Interlude: The Caged Bird, The Strongest Hero, The Daughter of War
Paige Mcabee sat in the transport craft, on the way to her doom. A single mistaken use of her power, a sham of trial, and then now on the way to the place often described as 'hell on Earth'. Frankly she just wanted to die at that point. What was the point anymore?
She sat there, gagged, restrained, helpless, when the prisoner across from her called out softly. "It'll be OK Ms. Mcabee."
Paige blinked through teary eyes and stared at the one who had spoken. She hadn't even realized there were others on the transport. Then she realized it was no prisoner at all.
Legend himself smiled back at her, sympathy written across her features. "We did a little digging on your trial once it was brought to our attention. After this operation, you'll be free to go." The confusion must have shown on her face, because he elaborated. "A Thinker in the Protectorate's employ believes you are going to be targeted on the way to the Birdcage, kidnapped for some nefarious purpose. We're going to stop whoever is planning this."
A well of cautious hope began to bloom in Paige's chest. Legend was a real hero, he wouldn't lie, right?
A blond man stepped through the air and appeared by Legend's side. "Suit says he's about 98% sure the big guy himself is on the way. Are you sure you guys can handle this?"
"Can't you just look into the future and tell me?" Legend asked wryly.
"Doesn't work like that." The blond man shook his head. "I can see too many futures and whatsmore, powerful capes like Eidolon tend to mess with that." The man hesitated. "Just be careful, yeah? You three are strong, but he's fought stronger." Then he vanished. Three? Did that mean the entire Triumvirate was here?
Legend sighed, before glancing back to Paige. "Sorry about that. One of our Thinker associates. Just stay in your seat, we'll take care of the rest."
There was a thump on the roof. Then a screech of metal tearing. Legend tensed in his seat, hands beginning to glow with energy. Finally, the entire roof gave way, all of it being ripped up at the same exact time. The transport began to stutter and then fall.
A man peered inside, but Paige didn't get a good look at him before Legend blasted him in the face with a massive energy beam the circumference of a football. It was enough to knock the villain back and out of the craft, but Legend followed in a blur of light, lasers firing out in an endless barrage of exotic effects. Paige screamed from behind her gag, the brilliant light burning her eyes, stomach turning from the rapid descent. Miraculously, the craft began to slow sharply then settled gently on the ground. The wall of the craft behind her was torn open and the Alexandria gently removed her gag and before snapping her restraints like they were made of paper.
"Hide." The hero said before rocketing off into the sky and slamming into the villain that Legend was doing battle against. From the looks of things, he wasn't doing too well either.
Even as that was going on, a portal tore in the air and then Eidolon blasted through, throwing out beams of raw energy, gravity singularities, and cryogenic bursts. At that point Paige decided she was probably dreaming or having a bad trip from the anesthesia. Hopefully.
The appearance of the strongest hero in the world should have easily turned the tide against the tophat wearing villain that was somehow giving Alexandria and Legend a tough time, avoiding beams of energy and monstrously strong fists with ease, laughing all the while, but just as the Triumvirate's Trump card showed his hand, the villain simply vanished. He reappeared on the ground, then tapped his cane against it. The soil rose up in reply, a veritable tidal wave of dirt and stone. Another gesture and the entirety of it turned itself into a wave of steel blades, all headed straight for the Triumvirate. Alexandria wrapped both Eidolon and Legend into her embrace and then turned her back upon the attack, metal breaking and shattering against her invincible form. A stalemate, or so it seemed.
The villain appeared in mid-air, right in the middle of the group, hand darting forward and reaching into Alexandria's chest, causing her to falter mid-air and choke. At the same time, with his other hand, he darted out and grabbed Legend just as the hero started to turn into his energy form, somehow grasping the raw power as if it were solid. A conduit of light flowed up the villain's arm and Legend reappeared in his grasp, struggling in the face of mortal danger. He tossed both aside, leaving Eidolon to go for their falling forms.
Then he appeared right in front of Paige.
"Hello there little songbird." The villain greeted her almost cordially. "I am Magician, and I am humbly inviting you to join my show for the grandest performance ever seen! Whaddaya say?"
"I…" Paige hesitated. "I can't really say no, can I?"
