Miko End

Still March 25th, 2011

This morning, Madison's world seemed fairly simple.

Go to school. Go through the Friday classes. Contemplate coming out to the team. Chicken out at the last moment - just like always - and then, spend the rest of the day training people in the Case-53 settlement.

Madison really wanted to come out - if only to make things slightly more tolerable for themselves. Cuz yeah, 'themselves' sounded good. It sounded right. It might've started as a way to separate them from Brightbug General, but with time, they came to realise that they preferred to be called 'them', rather than 'she'. Being called a girl felt increasingly more distressing to them - and they wanted their teammates to know that.

They knew that Taylor was going to shrug and accept them. That Lisa was gonna use the opportunity to make some groanworthy jokes. That Tana was operating on a wavelength so different from most people she was likely to just not question things. They knew that - but it was one thing to know, and another to actually come out. To overcome that nagging feeling that maybe, just MAYBE things were gonna go horribly wrong, that their teammates were going to reject them for who they were.

Madison knew it was bullshit.

They also knew they were not the most courageous sort.

Still, between this and another secret of theirs, they were gonna lose their mind trying to keep things under wraps. And it was definitely better to come out about their gender, rather than about their crush on Taylor.

They didn't deserve to be crushing on Taylor in the first place - not after everything they had done to her (also, part of their power involved bugs, and she was obviously entomophobic). So they were going to wait for these feelings to pass. And only come out about being nonbinary, to make things just a bit more tolerable.

Was today a good time? Probably not - since two days ago, Taylor was busy trying to come up with a new way to counter Scion, because her previous idea of throwing her extradimensional weaponry at the guy suddenly became unviable. And she did not need Madison's insignificant bullshit on top of that, so…

So Madison was going to wait until things got a bit calmer - and THEN they were going to come out properly.

Yeah, that sounded like… …like a plan. Which was better than no plan, they guessed.

Ah, a bell just rang - and so, Madison gathered their things, and picked up the pace on to their way to the cafeteria. It wasn't like the place was gonna run out of foodб but they sort of liked to take their time with their lunch.

They were just about to enter the cafeteria proper, when something - someONE - not even bulldozed them over, but picked them up and carried them away from the doors before they could even squeak in protest.

It took them a few moments to realise it was Tana, who was carrying them to the school entrance.

"Whu-what's going-"

"Code gold," she hissed in return, not stopping even for a moment.

They didn't really HAVE codes, but-

But Madison got it.

It could only be one thing - Scion suddenly became a problem.

"There!" they pointed at the side corridor that ended in a dead end. It was a faster option than what Tana clearly planned, since some students liked to spend the lunch outside.

The two of them took a turn into an empty corridor, and then entered a small broom closet, away from the prying eyes. The small confines of this space were playing a nasty game with Madison's claustrophobia, but they just had to get over it - too much was on the line.

"Door to the emergency cache, please," they whispered - and then, the two of them had stumbled through Doormaker's portal.

The emergency cache was just that - a place where Taylor had left upscaled copies of everyone's gear. Faster Flying Engines, sharper blades, higher concentration Karmic weaponry, and some other surprises too lethal for anything short of an S-class threat. The cache was made before two days ago, of course - but it was their best available gear.

Madison and Tana began quickly gathering their things - putting on the flying implements, collecting their equipment, and putting on clothes with 4D Barriers - even knowing that Scion could possibly counter all of this stuff, it was better than going without.

"Where's Taylor?" they asked, putting on their special shoes.

"As far as I know? She's doing last-minute adjustments to her plan. We're there to buy her some time," Tana answered.

Half a minute of hasty, but necessary preparations later, the two of them were ready.

"Door us please, to Scion," Brightbug asked.

Going through the unassuming portal, they suddenly found themselves in the middle of nowhere. Just a huge crater in the ground, surrounded by slightly smaller craters, with some rare trees and whatnot, with not a single settlement in sight - which was good. Less collateral. Unless one of the craters WAS the settlement, of course.

Hopefully, not.

There were five figures already in the air (meaning, they were here quicker than most). Scion, of course, was immediately noticeable. Then, there were three Dragon Suits orbiting him, shooting lasers and rockets and lightning and what not. The last one was not as easily identifiable, given that it just looked like a vaguely feminine figure from this far away - Brightbug just knew that a moment before, said figure waved their hand to portal a goddamn TRAIN CAR into Scion's face, causing him to crash from a hundred feet in the air straight into the ground along with the vehicle.

Seeing this, Swordsman unsheathed both of her swords and took a stance, likely preparing for one of those dashing slices she favoured in Arena matches. Meanwhile, Brightbug activated their special shoes - and took to the skies.

Normally, their Floating Engine had this variable gravity nullifying effect, allowing them to make huge leaps and bounds, and then come crashing down to the ground if needed. These boots were an upscaled version that they had been practicing in the Case-53 settlement lately was an extension of that idea.

It was still gravity nullification (rather than the nauseating floaty flight of regular Engines) - but with added 'Karmic Thrusters', as Taylor called them, that allowed Brightbug to basically jetpack, instead of floating weightlessly - let alone whatever was that unholy thing Miko used for her non-Euclidian flight.

Half a second later, Scion tore through the vehicle, attempting to fly towards his previous opponents - only to be immediately sliced into four pieces by Swordsman. A moment later, the golden asshole was whole again, pointing his finger towards where she skidded to a halt - but before he could do anything, he was greeted by the Brightbug Special.

See, they had been practicing using their Brute rating in the Arenas (because what they were gonna do to Scion otherwise, sick their buggy Troops on him?). And one of the most devastating things they had managed to accomplish? Was a gravity (and thrusters)-assisted, Brute-rated kick with their extradimensional boots. Witch called it a Brightbug Kick.

Even within the limited confines of the Arenas, and WITHOUT the 4D effect, the Brightbug Kick was generally enough to drop someone from 100% into the red - which meant, it was enough to instantly paste lower-end Brutes.

And this time, they even had a few dozen feet of a windup. Also, much deadlier boots.

Their 4D boot connected to Scion's cranium and instantly caved it in, followed by crushing the rest of his body with a KER-RUNCH so loud Brightbug practically felt it in their own bones. They were pretty sure that hand the golden bastard was outstretching flew off in another direction-

And then, before they could even blink, he was whole again, and tried to catch them by the leg.

"Oh shi-" they started, only to blink, as his hand bounced off the passive Barrier - and before he could follow it up, they tried to disengage.

'Tried' being the operative word - Scion made sure to follow, his own flying speed far greater, than theirs. He had thrown a few more strikes - each bouncing off the Barrier.

They tried to counterattack with the shoes - but this time, he just evaded the strike, their speed once again proving insufficient.

Then, he pointed a finger at them - and there was suddenly a gaping hole in their abdomen.

Brightbug nearly blacked out from pain then and there. Nearly.

New portals were opening all around them - mostly Doormaker's, signalling the arrival of reinforcements.

Which was probably why Scion did not pay enough attention to an unfamiliar portal opening up, sending a rusted truck at Scion at just the right angle to cause him to lose the upper half of his body.

Then, they fell down - through yet another portal, and onto a cot next to someone they were pretty damn familiar with.

"Uh-"

"Ah, just great, we're starting," Amy Dallon, who Brightbug distinctly remembered seeing at school today, rolled her eyes, before looking at them. "Do I have your permission to heal you?"

Still March 25th, 2011

"Years of preparation, and it came down to this," David groused.

"Miko of Paradise supposedly has a plan. She just needs us to buy her some time," Rebecca answered calmly, even though one could easily see the tension in her posture.

"Yeah, well maybe if she didn't spend the last month declawing us-"

Keith couldn't help but silently scoff at these words. If Cauldron was still doing things the old way, their current predicament would've still happened, except they would've been caught with their pants down and unable to respond in time. MAYBE they would've had a handful more natural Triggers around the globe - but then again, they would've also had far less Vial Triggers. Also, the Case-53s would've still been a meat shield for their base, rather than an addition to the actual battlefield.

If anything, the entire audit made it easier to transition to where Cauldron was not needed anymore.

Whatever. Today was the last day he had to work with these people. People who were complete monsters - just like he was, because he was willing to close his eyes, plug his ears and pretend everything was peachy. If he lived today, tomorrow he was gonna get his comeuppance.

He wasn't sure if he was gonna be able to say goodbye to Arthur, but as someone serving in the Protectorate and as an active participant in Endbringer defences, it was par for the course.

