Interlude 1.1
Eidolon shuddered as the effect of Strider's teleportation came to an end and deposited them inside the PRT location of appearance usually would have had staff waiting for them to update them on the situation, but the room was empty. This wasn't surprising. An Endbringer was ravaging Brockton Bay, and had been left free to rampage for almost an hour now without their assistance. That thought set his blood boiling, and Eidolon had to make a conscious effort to suppress his anger. There would be another time to argue about why they'd been kept away.
By his side, the other two members of the Triumvirate scanned the room. Alexandria's expressionless helm matched the no doubt stoic expression she wore underneath. Legend was openly curious and concerned. Eidolon prayed that the three of them had arrived in time to make some kind of difference. Even without anyone to fill them in on what happened, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened
Leviathan had clearly ravaged the ENE Division of the Protectorate already, leaving the building itself barren. Outside, Eidolon could hear the faint screams of heroes and civilians alike. Time was of the essence then; but with an Endbringer, it always was.
That was what Eidolon thought as Legend led them into the main foyer of the building.
The front doors swung open and a wall of screaming slammed into the three of them, louder and in greater volume than Eidolon had ever heard. Comparable to Behemoth's rampage from New York almost twenty years ago.
"That's not screaming." Alexandria noted. The confusion was clear in her voice.
Eidolon paused and listened. She was right, the chorus of voices outside, they didn't sound like screams at all, they sounded like…
"Cheering, they're cheering!" Legend exclaimed, and rushed out the foyer with the other two members of the Triumvirate in tow.
Eidolon slipped through the swinging doors and had to raise a hand to block the sun from his eyes. No storm of city killing fury raged overhead. Instead the sun beamed on Brockton Bay like it was a warm spring day. Were it not for the flooded streets and hundreds of men and women crowding around the front of the building, Eidolon would've never believed that Leviathan was there.
But he was, there was no such thing as a false alarm when it came to Endbringers. Had they managed to drive the Endbringer off without them? Had Armsmaster pulled some new tinker tech out of his ass that had finally turned the odds in their favor?
The idea was exciting, but doubtful.
The real answer was easy enough to find. Just follow the crowd of cheering civilians, PRT staff, and capes towards the source.
Eidolon froze when he processed what everyone was gathered around. He had at first assumed it was a chunk of debris or destroyed street. That was the logical immediate assumption to make. But he was wrong, he was dead wrong. It wasn't rubble at all.
It was Leviathan, dead and defeated in the center of the street.
Eidolon rose into the air, and stared at the Endbringers corpse for a long minute. He was, on some level, aware that Legend and Alexandria were floating beside him. But that wasn't important.
Leviathan, the City-Killer, was dead.
His corpse, stripped of its limbs and with a hole punched clean through the chest, lay strewn out in the street like a macabre display piece. The green scaled hide had been stripped bare, reduced to a pallid flesh that leaked its sludge like blood in small rivulets. And its cluster of eyes stared into the sky, dead and unseeing.
There wasn't…
This wasn't…
No one could kill an Endbringer.
Eidolon had accepted this as a fact of life. They were unkillable monstrosities. Even Scion, for all his powers, could only drive them off. But there was Leviathan, dead as a fish, proving that line of reasoning wrong.
"I can't believe it." Legend murmured, a smile in his voice.
"I don't believe it." Alexandria muttered in agreement.
Eidolon ignored them both and focused on what was important. Not the how, or the why, but the who. Someone had slain Leviathan, and had done the impossible. That someone, a girl no older than eighteen, stood in front of the corpse wearing a bleached white leotard while talking to a reporter. She had to be the one, everyone stared at her and clung to her like she was their sole lifeline in a storm.
Again, Eidolon ignored the words of his allies, and descended from the sky. A hush fell over the crowd and people backed away from Eidolon as he landed. The reporter and the girl both watched him land. Eidolon strode forward, focused on Leviathan.
