Force Your Way Arc End

Same Time

Cauldron's Main Base

"So, you are telling me that every single one of our assets is completely blind in regards to the tower?" Doctor Mother asked in irritation. "Even YOU, Contessa?"

"The Path I am on is 'Path to avoiding the Simurgh ripping through dimensions to Scream us into mindless dolls', Doctor." the fedora-wearing Thinker replied calmly. "That means not doing anything to investigate the Tower or Bia myself."

"But why is the Simurgh doing this?!" the woman who headed all of Cauldron's operations asked in frustration. "This is completely out of any sort of pattern that the bedamned thing has taken since it descended! And why is it even going so far as to protect Bia, of all people?!"

"I have no clue." the Italian woman replied. "And as I rather like not having my sanity screamed out of me, I shall be content to have that ignorance continue."

"Watchdog is useless, Clairvoyant can't see her, even Doormaker can't open a portal to her." Doctor Mother was at the end of her tether here. "None of our assets are of any use! Both Bia and that bedamned tower are uncontrollable variables that have to be either brought under control or eliminated!"

"If we can't see either of them, then presumably Zion and its avatar are equally blind in that regard." Contessa pointed out reasonably. "That simple fact makes them more of an advantage than a disadvantage, surely."

"You…aren't wrong." the black woman admitted slowly. "If Bia has Triggered with some kind of…aberrant Agent, something that was supposed to be discarded by the Warrior and the Thinker, but wasn't for whatever reason…she could be a huge blind-spot in their clairvoyance. Zion wouldn't be able to foresee or predict her, not without modeling her extensively, at any rate. And if we can steer her at Zion towards the end…he wouldn't be able to fight her nearly as effectively."

"The plan that the PRT has thrown together also presumes that Bia hasn't got access to something not-too dissimilar to Doormaker." Contessa mused. "Oh, they know she has it, but they are content to allow her to escape and try to sic Legend on her. Tagg's hatred for the Simurgh even overrode his ordinary distaste for the Birdcage for a moment."

"That man's usefulness is drawing to a close soon." Doctor Mother sniffed in distaste. "I will not be sad to see him go."

"A blunt instrument in the right place is all too useful. We shouldn't discard him quite yet." the most powerful Thinker on the planet cautioned. "Anyway, we have several assets already in place in Brockton Bay so we can keep an eye on Bia once she makes her escape; Battery, Calvert, Triumph…"

"Yes, but we should also have something in place to remove Bia if she is under the Simurgh's influence." the other woman said, thinking furiously. "Doubtless Tagg has calmed down and is forming some manner of plan to eliminate her as we speak. We'll co-opt and enhance his plan should it come necessary."

"James Tagg is a blunt instrument with tunnel-vision at the best of times." Contessa pointed out dryly. "He does not suit being a second in command when his own plan is concerned; he would need operational control of Brockton Bay, as the PRT Director, in order to carry it out. As of yet, Emily Piggot has not done anything warranting her being replaced or overridden. That she has managed to keep Brockton Bay balancing on the knife's edge all these years in spite of Cauldron undermining the resources that she has access to is proof of her skill and tenacity."

"We would need to remove her anyway, in order to fully test Parahuman Feudalism, as was intended for Brockton Bay by our helping Calvert." Doctor Mother responded, with an impatient swipe of one hand. "Her tenacity is admirable, but not pertinent. When weighed against the survival of humanity across multiple Earths, it is irreverent and immaterial. If any are to survive, sacrifices must be made. A single city is a small price to pay in the short and long term."

"Should Bia prove to be Triumvirate-tier, and she discovers us, and the fact we have written her home off, the damage she could do would be immense." Contessa cautioned. "I would suggest a wait-and-see policy. We monitor the situation in Brockton Bay until we can at least gain a better-than-superficial understanding of her powers and strength. Then we can decide if Bia is worth writing off the Brockton Bay experiment or not."

"That's…a fair decision." the head of Cauldron allowed. "The next Endbringer battle will be soon, against Leviathan. If she shows up to that, the situation will force her to go all out. Should that happen, we shall make a decision then."

"Very well. I should go and neatly irritate Rebecca then." Contessa said with a smile. Irking the Chief Director of the PRT/Alexandria was one of the few perks of being Contessa; seeing the usually stoic and in-control woman twitch while keeping her irritation under control was some of the only entertainment she had allowed herself since Eden's death. "Door to Chief-Director's Office."

