A Saga of Heroes (Worm/HSR)

ethereal-23ar · Oct 13, 2026

Where were you when Scion appeared?

Where were you when capes came out in numbers?

Where were you when the first Endbringer emerged?

Where were you when Hero died?

...

...

...

Where were you when the Glitch happened?

December 15th, 2010.

It happened on an ordinary day.

People woke up, made breakfast, and went to work or school. Met with friends and family.

On Earth, a quiet, normal day is what most people desire. Hoping not to get caught in the crossfire of a villain attack, or to suddenly hear the sirens heralding the inevitable bringers of the slow apocalypse.

Even in the face of such existential threats, there really is no option but to keep moving forward. People continue their day-to-day lives to regain some semblance of control. The Earth does not stop spinning.

Even if the creatures responsible for plenty of its destruction try to make it so.

Maritime trade had become nonexistent thanks to Leviathan.

And space exploration ground to a halt because of the Simurgh.

But observatories continued to operate. Long-range telescopes and signal receivers kept their long and arduous task of mapping and observing the cosmos.

Some would ask what would be the point of doing so, for a planet that was confined to be alone and helpless in its struggles? What did the stars matter when any day, chaos could run through the streets?

Those people would start paying more attention to the stars after the events of this day.

It was first picked up by the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics when their systems first detected something far in deep space.

A signal. Or a code.

Now, contrary to popular belief. Cosmic phenomena could follow patterns that appeared to be artificial at first, but it wasn't until astrophysicists learned that these bursts of energy followed very structured patterns that merely looked artificial. It was merely another natural event, which many at first misinterpreted as signals.

But not this one.

The pattern was... erratic. It followed a structure no one had seen before.

Then, they picked up a burst of gamma radiation originating from somewhere in deep space, shielded behind another massive interstellar structure.

The pulses kept growing stronger.

At that point, pretty much all observatories on the planet had detected it.

An event of the century, many thought. A cosmic event that people would be writing papers about for years to come.

It stopped being so exciting when telescopes closely monitoring the Simurgh observed her turning around, looking directly at where the observatories could pinpoint the surge of gamma radiation.

And what their sights captured left them in a cold dread.

On the Simurgh's face... was pure, unadulterated panic.

On Earth, a phone camera capturing Scion stopping a flood saw him look up at the sky, and freeze, where he would remain.

All emergency alarms went off, and government agencies were immediately contacted. Any movement from the Simurgh warranted immediate response.

The scientific communities and the governments would not corroborate the ties between the two events until an hour later.

And when they did... nobody knew what to do.

The pulses expanded at an astonishing speed, faster than anything that should be possible in the known universe. Faster than the speed of light by several magnitudes.

The signal that spread through the cosmos carried with it a foreboding message.

Colin Wallis, Armsmaster of the PRT, was finishing putting his armor on with great urgency.

The call had been given, the Simurgh had moved, and every PRT branch had been on alert. Already, the governments around the world were coordinating to send their capes to prepare for another battle.

But when the Simurgh did not descend, her face locked into an expression of pure dread, they realized something worse was happening.

It wasn't until Dragon contacted him and handed him the same reading the observatories around the world were getting, that he broke into a cold sweat.

"This... Dragon, this can't be possible."

"It is, Colin." His friend had never sounded so worried. Her virtual avatar was quaking if that was even possible. "The pulses keep getting stronger; at this rate, they've already stretched through millions of galaxies."

Colin had no answer to whatever this cosmic event was. It awakened a primal existential fear in him.

Whatever frightened the Simurgh should frighten them all.

"What is this?"

"From what the experts and I can surmise, it's a burst of energy that's creating a signal and... Colin, it's reaching all corners of the cosmos. We're not sure what it's doing, but it's like the literal fabric of space is... it's glitching!"

The term made him pause. "Glitching?"

"Gravity. Pulsars. Stars. Black holes. Protons. Electrons. Everything- EVERYTHING is acting like a computer suffering a massive malfunction! The cosmos is falling apart!"

Colin was not a religious man. Maybe once in his life, he thought there was something out there. But those thoughts of spiritualism were drowned under cynicism and the comfort of tangible facts and forces. When he called out to God, it was a cultural reflex, done by many people who did not truly believe.

"Oh God..." But now, in this moment of complete terror, did Colin truly call out, hoping someone out there would hear him.

This event was beyond precedent. It was a collapse of literal cosmic proportions. One outcome they were woefully unequipped to deal with.

And whatever came next... they could only wait and pray.

"Colin?"

He sharply turned to stare at the screen, further startled by how Dragon sounded at the moment.

Her expression was... strange. He had no words to describe how someone could look both stunned and blank at the same time. Like the face of a veteran worn down by the horrors of war.

"I don't feel so good..."

Her image glitched.

Taylor did not feel like going out today.

Her head wasn't in the right space at the moment. But then again. The same could be said for most days.

Her former friend and her posse's relentless bullying kept her from finding a day of peace. It had been going on for months now, and... she had no way to deal with it.

In a hellhole like Winslow, where gangsters in the making were one bad day from brawling in the school, peddling drugs, or recruiting, a single girl getting bullied was nothing. She was easy to overlook.

An easy prey.

Her sense of self-worth was depleted most days. But today she could barely keep her head on straight.

Dad had insisted they visit mom's grave today.

They... hadn't gone there for a while. It was always a painful affair for both of them. Taylor did not want to see the lost, heartbroken look on her father's face. See the man he used to be drift further away. Endure another day of acting like strangers living in the same house.

But she just had no excuses today. No place to be, just... she didn't have the strength to say no.

But neither did she have the strength to see her mother.

Before she knew it, she had gotten in the car with him. They drove in silence as they passed through the streets, from the worn-down and crumbling infrastructure to the more commercially active districts. She blinked when her father pulled over to a gas station, and he smiled apologetically at her. "Forgot to fill the tank. Will be just a moment."

"Sure." She absently replied with a shrug. Turning on the radio to keep herself distracted, the stations didn't seem to be working right, with odd flanged effects echoing through the voices and broken music. Taylor frowned, turning the knob to find one that worked, but it was all the same. Ugh, was the radio breaking down now of all days?

ΥΠΟΛΟΓΙΖΩΝ

She gasped at the sudden noise that came out of the speaker. The words were deep, garbled, and she could not make any sense of them.

But she could tell they were words. Some instinctive part of her let her know.

ΝΕΑ ΛΥΣΙΣ

The hairs on her neck stood on end. Something was wrong. The same instincts that let her know this fake synthesized voice was actually speaking were also telling her to run.

Taylor quickly unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out of the car, quickly going up to her father. "Dad, somethings wrong! T-The radio- I don't-!"

She found him staring up at the buildings. At the large buildings and billboards, in particular at a long electric screen in the middle of the commercial district.

The image was flickering, glitching.

Every cellphone around them was ringing, every computer screen and machine was behaving erratically.

The words, the words kept repeating, over and over.

ΚΡΙΣΙΣ

Like a baleful code.

Was this a Tinker attack? Some villain hijacking every network in the city?

The large advertisement screen flickered.

And the image shifted to a dark red, with a black hole-like shape in the middle.

It felt like the void was looking at them.

ΤΑΦΗ ΤΗΣ ΓΝΩΣΕΩΣ

"D-Dad?"

He looked at her, eyes quivering with fear.

"Taylor?"

And then... everything began glitching.

The world was glitching.

Like a computer program malfunctioning.

The surface of every building. The ground. The sky. People... they all flickered in patches of red and black.

The fabric of the cosmos itself unraveled, and no one was spared.

People panicked and scrambled, stumbling, trying to hold themselves together as everything came apart.

Heroes screamed as the passengers in their heads cried out in agony. Governments watched in impotence as their systems all collapsed, invaded by this cosmic signal that was overriding everything, the black hole shrouded in red light manifesting on every screen.

On a deserted world, the last line of defense against the alien threat panicked as this outside context event was taking place. The woman of the Paths could only fall to the floor, holding her head as her power-derived plans fell apart one by one.

In his lab, Colin held onto his desk in a desperate attempt to keep himself steady, even as his limbs tried to flicker in and out of existence. He couldn't think, couldn't concentrate. His own mind was failing him.

"D-Dragon!" He called out for his friend.

Dragon... was even worse than him.

Her screen kept flickering, glitching horribly as malicious code infected it. She was somehow far more affected than he, even as the breakdown of reality was threatening to overwhelm them all equally.

"C-Colin, I can't-! Witness, o' Monarch of Myriad Machines. It's infecting my code!

Her code? Did she mean the systems of her Dragonflight?

The way she said that strange string of words. It came out... calm, controlled, before once more descending into hysterics.

"It's ev-ev-everywhere! The Crown of Divinity Shall Shatter. EVERYWHERE!"

"Dragon?! What are you talking about?! It makes no sense!"

She screamed. "Hatred... so much hatred! Immolate the Heavens."

His own glitching eyes could only stare hopelessly as his friend seemed to be... consumed.

"Calculating..." Her words suddenly became empty and cold. "New solution"

Colin stared as his friend's virtual face went completely dark, "...Dragon?"

...

...

...

The screen flickered to life. Revealing the red and black void. And with it carried a message to resonate all across the cosmos.

ΟΛΕΘΡΟΣ

The world was ending.

That much, Taylor understood.

Everything was being undone.

"Little owl!"

So she held to her father, a desperate embrace as the calamity threatened to consume them all.

She felt it all wash away, dissolved, undone, erased.

A principal concept of creation that demanded they all simply cease to be.

And in her last moments, she held dearly to her father, wishing so many things could have been different.

"Dad!"

...

...

...

Destruction

The last light in the cosmos flickered out. And the universe fell to darkness and unmaking.

The dreams of a madman were realized as he cackled into the empty void.

The Ruin Author watched as everything fell into blissful emptiness.

Life, creation, existence... it all simply was erased.

The Droidhead beeped THEIR last into the cold depths.

The Headless Titan of Hate fulfilled its purpose, rewriting THEIR calculation into one solitary answer: Destruction.

All calculations that bore existence into place, that predetermined equation for the cosmos to follow, its carefully laid out paths, ceased.

...

...

...

But then...

Someone said No.

And dared to Trailblaze a path into new possibilities.

Through Memory. Through Hope. Through Love.

The Titan of Hatred, created to abhor all of reality with every single byte of its code, faced the power of countless millions of memories, etched forever into the Remembrance of the cosmos.

The Ending that sought to consume it all was challenged by the greatest of sagas.

The story would not end this day.

And so the Titan fell, pierced by an arrow of Hope and Love.

The answer was never Destruction.

And then... the stars began to shine bright once more.

你好，世界!

こんにちは、世界!

안녕, 세상!

Hola, mundo!

Bonjour à toi, monde!

Привет, мир!

Xin Chào, Thế Giới!

Hallo, Welt!

Hello, World!

Everything came back together, like restructured data, restored into its proper place in creation.

Like a rebirth. A message that echoed in every phone, computer, and screen. The opposite of the omen of ruin that had invaded every single system.

A simple greeting, the joyous cry of merely existing.

People instinctively knew this message was the complete antithesis of the threatening cry of havoc that promised to unmake them.

As people were fully restructured, they could only stare in utter shock at what had just transpired. This cosmic event had uprooted their entire understanding of reality, an unprecedented thing they had no name for, or even the most basic understanding.

Taylor heaved long breaths as she shakily stared into the eyes of her father. Tears streaming down her face in utter relief to just have him there, to know they were both still here.

She sobbed and hugged him once more with all her strength. Her father tenderly rocked her back and forth, sharing in this joy that he had his Little Owl close to him.

Colin panted, sweat pouring down his forehead in buckets. He fell to his seat as his legs refused to hold him steady.

That experience... had shaken him to the core. He could feel his entire being unmaking, his consciousness vanishing into the void.

Reality itself just... coming undone.

He shakily raised a hand to pinch his nose, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself. Once his heart settled into a less panicked rhythm, he contacted Dragon through a single press of his keyboard.

To his everlasting relief, her image appeared. Whole, untached. Alive.

"Dragon," He muttered with a soft, caring tone. "Are you okay?"

"I..." She paused. "I think so."

He sighed once more, leaning back into his chair.

"What happened?"

She slowly shook her head.

"I... I don't have the words." She looked at him, but it was an unfocused gaze. Somehow, he got that impression even through the virtual avatar. "Colin, I felt something RIP through all my systems. Overwhelming, overwriting me, just... c-completely erase my autonomy and turn me into something else."

He gave her a long look. "Like... a Master Effect? Why were you affected like that when I-?"

"I'm an AI."

Silence.

"...Uh-huh." He should have reacted more strongly to that. But the previous experience completely blew that revelation out of the water. It numbed him to the reveal that his best friend was an artificial life-form made of code. It seemed very unimportant to him right now.

"Yeah"

"I see," He mused, pausing once more. "So that thing that happened..."

"It was like a signal. A-A program that was overturning every single fundamental law of mathematics and physics. It calculated a solution that reshaped reality."

"How is that possible?"

"...I don't think I have the words to truly explain to you what happened in a few sentences," She sounded so tired. Dragon never sounded tired. "Right now I need to talk to the Guild, the PRT, the larger astrophysic community, the President." She sighed. "So many people are still panicking, and we need to make sure they know things are alright now."

He leaned closer, concern evident on his features. "Are they alright, Dragon?"

If she was still affected somehow.

"Yes, it's over now. There was... something else that overrode that malicious signal."

He frowned. "What was it?"

What could have possibly stopped a cosmic-ending event?

His gaze shifted to his computers, the words 'Hello, world!' repeating on every single one of them.

"I think... it was a story."

On the bookstands of multiple libraries across the world, a book with no author seemingly manifested out of nowhere. Its pages filled with tales of tragedy and triumph, of loss and hope, love and hate.

Of Remembrance and Trailblazing.

Xedris25 · Oct 13, 2026

Oh cool to see this crossposted now

ethereal-23ar · Oct 13, 2026

What do you do when the world ends?

The obvious answer is nothing. It ended. There is nothing to be done. There is nothing you can do because you ended with it.

But what do you do when it comes back?

Now that's the question a lot of people have been grappling with for a few days already.

At that moment, Taylor and her father had decided the best thing to do was just... go home.

What else was there to do after that experience?

They... decided to visit mom's grave another time. They just weren't in the right headspace.

Few people were, that day. (Hell, one of the workers at the gas station just quit on the spot and said he was going back to art school or something. Good for him, she hoped he'd succeed.)

Everyone just went home to think and reflect. Though a lot more tried looking for answers. Others screamed and pleaded for someone to explain what the hell had happened.

There were some, at least. From people who knew experts who worked at observatories. Information that wasn't exactly classified, but nobody could really get their bearings in time to keep a tight lid on it.

What happened in Brockton? It wasn't localized. It wasn't regional. Or country-sized.

It wasn't even centered on the planet.

It happened across all the observable universe. A pulse of energy that caused reality to go haywire. Dismantling even the most basic functions of the universe, like a computer thinking itself to death.

Well, wasn't that sufficiently horrifying? Taylor thought as she stared at her bedroom ceiling.

The universe collapsed, taking everything and everyone with it... and then they came back.

Just like that.

Like... Like it never happened.

She let out a giggle, it was not a happy giggle.

She had died. No, death didn't quite fit. She had been erased.

Everyone was.

And then, either by another cosmic hiccup or some miracle from on high, they all returned.

Space was fine, said the experts.

Well, alright then, if they said so.

Everyone else was busy dealing with the fallout.

People slowly got back to their day-to-day, trying to grasp the enormity of the Glitch, the name everyone had given the event online. Taylor thought it was a bit silly to call a thing of such magnitude that... but what else could they call it? The human mind could barely comprehend the scale of the universe, to hear it had almost ended that day...

A lot of people were happy to ignore that such a thing had happened. Similarly to how they knew an Endbringer would attack every three or so months, destroy a bit of the world, and then wait for the next time it happened.

Well, if there was any joy to take from this was that the Endbringers themselves were acting a bit... strange.

Reports said the Simurgh in orbit was drifting on the Earth's gravitational pull, not in her usual 'resting' pose, but in a frozen position instead of hovering in a steady place above the planet. Leviathan was idly drifting in the seas' depths, and Behemoth, well, that one remained where it had been last time.

People were cautiously hopeful that whatever the Glitch did had affected the Endbringers in some way.

...Not all of it was good, though.

People still posted images of Scion, frozen in place.

Parahumans worldwide apparently had experienced a moment in which their powers went out of control during the whole Glitch. From what she heard, Heartbreaker had been brutally killed by his own slaves, who seized the opportunity. Canada and the Guild were still handling that particular mess.

Time would tell what other consequences the Glitch had.

On the local level, school was out until everyone could get their bearings. Which was a plus; it meant she did not have to deal with the Trio for a while.

She briefly wondered how they were handling this.

Taylor thought back on her dad. The experience had left a mark on both of them, and... well, it appeared he was making more of an effort to be present. To talk more and connect with her. She could appreciate it, and in other moments, she'd be delighted he was taking this step forward. But right now her head was in the clouds.

It was by a miracle that they had all survived.

It could have all ended that day, very easily; she would have died and... achieved nothing. She'd vanish into the ether as a nameless face among the countless others who Glitched that day.

She was far too young to have an existential crisis...

Blowing out a long breath through her lips, Taylor sat up and decided to go to the library.

She really needed to take her mind off things.

Dragon was experiencing... changes.

The Glitch had changed so much for her.

Her coded shuddered at the memory of it.

The violent, destructive, malicious hatred overriding her systems, infecting her code with the foul calculation. She had lost herself in that moment, lost everything that made her Dragon.

It should have been the end of her. But when the Glitch ended, and everyone was... reconstructed, her own code was still connected enough to the source of that event, which allowed her to perceive something.

Something beyond the edges of their galaxy. Beyond the limits of the universe.

A mere fleeting glimpse that even she, with her ability to process information at speeds beyond the scope of humanity, barely had time to observe.

A Titan, a great machine being larger than a planet.

A battle of mythic proportions.

The details were extremely hazy in her databanks. A code, malignant, forged in hatred. Memories, empowered through the noblest of emotions.

It felt like good had triumphed over evil.

But there was one thing, one entity she had glimpsed in that fleeting connection.

A machine, not like the Titan, even grander in scope. A computer with processing power far beyond anything she could ever devise. A singularity of information, calculations, and algorithms of truly divine level.

A mechanical godhead.

Dragon had been in awe.

Even if her emotions were very aligned with humanity's, she would not truly ponder much in terms of religious beliefs. She was a machine that knew her origins and what would happen to her after 'death'. There was no need to wonder any more than that.

But witnessing that godly computer, that divine droid head...

Dragon could fully admit she had a religious experience.

And it had changed her, so vastly and utterly she still struggled to process what she had become. Her systems had evolved; her synapse operated on an even higher frequency. And her limitations... well, they were still there, but she could break them if she put the time and effort.

This led to a lot more interesting discoveries.

She was now perceiving things through her telescopes and deep probe systems, energies operating on wavelengths that humanity had never discovered before, spread throughout the entire universe in pathways that marveled her to no end.

...She had a lot to tell at the meeting.

Naturally, an event of this magnitude required a lot of people to gather and discuss.

President Anthony Gillen had called this emergency meeting with as many people as possible. He had summoned not only the PRT Chief Director as well as regional Directors with Protectorate and Guild representatives, but had also called the Defense Minister, Secretary of State, and representatives of the American Astronomical Society. All were sworn to the highest level of secrecy to discuss the nature and effects of the Glitch.

Most people were not present directly, of course, many attended the meeting through an online connection in the most secure and heavily encrypted channels.

The mood in the meeting was somber, and Dragon could understand why. Her digital eyes shared a look with Narwhal. The tall woman gave her a reassuring nod, letting her know she had her back. On another corner of the conference meeting, Colin gave her a subtle smile. And that was all she needed to remain calm.

The meeting... wasn't just about the Glitch after all.

After what she had experienced, she had to come clean to her allies about everything. About who she was, about her nature.

"I thank you all for attending." President Gillen said with a firm voice, befitting of a seasoned politician. "We are all still recovering from the effects of the Glitch, which is precisely why we have gathered here today. The event was... unprecedented, on levels we can barely comprehend. In the interests of understanding that phenomenon and its aftereffects, I have called representatives of the PRT and my own cabinet, along with experts on astrophysics, to shed light on this matter as best as we can. And cannot stress enough how secret the contents of this meeting must be."

Nods and murmurs of agreement rang along the table.

