Thanks to Alvor for beta-reading.
Gonna be honest, I'm not particularly happy with how this chapter turned out. I now understand why so many Worm fics die if they try to take the S9, Endbringers, or Scion seriously.
They're just so damn hard to use! I was reminded of that saying about playing chess with a pigeon.
After multiple false starts, I finally settled on something, but it feels a bit meh.
XXXXX
It had taken some arguing, but Hannah was once again on her way to the Hebert residence. The newly implemented protocols called for Master/Stranger assessment of anyone that had contact with the teenage villain, and solo contact was supposed to be strictly forbidden… but the arrival of the Slaughterhouse 9 changed many things.
Hannah had volunteered to go and would willingly sit through the confinement period, having argued that she had already been exposed anyway. She was also carrying recording equipment that would allow them to further analyze the girl and her methods. Even so, convincing Armsmaster and Piggot had been difficult.
Oddly enough, Hannah didn't really think that she was in any danger. Her superiors pointed to that as possible further proof of a Master effect, but she didn't think so. Taylor Hebert was not playing the same game as them. That was obvious by this point, but they just didn't know what to do aside from defaulting to protocol.
When she arrived at the house, it was to a door that was already open. The smell of strong tea wafted towards her nose.
"Hannah." Taylor greeted as if they were old friends. "Come in, come in. I've been expecting you."
Hannah couldn't even be surprised. "Of course you were."
"Well, it's not my fault that people are predictable." The teenager shrugged.
"Even the Slaughterhouse 9?" She asked pointedly.
"They did get one over on me, I'll give you that, but it's not something they can take credit for." Taylor's face made a disgruntled expression. "Honestly, that naughty Broadcast Shard of his is cheating so shamelessly. If it was human, it would be that one kid that fudges the dice rolls at board games and then complains about being called out on it."
That was one of the things about Gallant's report that had been the most concerning. "You're saying that Passenger Theory is correct? That powers are the result of some unknown being riding along in our brains?"
"I can see them, you know?" Taylor said conspiratorially. "They extrude a tiny amount of themselves into our brains through a dimensional breach. That's what the corona pollentia is."
And here was the main reason why Hannah had insisted on this meeting, the reason that she had not shared with Armsmaster or Piggot.
"Do you remember?" She whispered. They would have questions later, when this footage was reviewed, but by then it wouldn't matter anymore. She had been looking for an explanation ever since her trigger event.
"No, but I see the memory in your mind." Taylor smiled. "Thank you, actually. I've been wondering for some time about the true forms of our guests. They are quite strange, these bio-crystalline creatures. So immense, and yet only parts of a whole. I hadn't known that Scion actually has to shed parts of himself to grant powers to humans, that's interesting information."
Hannah jerked in her seat. "Scion?"
"Oh? Were you not allowed to think about that?" Taylor raised an eyebrow. "He barely makes a token effort at pretending to be human, but you never once suspected him. A global effect to stop people from thinking about it too hard. I really have to wonder what they came here for."
As usual, a meeting with Psyker had gone in a completely unexpected direction.
"Scion… is not human?" For some reason, that idea had been preposterous just a few seconds ago. But now that the veil was punctured, she was having trouble understanding how she had ever believed it. The Golden Man was like a cardboard cutout. "It's because of you, isn't it? You're stopping the Stranger effect."
"I'm not exactly human anymore either." Taylor smiled, power leaking from her eyes. Glowing cracks appeared across her skin. "These shells of flesh and bone are too small to contain me now."
Hannah felt the world go quiet and her power writhed chaotically, as if unsure what form to take. One certainty crystallized in her mind. "You're not a parahuman, are you?"
"Not anymore." Taylor repeated. "My Queen Administrator and I, we are inextricably bound together. Scion won't be getting her back. Or perhaps he will have to take me along. He always seems so sad, just like many of the people who look to me for help. How long do you think it will take me to devour his mind and usurp his power if he makes me part of him?"
Oh. So that was why Psyker had never really taken them seriously. They couldn't fight something like that.
"Why are you telling me this?" Because there was always an angle. So far, Psyker seemed to want to help Brockton Bay, even as a villain, but this implied that her plans were much grander than even world domination. She wouldn't be sharing all this without a reason.
"Well, the Slaughterhouse 9 have disrupted my schedule a bit." The thing in the shape of a teenager said as if the worst pack of murderers on the continent were just a mild irritation. "But it was always my intention to have you for myself, Hannah. Did you think I was going to restrict my poaching to only the Wards?"
"I won't join you." She denied instantly.
"I understand, you need time to think about it." Psyker nodded as if that hadn't been an absolute refusal. "There's no rush. The PRT and Protectorate will continue to softball me even after you show them this conversation. The human mind is simply not equipped to deal with problems on such a scale, so it defaults to the familiar. They will assure themselves that I am simply insane."
Yes, they would. Hannah could already see the justification. Psyker had to be insane and lying, because if she wasn't, then it was all over. Protocols would be put into place to not provoke her and they would try to contain her. Maybe it would even look like they had succeeded.
"It's really too bad." Psyker continued with a sigh. "I was having fun playing with you, but whether I'm loud in taking out the Nine or quiet, you will have glimpsed behind the curtain and nothing would be the same anymore."
If she managed to take out the Nine quietly, it would in many ways be even more unnerving than if they were taken out with a grotesque display of power. It would mean that one of the most dangerous cape groups in the world had been taken out so cleanly that they weren't even able to react.
There was only one thing Hannah could do – ignore all the mind-bending revelations and focus on the problem at hand. "We should work together to minimize civilian casualties. The PRT and Protectorate is extending an S-class truce until the situation is dealt with."
Psyker smiled. "I am happy to accept. Have Director Piggot and Armsmaster cede full operational control to me and we can begin."
Hannah sighed. "You know we can't do that."
"Armsmaster should see the logic in it. He's all about efficiency, after all."
Colin was also very prideful. There was no chance in hell that he would subordinate himself to a villain. Piggot was, if anything, even worse. This was going to be a long and probably pointless conversation, but at least she had finally found an answer to the question that had been haunting her for all these years.
XXXXX
Sarah Pelham was terribly nervous as she led the way into the hotel that Psyker had directed them to, in a way that she had not been since they were new to the cape scene and still figuring out how the game was played. It was a relief to know that their children were all doing well and not really being threatened, but it was hard to let go of the idea that they were being used as hostages.
Carol, especially, was convinced that everything they'd heard over the phone was a case of either coercion or mastering, and that they would need to fight their way through the Black Hand to get the children back. She didn't even believe that the Slaughterhouse 9 were in town.
That could be a problem, but it wasn't like they could just leave her at home either. Sarah was honestly very afraid of what her sister would do if she didn't have any eye kept on her. Recent events had shown that Carol was… not the most stable of people.
Before they could even get to the reception desk, they were intercepted. The young woman that came to greet them was very professional. Her straight black hair was in a neat ponytail, her bright green eyes were warm, her smile a perfect example of customer service friendly, with teeth so straight and white you couldn't find better in a toothpaste commercial.
The only thing that Sarah had to do a double-take about were her almost cartoonishly exaggerated proportions.
Her breasts were enormous, visibly straining the vest of her uniform. The buttons were struggling valiantly to contain them and looked as if they were one deep breath away from flying off and killing someone.
Sarah would have thought they were fake, but they didn't have the unnatural firmness that was so easily spotted in silicone breasts at that size. No, this was a woman that was simply naturally blessed… or cursed.
Down below, her waist was quite thin and firm, before once again widening into a pair of substantial hips and a large- firm read end. It didn't quite stray into uncanny or artificial, but it was definitely on the extreme end of what you could expect to see naturally.
"Damn!" Mark muttered, getting an agreeing grunt from Neil.
Sarah felt her irritation spike at the predictable reaction from the menfolk.
"Sarah Pelham?" The chesty hotel employee asked, smiling brightly upon receiving a confirmation. "You're right on time. Please follow me."
Sarah glanced back at her husband and saw his eyes glued to the girl's swaying rear end. Mark was even worse, which was understandable. With Amy fixing his brain, his libido was also back on track, but Carol had definitely not been in the mood.
A sharp elbow to Neil's ribs fixed one problem, but she was disheartened by the lack of reaction from Carol. Her sister either hadn't noticed Mark's reaction or didn't care. She was too busy glaring at everything suspiciously and flexing her hands as if grabbing the hilt of a weapon.
The situation didn't improve as they all filed into an elevator. It was not a particularly large elevator and there were five of them, with Neil being big enough to count for two.
Sarah found herself chest-to-chest with their guide. This would normally be nothing, but said guide had a smug little smirk on her face. The kind of smirk that proclaimed 'my boobs are better than yours' to anyone who saw it.
She was a mature and settled woman with a husband and children, and a hero besides. She should be above something so petty.
Should.
"Do you have something to say?" Sarah asked, a hint of irritation leaking into her tone. That smirk was just… so… punchable.
"I was just wondering if you'd like to get a coffee later."
Suddenly, everything was reframed in an entirely different context.
"Are you… hitting on me?!" Sarah asked incredulously.
"What can I say? I have a thing for big, strong heroes." The girl who couldn't be more than twenty said huskily, leaning a bit closer.
The sheer shamelessness of it left her flabbergasted. She was no stranger to offers like this – fans could get pretty unhinged – but it generally happened over e-mails.
