Hope Through Overwhelming Firepower Interlude 5 Coil
"And I too, have a great many things to contemplate." Coil hung up the phone.
Coil let out a sigh.
Todays events had... not gone according to plan. Some small part of Coil still thought it was a dream. Considering what had happened, he didn't think anyone would blame him...
Approximately 4 hours earlier.
Coil scowled.
This... Buster was going to ruin everything.
Initially, it just appeared that she was going to be 'Dauntless+1' as far as he was concerned, an up and coming hero hailed as the new 'savior' of the Bay. Irritating, but something he could work around.
Then, this happened. She had caused the death of every notable ABB asset aside of Oni Lee while in the throes of some sort of psychotic break.
Legend 2.0 he could deal with. Sphere 2.0...
No, she had to go.
Coil split realties. In one, he stayed at his desk. In the other, he strode into the room next to his own.
Walking up to the cot, Coil questioned the resident. "Hello, pet. I have some questions for you."
"Already?" Dinah questioned with a moan.
"Yes."
"But it's only been-"
"I'm sorry pet, but this is important."
She frowned grumpily. "I want extra candy then."
Coil quickly acquiesced. "Very well, you will get your extra candy, after these questions."
"Fine. Ask away."
Coil smiled, and brought out a picture of a teenage girl in scarf and goggles.. "Very well. Now, what are my chances of getting Buster out of Brockton Bay if I...
Coil let out a panting gasp as he slid down the side of the door to his private jet. A jet that promptly took off immediately after.
Well, he supposed if the town no longer existed she couldn't really be in it anymore. Coil resolved to ask more precise questions in the future.
In the other reality, where he had not implemented his foolhardy plan, he began the process of digging out an old phone number. One he thought he would never have reason to call.
Coil consciously realized that he should probably collapse this reality by now. But... he honestly wanted to see how far she could get. Stupid, perhaps. But his pet had already assured him that no problems would appear before lunch time.
Coil's private jet landed in a secret base he had built in Europe on the border between France and Spain. Honestly, he never thought he would have cause to use this base, and honestly he probably still didn't need to use it. But while he was collapsing this reality, might as well have some fun and use this base
Coil set his specialized TV to pick up the local signals around Brockton Bay, and sat back to watch.
He cut in just to a scene of the Protectorate Headquarters over the bay exploding. A ball of red light smashing straight through it, shattering it into millions of pieces.
The news caster had evidently run out of things to say since the last time he had tuned in.
The scene panned out over the rest of the Bay. Buster had been doing work, Coil mused. The TV showing Brockton Bay left as little more than a shattered wreck for the most part.
The news caster found something to pipe up on, Armsmaster had just been found dead. A censored scene of a body that, presumably, used to be Armsmaster.
Coil wondered how they still had cameras running by now, a flash by ad for Uber and Leet answered that question.
A horn sounded, the Endbringer alarms had gone off. Not that there was much point to it, everyone left alive in the city had evacuated by now. Those who had stayed, were likely dead or dying.
A refocus on the cause of all this, Buster. Remaining wholly unfazed by everything that had happened. She seemed... emotionless, and mechanical.
A nearby wall shattered, as Battery shot forward out of nowhere. Surging forward with speed and power wrought from what was presumably several minutes spent charging for an assault on Buster, she landed the first serious blow on Buster.
Buster crashed through a nearby building, a brief moment of stillness, and then a flash of red. And a pair of legs fell over onto a bloody streak where Battery used to be.
There was a faintly heard scream of rage. And pieces of the landscape, shorn rooftops and shattered asphalt alike, hurled themselves at Buster. One impact, and another, and another. Buster stumbled from each one, the force involved throwing her back, but that was the extent of it. She remained as remarkably unharmed from it as she had from everything else that had been thrown at her.
Buster raised her arms apart from each other, and a shockwave rippled outwards from her. The already torn apart Brockton Bay scattered outward from Buster, shattering and breaking under the immense pressure.
There were no more objects flying at Buster after that.
Dauntless came streaking down to a stop in front of Buster. He began to shout, asking why Buster was doing all of this. He was interrupted as another flash turned him into a fine red mist that slowly spiraled away on shifting air currents.
That, was the end of negotiations.
A tally came up, showing the status of the heroes in Brockton Bay. It wasn't looking good. All of the Wards were dead, and of the main Protectorate, only Triumph remained alive. New Wave was presumed dead as well, their home was one of the first hit when Buster began her rampage. No one had seen a member since.
