnership between Bakuda I and burst to life, loading several Bakuda special missiles. As I circled around the Tyrant, I launched a beam of warpfire searing its skin and buying time for the mad tinker.
BOOM!
Missile after missile struck the mad spirit, and I smirked as an entire arm was shredded by ice that was transferred through a spacetime detonation, outright shifting frozen ice from a parallel dimension. Another arm was instead transmuted through a phase alteration bomb, forcefully transmuting part of its corpus into diamond and glass. The follow up was a warp missile, combining a biotic warp with an induced spatial distortion into a single devastating weapon.
It let out a wheeze but it didn't fall to the single volley, instead it pulsed before sending out a bubble of altered space nearly knocking the Kodiak out of the sky with the wave of shifted air. I sighed and with a solid one two routine, I launched a five ton boulder at its chest. It toppled over, its arachnid limbs shattering upon impact with the ground.
How?
I looked closely, narrowing my eyes for why it had begun to take damage. There was a glint of something on its back, a tiny barely perceptible red object embedded in its epidermis.
I smiled.
There was a crackle on the channel, punching through the spacetime alteration of the school into a maze by Vista by not going through it in the first place.
"Erudition are you okay!" Vista's voice cracked as she apparently took on two Stalkers at once, if the data stream from my drone was correct. She was bending their attacks, twisting reality into a pretzel with her power. She had adapted readily to the machinations of spirits, so they weren't getting through as easily anymore. A biotic aura flared brightly, and in a blink she launched a biotic shockwave into one of the spirit's chest. The gravitic pulses shattered the bonds of its spiritual body, and my eyes narrowed at the ruby crystal that broke along with it.
Heh.
"I'm alright." The Kodiak flared its engines, looping around the Tyrant with little trouble. More missiles were loaded and then fired with a flare of blue light, tipped with contained M/AM warheads. Several micrograms of matter were converted to energy on the spot, and a hole was punched through its chest on impact. Three new missiles struck in a detonation of hardlight, shredding all in its path with splinters of specially formed energy.
I found Gallant leading the Rage spirits into a killbox, trapping them in a maze that went wild with the territorial school spirits. He let loose a rapidfire beam attack disrupting the enhanced forms of the bear like spirits. The smarmy school teacher smirked, and stabbed a cane into a jewel at the back of the heavily folded necks of the Rage entities. That shattered their existence in a mere moment.
A shadowy fist was caught inches from breaking my helmet, and the kinetic energy was deflected back onto itself, knocking down the dark entity that had attempted to attack me.
Assault smiled with a twinkle in his eyes. "You should be…more careful little lady, you have a few stalkers around." That stupid joke snapped me out of my previous inattentive behavior, and I reacted with a kick that shot out a white blast of fire into the Stalker's gut.
The kinetic manipulator let himself get hit by a tendril, and he viciously responded with a straight punch to a jewel on its left hip. It broke apart, and I launched the spirit with a slab of earth. It dissolved as it flew like a rocket, turning to dust and smoke as it died.
Space was shifted, and I blinked as the PRT agents we had been fighting alongside marched from a corridor of warped space, with Gallant showing up soon after. The rest of the spirits were gone, and the Tyrant was distracted as it was mercilessly peppered and harassed by Bakuda. Mass accelerator cannons continued to fire bullet after bullet in between missile barrages. Even then the Tyrant was healing from the damage.
As we gathered up, Vista continuously bent space, using the already destroyed vehicles as anchors for her power, bulging as her power shifted their mass. She routinely slowed the Tyrant's acid attacks, its triple dog heads launching fireballs and bursts of acid strong enough to melt steel.
She glanced at me and then at the ground, and with a grin I lifted a several ton mass of the former parking lot. The matter quickly expanded until it was closer to eighty metric tons.
"Neat huh?" Vista preened openly, and I wished she could see my smile. I focused, lowering into an earthbending stance. It was my third best element, and I was going to make use of that.
BOOM!
The Tyrant was toppled as I lifted and propelled to blazing speed the enormous mass of concrete and rock made from mass printed from another dimension. The stone cracked, and with a sigh I stepped with great force, reshaping the earthen material into a crude drill. The Tyrant let life a bloodcurdling scream as it tried to rip itself away from the giant blob of earth tearing through its insides.
"Jesus." The Captain was shaking her head, but refocused and arced her arms and twisted her hips. A powerful combined kick and punch thrust forward a continuous stream of explosive fire, followed up by a volley of compressed cutting wind. Vista smirked, and her biotic nodes cascaded as she began to freely bend gravity, freely blending it with her power to warp space.
She created a lens of air, right around a spot of harsh sunlight, focusing it into…
A fucking laser beam.
The beam scorched spirit flesh, and even seared off one of the dog heads into a puddle of unstable meat that decayed soon after.
…
Holy crap Taylor had created a monster in the form of a teenage girl.
"No…no…" The Tyrant muttered loudly, and its tail violently lashed out against the ground it flipped itself back onto its appendages, clicking them violently as it let out a pained moan that rattled my bones from dozens of meters away. The dark spirit's mandibles flickered and it let out a keening call. It flinched and its glare became laser focused on myself.
Oh crap.
It began to bulge, a pressure wave knocking the entire group off of our feet as something began to build at a higher and higher rate. Blood drained from my face, as I realized what was going on.
"We need to get out of here now!" They all looked at me, and I didn't give them the option of saying no. "Door to Athena!" A gate opened, and I pushed every single one of them through as the creature began to tear open at the seams, acid and blood spilling as it filled to bursting with energy.
"THE VYASA MUST DIE." It's words were meaningless to me, and I still didn't understand the strange title that so many spirits gave me. What was so special about me to deserve a title?
"Bakuda…does the Kodiak have the clamps attached?" There was a pause on her end as she circled around the spirit.