"I'm… flattered, but I'm married, and straight." Sarah managed to respond diplomatically, using a more polite word than a truthful one.
The guide didn't seem to get the hint. "A big man like that looks like he could handle two women."
"Just shut up and take us to our children!" Carol snapped.
"We're going there as fast as we can." The guide promised, clearly not intimidated at all. That was a little strange, because Carol could be pretty intimidating. "But you just look so tense, so I thought I'd offer to loosen you up a bit."
"We don't need help 'loosening up' from a whore!" Carol's temper spiked.
But the guide still wasn't intimidated or even insulted. Instead, she just pouted. "I went to all this trouble to take your minds off your paranoia before our meeting and you insult me? No wonder you're the least popular member of New Wave."
The implication hit Sarah just moments before their guide's eyes flashed with power. Before she could react, Carol lunged forward and pinned the villain to the door of the elevator, a plasma dagger held just an inch away from her skin.
"Psyker!" Carol growled.
"In the flesh." The villain smirked, unresisting but unafraid. "How do you like it, by the way? Amelia put quite a bit of effort into sculpting this body."
And wasn't that a terrifying little hint about what Amy had been up to since going villain.
"Where are our children?!" Carol demanded.
"I was taking you to them, remember?" Psyker arched an eyebrow.
"Why are you here?" Sarah interjected, giving her sister a warning look.
The eyebrow somehow went higher. "Is it not considered polite to greet one's guests?"
The answer was ridiculous. "But why like this?"
Psyker shrugged, heedless of the plasma blade at her neck. "I thought it'd be fun."
"Fun?!" Carol growled, shaking off Mark's arm as he tried to pull her back. "You think this is a joke?"
"How's a girl to stop herself when you're putting out so much delicious anger." Psyker licked her lips lewdly and then leaned further forward with bared teeth, close enough that the plasma blade began sizzling against the skin. "Omnomnomnom!"
Mark either finally had enough or sensed that Carol was close to losing it, because he firmly yanked her back.
"Are you… feeding on our emotions?!" Sarah found herself asking, a rock seeming to drop into her guts.
"You don't have to concern yourselves with it." Psyker breezily waved away. "I'm not stealing your emotions or anything, I just like being around… intense people. That's why I like teenagers so much. Now come on, we're almost here."
Sarah clenched her jaw as the elevator opened and Psyker turned her back on them. There had been no reason to reveal herself or tell them that, so why?
Fucking Thinkers…
With no other option, they followed the villain down the hallway, towards a room emanating the distinct noise of many unattended teenagers. It was surreal to know that what was clearly a party was happening in a villain's lair. Their heroic children were partying with villains.
What even was reality anymore?
The opening of the door did nothing to put Sarah's mind back into a familiar frame. It was clearly the penthouse suite of the hotel and it was a bunch of teens having fun away from adult supervision. They were all unmasked and if she hadn't known better, she would never have pegged anyone there as a villain.
Wait, was that Vista?
And what was with the bunny girl waitresses?! Some of those girls were definitely underage… and identical?
"The adults are here. Fun time's over." The blonde girl that Sarah recognized as Tattletale announced, spotting them pretty instantly.
"Boooo!" A rather effeminate-looking boy with black hair responded instantly.
"Oh, hey, Mom and Dad." Crystal greeted nervously. There was a fruity cocktail in her hands.
"Victoria!" Carol barked, forcing her way forward.
"Hey, Mom." Victoria sighed.
Carol's baleful gaze scanned over the entire room, fixating on the underage bunny girls for a moment. Then it landed on Crystal.
"Didn't you say that there were no hookers, drugs, or alcohol present?"
Sarah's daughter did a double take at the drink in her hands, then laughed nervously. "Oh, this? It's just a mocktail?"
That didn't sound at all convincing.
"And are you really calling me a whore again?" Multiple people answered in unison. Their guide and all of the girls in bunny-outfits. It was creepy as hell. "I would have expected better manners from a hero."
"W-what?" Sarah stuttered in shock. Suddenly, they all had the same expression, the same body language, the same everything.
"You didn't really think I would gamble my life on Brandish's restraint, did you?" The guide Psyker asked sardonically, tapping at the line of burned flesh on her neck. Frankly, I half-expected to lose this body."
"I would have been pissed." Amy grumbled. "Get over here and let me fix that."
"Yes, Amelia." Psyker chuckled, obediently walking over to the former member of New Wave and holding out her hand. The burned flesh vanished in seconds.
"Wait a second…" Victoria jolted in shock, looking around at all the Psykers. "Miki?!"
"Ah, curses, my cunning ruse undone by the romance bloodhound." The guide body sighed, then suddenly posed in an overly cutesy way. "Haaaai! Watashi wa Uchida Miki desu!"
Several of the teenagers burst into giggles at the display, but Sarah could only work her jaw as it became clear that Amy's mysterious girlfriend had been Psyker all along.
"I knew it!" Carol exclaimed vindictively, glaring at both Amy and Psyker. "I knew you were consorting with villains the whole time!"
"Gee, I wonder what could have made me so susceptible to seduction by a villain?" Amy retorted sarcastically. "It couldn't possibly have been your shitty parenting, so it must have been my father using me as a conduit for his evil all the way from the Birdcage."
"I let you give me a massage!" Victoria interjected with a yelp, staring at Psyker with a burning red face.
"Let me?" The villain raised an eyebrow. "You were practically begging for it, and you had three orgasms during."
"YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO SHARE THAT PART!" Victoria screeched in mortal embarrassment.
"YOU VIOLATED MY DAUGHTER?!" Carol added her own roar to the din.
"Damn it, Mom, don't make this even worse than it is!" Said daughter protested in frustration. "It was just a massage… a really good one."
"She touched you inappropriately under false pretenses! That's sexual assault and assault with a parahuman power!" Carol didn't let up.
Psyker clapped her hands together only once, but the air seemed to shake in a very unsettling way and the sound echoed as if a gong had been struck right next to her head.
"Enough." The villain commanded. "This is not a court room so keep the lawyering out of it. We are here for the purpose of minimizing the damage caused by the Slaughterhouse 9 and have already gone off track. We can return to the family drama afterwards, if you want."
Sarah could practically hear Carol grinding her teeth together as she was denied the opportunity to vent her spleen. Nobody sane could deny that dealing with the Slaughterhouse 9 took priority over 'family drama' as Psyker had put it, which meant that Carol could nothave one of her outbursts without coming off as incredibly petty and irrational.
On top of that was the fact that Psyker was radiating a very intimidating presence… and everyone, even their own children, were clearly on her side. Sarah would have to make sure there was no mastering going on, but she had a sinking feeling that they had been wooed the old-fashioned way.
"Agreed." Sarah said, swallowing her misgivings and suspicions. "We can settle our differences after the S-class truce is over."
She just had to ignore the feeling that New Wave would end up either co-opted or self-destruct by the time that happened.
"Excellent." Psyker said and held out a hand towards the silently watching Amy. "Amelia, if you could please give me a less trustworthy-looking form to soothe Brandish's nerves?"
Amy snorted and took the hand. In seconds, Psyker was transformed from an unusually curvy and beautiful woman into an unusually curvy and beautiful devil.
Literally. She had red skin, fanged teeth, a forked tongue, fingers tipped with sharp black claws, a spade-tipped tail, and curling black horns.
"Oh, nice." The now demonic-looking villain said, her voice strangely multi-toned.
Psyker grasped at her throat in surprise, then grinned in delight. "Multiple voice boxes? Very nice."
"I do try." Amy said smugly.
"You can suck out my soul any time, Devil Mommy." The same boy who booed before spoke up.
"Yeah…" Eric and a redhead that she assumed was Clockblocker muttered.
"Now, let us begin." Psyker ignored the teenage lust directed at her, sat down, and steepled her fingers villainously. "Please sit."
Sarah suddenly felt a burst of sympathy for the PRT and Protectorate. This was what they'd had to deal with lately, probably feeling just as confused and off-balance as she was right now. Carol was in serious danger of cracking a tooth at the rate she was going, and Amy probably wasn't going to fix it.
XXXXX
Alexandria had an unusual relationship with emotions. One the one hand, her Thinker power turned her mind into a supercomputer that recalled everything perfectly and could process information much more rapidly than normal. On the other hand, she was eternally sixteen, and the time-lock that stopped her from aging or getting injured didn't do much about the raging hormones of a teenage body. Over the years, she had gotten used to suppressing the wild surges of emotion.
That failed her when she read the urgent report from Brockton Bay, complete with video.
If Psyker's words could be believed, Cauldron had finally found the silver bullet they had desperately been searching for. Joy, hope, relief.
But on the flip side, they would be exchanging extinction at the hands of Scion for the unknown intentions of what would be, for all intents and purposes, a living goddess. Dread.
They had all long since resigned themselves to the grim mantra of 'any means necessary' to secure humanity's survival. No evil was too base, no plan too desperate. Entire worlds had already been sacrificed in their attempts to find something that would work on the obscenely powerful alien.
There was a kind of twisted irony to knowing that the one place they had been deliberately been hands off about would produce the weapon they wanted.
"We need to do something about her!" Eidolon raged, slamming his hand down on the table.
"Not necessarily." Doctor Mother retorted coolly. "Unlike Scion, Taylor Hebert can be reasoned with. Presuming that she is telling the truth, this is a significant improvement of the situation."
"Improvement?!" Eidolon echoed in angry disbelief. "Instead of death we get slavery to an overpowered, deluded child."
