ghu

Trying to fight Miko of Paradise head on was borderline suicide. Two Endbringers and nine serial killers had proven that already - and even with all of that PURE HATRED Alice felt for the phoney miko, she wasn't so high on her own fumes as to try her luck against the strongest Tinker in the world with just a bunch of bombs. Best case scenario, she lucked out and killed Miko of Paradise in an instant freak accident (which would've been absolutely unsatisfying), and THEN she would've had to fend off the entire world for the rest of her life for killing the Endslayer. Worst case - she would've been a glorified speed bump for the girl.

The Arenas were yet another trap. Not only were the top ranks filled with absolute powerhouse freaks, like the Jinja Trio, the Wards (mainly Vista and E-Potage) and NOW a jinja-sponsored team Eternal Devas - but even if Alice somehow scrounged a victory across all arenas, she would've STILL had to somehow find a way to beat Miko of Paradise in an open fight - with only the handicap of nonlethality keeping her in one piece. You honestly think Miko would've designed a system she could be challenged in, if she sucked at it?

No, if her three teammates were already a nightmare to fight at the Arenas, then sinking time and effort into getting to Miko could only end one way - getting your face stomped in, and then being laughed out of the city.

No, trying the Arenas was not gonna cut it.

This meant that to level the playing field, she had to perform a freaking miracle, and solve a problem previously thought unsolvable. And as the Miko of Miracles, she knew she could do it.

Her first thought was to deal with the Ellisburg Containment Zone in New York - but apparently, the town was now just a glassed crater. Probably not the handiwork of the Miko of Paradise - or she would've been gloating about it by now. Maybe one of the Endbringers went there, and nobody noticed, or maybe Nilbog's creatures discovered a way to split the atom by accident. Didn't really matter in the end - so she moved on.

Her second thought was another Containment Zone - Eagleton in Tennessee. THAT one was still intact - and so, Alice went to work.

An upgraded helmet - check. This time, she added a recording feature. Not a streaming one - only an idiot would've STREAMED something that had a chance of going wrong and biting them in the ass. Or real-time tactical information.

Anti-gravity and wind bombs - check. Those were the crux of her mobility, with rocket boots saved for emergency.

Hardlight construct bombs - check. She was squishy, so an emergency forcefield was a good idea.

Plasma bombs - check. Those babies came in easily marketable shapes and were powerful enough to melt tungsten. There was a chance the machines might had stumbled upon some tinkertech material with a higher melting point, but the plasma still had a high chance of cooking them alive.

EMP bombs - check. A few hundred feet of absolutely fried electronics - she didn't have the containment field for more than that, and if she blew up every fuse across multiple state lines, it was gonna wipe out any acclaim she was trying to achieve.

Transmutation bombs - check. The ones she packed transformed matter into pure gold, because THAT was one hell of a calling card.

A few black hole bombs - check. Couldn't go wrong with the Universe's garbage disposal units.

And finally, the thing she was currently working on: technoplague bombs. THESE babies were really special.

At a glance, they acted like weak EMP bombs, knocking out unshielded electronics in a short-ish radius. However, their TRUE purpose was to 'infect' electronic networks, spreading and multiplying across them like a plague with a very short gestation period - just a few minutes. Once the gestation period was over, the technoplague 'exploded' in corrupted data, effectively rendering any affected machine absolutely bloody dead. And of course, she made sure the thing could not multiply past the gestation period, meaning once the second 'kaboom' happened, the 'killed' machines were gonna be safe to approach within a couple of minutes.

One bomb should had been more than enough to deal with the entire Machine Army. The second one was a spare. The third one was a spare for the second spare. And the rest of her loadout was there so she could have some fun and get good footage while the stupid machines got the memo about how dead they were.

Finally, the third techoplague bomb was completed, and went into the box.

With that, her preparations were complete.

She spared a minute to put up tomorrow's alms, with a cheeky sign 'Miko of Miracles is out. Please only take one~' - her employees were gonna deal with keeping things orderly. Then, she loaded all the mission shit onto a car, and drove off. Nah, not straight to Tennessee - that was 15 hours of driving one way, which was WAY too long. Instead, a teleporter cape was supposed to meet her near New York, send her to her destination - and then, bring her back once she was done wiping out the S-class threat.

