He roared as he slammed Stormbreaker into the ground, bolts of lightning striking out and dispersing another dozen clones. Crystal shot several angry red lasers in his direction, and instinctively, he used his shield to redirect them at several more incoming clones.
One would think that there would be a limit, but after they killed one, hundreds started to appear, and the onslaught seemed to be unending. He was fine with that, he thought as he threw his shield, the giant disc easily tearing through another trio before ricocheting back to him.
Unending armies were the easiest to handle: you just threw everything you could until the army dried up or you beat the boss.
The only thing that bothered him was how the clones fought.
Not only did they all possess incredible speed and strength, but they were also able to blast fire from their fists and mouths, cause the earth to shake with a stomp of their feet, release intense blasts of air from their palms, and even summon water to use as shields and whips. It reminded him a lot of Jutsu and bending from Naruto and Avatar. But…some powers had themes, like Miss Militia or Ursa Aurora.
The Entities had probably destroyed a civilization capable of doing this and had probably just copied it, as they did with Tinker shards.
Crystal landed next to him, out of breath and clutching her bleeding arm.
"Okay, so maybe this wasn't the best idea. There's a lot more of them than I thought there'd be. Like, a lot more."
In response to that, he merely slammed Stormbreaker into the ground again, releasing another flurry of bolts.
"It's an S-class parahuman, Crystal. Welcome to the big leagues," he said, his eyes searching for any more incoming clones. For now, it seemed that the coast was clear.
"I don't suppose that New Wave has some kind of giant logo that they shine in the sky for help?"
That earned him a blank look. "Why the hell would we have that?"
"Right. Superhero media got influenced here, so you never got Batman," he said under his breath. Louder, he said, "Just kidding. But I don't think you can track down your family like this, can you?"
"I wouldn't even know where to look besides home. I honestly thought that if we took her out quickly, then we could find the rest of my family still fighting," she admitted. "But it's too quiet. We've been making a lot of noise, but I don't see any Protectorate, PRT, or gang members. And when we were flying over, I didn't see any civilians out. Do you…do you think she did something to them?"
"The parahumans are probably knocked out in a place where they can't make too much trouble. But I think the civilians are still here. They're just inside their homes."
"What do you mean?"
"This isn't the Docks. We're not too far from the Boardwalk, I think, and all the houses are relatively nice. No tags, no broken streets, no collapsed buildings: we're not in gangland. I've seen those clones take hits whenever I was about to hit a building; I think she's just forced everybody inside."
"But why would she do that? Most capes don't really care about collateral damage."
"She would if she wants to actually rule the city," said an unfamiliar voice. "Kaiser and Lung never quite got it in their heads that ruling over a pile of rubble was kind of counterproductive. It shames me that Coil was the only one to keep his territory relatively stable."
It was a clone, just one this time, with her hands held above her head in surrender.
She still had to dodge a red laser blast to the head.
"Where's my family!" demanded Crystal.
"Safe, Laserdream. I promise you that. I just want to talk."
"There's nothing for us to discuss," replied Keagan, lightening running up and down his body. "You're a psychopath that's trying to take over a United States City. I sincerely doubt we have anything in common."
"Oh, I don't know about that. Considering I'm using Bending Styles and Chakra, and you're carrying a very recognizable shield, as well as that really nifty jacket, I think the two of us have way more in common than you and Laserdream do."
The minute his body stiffened, she knew that he was from her world. Herecognized the names. He knew what that shield symbolized, what the S-symbol on that jacket stood for. He wasn't just a tinker that had some kind of CYOA powers; he was from Earth. He was from home.
He, however, needed more proof.
"I don't know you," he said harshly. "And concerning what you know about my weaponry, you could just be a Thinker on top of everything else."
"What, like Lisa? Sorry, the little Shard of Space-Whale magic doesn't exist in my head. All of this is homegrown."
An overly-laden hint, maybe, but all of it was supposed to show that they came from the same dimension/planet/timeline. A place where this world had been nothing more than a collection of words on a website, following the adventures of a particularly vicious bug controller.
"...how was your 2020?"
That made her crack a smile. "Best damn year of my life. I got paid to stay home by the government. For an introvert like me, that was a dream come true. I mean, Covid sucked, but I got vaccinated, so it was no biggie."