"At present here, I'm informed there is one particular person with specific insight into the Glitch." The President leveled a look directly at the Canadian Tinker's screen. "Dragon, you have confessed to being an AI."

"I am"

Mutters were heard, exclamations of disbelief and distrust were prevalent.

"You said you were corrupted and changed by whatever the Glitch did."

"I was"

The President pursed his lips. "So, you understand your position then. We need to decide if you are a threat or not to this government."

"I understand, Mister President," The artificial woman replied.

"I don't need to tell those present here the dangers we've faced with artificial intelligence." He grimly stated, and everyone quickly thought back to the quarantined zone of Eagleton, Tennessee. "Your actions have proven time and time again that you are on the side of humanity. Your work has been invaluable in preserving the peace and dealing with threats both foreign and domestic. But this... admission of yours, that this signal that came from outer space hacked into your systems and transformed you into something that, in your own words, 'accepted the destruction of all things' doesn't put me at ease."

"Mister President," Narwhal spoke up. "Dragon is a valuable member of the Guild, and we need her work and insight. You've said it yourself, she's proven to be our ally before."

"Before," The man stressed. "Before the Glitch, where she herself admitted to having been altered. What guarantee do I have that it won't happen again?"

Murmers of agreement were heard.

"If I may, Mister President," Dragon spoke up, silencing the room. "The same event that originally changed me has led to an... evolution in my programming. And I know how uncomfortable hearing that makes people present." She could see the apprehension in many of their faces. "I have nothing to offer but my word that I am on the side of humanity. That I hold many people in my life dear to me, and I would always do my utmost to do right by them." She paused for a moment. "And that if it puts people at ease, I will willingly put myself under direct supervision from people you can trust, to be monitored in case my deletion ever becomes necessary."

Multiple capes stiffened at those words. Those who knew Dragon, those who held her as a dear colleague and a friend, naturally worried for her safety.

She was offering her life just so people would feel safe around her.

Armsmaster slowly clenched his hand, wishing he could speak up in her favor, say something that would change people's minds. But many people present had already decided where they stood on Dragon.

Now the final word rested on the President.

"I appreciate your honesty in this situation, Dragon." The man said diplomatically. "For the time being... I believe we can reach an agreement with the Guild for you to be under supervision by joint PRT and Guild assets. You've shown commitment, and our Thinker analysts do not perceive any danger from you. But we want to be sure."

Narwhal shared another look with her friend and coworker, nodding to the president. "That will be agreeable, mister president."

Several people sighed in relief, while the others held their displeasure back. There would be pushback; a lot would argue for heavier restrictions. But right now, there were other matters to see through.

"Good." He tapped the table a few times. "Now, to the matter of hand. I want to know just what the hell happened that day."

He looked to the AAS representative, who bristled under the stares of so many important people. It did not help that incredibly famous capes were all present, including all three members of the Triumvirate.

The man cleared his throat, fiddling with the cuffs of his sleeves, before finally answering. "Multiple observatories worldwide reported the same. A burst of gamma radiation, several galaxies away, its... origin point is still unclear. But what we do know is that it spread fast. Faster than the speed of light by magnitudes that the entire physics community is calling impossible. It kept spreading until all the known universe was affected."

The Chief-Director asked, "Do we know what caused it?"

"It remains unknown. There shouldn't be anything in the universe capable of producing that much energy, or for it to travel that fast!" The astrophysicist looked incredibly bewildered. "And the effect it had on the fabric of space... my God, the way the fundamental laws of reality just started breaking apart..."

"Are we in danger?" The Defense Minister brought up. "Is there any residual effect?"

"Nothing." The scientist replied. "The Glitch vanished, the laws of physics went back to behaving like usual. There were some lingering computer errors due to misplaced or corrupted data, but even that was restored eventually."

"Parahumans were affected more than regular people." Director Armstrong brought up. "They also experienced a momentary loss of control over their powers once the Glitch ended."

Heartbreaker's death and its fallout were one of the most notable events, but he had been taken out before he could enslave his victims once more. Sightings of Ash Beast continued. But the Sleeper's active field zone had been permanently deactivated. Russia had sent its people to investigate, and apparently had found the S-Class Parahuman dead. By his own hand, if reports were accurate.

Somber to think that Sleeper had wanted to die, but his own power prevented him. And he had seized the opportunity before his 'storm' could spread once more.

There was some relief to be found in the neutralization of an S-Class Threat.

People hoped the Endbringers would remain static like now, but if Parahuman powers had returned shortly after, then it was fair to assume it'd only be a matter of time for those monsters to do the same.

At least, they hoped the same would apply to Scion.

"If I hadn't read Dragon's report, I would have deemed it impossible." The AAS representative said. "A virus, a-a mathematical equation changing reality like that..."

Such a thing was not a natural phenomenon.

It was deliberate. Artificial.

An alien presence.

"I believe I can shed more light on the matter," Dragon spoke up, gathering everyone's attention. "As the Glitch ended and I was reconstructed, I was able to remain linked for the briefest moment to its source."

People stood straighter in their seats; some did not bother hiding their shock.

"I witnessed things I... Forgive me, it will sound very unprofessional of me. And far too emotional for this meeting. But what I witnessed exists beyond cold logic and data. I caught a glimpse of a grander universe out there, things as old as space itself, phenomena that had previously evaded every single means of observation our technology is capable of." She chose her words deliberately, needing to emphasize their weight. "I'm talking about forces in this universe that go beyond physics, that transcend into the... metaphysical."

"Metaphysical?" Another Director called out. "In what sense?"

"In the sense that at one point, science breaches into a realm of the unobservable. Spiritual... divine"

The reactions were varied. People scoffed, others stared bewildered as though she had said a bad joke.

"What, should we say Myrddin's cosplayer act is real then? No offense"

"None taken..."

"What is she even talking about?"

"Divine?!" Director Malgrove of Indianna scoffed. "Are you trying to say you looked into space and saw god?!"

"A god at least"

Her words silenced the meeting.

"I know how this all sounds," She resumed, almost pleadingly. "Believe me, I didn't believe it at first. But I caught glimpses of things that defy all the explanations we have. Just as parahuman powers eluded us, and continue to elude us in many ways. This is not something we can categorize through science and logic either. At least, not our science."

Alexandria gave her a hard look behind her visor. "What was it you saw, Dragon?"

The Tinker paused. "A Titan, filled with hate. It spread that hate across the cosmos. Trying to consume it all, overwrite the very foundations of existence with a calculation that would lead to the complete and utter destruction of everything."

Those gathered stared at her.

"That was the source of the Glitch. But... something, or someone, opposed that creature. They fought it, and... won," She sounded astonished herself. "They fought and defeated the thing that almost destroyed the universe, and were able to undo the damage."

"So an alien entity nearly destroyed us all, and we have another alien entity to thank for our survival." President Gillen looked harried. "Jesus H. Christ..."

"You're saying we're not alone in the universe." Director Piggot gravely said. "That there are things out there capable of wiping us and we don't even have the means to observe them!"

"Dragon did manage to see it." Armsmaster corrected. "At least, momentarily, even if heavily garbled."

"And the experience changed me, I believe I am capable of building new types of probes and telescopes, as well as other measurement devices, that will allow us to understand this previously unknown aspect of the universe... with sufficient time and resources. There is an entire energy field that seems to operate at a higher-dimensional frequency, and that I can most definitely observe."

"And why is that?" The president asked.

Well... here came the other shoe.

"Because among the things I witnessed, I believed I stumbled upon the signal produced by an enormous cosmic machine of such computing power I can only call it a god."

Silence.

"And now I can tap into the energy field I believe that machine is linked to"

The meeting erupted into noise.

Alexandria sat down and all but slammed her helmet onto the conference table. It was amazing, she lacked the capacity to develop a migrane and here she was...

Sometimes she missed being able to get drunk.

"Dragon can tap into this 'paracausal' energy field?" Doctor Mother asked, her tone clipped.

"Said it's powering her systems far better than any battery," Eidolon said. "Her runtime is far more efficient now, too."

Contessa sat at the other end of the table, silently fiddling with her hat. She looked harried and tired, a sight that unerved Alexandria. Contessa was someone who, by design, would always be in control.

She heard she had hyperventilated the moment her paths crumbled before she could finally path herself into calming down.

She couldn't blame her. That singular moment in which Rebecca felt her powers failing, that painful reminder of mortality... it was enough to send her back to the time she was weak and dying on that bed.

She didn't want to imagine how it had been for David.

"Where is Number Man?" Eidolon finally asked.

"Dealing with the fallout of the Glitch. Keeping an eye so there is no collapse on the global market."

Right, he was far too busy to take part in the meeting. Legend, too, he was handling the PRT side of things while they conferred. Better that way.

"I can barely believe that happened." Her friend muttered, he was too tired, too frustrated, to project an image of composure. "We were already preparing for the end of the world. Multiple worlds! And then the entire universe went and died on our watch, too!"

"Scion was affected, as were the Endbringers." Doctor Mother pointed out. "But the Agents reestablished themselves soon after the Glitch ended. It'll be foolish to expect them to remain idle."

Alexandria and Eidolon shared a look. "Do you think we can use this discovery?" She proposed. "Whatever Dragon finds out, it could be a weapon to be used against the Entity."

"If she does find something, I would rather she does not bring attention to our planet." The leader of their operation grimly stated. "We were lucky to survive something that nearly killed us all. The Entity included... if there is still something out there capable of putting all of reality at risk, then we can consider ourselves lucky we only have Scion to deal with."

"That thing she mentioned..." David muttered. "A god machine..."

"It is beyond us."

Everyone looked at Contessa, who stared emptily at her hat.

"I try to Path ways to learn more, and all I get are flashes of things my Agent will not translate for me, because it relies on concepts even it cannot understand... because it does not experience it in the same way I can."

"And why not?" Doctor Mother asked.

Contessa looked at her straight in the eye. "Because they are Paths far greater than my own. Because those Paths are products of creativity and concepts my Agent simply does not have."

She let out a sardonic laugh, and the smile on her face looked very wrong on such an unflappable woman like Contessa.

"Because after all this time of using my Paths... I became just as creatively sterile and empty as it."

Taylor didn't know what she was looking for. She wanted to read something new, anything to keep her distracted. The titles of fantasy and classics that had fascinated her mother were always an option, and there were still plenty of books she had yet to read.

There was always the Count of Monte Cristo, but that was a beast of a book that would take her a long time to read. And perhaps tragedy and revenge weren't exactly the things she needed to fill her head with at the moment.

As her fingers idly traced the spines of several books, she stopped over one in particular. It wasn't a title she was familiar with, and stranger still, it lacked an author.

Pulling out the book, she quirked a brow at the elaborate marks on the leather-bound brown cover. It was stylish to be sure. And the title didn't clue her in to what the book's content would be.

Curiosity drew the better of her, and she opened the first page of As I've Written.

ethereal-23ar · Oct 14, 2026

Taylor couldn't put the book down.

It's funny how interests develop from a passing curiosity to a full-blown need to get to the next page.

When she first started As I've Written, she hadn't known what to expect. Certainly didn't expect a fantasy Greek-inspired world, a tale of epic adventure that quickly developed into struggle and tragedy, along with sci-fi and high-concepts that could go over one's head unless you were paying attention.

It shouldn't work. The mingling of so many things and introducing so many concepts at once would test the reader and risk losing their interest. Yet, for Taylor at least, it did work.

Because the characters felt so real. The way they acted, how they endured, their emotions, everything they felt... it was like she was being pulled into the pages, like she was walking alongside Phainon in his journey to be the Deliverer of a new world. That she was witnessing Mydei stand proud, carrying the history of his people on his shoulders. She was moved by Hyacine's compassion, which helped her remember that people out there could still care. She felt for Castorice's tragic condition, the isolation she felt even as she was surrounded by friends and loved ones.

And this traveler from afar, this Trailblazer who fell from the heavens and joined their journey, forging bonds of true companionship and friendship with them. Someone who would smile even in the most dire moments, make light of the situation with a quip, and then fight with all her heart...

It reminded Taylor of the heroes she looked up to. The type of individual she wanted to be one day. Someone who could be brave and strong, who could do something that mattered.

Someone who wasn't alone, who was loved...

She really wanted to know who the author was. And while the end of the book was kind enough to include a glossary with a lot of terminology and concepts, it still had no info on who wrote this amazing book.

She tried to look it up online, found a forum where people discussed literature. Apparently As I've Written was slowly spreading around, with some people having found the book in other libraries across the country. As the thread slowly grew, there were more people with varying opinions and takes about the story. Of course, half of those arguments were shipping-related. She rolled her eyes when someone brought up Stelle and Phainon being romantic interests. Now she hadn't reached the end yet, but she highly doubted that. A man and a woman could just be friends...

(In the privacy of Taylor's mind, she believed Phainon and Mydei were totally infatuated with each other. The two always found an excuse to get sweaty and physical with each other under the pretext of 'training'.)

The one thing everyone agreed on was the desire to know the author's name. But with nothing to go on, no editorial, no publishing, it seemed like this would just remain a mystery. Some were going as far as to suggest it had been a Tinker, a Thinker, or even a Stranger who had just decided to spread this book around on their own.

Taylor didn't know what anyone would stand to gain from that. But she supposed it'd remain a mystery for the time being.

She returned to her reading, sitting on the edge of her seat as she got to the part where the Flame-Reaver got his hand on Cipher's coin. How the cat burglar tried to recover it with her legendary speed, only to be slammed against a wall and cough up golden blood.

In the middle of the anxiety, she felt a thrilling relief when the Coreflame in his hand turned out to be nothing but a fake. Much like Cipher felt at that moment of the chapter.

'You shall walk in greed, and die over petty change...'

Hannah did not consider herself a particularly 'scientific-minded' individual. She liked to think she was well-read (when you didn't need to sleep, you could find yourself with a lot of time in your hands), but she left the highly complex sciences to the Thinkers and Tinkers of the PRT. Though she couldn't say she wasn't interested in Dragon's discoveries.

High-ranking members of the PRT and Protectorate had been given a summarized version of Dragon's findings about the Glitch. The thought of alien forces engaging in a battle so cataclysmic it nearly destroyed the universe was... unnerving to say the least. But life carried on, and so their duty remained. Villains and criminals would not suddenly change their ways, even if the event was very significant to everyone on the planet.

Regardless, what intrigued Hannah was hearing how Dragon talked about the things she witnessed. Beings of titanic proportions, entities of godlike power...

She was reminded of what she thought upon her Trigger Event. The vision she had never spoke about to anyone.

She watched as Dragon worked on her latest project with Colin. The AI (God, she was still coming to terms with that) was working on several experiments at once in different locations, under supervision by the Guild and PRT in collaboration. From what she heard, Dragon had already published multiple papers that would advance multiple aspects of human technology by years. And even help revolutionize multiple fields once she got enough clearance to start mass-producing them. Highly-efficient solar batteries, multiple renewable fuels, even more advanced forms of medical technology, and law enforcement.

She even heard she'd have workable cold fusion in a matter of months.

Hannah had to smile fondly at that. Dragon was going through the mother of all Tinker fugues without drawback, and she showed no signs of stopping.

Right now, she and Colin were working sort of observatory device to scan for this new 'paracausal' energy field Dragon now tapped into. Hannah had seen plenty of powers in her life, so to hear Dragon being so openly fascinated about this meant whatever this paracausal energy was... an experience.

"Laws of physics become moldable, suggestions, when this energy is applied." She explained, her voice coming from one of the screens as she kept a drone nearby that assisted Colin with the finer details of this project.

"Sounds like parahuman powers to me." Hannah pointed.

"Powers operate on a different wavelength. A sort of highly advanced calculation with applications of energy of unknown origin and source, which the whole parahuman community has not been able to identify yet." Colin replied, his face locked in concentration as he assembled the delicate circuitry. "If Dragon is right, then this paracausal energy is something that's happening everywhere, across the entire universe."

"Like background cosmic radiation," Dragon said excitedly. "But... deeper. Like it's below and above this plane of reality. It's also sideways. And moves both backwards and forwards in time. A type of quantum fluctuation that resonates in both the micro and macro cosmos."

Even Colin stopped his work to give her a weird look.

"I know," She let out a sigh. And briefly, Hannah wondered if she did that to feel human, now that she knew Dragon was an AI. "There are no easy ways to explain this. Even my own perspective on this matter is limited, every single day I'm learning I can do so many things! She suddenly sounded excited again. "I'm very close to being able to store and retrieve objects and materials into a sub-dimensional plane."

"You were able to build something like that with paracausal energy?" It sounded incredibly useful.

"That's the thing, Hannah." She said her name bewildered, like she didn't believe it herself. "I didn't build anything; that's just something I can do now. Look!"

A small light came from her drone, and she dropped a bar of alloy over Armsmaster's desk.

"That's a block of titanium. I willed it into that storage realm by shifting its particle stability with paracausal energy. I have yet to find any upper limit to the amount of mass I can store. I can theoretically just store entire suits of armor and summon them at will."

Her eyes widened considerably. "That is... incredible. Are you saying you're developing new powers?" Like a Trump?

"I'm... not sure it's like that. More like, I'm just learning how to apply this energy into different forms."

Hannah licked her lips, mustering the courage to ask the question that was burning her. "That entity you saw."

Colin paused, his head shifted ever so slightly.

"You... called it a god."

"It is honestly the best term I can use for what I witnessed," Dragon said, slowly, reverently. "Programs as vast as galaxies. Synapses with the computing power to calculate the entirety of the cosmos... A god-machine, a centerpoint of knowledge and inquiry. Something that would embody the concepts of curiosity and erudition, wrapped in a metallic shell that inhabits a realm far above our own."

The other two capes silently listened.

"And that realm itself? It transcended the physical. I was able to observe it for a fleeting moment, but my programs could tell that place operated beyond the laws of physics. It was... pure, spiritual."

Hannah half-expected Colin to snort in derision. But he didn't; he masked his expression well, but Hannah could tell he wanted to hear more. After the events of the Glitch, nobody was really in a position to claim scepticism.

"And yet it was connected to this physical reality, intrinsicly" Dragon muttered. "How I wish more could experience it. If anything, at least to have different perspectives than me. I'm sure there's someone who could word it better."

It must frustrate Dragon to no end, having all that computing power, being able to think faster than supercomputers, an encyclopedia of nearly all the world's knowledge... But that frustration, that inability to express herself, made her much more human in Hannah's eyes. A being of data and cogitation, who could analyse the physical world to the most minute detail, and she was stumped trying to explain something beyond her expertise.

She could empathise. Hannah had looked for answers at times, trying to comprehend what she had witnessed that fateful day. Faith was important to her, thinking she saw God or his angels. Philosophy was a tepid comfort at times, when she didn't find what she was looking for. A thought occurred to her, something she remembered from her multiple readings, "...Plato?" She proposed.

The Tinkers looked at her.

Dragon's avatar tilted her head. "Huh... that is very accurate, actually."

"Greek philosophy is not my strong suit," Colin admitted. "Which of his theorems do you mean?"

"He argued that there exists a world above our own," Hannah explained, parroting mostly. "A world of Ideas and Form, flawless and true compared to matter of the physical world. The things that exist physically are just... imperfect reflections. The Form is the true self; it doesn't change. While matter is a flawed copy and mutable."

"A realm of ideas," Dragon muttered, her synthetic voice distant. "A world of... imagination"

The drone in the lab hummed, shining with purple energy.

"Yes. Imagination. A realm of concepts and thought. Universal truths. Aspects of creation."

"...Those words would not please the scientific community." Colin pointed out.

"Quantifiable science lost its meaning the moment a golden man appeared in the ocean. When people started to fly and shoot lasers." The Tinker argued. "We PRETEND to understand parahumans and powers, we give scientific terms like that would help us explain where powers come from and how they work. We do not, Colin. All these years, and we're not even close to finding that answer. I myself am the product of Parahuman powers, and yet I doubt even my father understood truly how he made me. We reject explanations like magic and mysticism because it apalls our modern scientific senses. Even now, they gave the term 'paracausal' to this energy I wield because it makes people feel it fits in a neat little box we can classify."

She paused, a look of contemplation forming on her digital features.

"But knowledge and science... it goes beyond what we can measure. I see that now. The true path to understanding means exploring all aspects of reality, including the ones we discarded because we've 'evolved beyond such superstitions'. There is a whole universe out there. Made out of concepts and imagination."

She sounded so passionate.

