Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Amelia, Ch 216


"Establishing dimensional tunnel," Trevor spoke up after the command center landed in place. "Shunting over the relay bugs." The portable relays were built from slightly modified, especially fast dragonflies. They wouldn't be out of place in any part of the world, so we felt confident we could use them without our presense being noticed. The zerg all served as relay bugs as well, of course, but there was no way to use those without being noticed.


I got my first look at Chongqing. The city was drizzly and dirty and looked cold. The relay bugs aren't going to do well in this weather, I realized. Of course, Taylor was smart. She'd probably fan them out and have them latch under trees or ledges of buildings. Hopefully the native insects would do better, but this was late October, not exactly the best part of the year for bugs. Then again, bugs aren't how you fight Endbringers. I looked at the literal army of zerg around us. Those are how you fight Endbringers.


ConfusionWorry. "They haven't even started the sirens," Taylor muttered. "I don't know Chinese, but there's no panic at all. These people have no idea what's coming."


"Maybe the C.U.I. didn't believe us?" Missy suggested.


"No, the Yangban are out in force," she told us. "Ten full divisions. Two hundred and fifty parahumans grouped twenty five at a time. Near the edges of the city. They seem to be practicing drills. There's also several thousand normal soldiers. There's not enough bugs for me to get a thorough count. They seem to be setting up barricades of some sort, but again I can't be certain."


"Barricades? Against Behemoth?" Lily this time. "Are they on drugs?"


"Tinker tech," Emma spoke up. "I'm running the scans now. It's gonna take a while, this stuff is like Dragon's work. Or mine, even. A hybrid of multiple Tinker disciplines. It's really elegant, can't wait to see how it works. I do recognize what I think are forcefield components, but like nothing I've ever seen before. Please tell me there's a chance we can steal some of this tech in the confusion? Dragon will want to have our babies if we get her some of this stuff. Fuck, I'll have your babies to get my teeth into this."


ConcernCuriousity. "If there's a way to get away with it without violating the Endbringer Truce or starting an international incident? I'll consider it."


"Woo! Bonus mission objective!" Vicky declared. "I'll scout the perimeter and look for weak points. Beats all this 'hurry up and wait' bullshit."


I need to talk to her about playing too many of Zach's games, I thought. "Go for it," I told her. "But our priority is Behemoth."


"Understood," she saluted us in a mockery of military discipline. "Hey, Khepri, mind lending me a couple of the ghost cats? I'm pretty sure we'll need them for this."


"Okay," my partner agreed. Her undercurrents led me to believe that if we had a good shot, she'd okay the mission. We aren't even officially our own nation yet, and we're already committing international espionage.


It was another ten minutes of waiting before Behemoth arrived. A small skyscraper collapsing into the street below heralded the first and most deadly Endbringer. It was hard to place a value on which of the three was ultimately most devastating. They all had their place. Simurgh was, to quote something Zach had said, the 'mind killer', using paranoia and psychological weapons to incredible effect. Leviathan was the city killer, destroying our homes and our security. Behemoth was the hero killer. The one that took our best hopes for the future away from us.


The monster's head peaked out of the rubble, and the people which had moments before been gawking at the collapsing building turned and fled. They should be in shelters, I couldn't help but think. Behemoth opening attack was a roar that thankfully stayed silent from our side of the dimensional shell. Glass exploded even where we were positioned, over a mile away. People dropped in agony around us, their screams as visible and as silent as Behemoth's.


Those nearest the monster. I had to turn away. Skulls had shattered just as thoroughly as the glass, leaving gore and mess in the street. It was all I could do to not be sick within my suit. There were cries on our side, shrieks of horror and disgust. Taylor tried to offer me some comfort through our link, but she was too upset. The best she could maintain was anger and determination. I latched onto that, and returned it in kind. A feeling turned idea turned oath. No matter what the future consequences might be, we would not let Behemoth leave this city alive.


A lance of unidentifiable energy struck Behemoth from the side. His skin went from reddish brown to a neon green color, and then shattered into some kind of crystalline dust.


