Honestly, I think I could stretch this out a bit. make it last a few more chapters…

But I won't.

Maybe someday I will do an in depth, more than slightly altered rewrite. Until then, this is the last chapter.

Also I would like to point out and congratulate the Guest Reviewer, Peon, for being my three hundredth reviewer. I only point that review out for its benchmark, but all of your reviews are highly appreciated. Never think that your opinion doesn't matter to the author. Your opinion, after all, is why we post here.

Thank you for reading!

Chapter Fifteen: The New Goddess of the Hunt

Twenty seven minutes after the death of Zion, Taylor and Lisa were in the Hebert kitchen. It had been destroyed, utterly, when they first arrived. All the way down to the bedrock. Littered with the blood of fallen heroes, villains, rogues, and civilians that couldn't get out of the way in time. They actually found a severed hand in the middle of it all, crawling along, slowly regenerating into a human being with lime green skin. Taylor didn't recognize that descriptor at all, so it could have been a new cape. They quickly delivered the arm to the PRT then returned to the ruined home.

"I'll be back," Taylor had said in monotone to Lisa. THe next thing that the ultimately powerful blonde knew, her lover was moving so fast that she was leaving behind flickering doubles. Thirty of them, all told. A paltry trick that Lisa could use herself, even before she had entered the Time chamber.

Still, it was impressive to watch the woman work at hypersonic speeds to rebuild her old family home. It was perfectly restored in just under three minutes, all the way down to the rickety back step. She then filled it with homemade furniture, pots and pans, even melted sand for the glass necessary to make the plates.

Thirty seconds later, the seven foot tall amazon stood next to Lisa, looking up at the place she had lived all her life- the replica at least- and had nothing in her eyes. No emotion at all. She might have been dead, for all anyone could tell from looking, were it not for the rise and fall of her chest.

She proceeded to lead the blonde inside, right to the kitchen, pulling cooking supplies out of the fridge and cabinets.

Lisa watched it all, silent as her better half, waiting for the other shoe to drop. She couldn't help but notice the things that had remained after that otherworldly transformation had dissipated. For one, the height. A girl that was already abnormally tall, now broke records. Maybe not world records, but certainly local. The second was the tiger's tail, lacking the spikes now, that swished back and forth, still sticking out of the back of her pants.

Third were the claws she was extending and cutting the meat she was preparing with.

For ten minutes, Lisa let the other girl just stew in her roiling emotions. She tried to let her come to terms with what happened. All of it.

"Are you okay?" she finally asked, almost wincing with the stupidity of her question. If her own hyper intuitive power was a person, it would have smacked her across the face with a railroad track.

"Nope," Taylor answered immediately.

She proceeded to scream so loud and so long that the windows she'd just made shattered.

It was filled with rage and grief, mourning and fear. She didn't power it with her Ki or Chi, not wanting to accidentally destroy what was left of her city, but it was enough on its own.

She screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed. She hunched forward letting her sonic emotional vent aim directly at the floor, though it did nothing to lessen the volume. Her entire body was clenched tightly, the veins in her head visibly pulsing.

Ignoring the now constant ringing in her ears, Lisa approached the most powerful to have ever existed on their planet. Even as she did so, the scream began to die out and recede into shuddering, full body sobs. The blonde pulled her into her embrace, not saying anything, just rubbing her back and letting her cry.

There was nothing else she could do. There was nothing to say that made losing one of the only two people who ever loved you, just for existing, okay, and the last one at that.

Lisa had no preconceived notion that she would be even half as interested in Taylor if it weren't for the abilities the much taller girl had awakened in her.

That said, nothing would stop her from being there for the brunette at this point in time.

-9001-

"How did you do it?" Director Mother asked Taylor. They were meeting face to face for the first time, simply so they could find out, A, how much a threat the girl was, B, what they needed to do the next time an entity showed up on their doorstep

"I hit him with eight planets and a start at between ten sixty times the speed of light, destroying him and an entire solar system, or two, in the process," the girl said absently, more focused on the room around her than she was on the conversation she was having.

"What?"

"That…" Contessa began, keeping her gaze precisely away from the amazon in their midst, "would work. Accord to my extrapolations." Her shards power grew, immensely, when Scion died. To be honest, it had fused with the Perfect Path shard, and it was telling her, from experience, not to turn her power on the young woman before her. Not, that is, if she didn't want to die of an embolism.

"Wonderful," the aged woman said in a dry tone, conveying none of the excitement another pwerson would have felt, "We don't have technology like that, Tinker Tech or otherwise, capable of something similar. Will we be able to count on you in the future, should another 'Space Whale'," the way she said it seemed to imply she found the classification distasteful, but was using it to appease their guest, "appear?"

"I'm doing a press release in an hour. You'll know what's next then," she put her fingers to her forehead, then stopped, "Oh, that's a useful one. Yoink!" she then put her hand to the side and opened a portal on her own, "Oh, and the name," she almost smirked, "It's not Saiyan anymore…"

-9001-

Standing in front of tens of cameras and microphones, Taylor was now in a black leather trench coat, a black shirt, white pants and black boots. She wasn't wearing a mask and the only thing that was reminiscent of her old cape costume was the butterfly sigil on the back of the trench coat.

"I am here to announce my retirement from the Wards," she said into the microphones, "After the attack from Scion, losing heroes like Dauntless, Aegis, Eidolon, and Armsmaster, to name only fraction of the bright souls that were trying to make this a better place, I feel that my time would be better spent hunting down any other creatures like Scion that may be out there," she pointed to the sky, "As I will no longer be here, I have decided to also announce my real name, and my new title."

That sent a wave of responses through the crowd of reporters, but it all stopped when she flared her energy into the visible spectrum.

"My name is Taylor Hebert," her voice was heard and translated the world round, "But you can call me Artemis."

"Uh, Miss Hebert," One reporter said, "There's already a cape with that name in Montana."

"Can she kill multidimensional space whales posing as golden people by throwing entire solar systems at them? And if so, will she be going on a quest to actively hunt them all down until there are none left the beleaguer another world as they have done so to ours?"

"Uh…"

"I thought not. I am Artemis. She can get her name changed. Any other questions?" Taylor then pointed out a man in the audience with his hand raised, "Yes, you."

"How many of these 'Space Whales' are there, Artemis?" he was obviously using her new, self granted title to try and get on her good side, "I mean, what kind of force are we looking at that you'll be facing?"

"I dunno," she shrugged, "It could be two, or nine, or over nine thousand. It doesn't matter. I'm going to find them all. I'm going to kill them all. This is not a goal, or a desire. This is fact. The only thing that will stay my hand is if I find one that's not fucking over a planet in several realities at once."

"When are you leaving on this hunt?" another one asked.

"Soon as my ride gets here."

Even as she spoke, the air to her side rippled with movement and Lisa appeared. Her wardrobe had changed as well. Instead of the purple cat suit and the mask, she was wearing a leather battle skirt and corset combo, with greco-roman sandals on her feet and silver bracers on her arm. At her side was a sword and on her back, a shield.

Most shocking change of all though, was the large, fluffy fox tail coming out of her spine, just above her butt.

"This is Athena. She will be coming with me," Taylor introduce Lisa by her new moniker as well, "Goodbye, and good luck."

She opened a portal, the two of them stepped through it, and no person on Earth Bet ever saw the two of them again.

The End.

-9001-

I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did.

Between now and whenever the mood strikes me, I will post an epilogue. It will give brief look into what the two of them do after leaving Earth Bet.

Please Enjoy