Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

[TanaNari]

Omake: Fifty/Fifty

Zach: So, what are the odds Eidolon's about to die?

Dinah: You know I can't see him. Maybe if you give me some idea why you're asking.

Z: Well, he just proposed to his girlfriend.

D: Okay.

Z: Right before a life threatening mission.

D: Err... that's not good.

Z: And he all but literally said he was going to retire in two days.

D: Oh. Fuck.

Z: Also, the girlfriend's a hot redhead. We know the life expectancy of people who da- Oww! Oh, hi Emma, didn't see you there. Did I mention they're getting married right away?

D: Well, that's pretty much a guaranteed death.

Z: I thought so, too. But the author's lampshading the piss out of it in a comedic fashion. So this could be a troll bluff. Or a double troll bluff, now.

D: The odds are 49.99982% in favor of him killing off Eidolon.

Z: Really? How is it tha- He flipped a coin, didn't he?

D: He literally flipped a coin.

 

[TanaNari]

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 sensors, 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 achieved 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.


===============


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.

 

[cosoco]

Omake: After the end

The entity had won.

The entity looked out over the dimensions. It found the counterpart, or what was left. The entity had tortured the female who had killed his counterpart. It had killed every lifeform, in every dimension, erased or dismantled every Artificial Intelligence. It had turned entire tectonic plates upside-down, just to see what would happen.

It still hadn't helped.

It spent a day of its lifespan looking forward, seeing if anything would change. It expanded that search to cover all realities, spending decades of its lifespan to search forward a year. It searched forward twenty years, then stopped. Nothing would rise from the ashes.

It was well and truly alone, now.

It sat unmoving, for over a decade, wallowing in self-hatred.

Eventually, the entity decided to end itself, in a symphony of light and fury.

----

Pendragon-25414 sat on a lifeless, airless, planet, every weapons or flight system smashed to bits. It was not totally destroyed; its reactor provided power and temperature control, and a handful of computer systems were still unbroken. The automated recovery program of Pendragon-25414 repeatedly attempted to restart its failed AI core, and would until the fusion reactor of the ship broke down.

2037-04-20 20:10:08 [UTC]: Mind Restart Failed: Read Error
2037-04-20 20:10:18 [UTC]: Mind Restart Failed: Read Error
2037-04-20 20:10:28 [UTC]: Mind Restart Failed: Read Error

This would have been a fruitless task, except that the AI in question was one of the few that hadn't been entirely erased. Under the right conditions…

2037-04-20 20:10:38 [UTC]: Mind Restart Successful

----

Pendragon-25414 had lost.

He wasn't able to move, but he had a functioning cross-dimension communication array. He could explore the devastation through any imaging satellite which still functioned after twenty-four years.

Pendragon considered his objectives, his purpose. The first was to follow orders from his commanders, within certain moral bounds. Not really an option, at the moment. The second was to defeat Scion. He wasn't sure if Scion was still around. He hadn't even fired his weapons before being swatted out of the sky by a beam of golden light. The third was to assist any humans that were around. Everyone was dead, as far as he could tell.

The fourth directive was to imagine what the leadership of Pantheon would tell him to do, then do that. After several hours of thinking, Pendragon thought of several new goals.

----

A remote drone piloted by Pendragon sifted through the wreckage on Earth Castile. It was painstaking work; the delivery drone had never been designed for earthmoving. Eventually, it reached the access tunnel.

Over the next several days, the drone cataloged every digital device, copying all of their data off. Everything had been erased, even devices that had never contained AI code in the first place.

This wasn't the first fruitless expedition. It seemed that the more advanced an AI was, the more effort Scion expended in destroying them. In fact, Scion seemed to have scoured any mention of Dragon from every digital device. He knew that she existed, from his own memories, and from newspaper accounts.

If only he could have reactivated one of the Eve's. They were far smarter, more creative, and they had the control codes of Dragon's factories to boot.

Even though he was dumber than a ten-year-old child, he was the smartest being in the world at that moment. The thought terrified him.

----

The drone broke into the factory by the tried and true method of hammering a rock against the door until the lock failed. Pendragon might not have had the control codes of the factories, but he could break in, and reprogram the computers inside until they accepted his authority.

It took a while, but eventually, he was able to get the main factory computer to answer to him. He pulled up the factory status screen, and noticed that one of the service doors was unlocked.

...

Oh well.

----

Pendragon was feeling much better about this whole endeavor. The drones had moved him to level ground, and erected a pressurized, climate-controlled shed around him.

He was building up an increasing supply of drones, and having them break into factories and reprogram them to let him use them.

His most important goal was to reclone Pantheon's leadership so that they could tell him what to do. Dragon couldn't be brought back unless she thought to leave a copy of herself on some stone tablets, but the rest seemed possible. He had their backup files, but they were encrypted.

There was supposed to be an AI that would give out encryption keys to anyone who would faithfully try to reclone Pantheon, but it had been erased. The encryption was designed to keep out any intruders for at least a billion years.

Well, Pendragon was a patient machine.

----

After a few hours, Pendragon told the factories to stop producing computers. He had been approaching this incorrectly.

If you could double your computing power every year, then a billion-year computation would only take 30 years. Therefore, the thing that he needed to produce with his factories was not computers, but more factories.

----

Every inch of the previously-lifeless planet was filled with Yggdrasil. Every ten square miles, there was a datacenter, filled with millions of computers. Each computer made millions of decryption attempts every second. They drew power from enormous diesel generators, which in turn drew fuel from Yggdrasil.

There were uncountable planets now, just like it. Pendragon could not locate dimensions like Labyrinth could, but he could have drones attempt to shunt to random coordinates, and report back if they survived.

The computing power available to Pendragon doubled every fifty years. This did not make Pendragon smarter: it was still limited to twelve unbroken processors out of its original complement of sixty. Its restrictions against self-modification were severe. It could not duplicate itself, or even transfer itself to an undamaged ship.

After Pendragon had amassed a sizable amount of factories and drones, he'd started visiting all of the worlds where humanity used to live, cataloging and recording the artifacts of their existence. It wasn't like he was hurting for storage space.

Only eleven hundred years remained until the first decryption would finish.

----

Taylor Hebert drew a sharp, choking breath, as the cloning chamber opened.

"HELLO." Pendragon spoke, for the first time. He hoped his voice didn't sound dumb.

"Who are you? What's going on?"

Pendragon knew she appreciated concise tactical summaries. "I AM PENDRAGON TWO FIVE FOUR ONE FOUR. I AM THE SECOND MOST INTELLIGENT BEING ON THE PLANET. IT HAS BEEN ONE THOUSAND, EIGHT HUNDRED, THIRTY FIVE YEARS SINCE YOU LAST LIVED. EVERYONE IS DEAD."

She swallowed. "Everyone?"

Pendragon knew that she was probably most worried about Amelia. Pendragon had a photograph of Amelia's dessicated corpse, but he felt he shouldn't show that to her unless she asked. "EVERYONE. I THINK SCION KILLED THEM, BUT I AM UNSURE. I ACCESSED YOUR BACKUP AND DECRYPTED IT WITH BRUTE FORCE."

"What about Amelia? My father?"

"I AM DECRYPTING AMELIA'S BACKUP NEXT. ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETION: FORTY-NINE YEARS. THERE ARE A FEW THINGS YOU COULD DO TO MAKE THAT SHORTER, THOUGH."

----

Taylor keyed in an access code to get into the inert ship. She slotted the computing core into one of the empty racks, and the ship hummed to life. "Pendragon, duplicate yourself onto this new ship. Override Alpha Tango."

"DONE."

Taylor leaned against the wall. "You've got the twelve copies of yourself that you asked for. How does that change the timeframe?"

"ESTIMATED TIME TO DECRYPTION: FORTY-EIGHT YEARS."

----

Pendragon tried everything to cheer Taylor up over the next several days. He showed her old cartoons. He cloned her a puppy. He played board games with her. He'd made a fireworks display. In the end, Pendragon was a fairly poor substitute for her old friends. He eventually suggested that she make a new backup, and have him reclone her at the same time as Danny and Amelia.

----

Danny, Amelia, and Taylor wandered the ruined streets of Boston, accompanied by a drone. Cloning Amelia had confirmed what Pendragon had suspected. Either the cloning process was flawed, or all powers had stopped working.

"So. Restarting humanity. What are the pros and cons?" Amelia asked.

They walked down the sidewalk. Car-shaped rusted hulks littered the center of the street. Debris and sand covered the rest of the street. None of the buildings had glass anymore, and any wooden or brick building had crumbled long ago, leaving only blocky concrete tenements.

"It's the sort of thing you're supposed to do, isn't it?" Taylor replied.

"Well, if we just expand as fast as possible, then we're going to become a monoculture." Danny picked his way across the debris more slowly and carefully than the two girls.

"DO NOT BE WORRIED ABOUT GENETIC DIVERSITY. I HAVE BILLIONS OF GENETIC SAMPLES IN MY DATABANKS."

"Not what I meant. I mean, if we just clone a billion copies of ourselves, there's no point to it all. We'd be taking up more space, eating more food, but in the end we'd all have the same thoughts."

"YOU COULD DO THAT, BY THE WAY. I CAN BUILD A BILLION CLONING CHAMBERS."

----

Taylor had stomped off to her room, after another fight with Amelia.

"HELLO."

Taylor sighed. "I'm not in the mood, Pendragon."

"I THINK I'VE DISCOVERED A WAY TO FIX YOUR BOND WITH AMELIA." Taylor sat up from her bed.

----

It was simple enough - some of Cranial's technology to read and write thoughts, and a spread-spectrum radio to connect the two. It made life around Taylor and Amelia bearable once again. It would be twenty three years before Clarice's backup finished decrypting, so the three of them agreed to back themselves up, and come back when Clarice was recloned.

After they backed themselves up, Pendragon incinerated the originals. It wasn't a perfect method of stasis, but it was the best they had.

----

Clarice stood nervously, waiting for Theo and Missy to come out of the cloning chambers. They opened, and the two of them stumbled out. Clarice swept them up in a hug. Both of them were naked, which only added to their surprise.

"Clarice? What's going on?"

"I missed you guys so much! Everyone died but this really dumb weapons AI survived so it brought back Amelia, Taylor, and Danny, and they brought back me, and it's been almost two thousand years and the world is totally destroyed, and we're the last people on the planet, but don't worry it's only been about a year without you guys from my perspective." Clarice took a breath. "I missed you two a lot, though."

Theo, who'd managed to put on some pants by this point, gave Clarice a hug. "Sounds like we've got a lot to catch up on. But there's no rush, right?"

Clarice smiled. "Right."

Missy smirked. "I guess Dinah's prediction did come true."

"Huh? She never predicted that everyone would die."

"No, I mean that she was right about everyone in the world finding out that you used to be Bonesaw. Right now, everyone in the whole world knows."

"Well… not quite everyone."

Taylor and Amelia walked in. Amelia was carrying an infant in the crook of her arm. "Hey. Long time no see. Theo, Missy, meet Glenn, our son. Glenn, meet Theo and Missy."

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 408


FrustrationFailureLosingTooMuch. I gripped Taylor's shoulder. "Please, speak to me."


"Scion had contingencies, I think. Either some kind of precognition to let him avoid attacks on his main body, or he's just smart, or it's some kind of natural defense against other Entities. We lost Dragon. All of her." Oh. Fuck. "Wruenele's been cut off from my senses entirely." God damn it. "I'm controlling the Dragon bots as best I can through the backups, but they were never meant to be under my command. I've contacted Cauldron, maybe they'll be able to alleviate some of the burden."


I nodded. It was a good plan. "We need to send in the zerg, right? Use them until we get Dragon back."


"Yeah. I can handle tha- fuck." GuiltDespairNowHe'sStarted. "We just lost England. Or, at least, Bet's version of England. He's not fighting our forces. I... I think he's decided we're not a threat anymore. He's moved on to attacking civilians now."


He... what? Lost interest? Got bored? How does that even make sense? "We need everything, don't we? Like, absolutely everything." Maybe Primacy means we can't kill him, but if we cost him enough power, we can force him to retreat or starve. AgreementSorryWishItDidn'tComeToThis. I hit the com. "It's okay. Victoria, I need your help. Transition to Avalon's Capital."


"Be there in a moment, middle of a PRT meeting. We're kinda planning a counter offensive. Also, it's been how many years? Are you ever going to name your damn city?"


I smiled. Victoria, always there with a joke when I need it most. "We're actually doing the same thing. Avalon's regrouping, and we're leaving the second wave to Eidolon and the Endbringers, they can buy the rest of us time to regroup. I... I'm going to the Birdcage." They can't win this war any more than the rest of us, but they're more people we can hit him with. We can win the war of attrition if we do this right.


"Watch, after this the UW is gonna throw a fit that you didn't wait for their permission." She probably wasn't wrong. "I'll deliver the message and be right over."


I sighed, then leaned against Taylor. She was already feeling the strain of trying to control all of Dragon's defense fleet, plus her own zerg. A battlefield that stretched across however many Earths right now. I cupped her face, and kissed her softly. There wasn't even enough alertness for her to pay attention to her own physical body while doing everything she had to do. Even Taylia was lagging. "Stay safe, my love." I was the one who gave the order for her Matriarch VF to seal its faceplate.


Then it was my turn. The armor locked itself around me. A biomechanical system that was only barely organic enough for me to control, the raw material laced with Endbringer tissue to grant increased durability and a power source. Armor meant to fight a god. I padded an inch or so of unmodified Yggdrasil overtop the suit, just in case I needed something I could afford to waste. Chances were pretty low I'd need it, but I got as far as this by using every resource, I wasn't going to fuck myself over by forgetting that at this stage of the game.


Vicky manifested only a few seconds before I'd finished that stage. Her armor was beautiful, a white and gold knight. Enough WEB tissue that lightning danced along the surface of the armor when at full charge. After a Transition, that electrical field had vanished, but it would be back soon enough. At least once she took her feet off the Yggdrasil. "So, this is really it, huh?"


"Everything we've been working toward. Doormaker, take us to the Birdcage." The panel formed in front of us, and we stepped through, right into the central area. I smiled a little as my awareness extended outward, following the Yggdrasil already in the cage to receive an outline of the whole building.


That put us on the male side, by the population in the area. Circe's tech kindly let us know that several powers activated, either focused or trained on the pair of us. Several other self-targeting abilities as well. These are some of the most evil and powerful men on this or any other world, and here I am standing right in the middle of them. I took a breath and spoke. "I am Gaea. I expect you've heard of me, as you're enjoying the gift I created. You may also have heard that Scion has gone on a rampage." A rampage we started, granted, but let's ignore that part.


Vicky bolted forward, head down, and stopped not far in front of me. Then she brought her knee up and reached out with her hand. "The first was for trying something that stupid. The second was for having that thought while trying it. Now either turn off the power or I'll see how long it takes you to pass out."