"Huh…you're a real crazy bitch aren't ya?" I shrugged at her from the ground, and she let out a guffaw. "Well I'll follow you anywhere boss." I could see her salute from a window and I rolled my eyes.
I began to form a warp and burst at top speed with reduced mass and airbending. Fifty meters were crossed in less than half a second, and with a smirk I shoved another biotic attack down its ugly throat, shredding a mandible in the process. I formed jets of flame, taking true flight with firebending for the first time. A side door opened, and Bakuda jumped out of the vehicle, landing on my back. The shuttle accelerated past us on autopilot, and the Tyrant screamed as strong electro-hydraulic clamps made for lifting up land vehicles firmly pressed down on its neck.
It gave a final hateful glare before the shuttle flared with the light of a mass effect field.
BWWUMP!
The spirit and shuttle vanished from sight, shattering windows as they flew miles high in the sky. An orb of black light followed, and I could still pick up the distant signature of my shuttle as it stuttered in the air. Several seconds later a sonic boom echoed, the destructive attempt at violent murder-suicide failing spectacturaly.
"What did you do?" Vista emerged from the door left open for an emergency exit, looking perturbed and awed at the same time. The unreality of the Verge was beginning to fade, and a multitude of now homeless spirits let out sad cries at the condition of their schools. It made me wonder if I could pay for repairs, it's not like I didn't have money to spare, and I was already donating a fair amount of money anyway. As well…as possibly using some of my personal wealth for political lobbying for good causes. Like more and better funding for public schools and other needed infrastructure.
Right…Vista.
I twirled on my heels, straightening my back to face her. "I used the shuttle to launch the spirit into the air at Mach 5. If we hadn't done that, it would have blown up with enough force to wipe out a city block." Vista looked shocked by my statement, and the PRT vans returned in force, accompanied by Miss Militia.
"Oh…"
I sighed. "We could have done better."
April 20th, 2011. 11:50AM
Basilia Rubio
The non-descript man who had given me his name as Albert Davis, cleared his throat adjusting his recorder. "Thank you for agreeing with this interview Erudition. It's provided us with much needed information." He offered his hand and I shook it with true politeness as I stood up.
"You're welcome, this incident has been equally enlightening. Is there anything else you need to ask of me?"
"Not at all, you've been sufficiently cooperative."
I nodded. "Thank you again." I hurried over to the door, opening it and muttering a pointed goodbye as I began to evaluate the joint mission with the Protectorate and the PRT. My interviewer had been helpful, pointing out mistakes that had been made during our intervention at Winslow.
We should have gotten better intel of the school beforehand, being a bit too overzealous, and the fact we had gotten permission to go in with the Wards to begin with was a mistake from higher command. I wouldn't dare repeat those same mistakes again, I would do better.
I had no choice in that matter.
At the least there wouldn't be a fuss with the Youth Guard partially because the Brockton Bay division is anemic and partially because they're being sued by several parties across New England. Some issue with how they treated the Wards involving how they favored the parents and a boatload of corruption. Not my problem since it was already being dealt with. It didn't seem to be a problem endemic to the entire organization but reform was needed.
I retraced the path I had originally taken to show up to the interview, a place that had grown familiar with every event that involved capes. Meetings with Piggot have gone down significantly, and I honestly preferred it that way…she wasn't bad but her agents are a lot less bitchy than she is.
The official ID we had allowed my team to go into areas that aren't considered restricted, a practical and frankly sensible policy that was surprising coming from the PRT literally known for incompetence. But then Worm was from the perspective of Taylor who…wasn't exactly the most unbiased observer.
I don't ever expect hypercompetence from an organization of people but they certainly can't be quite as bad as Fanon(and Canon) would have you believe.
Right?
I moved through the hallway relentlessly, seeking the exit so I could get her my head together. There was so much more to learn about the threat of this Mother of Miseries, was it the title of the last remnant of the Deep Ones? If so then what were we really dealing with here?
Even my brief conversations with Singer-of-Rebirth revealed something truly horrific was buried somewhere in the city, and the PRT was having a hard time even confirming some of the locations that Lung had indicated with at least a third of them being reduced to ash and rubble by the dragon man himself. The worst part was how he left so much evidence and data intact for us.
As well as turning down most of his criminal operations for some reason, no drug peddling or other unsavory enterprises, though their brothels still seemed to be a thing. I…had a very hard time reconciling this Lung with the image I originally expected. Either his shard was fucking with his head as much as it did to Sophia and Elle or he was intelligent enough to realize that the city was changing.
I had compacted my shotgun, leaving it attached to my magnetic holders in case of a spirit invasion. The PRT had said nothing on my weapon so I left it in place, even so they gave me glances as I sauntered towards the roof access door. I would portal back to base, and start some assembly of more weapons and more advanced armor and tech. I was close to making a breakthrough with unlocking a new tech tree, which included some unfortunately incomplete bits and pieces of Prothean and Inusannon technology.
It…wasn't as extensive as you would imagine, just some math and hints of biotic evocations to draw energy from your surroundings to power one's Biotics. A rather dangerous task since failure would either result in nothing or in fireworks as your body was torn apart by the intense energies passing through you.
For example the Protheans could draw upon ambient heat, planetary magnetic fields and existing dark matter and energy to elevate their power to enormous heights.
I'm…not going to try something that insane yet.
I could feel the wind even through my armor, and my mind sensed the discordant vibration that could only come from a stray tendril of dark energy passing through the planet, enough to fuel the planet in the right circumstances. It would pass us by within a matter of hours before being replaced by another tendril of dark matter and energy, even if it's only in minuscule amounts for the first case. Most dark matter formed a halo due to its lack of ability to interact with normal baryonic material.
