Excition 8.8
May 28th, 2011. 12:00AM
Basilia Rubio
"Let me take a look at you." I spoke aloud as I inspected a machine spirit, one of those that managed the Dimensional Paths Network. I manipulated my own energy in the guise of a technological shaman, spectral tools doing the job of making repairs and helping it draw essence more effectively as well as feeding it spirits that fit as prey.
This machine served as the equivalent of Clairvoyant for the DPN, capable of taking accurate scans of the environment through its natural sense of space-time. It was supplemented by scanners in the physical world, and could follow the folding paths to shift across a certain space over multiple realities. I was making updates to the system based on what I had seen of Doormaker when Fortuna had made her exit.
An interesting metric of space-time was what it was, and that was what the changes were about. Creating paths was a complex but efficient method of transportation, but having to form literal invisible roads in the spirit world was rather…inefficient and labor intensive. Doormaker was pulling some type of unique trick that was distinct from Labyrinth, though there were commonalities I hadn't noted on my first few passes since I'm not a science goddess.
Yet.
I finished my mystic tinkering, brushing sweat from my forehead and letting the spirit go to continue its task. The portal metric was heavily modified, including some method of short term alteration of the physical constants to sort of
compress space to make portals without the trouble of having to
move a portal to another location like with conventional wormholes that follow our laws of physics.
Which would take thousands of years and be useless as a form of travel outside of something like a Mass Relay network. With this I didn't need a path in the spirit world, and I was already making plans to shut down the network and shift the spirits helping me to other duties plus of course good homes so they didn't get pissed at me. The spirit world itself was still a necessity, but not in the same way as before. It also meant I could have spirits simply scan the locations I wanted and go for a full replication of Doormaker on Earth at least.
Space is harder but potentially doable, and in that case might require a path. I probably wouldn't stop calling it a DPN, but I was getting ideas for multiple variations on FTL drives besides a classic Eezo system.
The Entities had several varieties, with most of them involving space warping and physics alteration. Legend for example caused a shift in physical constants to turn matter into exotic energy through fifth dimensional twisting of the connection between gravity and electromagnetism. They could accelerate to thousands of times the speed of light at the least with that method. Vista was another method of warping and compression, and portals were enabled by such trickery.
I didn't want to say that I had
benefited from Leviathan attacking, but despite my distaste I had due to the plethora of scanners needed to feed the BattleMinds with strategy data. The reality warping attacks used to put down Leviathan and the rest of his ilk, the various teleporters and Vista's spatial warping. Even scans of typical powers and how they functioned…not that it was perfect.
Some two hundred and thirty capes had walked in while two hundred and twenty had walked out. A 95% survival rate, something that this world would consider a miracle. But it still meant that ten people had died, they had died and would never come back.
I wouldn't pretend to feel guilty…I wasn't a god, I didn't always make the best of the most optimal decisions. Beating myself up about it wouldn't fix anything at all, but it was…disheartening. There was a lot more I could have done, but I hadn't done it whether out of fear or simply lack of time. Those people shouldn't have died, didn't deserve to die like that.
Velocity had apparently been unable to escape the hands of fate, and I grimaced. I had known him peripherally, and he was a good man…and I haven't really known many people who died…only two that I remember. A great grandmother on my dad's side, who had lived to almost a hundred and an uncle on my mom's side who died maybe a year or two back…?
My uncle wasn't the best person…but I remember when I was little and he would mess with me with the
Garra, the claw. But he had gotten involved with a bad crowd and went to a prison in Mexico…and it didn't take long for him to get sucked back in when he got out. By then I barely even saw or knew him anymore, and when he…died like he did my feelings on the matter were…muted.
My mom didn't feel the same way though…and her cries were enough to make me give her a hug. I…had never seen her like that before, and it sort of snapped a few things into place. I was never the most connected with people but him dying like that brought things into perspective. About what I found important, about who I cared about and about how I would feel if they were gone…
It made me look into
why people got involved into those kinds of lives, about the injustices and inequalities that let kids get corrupted into people who were just too stubborn to break free from a life that could kill them or their loved ones.
It made me
want change, lighting a curiosity at the factors that led to places like Brockton Bay and places like certain areas of Mexico. At the factors that turned inner cities into crime-riddled hellholes and rural areas into drug-filled ghost towns.
Maybe that was what had inspired me to create Athena, I wanted to create that change for myself. Push out the violence through action, whether on the streets or in the community. I had money flowing into charities, and money pushing a few causes that I felt were just and
useful. I didn't care about the power outside of what it could to make things
better.
I…was more altruistic than I had once thought I was, even my dream of being a genetic engineer had opened up beyond wanting to turn a chicken into a dinosaur. Of how I could accomplish new things that were both scientifically interesting and useful for making things better.
Somehow I managed to want to help people despite having Asperger's syndrome, then again reading up on it cleared up a few misconceptions I had. I was bad at expressing and describing emotions not less emotional or lacking in empathy, though I was a rather muted person on a day-to-day basis but…that made my meltdowns in the past make a lot more sense.
