Excition 8.1
May 24th, 2011. 12:15PM
Basilia Rubio
We had managed to dodge the chaos of evacuation, and I was busy running the numbers on where barriers should be placed and the pattern of movement they should follow. Terabytes of combat data from previous Endbringer fights were put into place, and additional processing was dedicated to unorthodox usage of the Leviathan's powers. Data on how it would stop holding back was few and far between, and I pretty much made every guess imaginable. Could he control the water in someone's body? Could he use his hydrokinesis at far greater power, or was the difference entirely in faking some of his behavior instead?
Their rate of attack was probably what allowed them to last for three hundred years, if they attacked every day they would burn out their reserves. And I had managed to relay my suspicions to Collin, citing the numerous attempts to kill them in the past that had failed drastically. The guy was an ass but he hadn't yet committed to the plan that would screw him over because of his own stupidity and factors involving a stupid/smart fifteen year old skinny girl.
Hey. Even I know that Skitter was kind of…crazy. That this world's bug controller turned out more stable was because of glitchy shards and a literal miracle.
Anyhow…Collin had his nano-thorns modified, though they'd never hit the core even with the spatial shearing applied to his nanomaterial. He had been nice enough to lend us a few nano-thorn knives, about ten in total that he had made and given a few to other people in the Protectorate.
The building was one I had seen every other day, nondescript in every way besides the barrier between worlds being fairly thin here. It was brown and dark tinted and sat alone on the grassy hill that bloomed with odd flowers. And it was becoming quite crowded. Dozens of people had gathered, capes that had been brought in secret over the last day or two. Still more were coming, and the numbers would grow with the four hours we still had before Leviathan would start his fight.
How many would show, a hundred, two hundred? Brockton had only fifteen minutes in that
other time and place, and so many people had died in that instance. How many people would die here? Would I be able to have more people survive, or would things get so much worse from here on out?
A massive armored suit plunged down from the sky, Dragon had arrived with a new model. A giant draconic themed machine easily thirty six feet high, and half again as wide. Several esoteric engines pulsed loudly, and multiple cannons were firmly emplaced within the machine's body. As well as two shoulder mounted missile launchers. She faced the water, three dozen smaller suits of different design following behind her. Each of them held different weapons and tools, and others seemed bulkier…built more for defense than doing damage.
The PRT squad let us pass them by, and a few that I sort of recognized nodded at us. Quite a lot of them were nervously bending their respective elements, with at least two waterbenders among the medium sized squad. Healers would probably help a lot with casualties, especially if there are other capes that could help among them.
A thunderclap followed, space folded to connect two different points in the fabric of reality. I easily recognized the people that had shown up out of nowhere, and Taylor's breath hitched.
Alexandria stood tall, the center of attention as she exudes the confidence only borne from decades of experience. Her straight black hair waved in the cold salty breeze, her dark helmet covering much of her face. Athletic, tall and heroic like something only seen in a comic book. The people around her belonged to her team, none that I cared to really name. Strider tipped his hat to one of the heroes staring, and I circled around a group of teenagers that ranged from Dinah's age to being nearly old enough to go Protectorate.
Weld was there, looking like the same metallic Adonis statue as always though he looked as relaxed as someone facing an Endbringer could be. The other teenagers spread out a bit, and I saw that the rest of the team had joined up. Golem was off in a corner, his fists gripped tightly as he stared at Beacon.
Kayden Anders.
Weld didn't pat my shoulder for
obvious reasons, but he did clasp Taylor's shoulder with a winning smile. Taylor nodded silently, her swarm naturally creeping around her like a billowing cape. We entered the lobby, and I saw that the crowding was growing worse.
Everyone who could sit down did, all on hastily acquired folding chairs and whatever else they had lying around. Menja was here, fists tight and shaking with Othala sitting awkwardly next to Bastion. Without Kaiser there wasn't anyone dickish enough to be smug with him. Oni Lee had made his reappearance, his hands on two odd mysterious blades.
Everyone was here.
Aegis was talking with Weld, and there was a quiet conversation between Vista, Flechette and Parian. Browbeat was in the back, talking to some new independent hero in Brockton, a tinker cape by the name of Turnaround. His shard was cobbled together from Browbeat, Aegis and Armsmaster and had meandered from its original purpose. He wore something like a more sophisticated Mark 1 Iron Man suit, a little sleeker and more…
organic. It shifted constantly, and seemed to be connected to the guy's body.
Probably some form of adaptive micromachine based armor that could adapt and compensate for damage. He had probably injected himself with those machines to make the connection more effective.
New Wave was waving us over, and I smirked at the looks they garnered from the locals. Even Vista seemed a little impressed, though it's not like she hated Vicky to begin with. Glory Girl had changed her costume, deciding that now was the best time to make her debut, to transition away from the person she had been.
