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Chapter 1: It's just a new way of living

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I floated in nothingness. There was nothing around me, nor within me. In fact, it was like even I did not exist, trapped within a state of uncertainty.

The thought experiment of Schrodinger's cat came to mind, for all that I currently existed as mind alone. My body was unobserved and so, undecided, though I felt that I could change that if I just looked. Something inside me gave me options, letting me know what I would see.

Would I see light, or life? Would the world unfold itself in response to power or domination? Could I witness the peak of all technology, or would the intricacies of time and space fold around me?

It was a choice. I had a choice to make. I could choose any of them, or even more than one, but I felt something strain when I considered it. This decision was permanent, and once the choice was made, the other options would snap away from me, lost forever.

My mind span, finding other feelings that I wanted to consider. Various pressures bore down on 'me', for all that I could feel pressure in a state of nonexistence. Some heavy enough that I could not move, some light enough that I felt myself floating as I thought about them. I quickly chose the one I was most familiar with, feeling a pressure of a strength that I could remember being similar to gravity.

Behind that choice, I felt many more options, for good and ill. Power untamed, secrecy perfected, a home, an everchanging existence... and a sense of immediate danger, pure rage and hate of my family, and a growing will to break anything and everything I saw.

I hated it. I remembered what it was like before, not wanted by anyone while being too weak, of heart and of mind, to change anything in my favour. For all that I immediately wanted something familiar, I wanted things to change. I made myself different, forcing power to well up within my mind.

In addition, I turned my mind back to that first choice. I wanted to live forever, and I saw life through all of time and space.

The world bloomed around me as I turned my newfound senses in that direction. Even ignoring the rest of existence, there was so much life present on this one little rock, in the air, in the waters, and even within the dirt itself. Then there were the creatures lost to extinction, the environments where life lived differently, and the homes of sentient creatures that had evolved into monsters of biology. It was...

"Beautiful."

#=#

Rebecca was not having a good day.

She'd been getting a more tense as the days passed by, as she always did when the time for the Endbringers to strike came around. Behemoth, the first of the three, attacked near the end of October last year, so when February started, she double and triple checked the preparations for the appearance of either Leviathan, the second, or the Simurgh, the third Endbringer.

She also prayed to whatever god David worshipped that there wouldn't be a fourth one that caught everyone off guard. Earth Bet had more than enough to deal with without another city destroying monster wreaking havoc.

When she received an emergency report of a giant tree, by which she meant one estimated at two hundred meters tall and at least fifty meters in diameter, growing in the middle of Rome and spreading its roots out to cover the entire city, she felt that prayer go unanswered.

So now she was on location, having shed her guise of Chief Director of the PRT and become Alexandria, member of the Triumvirate and one of the strongest parahumans in the world. The city of Rome was in the midst of being evacuated to the shelters set up to hold people in the event of an Endbringer attack, and Alexandria knew that several movers were organising the defence force. Despite there having been no attack yet, everyone was treating it like an Endbringer attack due to the timing and damage that has already been caused.

Meanwhile, she just floated there, watching the tree. It hadn't moved since its rapid growth, something that was reported to take less than an hour, and its subsequent spreading of its roots throughout the city. Normally that would be fine, after all, trees don't move. However it hadn't moved an inch, including leaves that should be blowing in the breeze. Alexandria could see the effects of the wind around the tree, but the tree itself remained perfectly still.

It was unnerving.

A flash of light signalled the arrival of Alexandria's colleague, Legend.

"That looks wrong," he noticed. "It hasn't moved at all."

"No. I've been watching it since I got here, and no part of it has shifted at all." Legend nodded, looking around at the roots of the suspected Endbringer.

"Are we sure that this isn't just some biomanipulator's accident? Perhaps some new trigger who let their power get away from them after a trigger event?" he asked, bringing up a possible alternative to the worst case scenario. "It's been over two hours since it first appeared, and it's done nothing." Alexandria rose her eyebrow at him, looking pointedly at the damage the tree caused by simply existing. "Besides the obvious."

She made use of her impeccable body control to keep any signs of amusement off her face. Honestly, even with all the Endbringer preparations that have been made, to have this be a false alarm would be a relief. It made sense that Keith, undeniably the best person in their 'inner circle', for all that he wasn't told much, was the one to actually voice the possibility.