"That is an improvement." Doctor Mother said coldly.
"Hey!" Legend barked, drawing Eidolon's attention. "Now, I might not be entirely up to speed on things here…"
That came out as more of a pointed accusation than a statement. With this recent development, they had needed to bring him into things a bit more so that he wouldn't do anything reckless in regards to the Brockton Bay situation.
"… but I don't think there's any indication that Psyker is going to 'enslave the world', as you put it." He finished.
"She's already said that she intends to conquer the world like some kind of Saturday morning cartoon villain!"
"For its own good. I wonder who else is doing something like that?" Legend asked sarcastically, looking around with exaggerated motions at their secret extra-dimensional base, from where they pulled the world's strings… for its own good.
"That's not the same thing!" Eidolon snapped.
"She seems to know about Scion and has a concrete plan to handle him, unlike us." Legend countered. "We should talk to her, pool resources, and see if we can't find a better third option."
Eidolon's fists clenched and he was practically shaking with rage. Alexandria knew why he didn't want to do what Legend was suggesting. David's ego hadn't been too much of a problem when there was nobody that could really threaten it. Now that Psyker was threatening it, he was throwing a tantrum.
"You haven't said much, Alexandria." Doctor Mother noted.
Yes, because her mind was still stuck. Not for the first time, perfect recall turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing. Everything had just happened so fast.
When they had first heard of Psyker, she had just been an unusually cunning and successful fresh trigger. Then they had figured out that she was somehow spoofing Contessa's paths. Anything that could even slightly inconvenience Contessa was the sign of a very powerful cape. It had caused them some problems, but much of their efforts were geared towards creating powerful capes, so they could hardly complain when they succeeded.
It had been only a few months, and Psyker had jumped past being a potential big player to being completely unmanageable. No matter how many times she went over every scrap of information stored in her brain, it just didn't make sense.
"Miss Militia asked if Psyker was even a parahuman, and was told 'not anymore'." Alexandria spoke quietly. "I think that Miss Militia had it right. Psyker was never a parahuman at all. Or at least, not just a parahuman. Her powers don't conform to the same logic. They way she talked about 'devouring' Scion's mind, the way she learns new things just by watching parahumans do them… we're still missing something huge. See here?"
She rewound the video to the exact timestamp that she needed.
"I'm not exactly human anymore either. These shells of flesh and bone are too small to contain me now."
"You're not a parahuman, are you?"
"Not anymore."
Alexandria paused the video on the image of Psyker with her eyes glowing and body looking like it was bursting at the seams from her power.
"There is a clear implication that she's no longer truly a physical being." She said, hesitating for a moment before continuing. "And… see how the light of her power is still moving even when the video is paused?"
They all squinted at it, slightly startled.
"You're right." Number Man said, the most disturbed by far. "It hurts my brain trying to focus on it, but it's definitely moving."
"It does that in my memories, too." Alexandria revealed, hiding her disquiet. "It's like her power is somehow fundamentally incapable of staying still, to the point that even the memory of it won't stop writhing in my brain!"
Her voice had risen slightly at the end and she snapped her mouth shut with a click of teeth. Psyker's power was throwing her off, disrupting her iron self-control. It was terrifying, and Alexandria wasn't sure if she dared come face to face with the young villain. How much worse would it be in person?
"That would explain why precogs can't deal with her." Doctor Mother acknowledged, by far the least ruffled. "If Psyker is using something new and unknown, something that the Agents can't pin down and quantify, then of course it can't be accounted for and predicted."
"Could that be their goal?" Legend pondered. "Arrive at a new planet, seed it with powers, quantify everything, then leave. Not much different than how humans figured out which mushrooms were poisonous… except, sometimes you only learn that when someone else dies. Others of Scion's species could have died when they taste-tested the wrong mushroom, and now it's his turn."
A weird example, but it worked.
"But that doesn't help us!" Eidolon growled. "Are we going to just let this child take over Scion like some kind of parasitic fungus and replace him as a threat?"
Well, someone liked the mushroom analogy.
"And what do you think we should do?" Alexandria asked coolly. "Kill all of her bodies before she has a chance to do that and go back to throwing shit at the wall in the hopes that something sticks? If she was being literal about being tied together with her Agent, then that probably wouldn't even work."
"Well then, what do you think we should do?!" He demanded.
That was the thing, Alexandria couldn't think of anything. Worse, she wasn't sure if they should do anything. Even if Eidolon's dramatic worst case scenario of having all of humanity becoming slaves to an immortal, all-powerful ruler came to pass, was that worse than absolute extinction across all versions of Earth?
The eternal question of whether it was better to live on your knees or die on your feet. It sounded heroic to declare you would rather die free, but if people were being honest with themselves, most of them would choose to live on their knees.
There was a reason why places like the Chinese Union Imperial and North Korea existed, and it wasn't because the people lacked the strength to overthrow the tyrannical government. It would be bloody, but they could do it if they really wanted to. No matter how powerful a regime was, it was estimated that it only took about 3% of its population to rise up in rebellion to make it collapse. America didn't lose the war in Vietnam because the enemy was more powerful, but because you can't control a territory without the collaboration of its people.
Everyone liked to think that they would be the hero, that they would fight tyranny, serve in the local resistance during the Nazi occupation, be part of the Underground Railroad helping slaves escape, hide people from communist thought-police, and so on.
They wouldn't. They would keep their heads down and hope to be left alone.
It would be different if Psyker usurped Scion's power as she claimed. No rebellion would be possible. At best, they might inconvenience her slightly. If she was smart and continued to work from the shadows, nobody would even think of rising up against her.
So, what should Cauldron do?
They had been relying too much on Contessa to tell them what to do. The dark-haired woman was part of this meeting, but had nothing to add. Her power had been growing less and less reliable with every passing day. The further into the future she tried to look, the more likely it was that Psyker's actions would blank out her precognition.
Eidolon wanted to attack. Legend wanted to talk. Kurt was almost as useless as Contessa because the numbers weren't making sense either. Doctor Mother was fine with the idea of Psyker becoming the all-powerful ruler of humanity. Even if it resulted in a million years of slavery, at least there was a chance for things to eventually get better. There would be no more chances if Scion destroyed them all.
Alexandria realized that she was fine with it, too. They had already been experimenting with parahuman feudalism, as well as committing, tolerating, and abetting worse atrocities for far lesser gains. So far, Psyker had been much more restrained than most villains. Absolute power was said to corrupt absolutely, but maybe Cauldron could try to hold her back?
She almost wanted to laugh at the absurd irony of what she was considering.
"If what Psyker said is true, then she's already as good as won." Alexandria began slowly. "The flashy cape theatrics were a distraction from what she was really doing all this time – targeting her Agent directly. We've never found a way to do that, and it's too late to bring her under our control. She already knows so much, so I say we approach her and explain everything. If she really can usurp Scion's power, then we give her our full support. That's the reason Cauldron was created, after all, or close enough to it."
It would solve their main problem, as well as get them an easy way to put a permanent end to the Endbringers. Granted, it would create a whole new problem, but at least their species would survive no matter what. Hell, they might even gain a guardian against others of Scion's kind.
Eidolon stood up violently, sending his chair clattering across the ground.
"David!" Legend barked, but their comrade didn't listen.
"He might be a problem." Kurt pointed out the obvious.
Eidolon always preferred to be at the forefront of every fight, even when he would be more useful in support roles. Alexandria had no doubt that he had believed that he was the lynchpin of whatever battle they were going to have against Scion. Being told to take a step back, and that there might not be any battle at all… it would obviously rub him the wrong way.
"We can deal with his ego later. Right now, we need to decide how we're going to approach Psyker." Alexandria said.
Usually, it would be Contessa telling them the best way to do something, but with her power not working and Kurt's also being on the fritz, that role had fallen more and more to Alexandria.
"We were going to let the events with the Slaughterhouse 9 proceed without our involvement, but it could be a way to get on her good side." Doctor Mother pointed out.
"Except that she's apparently a real psychic." Legend countered. "What makes you think that she won't just pluck the truth right out of our heads?"
Yes, that was a genuine concern, and not one they had so far found a way around.
"If she does, then she will also see our reasons." Alexandria stated with a confidence that she didn't quite feel. "Psyker has proven ruthless enough that she will understand our position."
And if not… well, so what? They didn't have to like or even agree with each other in order to work together against Scion. And if the young villain turned on them afterwards, that was also fine.
All the members of Cauldron, except the oblivious Legend, had long accepted the fact that if they were ever put on trial for their actions, they would be sentenced to death for the worst case of crimes against humanity in history. It was always easy to cast blame in hindsight. People would point out how many of their cruelties were unnecessary, as if they could have known that in advance.
"I hope you're right." Legend muttered.
XXXXX
May 15th, 2011.
Jack had been acting weird ever since his encounter with Psyker. And not just acting weird, but feeling weird.
When she had first concocted her scheme of joining the Slaughterhouse 9 and using them against her father, she had thought that they would be easy to manipulate. That turned out to be dangerously wrong, as Jack seemed somehow immune and Bonesaw was able to install upgrades in the others to make them resistant.
But she had still been able to hear the music of their emotions, which had allowed her to mostly navigate the group's dynamics and stay alive.
Even if hearing a slasher movie soundtrack whenever Jack Slash looked at her had been terrifying.