Her new costume was a lot like what her Antares costume would have been in a timeline I was doing my best to steer this world away from. The cloth was black and weaved out of carbon-tube interlaced with reinforcement from exotic metals that made it tougher than any fiber material on Earth, and dyed with white trim, and instead of a hoodie, a helmet would unfold from the back to offer similar coverage with far greater protection. Apparently her Antares costume had been in the works for months already.
The armor was a white-gold created from the strongest alloys within the archives inside my brain, and the materials that Bakuda could make with her bombs. It covered her chest and upper collar bone, her sleeves were themselves armored with a near impervious alloy, and her legs had great coverage with the articulated plates of white-gold. Her back was covered with armor as well, and her gloves had built-in omni-blades that could modulate their sharpness from butter knife to cutting a rhino in half. The armor could project a potent kinetic barrier, and was built with equipment proved against environmental hazards like acid, water, space, intense radiation and raining matter.
She had a secondary and tertiary mask in case the helmet was damaged, and they had rebreathing devices within them. Her boots could project heavy kinetic blasts, and would serve as a final line of defense if the fourteen layers of her armor was penetrated.
I stopped and
pulled and
lifted a table and a few seats. "Seems like Glory Girl has got some new gear." I smirked, knowing I had made it for her.
"Polaris." She muttered, her eyes glimmering behind the rather clear glass of the hoodie-like helmet. "It's Polaris."
"That's a good name." Taylor complimented her, swarm sweeping around her into a roughly human shape. Vicky smiled, her shield shimmering gold before receding back into the non-visible spectrum. Which…hilariously I could see just fine. The rest of New Wave had the same costumes as usual, though they had been refined on a deeper level. They had to be Dragon made, and they had the built in components for limited energy barriers and aquatic survival. She had built even more for other people…probably. I haven't really asked.
"Still just Panacea." This time I directed my attention to Amelia with her own new costume. It had taken inspiration from several sources, because Amelia had gotten interested in the stories I knew of the elemental nations, of the people that came long before us.
She wore loose beige pants, with a billowing water nation blue cloak in the style of the air nomads obscuring some of her figure. Beneath that was a red fabric that was in fact a one-piece suit obscured by the top layers of her costume. She had long sleeves, with the same red color ending right before reaching her hands. Her shoes were standard airbender affair, though toughened by my own means.
The cloak also had a hood, and the red suit wasn't really fabric but instead a symbiotic organism that she made with her power. It was apparently based on studies of the incomplete shards I could make, as well as experiments with the synthetic organisms of the Rachni. They were masters of biology, and that had given Amelia a source of trustworthy expertise.
In turn Amelia had learned how to weave power expressions into the suit, and it seemed at least partially multidimensional. A lot like my more complicated equipment. The suit was bound to Amelia's will, much like a machine spirit was bound to my orders. It was basically a heavy suit that would protect her from something like a hypersonic projectile, and had a limited ability to project an energy field. She was at least as strong as her sister was before her power had gotten stronger, and maybe not that much weaker than my cybernetics.
Kind of jealous actually.
Actually…there seems to be thin patches on New Wave's suits…that are definitely biological. Must not have had time to make a full suit.
Taylor was talking with the two New Wave members, and I saw that Shielder was idly playing with his shields as their shapes became more fractal, more esoteric. His power was stronger, and seemed to be edging towards a specific evolutionary direction. I could probably ask, but that sounded rude to catch a shard while they're still working out some kinks.
The Protectorate was here in force. Armsmaster was standing proud, with a long spear in one hand and his trusty halberd in the other hand. Both weapons were awakened, idly chatting with each other. Miss Militia was speaking with Legend, the Blaster glancing at me for a moment before returning to the conversation he was having. He was a flying artillery platform, outputting every bit as much firepower as some of my larger mass accelerator cannons.
Countless heroes and even a few villains mingled with varying degrees of awkwardness or lack thereof. Myrddin, Chevalier, Narwhal with her almost obscene costume, layered with fine crystal scales over her seven foot frame. She was well…
Gorgeous was the bare minimum, though something about her scared me off. Probably the fact she went through a second trigger…those don't tend to leave people with complete sanity.
The Voyagers were here in full, and I could see Rhizome waggling his eyebrows at Bastion. Noelle slapped him, growling in a way that made the guy as pale as a ghost. The few other Boston heroes that had shown up were cracking smiles at that point, despite the grim look in their eyes.