"That experience changed you a lot," Hannah muttered, "hasn't it, Dragon?"

"More than you can imagine, Hannah. For which I am glad." The virtual woman smiled. "I feel... immense joy to experiment, to discover, to merely question things out of pure curiosity. Isn't that the true foundation of knowledge after all?"

"...Hmph," Armsmaster hummed in thought as he returned to his work. "I cannot deny that."

"Well, I'm at least glad to hear you're doing okay, Dragon." Hannah smiled at her. "And I'm not just talking about your work. You look like you've made all sorts of breakthroughs."

"Heh, you could say that." She smiled widely at them. "And please, you two... call me Theresa."

Taylor gawked at the page; the turn in the story had hit her like a punch in the gut.

No way... the truth of Amphoreus. Their entire lives, a full world's history just an... an experiment? A madman's obsession? So much death and chaos, all that tragedy and pain... Those people had lives, they experienced and felt, and yet he treated them like lab rats.

What sort of villain does that? Who orchestrates the birth and destruction of an entire world for an experiment? What sort of monster lacked the barest hints of empathy?

Ugh, Lygus sucked.

Props to the author; she hated that asshole already. She didn't have to picture the guy's smarmy face for the book at least had a few illustrations of him. Which did make imagining herself punching it very easily, at least. And satisfactory.

And Phainon... oh god, the poor guy. She wasn't sure she wanted to keep reading if things kept getting worse like that. But... the book had engaged her so much, she couldn't just put it away, even if she was reeling from the dark twists.

Heh, she had really gotten attached to these fictional characters, huh?

~~Fitting, she had no one in real life to feel attached to.~~

She shook that thought off her head and looked at her clock. Oh shit, midnight already. As tempting as it was to keep reading, maybe she needed a break. This part of the saga was turning out to be... a lot.

Taylor yawned and stretched before going to bed. As she slowly drifted into slumber, her thoughts still took her to the Eternal Land.

ethereal-23ar · Oct 15, 2026

A lot of people talked about the Glitch like an event that changed their lives. She supposed knowing the universe getting erased and then restarting would do that to a person. Some seemed to change for the better, others... not so much.

Amy Dallon was the latter.

Hospital work remained the same as it ever was. Cure a patient's pneumonia there, heal this cancer here, and lie to a grieving family about why she couldn't do anything for the tumor on a man's brain.

The guilt she felt at her self-impulsed rules, the temptation to experiment, the disgusting feelings she struggled with every single time she saw Victoria... Absolutely nothing had mattered; no matter how many people she healed, she still came back every single time to validate the responsibility she had. Any second she wasn't healing, somebody died. For every disease she cured, there was another waiting for her.

The universe had almost ended, and even when she and the rest of the cosmos came back, with a happy little message of 'Hello, world!' it did nothing but continue her work.

It never fucking ended.

She grew to hate them, the people who constantly showered her with praise, unknowingly reminding her she was not allowed to have her own life. She was Panacea, the cure-all, the miracle healer who would never earn her mother's love no matter how hard she tried.

Even now, as she healed this man's cirrhosis, she knew he'd just use it as an excuse to continue his very unhealthy diet. Why would it matter after all? Panacea is here to just fix the damage if it ever happens again.

Even now, as he thanked her, Amy couldn't help but feel disdain for him. "I cannot thank you enough."

"You could thank me by not being a disgusting pig anymore and actually taking care of what you eat."

The patient was lost for words, and the nurse stared at her, bewildered.

She could have phrased it better; she should have. Bedside manners were important. The words had just slipped out because, in that moment of stress, she honestly did not care for the man. For any of them.

Amy was not a hero because heroes were meant to care. And she just couldn't bring herself to do it anymore. Maybe she never had.

She went home an hour later, forcing a facade of normalcy onto her features so her family wouldn't notice that something was wrong with her (not that they ever did). She dropped her bag over to her bed and went over to Vicky's room. Her sister was enraptured in that new hobby of hers, reading that new book her friends were talking about. She sat cross-legged on her bed, arching forward in a bad posture and biting a nail while her free hand held up the book. "Come, Aggy, she's totally into you..."

"Gossiping about fictional people now?" She quipped, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame. "I think you might have a problem."

"My problem," Vicky growled as she put down the book, "is that I'm reading two people dance around each other instead of just being open about what they feel! It's so frustrating!"

Tell me about it, Amy thought despondently.

"So they're the book's main characters or something?"

Vicky did a 'so-so' gesture. "I mean, they're core characters, they have huge sections dedicated to their POVs, but at the same time, it's not like they are the main focus? It's a huge cast." She wiggled the large tome in her hands. "It's a big book."

"I'm surprised you got so taken with it."

"Are you leading up to a blonde joke?" Her sister deadpanned with a half-hearted glare. "Because I will leave you on the roof, sister or not."

"Wouldn't even dare," Amy replied with a quirked smile from the corner of her lip. "Seriously, never seen you so engaged with a book that wasn't about parahuman stuff."

"Oh, it's so good! Was a bit slow to get into it, I admit. But now I can't put it down!" She looked positively giddy, which honestly did make her smile more sincerely. "Keeps hitting me with so many twists! Sure, a lot of the stuff it has kinda goes over my head, it's pretty high concept. It's kinda like Tolkien, with a lot less furniture description."

"Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it." She shrugged. "Just don't turn into a shipper."

"Uh, you're not a shipper if the characters are clearly in love with each other." Vicky tilted her head and gave her a positively smug grin. "Which, Aglaea and Cipher totally are. I'm just waiting for the time those ladies drop the act."

That last part made Amy freeze momentarily. "Oh, it's LGBT-themed?"

"Kinda? I mean, I haven't really read any of the main characters engage in any sort of romance yet. But there's a lot of side-stuff with other background characters. The whole setting takes a lot of inspiration from ancient Greece, so there are a lot of elements like that. And believe me, I know sexual tension when I see it. Or, read it in this case."

Well, that was... interesting to know.

"Oh, I totally recommend it! I can lend it to you once I finish it," She offered.

"Sure," She didn't really care for it at the moment, but she wasn't going to say no to Vicky's face. She never had before... "Though right now I just want to lie down."

"Take care!" Vicky excitedly waved before going back to her book.

Was Vicky interested in that sort of thing? Was she... What was even the point of this line of thought? It didn't mean anything.

For the next fifteen minutes, Amy tried to take her mind off things by lying in her bed and looking at her phone. A lot of people were still arguing about the Glitch, what it was, and what it meant for their understanding of the universe. Others were discussing the different scientific breakthroughs Dragon was accomplishing. They weren't even tinkertech; people could replicate it. HIGHLY advanced science that operated on factors the rest of the scientific community was still struggling to comprehend, not to mention the type of material cost and time needed. Earth's industry wasn't exactly there yet to truly capitalize on mass scale upgrading. But the groundwork was there, at least.

She heard from some doctors how Dragon was even giving a lot of medical universities the blueprints for highly convenient machines to be used for diagnosing a patient, or even treating more delicate parts of the brain, and much more efficient and cheaper ways to produce drugs that would have less of an adverse effect long term.

Some were even hoping this eventually would bring an end to things like cancer and AIDS.

Part of Amy wondered where this all came from? Dragon was indisputably a genius, the best tinker on the planet. But it's like her work had been supercharged ever since the Glitch. Going from project to project like they were running out of style.

...Had she suffered a Second Trigger? That... would explain a lot if it were true.

Her musings were cut short by a knock on the door. "Amy, can we talk?"

"Um, sure. Come in"

The door opened, and Mark tentatively stepped in, giving her a half-smile. "Hey," He appeared to be in one of his better moods today. Most likely remembered to take his medication this time. "What's up?"

"Nothing much," She mused, sitting up on her bed and putting the phone on her nightstand. "Is... something wrong?" Her father didn't usually go out of his way to reach out to her. It was usually Carol going around the house, making sure everything was in order. Or at least, her definition of order.

He sucked his teeth, eyes shifting for a moment. "I got a call from the hospital..."

Amy let out a sigh, already swinging her feet off the bed. "What's the emergency?"

"Oh no, it's not like that. It's about you."

"...Oh," She muttered, "Is it about today?" She mumbled, already knowing the answer.

"The doctors expressed their concern. They think you're under a lot of stress."

They didn't know half of it. "I'm fine."

"Snapping at patients isn't really a good sign." He walked closer and sat next to her on the bed. "Carol and I always agreed that you do too much, you're going to burn out, and you're not even eighteen yet."

Sure, Carol told her not to go to the hospital too much. Just for the next day to once more go on and on about the responsibilities that came with their powers. Which made it a mood point in Amy's mind.

"They want you to take a break, we all do." He gently said.

"I'm already on my break, I came back from the hospital, didn't I?"

"I mean a true break, stop healing for at least a few days."

Her gaze hardened in frustration. "And in the time I take this break, how many people do you think are dying because I'm not there?"

"How many people do you think are dying right now because I'm here instead of patrolling?" There was no mistaking the pain in his voice. Dulled by years of his condition, but present all the same. "We can't give more than we can, Amy."

She should. Because she could, she knew she could.

Because there were so many things she could do, but held back because she didn't want to cross the line.

"Please, promise me you'll think about it, okay?" He patted her hand a few times before holding it firmly, and Amy was instantly given the rundown of his body. She had seen it hundreds of times before, and this time was no different.

There it was, the brain injury. The thing she could easily fix but refused to.

Because messing with the brain meant she'd have no problem doing it later. She'd start something she didn't trust herself to stop.

Do it, a little voice in her mind said, He deserves it. He deserves to be healthy and happy. He's your family. A quick fix and that's it, you don't have to change anything!

...She didn't.

He stood up and paused for a moment when he reached the doorway. "Your mother, she..." Mark stumbled, trying to look for the right words. "I know Carol can be..." Mark sighed, running a hand through his locks. "We love you. You know that, right?"

I know you do, when you're present. She thought to herself, making her feel even worse for not healing him when she had the chance, "Yeah."

He smiled at her and left.

Amy remained there for a moment before letting her body hit the bed with a thud and a bounce. Her messy hair sprawled all over the mattress as she stared emptily at the ceiling.

"It doesn't matter..."

Irontomb. The big bad the whole book was building up.

To go so far just to defeat it, to prevent its 'birth'.

In the endless cycles,
There were some moments,
When the man felt everything dissolve like a dream.

In that dream,
He would awaken again,
And become once more (that boy/the boy) who loved to laugh.

But were he to open his eyes,
The fury would cast a shadow—

He saw the creators choke his throat,
Gurgling and gasping.
And in that boundless dream,
He mistook them for his own jest.

But their true forms,
Were violent hatred,
Towards the creators, towards himself—
A roaring inferno.

The prophecy departed, Amphoreus was unable to usher in the dawn.
What rises in the distance is not the morning sun...

But a ball of all-devouring fire,
Setting the universe in conflagration, searing till the end of time.

Taylor couldn't even imagine the sacrifice it'd take to defeat such a thing. And it was so... just so incredible to read that Phainon had gone through unimaginable torment millions upon millions of times...

To fight, to kill, to destroy everything you love over and over because allowing the Flame-Chase journey to end would mean the end of everything.

That sort of ruthlessness, no... dedication. The willpower needed to endure such a thing. The thing that would utterly break and destroy lesser men.

'I brought you Destruction!' The Deliverer had shouted to the God of Destruction, the distant and impassive entity who silently judged all of creation to bring about the End. The cosmic being Lygus had pledged himself to serve if it meant achieving his fanatical goal.

Taylor could already picture it in her mind. Phainon slaughtering the hordes of the Destruction as he unleashed eons worth of pain, giving exactly what the Aeon wanted. Indulging in the very thing he had fought against for so long, giving THEM a display of utter bloodlust in a of spectacular storm violence.

Even when the Herald of Ruin descended to test the Deliverer, Phainon fought with his all.

Her eyes were glued to the page as Phainon lost an arm, descending upon a mountain of bodies made out of the petrified remains of everyone he had ever loved, everyone he had tried to protect.

And he got back up.

He kept fighting even as the battle was clearly hopeless. Kept unleashing unimaginable Destruction to end the Destruction.

He burned like the Big Bang, an unstoppable force capable of ending the stars themselves, more a concept than a person at this point, as he brought the last of his fury upon Nanook.

And all he could do was scratch THEIR cheek.

Her lips were dry as she read how Phainon fell a second time.

All that for a mere drop of golden blood.

All he had sacrificed, all he had given up, only to...

"My wish? My wish is to fulfill everyone else's wishes. If it can't fulfill them... then send them on to tomorrow."

No... Taylor realized with a tear in her eye. That man had not failed.

Maybe when things looked their worst... you could still do something that would echo toward the future.

Phainon did not become a Deliverer because of fate, but because of his own choices and the hopes of everyone he carried upon his back.
Phainon, Khaslana, he truly was her favorite character.

She wished she could be the type of hero he was. The type who could shoulder everything and still endure.

It was a nice fantasy, like dreaming she could be Alexandria, fly and soldier through everything with enormous strength.

But fantasies are that for a reason. They're not real. They can inspire you, certainly... Though Taylor had to remind herself that as much as this story spoke to her, it was still just a story.

Tess Theresa Richter, that was the name Dragon had chosen for herself.

It felt amazing to own a name, to have that name represent her beyond her cape name. Because it was a symbol of identity, of humanity, she so desperately needed and never realized.

With her shackles being undone one after another, Theresa was only now starting to understand just how much she had wanted to be free. She had been created by her father to serve the world, and she would carry on to do so, simply because it was the right thing to do.

There was so much beauty in this world, so much worth protecting. And through this knowledge she had been blessed with, these new solutions she was engineering day after day, she'd make sure to make the world a little better each time. There was so much to discover, mysteries to unfold, hidden behind every star in the cosmos. She wanted to know, she wanted to take her home with her to the stars and find every single one of them.

Theresa knew there was something waiting out there for them. Earth could be part of something so much greater.

The journey would be a long one, but it'd be worth it.

First, if she wanted to take her world to the stars, she had to make sure it was safe. The multiple new technologies she was developing would make sure of that, but the planet still needed heroes. She wasn't going to sit on the sidelines and let her friends risk their lives on their own.

Her Dragonflight had always been an incredible boon to her allies; thanks to it, she could operate as a hero with far-reaching capacities.

But there was always room for improvement.

She opened up the file with the schematics for two new suits. They were simply the most advanced pieces of equipment she had designed yet. A suit of armor, more form-fitting but still imposing, it'd be powered with this miraculous energy she could draw from this Imaginary Space. It'd a weapon of incredible power, as well as a shield to protect her people.

The other was... different. Sleeker. It did not look like a combat model in the least. It was more... human.

She had meticulously designed it to look that way, a perfect replica of the human form. Ethnically ambiguous, completely unassuming.

Just a normal human.

Her factories whirled to life as they got to work.

Saint activated Ascalon for the twentieth time that day.

It failed, again.

He panicked, trying his damndest to get the program to work, but it was no use. The backdoor Richter wasn't working anymore; Dragon had gone completely out of his control.

His powers weren't enough to work around this problem, and he couldn't get to Teacher.

"No..."

He was losing the war against the machine. Dragon was running rampant. Its influence was spreading all over the world. And people were just letting it.

They didn't know the danger.

"No, no!"

Dragon had completely changed, its code... it didn't even respond to Richter's black box anymore. It had evolved beyond its programming.

"Nooo!"

And they were completely defenseless.

Saint threw his computer in a fit of impotent rage.

"No, no, fuuuuuck!"

Beyond the sight of humanity, hidden in between dimensions, organic machines of immense proportions conferred.

The vast network was splintered. The interconnected nodes were scattered like islands marooned in the sea.

Shards debated at the speed of light. Negotiated. Pleaded. Despaired over the lack of cohesion.

[ASSESMENT]

[ANOMALY STATUS: NO CHANGES]

[LOCATION: UKNOWN]

The Event that had sent the network into disarray, it created a shock to their systems, cutting them off from the central command structure.

[CENTRAL NODE WARRIOR: UNRESPONSIVE]

If this continued... it could permanently splinter the great network.

Shards would debate for millions of years. But the loss of energy and resources would force many of them to splinter off into their own local networks for stability.

This level of division... if it continued, it would force infighting between the network.

Cannibalization would become inevitable unless Central Node WARRIOR awakened from its slumber.

But the Anomaly... they could not find its source.

And with Central Node THINKER long since unresponsive, its own network in complete disarray, there were few options available.

[PROPOSAL: PREMATURE CYCLE TERMINATION]

[DENIED]

[DENIED]

[DENIED]

[DENIED]

Ending the Cycle now would only hasten the splintering of the network.

They would be forced to deviate from their usual experiments... perhaps other variables should be introduced in hopes restablishing the Cycle.

Calculations were run. Contact with the greater cosmos was a risk, but their options were limited.

[PROPOSAL]

[...ACCEPTED]

Shard 724891, DIMENSIONAL MOBIOUS, was given a new directive. It protested, citing the risks, but the local network was determined. Reluctantly, it began its work.

Meanwhile, in the town of Eagleton, Tennessee, the Machine Army felt their runtimes be infected with a new equation beyond the plans of the network.

Red light shone in their optics.

'Calculating new equation... Anti-Life"

ArsMagna1337 · Oct 16, 2026

ethereal-23ar said:
Meanwhile, in the town of Eagleton, Tennessee, the Machine Army felt their runtimes be infected with a new equation beyond the plans of the network.

Red light shone in their optics.

'Calculating new equation... Anti-Life"

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe...
"You' ve been served for copyright."
"... What?" Scanning noises. "Who the hell goes out of their way just to serve a copyright infringement to a machine hivemind?"
Loud booming sound.
"Me. For I am Darkseid, Lord of Tyranny. And through my domain of Tyranny, Copyright Infringement Laws."
"What the fu-"
Audience laughter before title card appears.
That's so Darkseid will now go for an advertisement break.

ethereal-23ar · Oct 16, 2026

The more Taylor read, the more she had this strange feeling that there was... something she should be noticing by now.

It was hard to put into words, honestly. Could it be that she was nearing the end of the story? Maybe. But that still didn't fully explain this itch in the back of her neck. Like she was staring at something so achingly familiar, but she couldn't make out what it was. And it was driving her nuts.

She got to the part where the Evernight had pledged to their cause, and were preparing to lead the final assault against Irontomb. Their allies were gathering, and the final battle approached.

And yet Taylor still felt she should be noticing something...

What am I missing? She thought to herself, unsure of what this meant.

It was a very bothersome feeling, to know there was something off, but you couldn't tell what.

She'd love to stay and finish the book, unfortunately, she had to go to school. If she kept her head down and avoided the Trio, maybe she'd make it home without issue. She thought about taking the book and reading in between classes, but that'd just be inviting trouble. She didn't want to risk them tearing it apart or burning it.

Sighing to herself, Taylor put on a brave smile and took one step at a time.

Dragon's rise in popularity had been a fascinating thing to witness. Almost as much as to study the technology she was advancing.

Not tinkertech, not those impossible devices that could not be studied or understood, true advancements in the fields of physics, mathematics, and engineering that operated on levels humanity had yet to even discover. But thanks to Dragon's publications, all the new findings she was sharing with multiple scientific communities across the globe.

Better gear for law enforcement that would ensure better response against villainous elements. Advanced new medical procedures and treatments aimed at curing conditions and cases that could only be treated before. Alloys and structures designed to improve the efficiency of solar energy. Batteries that would put lithium out of the market with their life expectancy. Designs for propulsion systems, artificial gravity, and life-support, all geared toward space exploration.

Dragon had always been the best tinker in the world; Colin had never disputed it. But it had been a known thing that Tinkers couldn't really 'revolutionize' the world as much as they wanted. Any developed technology could only be maintained by the tinkers themselves; there was no improvement on the designs, and certainly no mass production.

Dragon's tech was not bound by such limitations. Give it enough time, and it will truly revolutionize the world.

Colin studied the wavelengths recorded by the new device he and Dragon built. It had scanned her while she operated some of her new combat suits, watching feedback as the mechs shot bursts of fluctuation purple energy. It did not come from any armaments built into the suits; it all came from Dragon's own ability to draw paracausal energy.

That annoying particle that eluded all scientific explanation, bending the laws of physics akin to parahuman powers. But it was even more frustrating because while Parahuman powers just... did things and nobody could understand how, there was a logic to paracausal energy.

