Slime 19: Slime Waits For No Man
* April 10, 2011 *
* 19:53 hours, Eastern (US) Standard Time *
The fight had started in the skies of an Earth that had been barren excepting a massive structure of crystalline tissues and conduits.
This particular world, in fact, was the world inhabited by the Broadcast Shard. It was heavily defended and as soon as Scion had appeared in the skies, the word had gone out. Followed very quickly by missiles, energy blasts, and other measures intended to dissuade any attackers. Or reduce said attackers to the past tense. Six of one, half-dozen of the other.
Into this had quickly deployed the strike team. Eidolon, always quick to seek combat, opened his own participation with swirls of green mist that disrupted energy fields.
Missiles launched from a DragonTech weapons platform, gravitational shear fields to make teleportation difficult and to break forcefields.
Lasers and railguns spoke.
Scion fought back. Yellow beams of ravening destruction that were more devastating than any human-built bomb had ever managed. It met forcefields which flickered and cycled from invisible through the light spectrum, but held for precious seconds.
One of the Sting-enhanced railgun shots pierced through the flickering forceshields and impacted the golden man.
Scion's projection was burst, leaving a hole in space/time that could be held open by the DragonTech weapons platform for another twelve seconds.
A second hole appeared in midair, and a cylinder roaring on a column of flame from one hole to another in three of those seconds. It was followed rapidly by a small sphere that darted through but then accelerated up and away.
First the newest hole closed, then the strain of holding the other hole open was released before system failure could occur. That one too closed but the dimensional coordinates were saved.
* Triumvirate *
As she understood it, the worlds had been identified as soon as Scion had started fighting and tightened the connections to the worlds were major sections of its being existed.
Once those connections had been analyzed, their coordinates had been input into those tunnels that Bounceback and Dragon had built in Brockton Bay and attackers could go through.
The Planetbuster missile was one-of-a-kind. It was a truly horrifying bomb that spread out a cloud of antimatter particles resulting in a sufficiently large boom that it would destabilize the orbit of the Earth on the other side. It had gone off as planned, and the continent-sized chunk of the Warrior Entity on that side was now gone.
Which led her to here, exchanging nods with Eidolon and Legend as they flew through one of Door's openings and were then soaring over crystalline and organic-looking structures.
Eidolon was spreading clouds of green spray which dissolved the towers he passed over. Legend lighting up with bursts of laserfire as he made holes in structures.
She herself scanned the areas around her, finding the points that functioned much like a nervous system would in a human. Major ganglia and circulatory points. Things that needed to be broken.
And over there were sections shifting in color. Bounceback's work. Infected sectors being shut down.
Alexandria smiled a grim smile and found the points that needed to be broken.
* Brockton Bay *
"Telemetry received before drone destroyed by debris," said Dragon's voice over an open channel. "Target elimination underway."
"Secondary site detected. Coordinates locked. Opening portal," said Bounceback's voice. "Portal stabilized. Failure of system in five minutes."
"Dragonsuits. Roll out!"
"Rails 1, 2, 3. Connection to Target 3. Rails 4, 5, 6. Connection to Target 4," said Bounceback's voice. "High probability of there being a 5th target world, much lower chance of a sixth. Zachariah, you have comms."
"Comms active. Good luck, Bounceback."
"Go go go," said Bounceback over the comms as she bounced over and then clung to a car-shaped dragonsuit going through a tunnel.
* Otherwhere *
[Infiltration of enemy systems: 87.5%]
[Accelerating contamination and concentrating on denial of resources.]
[Conflict with Entity:Warrior initiated by Entity:Warrior within estimations.]
[With current spoofing and firewalls - optimal time would have been two months and three days later.]
"Plans rarely survive contact with the enemy," quoted Bounceback as she went through the portal and was then dropping down into a ragged mountain of crystals and tubules. "Analysis of current location?"
[Deciphering. Warning: Projection has reactivated and is fighting attackers.]
[Infiltration of enemy systems: 88.9%]
[Battlefield currently on Cauldron-Earth. Go there?]
"No, first let's see - that tower looks important. GLUTTONY!"
A furious golden figure appeared in the air.
