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Yiziba, Tariko Katabarbe's cabin near Kabe-koli, over six scenes from the top of the 16th act local time on Ramlo'odu-pali, R'beke-lelu, Merimdulo'or'beke-teri (Earth date: Thursday 6 January 2011; Brockton Bay time: 3:24 PM EST/Austin time: 2:24 PM CST/Santa Clara time: 12:24 PM PST)…
"How is she?"
Hearing that familiar voice, the would-be Trickster of the Show looked over before waving in the Wise Lone Sage, who had just teleported himself to the third world of Kaeyu from Camelot High School; given the importance of what just happened in Brockton Bay, the man born Isaac Thomas knew he had to keep a closer eye on developments than just monitoring same via PAA from school or his rented home in Santa Clara. "Hey!" Tariko Katabarbe hoarsely called out as she gazed on the moaning girl laid out on one of her guest bedroom beds, her face streaked with pained tears as she tried to fitfully sleep off the overwhelming shock that she just experienced not much more than an act before thanks to the just-Gifted Lisa Wilbourn. "Ugly plot script all around," she noted as she reached over to gently brush strands of hair away from Taylor Hebert's face. "What did she do in a past life to deserve all THIS sort of crap landing on her, even here when she's supposed to be damned safe from it all?"
The native of Queens sympathetically chuckled as he picked up a chair, then moved it to sit close to the bed as well; like his host, he was in civilian clothing with reading glasses in lieu of his off-white jumpsuit with hooded cape and multi-function goggles. "Blame that universe's version of Nikos Vasil and his ilk," Isaac declared before perking as the door creaked open, revealing a worried Missy Byron. Raising his finger to his lips to make the Shaker stay quiet, he turned back to the lady who had launched one of the strangest casting drives in post-Dawn of Power Yizibajohei history. "Masters were the ultimate monsters and fate forced Taylor to become the ultimate Master to make everyone help defeat Scion. That condemned her in the eyes of her peers."
"Why?" Missy hissed.
"Why what?" Isaac wondered.
"Why couldn't the heroes there just help out with what Taylor and her friends had in mind?"
"Because faith in heroes there had been bashed down into the sub-basement, Missy…"
Eyes turned as Taylor's own orbs opened, though fresh tears didn't spill down her cheeks. As Tariko leaned over to help the insect mistress sit up on the bed, Missy immediately went over to sit beside her, swamping her with a hug. That made Taylor gasp before she warmly returned that embrace. "I'll be okay, Missy…I'll get over it…"
A sob escaped the younger girl. "You just lost your GIRLFRIEND, Taylor!"
That made Taylor blink before she wryly chuckled. "Oh, she was more a sister to me than a girlfriend, Missy," she said as she allowed the Shaker to pull back from her, she then reaching up to wipe the other girl's cheeks. "Actually, when I was in my Bay, I dated Aisha's brother for a bit." As Missy awked at her supposed faux pas, the permanently dimensionally-displaced insect mistress breathed out. "Still, it would have been the best thing for me to disappear. Like the Doctor — I assume you're Doctor Renaissance, right? — just said, I had to become the ultimate Master to compel everyone to fight Scion."
"I am he, Ms. Hebert. Isaac Thomas," the New Yorker said as he offered his hand. "And may I say on behalf of my students and myself, you did do the whole Multiverse a tonne of good when you helped that thing destroy itself."
Taylor grasped his hand. "You're too kind." She then perked. "You have students?!"
"He teaches a team in Santa Clara called the Camelot Wondercolts," Missy explained as she gave the older hyper-genius a shy smile; in her not-so-subtle opinion, Isaac Thomas was just as cute if not cuter than Dean Stansfield. "All of them are Gifted adopted Yizibajohei, too; some sort of accident with a meteor that had Gift crystals tied to it." She then snickered. "Which really shocked a ton of people on Yiziba from what I heard since all of them are Named. Why teach people when you automatically get all the knowledge of all your past-selves' actions in the Gifting, Isaac?" She then looked at Isaac as if to expect an answer.
"The Wondercolts didn't have experiences working with each other in their past lives," the New Yorker explained. "Atop that, you must remember these people — just like myself and Lisa and Tariko here and everyone else — needed to adjust their thought processes to (while remaining Terran) absorb effectively alien social and cultural concepts. Before I got Gifted, I wouldn't have had a huge revulsion for people who went out of their way to avoid being killed, even if they were villains. On Earth, thanks to what happened before and during the Second World War, that was something of a commonplace. If that ever happened here, you'd see TONS of people — faces, heels, neutrals — come out of the woodwork to put the death cheater down!"
"Yo, Tariko! You ever had to deal with ghosts in this place?"
People turned as the doors opened wide, allowing Dinah Alcott and Aisha Laborn to come in, trays in hand with carafes of drinks and cups. "We made some tea and coffee for everyone, Ms. Tariko," the niece of Brockton Bay's mayor announced as she moved to put one tray on the nightstand beside Taylor. "Ninety-six-point-three percent chance you'll like this, Taylor."
Taylor chuckled as she accepted the tea with a nod. "Well, can't argue against those odds!" she lamented as the two girls moved to pass around drinks to the others. "You suffer Thinker headaches if you try to predict too many things?"
That made the freckled brunette pause before she hummed. "Only at the start after I triggered and began sensing Coil wanting to kidnap me," she noted before sipping her own tea. "After Aisha and Missy found out, they started to stay close to me to make sure that I didn't give myself away to some jerk who'd drag me to Coil or any of the other gangs."
A grim nod answered her. "And the Wards didn't turn out to be safe?"