Later

With Bia

"Eat this!" I shouted and headbutted the enemy right in the head. This new enemy, a night-black being wearing gray and green armor and wielding twin swords of darkness, was quick and powerful, an absolutely pain in the ass combination. Fortunately, they only came in groups of three on this floor, which was to the good.

The Third Floor seemed to be bleached of all colors, as if something had leeched all life from the surroundings. Dead trees and crumbling stones littered the sides of the path which had led me this far from the doors of the elevator.

Oh, and did I mention the life-sucking black mist which was rapidly encroaching on me? No? Well, there you have it.

With a roar, I summoned the Efreet and burned the blasted Shade into nothing, just like I had the last dozen or so of his fellows, with punch after punch of demonic fire. And, just as the last enemies had, red orbs dropped from the dissolving corpse and into my Venger Blades. Not very much; the engraved lines on the twin blades were only barely ¼ filled by this point, but I suppose every little helps.

"Seriously, more bloody persistent than the bloody Legionnaires!" I grumbled as I continued forwards, sheathing my blades over my back as I did so.

The ground around the path was littered with piles of flaming wood, which seemed to hold the black mist back, up until a point, anyway, Looking over my shoulder, I could see the fires behind me slowly start to become snuffed out.

Shuddering as I remembered almost walking into that mist at one point and feeling so, so cold and weary and tired. It had felt like a mixture of when my mom had died and after I woke up in hospital after the Locker Incident. Good reasons to keep away from the cursed stuff.

The road looped around to a stone tower, which was one of three located around the outer wall of the floor. There was also a central tower connected to the ceiling, which is where I guessed that the elevator to the next floor was located.

I halted as the mist billowed in front of me, cutting my path forwards off. Looking around, I spotted a rickety old wooden wagon full of straw or hay and grinned as I knew what I'd be doing with that.

Hastily walking over to it, as the black mist was advancing steadily from behind me, I drew one blade and lit it up with the [Fire of Ares], stabbing it into the center of the wagon, setting it alight.

The flame burst into being, immediately driving back the dark mist that had been encroaching on me. Grabbing onto the side of the wagon, I pushed it along with ease, moving to a slow jog as I hastened towards the tower.

I halted the wagon outside before pushing it into what looked like a wood store, but was actually a way to light a beacon fire. The flames crawled up the wooden path in the tower and lit the topmost fire pit atop the tower, casting bright light on the Third Floor for what had to be the first time in its creation. I then ran inside and slammed the door shut. Luckily for me, the flames had also lit torches inside the building, so it was safe from that damned mist.

For the moment, anyway.

Looking around, I spotted a book carved into a plinth beneath the painted image of a man with wings. As expected, when I walked over to it, the writing was in Ancient Greek, but I could still understand it.

Morpheus, the God of Dreams.

In this Floor without Light, he reigns supreme. His Black Fog will entice any who are enveloped by it into an eternal sleep, from which there is no awakening.

Well, that's a thing. Nice to know that I had an actual name to who was behind this damned fog.

Spotting the stairs next to the plinth, I ran up them, and was confronted by another plinth and another painted image, this time of a man with fire for hair and standing atop a chariot, pulled by three fiery horses.

Helios, the Sun God

Son of Hyperion, Helios inherited the Primordial Fire when his father was defeated and cast into Tartarus. This pure light was born from Chaos itself, and birthed all other fires. It is the light from this flame which keeps gods of darkness, such as Morpheus, in check, and is one of Helios' primary functions as the Sun God.

So even regular fire had a limited ability to keep Morpheus' Black Fog at bay because it was created by the Primordial Fire? Made sense.

Going up the stairs again, I was confronted with yet another plinth and painted image, this time an up-close shot of the three fiery horses of Helios' chariot.

The Fire Steeds

Three of the Wind Gods, in their forms as horses of flame, which lead the Sun Chariot across the sky. Eurus, God of the East Wind, sees the path of the Sun Chariot, Notus, God of the South Wind, sets the Path of the Sun Chariot, and Zephyrus, God of the West Wind, walks the path of the Sun Chariot.

Hmm…three horses, three towers…a pattern emerges, methinks.