"Door to Scion," Rebecca commanded. The portal appeared with a slight, but noticeable delay - and then they went through it.

Despite the confrontation only starting a few minutes ago, there were dozens of participants already, with more and more arriving via Doormaker's portals. Two dozens of Case-53s were flying around, expertly dodging lasers and blasts from Scion, while harrowing him with their own attacks - be it fire, lightning, ice shards, or something more esoteric. A few Dragon's suits were firing salvos of heavy ordinance at him - some of the ammunition obviously tinkertech, judging by the effects. So far, the Triumviate were actually the first Protectorate capes on site - though…

Wait, was that Ordinary Witch? Was she flying without her broom? And opening jagged portals full of eyeballs for some reason?

Wasn't she a Thinker?

No matter.

Rebecca instantly flew towards Scion, sending him flying with a mighty punch to the face - something Witch used to her advantage, opening a portal in Entity's way, sending him into a bunch of jagged spikes made of weird material that protruded from the ground - probably made by one of Case-53s. The golden man turned golden pincushion looked more offended than hurt - before he began emitting golden light that instantly vaporised the spikes, and also took an arm off a Case-53 who tried to punch him - the poor gal was instantly sent through a portal, away from here.

Then, Scion created a large, building-sized ball of that same light, and threw it into the mass of capes - most of them easily scattered to the sides, although a couple were a bit too slow-

Legend shot every kind of beam he could think of to intercept the massive ball of death - but to no avail.

-this attack's victims disappeared without a single trace, even as the ball continued its path, eventually disappearing beyond the horizon. The only upside of it was that it was sent on a slight upwards trajectory.

Before anyone could process what just happened, Scion went on the offensive - if before, he was mostly staying in place and reacting to attacks, now he was rushing individual capes and brutalising them with his bare hands, even as the rest of them tried to harm him. Luckily, he didn't go for immediately lethal wounds - instead, he broke and tore and crushed their limbs, or left massive gaping wounds - allowing them to be teleported to where a bunch of healers were busy patching people up.

And then, after yet another Case-53 rescued by the Doormaker, Scion looked somewhere to the side - and suddenly, disappeared.

"Where did he go…?" Legend blinked.

"Alright, everyone, Scion is this way!" Witch yelled, opening yet another creepy eyeball portal. "If you want to continue fighting, come on in!"

With that, she was the first to disappear behind the portal. Dragon's suits were the first to follow, of course - which made sense, since she was going to be able to warn them if something went wrong. The rest followed soon after, and-

And they found themselves in the torn remains of the medical wing of the Cauldron's base - where their healers were previously stationed.

"Oh no…"

"Relax," Witch said, seemingly remarkably calm. "I had the healers teleported to a third location as soon as I caught on to his little scheme. Had been rerouting them ever since~"

"You're remarkably on top of this," Legend noted. He couldn't help but smile appreciatively.

"Someone has to be," she shrugged. "Anyway, the buffoon sensed Eden's body over that way, and is tearing a beeline in that direction. We have a few minutes to hunker up and prepare for a round two."

"I'm not sure what can even be done," David said, his voice clearly shaken. "He can clearly kill us at any moment, and just chooses not to. And my power doesn't give me anything to bypass that golden light."

"Have you thought that you don't have to bypass it?" Ghostly Swordsman asked, appearing from behind a torn apart door. "What powers do you get?"

"Currently? Flight, course prediction and portals," the man said petulantly.

Thinking it over, Legend nearly facepalmed.

"Your powers are telling you to play support, Eidolon. Help people last longer. Keep more of us alive."

"Uh-" David's blinks were nearly audible.

"Oh my god, you seriously didn't even consider that," Rebecca ACTUALLY facepalmed.

"On a less stupid note," Brightbug General interjected, also approaching their group, "I'm pretty sure we can't actually hurt him here, that body is like a fleshy projection. He can heal it faster than we can harm it. But his defences are more or less reactive - meaning if we throw enough powers at him, we can stall him."

"Faultline and the ground bound Case-53s should arrive any second now," Swordsman noted. "We'll need to adjust our strategy to them."

"Everyone, put on your communicators," Dragon began handling over the very same bracelets they used for Endbringer Defences. "I'll add us to whatever frequencies they are using once they arrive."

"And hurry up," Witch noted. "Scion just reached Eden's chamber. He won't stay there for too long."

Soon, most of the capes had left the remains of the Cauldron compound and were circling the skies above an empty-ish plot of land - where even more capes appeared, those ground bound reinforcements Swordsman mentioned. Legend wasn't sure how good of an idea it was for someone without good mobility options to attend, but they were gonna need any help they could get.

And judging by a deafening roar that just reached them, along with the sounds of explosions - pretty soon as well.Still March 25th, 2011

Shit had always hit the fan at the most inopportune moment. What often separated amateurs from professionals was the ability to roll with the punches, and still do a good job even when good conditions were not in the cards.

It was a simple truth Melanie had learned in her team's mercenary days. And while being 'franchised' by Land of Fantasy Ltd had lead to their routine becoming much less erratic and dangerous, these few months of relative calm were not enough for any of them to grow complacent - especially once the answer to the question of origins of Case-53s found them, and they had to deal with all the bullshit, all at once.

They had almost a month to prepare both themselves and the Case-53s willing to fight the existential threat of Scion. Not nearly enough for Melanie's liking, but they had to make due - because just like always, the shit had hit the fan at the most inopportune moment.

Their mission was very simple to understand, yet difficult to accomplish - they had to buy enough time for Miko of Paradise to set up her tinkertech solution against Scion. How long was it going to take, nobody really knew - so they just had to fight a stalling battle for as long as possible.

Which was not ideal, but it was the best they could really do with their current situation. After all, Scion had been shrugging off their heaviest hitters since the beginning of the confrontation, and while the Tinker Tank had a few more things to offer, the rest of their 'cape army' was far more adept at dodging and harassing their opponent - courtesy of all the training done at the Arenas.

It was oddly fitting, how they had trained most of their forces to avoid being hit for as long as possible, and were now facing an enemy who could kill even the toughest Brutes with a grazing shot of his favoured power.

From the moment Scion went on a rampage in what Melanie recognised as the chamber Cauldron stored Eden's massive corpse, it took him almost five minutes to reappear, face twisted in uncharacteristic fury he doubtlessly wanted to take out on them. As an opening salvo, he threw a giant ball of light the size of a building specifically at her - or, well, at the very centre of the ground bound cluster of people where she was also situated. They weren't even that close to each other - the thing was just THAT big.

Normally, it would've been a death sentence - but before any of them got within a spitting distance of the giant ball of subatomic disintegration, a spiderweb of portals had appeared beneath their feet, scattering them across the hills. Not the Doormaker portals, or the jagged portals filled with eyeballs that Witch was using to throw rusted train cars at Scion (wasn't she a battle Thinker?) - someone else had a portal-making power, and just used it to reposition them someplace else. Suboptimally, but it was still better than being dead.

"Status report!" she barked into a radio.

"GOT SEPARATED FROM CREAM, NEED A LIFT," that was… Right, Ice. He had the power to telekinetically 'slide' objects horizontally, limited in maximum size and with a reverse efficiency related to their movability. His partner Cream created an opaque sphere around himself that was practically immovable, and crumbled any matter on contact. Together, they were a very deadly combo - but neither was good at moving fast without the other.

"LOST THE CHARGE, STARTING OVER," grumbled X, who had the ability to put an area he was in in a stasis, with the downside being that he had to stay in place to charge up before using it - he was put at the front line to bait out Scion, and was unfortunate enough to be in the path of the disintegration ball, leading to his evacuation.

"THE PAYLOAD IS SAFE, READY TO DEPLOY IN THIRTY SECONDS," notified Hazel, one of the first Tinker Tank members to arrive. Thirty seconds was a LOT of time, but whatever he was preparing to deploy was hopefully worth it.

The roll call went on for a bit, despite the battle never stopping past that first ball of disintegration - it was just, the flying capes were doing a particularly good job keeping Scion's attention away from the reorganising ground forces.

It was a separation of duties in that regard. Most capes with flight didn't have the means to meaningfully inconvenience Scion - but they could pester him with melee and ranged attacks. They fought under the command of Triumvirate, with Legend leading ranged attackers, Alexandria leading the Brutes, and Eidolon… seemingly playing support for a change, rescuing people who were about to be mauled by the Entity?