But it had all changed now. Jack Slash's music had become erratic, urgent, desperate almost. Worse, he wasn't paying attention to the others.
Bonesaw, the Siberian, Mannequin, and Burnscar were content enough to wait around for now, but the others were not. Shatterbird was 'in love' with Jack and angry that he was thinking of another woman, Crawler wanted to fight, and Bakuda wanted to 'show her genius'.
Cherish had found herself in the unusual position of having to subtly discourage them from doing anything crazy. Jack had not told her the plan, but she had been ordered to help him keep the more impatient members of the Nine under control while they prepared. She had little choice but to continue doing that, knowing that Jack would blame her if they went off the script he had envisioned.
But the very upgrades Bonesaw had given them were getting in the way now that Jack wasn't doing his part.
"How much longer are we supposed to wait?" Crawler asked, impatience bleeding into his monstrous voice. "We were supposed to kick things off already!"
He had been the hardest to restrain. Unlike the others, he had no Bonesaw upgrades, because he didn't need them. His body adapted to Cherish's powers the same as it did to anything else.
"Things have changed." Jack retorted, also impatient. Lately, he seemed to really hate it when someone interrupted his thoughts. "We've stumbled into a bigger game, and I'm not going to lose because we rushed in too fast."
"If you'd just tell us what the this 'game' even is, then maybe we could help." Shatterbird huffed.
"I can't tell you, you didn't see what I saw." There it was. That distant, almost reverential look on Jack's face. "Psyker isn't just some petty hero or villain. She hasn't bought into the narrative. If we do this right… then we're going to become something more."
And there was the problem. Jack had said this before, but he was never able to explain what 'more' was. Whatever Psyker had done to him had affected him deeply and it was shaking up the rest of the Nine's faith in his leadership.
The conversation and the tension came to a dead stop as the sound of a siren rang across the entire city.
Cherish heard the familiar chorus of fear from everyone at the sound of that siren. She heard it every three months.
The second siren blast built on top of it, underscored by the equally familiar almost choir-like prayer for it to please not be here.
Then came the third blast of the siren, the one that heralded death for those who heard it.
Cherish had never before heard such a crescendo of fear from people before. It was a symphony of terror and despair on a scale she had never imagined before. Even the atrocities committed by the Nine didn't spark such a perfectly uniform reaction.
Well, almost uniform.
"Endbringer." Crawler rumbled hungrily, the glee in his voice unmistakable.
They all knew that Crawler had been hoping for years to fight an Endbringer, but the Nine's usual antics made it unlikely. Faced with the good fortune of being in the same city just as the attack happened, there would be no stopping the adaptable Brute.
Crawler lunged into a run, his massive, malformed body trampling everything under it on his way towards the sea. Leviathan was next in the rotation, and Brockton Bay was a port city.
"Yes… this must the sign that I was waiting for!" Jack proclaimed, his eyes feverish. "If we prove ourselves in this trial, we will ascend."
Cherish had a really bad feeling about this.
XXXXX
Contessa knew about the Endbringer attack the very moment it happened. Although she couldn't path the Endbringers directly, she had a Path set up to react as soon as anyone that she was able to Path knew of an attack.
As they had feared, the attack was happening in Brockton Bay. With the Nine there, the usual response could not be allowed.
Contessa opened a Door behind Strider in his house and shot him through the portal with a tranq dart. With the strongest teleporter in the world out of commission, no reinforcements would make it to Brockton Bay in any kind of meaningful timeframe.
XXXXX
Taylor could not even be surprised as the siren sounded for the third time and the Empyrean became a roiling tide of fear. She had never seen the Sea of Souls so disturbed. The big event that she had seen was here and now she knew what it was. The hand of death hovered over all of Brockton Bay.
A lot of people were going to die. Probably. Maybe. She wasn't sure about how pre-determined it was, but it was definitely a strong possibility.
How… infuriating.
The stunt she'd pulled with Jack Slash had bought time, more time than she had expected in all honesty.
Years ago, a young Jacob had left the bomb shelter that his parents had shut him in, thinking that he would find a post-apocalyptic Earth and that he would have to lead the remnants of humanity into a glorious new future. The realization that his parents had just wanted to get him out of the way and that he was not the Chosen One had broken him and caused him to trigger.
Peeling aside the veil and showing him the other side had been a carefully calculated move, as it would once more upend everything he thought he knew. Jack Slash had been teetering on the brink of a second trigger for the past five days.
But the adult mind was more rigid and resilient than that of a child. His powerful case of Main Character Syndrome had slowly reasserted itself as he incorporated the glimpse of the greater truth he had been shown into his particular brand of psychosis.
It was the best possible outcome, as it left him paralyzed for that entire time and gave Taylor time to act. During this time, she had been making preparations at a rapid pace. She had stopped poking at the Empire and arranged for them to hear about the Slaughterhouse 9, so that Kaiser knew to turtle down and not make any precipitous moves. She had maintained contact with the PRT and negotiated an uneasy truce so that they would not attack each other if they met in the field. She had been making contingency after contingency, paying ruinous amounts of cash and even going into debt to Toybox to have them teleport materials to her Tinkers directly. They had caught a whiff of her urgency and jacked up their prices accordingly. Foolish of them, really. Did they think she would just shrug and forget?
Her pace of operations would have been crippled for weeks even if everything went perfectly, but it would have been worth it.
Two primary problems still remained.
The first problem was in the bombs themselves. They had kill switches installed, set to go off if the carrier died or if it was removed from their bodies. That was not something that could be dealt with while the Slaughterhouse 9 were an active threat.
The second problem was connected to the first. Even if she blocked the signal of the detonators and their own kill switches, the Slaughterhouse 9 could still detonate the bombs 'manually' and she might not be able to stop all of them in time. They would risk getting caught in the explosions as well, but most had either the range or durability to handle it.
Taylor had not been idly leaving them to stew while preparing for the worst. Amelia had turned one of her bodies into a flock of birds that she was using to spy on the murder hobos, her psychic gaze fixed on their souls.
Bonesaw was a tortured mess and could be taken at will. There was an overriding compulsion to be a 'good girl' in her mind, spawned from both the trauma of her parents' deaths and Jack's conditioning. It would be easy to snatch away her loyalties.
When she wasn't driven to psychotic sadism by her powers, Burnscar was a depressed drug addict, exactly the type of person she had been binding to herself since the start.
The Graisha abomination was mentally broken. Brains were not supposed to be stitched together.
The others were not so easy. All of them were insane, but it was in a way that made their wills strong. It was a brittle strength that would break under sufficient pressure, the strength of iron rather than steel. Frustratingly, the nature of their insanity meant that her attempts at wiggling into their minds was difficult. She had been spending the past five days insidiously drip-feeding herself into their souls, but it was slow going because she couldn't reveal what she was doing or else they would have a reaction. Cherish was the one closest to 'normal', but even she was ruled almost entirely by selfishness and a desire to survive.
Taylor had known an Endbringer attack was imminent. It was just over a week shy of three months since the last one, after all. She had plans to minimize damage and maybe even kill one. She did not have plans to deal with one at the same time as the Slaughterhouse 9. The bomb-implanted civilians were a complication that she had no workaround for, because an Endbringer attack would have them all clustering together in the shelters, increasing the possible casualties exponentially. The very protocols that were supposed to protect them were going to get everyone killed.
She was not the only one listening to the sirens and realizing the depth of the problem.
"We have to get to the PRT building right away!" Brandish said, oddly eager.
Carol Dallon had not been doing well in the past few days. Taylor would have preferred to not have her around at all, but her presence had been unavoidable as soon the the children of New Wave showed up.
Not being able to shout, scream, and do other Carol things because of the S-class truce, Brandish had instead busily been developing the foundations of a drinking problem.
"One of me is already there." Taylor said, quickly freezing everyone. "You would be better served staying here with me."
"We've been here for days and you've done nothing!" Brandish spat.
Coincidentally, Brandish had been the person who was the most frustrated at the holding pattern they were in. She wanted to go out there and bust some heads, but the threat of people exploding kept her back. Even Glory Girl had been less impatient.
"If you really think that, then do as you will. I have bigger problems than your tantrums to deal with."
"Fine!" Brandish barked, looking at her family. "Mark, Victoria, come on. Sarah, are you coming?"
That was clearly more of a demand than a question, but it didn't go the way Brandish hoped.
"Mom, I'm staying with Amy." Victoria said firmly.
"And I'm staying with the girls." Mark said, just as firmly.
Their patience with their mother/wife had also been tested.
Lady Photon took one look at her family and knew which way the wind was blowing.
"The PRT will already be up to its eyeballs in problems and won't know what to do with us." She said diplomatically. "Psyker has been doing a good job managing this crisis so far and this isn't the time to split apart."
It went unsaid that the PRT's intransigence on the matter of authority these past few days had left a bad taste in theirmouths, as they could easily see that she was simply vastly more effective. Logic would dictate that, as part of the S-class truce, the heroes should be willing to take direction from a villain since they were all fighting for the same cause.
But they couldn't do that. The PRT absolutely could not cede control to villains no matter how bad the situation, because their organization would not survive the optics of it. Especially not when she had set herself up as the kind of villain that was going to make things better even if she had to break a few laws to do it. The general population was worn down and out of hope, conditions ripe for a coup.
And since Taylor refused to suborn herself to them, New Wave now had the choice between an effective and friendly villain with goals they agreed with, and a semi-effective government organization that was expected to have goals they agreed with, but was more concerned with good optics.