Moments where I just lost all sense of reason and was dickish in a way that made me feel bad and cringe, where I didn't even remember what the hell got me angry in the first place. Sometimes it was against my brother for being a little shit, other times it was at my parents for things they had done that I did
not approve. Little things that either hurt or had made her resent them. Where everything was too much, too much disappointment, too many setbacks, too much noise and it all just made me feel…
wrong.
This world always made me feel like that, the low sting of existential terror had been running in the back of my head for nearly five months and there very few things that kept me from losing it. My tinkering was the perfect distraction…but it wasn't healthy, and it wouldn't solve all my problems outside the obvious applications of super-tech.
And it seems that I was falling back into old habits and…I felt someone bump a hip into me and I yelped. I turned around, nearly whipping my arm out into a jab but stopping short of blasting fire into someone's face. The hip bumper was revealed to be Taylor, and the meltdown was staved off by her presence.
Taylor was wearing a sleeveless black tank-top and a pair of grey shorts that gave me a good look at those long legs of hers. I pretended not to stare and she rolled her eyes as she pulled me away by the scruff of my neck. I didn't much mind her pulling me along, and I was taken somewhere outside where Singer-of-Rebirth was singing to her children. Forge-Singer was there, and I smiled when she crooned a warm song of comfort and joy that ran with steel in her voice.
"Sit." I did as Taylor commanded, and I took a seat on the soft grass around the base. There were fragments of Endbringer flesh I had brought here a while ago, easily several dozen metric tons from several different Endbringers. They were piled around a flattened circle of grass and would serve for research projects in the future.
"Did something happen?" That was a concern of mine, I wanted a real break this time.
"Yes. But that's not why I stopped your tinkering for a bit." I think I had an idea on what was going on here. "You always tinker to distract yourself from things you don't want to think about. And god…I get why. But it's not going to make those thoughts stop…
believe me I've tried." Taylor was looking down at her hands, lips set in a neutral line. "I've…gotten better at sorting out my own thoughts, but that doesn't mean that certain problems have gone away." I imagine getting bullied for close to two years and then getting shoved into a locker full of toxic waste by her former best friend would leave someone badly off.
"Right. Sorry." I wasn't sure if apologizing was the right choice if I didn't really feel that sorry so much as disappointed in myself.
Taylor shook her head. "You…need to confide in someone…and I'm here aren't I? You can talk to me." There was a tiny hint of self consciousness in her voice, and I ignored the wobble in my lips at the thought of having someone willing to listen to me without judgement…
"I still haven't fully told you about the future that was originally going to happen." It was more a statement than a question but she replied quietly that I hadn't anyway. "Do you want to know…know what I remember at least?"
She took a solid ten seconds before answering. "Yes. I know I turn villain
somehow but not everything else." I frowned at how nonchalant she was being about this.
"There once was a girl who wanted to be a hero." I spoke slowly, wanting something to hold but having nothing for that purpose. "She turned to villainy both out of events out of her control, as well as her own trauma defining the kind of person she would become." I wasn't going to pretend that Skitter was really a hero, saying she was while threatening people with deadly spiders wasn't a way to be a hero. "She fought people much stronger than her, through brutality and intellect and luck. Against dragons and mad bombers, against heroes and more villains than you can shake a stick at." I stopped and she tapped my forehead.
"Don't stop." She commanded and I obliged.
"She thought herself willing to betray the villains she joined…and found a reason to do so…a young girl, a future-seer caught within the grasp of a snake. Then the Leviathan came, and the city broke." Taylor flinched but didn't tell me to cease. "She returned to the villains, finding that her heroes harbored the girl who had turned her closest friend against her. They did everything they could to keep the city alive…and then the Slaughterhouse 9 came, seeking new members. They found the candidates in a local Protectorate tinker who had broken the rules, a mentally unhealthy healer, and one of those betrayed girl's villain friends."
I must have learned a thing or two from the spirits to talk like this.
"What happened?" Taylor wasn't deterred.
"Many more heroes and villains alike died in horrible ways, and a monstrous steel wolf joined while the tinker and the healer rejected them…but the healer had done something
unspeakable to the sister that she loved more than she should. She threatened the world so she would be Birdcaged and to 'repent' for her crimes. All while her sister was left crippled and broken beyond repair…and when the monsters in the guise of humans left the girl who wanted to be a hero grew stronger and smarter, slowly making the city hers until she could rescue that one little girl."
"Did she manage it?" Taylor queries and I bobbed my head affirmatively.
"After hurting so many people…yes, and she put a bullet between the eyes of the snake." She didn't sound surprised, and I wasn't either. She was more than capable of being ruthless and violent. "But he had his own monster to bring out, a girl from another world…cursed to be a monster that would match Nilbog. The product of an angel of despair, her group one that had fought alongside her team."
"Echidna." I took in a deep breath to relax and she didn't say a word.