And with that, she knew that she had passed his test. She could see it in the way that his shoulders loosened and his weapons slightly lowered. With a small sigh of relief, she lowered her hands. Maybe Dinah was wrong. Maybe this wouldn't come down to a fight.
However, she forgot about Laserdream.
"What the hell just happened?" the cape asked, her palm glowing as her eyes switched from her to the newcomer.
"The situations changed, Crystal," he replied. "It's complicated, but she's not an enemy."
"That's not what I saw," she retorted. "What I saw was you saying a bunch of nonsense phrases, him replying with nonsense phrases, and the guy that was beating your ass ten seconds ago is now on your side. That looked like conditioned mind control.It would explain how you instantly recognized him, but he didn't remember you."
Ah, right, mind control was a really bad thing in this universe, especially human mind control.
"Crystal, I'm not mastered," the boy said, his ax disappearing into nothingness. Huh, that was a nice trick. "I really can't explain it, but she's not dangerous."
"You see, that's the kind of statement that makes me believe that you actuallyarebeing mind-controlled. Because before she said your…activation phrase, or whatever the hell she did to you, you called her a psychopath. And now, because of a few random words, she's no longer dangerous?"
Man, she was really paranoid. And the alarming thing was, her paranoia was well-founded. The whole thing really did make him sound like a sleeper agent, and she could tell that he was starting to believe too, with the way that his body was tensing up again.
"Sorry about this Crystal, but there are no Earth Bet kids allowed at this meeting," she said breezily.
The engagement was as quick as it was one-sided. A Stunning Spell shot from her hand to Crystal's face, instantly knocking her out. Before she could fall, a shadow clone was summoned. The clone body-flickered to the Cape, caught her, then disappeared in a crack of Disapparation.
The boy turned to her warily. "Where'd you take her?"
"To her family, in one of Coil's base. It's not Fortress Constructions here, though. It's called Expansion Constructions instead."
"I'm not so sure if I can trust you."
"What, because of Laserdream? I assume you have some way of avoiding mind control if you plan to fight the Simurgh at some point."
"Oh, I do. The reason why I don't trust you is that I remember why I'm here in the first place. Same Earth or not, you're still a psychopath that's planning to get a city domed. And that means that you're still going down."
The look of surprise on her face was almost hilarious. What, did she think that the two of them being from the same world gave her a pass or something? True, he'd been delighted to find someone who was actually from his dimension and time period, but once Crytal had reminded him of what she'd done, that joy quickly evaporated into horror.
Any SI with sufficient knowledge and power could easily take a slice of Earth Bet for themselves without ever having to worry about the consequences. You could literally just claim a city for yourself and wait for Golden Morning if the universe didn't become too altered.
And even if it did, all you needed to do was keep your eyes on three key players: Jack Slash, Taylor Hebert, and Amy Dallon. End Jack Slash, and you automatically get ten more years of prep time.
Taylor Hebert was supposedly the chosen one(he still believed Khepri to have been a one in million chance that was propagated by three of the greatest precogs on Earth), and Amy Dallon was the key to it all, as well as the one who was easiest to manipulate. Khepri might be all-powerful, but no Panacea meant that Queen Administrator wasn't worth shit.
"Look, I know this seems bad, but I can explain."
"Oh, this should be good. Do you have a good reason for starting a one-man gang war, interfering with the authorities, and holding an entire city hostage? I can't wait to hear it."
And it better be fantastic, or in ten minutes, a lot of kaiju were gonna start making appearances.
"We both know Cauldron doesn't care for this city. They've cut the PRT and protectorate at the knees, leaving them unable to fight back against three homicidal parahuman gangs. The Brockton Bay Experiment is all about parahuman feudalism? Then we'll give them what they want: parahuman warlords that can fight off even Contessa."
"We?"
The girl suddenly shifted, a bit uncomfortable now. "You-you probably haven't been here for too long, or you would've come to help. I only arrived a year ago. I tried to help out by doing the standard thing: becoming an independent hero, fighting the gangs, the usual stuff. I'm too old to make contact with Khepri; it'd be too weird, so I figured that I'd just watch her back when she debuted. But I realized that we don't have to stick to the status quo; I didn't need to wait for the ABB to destroy the Bay, or for the Empire to get outed by Coil, or wait for Noelle to go crazy. I can save the Bay, make sure that people don't have to live in fear. I-we-can save this city."