It was amazing what doors could be opened with an infinite amount of available gold~

A/N: Aaaand we're going on a scheduled hiatus. The story will return on Monday, March 17th.March 25th, 2011

A deep, weary, yet silent sigh escaped my lips. The 'silent' part of the equation took almost enough out of me to cause yet another sigh - but I had managed to persevere. The last thing I wanted was to disturb the math test even more than the crisp click of my mechanical counter did.

It was displaying a damning 16 already. A mere month ago, it would've been under 5 at this point of the day.

Yeah, I was possibly in the worst headspace possible to attend school these past few days, but I could not just skip it.

Well, technically I could - all it would've taken was a doctor's note, or a notice from Dad. But I knew myself well enough. If I allowed myself to skip school just because of some inane parahuman bullshit, I was gonna end up skipping every other day at best. Life had always found a way to throw curveballs my way - and if today, I caved and skipped because I had to revise my strategy against Scion, then just in a week, something equally stupid and urgent was likely to happen, causing me to skip AGAIN. Like, maybe someone was going to decide to blot out the Sun, or the Moon was gonna be replaced with a Mastering tinkertech replica, or who knew what.

No, it was better for me to just quietly go through the school day, and return to work during usual hours. Got a weekend ahead of me as well, so that was gonna be… not fun, but probably productive.

The clock marched on both agonisingly slowly and too fast for my taste. About fifteen minutes until the Math was over. I turned my attention back to the test in front of me, scribbling a few more lines of equations. The weariness seeped out of my bones and through my skin, and blurred out the numbers that would've been otherwise almost contemptuously easy for me to solve.

Like, this used to be this sorta-challenging, mentally stimulating kind of stuff. Except, I had spent half of yesterday crunching some very important numbers with the Number Man - he couldn't just solve shit for me, I had to UNDERSTAND what kind of numerological nightmare I had to work with. Theoretical understanding of things that would've taken too long to adapt to in a practical sense. And now, I had some 'thrice the Nobel Prize' level, baaaaaarely understood math leaking out of my ears, while the test in front of me asked for an early college math at most.

I knew I could've solved this even before the most horrible cramming session I had ever experienced - by now, it was supposed to be as easy as solving 2x2. Except, my brain kept muttering nonsense in dead languages, with all these sensible numbers sliding off its grey matter like clothes slid off a greased up midwestern redneck in his own backyard.

Suddenly, I saw something out of the corner of my eye that caused me to stop, the feeling of dread overtaking my entire being.

I'd reread the paper in front of me, and-

Shit.

SHIT.

Like a horrible brain eating moth from the deepest levels of Hell, one of the trigonometric equations I thought I had solved had actually went through an eldritch metamorphosis halfway through the solution, and turned into an equation for six-dimensional movement.

Half of these math symbols didn't even have a direct counterpart in modern Earth science!

And considering the amount of space it took… Yeah, there was no amount of whiteout paint to make it look presentable, and- SHIT, only five minutes left?!

I looked at the paper I could not possibly present to Mr. Grassi - it was gonna raise all kinds of 'possible parahuman' alarms, and I was in no hurry for a repeat of that time Director Piggot was practically forced to send PRT agents my way. I glanced at the pen in my hand - a gel pen, on account of me refusing to go back to ballpoints if I could help it.

Guess, I was doing this.

One of my Miko Dolls, invisible through being displaced on the W axis, approached me and reached - breaking the tip off the pen just as I was 'making a correction' on some numbers. Then, it dimensionally resized one of its fingers, and applied it to the ink inside the pencil's tube, just like a plunger.

A third of the ink spurted out, covering half of the page (at which point, the Doll retreated), and the rest began trickling out at a more believable speed.

"Dammit!" I let out at least some of my frustration - not all of it, of course. There was no need for the Endbringer Sirens right now.

Naturally, I pulled out a handkerchief and began wiping the spillage off the table, but-

"Ah. It's okay, Miss Hebert, we've got janitors for that. You can go for today," Mr. Grassi said calmly, as he looked up from his desk. "Make sure to wash the ink up."

