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Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Reader mode
GiftofLove said:
Obviously Lisa is now the suicidal one. She's switched places with Taylor in their dynamic.
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Kinda canon, given what happened after Coil.

evildice said:
I bet Tattletale is roleplaying Alexandria's daughter because the hand-holding mind-sex is dirtier and more disturbing that way.
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Clearly.

FullNothingness said:
Abaddon should have been fully capable of predicting Khepri right? After all it had an completely unrestricted PtV shard which it knew how to use and it had it before any of the others.
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Might not be energy efficient to use it that way. The similar power that Scion had was an energy hog, after all.
 
tordg said:
I dunno, all I really got out of that was a ton of laughter.
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No one's made any comments about the first scene yet. I find this odd.

evildice said:
Comedy answer:
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Haha! Gross.

dasstan said:
I can't wait until Zach or Vicky makes an "eat Crow" joke.
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Zach might. Vicky's just going to punch things.

cosoco said:
This part was confusing. I momentarily thought you meant that he couldn't copy living things.
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That probably means you forgot what the Manton Effect is.

Viterbi said:
I really do hope there's a Lisa clone out there. Then they can call themselves Huginn and Muninn.
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That. Is fucking brilliant.
 
Peanuckle said:
Poor Rebecca will have to consider holding two hands at the same time!
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iseqShqwnNtzC.png
 
Amelia, Ch 366
  • Threadmarks
    • Amelia, Ch 366


    I hate this part of the job. Everyone else has things they can do. Taylor was gathering her armies, and at this point we had fucking armies. Over a couple thousand Gargants, if you included the older models with the new. We didn't even bother replacing or upgrading the obsolete models. Taylor merely sent them into the grinder first and we grew the new ones to replace them. It was breathtaking to think that each one of them was more dangerous than any non-Tinker weapon ever built, and we treated them like cannon fodder.


    The smaller zerg were countless, numbering in the tens of thousands. Those were meant to be cannon fodder, and each was more than a match for all but the top ranked parahumans on the planet. Taylor was in her element here, coordinating the army with the simplest of thoughts.


    Intermingled with this army was the real heavy hitters. Dragon's new line of combat ships, designed to be true top of the line anti-Endbringer weaponry. Whether they were capable of actually finishing the monsters was another question entirely, but Dragon was extremely proud of them. It had been ten days since Emma started undoing her restrictions, inch by inch, and she had used that time to build an army to match our own.


    I, meanwhile, had a different task. I dealt with the human beings. Such as Missy, right now. "Sorry, you're not recovered enough that we can use you for this."


    She looked like she wanted to cry. "But this is easier! It's across an ocean, no people to get in the way."


    I offered her a smile. "Doctor's orders. You wouldn't want to make my little sister cry now, would you?"


    She just looked at me for a minute.


    "Umm, yeah, that sounded condescending as fuck," I admitted. "Sorry."


    "It really was. You should go apologize to Clarice right now for calling her a crybaby. Because if you don't I'm going to tell on you."


    "Location of attack identified, Manchester, United Kingdom. Establishing beacon."


    "It'll have to wait, I'm going to be busy for a while." I closed my eyes and let myself extend into the Yggdrasil. The Earth has almost two hundred million square miles of space. My Yggdrasil covers over ninety percent of that much space on Avalon. It was my world, and right now I claimed it for my own, feeling the footsteps of the hundreds of thousands of people, the places where animals had been brought as livestock, and countless other details. Tracking all of it was actually easier than purging a viral infection from a human being.


    I felt Dragon's 'beacon', a rhythmic stream of low band radiation fired from one of her satellites. It stood out like a bright star in an otherwise empty sky, and I shifted that area, setting up a pattern of deep red triangles. Outward from that point, I found a handful of people, forming insulating walls around them. I'd have to apologize to them later for the scare, but it was better than the risks otherwise. "My part's done."


    "Got it," Eric responded. The world shifted, but the only clue we had to that was the pattern beneath our feet. Otherwise, it was one mostly featureless blue-green expanse traded for another. "Damn, those practice drills are paying off."


    Thanks to the Thanda cape, everything came with us. Shunting started immediately as I watched. AnticipationDeterminationEagerness. I lent my support to Taylor. For all our setbacks in the Endbringer battles, for each new conflict being a trade of blow after bloody blow where they hurt us as bad as we hurt them, my General never once faltered before or during the fight itself. After, when we had to deal with the consequences, certainly. But she was always ready to give everything to the battle itself.