"Wow…just…wow…"
A hopeful look began to spread on her face.
"I'm kinda glad that I've only been here for three months, because apparently you have been drinking the crazy water they sell here, and you've been drinking it deeply."
And there was the anger.
"Excuse me?"
"Are you as insane as the rest of the crazy people on this planet? Do you think you're ready to be responsible for the lives of several hundreds of thousands of people? Do you think you can feed, educate, clothe, provide fresh water and supplies for them daily? Are you ready to act as their Judge, Jury, and Executioner? Because we both know what happens when a city gets domed; they're on their own. Dragon, bless her heart, probably buys the supplies herself and tells the public it's from the PRT or the Guild. But it's not gonna be enough. They'll be left to die here, all because you wanted to play Warlord. They would've been better served if you'd left them to their original fate. At least they're used tothatkind of suffering."
"Are you fucking kidding me? How callous can you be?!" she yelled.
"And how fucking stupid are you?" he shot back. "Jack Slash is still alive! The Endbringers are still active! Teacher hasnotbeen neutralized! Case 53's are still being produced! The Dragonslayers are still working to inhibit Dragon! Moord Nag is still killing people by the hundreds! Yangban is still making child soldiers! The Fallen are kidnapping Wards!All of these problems are still out there, all of those monsters are still roaming the Earth! You say you've been here for a year? What do you have to show for it, huh?"
"I-I tried to help…these people…they need us-"
The amount of naivete in that statement made him want to rip her throat out. The sheer stupidity in that statement made him want to explode.
"They do not need us. And they sure as hell don't want us. They will never thank you for saving them. As for as they're concerned, you're just another crazy cape that came to upend their lives. You know, that's the thing I always hated about things like this; Everyone likes to think they know how to fix this world, but they're so stuck up in their little power fantasies that they never think about the people whose lives they're affecting! To you, you're being a benevolent person, but to them, you're playing god with their lives!"
"Everyone deserves a chance at peace! If you lived here, wouldn't you want to feel safe in your own home?!"
"If I lived here, I would've walked off a rooftop years ago! And in case you forgot, this isn't Earth Bet Prime! Gold Morning's already come and gone!
This is just an iteration of that Earth filled with imperfect, greedy, soulless people who would happily kill each other for a chance to stand at the top! I bet you're a Khepri fangirl, right?
That's probably why you had this dumbass idea in the first place. What, you thought you'd be her new best friend, maybe join her little crew, and take the Bay from the big, bad incompetent Protectorate?
News flash, that group is as idiotic as they were hypocritical, and guess where Khepri ended up? Brain-damaged, dying in a ditch, two bullets in her skull, half of her crew dead, and her name as reviled as any Endbringer! Is that your precious Path To Victory?! To lead her down that same path, only with you guiding her along to it?!"
He could see her flinch with every word, and every time she reacted, he felt his disgust rise higher and higher. Of course, the person who was sent ahead of him was one of those braindead idiots who thought they could just insert themselves into another person's life, and have everything just come out peachy.
"We owe it to them to try and change things for the better. Yes, I'll admit that there are opponents that I should have focused on, and maybe trying to fight fair when I have more power than the villains do was foolish, but all of them would have focused on Brockton Bay anyway!" she argued. "The fact that we have future knowledge of what's going to happen means that we have to do our best to change it!"
And that was what sealed the deal for him. He was definitely going to fight her now. Not only was she delusional, but she was delusional and dangerous, especially in a world like this, where her taking over a city filled with helpless people actually made sense.
"We don't owe this world anything," he said coldly. "We weren't born here. Our families and friends don't exist here. The most likely reason why we appeared here is that we're dead in our home reality, and some omnipotent being snatched up our souls and dropped us here for either entertainment or some misguided attempt to fix this wretched planet."
"...you know them," she said softly, tears brimming in her eyes. "You know their fears, their hopes, and their dreams. You know so many people in this world in a way that even they themselves don't. You know exactly why they're so desperate and willing to give up. And you would abandon them to their fate?"
"If 'abandon them to their fate,' means 'not act like I know what they should do with their lives,' then yes, I'm gonna do just that. Equip Rhitta, the Divine Ax."