Yet it had been coupled with the fifth force responsible for everything that was now possible in this world. The spirits, the soul, bending and shamanism were all united by something truly ancient.
Which was why the new race I had gotten close to unlocking was so interesting, they had figured out space travel in an era without Eezo, an impossibility unless I was missing something very grave indeed. If I could understand and combine this new race's tech I might be better able to emulate shard physics alteration.
My shard-tech was innately less able, because I had a hard time replicating some of their more exotic composition, molecules of synthetic matter with very special properties, using exotic atoms with properties including hyperconductivity, metric altering properties, fusion catalyzation, and exotic magnetic field structures that made the Entities a bunch of freaks.
My experiments with the subatomic were bearing fruit in that department, because gaining high precision for manipulation of particles was highly useful for creating stable exotic matter. But god was it hard as shit…and I needed to go home now…people were starting to stare.
"Gate to Athena…" A hand placed itself on my shoulder as soon as I had opened the portal, and I shifted my head to glance at the intruder.
And then blanched.
The heavily reinforced elbow length dark gloves weren't an immediate giveaway, but the visor, the tower on her chest and her dark skin tight costume certainly were.
I swallowed under my helmet as I stared up into the visor of Alexandria. The cape capable of lifting a skyscraper, of flying around at nearly one hundred times the speed of sound and durable enough to withstand hits from the Avatar of an Entity. With a moderately useful Thinker power on top of that…
"Erudition?" Taylor emerged from the portal in her costume, and things went from bad to worse as she stared down the most powerful woman in the world.
"Hello Alexandria." I swiftly suppressed my need to scream, and Taylor stepped completely out of the portal, the hole in space shutting behind her. The insects in the area fell under the spell of Monarch, and I could feel her gaze sharpen upon noting the sight of her old idol from her youth.
The hero removed her hand from my shoulder to my relief, and she glanced at Taylor for a few beats. She was actually shorter than my friend if far stronger and tougher. She had only a single weakness that Taylor was perfectly able to exploit.
…
A member of Cauldron stood before me, while the girl that killed her in another life had shown up at the same time.
…
The universe really does hate me doesn't it?
April 20th, 2011. 11:16AM
Kaida Bushida
My eyes snapped open, and I stood up, blinking away the sleep as I felt deftly aware about where I was and why I was here. I had been staying with two of my father's friends…the men that came and went whenever I had a moment or chance to leave the house outside of school. And sometimes they would show up even then. They had turned out to have strange powers though that didn't really prove to be very special when I had found my own abilities.
"Is something wrong?" I stared up at the superhero that was apparently assigned to guard me.
Miss Battery was a nice lady. She had been keeping an eye out for me, to protect me from the Empire cape who wanted to use me against my father.
I pursed my lip, not sure if I should tell her. But I did tell her. "I can feel…there's something very wrong here. Can you feel it?"
"I don't…" she stopped, and her costume sparked for a moment. "Is this a spirit thing?" I stood up from my bed that they had placed near the Wards.
"Yes. There's…an awful smell…like death is close by." I confided in her, and she took a few steps forward, looking around to scan the room. I felt thankful that she was willing to help me, even if she obviously didn't like my father. They never talked, but I had already deduced that he had to be Lung. Why else would the Empire be after me?
The room started to shake, and an awful shriek like a banshee made my small heart die in my chest. I could hear angry shouting, and then there was an intake of breath from Battery.
"MOVE!" She grabbed me and the world blurred around me, even then my eyes honed in on the phantom that had emerged from the walls, a rotting corpse with no face, and long saber-like fingers. It glanced at its empty hands and made an awful rattle with its hundreds of bones.
I screamed.
A blast of fire launched against a wall, and we flew out of the room at top speed into chaos. All around us I could see people panicking as darkened spirits attacked. One of the PRT officers was throwing down with a red chained demon, his punches cracking through the thing's fragile flesh. He grabbed at the angry face of the demon, and burned its face off with a single gout of fire.
"Keep moving." I was put down, and I followed after her, eyes straining to see her as she bounced across the walls, kicking and breaking spirits down into motes of red and black. I could hear gunfire, the sound of bullets hitting flesh and bone.
Every single spirit tried to grab at me, and I threw my own weak fireballs. I could hear their screams, hear their roars and pleas in my head.
oh god please help us…please save us
I shook my head, taking a deep breath like Elle had said when I had met her for the first time. She was like me…she could hear the whispers of the creatures from the reverse side of the world, could understand the nature of the soul of all things.
they have to see…they have to understand
With every spirit I could see into their nature, an echo of something beyond ancient, of pain beyond comparison, of hatred that would swallow up even a dragon. There was a voice threading reality, desperate and afraid.
A black mass dropped from the ground, its maw splitting open like a flower. Battery shouted angrily, and the metal around her vibrated and rippled as she launched a fist wreathed in flames and electricity into the beast's face.
I didn't want to die.
Battery offered a hand, and I was dragged to safety as the rogue spirits fought back with mad enthusiasm. I flinched when their chains were broken, screams of anguish as well as cheers of freedom made the air shudder and oscillate painfully.
I could see one of the Wards that had stayed behind, Kid Win, wrestling a spirit for control of some type of gigantic cannon as big as a car. I launched a fireball, and I smiled when he launched a cautious kick into its stomach. Pieces began to teleport in from somewhere, until it was fully assembled. He glanced at Battery and after a moment of trepidation she nodded.
BWOOM!
I blinked spots out of my eyes as a solid blue beam sliced through a dozen spirits. They broke apart into motes like all the others and I could see Kid Win's excited look.
will they stand before the broken one, a god of destruction and old hate
His smile weakened, and I felt no better even as his cool Tinkertech tore through another dozen weak spirits. Battery continued to lead me away from the fighting, barreling through the twisting cackling demons with ease. She was trying to find some safe place, but there weren't any around. There was only fighting, and screaming and monsters.