The pool of power that resided within him, the cauldron he pulled his many abilities from, frothed and boiled. He reached within himself, feeling the edge of a thinker's power. Analytical, and straightforward. He clung to it and put a hand to Leviathan's dead flesh.
Dead.
Deceased.
Destroyed.
The reality of the situation finally sunk in. Eidolon rocked back on his heels like he'd been struck. This wasn't a fever dream, he wasn't dying. Leviathan was dead, well and truly dead.
When he spoke, his throat was dry and his voice shook"Did you do this?" Eidolon asked the girl without looking at her. He was committing the site of the Endbringers corpse to memory.
"Leviathan left me no choice." the girl said. There was an almost mournful tone in her voice.
Eidolon turned to her, and he was shocked at the venom in his next words, "Don't. Don't mourn it. Don't mourn any of them."
If his venom bothered her, she didn't show it. She just put her hands on her hips and said, "I don't mourn the Endbringer. I mourn that I had to resort to this at all. It was a terrible choice, but I'd do it again if I had to."
Eidolon stared at the girl for a long minute. He wasn't sure what to make of her. She was so young. A kid really.
But her eyes were tired. There was a weariness to them that he had recognized, hidden behind her youthful complexion. This was a girl that had witnessed terrible tragedy and carried it with her at all times. And she had been the one to put down Leviathan.
"Who are you?" Eidolon finally asked.
She smiled and offered her hand to him.
-S-
"Supergirl, to summarize, hasn't given the global economy a shot in the arm. She shot the old economy, and replaced it wholesale. Or something like that, metaphors aren't my thing. I'm more of a numbers man." the Number Man smirked at his own pun as he pushed his glasses back onto his nose.
No one else laughed.
There were six people in total gathered in the near featureless white room, seated at a round table. Alexandria, Legend, and Eidolon sat on one side, still in costumes stained with dust and water. It had been eight hours since they had arrived at Brockton Bay; they had expected to fight an Endbringer, and instead had been left with search and rescue. If they hadn't been warned to stay away, they could have at least been there for Leviathans defeat. But no, they had sat on the sidelines and then resigned themselves to cleaning up after the one who had done the real work. Afterwards, they came here. Where the real decisions in the world were made.
Cauldron, that was what they called themselves. The ones who held the power and guided the world from the shadows, who knew what was at risk and prepared for it as best they could. Men and women from across multiple worlds, disparate elements brought together to create a greater and more capable whole. The name had been Hero's idea.
Eidolon's mask lay on the table in front of him, and he continued to stare at it like he had since they'd arrived. He wondered, not for the first time, what Jacob would think of them now. What they had done in the name of saving the world. The compromises, the sacrifices, the cruelty. Would he have approved, or would he have turned on them?
If the Siberian hadn't killed Hero, would it have been up to Eidolon to put him down before his morals put their mission at risk? A pointless question now; because everything Cauldron had been working for seemed pretty pointless now.
They knew everything that had happened. Supergirl's fight with the Simurgh, the battle with Leviathan in the Atlantic, and just how thoroughly outclassed they were. The Number Man, Kurt, had assured them that the size of the tsunami Leviathan had summoned would easily have been capable with what they had seen the Endbringer do simply through the exploitation of fluid dynamics. But that didn't help when it made it clear that Leviathan could have flooded the entire world if he had wanted to.
And Supergirl had stopped it, in less than five minutes.
"What do we do now?" Eidolon asked aloud, interrupting whatever conversation the others had been embroiled in.
It was an open question, but his gaze was focused on the one in charge of Cauldron. Average height, average build, dark skinned, long hair in a bun and dressed to resemble a doctor, though Eidolon knew she had no doctorate. She called herself Doctor Mother, and she was the leader of Cauldron. For all the power the Triumvirate had, their abilities and their ideas, it was Doctor Mother that directed them.
All for the purpose of saving the world.