Melanie was organising their less mobile troops who could still offer something to the effort. Matter disintegrators - in hopes that they could 'stunlock' Scion, keeping him in place while he had to keep regenerating. Stasis users - even if Scion probably had countermeasures, each kind of stasis could buy them valuable time. Tinkers - because who knew what they had in store. She certainly didn't, despite receiving daily updates from the Tinker Tank - at some point of cross-pollination, tinkertech became an absolutely unfathomable mess to any and all non-Tinkers.

It was right in the middle of this reorganisation effort that Scion got tired of disposing of one, maybe two flying capes in ten attacks, and turned his attention back to the ground forces - and for some reason, he decided that Melanie herself demanded all of his attention. Maybe he heard their radio chatter, and recognised that she was the one organising the entire mess.

Either way, half a blink later, she was stumbling away from an outstretched hand that strained to grab at her face - only to stop within inches of Melanie's skull. Looking a bit behind the Entity, she saw that a small, familiar redhead - Deva of Pandemonium - grabbed Scion's leg, stopping his momentum entirely.

Then, the tiny girl smirked.

With a jump that sent tremors through the ground, she pulled the Entity high into the air. The arm that held him span like a pinwheel, turning into a golden blur - and then he was sent at a speed of a meteor, at an angle towards the ground, bouncing, tumbling and skidding across it, before he came to a stop less than thirty feet from X.

Which was just enough for the cape to activate his stasis power.

Immediately, that entire area had seemingly desaturated in colour, the still airborne dust, debries and one flying cape unfortunate enough to be too close to X stopping right there, as if someone had pressed the pause button.

It didn't mean they could breathe freely - but they still had 12-30 seconds to reposition, unless Scion broke out early. Also, X had to be pulled away from the battlefield afterwards, since he couldn't do more than a single activation of his power per week.

"I want X teleported out of there the moment the stasis drops!" she barked into the radio. "Cream and Ice, get into position to incapaci-"

"NO NEED, WE'VE GOT THIS! ALL SYSTEMS, FULL POWER!"

Melanie could feel her left eye twitching.

The Tinker Tank had a lot of projects they worked on simultaneously. And one of said projects was so damn ridiculous and impractical that it was only allowed to persist because the Case-53s working on it accepted no alternatives. Silently, Melanie prayed it was going to be taken apart for parts by the time they had to tackle the Scion issue - but such was clearly not the case.

She looked into the skies, where a Beacon Array was clearly placed - the one concession Miko of Paradise made for that project, and seemingly the exact thing Hazel had deployed. It was a tinkertech device that allowed to bring in that OTHER thing to where the Beacon was installed. A moment later, a true tinkertech monstrosity appeared in the middle of these alien skies.

Melanie vaguely recognised Squealer's flying tinkertech fortress. It was salvaged, refitted and heavily modified to serve an entirely new purpose. Instead of pointing dozens of primitive artillery cannons in every direction, it now housed a single massive death ray right at its centre - a death ray that had enough firepower to overshadow even the infamous F-driver - a tinkertech cannon built by the birdcaged villain String Theory, that was supposedly powerful enough to knock the Moon out of its orbit.

"PREPARE TO FIRE!"

"Negative, Ovium, you'll kill everyone in vicinity!" she yelled in return. "Abort launch!"

"WHAT? …AH. I'M AFRAID IT'S TOO LATE FOR THAT," he admitted, judging by his voice, clearly taken aback by what was clearly common sense. "THE FIRING SEQUENCE CAN NOT BE ABORTED."

"I TOLD YOU GUYS THAT A SELF-DESTRUCT BUTTON WAS A GOOD IDEA! BUT HAS ANYONE LISTENED TO ME? OF COOOURSE NOT!"

"PIVOT! LET'S SHOOT IT INTO THE SKY INSTEAD!"

"WASTING A PERFECTLY GOOD SHOT DOESN'T REALLY FEEL ALL THAT, NO?"

"WHO CARES, WE CAN'T BLOW UP OUR ALLIES!"

Yep, her eye was definitely twitching.

"Someone, try to throw Scion into their stupid laser beam," Melanie said into the radio, even as the massive, charging death laser started turning towards the skies.

It was at this moment, that the stasis effect on Scion broke.

Immediately, X fell through the portal beneath his feet, while the Entity rose up - only to be slammed into at full speed by Alexandria herself. She furiously punched away at Scion, sending him further and further away with each mighty hit, and seemingly ignoring one, two, three of his laser shots that pierced her body - only letting up and falling to the ground after the fourth shot, from that point unmoving.

And then, the massive death cannon fired.

With Scion dead in the centre of its trajectory.

A blinding light overtook Melanie's sight, while her ears rang something fierce - as if someone just activated the mother of all flashbangs. It took her a few precious, potentially lethal seconds to blink out the spots in her eyes - at which point, she saw the giant death beam finally receding, its trajectory going through the side of the Moon in the distance.

Scion was currently nowhere to be seen.

"DID WE KILL HIM?"

"NEGATIVE. HE'S IN SPACE."

"DAMN."

"ALSO, I THINK WE'VE GOT LESS THAN A MINUTE BEFORE HE COMES BACK."

Well, at least they were buying time alright.

Still March 25th, 2011

E-Potage was lying on the sofa in the Wards common room.

Given that she was kept away from people homeschooled, she was currently the only Ward in the building. She was gonna do her homework on Saturday. Or maybe Sunday. Either/or.

Not that homework mattered much to her - there were other, much more important things on her mind.

Like the Arenas.

Keeping hold of all the Arenas in Brockton Bay sounded easy enough at first. And it WAS easy enough, while theirs was one of the only two serious participating teams - they kept hovering around 50% win rate against the Jinja Trio, but that team was only there half the time at best, constantly leaving the Arenas in the Wards' capable hands.

If push came to shove, E-Potage was sure they could clutch the victory at the last moment - and FINALLY challenge Miko of Paradise.

Except, midway through the season, their Protectorate 'seniors' decided that they had to be a team of their own. And sure, they did not hold a candle to her and Vista - but it was still annoying, having to swat them aside every few days.

And THEN, Brockton Bay Jinja decided to sponsor yet another team - the Eternal Devas. THAT suddenly made things much less palatable, as the newcomers were even more of a hassle to beat than the Jinja Trio - and unlike the Trio and the Wards, they seemingly had nothing to do BUT challenge the Arenas.

And E-Potage couldn't even do anything about it! You'd think it could've been considered cheating, introducing a professional team so late into the season - but as Clockblocker correctly unhelpfully pointed out, if they had troubles challenging Miko's minions, then they were nowhere near ready to fight her.

But E-Potage WAS ready!

She had to be.

She knew she was strong - it was only a matter of an opportunity to prove it. To show everyone that she was the one not to be trifled with. To make everyone recognise her power.

To make everything worth it.

At least, she was finally beating Miko at some video games.

Not at the pool - Miko of Paradise was almost magic while playing pool. Not at that traitorous party game, or the brawl one - somehow, that girl kept getting the best items all the time, as if she had all the luck in the world. But E-Potage still managed to win at the kart once. Also, last time she won at the other fighting game.

Which took a LOT of practice with the other Wards. Hours upon hours of practice.

Not that she didn't enjoy Clockblocker and Vista's anguish. It made her remember playing video games with Taylor during their sleepovers. She was even more helpless than them!

…

She… She missed having friends around. Sure, the Wards became less catty with her once they had spent some time together she had proven how strong she was - but they still kept their masks on around her. There was this distance she was afraid to couldn't cross.

She couldn't even call anyone. The only phone she had was the PRT one, and it was locked to only work with the PRT-approved contacts. So even if she tried, she couldn't talk to anyone outside 'work'. It was getting lonely annoying.

Maybe… Maybe she could ask Miko to hang out next time she came? Without the Wards - just the two of them. She reminded her of someone seemed to be pretty cool. It would've been great to just talk to someone properly hang out with someone like her.

Yeah, that sounded like a good pla-

Suddenly, a door opened in the middle of the Wards common room. Or, more like a portal - just a door-shaped one.

And out of that door-portal-thingie, walked a woman in a suit and a fedora.

"Scion just went murderously bad," she said, without any introductions. "Everyone who matters is fighting him. Wanna join?"

Scion?

Went bad?

Huh.

He was the undisputed Strongest on the planet - even Miko of Paradise didn't try to usurp him. And since E-Potage couldn't was gonna take a while to challenge Miko - wasn't this her big chance to show everyone what she was made of?!

"Sure," she shrugged as nonchalantly as she could, standing up and simply walking into the portal, no questions asked.