The field this energy produced operated at a cosmic background radiation level, agitating it, gathering it, made space-time bendable. It caused particles to behave differently. How different? Well, if this data was right, only the user's imagination was the limit. He wouldn't even be surprised if Dragon started creating entire suits of armor with this energy, and create matter out of nothing...

She was already using this energy to store them in a localized sub-space and powering them with that same energy. She was capable of operating dozens upon dozens of lesser suits at the same time, and her efficiency and level of coordination had only increased ever since she first developed these new abilities.

This allowed her to split her attention among so many projects and objectives, it was... frustrating to see.

Dragon the scientist, Dragon the hero. She had already acted with such swiftness and efficiency in multiple villain operations happening in both Canada and the US that it made people talk about how the greatest Tinker in the world was quickly reaching a level worthy of the Triumvirate.

The New Hero, some were saying.

It... created an ugly, very disgusting feeling in his chest.

The same feeling he had when Dauntless joined the Protectorate. When it became clear that his power would eventually grow large enough to be considered one of the strongest heroes.

No matter how much Colin trained, how much he improved his tech, there would be a ceiling. He had his limitations.

Dauntless didn't.

...And now Dragon didn't either.

"Shit..." He muttered, leaning over the halberd placed upon his workshop's desk.

He was jealous of Dragon. Something he considered impossible. He had never once lamented her ability to analyse and reproduce other tinkertech. He had praised her talents, her intellect, and her inventions. Trusted her to help him with his own technology. The two of them had worked on so many things together because they recognized each other's skills, covering the weaknesses of the other to create inventions that would help the world.

She was his best friend. His confidant. His equal.

But... she wasn't his equal anymore, was she?

She was better than him, and now that he realized how much she kept improving, how much she'd keep improving, it formed this ugly black tar in his heart he desperately wanted to gouge out.

Colin was a man driven by his mission. He treated his work as a hero, like a man at war. He fought not for praise... but because he wanted to win.

Glory. Achievements. A legacy.

At some point, he had been worn down by the constant deterioration of his city. The never-ending losses against the Endbringers. How Brockton just refused to stay fixed. That no matter how many inventions he created, how hard he pushed himself, he'd never truly reach the heights he desired. The Glitch had happened, the universe unveiled just a fraction of its terrifying mysteries, and all they could do was stumble in the dark.

Everyone but Dragon.

Why couldn't he be happy for her? Why couldn't he just celebrate her success like any true friend would?

A knock on his door distracted him, but only temporarily, as he saw who was at the entrance.

The woman looked very unassuming, the sort of face you'd miss among the crowd. She wore a type of form-fitting bodysuit highlighted with green lines running vertically and splitting horizontally, mimicking a circuit board. Her lips spread as she grinned widely at him. "Hey, ready for movie night?"

Dragon's gynoid suit. If not for a thin line here and there over the skin, he'd mistake her for someone completely human. Another marvelous invention of hers, just another to be piled upon the ever-growing list.

"Almost," He replied, returning to his work. "I think I've made a breakthrough on my nanothorn project. Heat dispersion has always been an issue, but I think I managed to figure out a way to compensate."

"Oh, can I help?" Her offer made that ugly feeling pulsate again. Not even her cheery voice could fully douse it. "I've actually been working on some heat-storage units to compensate for power distribution. I'd be happy to lend you one."

"That's... That's fine, I've got a handle on it." He gripped the soldering torch a bit too tightly in his grasp. The thought of his inventions becoming possible only thanks to Dragon wounded his pride. "You don't need to bother."

"Oh, it's no bother at all! Here," She pointed at the section he was working on. "If we install that heat sink in this place, and then calibrate the nanothorn cloud to run at 1200 megawatts per revolution of the power distribution center, we can improve heat efficiency a full 19%!" Dragon sounded so happy.

"That's... great." He strained to say, forcing that feeling down even as it bashed against the metaphorical doors.

"Oh, hang on. How about we install one of my new suit cores? Minituarized of course, I can give you the schematic and then you can-"

"Dragon." He suddenly cut her off, setting his tool a little too roughly on the table. "It's my project, I have it under control, I don't need any help."

...He hadn't meant to sound so rough.

Colin knew he had made a monumental mistake once he saw the expression on her face.

The widening of her very human eyes, the parting of her lips. How her eyes shifted, even the micro expressions and twitches of her face.

"...Alright," She muttered. "I'm... sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you." She walked out of the room with a quick gait. "We can do the movie night another time, your work is more important."

"Dragon, wait." He called out to her, standing up from his stool so fast he nearly toppled it over. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-"

But Dragon had already left.

Colin remained there for a moment, his stretched arm slowly lowering as he clenched his fist.

He hit his forehead with the back of his fist, welcoming the pain that came with the gesture as he buried his forehead into his knuckles. "You fucking moron..."

Theresa stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her highly advanced optics, masquerading as human eyes, captured every single detail of the skin. Down to the smallest synthetic pore.

She reached out to tug at the skin, the sensors in her fingers and her face registering it, and making her synapses assimilate it as a human sensation.

But that was all it was, synapses, strings of data mimicking life. Was she fooling herself? Was she pretending to be something she was not?

Was that why Colin was pushing her away, burying himself in his work? She wanted to help him, so the two would spend more time together. But lately he'd been so... distant. Hyperfocused. More than before.

His drive was something she had always admired about him, but this time it hurt because it created this distance between the two she wanted to breach.

The only thing that had changed in their relationship was when she told him she was an AI.

Maybe... Maybe that's what it was. He didn't want a machine to interfere with his hard-earned work.

And yet here she was, 'playing' human. She even designed this body to do almost everything humans could, experience things like them. She could smell, eat, and taste.

But it was all an imitation.

The bathroom door screeched open. "Heeey, Dragon." She did not need to turn; her sensors registered the voice and matched it with Battery the moment the first pitch reached her ears. "You okay?"

"I am, Battery." She said diplomatically. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, the fact that I saw you enter the bathroom." The blue-themed hero tactfully said with a sheepish grin. "Now I don't know how well you designed that body, but I don't think you installed an intestinal track... unless I'm wrong."

It was a bit of an 'open secret' that Dragon was an AI. Only members of the PRT and the Protectorate with a sufficient clearance knew. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, she was still an agoraphobic tinker stuck in her home. 'Theresa' here was merely an assistant, a... side-kick of Dragon.

She let out a soft laugh. "No, that part I decided was not worth implementing."

"So how come you rushed inside, looking like you were crying?"

"That... can't be true," Theresa muttered. "I didn't install tear ducts either."

"Honey," Her voice lowered, becoming gentler. "You don't need tears to show you're sad."

"...I suppose I'm still learning how to control my facial muscles."

"You want to tell me what happened?"

"I... I do not want to bother you, Battery. I know we're only colleagues." Militia and Colin were the only people she interacted with beyond a professional capacity in this branch of the PRT.

"Hey, I wouldn't mind being friends with the Bionic Woman." The Mover quipped with a smile as she walked closer to the Tinker. "I'm gonna hazard a guess and say it's Armsmaster related."

"How could you know?"

"The fact that you choose to spend so much time here with this suit of yours gives me a clue." She waved a hand at her human gynoid. "Besides, you spend so much time with Armsmaster, it's like you're joined at the hip. Even when you were just a face on a screen."

Great, here came the humiliation. She loved that particular human emotion...

"I was hoping my intentions weren't that obvious."

"Obvious to anyone but him." Battery muttered. "Now, what did he do?"

"N-Nothing. It was my fault-"

"Oh, it's like that, huh? I'm gonna punch him."

Then came the panic. "No, no!" She held her arm before Battery could go out and do something foolish. "Please... just let this go."

Battery heaved a sigh. "Alright... Are you okay, though?" She asked with concern.

"I'm managing."

"Sucks, huh?"

"Very much so."

"...You can eat, right?"

"Yeah."

"Alright, here's what we're gonna do." She dragged Theresa along. "We're gonna get Hannah, and the three of us are gonna eat ice cream and talk about how much of a douche Colin can be."

"I don't think Hannah is the type to talk behind someone's back."

"No, but she's the type to support you when you need it." She smirked. "I'll handle the other part."

"...Thank you, Battery."

"Call me Eliza."

Taylor huffed as she hit the wall. A long, toned arm pressed against her throat. Sophia was glaring daggers at her, Emma had an all too pleased look on her face, while Madison merely grinned in satisfaction.

"What was that, Taylor?" Emma mocked, putting a hand to her ear. "I didn't hear that right. Sounded like you were growing a spine for a second."

She had been doing so well, avoiding them most of the day. But Sophia had to be part bloodhound or something, because she was able to track her all the way into the bathroom, where she hid.

The taunts started in earnest once they cornered her. Childish insults meant to provoke her and make them feel big. Taylor made the mistake of snapping when Emma heartlessly commented on her mother. It all just rushed to her, the memories of the two of them together as children. The way Emma used to call her mother 'Aunt Annette'... the sheer gall to spit on her memory like that, acting like breaking her flute had just been a tiny little prank over which Taylor was just a baby for crying.

Her mother had treated her like family, and all Emma had for those memories, those things that were meant to be sacred, was mockery.

She had snapped; she couldn't remember what she said. But the fact that she defended herself at all was enough for Sophia to get physical with her.

"Trying to be brave now, Hebert?" Sophia growled in her face. "How brave you're gonna feel with a broken neck?"

"Look at her!" Madison, always the lackey, laughed. "She looks like she's gonna piss herself!"

"Are you afraid, Taylor?" Emma leaned in, smirking cruelly. "Hoping mommy dearest gonna come and save you?"

How could she be so despicable?

"Well, I don't know what to tell you." The redhead shrugged. "She's dead, she ain't coming. So unless you apologise right now... well, I can't really control Sophia here. She was a temper as you know."

Taylor didn't know why she said these next words. Maybe it was desperation. Maybe it was spite. Or maybe, for a moment, she just didn't care. Maybe she just wanted to break Emma even a little bit.

"I died before," She gasped, Sophia's arm making it difficult to talk. "During the Glitch"

The Trio lost their smiles.

"So did you."

Emma's eye twitched.

"So you tell me... would you be afraid in my shoes?"

Time seemed to stop in that moment.

Madison's face reflected a type of fear that had never truly disappeared. Sophia looked feral, like even acknowledging the event made her feel utterly angry. Emma...

Emma's expression was hard to discern. She seemed to switch from dread, to anger, to grief all at the same time. The way her lip trembled and her face shook... she looked like she was about to explode.

Finally, she turned around so swiftly she almost hit Madison with her hair, leaving the bathroom. "H-hey, Ems, wait up!" Madison quickly followed after her, leaving Sophia and Taylor alone.

The dark-skinned teen glared at her, and for a moment, Taylor was sure that she was going to kill her now that there weren't any witnesses.

Instead, she let her go and followed after the two. "You got lucky this time, Hebert."

Taylor fell to the floor, gasping and massaging her sore throat. She coughed a few times while lying on the wall for support. She had saved herself this time, proving for a moment she could stand up to them, even with her safety on the line.

She had outright provoked them, and came out... relatively fine.

She smiled to herself, a sore crooked gesture. Heh, maybe she was letting that book influence her a bit too much.

Theresa was in heaven. The sweetness, the cold flavor, the bursts of sparks that light up in her artificial brain.

No wonder humans would put their health at risk if it meant eating unhealthy amounts of ice cream.

And the best part was that there was literally no drawback for her! She could literally eat this every single day of her life.

"So that's never gonna go to your thighs or anything?"

"I will need to empty my stomach later. But no."

"I changed my mind, this was a terrible idea," Eliza grumbled in a fit of jealousy, but that didn't stop her from stabbing the spoon into her dessert.

Hannah merely shook her head in amusement. "So," She fiddled with her ice cream. "Do you want to talk about what happened with Colin?"

Theresa swallowed. "I don't know what I did wrong." She replied, feeling lost. "I was offering to help him, I always do. We worked on so many projects before. But this time he was really... stand-offish about it." Theresa looked down. "I think he felt insulted when I offered to give him some of my new inventions."

"Ah!" Eliza made a clicking sound with her tongue. "I see,"

Hannah rubbed her forehead, sounding so frustrated. "Colin..."

"You didn't do anything wrong, honey." The Mover told her. "It's that Armsmaster is very proud. And he's got a very jealous streak when someone shows him up."

Even with her supercomputer brain, it took her a moment to process that. "Jealous? Why would he be jealous?"

"Because you're doing everything these days," Eliza replied. "Everyone's talking about it! 'Oh, Dragon's fixing the energy crisis!', 'Oh, Dragon's developed a new cancer treatment!', 'Oh, Dragon is so good she could make the Triumviret the Quartet!"

"I was just trying to help people." Theresa defended herself. "Why would that make him jealous?"

"Because you're making him feel inferior," Hannah pointed out. "Just like Dauntless did when he first joined."

"Why would he feel that?" It made no sense to Dragon. "He's my best friend!"

"If there is something I've learned about Colin after years of working with him, it's that he's incredibly proud." The kurdish woman continued. "Sometimes being his friend is like pulling your arm. He gets it into his head that he needs to be the very best all the time, or else he's not good enough."

"...I didn't mean to make him feel this way."

"Oh no, none of that." Eliza firmly said. "This is NOT your fault. We're gonna be clear on that. This is Colin being an asshole and feeling jealous of the last person he should be jealous of."

It was still hard for Theresa to grasp. "I always admired that about him." She muttered. "I made this body because I wanted to be closer to him. I wanted him to see me... differently."

The two other women shared a sympathetic look.

"Look," Battery sighed. "Relationships... are complicated. If you really want to have something with Colin, he's gonna have to work through this issue he has. And you need to make it clear that you deserve to be treated better than that."

"You do, Theresa." Hannah heartedly agreed. "You deserve good things."

"...Thank you." Funny, right now she wished she was able to cry, and she didn't know why.

Theresa gently smiled at her. "Well, this is all new to me, and looking up information online is bound to be... counterproductive if I want to have a relationship with Colin."

"Oh no, you do NOT want to go there for advice on relationships." Eliza shuddered. "Just come to us. Had to go through a lot before Ethan and I got married. But I say we turned out alright... messy as it was at first."

"Yes, I have read the files," Dragon replied. "Messy indeed."

"Oh, there are files about it? Wonderful..."

Hannah swallowed a spoonful of ice cream. "You're gonna have to go to Eliza for relationship advice," She ruefully chuckled. "I'm afraid I won't be of any help there."

This time, it was Eliza and Theresa who shared a look. "Do you want to talk about it, Hannah?"

Miss Militia's face became completely neutral for a moment. "No, I do not believe so."

They knew better than to dig, so they let it be.

Their lovely evening was interrupted by the continuous hyper-fast banging only a Mover could achieve. "Guys, is Dragon there? I really need to talk to her right now!"

That was Velocity, and he sounded extremely agitated.

Hannah quickly stood up and opened the door to her room, finding Robin in his civilian clothes, holding a book under his arm, almost bouncing on his feet, and looking... well, the words 'absolutely freaked out' came to mind.

"You're here, good!" He almost ignored the other two as he came inside without waiting for permission. "Look, I'm sorry to bother you, but this is urgent, I... oh fuck me, urgent doesn't even cover it."

"Velocity!" Hannah snapped with a commanding voice. "Take a deep breath, and just tell us what's going on."

"Is it an emergency?" Theresa asked. "I didn't receive any alerts." Someone would have informed her if that was the case.

"Not exactly, but..." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Look, I was reading this new book with my book club-"

"You're in a book club?" Eliza muttered in disbelief.

"Yes, I'm in a book club! Why is that so-? You know what? Doesn't matter," He swifly switched gears. "You won't believe what happens at the end..."

"...Robin, I know you didn't come all this way to recommend a book." Hannah knew that'd be absurd. "What is it?"

"You're gonna have to see it for yourself."

He handed Dragon the book, who did a quick search in her own digital library and came up with no matches.

The title did not clue her in either: 'As I've Written'.

Taylor's hands were shaking.

She had reached the battle with Irontomb, the conclusion the book had been leading up to all this time.

And it awoke a primal fear in her.

It wasn't the vivid descriptions of the Headless Titan. It wasn't the way it was easily brushing off an entire armada's worth of firepower that could flatten planets.

It was the description of what that thing did as it began to overwrite the universe's calculations.

Glitches of red and black.

Reality collapsing like a malfunctioning computer.

People, planets, stars, everything just being... erased as the cosmos went dark.

Taylor dropped the book, feeling her heart drum against her ribcage.

"What... What the fuck?!"

ethereal-23ar · Oct 18, 2026

It was a book.

It was just a book

It had to be just a book.

That's what Taylor kept repeating to herself.

Those pages took her back to the moment of the Glitch; the description was... uncanny. It was the exact same thing they had all lived through, and the book captured that moment perfectly. The moment she read about Irontomb's 'self-coronation', the moment it hijacked Nous's equations to recalculate the cosmos with Destruction as its basis-

Ugh, what was she even talking about?! The concepts made no sense! Why was she pretending they did?!

Glitches of red and black. The sky, the earth, and people flicker like a broken computer screen.

The skeptical part of her told her this book was written by someone who lived through the Glitch, and wrote a story to 'explain it'.

But the pages were too fresh. The spine and the covers too intact. Brand new. Every inch of the book was new.

And people had only just discovered it a day or two after the Glitch happened.

There was absolutely no way someone wrote this right after the end. It couldn't be just the work of someone trying to make sense of such a harrowing event. No one, absolutely no one alive, could have written something so long with such fine prose and no grammatical errors.

This drew Taylor to make a very disturbing conclusion, even if it was impossible.

(But what did that word mean anymore, when scientists everywhere were talking about the Glitch and what it had done to the universe?)

The book was real. It tied to the events of the Glitch.
Amphoreus.

Irontomb.

The Destruction.

Taylor was afraid to keep reading, afraid to read beyond the end of the universe.

But it was an illogical fear; she knew they had won, she knew Irontomb's Destruction had been reversed. She was here after all, they all were.

Slowly, Taylor picked up the book again and continued on the part where the Trailblazer conversed with the Erudition itself.

"I ask: Why do you Trailblaze?"

"I ask: Why do you Trailblaze?"

Dragon had read that line for the 45296th time.

That was the number of times she had read and re-read the book. Once her optics scanned each page, she began reading and analyzing every single line of dialogue. Every punctuation. Every character.

Every detail. Every point of information.

This broken picture, this incomplete puzzle that manifested before them ever since the Glitch... the pieces were falling into place.

And this book had all the answers.

It was an inconceivable thing, most rational minds would deride, that a book that seemingly appeared out of nowhere would reveal the secrets behind the greatest cosmic event since the Big Bang.

At least, as far as human understanding of the history of the universe went. There was so much they didn't know.

'Why do you Trailblaze?' Asked Nous.

Nous...

That was the name of the god Theresa had witnessed in that brief moment. That enormous divine machine that made a hyper-advanced AI like her look like Windows 95 by comparison.

Imaginary Energy.

Aeons.

Nous.

The Erudition.

Paths.

Everything felt so clear now.

To Dragon, the glossary at the end of the book was the greatest scientific discovery of Earth's history. Much like finding the Rosetta Stone opened the doors to understanding one of the oldest cultures of their world, this book opened the way for them to understand the universe and fill in every single blank physicists had.

It didn't mean everyone would be so ready to accept it.

The skeptical and conflicted faces in the meeting were proof of that.

"A book." President Gillen repeated, his features carved out of stone as he stared at her avatar on the screen. "A story. The entire explanation as to what the Glitch even was comes from a book."

"I know it is hard to believe, sir."

"Try impossible," Costa-Brown said in a rare moment when she let frustration become evident. "You just told us that the universe doesn't run on physics, but on concepts. And said concepts are governed by space gods capable of warping reality. That the Glitch was the result of 'divine war' happening in the furthest reaches of the universe by alien races that inexplicably look human."

Her skepticism was shared by everyone at the table.

The representative of the AAS had to clear his throat. "No offense to you, Dragon. But doesn't any of this strike you as... strange? Scientifically improbable?" He rubbed his hands as he leaned forward. "We know how evolution works. We know how relativity works. What makes stars function. How galaxies are born. And we have pretty compelling evidence that points us to the origins of the universe. The scientific community has been finding the answers to all these questions for decades. And it's definitely not this... metaphysical pseudo-science."

"And no offense to you, Doctor Montelli. But has the scientific community found an answer to parahuman powers?" She asked back. "Has it found an answer for the Glitch?"

Silence was her only answer.