Palanquin was making their way to a few empty seats, and Labyrinth was openly poking Chevalier's cannon blade, moving quickly by opening three dimensional rifts between worlds before popping back into our reality in an instant. She had shown talent with manipulating the barrier between the Material and the Ephemeral and I didn't doubt she could learn a Veil-Rip…which was essentially an artificial portal into the spirit world that one could form with the right rite and talent.
I
had taught her how to Veil-Hop though, since that was a talent possible through our shard's natural abilities in navigating and traveling across dimensions. She had likely implemented that into finagling her power into teleportation. I moved on from that, waving at Elle as I found
him.
Eidolon was behind one of the television sets, staring out the window with folded arms. The same blue-green skintight suit that expanded into a billowing hood, cape and sleeves. His hood had a flat mask that glowed with the light of green LEDs. I could see his shard, simmering behind him with a metaphorical pout. My hand quivered at the physical appearance of the shard, and I wanted to rub my eyes.
It was a female, long hair flowing in multiple dimensions and skin colored with the same shade as Eidolon's costume. The appearance was uncanny, and I swallowed when I perfectly recalled the single piece of art that I had seen that had depicted Eden's avatar.
It wasn't identical, but it was similar enough to give me a heart attack. It made sense too, Dauntless had only gotten a fragment of the shards that Zion used to control his own shards, while Eidolon had the entire vital shard all to himself. It didn't make it any less worrying though…
But then there was the strangeness of the shard shadow…it wasn't complete, it hadn't fully transitioned though it was creeping up to converting to spirithood within a short matter of time. And there was…was…flickering?
E…ror…Err…r…Erro…
I blinked, turning my head and trying to see if I had heard something. When I found nothing I shrugged.
Anyway.
Other teams were milling about, including a lot of Haven people, four corporate teams with varying degrees of friendliness between one another. I saw both Mouse Protector and Chubster among the crowd of dozens upon dozens of Parahumans. To my surprise Squealer was out and about, though she actively shied away from other people and looked much less…
her than usual. A good number of villains were around, and the Undersiders were huddling together with a few dogs barking every so often.
A good two dozen members of the Guild were doing their thing, and I could imagine there being well over a hundred capes, and we still had four hours to go. We might end up with another hundred at this rate, likely the highest attendance rate in history.
"Erudition." Dinah tapped my shoulder, hood pulled up and her face covered in a full mask and set of light armor to protect her better. Apparently she had an easier time predicting Leviathan in the
same dimension. "It's starting." I blinked and saw that Legend was going to start his pre-battle speech. He pointed to me and I sputtered.
I was pulled away from the table by Dinah until I was placed between Armsmaster and Legend, the Precog pushing them away. This girl had no chill huh?
Legend started. "We owe thanks to Dragon, Armsmaster, Erudition and Delphi for their early alert. We've had an immense amount of prep time, and we have an estimated several more hours before Leviathan reaches the city. With this time, with this breakthrough and with a lot of luck and teamwork, this can be one of the good days." His expression turned grave and I braced for the tone shift
"But you should know your chances going into this fight. Given the data from previous encounters with Leviathan, even a good day will have a quarter of the people here dead by the end of this fight."
And there it is.
___
May 24th, 2011. 12:30PM
Basilia Rubio
I focused on other things while Legend essentially rehashed the speech he had given…would that be rehashed or just hashed?
The rain was still light, but the storm cloud on the horizon was simply the closest edge of a vast weather system guided by violent application of mass hydrokinesis. I still vaguely followed what Legend said, but I already had an intimate knowledge of what Leviathan could do and what he had done in the past.
"Newfoundland." I tapped back out, murmuring to myself as I got to work with communing with the spirits that had fallen under my territory. I had completed transactions and quests for them, and they would give us wider margins of error with their unique knowledge of the city.
We couldn't let Leviathan slip away from us, a constant assault upon his person would be required until he retreats. Any way of damaging him would be welcomed, so on and so forth. The armbands worked largely the same but were more refined and sophisticated, and their communication lines were far more hardened. All the little features, including a medi-gel dispenser though I had hundreds of drones in the city and golems dedicated to health concerns, essentially mobile auto-docs.
It was my turn to talk, at the one special difference between this Endbringer fight and any other. I cleared my throat, and relaxed at the thumbs up from my team.
"There is a third addition to this fight, a factor that should make today a good day if we're extremely lucky." I had to be honest here, so I opened a portal and stepped through it to a point behind Legend before popping up behind good old Armsmaster. "I've long since had an effective portal network, and have made notable improvement in preparation for this fight. Every participant will have access to this network for the duration of the battle." I shuffled my feet, and demonstrated with bringing in one cape who would barely fit in this very large lobby.
