Panacea Quest

[hyzmarca]

[X] Cranial

 

[WyldCard4]

Voting closed to prevent the tie from returning.

Hyzmarca, thank you.

 

[WyldCard4]

I am sorry. I got heavily sidetracked and it is too late to update now. I apologize.

 

[Lement]

Do not worry. The three way tie has pleased me for now.

 

[WyldCard4]

[X] Cranial

Click to shrink...

The world doesn't fucking make sense anymore, and stopped making sense roughly the time you peeked at Amy Dallon's brain.

Currently, you're staging an internal debate over Cauldron's long series of decisions. Your utilitarian estimate, under the circumstances, is that a 0.5% of stopping Scion from devastating alternate human realities in greater numbers is worth a decade or two of expanded time before this apocalypse.

Objectively, they made the right call. Subjectively, your children probably won't grow up into people with interests and love and intelligence. They're a set of precocious blobs of cells, not working mental structures.

You're fucking angry and have been for weeks. Your husband's going to probably die again once Scion starts raiding the tinker facilities, and you're likely to die as well. You lost weeks of progress on the clone army because of Saint, and lost 56 useful capes to clone because Victoria and Amy decided to come out. Why is everyone, good or evil, stupid?

The bubble falls. Strider Secundus starts the troop relocation, with usable anti-Scion capes, capes that might produce usable countermeasures, and useless capes being moved rapidly across the world to useful positions. Hopefully the Morrígan's plan will get fewer people killed than Accord's.

"Everyone is working together." Amy says softly. "If we could win, our odds just went up, right?" She's terrified, pregnant, engaged. She has everything to lose in this fight.

"Our odds have definitely improved." Your voice-modulator assures Amy and pats her shoulder. You keep a close eye on the social module. Currently you have six modules running, and social is important, needed to form a consistent identity. Censorship examines social to keep your interactions and feelings consistent. Far engineering also pays close attention to social, to keep the priorities consistent with your stated desires, while near engineering never seeks out the other modules, only taking instructions. Your other two modules, threat assessment and pattern recognition, run in the background.

The social module is the most human, the one with the affection and frustration with Amy, love for your husband and children. You, unlikely almost everyone else in the world, have a fairly good idea what normal emotions look like, and you know social feels very much like how humans feel. There are people who develop affection easily for work associates, and censorship had set the neural incentives of social to do so very early in your subjective life, back when you had to choose between removing your ability to be lonely or trying to find companionship.

Censorship reaches out and deftly prepares the connections to your Toybox for social to find active, the attachment to your tadpoles, your husband. All of them had been put partially on hold for the sake of efficiency while they were impossible to reach. Now it was time to once again make decisions based on their welfare.

It is always best to avoid talking about how your mind works. Most people seem to think the ability to influence your emotions more thoroughly than most makes them less sincere. You don't like to think that way, and as long as social feels differently, you don't think it is. Censorship refuses to submit to social in these matters, so the parts of you that do feel in human ways lacks choice in the matter.

"God I don't want another month like that." Amy says suddenly. "Trapped in something so small and foul. Even being trapped with people I love." You consider this to be a fair compliment.

"It is for the sake of the world." You tap Amy's stomach lightly. "The world is a rather important place." It was definitely best to remind her of her fetal offspring whenever she was a bit down, such as when she was preparing a machine to convert human corpses into feed stock and food, or when she was suffering for her human experimentation. Her self worth was unhealthily attached to how much she could please Victoria. The social scripts she had picked up combined a really terrible combination of sexist masculine and feminine roles to fill Amy's head, while the BDSM influences actually gave it a somewhat less toxic script for her obsession. Still, with limited time and resources, it was easiest to remind her that she was carrying the child of someone she loved. It would be nice if she cared more for her body than it being able to please Victoria and sustain Claire.

"He comes." Sophie says suddenly. Teacher's work, flashes of precognition. Scion should be immune, but she has the vision. Perhaps Eidolon managed to find a way to expose him to sensory powers?

Victoria readies, preparing to raise her shield the moment it is time and not a second sooner. Teacher's work, more control for less power. The result was that Victoria could hold down her shield, suppress it, in exchange for keeping the shield up for longer periods. She had been holding it down for hours, and might be able to keep her shield raised for an hour or so.

