Amelia, Ch 234
Vicky glanced at me, then stepped back. "If you need me, I'll be right over there. Warming up the anti Endbringer weapons. You never can be certain when they might be needed." I almost rolled my eyes.
"I understand," Marquis spoke with a calm, somewhat amused, demeanor. "Thank you for looking after my daughter all these years."
"It's what sisters do," she answered, her voice ice. Electricity visibly danced between the talons built into the armor. She stepped back a couple feet, and her armor shimmered, then turned invisible. "Just pretend I'm not even here."
"Quite the friends you brought with you," he smiled at me.
"Sisters," I corrected.
"Sisters? Plural?" he glanced over at where Lisa was chatting.
"Well, one's an complete bitch who knows exactly what to say to piss me off, but at the same time I know has my best interests at heart even when she's being an unbelievable pain in the ass," I told him. "And the other's Vicky. So, close enough."
"I saw some speculation on the news about me having a second daughter?" he prompted. "I must admit, this came as some news to me."
"To hear some of the other people in Brockton Bay tell it," I answered with just a bit of impatience. "I should be running DNA tests with every native of the city between the ages of nine and twenty. But, if it makes you feel any better? No, Clarice isn't one of yours."
"You know this for a fact, and still let the rumors persist, then?" he kept his easy smile. "I take it you're trying to conceal her true identity. No, don't worry, I won't ask any details." He held up his hand and small white knife that was almost certainly bone. Then he sliced the ball of his hand, though not deeply and dabbed it with a bit of cloth. "Here, should help you if you want to really sell the deception. I'm sure you or one of your tinkers can figure the rest out easily enough."
"Uh, thank you?" I said as I took the cloth. He wasn't wrong, though at this point there was so little benefit to having physical evidence to fabricate Clarice's identity that it really wasn't that useful. I opted not to tell him that, however.
"I heard about your engagement on the news," he said, changing the subject a bit. He jumps between topics without warning. Then again, there's a lot to talk about and not a lot of time, of course he does. "Your fiancée is beautiful, by the way."
"Thanks," this time I meant it. "Tell her that to her face, and she'd call you a liar to yours. I think that's part of her charm, personally. "
"You have your old man's taste in women," he agreed.
"Yeah," I agreed unhappily. "It was very kind of our fans on the internet to point that tidbit out, amidst various other bits of speculation. You'll be relieved to know that no, she is not. Yes, we did check. I've been assured that, genetically, the two of us aren't even the same race."
He scratched the bad of his head. "There are things you're prepared for when becoming a father. There are things you aren't prepared for, but aren't hard to figure out, really. And then there are those things that you never could have imagined could be a thing. I think this conversation is very much one of those."
"Yeah, try living a day in my life," I quipped. "You'd be amazed at how often weirdness like this happens to me."
He looked down, sighing. "I meant it when I said I was sorry. If I had it to do all over again, I'd have done things differently. I want you to know that."
"Nothing we can do about the past," I responded. I wasn't sure, myself, if I was accepting or dismissing the apology. "We just have to move forward. Do better in the future and make up for our mistakes where we can."
"That's a very wise way of looking at things, you were raised well," he praised, then his face showed realization and concern. He must have noticed how I froze up. "You weren't taught that, were you? It was something you had to learn for yourself."
I shrugged. "Like I said, moving forward, making up for mistakes."
He stepped forward and raised his arms a bit, then hesitated. His arms moved back to his sides and then up again. He settled on placing his hands on my shoulders. "I hope you never have to hear your own children say something like that to you," he sighed.
"Sorry to interrupt," Minerva spoke from the entrance. "But if we don't go now, I'm pretty sure they'd leave us behind. Not forever, of course, but a couple hours just to teach us not to waste time."
I turned my head toward her. "Understood," I replied, keeping my voice as neutral as I could.
"Well, visiting hours are over," Marquis sighed. "You've grown up to be a fine young woman, Amelia. You remind me a lot of your mother. I'd like to tell you about her, if we get the time. Maybe I can meet Taylor as well?"
"Yeah, that sounds nice," I offered. It was lame, but it was the best I could say and still be honest. He turned and quickly walked away, his body language changing in the blink of an eye, to the kind of man that could command respect in a prison full of some of the most horrific monsters the world has ever seen. Well, at least I know he'll have something in common with Taylor, I thought. Then I turned to follow my team.
....