She found herself outside, in an unfamiliar place, with only some huge, half-destroyed complex (which was definitely not anywhere near Brockton Bay) in the distance. There were craters and bodies on the ground holy shit people were actually dead, and there was a massive flying tinkertech thing pointing what could only be a death ray right into the sky - wait, did they broke the Moon?!

The reality of the situation suddenly slammed into Emma, like a wave of Arctic water.

She was in the middle of a warzone, about to fight the strongest cape in the world. People were dead, the Moon was blown up, and the fighting wasn't over yet - everyone was screaming, running, preparing for something.

She looked back, to the portal - only to find that it disappeared, because of course it did.

Then, she looked up to the sky - where a vaguely familiar golden glow was rapidly getting larger and larger.

"Well… Guess it's a go time," she gulped.Still March 25th, 2011

Welp.

Rebecca went and died pushing Scion into a giant death laser.

David was almost certain that she had done so just so that she didn't have to deal with the aftermath, not just of this offensive, but of Cauldron as well - not that he was going to voice that suspicion, if only to avoid finding out if Miko of Paradise somehow found a way to raise people from the dead.

One Fairy Queen was more than enough, thank you very much.

Besides, Scion might had been thrown out into space, but the battle was far from over. The alien was undoubtedly on his way back, wanting nothing more than to make them pay for what they were putting him through.

The Deviant army Miko had been training in her off-world settlement had proven to be surprisingly good not just at stalling Scion, but also at surviving his onslaught. Not without David's help, of course - he had saved dozens of combatants from the alien's clutches through liberal use of portals and trajectory predictions. Though as a bit of bad news, the two of his non-flight powers were only going to last for another five minutes of such active use, at best.

Ordinary Witch's portals had also been doing a lot of heavy lifting, both harassing Scion, and teleporting injured capes away, so that the healers could get to them (why was she sandbagging as a Thinker before?). As a result, among hundreds of attendees, there were only a couple dozen killed so far - either those wiped out by the alien's light attacks, or killed on the spot whenever he got his hands on them.

As long as Scion did not take them TOO seriously, they could continue holding his attention like this.

Raising his eyes to the skies, David saw the golden glow approaching them from beyond this Earth's atmosphere. Even from this far away, this light looked surprisingly nettled. And its trajectory…

"This is Eidolon. He's headed for the giant death laser," he told the wrist band.

"WITCH, CAN YOU PULL THE TINKERS OUT OF THAT FLYING DEATHTRAP?!" he heard through communicators.

The girl saluted, and waved her hand. David couldn't see if those inside the flying tinkertech fortress disappeared - though in the meantime, he could definitely reposition the capes in the 'splash zone'.

"DONE. GOT THEM BACK TO BA-"

And just in time - Scion came back, and sped to and THROUGH the flying fortress, causing it to explode in fire, brimstone and shrapnel that rained through the area David just evacuated like artillery fire. Scion himself immediately pivoted to attack Witch - only to be bisected halfway to her by a jet stream of liquid that looked surprisingly similar to blood with chunks of meat in it.

The alien stopped in his charge, and turned to a young redhead in a bodysuit with futuristic wings, who was already making a strafing pass past him, tearing his arm and half of his shoulder off with another jet cutter - this time, greenish-yellow in colour. Scion was whole a mere moment later, of course - and followed, shooting a laser straight at the girl, only for her to practically discorporate around the shot, reconstitute herself back completely unharmed, and return fire with another pressurised stream (this time, toxic red), that outright blasted Scion's head off - though another laser, shot before Scion even restored himself, took her by surprise, blasting off one of the girl's wings. Luckily, she was using whatever liquid her Breaker form provided as propulsion instead.

And then, a train car slammed into the alien vertically, ending the chase by hammering him into the ground.

Witch really liked throwing those around, huh. They weren't even that good as projectiles - too much empty space inside. Though… Maybe that was the point?

Whatever, the point was that-

Oh no.

"EVERYONE, RETREAT FROM SCION!" David yelled into his communicator, before remembering his teleportation power, and starting to pull people away from the crashed train car-

And then, the light came.

Just a giant, nearly quarter mile explosion of pure white that disintegrated so much of the battlefield - as well as the capes that were still too close. Some of those David rescued were even missing body parts, the blast reaching them milliseconds before they got to safety.

"EVERYONE, STATUS REPORT!"

There was a string of answers that basically boiled down to a few key people missing or seriously injured, a lot of important supplies being destroyed, and Scion starting to attack in a much less restrained manner - seemingly targeting people at random, and making sure to kill the capes he got to.

Except then, Witch opened another portal right in front of where Scion appeared a moment later, the inertia taking him halfway through it - and then a GODDAMN TANK appeared and slammed him the rest of the way through the portal, before the thing closed.

"IGHT, EVERYONE! WE'RE GONNA REPOSITION AGAIN! FLYERS ONLY! THE REST OF YOU, REGROUP!" she notified everyone, before disappearing as well.

A bunch of similar jagged portals with eyeballs had appeared in the sky, and only some of the capes followed - including David and Keith, of course. Also, that girl with pressurised liquids, whoever she was, seemed unsure wherever to follow or not - though judging by her reappearing soon after, she ultimately decided to continue.

Less than a hundred capes in total, yet only a handful of those who were more than minute nuisances

They appeared in the middle of some rocky, uninhabited area - with no Scion or Witch in sight. Either the two had already moved on, or something happe-

Finally, Witch appeared out of another portal.

"Scion will be here in a few moments!" she informed them, smiling for some reason.

"Aaaaand… Why isn't he here now?" Keith asked.

"Oh, I thought I'd give him a little present before we continued: every nuke I could find across parallel Earths, all detonated on top of him, on a single uninhabited Earth. Really heartwarming," she snickered, before looking to the side, "Speaking of~"

The alien appeared a moment later out of another eyeballed portal. He looked slightly more disheveled than before, one of his eyes was twitching - and he overall looked like a wet cat.

This time, Scion flew straight at Witch, his entire body shining with that same deadly light - only for her to take a single step back, disappear in a portal, and reappear where Scion was prior to his attack. He once again went after her - but she repeated her manoeuvre. On the third time, Scion attempted to shoot her down as she reappeared - except, she already had a smaller portal in front of herself, sending his beam back at him. Naturally, Keith and a few other capes tried to use this game of cat and mouse to blast the alien with their ranged powers - but the dangerous glow seemingly kept nullifying their attacks, up until it finally disappeared.

Interesting.

Scion used this light rather sparingly - too high of a cost? Either way, it could be considered very good news for them.

The moment the alien stopped glowing, the liquid-manipulating redhead dashed in his direction.

"TAKE THAT, YOU WORM!" She shrieked with a raw, maddened scream, slicing Scion into multiple pieces by a number of jet cutters of semi-transparent brown liquid - getting a few of the capes including David with the splatter in the process. It… smelled fishy…? Literally fishy - like some sort of fish sou-

Wait, he remembered now! Wasn't there a Ward with soup powers?! That was HER?! How was she so dangerous?! And what was she even doing here?!

Scion, once again whole, took a close look at the redhead - the time she used to, with another raw scream, shoot multiple gaping holes through his torso. And then, the alien began visibly crackling with electricity - a counter?

He DASHED into soup girl's direction, moving too quickly to follow with a naked eye - even David's trajectory prediction barely followed him - except, his target somehow anticipated it, rocketing out of the way, and sending a number of liquid blades at the alien, cutting him up once more without ever making direct contact.

And then, another train slammed into him - this time, crumpling against Scion's body without pushing him very far.

Yep, he began making defences specifically against their attacks.

The alien aimed his laser at Witch - except, yet another eyeballed portal opened right above his hand - this time, sending out a jet cutter of saltwater, that caused Scion to lose another arm. He was fine a moment later, of course - but then, another bunch of Blaster attacks from Keith and others slammed into him, causing the alien to stagger.

Things were growing far more tense without the ground troops to provide additional firepower. Less people, less leeway for mistakes, less breathing room between Scion's attacks - and alien's attempts at adaptation did not help matters either

Clearly intending to break this stalemate, Scion created a sphere in his hand that began shooting razor thin, continuous, moving lasers, like a disco ball of death. David immediately began dodging and opening portals - redirecting some of the beams that were about to hit capes back at the attacker. But of course, the alien just ate the damage, not stopping for a moment, clearly testing the limits of David's defences.

Luckily, in the end - his willingness to continually use the light didn't last as long as the portal making power, but it was getting uncomfortably close by now.