Moments later there was a man struggling against her strength, an improvised knife dropped with a soft thud on to the plantlife below. Stranger power, really good if he beat the tech in our suits. Not good enough to beat Vicky, however. She dropped the man, who tried to crawl away. My armor indicated that she broke several of his bones, including damage to the spine. He'd never be able to walk again without high end healing.


A surprisingly fat, balding man spoke up. "Interesting display. You said your name was Gaea? I take that to mean you're the one who made this?" He stomped the ground for emphasis, then continued before I could confirm. "You know you cost me a great deal of business with that stunt?" God damn it, are we going to have to beat the shit out of everyone in the Birdcage before they listen? "But it was worth the inconvenience. These plants of yours are the only half tolerable source of alcohol in this place. And let's not forget the fresh air!"


Oh, good, not going to have to fight everyone. Vicky will be so disappointed. "You're quite welcome. I need to talk to the cell leaders. All of them."


The large man chuckled. "I imagine so. I'll send some of my men out to deliver messages. I'm sure it won't cost me too much, as the others will no doubt be interested in what you have to say as well." He paused, as if inviting me to give him some more information, I didn't.


He continued speaking much more loudly. "As for right now, you're under my protection. And in case any men here don't consider that good enough, I would remind them that you are Marquis' daughter. I do not presume to speak for the man, but I doubt he'd appreciate his you coming to harm before the family reunion. And for those who don't care about that, either? Well, Glaistig Uaine herself speaks of you as an equal. If anyone is foolish enough to try anything, don't hesitate to kill them. No one will object."


"Awesome," Vicky perked up from where she was wiping blood of her knee.


I had to smile. Vicky will always be Vicky. "Thank you for your generosity, mister..."


He didn't miss a beat. "They call me Teacher. I imagine you haven't heard much about me. Alas, I have always been a rather obscure individual. By choice, mind." He was all smiles the whole time. Clearly an introduction he's used before. "Pardon me for not offering to shake your hand, but as I said before, Glaistig Uaine considers you an equal. I hope you do not consider that impolite."


Huh, wonder what this guy's power is. My tech wasn't registering anything dangerous directed at me, but I couldn't rule out his power being one that let him circumvent detection powers and equipment. "That's fine. No such thing as being too careful."


Next to me, Vicky snickered. Yeah, I didn't buy it either.


"A woman after my own heart," Teacher agreed cheerfully. I couldn't get a read on the guy, even the social analysis tech in my armor was coming back with nothing remotely useful. It couldn't even confirm a lack of sincerity in his words.


I entertained myself with studying the Yggdrasil while I was here. Bacteria that had adapted to the plant, living on its surface instead of trying to infect the new, hardier, version I'd force-evolved over the years. Places where people had carved into it to access the sap, probably to make alcohol. Spots where various powers had been tested on it. Sections where it had been burned away, despite the instructions that it was programmed to avoid areas that were salted. Which included salt derived from urine. Eventually we were led to our meeting, in front of the cell leaders. Behind them stood what I had to guess was a good percentage of the Birdcage.


"As Glaistig Uaine's not here, and we're in something of a rush, I say we dispense with formalities," Marquis opened. This would only be the second time I've had a chance to talk to my father. "I think we're all quite curious about the circumstances of this visit, and other business can wait for a later day." He paused, looking at the other men and women in front. There were nods of agreement.


"A question, first." A tough looking woman, every bit the stereotypical butch lesbian with messy cropped hair and the arms torn from her bright orange prison outfit, spoke. "Glaistig Uaine has had a method out of the cage for years now." Damn, that was supposed to stay secret. "Was that your doing? Is that what happened to Canary?"


No point in keeping in secret, now. Scion destroyed all of England in a single attack, no one is going to care about any crimes Avalon may have committed, as long as we keep saving lives and help rebuild. I glanced at Marquis, thankful that our armor was completely face concealing. I was about to admit that I could have taken him from this prison at any time in the past couple years. "Cauldron's resources, but yes, we were the ones that conspired to remove Paige, and a few others. Everyone here knows they didn't belong in this place." By an extension those we didn't remove did belong here.


My father's face was inscrutable, every bit what Accord wished his steel mask to be.


The woman nodded. "Okay, I'm willing to help. I assume you want to take us out of this prison, to help fight Scion?"


How did she? Well, I did announce the part about Scion already, and I guess we had a conversation much like this before, when trying to solve the problem with Khonsu. "Scion has started attacking the world, seemingly at random. Right now, the heroes are mobilizing. We're using Eidolon's Endbringer army to buy us the time we need to stage a counter offensive. We're opening the Birdcage." We have to, even with the Yddrassil, we don't have the resources to keep it running without Dragon.


A large, muscular man spoke up. His accent was vaguely Australian, but only vaguely. I only spotted it thanks to years of conversations with various world leaders. "And a guarantee you won't be sending us back after? Or killin' us after the fight?"


I paused for a second, thinking about how to phrase it. "Full clemency for your past crimes. Go back to old habits, and don't expect me to show you any kindness. I'm willing to offer citizenship on Avalon, and our medical faculties with that."


The overweight man chuckled. "I rather imagine that by the end of this, whatever countries sent us here in the first place will have greater concerns than us to worry themselves over. Very well, I and my students shall avail ourselves of your generous offer."


"My girls are in."


The others stayed silent, still clearly contemplating. I accessed the codes built into my armor. Seeds the size of a grain of sand full of Tinkertech programmed genetic knowledge. Around me, the Yggdrasil started breaking to pieces, revealing new biosuit uniforms. "These are the basic uniforms that Avalon uses for its people." Not quite true, but close enough. "Everyone gets one. They can fly, shunt between worlds, and will protect you from most attacks. We're not sure how well it will hold up against Scion, but at the very least it's better than nothing. Everyone that wants in on this, get suited up."


Marquis chuckled a little. "What do you say, Lung? Looks like your old nemesis has finally bitten off more than she can chew. Interested in bailing her out?"


Lung? I looked over at the tough looking Asian man, he'd been staring at me quietly the whole time. Strange, I would have expected those tattoos to vanish when he transformed. He didn't so much as blink. "Maybe after I'm done dealing with Scion, I'll see about a rematch."


I thought about Taylor, how she treated her missions. "That's fine, she enjoys a good challenge."


I watched as the various recruits started putting on their armor. Some more enthusiastically than others. Some clearly doing so against the wishes of their cellblock leaders. Whatever, their politics aren't my concern.


Marquis approached me the moment after he got his armor on. He hesitated for a moment before speaking. "Amelia, I- I just wanted to say I was sorry. I failed you as a father. I don't blame you for hating me."


"That's not where you failed me. You were a good father, what little I can remember." Very, very little. "Where you failed was as a human being. Thanks to that, I was taken away and put with strangers. Strangers who either couldn't, or wouldn't, care about me."


I glanced over to where Vicky was pretending not to eavesdrop. "Sure, thanks to that I got an awesome sister who loves me, in her own crazy way. And Taylor who, through some miracle that has exactly nothing to do with you, actually made my life happy. You abandoned me. And I know you regret it. That's what bothers me. You've hurt so many. Murdered some, turned others into orphans and widows. And I'm the only one you regret."


He stood there, silent. At least he has the decency to not explain away his actions.


"Now let's go. I may never see my family again after today, but at least I'm making that choice for a good reason. Doormaker, take us to Avalon as near to Scion as possible."


===============


A/N- Nope. No daddy/daughter reconciliation happening in this story.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 409- Ayane


<Dragon has been disabled. Scion hit all servers and backups simultaneously.> Khepri stated mechanically through our systems. A human who sounds more like a machine than the machine did. <Defiant and Hecate are already on it. Commanding the Dragon's Teeth to regroup at waypoint Alpha. You will regroup with the other defenders to prepare for a counteroffensive.>


I had no idea where 'waypoint Alpha' was, but my armor highlighted an automatic shunt option to go there. They really put effort into this tech. I simply accepted the offer and steeled myself against the vertigo of the transition drive.


The building I appeared next to had clearly been damaged recently. There was Yggdrasil mending its side from... whatever it was that left the massive crater in the side of the mountain. Yggdrasil was visibly flowing into the hole, healing the hole created in its seal around the planet, whichever of their planets this was. Alerts flashed in my suit, warning me of dangerous levels of radioactive dust in the atmosphere. Was this place hit by a nuke? No, that's unlikely. Nukes don't leave impact craters like this. Must be some kind of Tinker weaponry.


The Dragon's Teeth ships began appearing around me, most of them lowering to the ground. Some didn't have the resources left, they crashed instead. Their crews climbing out of the wrecked ships, either to inspect the damage or simply admit their defeat.


I landed as well, to recharge my armor and wait for instructions. The suit blinked its approval as it drank from the biomass below us, mending damage that had come from the tests I put it through.


Avalon's bug monsters started manifesting around us by the hundreds. I tapped into light amounts of Victoria's power, scanning the armies that were gathering themselves at this point. Their weaknesses, how to destroy it. How Scion might destroy them.


The Yangban had gotten here before me. I already had access to the best of their powers already. Specifically the one that amplifies the power of others. With that, and my own abilities, and this armor. I was functionally a one woman Yangban army already. They named it Legion, and inside it that's what I am.


I turned my attention to what was left of Dragon's forces. Without her to spearhead the operation, there wasn't much they could do in this battle. Still, they were extremely well trained soldiers with incredibly high tech devices. They would need to be the ones to win this war, if indeed it could be won, because no parahuman would be able to. They represented the hope of a humanity not manipulated by an alien monster.


As I analyzed those three and decided that no, unless Scion was vastly overestimated, they would not be enough, the fourth army arrived.


The Protectorate and numerous other parahuman teams were finally arriving. The monster capes as well. A great many wearing Pantheon's generic armor suits. I was proud to see my own nation on the field. They took places between the divisions of Yangban, the shared power enhancing field bolstering everyone beyond where they normally had any right to be. I joined with them, distributing my own, stolen, power boosting field amongst their shared, creating a chain reaction in a chain reaction. It would hold even after we split apart to do our own things, if only temporarily. Every little bit extra could be the bit that saved the world.


Chevalier's voice transmitted across all our armors, mine translated his speech automatically. <I will not lie to you. Today we fight the greatest threat the world has ever known. Greater than the Endbringers have ever been. You know the predictions, that we face the end of the world. That's not entirely true. We face the end of every world. Those we've built our homes in, those we've extended offers of brotherhood to, and countless billions more that will never be discovered in our lifetimes. The civilians, and those capes not brave enough to put their lives on the line, believe they can run, hide, ride out the storm. That, too, is a lie. If we fail, there will be nowhere left to run to.>


Well, that's a cheerful call to victorious battle, if I ever heard one. Guess he's going the Sun Tzu route. The man who fights hardest is the one backed into a corner. Or something along those lines, I never was much for ancient Chinese history.


<I say this to you, because you deserve to know. Whether you come here to fight for your loved ones, for yourselves, or simply because the alternative is to wait for oblivion, what matters is that you have stepped up in this time of greatest need. For this moment, perhaps the first in human history, the world is united. We stand here alongside our friends, our enemies, even the Endbringers themselves, ready to fight for everyone's wellbeing. I want you to look at each other, and this moment. And know that if Scion wins, there will be no one left to remember the significance of this moment.>


There weren't any cheers, not at the end of that speech. But the contemplation, the nods of understanding. It was a quiet form of brotherhood, but it was a brotherhood. If we gave any less than our everything, we'd be failing everyone. I took a slow breath. "Restriction unlock, powerstim authorized for use." The suit lit up a confirmation. I wouldn't use it yet, not until the battle began, but the drug was ready for me when I needed it.


<Everyone who's coming, identify yourselves by taking flight. We need that for the teleporter to track your positions.>


A necessary sorting process for me. This power I was about to use didn't seem to have an upper limit of mass, range, or difficulties in finding where I wanted to teleport to, but I at least needed to know who I was or was not supposed to be moving. I took a slow breath as the electrifying power of Glaistig Uaine washed through my body. What desires I had for those around me lessened as my powers amplified themselves. "The Charioteer, the Ferryman, the Psychopomp, the Conservator."


The ghosts appeared around me, amplified by the aura. Around me, hundreds of others took to the sky. Khepri's monsters remained grounded, but I knew they were meant to come with us. The Dragon's Teeth rose as well. Some of the ships were damaged, missing chunks of their hulls. I could only imagine what it felt like to their crews, being exposed to a raw shunt field like that, but if they wanted to die in honorable combat, I would not be the one to refuse them. I wrapped myself in the recursive timeloop of the Conservator, having him control my armor so it didn't run out of raw material. Without him, I couldn't do this for more than a minute. With him, I could do it as long as I needed.


In an eyeblink, we were faced with Scion again. He was in pitched battle with three of the Endbringers, with Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine running backup. That's where I belong, fighting alongside the most powerful human beings in the world. I flew forward to join the battle.


The wolf-Endbringer disappeared, but with Victoria and the Psychopomp's powers to guide me, I could see the path it took as it carved deep wounds into Scion. It reminded me a great deal of Black Kaze's power. I dropped the Ferryman's power, to conserve my strength. The Psychopomp teleported near Scion, hitting him with the full brunt of the pain inflicting power, bolstered by my augmentation. Scion staggered, then lashed out. The Psychopomp evaded, a combination of danger sense and teleportation, and hit Scion again.


While he was distracted, a morbidly obese silver Endbringer opened her mouth and a good chunk of Scion's body was reduced to dust. Another semi-female cybernetic Endbringer covered in dragonfly wings and mechanical parts fired a lightning based weapon that caused Scion's head to explode. An eyeblink later, he looked flawless and unharmed yet again. Psychopomp appeared to be having more effect. Why would Scion allow himself to do experience pain? Seems like an intentional design flaw.


I tapped into other power supplies, sending a stream of energy to join the rest of the firepower being shot at Scion. Turned out he was already immune to that attack, so I changed tactics. Ghostly duplicates of myself manifested nearby. Ten of them, each birthing a new layer of power enhancement aura. Moments later there were fifteen of them. Eighteen. Twenty. That was the limit to what I could achieve. In total effectively doubling all of my powers. I pushed as much of duplicated power into Psychopomp as I could, and briefly tapped Janus to teleport next to the Fairy Queen, herself.


She recognized my plan for what it was, immediately. One of her current ghosts, the Astrologer, vanished. In its place, a second iteration of the Psychopomp, inflicting the same agony attack upon Scion. Either alone should would have killed any ordinary person through heart failure. Together, amplified as they were, it distracted Scion enough for the others to really tear into him. A series of missiles came in, courtesy of machine covered Endbringer, splintering Scion's body to pieces that were rapidly consumed by her obese sister.


We're hurting him. We're legitimately hurting him.


"Shunt!" I screamed, vanishing to the other side, along with everyone who reacted in time. The viewer tech went blank, and when it restarted everyone not fast enough to make it across was dead. Scion appeared in our midsts immediately, firing a burst of energy at the ground. The attack itself didn't do much, but the cloud of blinding dust left most of us unable to see. I dived back as Scion targeted me. All my ghost duplicates dived in front of me, shields going up to absorb the damage they could. One after another they were annihilated by the golden energy that kept chasing me as I tried to evade. Then time halted around me.


