Apotheosis 1.2

I wake up alone, as expected or as alone as I'll ever be with all this information thrumming inside my skull. I can understand why Lisa hates this.

I get up off the ground, wondering idly whether or not my costume will be stained. I don't use any of my powers to assist me. I'm still leery about them.

I take in my surroundings, empty desert as far as the eye can see. There isn't anything living, at least not as far as I can tell. It's just me and the desert. Out of the corner of my eye. I turn to look at it and see a spatial distortion, once I catch on to that I spy several more around me. For a moment I'm afraid I'm under attack, afraid that someone has found me all the way out here. Then I remember that unless Glastig Uaine has decided to pay me a visit, I'm the only parahuman in this entire dimension, and going by my recent bout of power incontinence, it's likely that I did this somehow.

I'm still hesitant, afraid to reach out for the power I now wield. In retrospect, the feeling of my body breaking down under the strain of power certainly isn't new to me, but that thought does nothing to embolden me. Instead, I remind myself that the only way I'm going to see my loved ones again is by using this power. I coming to that thought and it gives me strength as I tentatively reach for that mental switch that seems to exist after my coma. I reach out and rather than open the floodgates, I try and just let a drip of power through. It's easier to manage, and I search out for the powers that are around me. They are easy enough to find, as they are the only ones not connected to host… to other people and yet are still draining power. When I prod gently at them, o get a slow stream of information, telling me that they are defensive powers meant to hide me. I don't remember using any of them consciously, but then again, the last time I was awake was kind of a blur.

Idly I wonder if Eidolon ever had this problem. I doubted it, for one, his passenger was dead, even if it seemed to do a much better job at this than mine. I waited, half expecting a response if some sort or even just a touch of emotion at the corner of my mind. I got nothing, I'm certain you're still watching, passenger, but I guess we can't communicate anymore. Well, not forever, I'm sure that Zion had a method to communicate with them, I'll just need to figure it out. I admit to myself that it's rather lonely out here. I almost miss my passenger's emotions bleeding through into my own. Almost. Back on topic though, I doubt Eidolon ever came close to wielding this much power, which is a frightening thought. It really hammers home how outmatched we were, how lucky we had to be to win. I try and take my mind off of such morbid thoughts by turning my focus instead towards the next passenger that's trying to get my attention. It's… Eidolon's?

What?

I shouldn't have access to this power, Zion didn't have access to this power, which means I haven't somehow usurped his status. It seems my passenger has done something else. I can feel my panic bubbling underneath my skin, or perhaps those are the powers I'm losing my iron grip on. Ok, ok, calm down. Power experimentation can happen later, focus on something else. I've always done better when I have something to focus on. Take my head out of my hands and.. Wait. Hands? I look down and see that I have two fully formed limbs in front of me. I feel a brief sense of panic as I hope my power didn't change me too much, turn me into some kind of female Zion.

I tap back into my power and instead of forcefully pushing it I try and go with the flow a little bit, constantly making sure that I know what all the active powers are and what they are doing in case I need to stop them. It's easier than trying to pick something specific. The first things to activate are the core powers, the fundamental passengers that made up Zion's center, or what remains of them. Only three are left, out of however many there were, not counting my own passenger. I feel them activate, in turn, the adaptive defense is first, and I can tell that it has learned a lot from our fight with Zion, it seems… almost giddy to be used again, or maybe I'm projecting emotions onto it, humanizing it more than I should. But my passenger was human, or close enough to fool me, though I wasn't in the greatest state of mind at that point. Ok, stop getting distracted, these are questions I can answer later. The next power is the golden glow, Zion's signature aside from the beams, that, well, glows, and also makes those who see it feel that I'm superior to them. It's a subtle Master effect, not one that I really want to have on, but I can't really turn it off if I want to use my other powers, the best I can do is diminish it. At least I can leave up the active defense if… I catch myself again. I've spent far too long being paranoid, afraid of attacks around every corner, though is it really paranoia if someone is out to get you? Unimportant. Focus. The next and last power is a dimensional travel one. It's not Doormaker as it appears to only function for me, but instant teleportation is always nice. Then, I search for a power that lets me look at myself.

I shy away from the perception powers. I'm pretty sure I could handle them, but I want something physical, something that I can look at with my own eyes, like a human. Finally, I find something, the ability to convert other materials into silver. That'll do. I search again, this time for a terrakinesis power, which is much easier to find and I make a wall of sand in front of me, and then convert into a smooth silver wall. That's when I get my first look at myself after what I will now dub my healing coma.