The younger girl considered that. "Seventy-one-point-two percent chance I'd be kidnapped if I joined the Wards today."
"Shit!" Missy spat out. "That should've clued us in right then and there that this jerk's got spies in the PRT."
"And if you were Gifted?" Isaac gently probed.
Dinah hummed again. "Drops to thirty-nine-point-six percent if I joined any battle team Taylor here forms." As the insect mistress perked, she breathed out, "Seven-point-five percent if I go to Cape Cod and report to JSWC right away."
The New Yorker hummed as he exchanged knowing looks with their host. "Cape Cod Station has links to the SGC. You might end up at Cheyenne Mountain once they help you get some basic training under your belt."
Taylor gaped. "Are you allowed to talk about Stargate Command like that, Isaac?"
"All the Wards know about it," Missy affirmed. "The SGC is considered a sister command to JSWC, so once the numbers of metahumans get to a level similar to what the SWR has, there'll definitely be operational exchanges."
A whistle answered her. "Damn! How do the Goa'uld think about you guys again?"
"'Orak'nou'," Tariko quoted. "Translates as 'unspeakable devil'."
"You think Taylor's power can control those things?" Aisha wondered.
[POSSIBILITY.]
People perked on hearing Queen Administrator's response before they gazed at its host. "We'll just have to wait and see…"
The living room…
"Here you go, girls! All safe and sound."
"Damn! Thanks, man! Yo, Lisa!"
Lisa Wilbourn looked up from her field PAA — a unit that could unfold to the size of the average desktop computer screen; folded, it could be carried in one's utility pouch — before she breathed out on seeing who had been brought into the cabin by one Mark Calaway. "You might want to step cautiously around Taylor," she warned Emma Barnes; also present with Taylor Hebert's childhood best friend was Sophia Hess and Madison Clements. "How much did you tell them before you brought them here?"
The Texan sighed as he took a seat beside her, footfalls heralding the approach of Regina Paek with a cup of coffee for the older man. "She needed to know what happened just in case the new kid launched a false revenge scene on her."
As the Collapsar of Knowledge grimly nodded — she had finally finished off the rest of her host's wonderful black forest cake, which helped ease off the post-Gifting Shock she had endured for over an hour Earth-time from when she found the Gift crystal in her bedroom — Emma moved to sit beside the Master of the Dark Gaol as her gynoid friend went to help with snacks. "Isn't my other-self in that universe supposed to be DEAD?" she then wondered while Sophia moved to stand by one of the windows, gazing outside. Even if this seemed like a peaceful place, this was still Yiziba; shit happened here for the creepiest of reasons if one didn't watch his/herself. "Mr. Calaway said the other you realized it was the other me before she passed on."
"She did," Lisa said before smiling as Regina came over with welcome coffee. "From the bits I got from Negotiator — our shared shard — your other-self didn't flee Brockton Bay when Scion began unleashing mass death scenes. Taylor didn't find out until Sophia's other-self told her as she tried to get capes to line up to help put that thing down, but she noted that your other-self's father and sister were upset about something when she encountered them after the Bay had to be abandoned."
The redhead considered that. Much that she was personally sickened to her stomach at the idea of a version of her deliberately doing everything imaginable to put down a beloved childhood friend — including thinking up the idea of seeing Taylor Hebert nearly drown in used feminine products and other refuse in her own school locker! — she had to admit that after she and her father were attacked by members of the Gold Moon Society, she had been in a fragile state. While Sophia helped her recover from that, it had been Taylor — even when she was made to go to Arcadia in lieu of Winslow by her mother — who had been there every step of the way to encourage her to make herself stronger, learn things like self-defence and the like to ensure that a repeat incident wouldn't go down the same way, much less lead to a potential trigger event. But if Taylor hadn't been in the right state of mind because of the death of her own mother…! "Shit! Yeah, I can see why she'd do what she did to Tay-Tay."
"What do you mean?" Sophia asked.
"The other me lost control of her life, Soph," Emma explained, grateful that a local psychologist who was accredited with the local PRT — a former Navy nursing lieutenant named Jessica Yamada, who got her PhD in clinical metahuman/parahuman psychoanalysis from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore before moving to the Bay five years ago — had helped walk both her and her father through that night's events to help them better recover. "Everything made sense to her beforehand. She was protected by family, friends and social status…until she found herself alone facing a knife wanting to carve her up."
"Then Sophia's other-self — who could (and I mean no insult here) have easily fit into the Slaughterhouse Nine with her attitudes — came in at the very right moment to steer a fellow 'survivor' into her way of thinking," Lisa finished, glad that her Gifting had helped moderate her bad habit of talking her mouth off no matter how offensive her words were. "Then comes Taylor — who is STILL recovering from her mother's death, plus having to deal with an absent father — and Sophia decided to make Emma see her as nothing more than 'prey'." As the shadow-shifter spat out in disgust on hearing that, the clairvoyant added, "Tack onto that, we have the lovely corruption that ran Winslow High School, with teachers not wanting to help the lonely kid out against the popular ones, especially one very good track star who's 'night life' guaranteed beaucoup bucks rolling into the coffers."
"Fuck me! I can see that sort of shit happening," Sophia lamented. "Lucky thing I had the Sergeant to inspire me after I triggered. He put up to all sorts of crap from the Ku-Klukkers in D.C. even when he was costumed up as Steadfast. Even if he had people like Ariel and the Wrangler on his side, the 'N' word kept popping up all over the place…"
"Never mind the War Hawks deliberately going to segregated bars and lounges during the war to relax and listen to cool jazz and blues music whenever they were taking breaks from head-hunting the Übermenschen," Mark added.