There had to be something else, something more…something less sad and depressing and horrible.
please…help us die…let it end
I started to whisper, tried to follow the lessons that Elle had given me, that she had learned from another. The land of the spirits wasn't just one of nightmares and violence and destruction, there was peace and love and pacifism.
But love and pacifism wasn't what I needed right now. I needed the will to fight, to defend and protect and serve. I needed something strong.
Please…
Battery shook my shoulder, and something she saw in my eyes made her recoil back. I started to whisper again, finding the right words to talk to what I wanted to find, what I needed to find.
"Arise…I…call to the Guardians." I spoke the words that came from within, and there was a ripple that spread through the building. A ripple of power, of authority and justice, of duty to the people. "Come to my aid, come to the aid of the people." I struggled, and Battery opened her mouth to reply.
WE ANSWER THE CALL OF DUTY.
WE ACCEPT YOUR WILL CHILD.
WE ACCEPT YOUR WILL CHILD.
The Ephemeral pressed down on the Corporeal, and the demons hissed in fear and in anger. They came from the walls, from the air, and from the places where men and women had worked to keep the city safe. I began to blabber nonsense, spoke ancient tongues forgotten by humanity.
They were creatures that resembled the PRT people themselves, Myrmidons of growing power and influence, sharpening their weapons that were both physical and projected. Battery stared as one of them approached her, lightning dancing across the spirit's stern face.
"Speak your orders…are we to repel these invaders?" It saluted her, pointed teeth being exposed as it smiled.
"Y-Yes?" The spirit tilted its head and Battery coughed. "I mean…yes repel them as best as you can." The Myrmidon let out a shout of joy, and vanished into a stream of electricity slicing apart six spirits in the span of seconds.
Why was she looking at me that way? Stop it.
"Let's go." Despite my embarrassment, I childishly grabbed her hand pulling her away from the battle as more and more spirits of duty and justice joined the fray. As we ran through the halls, Battery shattered enemy spirits along the way with her superpowers, and I could see the fight expanding.
A giant armored spirit that looked like a power ranger lashed out with a giant buzzing halberd, sweeping up monsters like it was nothing. Another smaller and thinner one moved like a bullet, an angry gust of wind that would knock the spirits down for the stronger of its kin to deal with. Another defensive spirit instead unleashed a beam of light, incinerating some smaller destruction spirits with its cleansing beam.
We were stopped in the hallway, as six spirits crawled from every side, glowing and hiss laughing as they cornered us. "Stay behind me." Battery lightly commanded me, and her body crackled with electricity.
The spirits raced towards us, toothy maws wide open as they attacked at full force.
___
April 20th, 2011. 11:25AM
Lisa Wilborn
PHO was going nuts over the past few minutes.
When monsters out of someone's fucked up nightmares start showing up out of the blue it tends to get a lot of attention. We had been stuck in the loft after Grue took a bad hit. None of us had the strength or the powerset to deal with something that gave my power an aneurysm.
At first anyway.
There had to have been more than a hundred of them, and most of them had been attacking any group with any amount of power in the city. What was left of the old Empire, the ABB, the PRT and even Athena…though that last one failed almost immediately, they were pretty much torn apart on the spot by…something.
All of this had been caused by Coil in a last ditch move to screw everyone over, and god did he succeed. While most of those…spirit things could be brought down by bullets, at least a few of them would need heavy weapons or a strong Blaster to take them out.
I was making use of the money I had stolen from Coil, and bought an expensive desktop that was top of the line in every way. Our dear leader was laying down on a chair, taking a nice rest while recovering from a bad hit to the chest. The one thing that made this different was the little dog made out of bubbles that whined softly, making his injury glow. -Water sprite, wants to heal, likes Aisha more than Grue.-
I startled and pushed back Aisha when she got right up in my face, her lips widening into a smirk. I had forgotten she was even here to begin with, and had only remembered because that weird dog thing remembered. A lot of powers just didn't work on them to begin with unless you were talking about physically hurting them.
"Sorry…" she smirked and I sighed when she moved over to her brother, patting the water dog like it was some pet instead of an abomination that shouldn't exist in this world.
Aisha had been picked up about two days, she had apparently Triggered because of some Empire thugs…along with a dark spirit that had been tagging along. Bitch had found her, and killed the spirit and knocked out the thugs, she ended up bringing her to us before leaving…grumbling about stupid voices.
She was a Stranger, and I had a hard time even remembering she even existed if her power was going at full blast. But it's not her only power, she can make clouds of darkness that she can shape into monsters she can control. Along with being able to manipulate earth for 'some' reason…I think I had found something about that in a file I managed to pilfer from the PRT before they fixed their security.
It was going to take me weeks to get my fingers back in the pie…though I don't think our new warden is going to let us.
I sighed when my five browser windows with their dozen tabs each were shunted to the side. A digital face emerged, and I leaned back and forced my lips into a coy smile.
"Hello Dragon." The Tinker raised an eyebrow, and I sighed at the developments of the past few days. Once Coil had been taken out of the picture there wasn't a lot left for us, and sticking to a life of crime wouldn't be long lasting with the warning I got from Erudition. She decided to be nice enough to 'help' me with cutting off Coil, and her subtle warnings to keep clean were easy to follow when I couldn't even trace her, like the internet itself was afraid of her and wiped off traces of however she broke into Coil's systems.
We had ended up getting the attention of Dragon, who apparently could pick up the activity of moving money around a lot easier than before. That was about what I could pick up with my power and some investigation of my own. Some of that was probably because of what happened with Purity too…
Now that was a weird team up that I hope never happens again. We pretty much had to go white hat or else, but at least we didn't have to go to prison. But we were under probation until we weren't considered a 'danger' to society anymore.