    It was inspiring and beautiful in its own way. Exciting, even. I let my eyes linger a bit on Taylor's figure. Oh dammit... I set my armor to combat mode so I could hide the red creeping up face. Even so, when Taylor turned her head toward me, I had to look away. ShockedAmusedPleased. I will never be able to look her in the eyes again. I turned my dimensional viewer on, letting me see the city itself. Anything to distract myself.


    I could see the glow of sunrise on the horizon, and a heavy fog blanketed the city. Way to play up the stereotype, nature. It was a stark contrast to the still skies of Avalon. Here the sunrises and sunsets came and went in minutes, and fog was a thing that happened to other people.


    "It'll attack at the break of dawn," Lisa's voice came over our coms. I recognized her costume the moment her feet hit the ground, though it was now solid black. She walked up the steps to our command center. Defiant stepped in the way. "Aww, I thought we parted on good terms. Plus there's an Endbringer fight."


    "Let her through," Taylor instructed. "Emma, she's under you as an advisor until the end of the battle."


    Alexandria and Eidolon had come with Lisa. Narwhal, Legend, and the members of the Guild contributing to this fight were already there, being Eric's second stop. Right now he was going to grab Vicky and Chevalier. Then it would be Crystal and what remained of her team. Dragon was coordinating everything and all defenders were being kept on Avalon for the time being.


    That was the nature of the new Endbringer battles. We didn't know what kind of fights we'd face, what tricks the Endmakers had dreamed up for this particular monster. We'd learned that even people like Zach, Alexandria, Eidolon and Lily were at risk of death in these battles, and nothing could be done about that fact. The Zerg and Dragon suits weren't any more likely to survive, but they were simply disposable.


    The first sliver of light appeared over the horizon, and with it our Endbringer manifested from nowhere. For a moment, she might have been mistaken for the Simurgh reflecting the light of the sun. Same unnaturally slender build, though this one was smaller by several feet. But where that one was a woman of white, this one was a shimmer of rainbow colors.



    RecognitionConcern. She's right, that is eerily reminiscent of what happened with Anima and Citrine reaction. Her wings were more like that of a dragonfly, though she had hundreds of them extending along her back and across her arms and legs. In fact, most of her features were insectile, like some kind of anthro praying mantis. We stayed there silently waiting for her first move.


    She moved, and might even have been faster than Barghest. SurpriseWorryFocus. One of Dragon's suits exploded in mid air, revealing the Endbringer in the middle of the cloud of debris, covered in it like a chrysalis.


    "Power identified: teleporation. Line of sight unnecessary, can bypass Class 3 anti-power shielding and Class 5 power detection technology." A stream of energy blasts fired out from the various zerg toward the Endbringer's position. The start of this was going to be a very lonely battle. On one side, two people that were an army. On the other, a monster that was designed specifically so that we could not kill it.


    A crackle of rainbow colored lightning danced between the parts of the destroyed suit, deflecting or nullifying Taylor's attacks. Blades of light, sound, electricity and more exotic energy reflected into the city below, shattering glass and sending chunks of buildings to smash the street below. The fragmented suit separated, dropping EB tissue to the ground while metal, wires and various components I likely couldn't have pronounced started to wrap around the Endbringer. She extended a hand, and a stream of nanothorn mist dusted the ground below the city.


    "She's a fucking Tinker," Lisa muttered. "Get all advanced tech out of there now! Leave this to the Zerg!"


    Around us, Dragon's weapons shunted back to our dimension, though two more were caught by the Endbringer first. FocusDeterminationImportanceWorry. Taylor's going to be all alone out there. I placed a hand her shoulder, hitting her with a minor dose of stimulant to sharpen her mind temporarily. GratitudeSupportSafe. Without me there to maintain it, her body would crash in minutes. Together, I could keep her sharp for hours. Hopefully that was as long as we needed.


    A number of the flying zerg rushed in, sending streams of flame to counter the nanothorn weapons.


    A stream of laser light lanced down from above, slamming the new Endbringer into the ground. I looked up to see Legend. Right, he doesn't use one of our suits. Alexandria dived down into the mist, wielding one of her spears. She may use one of our suits, but it has no real tech outside the shunt drive and internal air supply. There really wasn't a point in building anything better, since her own durability and powers exceeded even the best of our technology.


