Panacea Quest

[Lement]

Xicree, your plan is ...Awesome, But Impractical. It would have much higher chance of success if Amy was left out of that. Also, Manton Limit prevents Amy from using her powers on herself anyway. Keeping awake is another complication, and not a trivial one given the current state of organisation.

Using Morrigan has certain beauty to it. But it is less likely to succeed, given her biology.

Who is pure and good person in story who would use Scion's power for good, not justice but good and cannot be controlled easily if at all?

Well, Cranial springs to mind. Unfortunately, Case 53 in a coma....Also, married with kids.

Then there is Legend. He's dead, though. Also, unfortunately married man, so he won't be workalcoholic to do good.

Eidolon is fundamentally flawed. He has central shard, this might help success odds, but giving anybody, like Taylor, who is justice-driven instead of good this power is at best less than ideal.

There was that cape who had a facility on the road trip, healing place for the outcasts when they took a vacation, can't remember name right now. However, some consider her villainous, and she is certainly not a pure pacifist and unjudging.

I can't really think of anyone else, Worm is such a crapsack setting. There are lot of heroes who are willing to fight Scion and the Endbrinbers. And like Armsmaster, that isn't definitely good enough.

Merging Victoria...We decided to not bolt her to Edon for a reason. This time, it is not as much shard influence as working with memories via powers not meant for it.

Well, if there isn't anyone, could try to create somebody. Amy's can do stuff like make people more empathic.

 

[WyldCard4]

Well, if there isn't anyone, could try to create somebody. Amy's can do stuff like make people more empathic.

Click to shrink...

That has a rather bad track record, excluding making people lesbians and without Cranial's help. Amy's good at hardware, but not software.

I'm actually considering letting this stew for another day, as there feels like more debate to be had, though I'm unsure about this.

 

[Xicree]

That has a rather bad track record, excluding making people lesbians and without Cranial's help. Amy's good at hardware, but not software.

I'm actually considering letting this stew for another day, as there feels like more debate to be had, though I'm unsure about this.

Click to shrink...

I agree. Which is why my plan is all about taking it slow. Connecting everyone in. And then slowly WORKING it out how ever long it takes. Scion's flesh now feeds her. Annie's multitasking allows her to search multiple possibilities at a time and likely to keep communication with the outside world without breaking from the task of reforming Scion... Sophia for the company and because she loves her... and Victoria as the centerpiece...

Because its not AMY who will be doing the mindfucking of Scion its VICTORIA who is to be doing it with AMY adding context though her own manipulations.

It is the reason why this vote isn't just a shot in the dark. As I keep saying Locked into Scion... TIME IS ON THEIR SIDE. And Amy can manipulate Scions flesh to help them do what ever they need... (be fed ect). So long as SHE, the centerpiece of this, doesn't break down... they win.

 

[DeAnno]

I'm not sure how you plan on incorporating Amy fully into this disgusting abomination you want to make. As it is she is going to have a tough time surviving it, even if we use Catholicon too and they sleep in shifts we can't change the biology of either without crude measures such as Bonesaw.

 

[hyzmarca]

Holding out for a miracle is dangerous as fuck, because Amy will have to move at some point. There's some interesting potential to it, Amy stuck there forever, or maybe not forever, but ultimately is very risky and could easily bad end.

The self-sacrifice idea does seem satisfying to me. It seems like it is the one that canon Amy would take and Amy herself hasn't changed that much. If anything, her capacity to sacrifice for her family has become more intense. She would die for Victoria, without hesitation.

Both of these provide an excellent opportunity for X Years Later epilogues dealing with Amy's friends and family and how they cope. And both are bittersweet.

There is some appeal to the crazy empress Amy ending, too. Though I ultimately consider it a bad end.

I would be willing to change my vote, though.

Xicree's plan, however, is just stupid. Amy can manipulate Scion's Avatar but not his Shards and he is, ultimately, a hive mind made of Shards. And we know that one Shard is enough to make you crazy. Plugging into thousands of them (conservatively, we know that Scion and Eden had trillions before shedding them) is not a good idea.

It also doesn't match the narrative that's gone on so far.

 

[serra2]

[X] "Get yourself a real girlfriend." You sigh. The world is more important than your happy ending. Time to arrange Scion's death, and your own.
-[X]"First, bring me a knife. I can't use my power on myself and I can't let Claire die with me."

 

[Xicree]

Xicree's plan, however, is just stupid. Amy can manipulate Scion's Avatar but not his Shards and he is, ultimately, a hive mind made of Shards. And we know that one Shard is enough to make you crazy. Plugging into thousands of them (conservatively, we know that Scion and Eden had trillions before shedding them) is not a good idea.