"So…how have all of you been?" Dragon asked the question with what I think was genuine concern. "Have you had any trouble so far?" I groaned but decided to play along with her little game.
"Oh it's been fun I guess? It's a lot less robbery and a lot more investigation than my old gig but…you win some you lose some." She didn't change her expression, and I couldn't get as much information as I hoped. Dragon somehow obscured herself from my power though what had to be Tinker bullshit. She could tear through code just as fast as Erudition could though she was a little more obvious.
"That's good, I imagine that Rachel has been out walking her dogs?" There was a current of amusement in her voice, and I nodded slowly.
"She's been trying to settle in a few dogs she's adopted." I answered her, stretching out my back as I looked around our modified warehouse. Dragon had been generous enough to provide us with some upgrades to our amenities, which was pretty nice actually.
"And…Regent?" Dragon switched to another question.
"He's playing video games and acting pretty busy…" it felt a little galling to have someone else as our boss only a few days after Coil had been…well I wasn't sure what had happened to him in the end. I only knew that the heroes hadn't caught him, but that he probably wasn't going to do much more than what he already did.
I…had a bad feeling about it myself.
"And all of you have adjusted to your new…conditions?" I bristled at her tone.
"I don't need you to sugarcoat it." Or to be so weirdly supportive. "We're on a tight leash and the only reason we aren't being shipped off across other cities is because you said you'd keep an eye out for us." For some reason Aisha started to laugh and I jumped again.
-Is amused at something. Is amused at your denial. Thinks you're uncomfortable with Dragon because she's acting like a parent.-
I…decided not to respond to that, and glanced back over to Dragon. With a sigh I tried to read her again. It was getting easier to cut away the fog around her, but she was good.
-Dragon is distracted but happy to see the Undersiders settling in…is having trouble with another group. Likely rebranded former Empire members, PRT likely taking a heavier hand on them than us. Her face only a simulation, not her real appearance.-
I scoffed at that last one, I already knew that since she never showed up in person. I might not be able to get everything out of her, but the smaller things were still a possibility.
Dragon's eyes lit up, and I didn't need my power to know that she was going to start talking. "So how have your investigations gone? With both the Empire and other things?"
"Well I've found a lot of very interesting little facts," I grinned smugly. "Jotunn has actually been in the city since around the 20th of March. Which was only a couple of days after a massacre during a fight between Gesellschaft and the German government. He's been biding his time, waiting for the Empire to be vulnerable enough to get his claws into them."
The fact that he had shown up while the Empire was being harassed by a spirit was a bad omen, and it couldn't be just a coincidence. Which made finding out as much as I could about him a little cathartic, if he was responsible for that thing attacking Brian…
I smirked. He wasn't going to take this city while I had any say, I still lived in it after all.
"And the other things?" I rolled my eyes at how coy she was being about this and simply demonstrated, and with a light wave of my arm I shot out a blast of wind. A very cool party trick if I didn't know I could use it to slice a car in half.
Eventually.
"Well I can do this now…and my powers don't give me as many headaches as they used to." My power could also be flicked on and off which made using it a lot less annoying than before. "If you're asking how many people are being affected, I'd say at least a couple thousand in the city, the only reason no one has noticed is because they don't know how to use their bending." Apparently it was a lot less intuitive than powers that someone like me would get from Triggering, at least until they found out about their power or someone taught them.
"Yes tha—" she was cut off, and I stiffened when I heard someone come in. Brian adjusted himself on the couch, briefly opening his eyes before closing them again.
The door was shut behind Rachel, and she grunted loudly as two of her dogs followed her, one of them trailing shadows and the other trailing with fire. Her powers had been the most changed, and we had been lucky that she hadn't lashed out as much as usual.
She had been a lot less…herself recently, a bit spacey even like she was seeing things that none of us could see in the same way. But then being a shaman tended to make people act…differently. That was all that Dragon had been willing to tell us, and Bitch had been spending a lot of time communing with the spirits. Apparently it helped with training her dogs, and she was ruthlessly willing to learn everything she could with her new power.
The only people she really ever talked to were some of the smarter spirits and some other person that she hadn't mentioned by name. It wasn't Erudition or Amy of the other shamans I had found out about, it was someone new. Whoever it was it had made Rachel start opening up to us, even if only a little. It had helped me figure out why Rachel was the way she was, though I hadn't mentioned how her power had rewired her brain.
It wouldn't end well.
Something jingled, catching my attention with the sound. Rachel grumbled but wasn't able to hide what she was holding in her hand. It was a small dog toy, written over with childish writings that obviously didn't belong to her. I smiled, and I could hear a low growl build in her throat.
"Oh…? Did you make a friend?" My smile was wiped from my face when I saw her expression and I lifted my arms in front of me.
She didn't look away, her snarl fading. "No. Some dumb brat wanted to pat my dog, and got attacked by a spirit. Tried to drag him off, so I grew Brutus and killed it. She still tried to pet him…stupid kid." I raised an eyebrow as she walked off, grumbling under her breath as her dog loyally followed her.
"Rachel seems to be doing well." Was all that Dragon had to say. I leaned back on my seat, mulling over how the attitude toward Rachel had changed over the past couple weeks.
Once she stopped attacking people as often they apparently started to be a little less abrasive towards her, and the less abrasive they were, the less that Rachel would get moody. It was basically the opposite of the loop that had made her into a supervillain. Especially with how often she dealt with Empire thugs trying to muscle their way into anywhere that she walked her dogs or near the shelters.
Now that she was on probation, Dragon was helping her with the shelters since Bitch wouldn't really fit in as hero. Even then the people around here were starting to hate her a lot less, since a lot of what she did…somehow made everything run better.