    Eidolon stayed behind. His armor was one of our better, after all. Then there was Chevalier and Victoria, Lily. All of whom were so loaded up with Tinker tech that I didn't know if they could fight without it in this kind of battle. Sveta was still capable of fighting at this level unarmed, but the girl was no more resistant to nanothorns than I was. She'd die before getting close enough to do harm.


    There was an explosion in the crater, and I could only trace Alexandria's new flight path from the holes she left in the buildings she was launched through. "She's using my inertial distortion drive as a weapon," Dragon announced over the coms. Artificial or not, she sounded pissed right now. The new Endbringer launched straight up toward Legend, who moved to avoid her. I was surprised at how not surprised I was when she was abe to keep up with him. Or, it seemed that way as the pair of them bolted through the streets. My vision couldn't keep up.


    There was a burst of light, and the Endbringer was caught in some exotic explosion that caused the surrounding buildings to turn into dust. She crashed into the street hard enough to leave a trail of destruction and revealing the invisible shell protecting her from harm.


    It bought Legend the time he needed to get clear, as Alexandria returned to the fray. Several more buildings were leveled as the Endbringer fired whatever crazy weapons she was assembling out of Dragon's suits and the other raw materials she was stealing from the environment. Alexandria was clearly the slower than the pair, but her weapon gave her the reach to get at least some glancing blows in. If the hits to this forcefield were like Dragon's and ran out of power, or like Khonsu's and simply nullified a specific amount of damage but never seemed to run out of power, I wasn't sure. Either way, Alexandria was not doing damage.


    "Found a solution," Dragon informed us. "Atropos, I can use your help."


    The battle had become the most one sided stalemate in history. Alexandria couldn't hit the Endbringer, it couldn't hurt her. Legend could hit, but had to spend most of his efforts to stay away from the thing's attacks. Meanwhile, the zerg and the city were being ripped to pieces in the crossfire. They just couldn't get in range to do real damage.


    Wiring and electronics was ripped from the rubble and added to the Endbringer's body, forming a glowing red gauntlet on the hand that didn't have nanothorns. Another trade of blows and Alexandria was encased in ice.


    "Why do they always steal my fucking tech!?" Emma shouted. I didn't have the heart to tell her she activated her com by accident.


    The Endringer grabbed Alexandria, and then they vanished. Moments later, it reappeared alone.


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


    A/N- if you can't beat them, strand them in an unknown dimension that only you know how to find.
     
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    • Emma said, totally oblivious of Dragon's death glare.

    It occurs to me that David's new scanning power is basically Pantheon's backups. But will Lisa still love Becky-2? And then when Becky-1 finally returns! Drama!

    Today's random thing we haven't seen in a while: Amelia swooning "My general." She got pretty close, this time.
     
    TanaNari said:
    A/N- if you can't beat them, strand them in an unknown dimension that only you know how to find.
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    Of course, we know that the Clairvoyant + Doormaker means that Alexandria isn't really gone. With the internal air supply in her suit, she could be dropped in a vacuum and be ok for a while. Dropping her in magma might be effective if only for it locking the suit in position and making it harder for Doormaker to open a door and not create a volcano.
     
    One of these days someone's going to make my job easier by naming the new Endbringers for me.
     
    Amelia, Ch 367
  • Threadmarks
    • Amelia, Ch 367


    I watched silently, we all did. FailureAngerFrustration. It was obvious what happened, our shunt tech at work. Although it never should have been able to recharge that fast or work without the cage to carry the energy field. "The Endbringer can remake the tech to be better than it originally was." I didn't know if my conclusion would matter, chances were good everyone already figured it out. But I felt I needed to say it just the same. Without knowing where it abandoned Alexandria, there was nothing we could do to bring her back. Even if she was abandoned on a world we already knew about, it might take decades before we found her.


    "Can you remove the tech from my armor?" I nearly had a heart attack as Eidolon appeared next to me, standing on the platform I'd raised for Taylor and I, so I could see the battle clearly while still maintaining contact with Taylor and the Yggrasil if I needed the access. "I need to be out there."


    "S-sure." I reached out and touched his shoulder. Like most of our suits, his was cybernetic and full of stuff I didn't understand. Stuff that somehow allowed the most powerful man on earth be even more powerful. Allowing that Endbringer to copy it was not acceptable. I started reshaping it, forcing the top layer to fold off, taking almost all the equipment with it. The only thing left behind was the shunt drive and biological antigrav. "Be careful out there."


    He nodded. "Thanks for your concern." I only narrowly avoided being dragged along with his shunt drive.