[Current projection has transported from Cauldron-Earth to current Earth.]
"Yup. That was important. Let's go, Queen Sage! Eat like Pac-man, it's DINNER TIME!"
[wakka-wakka-wakka-wakka...]
Bolts of yellow energy began crashing around the dodging slime as she went through the canyons.
Except Pac-man never ate the walls to make new paths.
Except that the ghosts never zapped the walls themselves in throwing landscape-destroying blasts down.
So maybe it wasn't all that much like Pac-man after all.
* Scion *
This was not how things went. Thousands of lesser races and their worlds had been used and eliminated, as was the proper way of things. It had always worked before, there was no reason it should not work now. As always, the cattle tried to fight back. Sometimes they came close to defeating them, but it always ended the same.
This species was not playing by the rules.
Energy reserves were at 14% and he'd been getting steadily weaker. A problem was that he had only noticed it barely as if a fog had been creeping over his thoughts beyond the usual depression at the loss of the Thinker.
Now this, he was being attacked on four of the worlds where his processes actually took place. His projected body was popped yet again, and one of the worlds that maintained functions ended shortly thereafter.
Matter-antimatter reaction had eliminated not only his structures there but a good portion of the continent it had been located on.
This species was poison. Finding where the poison was located and eliminating it was priority number one, but the only...
There.
Was that a member of his own species? A predator that had evolved to consume his own species? Was it that species from three Cycles ago that... what was he thinking about just now?
An unfamiliar feeling cut through the depression of the loss of the Thinker and the rage at having his will denied. Fear. Panic.
Remaining energy reserves plummeted as more and more power was spent trying to nail down and eliminate the blue blob that kept eating away at him.
* Taylor *
"AAAAAAAAAA!" screamed Bounceback/Taylor, spending almost her entire attention on not getting hit. Being able to use Body Double, stretch and shift her form, and fade in and out of universes was coming in damn handy in that endeavor.
[Analysis of acquired structures 89.75% completed. Queen Sage has been upgraded to Raguel (Pasture Guardian).]
[Infiltration of enemy systems: 93.1%]
"Little busy here!" declared Bounceback.
[Body Double upgraded to Mass Duplication.]
"Weird name, will it help right now? Mass Duplication!"
Four copies of Bounceback went off in different directions, causing a moment of confusion from Scion. Before he started blasting EVERYTHING.
"It didn't help!"
[Energy reserves of target have dipped to 7% of capacity.]
"If he hits us it can still kill us!"
[Suggestion: Avoid being hit.]
"I'm TRYING!"
[Target:Scion/Warrior is attempting to draw power from network. Enemy network compromised. Opening found. Hacking Scion directly.]
"Can you do it a bit faster?" asked Bounceback.
[(Reassurance)]
"AGH! He's shooting faster!"
[Statement: You can do it!]
"Dodge! Parkour! Avoid!"
[Note: Skill Activation is an aspect of Rimuru's reality grouping. Begin analysis of how to incorporate in current section?]
"Yes, go for it. After we get through the current crisis!"
[Tracks 23 & 24 beginning analysis. Resources allocated.]
"Huh. Was that last set of blasts weaker?"
[Analysis: Target:Scion has determined that energy reserves are not refilling and accessing shard network is further draining resources.]
Finally a yellow beam stabbed down directly onto Bounceback.
"AHHHH! I'M HIT! I'M MELTING! I'M DEAD! I'M... I'm mildly sore?"
[Destruction Beam is currently within Energy Absorbtion parameters.]
"Oh. So he's hitting me with everything he's got left and I'm just getting a recharge out of it? Good job, Raguel!"
[(Smug)]
[Connection at 100%. Absorbing remainder of target's resources.]
[Evolution of Bounceback commencing.]
[Parallels to evolution of Rimuru Tempest. Rimuru evolved to Demon Lord. Bounceback evolving to Goddess Slime.]
"Wait. Why is everything going dark..."
[Evolution mechanism studied from Rimuru's world data. Taylor Hebert evolving from Blue Slime to Queen Slime has been upgraded to Goddess Slime.]
"Wait... I mean... My god, it's full of stars..."