Eidolon gave her credit; even after the world shaking events of the day, the woman remained remarkably unphased. Her expression was stoic, but he could see her hands were folded tight against one another.
"We keep doing what we were doing. We maintain our preparations, we ensure stability where it is needed." she said. Her French accent added confidence to her words. "One Endbringer is dead. But we cannot let our guard down when two more still roam free."
Alexandria folded her arms, "The PRT could apply political pressure on Supergirl. Convince her to join, get her under control so we can prevent a repeat of today, and start a think tank on bringing the other two down."
"Won't work."
All eyes turned to the woman sitting to the right of Doctor Mother.
Pale faced, with dark shoulder length hair, and dressed in a neatly tailored black suit, she was an average looking woman. Her usual fedora lay on the table next to her. She sat prim and proper in her seat, rarely if ever moving unless someone talked to her or looked at her. Contessa was not one for frivalties.
She scared the absolute shit out of Eidolon though. Her ability to pluck answers out of thin air in ways beyond human thought was unnerving enough. But he knew that if things ever soured between him and Cauldron, Contessa would be waiting for him in a dark alley with a loaded pistol. One bullet was all she'd need to bring him down. Despite all his incredible power and decades of experience, it was nothing in the face of Contessa's power. She was the true muscle behind Cauldron; he was just one of her more useful tools.
It was Contessa who ensured Cauldrons shadowy control over Earth-Bet. Contessa who could walk through a room of armed men, take all of them down, and walk out untouched. Contessa, who could perceive and anticipate anything they'd do before they'd do it. Contessa, who had warned them away from Brockton Bay, out of a very real concern that they would have died if they'd joined the Endbringer fight.
At Cauldron, when Contessa spoke of her own volition, people fucking listened.
Doctor Mother regarded her cooly, "Elaborate please, Contessa."
The woman gestured at the lone monitor on the wall to Eidolon's right where a still image of Supergirl was. She said, "Supergirl won't bow to political pressure to join the Protectorate. If you push too hard, she'll push back. You'll lose."
Alexandria frowned, "I thought you said you couldn't Path her?"
Contessa was silent for a second. Always, she paused before responding to them, like she was considering if answering their questions was worth her time at all. Then she shook her head, "I can Path Supergirl's personality. It's the upper limits of her power that I cannot Path. If I ask how to convince Supergirl to join our organization, I am given a long and impractical three-hundred and ninety-seven step plan that leads to the destruction of the Protectorate and Cape Culture as we have cultivated it. But it is a guaranteed Path. If I ask what her powers are, I am only given answers in vague platitudes. Faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a train engine, able to easily jump tall buildings in a single bound, etc. And the Path will keep expanding on this until the feats become so ludicrous as to be meaningless."
"So what do we do about her then?" Eidolon asked.
Legend spoke up before anyone else could answer, "Give her a goddamn medal, obviously. We've been trying for twenty years to put down any of the Endbringers. Supergirl did what we couldn't, we should be celebrating!"
Doctor Mother stared at Legend with that cool expression, "No one is downplaying the enormity of Leviathan's death. But we cannot afford to let our guard down in the face of it, either. Supergirl, by her own admission, is not human. She is an alien twice over. Not from this Earth, nor from the one of her own universe. However well meaning her claims to help us are, we must remember that the Entity also helps others seemingly of his own free will. And we all know the truth behind him.
"Doctor, she's an eighteen year old girl." Legend protested.
"She's an alien that happens to look human." Alexandria retorted.
"An alien that did what none of us ever came close to." Eidolon interrupted before Legend could argue back. They both looked at him.
"We fought off the Endbringers. We hurt them." he sighed. "But Supergirl is the only one to kill one."