"Looks like a variant of Bakuda's glass," Riley informed us impassively. Of course she'd be one of the ones who could watch this without looking away. "It won't work. EB tissue is too dense, at most it could influence three layers deep. Superficial. Cosmetic damage."


"Anything that doesn't damage the core is cosmetic," Lisa replied. She, at least, sounded tense and nervous. "I didn't have a good position to see it with Leviathan, and by the time we were really hurting the Simurgh, I had already shunted out. But I'm getting the idea now. Victoria, what are you seeing?"


"A whole lotta nothin'," she answered. "I can anticipate his attacks, sort of."


Three bolts of lightning streaked toward three different Yangban divisions. They were almost annihilated. Moments later, they had reformed as if nothing happened. They have a variant of Zach's power?


"Dude, they're ripping me off!" Zach exclaimed.


"No, it's a form of time manipulation," Lisa replied. "A several second step backward in time, undoing Behemoth's damage. You were saying, Victoria?"


"Those three bolts could have been three hundred, maybe three thousand," she answered. "I'm sensing every possible attack he can make. This is like watching Bruce Lee fight a room full of toddlers, and letting the toddlers think they stand a chance of winning. If Behemoth wanted, this city would already be gone."


RealizationFearFocusDetermination. "Nothing we didn't already know," Taylor replied, her voice calm and commanding. "We know the Endbringers are far more powerful than they pretend to be. We also know we can kill them. If they want to hold back, then so be it, that just makes our jobs easier."


Meanwhile, Behemoth and the Yangban traded blows while the city around them suffered the consequences. At some point, they started switching attacks and combining energy types. Seems we weren't the only ones with cryo blasts, and somewhere they found a cape that could summon serpent like forms made of water. The Yangban's power sharing and amplification techniques meant they could literally flood a city block with the things, forcing Behemoth to boil away the mass even as more came to replace it and the ice power made it all the more difficult to burn through. It was an effective tactic in keeping the monster's attacks from reaching them.


Behemoth unleashed its roar again, shattering the water, the buildings, and countless people.


"One minute and six point six seconds between roars," Lisa replied. "This one's following the rule of threes as well, if a slightly more sinister variant."


"It doesn't have to," Victoria answered. "It could keep that attack going constantly for days if it wanted to."


"Part of the human controller's bias," Lisa answered. "Remember, we're still recording this data for Rapture and Dragon to chew over for patterns and psychological profiling of the Endmakers. Anything you can contribute will only help."


The Yangban switched to another tactic, turning the street around Behmoth into some kind of liquid substance. The matter then warped and moved, wrapping itself around the creature and pinning its arms and legs together. He fell and was immediately fired upon by dozens of energy attacks. Many, but not even close to most, were deflected away by his dynakenetic powers.


"They think they're winning," Vicky informed us.


"By the Endbringer's programming, I think they are winning," Lisa answered. "They follow a script. It's like a video game. The game programmer could easily create a game that instantly kills you in the first four seconds, but where's the fun in that?"


"These fights are suppose to be fun?" Zach asked. "Is Tarn Adams a suspect?" He stopped for a second. "...aaand I'm the only one who gets the joke."


"Oh fuck," Lisa muttered. "He's right. Or my power thinks he's right. The video game analogy might be more apt than I thought. It's possible the Endbringer battles are someone's idea of a game. Like gladiatorial combat on a mass scale."


================

A/N- Losing is Fun!

... Honestly, after you get familiar with the interface, Dwarf Fortress is pretty easy. I quit playing after it became clear that FPS drain would kill all my fortresses.

 

Amelia, Ch 217


ReluctantAdmiration. "They're actually very good," Taylor admitted. It was true, we'd been watching the dance between Behemoth and the Yangban for nearly half an hour. One thing that surprised me was there were no losses. Well, there were many losses, Behemoth was doing an excellent job of burning through Yangban groups, only for them to recreate themselves moments later. They focused heavily on mobility and ranged assaults, having a hugely versatile array of tools to escape Behemoth's close range options. And, of course, all the civilians.