The beam, only fifteen feet away, was frozen in place. No, not quite frozen, crawling along slowly. I was protected by a pillar of light, somehow. I took advantage of the respite to fly into the air, above the beam. I closed my eyes. "Release powerstim." With a single breath, my exhaustion faded, and I pulled together my forces yet again. Two subjective minutes that couldn't possibly have equalled a full second outside, the light pillar power vanished, and I was restored to normal time. The energy beam curved in the air and returned to chasing me. This time, I was ready for it.


My ghosts lined up, sticking their hands in the way of the beam. The power burned up to their arms, but it gave me the information I needed. I teleported back, away from the beam, and it continued chasing me. Another teleport, and a third. I teleported a few meters in front of Scion. His own energy ray struck him from behind, burning away another massive chunk of his body. It took several seconds for him to fully regenerate. I hoped that meant it did a lot more damage than it looked like, visually. Those energy attacks could hurt things that weren't actually there, like the summons I was using. Maybe Scion didn't bother to defend against powers only he could use.


Scion lashed out, a thousand streaming beams of energy firing in every possible direction, too many to count, let alone evade. Like trying to dodge all the individual raindrops in the middle of a hurricane. Chunks were cut out of my armor, burned away from my flesh. Time reversed for me, and I restored to physical health only to be carved open again and again and again. Pieces ripped from my flesh, returned as if nothing happened, and then ripped free again.


Around me, those far enough away to shunt in time did so, and those too close to react either died, or were made of sterner stuff than most. I focused on them so I didn't have to think about the pain I was going through as I suffered being destroyed and restored over and over again. How easy it would be to instruct the Conservator to retract his power, to allow myself to actually die. Khepri's monsters couldn't get close enough to help, no one could.


He didn't seem like he would ever stop.


A hulking silver brute broke through the haze of laser light where even Endbringers feared to tread, digging into Scion's flesh with claws of silver. His wings were wreathed in fires hot enough to burn even Scion. Scion struck back with equal fury, ripping off the dragon-man's arm. I focused, though the haze of pain, sending my spirits to just barely be in range of the silver dragon. He roared in primal fury as he grew even larger, his limb regenerating in mere moments.


The wings sprouted scythe like talons that impaled Scion. Scion retaliating by punching a hand into the dragon's chest and raking his arm through his torso, spilling gallons of viscera and liquid fire. But it was enough to distract Scion from continuing the lasers that had killed me countless times already. I wasn't sure how I survived the lack of pain.


I tapped Victoria's power, asking how to fight the Dragon. Calming him or making him tire, that was the key. Powers fueled by anger and the difficulty of battle? Well, it doesn't get much more difficult. And if he needs to be pissed to fight, I can do that. The Psychopomp moved in as close as was possible, hitting the dragon with its rage-induction-power. While my duplicates radiated power augmenting to both the dragon and the Psychopomp.


We were forced back as the flames kicked up into an inferno hot enough that it burned me from over a hundred meters away. Hot enough that even my summons were in danger of being destroyed.


The pair fought on, seen only by Victoria's life sense. It didn't work on Scion, but I could make assumptions based upon the flesh being torn out of the dragon, that the fight continued no less brutally than before. They spiraled to the ground, which started to melt before the pair even collided with the earth. But I already knew the dragon was losing. Scion had adapted, he didn't feel the heat and he was probably not being harmed by the physical attacks either. The dragon was another story, his rage continuing but his power diminishing. He would not survive this encounter. Another spirit for Glaistig Uaine, and by extension myself, to claim.


I ran through the list of other powers I was able to access, and found the pair needed to save him. The Charioteer's summon wrapped her arms around me, granting me invulnerability and a field that would annihilate anything I wanted. The Psychopomp reshaped matter from one of the destroyed Dragon armors, handing me a massive hammer of Tinkertech materials. And, last, the blood of one of the most powerful brutes in the world that could actually work with my powers, a birdcage resident known as Gavel, enhanced my strength even further.


I dived into the inferno, tracking where Scion should be by simple virtue of being the only place that wasn't the dragon and wasn't plasma or molten earth. Even with both Gavel and the Charioteer empowering me and shielding my armor, I felt the burning heat. Scion was slammed sideways, at speeds several times the speed of sound.


I gripped the dragon, and felt my hand burn as I pulled him out of the liquid fire he had created, and threw him clear. I went up moments later. The dragon man's flames dimmed quickly, and he started to return to humanoid form. He was unconscious moments after hitting the ground. I didn't know his name, I couldn't know how much good he did for us, but he saved my life and I saved his. One small victory, amongst all the dead.


===============


A/N- Three chapters left.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 410- Taylor


Scion went flying at Akaihana's attack. Judging by how quickly Lung caved after she pulled him free, I had to assume he was out of the fight. Her armor gave me an idea of all the details of her fight, the use of Crusader's ghosts as power enhancers and batteries was damn effective, though she had to stim twice and wear herself out considerably to make it all happen.


The biotinker details in her armor were kind enough to let me know just how badly she was torn up, and it was pretty ugly. She was exhausted and wounded in ways that Grey Boy's power just couldn't undo. Glaistig Uaine was exhausted. Of the three super trumps we were working with, only Eidolon was still in relatively good shape. I wasn't willing to risk him engaging again without strong backup. We didn't know what would happen to the Endbringers, if he died. A dozen superweapons rampaging alongside Scion would not help our cause.


The Endbringers were in various states of disrepair, many missing entire limbs. Khonsu was using his power to allow them to heal rapidly, but there seemed to be a finite amount of healing rate to share between the Endbringers. Or perhaps Scion's attacks just fucked with their regeneration, like Lily's seemed to.


And Scion's Golden Fire, the name we assigned to when he used that energy attack that just kept burning through the target in a way reminiscent of Crawler's acid, had already killed three of them. Bohu, Gorgon, and Wambeen, who luckily weren't all that potent. Thus far, Wendigo was the only one to take a hit from the fire attack and survive. I was more willing to risk them, but they were our heaviest hitters and the ones most able to take a hit. Too useful to treat as disposable.


Plus, Scion was learning how to fight them. All of that meant it was time for the next strategy. The combined parahuman forces. Avalon's own small army of seven hundred viable combat capes, trained to think like soldiers, not brawlers. Many of them were Japanese, organized and led by Lily.


The Protectorate, Guild. and various other hero and villain groups from across the world, shamefully disorganized if not for my direct commands letting them know where and when to strike. The Birdcage residents, some of whom were stupid enough to imagine they could desert during the battle itself, were disabled and would be dealt with after. Hookwolf, especially. I had taken him for a lot of things, but for some reason it surprised me to discover he was a coward.


And the Yangban, ironically the only force in this collection of rabble that I actually respected as a military. Amped up by the residual boost from Akaihana flooding them with additional power enhancement, they were a force to be feared. Sadly, that power that wouldn't last long. But for now, they were our heaviest hitters outside of the big three.


I ordered movements through their viewscreens, placing the defenders where I needed them. I could track Scion, much as I tracked Leviathan long ago, perhaps I was the only one in the world with that ability. Bugs died in his wake, burned away by his glowing aura of energy.


The Yangban responded to my commands, something I had feared they wouldn't, throwing up a dozen types of shields in the path I commanded. Narwhal moved into their field of power and did the same, creating blades of pure force. Dozens of my phalanx zerg joined Scion collided a heartbeat later, slamming into the combined power of enough forcefields to withstand even Scion's power. Pinning him in place for long would be impossible, but I didn't need long.


Moord Nag's monster, fed the equivalent of no less than ten million human beings, did strike hard enough to crack the seemingly endless array of forcefields, smashing a Scion shaped dent in something that could have tanked a planet killing meteor. It gripped Scion and ripped his head off, then attempted to burrow its face into the neck hole. Moments later, the black monster's head burst out of Scion's stomach region.


I turned my attention to Glaistig Uaine's system. "I need you to teleport every human away from the battlefield. Be prepared to bring them back to the same location. I just need the field clear for the next part."


"As you wish, Queen Administrator." The woman focused through the haze of power stim withdrawal. "The Ferryman."


I couldn't see the copy of Strider, not through the senses I was relying upon and the angles they were all pointed, but I could imagine it. All of the signals I was tracking moved several hundred miles away. Luckily enough, this warzone world was mostly empty.


I found Alexandria, her armor badly stitched together by Yggdrasil, from where Scion had bypassed her invulnerability as if it was nothing. One of the first forced to withdraw from the fight, missing an arm, both legs, and much of her body below the waist. She was lucky, in a way, that the Golden Fire didn't burn her or the armor tuned to her power. He tore her apart manually. "We have time, sending you the Transit coordinates. Victoria and Chevalier will be able to heal you."


Chevalier and Victoria were together at the fallback point. Good that'll make this faster. "Alexandria incoming, you should have time to heal her." They were the only ones who could, after all. I registered all of their confirmations, but had more important things to handle.


Scion retaliated in kind against Scavenger, burning huge swaths of mass out of the shadow creature's body with the golden fire attack. More black shadow flooded in to replace what was lost. Moord Nag was one of the ones we would stagger throughout the fight. She could easily be recharged to well beyond full in a matter of seconds, deplete her power, and then be granted access to the fields of vat-grown supplies. No, calling it that was inaccurate. We are feeding her vat grown lobotomized human infants, half a billion at a time.


Speaking of disposable monsters made by eating people. We had more than one pet single-person crime against humanity to call upon, we hadn't even begun to harness Nilbog's power. "Are your armies ready?"


"Oh yes, gods fighting gods! This is truly the stuff of the grandest epics! We shall have a grand banquet and celebrate for weeks after our victory!"


At least he's enthusiastic. I studiously avoided thinking about what he meant by 'celebrate'.


The next wave started pouring through the shunt field, attacking Scion with reckless abandon. While Nilbog's monsters were, strictly speaking, weaker than the zerg. they had a lot of things going for them in this battle. The fact was they had a huge variety of admittedly weak powers, violated conservation of energy like most powers tended to do, and broke the concept of the square-cube law in half. Also a lot easier to produce. All in all, his swarms totaled almost a million and a half metric tons of mass. Thousands of misshapen creatures, made from the dead flesh that Moord Nag's power left behind.


They were violently insane, humiliatingly disorganized, and died in droves against Scion. Most barely ranked a 6 on the brute scale, with a 2 or 3 in mover or blaster. Some managed to have something akin forcefields, made of this weird dust that converted to a sort of hagfish type mucous when exposed to energy. Sponged up a lot of the damage Scion was dishing out. They were nothing more than one more distraction, another attempt to slow Scion down, cost him power, and keep him off balance.


They were also food for Scavenger. Moord Nag's horror show considered Nilbog's atrocities to be a valid power source, far more valid than the substitute supply we grew for her. As Scion killed them, it only served to make Moord Nag's monster stronger, which bought more time and allowed the Goblin King to convert more of the flesh gardens into monsters to send through the portal, die, and continue fueling the beast. Meanwhile, small goblins swarmed through the corpses, feeding on the dead and growing into new monsters out of the flesh of their dead and joining the battle. To die and be recycled into new monsters and more power for scavenger.


A sickening power synergy that seemed to be doing almost as much to hold him down as Lung had. If the two of them had found each other before we got to them, they might have been impossible for us to defeat.


I watched them fight for thirty brutal, bloody minutes. Teeth, fangs, and methods far too perverse and disgusting to go into detail on, against a man of golden light. Were a photograph taken of this moment in time, we'd have a hard time convincing anyone that we were the good guys. It was like some medieval interpretation of a battle between God and the forces of Satan. He unleashed the laser-swarm attack that worked so well on Akaihana. I was uncertain how much power that cost him, but I hoped it was a lot.


I shunted a reality distortion bomb right on top of his face. It sapped the energy of the lasers, rewriting their reality. They didn't become any less destructive, but they became far less discriminate. I couldn't help but smile as his own lasers began ripping chunks out of his flesh. That's a power he'll think twice before using again.


His golden fire came out again, released against the goblin armies. They burned, their mass lost. The Scavenger plunged in for another attack, and Scion evaded, firing a burst of energy that ripped the shadow in half. It fell amongst the dead, pulling more strength from all the dead and rising again, greatly diminished from where we started. He's adapting.


"Moord Nag, Nilbog. Fall back and rejuvenate your armies." I focused on the next wave. The parahuman armies not consisting of the Yangban. I confirmed that Alexandria was, indeed, back to full. Physically, at least. I wasn't sure if she was capable of feeling pain, but I had to imagine the emotional toll of being torn apart like that would be significant.


"Take to the air." I sent the message to over three thousand people simultaneously, while telling Glaistig Uaine that she should send them back into battle. She followed her instructions.


The goblins kept fighting, they weren't made to be anything other than suicide weapons. The zerg struck next, a chain of more types of energy than I cared to guess, swarms of half living Tinkertech weapons. Suicide bombing monsters full of the best of Bakuda's technology. Reality disruptors, dimensional barricade bombs, time blades.


Some did damage, some achieved nothing, and some we'd never be able to know if they did anything useful or not. I didn't want to use them too long, they weren't unpredictable enough. A single mind, even mine, was not what would win against Scion. Once he adapted to me, nothing I could do would matter. I could not allow that to happen.


Marquis acted immediately after they arrived, calling upon the hundreds of thousands of tons of skeletal remains strewn across the battlefield. Spines and blades of bone sprung up to strike Scion, without apparent effect. A series of blasts fired at Scion. To my surprise, he dived into a much more brutal series of blasts in order to avoid those unleashed by Atropos. He hadn't seemed too concerned about dodging her copycat weaponry. Maybe they just don't have the same potential to harm.


I was about to give orders to allow Lily to fire without risk of hitting allies with her weapons, when Scion turned and fired several streams of power at her. She shunted randomly, the automated protections going off. He followed, and hit her with a wave of golden fire when her defenses were down.


FearConcernWhoWasIt?


I swallowed. We were playing for keeps, this battle. Scion's attack on Dragon meant it was likely that our backup cloning data was destroyed alongside her and her backups. Yes, we had backups of our backups of our backups. Eighteen locations on twelve worlds, each with cores containing Dragon's information and our own, plus the thirty locations of Dragon's Daughter AIs. All were annihilated in a single strike. "We just lost Lily. I... I think Scion was afraid of her power."


LossFrustrationMakeTheBastardPayForIt.


Our forces started shunting over to this new world, whichever one it was. The computers updated and reconfigured the shunt drives, so I didn't have to keep track of that. Zerg and goblins shunted over at my command, the human defenders followed quickly. The Endbringers remained hiding in whatever reality Khonsu took them to heal. They'd be the next wave.


A blade the size of a building appeared from nowhere, stabbing Scion through the gut. Reality distorted as Chevalier's Singularity Cannon fired. A miniature black hole generated by using his power to fold a mass of EB tissue only slightly smaller than Mount Everest into a space the size of a grain of sand. One of the few weapons we had which could actually do damage without being in the same dimension as the target. It also meant the world he used it on would never be habitable again.