Annie's marvelously shortened OODA loop for the allied forces allowed Eidolon and a reconstituted, reduced, Yangban army, the Queen of Diamonds, and several clones of Goddess to teleport in with Sophie's warning. Victoria crashes into Scion, the two doing full battle. Based on normal estimates, her shield would last until Scion got bored and used a trump ability to negate it. There is always the small hope that he would for some reason be unable to negate this particular perfect effect, despite negating the similar force fields of Shielder, Laserdream, and Lady Photon.

Amy and Sophie raise their longshot anti-Scion weapons and fire. There is very little that could be done. There is the tiny, remote possibility that the most potent biological weapon Amy could make, phased into Scion by dimensional abilities, will actually manage to infect him and lead to his defeat. Victoria holds Scion still as the two weapons hit to no visible effect.

To your surprise, Scion goes somewhat crazy, thrashing wildly, but does not vaporize Victoria or escape her grip. The two attacks hit, though Scion does not visibly weaken.

"Germs aren't going to actually work, right?" Amy asks.

"This is not a fucking radio drama from the Depression. Our alien invader is not going down to germs." Sophie grumbles. The earlier effect Victoria talked to you about is in full display, with vast chunks of flesh falling from Scion as Victoria starts to actually punch him. They appear to be pieces of golden flesh and organs, replicated over and over again, streaming like blood from where she punches.

"Scream when I sting you." The voice of Annie buzzes. Certainly an effective signal. You decide to trust the voice, and wait. A moment later, with Victoria holding Scion in place, you feel the sting, and scream.

You don't actually understand the scream. In truth, it seems to be your primary power. Everything else pales in comparison. You're a bad tinker, a minor thinker, a low mid range striker, and sometimes a moderate brute. All of that is little more than claws and feathers and skin, things fitting in with the strange themes of what your scream does. The sonic power understands the human mind, and the mind of everything you have exposed it to except for Endbringers. Your many personalities, your genius, all comes from prying small bits and pieces from the idiot god. The scream bounces into the brain, decodes it, understands it, in less then a second, creating physical triggers and anticipating back doors in the structure of the brain to cause the worst experience possible. The mere trigger mechanism, the parts you can almost comprehend, gave you an entire area of science, made you able to fake conventional genius and tinker abilities in a dozen areas. The scream is the smartest thing anyone has encountered, the best able to think. Only a very small number of agents approach the intelligence of the power that you can trigger.

Scion seems to go catatonic as you scream. A moment later, the Behemoth and Chevalier combination, Lancelot, appears. Scion is in the modified kill range. You see the explosion of the strange flesh, a soup of gold, falling from Victoria's arms. Then the Leviathan and Shadow Stalker combination, Cachalot, arrives, holding a particularly strange looking ranged weapon, and begins to fire. Cachalot is positioned above Scion's head, held aloft by another strange device, while Lancelot stands below. You see vast lines of darkness falling from Cachalot into the flood of gold.

It takes minutes before you exhaust yourself. Around you everyone else is evacuated. It's just you, Victoria, and the two partial Endbringers, with Eidolon holding a shadow of some kind nearby,

Really, bargain bin Endbringers? You can't actually imagine a more risky move that could possibly be done, and you have really tried. You spent a lot of time trying to think of something that might work better.

Finally, after what seems like forever, but is four minutes, your scream dies down in your throat.

Scion unleashes a flash of light, and Lancelot flees, using Dodge's portal technology. Cachalot moves, briefly, before doing the same. The flood of golden blood clears.

Scion is full of rage and fear. The fear is good, so very good. Scion is wounded. You see the head was severely damaged, somehow. He is regenerating head wounds visibly, now. There are multiple raw patches on his body, most of them small, which take visible moments to heal as Victoria fights again, striking harder than you could imagine. The two duel, and Scion looks more murderous than you had ever seen him. More capes flood in, Shielders and Narwhals, Eidolon clones, more Goddesses, keeping Scion distracted.

"Yangban member 36 is dead. No one else can recover you so quickly. I will tell you when you're supposed to fire again." The voice of Lady Bug, one of the worst things you ever did, whispers in your ear.