Singer-of-Rebirth emerged from a large five meter portal that easily fit her thirteen foot tall frame. She was covered in a black organic crystalline armor, inches thick in places, a living suit connected to her vast mind. I gulped once I figured out exactly what kind of heat she was packing. Two back mounted plasma throwers, a spatial plasma bottle that would essentially teleport a storm of solar heat and spatial shearing deep into the Endbringer's body.
Her arms held two modified
warp blades, surrounded in a field of distorted space that would cut through matter like a lightsaber. I slowed down my thoughts and continued without a long awkward pause.
"These portals are linked to you, and will automatically assess the required movement to save your lives. Voice command can open portals within a space of about fifty five kilometers and it will
know about any attempt to abuse it. Doing so will revoke your privileges, but will retain the emergency evac protocol. The portal will also provide limited shielding during the transit, reducing the chances of being killed while entering the portal." It was also a good thing that portal cutting wasn't possible with this method of teleportation. "The portal network will also provide supplies at a constant basis, food, water, medical necessities or transportation to a medical expert. My drones will be your friends in this battle." One of over three thousand machines hovered above my head, and more were built with every passing minute. Along with further barriers, everything needed to keep that monster off of us.
I had more industrial capacity than an entire city, and I was going to fucking use it like it was supposed to. Which was why the cruiser had been placed on hold about two days ago, that could wait until later.
I added a few more comments, answering unspoken questions to the hundred plus capes that filled the lobby. More were still coming in, and Damsel of Distress of all people showing up with Licit and Edict shadowing her. Her power was a little less twitchy, and her shard was a maelstrom of incredible gravity warping, a dozen arms flowing around a hundred spear-like wings of detonating reality.
It was staring at Taylor, eyes narrowed. She turned, and her swarm turned with her, it's head cocking. The Disruptor flinched, and Damsel of Distress relaxed further.
Good thing I had a constant scanning blast of the city, because examining her power might be of great interest in making more weapons.
People rose at Legend's voice, and I retreated from the spotlight as I focused more Machine spirits on the task of combat simulation, the BattleNet operating at far greater capacity without interference. This was the way that ancient civilizations long gone fought wars, with machines and muscle and willpower, with powers born from the soul and the spirit.
Another portal let out Bakuda, in a thirteen foot tall battlesuit with a dedicated barrier tough enough to shrug off several blows from Leviathan. This was a barrier that would usually see use on a small corvette rather than two tons of armor, carbon muscle, computer systems, and heavy weaponry. Missile launchers on the back would launch a wide array of bombs, all of them built in a tinker frenzy until there were hundreds of them. One arm held the Halcyon, a Stilling directional explosion that would attune itself against Leviathan and nobody else.
It
couldn't kill him, since it wasn't a perfect replication and without a deep scan of his Core we couldn't attune to the area of warped space. But it would cut deeper than anything else we had ever built before, perhaps shredding up to 200 layers before stopping at the core.
The one that Bakuda held was seven feet long, and a four foot long model was
held out to Victoria. She grabbed it with her shield, quite publicly revealing her telekinetic powers with a manipulation of her force field. She didn't seem to care, her face set into a much more serious expression. The gun rotated around her in a lazy arc, pointed away from everyone. Ten gun ships were flying high in the air, maybe about a thousand feet or so. Their maneuvering capabilities were absurd, easily pulling hundreds of G's or even thousands and phasing through dimensions to dodge attacks. Their barriers were potent, and they could certainly take a hit or three.
Hit-and-Run tactics were the norm here, because every ship loss was a loss in combat effectiveness.
"—o with your instincts!" I nodded, half listening and keeping the words within myself as I slowly started to find my role here. Definitely not a front line fighter, and I didn't need to get up close to provide expendable minions even if I included spirits into the equation.
Assault and Battery were moving in, and I couldn't follow that up even with much stronger barriers and shields than before. We were fast, and honestly search and rescue plus logistics was what would fit us best. Theoretically our barriers could block a glancing blow before going down…and then we'd be splattered if any more energy from the hit remained after that.
Rebirth was another story, so she was a frontliner due to her biotic barrier being a hundred times stronger than what we had. The barrier overlay would block multiple hits from Leviathan, and her teleportation and weapons would keep her out of trouble. Some of her children would run as support, those few brave enough to fight a monster.
I took the armband absently, stating "Erudition." Without a second thought. Confirming it was just as easy.
Legend talked about backup defense, and I almost shifted until I thought better of it. My technology was already doing that, and a
pull wouldn't do shit against that fucking lizard.
"Movers!" I grabbed Taylor then, and she nodded with trepidation. My hands were shaking, and I took a deep intake of fresh oxygen. Taylor could act as a long range attacker, and her multitasking would let her do so across 36 square miles of land. She could track the Leviathan, as could the hundreds of drones hidden in every nook and cranny of this town. I qualified in the end due to being a tinker, but I wasn't critical in keeping the machine running.