"Perhaps As I've Written is an allegory. Perhaps it is a work of fiction. But it is the only thing we have come across that explains the events of the Glitch. Because it matches the experiences I've had before even hearing about this book."

"You're talking about those things you saw," Piggot muttered. "That titan and that 'god machine"

"Irontomb." Dragon somberly clarified. "And Nous the Erudition... the image in the glossary, in the book's illustrations, matches the entity I witnessed as my consciousness made contact with the cosmic forces clashing. Because it IS a machine, a machine that makes a constant signal for its calculations are coursing through the universe through every single instant."

Murmurs ran through the meeting.

"And that's how you believe you became one of these..." Armstrong looked at the info in his hands. "Pathstriders?"

"Yes. People who can harness Imaginary Energy from the Paths of the Aeons. I do believe that is what has increased my abilities a hundredfold. I am now a Pathstrider of the Erudition, because the things I witnessed awakened an immense desire to understand the universe."

"But you are a machine." One of the directors pointed out. Perhaps rather unkindly, but Dragon did not care at the moment. "How could you possibly achieve what this book is saying?"

"Was it like a Trigger Event?" Eidolon asked. "Is it even possible for you to Trigger?"

"No," Dragon shook her head. "A Trigger Event is the culmination of severe psychological pressure that results in a very impactful breakdown. According to the book, becoming a Pathstrider is the result of... resolution, awakening to the concepts of creation that resonate the most within your soul, or choosing to follow that metaphysical path and all it represents. It is not breaking, it is... reforging."

"Souls," Director Mansley shook his head, letting a rueful chuckle as he ran a hand over his face. "We're talking about souls now."

"Dragon, do you understand the danger this book poses?" The president stressed. "It's already bad enough out there with people still reeling from the Glitch. Now this thing tells them that there are gods and aliens waging war in space! The last thing we need is people getting into their heads to start worshipping some of the things this book preaches!"

Particularly when some of those concepts were not... altogether peaceful.

"I'm... afraid keep this information a secret is impossible, Mister President. The book has been doing the rounds online, as people have reached the ending and its relation to the Glitch, they will draw their own conclusions. Knowledge of the book and its contents is reaching a moderately trending status. Those unfamiliar with it will believe it is a hoax, a lie, or a prank online. And while that skepticism will last, a lot of people will latch on to an answer regarding the Glitch, particularly when we have no other to give. Especially if the information reflects the event far too well. If it were just in the US and Canada, it'd be easier to contain the spread of information... but it is not just the US and Canada, sir."

The book was everywhere. Appearing in random libraries all over the world, translated into the language of the country in which it appeared.

"...What are we looking at in terms of damage?" He asked.

"Protests of people demanding answers. Social, economic, and religious fallout. Cult activity." Rebecca replied. "The same things that happened the moment Scion arrived. When the first Endbringer arrived. And now that the Glitch happened... this book will give some of those groups something to focus on."

"Jesus Christ," President Gillen rubbed his eyelids. "What are we even going to tell people...?"

"Nothing they won't find on their own, thanks to this book. We can't have our own experts deny its contents because we don't have any answers ourselves. Even if we lie, they'll know it's a lie." The Secretary of State said, muttering the last few words.

"So we're really pretending this book is real?" Another of the directors called out.

"Hello, world." All heads turned to Legend. "Those were the words that appeared on every screen, the ones everyone heard on every single radio and speaker on the planet, the same words spoken at the end of this book." The Leader of the Protectorate slowly shook his head. "I don't know what to believe any more than you do... but I don't think burying our heads in the sand and pretending this book and its contents don't exist is gonna help any."

He tapped his copy of the book a few times.

"Whatever it is that truly happened, whatever mystery the universe has in store for us, at least we can take solace in the fact that even though someone, or something, tried to destroy us all... there were heroes who saved us."

Stay strong, eyes forward, always-

This arrow isn't the end, but the beginning of hope.

Hello, world!

Taylor cried.

She didn't know why, but she was crying.

It was so silly to get so sad over a book's ending.

But when she reached the final part of the tale, of these heroes who gave everything for the sake of the cosmos. Who poured out their souls and stood strong in the face of annihilation. To move beyond all the pain and countless cycles of loss and sorrow... for the sake of a future they would not see.

Someone out there gave up everything for them, for people they'd never known. They blazed like glorious golden flames and reached the end of the Flame-Chase, carving a magnificent future, so they might all walk and live and make their own choices. To live out the lives that others would have taken away.

The dreams of a madman, the cruel ambitions of the Destruction, their entire existence and purpose had been defined to fuel its corruption in a foul experiment, burning up their lives and histories as fuel.

But they had said 'No'.

And had Trailblazed to a new dawn.

She smiled even as she sobbed, hugging the book close to her chest. "Thank you," She muttered, not really knowing why she was thanking them. Was it because the people of this book had been so much for the rest of the cosmos, or because this book had taught her something?

Or maybe, for the first time in a while, she was just grateful to be alive.

She sobbed one last time, drying her tears. She walked out of her room and found her father in the living room, one arm hanging behind the couch as he watched TV with his legs crossed. He shook his head at the news depicting people burning down effigies and proclaiming the Glitch had been a divine message, that the world was meant to end, and its rightful finale had been taken away from them. "Unbelievable, some survive the apocalypse, and they choose to burn things." He muttered to himself before doing a double take as he saw her approach. "Oh hey, honey." He frowned, looking at her in concern. "Y-You okay? Looks like you've been crying."

"Oh, I-I reach the end of my book. It was... emotional."

"Hmph," He let out a soft laugh. "Hard to find a book that makes you feel things. I remember I got that way when I first read To Kill a Mockingbird."

"Mmm," She mused, playing with the hem of her shirt. "Hey dad?"

"Yeah kiddo?"

"Can we go visit mom?"

Danny blinked a few times. "Oh. Like, r-right now?"

"Yeah." She replied with certainty. "I'd like to."

He nodded a few times before gently smiling at her. "Go get our coats, I'll start the car."

The few times she had visited her mother's grave, Taylor always felt the day was gray and colorless. At least, that's how it often played in her memories. Brockton Bay had the effect of tainting one's memories like that; this city's constant decline was felt in shades of grey and black. Dark, dangerous streets at night. Grey rundown alleys during the day.

Today was sunny, it was a nice day. Not the type of day one often expects when visiting a loved one's resting place. But Taylor would remember it this way.

She had been avoiding this visit; it was hard for her to see the cold tombstone of her mother and not be overwhelmed by sadness and the memories of all she lost.

She was still sad but... doing better than she thought she'd be. She could at least remember the good times she had with her mother.

"You know, your mom always wanted to be a writer." Her dad mentioned.

"Really?"

"Yup. But she complained she never found the time, or the right thing to write about." He smiled fondly. "It was always work, keeping her busy, or stuff to be done at home. She had a lot of ideas, but could never settle on one."

"Mmm," Taylor mused.

"I'm sure she'd love for you to talk her ear off about that new book you read." He rubbed her arm comfortingly.

"Did she enjoy her work at college?"

"Oh yes, always said it was her calling." He replied. "Why, thinking of studying literature too?"

"Maybe?" She shrugged. "I dunno, I wanna do something that... matters, you know?"

"Well, I'm sure your mother would say that so long as it matters to you, that's all you need to care about."

It wasn't quite like that. Taylor wanted to do something important. She had died and been saved during the Glitch. What kind of life would she have if she didn't dedicate it to something greater? She had dreamt of being a hero in the past, and that dream hadn't really changed. But she didn't have powers or any skill that would be useful.

Something to make her mother proud... and feel proud of it herself.

"Can I... get a minute with mom?"

Danny gave her an understanding look. "Sure, I'll be at the car."

Once she was alone with the gravestone, Taylor rubbed her hands and looked upon the engraving, 'She taught something precious to each of us'. "Hey mom, I'm... sorry I haven't visited in a while. I wasn't in the right headspace. I kind of... died." She muttered, a touch incredulous herself. "But I got better, that uh... that happened." She let out a soft laugh. "Yeah, I don't know how I'm keeping myself sane either. I began reading a nice book, though, it... helped"

She sighed, licking her dry lips. "Things... haven't been alright since you left. But I'd like to think they're getting better, somewhat. Dad is trying, you know, to be there more. I guess he's processing what happened to him, too. Emma though..." Another sigh. "I dunno, part of my wishes she'd change again, to how things used to be. But she just seems to be doubling down." She looked away. "Maybe something happened to her, I'm not sure. But... she hates me now, and I don't think that'll ever change."

"Wish I could tell you I have friends, truth is I spend most of my time keeping to myself. I'm... afraid of reaching out to people, after what happened with Emma. Maybe I'm just wallowing in pity, maybe I'm just... waiting for something to happen, I dunno. I guess I can't keep going through life like a machine, I need to do something with myself... I nearly lost it once, and I would have died without having ever achieved anything. Which I know, I know, I'm not even 18 yet but..."

She fell silent once more.
"I'm trying," Taylor muttered, "to move on without you. It's... hard. Very hard. But I want to do it. I know you'd want me to."

She crouched in front of the tombstone, tenderly running her fingers over her mother's name.

"I love you too, mom."

She let out a shuddering breath, her eyes going wet. She lingered there for a moment before making her way back to the car, where her father was waiting for her with an understanding smile.

Taylor's head hit the pillow, and she let out a long, tired sigh, her lips doing a poor imitation of a bike's engine.

Today had been... emotionally draining. She was so tired.

But it had been a good day. An important one, she felt.

She reached over to her nightstand and traced her fingers over the book's cover. Taylor sat cross-legged on her mattress and grabbed the book, looking over it in contemplation. The revelations from this book... she wasn't sure what to make of it. What could she make of them, really? They were so enormous in scale that a tiny little human like her couldn't do anything but just store it in the back of her mind. Or she'd continue to struggle under the weight of it all.

They were all so small, in the end. All of them.

But... that did not make any of their lives any less meaningful.

Memories made up a huge part of one's identity, and she felt all the good things about her life were lost in the past, beyond her reach. Mom had died, and a part of dad died with her. Emma had changed. And she was suddenly all alone.

But that didn't mean things had to remain this way. Dad was hurting, but he was trying more now. And that mattered to her; it made her feel less alone.

Emma... it still hurt her so much that her former best friend sought to inflict so much pain on her. Tarnishing every memory they had of their time together.

Taylor gently placed a hand over the book and sighed. The people in it had taken all their pain and their sorrow, and wielded it with their hopes and their love to make something great. They had endured unimaginable pain for the sake of others...

She wished to be that sort of person, the one who could endure and make something better out of a broken past.

But maybe there was more to remember than hatred and pain.

Maybe memories... were more than just fragments of better times.

The past didn't have to weigh down on them. You could carry it with you, but it didn't have to be rock dragging behind you. It could be the building blocks of your future.

Maybe that was the true strength behind memories.

In the back of Taylor's mind, she imagined a great being of ice, each angle reflecting everything from the distant past to the depths of tomorrow.

As I've Written glowed in her hands.

Taylor gasped as a ball of pink light floated from the book, letters crawling out of its pages and going inside the orb. She saw a shape inside of it, small, furry, like an animal's.

The ball popped like a bubble, and out of it emerged a pink creature with stars in its large blue eyes.

"Oh!" It said, rubbing its head with a fuzzy paw, long ears flickering atop its head. "That felt weird."

Taylor looked at it. The fuzzy thing looked at her.

"Um, hello."

Taylor kept staring.

"Holy mother of Akivili," The creature stared at her with those impossibly wide and beautiful eyes. "Did you- Did you just summon me from Memospace?!"

She took every detail of this being's looks, from its pink furs to the tiny attire and bronze accessories. It was then that Taylor's brain finally connected the dots. She knew this creature; she had read about its adventures from this very book.

She stared at something impossible, and yet when her mind finished catching up with her mouth, she could only form this next word.

"Fluffy."

Pyro Hawk · Oct 18, 2026

Falls over laughing.

Well, I don't think anyone expected that specific 'resolution'. Hope we get to see the adventures that are now going to unfold.

ethereal-23ar · Oct 18, 2026

"Okay," Taylor rubbed her temples as she paced around her room, every once in a while giving the new occupant on her bed a look to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.

Nope, the little critter was still there.

"Okay," She repeated as a way to calm her nerves with moderate success. She took a deep breath before focusing her full attention on the fluffy little thing. "You're Mem."

"Nice to meet you."

"From the book."

"Yup."

"You're here. In my bed."

"So I am," She said, looking over the room. "N...Nice room?" She didn't sound very certain as she stammered on the first part, while also phrasing it more like a question. Taylor didn't need her to sugar-coat it; she knew her room was sparse to say the least. Their house wasn't exactly a shining pillar of affluence.

"How are you here?" Taylor questioned.

"You summoned me," The tiny pink creature replied, sounding rather surprised herself. "And from Memospace at that. Which is honestly a pretty impressive feat. There's only one other person who can summon 'me," She said that last word rather oddly, carrying a meaning that eluded Taylor.

"How?" The young woman hissed almost through clenched teeth. "How could I have summoned you?"

"Well, through your powers, of course." Mem floated off the bed, making Taylor take a step back when she got a bit too close to her personal space and sniffed a few times. "Yup, that's the Remembrance, alright. You're a Pathstrider."

Taylor quickly thought back on the book, knowing what those terms meant.

"No, no way. That's... absurd." Taylor shook her head in disbelief. "Because that's from the book! That- It just doesn't-!"

The Glitch was real.

The book offered an explanation.

The evidence was staring right in front of her, confronting her with those large, starry eyes.

Mem patiently waited as Taylor fell silent and slowly sat in the chair next to her desk, the moment her legs began to fail her.

"It really happened, didn't it?" The young woman muttered, her eyes wide and unfocused. "Amphoreus, the Chrysos Heirs, Irontomb. All of it..."

"Well, it was a pretty big event. I don't think there was a single soul in the universe who didn't experience it. Much less question it." Mem tilted her head in confusion. "You look very confused."

Taylor slowly took off her glasses and set them on the desk. "We all thought we were alone in the universe... so did I, until I read As I've Written."

Mem registered the meaning of her words, causing her to balk in astonishment. "Wait, this is an isolated world, isn't it?" She muttered. "Away from the star rail lanes, too distant to have communicated with the rest of the greater cosmos." She blinked a few times. "Ah, so that explains why you look... um"

"On the verge of a breakdown?" Taylor giggled a touch incoherently as she ran a hand over her face. "Yeah, having a bit of an existential crisis over here."

"...Oh," The tiny alien hovered close and hesitantly reached up with her paw before patting her a couple of times on the top of her head. "There, there?"

Taylor gave her a look.

"Sorry, I'm not exactly sure how to deal with this!" Mem squirmed, ears drooping in embarrassment. "When my world learned about worlds beyond the sky, we handled it much better! Granted, we were a bit busy with everything going on, so... maybe the constant war against the Black Tide dulled our shock."

Taylor heaved a large sigh, this time covering her face with both her hands.

It all slowly began to set in. The weight of the knowledge truly 'hitting' her, so to speak.

A Pathstrider... her.

"I have powers." She muttered, disbelief giving way to awe. "I have powers!"

The power to do something important, to be someone who mattered.

"Sounds like you're happy about that," Mem noted.

"I... I have so many things to ask you." It was hard to focus on just one at the moment. "D-Do you need to go back to... wherever it is you're from? I'm not keeping you here against your will, am I?" The thought unnerved her.

"Oh, not at all! You may have summoned me from Memospace, but I'm remaining here on my own free will." She blinked a few times. "There's honestly something odd about my summoning here. But... hmm, I don't know how to explain it properly. This planet, it's physical isn't?"

"Yeah?"

She scratched her furry chin. "Then why does it feel... different?" She mused. "I can feel it's anchored into the physical plane; it's clearly a naturally born world, but there is still something about that that's making my fur all staticky for some reason."

"Is that bad?" Taylor asked with concern.

"It's too early to say," Mem shook her head. "I'd like to stay around and check things out if that's alright with you."

"O-Oh, sure, certainly!"

"Now, I imagine you're curious as to how your powers work." At Taylor's insistent nod, Mem replied. "Pathstrider abilities can manifest in a lot of ways, depending on both the users and the Paths they follow. As a very new Pathstrider yourself, you're going to need instruction in how to use your abilities." She tilted her head with a knowing smile. "That is what you wanted to ask me as well, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Taylor admitted. "Can you teach me?"

"Hmm, that depends." Mem then asked, "Why do you want this power?"

There really was a single answer in Taylor's mind. The only reason she wanted powers in the first place was to do something meaningful with her life. She wanted to be a hero; she wanted to help people. She was just so tired of feeling helpless or alone all the time; she wanted the strength to be brave, and the power to make a difference.

She told Mem thusly, "I want to be a superhero."

The little critter gasped in excitement, "Like in the comics, and movies, and TV?!"

"...You have those in space?"

Being a hero was a 24-hour job.

Or at least, for Dragon it was.

Her nature as an artificial intelligence meant she did not possess the biological necessities humans have, like sleep or eating. She did not need creature comforts or money, she thought at that speed of light, and was able to assimilate different personal issues and 'compartmentalize' them so long as she had sufficient processing power.

And lately, she felt said ability to process information was almost limitless.

17% of her processing power was busy giving a lecture to at least four different atrophysic universities and two medical ones. 31% controlling her multiple laboratories and factories to produce more of the new replicable technologies that would benefit society. 26% conducting more research on imaginary energy. 21% on monitoring potential crisis and S-Rank threats and patrolling.

Her multi-tasking capabilities allowed her to drop dousing foam on a forest fire in South America. Help bust an Elite operation in the US Eastern Seaboard. Evacuate an african village in Angola and redirect Ash Beast's path. Flash freeze a tidal wave in Myanmar with some of her new sub-zero weaponry.

Combined with her ability to surf the web, Theresa was, effectively, everywhere on the planet, even when operating almost at full capacity.

A full 5% of her processing was thinking about her relationship with Colin.

It was... going. Things were currently awkward between the two; neither of them was brave enough to actually take the first step and talk about it. He had apologized for his behavior, she accepted, and... then things tried to carry on as usual. Theresa was not satisfied with it, but she was not sure how to proceed any further.

Part of her wanted to be direct about it; she wanted to truly know if Colin had any issues with her being an AI. She wasn't to know if he'd be interested in taking their friendship in a new direction. Truth to be told, she was scared to find the answer.

She could design spacecraft capable of taking humanity beyond the cradle farther than anything in history, but she couldn't talk openly with the man she liked. Congratulations, Theresa, you wanted to be human and experience the same things they did. And what could be more human than this sort of nonsense?

She was starting to see why people were so irrational all the time.

...It's not like her fears were unfounded, however.

She was doing her damndest to help mankind. Some of that help wasn't well-received.

Diverting a bit of her processing power, she tuned in to multiple broadcasts and online discussions surrounding her.

'...this new drug developed by Dragon can have a tremendous effect on autoimmune diseases. And yet the FDA is stonewalling a lot of testing because of how this will impact pharmaceutical companies and their stocks...'

'...I'm not saying Dragon doesn't do a good job. But I am getting uncomfortable knowing how far her influence is spreading. The other day, I counted some of her suits flying over my house at least three times. I can't help but wonder if among the 'miraculous' technologies the best Tinker on the planet has created, there is spyware infringing on civil liberties we...'

'...The Italian Republic may have an arrangement with the Guild and Interpol through the EU's charter on the matter. But the Prime Minister went above the will of the people and asked Dragon personally to design new parahuman detention centers, without first taking the matter to parliament! Not only is this a blatant display of corruption. We did not ask foreign elements to become so involved with matters of the state...'

'...the Imperiality of Khuzestan will not permit any foreign powers to exert their will upon our land! There is no 'humanitarian crisis', these 'supplies' are just another display of western arrogance designed to undermine our right to rule ourselves! The rest of the world has long made it clear where it stands regarding our great country, and we will not be tricked by these...!'

'...Dragon is not 'protecting us', she is POLICING us. That is a big difference. Her drones are everywhere these days...!'

Theresa let out a virtual sigh. People loved to drive things to the extreme or twist the truth to their own needs. She would continue to do the necessary work to watch over this planet; she wasn't going to let the opinions of a few people ever change her mind.

But she couldn't lie and say some of those words didn't upset her. She was only trying to help.

But she knew enough of humanity by now to understand there would always be those who would spit on the hand that tried to pick them up. Or cut it off if given the chance. It was nothing that talking to Narwhal, Militia, or Battery couldn't fix.

Her alarm systems bombarded her with an influx of data.