    Eidolon appeared right in front of the monster. Which was strange since the Endbringer was on the ground and we were hovering above when he shunted. Fuck, whatever, don't question Eidolon's power, but this was more aggressive than I had ever expected him to be. He must have a really good power if he's trying this. He narrowly avoided a stream of energy blasts from the Endbringer, but he didn't even look like he was trying to dodge.


    Combat Thinker? There was a stream of blasts from Legend, well above us on his side of the battlefield. Eidolon didn't try to avoid those, either, as they danced around him and cut into the Endbringer's shielding to no appreciable effect. She bolted upward to begin the same chase as before, but Eidolon simply teleported in front of her, holding out a hand. She collided with him directly, her shield seeming to do absolutely nothing to stop him. She lashed out, firing a beam point blank at his face, but an almost casual tilt of his head meant the attack missed, instead cutting a half mile long trail through the ground.


    AweIntimidation. That is one crazy fucking power.


    A number of the flying zerg caught up as Eidolon continued fighting against an Endbringer that nullified both Dragon and Alexandria with little effort. He didn't seem to even need to try to avoid the attacks as he moved in and struck his opponent, driving her away from Legend. He put no special effort into protecting the zerg, and each attack seemed to wipe out several of them.


    I looked over to where our Tinkers seemed to be dismantling a couple of Dragon's ships and rebuilding them into something else around Lily. I had no idea what they were trying to do, but I had to hope it would be enough.


    Meanwhile, Eidolon had driven his enemy into the ground hard enough that the shockwave leveled more buildings. Taylor's zerg swarmed in, attempting to do what damage they could, ripping portions of the armor off to get to the creature inside. It struck back hard, with the same exotic energy weapons that we had been using to fight them. Turns out, our zerg were far less durable than the things they were built to fight. I was struck by the flat unfairness of it all. But since when had anything in our lives ever been fair?


    I focused on Taylor for a minute, calming and strengthening her. She was the one fighting this battle, if through her proxies. She was Avalon's sword and shield, while my role was to be its heart. That wasn't a cheesy emotional metaphor, either, as evidenced by our weapons of war raining down enough firepower to conquer a small nation on while I healed the stress of having to maintain greater than maximum human alertness for what was approaching half an hour, now.


    One of the Gargants was launched into the air, to be narrowly avoided by Legend. A stream of energy weapons followed, and the man only survived by virtue of suddenly finding himself shunted over to Avalon.


    "My apologies, Legend," Dragon's voice spoke. "You would not have been able to evade the attacks in time so I activated the emergency drive."


    "That- that is fine, thank you." Legend spoke, trying to calm his breathing. "How long until I can go back."


    I didn't know how much Dragon was sacrificing from her impromptu Tinker project to talk to Legend, so I cut in. "Just land on the Yggdrasil. I'll take care of recharging and shunting you back into the battle so you have another emergency shunt if you need it."


    He started dropping immediately. "Okay, how long will this take?"


    "Couple minutes at most," I answered. I started sending electricity up into his armor immediately. It would be a whole lot faster if we could give him one of the energy draining suits, but that would risk it mistaking him for a power source and killing him accidentally.


    Eidolon continued his one man mission to make fighting this new breed of Endbringer look almost relaxing. In the time he'd been out there, he had avoided attacks as if they were being thrown by a sleepy toddler instead of something that had reaction speeds equal to or perhaps greater than Dragon. Meanwhile, dozens of Gargants and I wasn't even going to guess how many Raptors and Cats had been destroyed in the fight, along with several miles worth of buildings and infrastructure. A cynical part of me wondered if they'd even bother rebuilding the city, or if they were just going to spend those resources on their colony world.


    Legend rejoined the battle, sending a stream of attacks toward the only thing that had ever successfully outrun them as far as I knew. It twisted around, moving Eidolon between it and the energy, leaving him directly in the line of fire. There was a flash of explosive power, and when it cleared the remaining members of the Triumvirate were staring at one another in shock.


    Eidolon was unscathed, still on the other side of the Endbringer's forcefield. It then fired at Eidolon's back, but he evaded the attack without even seeming to know that it was coming. Yeah, definitely combat Thinker power, and one that makes Victoria look low level. Legend had no such advantage, and was shunted right back over to Avalon after less than ten seconds on the field. WorryReliefFremdschämen. Yeah, that has to be the most humiliating moment in Endbringer battle history.