"With her powers she cloned many people, including those who created the Case 53s, all the plot of the angel. One of a thousand plus scattershot plans reaching fruition. Eventually that battle passed and the cursed girl died a monster. That girl who wanted to be a hero took more and more of the city…and the government stepped in…led by a disgraced Alexandria and a Director who was too direct for the job."
"What happened?"
"She drowned them both on dry land, after Alexandria threatened to kill the villains she thought of as family. In the end she was made a hero for the deed, and time passed…until Jack Slash returned with an army and talked to the strongest being in the world. Starting the end of the world." She looked grave. "That strongest being, that golden
god spew billions upon billions of people across countless worlds. The girl saw how few people cooperated, how the plans of the conspiracy amounted to nothing due to their own mistakes and callousness. So the broken healer helped her break her limits, and her control over bugs expanded to people. But only under a close range…so she took an opener of doors and
everywhere became close to her power." I wanted to stop but I couldn't, and Taylor squeezed my shoulder despite how pale she was.
Taylor continued. "It's okay." My breath was uneven, and I leaned closer to get my bearings.
"She became the goddess Khepri, forcing the cooperation of people across worlds to slay a god. Scion learned grief, and the goddess took the lessons of her life to heart and
broke him. Using every tool she had in poking at his grief for his mate, through powers she twisted the knife until Scion's newfound humanity became his downfall. Losing the will to live…he let himself be slain."
Taylor swallowed. "And the girl?"
"She became a danger to the world…melding far too close with her passenger, and took two bullets to the head…orchestrated by the Eye held by Contessa. She survived powerless in another sealed world, and that was that. The world was 'saved." Ward didn't give me much hope on that though, though whatever I did know was surely outdated after months of being out of the loop.
…
"Fuck." Taylor was looking right at me.
"A bit heavy isn't it?" An almost hysterical giggle escaped from me, and I wanted to curl up in a ball and never move again.
"It's why you want to change things so bad isn't it? You want to stop that future from happening…you want a
better future." I smiled sadly at Taylor.
"I never really planned much really, as you should know I'm
terrible at planning. I didn't even expect to meet with you or the Dallon sisters at all…mainly because it feels kind of creepy to use future knowledge to manipulate people." Wouldn't have worked anyhow, my metaknowledge isn't a mystic power and my relationship with Taylor was less out of planning and more out of a need for connection and a balm against my growing fearful loneliness.
With the same applying to the Dallon sisters, Charlotte, even Grace with all her tinker madness. Plus I wanted to work with Golem…get him under our wing essentially. He was hesitant but I think he was willing to open us to us now.
Sincerely outside of knowing the specifics of powers and a few identities what I knew had been less than useful besides the truth about the Entities and their very few weaknesses. Which didn't make it any less vital however…
"That future isn't going to happen anymore." Taylor tried to reassure me, but it did little to help despite the warmth coming from her. "I'm still a little curious on
how your world somehow knew about that…but I'm guessing it's weird enough you don't want to get into it."
I laughed nervously. "Let's go with a solid yes on that." Maybe at some point I would tell her, not like it was much of a revelation when you think about it. With Multiverse theory being proven and all.
Taylor looked shaken but not angry. "So that's
mostly everything?" I added one more thing, just to round off the topic.
"I know a few things that go
past your role in saving the world, but most of it is irrelevant and less certain. Titans for one thing." She blinked and I kept going before I changed my mind. "And then there's the Citadel races…and bending. My world knew about that too…"
"But didn't you say your world is…normal?" Taylor looked skeptical, and I wanted to hide but didn't.
"They're…myths in my reality, and not even the
same or related myths, which I guess applies to your world too."
Taylor raised an eyebrow. "Your…world is only
mostly similar to Aleph right?"
"Technically speaking we diverged several hundred years ago since Brockton Bay as a city or a landmass simply does not exist in my world. I'm sure there are other small differences I haven't picked up on." I shrugged my shoulders. "So yeah we have some odd…myths. They're not 100% accurate either, in fact in some cases they can be way off." For one thing Lung didn't have a kid and bending and biotics were separate systems entirely. The Reapers of
that world that had brought mine and Taylor's together were terrifying beyond belief. They were real cosmic horrors, entities that made their game counterparts seem like nothing but gnats.
That they were gone spoke much of the beings that had wiped them from the heavens. Whether it was outright power or sufficient ingenuity or other factors, the Reapers were
gone, and the after effects had seemingly caught up to my world and this one.
"I think we should take a break, the city is…
starting to open back up but it's still taking a lot of time. Is that fine?" She smiled and I gave her a thumbs up.
A break sounded good.
___
May 28th, 2011. 12:30AM
Basilia Rubio
I skipped ahead of Taylor, skittering from left to right as I looked for our usual place. The city had been going through a construction and repair spree, cleaning up everything that was possible to clean up. The DWA was booming as they took contracts to build infrastructure, some of them being for large properties I had purchased for both my employees and for affordable housing in the city.