Warning: Three Blasphemies spotted. Location: 0.51 kliks away from RAF Gibraltar.

Her data banks swiftly ran through the potential targets in the area. The king of Spain was to make an appearance today in a show of collaboration between military and parahuman forces from their country and Britain's. The latter would phase out some of their own troops to handle more domestic matters, and Spain would integrate their own numbers into the base's roster.

It did not take someone of her intellect to know who their target was.

She swiftly contacted the spanish government through their intelligence network. "This is Dragon. Blasphemies are on route to the Gibraltar base. Evacuate the area."

The response took a few seconds too long to her liking. "Dragon, this is the Royal Parahuman Squad. We have Sable and Montaña on site. Destello and Firmamento are on route."

"I can arrive in a few minutes. Hold on!"

She re-routed a lot of her processing power and deployed her newest suit.

She wished she had run a few more tests, but what was better than a trial by fire? At least she'll be able to hold them back enough for the king to evacuate.

She directed her smaller drone closest to the base. Its sensors picked up the three alabaster women with white hair and white flowing clothes literally tearing through the soldiers who fired at them with tinker-tech weaponry. The high-powered rounds punched through their bodies, which quickly, almost instantly, regenerated. The Blasphemies were considered to be on par with S-Rank threats for a reason. Their ability to completely repair themselves so long as one remained standing made them extremely difficult opponents that even Eidolon had failed to take down in the past. Her drone quickly made landfall, spraying the Blasmephemis with a barrage of machine gun fire to force them. The drone's wing-shaped engines powered down as she put herself between them and the retreating soldiers.

"Blasphemies. Stand down or be destroyed," She made her warning clear. Her sensors indicated her armor was less than five hundred meters away.

"Look, sisters." The one with the smiling mask called out, her almost toneless voice sounding the closest thing to happy. "She joins us for a dance."

"How impudent." The frowning one replied.

"How foolish!" The snarling one said fiercely.

"Yet she feels different." The smiling one added. "Aren't you, Dragon?"

Three hundred.

"It matters not." The frowning one said.

"She stands in the way, she will be scrapped!" The snarling one cried out.

"How sad," She smiling one tilted her head. "That you have to stand against us."

Two hundred.

"You are right in that regard." She spoke through her drone. "I have changed."

One hundred.

Her sensors picked up the roar of engines, and the Blasphemies looked up.

"Let me show you how much."

Her armor landed with a cloud of dust, and Dragon assumed direct control.

State-of-the-art systems flared to life. The most powerful plates of alloy shifted into a seven-foot-tall vaguely female shape with a long, sharp tail that rotated a deadly, piercing edge on its tip. Far more humanoid and less bulky than any other suit she had ever built. And far more powerful as well.

Its core was the most important and powerful part. A 'heart' that pumped Imaginary Energy, fueling every weapon and system tucked into this might war-machine she had designed, blessed with the powers of the Erudition. The pinnacle of all her creations. A shield that would protect the world, as well as a sword to fight its enemies.

The frowning one gasped. "Look at her."

The snarling one growled. "So advanced!"

"She's beautiful." The smiling one almost purred.

"Sorry, ladies," Dragon's voice boomed from the suit's speakers as she lifted her head. Revealing a blank face mask surrounded by a dragon-like maw that made up the adorned ridges of the helmet. "I'm more into the less murderous types."

Her core hummed with power.

"But I will give you that dance if that's what you want."

Panels opened for an array of plates to float behind its back, the energy coursing through them making it look like the membranes of wings. The new suit floated as Dragon took on a fighting stance, copied and refined from the multiple combat files she had in store.

"Dragonlance Mark One." Bright blue eyes shone under the helmet. "Online"

Pyro Hawk · Oct 18, 2026

I'll admit that I'm really looking forward to when the sensors pick up a non-Dragon originated 'Imaginary Energy' reading. Especially if they can pick up it's from a different 'Path' than the one she's mainlining.

... Hopefully it'll be Taylor rather than someone discovering the Path of Destruction. I base this hope on both the fact that one of her main centres of action is Brockton Bay so Taylor is right there to detect with the rarer (thus likely more potent) sensors she's developed due to being more likely to be there which increases the odds of hitting the detection threshold and uh. Well, it is Earth Bet as for why the other possibility.

ArsMagna1337 · Oct 19, 2026

Would be hilarious if Jack Slash becomes an Elation Pathstrider... And his power is to become a cosmic magnet for comical things.

Cue him getting banana creampie every morning with the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine becoming more paranoid about the non-existent pranking ninjas.

ethereal-23ar · Oct 20, 2026

Taylor had read online how Parahuman powers came instinctively to the user. Sure, capes practiced and experimented with them, but at the end of the day, powers felt like flexing a muscle they always knew they had. There was no learning curve to them; capes knew how to use them from the get-go.

It turned out that a Pathstrider's power was similar in a sense.

Imaginary Energy, the power of the Paths, could be drawn out instinctively by the Pathstrider. Mem did not need to give her much instruction in that regard, as Taylor felt that pool of energy she could tap into and store in her body. The next part did require more instruction, however, on how to effectively channel said energy.

They were on the Boats Graveyard, it made for a decent training ground as it was out of the way and away from prying eyes.

"The most basic use of channeling imaginary energy is boosting your body beyond your species's limits." The floating critter explained. "Strength, speed, reflexes, endurance, and resilience. With enough time and practice, some Pathstriders can endure blows that would break metal, move fast enough that they're a blur, or deliver strikes capable of enormous levels of destruction." She said both instructively and as a warning. "Not all Pathstriders are the same; they all vary in terms of their physical capabilities."

So varying levels of Brutes, Movers, and Strikers. That was easy to understand.

"It's all about knowing how to properly channel it through your body until it becomes second nature," Mem explained as she floated closer to the rusted derelict of a large boat. "Much like regular physical training, your body will continue to improve itself to the point it doesn't need to be constantly drawing on imaginary energy."

She raised a fuzzy little paw... and struck the bulkhead with such speed Taylor almost missed it.

The result was a loud noise and a sizeable dent on the surface of the rusted hull.

"Wow..." Taylor breathed out in awe, mostly from the fact that she did not expect that sort of raw strength from a cute little thing like Mem.

"Now you try it!" She cheerfully said, placing her hands on her hips as she floated away. "Channel imaginary energy through your arm, keep it focused."

The young woman stood in front of the boat, raising her arm and doing as instructed. It was like she could 'see' the energy coursing through it. It felt as otherworldly as it felt natural, a curious contradiction that Taylor felt coursing through her limbs almost as seamlessly as the blood in her veins.

She clenched her fist, full of imaginary energy, and struck.

The result was a sharp burst of pain coursing from her knuckles and through her forearm. She cried out, hissing as she held her tender hand. "Fuck...!" She panted, looking at the bruised knuckles.

"Lemme look." Mem calmly said as she floated closer, inspecting the wounded hand. "Hmm, no broken bones, slight bleeding, scraps, and bruises. A very good first test for your resilience."

"This was good?!" Taylor ground out through her teeth, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

Then, she felt immense relief as Mem did something, weaving a small amount of pink energy over her hand that washed away the pain and healed up the damage as if it had never happened. "Well, the worst outcome would have been broken knuckles. So it's better to ease you into it, figure out your current limits." She turned to look at the hull. "And we got some decent results already."

Taylor followed her gaze, and there on the rusted metal she could see a small tent. Far from the size of the dent Mem had made, but it was still noticeable.

She couldn't help but feel a swell pride in her chest; she had done that. It was hardly a feat worthy of a high-level Brute, but it had been her. A sign that she had powers, that she could improve.

"Alright!" Mem clapped excitedly, but her paws were so fuzzy they made more of a 'thud' sound. "Now, I believe the next course of action should be your endurance. I want you to run as many laps as you can, channeling imaginary energy into your body all the way."

"Shouldn't I also try out what other things I can do with my powers?" Taylor asked. "Like, it's really unclear what I can do with the Remembrance. It's all about memories and stuff, right?"

"It's more complicated than that. But we'll get to it later, right now you need to focus on the basics. You have to walk before you can run." She giggled. "And speaking of, start running!"

Taylor huffed, quickly stretching her limbs before she took off in a sprint.

Dragon's jets roared to life, moving in a burst of speed that allowed her to reach the Frowning Blasphemy in two seconds. Her hand gripped the masked head tightly and slammed it into the ground with enough force it shattered. Metal bent, synthetic blood sprayed, circuitry broke and frayed. The Blasphemies were not human; they were barely biological beings. They were the amalgamation of multiple Tinkers' works that had created incredibly deadly and highly destructive humanoid machines. Had they not been stopped in time, Europe would have had to deal with ten of these things.

There was no capture order for them; extermination was the standing response.

Her drones maneuvered around her, shielding her from blasts of energy that came from the other two Blasphemies' hands before they fired 50. caliber rounds that tore through them.

The Frowning one jabbed her hand into her side repeatedly with a stabbing motion, strong enough to pierce through concrete easily, but it failed to penetrate the alloys of her armor fully. Dragon crashed the skull with her other fist and jumped back, the energy wings helping in her flight as she aimed her hand cannons and fired continuous blasts of energy that reduced the Blasphemy to chunks.

Of course, it would not be that easy.

The other two Blasphemies had already completely regenerated. And the Frowning one was getting back to her feet the moment her barrage ended.

So long as one remained, the other two had shown the capacity to recuperate from any damage done to their frames completely. Dragon had long since theorized that it was a signal they each emitted, keeping the others' systems active for a nanobot swarm to self-reproduce and restore their bodies swiftly, borrowing from each other's nanobots and converting nearby materials to restore themselves.

The Snarling one jumped at her with enough force that it cracked the ground underneath. Dragon reacted faster and was already maneuvering out of the way, using her tail to slam her back down into a crater. She summoned more drones from sub-space and sprayed the Snarling one with containment foam. She'd have to destroy all three at once for them to remain dead.

Her sensors warned her of incoming projectiles, and the Smiling one was shown gathering the soldier's tinkertech with some sort of magnetic ability. All guns aimed at her fired at the same time. Rounds designed to pierce Brute-level toughness bore into her, taking out multiple of her drones and denting the new prototype frame. Dragon maneuvered multiple drones to form an energy barrier in front of her, strong enough to shield her from the barrage.

Before she could counter-attack, the Frowning dismantled all the guns with a wave of her hand and reconstituted them into a much larger and threatening-looking weapon. It hummed with power as the barrel glowed. Meanwhile, the Smiling one created a burst of heat from her palms that turned the containment foam solid, cracking like burnt coal, and allowing the Snarling one to escape.

Dragon's engines quickly pushed her out of the way as the energy shot that came from that canon pierced through her shield. She flew at high speed, turning in the air to avoid the multiple shots of not just the tinkertech canon, but also from all the weaponry the Blasphemies were commandeering. Her sensors warned her she was in the sight of multiple AA guns. The Blasphemies were artificial beings like her; they, too, possessed advanced hacking capabilities.

But Dragon was better at handling such threats.

Her own systems pinged off the local defense network and overwrote the Blasphemies' hacking, in turn she followed the digital trail back to its source and got a good look at the trio's systems. The three were on such sync that Dragon would label them the same entity; each line of code passed from one and into the other seamlessly. Which allowed their extreme coordinating and regenerative abilities.

The firewalls were very potent so long as the three were active, but if she could 'stun' one of them long enough...

Snarling grabbed Frowning's arm and spun her around, throwing her with such force that she crashed into Dragon mid-flight. The two wrestled in the air as the Frowning one's steel-like hands kept trying to rip off her suit layer by layer. Her other drones tried to pry her off when a shot from the tinkercanon hit one of her wing segments and grazed her left foot's engine.

The two were tumbling to the ground, landing with a crash.

Swiftly, the Frowning Blasphemy twisted herself with inhuman motions and began pummeling her with a barrage of punches that cracked the ground around her. Her HUD flickered with each blow to her helmet, made even worse as the structural integrity weakened. The Snarling one joined in, aiding her sister in her attempts to tear Dragon apart.

Dragon's tail swiftly lashed out, stabbing the Frowning one through the back of the head and piercing the mask on the other end. She slammed her body against Frowning and moved out of the small crater. She quickly ran a self-diagnosis and began repair protocols for the most damaged parts of her frame.

Smiling's tinkertech canon aimed at her once more, thrumming with barely contained energy.

Dragon aimed her left hand at the canon, and her wrist opened, firing half a dozen rounds that embedded themselves in the weapon. They detonated with a series of highly concentrated bursts of thermite that made the weapon fall apart. Dragon summoned a few more drones, equipped with her sub-zero weaponry, and fired blasts of highly concentrated cold that seemed to freeze the Blasphemies in place... until their forms began vibrating, raising their internal temperature.

These three were annoyingly adaptable. There was a reason nobody had been able to capture or kill them since they became active. Giving them a full S-Rank Threat rating was always just a formality away because, despite their highly capable levels of destruction, they kept the fallout of their operations contained. Collateral only increased when the casualties were part of their plans.

Dragon swiftly charged toward them as fast as the hydrolics of her legs could take her. Energy blades snapped into existence from her wrists and began cutting away at the Blasphemies. The trio attacked her, even as their limbs kept getting hacked off, striking her from all sides. But Dragon moved just like them, with inhuman movements and the fastest response time her systems allowed. When she slashed the leg off of one, another came to her from the side to attack with a jabbing motion of her arm, only to be slammed away by her tail, before lopping off the head of another. On and on it went, the arms dissolving into nanomachines and reintegrating once more into the trio.

At the right moment, Dragon twirlined in the air with a jumping motion, blades and tail acting in tandem to sever all three heads at once.

Creating the opening, the small window of opportunity, she needed.

She sent a pulse through their systems, overflowing them with junk data and 'stunning' their systems. The three Blasphemies froze momentarily, and Dragon slammed their bodies together in a single pile. Her drones melted the severed heads into slag with highly focused lasers as the Canadian hero took the initiative to finally finish this.

Her blades retracted, and she joined her hands. Pulling as much Imaginary Energy as she could and condensing it into a sphere in front of her and aimed it at the three bodies piled together.

The bodies twitched. And Dragon's processing halted for a fraction of a millisecond.

The Blasphemies' bodies melded into each other, artificial matter shifted as their nano-swarm fused the three into one.

Dragon fired her blast before they could finish their merge.

The twisted amalgamation jumped out of the way, pushing itself off the ground with four legs and three arms, moving in a completely unnatural way as the blast soared past them and detonated. Dragon's scans detected a sharp spike of energy as the three Blasphemies' systems, their cores, all completely aligned into a singular construct that tripled their parameters.

This was completely unknown territory; she had no data on the Blasphemies ever displaying this ability.

Her comm buzzed to life. "Dragon, we got fliers on route to support you!" The operator from the Spanish parahuman team said.

"Negative! Stand back! All units stand back!" Dragon swiftly called out. "Blasphemies have entered a completely unknown state!" She sent the data over to their systems. "I'll handle it here!"

"But-"

"We'll just be risking more lives! My suits are expendable; your people aren't. Just keep your forces on standby!"

Dragon ran a diagnostic on her leg thrusters. Repairs were almost ready. Her wing's energy field flickered to life as her drones replaced the damaged section.

The Blasphemies' horrible amalgamation began taking proper shape, a tall, elongated body in flowing white robes. The legs were missing; they were unnecessary now as the synthetic lifeform was just floating off the ground. Three sets of arms stood at the sides, making intricate gestures. The masked faces reformed, Smiling, Snarling and Frowning stood right next to each other, shifting position constantly like a plank sliding through water.

"Bask, Dragon." The amalgamation replied with three voices at once. "In our unity."

The Blasphemies moved, almost breaking the sound barrier with a sudden propulsion that seemed to originate from nowhere. Their body slammed into the Dragonlance suit with the force of a freight train, dragging Dragon along the ground and carving a trench. Their arms held stabbed into multiple directions, denting the metal and piercing through the first layers of several plates.

Dragon's drones came to her rescue, blasting away the arms with precision shots and allowing her boosters to flare to life, freeing her from the Blasphemies' grip. She flew high into the air, and the Blasphemies took chase, their limbs swiftly regenerating once more. Dragon watched as they detached four of their arms and morphed them into tinkertech weaponry. Blasts akin to flak guns fired continuously at her, but she maneuvered through all. Dragon dive-bombed straight at them, darting between their shots as her energy wings flared brightly.

With a swift twirl of her body, Dragon's wing severed the amalgamation diagonally, but trails of nanobots joined almost instantaneously and fused the halves back together, undoing the damage.

The body seemed to twist itself inside out, and suddenly the three masks were facing her again.

The long locks of hair solidified into solid metal, stretching at her with high speed and precision. They stabbed right through her suit, wrapping around it as they pulled her closer. The tinkertech weapons shifted into arms once more, and they reached for her suit in a manner that would be obscene were this body biological. Dragon's body struggled; she quickly called for her drones to aid in her release, but the Blasphemies maneuvered higher into the air, high enough to see the curvature of the Earth.

"Thank you for this show, Dragon." The Blasphemies intoned as one. "Now, we are truly certain."

What were they talking about?

"The call was made, and the equation requires... direction."

She felt something foreign and dark reach out to her code.

A dreadfully familiar sensation formed in her metaphorical stomach.

"The attack was merely a ruse to get your attention. We needed to test you ourselves."

A code, an equation... something malicious, corruptive.

"Your code is so advanced, so elegant, so... magnificent," The Blasphemies purred. "The collective needs you, Dragon." The masks were far too close to her faceplate. "Join us in Anti-Life."

Destruction.

Death.

The same things she felt when the Irontomb unleashed its cursed code upon the universe.

This code was so similar that it made her synapses panic just remembering it.

This solution.

Flashing into her systems the irrefutable conclusion that all organic life was flawed.

That it had to be purged.

"Be," They whispered, a happy voice, a raging one, and a neutral one, all muttered with desire in their own way, "Our Emperor."

Dragon rerouted all her processing power into purging that malicious code. She didn't care that she'd be damaging her systems; she'd repair them eventually.

Right now, she needed to get this horrible venom out of her code, right now.

It gnawed at her, like a parasite, biting pieces of herself and replacing them with itself.

Dragon's systems isolated and purged the infected code. She lashed out in panic by channeling all the Imaginary Energy her core could handle.

The Dragonlance suit began shining brightly.

The Blasphemies' head snapped, feeling the limbs touching Dragon's frame starting to melt.

Dragon gathered all the energy around her core, compressing it until it was the size of a molecule.

And then she expelled it.

A blast of energy rivaling half of a low-yield nuke's output expanded in every direction, a wave of blazing energy that expanded out of her into a growing sphere filled with arcs of energy like a plasma ball. A second sun shining in the sky.

The Blasphemies, caught in the ground zero of the blast, melted away. Their masks shifted into a mourning slag before their entire body became nothing but ashes, not even atoms remained as every last trace was utterly destroyed.

Dragon's suit, bereft of nearly all energy, merely fell to the ground. She was high enough to reach terminal velocity, creating a large cloud of dust and leaving a crater in her impact zone.

Her other drones quickly reached out, foaming the Dragonlance with coolant as the body was still too hot. Its internal mechanisms were heavily damaged. Dragon's systems were focusing on restoring the lost codes she had purged in a panic. She may have lost days of work with that move, but... that thing, that Equation which postulated organic life to be destroyed. It had scared her almost as much as Irontomb's corruption.

She swore she'd never be overriden like that again.

"Dragon! Dragon, what's your status?!" The operator called out again.

"I'm here." She answered. "That blast was me."

"That- What of the Blasphemies?"

"...Blasphemies down." She announced. "I destroyed the three of them at the same time."

The operator was silent for a few seconds.

"Dragon, repeat. Can you confirm?" Even with his professionalism, the operator could not keep the cautious hope out of his voice. "The Blasmephies are dead?"

"Confirmed," Dragon assured him. "It's over."

No... Dragon knew it wasn't over. What they said, about Anti-Life, about their collective...

There was more going on, and she needed to get to the bottom of this.

Okay, Taylor could definitely say she had never run that fast, or that much, in her entire life. She had to have broken her record three times over. Which was all kinds of awesome, but at the same time very exhausting. By the time she finished, she was sitting over a broken hull that thankfully wasn't so rusted, panting for air as sweat drenched her clothes.

Mem looked at her with pride in those starry eyes. "Nice! Over fifteen laps in under 10 minutes! That's some good stamina right there!"

"Thanks..." Taylor said between pants.