It also doesn't match the narrative that's gone on so far.

Click to shrink...

First of all. Scion isn't USING his shards as his central thought processor. Second, That's WHY Victoria is part of the plan. Third, without triggers and tamed by contact with Scion, the shards in his possession wont be pushing for anything at all. And finally. We aren't MAKING the girls directly into part of Scion, we are using them to stabilize our working on scion towards brainwashing him into being ours then having him make ALL of them into super beings at Her own expense. At the end they ALL separate out, and from there use control of the shards they have to figure out how to make the world a better place for both the Entities and Humanity.

And it matches ALL of the major Narrative themes of Mind-control, death, advancement, and rebirth which have been present in the Quest from the beginning. Hell it's the culmination ALL of the lessons learned from doing these things.

 

[Vanathor]

[X] Plan Xicree- cause why not.

 

[Jinnt]

[X] "Get yourself a real girlfriend." You sigh. The world is more important than your happy ending. Time to arrange Scion's death, and your own.
-[X]"First, bring me a knife. I can't use my power on myself and I can't let Claire die with me."

 

[Biigoh]

[X] Plan Xicree

vote change~

 

[Xicree]

Why the fuck are people choosing POINTLESS STUPID TRAGEDY?

The flip man, The plan I outlined has everything you need to see the story into something beyond just 'I kill myself pointlessly as I always have'

Choosing to kill yourself here for the world is the fucking HOSPITAL UNTIL WE HATE EVERYTHING Ending. And fuck if that isnt a theme that we've ALREADY OVERCOME... WHY ARE WE SUBJECTING OUR SELVES TO IT AGAIN AS IF THE MC HAS LEARNED NOTHING? HAS ADVANCED NO WHERE?

Wow...

Im going to calm down. But it is bloody silly.

 

[Jinnt]

Your plan just seems like wish fulfilment Xicree. You also forgot about Claire who it could really fuck up. Also you are giving ultimate power to Amy(insane),Victoria(insane),Sophia(recovering sociopath). Annie is the most sane of the bunch but even that could be screwed up if she got a thinker power that gave her her memories back

Also adding a stunt.

[X] "Get yourself a real girlfriend." You sigh. The world is more important than your happy ending. Time to arrange Scion's death, and your own.
-[X]"First, bring me a knife. I can't use my power on myself and I can't let Claire die with me."
-[X] Could someone find my mom... please.

 

[EnderofWorlds]

Your plan just seems like wish fulfilment Xicree. You also forgot about Claire who it could really fuck up. Also you are giving ultimate power to Amy(insane),Victoria(insane),Sophia(recovering sociopath). Annie is the most sane of the bunch but even that could be screwed up if she got a thinker power that gave her her memories back

Click to shrink...

But it's what the Amy we've created would do, she's pretty much chosen the actions that let her have her cake and eat it too. Not once have we ever really given in without getting something good in return.

 

[DeAnno]

I don't know why all the suiciders don't want to try Leet's hand at an Anti-Glass pill first. The final result is still Glassing Scion, we just need to hold out for a little bit while he works. Then we Glass anyways, and maybe we survive.

 

[mc2rpg]

Vote Change!:

[X] "Let's hold out hope for a miracle." You tell her. Time to call Best Girl.
-[X] Victoria I know you don't want other people to be my top, but we need to assemble a combo so we are gonna need to get other parahumans in on this mess.
-[X] Work in shifts with Catholicon to delay the matter.
-[X] Get Leet. Also get Eidolon to run his booster and get Twos if there are any alive to help Leet. And Ingenue (Leet/Ingenue pairing.) Have Leet make a Glassing Vaccination Pill to give to Amy.
-[X] Move Amy and Scion to an empty world and Glass it. Have some Shakers there to protect Amy from the cataclysmic Glass aftereffects with Forcefields and such (Eidolon and Narwhal are probably sufficient.)
-[X] Have the Shakers decontaminate Amy and then everyone comes home.

 

[Jinnt]

If the plan was just mind controlling Scion I might actually vote for it. It's the ridiculous turn ourself and the people we love into entities-light part I mostly object to.

 

[Legend of Ruina]

Is there some reason I'm missing that it's not possible to put Victoria into suspended animation or swap out with our clone and put her in suspended animation? Sorry this seems to be melodrama for the sake of melodrama. Also shouldn't we or our clone with Morrigan support be able to wake up Cranial? We propose approaches and then Morrigan will have always told us the one that works beforehand. Heck we could use the clone then move her and Scion's Avatar over to an earth we give no shits about and then use the nuke everything option. Also thinking on it we should've gone for Tiamat (panacea/leviathan and no not as a ship) instead of whatever name they gave the shadow stalker leviathan cross.

