A/N: Chap 46 review responses are in my forums as normal. This story will be done by this time next Saturday. Theogony will begin regular posting after that.
Chapter Forty-Seven: Let The World Burn
In a lee between two grassy, sandy hills of a plain that seemed to never end; under a midnight sky so clear that Taylor could make out the bar of the Milky Way, the Joint Operational Reaction Deployment team gathered around a real-time holographic 3D depiction of a nearby town provided by Dragon's hovering drones.
They were five miles away from Dunning, Nebraska, at a point so remote they hadn't seen any headlights since they landed.
Dragon herself was with them, along with five of her most powerful combat "suits." She wouldn't be deploying in a combat role personally, though. Nor did she have to—droid brain or not, Dragon was able to remote control her suits as well as if she were still occupying them directly.
"I'm not buying those thermal readings," Insight said. "Too clear. Bonesaw can change a person's thermal output easily. Odds are they're victims."
Now that they had drone footage of the town that didn't come through questionably placed social media footage, Taylor thought it looked like a turbolaser canon or something of equal power.
Scapetti had the same thought. "Looks like a big gun."
"It likely is," Dragon said. "Now we know what all their tinkers were for. My initial analysis shows an energy weapon with a potentially fantastic destructive output. Continent-cracking, Endbringer-damaging levels of output. Potentially, at least. It could also be a bomb."
"Or an ice cream maker," Davis muttered.
"I'm betting on a gun or bomb," Insight said.
"What kind?" Horizon asked.
"The end-of-Nebraska and probably North America kind," Insight said. "Whatever it is, it's a McGuffin. We can't ignore it, and they know we can't. So, all their traps will be to stop us from getting to it."
"I don't suppose we can just blast it from altitude?" Laura Davis asked.
"Knowing the Nine, what would almost certainly turn it into a bomb," Taylor said.
Behind them in the hold of their VTOL, the team was gearing up. Other than Campanile, who was dressed in a skin-tight body-glove of armor weave, all the capes and agents wore identical suits of armor. Black armor weave body gloves with durasteel plates at strategic points, with enclosed helmets proofed against any of Bonesaw's biological hazards. Each black suit had repulsor coils built into their utility belts and jump jets giving them effective flight capabilities. And after multiple deployments together, the team knew how to use their tools effectively.
Each of the twenty agents were armed with blaster rifles, while Davis and their new sniper, George Nguyen, were both armed with Disruptor rifles. They were both the best marksmen, and their weapons could cause a catalytic disruption of the molecular structure of any organic mass. One shot by a disrupter didn't just kill—it disintegrated the whole body. They just weren't sure it would work on Crawler. If he survived the first shot, he'd adapt to the second.
Donahue Tso was their heavy weapons expert. He bore a much heavier backpack equipped not just with jump jets, but with a blaster cannon that could reduce a house to rubble with a single shot. He also manned their heavy weapons drones.
Triumph carried the carbine as well as an adjustable helmet that let him deploy his voice-based power. Since joining the team and being released from the normal Protectorate restrictions, his rating had increased to Blaster 6. His sonic shout was easily lethal. Otherwise, he had the same armor and load-out as the agents, and had been training extensively with them to use them for the past six months.
Flechette carried a modified slug-thrower. She could empower a bullet to be unstoppable and fire fast enough to have thirty shots in the air a minute. It was her rifle and Taylor's telepathic scream that made the difference with the Three Blasphemies. The sensor suite of her rifle, combined with her own Thinker power, made her their big gun.
Horizon had the same weapons load as the rest, but with an open face-mask allowing her to use her thinker perception power, and fingerless gloves to use her striker power. That made her vulnerable to any biological agents Bonesaw might use, but she judged the risk worth it.
Mujaji traded the repulsor coils and jump jets she didn't need for a force-field generator to augment her imperviousness. She was an Alexandria package, but like many such, her offense far outweighed her defense.
Insight was the least armed—she still had the body glove and armor, with a small blaster holstered at her hip. But she was their intelligence operative, and would stay with Dragon to coordinate the assault. Dinah was back in JORD headquarters, but connected via their quantum com system.