Then a thin beam lashes out, and for the first time in your memory you lose consciousness.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

End Interlude
_______________________________________________________________________________________

You look at Cranial's resting body. Hero sits beside you, turning from frantic typing to looking at his wife, pacing, trying to mourn and help at once.

"She might recover." You tell him. "She's a Case 53, most of her is in her agent."

"He cut off her brain, Amy. I'm not hopeful." The hero, Hero, said to be one of the nicest capes to ever really fight, snaps. You can't even imagine what it would be like to look at a lobotomized Victoria.

"Scion is getting crueler." Annie says over her bugs. After Cranial's attack, he conducted fourteen lobotomies, removed all of the limbs and performed minor healing on another eight, and crushed every Goddess clone he could catch against Glory Girl's force field. We believe Vicky is only alive because he likes to crush people against her."

"Jesus." You whisper, and watch the next victim be taken in.

"Jesus, hear me. Help us!" Hero shouts. "Please, please help us."

"Have we figured out why he isn't canceling the force field?" You ask Annie, feeling a bit dead inside, imaging Victoria being forced to feel people be crushed against her, knowing if she dropped her force field, she would die. One of the worst things you could imagine for her, having to make the choice to let someone die again and again. Goddess even looks a bit like her, you think.

"Kitsune doesn't think he can, citing Glaistig Uaine's rant. Most people think he wants her to suffer for exposing the Cranial scream, a lot." Annie says. "Oh, he's here. I did just upload. Bring me back as me, please."

"Wait, what?" You ask the swarm.

"He's crushing me into Vicky's her force field, inch by inch. She's sobbing hysterically, trying to be comforting. Please, I like who I am. It's really nice, Amy. Tell your Aunt Vicky I'm glad I got the chance to really know her. The screams of pain over here, just-" It's cut off in buzzing.

Sophie screams suddenly, howling. "You gave her to me, a fucking sister, someone for me to love. That was the best thing you ever fucking did, fucked up as it was! Now she's fucking..." Sophia Hess stomps her foot into the ground.

Command and control, communications, are down. Naturally, that is nowhere near the worst thing about the Scion rampage.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

You sit with Hero, working on the bio-tech constructs to be outfitted with his weapons. Cheap, easy, a delaying tactic.

The heroes are dying, very quickly.

"It's good, you know." Hero says suddenly. "He's stopped attacking anyone but us. He's focusing all his anger on us. If anything works, we saved a lot of the world."

"He is crushing people face first into someone I love, just so she can feel them die, and has been for half an hour." You say.

"Would she actually feel better if he was burning down cities instead? We're heroes. The word is about the strong sacrificing themselves for the weak, Panacea."

"Haven't we done enough?" You ask him.

"I died, and it wasn't enough. My wife might never come back to me, and I'm still hoping to buy people just a bit of time." Hero says. In Dispatch bubbles, you might spend hours of work to give seconds of time in a fight with Scion. "Do you want to stop?"

"No." You smile sadly. "That was never really an option."
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Victoria doesn't even talk when she arrives, her shield spent. She's fought for hours, and Scion had not hurt her, physically. Instead, he just killed people in the most intimate and horrifying manner he could, hoping to break her.

"He'll do it to you." Victoria whispers. "He said he would. He's just waiting.

"What do you want to do?" You ask her.

"Sleep." She whispers. "Knock me out, please." You do it. Sophie carries her to a cot.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

"Within 20 minutes, we will no longer have the power to occupy Scion." Accord declares. The current command council, what's left of the major players, half of them actively working on something, has convened.

"What are the options?" Saint asks, looking exhausted, dead inside.

"I believe there are three, at the moment." Accord says. "We have learned quite a bit about Scion from the recent battles, and ran it all through thinkers."

"That is comforting." The Queen of Diamond scoffs. "It's not like a Thinker would ever be wrong about something. They're all so smart." Accord and Kitsune glare at her.

"The fact is, every option is terrible, which is why we haven't used them yet, but Scion's going to win if we don't." Kitsune says. "One option is destroying the planet. A tinker made something that self replicates, some seriously messed up tech, a bomb of glass that turns everything it touches into glass ridiculously rapidly. We use a Shadow Stalker and Eidolon power combo to throw it into the well, like we did with the time bombs. The time bombs can only boil a city sized chunk out of the continent sized monster, but this would replicate into the whole thing, and we have a few other things which will prevent him from countering it. The problem is, it will replicate uncontrollably into whatever world he is in, which will be our world. We won't be able to evacuate everyone, or even most people."