Unfortunately, a loud sound cut her off before she could reply. A series of cracks came from the tree as it moved for the first time since Alexandria's arrival, and she watched as the top half of the tree started peeling apart like a banana skin, revealing a figure that stood tall within it.

Alexandria estimated the figure to be nearly twenty feet tall. She, the figure, looked decidedly human and female, drawing a parallel to the Simurgh, with a slightly tanned skin tone and long, dirty blonde hair. Unlike the Simurgh, this one wore what could be considered clothing, her short dress seemingly made of green leaves with some brown ones mixed in, pressed tightly against her figure, an interlocking train of larger leaves trailing behind her. A brown bark-like substance covered the outside of her arms and legs which would otherwise be exposed, almost looking like some kind of lightly armoured guards.

And she was just stood there, her eyes closed and smiling. Looking around, Alexandria confirmed that no other parts of the tree were acting, though they seem to have stopped being unnaturally still like they were before.

The last member of the Triumvirate appeared next to them, appearing from nowhere as the winds seemed to hold him in place. "What's she doing?" Eidolon asked, most definitely frowning under his mask. "I'm cycling a bunch of thinker powers, but the most I'm getting is that she's waking up... and they all agree that she's an Endbringer."

It's confirmed then, or as close as they could get to it. Eidolon could access a great number of powers, so if all of them agree that the twenty foot woman is and Endbringer, then no one had any right saying otherwise. Alexandria was about to start issuing orders, when something new happened.

"Beautiful."

Everyone who heard it froze, tracking the word back to its source. The woman, now with green eyes open, had her mouth open, showing just how human her body seemed to be. White teeth and pink tongue were revealed before she closed her mouth and grinned, looking around.

"This planet has so much life on it!" She looked excited, focusing on the bits of plant life that didn't come from her tree. Then she looked to the birds that had started perching on the tree, as well as any other animal in sight. Finally, she glanced to where some people were standing in confusion, and then to where the Triumvirate all floated. That was when her expression faltered slightly, but she regained her smile as she looked away, ignoring them. "This cycle should be much better than the Molluscoids. They spent too much time in their metal giants for my taste."

"Eidolon, are you sure she's an Endbringer?" Legend asked, watching the woman move to the edge of the tree and crouch down, reaching out a hand for some nearby birds to land on. To Alexandria's surprise, they did, despite their normal behaviour not being so calm around larger creatures.

"Every one," Eidolon repeated. "Trust me, I'm still checking. What on God's Earth is a Molluscoid? ... No, I didn't want an image generating power... Wow, they're ugly."

She couldn't blame the men she worked with from being disbelieving. Alexandria could hardly believe it herself. She was expecting a fight for the ages, as all other Endbringer fights had been, not some giant woman playing nice with the local wildlife.

Her attention refocused when said woman suddenly stood, looking confused as she did so. "What?" Alexandria heard, her eyes narrowed as she watched the Endbringer place a hand on the tree trunk under her feet. "That's wrong. I shouldn't be deployed like this. I don't understand."

Neither did Alexandria, but she was going to get to the bottom of this. An Endbringer that isn't attacking people, who can communicate on top of that? The potential for this was invaluable.

#=#

Something was wrong with me. Something had gone wrong during deployment.

No it hadn't, and no there wasn't. This wasn't some standard deployment. This body was made by some higher power, chosen by a human, similar to the dominant species on this planet, and made to accept that human's mind.

But I existed longer than that. I was the Drone that the Thinker used to repair planets that were too close to being unable to sustain life, though never in a way too beneficial to the host species (after all, it was often that same species that resulted in their near extinction). I would make monsters of animals, traps of plants, and labyrinths of areas that held too much of either. If the host species could then live in such areas easier after they challenged and conquered them, then so be it.

But I also designed this power myself, idly wondering what it would be like to live a life so different from my human one. The higher power made it real, deploying this Drone with some alterations so that the human would get what she wanted.