They'd spent the flight watching the last two attempts the Protectorate made against the Slaughterhouse Nine. What they learned was that the Nine could die. The terrorist band went through a regular roster of members. The core, though, always got away. This was because the Siberian could grant imperviousness to whomever she touched. During an early fight in Miami, almost the entire roster was wiped out by Legend letting lose after they managed to kill one of his favored proteges. But the Siberian grabbed Jack Slash and Bonesaw, and Crawler had long ago adapted to Legend's power powerful blows, and the core survived to reform the Nine again six months later.
The missing piece-the key to it all-was William Manton.
"Everyone geared up?" Scapetti called.
"Yes, sir!" came the calls. No one shouted; they were under operation security and in a relatively small area. There was no need and no benefit.
Horizon took over. "Alright, team, final rundown. First priority is the elimination of the Slaughterhouse Nine. The device is secondary. They have a history of using hostages to protect themselves. We have authorization straight from Washington to use any and all means to end the threat. If the choice is freeing a hostage or killing a member of the Nine, remember that any villain we let go will kill more people later. More importantly, any hostages have undoubtedly been rigged to become weapons themselves. Insight?"
The holoprojector switched to a moving image of a zebra-striped, naked woman with a shock of white hair.
"Siberian," the whole team, capes and agents, chanted.
"Unstoppable. Unkillable. If she gets you, you're dead. If she gets one of your teammates, they're dead and you need to proceed accordingly. If you try to save them, you die as well. Insight and Quintessence will be working to take care of Siberian, but we have to anticipate she will enter the theatre and we will likely take losses when she does. Flechette, you're our only hope to hold her off until Quintessence and Insight take her out. If that rifle of yours doesn't work, get off the deck and fire for effect from altitude."
The next image was a six-legged monstrosity—a Cthulu-esque creature with tentacles and eyeballs all over its body. It spit acid and was roughly the size of a rhinoceros.
"Crawler," the team chanted.
"This is Dragon's and Campanile's primary responsibility," Horizon said. "Killing him is nearly impossible, so we're going for containment courtesy of our not-a-tinker. When and if Dragon is able to deploy the containment unit, there's a good chance the Nine will try to free him. Don't let them."
The next image was of a dark-complexioned woman with long, curly black hair and a glittering, shimmering costume that appeared to be made of glass.
"Shatterbird," the team said.
"The single largest mass-murderer on the team," Horizon said. "When she triggered in Abu Dhabi, she shattered the glass of every skyscraper in the city and killed forty percent of its population before fleeing west. She's the reason why none of you have any silicates in any of your gear. However, she has plenty of glass to work with around us and she's on record using glass like industrial sandpaper. She can reduce you to paste in minutes. Mujaji, Davis and your squad, she's your primary responsibility."
The image switched to a very young woman with what looked like cigarette burns on her face.
"Burnscar."
"Pyrokinetic and a mover—she can teleport between flames. Your armor should give you all some protection. Callister, she's your squad's primary target."
The next image was of a blonde girl of twelve in a blue pinafore dress and a blood-splattered white apron.
"Bonesaw."
"Due to the risk of biological contamination, do not engage if possible. If you must engage, try stun first. She'll be a top target of disruptor snipers. If we kill her by any other weapon, use your thermal detonator to sterilize the immediate area. When you hear people talk about things worse than death? She's who they're talking about."
The next image popped up; a thing of white porcelain-like surfaces linked together with chains in a parody of a human form.
"Mannequin."
"Formerly Alan Graeme, also known as Sphere. The quintessential Simurgh-bomb. After Ziz killed his family and infected his brain, he started cutting himself up in self-contained units until he became what you see before you. Fast, dangerous. He's the primary motivator behind the last six months of the nine kidnapping tinkers. Tso, your squad is on him."
The next image was of an attractive young woman covered in hideous tattoos.
"Cherish."
"Cherish Vasil, one of Heartbreaker's kids," Horizon said. "Baseline human, and in a way the scariest of the bunch. She's a master capable of driving people insane with fear, lust, hate with a range of four miles at least. She can detect us by our emotions alone, and she can make or break this mission. More than Siberian or Crawler, we need to take her out or the Nine will know exactly where we are at all times. Flechette, you'll be coordinating with Insight and Quintessence's hunter droids to find the target and take her out. We won't move until we have a confirmed kill."