Wry chuckles echoed through the room…
…then a ding! echoed from Lisa's PAA, making her tap the single crystal control there. "Tattletale."
"Congrats on being Gifted," the voice of the Archangel of Mortality called back, the holographic image showing Margo Black now in a hospital room, with an armoured Colin Wallis in the background. "Is Skitter with you now?"
"She's recovering from the news of what happened to my other-self, Doctor. What's going on?"
Margo looked over as Colin came up. "Ms. Taylor Hebert — whom, as you know, suffers from acute ebony mesonium radiation poisoning thanks to an attack on her on Thanksgiving eve just passed by unknown parties — somehow found it within herself to manipulate that power to make her teleport clear out of this dimension according to the Doctor here…" he explained…
The guest bedroom…
By now, Taylor Hebert had allowed her mind to sense all sorts of cute and interesting insects and other arthropods lurking around and inside Tariko Katabarbe's cabin; much that the latter was quite proficient in keeping her place clean and healthy, there were still those places where various bugs could gather and breed when required. Because of that, as she had been sobbing her heart out over the loss of someone who was both beloved adopted sister and best friend to her, she had extended her own senses to keep a smart watch over this place and what happened there. Like Sophia Hess was doing now by keeping visual watch outside, Taylor's using the insects to telepathically watch over both the cabin and its immediate environment was just playing it safe. Even if there were no rabid heels haunting Kabe-koli and its environs, things like the weather and the lurking ghosts of the beyond-Revelations-like holocaust that befell this world two millennia ago could NEVER be seen as constantly benign…
The voice of Colin Wallis echoing over Lisa Wilbourn's PAA then echoed in her mind, "…found it within herself to manipulate that power to make her teleport clear out of this dimension according to the Doctor here not an hour ago."
Lisa: "Holy shit! What prompted that, Doctor?"
Margo Black: "Don't know. But if Skitter wants to get involved in the investigation, she needs to be warned ahead of time."
Lisa: "Right! I'll relay it to her…if she hasn't already overheard it…"
Grunting, Taylor then moved to slip off the bed. "Everything alright?" Isaac Thomas asked.
"Something's happened to my local-self," the insect manipulator warned as she snared the hooded cape she had worn when she moved to rescue Dinah Alcott, Missy Byron and Aisha Laborn from Coil's operatives earlier.
Damn! Am I EVER going to get the chance to take a blasted BREAK?!
As she headed out of the room, Tariko's eyes quickly picked up on the faint reddish glow around her guest's exposed hands…
Brockton Bay General Hospital, that moment…
"Armsmaster?! Doctor?! Mr. and Mrs. Hebert are here!"
Hearing that, Margo Black mentally shut off the link with Lisa Wilbourn — knowing that the clairvoyant would understand the need for some levels of privacy when one considered all the parties involved in this mess — before she gestured with her hand to remove the tight telekinetic seal on the door to Room 3A11. "Let them in here!" the Archangel of Mortality bade.
"Yes, ma'am!"
The door opened, revealing a pair of very grim people, who had rushed to the hospital from the Docks once the chief ward nurse realized what happened to their daughter. "Armsmaster, Doctor," Danny Hebert greeted as he closed the door behind him.
Margo made another gesture with her hand, allowing Taylor Hebert's parents to sense a pressure being applied to the door marking her guarantee this conversation would be private. "Your daughter decided to check out of the hotel a little early," she quietly joked, making the older people grimace in understanding. "From what I can tell, she picked up on our new guest over at Sharon Blake's apartment block, realized what happened to her, then decided to make those kimfombeke lovers in that multiverse realize that throwing away the one person who helped save ALL OF HUMANITY there was not cricket!"
Hearing that, Danny moaned as Annette sank into the chair closest to the now-empty bed that had held their precious child for a month or more. After a moment, the former ally of Lustrum breathed out. "Amy always said that people in the Bay had a higher background mesonium content in their blood than most other places in America. Add that to whatever was pumped into Taylor that night, could it have turned out like the situation with President Lincoln when the Rittmeister empowered him in 1865?"
The Vermonter exchanged looks with Colin Wallis, then both nodded. "Probably," the former stated. "When I was brought here by Amy to look her over, practically every cell in her body was infused with ebony mesonium. The isolation suit had started to de-crystalize that mess, but it shouldn't have allowed her to regain consciousness that quick, not in my experience."
"What about the other Taylor? The one that killed that monster?" Danny asked. "Once the Undertaker and little Hinako fished her out of the Dark Gaol, she had to get a body-swap into becoming an Avalonian. There's that whole 'awakening' thing they go through once their brains are mature enough to accept all that sensory input from this Te'a of theirs…"
"That's a strong possibility, Danny," Colin breathed out. "Given that the other Taylor — 'Bet-Taylor', we should call her — had gone through a trigger event with a powerful shard, her enduring the Awakening would have had quite the impact on local psionic fields around the Bay. Your own daughter had the potential to trigger; Amelia discovered her corona pollentia when she first examined her after she was brought into isolation here. Given that it's now known that the shards giving us powers are also linked to counterparts in the universe of Earth Bet, it stands to reason that if she had triggered…"
"Both versions of our daughter would be linked," Annette finished. "How'd you find this out?"