That was what the Rachni workers were for, and what the machine spirits were for.
With the portals Movers were redundant, but every second counted. The difference between life and death for hundreds if not thousands of people. I could feel the sheer anticipation, the spirit world was shifting, a primal rage causing the ocean and river to swell.
They would return again, and that would buy us precious time against the Citykiller. Even if manifesting wasn't possible…rebellion against an invader was far easier to manage.
Charlotte was taking her place more in the back, her earthbending was no direct help here but her vast range of awareness was every bit as important as Taylor's swarm sense. Even a single bug would make a difference, and I still wasn't too sure it would succeed.
I jumped when Myrddin clasped my shoulder, the wizard cape smiling grimly. I'm sure he realized why I was acting like this…this was terrifying, but I wasn't going to be a coward.
Gods.
What madness had possessed me? How insane was I to not run screaming, to want to fight a monster that had killed so many?
Another cape emerged, and I flinched at the blank stare of Kaida, Lung's kid. She didn't have the best costume, a simple robe and a mask. She barreled her way toward the frontline combatants, fire burning around her as she received an armband.
Bakuda was a long range combatant, and would launch missiles and bombs from across the city if she had to. Several dozen different craft were flying above us, and I would build as fast as I could. 24 or more cannons, and each could be updated on a software basis if need be to shape better metrics. Dozens of hypersonic missiles with exotic payloads, and a city terrain weaponized with all the effort that would require.
Spiritual warfare was the domain of about ten shamans, with only five of those being of any note. That would be me, Bitch, Elle, Gallant and Kaida.
And that girl was going to turn into a dragon within the next few hours.
The storm was getting closer, and my fingers twitched at the idea of making some final preparations. I was a shaman, and I was going to turn this city into a death trap for the beast. Every other shaman would commit to the same idea, and the aura I felt from Elle told me she had found an appropriate spirit to deal with him.
Every city had an incalculable host behind it, a grand spirit that could be supplicated. I had quite accidentally offered it much, I had slowly purged it of the poison crushing its heart and it would retaliate with all its might against the culling unit. It wouldn't manifest, because that's not what those kinds of spirits tend to do but it's court would not have the same problems.
Every part of my being was telling me to keep moving forward, to throw everything I had to
kill the monster strangling humanity in its cradle. This was one of the few things that could be stopped with only minor consequences from a moral standpoint.
Taylor kept moving me, and I opened both my World Eyes. The landscape was twisted and I shifted carefully, hundreds of spirits had gathered and they were in a frenzy. At this point, about half of Brockton Bay had been tamed by the efforts of about two dozen shamans. Most of them were inexperienced, so I had found a few friendly ancestor-spirits to teach them the basics so they wouldn't be killed.
Soon the spirit world would be cultivated, a balance would be made that would benefit all. I was going to do my job as a shaman and as a tinker, and do everything in my power to make this fight end with a better outcome.
It was all that anyone could ask for at this point.
___
May 24th, 2011. 3:15PM
Basilia Rubio
The rain was pouring now, but the primary storm was still a while away, a growing blight on the once clear sky. Maybe about thirty to fifty minutes out, and I was sweating after going through a final tinkering session. Over four thousand drones were hovering around the city, and I had built up two more craft with space warp cannons. Bakuda had tinkered up a few more bombs, and Taylor had spread out her swarm to every nook and cranny she could find. Plus bringing a few hundred million exotic insects to bolster her useful numbers. There were somewhere around 200 plus people, and the numbers would probably grow a bit more from there.
I didn't have much less to do, so I instead focused on another task entirely. My hand slammed into a solid 50 kilogram chunk of steel, and I felt the metal itself. Modern materials had so much greater
purity than alloys from centuries ago, but that had never been anything more than a crutch…an early way of thinking of metal as refined earth. Purity mattered, but so did density and steel was nowhere dense enough to be immune.
The metal warped under my hands, shifting like liquid before me. Charlotte was showing Armsmaster how to bend metal, and several PRT agents as well. They would never fight Leviathan but helping out was not out of the question. I wasn't the best at it, but there were at least a few dozen metalbenders in the city besides my team.
I really wished we could just portal them out…but that would trigger him. Doing it during the fight was apparently the only chance they had. Portaling
him out was unlikely to work due to his afterimage and his natural supersonic speeds. It didn't mean there wouldn't be attempts when the opportunity came. At least as a distraction, plus I had taken the time to construct more power plants. All of it put in other worlds inaccessible to both powers and technology.
