Call this the start of the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV.
Beta'd by Sesparra
I was distantly aware of the Forge flickering as the stab wound Nicodemus had given me sealed up, but to be entirely honest, I was a little preoccupied with stretching my wings. They were… well, they hadn't quite gone numb, but I was definitely feeling some pins and needles as I flexed muscles that I hadn't used in… who knew how long. I was taller and broader than I was as a mortal, too, with veins of gold running across moonlight-pale flesh, and my hair was now halfway down my back under my helmet and electric blue to boot, but not to the point where it could interfere with my swordsmanship, and a brief stretch of the rest of my muscles had me certain that I would be, if anything, better with my blade in this form than in any mortal form I'd worn to date.
"Bother," said Nicodemus, dragging himself out of the tangled pile of limbs and hair tendrils that was a result of me smacking him into his daughter. "What is one of you doing here?"
"The fuck do you think, Nick?" I asked, making sure to sound more than mildly incredulous. "You tried to give my baby sister to the Weaver of fucking Webs, you really think I'm not gonna put you at the very fucking top of my shit list?"
I could feel Lasciel cringing where the Forge held her, which was… something to think about later.
Nicodemus sighed. "And so sentiment makes fools of us all." Then, he kicked his sword up from where it had been lying on the floor and beelined for… Shiro?
One look showed that while Shiro was, technically, not out of the fight, he was favoring his arm enough that he wouldn't really be able to stand against Nicodemus, as opposed to Sanya, who had both Esperacchius and his gun up and ready, Susan, who could also put up a significant fight, and Harry, who was holding a gun that had just about frozen Deirdre solid, and even if that was through a spell, Nicodemus didn't know that.
I flicked a mote of moonlight out at Nicodemus, slowing him, and with the time that that bought me, I interposed myself (and, more importantly, my sword) between the First of the Denarians and Shiro, bowling the man over as I did so.
"Have you considered," I offered, summoning another mote of moonlight in my off hand as I met Nicodemus' sword with my own, "that maybe you're just a fool on your own merits or lack thereof, old man?"
Nicodemus didn't reply, but his next blow was heavier than the last, and as he disengaged, he flicked Anduriel up, crashing over the stone floor like a tidal wave to try and drown me.
How cute.
As Anduriel tried to crawl up my nostrils and into my ears, corrosive shadow already burning my eyes, I drew on the reservoir of divine energy within me and crushed the mote of divine radiance within my left hand, calling down a pillar of moonlight to illuminate me and banish the protean shadow of one of the most devious of the Fallen.
For all their cunning, neither Nicodemus nor Anduriel saw that coming, and with Anduriel unable to bind me, that left Nicodemus wildly out of position to stop me from taking his hand off at the wrist. The noose might have kept him alive, but if he didn't have his sword-
The coil of rope hung from Nicodemus' neck lit up like an incandescent bulb. It took me a moment to register that the sound of meat cooking was coming from him, and by that point he'd already torn the offending item off and hurled it into the pool that until recently had held Harry Dresden, releasing a huge cloud of steam as it splashed down.
"Well, how about that," I said, raising my blade to a ready position again.
With a brassy shriek like a tuba in a hydraulic press, Deirdre hit me like a snowplow, shoving me well over fifteen feet back and slashing away at my wings and other exposed flesh with claws and bladed tresses despite the shroud of moonlight I was cloaked in trying to force her back into human form. I winced and almost recoiled on instinct- even through the inhuman toughness of my feathers and the moonlight blunting her blades, Deirdre was still doing a number on me.
My sword arm had been caught out of position, and she was pretty good at keeping my wings between the blade and her body, but the blade was far from the only option I had.
I brushed my left hand against the edge of the sword, eliciting a single drop of blood that I smeared against the top of my sword's scabbard. Almost immediately, it started glowing, a turbulent glow like the sea in a hurricane, and as I let my fingers close around the implement, I could feel the power surge out like a breaking wave.
Water precipitated out of thin air around me, forming a current that wrapped around me for a moment, accelerating, before lashing out at Deirdre.
I could hear the sound of tearing metal and, as I turned around, saw where Deirdre had managed to interpose the metallic tendrils of her hair between her body and the water- or at least, what the pressurized stream of water had severed from them, lying in a puddle and twitching.
Deirdre had been hurled across the room, the ragged ends of the tendrils still damp even as they glowed a hellish red and began to lengthen again. "You… what are you?"