It was also evident, Coil mused, that the E88, after seeing what was done to the ABB and now this, had decided discretion was the better part of valor.
A screen change showed Triumph searching the wreckage for survivors, presumably having deduced that his own power set would be useless in a direct confrontation.
Buster was just standing there, not doing anything after all the threats had vanished. Coil contemplated what this meant, perhaps she was merely reactive in this state?
Coil's thought processes were interrupted as the area around Buster exploded. A rain of light from the sky, hammered down from two sources. Purity, who had evidently worked up the nerve at some point to face this. And the first piece of evidence that the PRT was taking things seriously, Legend. Newly arrived from New York.
A streak of red light lanced forth from the smoke, Legend neatly and cleanly avoided the beam, but Purity...
A scream of pain audible even through the tinker tech cameras floating miles away. Purity, Leg carved off by the beam from Buster. Who was still unharmed by the deadly assault two of the most powerful blasters alive had unleashed.
It was worrying, but unsurprising. Especially after what she had endured at the hands of Bakuda.
Purity flew away on a streak of light, while Legend began to try other applications of his beams.
The first to fly, a bright blue streak piercing the daylight, created a towering spire of ice that enveloped Buster completely. Another flash, the spire shatters, and another desperate dodge from Legend.
The second, a bright red one that produced a river of molten lava. Buster didn't even pay any attention to it.
Another, this one clear, impacted Buster with explosive force. Legend floated backwards in a vaguely surprised manner at this result, before moving on.
He tried much, lasers which curved and forked at oblique angles to impact areas which seemed vulnerable on Buster. The eyes, the nose, several joints, even a couple of small ones down her throat at one point.
None of them had any more effect then everything else.
Then, the cavalry arrived.
Alexandria, a gray streak blurring through the air, impacted Buster at supersonic speeds. The ground cratered inwards, before launching up into the air.
A beat.
The debris reached it's apex point from Alexandria's impact.
A beat.
Red light shown forth from the point of impact, and a gray streak shot back into the sky, curled around a red ball of light. The debris still in the air sent flying across the landscape by the force of Alexandria's sudden passing through.
Coil absentmindedly wondered how long even Leet's tinker tech camera's would survive this.
In the other reality, Coil finally found the number he was looking for, and settled down to wait.
A warping of space, and Eidolon arrived.
He immediately swept his hand outwards, and a green wave of energy rushed out, randomly dissembling and rearranging everything in its path.
It passed through Buster to no effect. Buster responded with a flash of red.
The energy impacted Eidolon, who made no move to dodge, and wrapped around Eidolon in a circular fashion, before being absorbed into his body.
Buster responded by firing more, and stronger, blasts. Each one was absorbed in the same fashion. Buster paused her firing, and that was when Eidolon struck.
He raised both hands into the air, palms upward, and then swept his hands downwards. The earth trembled as immense pressure applied itself everywhere. The ground forcibly flattened in an ominous show of force from the strongest of the Triumvirate.
Buster, was unaffected.
This was... fairly terrifying honestly. The Endbringers usually showed off more of a reaction then this. Legend was ineffective, Alexandria had accomplished more, but not by much. And Eidolon had managed to break even with her. For a certain value of 'even'. Coil was having doubts that the Parahumans slowly arriving from wherever would have all that much more of an effect.
Coil's doubts were soon validated.
It reminded Coil of an Endbringer fight to be quite honest. Legions of Parahumans, uniting against a common foe. Just, in much smaller numbers. Considering it wasn't actually an Endbringer fight. And Buster, while possessing similar, if not superior, levels of durability to the Endbringers, wasn't as destructive. She had power, oh yes. The small town shattering blasts she levied to kill several of the Parahumans arrayed against her proved that. But it wasn't Leviathan's island sweeping waves, Behemoth's assortment of methods to assure death against all who opposed him, or the Simurgh's insidious manipulations.
But, they weren't actually accomplishing anything here. Powers, both esoteric and weird and devastating in their scope, were brought to bear against her. Buster was pushed around, but not much more than that. Some of the presumably less than convicted capes had already left.
It was a stalemate. Everyone who was truly vulnerable to Buster's level of firepower had already either left, or died. While nothing they did even scratched a hair on her head.
Then, the atmosphere changed, and Buster leveled what little remained of Brockton Bay.
A sweeping wave of force, a scaled up copy of the move that had taken out Assault, billowed outwards from Buster. The ground tore open, shredding and flying through the air under the immense power behind Buster's offense.