"A close friend of the Taylor that Mark and Hinako rescued in her universe," Margo explained. "She triggered into becoming a Thinker clairvoyant; practically Sherlock Holmes over in England on overdrive." As the older people winced on hearing that, the reborn master assassin added, "She was killed by someone — most likely that universe's version of Emma Barnes, who SOMEHOW survived this whole mess with the kimfombeke and triggered herself — and our version of her, who lives in the Bay, sensed it with the help of a Gift crystal given by Padre Leno Lu'umlo. That allowed her to be Gifted."
Danny and Annette exchanged looks. "I still can't believe that any version of Emma of all people would turn on Taylor like that," the former stated, sitting back in his chair. "Okay, she's a little spoiled at times, but a good person deep down."
"Our version of her was pretty fragile after that attack Sophia saved her from," the latter bitterly breathed out as she gave him a knowing look. "If that version of Little Owl — who was recovering from her mother's death, never mind being left to fend for herself because her father fell into a depression — even showed any sign of weakness in from of such a sociopath…"
A shake of the head responded. "If I ever met the other version of me, I'd put him in cement overshoes and dump him in the ocean!" he snarled. "Yeah, I can see how much losing his wife would hurt, but with a child to care for as well…!"
"Dad?! Mom?!"
People jolted, then Margo sighed as she placed her PAA on the nightstand beside the empty bed. "Go, Taylor. It's safe."
An image of a girl wearing a hooded shin-length black jacket — with the lower part of her face visible — appeared in a holographic image over the device's control crystal. "Little Owl," Annette whispered, her own eyes tearing.
The head tilted up, revealing Taylor Hebert's own green eyes. "I'm SO sorry about this…"
"It's not your fault, Taylor," Margo assured her as the "king" of the dockworkers and his wife stood up to place themselves on the opposite side of the bed so they could clearly see this version of their child, clearly alive and well. "This town's flooded with mesonium fragments from the two times the Liberty Legion had it out with the Übermenschen Gruppe in Big Mistake Number Two. After you were subconsciously put through the Awakening, your local-self probably sensed it."
"And now she's gone. Possibly to either Earth Bet or Earth Gimel?" the insect mistress mused.
"She's always had that drive to seek justice for past wrongs, Taylor," Annette declared with a wistful smile.
An understanding nod answered her. "I don't want to impose on either of you…"
"Oh, stop it, Little Owl!" Danny chided. "If I ever meet your real father, I'd punch his lights out for dropping the whole damned palette on you like he did before you triggered, but you have a home with us. Always."
"Can the other me be brought back, Margo?" Taylor then asked, a look of understandable relief appearing on her face.
"Depends," the Archangel of Mortality — which made her the one true mistress of ebony mesonium manipulation thanks to her many past lives' experience with the material — trilled. "I got a sense that she didn't like the idea of your being dumped out of that multiverse like so much trash. All they had to do was leave you isolated like that Glaistig Uaine bitch arranged after the kimfombeke killed himself, then let you have time to yourself to put your mind together. Maybe draw in Lisa's other-self to help given how close you two were." She then closed her head. "And if it's anything, your have my condolences at her loss."
Taylor smirked as her green eyes began to develop a strange reddish glow, one that made Danny, Annette and Colin blink with surprise. Had she already been pre-Gifted?! "The standard punishment for death cheating is known, Doctor. It WILL be carried out…and in front of that thing's parents and sister if I can arrange it! If they didn't understand why I wouldn't care at all for my so-called 'childhood friend' after all the crap she heaped on me when I was in high school, that's THEIR problem, not MINE…!"
"Taylor…!" the head of the local Protectorate called out in warning.
"And if Glaistig Uaine is trying to chase me down for whatever stupid reason strikes THAT insane bitch's useless sewer pit of a brain, I'll PERSONALLY do to her what I did to that rapist slimebag Valefor after I BLINDED HIS EYES when he tried to ruin people's lives in a disaster zone MY TEAM AND I WERE PROTECTING!" she snarled, her voice echoing as a flood of power seeped in from all around her, causing people in the background to gasp and exclaim in shock. "If the rest of those ungrateful FUCKS want a goddamned FIGHT SCENE, I'LL OBLIGE THEM WITH THE ALL DEATH in turn…!"
"TAYLOR!" Annette shrieked…
Tene lomher'buo, Taylor Anne Hebert…!
"HEY, CONTESSA! OR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOUR NAME IS! DID YOU AND THE REST OF THE FOOLS IN CAULDRON BELIEVE THAT SCION WOULD LET YOU GUN HIM DOWN?! WHEN SO MANY WERE EMPOWERED BY HIS SHARDS?! HE HAD ACCESS TO YOUR MIND AND THE MINDS OF THOUSANDS…!"
"TAYLOR! CALM DOWN, FOR FATE'S SAKE!" a man's voice bellowed in the background.
"NO! I WON'T BE CALM HERE, ISAAC! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF PEOPLE SHITTING ON ME AND THOSE I CARE FOR LIKE THEY'VE DONE SINCE I LOST MY REAL PARENTS!" Here, the insect mistress gazed towards the ceiling of wherever she was as her whole body began to glow star bright. "YOU ANIMALS WANT MY LIFE?!"
"EVERYONE, CLOSE YOUR EYES!" the man called "Isaac" screamed out.
"COME — AND — GET — IT!"
Nesu…LEKERO!
Earth Gimel, the former Cauldron safehouse overlooking the Hudson River outside the City, Friday 24 January 2014, 3:21 AM EST…
"No…no…NO! THE KNOWLEDGE! THE MEMORIES! TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH! TOO MUCH!"