There was some inherent difference between the alternates of my world and of Bet. A gap that could only be crossed by shard-spirits or by more powerful entities. Scion might be able to manage it but the Simurgh and her ilk could not, which was why some crude dimensional locking had been put in place. It probably wouldn't stop him, but I wanted to have an extra guarantee just in case.
Which was why I was planning to plop down a few prefab bases in a few star systems, and I would probably need to set up a relay system to speed up travel between two points in space.
I was outside, and a gunship was humming quietly in the rain, it's fusion engine purring and it's mass effect field keeping it aloft. The vessel had no room for people, fully dedicated as a machine fighting force. Which is why I had to run some interference to keep it from being fucked with. If the Simurgh could mess with computers from Earth orbit, that meant she could mess with my systems.
I wasn't going to let that happen…so I didn't let it happen.
Two spirits manifested, and I blinked at the spirits that worked in concert with my computer spirits in tearing out secrets as well as obscuring them. Lies and Deceit might
sound malicious but they had been largely friendly towards my cause and owed me much. That debt was two sided of course.
They didn't speak, insteading pointing out something behind me. I reacted and they receded from the physical world. When I turned around I saw Taylor gently falling back down to the ground. I read her body language, her anxiety, her sheer nervousness, the way she fussed with her hands and the gentle bite against her lip. I could feel her frame shiver once and then twice, and I didn't know how to respond to that. I saw that Charlotte was giving her a thumbs up, being very smiley. Taylor chuffed, and I felt my own nerves creep up.
Taylor placed a hand on my shoulder, her mask further elevating the intensity. "I think it's time we had that talk." I probably looked like a fish beneath my helmet, and I nodded shyly.
We moved around the crowds of people who had taken residence outside, everything from PRT agents, emergency medical staff, as well as capes of all stripes and colors. I brushed away the water from my person, simply bending it around me with practiced ease. I might not have the natural talents of Panacea, but I was still a good waterbender.
Taylor started pulling me, her hand silently wrapping around my wrist as she took me to a place a little more out of the way. She leaned against a wall and quietly invited me to do the same. Together we looked up the dark cloudy skies, distant lightning flashing across the sky. Several seconds passed before the sound hit, and I saw how the vast weather system shifted unnaturally.
One of my eyes opened to the spirit world, and saw the deluge of angry storm spirits and spirits of lightning and water. Around us, spirits of all shapes and sizes came together under the call of war and conflict. I could see Gallant speaking to his familiar of sorts, the blob spirit partially manifesting to act as a healer. An avatar manifested into a world not its own.
Vista was holding the mannequin close to her chest, and in the spirit world I saw how a battle-spirit slithered around her with a soft click of its claws on the ground. An eagerness to a battle unlike any it had faced in the past, and it wanted
in on the action. Bitch was murmuring to her dogs, the sparks of spirits surrounding their bodies. Over two hundred shards were in close relative proximity to each other, and I glanced at one of the newbies.
Specter-Lupus…not the best name, but it wasn't my decision. Ghostly metal jutted out from her palms, back, and forehead, spinning phasing blades leaving others around her nervous. So I guess we had a replacement for Shadow Stalker and Hookwolf, and the extra capes meant the initial losses didn't mean the difference between life and death.
"I know you don't want to talk about
this thing between us. But we're not going to have a lot more time, Basilia." She spoke through our isolated communication line, rubbing her arms and expressing the social anxiety that I felt. "We're fighting an Endbringer this time…we can't get cold feet today." Her stare was deep and intense and I swallowed.
"Y-You're right. I'm just…" I shut my eyes, rubbing the back of my neck. "Afraid." To my shock Taylor moved until she was directly in front of me, hands clasping my shoulders. One hand moved, and without a second thought she removed her helmet. She brushed back her long hair, her spirit mask keeping her identity as secret as usual. Not that I had a problem since it didn't hide identities
within the group.
Unless they were Mastered or traitors.
Her smile was shy, her naturally wide lips expressing a mix of emotions swirling together into what had to be a big mess. Personally I thought she was rather pretty, though ironically my own body type was closer to what I was naturally attracted to. But she had the
height and the tasteful muscles that I also found attractive.
But that wasn't why I liked her. She was…a lot stronger than I was…maybe not a lot smarter though certainly more determined than I was. I admired that, admired her and I think I…I've never felt this strongly for anyone before.
I pulled off my own helmet, not caring about the rain droplets streaking down my face. I had magic water powers, rain couldn't hurt me. But…commitment could.
"I'm…not very good at this kind of thing." She murmured quietly, one of her hands creeping up to cradle my chin. I blushed, smiling sardonically.
"Welcome to the club." I laughed almost hysterically, my body shaking.
"I…get why I'm nervous, I've never had
anything like this before." She shrugged her shoulders, her flushing face making me smile. "But why are you so scared?"