The next image was of a man in a filthy white, long-sleeved button-up and jeans. He wore a goatee and looked vaguely like an older movie star.
"Jack Slash."
"Jack Slash, a blaster/striker who can extend and magnify the cutting effect of any blade he holds. Our best guess is his primary power is ineffective against our armor. Scapetti and squad, he's yours.
"Once the members of the Nine are dealt with, Dragon, Quintessence and possibly Insight will examine the tinker device for disposal, or call in other Protectorate assets as necessary. Defiant and Circuit Board are both on standby for teleportation is necessary and the Triumvirate themselves are on emergency standby for the capes. It is the intent of the Protectorate and Guild to end the Slaughterhouse Nine today. Quintessence?"
Taylor stepped to the team leader's side. "No boots on the ground until after all other options have been exhausted. You're assigned specific targets, but we're going to be deploying hunter/seeker droids to pin down targets first. Tso, your heavy weapons drone will no doubt get some play. These are the most dangerous capes we've gone up against. We can't underestimate them. So we're going to be hitting them hard and fast with everything we have. Questions?"
This was the third time through the briefing since they left Seattle and landed, taking their time to make sure they spent the day far, far away from the Nine.
"Alright," Horizon said. "Quintessence, unleash the hounds. Mujaji, Flechette, hit the sky. Lock up, no external sound or signals. Remember, Bonesaw has probably messed with their body temperatures, go multi-spectra on your HUDs."
As she spoke, Taylor walked with Insight to her control station—with twenty small screens arrayed in a hemisphere at eye level, and a larger one over it. With a few typed commands, the fifty Doberman-sized droids launched out of their cannisters under the stabilizer fins of the VTOL and ran toward the city.
Mujaji and Flechette walked down the ramp, and in seconds were airborne toward the city. With their repuslor coils and Mujaji's flight power, they did so without a sound. Their systems would keep them just beyond Cherish's range, but Flechette's powerful scope and her power itself made four miles nothing.
"This is it," Insight said with a tight grin.
The team had to stay at least four miles out because of Cherish's emotion-sensing power, but with quantum locks, their droids would serve as their eyes. The machines all had limited artificial intelligence letting them react and hunt, while transmitting everything back in an array of imaging.
What they revealed made Taylor's stomach turn.
William Manton sat in a reclining chair next to the device that, up close, looked even more like a massive turbo-laser cannon than before. Mannequin sat in a gunner's seat. And around them moved the tinkers. There were ten minds, but only five bodies.
"Bonesaw," Insight whispered shakily.
The Siberian was sitting on Manton's lap. Given that she appeared to be a zebra-striped naked girl with the face of Manton's daughter, the image was itself disturbing. But what surprised them was Jack Slash standing nearby arguing.
Insight manipulated the controls and brought a second hunter-seeker to view the exchange. Both activated their directional microphones.
"...why? You've gone this long, you've had so much fun. We've created such wonderful art together. Why now?"
Manton answered by having his projection roll his joint up for him and place it in his mouth. She lit the end before settling back.
"I have a shot," Flechette reported.
"Hold, Cherish hasn't been sighted yet," Insight said softly.
The canine-like droids were continuing to scan through the city. Their thermal imaging revealed many human heat sources inside various buildings, but their organic scanners revealed no living members of the town. The heat was artificial-traps formed by Bonesaw, without a doubt.
"There!" Taylor said, pointing.
In one of the houses on the outskirts of town, the droids found several heat signatures that were still moving. Three of the droids silently took positions around the home, using the full power of their sensor suites to capture sound. Within the house were four living people.
"...fucking bored. Why can't we go down the road to the next town? Or, what about Idaho? If Siberian wants to be…" Taylor recognized a northwestern accent. Canadian, from the way she pronounced 'about'.
"Language!" A child's voice, high-pitched and almost artificially saccharine in tone. "And you don't get to talk about Sibby that way. She's just not feeling good, that's all."
"Sorry. It just feels like we're inviting disaster."
"Let them come." Another woman's voice. Older and heavily accented with Middle Eastern overtones. Insight was quickly labelling the heat signatures with names that gave children and adults alike nightmares. Bonesaw. Cherish. Shatterbird. The fourth was almost certainly Burnscar.
Horizon stepped between Quintessence and Insight and watched intently before tapping her helmet.
