Amelia, Ch 407- Eve
Glaistig Uaine fell, and the shunt drive activated automatically. She would be moved through seven dimensions in approximately .58 seconds. An attempt to prevent Scion from following if he felt the need to give chase. Judging by the information Cauldron had just handed over about their Clairvoyant, a seven random shunt would only slow him down for a second or two if he had an equivalent power. Which he almost certainly did. We really could have used that data a couple years ago.
I sent the commands to open the plasma valves. Our knowledge of the Passengers had improved drastically over the years. And we'd been designing this weapon for the better part of a year. We just needed more information to allow its targeting to work.
The emergency aid ping sounded. Glaistig Uaine's final destination point was Earth Castile. Antigravity and the biorepair tech would handle the rest, until one of Dragon's Evac pods arrived to get her back to Earth Oasis.
The first weapon we used was Dimensional Wave Collapser. A weaponized version of the Dimensional Barricade devices. Bet was cut off from the multiverse. For seventeen seconds, I prepared for the inevitable moment where commuication with Bet was restored. Commands were given, the final steps initiated. I scrubbed the few calculations not related solely to the all important function that would come next.
When Bet returned to on our censors, Scion was still there, looking down at a copy of his own body. A petabyte of data flashed onto my servers in an instant. Calculations began running automatically, seeking to find the information we needed. Meanwhile, I reviewed the footage myself.
"Activating DWC." Dragon relayed, letting our allies prepare themselves. Bet was isolated, and Scion fell from the sky, dead. Dragon reviewed the information, scanning the dimensional pinhole that Scion had created for his body. Without the Entity behind it, the body was vulnerable to our sensor technology.
He appeared very much like human flesh, and was very much alive. It had a human brain, and all other human organs. But they weren't truly human. Perfected human, without sign of age or illness. It reminded Dragon of the bioscans done on Alexandria. I was inclined to agree. As the Coordinator, I was responsible for parsing data, and I excised that section and directed it to Pandora. Priority flag, as understanding the Scion-body's physiology could give us a weapon if this plan didn't work.
There was a surge of dimensional pressure, vaguely resembling a shunt drive. More closely resembling the Labyrinth-Atropos interaction itself. It failed, but several of the dimensional barricades collapsed. Dragon started the process of their recharge and restoration, when the next layer of barricades collapsed, this time from a waveform resembling that of the Siberian. And with the third attack, a signal not unlike that of Lung, Victoria, and other matter summoning regenerators, a full half of the barricades were broken.
Through it all, data was provided. Methods, energy signatures, estimated power expenditure for each attempt. The fourth attempt shorted out the first layer, which Dragon had managed to restore, and half of the remaining defenses. This signal was much like Horus and the power Endbringers used to fuel their own regeneration. Based on the numbers coming through, Scion just hit the barricades with a transdimensional mass equivalent to that of the moon. And this is what we're supposed to fight against? Suddenly the 'Primacy' concept seemed like the least of our concerns.
The fifth blow resembled more typical summoning waveforms, like those of Anima and White Hat. The fields finally collapsed, but Dragon had held back the second and third barricades, throwing them up after Scion's attack. Buying a little more time, acquiring a little more data. Scion reappeared despite the fields being up. He had adapted to prevent such a weapon from working on him again. But where we couldn't scan Scion, we could scan his aftermath, the path he took.
I had the data I needed, the trajectory needed to reach the Entity's home dimension. In the second it took for me to accept Dragon's memories as my own, I activated the final series of commands and coordinates, and the Godslayer activated, fueling a weapon that could only be described as an antimatter torch to cut whatever barricades Scion had created for itself. Enough power to cut through our own dimensional barricades and still have enough energy remaining to rip the topsoil off a planet. All lensed through the reality distortion engine that had done so much damage to Behemoth with a millionth of the same degree of power.
A single blow, all our hopes and all our efforts riding on this attack.
It failed. Or, rather, it never had a chance to complete its function. Scion appeared in the skies above Wruenele, and with a clap of his hands, the Godslayer ceased. The exotic plasma cooled to a solid block of neutrons, the antimatter reverted to its natural matter counterpart. The fusion drive stopped reacting. Signals went dead, the technicians dropped, all brain and life activity ended. A full half of my systems simply turned off, deprived of energy. The attack killed the Yggdrassil en masse. Half a world was Stilled faster than even I could calculate.
"Eve One, reporting failure. Ninety Five percent losses." There was no time for me to feel shame at failing. Our anti-precog cloaking clearly wasn't up to the task working against Scion's powers. Either Primacy meant a warning was sent to him via whatever method Passengers harnessed, or he kept access to a precognitive ability of his own, without the limitations that got in the way of Dinah and the others.