"We're not fucking killing everyone." The Queen of Diamonds says. "Not voting for that, give me another option."

"Panacea bolts someone into what's left of Scion's counterpart's corpse. Lady Bug and Best Girl chewed up a ridiculous amount, but there's a lot of corpse. It's kind of alive, and we think Best Girl and Panacea, working together, could make a pseudo-entity. It could probably fight Scion for a long time, long enough to wear him down and force him to give up. The issue is, well, it could give us a new, insane, living entity, probably will do that, though it wouldn't be quite as bad as Scion it could still be bad. Also, it might not work at all." Kitsune says.

"Better, but still fucking terrible. Give me option three." You are barely paying attention, healing another person Scion had decided to phase a living child into.

"Option three, we have someone who might be able to talk him down." Kitsune pauses. "Um, we're kind of sure she can."

"Perfect!" The Queen of Diamonds shouts. "We do that? Why wouldn't we?"

"She's crazy, evil, and resistant to pretty much anything any of us can think of to control her." Kitsune's fox faced grin shines. "The name is Emma Barnes. She can probably control Scion, by becoming really like Eden, disturbingly like Eden. If she'll use that control for anything good, that I'm less sure about." Ah, so that's what her Cauldron vial did.

"I kind of like option two myself." Accord offers. "Neat, efficient, gives us time to try the others."

"Well, there's also that only a handful of people even might survive it." Kitsune says. "Very few are available. You either need an agent with a nice piece of an entity nervous system, which is basically Skitter or Eidolon, or someone who has an agent that really fucks with agents, like Butcher or Glory Girl." You look up. "What?"

"Now she pays attention. The force field works by commanding other shards to take the hit, which is why it's so perfect and Scion can't really fuck with it. It's a parasite. It's basically either draw lose Eidolon, which we've ruled out, make the psychopath serial killer who can't be killed do it, put in my best friend, or put in your sister."

"Fuck. You." You glare at her.

"I would much rather trust Glory Girl with such power than the unmodified Lady Bug." Accord says calmly. "Though I admit it's not that one sided. I'm surprised there aren't more options.

"There were, yesterday." Kitsune laughs harshly. "I think we could have used Jack Slash or Contessa, too."

[X] "I'm voting for the new Entity plan." You shudder. Write in: Who do you use?

[X] "Let's just use the weapon to kill him. It feels like the best option. It's just one world, right?" You feel sickened.

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.

 

[Xicree]

[X] "I'm voting for the new Entity plan." You shudder. Write in: We need Victoria... and we need Oliver... Jack Slash... And Contessa... the Liar, the Beloved, the speaker, and the champion. They will be the ones we need in order to make this work... We will need to subordinate all of them into a single system with Victoria as the central part. Lady bug's Corona will need to be recreated if we can for this as well... All of these must become part of Victoria... the Goddess of Victory, if we are to succeed.
-[X] Extra: Sophia Hess talks to Emma Barns.

 

[DeAnno]

[17:55:56] <@DeAnno> So either we blow up the world, trust Skitter, trust Emma, or sacrifice Victoria
[17:56:03] <@DeAnno> Those are some shitty choices
[17:56:12] <@DeAnno> Oh
[17:56:32] <@DeAnno> Wyld, what happens if we plug Florida Man into the new entity?
[17:56:53] <@DeAnno> Does Kitsune or anyone else have a quick opinion for me?
[17:58:13] <WyldCard4> Florida Man's power will prevent it, which is probably a terrible sign.
[17:58:36] <@DeAnno> Wow that is terrible
[17:58:42] <@DeAnno> That means we cant sacrifice Victoria I think
[18:01:26] <WyldCard4> Well, Florida Man's power does prevent any harm, not just serious harm.
[18:01:29] <WyldCard4> But it
[18:01:33] <WyldCard4> 's still a bad sign.

I am against throwing Victoria into that thing.

Also, Xicree, Jack Slash and Contessa are dead.