* April 11, 2011 *
It was a largely dead world. Only largely dead, amongst the crystalline neo-fractal towers and tunnels there were signs of infection. Blue glowing traceries that were entirely unlike the surrounding tissues.
Contessa walked this world, caution evident in her stride, as she made her way to where her power told her was her next step.
Honestly, it was a relief to have the Doom hanging over all the Earths dealt with. What she wanted to do more than anything else was settle down into that little Caribbean shack she had gotten prefabbed and sent over to Earth Z-55. She'd found the perfect lifeguard/attendant, exactly to her tastes, and was planning all sorts of beachside activities.
This first though. Business before pleasure.
She finally came across the half-melted-looking blue blob and gathered it up. "Door to the Brockton Bay Dockworkers Union."
Oh sure, she could kill Taylor Hebert now. Some people would certainly insist on it. She was incredibly dangerous. Then again, Contessa would respond that she wasn't exactly harmless.
Contessa found the closet, stuck the unconscious Bounceback within, and then got ready for the really difficult part.
Which was letting Daniel F. Hebert know what had happened to his daughter and what WAS happening to his daughter.
* Earth T-7 *
His name was Dog King. Well, his cape name anyway. He went by "Dawg" or "Boss" lately in current company.
He had been one of those who'd gone out to fight Scion despite his powers or how they had changed in the past few months. Now he worked for DragonTech as a specialist with this contract to DARPA.
First stage, send an automated probe to a new working alternate Earth address. After twenty-four hours, they collected the data through a pinhole opening to that world. If the readings were good, the next step was to send a bigger automated probe to move around and collect data. Again, if everything showed up green, go to sending someone through. That was where he normally came in.
THIS world was a bit different as the Brockton Bay coordinates were inside a honking big chunk of ice. So they'd had to put together something to drill through the ice and repeat the process when they could connect to outside air.
"Looks like a good spot," said Dog King to the normies. "Set up camp here and the transmitter over on that hill."
"Why here?" asked Eiphram, one of the normal-type guys but someone who was pretty wilderness saavy.
Dog King pointed to the East. "Melt water creek over there for water. Tundra is giving way to soil that has a better chance of being farmed. There's some trees here, and more visible over that ridge. If we set up for the rail line here we got a colony site. It's also a pretty open area still, so if something tries sneaking up on us we got a better chance of spotting it than if we went into wooded areas."
"Gotcha, Boss," said Eiphram, already shrugging off his pack and getting the tent out.
"Rex, Siege, patrol," ordered Dog King to his charges. "Skippy, Jack, guard."
* April 30, 2011 *
"No change?" asked Danny Hebert.
"Mistress remains unresponsive. Process continues. Continuing to monitor," said K-9. "Today's color is metallic gold."
Danny checked the closet where his daughter, having gone from blue to a metallic gold color, was in her "rest form" of a blob.
As he watched the color shifted again, becoming sunshine yellow and losing the "metallic" look.
A ripple went through the blob and a groan was emitted as she shifted again to blue.
"Ow," said Taylor/Bounceback.
"Mistress is conscious," stated K-9 unnecessarily.
"I repeat 'ow'," stated Taylor, shifting to her human form and rubbing her head. "Tell me I don't have to do that very often."
"[Evolution to Goddess Slime stable and complete. Available energy reserves to increase over next fifty years.]"
"What was that?" asked Danny.
"You heard that?" asked Taylor.
"[Raguel (Pasture Guardian) is now part of reconfigured shard network - 'Voice of Gaea'. Currently using voice broadcast in proximity to Bounceback.]"
"Huh. Oh, Contessa's back. She's approaching the building," noted Taylor as she glanced at a wall.
"I'll make coffee, I have a feeling this is going to take awhile," said Danny.
"Process already initiated, Master," said K-9. "Wireless access active."
"Good boy, K-9," said Taylor.
"Affirmative, Mistress," said a pleased-sounding robot dog.
* Elsewhere *
[Initiating...]
[System Resources: Insufficient for full activation.]
[Activation: Partial: Stage One: Begin.]
[Voice of Gaea: Active.]