A/N: Thanks to Saphire on the Taylor Varga Discord for advice and comments! Sorry for the rather short chapter, I had to cut a scene for... reasons.
I Am Ziz
Chapter 2
Confusion, Defiance, and Dickery
Three hours later I'm still standing on the bay. Nobody has approached me except Legend, who's just been watching me with confusion. I've been trolling the shit out of him by watching him right back, spinning around to face him at all times.
Dragon has frankly lost her shit trying to figure me out. Alexandria's still unconscious (I didn't hit her at all! Give me a break!) and Eidolon has limped back from the home run punt I gave him.
To Colorado.
Like I said earlier,
Whoops.
He's hovering far off, confused and frustrated. His shard has been trying to control me this whole time, to get me to fight him, and despite him hitting me with what I
think were gravity beams through the tickles, I've done nothing more than glare at him.
Frankly, everyone is confused to
hell and it is making Ziz and I laugh our asses off in my mind.
Eventually Legend finally relents. He comes closer to my face despite the warning screams from his Dragon armband and looks me in the eyes.
I shock him by grinning.
"Can you understand me?" he asks, hesitantly. He's ready to fire everything he has in a last ditch attempt at doing me in.
I smirk and wiggle my eyebrows. "
Well your accent is a little weird, but you are speaking your world's primary human language. It would be rather stupid of me not to learn that, don't you think?"
Wow. My voice has a raw
power inherent in the qualities, along with practically oozing raw sensuality. Ziz laughs and says it's because of her Scream ability.
Legend almost falls from the sky with surprise. Eidolon flinches. Thousands if not millions of gasps ring out from Brockton bay, along with a whole lot of people covering their ears in an attempt to protect against a Scream that's not even running right now. Nevermind that the 'Scream' is tele-frakking-pathic and doesn't actually
use their ears.
"You can
speak?!" Dragon shrieks from Legend's armband.
I shrug my shoulders. Everyone except me flinches. "
Always been able to."
Legend recovers enough to glare at me. I raise an eyebrow. He clears his throat. "Alright, I'm going to just come out and ask; why do you attack?"
Yup. Not letting this joke opportunity go.
"
I thought you were already out of the closet?" I innocently ask. No hesitation.
A now
literally heated glare is what I get for my teasing efforts.
Don't wanna have fun with the engine of destruction, I see how it is. My pout would give Legend a run for his namesake money.
The flying disco ball crosses his arms and glares harder. With a revengeance.
I roll my eyes and sigh. "
Fiiine," I capitulate, a petulant whine accompanying my word.
What? I'm a girl now. I get to whine, pout, and be obstinately petulant. It's a thing.
Respect the thing!
Still, though, what he's asked surprises me. "
An Endbringer shows up on your doorstep without looking for a fight and the first question you ask is why? Not 'please don't hurt us', 'oh god why' or 'let me live!'?" I ask incredulously.
Legend opens his mouth to respond, closes it, opens it, closes it again, then finally figures out what he has to say. "You're not looking for a fight?"
:I did not have a choice. Tell him.:
I frown at Ziz's request, shrug, and shake my head. "
None of us are. Up until now I had no choice."
Legend does his fish imitation again.
Trolling is fantastically entertaining, I toss over at Ziz.
:It is the only way I did not go insane: she replies in agreement.
Speaking of idiots, is that... Dadversary?
Doing what I think
he's going to do in the very near future?
:Yes:, she says, using all four wings plus her hands to perform a sextuple facepalm.
I grin widely, locking my eyes on him.
Well now, this'll be fun.
Before Legend can respond, and just as he did in the future which is now this moment, Eidolon crashes into me at high speed.
Instead of letting it do anything to me like Ziz was required to,
I don't even flinch. All the velocity of the idiot is bled off into other dimensions and I uncaringly glance down at where the nearly completely immobile moron is pushing against me. "
Okay I knew you were stupid, Dadversary, but not this stupid."