My computer was at least 40% faster than a week ago, and I hadn't had Dragon upgrade it yet. Rachel would literally talk or intimidate spirits into working better, and made everything run better. It could do the opposite too…since she made my gun misfire one time.
I tapped my fingers on my desk, biting my lip as I thought back to how everything was so different now.
…
If all of this was happening in a few months, what would it like in a few years?
___
April 20th, 2011. 11:20AM
Basilia Rubio
I took deep breaths, batting aside a car with a burst of potent airbending. The battle had dragged on for minutes now, and what was left of the school was barely even standing. It was only the will of the spirits themselves that anything remained in place, quite literally holding down the fort with their own corpus and essence. The Verge had expanded out from the school, extending about one hundred meters on every side.
Even so Vista had done an incredible job turning this into a confusing maze for our opponents, with each and every intense bending of spacetime being reinforced and enhanced by the angry territorial spirits of the area.
A banshee shriek alerted me to one of the spirits, and I flipped in the air as claws failed to tear off my head. One of the Stalkers, the humanoid shadow spirits let out a low moan, it's restraints swelling as it floated down. The chains were no longer a weakness to be exploited, but unfortunately for them being in the halfway point between the physical and the spiritual had weakened them.
I ducked under a bolt of frozen acid which exploded on contact with the ground, leaving a mess of destroyed concrete wherever it hit. I cocked my weapon and didn't hesitate to fire.
BOOM!
The spirit was discombobulated by the particle blast, chunks of its goopy corpus shredded by the high energy attack. The Stalker was tall, but much more fragile than what would be expected from a spirit of that size.
Which meant that it's contract was a large strain on its corpus but granted it excessive physical strength and spiritual gifts at the expense of durability. The head spirit that I had labeled as Tyrant didn't have the same problem, clearly getting a much better deal out of their new master. It was a tough son of a bitch, I had knocked it down with walls of concrete and biotic blasts with little effect. I needed to find a weak spot because they had to have them.
It was a gut feeling you could say.
It raced towards me, flaring a powerful aura of killing intent that at this point did nothing but piss me the hell off. I fired two more times in rapid succession, with the first blowing off a limb while the second only did partial damage as the spirit phased itself.
The Stalkers all shared some basic abilities and traits, the standard toughness of a spirit, the ability to project their malice, a penchant for sadism, acid projectiles, shadow projectiles and the ability to phase out of sync with reality.
Like Shadow Stalker, but slightly less effective and not quite as intelligent.
We had succeeded in destroying four of them with brute force, damaging their corpus enough to destabilize them. But all of this would be a lot easier if they had a weak spot.
BWOOM!
A purple laser tore through the ground where I had been standing, and I took the time to pull on the Stalker shifting it into the blast. It let out a shrill scream before popping like a water balloon under the intense kinetic and gravitic energy of the spirit beam. The Tyrant was fast, strong and far more clever than the rest of its brethren, using its beams and mass to forcefully separate us into smaller groups.
Unfortunately for it I was not at all going to play it's little game of cat and mouse.
The Kodiak emerged in a burst of light, and two 5mm mass accelerator cannons made their debut in style. There was a flash as rounds tore through the atmosphere at Mach 25, shredding flesh and bone and armor wherever they struck. It was being piloted by Bakuda, and I could hear her war screech as she did several flips, the shuttle acting more like a fighter than the shuttle it was.
Then again a real fighter would be a monster that would flip and maneuver with enough G force to reduce a pilot to red mist.
An adhoc launcher pioneered by a partnership between Bakuda I and burst to life, loading several Bakuda special missiles. As I circled around the Tyrant, I launched a beam of warpfire searing its skin and buying time for the mad tinker.
BOOM!
Missile after missile struck the mad spirit, and I smirked as an entire arm was shredded by ice that was transferred through a spacetime detonation, outright shifting frozen ice from a parallel dimension. Another arm was instead transmuted through a phase alteration bomb, forcefully transmuting part of its corpus into diamond and glass. The follow up was a warp missile, combining a biotic warp with an induced spatial distortion into a single devastating weapon.
It let out a wheeze but it didn't fall to the single volley, instead it pulsed before sending out a bubble of altered space nearly knocking the Kodiak out of the sky with the wave of shifted air. I sighed and with a solid one two routine, I launched a five ton boulder at its chest. It toppled over, its arachnid limbs shattering upon impact with the ground.
How?
I looked closely, narrowing my eyes for why it had begun to take damage. There was a glint of something on its back, a tiny barely perceptible red object embedded in its epidermis.
I smiled.
There was a crackle on the channel, punching through the spacetime alteration of the school into a maze by Vista by not going through it in the first place.
"Erudition are you okay!" Vista's voice cracked as she apparently took on two Stalkers at once, if the data stream from my drone was correct. She was bending their attacks, twisting reality into a pretzel with her power. She had adapted readily to the machinations of spirits, so they weren't getting through as easily anymore. A biotic aura flared brightly, and in a blink she launched a biotic shockwave into one of the spirit's chest. The gravitic pulses shattered the bonds of its spiritual body, and my eyes narrowed at the ruby crystal that broke along with it.
Heh.
"I'm alright." The Kodiak flared its engines, looping around the Tyrant with little trouble. More missiles were loaded and then fired with a flare of blue light, tipped with contained M/AM warheads. Several micrograms of matter were converted to energy on the spot, and a hole was punched through its chest on impact. Three new missiles struck in a detonation of hardlight, shredding all in its path with splinters of specially formed energy.
I found Gallant leading the Rage spirits into a killbox, trapping them in a maze that went wild with the territorial school spirits. He let loose a rapidfire beam attack disrupting the enhanced forms of the bear like spirits. The smarmy school teacher smirked, and stabbed a cane into a jewel at the back of the heavily folded necks of the Rage entities. That shattered their existence in a mere moment.