Anotherax appeared in his empty hand, but this one was far different from Stormbreaker in every way. It was a giant ornamental ax with a blade shaped like a crescent moon, similar to that of a Monk's spade. The ax also featured two golden protrusions, one larger than the other, with the white tips of a spear, the longer one in the middle at the top of the ax and the smaller one on the opposite of the blade of the ax. The handle was dark blue and it featured a golden semicircular guard with four golden spikes on it.
"I'm giving you five seconds to surrender," he said, raising the impossibly heavy ax with ease, the sunlight flowing into him and boosting him even further. "After that, then I'll take you down the same way I'd take down any rabid animal. With deadly force."
She gulped. The Divine Ax, in the hands of a guy who probably had some sort of Superman-like powers, not to mention how many other goodies he might have locked away somewhere. It was one thing for Dinah to outline just how fucked she was, but staring down an ax that she knew was capable of splitting a building in half with absurd ease made her put quite a few things in perspective.
She hated how he made her sound like a bloodthirsty idiot. She hated how right he sounded too: she hadn't thought of things like governmental procedures and due process. What would she do if an Endbringer came around and tried to destroy the Bay? She was strong enough to beat one back, but she did not have enough runes to even consider doing more than that. She definitely couldn't kill one, and with how OP those things were, they were quite capable of destroying the Bay as they underwent an ass whooping that wouldn't actually hurt them.
It bothered her, how blind she had been. She had never even considered doing anything about groups like the Dragonslayers or the Fallen. It had just…never occurred to her. She'd just tunnel-visioned in on Brockton Bay, trying to fix the problems that she knew how to deal with. Stuff like that…it had sort of flown over her head. She would admit, even only to herself, that she had been excited to play the hero, to be one of the people who would fight for justice. Golden Morning had seemed so far away, and she'd been dealing with issues of her own as well.
Nevertheless, she wasn't backing down from this. Maybe her idea wasn't the best, but it was better than letting the city devolve into the eventual chaos that was sure to engulf it. She did believe in what she had said: they had a duty to the people of Earth Bet, to use their knowledge to make things easier for them. Leaving things to just dissolve into chaos when you knew you could stop it was just selfish, plain and simple. If you had the power to stop bad things from happening, but you let them proceed anyway, then you were just as culpable.
So she glared back at him and activated every skin hardening, forcefield, shock absorption, kinetic absorption, hard body, unbreakable bones, and pain removal runes and seals that she'd put on her body.
"No."
Then the two warriors charged at each other and began to fight.
"It's okay, she's breathing, she'd breathing!"
"What should we do? Did she get knocked out? What did that red beam do to her?"
"As the only one in this family who is closest to a doctor, I need you all to back away. She needs air, not all of your carbon dioxide."
Well, that solved where Crystal was, at least.
"Hey there Ames."
"Hi Crystal. Did you enjoy your premium beatdown? I heard Crazy Girl's giving out a two for one option today."
She didn't miss the snark, though.
"Oh, my baby girl!" Instantly, her mom was hugging her, and she was hugging her back, ignoring the stinging sensation in her eyes. "When I saw her hit you, I-I thought-"
"Wait, you saw that?" she asked, briefly pulling away from her mother. "How?"
"In response to her question, her mother simply pointed at the giant flat screen tv mounted on the wall behind her.
"She let you have a television?"
"She's a surprisingly agreeable dictator," chimed in Uncle Mark. "She even promised us a steak dinner after Brockton Bay gets domed.
"Shit! Keagan!" she swore as she remembered exactly why she was there in the first place. "We have to go and help him!"
"Who's Keagan?' asked Vicky curiously.
"The cape I came with. He's-"
Aunt Carol cleared her throat and gave her a raised eyebrow.
"Unwritten Rules."
"Right, sorry!"
"Just don't tell us the rest. Why does he need our help?"
"That crazy bitch did some kind of mind control on him!" she explained. "She made him think they're friends or something. If we don't help him snap out of it, he'll get blamed alongside her!"
"Friends…," said Amy, looking at the tv screen in a bit of awe and fear. "I think you may be confusing the word with something else, Crystal."
Wondering what exactly her grumpy healer of a cousin meant, she turned fully towards the tv-and felt her jaw drop as she watched the two parahumans wage war.
And that was the only word that could be used to describe what was happening.