I had been reunited with Taylor, and restored as many people as needed it. Then we went on the real offensive. The zerg poured out of our dimension, ready to engage. All of the shifts were over, and everyone arrived for their part of the battle. Except Lily and Sabah, I amended.
The zerglings and ultralisks charged through the rubble of a small town in southern Switzerland whose name I didn't notice, piling on to the Endbringer. Exotic energy weapons had been built into tusks made of sharpened Simurgh tissue, which Taylor wielded as an extension of her body. Khonsu pulled himself free, trapping numerous zerg in time fields. Much like himself, being captured in temporal acceleration would only allow them to recover and recharge.
"We have to shunt over," Lisa informed us. "Quickly."
ConcernUncertainty. Even so, she didn't argue. She shunted as instructed. I followed, along with our command center and everyone on it. Khonsu turned toward us, attempting to force through the masses of zerg between us. Despite not touching the ground, he was not really flying, nor was he very fast, but he was stronger than the monsters we built to fight him. GrimCertaintyFocus.
Taylor's flying units piled on the attacks, backed by our flying parahumans. Alexandria had wrapped one of her chains around Khonsu's throat. She and a couple ultralisks gripped it, pulling him back, though their efforts didn't seem to concern the Endbringer or slow him down.
"He's coming specifically for us," Lisa spoke, informing us of something we already knew.
A black mass poured out of nowhere. On it stood a woman. She doesn't look like a warlord, I thought. More like a groupie of some kind. Black t-shirt with the sleeves torn off and cut to show the stomach and waist. For whatever reason, she also wore a black knee length dress skirt. I guess when you're the most terrifying person on a continent, you can wear whatever the hell you pleased.
Her Predator poured around Khonsu, forming claws and fangs from... whatever it was made of... and digging into injuries that had been made by others.
"Stronger than Alexandria," Lisa appraised of the monster.
Almost half a mile away, we hurt the popping and cracking noises as Khonsu was split open. A huge chunk, three layers thick about as large as a car roof popped off of the Endbringer and was tossed casually away.
"Make that a lot stronger than Alexandria," Lisa amended. "Looks like a similar Passenger to Siberian."
"Detecting waveform," Dragon announced over the armbands. "Target location: French Guiana."
Moord Nag fell back, coming away with another thick chunk of Endbringer shell in the shadow's claws. Our command center slowly lifted off the ground, and us with it. Then the scenery changed from a snowy, very much destroyed, European village to a tropical South American village. Strange, I didn't even feel the transition, I realized. Even with Trickster, there was always a little bit of sensation that came with teleportation.
But all of us had come with. The zerg still had grip on Khonsu, Alexandria still had him chained. Moord Nag's shadow still held the shell of Endbringer matter. He didn't have a chance to restore himself. We can win this. HopeConfidenceDetermination. Taylor's hand gripped mine. Bursts of energy from all our blasters streamed forward. Now that Missy wasn't needed for transportation, even she joined, hammering Khonsu with waves of distorted space and leaving cracks in him that seemed to penetrate deeper than any prior weapon had managed.
Moord Nag took advantage of this damage, specifically targeting them with the shadow. Near as I could tell, she was pouring the shadow into the gap and using it to spread between layers, then pushing them apart. Either way, the pair made a brutal tag team, melting through his layers the way Lily had during her attempt.
A pillar of time shifted, moving toward Missy. As tired and focused on offense as she was, she didn't even see it coming. She blipped out of Bet to find herself on Avalon. "Fuck!" she shouted on the coms, which were mercifully designed to keep the volume at a reasonable decibel for us. "It almost got me, didn't it?"
"Hah!" Clarice chirped happily. "Told you the auto detect system was perfect."
"Yeah," Missy agreed, her voice shaky. "You get to pick on movie night. Landing to recharge, see you in a couple minutes."
The rest of the battle proved straightforward. We had him outclassed in firepower, now. The Endbringer was incredibly durable even by their standards, and had its movement gimmick, but past that it was predictable. The zerg absorbed most of the damage. Until the last few moments. "Waveform detected," Dragon informed us. "Coordinate unknown. According to my understanding of dimensional physics, it's to a place that doesn't exist."
What? "I think, my friends," the Indian cape responsible for our teleportation spoke over the armbands. "I won't be following this one." No one objected, and we took a few more good shots before the Endbringer disappeared.
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A/N- And there's the end of Khonsu's fight arc. On to the aftermath!