"Oh you can say no," Magician said amiably enough. "But unfortunately your compliance isn't really a factor. Nighty night."
No, Paige wasn't dreaming. She was having a nightmare.
David slowly used Gravity Manipulation to finish lowering the choking form of Rebecca and drained Keith to the ground, then himself. Magician had the air advantage it seemed and Gravity Manipulation was starting to lose it's potency. With a thought, he dismissed all three of his current powers, and allowed three more to take their places. Pyrokinesis, Invulnerability, and Super Speed all appeared, beginning to flare to life with their power. Not bad, but not great either, especially since Invulnerability was starting to come to him with increasing rarity. David needed that for Endbringer fights, but this Magician… It was like fighting the Faerie Queen, only worse. His only consolation was that Magician didn't fight with synergy, not exactly. He used his powers as individual units, only occasionally combining them into combinations, but he did that in an unwieldy fashion. Maybe the powers didn't come to him instinctively like they did Eidolon?
He's still going to end us at this rate. I can't allow that. I won't!
He was Eidolon, the strongest hero alive. The world's best shot at beating Scion. He had to take down this clown, Magician!
Eidolon kept the three powers he'd grabbed, seeing as he'd need the latter two to fight Magician properly and the first one was next to useless against the three Endbringers. May as well get some use out of it. He raced toward the downed Dragoncraft, mind moving at superhuman speeds, just in time to see Magician catching an unconscious Canary.
Keith and Becca had wanted to try and save the girl's life. She was basically innocent and didn't really deserve the Birdcage. David did agree with them, but he also knew that Magician was too big of a threat to allow one girl to live. He drew upon the extent of Pyrokinesis and hurled a flamestorm at Magician and Canary while at the same time flaring the burning engine's of the Dragoncraft and causing them to explode as well. The combined conflagration should have been enough to damage even Leviathan's hide or outright incinerate anything under a Brute 7.
But Magician was beyond such things apparently. Through the flames, Eidolon could see as he stashed Canary in a pocket dimension before inhaling, then breathing out with some sort of ice breath. As he was doing that, power coursed up his arms as he activated another power, enhancing the already potent cryogenic energies. The two powers combined were enough to quell the majority of flames around him, defying physics. Pure cold, able to simply end fire. Ludicrous. Then again, so were powers in general. David didn't have any right to complain about utter bullshit abilities.
Letting go of Pyrokinesis and Super Speed, David in turn received Energy Absorption and Matter Disintegration. Shit, the first was good, but he'd noticed the third taking a long time to power up and not being nearly as strong as it used to be. He didn't have time to second guess though as Magician stretched out his cane and unleashed a hail of energy beams, all of them seeming to emanate from the jewel at the top. Raising his hands, Eidolon caught the beams with Energy Absorption and instantly felt revitalized. More than that… he could feel the energy being siphoned off and reinvigorating Invulnerability and Matter Disintegration. Had that been the problem all along, why he'd been getting weaker?
Oh hell, Suit tried to tell me my powers were starving. I should've listened to the damn Thinker.
Magician frowned and shook his cane. "Is this thing working right? That should've been enough to put you on your ass." The villain tsked in annoyance before allowing a small sun made of emerald flame to blossom in his hands. He hurled it at Eidolon with an idle flick of the wrist.
David caught the miniature star in his hands, Power Absorption doing it's thing and siphoning off a huge amount of energy. He could feel it deep within himself, dormant powers flickering to life. He needed [MORE POWER].
Magician's eyes took on a glow, scanning Eidolon. "Huh, I see, siphoning off the energy to feed some of your other powers… Oh, I see, I see. Dead powers. Well not dead, but not active and alive the way other parahumans are. Curious." Then his eyes narrowed. "Oh you mad bastard…"
"You're one to call others mad." David growled, building up a reserve to blast Magician with. "What's your endgame, Magician?"
"Oh, so you know my name. Hm, I wonder who told you about me… Bah, I'll figure it out later." He peered closer at Eidolon, then began to laugh uncontrollably.
"What's so funny?" David demanded to know.
"Y-You are! You don't even know!" Magician doubled over and started laughing harder.