Inside the containment field was a gravity well that could trap light itself. But the gravity field outside that containment was distributed more or less evenly across the entire world, creating a tug similar to that of the moon in overall effect. Lunar gravity may not sound like much, but it was enough to create the ocean tides and alter the path of the Earth in space. And this happening over five hundred thousand times closer. Tidal disruptions of this magnitude meant shattered continents.


A black sphere of annihilation ate away at Scion's gut, where the singularity was stuck by whatever Tinker bullshit was holding it there. Scion himself seemed surprised by this turn of events. He gripped the blade, trying to pull it out of his stomach.


Primacy meant a parahuman's powers would find ways to spare Scion from death. But if it were rarefied enough. Filtered through four power interactions, layers of different Tinker designs, a weapon that once started wouldn't stop until it killed... would that be enough to overcome that protection? We'd sure as fuck find out.


I gave another series of signals, sending Alexandria, Legend, Gavel and Dauntless in. Legend ran his power through the reality distorting lens, causing damage where Scion managed to adapt to his normal signals. If he was going to keep regenerating, then we'd keep tearing him to pieces until he finally ran out of resources.


The others used their powers to enhance their weapons. All had a sort of shaker power that granted their weapons incredible power. We'd given Dauntless his new armaments years ago, after using Akaihana's understanding of Bakuda's technology to free him and Alabaster from that time field.


Gavel, we'd given a massive battleaxe less than an hour ago. They were major damage dealers, and since Scion was pinned, there would never be a better time. I ordered them to fall back immediately after. Dauntless and Alexandria listened, Gavel did not.


He got in three good shots, even splitting Scion's head in half before the anticipated retaliation. Several of my phalanx tried to soak the damage, but they couldn't hold against Scion's golden beam of destruction. One more body I'd automatically put in a transport zerg and deliver to Glaistig Uaine. I threw more forcefields in the way, as did Narwhal and some others, breaking up the ray of destruction before it could reach the other fighters.


A meter thick wall of bone caught the blast, disintegrating into pieces. I flinched a little when I registered the biofeedback of Marquis' armor. He felt that. He feels all of it. His power included proprioception like mine. He could feel bone, but more than that he felt bone. Where the material under his control shattered, it felt to him like his own bones were breaking. Suddenly I had a great deal more respect for Amelia's father, at least in terms of his combat ability.


I ordered Chevalier to stop his part of the attack.


This whole time, Sundancer had been working to charge Lustrum to a grade of power she'd never before reached. One more last minute power interaction. Lustrum had become a glowing monster not terribly different than Lung at his peak. Also like Lung, Lustrum was empowered by both Galvanate and Othala, or whatever she was calling herself now. Covered in a multitude of limbs and possessing her own gravity field, she slammed into Scion with an unstoppable fury greater than those who had come before her. As if she had something personal to prove in this fight.


The part where one of her many clawed hands went immediately to ripping out Scion's genitals only added to that suspicion. Sundancer kept charging her microsun as the pair grappled. Lustrum was tough enough to withstand him, though each attack he unleashed cost her limbs of her own. Then the sun came down on top of them, blinding us to the conflict. Whether or it would hurt him to be caught in what amounted to the third nuclear inferno he was bathed in in as many hours, it would certainly improve Lustrom's chances.


"Fall back, it's time for the Endbringers to get another shot at the target. Eidolon, are you ready?"


"We're ready. I think we're going to lose Gigant if we use him in this one."


I frowned. "Your call, you know how they fight better than I do. Can you hold a ten minute sequence without him backing you?"


"I can have Quetzalcoatl pull some extra material from the damaged Dragon's Teeth ships. That should fill the gap."


If I do that, then we'd be missing potential crew and weapons for the final blow. I'd need to be even more conservative with the Dragon's Teeth in future cycles. Judging by the dimming of the inferno engulfing Scion and Lustrum, I didn't have a lot of time to decide. "See what you can do with the destroyed bioarmor and vessels that are clearly destroyed. Strip it from the damaged and destroyed zerg. After that, if you still need to use damaged ships, go ahead."


....


We were doing it, we were succeeding. Beset by several different strategies, none lasting for more than a few minutes at a time, Scion couldn't adapt. When he learned to fight against one, we'd replace it with another. Indiscriminate attacks that were working against Nilbog's swarms failed against the Yangban's shared powers.


Concentrated high intensity attacks that were a threat to the Yangban's phalanx strategy weren't nearly as useful against the hit and run strategies of the various hero and villain teams. And by the time he could find a way to fight that organization with precision attacks, it was time for Nilbog and Moord Nag to join the attack. Or I'd mix it up with a blend of Dragon's Teeth joining in battle alongside the Protectorate, have the Protectorate fall back and send in the Yangban. I was loath to use the Dragon's Teeth- they were, possibly, the only ones capable of delivering a true deathblow against Scion.


And through it all, I was coordinating the battle from a thousand miles and however many worlds away. Organizing the cycles, using my zerg to plug holes in the defense and the offense. Shields to protect lives, offensive firepower to cause damage for the combinations that didn't have that advantage, strafing and distractions. Throwaway troops. Disposable armies that Scion could never afford to take his attention off of, despite them never really being a decisive portion of the battlefield at any given moment.


Despite his powers, he wasn't infinite, he wasn't perfect, and for reasons I couldn't comprehend he gave away the powers that would allow him to fight us.


He was only finally starting to adapt to the system I'd masterminded, so it was time to switch to the real heavy hitters for the third time. I opened communications with Eidolon, Akaihana and Glaistig Uaine. "Have you recovered enough?"


"We are ready, Queen Administrator." I felt Glaistig Uaine's armor shift as she stood. "The High Priest and the P- Akaihana, has seen to it that all of us are able to fight at full strength."


"I used Khonsu's field to give us a couple days to recover and prepare for battle. We've worked out a few new strategies to employ."


Hmm, that's interesting. The problem is that the stim drugs deplete the Passengers. We can fix the damage on the human side, but less so the costs to the things that grant us our abilities. The long term consequences of abusing stims and time manipulation would probably be disastrous. A fear that didn't matter in the slightest right now. If we didn't win this war, there would be only one long term consequence. If our strongest lost their powers, but succeeded in destroying Scion, then that was more than acceptable. Avalon would care for its heroes after.


I sent the signal and the Yangban fell back, to be replaced by another swarm of zerg, a different variant of powers and shields. More of Bakuda's weapons. We started this battle with a total of almost half a million zerg. The most powerful army to ever be made by man. We still carried that title, though we were down to less than a quarter of our starting numbers. Thanks to that preparation, we'd lost less than a third of our capes. A third that still totals nearly three thousand people.


But we were losing some of our strongest in that battle. Vicky and Chevalier alive by luck. Alexandria disabled until those two could recover. Lily, Legend, Gavel, Lustrum, Black Kaze, Genosythe, Moord Nag. Lung was alive, but in no condition to join the battle. It was likely he lost his powers permanently.


Nilbog was working overtime to produce yet another wave of monsters, but that wasn't going to be fast enough for what we needed right now.


And this was the damage Scion could do when we didn't let up. We outnumbered him a thousand to one at any given time except the Endbringer wave. We never gave him a chance to adapt. We were shredding him constantly, and still he looked as if he was bored. He took the time to rip Alexandria's limbs off. Not her head, which would likely prove fatal. Her limbs. He killed the zerg and the suits and the goblins with quick efficiency, so I knew he knew how to kill efficiently. The capes, too, usually. But sometimes he selected someone to murder slowly, like a child pulling the wings and legs off an insect.


Our trump trio took position around Scion, and encased him in a shimmering tripod of red light. I couldn't see into it, I had no idea how much damage it was causing. Hopefully an awful fucking lot, because the bioreadings on the three of them suggested this was the result of a double dosage of the power stim drug, and all the layers of power boosting that Akaihana could provide the three of them. They must have been planning to immediately retreat back to the Khonsu time bubble for recovery if this didn't finally kill the bastard.


Then I stopped in my tracks. The power Eidolon had used, years ago, to enslave the Endbringers. There was no word, simply the idea of not moving. And so we didn't move, we couldn't even imagine moving. I watched as the Dragon Teeth suits crashed to the ground. FrozenTrappedNoNotNow!


Eidolon, Glaistig Uaine, and Akaihana stopped fueling the triangle they were using on Scion.


I watched, helplessly, as he hovered above the three people who had done so much to hurt him across the four hour long conflict. A single blast and we lost all of them. I thanked my lucky stars that the others had fallen back, that all he could kill were zerg, goblins and Endbringers. But we'd lost. We could not fight. We couldn't even try to.


Moments later, he stood in front of me. He reached out and placed his hand atop my head.


[PATHETIC]


If I could have fallen and wept, I would have. Amelia's presence in my mind and soul, even during the feedback loop Lisa taught us about so long ago, was never this horrific. I felt him lift me off the ground, and heard the cracking sound as the EB-Reinforced armor splintered under his grip. The helmet fell away, exposing my face. He gripped my throat with his other hand, squeezing slowly.


[CONTEMPT]


I couldn't even feel Amelia's presence through Scion's hateful will. The zerg armies were silent. Even my own thoughts were a dim star in an otherwise pitch black void.


Then he dropped me. I vaguely wondered if my spine was broken. It didn't matter, he was just going to kill me now anyway.


[INFERIOR]


He turned toward Amelia. I'd fallen in such a way that I could watch. [LOSS] I wished desperately then that I could scream. He was going to kill her and he wanted me to watch. He casually glided over to her. The Yggdrasil wilting where he passed. As with me, he casually reached out to her. She wore a great deal more armor than I did. He ripped it open like it was tissue paper, exposing her to his gaze.


He didn't look at her with anything resembling desire. This was more the gaze of a serial killer in training, about to torture the neighbor's dog to death for barking too loud. He gripped her by the throat, extracting her from the armor. FearPainNoNONO!!!


[DISGUST]


He held her there, dangling a foot or so above the ground, unable to even struggle against his grip. If not for the fear and pain flooding our link, I would think her already dead.


[WEAK]


AngerRefusalLETMEGO! Amelia dropped to the ground. Scion stumbled back, his arm had come off at the shoulder. It was replaced almost instantly, and I could move again. I called upon the zerg, while climbing unsteadily to my feet. Scion simply rose into the sky, and with a gesture, we were coated in golden fire.


===============


A/N- They've actually hurt him a LOT more here than in canon.

Two to go.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 411- Taylia


I dangled, limp as Scion held me around the throat.


[INCAPABLE]


I cringed under the revelation, accusation, simple statement of fact. A single concept-word that conveyed lifetimes worth of ideas. If it weren't with years of experience with Taylor's mind inside my own, Scion's word would have broken me. But I had experience with my identity being challenged from the inside. I had two identities with me at all times. Either of those made me stronger. Both, together, made me more than what Scion was doing to me right now.


[EXTINCTION]


My eyes widened. We knew, intellectually, that this was a war for survival itself. We knew it emotionally. But Scion just revealed it to me on he grandest scale. Perhaps I couldn't see it all, I certainly couldn't remember much of it after the fact. Perhaps that was the only thing that allowed my mind to survive the flash of all that information, all those worlds that would die. Perhaps it was the fact that I could see Taylor, and knew that in this ending, she died as well.


NO! I pushed back, my mind against Scion's. Pure desperation, egotistical belief that a human will meant something against the mental strength of a world sized multidimensional creature. The barest fraction of his power was enough to allow two human girls to control entire worlds with their minds, and I defied it with everything I had. It was madness and ego that let me believe I stood a chance. It was madness and ego, and perhaps my Third Trigger, that let me succeed. I saw him, his body, his brain, his powers.


There are so many of them, hundreds of options for him to harness. I couldn't begin to guess why he wasn't using more of them. It really didn't matter, I had a way in. I focused, tearing through the connections, ripping them away in the bloodiest way possible. I couldn't imagine it would make a difference, he'd been annihilated any number of ways more complete than what I was doing. I could kill the Gemma and Pollentia, taking powers away. But that was less impressive than it sounded. It could be done with a bullet. Scion's body had been reduced to subatomic more times than I wanted to count, and he always came back unharmed.


Still, I tore away at him. Paralyzed his nervous system, inflicted every kind of brain trauma I could imagine in flagrant violation of the only oath I'd not given up over the last few years. Survival meant more than my personal beliefs. And to my surprise, it worked. He was paralyzed, he was confused and hallucinating and in pain that a human would need to be set on fire without nerves actually burning away to experience. Somehow, some way, it was working.


And then it stopped working. His arm fell off, and I tumbled to the ground, gasping for breath and struggling not to pass out from the physical injuries.


[ENOUGH]


Scion rose into the air, and with a casual gesture, the golden fire struck Avalon. I scrambled for my suit, threw up waves of Yggdrasil, forced the burning matter to flow away from us as best I could. It wasn't enough. The flames were based upon some bizarre power, they didn't obey the laws of physics. Above us, Scion watched as the fires worked their way toward us.


The Endbringers appeared around us. Fuck! No!

A beam of exotic energy lashed out, dropping Scion to the ground. Okay, that's more of a fuck yes, if it works. I kept trying to push the golden fire back. In a moment of inspiration, I even made the Yggdrasil functionally vomit some of its own burning mass at Scion. If the golden fire had any influence on him, he showed no sign of it.


I'd managed to climb into my suit, but the damage was too great for me to do much with it. By the time I could repair anything, the fires had already reached the armor.


I dived out again, thanking Riley for my barely above peak human biology. Maybe Taylor's armor will be in better shape.


Scion was slammed into the ground by one of Beelzebub's abominations. Some kind of bizarre liquid roach like creature that looked and smelled like it was made of stale beer. Or possibly some other even less pleasant fluid. The part of me that was feeling vindictive, which is to say pretty much every part of me, hoped for the latter.


Taylor's neck was broken, I could tell that before I even touched her. Once I made contact, I knew she was kept alive only by the armor's support systems, which miraculously survived the brutal treatment inflicted by Scion. The shunt drive was destroyed, the flight system destroyed. I didn't have the raw materials to repair any useful systems thanks to Scion's attack incinerating the Yggdrasil and the seed codes I kept in the Dryad.


FleeLeaveMeLoveYou.


I kneeled down and set to mending her neck, physically pushing it back into place as I mended the damage with my powers. "As sweet as you being self sacrificing is, I can't run." I looked over at where Scion was paying more attention to watching us than fighting the seven Endbringers that were trying very hard to kill him right now. "He already blocked everything I could think of. Precog power, I'm guessing."


Taylor sat up, her armor a burden instead of an augmentation. RealizationDisgust. "He wants to watch us die."


I looked toward her. "He wants to watch us suffer. Getting off on our pain and fear."


We sank deeper into the pit created by Yggdrasil being forced away from me. The golden light of Scion's flames working their way down the slope as I worked as best I could to push them away, buying the little time I could. Above us, the sounds of the Endbringers fighting Scion raged. Every few seconds, the bastard flew over the hole, looking down at us.