"We can take them," Victoria replied dismissively. "They have to call each attack. It slows them down, makes them predictable. The restoration power creates confusion in their ranks as the troops have to adjust to the changed perspective. They also have pretty much no thinker powers in the mess, so they're vulnerable to stealth attackers."


"They probably have other groups with those powers," Lisa informed. "Strangers, too. No sense in deploying powers that won't work on Endbringers in the first place. The C.U.I. knows what it's fighting. In as much as anyone without our intel could know."


HorrorDisgustAnger. "They're shooting the civilians!" Taylor exclaimed.


Reflexively we turned toward the nearest barricade. The dimensional display tech reacted and dimmed the area around us and highlighted the more distant location. It pays to have so many talented tinkers on the team. Taylor was right, of course. The civilians had been retreating toward the barricades, trying to find anywhere to escape Behemoth. Now they were running from the barrier as dozens were mowed down by automatic weapons fire.


The ground beneath me shuddered, at it took a second to realize it was me causing it. The Yggdrasil trying to reach up and block the bullets. An impossibility, of course, from this side of the barricade.


"What do we do?" Sabah asked, her voice small.


I froze. This wasn't something I knew how to handle. These weren't just some gang. This was the single most populous nation on the planet, and if we jumped in we would be sparking an international war. One that we might very well lose to sheer numbers.


"We can't help them," Taylor spoke. "If we do in the middle of a Behemoth fight... it doesn't matter our reasons. We lose our allies. Almost all of them. If the Yangban tries to fight us instead of fighting Behemoth, it'll cost more lives in the long run than doing nothing."


"Fuck!" Vicky exclaimed. "Promise me that after we're done with the Endbringers and fucking Scion, we come back to these fuckers. We can't let them get away with this." She punched one of the shadowcats hard enough to knock the three ton SEB armored creature on its side. It climbed to its feet without even a noise of objection.


"Yes," I agreed. "We'll make our stance known, take this footage to the international community and let them figure out what to do with it. When we start the portal system, we're leaving them out. I refuse to give people like them a world to exploit." DoubtConcern. Taylor was right, I was bluffing about giving this to the world as a whole. Doing so would prove we could spy across dimensions. This was something that Dragon was okay to know about, and it was something we couldn't hide from Cauldron if we tried, so we pretended we trusted them enough to just tell them, but this was functionally the perfect Stranger tech. Unless they invented something that could beat it. Better that they didn't even know to try.


"Is it wrong that I'm suddenly cheering for the Endbringer?" Eric asked. "Like we should just go home and let the Endbringers go after China as much as they like? Because right now, I'm hoping they drop right into the capital and have the time of their lives stomping on a royal family or two."


CruelAnger. None of us said anything, but judging by the quiet responses, I couldn't help but feel most of us agreed with him on this, at least on some level. Certainly none of us felt the need to voice a disagreement.


Meanwhile, Behemoth decided he'd had enough punishment and it was time fight back again. Wrenching himself free of the liquefied earth with a massive leap, he traveled far more rapidly than I would have expected something that size to be able, and slamming into a group of Yangban, quite literally. Caught within the kill aura, they somehow managed to avoid bursting into flame. A defensive power of some sort, I would assume. Whatever it was, it wasn't a match for the incredible strength of the Endbringer, which crushed them without difficulty. That Yangban division was killed permanently.


A stream of exotic energies cut into Behemoth, leaving further gouges in the mostly restored flesh. That's why he stayed so long in the gunk, I realized. It let him regenerate from the damage they'd inflicted, however meaningless that damage may actually be.


"It has to obey the rules," Lisa observed. "If enough damage is inflicted it retreats because it's suppose to, not because it has to, but it's also allowed to buy time and recover. It's a psychological mechanism to punish hesitation and nonlethal attack styles. Encouraging conflicts to be as destructive and aggressive as possible."


"Sounds like everything we've learned about Passengers thus far," Clarice added. "They compel their hosts toward this."