I look… perfect. Well, not perfect, but like an idealized version of myself. My face is subtly different in a way that makes it more attractive, I'm slightly curvier, with better proportions. My arm is back, of course, and when I pull off my armor I can see that just about every other scar or injury that I'd ever picked up is gone, leaving smooth healthy skin behind and wasn't that a comfort, just being sure that I actually had skin. If it wasn't for the golden glow, I'd think I was looking at my mother. As to the golden halo itself, it didn't seem to do anything else to my appearance, though it did make my (thankfully unchanged) hair flutter in a nonexistent wind. Wait. No, it did change something, unless that's just the way they looked now. My irises shone with the same gold glow that surrounded the rest of my body. I hated it. I poked and prodded at the passenger a bit, to see if I could change it to a different color, or even turn off the glowing portion of it, but it seemed that Zion hadn't seen it necessary to have the option to be, well, not gold. Looking at myself again in the silver mirror made me reconsider going back into the world maybe I- No. I can't think like that. Focus. What's next? Figure out what's been done to my body internally.

I sift through my powers again, and this time I search for something that would tell me what's going on inside me. Then I find it, a power that collects and processes information on all biology in an extremely large radius. It seems to be currently configured to work on an entire world, which is unnecessary and probably harmful, so I try again to modify it. This time, it's easier, limiting the passenger to only record information just past my skin, to catch anything on it. I hesitate, that was easy, and I get the feeling that I'm able to instruct it to latch onto a host. Could I do that, hand out powers? I search for a power that would let me know and I come up empty. Then, I remember that searching doesn't yield the best results and instead try and immerse myself as I project my desire to know. In the mirror, I see the golden glow get stronger and then I find it, information on how a passenger gets attached to a host. I can instruct the passenger to latch on to the host, creating a Corona Pollentia, but in order to actually form the connection, the host must undergo a trigger event, which I can't artificially induce. A relief then, I'm sure if I pushed and prodded my powers, I could figure out a workaround, but did I really want that. I- Focus. I needed to clear my head.

I looked up at the sun peeking over the desert horizon. I'd always wanted to fly, and now I could, without the help of a tinkertech backpack. Maybe that would help. I leaned into my power once more, and I felt several different ways to fly, growing wings, aerokinesis, thermokinesis, but I found one that seemed the easiest to use: tactile telekinesis that worked on my own body.

Then I shot up into the sky. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, flying is amazing. I don't know how long I spent like that, just speeding around in the desert in the early morning, kicking up sand in my wake. I laughed for the first time since… I can't really remember the last time I had a good honest laugh. Zion's- My adaptive defense allowed me to ignore the growing heat as the sand below me shimmered. I didn't stop until the sun was in the middle of the sky. I noticed that I didn't feel hungry or thirsty, and decided that it was finally time to check up on my internal processes.

It quickly became clear that I no longer needed to eat or sleep if I didn't want to, among other things. Old me would have been thrilled, but now it just makes me feel… less human. Closer to whatever sort of abomination Zion was. Everything else appears eminently normal outside of my brain, which I save for last. Tentatively, I poke around up there. I am definitely not having the overpowering headache that I had before I passed out, which should be a good thing? Right?

It seemed like my adaptive defense had decided that my body breaking down from the stress of my powers was "an attack" or however it figured out what to adapt to, it was constantly and subtly reinforcing my nerve cells to prevent them from spontaneously exploding or combusting under the strain they were going under. It was doing a hell of a good job at it as well. Still, after my last experience, I was wary about powers that would affect my mind. I tried to use the biological information power to figure it out, but it seemed that it couldn't figure out from running simulations, it would only be able to tell after it'd seen the results. Great. At least that sort of explains why the entities needed us to figure out their powers for them.

Alright, next task, figure out what I was going to do next. Corollary, I need to figure out how long I've been out and what everyone is up to. Still floating, since I'm not limited to using just three powers at once. Take that, Eidolon! Maybe that's insensitive though, considering that he died fighting the greatest threat to mankind ever. It's… hooked up to the Endbringers? Eidolon was controlling the Endbringers the whole time? Stop. Focus. It doesn't matter, he's dead, along with half of the Endbringers. No. There are more Endbringers lying dormant in the space between dimensions. Tohu and Bohu are there as well. Quickly, I instruct them to remain so. Khonsu seems to have decided to follow one of Teacher's subordinates. I instruct him to go dormant as well. Lastly is the Simurgh, she's… bored. It seems like she's just waiting around for something interesting to happen. What? I try and tell her to go dormant as well, but she somehow communicates back to me through the passenger.

What?