My shoulders dropped. "A couple reasons I think…" I whispered back as I rested on the wall. "You're two years younger than me…which is about the age gap between my parents. They…didn't work out and the time they took to…separate was a little…" I also didn't want to feel like I was trying to manipulate someone younger than me…I wanted this to be real. I purse my lip as I thought about what had gone down with my parents.
It was uncomfortable. And I didn't completely understand because I was starting to hit puberty when things started to fall apart. And it took years still after that.
"Oh." I didn't move back like I sort of wanted to, chewing on my lip as I kept going.
"I'm also a little scared, I've never been with anyone before. Never been with someone who tolerates my bullshit, my monologues, my occasional temper or someone who
understands when I don't get something." I always got yelled out by my mom, or by others for not just getting it on the first try. They were too opaque when they wanted something.
It made me feel stupid, but Taylor got that I sometimes needed structure and needed specifics. I…
loved that she just understood.
"I'm not exactly versed in this myself." I nodded at her response, fear curdling in my gut.
"I just…you know how dangerous our world is." She followed, eyebrows furrowed. "I don't want to be with you just to watch you die…but it also feels wrong to leave this unresolved. I…can't do that to you." I really couldn't, letting my cowardice get in the way of something good. Didn't seem healthy, and it wasn't just my decision to make either. It took two to tango, and it was obvious that Taylor wanted to tango.
She pulled me closer, still gently holding my chin. "I
get it, I don't want you to die. I don't want my friends to die, but that's just how things are sometimes. You can't let fear and a need for control dominate your entire life." She was sincere in her words, and I felt my heart hammer in my chest. "We're doing everything that we can to
survive, it's all we can do when the world is as screwed up as it is. But I want this. And I know you don't feel any different." Her tone turned soft near the end, eyes looking at me like I was the only thing that mattered to her.
My face was on fire, and I felt a tremble through my body at those words of hers.
Fuck it.
I stood up on the tips of my toes, but when I still couldn't reach Taylor confusedly obliged me, lifting me up until we were level. The fact she didn't know what I was going to do made us both oblivious dorks.
I pushed forward, and kissed Taylor with no hesitation. She almost dropped me, but I ended up wrapping a leg around her before she could ruin the moment. She kissed back, and I tasted her for a bit. No lipstick, and it wasn't some fireworks moment.
It was simple and sweet and I wanted to kiss her for longer. But she still has to breathe so…
I pulled back, holding my body weight with a single arm and leg, face burning and my stomach doing flips and
oh my god I kissed a girl, I kissed a girl oh my god!
Taylor looked incredibly stupid, her expresion vacant and I started to snort-laugh. It was too cute, just too cute, and I simply gripped her tighter, resting my head on her shoulder because I could do whatever I wanted.
"So that's a yes?" She squeaked and I nodded and I squeaked back when she pecked me on the lips again. I giggled into the kiss, and then froze when there was a flash of an omni-tool taking a picture.
I robotically turned my head, and my face had to be crimson. The Dallon sisters were there, plus their cousins and a few Wards including Clockblocker with a laugh escaping him. Amy had led them here…
"For fucks sake!" I screeched and tried to pull at the optotronic device and instead took a blast of wind to the face. "MOTHERFUCKER! AMY I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" I clawed at the air, and I enjoyed how her face paled and twisted in fear. She fled, and I roared. "You better run you bitch!" I finally sagged into Taylor, letting her hold me up as my rage left me.
Taylor nuzzled me, cheeks flaming with a cute smile on her face. "You got that out of your system?" I muttered angrily, but said yes regardless.
"Can I kiss you again?" She smiled and nodded and I totally didn't let out a chirpy
'yiss' when I carefully maneuvered my lips into another kiss. An electric thrill ran through me, and my nose bumped painfully with hers. We seperate, my cheeks puffing up at the mistake.
"It's okay." She put me down, and placed her helmet back over her face, passing my helmet and placing it on my head. I adjusted it and it connected back to the rest of the suit.
I was stunned at what had just happened, at what we had just done and even with my fears…I couldn't care less. I hugged Taylor tight, smiling stupidly at her.
"Okay…so this is happening. Probably not the best time for it, but that's kind of my own fault." Taylor gave a so-so gesture with her hand and a cheeky air and I laughed near silently. "I'm definitely going to be really bad at this, interpersonal relationships are
not my strong suit."
"Well we'll work on it." I loved the sound of that, but that joy didn't last as the rain became pouring, buckets of water falling to the ground. The barriers were active, and the water diverters were doing their jobs. A few stealth craft were reporting in, essentially poking their cameras from another dimension to reduce their signature.