 

[WyldCard4]

I believe Plan Xicree wins. Some variant of holding out for a miracle wins by even more, though Plan DeAnno is deeply and firmly opposed to Plan Xicree so probably wouldn't be counted with it based on the rules I laid out.

Tell me if I made a mistake. Voting closed, as it's getting late and I don't want to draw this out anymore.

 

[WyldCard4]

[X] "Victoria... Touch Scion and kiss me... Call Sophie too but I don't think she'd want what I'm going to do, Bring me Annie as well if Sophia comes... Come with me... Love me... and trust me forever." Together with your lovers and the golden man of lore, you shift and change all into a single ball of flesh, melding all together around you into a council of minds and in so doing connect you three into a single nervous system and a single grand dream.

Click to shrink...

She touches Scion, and she kisses you.

It is a long time before Sophie comes, her sister who is not a sister moving behind her.

You had worked on Victoria and Scion for a long time by then, the nervous system, the brain.

He doesn't have the piece of the brain that connects to shards. That's the weirdest thing of the many weird things about him. Scion is not a parahuman. He's the opposite, no more a parahuman than one of Annie's bugs or Manton's Siberian. He's an extension of the agents.

He can't control them. There would be no purpose to Scion controlling his shards. Scion is his shards. This is merely a piece of Scion, a networked force to manipulate the cycle for the duration.

The body serves the purposes of interacting with humans and providing a focus point for manipulating the world. It is a hand. Well, she describes it as a tail blade, as their brains are connected at the time. Victoria doesn't seem to understand hands when she explains these things to you, reading Scion's memories.

Victoria's ramblings on blue grass and betrayal are more helpful than Annie's strange laughter, the endless rounds of giggling when she reads Scion's mind, feeling new memories and sensations. You eventually wipe Annie's short term memory, because she was going insane.

You're not sure Victoria didn't go crazier. She has a new fire in her eyes. There's something older about her, and no wiser.

It is Sophie who finally says it, as you make the bridge between her head and Scion's.

"This is crazy." She is resigned. "This can't work, Amy. If it could, we couldn't do it."

"Why won't it work?" You ask your girlfriend. You haven't slept or broken contact with Scion in four days by now. Best Girl and Dragon worked on your head while you kept contact to make sure you couldn't stop.

"He's a warrior, a fighter, a God. He's our God. You can only touch his fist."

"Tail blade." Victoria says smoothly from her head, connected to Scion's, connected to Sophie's. "It's a singularity, not a duality. The entities are pairs, not individuals. Ours were, at least. Eden and Scion weren't hands, they were extensions, shadows."

"His real self isn't in the body. You can't touch the shards, you can't touch his intelligence. One of his powers is snapping right back to what he was, with the memories stored in the shard.

"This will work." You tell her, patting your girlfriend. "We can control him."

"She got them to fight each other, manipulated emotions. We can't build a new person here, anymore than you could change the legs from changing the armpit. He's not here, Amy."

"We can reach him through here. I can control the whole body."

"You control biology. I've read on your powers. This is like, his cellphone or something. Or, um, dead flesh, his hair. You can't change his agents. The agents are bigger than us."

"So, you think I should just die?" You raise your voice against her, and Sophie looks horrified.

"No, Amy. Please don't die." Sophie reaches out and touches your face. "I can't lose you."

"Are the other plans working?" You ask Annie.

"Not a one." She answers. She hasn't been plugged into the gestalt since the earlier unpleasantness.

"Why not just do everything to glass Scion and keep you alive?" Sophie whispers. "Seems like a good plan to me."

"What if I fail?" You whisper. "What if I break the connection somehow and he escapes? Or we fuck up the procedure to defend me. Or..."

"We could fuck this up." Victoria reminds you.

"We won't." You kiss Victoria. You've kissed so often your lips are chapped and ugly the last four days. You have examined everything of Scion you can find. Shards, more shards than you can think of. Shards that press cells through, shards that fire energy, shards that let Scion step across worlds, the motion stopping shard, the flight shard. Each one matches a cape, a strong cape, optimized to grant a single power instead of several.

He kept the powers that would let him win, then shared them with the dead girl. He could still win. There's so few who can still fight him. If he could use his precognition, find a way around the magic bullets, he could destroy everyone still.