------------

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.
-[X] Bring Sophie, and Madison, and Skitter too

 

[Biigoh]

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.
-[X] Bring Sophie, and Madison, and Skitter too

 

[mc2rpg]

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.

 

[Immanent Thing]

I think PQ has been rejuvenated lately. Had entered a bit of a lull, though most of the horror stuff had stopped.

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.

Apart from Skitter and Glory Girl, I can think of a few candidates for Zombie Eden, but none seem like decent options, and it actually feels like it would be cheating to choose any of them. Florida Man is a wonderful suggestion, though.

Grue - Had a power-borrowing ability, but may be an oblique application of his shard. No way to know even if he would work.
Nilbog - He can make creatures with powers. Has a god complex.
Othala - May grant a few basic powers. Might be able to mess with agents? Nazi.
Echidna - By the sounds of it, she can clone shards, not just people, and recharge them. Unstable.
Teacher - His students have a wide range of mental powers. Untrustworthy.
Ingenue - All about messing with powers to strengthen them. Untrustworthy.
Hatchet Face - A murderous freak that can nullify powers. Dead?
Glaistig Uaine - Harvests the shards of the dead. Traitor.
Queen of Swords - Makes a diagram that connects capes to channel all of their powers into one attack... I think. Dead?

 

[Xicree]

Jack slash and Contessa's DNA remain for some blank slate engineering.


There is a VERY specific reason I say to use Glory Girl.

Her Shard is the LIAR. Meaning it has the ability to Trick other shards into working FOR it, and subordinating themselves TO it.

Which also means that its one of the few shards where the HOST had an actual chance to retain control of the entire construct. Fuck Its one of the only GOOD choices we have. It only sucks because its Victoria who has to take said chance.

 

[serra2]

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.
-[X] Bring Sophie, and Madison, and Skitter too

 

[Lement]

Any battle between entities will probably spill into multiple Earths. By default, killing 55% population of two is worse than killing 99+% of one, especially considering we already had another apocalypse on hand. However, if the battle is kept a close-range, perhaps city-shattering instead of continent-shattering, then the Entity plan is better.

As for creating one

Eidolon is out considering the Endbringers. Great influence or Greatest influence? Good job Eidolon. Skitter...Does it have to be unbound Skitter? Lady Bug would probably work too, and I'd much prefer tying down a shard intended for nerveous system than a Trump one. Victoria, with her shield, could probably avoid being OHKO'd by Scion barring Trump powers like Hatchet Face had. So yeah, if Entity plan were to come to pass, I'd say let's stick Annie into it (she would be the the Casest 53 that ever Case 53'd, if she didn't burst apart immediately). Just make sure to dial her loving Panacea & Co to max first or something as anti-crazy defense. Maybe there are other capes, but none we have readily available, ex. cloning Jack Slash.

Glass IX attack. I like this, because it was already shown to work once before (assuming Scion didn't adapt) and it doesn't leave us dealing with potentially worse monster like two Entities who are now buddy-buddy. It might also eliminate all parahumans, if Scion's main body and shards share the world(probably do not, given Entities shedding).

However, it still kills a world. Dying world, under threat of apocalypse plague, but still one.

As for Emma, well, Kitsune is right, but, well, Amy isn't in a glass house. Not anything good...That much, a little too much.
Selfish and sadistic is more like it - so let's get her a boyfriend.
She was Amy's & Sophia's & Madison's friend earlier in the quest. Let's see if that can be rekindled.
Also, traitor to friends is a little much - abandonment doesn't constitute betrayal, imho.

Best part, other plans still work if not as easily due being smarter without significant life cost.

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.
-[X] Bring Sophie, and Madison

I'm not sure bringing Lady Bug would be a good idea. It could go well(attempts to reconcile) or badly(Sophia rages at her sister being assaulted). In-between is awkwardly.

Bringing Skitter/Taylor Herbert as she was before the change, or as merger between her and Annie. Just why would you do that? "We give you Skitter and brand new shining dungeon that needs to be broken in if you stop Scion"? No.

 

[WyldCard4]

Lement, you did see that Annie was killed horribly in the update, right? Crushed to death against Victoria's shield. It will take time and resources to revive her, though she does have a nearly up to date personality stored in a Cranial computer.