Hearing that howling shriek escape their group's "guest", Christina Mathers rose from her chair, walking from the dining area to the small bedroom where the still-dazed and wounded Fortuna had been put into under guard by Benjamin Terrell's subordinates. Looking inside to see the infamous "cape bogeyman" wrapped up in a straitjacket — Brute-rated, of course despite everyone knowing that the agent of Cauldron was only a high-end Thinker — jerking around as if she was being electrocuted by a live wire made the leader of the Fallen grimace with delight before she reached out with her power to see what the girl was sensing…
A horrified croak escaped the emaciated woman as a torrent of images — looking quite alien even if they were also quite terribly familiar — thundered before her mind's eye, driving her to her knees as she squeezed her eyes closed, she then reaching for her forehead as running feet heralded the arrival of several of her followers, including her son Elijah. "MOTHER!"
She barely was able to wave him off before the effeminate blinded man — who was mentally linked with people through Christine so he could "see" where he was going — screeched out in agony as the information overload smashed into his mind like a sledgehammer, dropping him to his knees as several of the other Fallen also wailed in disbelief. "What IS that?!" Nathan "Eligos" Price — who was in civilian clothing since he had gone to a nearby grocery store to get supplies — moaned.
"Like…capes with…the powers…of the Chosen Ones…!" Tim "Seir" Cox grunted, moving to help Elijah straighten himself…
«…I'll PERSONALLY do to her what I did to that rapist slimebag Valefor…»
"HOW DARE SHE…?!" Elijah screamed out, wildly "looking" around for the bitch that had blinded him.
"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!"
Running feet heralded the arrival of the man also known as Teacher, who stopped to see a baker's dozen parahuman members of the Fallen driven to their needs, their shared agony at whatever they were sensing through their leader all too apparent to the knowledge-bestowing Thinker's eyes. Cursing as he girded himself for what he had to do, he shoved past several of them, getting into Fortuna's room to see the shivering woman trying to hug herself, her eyes gazing somewhere well beyond this realm. Growling, Terrell moved immediately to sit on the bed holding his current "guest", reaching up to touch her forehead…
«If the rest of those ungrateful FUCKS want a goddamned FIGHT SCENE…»
Dear God! What IS all that?! Terrell wondered, his eyes wide with disbelief and awe…
«I'LL OBLIGE THEM WITH THE ALL DEATH in turn…!»
Tene lomher'buo, Taylor Anne Hebert…!
Terrell exclaimed with surprise as all the strength in Fortuna's body vanished from her, she then dropping into an unconscious heap on the bed. Still, the connection had been made and try as the man might, he couldn't stop WATCHING this…!
«HEY, CONTESSA! OR WHATEVER THE FUCK YOUR NAME IS! DID YOU AND THE REST OF THE FOOLS IN CAULDRON BELIEVE THAT SCION WOULD LET YOU GUN HIM DOWN?! WHEN SO MANY WERE EMPOWERED BY HIS SHARDS?! HE HAD ACCESS TO YOUR MIND AND THE MINDS OF THOUSANDS!»
Terrell's eyes went even wider as it hit him.
Dear lord! Those — WHOEVER THEY ARE — they've encountered the Entities as well…!
«NO! I WON'T BE CALM HERE, ISAAC! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF PEOPLE SHITTING ON ME AND THOSE I CARE FOR LIKE THEY'VE DONE SINCE I LOST MY REAL PARENTS!»
Whole world…MASSIVE parahuman revolution…such POWER used!
«YOU ANIMALS WANT MY LIFE?!»
Even to this day — TWO THOUSAND YEARS OF A WORLD OF PARAHUMANS?! — life had evolved there…!
«COME — AND — GET — IT!»
Nesu…LEKERO!
And Benjamin Terrell screamed with both horror and delight as that final push of power — so like a trigger event but so KIND, so BENIGN and so INFORMATIVE — flooded his mind, showing him something he could NEVER have dreamed of.
Beings who could twist Reality Itself inside out…
Beings who could easily smash away the likes of Alexandria with just ONE HAND…
Beings who could manipulate all forms of energy like maestros…
Beings who could even tap into MAGIC itself; known there as the "pure chaos"…
And all the imaginable variations in between…
This…
Oh, THIS was a gift — No! GIFT! — greater than anything any of Scion's kin could ever bestow!
And thanks to whoever had saved Taylor Hebert…
…it was well within Benjamin Terrell's own grasp!
As a delighted laugh escaped the former university professor, a moaning Fortuna's eyes slowly opened.
"Six-hundred-and-thirty-two steps…to the All Death…"
Tariko Katabarbe's cabin, seconds/frames later…
"An avenging angel…!"
Missy Byron blinked away the spots from her eyes as Madison Clements' empassioned voice echoed in her ears, she then turning back towards where Taylor Hebert was standing close to where Lisa Wilbourn was sitting in the living room.
"Oh, WOW…!" the spatial warping Shaker exclaimed, her eyes wide with awe…
…for, just as what happened to the Collapsar of Knowledge over an hour before, Taylor Anne Hebert had been CHANGED!
"One hundred percent chance of fuckers getting FUCKED!" a gaping Dinah Alcott hissed with awed delight.
"You sure said it, sis!" Aisha Laborn dizzily nodded as she moved to sit down.
The others in the room turned to see that the-now Mistress of the Mindless Legions, Lekero — whose local battle name could, ironically, be translated in English as "Skitter" — was draped in a black-and-dark grey jumpsuit of the same modern sleeveless pattern that Lisa herself had as Tuonekror'be/Tattletale. But while Lisa's bodysuit was overall black, Taylor's was liberally decorated with various insect motifs in a mad kaleidoscope montage that projected a feeling of total chaos about to be unleashed on whoever opposed this woman. As Isaac Thomas, Mark Calaway and Tariko Katabarbe all nodded in grim understanding as to why THIS specific Gift seed had merged with the host of Queen Administrator — a master telepath now, Taylor had the ability to literally command all forms of non-sentient/sapient life; unlike when she was just a parahuman and starting out on her career as a cape, her range would include multiple species beyond mere arthropods and the like — a voice called out, "Uh…how?"
