Amelia, Worm AU [Complete]

Amelia, Ch 229


FrustrationAnger. I pushed calming emotions into the link, but it was hard to do. I wasn't quite as upset as Taylor, if only because I wasn't out there. I was prep and aftermath. But after three and a half hours of this cat and mouse bullshit, everyone was on edge.


"The Moirai cannon's going to be useless," Lisa sighed. "We'll never time to set it up."


"Just let me get into the fight," Lily insisted. "This one's not adapted against me, is it?"


"Shouldn't be," Lisa admitted. "This one's in response to the Chinese and Scion. But it will be able to kill you. Those time bubbles will age you thousands of years if you're not careful."


"Then I won't get that close," she assured us. "Yeah, the ranged attacks aren't as good, but they can still hurt the fucker. Drive him off so we can work out a better plan for his next appearance. We can't keep doing nothing."


AgreementUrgeDeflection. "Go for it," I instructed. "We've seen how this one works, everyone with speed and power enough to do damage, if you're willing to take the risk, at least give it a shot."


"Zach, stay out of this one," Vicky commanded right after I finished speaking. "You're not immune to aging, and you don't have a backup. You go out there and you're going to die for real."


He hesitated for a moment. "Fuck," he muttered, turning around. He walked over to the specialized suicide bug. "Looks like I'll have to be careful this time."


Vicky, Lily, Crystal and Zack shunted over. They still hit harder than anything we could build with our zerg, and we watched from the other side as they opened fire above a small town somewhere in Germany, adding to the stream of attacks by Legend and a couple of the locals.


"We're deploying the Endslayer weaponry," Crystal's voice came over the communications. "All close range attackers, fall back."


Alexandria and a couple others I didn't recognize bolted up and away from the Endbringer, and Lily opened fire with her new and improved Azrael. This one's attack rate was limited solely by her ability to generate charge for the weaponry. Its mass generation came from absorbing Endbringer tissue and converting it. Unfortunately, her power didn't actually work on Endbringer tissues, and couldn't be combined with Defiant's nanothorn weapons. That would have been too convenient.


The torrent of fire caught the new Endbringer, carving gouges into its side. The black covering came off, revealing a layer of silver, then deeper another layer of black. More bolts, each specifically designed to take as large a chunk out of an opponent as possible, kept making more cuts into the strange interior of the monster.


"Something's wrong," Lily spoke over the com. "I'm not cutting nearly as deep as I should."


"Is it designed to be immune to the power that killed Simurgh?" Alexandria asked over the armbands.


"No, that would be impossible. Her power bypasses defenses. But this one's body is ablative," Lisa responded, also via armband. "Each layer's designed to deflect damage outward instead of allowing deeper penetration. A protective feature to ensure a single attack, no matter how powerful, can't do more than superficial injury. Probably an adaptation to prevent the attack Scion used to kill Behemoth from working."


"That's... I really want a sample of that to work with," Rey replied through our com. He and Rapture had managed to arrive a little while ago, and took their place in the command center. "Uh... what I mean is, it's a completely novel expression of the Endbringer biology. We could learn a great deal about the way they work."


"Well, fuck," Lily muttered. "Guess we do this the old fashioned way. Hit it until it stops moving." She started firing again, as rapidly as she could, but it let itself brush into one of its own time distortions, and the inches of damage vanished in an eyeblink. "Fucking bullshit!"


Meanwhile, streams of energy were coming from Vicky and Crystal's suits, rapidly switching up attack types while using what I was sure was one of their medium damage settings. Must have been Vicky's idea. They were doing their fair share, of course, but the way this one was built meant it didn't really matter.


It disappeared again.


"Fuck!" Vicky swore. "We still got a minute before we can shunt back over."


"I'll take you," Alexandria offered. Our members gathered up. "Sorry, Osiris, the method we use won't let you bring your mount with."


"Okay, I'll catch a ride the other way," he agreed.


"Doormaker," Alexandria spoke. "Paradera, Aruba."


"Remember what I said about the old patterns no longer applying?" Lisa spoke. "Well, here's the new one for this Endbringer. Whenever it's hurt, it will select zones with low population so it has time to regenerate."


"Meaning the more damage we do, the less people it kills," Alexandria added. "Understood."


"One fuckton of damage, coming right up," Lily agreed. They moved ahead without us. Meanwhile, we waited for the zerg to shunt back over and Missy to build a new tunnel. How is it we have three top grade movers on this team, and I feel like it's not enough?


We arrived two minutes later to bear witness to Alexandria holding the Endbringer, her bone chain pulling both is arms behind its back. With it more or less trapped in place, everyone there was hammering the Endbringer with their energy attacks. Our blasters were now going with wide distribution blasts, and Victoria had taken to firing two weapons at once, following one precise beam with the next, always aiming at the point where the left leg met the torso. There was a deep gouge in that area.


Zach shunted over immediately, diving between two pillars and colliding with the Endbringer's chest and disintegrating the area. Fortunately for Alexandria, her new costume was grown from her own genetic material, making it as durable as she was. Except her cape, that was reduced to dust like almost everything else in the vicinity.It didn't do any real damage to the real target, however. Not even two full layers.


Zach move in for a second burst, when the time distortion pillars shifted, one moving over his position. Emma shrieked in horror. FearLossFailure.


Zach reappeared on our side of the barrier, crashing hard into the ground and destroying a good amount of Yggdrasil with the nanothorns. Fortunately, that was almost two miles from our location. Missy bridged the distance so he could reach us in a few moments instead of a minute or so. Emma jumped off the platform and rushed to him. They were far enough away that I couldn't hear what was being said, but given that Emma was both hugging and punching him at the same time, I let them have their privacy.


Meanwhile, Alexandria was knocked away from the Endbringer, and her bone chain snapped as she lost contact. Lily took this as an opening, pouring another stream of destruction down, but the Endbringer vanished again. The bolts rained down on the street below. Despite her power wearing off before the bolts struck the ground, they still hit hard enough to shatter the streets and destroy cars unfortunate enough to get caught in the hail of projectiles.


It had escaped yet again.


"Bloemfontein, South Africa," Dragon informed us after thirty seconds or so. Our group packed up and moved again. I couldn't help but notice that Zach chose not to go back into the fight. I didn't blame him, of course, but it was definitely noticed.


Our move into the heart of South Africa made me wonder why the Endbringer would even bother. The city looked like it had already been through an Endbringer. The locals mobilized amazingly fast, however. By the time we arrived, there was already a dozen capes deployed. The most visible one was a huge, fur covered monster. He, and thanks to a lack of clothing it was easy to identify this one as a he, looked more than a little like a bulked up Lung going for 'werewolf' instead of 'dragon'. He had latched around the Endbringer's neck and shoulders, and was enthusiastically chewing on his face with jaws resembling a cross between a pitbull and an alligator.


Alexandria joined the fight, attempting to carve into the enemy with sickle-like weapon we'd grown for her. She was peeling layers off, but hadn't managed to really get any deeper. At least we were achieving something, however.


The Endbringer finally managed to pull the brute off and fling him toward a time pillar. Alexandria bolted up, catching bestial parahuman and throwing him to safety.


"Deploying the Endslayer weapons again, everyone fall back," Lily instructed. A half second later, she dived into the time field.


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

A/N- No one ever gives Khonsu his fair credit as an Endbringer.