"What?" That didn't make sense. My function hasn't been altered. I performed a passive scan of every human brain in my range, finding next to no similarities between my thought processes and theirs. "That's wrong." No, the thing said that it would make changes to accommodate for a human perspective. "I shouldn't be deployed like this." The other power is there. I can feel it in the web of existence around me, the capability that doesn't stem from my function, but nothing else was different. "I don't understand." I should essentially be a human in an Endbringer body. That's what the higher power I spoke to said.

No. Whether it lied, or something went wrong, I am still an Endbringer… But I'm free. I have a will.

I felt movement above me, from the three parahumans that called themselves the Triumvirate. They worked with the ones that killed the Thinker (that shouldn't have happened. The Thinker had many precognitive shards that should have warned it. What happened? A third?) and used her half formed avatar to continue her work, if in a way that she likely didn't predict (and butchered several vital shards in the process, the idiots). The only female of the three was slowly, warily approaching me, causing the anxiety of the other two to spike (My father, the host of the dying High Priest. Why has it not engaged power generation protocols? Oh, with the Thinker deceased, it doesn't have the authority to alter itself after Cauldron's meddling).

I looked up to Alexandria, feeling the blind spot in my senses. A body locked in quasi-stasis with a mind uploaded to a side server of the shard connected to her. Her body wasn't alive at the moment, so I couldn't feel her as well as I could every other piece of biological matter. I could see her though, since my body has always been more biological than my siblings' bodies, so my eyes and ears actually work properly.

She stopped, floating just out of arm's reach. Not like that would stop me if I chose to attack, or surrender to my new directive. 'Be a worthy opponent'. I thought the High Priest's host thought himself a hero. The fool couldn't even control his complexes.

"I am Alexandria, one of the leaders of parahumans on this planet," she introduced.

"Yes, I know who you are," I said, smiling. "Do you think my siblings and I are ignorant of you until deployment? That the shards that grant you your non-biological abilities don't watch you before establishing a connection?" The woman didn't move at all. I could tell it was a conscious decision. "I know more about this world than you do, I can assure you of that. So, what do you want? I know you've been listening, so you know I have better things to do than stand around talking."

Like figuring out what to do next. While the human perspective doesn't seem to have made the trip to this reality, the knowledge and memories have. I know that this cycle is a doomed venture, and have no interest in waiting around for billions of years for the next contact with an Entity like my sister intends. Then again, she's got that secondary directive, doesn't she? My brothers definitely don't care about the cycle. They remain drones, for the most part.

"I want information. Our analysts say that you are like the other three beings that attack us regularly, but you aren't attacking. Not only that, but you seem to be able to communicate in our language. You are the first real source of information we have on our attackers."

I want to laugh. I find that whole thing adorable, but I settle for a widening smile instead. "Your attackers? You mean my siblings? Why would I tell you anything about them? My brothers might be a bit dumb, and my sister is too goal oriented sometimes, but that's not nearly enough to betray them. The only one I might give up information about is our..." I paused. What do we actually refer to him as? He's not actually our father, but he has access to the Drone Administration Shard through the High Priest. He's not our creator either, since he just reshapes what Drones are already present in the Thinker's emergency resource pool. "I'm not sure you have a word that fills the exact role. I suppose the closest word would be father, but he definitely doesn't deserve the title."

It's actually rather annoying, now that I think about it. Previously, I existed to follow the orders of the Thinker. I had no concept of familial relations, but that came with the information of the human life. She wanted for a lost father so strongly, held her parents in the highest esteem. For the host of the High Priest to even tangentially fill the position...

"Oh look at that," I mused, feeling the non-sentient life around me become agitated. The animals tensed, ready to pounce on a target that was out of their reach, bar the birds that took to the air and started circling Eidolon like predators. The roots of my tree withdrew slightly, thickening themselves and gaining mutations that don't exist in this universe. "I'm angry." Alexandria tensed. I ignored that. "That's new. This human perspective thing seems to have done more than I thought. Do humans normally get so angry over new perspectives? Tell me, Alexandria...

"If someone took an egg from the corpse of your mother and forced your dying father to impregnate it before forcing the resulting child to fight and destroy, would you not be angry?"

Part of me was curious. I could create that exact experiment if I wished to find the answer. I felt Alexandria's imprint on this world and knew that it was wrong. She didn't belong here. She came here via the one they call Doormaker, and I could trace that back to the source. My vision shifted, witnessing the parents of the one before me, but I held off.

