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.
