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Chapter 5: First stop (B and G)
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"The Endbringers killed him?" The words were incredulous as they were spoken, and garnered no reply from the three other people in the room... ignoring the ever present living air. "And then what? Where are they?"
"Gone," Doctor Mother said simply, looking exhausted. "After killing every cape who stood between them and Behemoth, during which Gaia faced Scion and killed him, the four of them just vanished."
"Well, we think that Gaia did something to steal the flesh garden," Kurt explained, stood over his laptop. "The new Endbringer has shown dimensional manipulation abilities. Within a minute of them vanishing, the space the garden occupied was exchanged with a portal into an endless void." He chuckled mirthlessly, which Rebecca could empathise with.
Rebecca frowned. "Is Gaia a threat? She's clearly as strong as Scion, if not stronger."
Then, breaking the silence that she had been keeping, Contessa laughed. Slowly, at first causing everyone to turn to her, but then it turned to full, unrestrained laughter. The woman rarely did anything not related to one of her paths, so genuine laughter was out of the ordinary. Everyone was shocked.
"You- you really mean that!" she exclaimed, a little bit of madness in her eye. "You think we could even touch her, even if she was a threat."
"We've been preparing for Scion, haven't we?" Rebecca scowled. "Building an-"
"An army that would depend on a teenage girl that can control bugs," Contessa finished, a wry grin on her face. "One that would be forced from one aspect of cape life to the next with barely any rest, just so that she and a few people around her can break enough to be suicidal enough to bully the Warrior to death." Settling herself, the woman took a breath. "Gaia's gone, but she contacted my Agent before she went, lifting the restrictions the Thinker put in place. She also gave me a copy of the future for my Agent to read to me, written in the form of a story."
"So we can add precognition to her list of capabilities," Kurt noted, amusement present in his expression.
"Along with the alliance she formed with her now equally unrestricted sister, yes."
"If your restrictions were lifted, do you have any blind spots left?" Doctor Mother wondered. Contessa shook her head.
"Only the ones I refuse to look at." Then she stood up and turned away. "Door to Rome, Earth Bet."
Gaia's first appearance? "Contessa?" Rebecca asked. She didn't normally ask about whatever path the woman was on, but given that Gaia had apparently messed with her power, it was now a concern.
Contessa just shook her head from the other side of the portal. "Not for much longer. The Entities are both gone. The Endbringers have left this dimensional cluster, beyond the reach of anyone I can think of. Triggers will slowly decrease in number, the agents having left with Gaia, and there are no more humanity ending threats that we need to prepare for. I've got a few things to do before I try being worth the name, 'Fortuna', again."
The door closed, leaving a contemplative group behind.
#=#
Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. No- Actually... maybe. Oh, that's pretty- PUPPY!
Pan-dimensional space-time warped as I forced my way through it, hopping from one world to the next. My body, followed by Behemoth's, stepped onto the frozen land of somewhere, making me apply force a flight module (similar to what Shards use to land on a planet) onto my brother's core Shard. This dimension was interesting, filled with cool creatures, and I didn't want my brother messing up their ecosystem accidentally, especially just by walking. He's heavy, and we're currently stood on ice. He can turn it off when we get back to solid ground.
[Query]
I looked up at him, a little surprised. "You mean you can't feel it?" I wondered, even as I picked up an interesting creature. It seemed to be a perfect hybrid of two creatures that were on Earth Bet. A thin, agile body forming the back half, while the front paws and legs were thicker and stronger. It's head still retained several characteristics of dogs, but the polar bear qualities could not be ignored. "It's almost pervasive, so I figured you'd be able to. Energy is your field, after all."
[Request]
I huffed, smirking a bit at the vaguely pouting response. "I'll see what I can do, but I don't know why you can't. Our natures shouldn't be different enough to cause this kind of difference, at least not under normal circumstances, so I think it has something to do with the changes made during the Intervention." This time, my huff was of exasperation. "I probably should have done a full physical analysis of my Shard before now, but oh, well."
I turned back to the polar bear-dog hybrid, using every sense I have to study it. The Shaper Shard's databank was accessed, confirming my initial thought that this creature I'm holding is a perfect and completely natural evolutionary hybrid of animals that were on Earth Bet. This hybrid is its own species, as a cursory scan of the planet and its history reveals that neither polar bears nor dogs make an appearance on their own.