Eyes locked on Regina Paek. "How what, love?" Lisa asked.
"How did she become pre-Gifted in the first place?" the Korean-New Jerseyan transgender gynoid asked.
"The Dark Gaol…"
"Little Owl?!" echoed from the holographic image over Lisa's PAA.
A relieved breath escaped the reborn natural researcher from Nesetimtuto — specifically from the analogue of Taylor's own home commonwealth of Massachusetts, Gaetotuto — as she turned to look at her other-self's parents, they both gazing with concern at her from the hospital room in Brockton Bay, as were Colin Wallis and Margo Black. "I'm alright, Dad," she assured them, her voice ominously echoing with post-Gifting Shock. "But it explains what Master Résav'l did to me after I was saved from the woman who shot me to destroy my link to my shard." She gazed on the Undertaker. "Before you and Hinako came to get me out of that place, I felt the energy of the Dark Gaol start to heal the gunshot wounds. That pre-Gifted me."
The Texan grimly nodded. "Not the damned way I'd do it. Having a nice slice of cake makes it go down much easier."
Taylor blinked. "You mean…?" she began, thumbing Tariko.
As the would-be reality warper moved to the kitchenette to get some cake for the just-Gifted woman, Mark chuckled. "Nah. Someone — I think it was Padre Leno, knowing him — left a couple Gift crystals at my house after my Mania match to see my wife and I Gifted." As Emma Barnes squawked before she stared wide-eyed at the physically twenty-something redhead, the native of Austin chuckled. "Yes, Ms. Barnes, I'm him. It happened after WrestleMania last year."
The would-be fashion model gaped, then shook her head. "Right, right! The mesonium would have de-aged you! You must use some power to make you look 'normal' when you're out in the ring!"
Taylor gaped. "You're a wrestler?"
The people native to this dimension stared at her. "You don't have wrestling back in your universe, Tay-Tay?" Aisha demanded.
"That's an Earth Aleph thing, Aisha," the enhanced insect mistress commented. "Too many wrestlers triggered while in the ring, so the PRT pressed to have the whole thing outlawed. They didn't trust people who came up in that world."
"Why the hell not?!" Lisa demanded before something whispered in her head. "Oh, shit, yeah! The whole kayfabe thing."
"What does that mean?" Mark wondered as he gazed on the Californian.
"Simple! You've always stayed in character as the Undertaker — the WWE's version of the Undertaker — when you've made appearances in public events and on shows, but you've always known the difference between the angles you portray in the squared circle and what goes on in real life." As Mark nodded, Lisa added, "People like you back where Taylor comes from would have sniffed out things like Cauldron and the whole 'cops and robbers' bullshit that governed cape life back there."
"Why?!" Missy demanded. "Why force capes on Earth Bet to pretend things are a game?!"
"Bodies needed to protect people from the Endbringers, Missy," Taylor answered, making the younger woman awk in outrage. "Yes, I believed that whole nonsense about heroes and villains at first, but Cauldron didn't care since they just needed as many bodies as possible for the eventual final fight with Scion. You wouldn't BELIEVE the sheer levels of restrictions that are forced on people back where I come from when it comes to using their powers." Here, she pointed to Sophia Hess. "Sophia's other-self — despite my many issues with her — was doing America proud since she was nailing Nazis to the walls with broadheads." As the shadow-shifter nodded in appreciation at Taylor's spoken support of her self-appointed task to beat down on the skinheads as much as possible, the latter indicated Aisha. "Aisha's brother had to go into crime to find a way to get her separated from their mother since their father was a deadbeat dad, forcing them to grow up alone." As the younger black girl grimly nodded, Taylor pointed to Dinah. "When she was captured by Coil, Dinah was drugged up, constantly being pumped for predictions as he worked to undermine the other gangs in the Bay." She then pointed to Missy. "Like you are here, your counterpart is the most powerful Shaker on the whole North American east coast! Did the PRT think of giving her simple things like ARMOUR or a WEAPON to use in the field?! Oh, NO! Even if she once nearly got cut to pieces by HOOKWOLF of all the idiots in the Bay, she was seen as too YOUNG to be able to properly DEFEND herself…!"
"FUCK THAT NOISE!" Missy then shrieked as her own eyes glowed.
Tene lomher'buo, Melissa Carrie Biron…!
As the young Shaker's whole body then visibly brightened, hidden non-voices in her two best friends' minds made them lunge over to grab both of Missy's hands in a show of support as she took the final step to free herself from the pains of her current life, being made to live with uncaring parents who didn't concern themselves at all about what she wanted in life.
And sure enough…
Tene lomher'buo, Aisha Sylvie Laborn…!
Tene lomher'buo, Dinah Rose Alcott…!
"Damn…!" Sophia whistled, shaking her head. "PHO's gonna get BUSTED after this is all done…!"
Earth Gimel, the northeastern end of the "City" near the site of Boston, Saturday 25 January 2014, 9:11 AM EST…
"So, THIS is your promise of 'amnesty', huh?!"