 

[Acaila]

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.
-[X] Bring Sophie, and Madison

I kind of want to vote for Xicree's plan, for the crack, but it seems too cracky even for me.

 

[Xicree]

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.
-[X] Bring Sophie, and Madison

I kind of want to vote for Xicree's plan, for the crack, but it seems too cracky even for me.

Click to shrink...

You know what... I'm going to straight up say it.

My plan is the one which is most likely to make sure this doesn't go bad end.

Especially since Victoria's shard if given a chance to speak DIRECTLY to Scion will make him all hers. And Oliver's shard will help do the same.

 

[hyzmarca]

[X] "I'm voting for the new Entity plan." You shudder. Write in: Who do you use?
[x]Victoria

 

[EnderofWorlds]

[X] "I'm voting for the new Entity plan." You shudder. Write in: We need Victoria... and we need Oliver... Jack Slash... And Contessa... the Liar, the Beloved, the speaker, and the champion. They will be the ones we need in order to make this work... We will need to subordinate all of them into a single system with Victoria as the central part. Lady bug's Corona will need to be recreated if we can for this as well... All of these must become part of Victoria... the Goddess of Victory, if we are to succeed.
-[X] Extra: Sophia Hess talks to Emma Barns.

 

[WyldCard4]

[X] "Let's talk to Emma Barnes." Traitor to her friends, sadist, and apparently channeling Scion's mate, whatever that means. Still, better than choosing between Victoria and the world.
-[X] Bring Sophie, and Madison, and Skitter too

Click to shrink...

Portland has not been directly hit. Everything west of the Rocky Mountains suffered the worst earthquake ever, tidal waves hit most coastal cities, and the Gulf Coast was the sight of one of Scion's more violent temper tantrums in the fight, but for now Portland, Maine is safe. This is unlikely to last.

"It's good to see you, Emma. It's been a while." You tell your brief, fair weather friend. You meet in a coffee shop. Sophie and Madison and Taylor sit around the table. It's a five pointed star, a pentagram. You were never a witch, as much as you liked the idea of a love spell, but you don't quite like the symbolism.

"It has. So, you're getting married?" Emma smiles calmly.

"If we all survive." You nod.

"The plagues haven't stopped." Emma remarks and sips her coffee. "People are getting sick again, now that Scion's stopped healing people. No one can really help much, unless they're one of the really lucky ones." Madison looks at her calmly.

"You're not sick."

"Perks of my power. I can channel someone healthy, and it flushes out in minutes. Kind of like Scion's defense, actually, though mine is heavily damaged. I remember that Scion has roughly 26,881,720 grams of matter in his well for every cell in his natural body. I received a damaged version of the shard that would have reinforced his mate's body. He has 110,000,000 million cells in his well for every one in his body. To wear him down, truly wear him down, you would need to destroy him much more than a hundred million times."

"Sounds fair." Sophie shrugs. "We can do that, right?"

"It would take three years to count to 100 million. You have not removed a body mass of flesh, once a second on average, in the entire fight, excepting the small handful of highly effective attacks that managed to penetrate his well, which carved out a few city sized pot marks of flesh. He is hunting the ones who can hit the well, and the ones who can make such attacks, now. Has been for hours, according to your little sister. Ordinary attacks do not penetrate far, the pressure of the replacements, a wave of them, keeps most from striking deeper. His durability is amazing. the few who can, Siberian, Glory Girl, Lancelot, Eidolon, Phantasos, have done 90% of the damage. The streams of flesh that Eidolon was able to unleash by messing with the portals increased the effectiveness of attacks, but not by enough. He has managed to kill a clone of every single maor fighter except Goddess, and that is because she ran from any fight she couldn't win."

"So, we lose?" Madison asks.

"At this rate, yes. All of your attacks, if turned in proportion against a human body, you literally would not feel it. His own attacks cost energy, perhaps 80 of the thousands of years of energy in his lifespan have been expended, though that is a terribly rough estimate. You would need to fight like this for months to ensure a kill, and the attrition rate is not sustainable. The alternatives are not worth contemplating, not for Amy." Emma turns to you and smiles.

"What exactly is your power?" You ask.