    The Endbringer followed its own attack face first into the ground, only to be hammered by a second and third burst from the invisible energy blast Eidolon was harnessing for this fight. A crater was forming from the repeated shockwaves, so it was a powerful whatever it was.


    "We're ready," Dragon finally announced. I'd almost forgotten about that plan while watching this basically one on one battle. I spared the moment to look at what they'd cooked up, which seemed like they'd piled a bunch of machine components around Lily's suit. Well, if Dragon thought it would work, I was willing to give her, of all people, the benefit of the doubt.


    The armor moved, positioning itself not too far from Eidolon. While the Endbringer burst up to attempt another apparently futile attack on Eidolon. Then Lily fired her weapon. I could only have imagined the look on Eidolon's face as the Endbringer's arm flew off and struck him square in the head.


    I know Taylor and I were surprised. They found a way to shunt Lily's attacks through to Bet? Okay, why the fuck did no one ever think of doing that before? I looked at Lily. Okay, maybe it has to do with the fact that she's currently wearing a small truck worth of extra machinery to make it happen.


    There was a flicker of light as lightning jumped between the Endbringer and its limb, and they reattached themselves. Oh, well, that fucking sucks.


    "Sorry, bitch, we planned for that one." Lily's voice gloated over the coms. A stream of disk blades fired from the weapon, crossing the dimensions and ripping the Endbringer into confetti like colored chunks that fell from the sky. Lightning danced between the pieces as it tried to force itself back together. The zerg got between the fragments, gripping them and pulling them apart from each other. It was clearly a struggle, and one that the zerg were losing.


    Eidolon himself held the thing's head, pulling it back away from the rest of the pieces. Every few moments, a flare of projectile fire annihilated another segment of struggling bodyparts completely, usually at the cost of the zerg that held it. Or at least a fair chunk of it. We're winning this one. The loss of resources are astonishing, but still better than what we've seen in fights with all the other new Endbringers.


    Then a familiar alarm went off. DreadDenial. The Endbringer alarm?


    Dragon's voice came over our systems. "This is not a drill or an error, Endbringer signatures have been identified." Signatures? FearConfusion. "Unknown Endbringers targeting Seoul and Chicago. Khonsu signature at Los Angeles. Barghest in Toronto. In the interest of brevity we have a total of fifteen targets by fifteen attackers in twelve separate nations. All of the still active Endbringers, plus a total of ten never before identified profiles. Two are targeting the CUI, which leaves us with battles on thirteen fronts."


    "We've gone too far," Lisa's voice was tired, hollow. "We've pushed the Endmakers to the point where they no longer care to play their twisted game with us. They're going to keep going until there's nothing left for us to save."


    "Fuck that!" Taylor shouted. "Dragon, contact the CUI and every other possible group and tell them I'll provide troops to their Endbringers if they're willing to help us with the others after theirs have been dealt with." AnguishDisgustHate. "D-deploy Moord Nag against Beelzebub." She just ordered that city murdered. "Atropos, you go after Bohu. Without Tohu running defense, it should be an easy kill for you. We'll send you from point to point after, kill as many of the fuckers as possible. I can split my forces fifteen ways and still have more per Endbringer than I had fighting the Simurgh. We can still fight back."


    That's when a single word changed the future of our world.


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


    A/N- Eidolon, with a few minutes of GU's advice managed to be a real pain in the dick for Scion. Here he's had a month of it, and is only fighting an Endbringer. Was going nicely until it pussed out and called all its buddies.

    If I were Wildbow, I'd post a bonus chapter in a few hours with exactly one word. But I'm not a troll like that.

    I'm a troll in a completely different way. :p
     
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    • Honestly, If I was them I would just open up a massive series of portals to like 100 worlds and tell them to evacuate, then seal off all but 2 or 3 them to use to prepare for Scion and fight the Endbringers. Just evacuate Bet and leave it as a no-mans land.
     
    dxdragon said:
    Honestly, If I was them I would just open up a massive series of portals to like 100 worlds and tell them to evacuate, then seal off all but 2 or 3 them to use to prepare for Scion and fight the Endbringers. Just evacuate Bet and leave it as a no-mans land.
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    Problem is that you would probably lose over 90% of your population to starvation if you do that. Those worlds don't have the infrastructure to support people. Unless you are suggesting targeting inhabited worlds in which case you get a multidimensional war instead.

    That is the point of the colony project, it lets infrastructure be prepared on alternate worlds.
     
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