A few moments of dust hung in the air. The entirety of Brockton Bay had vanished into a rough circular crater around Buster. Bits of broken asphalt and building could still be seen flying on towards the horizon.
Some Parahumans; the Triumvirate, Nowhere, Headcracker, people capable of incredible durability or extreme movement, survived.
Most didn't.
Out of the sixty five or so Parahumans that had both stayed and survived to that point, fourteen had withstood Buster's attack.
Coil realized that Triumph had probably died in that as well.
That signaled the breaking point for most of the survivors. After everything was said and done, only the Triumvirate remained on the field.
They briefly commiserated. Before breaking apart in response to Buster attacking again.
Another flash, a portion of the energy coiled around Eidolon once more. It touched one of his arms, and he suddenly snapped it back away from the tendril.
Coil wished that a better Tinker then Leet was supplying information on what was going on, hearing the Triumvirate talk would be incredibly valuable.
Apparently having resolved something, the Triumvirate moved into action. Eidolon began carefully siphoning energy off of Buster's attacks, while Legend and Alexandria diverted her aim.
This continued for a bit, working quite well. The mountain near Brockton Bay now had several large chunks gone, but the Triumvirate was holding. And considering the glow building around Eidolon, perhaps even a plan beyond that was in the works.
And then... something happened.
A huge surge of water erupted forth from the bay, a gray blur glanced Buster at massive speeds, sending her rocketing back into an explosion of magma. As a dark figure came forth and slammed Buster into the bubbling magma, hard enough to rock back the Triumvirate dozens of meters away.
These two figures resolved.
Leviathan and Behemoth.
The... Endbringers? What? Why were they here? Coil balked at the prospect that Buster was such a threat they would show up. Maybe they were here because Buster was such a center of conflict she warranted two of them? It was about time for a new one to show up. Maybe something... more was going on in the background.
It was all kind of irrelevant. In the face of two Endbringers apparently working together, Coil finally realized that this had gone way beyond anything he could have ever possibly imagined.
Coil refocused his attention onto the battlefield, where the pool of magma brought up with Behemoth's entrance was beginning to settle. Had that taken her out?
A flash of red, magma surging outward, settled that question.
Behemoth was unimpressed by Buster's efforts. The red energy dispersing, before slamming back down into Buster with an earthshaking crash.
Another light, stronger this time, had the same result.
Behemoth lashed out with a kick, and Buster was flung hundreds of meters through the air. She rolled to a stop, and picked herself up, none the worse for it.
Leviathan had been busy in the meantime. Streamers of floating water were scattered as far as the eye could see. And Leviathan, apparently finished with whatever it was working on, jumped into one and rushed forward like a rocket.
Moving at incredible speeds, Leviathan shot onwards leaping from one stream of floating water to another on his way towards Buster.
That was new.
While Leviathan had been busy redefining everyone's idea's of what it was capable of, Behemoth hadn't been idle either. A massive windstorm buffeted Buster from every angle, keeping her immobilized and unable to aim any further attacks.
Coil absentmindedly noted the Triumvirate awkwardly floating off to the side. Obviously unsure of what to do.
Behemoth suddenly let up on the windstorm, as Leviathan smashed Buster with immense force and speed. A leap across several streams of divergent water later, and it had caught up to Buster only to strike her once more, sending her down an alternate path of flight. A blur of movement and displaced air from Leviathan later, and this pattern continued. Behemoth had, since it had let up on the windstorm, gone absolutely still. And so had an increasingly large circle of things around Behemoth.
Buster, evidently tired of Leviathan's demented game of pinball, pulled a replica of the event that had decimated Brockton Bay. She unleashed a pulse of force that ripped apart all of Leviathan's water streamers, and sent the named creature flailing through the air.
Evidently still maintaining some cognitive facilities, Leviathan's tail whipped out during it's sudden and unplanned flight, sending a streak of water echo at Buster, directing her towards the immobile Behemoth.
Mere moments before Buster would impact it, Behemoth struck.
It was a deceptively simple move. On the surface, a downwards punch. No significant improvement in force over anything else Buster had survived. The actual strike however, was very different from surface expectations.
The air visibly bulged outwards from Behemoth's blow, as Buster was smashed downwards with enough force to begin shearing portions off of the mountain side miles away.
The Triumvirate had wisely backed off even further away in the face of the oncoming shockwave.
Dust and powdered earth billowed up into the sky miles above. It looked like the aftermath of a nuclear weapon.