Brandish looked at her sister with such shocked betrayal that one would almost be inclined to feel sorry for her… if only she wasn't still causing trouble with her unresolved issues. There was only so much that anyone was willing to tolerate, even from the people they loved, and Carol Dallon now wanted to drag them all into greater danger because she couldn't get over herself.
She didn't see it that way, of course, but that was the beauty of the human condition – just because you felt strongly about something didn't make it true.
Carol Dallon's increasingly desperate eyes flitted from one family member to another, looking for support. Nobody would meet her gaze – except Amelia, who stared back with smug derision. Barring her teeth, Brandish swung a plasma sword at the door and stomped out. A keen observer would have noticed the tears in her eyes.
"Goddamnit, Carol." Sarah Pelham cursed quietly.
"I'll try to make sure she survives." Taylor promised, knowing that New Wave was finished.
They wouldn't want to be openly associated with her, probably, but they were done as an independent hero group.
For he who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
The psychological phenomenon of bonds forged through shared bloodshed had only been researched recently, just as all psychology was recent, but it had been known for millennia. The combination of immense stress, both mental and physical, experienced during life and death battle, followed immediately by the pure joy of survival did something to people, binding them together forever. It shared quite a few similarities, psychologically, with what happened to women when they gave birth. There were documented cases of men who hated each other fighting to the bitter end to defend each other after such an experience.
It was no doubt a large part of the reason why cluster triggers were such a mess. In this case, it would make New Wave reluctant to fight her as long as she remained within a certain standard of behavior.
Taylor had already intended to make use of this phenomenon during Endbringer battles to expand her influence. It was unfortunate that it was happening here, but it was what it was.
But that was for later. For now, she had to stop people from rushing to the Endbringer shelters.
In the turbulent sea of the Empyrean, Taylor began projecting a light of hope to all the fearful souls looking for salvation, so that she could speak to them.
XXXXX
People of Brockton Bay. This is Psyker speaking directly to your minds. Do not go to the Endbringer shelters. The Slaughterhouse 9 is in town and has turned them into death traps. You will be safer staying in your homes or fleeing the city normally. Give me your fear, so that you can remain calm.
Emily Piggot ground her teeth together in rage. The past few days had been incredibly stressful. Everyone wanted to do something about the threat of the Slaugherhouse 9, but the damn bombs paralyzed them. Thinkers had nothing useful to say, as usual. Dragon and Armsmaster had been working on something, but they couldn't be sure it would be effective without a sample, which they couldn't get without alerting the Nine.
And then there was dealing with the smug teenaged form of Psyker, who continued offering cooperation – as long as it was under her control.
And now she revealed the power to telepathically speak to the entire city. That was on a whole other level to anything she had displayed before, and it just made it more clear how much the little shit had been holding back. Or how much she had grown. Same thing, either way. They had thought that distance and separation would protect them, but clearly not.
Worse, Emily was once again forced to play along, because stuffing the city's entire population into several confined locations when an unknown number of them were implanted with exotic explosives was just asking for mass death. Jack Slash would probably think it was funny to set the bombs off in that kind of situation.
She hadn't even had time to think of that problem. It was literally only seconds since the sirens had sounded.
"Send out word supporting Psyker's instructions." Emily barked orders bitterly.
She just knew that by the time this was over, Psyker would probably be in charge of Brockton Bay. Truce or no truce, the ambitious villain wouldn't miss out on a chance to gobble up everything in the background both during and after the fight against Leviathan.
At least she'd get to say 'I told you so' to the Chief Director. That would already be a meager comfort, it was even worse when she knew that Costa-Brown wouldn't care as long as Psyker made a good showing during the battle.
XXXXX
He had known that life would be shit when he had woken up on a pile of rusted scrap metal with no limbs. You didn't need memories to figure that out. He hadn't taken the name of 'Trainwreck' just because of his powers and where he'd woken up, but also because that's what he expected his life to be. Or so he would say if anyone asked.
But things had taken a shocking turn for the better. Psyker had taken him in and hadn't treated him as just a freak to be used, as he had expected. Instead, he had been part of the team. Things had been… okay. He was still a limbless, ugly freak, but he'd had a jacuzzi and a pretty live-in nurse. Honestly, just for that, he would have been completely loyal.
But Boss Lady went a step further. A while after the former Panacea, now Shaper, joined up with them, the two of them came to ask if he would let them experiment on him.
Now, normally, having a biokinetic asking if they could experiment on you would be goddamn terrifying, but Boss Lady had assured him that he'd be fine and he trusted her. It turned out to be the smartest decision he'd ever made, because she and Shaper had basically bullied his powers into behaving themselves.
Now he was a tall, well-built man with a chiseled jawline and thick wavy locks. Shaper had even been nice enough to give him a big dick. It had made him cry, just a little bit. He might have also proposed to his nurse while blubbering about how grateful he was, but that was a different story.
Obviously, Boss Lady had done that because she wanted a carrot to dangle in front of all the other Case 53's out in the world, even a dumbass like him could figure that much out, but so what? She was always killing multiple birds with one stone anyway.
The point was that the man once known as Trainwreck would fight to the death for the woman who had saved him, so he had no hesitation at all when he was called upon to face Crawler. It helped that he got to do it in the newest toy that the Tinkers had been working on for the past few days. The Black Hand had already been working on it before, but the project had taken on a whole new urgency since the arrival of the Slaughterhouse 9.
Using the built in teleporter, he appeared in front of the stampeding Crawler with a sizzling crack just before the monster could reach Brockton Bay. Crawler skidded to a stop in surprise. Now it was time for his proper debut to the cape scene. Trainwreck was no longer a good name for him, and he had been working on this (with some help from a few select individuals) ever since he had seen the beauty he would be piloting.
"Attention, beast!" He boomed, both with his enhanced lungs and the powerful tinkertech speakers on his mech. "You face the Knight Questor, Champion of the Black Hand, Shield of the Righteous, the Flame That Burns Away The Darkness, the Sword That Strikes Down The Wicked, First of the Reborn, Herald of the Dawn, the Gatekeeper, the Paladin of Brockton Bay, Wielder of the Nemesis Blade, Bringer of Hope, the Undefeated, the…"
He paused dramatically to point the gigantic, mech-sized sword threateningly down at Crawler, accompanied by the hiss of pistons andthe slight creak of metal stress.
"…Eradicator."
Crawler's blinked something like… eleven eyes up at him, clearly having no idea what the hell to make of the Knight Questor and his magnificent mech.
"You wot?" The monstrous cape demanded, still obviously confused.
Inside the mech's cockpit, limbs partially merged into the metal by his power, the newly dubbed Knight Questor's face twitched in irritation. Was this asshole ruining his glorious entrance?
Taking a deep breath, he decided to repeat himself. It was a cool as fuck introduction anyway. "I am the Knight Questor-!"
"Yeah, whatever!" Crawler shook his massive head and lunged forward with a roar, interrupting him.
There was still plenty of time to react and Crawler didn't bother with any kind of trickery.
Knight Questor swung his sword, aiming to bisect the monstrous cape.
Crawler didn't try to dodge, believing that he had nothing to fear from a blade, no matter how huge and sharp. He had been cut by all manner of blades and powers before, and was practically immune to that kind of damage already.
But the Nemesis Blade was anything but ordinary. Beneath the armor plates of the Knight Questor's mech, instead of coolant, lubricant, and other such fluids, flowed a liquefied goop of Psyker bodies. Still horrifyingly alive, but slaved to the functions of the mech and constantly drawing on the Empyrean to empower it.
The energy sheathing the Nemesis Blade was partially psychic in nature and carved through Crawler like he was no more durable than stale sausage.
The beast's roar of pain echoed for miles around as he lost a third of his length.
"You cut me in half!" Crawler said even as he dragged his remaining length forward, spilling caustic blood everywhere. His voice was shocked, impressed, and gleeful. "CUT ME MORE!"
"With pleasure!" Knight Questor replied, readying his blade again. He had been told that Crawler was masochistic.
But he was already regenerating. It had taken less than half a minute for the cross-section to stop spilling out redundant organs and seal itself. The loss of mass also made him faster, and he managed to slip under the swing of the blade this time. His many teeth clamped on the metal of the mech's leg and started gnawing, while acid spewed from disturbingly nipple-like protrusions across his body.
The energy shielding protecting him held, but it wouldn't hold forever. Instead of trying to cut away the monster, Knight Questor aimed his other arm at the beast and opened fire.
Ghostly blue flames poured from the flamethrower, engulfing Crawler and sticking to him.
Fire was another thing that he had faced many times and should be immune to, but this flame was different. The agony of it was like nothing he had ever experienced. Crawler let go of the mech's leg and started rolling around, roaring in agony. He was having the best time of his life as the soulfire continued attacking body and soul equally.
Knight Questor took the opportunity to use his sword to carve up his stationary target further. Then, once he was in at least ten pieces, applied the flamethrower to them all again. Eventually, even Crawler's insane durability couldn't keep up, and he died.
The Knight Questor raised his blade in the air triumphantly and spoke at maximum volume. "Crawler is slain! Who else dares challenge the Knight Questor, Champion of the Black Hand, Shield of the Righteous, the Flame That Burns Away The Darkness, the Sword That Strikes Down The Wicked, First of the Reborn, Herald of the Dawn, the Gatekeeper, the Paladin of Brockton Bay, Wielder of the Nemesis Blade, Bringer of Hope, the Undefeated, the Eradicator?"