"No one to be trifled with," I quoted, shaking my wings to try and get some of the blood off of them (carefully, so I wouldn't spray any on Sanya, a now-standing Shiro, or Susan, who'd all come to stand near me after Deirdre had been sent flying) as I pulled the wand I'd made on Saturday out of a pocket. "Now then, Miss Archleone, I'm afraid I will be taking the Shroud from… wherever you've stashed it."
Deirdre growled, a sound that seemed almost more like something you'd expect out of a big cat than a human, but she didn't offer any other reply.
Nicodemus, on the other hand, chuckled as he stood from where he'd been crouching in the pool, the stump of his arm already writhing and starting to grow. "And what, Miss Carpenter, makes you think that I would be willing to give such a potent artifact to anyone, let alone you?"
"The fact that I just kicked your ass up and down the room isn't enough, then?" I asked, angling my sword just so that my shroud of moonlight reflected almost directly into his eyes.
The Forge glowed, just as he snarled and stepped aside, and another pedestal rose from the floor. Atop it was what looked to be a supercomputer, if someone had interpreted it through the lens of the old '50s cartoons, all loopy antennae and odd, not-quite-right angles that somehow managed to come across as charming instead of haphazard or concerning.
I very nearly physically reeled back as my brain filled itself with knowledge, followed quickly by understanding- the kind of cutting-edge understanding of every scientific field under the sun that all but relied on interdisciplinary thinking to thrive, understanding of any one topic filtering out to impact just about every other field of thought.
Thankfully, this was far less overwhelming than having all of Goibnu's secrets crammed into my brain, and so I was able to return my focus to the here and now just in time to catch Nicodemus' next words.
"I'm afraid it's not, Miss Carpenter," he said, a hint of rasp to his formerly smoothly cultured tones.
"Repeat performance, then? I can find it in the kindness of my heart to put on an encore," I said, moonlight beginning to trail along my sword as my wings crept upwards, ready to send me once more into battle.
Nicodemus favored me with a look full of more disdain than most would be able to fit into their entire lives. "Do you take me for a fool?"
I shrugged. "Worth a shot."
He sneered. Then, he snapped his fingers, and there was a massive explosion from above us, punching through the ceiling and sending rubble raining down on us.
Shiro, Sanya, and Susan were close enough that I could shelter them with my wings, at least long enough that I could cast Wall of Force, and Harry…
I spared a moment's attention for him just in time to see him make a baseball slide under a falling piece of rubble, drawing power in, and finished my own spell, heaving up with my wings to send what rubble I could up and give us more breathing space before the panes of raw arcane force materialized, stopping the ceiling from falling in on us.
Harry thrust his left hand up, a shimmering blue-white barrier materializing just under my Wall of Force. Then, after a moment, he faltered. "What… what is that?"
"A temporary measure," I said, sheathing my sword. "Gimme a sec and I can get us out of here. By the by, Dresden, next time I give you a gun, a little fire support would be nice."
"Right, because any Joe Shmoe can throw out a barrier that can stop who knows how much rubble and who knows what else from crushing us," he snarked. "And that Joe Shmoe just so happens to be in the right place at the right time to stop us from getting Chixculub'd."
I sighed, then sent my helmet (and my gun, which vanished from where he was still holding it) back into the Forge and, after focusing for a moment, folded myself back down to the shape I'd woken up in. "This better?"
He gawped for a moment. "Not really, but I think I'm gonna save my questions for your dad."
"Good enough," I said. I flicked my finger, almost like I was trying to nail a paper football, and opened a portal to the Future Witness. "We can go talk to him now."
Charity Carpenter was… not cut out for this week.
Learning that Nicodemus Archleone had come to her town was… well, it wasn't out of the question, given Michael's calling, and having both of the other Knights in town helped with that. Shiro, especially, was good with the kids, and she appreciated his help with that.
Learning that her daughter had inherited magic from her, as well as… something else, that was harder to swallow, but she'd long known that it was possible, and even seeing her own death reflected in her daughter's eyes wasn't enough to truly rattle her, not with having accepted her end before Michael had saved her from Siriothrax.
This, though? This was… just beyond what she could conceptualize.
"What do you mean, you're her mother?" asked Michael, not quite forcefully, but with weight to his voice as he made eye contact with the… being sitting opposite them on their couch.