"Tso, we have sensors on at least three, possibly four primaries. Send in the drone strike."
"Roger, drone inbound."
Like the rest of their equipment, the drone operated on repulsor coils. This made it slow, but silent. The craft was roughly the size of a basketball goal backboard, with reflective camouflage that made the bottom look exactly like the sky above it. They watched as the drone latched onto the targets acquired by the hunter/seeker droids and flew steadily toward it, quickly covering the five miles.
Another of the droid sensors encountered something blazingly hot and massive, right before it ceased transmitting.
"Shit, Crawler found a droid,"Insight said.
Horizon touched her com. "Tso, we've been made. Switch from passive to active. Loose all. Loose all!"
The drone, which would ordinarily have positioned itself directly over the target to unleash itself payload, instead positioned the miniature mortars and began shooting the high-powered thermal detonators in a star-pattern around the home, and then into the home itself.
Inside, Shatterbird stood up. "What was…"
Ten thermal detonators, each set for a twenty meter diameter reaction, ignited at five points equidistant around the home, and five points directly within the home. Outside their VTOL, the horizon briefly lit up with a small, white star. When the reaction passed, leaving only a crater, the droids quickly confirmed that at least three, and possibly four, of the members of the Nine were instantly vaporized.
Horizon nodded. "All units, we are a go! Flechette, take your shot." She ran as she spoke, with Taylor at her side. They left Dragon and Insight and boarded the transport that now held their team.
The vehicle launched into the air with a roar. Taylor and the rest of the team gathered at the back ramp until the overhead light turned green. Without any hesitation, she joined the rest of the PRT team as they ran off the ramp into open air. Jump jets brought them down in formation with weapons at hand.
"All teams, be advised. Siberian is in play," Flechette announced. "Shot was a no go. Repeat, shot was a no go!"
Before she even finished warning them, a streak of white and black arced up through the air. Without a word, Taylor sent an impulse through the Force to scatter. The Siberian targeted Scapetti's second in command, Laura Davis. Impossible claws ripped through her leg.
Even the Siberian seemed surprised when the leg sparked and exploded in her face, propelling the projection back to the ground.
"Already lost that one, fucker!" Davis shouted through her helmet.
The sky shook as a second of Dragon's remote suits slammed into the ground just on the edge of the village. A building nearby exploded as a six-legged monstrosity of tentacles and eye-balls ran screaming and spitting acid at the bus-sized combat suit.
"Fight me!" Crawler roared.
He launched himself into the air and crashed down right on top of the suit. The mechanized combat unit fell flat to the ground, but suddenly it's six limbs shot away from the main body. The limbs unrolled to reveal emitters. In the center, repulsor coils lit up, shooting Crawler into the air that suddenly shimmered with forcefields.
"The fuck is this? Fight me!"
Siberian was already rushing toward the containment unit, Davis forgotten.
Taylor ignored the projection and launched herself directly toward the center of the town where Manton sat. "Flechette, do you have eyes on Manton?"
"Negative. Target has fled the scene. I have Slash."
The moment she spoke, Taylor felt something slam into her helmet like a baseball bat. Her HUD blinked but reverted immediately. The Force sent her rolling forward, likely evading another hit. Ahead, she saw Jack Slash himself with a shaving razor in his hand. Even as she watched, he twisted his arm and made a slashing motion.
Behind her, one of her team screamed as the lower portion of their leg suddenly separated at the knee. He just cut through armorweave with a fucking knife!
"Take the shot," Taylor said.
Slash had a moment to look up before his head splattered. A second shot caused his chest to rupture.
An explosion lit the night. Taylor spun around and watched in horror as the containment sled erupted in flame. The massive, six-legged Crawler launched out into the air and landed on another of Dragon's suits, tearing into it easily with a joyous roar. Unfortunately, a fire team was too close in their effort to defend the unit. Crawler pounced on the three man team, ripping them apart instantly.
"Slash is down," Taylor called. "Where the hell is Manton?"
Crawler finished his meal. He turned a plethora of eyes toward them. "Fight me, bitches!" he roared. It sounded like he was speaking with several mouths. He began to charge them when Campanile expanded to his full thirty-foot height and kicked the monstrous cape as hard as he could.