A harsh silence fell over the room, broken only by Number Man scribbling on a large notepad he kept on his person. Eidolon stared at his mask again, the empty eye sockets burrowing into his skull. He felt sick, broken. Legend was right, they should be celebrating. Eidolon was happy in fact, he was thrilled to see Leviathan dead. But at the same time, he felt this sickness inside him, an anxious pit that sat in his stomach like a lead weight. Supergirl seemed earnest, seemed sweet, and seemed genuine.
But it was easy to put on a false smile and convince the world you were their friend, a hero looking out for them. After all, Eidolon himself did it every day.
Her eyes though, those had stood out to him. As they had worked together to clear rubble, to save people and uncover those lost in Leviathan's rampage. Supergirl's eyes had carried a deep, profound pain in them. That kind of pain couldn't be faked.
That was what the optimistic part of Eidolon thought anyway. Optimism wouldn't save the world from what was coming.
"There's no point arguing over this." Doctor Mother said. "As of this moment, we do not know enough about Supergirl to determine a proper course of action. For now, we will act as we always have, and will allow Supergirl to do the same. Alexandria, the PRT will work with Supergirl, but avoid undue pressure on her. At the moment, she is our best weapon, as untested as she might be for our purposes."
Eidolon could hear Alexandria grind her teeth together, but if she was anything, she was loyal to the cause. She gave a curt nod, "Understood, Doctor. I have a scheduled meeting with the PRT Board of Directors in two days. I'll make sure they understand where Supergirl stands with us."
"See that you do." Doctor Mother nodded, and stood. "Unless there is anything else to discuss, we will adjourn this meeting for now."
Everyone else rose, and four doorways split the air behind them, shimmering with a faint unworldly energy. Beyond them lay various points scattered across the world, hundreds of miles crossed in a handful of steps. Eidolon grabbed his mask, and ran a finger over its surface one last time, before putting it back on. When he opened his eyes, he saw Contessa staring at him with those eerie pale eyes of hers.
He suppressed a shudder, turned on his heel, and walked out of the facility.
The others followed suit, filing back out into the wider world where they were needed. Contessa was the last to leave, following Doctor Mother. The barest hint of a frown tugged at her lips as she walked through the Door.
Lying came easily to Contessa. She had done it for so long, and so often that even without the Path it was second nature to her. But it was one thing to lie to a client of Cauldron, or the Triumvirate. It was another thing to lie to Doctor Mother. They had worked together for decades now, since Contessa was a child. There was a sort of implicit trust that came with that.
But, lying to the whole of Cauldron had been necessary. And in time, they would forgive her for the deception
It was, after all, only step one of three-hundred and ninety-seven.
-S-
"We welcomed you into our home, and you lied to our faces!" Carol paced back and forth across the dining room, red in the face. I sat at the dining room table, hands folded, back straight, and letting her say her piece. Amy and Vicky sat in the living room on the couch, silent but watching. Mark stood nearby, but didn't seem to be paying attention to the conversation.
I had returned to the Dallon household about twelve hours or so after putting Leviathan to a stop. Working with the Protectorate, the Triumvirate, New Wave, and even a few villains, we scoured the city for those that had been trapped during the fight. And those that had been lost. After eight hours of searching, we had scoured most of the city where Leviathan and I had fought. With my help, finding lost victims had been easy, and there had been many happily reunited families. An ecstatic energy had taken over the city as a whole; when I had questioned it, I had learned that Leviathan's attack on Brockton Bay had the lowest casualty rate of any Endbringer attack.
Three hundred and seventy-two victims.
If Armsmaster was to be believed, the majority of those victims had been from the initial panic and chaos that had unfolded when the sirens had gone off. His personal estimate was only thirty-six men and women lost by Leviathan's direct actions and our fight.
Three had been children.
To the people of Earth-Bet, the day had been an incredible success; 'the Miracle of Brockton Bay' some were calling it. To me, it was a miserable failure. If Kal had been the one to fight, if he had been sent to Earth-Bet, no one would have died. Leviathan would have been stopped in the Atlantic and not one soul would have died. But Earth-Bet hadn't gotten Kal, they had gotten me. And people had died because of it.