Hearing that sneered comment from the only living member of the original Undersiders team who was still alive and in the open, Legend tried not to wince in response. Indeed, it had been the only thing to do once the dust had settled from Gold Morning, given the total chaos that befell whatever national governmental forces had survived Scion's rampage: Let the villains who had been active and imprisoned in places like the Birdcage be free under general amnesty in hopes of everyone's shared experience of being Mastered by the still-missing Taylor Hebert would cooperate as people rebuilt their lives on a virgin Earth. And it had worked. While crime was still present, the new system of Wardens set up by former Protectorate and Guild leaders such as himself, Rick "Chevalier" Tipton and Linsay "Narwhal" Brinley had been able to entice many minor villains to either stay neutral or switch sides and join up. While the former leader of the Protectorate — who had not displaced his old subordinate from Philadelphia as leader of the Wardens when the new organization was set up concurrent to the founding of the City — had been working to convince people like Adrian "Marquis" Lavere, Ciara "Glaistig Uaine" Coinmheadh and other such luminaries of the Birdcage to join up, it was hard going. Keith Richardson's former affiliation with Cauldron still garnished a lot of mistrust among those who had been imprisoned there or those who could have gone there had Gold Morning not happened.
And then…
…came instances like THIS!
As two paramedics carried out the cloaked corpse of Lisa Wilbourn from her apartment overlooking the virgin expanse of the Gulf of Maine beyond, Chevalier took a deep breath. "Please, Imp. I realize you've got no reason to trust us…"
"Damn fucking STRAIGHT I don't trust you turkeys!" Aisha Laborn snapped. Not only was the effective last survivor of the former overlords of Brockton Bay present, so were some of the surviving children of one Nikos "Heartbreaker" Vasil; the younger sister of the first leader of the Undersiders had adopted those lost children after she had killed their father in the late autumn of 2012. "Yeah, I can understand you're all pretty short-staffed thanks to those fuckups you used to work with screwing the damned pooch so much that Taylor had to nearly KILL herself to save all our collective asses from Scion, but did you actually think a bitch like Sophia Hess of all people would start to play nice after Taylor showed her up?!"
"Aisha! C'mon! That's not fair!" Missy Byron — who answered the call when her former schoolmate contacted her about Lisa Wilbourn's murder and who obviously did it — called out as she waved her hands in a show of peace. "We're trying…!"
«FUCK THAT NOISE!»
Tene lomher'buo, Melissa Carrie Biron…!
Missy cried out in shock as something HARD slammed into her mind, making her collapse to the floor as she reached for her forehead. "Vista!" Chevalier screamed as he moved to help sit up. "What is it?! What's wrong?!"
"Dunno…!" the young Shaker whined.
Tene lomher'buo, Aisha Sylvie Laborn…!
"AH! SHIT!" Aisha shrieked as she also dropped to the floor, making her current charges scream in horror, those who had become parahumans thanks to their father's influence sensing something HUGE slam into her mind.
"AISHA!" Juliette "Catena" Vasil cried, she then dropping beside her new "big sister" to hug her, using her own abilities to keep the perception-shifting Stranger still enough for the more empathic of her siblings to perceive what was going on.
"What is it?!" Legend demanded.
"I don't know, M'sieur!" Darlene "Syndicate" Vasil answered, she then reaching into everyone's mind to let them all mentally "see" what Aisha and Missy were now experiencing. "Some great Master, I think…"
"Oh, shit…!" Chevalier then groaned. "Khepri?!"
«Oh, MAN! Free at last! Free at last! THANK GOD ALMIGHTY, I'M FREE AT LAST…!»
"Vista…?" both ex-Protectorate members wondered as they spun immediately to gaze on Missy…
…who hadn't said a thing just now, she still moaning in pain.
«WHOO-HOO! No more mama! Fuck you, fuck your drugs and fuck your boyfriends! YEAH…!»
"That wasn't Aisha!" the non-powered Nathan Vasil warned.
"You sure?!" Legend demanded.
"She didn't talk!" Samuel Vasil declared as he indicated the family's new "big sister"…
Nesu…UMTYUO!
Nesu…LANUTO!
«TAEIM LETAM…!»
Everyone screamed as the deafening noise of WHATEVER that was had spoken out in a language none of them could understand boomed inside their brains with the same titanic force that the voice of God in The Ten Commandments attempted to echo when it was produced in the 1950s. As former PRT troopers raced into the room to aid the fallen Wardens, a strange, soothing presence slipped into the minds of the Heartbroken, giving the orphaned children of Nikos Vasil a curious sense of peace and contentment. «Damn…looks like you're not the only one who had her shard bound to someone from my universe, Lisa…»
"Taylor…!" Guillaume Vasil — who, along with his half-brother Nicholas, was the eldest of the surviving children of the infamous Heartbreaker — hissed with both awed disbelief and tearful hope. "You're alive…!"
«Bonjour, Guillaume,» the mental voice of a clearly healthy Taylor Hebert greeted him. «I'm communicating through Aisha's shard from her local self in the dimension I'm currently in now. Darlene, did you…?»
«They're still out of it, Taylor,» Darlene mentally replied, making the others nod as they realized what could possibly happen if people such as Legend and Chevalier learned that the monster who had made them all fight against Scion against the will of so many was not only alive, but possessed a power that reached through DIMENSIONAL BARRIERS. «What happened to you?!»
«Very long story. I don't want to distract you too much and make the idiots suspicious. Now, listen carefully,» the now-departed leader of the Undersiders declared, making the Vasil children all stiffen. «Lisa — our Lisa — wasn't killed by Sophia Hess. She was killed by my so-called 'childhood friend' Emma Barnes, who SOMEHOW survived the destruction of Brockton Bay on Bet. That should NOT have happened, so since I can't permanently return to you, this is my last order to you all.»