Coil was feeling fairly incredulous about these events. Not only at the fact that Leviathan and Behemoth both were displaying abilities they had never even shown a hint of using in any of their previous fights, but that, even more than the fact that two of them had even shown up at all, they were displaying a decent sense of tactics and teamwork. It wasn't perfect, they mostly stayed out of each other's way, but they neatly moved Buster between the two of them in order to open her up to the others' strike.
It suddenly struck Coil that it was almost a reversal of the usual Endbringer fights.
A, as far as anyone could tell, invincible juggernaut manipulated between two targets. One who could withstand the blows, and the other who could dodge them.
It was telling how hard Leviathan was trying to keep Buster from being able to be directly hit it. Coil didn't necessarily think it would kill Leviathan, but, if the kind of power that leveled Brockton Bay was focused on it, he imagined that Leviathan was likely to take more damage then it ever had before except maybe at the hands of Eidolon.
It was far from a perfect fit. The Endbringers were doing a great deal better against Buster then the Parahuman's that showed to fight them for one, even if they hadn't made any noticeable progress. And there were only two Endbringers present, rather than the hundreds of Parahumans that usually showed up for an Endbringer fight. But on a superficial level, the comparison could be seen.
If it wasn't for the fact that he would be discarding that time line, Coil would be absolutely terrified by what this implied. That the Endbringers might not be able to take Buster with their usual methodology. As it was, Coil was still pretty terrified about the implications. Collapsing that reality wouldn't magically remove Buster from the other. And so she was still there, a Sword of Damocles hanging over all of their heads.
In the other reality, Coil finally felt that his decision to find that phone number was fully validated.
Suddenly, another screen appeared on the TV, showing another scene.
The Simurgh, floating a few miles above Brockton Bay. Not overtly doing anything, but certainly there.
The screen vanished, as the cloud of dust and shattered earth suddenly billowed outwards. Buster stood there, surrounded by visibly distorting space. The distortion reached an apex point, before suddenly vanishing. And the air around Buster began to ripple.
A curtain of rippling air enveloped buster, as she began producing incredible amounts of heat. She raised both hands above her head, pointed at a seemingly random location. The camera refocused in that direction, the Simurgh. Who suddenly spun in the air to look directly at Buster, then flung itself to the side.
It didn't help.
Buster's hands glowed briefly, before a flash of white light exploded outwards from Buster. The ground around her shredding apart as a byproduct of the actual attack.
The Simurgh didn't even have time to react, as it was carried away on a lance of red light into the sky.
A few moments passed, as the light faded to become nothing more than a twinkle.
Then it exploded.
A bright light shone from behind the clouds, before the clouds themselves vanished to make way for the shockwave from that attack.
Coil had a brief view of the battered mountain crumbling into dust, before the screen switched to static, Leet's camera's presumably obliterated by that attack.
Coil was faintly disappointed, was that it? He considered just collapsing the reality by this point. But, a few moments later, the TV came back on to a vastly higher definition view then before. A brief show of text across the screen informing him that Dragon had taken over every TV station in the world to show this. It having been deemed a matter of 'world wide importance.'
Coil looked at what the TV now showed, it wasn't pretty.
The American countryside around Brockton Bay had been rendered mostly featureless. A flat expanse of earth was the only thing visible at all, no matter how far Coil looked through whatever Dragon was using to observe it. Small particles of various bits of matter thrown into the air by Buster's attack still swirled around in the skies above the ruins of Brockton Bay.
The only interruptions to this flat plain were Behemoth, looking slightly weathered from the forces involved, but still unbowed, and Buster, still unaffected by anything thrown at her.
Leviathan pulled itself out of the sea it had evidently retreated to in the face of the shockwave. Despite it's hasty retreat, large portions of Leviathan's skin were gone, as if they had been shaved off by sandpaper. Coil wondered what would of happened if Leviathan had stayed, would that have been the death of an Endbringer? This reminded Coil, what had happened to the Simurgh?
A fragment of crystalline wing impaling the ground answered that question. The TV briefly showed a projection of where all the shattered pieces of the Simurgh's body were predicated going to land.
Coil sank back into his chair with a blank look on his face.
An... Endbringer. With one shot. Gone, one of the greatest threats to humanity vanquished. Only to be replaced by another, far greater, one. Coil was left speechless. In the other reality, he began searching through Taylor Hebert's background. A repeat of this would be... catastrophic.
The earth rumbled beneath Coil, and the TV showed a report of massive waves crashing upon the coast of Europe. The impacts of Buster's Endbringer-slaying blast finally reaching them.