A shadowy fist was caught inches from breaking my helmet, and the kinetic energy was deflected back onto itself, knocking down the dark entity that had attempted to attack me.
Assault smiled with a twinkle in his eyes. "You should be…more careful little lady, you have a few stalkers around." That stupid joke snapped me out of my previous inattentive behavior, and I reacted with a kick that shot out a white blast of fire into the Stalker's gut.
The kinetic manipulator let himself get hit by a tendril, and he viciously responded with a straight punch to a jewel on its left hip. It broke apart, and I launched the spirit with a slab of earth. It dissolved as it flew like a rocket, turning to dust and smoke as it died.
Space was shifted, and I blinked as the PRT agents we had been fighting alongside marched from a corridor of warped space, with Gallant showing up soon after. The rest of the spirits were gone, and the Tyrant was distracted as it was mercilessly peppered and harassed by Bakuda. Mass accelerator cannons continued to fire bullet after bullet in between missile barrages. Even then the Tyrant was healing from the damage.
As we gathered up, Vista continuously bent space, using the already destroyed vehicles as anchors for her power, bulging as her power shifted their mass. She routinely slowed the Tyrant's acid attacks, its triple dog heads launching fireballs and bursts of acid strong enough to melt steel.
She glanced at me and then at the ground, and with a grin I lifted a several ton mass of the former parking lot. The matter quickly expanded until it was closer to eighty metric tons.
"Neat huh?" Vista preened openly, and I wished she could see my smile. I focused, lowering into an earthbending stance. It was my third best element, and I was going to make use of that.
BOOM!
The Tyrant was toppled as I lifted and propelled to blazing speed the enormous mass of concrete and rock made from mass printed from another dimension. The stone cracked, and with a sigh I stepped with great force, reshaping the earthen material into a crude drill. The Tyrant let life a bloodcurdling scream as it tried to rip itself away from the giant blob of earth tearing through its insides.
"Jesus." The Captain was shaking her head, but refocused and arced her arms and twisted her hips. A powerful combined kick and punch thrust forward a continuous stream of explosive fire, followed up by a volley of compressed cutting wind. Vista smirked, and her biotic nodes cascaded as she began to freely bend gravity, freely blending it with her power to warp space.
She created a lens of air, right around a spot of harsh sunlight, focusing it into…
A fucking laser beam.
The beam scorched spirit flesh, and even seared off one of the dog heads into a puddle of unstable meat that decayed soon after.
…
Holy crap Taylor had created a monster in the form of a teenage girl.
"No…no…" The Tyrant muttered loudly, and its tail violently lashed out against the ground it flipped itself back onto its appendages, clicking them violently as it let out a pained moan that rattled my bones from dozens of meters away. The dark spirit's mandibles flickered and it let out a keening call. It flinched and its glare became laser focused on myself.
Oh crap.
It began to bulge, a pressure wave knocking the entire group off of our feet as something began to build at a higher and higher rate. Blood drained from my face, as I realized what was going on.
"We need to get out of here now!" They all looked at me, and I didn't give them the option of saying no. "Door to Athena!" A gate opened, and I pushed every single one of them through as the creature began to tear open at the seams, acid and blood spilling as it filled to bursting with energy.
"THE VYASA MUST DIE." It's words were meaningless to me, and I still didn't understand the strange title that so many spirits gave me. What was so special about me to deserve a title?
"Bakuda…does the Kodiak have the clamps attached?" There was a pause on her end as she circled around the spirit.
"Huh…you're a real crazy bitch aren't ya?" I shrugged at her from the ground, and she let out a guffaw. "Well I'll follow you anywhere boss." I could see her salute from a window and I rolled my eyes.
I began to form a warp and burst at top speed with reduced mass and airbending. Fifty meters were crossed in less than half a second, and with a smirk I shoved another biotic attack down its ugly throat, shredding a mandible in the process. I formed jets of flame, taking true flight with firebending for the first time. A side door opened, and Bakuda jumped out of the vehicle, landing on my back. The shuttle accelerated past us on autopilot, and the Tyrant screamed as strong electro-hydraulic clamps made for lifting up land vehicles firmly pressed down on its neck.
It gave a final hateful glare before the shuttle flared with the light of a mass effect field.
BWWUMP!
The spirit and shuttle vanished from sight, shattering windows as they flew miles high in the sky. An orb of black light followed, and I could still pick up the distant signature of my shuttle as it stuttered in the air. Several seconds later a sonic boom echoed, the destructive attempt at violent murder-suicide failing spectacturaly.
"What did you do?" Vista emerged from the door left open for an emergency exit, looking perturbed and awed at the same time. The unreality of the Verge was beginning to fade, and a multitude of now homeless spirits let out sad cries at the condition of their schools. It made me wonder if I could pay for repairs, it's not like I didn't have money to spare, and I was already donating a fair amount of money anyway. As well…as possibly using some of my personal wealth for political lobbying for good causes. Like more and better funding for public schools and other needed infrastructure.
Right…Vista.
I twirled on my heels, straightening my back to face her. "I used the shuttle to launch the spirit into the air at Mach 5. If we hadn't done that, it would have blown up with enough force to wipe out a city block." Vista looked shocked by my statement, and the PRT vans returned in force, accompanied by Miss Militia.
"Oh…"
I sighed. "We could have done better."
___
April 20th, 2011. 11:50AM
Basilia Rubio
The non-descript man who had given me his name as Albert Davis, cleared his throat adjusting his recorder. "Thank you for agreeing with this interview Erudition. It's provided us with much needed information." He offered his hand and I shook it with true politeness as I stood up.
