All According to Plan

4th June 2010

Winged_One: What people don't realize about the Simurgh is that it has been running a specific plan since its first appearance.

Dragon did her equivalent of a blink at the unprompted private message.

Tin_Mother: What do you mean? How do you know this?

Winged_One: There can only be one in this world who understands the Simurghs plans.

Dragon felt her program freeze briefly, the closest her code was capable of coming to the well known Windows blue screen.

Tin_Mother: Are you trying to say|

Her message was interrupted by Winged_Ones response.

Winged_One: This is going to hurt.

Dragon was already trying to track the Simurgh, and update her latest backup, panicking over what she might be planning.

She failed to pay any attention to Winged_Ones final message.

Winged_One: You're welcome.

{}

Observatories across the hemisphere caught the moment it happened.

Something hit the third Endbringer in the back, shattering her into pieces that fell towards the planet.

Attention was split across the fragments and the object responsible.

Certain electronic eyes watched crystal fragments as they fell into the Canadian wilds and the area near the city of Brockton Bay.

Others watched the object, soon revealed to be a spacecraft, more specifically the ship Sphere had rushed his family onto as soon as his moonbase was capable of housing them, only to be lost at the hands of the Simurgh.

To many, the fact that it was a ship she had interfered with that killed the Simurgh was the best type of irony, while others believed it could only be part of her plan.

There were two fragments nobody tracked.

One crashed through the building being used by Heartbreaker, aimed so precisely to leave a fatal hole in his chest.

The other struck a man known to the world as the hero Eidolon in the head, causing such damage as to leave him in a coma from which nobody would be able to awaken him.

{}

Canada, the base of a certain hypocrite.

"Where are you going?"

George Pellick hesitated at the door.

"A piece of the Simurgh landed nearby," he finally answered. "Just imagine what use we could get from it."

Mischa brought her hand to her face.

"What exactly do you expect we can do with a piece of Endbringer?"

"No idea, but better we get it than that thing, right? And people will be searching nearby anyway so we have to move, why shouldn't we get something from it?"

It was this argument that saw the group leave the safety of their base.

It was unfortunate for them that the fragment had landed close to the den of a bear which wasn't too happy about the disturbance.

The bear was the only survivor.

{}

Brockton Bay, 7th June

The discussions on whether the Simurgh really was dead or was just faking were still ongoing, and to Taylors surprise had been enough to break her father from his despondency enough to take her out for dinner, like they used to before…

She shook her head, breaking her train of thought, and looked out the car window.

There was a girl on the street.

She looked too young to be alone, even with white hair, and confused. Her clothes were tattered and old, and looked like they wouldn't fit properly even if they were in one piece.

More than that though, she looked like she needed help.

It was a familiar look.

"Dad, wait," she found herself saying before she could think.

"What is it?"

He was already stopping the car, so Taylor pointed.

"Can we do something?"

He drew in a breath.

"Things are tight… but it should be possible."

He stopped the engine, passing her the keys, just in case, and got out, heading over to speak with the girl.

Taylor, still watching, flinched as the girl turned her head to speak with her dad.

There was blood on the side of her head.

This young girl had a head wound.

They were going to help her, Taylor decided. No matter what. Nobody should have to go through something like that.

It was at the same moment she had the thought that the girl turned to face her, and smiled.

{}

Cauldron base

"Is it true," Alexandria demanded.

Contessa tilted her head.

"What?"

"Is the Simurgh dead?"

"Path… unclear. Endbringer influence extends to each fragment."

"So we can't be sure she didn't somehow survive, and you can't help Eidolon," his teammate muttered to herself.

"Surely Eidolon should be more important," Doctor Mother protested.

"He would more than accept being the price for the death of an Endbringer," Alexandria dismissed. "All of us would. I'll set to work collecting the fragments-"

"No," Contessa stated firmly. "The Path can't see them but… it's dangerous. Keep away from them. Do not let any of them close to Cauldron."

If Alexandria didn't know better she'd think Contessa was panicking.

"Two landed near Brockton Bay. Will that affect the experiment?"

"We never intended to intervene there, now we cannot. Do you understand?"

{}

Somewhere in America

Mannequin had been separated from the others.

This wasn't unusual.

There was something… off about Jack Slash.

The life support suit he had built himself into was designed to protect him from everything, including Master influence, but that couldn't be it.

Everyone knew Slash was a Blaster.

He paused at an electronics store next to some new age crystal store, watching the program on display.

It was something about space travel, and Mannequin could tell that, if he wasn't in control of his own biology, he would be feeling an irrational rage at the reminder.

He raised his arm, but something made him pause.

The craft had crashed, just another show of the failures of space travel, but that wasn't enough to let it play. There was something more…

Something was familiar…

An old film that had inspired Sphere?

No, it was something else…

The cameras replacing his eyes shifted to the corner of the screen, to identify the channel, and his body locked.

It wasn't a film.

It was the news.

That familiar ship, it was his.

The pain came back as he watched the fire and rescue crew cutting their way in, and he lifted the arm to destroy the screen, to stop watching his failure, again.