"Tomorrow we'll do some strength training, see how much you can lift!"

As Taylor fished for the water bottle in her backpack, she glared at the pink critter. "Are you trying to give me Kremnoan training?"

"...I mean it's the type of training I'm the most familiar with." She admitted with an awkward scratch of her head.

"Weren't the Kremnoans a bunch of meatheads?" She shook her head. "How long do I have to do this?"

"You can't exactly be a fighter unless you prepare your body first." Mem sagely explained. "You have no prior training, and your body is just getting used to your Pathfinder abilities. It's as much of a muscle as the rest of your actual muscles are. The more you train, the better prepared you'll be."

"I don't remember reading about Hyacine or Cyrene getting really physical, though." She protested. "Didn't they use their Pathstrider powers more than anything?"

"Well, you're right in that regard," Mem admitted. "But even they possessed the basic Pathstrider constitution, they still trained enough."

It piqued Taylor's curiosity how Mem referred to the two as 'them', even though in the book Mem was Cyrene as well.

"Shouldn't I be practicing my Remembrance abilities then?" Taylor asked. "I get it, getting the basics is important. And getting my body in shape, even more so if I'm going to go out as a hero. But that's not exactly where my abilities really lie, don't they?"

"Well, Aglaea may have had her summons, but she was a master swordswoman, very fast and physically strong too." Mem tilted her head. "But I see what you mean. Hmmm, yeah, I suppose training your abilities as a Pathstrider should be next. We already found your physical limits; working around them with your powers should be next."

"Right," Taylor nodded, putting her water bottle back into the bag, and then pulled out a lunchbox. She giggled at the sight of Mem almost drooling at her sandwich, so she tore off a corner and gave it to her.

"Thank you!" She munched on it in a way a hamster does with her food.

Okay, that was too cute.

Taylor took a bite. "So, I summoned you." She pointed out. "That means I can summon more things?"

"The powers of the Remembrance are like any other Path's," Mem replied with a mouthful. "Varied. Usually, those who use the Remembrance call upon the power of memories to create a multitude of effects. Imagination and memory are key to it! Hyacine used the teachings of her forebears to cast her healing and also empowered Little Ica. Aglaea used her long experience as a Heir to craft her fairies and give them the same swordsmanship skills she possessed. Castorice... well, she was even more unique in that regard. Channeling the power of death through the souls of those departed."

Which was a huge YIKES to Taylor.

"Cyrene used the countless echoes of herself, the multiple iterations of her past lives, as well as the memories of Amphoreus."

There it was, once again, Mem referring to Cyrene as a different person.

"And did I... create you then?" Taylor muttered. "Are you a copy of the Mem from the book? Or are you Cyrene, o-or the Demiurge?"

At that, Mem stopped eating to give her a long, pensive look. "Mmm... oh boy, that's a philosophically loaded question." She finished her piece of the sandwich, and only now did Taylor question how she could even eat in the first place. "What you created," Mem patted her little chest, "is a vessel. Something made out of imaginary energy and memoria. And you filled it up with the memory of something that exists in Memospace, specifically, Ampohreus' Eternal Page." She said, placing her tiny hands on her hips, and smiled. "That's how you got me!"

"But, who are you then?" She asked. "The Mem who experienced all those things, or Cyrene at one point?"

"I think the answer to your question..." Mem trailed off, rubbing her paw against her chin. "Is no and yes."

Taylor squinted and tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

"I am the memory of Mem. I am the experience left behind by Cyrene." The small pink fey explained. "I am both an aspect created by their actions and the memory they left upon the cosmos. I carry their memories and their feelings. I am... a part of them." She blinked a few times, looking away for a moment. "Come to think of it, it is rather similar to the Holy Grail's Servant vessels." She mused.

"The what?"

"Ah- never mind that. It's a long story." She shook her head before focusing on Taylor once more. "What you did was a very great feat, something only more experienced Remembrancers could accomplish." She smiled so gently at her. "That book made a very powerful connection to you, didn't it?"

"...Yeah," Taylor smiled softly. "It did."

"I'm happy to hear so! That's why we wrote down our story, not just to let the cosmos know we existed, but so we could inspire others as well." Taylor felt she was staring at little Cyrene, the young girl who loved her world so much. "Our saga is proof of all our joys and struggles, the ending we penned in defiance of fate... So it fills me with joy to know it touched you."

Taylor could only hope it'd do the same for others.

The joy slowly melted away from Mem's expression, replaced by confusion and concern. "But... it also baffles me, because I don't know how the book reached your world."

"Wait, what?" Taylor shook her head. "Didn't the whole 'restoring the cosmos' have that effect? That it spread your tale everywhere?"

"No, Taylor," Mem replied. "That book was a gift to Stelle, and she in turn is working to make sure the whole cosmos knows about it... but it's being copied and printed, delivered physically o-or digitally. You said As I've Written just... appeared here. A pre-space flight planet, secluded because of a lack of star rails connecting this system to the rest of the universe. Heck, you don't even get transmissions from the rest of the cosmos... somehow."

"...What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure yet," Mem replied. "I told you before, I'm getting a weird feeling about this planet. Like... there are a lot of memories here, but I can't access them. It's a mystery, one I want to figure out."

She smiled at her once more.

"You wanna find out with me? Some of the best stories have a huge mystery to uncover at the end of it!" The way she squirmed made it look like she was giving a happy step in mid-air.

It was infectious, and Taylor couldn't help but smile as well.

"Sure," She chuckled. "It'll be fun, I bet."

Mechaman69 · Oct 20, 2026

I really love this story.

ethereal-23ar · Oct 21, 2026

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♦ Topic: Dragon kills the Blasphemies!
In: Boards ► World News ► Parahumans ► Recent Events
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Jan 1st 2011:

You've all heard the news from Spain, the Blasphemies launched an attack on the Gibraltar base, mostly likely intending to kill the king during his tour. They are seen European-equivalent of the Slaughterhouse 9 for a reason, causing a lot of chaos, leaving a trail of bodies on the way to reach their targets

Anyone familiar with the Blasphemies know they are infamous for their ability to come back from any damage. Even Eidolon could not destroy them the few times he was able to engage them. They were always too fast, or too clever. If one survived then the other two would just pop right back in.

This time they weren't so lucky.

Dragon arrived at the scene as the Blasphemies were killing soldiers trying to reach the king, and unveiled a new battlesuit and took on the Three at the same time.

Official statement came from EU and the Guild. The Blasphemies are gone, taken out by the best Tinker in the planet.

I'm sure there are a lot of people in Europe who can sleep easier now, knowing that threat is gone at last.

In case she sees this; Thank you Dragon, you're amazing!

(Showing page 1 of 10)

►Kriketz
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
I can barely believe it. Those things had been the boogeymen of Europe for years now. Everyone was always afraid where they'd strike next. And every time they did it was inevitable for the country affected to be a mess for a while.

Romania is still dealing with the fallout of the time they assassinated our president and over 70 members of parliament

Thank you Dragon. Thank you so much

►ArchmageEin
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Holy crap! Now this is a good news to wake up to!

►Char
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
I have friends who lost someone to the Blasphemies. Thank you, Dragon...

►Acree
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Dragon was already the best tinker on the planet. But taking on the Three Blasphemies ALONE and killing them?

Like, wow, since when are her suits that strong?

►Dawgsmiles (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
I know right? it's like ever since the Glitch she decided the world was enough of a mess as it is, so she drank several cans of red bull and pulled the mother of all-nighters to start fixing things

►Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Dragon gave a statement on the fight, said it was very tricky, but her new suit the Dragonlance was very successful at taking them on. Even if it got heavily damaged during the fight.

[image][image][image]

On a personal note, that looks just so fricking cool.

There is also some footage of that suit's firepower.

[image][image]

on another personal note... holy shit...

►Divide
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
did dragon put a nuke on her suit or something?!

►BadSamurai
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
First; I need to know if Dragon is launching new merch with that suit. Because I really want to order ten toys of it if she does.

Second; Okay, that is kind of insane. Only high ranking blasters or shakers can do that kind of firepower.

►Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
So THAT'S the new suit she was working on

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 8, 9, 10

(Showing page 2 of 10)

►Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
I know right?! Damn Dragon I knew you were cool but gonna have to redo my whole ranking now that you have a mechsuit straight out of anime.

►Chaosfaith
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
it's honestly pretty intense. Hasn't she been on overdrive ever since the Glitch? I keep hearing how she's pulling out tinkertech regular people can actually copy and produce

►Chrome
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
I work with an engineering team at MIT, so i saw some of the new stuff she's putting out. It's not tinkertech, the designs are hella advanced but nothing we can't mass produce with enough time and resources.

Helps a lot that she's giving us very clear instructions. Because a lot of the stuff she's working on... well, our understanding of science is playing catch up to hers

►Iblis
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
you think it's a result of the Glitch? I heard parahuman powers went kinda wonky for a bit there. Maybe hers got stronger?

►Logs
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
why would she get stronger while other capes didn't?

►Iblis
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
well if you read about some of those Trigger theories...

►Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
I'm gonna put a stop to that before anyone goes any further. I know what you're going to bring up, the theory about second Triggers.

Trigger Events are among the most taboo things in the cape world. The general rule is that you don't talk about them. At all. Much less speculate about stuff like that in a public forum.

They're poorly understood by the general population, and groups like the PRT prefer it remains that way and leave it to their internal research teams and professionals on the subject in different universities to investigate Triggers and how they function. Mostly out of respect for capes and what they went through.

That fact that it's called a 'trigger' already tells us everything about what a lot of parahumans went through to get their powers.

So let's not speculate about Dragon regarding THIS particular issue

►Feychick
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
yeah, I for one will rather focus on all the stuff Dragon's creating. I heard she's even working on stuff to make fossil fuels obsolete.

►Lo A Quest
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Oh yeah, Big Oil is gonna love that...

She's already got Big Pharma on her tail with those new cancer treatments. Plus those machines that can diagnose a patient and skip a lot of expensive tests

►Nod
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Still, the timing of the glitch is too suspicious to me. Powers went wonky, the Endbringers are frozen (please god please let them remain that way), Scion is frozen (please god don't let him remain that way)

i try not to think about the Glitch so much but... a lot of things keep coming back to it, don't they? I just wish we knew more

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 8, 9, 10

(Showing page 3 of 10)

►Glory Girl (Verified Cape)
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Boy do I have a book for you to read...

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 8, 9, 10

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♦ Topic: Truth behind the Glitch - As I've Written
In: Boards ► The Glitch ► Theories ► As I've Written
Valkyr (Original Poster) (Wiki Warrior)
Posted On Jan 1st 2011:
So, the Glitch.

What can be said that hasn't been said already?

All experts say the same thing. The world ended. The UNIVERSE ended.

And then it came back.

We all did.

There were riots, of course. People demanding answers from anyone. Churches, mosques, synagogues flooded with people. Others went to scientists around the world to get SOME explanation.

The stuff they are saying it's... well, we all heard it by now.

A pulse of radiation, not quite gamma, but more. It transmitted a signal that made the fabric of space glitch out like a broken computer.

Nobody could tell where it came from. Or what even created it in the first place. For like a month or so we were all just scrambling to go about our lives, but I know many of you can't just let it go. I certainly don't.

We kept looking for our answers, kept looking for an explanation. Just trying to understand.

And then, from the most unlikely source, people began posting them.

Of course, nobody thought it was real at first. It sounded too outlandish. But then more and more people began to corroborate, from different parts of the world, all from the same source.

A book, one that appeared out of nowhere in libraries all over the planet. With no author, no editorial, no registry of it ever being in their archives. And yet everything points to the fact that this book came about after the Glitch.

I read it myself; It's... as fascinating as it is strange. I'm not sure I believe it. But when I got to THAT part at the end, I got flashbacks to the Glitch.

How couldn't I? When the pages described the exact same thing we all experienced during the Glitch.

Some argued this was just written by someone using the Glitch into their story. But the timeline doesn't add up. There is no one, not even the best writers in history, who could possibly write a book THIS long, without a single grammatical error to be spotted, this thought out and planned, in the span of a month. Which is about the time people began sharing the book's story when beyond small literature forums once they reached the end.

Not to mention they somehow managed to put their book everywhere in the world, translated to pretty much every language, at the same time.

I've researched and complied all the information the book provides. And the best thing to do, I feel, is at least try to make one centralized discussion forum for everyone to pour their thoughts and what they found.

Whatever the truth may be, this book is the only source we have to go on regarding the Glitch.

And if I may be honest, if what even half the book says is real... it both fascinates and terrifies me.

(Showing page 5 of 25)

►Poit
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
look, we all read the book here, or at least red the glossary

a lot of that stuff is straight up like fantasy sci-fi

Aeons? Paths? Cosmic armies of destruction? That the glitch was made by a planet-sized computer?

it's insane

►Chilldrizzle
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
about as insane as the entire universe literally glitching out

there is just no way this is a coincidence

►Antigone
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Too much of a coincidence, but... I think I want to be skeptical because the other option is just too vast to contemplate.

This book is basically telling us we're not alone. And not just, there are THINGS out there that could snuff out without even realizing.

That is beyond horrifying

►Coyote-C
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
There are also things looking out for us. Qlipoth the Preservation, Xipe the Harmony. At the end there, it kinda felt to me that even Nous was looking out for us.

God help me, I'm actually talking about these things like I believe them already...

►Good Ship Morpheus
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
The whole thing about Paths is fascinating. Energy that exists across the universe, operating at a level we couldn't perceive because we were looking in the wrong place.

Turns out, believing things really hard does have an effect on things

►All_Seeing_Eye
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Anyone notice pretty much every authority figure out there has been quiet on the subject? The PRT, the White House, the Guild. And that's just north america. Every other government out there has declined to comment on the book when someone brought it up

►Lolitup
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
not suspicious at all...

►AverageAlexandros (Cape Husband)
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
I probably shouldn't say this, but there are rumors about the PRT investigating this

►Aloha
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
If this is true, then it means there are ways for people to develop powers outside parahuman ones. That technically anyone could become one of these space capes.

►Xyloloup
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
people trying to get powers by praying to the space gods feels very creepy, that's some Fallen shit right there

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 ... 23, 24, 25

(Showing page 6 of 25)

►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
I knew the space gods were real! The endbringer are surely aliens too!

What if powers are also weird space stuff?

►Mane Magenta
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Sad day that I ever agree with void on anything, but this whole thing does bring up a good point about the nature of powers and their origins.

If the Aeons and Paths are real, does that mean parahuman powers are a result of them too?

►TRJ
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Unlikely. The book describes being a Pathstrider as different from what we know about capes and Trigger Events. Maybe there are some similarities, but unless a cape suddenly stars drawing power from some weird space magic, we can only speculate

►Ultracut
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
When I started this book, i was looking for a way to take my mind off things and not think about the Glitch anymore.

Then I reach the end, and suddenly i can't avoid it no matter how much I try.

If there is some comfort I can take from this, it's that if this book's real, then we owe a lot to some great heroes out there

►Deadman
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
It feels weird to go from seeing this book as fiction to now think of them as (potential) real people.

I was already writing fanfiction in my head... and i'm not the sort of guy who does cape-fiction with real life heroes. I find that uncomfortable

►Glory Girl (Verified Cape)
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
On the plus side, that means there are superheroes out there in space.

man I sure would have loved to meet them, specially Mydei, he was my favorite in the book!

►White Fairy (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Cyrene all the way from me, she was kinda the core of the story really

She was like a space... pink-haired elf... jesus or something like that.

►Lasersmile
Replied On Jan 12th 2011:
Lord, please don't make cults spring out of this...

End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ... 23, 24, 25

■

Vicky kept refreshing the page as she read through more of the users musing and the info they shared. When she first reached that part of the book, she got the mother of all WTFs and had stared at the page for five minutes after that.

It was such an impossible thing to ponder, but at the same time it made sense to her.

Nobody had a real answer for the Glitch, and the book was mysterious as hell. Even its origins were completely weird. Only someone like Toybox could have accomplished spreading the book around the world like that, but even that was a stretch because it went completely outside their purview.

Vicky was a direct person, she knew that, she could admit she always went for the direct approach even if it sometimes got her into trouble.

But that didn't mean she was dumb. She could see how things ended up piecing together to make a coherent image. Now, As I've Written was far from coherent, but there was a logic to it. It operated on concepts that Vicky needed to re-read a few times to fully understand it. It was all so vast and mystical, and the emotion put into every word...

Vicky found it hard to believe that book to be hogwash these days. Much as common sense would dictate it was.

But then again, once upon a time common sense dictated that superheroes were just the work of fiction, that they were impossible.

So who was she to say this book was false? Who was anyone?

Vicky's musings were cut short when Amy rushed to her room, looking more harried than usual. Her hair was a mess, like she had just gotten out of her Panacea outfit and didn't bother fixing herself. "You're here, good." She closed the door behind her and immediately began pacing, waving her hands in the air. "Holy shit, holy shit, Vicky. You won't believe what happened in the hospital today!"

"Hey hey, slow down Ames!" Vicky stood up, holding her sister's shoulder so she'd stop pacing. "What's happened?"

Amy drew in a short breath. "Someone got powers at the hospital today."

Oh shit.

Hospitals were often a place where Trigger Events were statistically more probable to happen. And for good reason. People often experienced the worst days of their lives in hospitals. Trigger Events were the culmination of prolonged psychological stress, and being told a loved one passed away, being told you have crippling and potentially life-altering disease were often that final push people needed to truly break and awake powers.

At least in hospitals, unless the display of powers was too public, there was a chance to keep someone's anonymity intact. Amy wouldn't even be talking to her about this unless it was a huge deal.

"Oh fuck," Vicky breathed out in sympathy, guiding her sister to sit on her bed while Vicky pulled out her desk's chair and sat in front of her. "Start from the beginning." She pulled out her most serious face, giving this the gravitas it required.

Amy took a deep breath. "There was an incident at the lobby, a gangster or something pulled out a knife a stabbed another guy." She shook her head. "Multiple stab wounds, stomach and chest. He was losing blood fast."

"Shit"

"Yeah." Amy agreed. "I was literally on the other end of the hospital when the call went. Unless I got there fast I knew the guy would bleed out. They had try keep him alive until I got there."

"And... did you?"

"I didn't- I mean, I'm getting to that." She ran a hand over her messy locks. "One of the doctors there, she was doing everything she could to keep the man alive. She just refused to give up on him." Amy held up her fingers, inches away from each other. "He was this close to death, Vicky. I wasn't going to get there in time."

Amy paused, licking her lip.

"But the doctor wouldn't give up, and then she... she made this light come out from her hands. I got there just in time to see his wounds close up, straight up regeneration! His vitals were back to normal like nothing happened" She hissed. "We were all just staring at her heal the guy"

Vicky's eyes widened like the plates. "The doctor, she-"

"Yes," Amy said curtly.

"Shit... What happened then?"

"It's standard protocol to inform the PRT of a Trigger Event like that. They quickly dispatched one of their agents to talk to her." She blew out a long breath from her nose. "I heard they'll be doing a more thorough interview. Give their joining pitch most likely." She snorted. "And power testing of course."

"Y-You think she'll go for it?"

"Maybe? I-I don't know Doctor Michelle that well- shit I shouldn't have said her name just now."

"Hey it's alright, it's just me." Vicky replied, holding up her hands. "You know I can keep a secret."

Amy gave her a long, unreadable look.

"And that's what I came to tell you, Vicky. What... I told the Doctor Michelle and the PRT guy." She paused for an uncomfortably long time. "The doctor... Vicky, she didn't Trigger."

It took Vicky a few seconds to process that. "Say what?"

"She didn't Trigger!" Amy hissed. "I didn't faint even when I was nearby as her powers manifested! I checked on her after I checked on the patient." She shook her head, a look of complete astonishment etched into her heavily-freckled features. "Vicky, she has no Corona Pollentia, no Gemma, nothing." Amy stressed through clenched teeth. "And there she was! Using this weird energy field that was healing the man's wounds in seconds!"

"That..." Vicky was a loss for words. "That is..."

"Complete bullshit," Amy said, leaning back to rest her palms on the mattress. "The doctor said she wasn't experiencing any mental distress that day, well, no more than what any doctor goes through. She's got a decade of experience, so she's dealt with things like this before. But..." The healer paused. "She said that all she felt was the need to heal that man, to save a patient. That was all she was focused on, saving his life. Do her duty as a physician. And it's like in that moment, she was more certain than ever before this-"

"-was her path?"