"My shard, or agent as you would call it, scans through time and space to find someone. Then, it turns my body into the person. I don't steal the shard, get the powers, but everything else is mine. My own mind is safe in my shard, keeps control, but I can fake being anyone perfectly. Every memory, appearance, mannerism, physical feature, all I need is identifying traits and I can search." Emma raises her gloves, gray flesh of a human leather. "Cauldron gave me everything they could for the Thinker entity, Eden. I had already managed Scion, just out of curiosity."

"That is powerful." You admit.

"One of the best, I believe. Thinker, Stranger, Changer. I am broken. Jabberjay, a creature who can go into your midst and steal your secrets, repeating everything you have ever said."

"You did like The Hunger Games Taylor whispers. "I remember, seeing you carrying it, when you were talking to Sophia and Madison." Emma smiles.

"The weak are meat, the strong do eat." Emma recites. "She was a predator."

"I think you completely misread that book." Madison says. "Like, got it backwards."

"We don't have long, Emma. Can we stop playing around? He is killing people." Emma smiles, sips her coffee lazily, and then throws the cup at you. You howl in shock and outrage.

"One of the most powerful people in the world has come to me, begging me to save it. I can savor it, can't I? You can't piss me off. You have to take it."

"It's your world too, Emma." Sophie says. "Please, this is risky and crazy. Just help us. What would you even do in a post apocalyptic wasteland?"

"Eat." Emma laughs. "Metaphorically, though perhaps literally. I have channeled the strangest people. I could survive the transformation. I think I might even enjoy it. Things would be pure, simple." This must be what the Doctor felt like, speaking to you.

"Anything." You say. "Tell me what you want. You'll get anything for saving the world. There are worlds that are untouched, a lot of them, that we can reach. Cauldron told me about them. Worlds beyond Earth Aleph. There's a world where parahumans control society and the economy, where Goddess lives. There are worlds we can reach, at least hundreds." Emma laughs.

"Far more than hundreds. Fewer than billions, a lot fewer, that Scion didn't wall off and have a worthwhile civilization, but to spend a moment watching the sunrise on each one would take more than a lifetime. The bribery you can engage in is awe inspiring." Emma turns to Sophie, lazily. She is the most powerful person in the world, the only one who might stop Scion without incomprehensible loss.

"Please, anything." Sophie whispers.

"Taylor, kiss her." Emma says. Taylor looks up, and can't hide her hate. "Sophie, mean it. Cheat on someone you decided was better than me, someone who made you her bitch and made you love it. Taylor, kiss someone you hate, someone who tried to kill you, someone who loves your torturer and abuser." You can't watch, turning away.

"Why?" Madison asks. She sounds more scared than ever before.

"To prove it." Emma sighs. "I need to know I can get a faction to give me anything I want. Anything at all. What's the point, if there's limits, if there's someone above me? I'd always have to fear Trick or Treat or Contessa. I have been afraid for a long time. I want to stop being afraid. You need to fear me and my new boyfriend more than anything else, and you need to prove it."

"You know we were wrong, right?" Sophie asks. She sounds miserable. "I was wrong."

"No, super hero." Emma pats her hand. "You were right."

"You're crazy." Madison whispers. "Completely crazy."

"She's scared." Taylor corrects. "She's scared she's too valuable, now. That everyone in the world will try to control her because of what she can do."

"The worm is right." Emma says. "I need you to know I'm crazy. You need to know that if you fail to take control, guess wrong, I actually will get Scion to go bad, go worse. You've been raping people for so long, Amy. Mind control's become a way of life. Maybe it will work, but with my shard, maybe it won't. Trick and Truth, Cranial and Panacea, Last Witch and Soulfire, Trigger. I think you could take me, if you try. I am a survivor, and I'm going to survive this."

"Please." You whisper. "Just hurry up, before he kills anyone else."

"Very well." Emma Barnes, Jabberjay, grins. "One eye, the nose, the mouth, or both ears."

"What?" You choke.

"Which one will you fuck up on Victoria." Emma answers. "Never to heal it, ever. Anything. I definitely heard those words. Prove you're more scared of Scion, of what I can do, than anything else. Break your incestuous lover's precious flesh."

"What. Is. Wrong. With. You?" Madison asks.