Now he could lose, but would he lose?

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Love wafts into his brain. Slowly, carefully, you copy the brightest parts of the minds of the people you love into Scion's brain.

With trepidation and Best Girl, you make a copy of a copy of your own.

He will remember being a little sister who loved her big sister more than anything else in the world, who loved and admired her, wanted to please them more than anything, was happy with them, wanted nothing more than to be a hero and save the world.

Annie was Cranial's magnum opus, though she never told you that. A lifetime of small wounds taken and rearranged, given context and purpose to keep a person's spirit and to make sure she could never hurt anyone. Catholicon and the Morrigan cannot revive Cranial, despite their best efforts, no one could understand what was happening to her, another cruel lash of Scion's. Annie provides the core, a good woman broken down to nothing and built up stronger than ever before.

She is the super-ego, the rules, the boundaries, the things a person wants to want. That is what Annie could be.

The ego is Sophie. You marvel at her Corona Pollentia, truly understanding it for the first time. She is a predator, like Scion, an old one, a hunter. No, her passenger, the agent, is a hunter. Sophia lived with it for years, and she became Sophie. Emma, you, and Victoria taught her to keep herself in check. Sophia Hess wanted to be better than she was, and that yearning was taken and given to Scion's brain.

"She loves us because she wanted to find something better to love." Victoria mutters late at night. "She loved Emma despite who she was, not because of it." Victoria's voice is distant, alien. She's slipping away, her mind lost in Scion's dreams, guiding your work.

"We're not worth her." You tell Victoria. "Are we truly that good?"

"No one deserves love." Victoria says. "It's a gift no one earns. Sophie's a very silly girl." Victoria played with your sleeping lover's hair. Her sleeping lover's hair, too. That feels suddenly, desperately wrong, and you choke it back.

"It made her a better person." You muse. "She hasn't stuffed someone into a locker of medical waste since we started dating."

Sophia Hess wanted to be more than she was, to not be a villain, so she hunted for monsters, and it took her years to realize she had merely hunted people. Perhaps it could be close enough to what you needed Scion to experience.

Victoria provided the id. Scion would be a sadist, that could not be helped, or should not be messed with. Victoria Dallon is a sadist. Victoria is the most loving person to truly want to hurt you. The highest lusts and needs you can imagine are Victoria's. She needs to be worshiped, she needs to be loved, but most of all she needs to love. Her pleasure is sparked in your pleasure and the rush of your pain and comfort. To build a trap for Scion you need to direct who he is. Something to alien would fail in a heartbeat, but Victoria's passions might fit. The worst Victoria could do would be to love worse than hate. To carve out your eyes so she could guide you, to break your legs so she could carry you, to tie you down and feed you the sweetest honey.

The instincts of a protector and a warrior. Someone who must be a mother, the mother and father of your child who would name her after you.

"Wasn't Freud a quack?" Annie asks curiously one day, on the sixth day. "I've been reading about him. Everyone says he was just wrong."

"I just need a language for it." You explain. "It's not like it exists, I just need a way to think about what I'm doing, how things relate to each other. I need to build something that Scion won't wish to resist, an internal trap so appealing that it won't ring false. He'll snap out of anything I do if there's anything inside him that says he should."

You scrape almost everything of Scion out of him. It is Eden, the love of his ancient life, that your own brain is responsible for. Scion has many memories, many loves, but Victoria is the love of your life, the love of every life.

The Liar will ring true as an object worthy of worship to Scion, a parasite worthy of respect, and so you wrap your life long, mad love into Scion's. Victoria is Eden, she is alive, and Eden is dead. Why break the love for Victoria on the memory of a dead woman?

Scion's head is full of love. A romance, a family, friends. Victoria is your mother and confident, sister and wife. The ceremony is brief, in this defended crater. The minister is a Unitarian Universalist, the most liberal and vague of all faiths, and the least offensive. Victoria deserves a pope, but Victoria cries at the idea of being turned down for what you are.

They should all burn for it.

It is a long, long time before you are finished. You detach them, one by one.

"How could a prison hold someone who could push it down with a thought?" David wonders. He is maskless, small, sad. Behemoth is walking through Canada, blasting wave after wave of radiation, and the plan was to move everyone out of the way.

The attack was far too early. Something was very, very wrong with the world. Of course, fighting God would cause that.

"Believe me, David. I couldn't push them down, when I had the chance." You stroke the golden woman's face. It is most like your own, to make it easier for Victoria to kiss. "Cranial offered it to me, I had every chance, but loving Victoria any less is the worst thing I could imagine." Eidolon looks at you sadly. "Whatever you're thinking, loving Victoria less would be the worst part of it." You answer. "I mean what I say, Gray Boy or Bonesaw or the Three Blasphemies included."