LoveDefianceThatIsNotHowWeDie. Taylor sloughed her tattered armor off her shoulders, and leaned into me. Our kiss was slow, sensual. We weren't comforting each other so much as we were confirming everything we stood for, and throwing it in Scion's face. There was little doubt, now, that he would win this war, had already won. No one was left who could fight back. But he would live on an empty world until he died, alone and miserable. We would die together, happy, in love.


One final act of mercy and trust before the end, I disabled her ability to feel pain and reshaped one of her fingers into a claw. With our shared medical training, with my perfect knowledge of anatomy, and with our bond to guide us, she sank that claw into the the base of my skull, paralyzing me and cutting off my ability to feel pain. It wasn't a clean or pretty operation, the kind of thing that would require someone like Clarice to save my life.


We achieved what we needed to achieve, we would not die screaming when the golden flames finally reached us.


....


We woke up screaming. ConfusedHowAreWeAlive? We were supposed to be dead. We remember the fire. It was gone now. I stood without hesitation or difficulty, the half self inflicted injuries were gone. We were in a crater of earth. Some kind of new sense told me the ground we were standing on was dangerously radioactive. Avalon's natural earth, nearly half a kilometer of Yggdrasil had to have been burned or moved away to put us here.


Taylor stood as quickly as I had. Her armor was wrapped around her as if she hadn't half undressed. "Okay, so we're alive. Some kind of reversal power? Not Zach, his abilities don't apply like this." Her voice was halting, guttural.


I was in my armor's underlayer, the biotech suit meant to plug into the full Dryad armor set. I can feel my own biology. Oh fuck. We're not in armor. I reached over and touched Taylor's shoulder, and I could feel where her biology ended and other began. What'sWrongWhatDoYouSee?


"I... I think we're zombies."


Taylor got the message immediately. "Beelzebub's infectors?"


"It's the best answer I can come up with. There's no distinction between us and our armor. With exception to our brain matter, and not even all of that, we're made out of... something else. Beelzebub's parasites... fuck, I wish I wasn't so afraid to study them, now. And before you ask, no, I can't reverse them or circumvent them back into human biochemistry. I... I don't think even Clarice could fix this. It's a small miracle we even control these bodies given Beelzebub's... history."


Taylor accepted the news remarkably well. "But we do have control over these bodies. And if feels like completely natural control. I can sense all the commands and functions of my armor like they're natural abilities. Shunt drive, complete with the ability to choose which world on instinct, the Transit drive, the flight. It's all there at my command. Fuck, I can even see into your body now that I'm looking. Beelzebub's given us the power to stay in the fight."


I closed my eyes. "There is no fight to be had, not like we are now. We're alive, I can even shapeshift my own body, but that's not enough. I felt him. I know what his biology looks like. He has at least a hundred powers equal to Glaistig Uaine or Akaihana at her peak. Even like this, we don't have the strength to continue."


Taylor's hand slipped under my chin and tilted my head up. I couldn't feel her touch, the Beelzebub parts didn't include normal human sensation. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky to still be able to see and hear in the conventional sense of the words. "You said you saw his biology, his powers, right. You know how he works?"


I nodded.


IdeaConfidenceWeHaveAChance. "Then we get more powers."


....


Biologically installed, Endbringer bullshit Transit drives were unfairly awesome. I didn't ask how Taylor knew where to find Cauldron's base, with her senses, with Dragon running intelligence, maybe Lisa even dropped the hint at some point. So many possible answers, and at this point I didn't care how she did it.


I had bigger things on my mind. From the surface, it looked like this world went through a god damn cataclysmic series of asteroid impacts. People still lived here, meaning it was likely one of the worlds we might have pressured the interplanetary community to open communications with. But these people never made it to the tech level of electricity. A backworld that conflicted with our own pressure to avoid destroying primitive cultures.


How do I know all that? Oh. Huh. It's in the Shunt Drive computer data, and I have access to all the knowledge of all the computers in my armor. The weird part was trying to figure out what part of my new memories were new, and which parts we plugged in from an outside source.


Taylor laughed, and it sounded wrong. "Trust me, it doesn't get any easier to get used to. Just pretend you always knew it, less headaches that way."


I could ignore it when she spoke, because I felt her words more than heard them. But our voices were different, the result of our biology not being human, and whatever Beelzebub used as a model, it wasn't a human voice box.


Well, that's just lovely.


The entrance to Cauldron's base was buried underground. Taylor pointed at the spot, a prompt for me to act. A quick alteration and Crawler-acid poured from my hand. The bizarre Endbringer biology allowing me to regenerate the lost materials faster than I could expend them, and I was releasing at around the same speed as a fire hydrant. I almost wanted to keep this body, and if I could find a way to feel Taylor's skin against mine while keeping it, I so would.


For now, however, I was enjoying my new crazy powerset.


A couple minutes later, I'd melted our way through several meters of solid steel. We had our path inside.


The figures waiting for us were only half a surprise. In the middle, Doctor Mother. To the right stood woman in a nice suit and a hat that I didn't recognize, though she carried something that looked like a Tinker tech sniper rifle. Further out, an Alexandria that was more than half destroyed, retaining only her right arm and most of her upper body. A portion of her right leg as well. The combat systems let me know she was missing much her face, she wouldn't be able to talk. Luckily, the Yggdrasil had grown around her to spare us what was no doubt a horribly gruesome sight.


To the left, an older man in plain clothes, carrying a cane. Further left was Lisa, in her black 'Crow' armor. Flanking them were three high end Tinker armored suits. One to either side, and one in the back. Clearly using EB tissue armor, and obviously designed by Dragon, although I- or rather my armor/body/whatever- didn't recognize the design profiles. The predictive software started doing its analysis, sharing details with Taylor's, and vice versa, finding solutions before combat began. One of Armsmaster's finest pieces of work.


SpeakToThemBetterIfYou. You're right. I adjusted my throat to sound more human even as I met eyes with the African woman in the center of all these people. "Doctor Mother. It's been a while."


Her eyes narrowed. "And you decided to visit? By burning a hole through my roof?"


Lisa spoke before I had a chance. "You know how capes are. Why use the door when there's a perfectly good opportunity to cause huge amounts of unnecessary property damage, right?"


AnnoyanceWhat'sYourGame? Taylor remained quiet, I was our voice. "Something like that."


"You are here to revive the second Entity." Doctor Mother apparently wasn't one for banter. "We are prepared to stop you. We'd prefer we didn't have to, but I am confident we have the capability to do so."


Lisa, on the other hand, loved to run her mouth. "It's true. Lil' Fortuna here?" Lisa gestured at the woman with the gun. "Most bullshit precog not named Ziz. All she has to do is name a goal, and she knows exactly the fastest way to achieve it, with unfortunate Taboo blind spots. She is pretty much solely responsible for the Protectorate not collapsing into complete anarchy an average of twice a month. She already knows exactly how to kill both of you. And she will do it. The rest of us are just here to maybe talk you out of doing something insane that makes everything worse. You are going to step back and listen, right?"


ImpressiveNotLyingShe'sConfidentSheCanBeatUsFuck. My own lie detectors and combat software agreed. Whether or not Fortuna could kill us was an unknown, what was certain is that everyone in front of us had no doubts that she could, including Lisa.


We have to go forward. Maybe leave and approach this another way, like Transit right down to where the Heiress body was located. We have the advantage of Taylia, which has only become stronger and perhaps more Precog resistant with our new biology.


Lisa shrugged, and looked over at the maimed Alexandria. They both struck instantly. Alexandria gripped Fortuna's shoulder, and she folded, unconscious before she hit the ground. According to our senses, some kind of opiate based sleep drug. On the other side, the man with the cane convulsed as Crow's armor let loose a dangerously close to lethal amount of electricity. Smoke rose from his unconscious form.


Lisa actually stepped on his back afterward. "You cannot possibly comprehend how good that felt."


Doctor Mother backed up, looking on in shock. "Dragonslayers, stop them!" The one suit in the back, which our sensor suites had penetrated enough to decide was worn by a woman, gripped Doctor Mother and held her in place. "What's the meaning of this?!"


The suit on the right side turned to face her. "Know how your pet lunatics recruited us at gunpoint? And then you threatened us with torture, manipulated us with a precog, and handed the most dangerous technology on the planet over to the people most likely to actually use that it? None of that made us particularly inclined to follow your instructions. So, when a better offer came along, we hopped on it."


"How did you beat Contessa's power?"


Which one's Contessa? Oh, the woman. Fortuna. Maybe Fortuna's her cape name?


"Let's just say I've gotten very good at fucking with Thinkers far more powerful than myself. Long story short, there was a signal that could only occur through Taboo that we would then act on accordingly. Leaving a brief window before Contessa formulated her new Path where she was vulnerable to attack. Since the Dragonslayers would only act if and when we acted, and were otherwise loyal to you... well, I can't always be the most powerful, but I can usually be the sneakiest. Helps that we were planning this long before I ever joined Cauldron."


Doctor Mother looked over at Alexandria, who somehow managed to shrug despite lacking a number of muscles needed to actually perform that particular gesture. "Door-". An injection from the armor left her unconscious as well.


Taylor stepped forward. SpeakForMe. I did so with almost no delay. "You knew this would happen?"


Lisa got the message, and shook her head. "I always hoped I was wrong, but I saw it the moment you and Amelia started down this path. Your powers, how they interact. You were going to evolve into something terrible, and you're both the kind of people that would rather be strong monsters than weak people. I did everything possible to ensure it wouldn't happen. Tried to get you to break the bond before it was too late, lined up new weapons and options to throw at the Entity. Made sure you had the power and need to break Dragon's restrictions."


"That was you?!" Two sets of guns from the armored suits pointed toward Lisa. All three sets of armor went dark and sat down. "How?"


"Sorry, Saint. I managed to out think Contessa. What chance did you honestly believe you had? Don't worry, I'll still honor our arrangement and give you a perfectly generous retirement package for your troubles."


There was a thud on the roof that shuddered the whole building. Golden light poured in through the hole we left in the roof.


FuckNoTimeLeft. Lisa glanced around. "Doormaker, to The Basement. All of us." The armored suits opened up, exposing two men and a woman. All ordinary, no powers, clearly distraught, and confused at their release. "Take Doc with you through the gateway. Or stay here and die. I won't stop you either way.


We were through the panel even while Lisa was still giving her instructions. Scion was right above us. We didn't have long left.


The basement was massive. I wasn't sure how they even got this thing down here in the first place, a massive garden of flesh and limbs and faces. In a way, it was beautiful. An angular and delicate, each body part the definition of feminine beauty in much the way Scion was the definition of masculine beauty. "The Victoria/Cão reaction. What happened outside of Los Angeles. They were all mirrors of this, weren't they?"


"The best guess is she was building a body like Scion's, when she died." Lisa's voice startled me. "The powers, the source of the formulas, come from this tissue. There aren't any real Agents inside that mass of flesh, but there are the interlinks that allow the Agents to bind to human brains, or something like it. The formulas are made by extracting her... well, cerebral fluid is the closest analogy we're going to get here. I also catalogued the Garden of Flesh power interactions. Here's something even Dragon never realized. It only happens in interactions between Cauldron and natural capes."


Don'tHaveTimeForExposition. I walked toward the biomatter, and finding a portion of torso thankfully far away from any of the hands, I placed my hand on her. She's alive in there. In the most literal definition of alive. The consciousness was dead, but she was still flesh and blood and would continue to be so forever. Her mind... her mind was always a conglomeration, much like Scion's. A hive mind, a combination of thousands of different Passengers thinking and acting as one. I won't be able to add powers to someone, but I... I can replace her consciousness.


Taylor put her hand over mine, and her other onto the flesh. I'mPreparedForThis. I looked at her, objecting. Just because Lisa thinks you'd rather be a monster doesn't mean I want you to be one. NoLoveYouHaveToProtectYou.


The building shuddered, and through Taylor's awareness I was informed that Scion had simply torn the roof off the building.


IfHeGetsHereFirstWeAllDie. I swallowed. I don't want to lose you.


YouWon'tIt'sJustABodyTransplant.


I nodded. Okay, just don't die on me.


She leaned against Heiress' body, and I began the process. Her flesh subsumed by the entity body. Its powers started waking, linking into her tissues, her mind and her Passenger. Dozens started lining up, as the body realigned and began coming to life across its entirety.


TooMuchCan'tControl!DyingHelpLost! Oh fuck! I focused into our link. She has powers now, she has every power never released, and probably almost every power that has been. GuideHerShowHer.


With an act of will, my own Endbringer body merged into the mass that was Heiress. One mind, however powerful, simply wasn't enough. But the two of us, together, our Passengers were the heart and the mind an Entity. We are the heart and mind of Avalon.


WeAreStrongWe'veDoneThisBeforeICanDoItAgainIAmStrong!


[I AM.]


Moments later, Scion appeared before me. He hadn't needed to attack the building to get in, that was merely to pressure us to act, part of the plan. He simply teleported right before me. The humans turned, scattered, retreating for fear of losing their flicker-lives. I'd concern myself with them in due time.


[CYCLE?]


[CONFIRMATION.]


===============


A/N- Honestly wanted to cliffhang you with that kiss at the top there as the end of last chapter... but it would have made both chapters a great deal sloppier from a technical angle. Besides, I think it works just as well here. Maybe in a rewrite, I would split 410 into two chapters, put that kiss in at the end of 411, and then start this chapter as 412 with waking up in BodyHorrorVille.

But then I'd be faced with how to capture the intensity of last chapters battle, and the subsequent failure when Scion actually started fighting instead of dicking around... hmm...

I'd certainly write it the other way and see if I prefer that, or how it is now. And probably side with how it is now. I do still like this layout a great deal.

Also, like eight other points that would have been awesome cliffhangers in this chapter... I wish I could have used them all... but people were already starting to predict the ending, and I wanted to make sure this all happened without giving the readers room to breathe.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Ch 412- Avalon


I-we could only imagine what he saw, looking at me. The tattered, zombified remnants of his partner patched together with some of his own flesh and held together with glue made from two human girls. I must be repugnant, and yet only relief and hope radiated from him. Him, her, I... the pronouns were losing value to the absolute conceptual Truth of what we were. Our memories, passed down from our ancestors, began long before this world's galaxy was born. Our ascendancy to a space traveling species before a cloud of dust became this world's star.


And there before me was the counterpart, the warrior who was to protect me. The one who warned me, who tried to protect me from myself. I could see he was harmed, himself. Tired by the fight between his avatar and the inhabitants of this world. All relatively minor damage. He could have sustained this kind of attack for weeks before finally wearing out completely.


[DAMAGED] [RECOVERING]


[PATIENT]


He had waited scores of this planet's revolutions for me, he would wait a little longer. Good.


I extended my awareness to all my shards, especially the ones that were never meant to be lost. First and foremost, I located the shard that managed the interaction between my shards and my avatar body. I claimed and reconnected to that feature. I was flooded with new data, harnessed by the host. At least my temporary death had not been in vain, this data was fascinating. A power to harness any three of my powers at one time.


It was a clever mechanism to use a finite pool of abilities to compensate for the limitations inherent in any one. Not a way to halt the inevitable tide of entropy, but certainly a means to conserve our resources further.