"Untrue," Lisa replied. "Yes, they compel hosts toward conflict, but not toward this kind of mindless slaughter. They want evolution, and killing hosts in large numbers limits that. Small numbers of death are fine, of course, but there's a certain point where it becomes a problem. It's why Nilbog stopped with his city instead of overwhelming half the country. Why Jack Slash refused to let his people cross certain thresholds. The Passengers want a cold war. The Unspoken Rules, or something similar to them, are a psychological compulsion. Endbringers are the antithesis to that goal."


"It suggests a host like me," I spoke. "One with a Third Trigger." RealizationFearConcernSupport. I felt Taylor's hand on my shoulder. Or, more appropriately, her suit's interaction with mine. It wasn't quite the same comfort, but it was nice.


"Putting special notes in describing Third Triggers," Lisa replied. "We're drifting dangerously close to the Taboo, here. This could limit our results."


Behemoth leapt again, and then promptly stalled in mid air. He was locked there as the Yangban took the opportunity to fire every attack they had at the trapped Endbringer, which roared and launched streams of lightning at his opponents.


The attacks took their usual toll, shattering already damaged buildings and reducing Yangban divisions in number, only for them to suddenly be restored. It was certainly an incredible power, significantly stronger than the Adepts' leadership.


The lightning around Behemoth stopped tracking toward enemies and turned inward, bouncing along his skin and the scars inflicted by the battle. The monster's skin started to glow white hot with power.


"Oh, fuck," Lisa muttered. "I think they've finally managed to piss him off. This is a new attack."


The Yangbang switched back to the water snakes, putting a huge amount of water around Behemoth. Thirty seconds had provided a quarter mile thick shell of water. Then he unleashed all that power, flash boiling the water and drowning much of the area in superheated steam. It poured forth and scoured Yangban and civilians alike, leaving them with horrific burns. The time manipulation was invoked again. Was there a limit to that power? I wondered.


"I don't understand," Lisa replied. "He should be withdrawing now. They've done more damage than he's experienced in his last three fights combined, and forced him to use a new power. What's he staying around for?"


"Uh... looks like they're starting up that barricade," Emma spoke. "I... have absolutely no idea what I'm looking at."


We looked around us, viewing the polyhedron dome that suddenly formed over the city. It was mostly clear. Behemoth roared again and sent lightning into the shielding. It turned nearly black in the panels that had been struck, then the color faded, leaving the entire dome slightly darker, but uniformed in shade.


"Okay, still don't know what I'm seeing," Emma muttered. "It's diffusing the energy through the field and into the area inside."


"I just lost my bugs," Taylor informed us. "I can't sense them in that dimension."


"The tunnel collapsed," Trevor responded. "I don't know why. Probably something to do with that shield."


Behemoth dropped and rushed the nearest part of the barricade, which was still well over three miles away from him, ignoring everything the Yangbang threw at him. It took him under a minute to arrive, colliding with the shield. Amazingly, it held. And the shield dimmed enough that the city was plunged into instant night.


"Holy fuck!" Emma exclaimed. "I know what it's doing! I think. It's using the energy directed against it to create a localized spatial anomaly. A naked singularity." She paused for a couple seconds as she realized that most of us didn't know what that meant.


"Umm... it's randomly warping the laws of physics inside it. There's no possible way to predict or control it, but the more power that field absorbs, the stranger things are going to get in there. And I mean that in a 'one plus one equals tapioca pudding' type physics breaking."


"Is that even possible?" Lily asked.


"Normally? No," she answered. "In there? Probably not, but things equally impossible are going to happen, one way or another."


"They're trying to kill him by changing reality enough that whatever allows him to function simply stops functioning," Lisa replied. "They're trying to make it so he cannot exist anymore." ConfusionTrepidationHope.


Behemoth attacked again, and our visual vanished. We still had displays from further away, but everything inside the dome was no longer visible. We no longer knew what was happening on the other side.


==============

A/N- Ah, if only the cycle hadn't broken. That's the kind of thing that might let the Entities overcome the entropy problem. But Eden had to faceplant into a planet. Dumbass.