"I believe it." David says after a long look at you with some power you cannot guess at.

It is on the ninth day, the last, that Charles, Phantasos, comes to say goodbye to Victoria.

"So, you're my brother." Victoria looks him up and down. "You're handsome."

"I miss you, Victoria." Charles says. His mouth is dry.

"You're Amy." She answers. "I'm so sorry you had to. I feel sick about it." He sits down next to her and the creation, the monster, the Goddess.

"There's nothing you could do, not with that they knew." Charles is silent. "I'll never stop loving you."

"No one can." Victoria answers and kisses his forehead. "No one will."

"You're the person most worthy of love." Charles answers.

"If we can, if anyone can do it, work a clone of me for you. You have my complete and utter permission." Victoria answers. "I can't let an Amy go without a Victoria, even one who hates the person I love the most." Charles laughs.

"I was going to woo you." He smiles warmly.

"I am sad you didn't." Victoria answers. "Live well, Charles."

"Live well, my Glory Girl." The two kiss for a long time, and leave.

Dean comes next. You turn away as they talk. It is hours before he touches you and you look up.

"You win, Amy. She was never mine." Gallant, a man you could only envy, now you can only pity.

"What are you going to do?" You ask him.

"Get myself healed. Find somewhere new. Get a fresh start, somewhere that won't remind me of her. Keep on the drugs I've been using to feel human, the ones Mrs. Quintin gave me." Dean looks miserable.

"I never asked you to leave her." You remind him.

"She's your wife, Victoria." Dean says. "I can't date your wife." Your eyes fall on Sophie, who is talking softly with Annie and a small girl who must be her other sister.

"She can." You mutter. The words hurt you more than you could imagine.

"Victoria's going to break her into a thousand pieces and chew her up until she's barely a person. She did it to you, and she would have done it to me. You're doomed, and I can't talk her out of it. I'm sorry for you." Dean answers. "Please don't die, though."

"Don't you love her?" You can't help but be shocked by the admission.

"I did. Then I got myself cured." Dean answers. Then he laughs. "She's my first and only love, but I can't be what Sophie is. I need to be my own man. You took her fair and square. I'll get over it. I have only one request. Give me your hand." You do so.

Gallant suddenly, forcefully breaks your middle finger. You scream.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" You shout.

"That is all I'm taking for stealing what could have been the love of my life, Amy." Dean answers. "You gave me hope, and you shattered it. And to be honest, I hurt you ten times more than you are hurting me. That's the last time I will ever hurt you."

"What the fuck?" You ask him.

"It's the last thing Victoria will ever ask me to do." Dean answers with a smile. "She actually offered a goodbye foursome, but we talked, and this is better. Goodbye, Amy." He walks away.

"What did you see in him?" You ask Victoria. She looks amused.

"I think he reminds me of you." Victoria answers. She kisses your booboo and makes it all better.

Mark and Carol are last. Neither one is wearing a wedding ring. Mark hugs you, then Victoria, then Sophie.

"I'm proud of you." He says. "You turned out better than I deserve."

"We did." Victoria agrees. "If there's anything you ever need, just ask."

"I won't hesitate." He answers. Carol is looking at Victoria with a strange expression.

"What is it?" Victoria asks.

"She's going to kill you." Carol answers. "This won't work."

"You know the choices, babe." Victoria smiles at Carol.

"I'm so proud of you." She says to you, and a chill runs down your spine.

"What the fuck?" Sophie says, staring with surprise.

"I'll never love you, I'll never like you, I'll never trust you, but I am proud of you for doing this. It's amazing, objectively. I wish you'd had a better mother. I wish you'd never come to me." Carol leans down. "I wish you'd gone to school with Victoria and become the best of friends, and turned into girlfriends when the time came. I wish you'd never come to my house. I wish I'd been to your normal wedding. Victoria was always going to marry, and you make her happy. I would rather Tattletale put a bullet in your skull before the trip to Albany, but I don't get what I want."

"Thank you, Mrs. Dallon." You smile at a woman you somehow still love.

"You're welcome, Mrs. Dallon." Carol goes to Victoria. "You got yourself a rich one, a looker, powerful. You married up pretty well."

"You could say that." Victoria answers evenly, a look of rage on her face.

"I do love you. If you ever need to come home, you will always have a place there." Victoria shudders.

"Why would I want to do that?" She asks.