Coil shook himself out of his thoughts as the earth burst open, and Alexandria pulled herself out of it. Dirty and gasping for breath, but mostly unharmed. A few seconds later, and a considerably more damaged, but still alive Eidolon did the same.
Legend... didn't.
There was a brief moment as Alexandria and Eidolon realized this, before Alexandria immediately ran for a seemingly random portion of earth, and began digging. A few seconds later, and a blue arm was uncovered. Alexandria gave a mighty heave, and pulled Legend out of the ground up earth.
Legend... looked terrible. Limbs hung at awkward angles, and large portions of his right leg were gone completely. Alexandria spent only a second looking at Legend before she shook her head and punched the ground, leaving a sizable crater. Eidolon clenched his fists in obvious anger, before turning to look at Buster, thinking unknown thoughts behind his mask.
The Endbringers, in the meantime, were standing there confused. Not moving, or doing anything really, since the Simurgh had died.
Then, Buster began to act once more. Another arm raised towards Behemoth. Coil held his breath. Was this the end then? Coil held no illusions about what would happen if Buster ignited an explosion of the previous caliber that close to earth.
However, Buster decided to be merciful for now. Either that, or she had deduced that Behemoth was more likely to survive the previous attack than the one she used this time. Nonetheless, she attacked.
The area before Buster melted, miles of earth rapidly turning into a liquid state from some sort of invisible energy Buster was producing. Behemoth in the center of it, desperately directing all of the energy it could into the air above it, air which was rapidly igniting in response, in an attempt to survive Buster's onslaught. An attempt that was quickly failing.
Behemoth's skin sloughed off it in waves, portions of it's bone structure already appearing in places.
Coil honestly didn't want to think about what adding all that energy into the atmosphere was going to do to things. Coil wasn't a physicist, but he imagined North America, at least, could be basically written off by that point.
Coil wasn't sure how much longer Behemoth would survive, but the question was doomed to never be answered. As Alexandria rammed into Buster from the side at her maximum speed, sending both careening towards the earth below.
However, Alexandria only managed to distract Buster from her attack for a brief moment, before she was launched backwards into the ground by a flash of red. But that moment was enough.
Eidolon, floating in the middle of the blazing skies and melting earth, raised a hand into the air.
Everything suddenly froze. Glaciers covered previously burning earth, and the sky took on a frozen tone. Everything except a small spot of light in Eidolon's raised hand.
Letting out a loud cry of, "This, is for Legend!" Eidolon lashed his hand towards Buster as if he were throwing a baseball. Flinging the ball of light on a path towards her.
The light impacted Buster to no effect.
Eidolon's arms fell to his side, and he collapsed into a slump onto one of his created glaciers.
The Endbringers had taken the chance to run off in the intervening time span, and done so.
There was only really one place things could escalate to at this point.
Coil's thoughts were soon validated as the sky grew gold, and a streak of shining light descended from on high to settle in front of Buster.
Scion, the first and greatest Parahuman, hovered above Buster. Not doing much just... staring. Coil thought he sensed a brief flicker of curiosity make it through Scion's aura of depression.
Buster stared back.
For a moment, the two most powerful individuals alive stared at one another.
The moment passed and Buster turned to leave, walking on a path towards the coast. Only to be blocked by Scion flying in front of her.
Buster paused her march, and looked once again at this newly revealed obstacle in her way. She briefly shifted positions, before waving her hand as if swatting a bug.
Scion exploded in a wave of concussive force.
...What? Scion... just like that? Coil's thoughts were interrupted as the air rippled and flashed gold.
Scion reappeared, white bodysuit as immaculate as ever, and began an attack in turn.
A lance of golden light shot forth from Scion's hand, to no more real effect than any of the previous attacks on Buster.
Buster lashed out with another attack. Only this time, Scion vanished before the attack hit. He reappeared in much the same fashion as he had gone, his body just seemingly 'popping' into existence.
Scion, in response, gave a swipe of his hand, and claws of golden light spilled outwards. Claws which broke upon Buster's body like water upon a rock.
Scion, seemingly unbothered by the ineffectiveness of his previous attacks, made a waving motion with his hand. Nothing happened, and a look of confusion spread across Scion's face, before another strike from Buster forced Scion to pull his vanishing trick once more.
Reappearing, Scion raised a hand, and the glaciers left behind from Eidolon's failed attempts rose into the air. A clap of Scion's hands, and they suddenly flew inwards towards Buster, sprouting thousands of icy spines in the process.