Khonsu couldn't do that. I get the sense of pleading eyes along with a high-pitched, extended, please at the same time as I feel as though she's offering me a deal. She doesn't interfere with me and gives me info and in return, I leave her alone. At first, I'm hesitant, but she did help us against Zion, so perhaps I should let her be. I can always force her to go dormant later if I have to. I accept and I suddenly know it's been six months since Zion's rampage, the Gold Morning. A group similar to the Protectorate has formed, led by Chevalier, calling themselves the Wardens. I also learn about the Amnesty, though I doubt it applies to me. The only other piece of information that catches my metaphorical eye is Valkyrie. Apparently, Glastig Uaine had decided to turn over a new leaf. I remembered Contessa saying something to that effect. I wondered if I were to meet her, would I thank her, or would I want to punch her? A question for another time.

The Simurgh had neglected to inform me what had happened to the Undersiders, and it seemed that they hadn't made any moves large enough to attract the attention of the Wardens. Teacher was still around, according to what the Simurgh had shown me, and he'd taken over Cauldron's own base in full now, so either their attack hadn't worked or it hadn't happened yet. I sifted through the pile of passengers for another power, something like Clairvoyant's, that would allow me to figure out what was up. I found it, something that let me create a holographic projection of any person anywhere and their surroundings, only in two dimensions rather than three, kind of like watching a camera feed.

Unbidden, the first image appears. It's my Dad. He looks… old, and worried. It seems that the Wardens have seen fit to give him a cozy home in "The City", specifically near the Wardens HQ. It seems like a safe area, though I do wonder about their motivations for doing that. The downside of my perfect sight is that I can see how my loss has affected him. I wonder what the official story about me is, how much Contessa has told people. From what the Simurgh told me it didn't seem like anyone was talking much about me, so maybe they all assumed I was dead. That would be ideal. I looked closer, noting his slouched posture. He looked similar to the way he'd looked after Mom died. A surge of temptation flows through me. With my power, it would be easy to disguise myself, maybe even add a stranger power on top that doesn't let anyone connect me with my old identity. I could go live with my dad, be a normal girl for once. I know it's a stupid idea, even as I think it up. People would figure it out, but some part of me can't help but want something normal, something stable, but… I have power now, I can help people so much more than any single other person. I can't just let them all fend for themselves, not when I have such power at my fingertips.

With a heavy heart, I switch the power to someone else, Lisa this time. I see her alone, at a desk pouring over some papers. It doesn't seem like she's at The City, or even on Gimel, but rather on some other world. I don't see any of the other Undersiders with her, but it's possible they're just elsewhere in the apartment or in whatever place she's in. I'm tempted to check up on others, on everyone else and make a plan of action, but Lisa's words rung in my ears. I'd always been bad at asking for help, another thing I could work on. Perhaps whatever my passenger had done meant I didn't need help anymore, but I was tired. Tired of being alone, of never trusting anybody, of constantly being on guard for betrayal. It must say something about me, that it took the end of the world for me to finally make progress on my trust issues.

Rather than hesitate further, I take the plunge. I use my dimensional teleportation and appear directly behind her. I don't think that Zion's teleportation made any sound, but the reaction was instantaneous anyway. In one fluid motion, Lisa had stood up, pulled out a handgun, and trained it at my face. When she saw me, her face went through a chain of emotions that I couldn't parse, before finally settling on anger.

"Get the hell out of my apartment, and don't wear that face in front of me." Obviously, she thought I was some kind of stranger or changer, it would have been my first reaction as well. I wondered why her power hadn't picked up that it was me, but maybe she was working under the false assumption that I was dead.

I tried to speak, but it felt odd, like I hadn't used my mouth before. Perhaps I hadn't. "L-Lisa, It's me."

"Taylor is dead." her facade of anger starts to crack. "She died saving us all, and you're being d-disrespectful," her voice broke as she mentioned my death. Her aim started to waiver.

"When we first met, you gave me a lunchbox full of money. It had Alexandria on it. I told-"

She's crying now, she sets the gun on her desk, "It really is you, isn't it?" she gives me a teary once-over. "What happened to you? We thought you were dead." She pulls me into a tight hug before I can respond.

I don't know what to do, how to comfort her. I've never been good with people, so I say the only thing that comes to mind.

"Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

AN:

I wanted the story to be really introspective, and I feel like this chapter is a pretty good example. Don't expect Taylor to really struggle when it comes to combat, though I feel that should be pretty obvious from what has occurred.

The drama of the story will (hopefully) come from Taylor's internal conflict with what she's become.