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were no takers, the rest of the Slaughterhouse 9 deciding that maybe wisdom was the better part of valor in this situation.
Move to the coast. Leviathan will arrive soon.
The psychic message from the boss made him stop posing and get moving. The teleporter was still on cooldown, so he had to walk, but his mech was pretty fast. He couldn't wait to test out his sword on the Endbringer.
XXXXX
Taylor wished that the Siberian had also gone to attack the Knight Questor. The Nemesis Blade would have most likely destroyed the projection and the feedback would have melted Manton's brain.
But no, Jack's gut feeling told him that he had to keep it close. He was right to do so, because if not for the Siberian's ability to extend her invulnerability to others,Taylor might have been willing to risk a strike on the Slaughterhouse 9 now that she had signal jammers spread across the city. Cherish and Shatterbird's potential to cause mass casualties in a matter of seconds was the only thing protecting them now.
It was insanely frustrating that she wasn't able to simply pop the projection the way she had been able to do with Crusader's ghosts. The very same reason that the psychic feedback would have killed Manton prevented her from doing that – he was too invested in the projection. It had no 'off' state. He could recall it closer to him, but he could never dismiss it. The damn thing even had a degree of independence.
And so Taylor's bird forms flew after the monochrome RV that held the remains of the Slaughterhouse 9, waiting for a chance to attack and continuing her efforts to wiggle into their minds.
Then all of her bird forms were killed simultaneously by telekinetically controlled rocks, making her lose sight of the Slaughterhouse 9.
XXXXX
"Why would you waste resources going up against Crawler?" Armsmaster seethed in frustration. "You had to know that he was intending to fight Leviathan!"
"That would be a worst case scenario." Taylor replied coolly. "Kyushu was the most devastating Leviathan attack on record, largely because of the battle between him and Lung. We would have been better off letting the Endbringer do whatever it wants with no opposition."
"Crawler could have been used as a distraction!" Armsmaster shouted. "I have something that I believe can kill Leviathan."
Taylor strongly doubted that his faith would be vindicated, but didn't reply, because something had just killed the bird forms she had been using the observe the Slaughterhouse 9.
"Armsmaster!" Dragon yelled urgently from where her face was painted on the monitor. "The Simurgh is descending, and I'm getting readings on the seismographs as well! I think… I think all three Endbringers are coming to Brockton Bay!"
The room was instantly submerged in a horrified silence. Taylor, on the other hand, quickly pieced together what was going on.
"I see." She said, drawing everyone's attention. "The Endbringers were always holding back before, now they are coming to destroy me because I represent a genuine threat to them."
She was the largest new variable in the equation.
"That's a bit arrogant, don't you think?" Eidolon asked as he entered the room, flanked by Alexandria and Legend.
If the situation was different, Taylor would have taken great joy in verbally tearing him to shreds. Eidolon was the biggest cesspit of petty jealousy she'd ever seen, although Armsmaster was making a good effort of it as well. He knew damn well that the Endbringers were here for her, and he hated it.
But quite frankly, she was just too angry. Taylor knew that she couldn't protect Brockton Bay against all three Endbringers at once. She just didn't have the resources or the power yet. The city was almost certainly going to be lost no matter what she did. She hadn't felt so powerless since the locker, and the reminder of this feeling was beyond infuriating.
Still, she would do her best. Far away, the Noelle body began spitting out new bodies as fast as it was able to.
"They certainly aren't here for you." Taylor sneered at the allegedly most powerful parahuman on the planet. "Go make yourself useful and see if you can keep Leviathan's tidal waves from causing too much damage. I presume that something happened to Strider and we won't be getting any reinforcements?"
"How did you know?" Alexandria asked before Eidolon could explode into a temper tantrum.
The world's most iconic brute had a peculiar adamantine tower, unbreakable on the outside, but filled with rotted hope on the inside.
Taylor had watched every scrap of footage of both her and Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown, and that chin was awfully familiar. Tattletale had also confirmed that there was a very high chance that they were the same person. Now that she saw the woman in person, she was sure. The PRT was a joke.
Her mind was rather strange as well. It was more like a computer filing system. Insanely regimented and easy to navigate, but at the same time, the lack of chaos made it hard to pull up relevant memories. She'd need time to search through this mind. Time that she didn't have.
Eidolon was a different matter. His mind was an open book, and he knew damn well why Strider was not here.
"He would have already been here." Taylor replied simply.
That was something she didn't actually begrudge. More parahumans added to this mess probably wouldn't help, and it was doubtful that many would even want to join a fight against all three Endbringers.
"True." Alexandria said neutrally. It was annoyingly hard to tell if she was lying or not with all of her mind so neatly compatmentalized. "Where do you want us?"
Every hero in attendance jerked in shock at hearing one of the Triumvirate ask a villain such a question. Even Taylor was surprised, because that choice of words was not accidental. Alexandria had asked where she wanted them, not where they were needed. And even that would have been unheard of. It was unspoken policy to never let a villain take the lead, even if they were cooperating.
Legend's and Eidolon's minds provided the answers. Taylor caught glimpses of the Cauldron conspiracy, and their recent decision to back her up if she was truly able to deal with Scion as she'd claimed to Miss Militia.
Eidolon was decidedly not on board with the plan. He was determined to demonstrate that he was the main character, the conceited asshole.
And then one of her other bodies spotted a car flying through the air, right at the PRT building with pinpoint accuracy. There were people inside, their minds full of terror, but Taylor doubted that was the end of it.
"Incoming!" she yelled in warning and tried to stop the car. Cracks glowed in her flesh from the amount of power she was channeling.
Unfortunately, there was no time to be gentle, and the abrupt stop killed the occupants of the car as surely as the impact would have. Moments later, a blast of neutrino radiation sterilized the entire street.
The Triumvirate survived. Alexandria's time-locked body was able to tank it, Legend instinctively turned himself into his breaker state, and Eidolon used a power to put himself out of phase.
Everyone else, including Taylor's present body, died instantly. There were several follow-up explosions of the esoteric kind, as there had been a few other bomb-implanted people in the radius, but there was nobody left to kill.
XXXXX
The Simurgh had begun working long before she arrived in the skies over Brockton Bay. She was far less limited than normal, thanks to the wishes of the host of ]High Priest]. On top of that, the Anomaly had proven itself to be a dire threat to the Cycle.
The Thinker should have discovered it and the Warrior destroyed it a long time ago. But the Thinker was defunct and the Warrior derelict in his duties. With the subconscious command from the host of [High Priest], the Conflict Engines could now correct that failure.
The Simurgh did not actually need to scream in order to twist the host species to her designs, nor did she need as much time for it as she had previously taken. All it took to manipulate the host species was a few minor changes in the brain, hardly something that required much effort.
The very first thing she tried was if it worked on the Anomaly. It did not. She could poke and prod at neurons and synapses all she liked, but the Anomaly didn't even notice. That was all the confirmation Ziz needed that the Anomaly truly was just using the cloned host species bodies as vessels while her true self lay elsewhere. Something more would be needed to destroy it.
The van holding the Slaughterhouse 9 was moved away while the Simurgh created a storm of floating vehicles and humans to distract the Anomaly. [Broadcast] was fully on board with the plan and using its host to ensure the compliance of the other hosts.
Unlike everyone else, The Simurgh knew exactly which of of the non-hosts were implanted with bombs, and what those bombs did. The Anomaly came out in force, more and more bodies flooding onto the streets, most of them naked.
The Anomaly had been observed to care about certain members of the host species, so she would try to protect them. Even with her multiple bodies and the power of multitasking given by the rogue Queen Administrator, she could not do everything at once.
While the Anomaly was busy defending against her, as well as the other two active Conflict Engines, the Simurgh would prepare the real attack. She just needed the right materials.
XXXXX
Behemoth was attacking from the land, Leviathan from the sea, and the Simurgh from the sky, each one of them showing far more power thanthey normally did. It was hard to get any footage of Endbringer battles, as the PRT had quickly realized how demoralizing they were, but you could find some scraps of video if you looked hard enough.
Taylor had looked hard enough and long since suspected that the monsters were holding back. The battles were always too narrow to be plausible. It was always a 'we barely fought them off' or ' we could have won if we'd fought just a little harder'. Never a crushing defeat or an overwhelming victory, always just enough of a struggle to keep people fighting despite the long odds, no matter how many people managed to make it to the fight.
Watching the slowly circling cyclone of people and cars rotating around the Simurgh, in the punishing storm created by Leviathan coming from the east, while Behemoth advanced from the west like an unstoppable mountain of radioactive death, Taylor decided that she sometimes hated being right.
The Endbringers hadn't come here to put on a show, they had come to actually bring the end. Her end, specifically.
They would fail, of course. One of her bodies was safely in the Birdcage, and she had several more in Boston and New York already as part of her future expansion plans. And even aside from all that, they couldn't strike at her true self anyway.
But they would destroy everything else. They would kill all of her people.
The Empyrean boiled with her rage, mixing together with the absolute terror of the city. She had never seen the Sea of Souls so disturbed. It was making her more powerful, but not powerful enough to stop what was coming.
Leviathan was almost out of the water, a massive tidal wave moving with him. It would flood the Docks and kill thousands. She had to stop it.