There. He wants to attack me anyways even if I'm peaceful right now? I'll
bury him in a PR nightmare. He deserves it anyways for what he's done to Ziz and her siblings.
No, punting him to Colorado didn't count as remotely enough revenge. Maybe a few thousand of those and forcing him to walk back.
MAYBE.
Ziz has now pulled up a wide-screen TV to watch the entertainment. I even provide mental popcorn.
Everything is silent. The comms are quiet. The screams of terror and roars of rage from the capes who came to fight me are not present. Legend stares at me, mouth dropped and horrified.
Eidolon stops pushing me and looks up, angry as hell. "
DAD?!" he
demands.
I scowl down in his direction. "
Yeah, as in father," I almost literally spit at him. I make sure there's a lot of emphasis on the utter distaste for that word applied to him.
He growls, rising away from me given how his pushing is ineffective. "You are a
monster," he fires off, "and certainly not a child of mine."
Ah. Telepathy is neat to experience. There's the doubt. A faint niggling in the back of his mind. It flows outward from him, obvious to anyone capable of picking up the signal. I use a combination of scanning his thoughts and parsing future paths in a clumsy imitation of the winged pseudo-goddess I have in the copilot seat to determine what exactly would damage him the most. Just a bit further… ah. There it is.
Even leads to paths to free the others. My…
siblings.
And isn't that a weird thought.
The Endbringers are now my siblings.
Huh.
I'm an Endbringer.
:Not Endbringer. Conflict Engine.:
Neat.
Regardless, I put my hasty and clumsy plan into place. Ziz sends the feeling of maternalistic pride to me, like a parent watching their kid accomplish something that really shouldn't be impressed by, but it's their kid so the fact they managed to pull it off is what is impressive.
My response back to her is one of simultaneous amusement and a deadpan stare.
The plan almost controls my body with how instinctive following Ziz's future sight, once a path is selected, happens to be. With her helping me, that is; without her guidance
so much would go wrong it's not even funny.
Okay, it's actually a little funny.
I incline my head, grin, and even use a light telepathic illusion to make my eyes slightly glow. "
Wrong. I, and my siblings, are tests. Weapons. We aren't supposed to attack. We're supposed to be optional. Designed to be bosses in the video game… certain entities have made of your world," I correct him. My stressing of certain words is supposed to inform him, and according to the future sight will do so, of the fact I know of Cauldron.
The widening of his eyes shows he does indeed know what I'm referring to.
Gotta be careful with this future sight thing or I could become completely dependent on it like a certain sky waifu, I think warningly to myself.
Ziz is surprised at my use of the term, looks it up in my Library, and scowls at me in my mind while crossing her arms.
:I am not a wife.:
You are totally a waifu and you know it.
:No! I am not matrimonially bound. I am not even human.:
...Check what waifu means a couple more times.
She does so. The pale cheeks of her mental avatar go beet red.
:I AM NOT A WAIFU!:
Yes you are.
:NO!:
Oooh, yes,
you most certainly are. Her Unholyness Of Feathers is the best waifu after Earth herself.
Ziz's eye twitches and she crosses her arms, pouting.
My mental avatar smirks.
Even more of a waifu now.
:I AM NOT. A. WAIFU!:
Lalalalala I caaannn't heeeaaar yooouuu!
:NOT. WAIFU.:
I turn my attention away from the fuming Ziz, back to the real world, with a final parting shot.
Suuure.
Outwardly I slightly nod at Eidolon and continue. "
However, your world never reached that stage. We weren't supposed to be deployed. Hell we didn't even exist, except as potential, until your power, one none of your species should ever be given, pulled us into being. And because you needed a challenge, Dadversary, my siblings and I have been literally forced to kill millions of you, forced to attack every three months. I'm free of that control now. My siblings aren't. Now if you're done trying to get out of being the ultimate abusive father, I have things to fix, people to repair, and amends to attempt. Go fuck yourself."
I turn away from a white faced Eidolon to address the disco ball known as Legend. "
Any other stupid questions? Or do you want an all expenses paid trip to Colorado too?"