As well as expansions to the public warehouse I had modified for my…well
our business. It had been a newer steel building rather than the older brick building common in Brockton Bay, and I was currently expanding it out to about 400,000 square feet of floor space, with most of the building being dedicated to Research and Development with administrative duties being in the front. My more science and engineering involved employees would be back to work on Monday, though my DWA hires were already getting into the thick of it with deliveries of some of my products.
It was painted white, with its name and its logo proudly displayed in LED industrial lights. It was the symbol of a five pointed star, with the space between its arms occupied by the symbols of the Elemental Nations in all their color and glory.
Air, water, earth and fire, with the star representing Void…the element of the soul. The White Lotus of course wore the symbol of that ancient organization of peace and cooperation, and I hoped that we could build upon that legacy. But we definitely needed more capes than six people…though that wasn't an unreasonable team size. Good old New Wave had eight people.
"So…has anything new been going down?" I slowed my skipping so I could ask Taylor a few things, I had been out of the loop for a while and didn't want to get blindsided.
I could feel the vibrations in the earth with my special shoes, and saw a small crowd of people building around a new PRT facility that had been set up until they could fix up the PHQ and set it up on land. They were all various amounts of excited and worried, hearts beating and feet shuffling quickly.
There was a PRT agent, someone who I was familiar with but hadn't met personally. I could see papers and a few posters set up, and my eyes widened marginally at what I saw.
Brockton Bay Elementalist and Recondite Training Center
Open for all ages/Every day 10:00AM-8:00PM
Training
Activities.
Workshops.
Internships available.
"Well that's the newest program the PRT has set up for benders and latent shaman. They're bringing a lot of people from other cities who have anyone to spare, and a lot of funding got knocked loose for
reasons." Taylor smirked and I wonder if Cauldron was responsible in some way.
"Makes sense…last I remember the count of benders was maybe about…twenty thousand in the city? In the rest of the country about seven hundred thousand?" Which was more than the number of Parahumans on the planet at any one time. "Shamans would be right under three hundred in the city, about nine thousand in the rest of the US." That it had been as quiet as it was due to the relative calmness of benders and shamans in comparison to Parahumans. There would be no real
need to use their powers like with standard shard psyche alterations. Not unless something came up to make it necessary.
Even so there was going to be a large percentage of people who
would use their newfound powers even if only for parlor tricks or due to almost dying depending on what happens.
"You think they'll have enough teachers?" I snorted at Taylor's question and she looked miffed. I bumped hips with her, smiling to show I wasn't trying to tease her.
"Almost certainly not. A good ratio is twenty students to one teacher, you might be able to force it with forty students to one teacher." We casually went past the crowd, where a kid was bouncing a good six feet in the air in excitement. There still weren't many people on the street but that would change, especially with a new bill making its way into the system.
Something involving NEPEA-5, and funding being funneled back into the MIRIS program. Without the conflict drives pushing then, cape violence had gone down and the altered parameters allowed for better cooperation. Too bad that only applied to hosts with high shard interference and new triggers. Most capes were chosen for a
reason, because they were the most fit to utilize their powers to fight and cause conflict.
But it was a step forward to one of the few Cauldron plans that didn't make me sick to my stomach. Alexandria had the right idea in promoting Rogues, but the shards made it a difficult prospect that would apply only to a fraction of the cape population. Of course there was going to have to be a change in the law since superhumans were not going to be a tiny fraction of the population anymore. Even if most of them were modest by the standards of top-tier Parahuman…until you get to the strongest benders who can move hundreds of thousands of tons of their element. Though that applies more to earthbenders and waterbenders, air isn't what one would call heavy.
But restricting Parahumans from business was no longer something that can be staged off. In five months the world had gone from no benders to somewhere between fifteen and twenty million. Another five months would increase their number by at
least an order of magnitude. Eventually leveling off at about twenty five percent of the global human population.
I kept hopping from spot to spot, feeling some of my
other habits coming back to the forefront as I finally
relaxed even as a little tension kept me looking out for suspicious activity. "So…do you think that coffee/tea shop is back up?" Taylor pointed in front of us and I blinked at the place that was positively
bustling with people.
"What do you think?" Taylor said with an amused lilt, and I pouted at her because that was something I could do as a woman.
"Hmm…that's a little…" I trailed off as I noticed the name of the shop for the first time. The style of the place was never something I picked up on though I did know it had some form to East Asian inspirations in the decor and design. Like a perfect blend of two cultures coming together as one whole. The name of the shop was much more important though…
The Jasmine Dragon
"What's wrong? You look like your cat got run over." I blinked out of my stupor, glaring at Taylor for the comment. She coughed into her fist, smiling lightly as we opened the door and stepped into the shop.
It looked recently renovated, and I really needed to re-examine my vision and attention span because I never really noticed the subtle depictions of serpents that served as the shop's trademark. If this place started up as a tea shop and became a more general but high quality joint then it made sense that Taylor liked the tea here.