For all his size and power, Crawler wasn't immune to physics. Just like a football, he went flying up and over the line of houses.
Suddenly Taylor's field of vision was dominated by white and black. She received no warning from the Force at all. It was only her training that allowed her to barely avoid a black and white striped claw that swiped the air where her head had been a second before. The Siberian launched at her with a silent snarl on her lips. Taylor summoned her lightsaber back and defended herself as best she could.
Though the Force could not capture or predict the projection attacking her, she still called on it to flow through her limbs to strengthen and speed her reaction. It barely allowed her to back up. Her blades couldn't cut the Siberian's claws, but the monster's claws couldn't go through the blades either.
Taylor had no choice but to back away from the unstoppable killer. She found herself having to almost run backwards as the Siberian tried to murder her. Twice she backed into another squad of their team that wasn't fast enough to escape and the Siberian lashed out. Even with Taylor desperately trying to stop her, the Force slid off the projection without effect. Taylor watched as the Siberian easily crushed the skulls of her teammates.
"Eyes on target. Taking the shot."
One of Flechette's unstoppable slugs hit the inviolate Siberian. The Siberian popped, and disappeared.
"Holy fuckballs, it worked!" Flechette crowed.
"She'll be back," Taylor said.
"Scapetti, report?" Horizon demanded.
"Schertz, Green and Hahn are down," Scapetti said. "Abercrombe and Leatz as well."
Crawler crashed back through a house. Though he barely reached Campanile's knees, he slammed into the changer like a bullet, sending the giant cape into the town's water tower.
"Little help!" Campanile shouted.
"Hang tight, cavalry is en route."
Taylor looked up and saw a flash of green from under a distant hood. Eidolon.
A surge of danger sent her leaping forward in a somersault. She emerged with her sabers ready. She had a split-second to dodge again and slash. Her sabers bit through the chain that attacked the flying buzz-saw to the segmented body of Mannequin. Unlike the Siberian, when she reached for him in the Force, she got a good grip.
The tinker began to jerk about like a marionnette as she crushed the internal organs within his nearly impervious armor. She turned away from the now thoroughly dead tinker and watched as Eidolon levitated the screaming, writhing Crawler into the air. A dimensional portal opened directly under the monster.
In that second, brilliant light brought Taylor's helmet to its darkest setting to offset the white-hot fire that shot up from the portal. She could hear Crawler's laughter as Eidolon dropped him into the portal. A second later, it was done. All around the most powerful cape in the world, buildings burned just from the exposure of what was on the other side of the portal.
Eidolon doused the flames with the wave of a hand, completely untouched.
Without any warning from the Force or her training, agonizing pain ripped through Taylor's chest. She couldn't breathe. Looking down, she saw white fingers protruding from her chest, only to pull back out.
"Shit, Quintessence is down!" Insight screamed. "Siberian's back on the field! We need evac now!"
Taylor toppled over, gasping desperately for breath. She couldn't feel her legs at all, as if she'd been cut in half. Through her helmet visor she saw the Siberian licking blood from her fingers.
Behind her, shaking with palsy, walked William Manton. The Siberian touched his shoulder, granting him imperviousness. "They think you can save the world," the old man said to Taylor. His voice shook as much as his hands. "The world can fucking burn…"
The Siberian popped again. The report of Flechette's slug-thrower reached them a second later. And a second after that, a tiny beam of coherent tetrion energy touched William Manton in the chest. For that brief moment he recognized he was dead. The dissolution of his molecules occurred too quickly for any last words.
Hands roughly removed Taylor's helmet. She found herself staring up into the gray visor of Alexandria herself. "Legend, get Panacea now!"
"Door me."
Taylor barely heard. Things were going dark quickly. She gripped Alexandria's hand. I know how to shape them! I can...I can shape them.
"Hang on. Taylor, hang on…"
I know how to shape them. All I have to do is let Scion kill me.
A/N: Spoilers. Fighting the Siberian isn't easy, but this isn't Taylor's end.
A/N 2: Several initial reviews have pointed out that the Siberian cannot grant her invulnerability to Manton himself. That makes perfect sense, and is probably something I skimmed over in the source material since I despised the S9 arc in canon. So consider this a confession of an oopsie, and for the purposes of the story I ask you treat it as an AU element.