So when I had returned to the Dallon household, and Carol had started ripping into me for lying to them, I sat and took it. Because they were right of course, I had lied to them. Maybe I had been scared, disoriented, or anxious because of my situation. But that didn't change what I had done. They had offered their home to me with open arms, and I had lied to their faces about everything.
Letting Carol read me the riot act felt appropriate, all things considered.
"I don't know what to do about you, Kara." she sighed, running both hands through her hair, "On the one hand, no one can deny what you did today. I… I still can't believe it, personally. It's a miracle. But you abused our trust. Lied to my face about who you were. If you lied about that, and so easily, what else have you lied about? How can we ever trust you again?"
"Mom,"
I perked up in surprise. It wasn't Vicky speaking up, it was Amy. She sat up on the couch, her hands balled tight as she spoke, never looking at me, but not looking at her mother either.
"Kara didn't-"
Carol swiped her hand through the air, cutting her off, "Quiet. The adults are talking."
A silence rolled over the house, so thick I could have cut it with a knife. Amy sank back down onto the couch, eyes on the ground. Beside her, I saw Vicky tense, but she didn't rise to her sister's defense either. She just put a hand on her shoulder, and avoided meeting her mothers gaze.
I looked from them to Carol and back again. Then, I stood up and said, "Carol, I understand that I violated your trust. You have every reason to be upset with me. I won't take advantage of that trust any further."
She paused and looked at me, blinking. "What are you…?"
"I'll leave. The only thing I ask is that you let me stay until the end of the week so I have time to find a new home. Then I'll be gone, and you won't have to worry about me anymore."
For a solid minute, Carol stood there mulling over my compromise. The anger was still there, it tainted her every move. She kept clenching and unclenching her hands, or grinding her jaw. It was obvious there was more bothering her than just me lying. Something about the situation had aggravated some kind of trauma that I didn't know about. Me staying wouldn't help with that, and I didn't want to create tension in the family. But I also had nowhere to stay, and it was clear Carol was conflicted about actually kicking me out of the house.
After a solid minute of silence, she nodded, "Fine. That's acceptable. You have a week, Kara, to find a new home. But then I want you out of our house, understood."
"Completely, ma'am. Thank you, I won't abuse your trust again."
Her mouth pulled into a tight line, but she nodded, and stalked out of the dining room upstairs. Mark paused, looking between all of us, then followed after his wife with a reluctant gait.
I took a long shower after that. After fighting two Endbringers and hours of search and rescue, I felt warmth of the shower was a welcome balm on my soul, but it didn't ease the pain I felt when I thought of those I had failed. This wasn't the first time I had failed people depending on me. I knew how to handle loss, but it still hurt. I spent a long time standing in that shower, soaking in my failure.
When I got out, I didn't feel great. But I felt better. It was the first step, which was always the most important. The people I had failed were gone; nothing I could do would undo that. But I could learn from my mistakes today, and I could make sure others wouldn't join them. That was the best anyone could do in this kind of situation. Strive to be better.
After drying off and dressing in a borrowed set of pajamas from Vicky, I walked back to the guest room with my ruined costume in hand. The thought of replacing it wouldn't usually bother me but… it was the only thing I had left of home. Losing my belt and everything in it was bad enough, but the costume was so fried that I was left with nothing of home. Nothing but my memories.
"Rao, it's like the orphanage all over again." I muttered to myself as I stepped inside the guest room.
To my surprise, Amy was standing there, staring at the ground while fidgeting with her hands. She couldn't look at me, and kept scuffing her feet on the floor.
"Amy." I said, surprised.
She flinched but looked up at me, barely. Her eyes kept flicking to everywhere but my face, like she was embarrassed to look at me. I let her find her bearings; I could go a little bit longer without sleep.