"Just the name…I know about it from
home." Her eyebrows were raised and I shrugged helplessly. Now I was starting to question my own sanity. "Hey…do you know who owns this place?"
We found a booth fast, and Taylor was going to order for us so I asked before she would get up and order. She tapped her chin, and her eyes lit up in remembrance. "Oh…I think this place is owned by an old man named Mako, they say he's a real nice person." I kept my face from expressing anything and I let her go as I thought about how
insane my life was.
I fiddled with my fingers, biting my lip as I turned my head on a pivot to examine the people calmly drinking their tea and coffee and light breakfasts. Most of the people were ones I knew, though one or two seemed
off though I might have seen a glimpse of one of them in the past.
A tall asian man in a heavy trench coat, calmly drinking tea, large bright eyes darting back and forth across the shop. I turned away but felt something in him that concerned me. There was a woman hiding behind a newspaper, wearing a suit though I couldn't see her face behind the paper.
But I had my suspicions.
There was a flash of a fedora and my hands gripped with incredible strength on the wooden table. I managed to keep my synthetic muscles from tearing through the old wood, and I very much sighed.
It had only been a single day…a single FUCKING day!
Taylor slid back into her seat, running her fingers through her black curly hair and I could see how focused her vision was. A few flies stood stock still under her influence, and we remained in a comfortable silence.
"Do you think we should change how we do things…?" I focused on her voice, unable to restrain a shy grin. "Now that we're…" She gently tapped her knuckles together, and I muffled a laugh. She was being so coy about this and I couldn't help but find it adorable.
"I'm not sure why that would be needed…even if we're together we still
friends aren't we? I like spending time with you, so there's nothing to adjust there." I reached for her hand and she gave it, and I blanked on what to say next for a split second. "It…does mean some of the
feelings change, and we can be affectionate in other ways. But umm…yeah?" I gripped onto her hand, interlacing my fingers with hers. Her hands engulfed mine, and I chewed on my lip as I stared.
Even as a guy I had been…rather short, about 5'2 to my current 5'6 and thus I had some self esteem problems associated with that. My hands had been noted as tiny, and my current sex made that more obvious.
Didn't care though right now, I was feeling especially happy and especially in a good mood. I was…new to all this
romance nonsense but it felt nice to hold a girl's hand, and it felt nice to look at someone willing to put up with my nonsense.
"I get what you mean…we can take this slow and not rush into things." Taylor understood perfectly, and her smile was wide though weakened when she saw the woman two booths over lean closer. "Also…I think we're being watched."
"So is she following us or did she end up here by coincidence?" I was answered by a precisely thrown paper airplane, the folded sheet perfectly caught to avoid the eyesight of everyone in the shop. I unfolded the sheet and read what was on it.
Coincidence. I like the coffee here…I've been here many times before. Sorry.
Taylor read the paper and crumpled it up, dumping it in the pocket of her jeans. I saw that our order was ready, and I squeezed her shoulder as I stepped out of the booth.
I sauntered easily, humming as I found my order. There was a little container to hold both drinks even if they were a different variety. Taylor's Earl Gray, and an iced green tea with citrus flavoring. I wouldn't call my particular tea
healthy but it was better than soda, and still not bad for my health. I had ordered a chicken wrap this time while Taylor went for a chicken and double smoked bacon sandwich.
I picked up on a few choices of more asiatic foods, mostly Japanese I believed if a quick search on the Internet was telling the truth. That they fit types of food from different regions of the world in the same kitchen and made it
delicious was quite impressive. I should probably try it at some point, but it was a little too late to change my order.
I placed down the food and drinks, and Taylor thanked me quietly as she kept watching the taller man drinking his tea. I blinked and I saw the trace of a connection, and a sickly silver dragon placed a hand on his host's shoulder.
Oh.
…
…
You know what? I don't care. I'm going to eat my meal in peace and then I'm going to spend time with Taylor…then my teammates and then take care or whatever needs to be taken care of this day.
Because the universe loves to screw with me at every turn.
___
May 28th, 2011 5:45PM
Basilia Rubio
I dropped from a building, leaping down twenty feet and gently floating down on air currents in my current suit. It was a lighter suit than my old heavy model that had been wrecked beyond repair after I had nearly shattered my own body in my traumatizing anguish.
But that still meant it could take a thirty millimeter round before breaking, and still enhanced my strength manyfold. Though to be fair, this suit still weighed thirty kilograms and the successor to my old suit would only be fifteen kilograms heavier.
My first suit was a heavily modified mess, nearly cut apart and rebuilt practically from the ground-up with each alteration. A rather crude method of keeping the spirit of the suit intact in retrospect. Frankly I was amazed I had managed to recover the suit's spirit at all from the fragments…which would be transferred into my newest set once it was designed and manufactured.
The design wouldn't be dissimilar from the latest version, but would be made out of better materials manufactured with better and more precise tolerances. Hyperconductive cooling systems and power circuitry, more refined endoskeletal material makeup, better power generation and more powerful optotronics. I was using Dragon-derived coding for a built-in Battlemind, in combination with Salarian, Turian and
Human technology. The Asari had a phobia against AI, and the Volus were too restrictive and the other races simply didn't make use of them.