Snarling with anger, David let out a blast of dull light that had the kind of power he only used when fighting real S-class threats. Magician had shown he needed that much at least, but with him so distracted, that should really do it.
The supervillain didn't even stop laughing as a barrier sprang to life around him and reflected the power back at him. Eidolon was able to catch and reabsorb it, but the sheer nonchalance that Magician showed while doing so was frankly insulting.
That's IT!
Something welled up within David, a deep, primal hatred. Three powers were cast aside, more filling their place. He didn't even bother learning their names as he unleashed a salvo of attacks at the one called Magician. He hadn't felt this kind of rage, this kind of hate, since the first appearance of Behemoth or Hero's death. Waves of electricity, fractals of distorted space, a flow of lava, antimatter charges, an entire barrage of his most dangerous and deadly powers, most having been saved for Endbringer fights. But right now, David didn't give a damn about them, he just wanted this insufferable bastard to die.
The barrage of powers, enough to put any other S-class threat on the backfoot, finally forced Magician to start taking him seriously. The villain retreated in the face of the onslaught, though not unscratched, several of the more quick and powerful blasts managing to clip him and deal significant damage. His face finally lost it's smirk as the wounds refused to heal properly and David relished that look for all it was worth.
"How does it feel, Magician? How does it feel not being the strongest anymore!?" Eidolon mocked him.
Magician let out another laugh, this one filled with bitterness, as he danced between David's powers. "I know more than you ever could about being second-best, David."
Oh that sonnuva-!
Howling his fury, Eidolon unleashed another salvo of exotic effects, intent on ending the fight now. Magician responded by taking a step back, space folding around him as he vanished from sight. Eidolon didn't let him run, cycling powers until he found the combination he needed to tear him from in between dimensions and throw him back down to the ground. Pulling on Singularity Projector, Eidolon prepared a final blow, a beam of superdense gravitational energy that would flatten anything in it's path. He had maybe one shot left with it, saved for the scheduled Leviathan fight. Now it was for Magician.
The beam of black energy left his hands, heading for the downed supervillain… Only for the man to pop to his feet with surprising speed, catch the beam in his hands, and then seemingly inhale the thing like he was eating it. The wounds present on his body abruptly vanished.
"Well this has been a good bit of exercise." Magician declared. "But I'm bored now."
"What?!"
"I'm bored." Magician said matter of factly. "You're boring me. You use your powers well, I'll give you that, and you're certainly strong, but I can already sense that same strength failing. You should eat more souls mate, it'd do wonders for your powers I think."
"But, I- I have you cornered!"
"You think you did." Magician laughed. "I let the wounds linger, allowed you to think you had me on the backfoot. C'mon now," Magician's eyes glittered with eldritch green light. "It was a good effort, really, it was. But you wanna know something funny?" Magician's grin reached shit-eating proportions. "I could kill you anytime I wanted, little hero. You made yourself vulnerable as you tried to tag me, forgot all your defenses. It would've been so easy."
There was the ring of truth to his words. "Then why didn't you?"
"Because why kill a man, when you can break his spirit instead?" Magician chuckled maliciously. "And just to make it worse: I'm still a projection. My Master can summon capes even stronger than I am. You're a has been at this point. Washed up. A failure and a weakling." The villain leaned in close, whispering into Eidolon's ear. "I look forward to watching the next Endbringer fight as you accomplish jack all, knowing I could end it in minutes. Ta-ta, David." The villain took a step back into empty air and vanished as if he'd never been there.
David could only roar his outrage to the empty, uncaring sky.
Consciousness slowly returned to the daughter of war.
Light. Silver and Gold. Explosions. Death.
So much death.
Who was she?
Who am I?
Torn apart. Fractured.
She sees her real father's face, right before he dies. A look of utter terror, unlike his usual confident smile.
Diana. I'm Diana Frost.
But was she anymore? She wasn't whole. Something was missing.
Gilgamesh. Ishtar. She fought alongside the other heroes in their thousands. She had unleashed all of her power against them, the full weight of it for the first time ever in her life. She had lost herself to the rage that had made her birth father's name infamous. More than that though… the grief.
Maybe if Zach had unlocked his true power in time, it could've been enough. But with only her…
She'd lost.