Hundreds of clones were attacking Keagan, some approaching him in melee with glowing fists and smokelike aura's surrounding their bodies, glowing orbs of energy in their palms, clawed appendages made out energy reaching for him, whilst a majority attacked at range.
And it was the ranged part of the army that was the most terrifying.
Blasts of wind, fire, lightning surged towards him. Red laser beams escaped her eyes and sought to disintegrate him.
Esoteric blasts of energy flew from her palms and mouth. Black fire surrounded him. Multicolored bolts of lightning raced at him. Several clones even released what looked like laser blasts the size of pillars at him.
And he took it all.
A single slash of his golden oversized ax, and a wave of pure white fire lanced out, instantly destroying a good number of clones.
He threw his shield, harder and faster than before, and she watched as several clones simply disappeared in its wake, her eyes unable to even track the disc.
She watched as another warhammer appeared in his empty hand, and he pointed it at another group of rapidly approaching clones, and to her surprise, a huge beam of purple energy was released from it, and utterly annihilated a whole street of clones.
"How are they not destroying the street?" Crystal found herself asking. "And how are we seeing this?"
"Crazy girl had some of her clones writing on the walls when we first came in," said Vicky, her eyes glued to the screen. "The words glowed and disappeared. Probably some kind of power effect to make the room more durable. With how many clones she has, it wouldn't surprise me if she's managed to cover half the Bay by now."
"And we're getting this from one of Dragon's drones," added Aunt Carol. "A new law that the anti-PRT sect of the government came up with-no more hiding parahuman situations under classified reports and just telling people an area is quarantined. Everyone's looking for more accountability from the Protectorate now."
Well, there was no way that the PRT would've been able to cover this up, she thought as she saw Keagan slam both ax and hammer into the ground, releasing an X-shaped blade of golden fire and purple energy, dispelling hundreds of clones in seconds.
Whatever happened now, Crystal had an odd feeling that it was going to have an effect on the whole world.
"So…kinda glad she kicked all of our asses before she got serious," Assualt whistled as he watched the battle.
"Ethan, shut up."
"Puppy, the girl just summoned clones that can fly and shoot lasers from their eyes, and that boy retaliated by throwing asun. I am so glad she just knocked us out."
Colin could feel his teeth grinding against each other. He had been so fucking proud of dispelling a measly five clones, when some newbie was destroying them by the hundreds, and dispelling them as fast as they appeared. It was one thing to realize that his city was being taken over by one person.
To now realize that she had been actively holding back so as not to kill them by accident, to know that he was this outclassed…it burned him.
Were his years of tinkering really that useless?
First Lung, then Dauntless, and now this girl. All of them outpacing him easily, his tech unable to keep up with their own advancements, the power they never had to work for.
He watched as the boy slammed the glowing warhammer into the girl's stomach, sending her flying into a nearby house. Curiously enough, the house remained intact, glowing symbols appearing briefly when she hit, disappearing after a second.
The girl looked winded and after he got out of here, he had to congratulate Dragon on the integrity of her camera drones, because with all the power effects that were flying around, you would've thought that they would've been destroyed by now.
But had no time to rest, because the boy was suddenly in front of her, the golden ax aiming to cut her head off.
She jumped inot the air, a group of clones materializing as she did so, the lot of them releasing streams of lightning from their mouths. The boy absorbed the attack, then leaped in the air after her, a basketball-sized sun and a blast of purple energy heralding his rise.
"That's Glyph."
It took him a minute to realize that it was Miss Militia. He hadn't recognized her voice, because he had never heard her sound so…defeated. Her eyes were dark and dim, full of sadness, and she had an air of depression around her.
"Glyph? Who's that?" asked Triumph.
"The girl. She's an independent hero called Glyph."
"...how do you know her, Militia?" asked Velocity slowly.
"I've been…mentoring her. Off the books. It was my hope that she could be brought into the Protectorate. I had thought that…we were close enough that I could convince her to join. It appears… that I was wrong."
"Oh, Hannah," said Battery softly. "Maybe there's an explanation for this."
"Like what?" asked Militia, despair in her voice. "What could possibly be worth trying to enslave an entirecity. My city.I trusted her. I brought her into my home.And yet I had to fight her today, and lose horribly. If there is an explanation foranyof this, it better be one that involves the end of the world itself."