Then, the moment the sphere disappeared, Scion was punted into the air by a kick from Brightbug General - their boot leaving a two inches deep imprint in Scion's buttocks. The damage didn't last for long - but only because next moment, the alien was diced into tiny golden cubes by Ghostly Swordsman. And then, he was hit by Legend's lasers - this time carrying freezing properties.

Frozen diced Scion stayed that way for a blink, before appearing whole and irate again.

Though the moment he appeared at full health, a literal anvil slammed down onto his dome. Then, before he could react to such a strange happening, a piano crashed onto alien's body. Then, a literal plane. Then, a boat - finally causing him to crash into the rocky ground. And then, a train slammed into the entire pile.

Because of course there was a train.

David could've sworn that Witch was dead set at humiliating the guy as much as possible, except he wasn't sure Scion could feel shame in the first place. Rage, though?

He could feel rage alright.

Still March 25th, 2011

Things had been manageable so far, in Lisa's opinion. Sure, people were dead, some of the plans fell through, and Scion had been getting increasingly unhinged - but at least, she had prevented him from stopping, and thinking about things for just a moment.

If the golden fool was allowed to get all analytical on them, he could realise how to bypass some of their best defences - or even remember that it all started when he attacked Taylor, who got away and was now nowhere to be seen.

On the other hand, if Scion got TOO irrational, he could suddenly decide that no amount of wasted energy was too much to get rid of them - and THEN they'd be doing nothing but dodging his Turbo Karmic attacks, paradoxically allowing him to cool off and start getting analytical.

Which was why, Lisa had been carefully threading the line between treating the golden fool like a slapstick stunt double, and allowing him to vent his frustrations in the least efficient manner possible. And in her own humble opinion, she had done pretty damn well, even if she couldn't bring out some of the multidimensional tricks she saw Taylor perform - since her power came from a single shard, it would've been much easier for Scion to decode what she was doing and start using those same tricks himself.

As such, she was annoying him with portals instead.

So far, everyone else had been doing a good job of overwhelming Scion with a variety of attacks and angles. Brightbug and Swordsman were putting their upscaled equipment to a good use without overextending, Legend had started using the exact beams necessary to maximise the effects of other's strategies, and even Eidolon, while clearly inexperienced at supporting others, had been getting progressively better at doing so.

And she was not sure what the hell E-Potage was doing here (Taylor was gonna be SO furious), but the girl was doing her best impression of Leviathan on cracky soup, to the point where Scion started trying to counter her specifically. Which meant, Lisa had to put in extra effort at drawing his attention, so that the redhead survived.

Her latest stunt (she had been keeping this one in her sleeve for months!) just earned enough of golden fool's ire for him to burst through the pile of debris Lisa buried him under, and attempt to make another beeline at her. Though she felt like his approach had been not as unrestrained as-

Oh shit.

"Wait!" She attempted to shout a warning, but was a fraction of a second to late, as Swordsman attempted to dice Scion again.

Except this time, he suddenly came to a screeching halt mid-lunge, twisted in a way that would've broken his spine if he had one, and caught the blade between his fingers - because it didn't matter how impossibly sharp it was, if the edge did not even touch its target.

Not wasting time to try to pry her weapon out of Scion's hand, Swordsman attempted to use her second blade to cut off his arm instead - only for him to shoot a laser through her chest, causing her to stagger, and allowing him to pry both blades out of her grip. With that, Scion glanced at the weapons, and then tossed them into the skies, both swords escaping the atmosphere in a blink of an eye. Then, he glimpsed down on his disarmed opponent with a look of a child in the middle of tearing legs off a bug-

KERSSSLAP-CRACKATOOM!

Only for her to backhand him across the face with her good arm, nearly pulping his skull and sending golden fool's broken body back into the dirt.

Because of course Taylor made her a pair of 4D safety gloves to go along with the 4D katana.

Lisa quickly sent Swordsman to the medics, before the blood loss caught up to her - and then was forced to keep sending people there, because once Scion reformed his body, he started targeting random opponents again, this time doing a much better job at avoiding her portals and ignoring whatever she threw at him.

Once again, Scion appeared in front of another Case-53, clearly intending to punch their head off - except, this time, Eidolon managed to put a portal in front of the golden fool just in time to cause him to punch himself in the face.

Nice one.

It even took him a couple of seconds to process what just happened - giving enough time for E-Potage to have another go at tearing him apart.

"I'M OUT OF CURRENT POWERS, ROTATING IN THE NEW ONES!" the green guy notified the rest of them.

Well, at least they had a warni-

KRRK-SQUEEEELCH!

Oh shit.

It was at this moment that Scion, previously harried by E-Potage, suddenly MOVED, and appeared in front of Eidolon, crushing the guy's head between his hands like an overripe melon - the couple of Case-53s who were attempting to guard him shoved aside, with more fractures and tears than Lisa cared to count.

She just sent the two of them to the medics, and took a stock of the battlefield.

They were down to three dozen flyers, with her, E-Potage, and arguably Legend and Brightbug being the only ones who could still do something meaningful to Scion. Perhaps it was a good idea to bring in the ground bound reinforcements - no, her eye on them told her that they still needed at least a few minutes before most of them were ready.

Which meant, they had to stretch three dozen people to last for at least a couple more minutes of this SOMEHOW.

Easier said than-

"Hey, Lisa, where the hell are you?"

Oh?

What day was it again?

It took me over half a million manhours (combined and of relative time), but I was finally done slaving away at the most time-, effort- and sanity-consuming project I had done in my entire parahuman career.

Now, it was just the matter of finding the bloody bastard who forced my hand into working on it in the first place, aiming at his overbloated stupid body, and pulling the metaphorical trigger.

The huge-ass tome containing the Talisman Array made entirely of recycled by hand paper was quadruple checked for any possible mistakes. The heavy duty Dimensional Anchors that used most of Yggdrasil's remains (and did not contain a single shred of non-Endbringer matter) were all done and checked for potential flaws - each of their Endbringer Crystal chains took almost as much time as the modified multidimensional shunt, reinforcements and movement programming.

And finally, I had a decent enough nap, was properly hydrated and ate an extra serving of canned beans (damn, I would've killed for a proper meal right now).

Meaning, it was a go time.

I (along with every single Miko Doll under my command) activated the Godslayer Enchantment Suite (an upscaled version of the Anti-Endbringer Enchantment Suite, and a thing that took me a few extra days of relative time to prepare), deactivated the Time Warp Array, and FINALLY took off, out of this stuffy dimension I was gonna have literal nightmares about, and to Ellisburg's crater, where I left everyone to fend for themselves.

As I arrived to where Nilbog's kingdom was previously located, I only saw the still smoking scars of a massive battle, along with a single Dragon Suit. Judging by the lack of marks and blemishes from fighting, it had arrived here recently, likely for my sake.

"Hey, Dragon. Where is everyone?"

"Relocated. I'm not entirely sure where they went, my last participating suit was rendered immobile on the next stop."

"I see," I sighed.

How was I gonna find them?

Ah, right. Lisa told me of a few spots she left her 'hearing portals' - basically, her own answer to my Orbs. Most of them were in Brockton Bay - so I just teleported there, and approached one such portal in our old warehouse base.

"Hey, Lisa, where the hell are you?"

"Oh, whew, you're finally back!" She sounded absolutely relieved. "Please hurry up, things are getting grim."

Her nightmare portal had opened in front of me - and I stepped right through.

A moment later, I found myself in the middle of rocky nowhere, with just a couple dozen still active parahumans having a very intense dogfight with Scion. There were multiple corpses on the ground - including Eidolon, huh - and, WAIT, WAS THAT EMMA?!?!?!

What the BLOODY HELL was she doing here?!?!

When I got my hands on whoever was responsible, I was gonna-

Oh shit.

I MOVED, intercepting Scion just as he tried to pulverise her, his body crackling with electricity.

And look, whatever the bastard was, he wasn't 6D enough to punch through my current Barrier (I could go 8D, of course - but diminishing returns and all). I took a moment to check on Emma. She was putting on a brave face, one people unfamiliar with her were unlikely to question - like when she had to go to the dentist as a kid. Still, I could see her barely contained panic, as even her hands were slightly shaking. She was clearly determined to see this through, even if she had been terrified out of her mind - right until she saw me.

That, for some reason, immediately knocked whatever fight she had left out of her.

"…T-Taylor…?" she asked in a shaky voice.

I blinked.