The same happens for what appears to be a flock of penguin-otter hybrids, a few miles away. I mentally poke and prod at the DNA and ancestry, only to find no hint of either species that makes up this composite species. It was fascinating, and I make a note to check on that later, see if I can't track down just how these creatures evolved into such a perfect mix of two other species from another dimensional cluster.
What was a little more interesting though, was what I could feel in each of these creatures. Some kind of energy, which is why I was a little surprised that Behemoth couldn't sense it, was flowing through each and every living thing in my range, and the slight planetary scan I did let me detect traces of that same energy in every living thing I noticed. It was why I chose this world for me and my brother, while our other siblings went somewhere that Leviathan could fight and Ziz could study.
But while I could sense this energy, flowing through every living thing in the world, I wasn't sure how to manipulate it. That was where Behemoth should be chipping in, but he can't even sense the stuff.
I hummed, putting the hybrid cub/pup (it's both a bear and a dog. Which is the right word?) down and standing tall, only to remember that Behemoth was far taller and hopping up to his shoulder, where I sat down and looked around. "Well, there's no point just standing around. There's a human population on this world, and several other sentient creatures that we might be able to learn from." I lean over and look my brother in the eye. "Pick a random number. One to three."
[Data]
I just had a sudden and inexplicable urge to laugh like a madwoman and I love it. "Alright. Off we go then."
And the world twisted around us again.
#=#
It was an emergency situation. Bells and gongs were sounding throughout Royal Caldera city, signalling a civilian evacuation that hadn't been enacted in living memory.
Azula, the princess of her nation, walked as fast as she dared within the Royal Palace towards her father's meeting room, which was already full of her father's court when she arrived. They were 'in deep discussion', otherwise known as 'bickering like fools' over some threat that Azula wasn't aware of yet, but she figured was the reason for the alarm.
She made a scorpion bee-line for her father, sat upon his throne. "The Crown Princess of the Fire Nation greets the Fire Lord," she said respectfully, bowing her head to Fire Lord Ozai.
"Raise your head, daughter." Azula did so, and was presented with the map that the court were bickering over. "What is happening is something unknown by all present. Two monsters, believed to be spirits of some kind, are making their way towards the Royal Capital. The scouts think they'll be here by nightfall."
Azula frowned. "Why does that need a full city evacuation?" she wondered. "Even if they are spirits, a trained hunter regiment should be able to-"
"The smaller of the two is four times the height of an average person and is reported to be able to grow and control all forms of plant life," the Fire Lord cut her off, scowling at the map. "The larger one is about twice that size and described as a living mountain of obsidian that shakes the ground with every step."
That made the princess pause. The records of spirits that remained in the hands of the Fire Sages were unfortunately very scarce, so they weren't going to be much help, despite being the Fire Nation's sole source of information on spiritual matters.
"What responses have been suggested?" she asked, eyeing the still squabbling council.
"A hawk messenger has been sent to Admiral Zhao, who is on his way to the Northern Water Tribe," the Fire Lord stated. "He previously reported contact with a spirit in the Wan Shi Tong desert, and will be reporting back with all information he gained from the encounter. Otherwise... War Minister!"
Silence spread rapidly throughout the throne room, now that the Fire Lord had spoken. A somewhat familiar man stepped forward and bowed towards Azula's father.
"You spoke of prototypes before," the Fire Lord said, his gaze shifting to some frowning faces among the council. "How reliable are they, and how would you use them?"
"The balloons are easy to manipulate for any bender, my Lord. It would barely take an hour to train one in its use," the War Minister, the army's overseer for technological improvements and secret weapons. "The risk remains of someone simply falling, but any trained soldier should have the coordination to avoid that."
One of the idiots tried to speak up, likely to decry the risks of whatever this balloon is (air transport?), but a glare from Fire Lord Ozai shut his mouth before any words were uttered. Azula held back from rolling her eyes. These were the same people who approved sending wave after wave against Ba Sing Se, regardless of the cost of lives. Azula also thought she spied the man who proposed the plan that Zuko spoke against amongst their number, making the irony gain a more personal taint.
"The balloons can carry five soldiers comfortably, plus two to control it," the War Minister continued, still bowing and seemingly oblivious to what had just happened. "If all are benders, then incinerating the plant life along the monsters' predicted path should limit what it can control."