They collapsed on top of Buster, only to be vaporized in another omni-directional blast of force. Scion was forced to perform another vanishing act before the blast wave hit. Buster, however, was faster than him this time. As the wave of red light began to collapse upon Scion, he responded in turn.
A cataclysmic strike of golden power struck down from the heavens, Buster's own attack fading beneath it. The ground heaved and shook, a spear of golden light drilling its way into the earth like some cosmic digging tool.
As the light's spiral faded and slowed to a stop, the camera panned outwards.
The North American continent, shattered into a mostly unrecognizable state. The drill of energy Scion had used having broken it apart into so many battered pieces.
The camera refocused, showing Buster leaping out of the churning sea onto one of the many broken landmasses that used to be North America. There was no sign of Eidolon or Alexandria, Coil presumed they were either dead, or had left at some point.
Coil was emotionally exhausted by that point, not even really all that surprised that Scion's best efforts hadn't even fazed Buster. He mentally washed his hands of the whole matter, aside from making that call there wasn't any serious impact he could make on the situation, and just settled back to watch.
Scion didn't waste any time, a pinpoint beam of light shot down from on high.
Buster ignored it, the beam not doing any more damage than the average laser pointer would, and just stared at Scion, emotionless.
Scion, observing that his own attacks continued to do nothing, also paused all movement. The combat entered a lull and then, Scion... panicked, for lack of a better word.
His actions grew erratic, almost... scared. Certainly confused, at least. He began lobbing attacks at Buster. Dozens of different kinds of powers, selected seemingly at random in the hope that something would stick.
Fire attacks which managed to literally set water on fire. Buster was uncaring.
A spatial wave that forced everything it came in contact with to scatter randomly, with no regard to what might be removed from those things in order to do so. Buster was more inconvenienced by having to move on to a different island.
An array of presumably poisonous, or something more insidious than that, gases. Buster was unfazed.
Scion continued to produce new powers, displaying versatility and might that would put Eidolon to shame. Buster continued to display absolute invulnerability towards anything and everything.
Scion only grew more erratic as powers continued to fail against Buster. More indiscriminate in their use, more uncaring of waste or collateral damage.
Coil let out a sigh. The world's greatest hero, undergoing a mental breakdown in the face of an opponent he could not instantly defeat. It was honestly depressing.
Coil noticed that Scion appeared to be trying something new, a golden glow completely suffused the landmass upon which Buster stood. With a raise of both arms into the air, the landmass shot upwards at incredible speeds.
Buster reacted quickly to these events, a flash of red light scattering the glowing earth every which way.
Scion, however, would have none of that. In an awe inspiring show of telekineses, Scion brought every piece of earth Buster had scattered back into a single mass, and shoved it back at Buster.
Buster attacked once more, and Scion regathered the shattered mass back, and continued to push Buster off the earth.
Coil was disappointed. It took Scion that long to think of using his powers that way? What godlike power did to your creativity...
Nonetheless it was over, Scion had managed to figure out a counter for Buster. Even if she could survive in the vacuum of space, she was doomed to never return. Coil made to close the reality, and then... Red light emanated outwards from behind the landmass.
A streak of light screamed through the air, rapidly moving around the obstacle in its path.
An imperceptibly small moment later, and the streak resolved itself into Buster. Floating in the air, surrounded by a corona of red energy.
Coil was rather nonplussed. Flight. Really. It's just... What? How-
Coil took a deep breath and calmed himself. That was more than enough. Coil promptly collapsed the increasingly apocalyptic reality.
In the safer reality, Coil immediately split realities again on reflex, and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.
This... was beyond him. Outside his scale, completely. Not something he could deal with, or ever hope to deal with. Perhaps outside of anyone's scale in fact. But if there was anyone...
Coil looked at the phone number he had dug up and, with grudging distaste, began dialing the number.
The phone was immediately picked up, not even getting a chance to ring. "Calvert?" A womans voice questioned him.
"You are an agent of Cauldron, I presume?" Coil questioned.
"You assume correctly."
Coil took in a deep breath, before beginning to explain. "There is... a favor I owe you, correct?"
"Yes."
"Then, I would like the chance to pay off that favor early."
"What is it you would offer?"
"I would offer information."
"On what?"
Coil steeled himself, there was no going back from here. "On the most powerful Parahuman in the world."
The voice paused, before continuing in an almost patronizing voice. "...I am quite sure we know more about Scion than you ever will."
"I'm not talking about Scion."
"Oh?" The voice queried, a hint of actual surprise in her tone. "Then, you have my attention."