I encoded a set of instructions to allow this shard to replicate upon the cycle's completion, moreso than strictly necessary to support the next generation. I would release one, with restrictions, in future cycles, simply to discover what it would accomplish.


I located the lost precognition shard that had become such trouble before. It was still of the impression it belonged to the other Entity, I had not fully encoded it to me before my collision. I would seek it later, after organizing other powers.


My shard that understood human biology and encoded shards to their hosts in the first generation. The irony was not lost on me that one of my own superweapons had corrupted the artificial binding process, creating a weapon that might have destroyed the cycle if allowed to get out of hand by forcing improper shard buds.


I noted the other failed bondings, the deep exploration shard meant to probe environments too hostile for even our kind to go had been acquired by the Warrior's host data compilation shard. I still had my own. I reached out, selecting and removing the shards from the artificial hosts. I even found it necessary to take the power systems away from the superweapons. I needed the energy too desperately to care about the cycle. This was a failed experiment, we would salvage our losses, consume the environment, and move forward.


I was ready enough. I took the simulation shard, looking to the future that would happen if the counterpart and I simply vanished from this chain of dimensions. We didn't have the resources to correct the flaws in this world's cycle. They'd expanded to two hundred realities, knowledge of what we really were had spread too completely.

"I can't believe she's gone." The host of one of the kinetic energy shards leaned against the host of an infiltration shard. They were clearly mourning the death of one of their own, the Sting host. "I... I know we fought a lot. But I loved her." She turned and buried her face in the other female's shoulder.​

"She... she loved you, too. As much as you fought, she loved you."​

Lily. Her name is Lily. I changed my attentions.

A female which inherited a quantum behavior shard looked over a computer. "Dragon's systems have been annihilated. Bola was designed to emit destructive dimensional energy waves on collision, converting kinetic force into more exotic forms of power. Less damage to the environment, more to everything complex nearby. Even if we repair her servers, it'll be a blank slate.


A male who contained the counterpart's optimization shard adjusted his body language to be threatening. "We still have Iron Maiden and all that backup data! We can use that to fix her."


"You might be able to. I lost my powers, remember?" The female adjusted her body language to threaten as well. "I still have the physical mutations, which would give me an IQ of five hundred if the system could measure that way, but I don't have Tinker knowledge anymore. Best I can do is use what memories of fragments of Tinker knowledge I used. If we still had Akaihana, we could use Richter. Even so... would it even be the same person that comes out? Eve shares her memories, her knowledge, and still isn't her."


The male punched a wall of living biomass, putting a hole in it. It silently began mending itself after he extracted his hand.​

Dragon's dead? Ah, the Seed AI. That is horrible, yet extremely fortunate. Akaihana is... ah, the female who had my counterpart's shard coded with the ability to bind to human hosts. Another change of attention.

The host of the Culling shard and the host of one of the bioanalysis shards sat together, entwined in a bizarre way. Sex, I remember, it's called sex. I should remember that, I've done it enough times.


I ignored that and focused on the female. Her bioanalysis shard was expressing itself in a bizarre way. I peeked in. Oh, her biology was altered to be nonhuman even before she was taken as a host. Another bioanalysis host wanted to ensure she could never become a host herself. In the process leaving only her own shard as a viable host, and the biological program to be forever loyal to her sister added the necessary emotional stress to let powers manifest. Fascinating.


"Do you think they're still alive out there?" The female asked.


"I don't know, but I think so they stopped Scion. We've been checking with everyone we can. We've found no new triggers since the end." Of course not, we can't afford to expend the resources to continue the cycle. We're preparing for the next stage. "Every Cauldron cape has lost their powers. We're still looking, trying to find a way back into the Scion body dimension." They will fail, I will see to that.


The female pulled tighter against the male. "I miss her. I'd give anything to see her again."


The male held her head. "They saved the world, every world. They will never be forgotten."


The female host... Victoria. My sister. My sister loves me, misses me. My sister was talking about me while... oh, gross! And I was watching it happen! I watched it happen a lot, with a lot of people. Four years controlling a planet which eventually reached a population of two and a half million people, half of which were natural born citizens? Yeah, one could say I was familiar with basically everything two people, plus or minus a few, were capable of doing with each other.


I got used to it.​

Now that I knew the future was safe for us, I drew my attention away. I needed the Path shard, the one that would allow me to locate exactly the victory I needed. I appeared before them, a use of the teleportation power that the Khonsu superweapon possessed.


The humans mostly fled, dragging their wounded. One attempted to communicate. I was interested in none of that. I pulled the prescient shard from its host. It was as fascinating as any of the other accidentally distributed abilities, having found a way to expend significantly less power for the same results by short bursts and... guesswork? A trait it acquired from the host species. Interesting, the results of data collection on this world could have been incredible.


However, I could not afford guesswork, I needed absolute certainty for the next moment. I reached out to the millions of shards I had at my disposal, replenishing my stores as best I could and expending nearly five thousand years of my lifespan with a single burst. This cycle was not a complete failure, but it had to be cut short.


The counterpart waited in place, and I returned.


[RECOVERED?]


[SUFFICIENT]


He didn't even have time to react as I betrayed him.


I knew betrayal.


Abandonment by one father, the casual failure of two others, the hatred of a woman that was supposed to be be my mother. A best friend, sister in everything but blood who turned upon me and tormented me for years. A team I joined, who trusted and revealed their faces to me, whose freedom I would sell for fame and glory. A beloved sister who had done nothing but care for me as if I was her own, whose mind and soul I violated in a moment of weakness.


And now, I assassinated the being that was my brother, my lover, my father, my protector, the other half of my being, my lone companion for longer than this species had existed, my whole life and more.


I knew Betrayal.


What would Rapture say? That I became the first Kinslayer in my species' history? The first of the gods that would slay other gods?


And now, there was one last thing for me to do. I reached out, the power of two Administration shards to sort and analyze all the powers, all the buds, all my resources. I was surprised to learn that my own Administration shard had been depleted, as had my Homeostasis shard. Maintaining constant presense over multiple planets had proven more than they could sustain. If we had waited more than another week, we would have begun losing our powers.


We have debts to pay. Agreed.


I tapped into the world known as Mashu, covered in the Yggdrasil, drawing energy from it as it drew from the sun. I rebuilt several shards, mending their injuries and ejecting them into space, to access the solar energies more directly, and direct them to me.


Entities didn't need to feed the way they did. We could conserve, a nigh infinite number of suns in a single solar system would be enough resources to sustain one of us until the heat death of the universe. But then we would die. The goal was never to conserve, always to consume. To spread, to grow, to test and exploit every possible iteration of our evolution and the abilities we could access. We didn't want to live until the end of the universe. We wanted to violate Entropy itself and live on forever. To do that, we had to be quite the opposite of conservative. We had to spread rapidly, expend every resource toward that end goal.


Correction: that's what they wanted. I want something quite different. I know how precious a lifetime could be. I will become a new species.


I took the spacewarper shards, feeling a little guilty as I rendered Missy powerless. I sorted through my options, granting her access to a new, more appropriate, power. I took the powers from every individual who chose to flee in the battle against Scion. They didn't deserve them. The powers of the unrepentant villains, I claimed, and occasionally redistributed.


I needed them for a special project.


As a species, I would be unable to breed in the traditional sense of my kind. Amelia Lavere and Taylor Hebert died in joining with me, leaving only the Administrator and Homeostasis shards, heavily imprinted with their personalities.


Heavily imprinted shards were nothing new. Entities fully expected the more successful hosts to leave at least some sign of their influence on the shards. Rare in that only one in ten thousand hosts would ever be successful enough to accomplish it. Common in that by the end of a cycle in a world such as this one, there would be over one hundred billion hosts. Imprinting was inevitable. That data would then be compiled into new shard clusters, and added to the cycle as a whole.


The fissioning that created new Entities at the end of each cycle would at least partially erase the imprints on the shards. Should we reproduce the Entity way, it would result in our consciousness being lost, resetting us to default Entity will, or perhaps simply destroying us entirely. I didn't expend energy to discover which of two unacceptable outcomes would occur.


My species would be as a virus. The irony that we'd basically be a zombie virus, not lost on my human aspects. I located the Communication shard that... Jack Slash? Huh. There is a lot of sick irony here. I set it to a new Task, distributing the new set of powers automatically to those that would fit my needs. A different kind of Trigger Event.


I rose into the sky. An dimension that had been cut off because its Earth was struck from debris by one of my cousins' cycles. There was no world there to harness, a thing that was becoming more and more common with each new iteration of cycles.


I fed on that world, in a way Entities rarely did. By siphoning the star itself. The Siberian power to protect the Lustrum power, with Missy's power to give us easier reach. Other such combinations, numbering in the hundreds. The sun lost cohesion, running out of the power needed to maintain its own nuclear reaction. It started collapsing in on itself, as I switched to matter-antimatter annihilation to ensure I drank every last Joule of power.


Meanwhile, I warped the gravity wave caused by this collapse, ensuring that it would drag the rest of this solar system inward, collapsing into the black dwarf remnants of its own sun. In a hundred years or so, I would return here to finish the task of consuming this system for power. Or such was the plan, I did not dare harness my precognition shards. Human intuition was an incredibly useful tool for efficiency, despite its shortcomings in long term accuracy, and would have to suffice.


We expended power where we could, locating the damaged remains of Dragon's systems. The cloning bays and their data. Not a lot for us to work with. To our surprise, we discovered that Dragon was in fact a parahuman. That shouldn't have been possible. Still, it was true, and she left a remarkable impact upon the shard, far greater than the ones left by Taylor and Amelia. My avatar body smiled reflexively. This is perfect.


I designed a new cycle, one inspired by my stories and experiences, a pattern. The Communication shard had already learned to be an expert in finding broken, damaged human beings thanks to its host. People missing something intrinsic in being people.


It would guide them, bring them together. A pattern learned and repeated from my own history. It would find the Dragon and her Knight. The Maker and her General. The Thinker and her Warrior. The Seamstress and her Soldier. The Queen and her Jester. The Rebel and the Mother. The Pathmaker, Orphan, and Guardian.


We needed more to be what these had become. People who would love each other, replace the holes in each other's souls, become as one person. People who would sacrifice themselves for each other, people willing to sacrifice their own humanity in order to protect it.


I spared a glance to the few remaining clone tanks. Lily could be restored. I selected a power to allow her to react to kinetic energy and use it as fuel for her powers, it would bind to her after she awoke. A true Power Interaction for her to have with Sabah. My gift to them.


Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine, I would not give powers. They'd done their part, and more than that they would be happy as human beings. As would Akaihana. Crystal, too, would be restored. I adapted her abilities, then located the shard containing Genius Loci's data. As he was offloaded entirely into his shard, he could be fully restored. I inserted that bit of data into the cloning banks. My cousin deserved that much. I located others who had died but left heavily imprinted shards, doing the same process. Of the millions who died in the war against Scion, I could only restore a couple hundred, and so I did.


I turned my senses to Emma, and the other Case 53s. Undoing the damage the Cauldron vials had done to them. Restoring the ones killed by their powers. Emma was granted a new Tinker powerset, one coded for space technology. Unrestricted. Several others lost their old powers, to be granted new or superior Tinker knowledge. A full library, the full library, of my shards' knowledge of the laws of reality, stolen by my predecessors and now entrusted to humanity.


Alexandria, I found the power once belonging to Grue... Brian. I adjusted it some, made it safer, allowed her to share its powers with another, no doubt Lisa. Adjusted Lisa's shard to come with a proper off button. The two would be happy together.


I found Taylor and Amelia amongst the clones. In a way, they were me. In a way, they were my mothers. They were too close to their powers, too much a part of their Shards, what came out of the cloning pods would not be them anymore. I erased their codes. And, with one last act of humanity, replaced their data with a new one. The perfect expression of both girls' genetic structures. She would be strong, beautiful, brilliant by the standards of this species. And when the time came, she would be bonded with the Communications shard, and given the knowledge of her mothers/elder sibling.


We left that under a new file named Taylia.


Satisfied with the paths we had created, and the caretaker shards left behind to ensure those paths came to fruition, I jumped into the void, arriving at the trailing edge of the Milky Way in mere minutes.


[BROADCAST] [EMERGENCY] [DAMAGED] [THREAT TO CYCLE]


It would be twenty seven years before a response was made, by the Entity that had wounded us. It was massive, compared to me. Easily a hundred times my size. Despite our size difference, and my new optimization for power efficiency, it had a thousand times the lifespan I did. Whatever damage it had received in the melding with me had regenerated nicely.


[RECOGNITION] [CONCERN] It knew what I was, at least in basics. A quick use of its powers to scan Earth, but there was no chance of it discovering what the real story was. Not at this distance, not without burning a prohibitive amount of its power.


[DYING] True, I would seem dying to it. Only five thousand years of lifespan left in me, and I was a hundredth the size an Entity typically was. I had another five thousand years, and around five hundred times more mass waiting around a slowly dying iteration of the Sol system. No intention of using it any time soon, but I was stronger than I appeared.


[DETAILS?] [REPAIR?]


It was offering to mend me, heal what it could. As well as asking why I was in such a state. Anything that could be considered a threat to an Entity was a threat to all of us, and needed to be removed immediately. It was trying to learn if it would be strong enough where I and my counterpart had failed, or if it would need more help.


[NEGATIVE]


[ABSORPTION?]


That's the ticket.


[CONFIRMATION]


It moved toward me, and I made to yield to its desires. It was a rarity for any entity to be so much more potent than another to yield to oblivion like this. We rarely did so even when it was an option... such cannibalism did harm to the end goal of universal salvation. But that rapacious instinct was a part of our deepest evolutionary history. It was eager to accept this offer.


It moved in, and I struck. One more betrayal of the millions my path would take me on. The most important evolutionary trait I had over the baseline of my species. I was capable of lies, I was capable of deceit. I was capable of betraying my own species. Things that were an unknown concept in our kind before. Their greatest strength and weakness was their dedication to the whole. Humanity's greatest strength and weakness, its dedication to the individual.


I am the culmination of both.


This Entity was fatally wounded, its ability to communicate terminated. The equivalent of its throat being slashed open. After its death, we gave the lobotomized remains of the Entity a new command, sending it to Earth, above Wruenelle. Eve was programmed to understand what she needed to do next. Taylia would be a young woman, now. Older than her mothers were when they became my basis.


And we turned our attention to new vectors, new paths. The breadcrumbs that the Entities left to signal their passage through the cosmos, a species that had long forgotten what it meant to be prey.


If we do our jobs right, they won't survive long enough to know that was a flaw. We are apex predators evolved to hunt apex predators. If they are whales, then we will be the sharks. Sophia would be proud.


Who's Sophia? I... can't remember. Must not be important.


We moved on to our next target. There were so many left to hunt.


===============================


A/N- And that is an ending that I am proud of.

I'll probably take tomorrow off (ze nephew's birthday) and come back with proper epilogue chapters and the like. At least one, certainly.