"Because your wife terrifies you, and because you're an eighteen year old girl who got married. If you don't come home, ask yourself why." Carol answers. You feel Victoria's aura shaking with fury. Carol turns to Sophie.

"I'm surprised you're still allowed to talk." Carol remarks.

"You're a cunt." Sophie answers.

"You're her bitch." Carol answers. "Am I wrong? You're in love with the bastard adopted daughter. She'll make you pay for every touch by reminding you that Amy belongs to her. The tattoo says she's Victoria's. She might love you, but she'll never love you as much."

"She doesn't have to." Sophie answers. "I want to love her, and I want to be loved. I just want..."

"You want someone you admire and respect to teach you how to live, and you think you'll get that by being a secondary partner in a BDSM relationship involving two older women. I have never tried such a situation. I hope you get what you want. If I have a granddaughter from you, I hope it makes you happy." Carol shakes Sophie's hand. "Good luck, Miss Hess."

Carol walks away.

Sophie has a distant look in her eyes.

"I love you." It's Annie who says it.

"You didn't have a choice." Sophie says. "You're the worst thing anyone's ever done, some people say."

"Who does?" Annie asks. "Nobody chooses their family, besides the marriage thing. Even then you can't fall in love when you want to or fall right out of it. We're a bunch of kids, but we'll figure it out."

"I love you so much, Annie." Sophie laughs and cries at the same time. "You're the best thing anyone's ever given me."

"That's what sisters are like, in my experience." Victoria tells Sophie. "I want you to know, I do not love you, but I really like you." Sophie nods calmly, thoughtfully.

"I love you all." Sophie announces. "All three of you, I love you."

Sophie kisses you and Victoria.

"Why?" You ask Sophie. "Like, you love me, you've explained that, but why Victoria?" Sophie smiles at you.

"I think I can take her." She answers. "So, are we ready?"

"Let's wake her up." You touch Scion, preparing the very last minute adjustments, and use your powers one last time.

Interlude:

[X] Claire

[X] Taylor

[X] Marquis

 

[Biigoh]

[X] Taylor

 

[Xicree]

[X] Taylor

 

[Anasurimbor]

[X] Taylor

 

[Vanathor]

Taylor is obvious but... I want the the father that Amy never truly knew well.

[X] Marquis

 

[DeAnno]

[X] Taylor

In Wormverse, the Andalites were far too incompetent to survive.

 

[hyzmarca]

[X] Claire

 

[serra2]

[X] Taylor

 

[EnderofWorlds]

[X] Taylor

Is this not the pinnacle of man? To topple a god and re-craft him in one's own image of what should be? Regardless of the result, which could range from wonderful to terrible, this will be Amy's masterpiece.

 

[Lement]

Claire as a possiblity?

Either this will be a timeskip.

Or this will be Panacea Quest.

Anyway, it isn't so bad parallel if it is the epilogue.

Taylor, who at the start of canon was suffering under long-term bullying campaign killed Scion by bullying him to death while risking her sanity.

Amy, who at the start of canon was suffering from being mind-raped into a lesbian destroys Scion by turning him into a lesbian while risking her sanity (well, by the extension of losing Victoria).

 

[WyldCard4]

[X] Taylor

Click to shrink...

You look out at the sunrise. Victoria has loved them since before you can remember, taking her sister to see them. It is a new day.

"We should get back soon." Victoria says. You look out over the ocean.

"There will never be another like one on Earth, Aunt Vicky." You say. "The whole forest will be dead tomorrow." The plagues are sweeping this way. Every tree here is going to die, dropping blackened leaves on the ground.

"Mona need us." Victoria puts her hand on your shoulder. You love it when she touches you. Everyone does.

"I don't like her." You admit. Victoria roles her eyes.

"Pumpkin, we turned Scion good. Besides, she loves us." You sigh.

"I didn't say she was bad. I said I didn't like her." Victoria grimaces.

"Of all the people in the world, you take a dislike to her." She says. "You like everyone you meet." You look at her cautiously.

"She's wrong." You admit. "Whatever Aunt Amy did, she didn't make a real person. She made a robot." Victoria smiles.

"I bet some people would call you a robot, Annie. Besides, you're wearing a meat robot right now." She pats your cape. The suit is a robot, really. Alive, but a machine of meat.

"You know the difference." You stick out your tongue at Vicky, and she shudders.

"Of course I do, sweetie." She hugs you. "Sometimes I wish I just took the second trigger." You laugh.

"It's been two weeks, Aunt Vicky." She smiles.

"Two weeks is a long time." She pats your head. "But we need her. She needs us. Isn't that enough?" You frown.