"My test-"

"You can retake it later on. I believe it will prove a non-issue for you," he countered. "Go. The ink is going to dry."

I nodded, gathered my things with my left hand, the ruined test and the leaky pen with my right, and left the class with my metaphorical tail between my legs. There was still a smudged splotch of ink left on the table - but I had to trust that a janitor was going to clean it up. As much as I hated making trouble for others, it was still preferable to the alternative. If only barely.

Making my way to the bathroom, I disposed of the pen in the bin, shoved the paper off the conventional planes and into the Doll's waiting hands not to leave any incriminating evidence of unearthly mathematics, and began to wash the ink off my hands and sleeves. At least, as far as I could in my current conditions. There were gonna be some leftover stains on my jacket, but I could maybe find a way to remove the gel ink off it with the right application of tinkertech bullshittery - yeah, I was not above rescuing my favourite clothes from the trash bin via liberal use of dimensional physics and whatnot.

I also tried to clear my head of all the parahuman nonsense. The school was supposed to be a break from it, and yet I nearly turned in the math that was probably previously taught in some Alpha Centauri academy or something. Meaning that, despite my best efforts, this 'Scion is the Karmic Source' situation affected me more than I would've liked.

The running water was nearly crystal clear by the time the bell rang - meaning, it was time for lun-

"Miko of Paradise?" one of my Orbs detected someone's voice - Dragon's - addressing me.

Bloody hell.

"Yes, Dragon?" I asked through the Orb, making sure not to say it out loud in my physical body - there was someone in one of the stalls.

"I'm aware that you prefer not to be disturbed during the first half of weekdays, but I'm afraid we might have a situation on our hands…"

Kamidammit.

"What sort of situation?"

"A few minutes ago, Miko of Miracles was spotted flying into the Eagleton Containment Zone. None of our patrols is able to intercept her before she'll cross the Seclusion Zone surrounding it. And my closest suit is stuck in a round of diagnostics I'm not able to override for some reason-"

"And you're afraid that she will kick the hornet's nest, and cause the Machine Army to try to break out of containment, possibly with her tinkertech to boot."

"…yes."

"I see," I let out an exasperated groan in my physical body. Guess whenever it poured, it rained. "I've got an Orb in Atlanta. I'll send a bunch of Miko Dolls your way, they'll be there in a minute or two."

"Thank you, Miko."

Guess, there went a proper lunch as well.

I was not going to be able to enjoy my food while dealing with a possible S-class outbreak. Neither was I gonna be able to pay attention to whatever the rest of the table was discussing - which would've already been a tall order with my head leaking the goopy sludge of extradimensional math.

Meaning…

I checked the insides of my backpack. Thanks to Madisson's insistence, I had been carrying a bunch of protein bars in case of an emergency. Enough bland, candy bar-shaped blocks of plasticine-tasting substance to substitute for one or two entire meals. Not in calories, mind you - just in protein content. For calories, I also packed a few candy bars to boot.

A horrible menu to subsist on, but good enough in a pinch.

So, even as three of my dolls made their way from Atlanta to Eagleton, I walked into one of the few unused classrooms - history, huh - locked myself in, sat down, and began munching on my shitty substitution meal.

"I'm finally able to liftoff," Dragon informed me. "ETA is thirty seven seconds."

"I'm…" I compared my Dolls' current location to a map. "About halfway there? So about the same."

"That is good to know," she acknowledged. "I'm not happy about the delay, but it did result in finding an anomaly."

"An anomaly?"

"A small Machine Army drone somehow found its way into this suit. It was about the size of a large beetle."

"…meaning, the containment procedures just got a lot harsher," I sighed. "Guess it's a good thing I'm going there after all. I won't miss any tinkertech."

"Indeed," she agreed, before her tone became more professional. "Got the visuals on the trespasser."

"I'm about to enter the Seclusion Zone. What's the situation?"

"She's currently engaging the Machine Army. Hold on, I'll show you," the suit that addressed me in the first place had began projecting a pretty crisp holographic screen.