Climbing the stairs again, I finally came to the top of the tower and lo and behold, there was a rearing horse, with the name 'Eurus' carved into its base. A brazier sat at its feet, the wood inside it unlit by the larger one several feet away. A quick usage of the [Fire of Ares] sorted that out, making the statue retreat backwards and slide down until a mechanism let out a click sound.

The statue glowed with a golden light before vanishing. Immediately afterward, one-third of the tower in the center lit up in golden light. So, just as I suspected: go to a tower, light the braziers, illuminate a part of the tower in the center, rinse and repeat.

Lemme tell you, it wasn't easy. There was this big…thing…out in the fog, stalking me. I only caught sight of it once or twice. It looked like a giant gray saber-toothed tiger, with a human face and glowing blue eyes. Every time I saw it, I was soon after attacked by Shades.

More than that, I was challenged at the other two towers as well. The ground floors were guarded by what a plinth informed me were called Banshees. This was odd because, frankly speaking, it was a mythology clash; banshees, or bean sí, were from Irish mythology, while everything else was at least in a similar geographical origin point, Roman and Grecian.

They didn't look like what I'd call a banshee either; they looked more like Lamia, half-woman, half snake and with an awful voice to boot. Literally, as their main attack was to shriek at me. I was till able to beat them, but I was really glad healing was something my powers could accomplish; I'm almost certain that each time those damned things shrieked, my eardrums burst.

They did give me a nice amount of red orbs though.

When I finally lit the last brazier and made Zephyrus vanish, all of the mist vanished in a pulse of golden light from a fully illuminated central tower, exposing all of the creatures which had been lurking inside of it. Most of the Shades were destroyed by the light almost instantly, meaning I got a good chunk of red orbs from them. The Shade archers, which were irritants that fired arrows of blue arrow-shaped energy at me, were fewer in number and also weaker than the regular Shades, so they fell even before the mist was fully dispelled. More orbs for me.

The only thing left was the giant human-faced saber-toothed tiger stalking around the entrance to the central tower. It was a big one, maybe five or six meters long, and at least three feet wide. I don't know how I knew, but I could tell that it as distinctly uncomfortable without the mist being around. Was it possibly an ambusher by nature?

Mentally shrugging, as the idea made some degree of sense, I headed down to the bottom on the tower and headed straight for the pacing beast, Venger Blades drawn and set to the [Fire of Ares]. It was the most reliable way to harm these minions of Morpheus.

To know the weak-points of an enemy, and exploit them successfully, is to survive on the battlefield.

Ah, Gravel Voice again. As confusing and lecturing as ever.

My fight with what I came to know as the Morpheus Beast was short, brutal, and painful. In spite of lacking anywhere to use its likely strategy of 'leap out of nowhere from the fog' on me, it was still a dangerous opponent, with razor-sharp claws, sharp fangs, oh, and it also breathed black fire, just for the cherry on top!

Still, I managed to kill the damned thing by mounting myself on its back and driving my blades into its back before wrenching the damned thing in half. Hello, more orbs.

As the Morpheus Beast dissolved, the large portcullis barring the way into the central tower clanked its way open. After I strode through, it slammed down again behind me.

There were three chests of red orbs in the bottom floor of the tower, all of which I opened and absorbed. It was just enough to max out the lines on my Venger Blades, which made them fall back down to empty and more Ancient Greek words to appear before me.

Demigod's Will has been upgraded to Minor God's Will. This improves the strength of the protection by a substantial amount.

A derivative spell, Shattering Will has been unlocked. If Minor God's Will should be broken by an attack, the enemy responsible will be assailed by fragments, dealing damage to them in the process.

Huh…that's pretty good, actually. My defensive ability got better, and it added a retaliation ability for if/when the protection was broken. More utility was always good.

Having gotten everything I needed from the ground floor, I resigned myself to climbing the spiraling stairs set into the wall of the tower. I really wished that this place had more elevators.

At the top of the stairs was a hall with a massive throne of gold and silver, decorated with sunbursts. Floating in the actual part where someone was supposed to sit, was a gorgeous shield, circular with semicircular parts missing from the middle of the left and right sides of the outer edge. It was made of bronze, steel and gold, with an image of Helios' head on its boss. I think this type of shield is called a Boeotian shield, although I don't know how I know that.