"You're welcome, this incident has been equally enlightening. Is there anything else you need to ask of me?"
"Not at all, you've been sufficiently cooperative."
I nodded. "Thank you again." I hurried over to the door, opening it and muttering a pointed goodbye as I began to evaluate the joint mission with the Protectorate and the PRT. My interviewer had been helpful, pointing out mistakes that had been made during our intervention at Winslow.
We should have gotten better intel of the school beforehand, being a bit too overzealous, and the fact we had gotten permission to go in with the Wards to begin with was a mistake from higher command. I wouldn't dare repeat those same mistakes again, I would do better.
I had no choice in that matter.
At the least there wouldn't be a fuss with the Youth Guard partially because the Brockton Bay division is anemic and partially because they're being sued by several parties across New England. Some issue with how they treated the Wards involving how they favored the parents and a boatload of corruption. Not my problem since it was already being dealt with. It didn't seem to be a problem endemic to the entire organization but reform was needed.
I retraced the path I had originally taken to show up to the interview, a place that had grown familiar with every event that involved capes. Meetings with Piggot have gone down significantly, and I honestly preferred it that way…she wasn't bad but her agents are a lot less bitchy than she is.
The official ID we had allowed my team to go into areas that aren't considered restricted, a practical and frankly sensible policy that was surprising coming from the PRT literally known for incompetence. But then Worm was from the perspective of Taylor who…wasn't exactly the most unbiased observer.
I don't ever expect hypercompetence from an organization of people but they certainly can't be quite as bad as Fanon(and Canon) would have you believe.
Right?
I moved through the hallway relentlessly, seeking the exit so I could get her my head together. There was so much more to learn about the threat of this Mother of Miseries, was it the title of the last remnant of the Deep Ones? If so then what were we really dealing with here?
Even my brief conversations with Singer-of-Rebirth revealed something truly horrific was buried somewhere in the city, and the PRT was having a hard time even confirming some of the locations that Lung had indicated with at least a third of them being reduced to ash and rubble by the dragon man himself. The worst part was how he left so much evidence and data intact for us.
As well as turning down most of his criminal operations for some reason, no drug peddling or other unsavory enterprises, though their brothels still seemed to be a thing. I…had a very hard time reconciling this Lung with the image I originally expected. Either his shard was fucking with his head as much as it did to Sophia and Elle or he was intelligent enough to realize that the city was changing.
I had compacted my shotgun, leaving it attached to my magnetic holders in case of a spirit invasion. The PRT had said nothing on my weapon so I left it in place, even so they gave me glances as I sauntered towards the roof access door. I would portal back to base, and start some assembly of more weapons and more advanced armor and tech. I was close to making a breakthrough with unlocking a new tech tree, which included some unfortunately incomplete bits and pieces of Prothean and Inusannon technology.
It…wasn't as extensive as you would imagine, just some math and hints of biotic evocations to draw energy from your surroundings to power one's Biotics. A rather dangerous task since failure would either result in nothing or in fireworks as your body was torn apart by the intense energies passing through you.
For example the Protheans could draw upon ambient heat, planetary magnetic fields and existing dark matter and energy to elevate their power to enormous heights.
I'm…not going to try something that insane yet.
I could feel the wind even through my armor, and my mind sensed the discordant vibration that could only come from a stray tendril of dark energy passing through the planet, enough to fuel the planet in the right circumstances. It would pass us by within a matter of hours before being replaced by another tendril of dark matter and energy, even if it's only in minuscule amounts for the first case. Most dark matter formed a halo due to its lack of ability to interact with normal baryonic material.
Yet it had been coupled with the fifth force responsible for everything that was now possible in this world. The spirits, the soul, bending and shamanism were all united by something truly ancient.
Which was why the new race I had gotten close to unlocking was so interesting, they had figured out space travel in an era without Eezo, an impossibility unless I was missing something very grave indeed. If I could understand and combine this new race's tech I might be better able to emulate shard physics alteration.
My shard-tech was innately less able, because I had a hard time replicating some of their more exotic composition, molecules of synthetic matter with very special properties, using exotic atoms with properties including hyperconductivity, metric altering properties, fusion catalyzation, and exotic magnetic field structures that made the Entities a bunch of freaks.
My experiments with the subatomic were bearing fruit in that department, because gaining high precision for manipulation of particles was highly useful for creating stable exotic matter. But god was it hard as shit…and I needed to go home now…people were starting to stare.
"Gate to Athena…" A hand placed itself on my shoulder as soon as I had opened the portal, and I shifted my head to glance at the intruder.
And then blanched.
The heavily reinforced elbow length dark gloves weren't an immediate giveaway, but the visor, the tower on her chest and her dark skin tight costume certainly were.
I swallowed under my helmet as I stared up into the visor of Alexandria. The cape capable of lifting a skyscraper, of flying around at nearly one hundred times the speed of sound and durable enough to withstand hits from the Avatar of an Entity. With a moderately useful Thinker power on top of that…
"Erudition?" Taylor emerged from the portal in her costume, and things went from bad to worse as she stared down the most powerful woman in the world.
"Hello Alexandria." I swiftly suppressed my need to scream, and Taylor stepped completely out of the portal, the hole in space shutting behind her. The insects in the area fell under the spell of Monarch, and I could feel her gaze sharpen upon noting the sight of her old idol from her youth.
The hero removed her hand from my shoulder to my relief, and she glanced at Taylor for a few beats. She was actually shorter than my friend if far stronger and tougher. She had only a single weakness that Taylor was perfectly able to exploit.
…
A member of Cauldron stood before me, while the girl that killed her in another life had shown up at the same time.
…
The universe really does hate me doesn't it?
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Truck-Sama
An adventure awaits...
- Location
- USA
Yes, because being in Worm Earth Bet suffering