For all that it should be the 'mother' in my proposed situation, the Thinker wasn't. I was a Drone. A tool to be used by it when it needed. Entities didn't have emotional connections like that. They couldn't risk personal biases in the data they collected from the cycles. Their avatars may have emotional simulation implemented, but it wasn't the same.

"If anyone desecrated my parents, I would kill them," Alexandria stated after several seconds of silence and stillness.

I hummed. "Then we are in agreement." It's good that even despite everything, she still cared for family.

I wouldn't initiate the experiment with her parents, but that didn't stop me from finding issue with what they've done. In a similar way to tracing back Alexandria to her original dimension, I traced the Triumvirate's connections to their shards and isolated them. All three, Alexandria, Legend, and Eidolon, fell from the sky, being caught by me or my roots.

I looked at the struggling woman in my hand as I had the other two brought before me. I had my roots grow rapidly, striking at every parahuman that I felt within the city. Some escaped, making the good call to run away. Some were pierced by the roots, while others were trapped within them like a rat caught in the grasp of a python. Those who could fly sometimes evaded my tree, only for the birds in the area to grow and change into beasts the size of cars, flocking to them and attacking. Anything of mine that was injured, I healed in an instant, growing new biomatter to replace that which was lost. The parahumans would soon realise the futility of fighting a self-regenerating army that had you surrounded. Any who retreated were not my problem.

Meanwhile, I looked down at the three closest to me which held the Thinker's Shards. They shouted, groaned in pain, and struggled to escape, but were unsuccessful.

"Did you know that we, the ones you call Endbringers, aren't supposed to be like this," I wondered. The host of the Eye received a vision upon connecting to it, so I think at least one member of their shadow conspiracy knew. "The Thinker Entity, the one that has been killed, used us to segment the host species of the cycle, keeping them from working together. We are usually weakened and deployed to arbitrary borders, acting as gatekeepers."

Having learned of their inability to escape, two of the three were slowing their attempts to do so and have started listening. Eidoloon was raging harder then ever, likely noticing the complete loss of his power, and will continue until he runs out of energy.

Time to change that.

"But the Thinker died before my eldest brother's deployment, and the control Shard for us remained untouched in her body, unaffected by your butchering of the Thinker's corpse. It was inactive, with no one to give it orders, until you decided to hand powers out to people." I glared at Eidolon, prompting the other two to look at him as well. "Until you decided to hand one man access to every power." That made him stop, and I could feel the realisation spark in his brain. "He set out to be the greatest hero, a grand weapon against the remaining Entity... only for the villains of this world to be too weak. Unworthy of his attention." Depression built up in him, fuelled by a remnant of what existed in David before he was Eidolon.

"He needed worthy opponents."

He didn't struggle as the wooden coil binding him grew spikes, poking holes in every organ. I traced back his dimensional anchor too, sending him home as his human body was encased in the ever growing wood that would break down his body, and then shrink to a half meter tall tree. All traces of his genetic structure would be gone, so my sister can never bring him back. All that will remain is a stick someone might dig up and take home to put in their window.

Hey, look at that. I can be petty now. That's new as well.

My gaze shifted to the other two, one resigned, the other grieving for his friend. "You two, I don't care about. I have no issue with you." Vines grew and deposited the both of them on the giant tree trunk, relatively unharmed. There may be a few bruises later. "Don't expect your Shards to reconnect to you. I may have removed their capacity to reach out to any host."

And because I didn't have an issue with her, I did Alexandria a favour and changed her brain. Now it reflected the contents of the false brain her Shard was using to puppet her body, so she didn't regress to a teenager mentally. I even got rid of that pesky cancer that was plaguing her as a bonus.

Truly, I was a benevolent Endbringer… Ignore all those bodies of surrounding parahumans. They're not important.

"Now, as I mentioned before, I have better things to do than stand around talking. Goodbye."

I compressed my core as far as I could, rebuilding my biological body into a large bird. It was potentially dangerous, being a small target with my core taking up most of my internal space, but flying in an atmosphere was such an interesting form of travel.

And with access to so many universes, what else am I to do than what interests me?