Dramatic pause.
«Find her. Find her family. When you do, don't kill her. That, I reserve to myself.»
The Vasil children all subtly exchanged knowing looks. «A rabid bitch, Taylor?» Nicholas Vasil mentally inquired.
«In the eyes of my now-adopted people, WAY worse than a mere rabid dog, Nick. I'll explain more when chance comes…»
«I can take over here, Taylor.»
Silence.
More silence.
Still more silence.
Then…
«Uh…how the hell are there TWO of you now, Taylor?» Darlene bewilderingly wondered, she also doing her best to mask her face from the muttering troopers who were now helping the dazed Legend, Chevalier and Vista out of the room, leaving behind — much to the Vasil children's complete disgust — their new "big sister". «What did Contessa do to you?»
«My local counterpart and I swapped places between our universes, Darlene. Taylor, are you on Bet or Gimel?»
«If the devastation indicates anything, I'm on Bet, Taylor,» came the reply, said voice echoing with nearly the same strength as the being that had screamed into everyone's minds when Vista and Imp had been smashed down. «Just outside the Bay.»
«How much control over the ebony mesonium you have, kid?» a man's voice then demanded with equal power.
A surprised squawk of embarrassment answered that query. «The UNDERTAKER…?!»
Hearing such a curious moniker made the Vasil children all blink with understandable confusion…
Tariko Katabarbe's cabin on Yiziba, seconds/frames later…
"Everything cool, Curly?" Sophia Hess asked.
Taking a deep breath, Taylor Hebert closed her eyes as she pulled her fingers away from Missy Byron's and Aisha Laborn's foreheads; with a skill that made the shard bound to her mind — and by extension, to the Great Crystal of Power itself — literally purr with utter delight at such wonderful [DATA] being acquired by her host's actions, the Mistress of the Mindless Legions had telepathically reached through her younger friends' shards to block their other-selves' minds from overhearing her instructions to the Heartbroken. While Regina Paek, Madison Clements and Tariko Katabarbe moved to bring over a diverse sample of local fruit for the just-Gifted middle schoolers to enjoy and help work off their post-Gifting shock, Taylor took a deep breath. "The other versions of Missy and Aisha sensed it when they got Gifted," she declared with an amused voice. "Legend and Chevalier were there; they met up with the other Aisha and the Heartbroken once it was discovered that Lisa's other self was killed."
"The HEARTBROKEN?!" Emma Barnes exclaimed as Mark Calaway blinked. "How the hell did that happen?!"
"The other me teamed up with Jeanne Wynn to waste that motherfucking motherfucker's ass, Ems!"
Eyes locked on Aisha, who was now breathing out in relief before she perked as Lisa's girlfriend handed her a small plate of what looked like cantaloupe. Smiling in thanks, the-now Northern Singularity of Attention, Lanuto ("Imp"), nibbled one of the slices down to calm her slowly rolling stomach; even if many parts of her mind wanted to scream out in agony from the sheer sensory OVERLOAD of having over twenty lifetimes' worth of knowledge and memories dumped onto her brain matter like that all at once, she was cognizant enough to be able to answer things clearly to the curious redhead. "Tay-Tay here got them to go track the other you down so she could put the bitch down for killing Lisa's other self like she did."
"But they got to keep quiet if they want to avoid a stay in the M/S tank," Missy added as she nibbled on some local cherries which their host used to make her wonderful black forest cake. The current incarnation of the Living Wormhole, Umtyuo ("Vista"), then gave her best friend a worried look. "Don't know what's going on with the other Dinah…"
"Hard to predict," the newest version of the Augur of the Probability Abacus, Yuluo ("Omen"), then warned before nodding as Tariko handed her some local blueberries. As people gave her surprised looks, the niece of the mayor of Brockton Bay shrugged. "Don't know all the potential players there and the other me's already being taken into the M/S tank by her 'friends'; I don't know how much she caught before she passed out from the sensory overload of the Gifting."
"Can you give some predictions about future Haywire incursions from Gimel?" Taylor asked.
The younger woman frowned. "Sixty-six-point-six percent chance of it coming over the next two weeks," she answered as her precognitive clairvoyance went to work. After nibbling on some more blueberries, she closed her eyes. "By this time next month, it goes up to 81.3 percent chances. It gets close to a hundred percent by the end of February."
A slow nod answered her. "So, we may have some time…"
To Be Continued…
WRITER'S NOTES
An explanation of some Yizibajohei social concepts:
Plot script — General situation/theme of a person's life
Casting drive — Recruiting people to be Gifted
Revenge scene — Effectively self-explanatory; calling this "false" means one has gone after the wrong target
Death scene — Again, self-explanatory; putting "mass" before it indicates a genocide
Ariel (Mary Josephine Brown) and the Wrangler (David Collins) are two other members of the Liberty Legion who were based on character templates created for the second Dial "H" For Hero series from the 1980s. The former was created by Francisco Garcia, the latter by Tom Reed. The Wrangler appeared in Adventure Comics issue #480 (cover date April 1981), while Ariel appeared in issue #483 (July 1981).
The issue concerning President Abraham Lincoln and what happened to him in 1865 is explained in Part 3 of Magic and Canada. It reflects events described in the 2010 novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith as they would have happened in the universe of this story. As an aside, the Sherlock Holmes mentioned here is based on the interpretation of the character from the 2010-17 BBC drama series Sherlock by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat.
Translation and source language: Gaetotuto — Great Hill Country, analog of the American commonwealth of Massachusetts as noted above (Yizibajohei).