Did I forget to put the Chameleon Circuit on?

Suddenly, I had to move - Scion had finally realised that wailing on me wasn't going to cut it, and shot a bright beam of SOMETHING in my general direction. Instead of showing my hand with a Reactive Teleporting Barrier I had designed against various Barrier-penetrating laser beams (due to remembering my run-in with Yggdrasil), I slapped the golden bastard's pointing hand upwards, as carefully as possible as to not overcorrect - the hand becoming a broken mess, and the shot barely missing as a result.

Right, stupid alien bastard now, damage control later.

I took another, closer look at him, tearing his appendages off in the process a couple of times - and THERE, found the smaller-than-average extradimensional connection from this golden projection to his real body.

"Hey, dipshit. Nice hidey hole you've got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it with you still inside," I didn't bother masking my contempt for the bloody bastard who made me Tinker nearly 24/7 for what was likely three months, but felt like an eternity. … …was it my imagination, or did he actually shudder? "Race you there."

With that, I moved along the W axis, towards where Scion's body was located. His golden projection attempted to give chase - 'attempted' being the operative word. Same as with the Barriers, the Godslayer Enchantment Suite used the previously purely theoretical 6D movement - and just as I suspected when I started my preparations, each additional dimension raised the time dilation effect exponentially. I could easily leave him in the dust - but if I did, he could decide to turn around and attempt a Machine Army exit by killing as many people as possible.

So, I stayed only somewhat ahead of the asshole, my army of Miko Dolls already converging on our positions. Dodged a few of his attempts at attacking - if only to make him think that something he had could hurt me. Actually, something among thousands of possible powers he had probably could, so it was a good idea to dodge in general, I guessed.

Finally, I saw it - Scion's real body.

A great, hulking, downright continental mass of 3.5D matter, doing its best impression of a 4D object. It was to shards what a human body was to a single cell, and single shards were already nearly entirely too big. And since the golden bastard chasing me was just a meaty projection - this continental mass immediately greeted me with a hail of all sorts of blasts, projectiles and additional projections of varying punchability, hoping to shoot me down from the sky.

If I was using a standard issue Endbringer Enchantment Suite, I would've struggled dodging this torrent of attacks.

The enchantments I had on were beyond that. Despite the bastard technically possessing nearly every power in the book, at this point I could dodge his attacks in my sleep, the world practically standing still whenever I pushed my temporarily enhanced Floating Engine to the limit of its flight capabilities.

Still, I did my best to pretend to be able to only barely dodge, and allowed the energy blasts and lasers and whatnot to almost brush against my Barriers - because while Scion's attention was on me, my less restrained in their dodging Miko Dolls were setting up what I called the Divine Sealing Array - named so because I was not planning on recreating it unless I had to seal yet another uppity wannabe god.

The idea was basically the same as with the Sealing Arrays I created to put Grey Boy's critically injured victims in stasis. Cookie cutter the area with an extradimensional Barrier Box, dimensionally shift and CRUMPLE the fabric of space within the Barrier, and then spin it with Dimensional Anchors to create a slowing time dilation effect.

Except, the Divine Sealing Array had a few key differences. First - its size, as it was made to theoretically be able to be stretched to seal an object three times the size of the Earth - I clearly overprepared in this regard, but better safe than sorry. Second - the spider silk rope was replaced with Endbringer Crystal chains, its links whole, carefully carved from the Endbringer Crystal, and theoretically able to withstand the necessary forces in perpetuity. Third - same as with the Box itself, the pre-programmed Floating Engines were moving in eight dimensions, instead of four (the math needed for this still hurt my brain).

Did I overdesign this thing?

Possibly.

But I knew that Scion theoretically could reverse engineer my stuff if given enough time - hell, he was ALREADY better at tracking me with his energy blasts. Probably found the way to use 4D more efficiently. If I tried to find his Core and destroy it - there was a very high chance that he was going to adapt to my bullshit and counter me before I was done - and I was not one to take chances if I didn't need to.

No, rather than taking an unnecessary risk, I was gonna make Scion a future problem.

How far into the future?

Heh, it was funny of you to ask that.

"Alright, mister. Enough of your stupid tantrum, I'm putting you into a timeout," I pulled out the Divine Seal Array tome, and began activating it. "Good luck with whatever this shit is, once you come out."

I activated the Array, and then began my retreat along the W axis.

At the very same time, Scion attempted to blast the entire area around his continental body with some sort of a bright, silent light - possibly the very same light he tried to shoot at me before.

The stasis took effect before that light could do anything meaningful at all.

And now? I was looking at a massive, shimmering wall that protruded through dimensions, radiating this soft, almost warm glow all around itself.

Hm, yeah, my guess was, it was gonna hold for the planned duration - though I was gonna need to check on the Divine Sealing Array now and then, to see how whatever radiation Scion was using affected it.

"So, I guess THAT's the Karmic Source?" Lisa asked, finally catching up to me. She looked tired - which I could perfectly understand, given what she just went through.

"Yup, this is it. Just Scion trying to blast an 8D Sealing Array with whatever this is. And the upscaled time dilation effect sending some of the radiation back in time," I shrugged.

"And… How long will he be there?"

"According to the Number Man's math? One second inside that Array is about one septillion years outside, give or take a few million years."

"Sept-" she stopped, and blinked. "What kind of number is that?"

"Oh, roughly the amount of years left until the Heat Death of the Universe. And it might take him a few seconds to break out even if he immediately uses all powers at his disposal," I shrugged again. "Made sure to reinforce the entire thing, so that the chance he'll break out beforehand is very, very small. Even if the Earth itself is destroyed along all dimensions, he won't even notice until the time's out."

"He really made you angry, huh?"

"Three months, Lisa. THREE MONTHS of nothing but Tinkering," I snarled. "I'd give him the Lung treatment intentionally, but he's so bloody big it'd take dozens of expeditions to locate where to attack. I had spent just a few seconds fighting him directly, and he was already adapting."

"Well, as fun as it was, I'm tuckered out," she yawned loudly. "Gonna need to sleep this off for, like, a week. What about you?"

"What time is it?" I looked to her. At Liza's quizzical glance, I elaborated. "Maybe I still have the time to go back to class."

"Only you, Taylor," she chuckled. "Hate to break it to you, but someone pulled the next-state Endbringer Siren during the lightshow in Ellisburg, so the school's kinda out until Monday. Also, you look like shit, so it would've been a bad idea anyway."

"Figures," I sighed, before approaching my friend, and hugging her. "I missed you, and I'm glad you're okay."

She hugged me back, and I nearly melted - three months with no human contact were no joke.

We stayed like this for a bit, until she patted me on the back.

"Okay, let me go, Taylor, or I'll really fall asleep right here," Lisa chuckled, then breaking into a long yawn.

"Okay, fine, you lazy-ass layabout," I smiled. "Go have your nap, you deserve it this time."

She nodded mutely, and then disappeared behind her nightmare portal.

I sighed.

Scion was dealt with, so now I just had to deal with the aftermath.

Already, I was sending updates through my network. Notified Dragon - who could then update the PRT on the matter. Found Tana and Madisson - both were injured during this fight, but luckily still alive and well, the attending healers (including Panacea) took care of that. Told Dad what just happened - pretty sure he wanted to ground me for the next thousand years (and I was of half mind to let him).

Next, I checked on the Cauldron - which significantly shrank in size while I was away. I knew that Eidolon was dead, but so was Alexandria - shot through the body four times, her supposed invulnerability making little difference. Also… Somehow Contessa got her head smashed in by an anvil… ..in the middle of a desert in New Mexico…?

Whatever. Doctor Mother, the Number Man and Legend were still alive - meaning, I still had to watch them in case they decided to run. Once we were done with the cleanup, we could deal with these three.

And, well.

I guess, there was one more thing I had to take care of. I would've preferred not to - but I had never left a mess behind if there was no one to pick up the slack, and I wasn't about to start doing it now.

So I took a deep breath. Counted to ten. And then, gave myself a mental shove - sending me floating towards a pile of vehicle carcasses in the middle of nowhere, on a world I did not know the name of.

There, in the smashed up remains of a rusted train car, away from any possible prying eyes, hid a certain redhead, curled up against a wall so that she wasn't visible from the outside.

No wonder others missed her when I sent them home.

"Are you seriously trying to get yourself stranded here?" I asked, sitting at the other side of the thin metal wall, my back to where the girl was. "As far as I know, there are no people on this Earth."