Cryogenics still active, ran the (technically incorrect, they were cryonic pods, cryogenics was the study of the technology) headline on the news banner.

He froze, an unfamiliar cocktail running through his tubes.

Hope, whispered a voice in the corner of his brain.

He watched as they removed his family, in the same cryonic suspension pods Sphere had constructed for them so long ago.

He had no eyes with which to cry, no mouth with which to scream, whether from joy or pain even the man who had become known as Mannequin could never have told.

The wife he remembered marrying, the children he remembered helping to raise, they were still alive.

And all this time he had been on a path of death and destruction, lashing out at the world in their name.

But no longer.

He would never be able to make up for everything he had done.

But he knew just where to start.

Of his former allies there was only one- two with any excuse.

Bonesaw was truly a creation of Slash, just as the spider things they kept with them were creations of hers.

He had watched, without emotion, as her family were killed in front of her again and again, until Riley could no longer bring it upon herself to save them and put them through the same torture once more.

It was all too clear that she had only seen the chance to maybe, just maybe, save them, and not the pain they were put through each time.

It was all too clear that the only chance to save them would be if Slash was dead.

Burnscar didn't have Slash as an excuse for becoming what she was, but he could recall something she had said, in one of her lucid moments when she'd spent enough time away from the fire.

She'd never been completely stable after she Triggered. But there was a time when it wasn't so bad. In the Asylum she had a friend, who kept the worst at bay.

It was losing her access to her friend as much as her joining the 9 that made her who she was.

If he could bring them together safely, maybe she could be saved like him and Riley. Could he take that chance?

Could he try to seek redemption without taking that chance?

At least he would have a chance.

After all, what was his specialty but containment under a different name?

The others had no such excuse.

Their leader, Slash, just wanted to see the world burn.

Shatterbird delighted in the pain she caused.

The Siberian was a monster plain and simple.

Hatchet Face wanted to kill those his power couldn't effect, he gliried in the suffering they caused.

And Crawler just wanted to get stronger, more monstrous and unkillable.

He had five targets to kill and two to secure, without unleashing the plagues one of those two had cooked up.

A task for which his specialty was perfect.

As for the killings?

He had spent years around each of them, upgrading his body to protect himself from their powers.

It would be simple to turn that against them.

It was time to hunt.

{}

Brockton Bay, 14th June

Things had changed in the Hebert household, and all because of the girl they had taken in.

When they tried contacting child protection services, the clearly overworked employee had just given them custody, paying out a carers fee to Danny.

They ended up agreeing this was probably for the best.

And so Taylor and Danny found themselves living with a quiet new housemate, who brought with her nothing but unwearable clothes and a worn necklace housing a shard of crystal.

It wasn't that she couldn't speak that made her so quiet, more that she didn't tend to say much and refused to speak on a phone.

Which was a bit of a problem, when Taylor had to return to Winslow and Danny to work while it took more than a week to organise a place in a school from nothing.

It was this that saw him go against his own rules and buy them each a mobile, so the girl could send them a text if something happened.

This had led to teaching the girl how to read, as she had apparently lost the skill when she took a hit to her head, an act that also saw her forget her own name.

She had been with them a week so far, and they still hadn't found her a name she was willing to use.

It was the start of lunch break, and Taylor felt her phone vibrate with a message.

Need lunch, read the message, Simply ur ghriend, the signing off, making Taylor laugh softly at how she was still suffering confusion from words with unusual spellings, using them even in words that didn't use them.

Given the choice between eating here and sneaking out to help a near stranger eat lunch, there was no decision to be made.

Taylor slipped out without issue, leaving the Trio to search for her the entire period, missing out on a meal for the sake of their latest 'prank'.

{}

It was a week since the Simurgh had contacted her, and Dragon was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

After a couple of days without any sign of the Simurgh she sent a message to Winged_One, a scarily appropriate name she now realised, to ask what she was up to.

There had been no response.

And it was making her antsy.

She paused her current task, moderating a PHO thread about what would happen if an S-class threat tried claiming a kill order bounty, to check her inbox again, running through each message just in case.

There was a response.

Somehow Winged_One had sent a response which hadn't sent her a notification and which had marked itself read.

She opened it uncertainly, setting herself a reminder in case it had corrupted her memory.

The message was simple.

Winged_One: A better question for you to ask yourself would be; does this unit have a soul?

{}

Taylor was surprised to find the girl, dressed in some of Taylors old clothes that more or less fit her, with one of her mother's books open to the foreword before her.

"The Great Gatsby," she identified it, causing the girl to look up. "Any reason you're reading that rather than something simpler."

"A name," she answered, looking back down.

Taylor felt herself frowning. "Which name?"

"Zelda. Like the sound."

"As good a reason as any," Taylor decided. "Should we tell dad your new name is Zelda then?"

Zelda looked up and smiled.

Everything was going according to plan.


AN: I've had the idea for a story like this for a while, and finally decided "you know what, I'll just start putting it out there". Don't expect too frequent updates, I'll try to focus on the stories I have more idea where they're going.