"That's all you need." You realized it before, but it really hits home. Victoria is desperate for that need. "What happened to you?" Victoria gives you a sad look.

"It's called a trigger event. A moment in your life so horrible that a monster from another star hears your prayer and grants your wish." She sighs. "I need to own someone else. I have to be so good they can't get what I give anywhere else. Maybe I'd know more if I was part of the actual BDSM scene. But, well, I need to be needed. Being on top means I can't just live with people who can take care of themselves." Victoria kisses your forehead. "But that's not all I need. Your sister, my sister, I couldn't get some self hating sub in club and call it a day. I love my hunting hound and my wife." Victoria smiles. "And Mona needs me. She's got a lot of people I love in her."

"She loves you, but she's not crazy like a person. She's crazy like a computer program. She's glitchy." Victoria gives you a very serious look.

"Do you think she's not safe?" She asks. You shake your head.

"She can't change who she is, but she's not a member of the family. A dog can be a member of the family. If you treated a TV set like a dog, needed a TV to be a dog, it'd be pathetic." Victoria nods.

"What would she do if she heard us talk like this?" Victoria asks. "Your opinion." You think.

"She'd cry, and you'd hug her and make it all better, and then she'd go back to normal." Victoria sighs.

"That's what we'd get, yes. But do you want your big sister to be stuck with her for the rest of the day? She has Algebra." You laugh.

"I can't believe she went back to high school. She hated high school." Victoria looks happy again.

"She can be a pet and go to school. No one ever said she couldn't be a smart pet. She needs something normal." Victoria pauses. "She might get bored with it, but it's worth a shot." Victoria opens her arms. "Hop on Victoria Airlines." You do, and it's a few minutes before you're back 'home.'

You close your eyes for a moment and luxuriate in Victoria carrying you, and an entire world of insects. Amy and Riley have let you make everything you could think of, and you can think of so much. The five Super Queens in Boston, Saigon, Rome, Caracas, and Johannesburg are the gifts to Taylor.

All across the world, you wage war on the world's natural insects. 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 slaves are the raw material base for Accord's plan. In 62 weeks the entire ecology of Earth will be controlled by you, assuming you can keep it alive.

With the plagues and Behemoth, currently near the bottom of the Rocky Mountain Range and still heading south, that is uncertain. If Leviathan takes a similar tactic, ruining what's left of the oceans, breathable air will start to become troubling. There are limits to what anyone can do for taking care of the amount of radiation Behemoth is spewing, even with you and Amy working on countermeasures.

The plagues are worse. Random, uncontrolled, devastating, they lash out seemingly at random. It's not an Endbringer, you think. Whatever it is just wants attention, but you can't figure out where it is. None of the answers are good here.

The world is still ending. Scion sealed the dimensions from the inside, all the ones his enemies were scattered across. Four inhabited Earths, six inhospitable ones, and twelve uninhabited ones, plus the barely connected ones by the agents, for the next 467 years according to Mona.

In the end, Mona is still Scion. She's a monster, the worst monster. She's the monster you're going to spend the rest of your life keeping in check. Well, one of them.

The other one is a ship passing in the night. Frizzy brown hair, eyes that look sad even when she's happy, playing with Mona's golden hair.

Across the world, in Australia, Armsmaster is talking.

"We have Scion. He has killed Endbringers before. I don't understand why we haven't send her after Behemoth."

Dinah Alcott looks tired as she explains.

"He tossed the anti-precog shard. If he kills an Endbringer, 2.5% chance we all die in the next sixteen years. If he doesn't. 1.8% chance. I don't think .7% is good odds for everyone dying."

"We could all die from the Endbringers." Armsmaster points out, looking angry, crossing his arms cutely.

"I just told you the odds. They get worse if we pull out our superweapon. Maybe the Endbringers get smart, maybe 'Mona' decides to go rogue again, maybe Victoria dies and we finally become flesh gardens. I'll ask again next month. How is the Phantasos plan going?" Dinah is to tired. A girl who almost had a ruined life because of Taylor now has a ruined life because she's too useful.

You need to give her something nice.

"Eidolon hates it." Alexandria answers. She is not tired, since she doesn't sleep, but everyone is exhausted in some way after the Golden Morning. "He's never liked using his tinker abilities. Spending months in a lab are hard on him. They remind him of power he got his powers."

"Is he doing it?" Armsmaster asks.

"Yes. Eidolon, Phantasos, and Black Knight should be done within twelve weeks. The battle wagon is the best shot at killing an Endbringer we've ever had. Eidolon's best tinker abilities, all at once, without being weakened. Even Dragon could never approach this level of power."