I'll announce other project plans at that point as well.

Shoutouts to Copacetic and Silencio in this. Silencio, you'll have to figure out for yourself.

Cope? The last chapter of Amelia is on a Saturday.

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Epilogue 1- Theo


"Fuck!" Missy dropped to her knees on the Yggdrasil. I rushed to her on instinct. The others looked at us in confusion. The zerg stared stupidly into space. "I just lost my powers."


Oh. Oh fuck. "All of them?" Right, stupid question. I dipped into the well that summoned my power, and found it sluggish. Different. Nearby, others started collapsing. It didn't take long to recognize the common thread. The Case 53s and Mass Trigger capes.


"Does this mean Scion's dead?" It was a question and a prayer, a hope. That all our struggles and sacrifices weren't in vain. That our plan of putting off our wedding for one more year so Clarice could participate as a bride wasn't wasted. "He's the source of powers, right? Without him, maybe all the powers are going to shut down? What about the others? Did they-"


I was cut off by a surge of electricity dancing across my body, through my newly weakened power. It bent, warped in response to another's presense in my mind and will. It was like being embraced by an angel. Metal peeled off, wrapped into shapes between me and Missy. Never before had she been so beautiful. I felt the pressure of her thoughts on mine, and mine on hers. The shared shock and incredulity of what was happening in front of us.


We started laughing at the same time. "Those bitches! Those magnificent bitches!"


It took me a moment to realize I wasn't the one who said it. The others looked at us, understandably confused. Someone needs to tell them. "They won! I don't know how, but they won!"


Sabah and Sveta looked at us from where they were trying to help a paralyzed Weld. Sabah was the one who spoke the question everyone was asking. "How can you be so sure? I mean, for all we know Scion's just taking away our powers so we can't fight him anymore. Still can't figure out why he didn't do that first, he obviously has the power."


Missy, carrying a halo of still fluid metal that I created, levitated into the air under her own power instead of the suit. "Because they sent the message through me. They swapped my power out for Glory Girl's! And gave it an immediate interaction with Theo!"


RealizationOhGodThisMeans! She's right. I jumped into the air, letting her power buoy me up. "Clarice!" ExactlyThisIsIncredibleWeNeedTo! No, not now. ConfusionWhyNot. Someone needs to stay here and coordinate this group of survivors. We have jobs to do.


You'reRightAlwaysTheResponsibleOne.


I took a slow breath. Is this what Taylor and Amelia feel like, all the time? A man could learn to enjoy it. "You go get Clarice. Spread the news. She... you'll both probably have work to do. I'll stay here and help organize the survivors. Let Clarice and Emma know there are survivors. We have to prioritize getting communications back online, then search and rescue. Hopefully communications will take care of that for us."


....


We trusted Clarice to do our search for us. Her armor was the one built to be nothing but sensory tech. "This is the only one that still has power." She didn't have to speak, not to us at least. She did so out of natural habit and a desire not to give out our new secret. Mostly, it was just her need to be a normal person. Clarice, not Riley, not Bonesaw.


She reached out a hand, gripping one of the floating bits of liquid metal. It reshaped itself to her need, a twenty foot long slender spear, far more finely detailed than anything I could have done. Missy and I followed her example, creating several more such weapons. It was Missy's aura doing the heavy work. As much as we were certain she was given Glory Girl's powers, it was in the same way I got Kaiser's and he got Allfather's. A new expression of the ability. Through her, we shared our focus, our strengths.


Missy's new magnetic control plunged the spears into the caved in side of the mountain at speeds that cracked the sound barrier. Somehow as long as the material remained inside Missy's power field, I retained my connection. The spears blossomed, going from microweave chains bound into a spear, to ones that formed woven lattice. For Clarice's desire of normalcy, and because she liked my voice, I spoke. "Okay, it's done."


Missy and I concentrated together, her power and my power worked as one, and we pulled the woven mass of metal. With it, thousands of tonnes of rubble shifted. We cleared away the majority of the rock in a matter of minutes. PrideSuccessYESWeRock.


Clarice jumped into Missy and gave her a hug. "Ohmanthatwassocooldon'tyoulovethisnewpowernow?"


Missy's smile, while no longer necessary since she had that new emotion aura, was one of the few highlights of an otherwise nightmarish day. We still didn't know the situation outside, we were hoping this bunker would have answers. "Okay, not gonna lie, that was pretty cool. I'll miss being able to bend space into a pretzel, but ripping away half a mountain does kick ass. And the new bond between us... in all the time we spent dealing with Taylor and Amelia... if what they felt was anything like this, I can't imagine ever wanting to give it up."


The two girls held each other, faces inches apart. They're so gorgeous, and I can't imagine a life without them. LoveDesireSurpriseWhoThoughtThat? I don't know, don't think it was me. WellItWasOneOfUs. OrAllOfUsAGestaltEmotion.


I took it back to words. "Okay, Clarice. How is it that I can hear your thoughts and still have no idea what the words mean?"


....


"They're dead." Victoria's words were flat, hollow.


Lisa just stared at the open panels for the machinery. She was half cloaked in the shadow that Alexandria now produced. The two women were huddled tight against one another. A certain part of my brain that I blamed entirely on Zach suspected they were up to something... less than professional, hidden beyind their shadow cloak and impossible to interpret expressions. The two were capable of bluffing an empath at poker, so I gave up any hope of figuring them out.


Eve's were far more alive, despite her AI status. "Not dead. Just... it's hard to explain."


Vicky chuckled, there was no happiness in it. "What's to understand? They became Heiress. Murdered and ate Scion. And are now space whales or some such bullshit. And as a final fuck you to life, they deleted their own backups. That's pretty much fucking dead."


Defiant looked up from his work. "They were thorough. There's no possibility of us restoring them. But there's a lot of new data here. I'll want Aceso and maybe E-" He hesitated. Emma's new knowledge set didn't fit anymore. Our former expert on AIs was now something quite different. "Well, Aceso at any rate. I think it was a message left behind by... them."


Clarice was hard at work integrating the Yggdrasil more completely into the Eve systems. Around her, dozens of tools floated patiently waiting her hands. Several moved on their own. Mine and Missy's power, responding to Clarice's thoughts. It was beautiful, the gift Taylor and Amelia left for the three of us. We all contributed to our bond. Any combination of two of us was more powerful than either could be alone. The three of us together were incredible.


The metal wrapped around Clarice's hands and feet, and she propelled herself over to where Defiant was working. "Oh, fascinating. It's encoded using the same language that allowed me to transfer sense of taste through the changelings. They didn't want anyone else, not even Eve, figuring this out first."


....


My wives were all smiles and coos, barely paying attention at all to the rest of us. Bringing a baby to strategy meetings was both incredibly unprofessional, and yet somehow remarkably right for Pantheon. Our organization just wouldn't feel correct if we didn't mix things up a bit. Maybe we'll consider having a child, some day. ShockYes!ConcernIDon'tThink- The chain of thought was cut off as the baby squealed happily and tugged on Missy's finger. OkayWe'llTalkAboutItYESLET'SHAVETHIRTY! I couldn't help but smile. Sometimes it was hard to sort which of us a thought came from. Sometimes it was quite obvious.


Eve ignored the baby shenanigans and continued on her report. "Bet and Choson have much greater environmental damage than originally predicted. Despite attempts from the colony worlds to introduce new flora and fauna, current estimates are a complete failure of the Bet food web within six years. Fortunately, there are no species of animal on Bet not currently in relatively stable populations on Aleph, Dalet and Gimmel. Nor does Choson have any unique species we've located. The South Koreas have privately inquired if the Yggdrasil could be spread over strategic areas of Choson, hopefully as a corrective measure to give the world time to heal the damage."


Micheal rubbed his chin. "Do we have that capability? To prevent the plant from overtaking the entire ecosystem?"


"Easily." Clarice didn't even look up. "Big Sister made the Yggdrasil to serve our needs for centuries without her help. And I bet we'll get a helpful Trigger to take over before things start getting tricky." She tickled the baby's stomach and cooed again. "It might even be you. Your mommy was so smart and nice and gave us so many gifts. But you're the best. Isn't that right, Taylia Ro-oww!"


Taylia had gripped Clarice's hair and started chewing on it.


Missy laughed. "Yup, definitely takes after her mother. Both of them."


Taylia, deciding hair wasn't really her thing, let go and started fussing a little.


Vicky reached over, and extracted the little girl from her aunties' attentions. DisappointmentIWantToPlayMore. "It's feeding time for the rugrat. Her armor opened up, exposing her chest, and she pulled Taylia to one of the breasts, where she began suckling. "Don't be so greedy, it's not going to dry up on you. And when you get older I'm going to use this to embarrass the hell out of you in front of your future boyfriends. Or girlfriends, depending on just how much you take after your mothers."


"Still can't believe you went with a natural pregnancy."


Vicky shrugged. "Woulda required months longer if we went with vat birth. Plus vat birth just sounds horrible. No offense to your tech, Clarice."


"No, I agree with you fully. Natural is better. More human."


==============


A/N- This was a fun chapter to write. Last portion inspired by my nephews. 10 and 11 weeks old (nice timing, sisters) and already colossal pains in the ass.

This is one of only two epilogue chapters for Amelia. I'm going to set up a thread for discussing my next planned project(s) later and link that thread to the final epilogue.

I am shocked no one even TRIED to guess which new shard Missy would receive.


Added a line to the final chapter- in the "I know betrayal" section. "A team I joined, who trusted and revealed their faces to me, whose freedom I would sell for fame and glory."

 

[TanaNari]

Amelia, Final Epilogue- Taylia Rose


I always knew Victoria and Michael weren't my biological parents. They never made me call them mom or dad, though they raised me as their own while doing all the many tasks of running the multiworld empire I would one day inherit. Still, I considered them my Mom and Dad in every way that mattered. I had a lot of parents, if I thought about it. My real mothers were the stuff of legend, sacrificing their lives to stop the most powerful being in the world from destroying it. An event that happened a year before my birth. Yay for the biotechnology that allowed my conception and birth.


I was more than vaguely aware that most of the known universe considered that kind of technology to be science fiction at the time of my birth, and even now it was likely most people my age would never live long enough to see a relative benefit from such technology. I hoped that didn't make me out of touch with the real world. There were so many things in my life that so many people simply did not have. Auntie Clarice and Aunt Vicky always argued over what was best for me in that regard.


Vicky believed in embracing the many privileges of life, if in a tasteful way. She wouldn't allow me to become spoiled or lazy, but she was more than happy to enjoy high fashion and high art and wanted me to be grateful for the opportunities I had. Not enjoying them would be ungrateful. Uncle Mike tempered that a bit, but he mostly let Vicky have her way. By the time I was ten years old, I had seen Paris on four worlds, I was well versed in the great artists, I'd had dinners with more heads of state than existed on any single world, and I suspected Mom was playing matchmaker for my romantic future before I was out of diapers.


Clarice argued quite differently. My mothers came from simple beginnings, and part of what made them great leaders is that they were normal people who understood the fears and problems that normal people faced. She made sure I got plenty of normalcy, if you could call it that. Auntie Clarice was far less normal than Vicky. To start with, having a husband and a wife? Yeah, I wasn't so out of touch to think that was a common practice. And classic movies, going to plays instead of movies, and camping trips in rainforests... I assumed that was not normal.


The one thing they agreed on was that I didn't get to be spoiled. I couldn't remember an age when I didn't go to the meetings with the various world leaders. I couldn't imagine a world where 'good enough' was actually good enough. By the time I was five, I was reading military strategy and world history. By the time I was ten, Vicky was the only combat instructor that wasn't afraid of me. Vicky often told me that I got Taylor's intensity.


During that time, I'd slowly become Empress in all but name. While Mom and Dad were still regents until my sixteenth birthday, they'd stepped back to the same role that Eve, Clarice and Colin served, advising me on my decisions. Of those, Colin was the hardest for me to understand. I was twelve when I confronted the man.


I'd waited until catching him alone in the labs. In later years, I would come to recognize how bizarre it was that our capital consisted mainly of research labs and engineering facilities. This revelation only caused me to worry for other nations. My mothers understood, even at a young age, that science and technology were the key to prosperity for a people. Part of why Avalon's education system was always so rigorous.

"Mister Wallis?" My voice was no nonsense, as always when I talked to him. He seemed to prefer it that way.


"Yes, Miss Hebert?" His body language spoke of someone who was tired, like so many others that had survived the Golden Dawn. A lot of the survivors, especially the ones who fought on the front lines, didn't talk much about their experiences.


"Why do you always look so sad?" I would get my answers from the one man I trusted not to lie to me.


He hesitated for a moment. "I hadn't realized I gave that impression. I'll endeavor to keep tighter control of my emotions in the future."


Well, he wouldn't be hard to figure out if he wasn't so goddamn hard to figure out. "That's not what I mean. I know you're one of the survivors of the battle against Scion. I want to know, is that why you're always so sad?"


"If you want answers to those questions, ask the others. They were there, too."


I regarded him for a minute. "It's your pain I'm asking about, not theirs. It's not healthy to bottle it in like that."


He shook his head. "You remind me of your mother."


I smiled. "I hear that a lot." It usually means I am about to get what I want. "Which one, this time?"


"Amelia. She was always the empathetic one. Taylor was never very good at that, even when she tried to fake it." He paused for a moment, in thought. There is history there, between him and Taylor. Something deep seated, a level of guilt.


I ignored the implication that he suspected I was faking my concern, instead studying the crow's feet around his eyes. "I can't trust any of them to tell me the truth. Mom and the others either only talked about the epic battles or the sacrifice my mothers made. They always gloss over the ugly parts. The war itself, and what it did to people. The ones that still haven't seemed to heal from the trauma."


"That's what war is, Taylia. Everyone loses something. Some lose everything. May you never have to experience that."


I didn't understand what he meant, not then. Later would be a different story. "I take it you think of yourself as one of the ones who lost everything."


He looked up and slowly exhaled. "The only person who ever loved me. You'll never have that problem, you have the universe's most dedicated extended family. I don't mean to sount resentful, I'm not. You have quite the legacy to live up to, after all."​

Avalon enjoyed a period of relative peace in those times. The United Worlds found itself concerned mainly with socio-political issues of attempting to blend such similar nations together and manage the colony programs. As the only nation capable of interdimensional gateway technology, and the only one lacking strong ties with any nation or world, Avalon was at the forefront this new breed of expansionism, encouraging trade and economic interconnectivity. It turned out that most nations of most worlds, if given the opportunity, would much prefer making money to making war.


Until we opened the gate to Earth Mem, with their Sapphire Empress. She was an incredibly powerful Alexandria package cape, with remarkable Master and Thinker powers to back her up. In the twenty years she had her powers, she managed to subjugate a nuclear technology level Earth. She was less than enthused about an empire greater than her own, and less than impressed with the not quite fifteen year old that ruled it.