"…I just needed some time alone," she said, voice scratchy and weak.

I suppressed a sigh. Getting irritated was not the best idea here.

"Understandable, after what you've just been through," I nodded instead. Not that she could see it, still hiding inside the broken train car.

We fell into a near silence - only the wind had been ringing against broken metal, like a child playing with a new toy. The entire situation was playing with my memories, taking me back to years ago, when the two of us still supported each other, when we were friends - best friends, even.

Things had changed since then, of course. She pushed me away, and I found new friends. People I could count on when the things got tough. People who would call me out whenever I was on a downward spiral.

She, though… Did she have anyone at all? Anyone who wasn't just a member of the same kiddie PR team, simply tolerating her?

Pretty sure that somehow, across all those visits, I became the closest thing she had for a friend again.

"I don't understand it," she said, almost too quietly for me to catch it.

"Don't understand what?"

"I have powers now… I thought- I thought things would be different… That I'd be strong. But…" She sniffled. "But I could barely survive. He near killed me a hundred times over, and I could do nothing! And then- And then you come, and just beat him singlehandedly!"

I thought about it for a moment.

"Try to look at it from another perspective. Do you know why everyone was fighting him? It was to buy me time," I said plainly. "If I tried to fight him head on with what I had at hand? He would've won. Scion had every power in the book a thousand times over, he was just a dumbass about how to use them properly. I had to design a countermeasure specifically against him, and for that, I needed time. Time that every participant of this battle fought hard to buy, one second, one sacrifice at the time."

"You're saying you won because of the power of friendship," I could hear her scoff.

"More or less. Scion could replicate my power, my creations, if he was given time to do so. He could easily counter anyone's powers, period. He was a true powerhouse, an embodiment of personal strength, able to win against any single thing we threw at him. But unlike us he was fighting alone. A single giant, against an army of supposedly lesser beings - and he lost," I chuckled. "Do you get it? This is the true limit of personal power. No matter how personally strong you are, without other people to watch your back, all it takes is a single mistake, a single chink in your armour to bring your downfall. And everyone makes mistakes, sooner or later."

"Even you, huh?"

"Oh, I make mistakes all the time. But I have friends, I have people I can trust to pick up the slack, and I have a very good therapist I have sessions with every week. They all keep me in check, allow me to grow as a person - and in power, I guess. Not that it was ever my goal to begin with."

"You… never had a goal of being strong?" she sounded incredulous.

"No. I just wanted to help people. Build Brockton Bay up. Create jobs, prevent capes from making normal people's lives miserable - that sort of thing. And as I did my best to achieve that goal, the power came as a consequence - both my personal power, and the power of having a lot of people willing to buy me enough time to get rid of an uppity alien wannabe god."

"Ah. Yeah, that does sound like you," she mumbled. "Wait- alien…?"

"Yep. Wanna hear more about it? It's actually something we're gonna declassify in a few days tops anyway."

March 29th, 2013

I chewed on my rice-and-beans breakfast burrito, even as the TV in the other room was mindlessly blaring about the happenings of the world. Mostly stuff I was already aware of, but you never knew if something was gonna appear out of the left field.

"…IN OTHER NEWS, THE GOLD MOURNING FOUNDATION HAD OFFICIALLY DECLARED ITS INTENT TO COLONISE THE MOON HOTSPOT. SEVERAL WEALTHY DONORS HAD ALREADY VOICED THEIR INTENT TO SUPPORT THIS ENDEAVOUR-"

Ah, right. Those wackos.

After we went public with the Cauldron information, most people across the globe were just glad the threat was over with. A lot were disillusioned with the PRT and Protectorate - justifiably so, considering shadowy cabal's role in them. Many others demanded changes in laws regarding parahumans - like changing or even repealing the NEPEA-5 law to allow more parahumans to earn money with their powers. However, not everyone even believed in what had transpired in the first place.

Some people rejected the idea of aliens being real at all, claiming that some other nefarious plot was hiding behind the disappearance of Scion. Others refused to believe in anything 'the big government' had told them in the first place. Then, there were people who did believe that Scion was an alien, but thought that he was humanity's only hope at containing the threat parahumans had presented. And finally, there were many who were rescued by Scion over his thirty years career, and refused to believe that their golden saviour was anything other than this perfect, ideal hero.

As such, in the wake of the golden bastard's disappearance, a lot of civil, political and even religious movements began popping up that ran against the truth of the matter.

And the Gold Mourning Foundation was the biggest headache of them all.

It was an anti-parahuman, humanity-first type of a deal that held their golden idol as this martyr taken from them before his time. The good news was, only a small percent of the population supported them - the crazies, the misguided and the grifters. The bad news, on the other hand, was that a bunch of rich people (i.e. grifters) saw the potential in the movement, and were sponsoring it to hell and back.

I generally kept my distance from these bozos, having Coil 2 put in the investigative work in my stead. So far, every bit of behind-the-scenes corruption she found and made public only made their few supporters more feverishly loyal. I was pretty sure that the only reason things didn't get heated so far was that most people weren't as easily duped.

"Are you seriously gonna let them have the Moon Hotspot?" Lisa asked. She was up early today for a change.

"Sure," I shrugged. "Parahumans in general can't go to space. The spirits and I are less affected by this, but even with my resources, it still would've been a drag trying to develop a colony there - and for little return, because outright living in space sucks. So, why not let the crazies do it? Best case scenario, they bankrupt themselves without sending a single colonist there, problem solved. Worst case, they make an actual colony, and all relocate there, leaving the rest of us in peace while they suffer from cabin fever and eat each other's kidneys at their stupid moon colony."

"Wouldn't the 'worst case' be them trying to nuke us from the orbit?"

"Not really. If they try that, I'll just sick the Simurgh on them," I deadpanned. The weird giant sweater-wearing space woman was quick to pledge her allegiance to me once the golden bastard was put in a permanent timeout - so now I had her monitoring potential troublemakers, and reporting to me. Without interfering. Kind of the same deal I had with Coil 2. "Either way, the problem will sort itself out while we deal with the Hotspots that are less troublesome to get to."

This was another thing that popped up recently - the Hotspots.

Remember when we grew magic mushrooms by coursing Karmic Energy through pots of regular plant matter? Yeah, soon after Scion's imprisonment, many areas with similar properties had popped up all around the globe. On average, they were small - a single grove, or a plot of land, often in the middle of nowhere. The biggest discovered one to date was in Japan, surrounding the sunk island of Kyushu - in fact, after inquiring about it, Land of Fantasy Ltd was given the permission to develop that exact land as we saw fit - probably on account of me killing Leviathan.

Why did it matter?

Well, remember how those magic mushrooms could be boiled into potions that granted regeneration, or combusted, or blew up in a spectacular fashion? These hotspots meant that suddenly, an entire market of properly magic ingredients sprang up - not just mushrooms, but other plants, and even bugs and animal body parts. Because yeah, fauna changed too, mutating and often gaining almost parahuman-like properties from its exposure to Karmic energies.

And earlier this year, we had a confirmation that it applied to humans too, as a year-old baby born in a rural European house (which was later recognised as a Hotspot) was documented to be able to glow, despite not having a Corona Pollentia.

As such, a lot of people became interested in relocating to Hotspots, despite us not knowing what possible side effects Karmic Energy-induced mutations could possibly have on human beings. If it was just one or two specific areas, it would've been easy-ish to quarantine it until this phenomenon was properly studied, but given the haphazard nature of the Hotspot emergence? Yeah, no way in hell.

A lot of people wanted to be magic - or at least, wanted it for their kids. Properties and plots of land with Hotspots already were a hot commodity because of the potion ingredients trade - but after the glowing baby incident, their price had outright skyrocketed, with some rich people willing to part with millions or even billions to buy a shitty plot of infertile land somewhere past the Arctic Circle because it had magic in it.

So it became a pretty big deal, when it was noticed that the Moon's surface changed, and that there were mysterious fruit troves somehow growing in a specific area the size of a small country on the planet's satellite.

And of course, the Gold Mourning Foundation wanted a piece of that - preferably without having to ever interact with their 'antichrist' (i.e., me). Hence, their stupid space colony project came to be, just like I thought it was gonna.

Could a Karmically juiced-up bunch of anti-parahuman bozos become an issue in the future? Maybe. If they did, though - the kiddie gloves were coming off.

"Do you want me to sabotage them here and there?" Lisa snickered. "No one would ever know~"

"Do you seriously have enough free time for that?" I looked at her plainly. After all, I could always saddle her with extra responsibilities, just like everyone else.