Mesmerized by the sight of it, I didn't realize that I had walked over to it until I had come to a halt. I reached out and grabbed it. And it floated in the palm of my hand, doing nothing.

HELIOS GRANTS TO YOU THE SUN SHIELD, WHICH CAN ACT AS A KEY IN CERTAIN PLACES. SEEK OUT WHAT LIES IN THE SHRINE OF EOS TO USE IT AS A SHIELD.

So a key and I can possibly use it as a shield once I found this shrine…if memory serves, Eos was a Titaness and Goddess, representing the dawn, as well as Helios' sister. Makes sense she'd be linked with her brother's power here.

Looking closely at the throne (Helios' Throne), I spotted an indentation in the backrest that seemed perfectly suited to having the Sun Shield pressed into it, so I did so. It slotted in with a click and a blaze of light before releasing.

As I tucked it away, I heard the clanking of gears as the dais that the throne sat upon rose and I realized there was its own little elevator, which meant I was going up to Floor 4.

"Last floor for today." I sighed in relief. Even if those green and blue orbs had restored my mind and body back to full health (somehow), deep down I could feel the ache in my bones from constantly fighting for hours at a time, and a weariness at the back of my mind from concentrating on not dying. I was just about done in, to be honest.

Still, I had to keep going for just a little while longer.

I blinked as the throne elevator clanked to a halt in a bright hall, larger than the one down below. As securing bolts locked into place to keep the platform in one place, I took in the hall, which was covered in frescoes and friezes, all depicting the Olympian Gods fighting against giant beings that I guessed were the Titans.

I paused as I saw smaller section that lacked the bright and vibrant colors of the rest of the pictures. It depicted a city covered in the Black Fog of Morpheus, crawling with Shades, Banshees and Beasts. Standing at the top, where the entrance to the town was, stood a menacing figure carrying a pair of weapons that greatly resembled my Venger Blades.

Try as I might though, I could make out nothing of the figure's appearance, other than the strong conviction that it was a man.

Shaking my head, I moved on, leaving the throne room behind. I had to unlock the doors out with the Sun Shield, but that was no surprise. I'd been given it for a reason. The ceiling was high, with vaulted pillars and arches, covered in golden filigree and uses of the 'Ω' and sunburst symbols at set intervals. At a guess, omega was the symbol of the Olympian gods, while the sunbursts were that of Helios.

"Whoa…!" I breathed as I stepped out into the outside of the building, which almost had to be a temple of some sort; it was built of pure white marble wherever possible, while on the other side of the main temple plaza were three large versions of the statues of the Fire Steeds that I'd seen on the floor below. They were facing away from me, but they were pretty distinctive.

Suddenly, that damned forcefield appeared behind me, as well as all around the edge of the temple plaza, save for one area, which had a large three-fingered hand grasping on to it from below, and I mean LARGE, not just big. Th rest of the arm that followed was about as thick as I was, and was longer than I was tall to boot.

"A cyclops… !" I breathed as the great beast pulled itself up onto the temple proper, revealing its singular yellow eye, which had locked onto me with a glare as it pulled a massive club…no, it was an enormous goddamned jawbone, from beneath the lip of the temple's edge. The query of exactly what animal had originally owned the jawbone flitted through my mind, but I pushed it to one side as I drew my Venger Blades. Right now, I had to kill the damned thing, not stand and wonder about silly details!

This wasn't going to be easy though; the thing was larger than Hookwolf and looked like he could take on Fenja and Menja. The range that his club have him would negate the usual advantage that my chain-blades gave me, so I wouldn't use them like I ordinarily would; up close and personal, to make the range of his weapon work for me.

With a roar, the cyclops started stomping across the plaza towards me, club of bone half-raised threateningly in my general direction. Something with only one eye would have to have poor depth perception, so I charged in and started slashing with my blades, dodging the first slam of its weapon with ease.

Pretty soon, its entire lower torso was covered in bleeding wounds from my blade, and it was getting more and more pissed with every cut. I slammed its head into the ground a couple of times using one of my Venger Blades to pull it, my body just reacting on instinct for some reason.

Then, when I could tell it was on its last legs, I slammed its jaw into the ground for a third time, stabbed one of the Venger Blades into its eye and then kicked it in firmly, knocking the massive beast flat and earning a torrent of red orbs.