It was a cluster of limited artificial intelligences, digital entities with supersophont abilities in specific areas of expertise. Like what ran through my networking mesh as background agents in the web. In this case they were to operate in my suit, performing all the municipal tasks that I didn't want to deal with myself.
Most laymen simply called them all VI, but it was an inaccurate statement with a wide range of terms between basic expert systems and full-blown general artificial intelligences.
Either way I was going to be working through some massive changes, making operations more smooth as I refined my tech.
Taylor flew down, and I snapped to attention as we made our casual approach to the PRT cordon around the Spirit Portal. I couldn't help but admire the gleaming door into another reality, sparks of pure light coming off of it in waves. Spirits made their home around it, and I could see a few PRT-affiliated shamans negotiating with the entities. I was lucky that while spirits
could be unintentionally dangerous they were usually too caught up in their own world to affect life.
"I never got to ask a few hours ago…but did your power change at all after Leviathan?" Taylor startled at the innocent question, but didn't seem unwilling to talk which was good. A few bugs swarmed around her arm, lazily spinning around her chitinous armor.
"My range hasn't improved at all, but my multitasking has gotten better. You know how that song and dance goes." She flicked a wrist and the swarm followed her without thought. Plus I
did know how that went.
Her multitasking was handled largely by her passenger, and if she isn't careful she can cause them to perform actions she didn't want them to do. For example when she gets angry or annoyed, she can easily give herself up by the agitation of her insects. Automatic repositioning was another thing even if it was quite helpful. Specific plans were limited, she couldn't suddenly make a hundred plans in the span of a second though she could manage a dozen if she put some effort into it.
So I was curious to know what changed. "So how did that get affected?"
"I can multitask a lot more effectively with Queen's help, and can interlink myself into my swarm like a network. Mostly I can just use them to do calculations, as well as use the instances that Queen generates to simulate things."
"Like what?" I was curious, so I asked as we moved closer to the cordon which was at least a hundred feet off. She stopped at a building, and picked up a rock and with a subtle and careful flick it bounced half a dozen times using the walls of an opposing building to knock it down into an open cup of soda.
My own eyes followed the trajectory, my DNI ramping up to let me pick out how difficult doing that was.
"So…thinker 6 at least?" That was utterly
terrifying if she could even partially emulate Number Man.
"Plus I can detect powers like you…but I can also see details about them with my eyes and my swarm. There's also some other power…but I can't really reach for it, it slips out of my fingers when I try." She rubbed her hands together, diamondoid claws clicking together. I also remembered the omni-blade projectors so she could cut a man in half with a single slash.
I might really be into her but I'm not blind to some of her eccentricities.
"Probably running into a Ban or two on your restrictions for arthropod control and other simple nervous systems. Suddenly controlling rats would be different from controlling bugs which would be different from controlling
people." Taylor seemed uneasy about that. "Maybe a development of giving powers to your bugs, since that's effectively what your energy projection is?" It just wasn't very strong outside of enormous clusters of her minions to make them pack a punch.
One ant could sting you but a hundred of them could burn your skin off. A hundred thousand could destroy a car, while gathering a billion would be like bringing down a tactical non-nuclear missile on someone's ass.
Heat. Cold. Various different shapes of directed kinetic energy to form cutting and impact beams, with most based on her own Biotics. Her telekinesis was an application of Push and Throw with admixture with gravity manipulation, and manipulation of electromagnetic force carriers(photons).
She was a fucking monster on the battlefield, and had proven herself since she had made use of her Thinker abilities to set up the battle until Leviathan died. I think she had even figured out how to generate actual barriers besides
hardening her bugs by holding them in place with her power. A field of inertial stillness emulating a biotic barrier.
Not
quite the same but it was close enough.
"So…I'm still getting stronger?" Taylor flexed an arm and a grouping of insects flexed with her.
"Your range won't be improving from what I can tell…" I rubbed my chin as we finally caught sight of the cordon without the people being tiny. "It's likely any new power will derive from using your swarm as a vector for a Parahuman effect." She's already doing that as of now, but further growth was certainly possible. Telekinesis alone had a thousand possible applications, and technically all her kinetic beams applied as telekinesis. Pushing things without touching them and all.
Hell…if you think about it every form of bending was a form of telekinesis but limited to a single element. Entity telepathy was a form of telekinesis, with the interfacing with neurons without touch…so
yeah.
"Ahem?" We snapped out of our conversation, and the PRT agent shuffled his feet a little. He seemed nervous if his speeding heartbeat was a good indicator but he was otherwise professional "The Director wishes to speak with the both of you." He addressed us easily.
We passed the cordon and I felt a tingle up my spine, and my nose twitched at the scent of blooming roses without the accompanying sniffles from allergies. There were about a dozen people stationed here, most of them being the eggheads with a few troopers doing their jobs. Brockton was rather understaffed for what they had to deal with, some twenty five troopers being all they had. The total staff was five times that number…but useless for combatting capes.