"Ahhhh, of course not! I barely have enough time for a lunch break, you know?!" She waved me off, completely unconvincingly. Knowing her, she was gonna throw a monkey wrench or two into the workings of their space colony project anyway, not that I planned on stopping her. It would've been better for the stupid foundation to implode, like, yesterday - but I had other things to worry about. Unless they suddenly made themselves an issue, of course.

Same rules as with parahuman capes.

"Have you decided on a college yet?" Dad intervened, looking up from his breakfast.

"Yeah. Figured out a shortlist, gonna apply to them all and see if I pass anywhere. Either a teaching degree, or robotics."

"I get why teaching, but why robotics…?"

"It's something I never had the opportunity to properly learn. And I could talk about this stuff with Dragon as well," I shrugged. I knew she'd got her hands full with Riley, but I was also aware she could multitask.

"Ah, leaving the home so soon! I'm gonna miss you so much!" Lisa bemoaned theatrically.

"I'm gonna commute from here, you dingus," I deadpanned in return, poking her in the rib.

"So… What are your plans for today?" Dad asked.

"School. Then spend some time with the Ward Team - well, with E-Potage. The others are preparing for her birthday party, and I'm their best bet of occupying her attention. Then, if I have time left, gonna make another Hive Spirit Core - another batch of Chaos Spirits wants to go 3D, and we're not trusting them with a regular Spirit Core OR a shard."

"Not after the topsy turvy one, huh," he chuckled.

"Exactly."

Hive Spirit Cores were Spirit Cores that housed multiple spirits at the same time. They were a bit larger than usual, but had the downside of the spirits they hosted literally possessing communal brainspace, and the total amount of power was also shared between entire bunch - allowing me to make one big Spirit Core instead of a bunch of teeny-tiny ones. This meant that each of those spirits was only as smart as a child and as powerful as a very low-end parahuman - and they were also limited in the amount of potential harm they could inflict. Naturally, the Chaos spirits were informed about such limitation, and most of them did not care one bit.

"By the way, Madison asked you to see them about something. Before the school starts, in 'that history class', whatever that means," Lisa noted. "Whatever it is, it sounded serious."

"Oh kami, they're gonna confess to being a bloodthirsty vampire all along, or something, aren't they?" I sighed.

"Not out of the question~"

I guessed, it made sense to pass it through Lisa, given that I didn't check non-urgent messages in the morning, and didn't share any classes with them today.

Whatever.

I finished off my breakfast, gave Dad and Lisa a hug, and then left the house.

I'd had more than enough time to walk to Arcadia today, even with Madison's request for a meet up beforehand. And so - I walked, taking in the crisp Brockton Bay morning.

The weather was just fine - cool and pleasant. The closer I was to Arcadia, to the Downtown, the busier and more lively the streets became - the last two years of Land of Fantasy Ltd, Coil 2, Accord and others pumping cash and effort into the local economy had finally began paying their dividends. There were quite a lot of construction sites, and while they were noisy - they also were a sign that the city had finally managed to tear its way out of that mire of stagnation it was stuck in.

Even Winslow was better now. Not perfect - but the audit we had pushed for had led to the entire school staff being replaced with more competent people. Combined with better materials, better maintenance and better security - it was finally a proper school, rather than a penitentiary in all but name. Even if Arcadia still had better everything on account of all the wealthy donors, the disparity was not exceptionally jarring anymore.

To the East, in the harbour, I could still see the Rig. It had lost the missile launchers and the massive forcefield, but it was still there. Even after the PRT and Protectorate were downsized following the Cauldron scandal, they still kept their presence across the United States, switching from strictly parahuman law enforcement to sponsoring their own Arena teams and corresponding merchandising, with a side of assisting the police departments or performing citizen arrests. Far from a perfect solution - but still better than the entire organisation suddenly losing their jobs at once. There WERE talks of a 'new and improved' organisation - but these talks didn't get anywhere so far.

Further into the Downtown, the city skyline was broken by the giant dancing robot Miko of Miracles had relocated closer to her 'shrine' - not that it had led to more than a minute increase in the foot traffic. She even had to spend a few days tinkertechnically silencing that bloody thing, because everyone in two blocks radius kept complaining about the noise throughout the day, and PARTICULARLY at night.

Just as I was approaching Arcadia, I got an update from the Arbiter - the Law spirit I had put in charge of the Arenas. She said that the mayor of Quebec requested another Arena to be installed, and that she was now talking with Dragon about which of the suggested sites was the best for this purpose. She was gonna send me an update by the time I left school - and knowing her, it was just gonna need my nod of approval.

She was doing a good job - I made sure to tell her that.

Finally entering the school, I made my way to 'that history class' - the one where Madison told me they were nonbinary, soon after the entire Scion situation got resolved.

They were already there, nervously pacing.

"Hi, Madison," I greeted them. They stopped, and turned to me.

"…Hello, Taylor," they nodded, before approaching.

"So, what did you want to tell me?"

"…Um…" they lowered their gaze to the ground, as if suddenly put on the spot.

Whatever it was, it couldn't be more difficult than coming out about their gender identity - except, maybe it could be. Everyone's levels of comfort differed, after all. I just had to be patient, and let them do this at their own pace.

After nearly a minute of mulling things over, Madison nodded to themselves, before looking at me again.

"…Look, I… …I'm only telling you this, because it's been eating at me for too long, and… …and if I don't, I feel like I'm gonna go insane…" they explained. "…I don't expect anything to come out of this, and… …and I understand if you won't want to be around me afterwards…"

Huh, this was pretty damn close to what they said before coming out about being nonbinary - except this time, their words were covered in this layer of almost… …self-deprecation?

I looked at them calmly and patiently, not interrupting.

Even if they actually turned out to be a bloodthirsty, garlic bread-hating vampire, I was not gonna make a big deal out of this, regardless of how the mere idea caused me to scream internally.

"…I… …I'm in love with you, Taylor…" they said - and my thoughts suddenly came to a screeching halt. "…Had been, for a long time… …and… …I understand that I don't deserve your love in return, but… …I wanted you to know…"

I blinked.

Ah.

This was a much simpler matter than I anticipated.

"Okay. Wanna go on a date?"

It was their time to blink, with a nearly audible click of their eyelids.

"…come again…?"

"You're in love with me. I don't know if I am in love with you - but that's what dating is for. To find out how compatible people are," I looked at them seriously. "You're a close friend - so I'm willing to give this a try. If things work out - great. If they don't - it's better to know for sure, rather than wondering."

"…Huh…" they looked puzzled, "…I did not expect to get this far…"

"So is that a 'no' on a date, orrrr…?" I looked at them quizzically.

"…It's a 'yes'…!" They nearly panicked, before smiling. "…Thank you for giving me a chance…"

"So… Tomorrow?" I smiled

"…Yeah, tomorrow," they nodded. "…I'll text you the details after school…"

With that decided, and my mood somehow lifted even more, it was time to go to class - starting with math. It was still laughably easy after that time the Number Man nearly melted my brain into goop with extradimensional equations - but I still found the prospect of organised learning relaxing. Moreover, Mr. Grassi was a much, much, MUCH better teacher than the late math parahuman.

There were no Endbringer attacks to worry about - no new ones popped up after Scion's disappearance, and the remaining two were working for me. Scion was dealt with (with the projected deterioration of the Divine Sealing Array following the initial schedule). Brockton Bay was recovering - and so was the entire world.

There were still issues, of course - like the Gold Mourning Foundation, the Hotspots and countless parahumans who were still popping up here and there, and sometimes went mad with power. And there were doubtlessly gonna be many more crises to deal with, peacefully or otherwise.

Such was life - it went on, wherever we liked it or not.

A/N: And with this, we are done, the story is complete. I don't believe in fiddling with completed stories and piling on epilogues (let alone epilogue arcs), and I don't have a plan for part 2 either. If you're still interested in sidestories or additional content or anything similar - the stretch goals of my Patreon allow for this.

Thanks to all of you, I've had a fantastic time publishing this story for the past six months - and I want to give a special shoutout to GreyJohn who had been helping me with editing this story (and fixing some of my grammar) through most of its run.

As a side note, I'm already starting to work on my next story. Unless the Patreon poll suddenly changes overnight, it's going to be a Worm/The Slayers crossover. At the moment, barring any IRL circumstances, the plan is for the first chapter to go live on April 7th.

"I… I guess…?"

Ooooooh~

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27/3/2025