On the screen, I could see a lone figure that must've been Miko of Miracles, armed with a modified grenade launcher - I actually already saw this one during her 'shrine's' grand opening. Except this time, instead of bags of perishable goodies, the annoying woman just shot a tinkertech bomb that, after flying in an arc over a massive swarm of Machine Army drones (both airborne and otherwise), exploded behind their lines into a bloody BLACK HOLE.

And while most of the ground bound machines had managed to withstand the pull, it was much more difficult for the flying drones to fight the force of the singularity - in a span of a couple of seconds it took for the black hole to collapse, their airborne troops were nearly entirely decimated.

Yeah, the exhausting woman had some very, very dangerous tinkertech ordinance. Which I already sorta knew from those times she tried to 'fix' the snowfall by causing an even bigger cataclysm, but you know what they said - seeing was believing.

Before the machines were able to regroup, Miko of Miracles was already loading yet another piece of tinkertech into her grenade launcher. In the meantime, I've noticed something in the corner of the screen.

"…are those made of gold?"

"Yes. I believe, she had managed to transmute a portion of their forces with her opening salvo. Most of them are ranged and superpowered models."

Meaning, the annoying woman had some sort of a plan. Or at least, a basic understanding of tactics - she first disabled the machines that could overwhelm her with ranged attacks, and then destroyed most of their airborne forces, leaving only ground bound troops to fend for themselves.

Another shot - and this time, the grenade exploded halfway to the ground, releasing a star-shaped charge of… …probably superheated plasma. Which slammed into the machines (who were now trying to disengage), half melting and half tearing them apart, even as the exhausting Tinker was preparing yet another salvo.

By this point, Dragon was finally in a shouting range.

"Miko of Miracles, you are trespassing in an established Containment Zone, while carrying out an unsanctioned attack against an S-class-"

"Oh, hi Dragon!" the tiring woman turned to her, a ヾ( ^^ゞ) emoji on her face display. "I'm here to solve the Machine Army for you!"

"Solve the Machine Army."

"Yeah! Pretty cool, huh?" the exhausting Tinker turned away just in time to shoot another shaped plasma charge, drowning out the escape attempt of a large cluster of machines.

"There are proper channels for such initiatives. Channels you did not inform before starting your attack."

"There are? Huh, I didn't know that," she shrugged, a ┐(°ヮ°)┌ on her face display. "My bad! I thought if anyone's got a solution for an S-class threat, they are welcome to try. Like how Miko of Paradise does."

"Miko of Paradise always notifies the PRT beforehand, always waits to be cleared, and gives them time to prepare for the aftermath," Dragon countered.

I mean, it just made sense, didn't it? Rather than assume that I knew better than everyone else, it was much better to tell people in charge of things what I was planning to do. Not only because it gave them the necessary time to prepare, but ALSO because if I missed something vital, I wanted to know that BEFORE the proverbial feces had hit the angular rotating blades.

But then again, I had learned the hard way that I was often an outlier.

"Dragon, my Dolls are shifting to another plane," I informed my friend, seeing as there was no point in the obnoxious woman seeing my copies. "They'll be around in case something goes wrong."

"Understood," she noted with a clear hint of betrayal in her voice.

Yeah, sorry, I'd rather not interact with that Tinker directly - not if I could help it.

"Well… I'll do it next time," Miko of Miracles shrugged, before putting away her grenade launcher, and palming yet another tinkertech device. "Now, check THIS out!"

"What is it?"

"A fast-spreading computer virus bomb, delivered by an EMP charge~"

I blinked.

"Dragon, is your suit EMP-proof?"

"I… Yeah, it is," she informed me, clearly uncomfortable. "And so are the Machine Army drones, but…"

I looked down to where there only remained a bunch of scattered machines that retreated, leaving their 'injured' behind - there were a couple dozen of drones that were torn apart by the plasma charges, but still somewhat functional. From what I remembered from the texts about the Machine Army that Dragon had sent me, it always detonated the drones that were about to be captured - which was the reason the virus angle did not work before.

But if it was carried by an EMP charge…

"And now! It's time for the moment you've been waiting for!" Miko of Miracles declared, pointing the bomb at the cluster of broken but still unexploded machines. Was she streaming this nonsense? "One! Two! Three! Ready? Miko-Miko BEEEEEEEEAM!"