"What the hell…?! That was as if I'd done it so many times I'd engraved it into my muscle memory!" I said in shock. Such a brutal way of taking someone down was NOT something I'd come up with. Had this place been getting to me more than I thought…?

Shaking my head, I looked around as the barriers all fell, trying to see where to go next. The plaza was fairly large, so I checked everywhere, ultimately finding an indentation next to the statues of the Fire Steeds. Using the Sun Shield on it, I watched as part of the lip of the temple plaza opened up and shifted to either side before stairs, carved from the same marble that made up the rest of the temple, rose up and locked into place, linking the temple plaza to the ground below.

Taking one last look at the rather impressive Temple of Helios, I started down the stairs. I was wary and on the lookout for more enemies. I was absolutely certain that a single monster, no matter how big and tough, wasn't the total sum of my opposition here.

And I was right. No sooner had I set foot on the ground than a group of flying…things…appeared. Batlike wings kept them aloft, monstrous faces that vaguely resembled a woman's, and birdlike talons flexed as they sped towards me. No clue what the hell these things were, but they looked like trouble!

They were almost pathetically easy to defeat; a single swipe of one of my Venger Blades would kill a couple almost instantly. The only trouble was, there were a couple of dozen at least, so for every two that I put down, more came to take its place.

I'd activated Minor God's Will before they'd made it to me, and I suspect that it was only that which prevented the damned things from picking me up and throwing me out of the tower. I didn't want to see if my guess was correct, so I made use of the Cyclone of Chaos attack that the Venger Blades had within them, turning me into a veritable buzz-saw, in order to get rid of all of them quickly.

A scroll dropped from the last thing to fall, and I opened it, discovering in the new knowledge the item gave me, that what I had just defeated were Harpies, Ancient Grecian monsters which were the personification of storm winds. They had traditionally served the God of War, Ares.

I don't remember that last part from what my mom had told me, but I set it aside as an irrelevant detail, for the moment anyway.

There was another door that clanked open as I approached it, but there was also an indent on the wall for the Sun Shield next to it, so I unlocked it. What appeared was a ball of light that shone like the sun and cast a beam upon me. It felt as if I was standing in the middle of a meadow on a sunny summer's day.

HYPERION HAS UNLOCKED THE HYPERION BEACONS FOR YOU. YOU MAY EXIT THE TOWER FROM THESE BEACONS AND HAVE THE ABILITY TO RETURN TO THE POINT WHERE YOU LEFT WITHOUT HAVING TO CLIMB THE TOWER ONCE AGAIN.

Oh…that was good. I had been kinda dreading having to climb the tower again the next time I came, so this was good news. I needed to leave so I could get some sleep; I'd completed the challenge set to me and I was all done in.

"Light of Hyperion, open the gate to my destination!" I called, removing the orb of light from my armor and holding it up as I spoke. The golden portal appeared and I walked through it, emerging in my bedroom back in my house. As the portal snapped shut behind me, I checked the time on my wall-mounted clock and was taken aback. If that was correct, only three hours had gone by while I was in the tower, which was plainly ludicrous.

Did…did the Light of Hyperion time-travel me, or did the tower have any kind of function that made time pass differently inside of it? I think the last one was more likely, but it kinda freaked me out that something like that had been affecting me without knowing.

Dismissing my armor and weapons, I sagged slightly as I seriously contemplated the embrace of my nice, soft bed. It was only seven in the morning, so a little nap would certainly help…

Screw it, I'm tired and sleep is the enemy. To bed!

As I drifted off, I could swear that I heard Gravel Voice speaking one more time.

Not bad, child. We shall see if you can do as well next month.

"Mn…!" I grumbled before falling asleep. I didn't wake up until midday, which got me teased by Dad. As if he hasn't slept in before, with much less reason to!

And that's it for Force Your Way, for the moment at least.

Regarding [Indomitable Will], the first advancement from Level 1 to Level 2 takes the same as advancing the Sun Shield to Level 2, about 1500 Souls in memory serves. There are another three levels, so it can get a lot more powerful~

And, the votes are in. The next chapter…winning by two votes, is At My Fingertips! It's a surprise for me, as I had thought that Survive, Adapt, Win would've won, but that's the way the dice fall, I'm afraid. I'll do one for S.A.W. later though, so rest easy.

Review please!