"What about its growth ability?" Azula wondered, frowning. "Could it regrow what is burned fast enough to matter?"
That caused visible uncertainty in the man. "I do not know, highness. The reports we received were not detailed enough to assume."
There was some quite while the proposal was considered. "Do it," the Fire Lord ordered. "Send out a fifth of the available balloons and orchestrate an initial attack against these creatures."
The War Minister nodded and left, relaying the Fire Lord's orders. Azula knew no one really liked the uncertainty present in the idea, but there wasn't much else that could be done with such little information.
#=#
His sister was frowning. Behemoth didn't know what to do to fix that.
"I can't figure out some areas of my Shard that were changed by the Intervention," Gaia explained after Behemoth pinged her. "I've found the section that has allowed me a greater control of living matter, though I cannot understand where the energy comes from to generate it. I've found the section that allows me my new perception of dimensional forces, but it doesn't react to any probing." She sighed, her tone shifting to one of annoyance. "I've even found the original human mind and personality that the Intervention tried fusing to my mind, but I can't do anything with it."
Behemoth tilted his head. Was that human mind how his sister had broken her chains so easily? A secondary presence that wasn't bound under the rules of the Thinker or High Priest, fusing with Gaia's original self? It would make some sense, at least.
Behemoth might have asked something more, but a response from some of his senses distracted him. He stopped walking, startling Gaia, sat on his shoulder, and looked a little to the right from where they were heading. There, past the forests that were grown and controlled by her sister, several fires had seemed to spark out of nowhere.
And he didn't just mean, suddenly lit, he truly meant out of nowhere. There was no friction, or heat, or even light that had started the fires. Each of those things and many more would have been sensed by Behemoth, now that Gaia and Ziz had released him from the energy constraints that would have normally prevented such finely tuned sensing. One moment there was nothing other than standard human heat signatures, the next those signatures were emitting large amounts of heat and plasma, in the form of streams of fire raining down on his sister's work.
"That's... interesting," Gaia mused, looking in the same direction of the pyrokinetic people. "They're using that same energy I've been feeling since we arrived."
Yes, Behemoth suspected that. It was surprisingly irritating to not be able to find the right frequency for this new energy, but this is what he wanted to find after leaving Earth Bet. Something new for him to learn to control.
In Gaia's palm, she formed a new human puppet. One without a conscious mind, but that he suspected was a perfect clone of one of the pyrokinetics. The puppet went through a range of movements, as if checking that it is fully functional, during which Gaia gained this interesting look on her face.
"There are some kind of pathways for the energy to follow." Bioluminescence was added along the nude form, tracing thin paths across the body. Behemoth strained his sensors at those locations, taking particular note of where those pathways cross and seem to form small pools. "The energy breathes with the body. Here, let me..." Gaia placed a hand onto his shoulder, shifting a part of his body under the outermost layer.
There. Behemoth could not truly sense what Gaia was doing, not with any of the senses he'd had since his formation by the Thinker, nor any additions made over the cycles, but he still... felt. Starting from the point of contact with Gaia's hand, following new pathways spreading throughout this body of his, he felt warm for the first time.
While he was always aware of temperature due to his function, warmer temperatures were only noted consciously, never felt. Now though, he looked again towards where the humans were lighting fires using this energy, and noticed something curious.
He turned his sensors towards the largest source of this warmth in the local star system, so different yet so similar to the fires and lightning he called forth with dimensional manipulation, and simply let himself feel.
The sun hung above him, warm and comforting, yet Behemoth knew that the nuclear fusion taking place there would be devastating to anything that dares get close.
[Realisation] {Ah. I think I understand now.}
Gaia looked towards him in confusion, but Behemoth barely noticed. With his senses, he could feel what positions the humans were taking when summoning fire, and crudely copied them with his own body. With his body being as it was, he had no hands, but he still brought a fist back and thrust forwards, sinking into and releasing the warm feeling he got from standing under the light of the sun.
A torrent of flames appeared, surging forwards from nothing but that energy, that warmth. His sensory organs immediately tried recalibrating to detect and analyse the warmth, but Behemoth consciously shut those down. He didn't need to use such high level science to figure this out, he thought.
He could do this himself, and he was certain he would have fun doing it.