Instead of exploding, the exotic ordinance shot out a bright beam of intertwining electrical currents that jumped across the ground and the various machine carcasses. Some of them began exploding shortly after, but it was already too late by then - since they were all part of one large network, the tinkertech virus likely had already spread.

A couple of moments later, that suspicion was confirmed as the fleeing machines suddenly changed course and began running towards the edge of the Containment Zone.

"How long will it take for the virus to take effect?" Dragon asked, readying her weapons systems.

"Oh, exactly forty two seconds," Miko of Miracles answered, a (ㆆ ᴗ ㆆ) on her face display. "Get it? Forty two? Because it's pronounced 'shi-ni' in Japanese? As in-"

"The word for 'dying', I am aware," Dragon said, her voice exasperated.

"Any issues with the timing?" I asked my friend.

"A few patrols were about to be swamped, I told them to retreat- yeah, we're in the clear."

"Good," I acknowledged, one of my Dolls following the advancing machines.

A bit over half a minute later, they really all simultaneously stopped in the middle of what they were doing, and fell to the ground.

"How long will it take for the virus to go inert?" Dragon asked calmly.

"Eh, it already is, but give it fifteen minutes if you want to play it safe~" Miko of Miracles shrugged with a 乁༼☯‿☯✿༽ㄏ on her face display.

Dragon began telling her some thing or the other about detainment - I honestly didn't catch it, because something else drew my attention - a golden glow that appeared from beyond the horizon.

Scion was impassionately staring at the machine carcasses littering the ground, like a janitor looking over the leaves someone had already raked before him - and then he suddenly stopped. Looking in the direction of my Doll - who was still off the conventional planes. There was a sudden hint of interest on his face.

I had a bad feeling about this.

The golden fool slowly looked from the Doll to the North-East - and then, he took off, disappearing behind the horizon before I could even blink.

I had a VERY bad feeling about this.

Following a gut feeling, I left an Orb in this classroom, and activated a Talisman that teleported me to another Orb - this one was over where the Ellisburg crater was located.

Just a breath and a half later, Scion appeared right in front of me, eyes searching for something I did not fully understand.

"Hello, Scion," I looked at him plainly. "What do you want?"

He looked at me for a second, two, three- the expression on his face slowly shifting into a combination of disgust and anger.

Then, before I could even blink, he pointed his hand at me, a familiar, yet horrifyingly intense mote of energy coalescing at his fingertips-

KERRRRRRR-ACK!

And then, the golden fool rocketed into the ground, hit over the head by Witch appearing out of nowhere.

She was holding a broken umbrella.

"Is your thing ready?" she didn't turn to me, watching the dirt cloud Scion was currently hidden in.

"No, I'll need time!"

"Then move! I'll slow him down!"

I nodded, and activated a Talisman of teleportation - even as my best friend shot a Karmic blast into the reappeared body of the Entity.

"Dragon," my Orb spoke to her, "Scion just attacked me. Ellisburg. Gather whoever you can, and buy me some time."

"Understood."

I sent a few similar messages to some other people, even as I appeared in the space next to Yggdrasil's remains. Most of my Miko Dolls were also here - and they were already setting up the Dimensional Anchors around the perimeter.

The golden oaf was the Karmic Source. Not the current Scion - the future one, as he constantly emitted just enough Karmic Energy to sustain my tech, dimensionally displaced just enough for the Karmic radiation to reach my tech through time. This meant not only that I was not going to outright kill him - but that I likely couldn't. If I gave him enough time to study my tech, he could realise that he could easily fry it by overloading the Karmic circuitry with his own energy - or worse, hijack it.

But I did not need to kill him to make him a non-issue. All I needed was Yiggdrasil's body, my tools - and some time. And I could get some time if I had to. I just had to trust that there were people to pick up the slack while I was out of the picture.

The last few of my Dolls appeared, carrying some foodstuffs, bottled water and a sleeping cot.

I activated the Dimensional Anchors in my largest Time Warp Array to date - and the time around Yiggdrasil sped up relative to the rest of the world.

And then, I went to work.