Better than Anchorage from what I had heard.
We found ourselves in a building that had obviously been erected by earthbending, and waterbenders had certainly helped with ripping out plants to put in a nice and stable foundation using bending. The building itself was solid concrete, with spaces made for wiring, piping and other things needed for a livable facility. They had windows built out of Tinkertech glass, with unique microstructures that countered methods of shattering it.
The same solution I had created months ago, along with interlacings of other materials to make the glass unnaturally strong and tough. The quickness of interior construction was clearly the work of Dragon and other tinkers, and I stepped into the makeshift office/interrogation room. Director Piggot was there, and I paid careful attention as her feet touched the solid ground.
Her heartbeat was a lot less strained, and I could tell that she had dropped around a dozen and a half pounds. Which…was about right since she had gone from 220 pounds to 200. As per usual her expression was severe but there didn't seem to be any suspicion behind the norm.
"Hello Director Piggot." I greeted her sheepishly, and Taylor bobbed her head in her own silent greeting.
The director crossed her arms, eyes narrowed. "You seem to be doing a lot better after your little tantrum." Taylor growled, though I shook my head when I heard the mild concern and worry in Piggot's tone. "I imagine that your fight against Leviathan was a fluke…"
"I shouldn't have been able to do what I did to him. And I very nearly paid the price for such daunting power." I rubbed right above my chest, where my bones had cracked and crumbled under the onslaught of raw spiritual power. "Not much I can tell other than that it requires significant stress, and seems rather focused on the target of my ire…and accommodates allies." Otherwise I would have certainly incinerated anyone within a tenth of a kilometer.
"It's not much of a worry to me…we have a lot of capes." I almost felt my blood run cold at the statement though it wasn't wrong. At my peak I could move a small mountain…which was still far less than the power to rearrange landscapes on the scale of large islands and continents. Grab a few hundred or a few thousand benders and you can overpower me. I was physically durable and fast but weaker than Alexandria and a ramped up Lung. I had immense Blaster powers, but Legend could fire far more and was much faster.
Eidolon was Eidolon, and enough capes could end me. Though…that technically still made me an S-class threat, though I qualified for that
without my bending due to my tinkering being nearly limitless. String Theory could crack the Moon in half, and I could commit to threats of similar devastation with a lot less energy. Throwing a few dozen asteroids would take care of the job a lot easier, and lacing the Earth's atmosphere with toxic levels of element zero was even simpler.
Ironically I was a lot more dangerous as a tinker than as a direct combatant.
"Fair enough. I can see that my warnings have been heeded." I had expected
something to punch through the gauntlet at one point. Whether a mad shaman, some Tinker figuring it out or a powerful spirit tearing a hole into our reality.
"It's almost like you expected it." I felt my face redden at the sarcasm, she knew I hadn't had any foreknowledge on this or was just screwing with me. "Though I imagine Hero was as much of a surprise to you as it was to us."
"Resurrection of the dead very much does not fall into my purview." I replied sourly. "Speaking to ghosts might possibly be a thing as a shaman but I haven't met any at this point at least." Balaam was less a ghost and more a soul buddy.
Piggot leaned back. "I'm not going to ask what exactly your powers are really capable of…
probably more of the same." She whispered the last part. "But I am going to ask what happened in that…
Firmament." She was stiff, and her expression was frightening. "These shards…what are they? What are their origins and their purpose on our planet? How do you interfere with them?"
I nearly let out a breath but kept myself from doing so. "Shards are…alien organisms, organic crystal supercomputers capable of warping reality." I formed a hologram that forms a rough model of a shard in its multidimensional glory. Piggot flinched and I blinked as I noticed that Armsmaster and Dauntless were there. "They are fragments of greater beings, Entities of vast power and intellect but limited by creativity. They came from a distant world…their home world that they lived on for countless generations until they destroyed it and every one of its parallels to send themselves out into the universe."
I could sense a field affecting the area around us, keeping everything within the walls secret. A combination of Tinkertech and some shamanistic rite doing its job.
Impressive.
"They're capable of shifting matter and energy between dimensions?" Armsmaster asked and I replied in the affirmative.
"It's simply an ability they evolved due to the strangeness of their home planet. They seek out other species, parasitizing and in very rare occasions acting as symbiotes to test their powers and expand their knowledge of reality to figure out the big picture."
"The big picture?" Piggot looked skeptical.
"A way to reverse Entropy as well as what to do at the end of things, when they consume all matter and energy and consolidate it into themselves." The three capes turned pale and I laughed bitterly. "They created a cycle, creating conflict with their gifted powers until they reach the cutoff of several generations, about three hundred years in our case. They will then
shatter our world across multiple dimensions, and proceed onwards onto the next victims."