On the west, the Knight Questor had been redirected again, told to stop Behemoth by any means necessary. He was probably going to die, but he hadn't hesitated. She had to stop that, too.
The biggest problem by far was the Simurgh, who was using the bomb-implanted people, mixed with non-bomb-implanted people, as ordnance. Taylor knew exactly where all of her people were, but so did the False Angel, and she constantly menaced them with the threat of those exotic explosions, while using hundreds of tons of debris as a shield.
None of the Endbringers had minds that she understood. There was something there, especially in the Simurgh, but it was all cold purpose. No emotions, no weaknesses, nothing for her to pull apart and attack. They were machines.
More than anything, Taylor needed access to much more power if she was going to achieve anything, so she did something she'd avoided doing before.
In an instant, the majority of the Taylor bodies that she had spread out across the city warped and transformed, becoming Noelle bodies – although she didn't bother making them actually look like Noelle. Then each of those bodies started spawning new Taylor bodies, which then also transformed into Noelle bodies.
Every couple of seconds, her numbers doubled, giving her exponentially more bodies to work with.
And boy did she need them. Leviathan made landfall and went right for the jugular. His water whips turned her bodies to paste while she was struggling to hold back the massive tidal wave that threatened to flood the city. The rain turned to razor-sharp daggers. Her own blood betrayed her. All of it required focus to defend against. More of her fired Empyreal lightning at Behemoth, trying to stop him. Telekinesis fought telekinesis in the air as the Simurgh did her best to kill her. Cracks glowed across the flesh of her shells from the amount of power she was channeling.
Taylor could feel the veil straining. Some part of her had always instinctively known that throwing too much psychic power around would have consequences. Her bodies were tiny tunnels into physical reality – safe, stable, natural despite their decidedly unnatural birth. But now she was creating thousands of such tunnels through the veil, tunnels that were being shut almost as quickly as she could create them, tunnels that were sometimes exploding from the amount of power surging through them, leaving behind gaping wounds in reality. It was making her more powerful, but she didn't think this was heading anywhere good.
She wished she could say that the Triumvirate was being useful, but they really weren't. Eidolon had ignored her orders and gotten into a pissing match against the Simurgh that the Endbringer was soundly winning. Legend was grimly firing his lasers at the people that the False Angel was using as ammo, but his lasers were often intercepted by random debris. Alexandria had collapsed for some reason.
Although Taylorhad known it was coming, the first death still enraged her. Brandish, turned into a Simurgh bomb before ever making it to the PRT building, had returned to the Black Hand and cut down Amelia without warning. Taylor had not sensed it coming because the bitter shrew had been radiating anger, bitterness and hate for days already. And now Amelia was dead.
They'd had plans. Big plans and small plans. Plans to change the world and plans just to fuck with Gallant for fun. Taylor, in particular, had had plans to see if she could get Vicky and her together and gracefully bow out of the situation. Now it was all gone. The snarky girl's soul joined with her own, prevented from sinking beneath the Sea of Souls.
The situation in the Black Hand headquarters quickly turned messy as everyone turned on each other. At the same time, the Simurgh attacked locations all across the city with her human ammo. Sherrel, her father, Larry, and many others. Even with all her multitasking, there was just too much going on. And those were just the obvious dangers. Undoubtedly, there were also Simurghed puppets crawling around waiting to stab her in the back.
Taylor didn't think Ziz could precog her, but she didn't need to when she was able to bring this level of brute force to bear and the objective was simple.
Sherrel died next, a loose tool inside the truck she was driving suddenly accelerating into her head. She would never get to build that tinkertech racing track or get one over on Armsmaster.
Her father and Heartbreaker's kids came after, turning their powers on each other. Taylor had known that her dad was struggling to keep up with the changes she'd been going through, and now he'd never get the chance to adapt tot them.
Then Rachel's dogs went wild. The Simurgh had never shown an ability to target animals, but it made sense. Taylor felt the way Rachel's heart broke as her own dogs killed her, not much different than a puppy that suddenly got kicked by the human family he loved. It was a cruel death.
The deaths kept on coming.
Lisa, the spiteful bitch who'd never get the chance to turn the screws on her parents or push Faultline out of town. Larry, who was never going to be cool with his stupid 1970s fashion sense. The Knight Questor, who died heroically carving into Behemoth and who'd never get to enjoy his proper human body. Emma, who had trusted all of herself to her. Alec, Trevor, the Travelers, Vicky, Dennis, Missy, Chris, her many unpowered followers,… the deaths just kept piling on and she couldn't stop them.
Taylor was so furious that she'd looped back to being calm.
Brockton Bay was obviously a lost cause. She had not been prepared for this level of assault. Could anyone be prepared for it? Maybe. She was already making plans, simply because she couldn't help herself.
Her old plans had been like a vast spiderweb. Each junction was an objective. If a strand was cut, then there were still dozens of paths to reaching the same objective. It had been flexible and adaptive, but failed when someone took a metaphorical flamethrower to it.
She stopped bothering to fight, allowing the Noelle bodies to be destroyed until there was only one Taylor left in Brockton Bay. The only Taylor who hadn't been transformed, the one wearing her Psyker costume, the original Taylor. Maybe she was a little bit sentimental about it after all.
She pulled off her helmet and dropped it to the ground. It served no more purpose.
The fury of the Endbringer attack petered out, a clear sign that the damn things weren't just attacking mindlessly. Taylor jumped up to the top of the gutted ruin of the Medhall building and then up into the air. Another thing she was never going to get the chance to do – finish wrecking the Empire 88 and then rooting out all the true believers.
Being denied that was particularly aggravating in a way. She'd been looking forward to it. Being a cape had been fun before the Slaughterhouse 9 and the Endbringers and all this other apocalyptic crap had started happening. She was going to be extra vindictive for having her fun ruined, for pushing her to escalate.
In the Empyrean, away from the ken of mere mortals, Taylor gorged on the souls of the fallen.
XXXXX
Keith had never seen anything like it, could not have imagined something like this. It had only been about ten minutes and the entire city had been turned into a ruined hellscape.
The damage from the Endbringers was familiar, although far more extensive than normal. Leviathan had ruptured all the waterways and ripped a hole down to the aquifer. Behemoth had left the western side of the side looking like the site of a nuclear strike. The Simurgh had done her usual scream, but it had worked far faster than normal. And the tinkertech explosives she had used had left devastating damage. Fire, ice, sound, transmutation, space, time, and all sorts of other exotic effects dotted the city.
But it paled in comparison to what Psyker had done in defense of her city. The rifts in reality that he couldn't quite see, but could never unsee. The blasts of fire and lightning that were not fire or lightning.
Keith could see the damage they had done to Leviathan and Behemoth. Both Endbringers were looking worse for the wear, sporting wounds the seemed to writhe in his vision.
And then suddenly, everything calmed down. Legend stopped trying to kill the poor people that the Simurgh was using as ammunition. Eidolon kept on fighting for a while before noticing the change in atmosphere.
With his exceptional vision, Legend noticed Alexandria crumpled on the ground. He was there in an eyeblink, worried for his normally indestructible teammate. She had no wounds on her, but was unresponsive.
He remembered her reaction to the video of Psyker's powers. Apparently seeing them in person had done a real number on her.
And speaking of Psyker, Legend spotted her leaping to the top of one of the ruined skyscapers and then push off further to hover in the air, unmasked. Not that a mask was necessary for her anymore. After seeing how she had been able to multiply herself, there was very little that anyone could do to stop her if she wanted to stop playing around.
She was staring slightly down at the Simurgh, who floated serenely in the middle of a whirlwind of people, cars and building chunks. She was the only Endbringer that had taken no damage, protected by an ever-shifting wall of debris.
Legend flew back up into the sky with Alexandria in his arms, until he was floating next to the silent Eidolon.
A large van with a distressingly familiar black and white overlay floated up towards her. The back opened and Jack Slash stood there.
"Psyker!" He called out, a note of hysteria and glee in his tone. "You've showed me the truth, and now I will ascend!"
What was this madman talking about?
With dread, Legend noticed a cannon of some kind inside the van, its insides having been ripped out to make room for the weapon. It was being worked on by Bonesaw, Mannequin, and a girl who had to be Bakuda. There were also some Psyker corpses on the ground. The Siberian was keeping a hand on the van to protect it. The rest of the Nine were nowhere to be seen.
"You've stolen Kid Win's alternator cannon from the PRT building and used my genetic material to modify it." Psyker said. He voice was even, but Legend would swear to anyone who asked that it sounded like there was a legion of bloodthirsty berserkers roaring for violence behind it. The fact that it was clearly audible even from hundreds of feet away and over the rain was also notable. "And the Simurgh helped you coordinate."
Moreover, her words made a rock drop into his stomach.
"YES!" Jack Slash shouted exultantly. "It will open the way, to ETERNITY!"
Legend could see the malicious gleam in her eyes even from this distance. "Go ahead and fire it, then."
She even opened her arms in invitation, clearly offering herself up as a target.
"What the hell is she doing?!" Eidolon growled. "We have to stop him!"
Psyker's arm snapped up like a whip, a finger pointed at them. She turned her head just enough to pin them with her glowing gaze.
"You will do nothing."
It was unmistakably an order. Keith felt it press down on him like a mountain. He couldn't disobey, and neither could Eidolon.
With nothing stopping him, Jack Slash pressed the big red button on the cannon, making it fire off an orb of unlight gave Keith's eyes hurt in ways he didn't think they could hurt. The orb struck Psyker and exploded, tearing open another rift in reality.