Charity wasn't quite so bold- she'd never quite gotten out of the habit of avoiding eye contact that she'd had instilled in her under Gregor, but she'd snuck enough glances up at her eyes to see the mirrorlike sheen on her too-blue eyes, the unnatural vitality of her features despite the age she seemed to be, the moonlike paleness of her skin…
"In a way, yes," the woman-shaped thing said gravely, one smooth hand gesturing uncertainly. "It is… she is becoming the nexus of different versions of herself, taking parts of their history and their knowledge into herself, as the Forge empowers her. Part of that brings… other aspects of these versions of her, or aspects of the reality that these versions of her were born in. The Forge saw fit to grant her the power of the version of her that is my daughter, and the exact thaumodynamics of that require… me, as well as a part of me that has become the source of human magic in that world. She is no less your daughter for being mine, and indeed, I am willing to provide… how is it said here… ah, yes, back child support."
Charity frowned. "What do you mean?"
She smiled slightly. "Even bereft of most of my followers here, I am more than capable of granting you aid in whatever form you may require. A place of safety should your home be threatened, material wealth, assistance with learning to control your arcane power…" She shrugged, with the kind of artful casualness that, on anyone else, Charity would have called forced. "Our daughter has a grand destiny ahead of her, and even was she not mine, I would find it no great imposition to make it easier for you to stand alongside her."
She opened her mouth to continue, then frowned, and turned to the corner. "I am not asking you to make any decisions now. Take all the time you need, consider your options and what you yourselves can stand to ask for."
In a flash of silvery light, she was across the room, holding a cat, if the cat was a Maine Coon that had been covered in glue and rolled around in a pile of knives, by the scruff of its neck like an unruly kitten, ignoring where its claws were trying and failing to find purchase in the unnaturally smooth flesh of her arm. "If you will excuse me, I must remonstrate with this creature's master. You may summon me by standing under the light of the moon and calling my name thrice."
Then she was gone, leaving only a smell like ozone and two bewildered parents behind.
"What was…" Charity couldn't find the words, not that she'd been doing a particularly good job at expressing herself since seeing what she looked like when reflected through her daughter.
Before Michael could offer a reply, a portal swirled into existence behind him, disgorging after a moment two Knights, lightly battered, a half-turned Red Court Vampire, a rent-a-tux containing all seven-ish feet of one of Charity's least favorite people in the city, and her daughter, seeming… more than she had been before she'd left.
"Harry, Susan, go to your place and load up for bear, then grab the Wardens if Ivy can spare them. Shiro, Sanya, take five, I've got to go do some magic stuff to see about maybe tracking Nicodemus down since Aine couldn't trace them after they dropped a chunk of Undercity on us," Molly said, looking every inch a warrior instead of the little girl whose biggest worry a week ago had been sneaking out of the house to go to some party.
"Would this help?" asked Shiro, holding up what looked entirely too much like a severed hand for comfort.
Molly's face split open into a grin that wouldn't have been out of place on the Grinch. "Boy, does it. Alright, I've got a couple things to do, but I should be down by the time Harry and Susan are back, and… you're better with thaumaturgy than I am, so let's get ready to track them down and run them out of Chicago."
The other four people moved, Shiro and Sanya towards the couch and Harry and Susan towards the door, and Molly stepped back through the portal before it winked closed.
"That was… is everyone okay?" Michael asked.
"Bruised, and tired out," said Shiro. "No serious injuries to any of us, since she can shrug off rubble falling on her like that."
Michael and Charity shared a glance that seemed to comprise almost entirely of the sentiment behind the phrase "what the fuck" before turning to their tasks, with Michael striding towards Amoracchius and Charity the kitchen. "I'll put coffee on," she said, reeling from the sheer amount that had been dropped on her in the past week. That, at least, she could control, and hopefully wrangle her emotions while doing so.
And that's that!
Perks Earned:
Omni-Disciplinary (My Life as a Teenage Robot, 200CP): When you're trying to create superpowered Robots, advanced machinery, or biological Monsters you can't afford to stick to one field, and being a jack of all trades isn't quite enough either. This perk not only gives you genius level knowledge in every scientific field as compared to the real world, but it also makes it so none of your knowledge and ability will suffer from branching out in this way, in fact as you pursue one field your knowledge in all the others will get a little clearer and easier to apply as your general understanding of the universe expands.
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