Amy pulled at one of her fingers nervously while she spoke, "Kara, what I said earlier today, I um… shit, I messed up. I was stressed, Vicky wouldn't shut up about you, and then everything with the Heberts… I'm sorry, okay? I was being really stupid and I shouldn't have said what I said."
She covered her face in both hands and groaned. Obviously, this was a lot for her. The irony though was that I had almost forgotten about her confrontation with me at the Heberts house. So much had happened since then, that her anger at me just seemed… small, in comparison. Her embarrassment was amusing, in a painfully relatable way though.
I smiled and said, "Apology accepted. But, to be fair, I think we were both being stupid, Amy. I'm sorry I lied to you, I shouldn't have done that. Want to start over?"
Amy uncovered one eye and stared at me as if I was speaking a foreign language, "Start over?"
I offered my hand to her, "My name is Kara Zor-El. And you are?"
With slow hesitation, she uncovered her face and stared at my hand. She looked at it, and then at me. An expression of relief formed on her face, and she reached out to shake my hand, "Amy Dallon. It's… it's a pleasure to meet you, Kara."
-S-
Space and time shuddered and roiled, peeling apart in layers to eject the Simurgh's willowy silver form into the cold vastness of space. Jupiter dominated the skyline with the added addition of a ring swirling in its orbit, larger even than the rings of Saturn. The Discs of Leviathan, some subjects had already started calling it. The name was irrelevant, but the effect was clear. The parameters had changed, the old plans were to be discarded.
The Simurgh descended into the ring, sifting through it with a thousand telekinetic arms. Debris and asteroids floated out of her way, tossed aside like so much waste. It would take some time to scour the ring, but everything had changed and time was something she had in abundance. The old schedule was no longer sustainable. The Anomaly- Supergirl was a threat. Any service to the Administrator could not be completed so long as she continued to live.
Even their old directive had been halted.
There was not enough data, Supergirl represented too many unknowns. New Engines could not be deployed until sufficient data was gathered. But until that time, the Simurgh would have to make do with what she had on hand.
She halted mid flight as something caught her attention. A wing as long as she was tall stretched out, reached through the void to grasp at an object no larger than a grain of sand. Into her outstretched hands it landed as if of its own accord, and thrummed in proximity to her own core.
Supergirl's strength was vast, but she had made a mistake.
The sliver of Leviathan's core pulsed in the Simurgh's hands, responding to her energy. On its own, such a tiny shred of matter would be inert. Without sufficient mass to channel the energy needed to power one of the Engines, such fragments would appear as simple dead waste. But to those that knew, those that understood, even a fragment of her brother was filled with a thousand possibilities.
The Simurgh raised a hand, and space rippled around, appearing like a haze on a hot summer day. When it faded, the crystalline shard she had stolen from Supergirl appeared in her hand. So far it had stubbornly resisted her attempts to open it. But the Simurgh did not despair.
In fact, she had hope.
With time and effort, she would peel it open and learn all she could about the Kryptonian. But in the meantime, what remained of her brother would serve as an excellent tool for further experimentation.
Her processes suddenly froze, and the Simurgh went still.
At the edge of her senses, spread across the vastness of the ring, something had stirred. It had been for a nanosecond, too fast for even the finest instruments to have detected. The only reason she had detected it at all was because she had spread herself wide across the whole of space and time in search of more of Leviathan's shard. But whatever she had detected, had been so fast and so brief, she saw no future in it. Peering into what could be, showed nothing.
Across all of time and space, through countless futures, she saw nothing related to whatever had caught her senses. After dedicating several long minutes to analyzing it, the Simurgh dismissed the signal as a result of her departure from the extra-dimensional pocket interacting with the scattered matter and energy from Leviathan's passing. Something worth noting, but nothing more.
To be safe, she adjusted her planned timetable regardless, and resumed her search witha renewed fervor. All the while, keeping a small part of her dedicated to watching for the signal, should it appear again…