"Leviathan is on the move." Every cape in the area heard my warning, and another thousand drones popped in from a literal assembly line. We had twenty armed vessels, a dozen ones built for carrying people, and several fast fighter craft built to distract the bastard with hypersonic maneuvers.
Taylor squeezed my shoulder as Legend, Alexandria and Armsmaster made their approach.
Collin was blunt. "What did the scan pick up?" I generated a hard light projection, generating a one tenth scale image of Leviathan. We still had some time, but I was going to go through this quickly.
"Dragon's interdimensional scanners combined with my technology have surmised that Leviathan is made of an organo-crystalline material with an innate ability to vary their density and shift mass between dimensions. Each layer roughly doubles in strength up to a certain point, centered around a core that acts as a lense of interdimensional portals to shift mass to regenerate its body."
"What does that tell us?" Legend asked, clearly wanting me to not hold back. So I didn't.
"Besides the fact they've been playing humanity like a fiddle for almost twenty years?" I replied flatly.
"
What?" Armsmaster was angry.
"Based on their sheer density and the tensile strength 200 layers down…" I went with the truth. "Any expression of pain has been a total lie, and no conventional attack can harm them without killing us all."
"Explain." Eidolon popped in, almost giving me a heart attack. His arms were crossed and he was glowing green
"You would require at least several hundred to several thousand Petatons of energy to collapse the core and kill an Endbringer. The only one with that type of firepower is String Theory and she's in the Birdcage. Any 'pain' they've felt has been a lie since their nervous system is apparently unconventional." I tapped the hologram, pointing out how the body was entirely crystal, with no discernable organs or even muscles.
"My nano-thorns would never have been able to reach deep enough." Armsmaster deduced things quickly.
"Oh Leviathan would definitely end up killing you once it got tired of playing its game with you." He looked indignant, and then it turned to realization.
"You built those cannons before the deep scans you took…you already suspected?" I answered in the affirmative to Armsmaster.
"I know more about powers than anyone on this planet, Parahumans and Endbringers seem to come from the same or a similar source though the expression is far different." I stared at Alexandria, and she stared back.
She subtly dropped her chin in a nod. She got what I meant then…and confirmed that Cauldron knew that I knew about them, and that I know that they know about me knowing about them.
"Any forms of reality warping powers are far more likely to have a major effect on the stability of their dimensional connections. So Damsel of Distress, Chevalier, Flechette, Clockblocker, and Eraser." Turns out Scrub triggered with a mildly more controllable version of his OG powers due to being dragged into the spirit world by dark spirits. "My Nihilim cannons, and Bakuda's Halcyon phasers are both of a similar caliber."
"Can any of them damage this core…?" Eidolon sounded skeptical and I glared at him.
"Flechette can, but she can't reach the core on her own, and any cape that can
kill Leviathan will be prioritized out of self preservation if nothing else. "All of them are too squishy to hit him directly if he quits holding back." Portals would do wonders I'm sure.
"Then we'll have to work up a plan to have our top hitters in fighting condition." Legend shifted, light sparkling off his form. "If what you're saying is true, we have the best opportunity to severely hurt an Endbringer for the first time."
"Eidolon should be a big help there…if he can keep Leviathan still for long enough, or find a power that can damage him or both…"
"Leviathan falls." Alexandria stated.
"Possibly." More rain poured, and I switched priorities. "Welp…I've told you all I can, there's a final thing I need to take care of." I ran off before they could say otherwise.
…
I lifted my palms to the sky, and murmured a chant. There was a ripple in the spirit world that the other shaman in the area felt. Vista didn't move as her spirit companion shifted into its full protean form, a hiss of pleasure escaping it.
The darkness would be breached.
AWAKEN.
There was a subtle change in the city, the streets and buildings taking on a unique quality. The Lord River was bubbling, ice floes materializing from nothing. The Bay was waving back and forth, a roar of the deep echoing as the barrier between the two worlds thinned.
We had only minutes, and I had
everything to throw at this beast of apocalypse.
My soul screamed to fight this beast of the inevitable, this avatar of entropy. Lung's child emerged from the lobby, scales flaring as she called herself Kiyohime. Echidna had grown three feet, grey plates emerging along her arms. They thought the same.
Leviathan will be denied.
___
AN: So the Excition Arc has started, and marks where the story will go off the rails at least a little bit. 8.3 should be finished sometime today, which should be out in nine days or so. The Arc will be eight chapters and two Interludes though I think I've already mentioned this. I've got a lot of Arcs left in me though, since I don't plan on getting stuck after Leviathan.
Which does make me ask how many Worm fics got past an Endbringer arc to begin with?
Anyhow there isn't much else to way other than hoping you enjoy it.