In Quebec, Dragon floated in a blimp above the world. Directed by you, she was delivering supplies too heavy for bugs to carry. All around the world, people are being fed by bugs, treated by bugs, guided by bugs. It's the only thing keeping most of them alive, with the wreckage of the Golden Morning.

Amy gets up, looking tired, and she hugs Victoria.

"You look great." She tells her sister.

"So do you." Victoria kisses her.

Taylor had killed Victoria, and died for the sin. A lot of people died because of Victoria, really. Very little could hurt her more. The only thing that could is nibbling on her chin.

Amy and Victoria are probably going to be remembered as the greatest love story in history. That is one of the most messed up things in the world.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

Civilization is over.

For civilization, you have cities. With hover craft, Doormaker, and you, space barely matters now. It is a lot easier to care for people with your abilities if they spread out, at least for now. Maybe you'll bring civilization back when the emergency is over, but you can't really see the need. Humans weren't meant to live in cities, they were hunters and gatherers. Now they live on increasingly tasty insect species.

You're fairly sure there's some rich, meaningful thing that this is like, but you're drawing a blank right now. All across the world, swarms of insects are agitated as you look at the ultrasound of Claire. Your cousin, going by your own classification system.

"She's two inches long now." Amy says. "She's getting so big!"

Victoria looks happy. Really, grossly happy. She has her hand on the stomach way too often now.

"Do we have a middle name?" Sophie asks. The two look at her like she's being very silly.

"Sophie, didn't we tell you? She's another Amelia Claire Dallon." Victoria says. "She's Claire, but I'm naming her after Amy. I promised her I would."

Sophie is miserable. She doesn't look miserable to human eyes, but the insects you made can smell the rush of despair that hits Sophie Hess.

"I don't have a middle name." You say suddenly. "Can I be Annette Sophia Hess?" Sophie looks at you and smiles.

"Of course you can, Annie." She says, and she hugs you.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

You sit at Danny Hebert's grave. This is his funeral, now. You know so few of the people here. It's the first time you've been alone in a very long time. You always have a watcher, Madison or Hero or Sophie or Victoria or Amy.

There are so many funerals, now.

The redheaded girl who comes and stands next to you is beautiful. The clothing is black and not the least bit sexy.

"Hello, Taylor." She says.

"Hello, Emma." You respond. "I didn't think you'd show up."

"He was like family, once." Emma says. "At least I get a funeral for him." She looks at you.

"When did you become me?" You ask softly.

"You were the fourth." She answers. "First was Sophia, to test it. Second and third were Aly and AJ, that girly band Amy likes. I wanted to learn a life story and check it. Then I needed to see if you were okay."

"You had a long time to check that." You tell her.

"You were always stronger than me, Taylor." Emma says. "Stronger than I can believe." She looks at you. "I'm sorry about your dad."

"Cranial's chances of waking up are 98.274%" You tell Emma. "We could get him back."

"Won't be in 228 years, with the list we've got. Or is it 224?" Emma looks at you. "We don't get to live forever. Not if we're still us."

"I'll have a backup waiting for him, however long it takes." You answer.

"The world is ending, Taylor." She shakes her head. "Dinah and Alexandria, the President and Amy, they all know the ecosystem's crashing."

"18.534% chance there are no world changing plagues in six months." You pause. "Worse odds than Amy marrying Victoria."

"That happened in Scion's shadow. Dinah wouldn't have predicted that marriage." Emma smiles. "Their odds were a good deal higher than that, I think. The chances of the idiots marrying in a precog blindspot or messing with precogs to get hitched was always fucking high." You laugh at the word, because you so rarely hear it anymore.

"I miss you, Emma." You tell her. "Sophie misses you too."

"I don't deserve either of you." She answers.

"I don't deserve them." You whisper.

"Oh, Annie does. Taylor, that's a different question." Emma flashes a familiar smile, and it's not one that should be on Emma's face.

"How is she?" You ask.

"Better every day, honey." Emma kisses you on the cheek. "We're always there, if you need us."

"Maybe I will." You answer. The other girl walks by.

"See you soon." The blonde says. She looks at you, and she is miserable.

"I'm sorry." You tell Lisa.

"We have an appointment." Emma tells Lisa, and two of the world's greatest thinkers walk away. The world needs them to think.

They used to be your best friends.
_______________________________________________________________________________________

[X] End?

[X] Amy

[X] Interlude

 

[DeAnno]

[X] Amy

Stasis hates endings.