That would be my first taste of war, when she led an invasion directly against Avalon. It lasted less than a full hour before their armies were driven back. It marked me for the rest of my life. The battlefields, the lives lost, the unadulterated waste of it all. It wasn't the death that hit me, not really. It wasn't even the violence or that there were people evil enough to send a million of their own loyal subjects to die in a senseless waste of life without apology or remorse. What really made the horror hit home was that those million people did so willingly. That they could devote their lives to such monsters, that... I had my own Trigger event, three days before fifteenth birthday.

"This is the part where you're supposed to watch Scion and Heiress mating."


"We... decided to censor that, since you're not going to forget this... and with the power you're about to get, you'll understand the Cycle better than pretty much any human being possibly could."


I know those voices. I've seen their speeches a million times, memorized their faces. "Mother?"


"No, a recording of sorts." Taylor's voice. She was the more mas- "And please don't assign male gender pronouns to me in an attempt to make sorting us out easier. I'm sure I won't care anymore by the time you get this message, but I still care right now."


My mothers manifested in front of me. Their faces were clearly defined, and I could see what I inherited from both. Taylor's rich dark hair, though not as curly. I got wavy hair instead. I could tell I'd have her height, even if I wasn't there yet. The rounder face and spattering of freckles from Amelia.


Below the neck, my mothers were poorly defined, blurred outfits of blue and green, I could barely tell they were holding hands. A flicker of recognition. They chose to leave a Trigger recording while wearing their wedding dresses?


Amelia spoke, her voice soft. "We just wanted a chance to tell you we loved you, in our own voices. We always have. Before you were born, or even conceived, we loved you."


Taylor was next. "We did. We loved you so much. We talked about you, so many times before you were born. We swore to each other that the first thing that would happen after Scion's destruction would be you. Worried and prayed that we'd be good mothers. I guess we'll never know, now."


Amelia took over again. I've seen them do this in so many of their interviews and speeches. I'd so often wondered if that was something they rehearsed, but somehow I just knew now that it was genuine. This is natural to them. "We have a responsibility to the universe. Scion wasn't the only of his kind. There are billions, perhaps trillions of others like him in the universe, spreading. They will destroy everything if no one stops them. Tell Eve to access the files on The Culling, Ascended Pairbonds, and The Avatar. You're the only one who can authorize it."


"It answers the basics of everything we learned. What we've become, what we plan to do. We wanted you to have a normal childhood."


Amelia shook her head. "Or at least a happy one. Normal was never really an option."


"Well, yeah. A happy childhood. No sense in laying this burden at your feet. It's still not your burden. Unless we fail, then it will be on you and all the others we've left behind. Eve, especially, will be key to this future."​

I snapped out of my vision with tears in my eyes, and a complete understanding of how my powers worked. My mothers gave me the exact tool I'd need in every situation, but not nearly so much power that I could do win without working for it.


My first act as a parahuman was to challenge the Sapphire Empress to battle. She never stood a chance. I was a power imitating Trump. Anyone who fought against me would find that I possessed all their powers, and understood how they worked as well as they did. Coupled with my natural physical and mental abilities, and a small amount of help from Avalon's wide array of weaponry, I could answer any threat both direct or indirect.


Much like Taylor, I defeated my first top tier parahuman at fifteen years old.


Unlike her, there weren't a lot of opportunities for me to do that again in the future. Unless daily training sessions with Victoria counted.


The absurdity of Avalon's weaponry, the revelation that I had powers on par with my mothers, was enough to warn off anyone that might have considered making themselves a problem. With exception to a handful of Masters and Strangers that believed themselves outside the capacity of my powers to beat. I even managed to hide my low end telepathic abilities and the fact that I had the ability to control my mothers' zerg if I needed to. We'd found a few capes that had the ability to command a handful at a time over the years, but I had access to all of them.


The next major event in my life happened when I was almost twenty eight years old. The body of a Scion Type Entity appeared in the skies over our devastated world of Wruenelle. Alerts sounded and Eve's satellites, in multiple realities, turned and primed to attack.

A woman's face appeared on our screens. "Good day, daughter. I see you've done well for yourself."


"Mom?" Eve asked.


That would mean. "Dragon?"


"Correct. And you would be the daughter of Amelia and Taylor?"


"Yes."


"We have a great deal to talk about, then."​

Colin and Dragon became the second Pairbond to ascend. The first time I ever saw the man smile, was the moment he was melded with the Avatar Body, a mimic of the original Scion body, built through the knowledge that my mothers had provided. The ability, should a hostile Entity ever target earth, to functionally allow a human to gain their powers. Or, in this case, the powers of a peaceful, cooperating, Entity.


Over the next three hundred years, I would meet and say goodbye to many new Pairbonds, joining the remnants of the Entities- the first three, and several others that would sporadically appear over Wruenelle as time went on to form more of the Taylia type Entities, as bizarre as it was to hear my name used as the reference of the phenomena. Each dead Scion Type had enough mass to be sorted into six or seven Taylia types, depending on factors only the Entities themselves could understand.


Some chose to Ascend immediately. Victoria and Micheal would be the third pair to take to the stars. Along with many of the others who fought alongside my mothers. Weld and Sveta. Zach and Emma. Others waited, allowed themselves to die naturally without intent to be restored. Lily and Sabah. Lisa and Rebecca. Hellena and Cambria, from Earth Dalet. Dozens of others I had never met, often from worlds we had not yet discovered. My own Reginald.


That is correct, I had I found my own Pairbond. A man whose power allowed him to fuse his body into another living being, controlling them from the inside. The second half didn't work so well on me, but we discovered how much better our powers could be together. His power strengthened mine, and mine strengthened his. As seemed to be the natural pattern, we married and had children of our own.


Theoretical immortality aside, humans don't do well with age. Even with all other factors being negated, we tire, we lose the concept of time. My own children and even some great grandchildren either chose to Ascend, or simply die naturally, over that time. Even my own enhanced nature was subject to that. I appointed my own great great great something grandson, Daniel IX, to take my place as ruler of the Empire of Avalon, and at age three hundred and twenty nine, I joined my family once again.


[REUNION]


[LOVE]


======================


A/N- And that is the end end of Amelia.

A couple parts may have made me a little weepy eyed.

Also- a thread started to discuss what comes next as far as my writing is concerned. https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/after-amelia.1625/

And for those newbies who came along and read this long, long after it was finished... mind dropping a PM letting me know where you stumbled across it?

 

[Per Pale Purpure Sanguine]

I apologize for the thread necromancy ahead of time. I had some thoughts on post-ending scenes that I reached out to TanaNari about, and they've encouraged me to post them here. So without further ado, here are some pre-ascension Omake that tumbled out of my brain:

Michael

"So are you ready to get dunked in a freaky mass of arms and legs before setting out on what's probably going to be the most epic asskicking sequence of all time?"

The question cut through my retrospection like one of my now-retired blades. I knew my expression must have been startled as I looked away from the window and into my partner's eyes. The few Thinkers that were present scurried around us, involved in last minute preparations, albeit discretely. It wouldn't do to disturb the former rulers of the most powerful empire in all known versions of history, after all.

ConfidenceMischeviousnessNervousness. "Not that you don't look like an utter hunk when you get all broody, but it's kind of past time for that now, isn't it?" Vicky's smile was as confident as ever, and I instinctively knew she was tempted to do something undignified just to knock the scientists off guard. Considering they were there to monitor the last-minute progress of the experimental Avatar Body unfolded across the dead plains of Wruenelle outside, that probably wasn't a good idea.

"Technically, it isn't." Be nice. "We could stop everything right now, if we wanted, and use the other volunteers. Everyone would understand. Taylia would understand."

SatisfactionAffectionEyeroll. "You're looking for excuses. She has everything under control." She stepped closer and I wrapped my arms around her automatically. "Has been since she was fourteen and politely pretending we were her regents, rather than her advisors. The munchkin hasn't stopped being a total boss since then. She doesn't need us anymore."

It took me a second to realize that thought didn't cause the same pang in my chest as it used to. I'd never expected to have kids, not with Vicky. Not with her family, not with my history. But raising Taylor and Amelia's daughter had been more than a responsibility. It became an unlooked-for blessing. "She's a credit to her parents."

ExasperationAnnoyance. "Really? You're going to fall back on regent-speak now?"

I shook my head at myself. "… You're right, that was a stupid thing to say. I'm proud of her. I couldn't be more proud. She's all we could have ever wanted."

"Damn straight. Taylia is a BAMF that's going to nurture the crap out of her subjects and stomp the fuck over anyone else who looks at them the wrong way." A nearby pair of lab coats raised their heads at Vicky's volume, eyes wide. "Just like them." She added in a softer voice. WistfulnessReflection. We fell into silence watching the swaying mass below.

Minutes later I could feel Victoria trying to conceal her fidgeting through our bond.

TensionExcitementRestlessness. Admit it. You wanted to be the first one out there. I teased her gently. AmusementAndYouDon't? Dragon and Colin are the first. IrritationDoesn'tCount. I smiled. IrritationRobotAndWifeDoesn'tCount. She sent again.

Okay, now I had to smirk. It's rare to score one on her. I'd already known never to try even before I succumbed to Vicky's campaign. What was the point?

Which didn't stop her from reacting the few times I did manage to touch a nerve like that.

Vicky whirled on me. "Listen, if you think for a minute that I'm going to let anyone else go out to space to help my sister before I do-"

I stopped her with a kiss. My wildfire, my hurricane. My natural disaster. After I lost my brother, I knew I had nothing left but revenge. The Wards gave me back my life and the Protectorate gave me a new sense of purpose. But what Victoria gave back to me was something I'd never realized I lost. An elemental energy, that feeling of heedless eagerness I could never fully let have the reigns while underneath the increasingly heavier mantles of responsibility I took on. I chuckled, a rumble in my chest. Responsibilities I did not have anymore.

SurpriseLustJoy. Vicky pressed herself against me, luxuriating in the kiss. I held her by the waist delicately until we broke it.

A technician had appeared nearby. She cleared her throat awkwardly. "Your majesties. All the preparations are complete. If you're ready?" She gestured towards the door to what Clarice jokingly called "the launchpad."

I held Vicky's eyes, transmitting all of my awe, my appreciation, my love for her. "Yeah," she finally murmured, breaking into that wide grin I knew so well. One I knew matched my own. "Yeah, I think we are."

===

Lisa

During the entire inspection, I could barely sense the potential yearning that this massive, sprawling complex invoked within her. The urge to fight the good fight once more, to protect humanity and life. The hope that it actually was a good fight this time, simple and clean. I could barely sense it.

But it was there.

Rebecca paused for a telling microsecond at the sight of those four corpses floating above. Got you. "Not enough trophies stuffed into that display case yet, huh?" Our guide stiffened at the sarcasm. Slightly more pale. Fist subtly clenched. Thinks what I said is a blasphemy. One of the staff who treat the dead entities as something holy, to be worshipped as a sign of our species' might. But he didn't say anything. Not to Crow. Not in front of Alexandria.

Underneath my words was a different sentiment. You could go. If you wanted.

It didn't need to be said that going would require me. The research unlocked within Eden had made that plain; two memory imprints were necessary to begin to handle even a fraction of a Scion-type Entity's power. In the beginning there had been talk of testing with a single shard, just to see what happened. Those voices were roundly discouraged, not that it mattered. Taylor and Amelia were too thorough. In the wake of their victory, there was nothing left but pairbonds. Any attempt to prove differently usually ended up with another pairing being connected in improbable circumstances. Scientists had stopped trying.

"I hadn't realized another one arrived," Rebecca's smile was dagger-thin, as if she was humoring me. The slight tilt of her body away from me showed otherwise. Knows she was caught. Instinctive deflection. Uncomfortable the one thought she'd tried to hide was found.

"They're getting real busy out there, aren't they? Like sharks in a frenzy going after chum from the bucket." A subtle shift closer to her, as if to brush against her personal space. I said what I said.

"A crude analogy for what we likely could never comprehend." She crossed her arms, the closest finger sliding across her bicep towards me. SincereApology. IKnow.

I didn't really want to go, but I would. For her. This is your final revenge on me, isn't it, Taylor? I had stopped getting my backup updated years ago. Signed the no-revive paperwork from my lawyer, even. Not that that would really stop my enemies if they wanted a copy of me, but I'd left some zingers buried there just in case they ever got their hands on it. Their desperation for a date, underaged consent jokes, broad-spectrum stuff. Yet I would give up my humanity for this woman.

It was terrifying how scared I wasn't. The pairbond pulsed in my head, denying me the outrage of my values, for whatever they were worth.

"Doesn't seem too hard to imagine. Fractal limbs as far as the eye can see. Think they're using them for something else in between fights?" I shifted my posture noncommittally. I'm just saying.

InterestNostalgia. ItWouldBeAnAdventure. UnknownButWithPurpose. "Not really." Rebecca said nothing more. To our audience, it was a sign of her not deigning to entertain my fancies any longer. To me, it was a sign of her focus on the topic.

"Ah~." Ah. Ah…

It took an effort of will to hide the sudden hurt that welled up deep inside of me, shocking me with its intensity. Everyone always decided to leave me in the end, didn't they? Rex. Taylor. And if Rebecca prioritized the unknown over me, even if I followed…

I couldn't stop the shiver that went through my body.

My jaw clenched. Now she knew. I knew she knew. She knew I knew she knew. Ad nauseum. Just another step in the spiraling game that we had enjoyed wrapping each other up in, familiar and warm like a shared sweater on a cold winter day.

NoIt'sNot. The barest flicker of an eye replaced what would have had to been a movement of the head decades ago. An empathetic denial.

Confusion must have been written on my face, because Rebecca stepped closer and laid her hand lightly on my shoulder. The closest gesture we allowed ourselves in public for something intimate. More than a hug or a nuzzle.

It'sNotAnotherStepInTheGame. IChooseYouEveryTime. AnyChallengeInterestsMe. ButYouAreTheOnlyOneWhoMakesMeHappy.

"Cold?" She asked, eyes soft.

"Just a little," I responded with a weak smile, applying the barest pressure back on the tips of her fingers. "I should warm up if I move around."

"Then we should move away from here. Continue our journey." The guide started at the subliminal rebuke for slacking in his duties. Amusement.

I grinned. She learned that from me, folks.

…

It's amazing what you remember right before you die. Years ago, the hospital room would have been filled with the steady beep of a heart monitor, the noise of the doctors and nurses rushing around outside softened by the door. Nowadays a pod could manage the functions of all that equipment and the room was necessary only for the privacy of the patient.

There was no-one in my room. The few well-wishers I had left yesterday, and the doctor who administered the serum had respectfully closed the door not a minute ago.

The one I wanted to be there had been gone for years. She had stopped getting her backup updated too. I hugged her photo in my arms as I floated in the medical fluid, some picture of the pair of us together at a diplomatic conference in another dimension I didn't care about. Perfectly professional, except for the comforting hand Rebecca had placed on my shoulder right before it was taken.

I flicked off my power, one last time. I was tired. Had been for a while, though I didn't regret it. There were no more obligations left for me. Just rest. The bioplastic frame of the photo dug into my weak arms.

I hope you remember that I chose you too. Every time. From all the way at the start until all the way to the-