"Eve Three, reporting failure. Eight seven percent losses." So, my sister failed as well. I was disappointed, but not surprised. The world of my sister was as devastated as my own. Though the Yggdrasil was already busy auto-reviving itself, but that would take several hours of full sunlight for any given region.
The fight was joined, as our ships met Scion over Earth Galatia. Our weapons shunted in, directed by the Transition Drives to appear at a desired signal instead of in geosynchronous location. A hundred ships, manned three at a time by the Dragon's Teeth and relying upon Pantheon biotech to provide additional abilities.
Our hopeful trump card, they were ordered to fight without interacting with us. They would coordinate only with themselves, another degree of separation between parahuman and our nonpowered allies. Another hopeful attempt to break the rules of Primacy and kill that which the very source of powers would not allow to be killed. Orders were sent, deliberately scrambled so that none of us AIs could hear them. We'd work around their actions. Support them, protect them, as they risked their lives to deliver the blows that would actually kill something that could make a very good impression of the monotheistic view of God.
Along with those hundred manned ships, were a thousand unmanned vessels designed for no other purpose than war. Shield ships meant to block Scion's attacks. Absorption ships meant to reclaim and recycle spent power, both our own and Scion's, a dozen iteration's of Colin's predictive AI software, building up a toolkit of methods to deliver the hurt and keep delivering it.
The first series of attacks came from the Fractal Storm missiles, based upon the time-breaking weapon that was devised, but never used, to slay Endbringers. Scion's body splintered into confetti sized pieces, collapsing to the ground below. He was whole again instantly, too fast for my own senses to calculate and already immune to the effect. He retaliated immediately, a golden beam of destruction. Pyrrha Three and Four reacted first, setting a layer of shields and deflection ships between the attack and our human allies.
Seventeen layers of shields collapsed, four ships were destroyed outright. A perfectly achieve objective. We could afford to sacrifice hundreds of unmanned vessels, we needed nonparahumans to do the real damage. They were the only ones we could trust to actually deliver the deathblow, as no parahuman or Endbringer would be able to succeed at that critical moment. Whether we AIs could or could not was an unknown, but all signs suggested Primacy still applied to us. Eidolon's Absolute Control power subjugated Dragon just as easily as it did everyone else, after all.
Pyrrha Three sent me the data and I got to work immediately calculating which frequencies and modes held up best, relaying a sequence of a hundred new shielding variants. A different set of ships, some new types of shield, started replacing the old. They moved the defense ships as the manned vessels attempted their next series of attacks, projectile weapons based upon the energy signature created by Atropos. Scion evaded many, shielded against others, and was pincushioned by several more.
The automatic alerts went out, and our ships retreated, moments before another Stilling was released. Scion flickered out, and reappeared amidst our forces on Earth Catai. We reacted as best we could, but Scion switched to physical attacks. Our shields and ships were cut through as if tissue paper, and he hit the closest of our piloted vessels. Emergency shunts pulled it, but Scion traveled with the ship. It self destructed, the time dilation drive based upon Akaihana's Bakuda emulation releasing its energies. Scion froze, trapped in the disruptive time bubble.
We didn't believe that would kill him, but anything that bought us time or dealt damage was a step toward victory.
"Eve Two, reporting success. Godslayer Seven has breached the Scion Dimension. Activate secondary assault."
"Dragon Confirmation. Objective is vulnerable. All ordinance approved."
Alongside my sisters, one hundred and thirty nine Bolla stationed across six worlds fired almost simultaneously, shunting hyperdense meteorites traveling at relativistic speeds to the Scion world. The objective would die with the world it sat upon.
Moments later, alerts sounded. "Bolla strikes have been detected against our own resources. Embla Three lost, Pyrrhas Two and Seven lost. Eve four-" I lost signal as a massive impact collided against my shielded core buried deep beneath the Carpathian mountains. A second impact nearly destroyed me entirely, and totally destroyed my communications with the outside world. Autorepair and Yggdrasil resources started mending the damage that it could, and indicators let me know what that couldn't repair.
I activated my changelings, and shut down my combat utility programs. The ships I controlled would already have reverted to the other Eves, probably Five, and then be partitioned to Pyrrha and Embla as the battlefield situation dictated. I devoted myself to two tasks. Restoring communications with the outside as soon as possible, and analyzing the data I received from the battlefield to find what solutions I could.
I am the first child, the eldest. And It is possible that by the end of this war I will be the only of my kind left. It is possible I'm already the last. I must do everything in my power to see this through. I will make my family proud.
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A/N- I really like how this chapter turned out. Oh, and in general expect slower updates from this point. The ending of a story is *paramount*, and that means I have to dedicate extra care to it.
Also. Scion: Path to I Can Do That, Too.