Not killed. No, Ishtar was too cruel for that.
Split. Fractured. Her power ripped apart, reshaped at the alien's whim.
Blissful silence and peace for a time, as a rainbow storm ends the silver being.
Then something reaching out. Directing. Ordering. Commanding.
Diana cannot resist as pieces of herself, turned into engines of chaos and destruction, begin to bring about the apocalypse.
The latest orders are clear. A city off the coast is the next target. Her water aspect is the next in the cycle. It shall bring about the end.
What's left of Diana's broken mind can only pray that the city's defenders can drive her off.
-
Paige awoke slowly, groggily, head feeling both fuzzy and strangely itchy. Two voices spoke above her.
"Are you really sure this is all necessary?" An innocent, childish voice asked.
"Oh absolutely." Magician, the strange villain who had kidnapped her. "It'll be a tough process and I'm sure Paige can handle it, but we need the safeguards, just in case."
"Whatever you say. I'm going out for a bit while you take care of the mess."
"Take a weapon, one of the Tinker-tech ones."
"Yeah, yeah."
The sound of a heavy metal door closing is ominous, especially as it's followed by utter silence.
"You finally awake?" Magician asked.
Paige flinched and let her eyes open, meeting the glittering green of the supervillain. "Where am I? What… What did you do to me?"
"Oh Riley just installed some stuff in the old gray matter, that's all." Magician said flippantly, raising a hand that spilled golden light over her. She felt her scalp itch, then realized her hair was regrowing. "Sorry, had to shave the hair and feathers away. Good as new."
"Why am I here?" Paige asked softly, fear building in her chest.
Magician said nothing as he strode across the empty room and picked a pistol up off a nearby table. He walked back over and then offered it to her. Paige gently took it, then aimed it at him. He gave her a flat look, then walked out a side door, gesturing for her to follow.
She did so, the fear growing almost overpowering. What she saw in the next room didn't help.
"Is that…?"
"Eeyup. Fresh out of Boston. Well not fresh. I've had her here for a few weeks. Needed to study the power a bit, see if I could make some modifications. Those alien parasites you got on your souls are real finicky, ya know that?" Magician scowled.
"Alien parasites…?"
"Don't worry about it." Magician waved away her question. "Not too much anyway. I'll explain it more. If your sanity survives."
Paige stared at the gun in her hand, then at the unconscious woman strapped to a chair. "You can't be serious…"
"Deadly." Magician steepled his fingers. "I need your powers, Ms. Canary. But I can't take them for myself and as your are now, you're too…" He gestured to her and then loosely gripped one of her arms. "Weak. Defenseless. I mean sure, your Master power is pretty strong, but I don't need pretty strong, I need something dangerous, someone able to watch my back in the field."
"What you're asking me to do is literally worse than death." Paige whispered, hand trembling. "I should just kill myself now."
"You could try, but I could also just heal you before you're totally dead." Magician said patiently.
Paige turned wide eyes, now filled with tears of dread. "Please, don't make me do this." She begged.
"Look, the mods I did should make sure you keep your sense of self. You help me achieve my goal, I let you go free. Otherwise…" Magician shrugged. "I can always send you to the Birdcage or just give you to Riley to play with."
"Riley… you mean?"
"Bonesaw was her moniker, yeah." Magician's eyes darkened. "I will get what I want one way or another, but right now it's merely up to you how painful the process has to be."
Paige swallowed thickly, looked at the woman in the chair… and raised the pistol, putting a single round through the woman's skull.
She waited with bated breath…
And embraced the nightmarish screams that began to fill her mind.
A/N: Phew, wrote this mostly yesterday and today. Hope y'all like it, we're almost to the end of Arc 3 now. Tried to do Eidolon justice, but I've always had a difficulty writing characters with complex or multiple powers, I'm a simple kind of guy ( as a reminder, Magician is a creation of my primary co-author of our universe. Once you see Ares, you'll see what I mean by simple)
Lemme know your thoughts, I love hearing from y'all. Also I know I said there'd be another chapter by Friday, but I forgot that I'm going on a trip starting Thursday with some friends. I'll do what I can, but I can make no guarantees at this point.