"I've spent all the time since I got my powers in every head you can think of. Alexandria, Eidolon, Doctor Mother, Contessa, Florida Man, the president, Scion, Jack Slash, Eden, Panacea, Shadow Stalker. I thought it would make me less scared, knowing everything. Instead, I learned just how fucked we are. I know the plan, the real plan. Betray the world to get Scion to attack sooner, just to increase the odds of winning before the magic bullet chokes on a fish. Cut the world up into kingdoms where supervillains and broken heroes put heads on pikes. Kidnap the dying and stuff them into zoos and force feed them poison, killing or crippling them to try and get something that works. I saw everything, Madison, my friend. The world is run by fear, by terror. Our world was grabbed by monsters from the stars, and they were afraid, terrified of the end of the universe, and so they broke us over their knee to try to learn how to survive the end of time. Even the strongest things to ever live can die as pathetically as Taylor's Mom. If I'm not the scariest bitch queen the universe ever saw, they'll carve me up and feed me to each other. We are all meat." Emma turns to you, and you're crying. "What is your answer?"

[X] One eye

[X] The nose

[X] The mouth

[X] Both ears.

 

[DeAnno]

[X] Mindrape Emma
-[X] Use all the mindrape powers
-[X] Use Kitsune to check if they worked
-[X] If they didn't, kill Emma
-[X] If Super!Fem!Eidolon is available, use her instead of Emma and kill Emma

Well, we tried. I guess it's Glass's chance next if we can't wring her into working. Emma is way too crazy and sadistic to be allowed this sort of power. Greed is one thing, but pure sadism like this can't be allowed to escalate.

 

[Biigoh]

Welp... I guess that's that.

We should kill Emma.

 

[Xicree]

So.


Good going guys. We've now given the crazy lots of time to make use of. By coming to her and proving how 'scared' we were she now attacks. Like any creature that knows you are afraid of it, she's going for the throat... and we just bared ours to her.

Well done.

 

[Biigoh]

To be honest, I was not expecting her to be THIS nuts.

 

[Immanent Thing]

Neither was I.

Okay. We take Emma out of the way where she can froth at the mouth without hurting anybody. Then we find the Tohu Eidolon who can take the powers of three capes, and use her to copy Emma. If she's dead, or it doesn't work? Then we use the planet-glassing superweapon, or we try the reanimation experiment, or we feed Emma to the Faerie Queen and throw ourselves on her mercy, which is probably safer. Alternatively, we threaten Emma and make her turn into capes that we want to resurrect so we can harvest the DNA, maybe ask for information or see if we can make Khepri happen.

 

[Xicree]

[X] Touch Glory Girl and either wake her with a message to her nervous system to Fire her stroke beam into Emma FULL POWER, or use her to do it yourself. If you can incapacitate her... then you have a chance here.

 

[DeAnno]

Then we find the Tohu Eidolon who can take the powers of three capes, and use her to copy Emma.

Click to shrink...

This is a wonderful idea, she seemed pretty nice, if a bit dull. Her and Scion will be perfect for each other!

 

[hyzmarca]

You see, guys. Throwing Victoria into that thing was the most likely to work because it makes for a better narrative.

Danger is dangerous. Bittersweet ending is bittersweet. Seat of pants what happens next is better than a sure perfect victory. Thus sure perfect victories aren't forthcoming.


[X]All of the Above.

 

[Acaila]

[X] DeAnno

Get Tohu!Eidolon to copy Emma and we basically win, I think. If capes need to be alive for Tohu!Eidolon to copy them, just freeze her cryogenically or something. She's totally crazy and we can't have a crazy person controlling the fate of all Earths everywhere.

If she wasn't crazy and this was a serious choice though I'd vote for

[jk] The nose. Give Victoria a nose piercing to put a stud in and never, ever heal it.

 

[serra2]

[X] an eye

 

[Xicree]

So...


Basically you are telling me that you all are going to acquiesce to this? That you will meekly accept Emma's Dominion...


First you decide to pick her as a route because she's 'easy'. (never mind it was pointed out that she Held a central fragment of Eden... where as Victoria was perfect as a tool for the role psudo entity..._

But now you bend your knew to her when we have a perfectly good chance of taking her down, then reworking her into something we can use.

What ever. You all deserve what ever it is you get.