Piggot's pupils had shrunk to pinpricks. "So this Firmament…it's like a network for all these shards to communicate." She got the gist quickly. "But then why did they help us destroy the Endbringers. If they have common origins…"
"My interference…I seem to have served as a vector when that phase change in New York altered reality and allowed the spirits to stabilize and allowed bending to exist."
"Your Trigger Event…" I winced but kept my cool when Armsmaster spoke. "That's when a shard connects…
something interfered and pacified the shards."
"I have no idea to be honest…my memory of gaining my power is still a little hazy and painful." I was apologetic for the lack of answers. "I'm not some oracle who knows every mystery of the universe. Beyond that whatever changed our reality was more powerful than anything on Earth."
"There's more you're not telling us…but it's not something you can tell us safely is there?" Piggot sounded resigned.
"No…for
all our safety, there is a lot I can't say. What I can say is that a lot of things are coming our way…but I don't know what is going to come next." I had run out of the information that let me see the future. The Endbringers were a non-entity if I figured out how to crack open the security on the Simurgh and Behemoth. What I had wasn't future knowledge, and was more like a limited Thinker power that let me know specific personal information.
I didn't even remember everything anymore.
Or like one of Dinah's timelines that never happened.
"Really?" Piggot was even more skeptical, and Dauntless and Armsmaster were giving me similar looks.
"Anything I have left to share I either can't tell you because we'll be shot." Well Piggot would be shot. "Is irrelevant." Alien tech is just Tinkertech, and they could figure out that Eezo was soul juice later. "Or I have an incredibly incomplete picture, or it's dangerous to share." While I had an immunity to Mama Mathers, I doubt everyone else did. "Though I might share what I can…" Mostly information on the Fallen that didn't involve Mama Mathers herself.
"We're preparing accordingly for retaliation from the Fallen." She replied flatly.
"Do you still need an explanation about the Firmament?" I stepped back since I wasn't there.
Piggot raised an eyebrow. "That would be nice."
Taylor stepped up. "Like you said it's a network, where parts of their bodies stick out to talk with each other. Labyrinth opened a hole, and that messed with the rules that restrict Parahumans. We grabbed the hosts with the strongest shards, and killed the Endbringers before they could be born."
"Your shard was…Queen wasn't it?" Dauntless added gruffly, clearing his throat as we glanced over.
"Queen Administrator. She's…an ally."
"So your shard won't kill us all." The response from the Director was drier than the Sahara desert. "You've already mentioned that the spirit portal was opened by a Keter class spirit." I had given that in a report a while ago.
We spent another ten minutes and were let go with shocking ease.
It was…odd.
Odd.
But nice.
___
May 28th, 2011. 7:00PM
Basilia Rubio
I was back outside after another hour of tinkering, sitting on the edge of a building and kicking my feet back and forth as I stared at the sight of the emerald-green spirit portal.
Taylor was back at her house, spending some much needed time with her dad. Bakuda was off visiting her parents, and Charlotte was spending time with her family. Even Golem and Delphi were home, and the New Wave sisters were of course with New Wave.
I was alone.
And that was okay.
I wrapped my arms around my legs, finding the portal mesmerizing and listened to the call of the Spirit. Alone with my own thoughts I could finally appreciate the natural beauty of what lay around the portal. Of the
power of balance.
Flowers bloomed around the spiraling landscape, uniform in color. A lively orange, an ocean blue, an earthy green and a fiery earth. They intermixed into an array of color, and lines of purple-black intersected all the rows of flowers in a wondrous display. The void expressed in the form of strange spirit flowers. All I had to do was look close enough to see that the city had
changed.
Plantlife grew eagerly where it was wanted, like spring had come anew even as summer approaches.
The oppressive air was gone, replaced by a feeling of hope, the despair vanished away even as the city was damaged. But the city could be built anew, and there was so much still left for the future.
The portal shone like its own sun, spirits circling around in the skies before retreating back into their own reality. There was much left to be discovered, so many secrets and old history that had been erased by time and decay. I wasn't completely okay…I couldn't pretend to say that I had somehow been unaffected by this world.
But in this moment it all felt worth it.
I could feel the wind, I could taste the sea and I could hear the groaning of the earth. The fire in my gut grew, and the vibrations of darkest energy flowed freely and surely. The Endbringers as a threat were almost completely gone, and I wouldn't let the remainder exist for too long. But even outside of them there were many threats.
Threats that I would deal with one step at a time.
But here and now I was going to take the time and smell the roses, take the time and not think about that future, take the time and simply take in what I was sensing. And right now everything felt alright, everything was calm if imperfect.
But that was just life wasn't it?
This was a few steps forward, and I knew that steps backwards would happen, knew that mistakes and problems out of our control would show up to ruin our day.
But today, the encroaching night was beautiful, the flowers were blooming, the spirits singing and the portal was humming along with them. Today we were taking care of flood damage instead of having a hundred thousand funerals, today the news was screaming that the Endbringer Leviathan had died and the rest had gone dormant.
I watched that portal shimmer on and everything…for now at least was okay.