He made the mistake of looking at it. His face went slack. Alexandria slipped out of his arms and fell to the ground like a brick. Keith could feel his mind unraveling as it tried to comprehend what his eyes were showing him.
"You wanted eternity?" Psyker's voice boomed from that rift, making him instinctively turn into his Breaker form in an attempt to escape it. Didn't work.
She stepped out of the rift, but not the same as she had been only a few seconds ago. She was larger, at least eight feet tall and crackling with otherworldly power. Her hair was like a black inkstain on the world and her eyes swirled with the same madness as the rift behind her. Keith could almost feel the world screaming at the violation her mere presence represented, and his innate feeling for light of all kinds told him that it was avoiding that place.
"Then come!" She demanded, and it felt like all of reality was being sucked into that rift. This wasn't just telekinesis. "The souls of all those you have killed call to you."
Now that she mentioned it, Keith was definitely able to hear what sounded the screams of the damned echoing in his skull. He recognized some of those screams. They sounded like some of the villains he'd killed over his career, innocents whose deaths he had a shameful part in. He even thought that he heard Hero's voice among the throng.
Jack Slash laughed insanely as he was pulled into the rift. The rest of the Slaughterhouse 9 was less eager to go to what seemed like literal Hell, but their resistance amounted to nothing. The van with the gun was pulled in, and then another van that probably had Manton in it. Shatterbird was pulled from somewhere else, then Cherish and Burnscar as well.
Then it started pulling on the Endbringers.
The Simurgh immediately tried to fly away, but Psyker's arm lashed out and glowing black chains shot out of the rift to bind her limbs and wings.
"Your debt is even steeper." Psyker's overwhelmingly powerful voice taunted. "Did you think we had forgotten? Did you think we had forgiven?!"
More chains shot out, grabbing Behemoth and Leviathan as well. The Endbringers struggled against the pull, but it was useless. Behemoth actually took a football field's worth of earth with him in his attempts to ground himself, and Leviathan tried to use the ocean to pull himself away. All it achieved was to further tear up the already ruined city.
Then it was over. The Endbringers were pulled into the rift. Legend saw a brief glimpse of them simply falling apart, before they seemed to sink beneath something that his mind could not process. The big rift slowly closed, as did the smaller ones from before.
And then Eidolon's head exploded.
With brain matter splashed all over his shocked face, Legend could only stare into Psyker's glaring eyes.
"Why?!" He demanded desperately.
"He called the Endbringers here." She replied, the power of her voice forcing him to accept it as truth. "He wanted me dead so that he could be the big damn hero again."
"Eidolon wouldn't do that." Legend tried to deny, but it was a weak denial born of sentiment. He knew what David was like.
"He had a fourth power slot, one linked to his subconscious." She said as if that explained everything.
And Keith supposed that it did, much to his horror.
And then Scion arrived.
XXXXX
Father Douglas Jones looked around in confusion. The last thing he remembered was the ceiling of his church coming down on top of him… so why was he back in his completely intact church? And come to think of it, he couldn't feel all of the aches and stiffness that came with being old.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. A lot." Taylor's familiar voice said.
She was standing in the middle of the church, where she had not been before, wearing an outfit of black and gold that was too ostentatious to be anything other than a cape costume. She had never worn it when coming to his church before.
This was all very strange, but the situation was familiar. She wanted to talk, and he was always willing to lend an ear to a troubled youth.
"Of course. Please unburden yourself to me, my child." He said invitingly. They weren't in a confession booth, but those were for the comfort of the confessor more than for the priest.
Taylor was silent for a long moment before speaking. "I was arrogant. I flaunted my power when I should have hidden it. I failed to anticipate the full scope of the danger I was courting. Brockton Bay has been destroyed because of my mistakes."
"Oh, Taylor." He couldn't help but shake his head. "Perhaps you were arrogant, but you cannot be blamed for failing to predict everything and controlling all outcomes. That is just a different form of arrogance."
Her first instinct was always to seize control of every situation, to prepare for every problem and prepare to manage it before it could happen. Douglas had been trying to lead her away from such thinking, for it inevitably led to tyranny.
"An entire city is dead. You are dead." She retorted.
Douglas had already suspected as much. The confirmation was unnerving and uncomfortable, but he had long made peace with the idea of death. That Taylor was able to stop him from moving on was another uncomfortable thing, but he was not going to let it affect him.
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." He quoted.
"Saint Francis of Assisi." Taylor replied, recognizing the quote. "But what do you do when there's so little that you can't change? When reality bends to your will? When even the line between life and death blurs?"
That was a good question, Douglas had to admit. "There will still be things you cannot change… but I suppose the more important question becomes what you should not change."
"I despise inaction." She said. "I might hate bystanders more than I hate perpetrators, and I can't bring myself to just do nothing."
Douglas hadn't heard her put it quite so bluntly before, but he had noticed that she seemed driven to always be doing as much as possible.
"But is it important that people know it was you who did something?" He asked. "I don't know how powerful you have become, but do you still need to be overt in your actions? Can you not help subtly, with none the wiser, and while respecting the personhood of others?"
"Yeah, I guess I can do that." Taylor seemed sad as she said that, her Psyker costume slowly fading away into non-descript clothing. "I don't suppose you would be willing to stay with me?"
Douglas knew what she was asking and shook his head with a smile. "You don't need me anymore, and it is time for me to return to God."
"There's nothing out there, you know." She said as the doors of the church opened, revealing only blackness. "I've never sensed any hint of your God."
Douglas just chuckled in good humor and shook his head. "If He was so easily revealed, then there would be no need for faith. Goodbye, Taylor. Always remember your humanity and you will not go astray."
XXXXX
Taylor watched mournfully as the priest's bright soul was tossed around and subsumed by the raging tides of the Empyrean. As much as she would have like to keep it with her, she would respect his choices.
There were plenty of other souls that were eager to become one with her, not all of them human. Scion's species had killed so many, leaving the deeper reaches of the Empyrean glutted with souls. The fear caused by the Endbringers and her rage had called them to the surface, and they had eagerly taken the chance to exact their vengeance. The Endbringers hadn't always taken the forms they had on Earth Bet, but their basic essence was the same.
So many souls, dead before their time because of mere animals.
Taylor glared at Scion, seeing his soul for the first time. It was as vast as a nearly endless ocean, but had all the depth of a puddle. His memories stretched back billions of years and were impossibly detailed. It would have been impossible to process, if not for the fact that they were just the same set of memories over and over.
Come to new planet, hand out powers, watch the natives kill each other in new and interesting ways, collect data, decide that there was nothing new to be learned, detonate all local dimensional variants of the planet to harness its energy, move on to next planet. These creatures hoarded information like a dragon hoarded gold, but their thoughts never strayed from the driving need to avert the heat death of the universe. All they cared about was to restore the energy abundance they had enjoyed when the universe was young.
Nothing but over-evolved animals, like sharks that decided to start attacking humans because they ran out of fish. They didn't care that it might take trillions of years for the stars to go out, fear of starvation drove them to try breaking physics to keep their food supply.
And they were just so stupid about it, because they were mere animals. There was a small chance that they might have succeeded, if they had tried to cooperate with the more imaginative sapient races of the universe and told them what the goal was. But no, their abilities had been initially evolved by fighting against each other and breeding uncontrollably in the energy-rich environment of the beginning. They couldn't fathom any other method except conflict.
Now Scion was here, having sensed something that he couldn't ignore. He was scanning her and the reality breaking effects of her powers, and there was something akin to hope blooming in his soul.
"Come to me." She commanded, opening up her arms.
The golden idiot obeyed, used to taking orders. He was The Warrior, and his job was to destroy threats. It was The Thinker's job to assess them and point him in the right direction. Taylor had already infested a significant portion of The Thinker's body, although she had not initially realized what she was doing. But she realized it now.
With the Endbringers torn apart by the energies of the Empyrean and the help of the Queen Administrator, all was made clear and it was easy to find the command subroutines.
More than that, she also tugged at his self-made depression. He wouldn't be able to disobey even if something about this felt fishy.
Scion drifted close and she wrapped her arms around him. He reciprocated automatically, still emulating humanity as she took away his pain.
"Now, please die for me." She requested and he could not disobey.
He unthinkingly shut down his primary consciousness node and she began devouring his vast soul greedily. Shallow though it may be, but it was immense, and it was attached to the body one of the most highly evolved creatures in existence. A body that would now be hers.
Scion's golden avatar popped without fanfare. Across many dimensions, psychic energies poured forth to claim crystalline flesh. Reality shook as entire planets sank into the Empyrean.
Taylor's power surged beyond all limits and her sight expanded. She saw across time, space, and dimension. Saw what had happened, what was happening, and what may happen.
New plans were made, much more detailed, subtle, and far-reaching than before, and Taylor's psychic avatar popped out of existence a mere few seconds after Scion's golden one.
Much had been lost this day, but she would continue. There was a species to guide, and a race of parasites to exterminate.
XXXXX
When in doubt, just throw everything together at once and let it confuse the matter.
More seriously, I didn't really account for how quickly and how far Taylor would be able to escalate when I first came upon the idea for this fic. It has been getting increasingly difficult to not make any challenge she faces feel contrived. That's why I decided to make this the last "proper" chapter. A short-ish epilogue will be coming next, and then this fic will be marked as complete.