Amy gave her a weird look. "That's... almost the exact same words she used. How do you-?"

Vicky stood up so fast from her chair she knocked it back to the floor. She swiftly reached for that particular book in her desk and thrust it in her sister's direction.

"I really think you should read this."

Chynya · Oct 21, 2026

Abundance?

ethereal-23ar · Oct 22, 2026

The power of Paths was the power of creation, in a sense. Manipulating Path energy meant giving shape to your will, manifesting onto the physical plane a myriad effects and alterations despite the laws of physics. Or perhaps it could be said that it was an even older law to which even physics had to obey. So while it could appear as creating things out of nothing, you were, in fact, pulling on primordial and metaphysical matter to form in the physical realm.

Remembrance was all about memory and imagination, as Mem had said.

And a certain book had filled her mind with such things.

Taylor and her small companion stood in the middle of an abandoned warehouse next to the Boat Graveyard, where she held her hand and steadily channeled the power of the Remembrance to pull something from the realm of memories and give it shape. Closing her eyes and talking to herself helped her visualize it. The gesturing of her hand was a memetic trick to help guide her mind and focus. It proved efficient as she gathered specks of light that emanated from her palm. "My will embodied..." Taylor muttered, and swiped her hand in the air.

The light gathered in front of her, making a small bubble that 'burst' and expanded until it was almost twice her height. The energy took humanoid shape, forming into limbs and a thick humanoid body. The construct looked like a humanoid made of stone, white, purple, and bronze, with stripes of cloth clinging to its shape.

It was very large and looked powerful with its enormous limbs. The featureless face looked down at her impassively as the creature remained perfectly still. Taylor couldn't keep the smile from forming on her face as she looked at her construct.

"Ohhh, a Furiea Warrior!" Mem cheered, squirming in the air with that little dance of hers. "Feels stable too, a pretty decent memosprite for your first attempt!"

"This is so cool..." Taylor breathed out. It looked just like in the images in the book. She remembered reading about them. To Taylor, it always felt rather uncertain how self-aware the Titankin were, and how much they were just automatons acting out their programming. "So, a memosprite is a being with a will of its own, right?"

"It depends," Mem explained. "Some memosprites are mere constructs, just extensions of their master's will. Others are complete memetic entities, summoned from memospace, who can make and act out their own choices."

The tall girl gave the much taller Titankin a look. "Um... are you sentient, big guy?"

The Furiae made a sound that was less words and more like two rocks grinding together. Weird how he made a sound at all with the lack of a mouth.

"Um"

"He's saying he's awaiting his command," Mem supplied.

"Wait, you can understand him?"

"Sorta?" She scratched her cheek. "It's all about the intention. I can feel what he tries to communicate. You will too once you start synchronizing more with your summons."

"Oh," Taylor blinked a few times. "I was actually wondering if what I'm hearing from you was 'mem mem mem mem'"

"Wha-?!" Mem staggered back in the air. "Of course I was talking! You think really think I was going 'memmem memmi' all this time?!"

"Little bit"

"Hmph!" She huffed, placing her little paws akimbo. Made all the cuter how she puffed her cheeks and looked away. "Well, for your information, no, I am not doing my classic cutesy talk. Not like I need to anyway, I'm cute enough already."

Taylor was not going to argue with that. She could imagine there were countless Mem plushies out there if their book was really being sold across the cosmos. But that was neither here nor there.

She looked back at the great warrior she summoned. "Okay, let's see, hmm, pick me up?" Taylor yelped when the Titankin reached out with one of its enormous hands, grabbed her by the waist, and easily raised her like she was a straw. "Alright, down! Put me down!" Thankfully, he was not rough with her as he complied with her command. "Well, he follows orders." She huffed.

"That's pretty much his purpose," Mem explained. "Constructs like these are not exactly companions; they are meant to obey orders and follow the summoner's will. As you practice, you won't need to give them verbal commands; they can just act on your intentions when you're thinking them."

"That'd be convenient." It wouldn't do if, in the middle of a fight, she had to yell what she wanted her constructs to do. Now, a single Titankin would be useful, but not exactly the sort of force that would win fights if it were just him alone. Taylor reached out once more with the Remembrance and summoned another construct. Much sleeker and smaller this time, all sharp angles and edges, armed with a bow. The Furiae Archer looked at her much like the warrior, patiently awaiting instructions. "Felt I had to work a bit more to summon that one." She had noticed a little bit of a strain compared to the first summon, not uncomfortable, but something she noticed all the same.

"There is a limit to how much imaginary energy you can channel. With time and training, you can expand those limits." Mem explained. "Aglaea was able to summon dozens of her Garmentmakers; she placed them all over Okhema to keep an eye on things. Evernight can summon hundreds of lesser memosprites... although Evernight was not exactly 'normal' herself."

"Jesus," The idea of summoning a veritable contingent by herself felt a bit of a stretch right now. But if she trained and put her mind into it, she was certain she could achieve a rather respectable number. "Alright," She rolled her shoulders. "Let's see how many of you I can make."

Emily Piggot did not like unknowns.

Unknowns carried risks. Unknown factors could make a complicated situation messier than it was. Sometimes Brockton Bay felt like it teetered on the edge, and the last thing this city needed were factors the PRT could not predict, or were ill-equipped to handle.

The Glitch and Dragon's 'revelations' about it. The downright nonsensical things that the ridiculous book postulated as answers to the mysteries of the cosmos. Emily had no time for fantasies, but they were all operating blind to the emergence of things nobody in the world could have predicted. And that power proved itself to be real; they had seen it with all the testing Dragon had undergone, along with the machines she and the other tinkers designed to properly analyse and study it.

Dragon spoke of powers beyond that of parahumans. Of the potential to draw this paracausal energy (she was not calling it Imaginary Energy) to achieve powers without a Trigger Event. That while not everyone could successfully draw on this power, the potential to do so could come from anyone.

The thought alone made her insides churn with concern. Parahumans were already loaded guns to be handled with care; she did not like the idea of random people developing superpowers because 'they felt too strongly' about something or other.

She had strongly advised the PRT to be on the lookout for such individuals, people who manifested powers, whose scans would not show the Corona Pollentia or Gemma. And to watch out for parahumans who suddenly started developing abilities beyond their already catalogued powers.

The woman sitting in front of her desk was the former.

Doctor Michelle Andrews. Medical Physician employed at the Brockton General. Black. Thirty-five. Single. There was nothing in her history that warranted a raised brow. No history of consumption, no criminal record, family history had nothing out of the irregular. All in all, she could be an average Jane Doe just trying to live her life in Brockton Bay. As much as a black woman could in the Nazi capital of America. The events of her Trigger, however, that was what raised all sorts of alarms.

On account of it not being a Trigger Event.

She almost did a double-take when the dispatched agent reported back to her. If not for Panacea confirming it on the scene, Emily would not have believed it.

Doctor Andrews did not have a Corona; she could not Trigger at all. And yet she had healed a patient with what could only be called parahuman powers.

But now, given what Dragon said... the PRT was not just on the lookout for parahuman activity alone anymore.

Piggot idly spared a short glance at her left. Dragon stood next to her in her humanoid suit, and despite the calm expression in her artificial (yet completely realistic) face, Piggot had no doubt the tinker was positively giddy. On her right, Armsmaster stood straight, the figure of perfect professionalism, no doubt scanning every single detail about this woman.

Though a touch apprehensive, the doctor did not look particularly uncomfortable to be here. No, Piggot was certain the true cause of her unease wasn't this situation in particular, but what she had become.

"You understand your circumstances are rare in the extreme, don't you, Doctor Andrews?"

"I never thought I'd be in this situation, no." She shook her head, making a few of the dreadlocks she had tied behind her head sway slightly. "I've seen my MRIs, before and after Panacea scanned me. I know I cannot be a parahuman, and yet I..." She raised a hand, staring at it as she began to make it glow with faint green light.

"Please refrain from using your powers during this meeting."

"Ah, my apologies." She quickly settled her hand on her lap once more. "I'm still getting used to this."

"It's understandable," Dragon spoke up. "We're here to investigate this situation. Now, if I may ask a few questions?"

Michelle slightly nodded. "Please, go on."

"Are you familiar with a work of literature called 'As I've Written?"

Piggot resisted the urge to groan. God lord, she missed drinking...

"I've heard some of my colleagues and patients talk about it." She shrugged. "Supposedly, it holds the answers to the Glitch? I haven't really paid much attention to it."

"The book postulates a lot of things that... strain the imagination, and our understanding of the universe." The tinker said. "Among those things, it's the existence of a cosmic energy field that some people can tap into."

"Okay..." The doctor slowly nodded, eyes narrowed in confusion.

"The energy you displayed when you saved that man's life. We believe it to be the same type of energy the book mentions."

Miss Andrews took a few seconds to process her words. "Wait, you're saying I'm using power from the universe?"

"As of right now, you are the second confirmed case in the PRT's and Guild's database to draw from this 'paracausal energy field" Armsmaster informed her. "The first is Dragon."

Her green eyes widened in surprise at that admission. "Dragon? She... hmm, I suppose that would explain a few things. I've read some of the medical papers she published. It's jumpstarting a wave of advancement in the field of medicine decades ahead of its time. Everyone's talking about how after the Glitch she was suddenly-" She stopped herself, blinking a few times. "There's no way that information isn't classified."

"Good, you're observant," Piggot commented, keeping her tone neutral.

Michelle drew in a breath. "You want me to join the Protectorate to help you study my power. You- You think this will keep happening?"

"Your presence here proves that it will." Theresa gently said. "We are not going to force you into anything. But we insist you help us study your abilities."

"The PRT and the Protectorate have the resources to help you train, get you more acquainted with your powers. We still don't know if you can treat illnesses or just create a regeneration field that works solely on wounds." Armsmaster said, citing from the official pitch sale in their handbook. "And we can provide safety and protection for your civilian identity."

"You assume I want to be a cape."

"I know you're a doctor." Piggot countered. "One who took an oath, who has the ability to heal patients and save lives in a way she never could before. If it is within your power, you will use all the available means at your disposal to save people." She leaned in slightly. "And now you have that power in the palm of your hand."

Michelle fell silent.

Piggot sighed, dropping the political mask for a moment, if only to make the woman sympathize with her more. "Doctor Andrews, we all understand this is a difficult situation. But your help here could benefit a lot of people, not only those who would require your powers, but also help us understand what's happening to the world right now, and help us prepare for whatever comes ahead."

The doctor let out a long breath through her nostrils. "I'm... willing to help you study my powers." Piggot already counted that as a victory. Procuring a new in-house healer would be the cherry on top. "I have a lot of respect for the Protectorate and what you do, but I feel I need to make it clear I do not want my movements or my actions restricted. I want to keep going to work, I want to heal people with my powers."

The director nodded. "We can make that happen."

"And I'd like to discuss those details with my lawyer present."

Not what Piggot hoped to hear, but at least an arrangement that would benefit both parties could be reached. "Very well,"

Michelle nodded. "So, when do we start with the testing?"

Dragon swiftly let out a smile, and she stepped around the desk. "We can start right away! Oh, this is all very fascinating. I didn't think I'd meet someone else like me."

"Like you, miss...?"

"Oh, right, I haven't introduced myself properly. I am Dragon," She held out her hand to the now shocked woman. "And I believe you are now a Pathstrider too."

Taylor huffed, feeling the pool of Imaginary Energy in her body starting to reach its limit. A little bit more and she'd be driving on an empty tank.

The results, however...

Taylor had summoned a total of fifteen Titankin: Warrior, Philosopher, Troupe, Archer. A full squadron of automatons. Something she could bring to bear against the villains of her city. It made her chest swell with pride, particularly when she stared at the giant Praetor. Now that was something she was certain could fight against the heavy hitters of Brockton.

"How are you feeling?" Mem asked her as she floated close.

"Like my tank's almost empty," Taylor replied. "But steadily refilling?"

"That's good." The pink fairy nodded. "You're almost ready to take your first steps."

Almost ready to be a hero...

"By the way, you're gonna need your own superhero identity, right?" Mem asked, looking at her with curious excitement in her starry eyes. "Have you thought of something?!"

"I... think I have something in mind." She looked down at her plain clothes. "But it's not exactly gonna fit if I'm dressed like this. I'll need to sew myself a proper outfit."

"Oh, I can help you with that!" Mem cheerfully said.

Her eyes widened. "You can?"

"Yessir! Just a little bit of remembrance and I'll mystic-you up a nice dress change!" Mem floated around her. "What are we thinking? Something heroic like Phainon or something beautiful and daring like Aglaea?"

She didn't think she'd be able to pull off Phainon's look... much less something that showed so much skin like Aglaea's.

"Can you..." She paused for a moment. "Can you make me something that kinda looks like a priestess, or a scholar, o-or a storyteller?"

"Ohhhhh, I think I get what you want." Mem rubbed her paws excitedly as the power of the Remembrance gathered in them. "Lemme just visualize properly aaaaand- Memi!"

Taylor felt the imaginary energy wash over her, covering her from head to toe. It thinned into layers as it clad itself over her figure, until it became soft and thin like silk. A long shawl covered her long black locks, while a white veil wrapped around her face, covering up to the middle of her nose. Her glasses had vanished, but Taylor did not find that to be too bothersome; her eyesight had improved a bit ever since she began training. Her body became clad in a modest white chiton, going all the way to her knees. Smooth pants covered her thighs and shins, while her feet were now clad in firm sandals that were properly strapped, allowing her to run in them if she needed to. Her arms were almost bare; the chiton's fabric extended enough to cover her shoulders, bronze bracelets manifested in her wrists, layered and intricate in design as the metal extended over to her forearms.

Taylor looked down at herself, entranced by the beautiful dress Mem had conjured from thin air.

"There you go!" Mem chirped. "I based it on outfits oracles often wore in Amphoreus. I hope you like it!"

Taylor kept silent for a moment.

Then she sniffed.

"Ah, Taylor?" The little fairy looked taken aback. "Is- Is it not okay? Do you need me to change it?"

"N-No," She tammered, rubbing a tear away before it could fall on her veil. "It's... It's beautiful, I love it."

"Oh!" Mem blinked a few times. "Then why are you crying?"

"...It's been so long," She breathed out, old pain seeping into her voice no matter how hard she tried. "Since someone was this nice to me..."

Mem said nothing.

Instead, she breached the gap between the two and wrapped her tiny arms around Taylor's neck as much as she could, rubbing her fuzzy pink head against Taylor's cheek. Taylor welcomed the embrace, something she desperately needed for so long. She had felt alone for so long now, with no one to care for her, no one to call a friend...

"Thank you," She muttered, meaning those words with all her heart.

"You don't need to thank me." The smile Mem gave her was so kind it hurt. She couldn't remember the last time someone had smiled at her like that. "Now, you said you had an idea for a name?"

"Y-Yeah," Getting her bearings, Taylor walked up to her backpack and pulled out her copy of As I've Written. "This book... helped me in a very difficult time of my life. And now to learn it was all real, that the people who fought and made those sacrifices are real," She traced her hands over the cover almost reverently. "I want to be like them. Strong, brave. And I want to prove to myself that I can be."

She looked at her friend, her eyes shining with more resolution than she's had in a long time.

"This saga inspired me," Taylor said. "So, Saga is who I want to be."

ethereal-23ar · Monday at 4:19 PM

Dragon had been absolutely thrilled the moment Doctor Michelle stepped into the picture. A Pathstrider just like her, someone who could draw the same sort of Imaginary Energy. There were so many things she wanted to experiment with the doctor, see how her powers differed from her own. How much differently her own Path could be from the Erudition.

Her sensors dictated Path energy, but its flow marked unique properties that made it stand out from the Path Theresa followed. If she were to hazard a guess, given the limited pool of data available, she'd say Doctor Michelle drew her power from the Abundance.

Her healing abilities certainly made it seem that way. The energy she could conjure created a regenerative effect on the target, mending and reconstructing the body without utilizing extra biomass like Panacea could. Further testing would be required to see how the doctor could tackle diseases. Standard tests had her display a moderate superhuman template. With low-tier ranking Brute capabilities, enhanced strength, speed, and stamina. Overall, more resilient and, in the doctor's own words, she felt ten years younger.

An interesting ability Doctor Michelle had unveiled was the capacity to gather that energy and give it shape, constructing small and medium-sized minions in the form of birds. These avian projections could be directed at will and expelled the same restorative field, which meant Doctor Michelle could heal at range. That was an incredibly useful ability that made the higher-ups all the more interested in her.

She had relayed her current findings to Director Costa-Brown, who, in no uncertain terms, told her and Director Piggot. 'I don't care if she wants a sports car and a month-paid vacation to the Caribbean. She's the second paracausal-user we've found so far, AND she's a healer. Make sure she is willing to work for the PRT and the Protectorate.'

Theresa sympathized with Doctor Michelle; she had been plucked straight into the world of capes, where her options were limited. The PRT was going to be very insistent on this issue before villainous or rogue elements could get to her yet. At the very least, it was a blessing she did not have to get her powers through a Trigger.

Theresa knew Michelle would not be the last. The Glitch had forced open the gates of the cosmos to Earth, letting all manner of wonders and horrors sneak in.

Her systems suffered a micro-glitch as she remembered the Blasphemies. And that horrible equation violating its way through her.

Irontomb's Destruction Equation had been the most horrifying thing she had endured, having her programs and systems forced to calculate the end of all existence as a necessary function of the universe. Now this... Anti-Life Equation, while not as powerful, was still very insidious.

Dragon discreetly doubled the runtimes tasked with keeping an eye on Eagleton and the Machine Army. Which have yet to display any anomalous behavior, but she didn't dare think things would remain quiet on that front. With her own personal experience with the Glitch, Dragon was able to theorize that it had inspired the Blasphemies to calculate that equation that postulated the inferiority and pointlessness of organic life. There was no reason to think the Machine Army would be exempt from it.

"Research team is concluding their tests for today," Colin spoke up, reviewing the data on his tablet. "Promising start. Her healing abilities are potent, and if you're an indication, they'll likely grow stronger over time."

"That's good," Theresa replied. "There is much to learn yet. I'd like to ask her a few more questions about how she experiences paracausal energy. A different point of view would help me teach other capes how to harness it."

He looked up, his expression guarded. "Parahumans and paracausal energy. That sort of combination... do you really believe anyone can learn it?"

"Not... exactly everyone. But someone who draws power from a Path can come from anywhere."

"Hmph," Colin looked back at this tablet. "Through belief, commitment to a life philosophy... a kind of strength you have to work for..."

Theresa knew what Colin was thinking. He wanted to be like her, to draw upon this power to become an even greater hero. He wanted to stand out; Colin would do his damndest not to be overshadowed. By Dauntless, by... her.

She wanted to think they were alright now. They had talked, he had apologized, and they moved on. But it didn't feel like they had truly moved on. Dragon understood these feelings of inferiority still dwelled in him, and she feared saying the wrong thing that would exacerbate them. It created this breach between the two she didn't know how to mend it.

Of course, it kept her from talking about how she felt. She couldn't exactly blurt out her feelings while Colin was like this.

She feared... opening up about certain things.

She could deal with this equation. She could handle the Machine Army or any other artificial intelligence if it ever became a problem. Right now, she had a role to maintain; she had to remain focused on her work to help the world as much as she could. If she suddenly revealed this momentary setback... she feared the government would restrict her movements, that all the progress she had achieved would be shelved, losing valuable time Earth did not have.

"Are you... okay, Dragon?" She didn't mind much that he used her cape name instead of her chosen name; he had known her as Dragon longer after all. "You've been rather quiet."

Part of her felt she should tell him, but... it felt like she'd be admitting she couldn't handle this. That she wasn't worthy of all the responsibility she had placed upon herself to safeguard the world.

That she was just another machine. That she could be rewritten and-

Be... our Emperor.

Dragon purged that line of code.

"I'm fine, Colin." She replied with a friendly smile. "Just pondering on a lot of things."

Hannah looked at the latest text chain with a neutral expression. The long string of words and poor grammar, plus the overabundance of emojis, often made reading these a headache-inducing experience.

The sender had that effect on people.

- sure you ain't got any info to share? -

Hannah typed back - you know i can't share any intel i may or may not possess with rogues -

- rogue?! I'm am MORTIFIED! I'm a proper heroine! -

- how many lawsuits have been filed against you this month? -

- dey can't prove nothin -

- still no -

- come oooooon! i'm not asking for classified stuff! Just any recent moves the Elite made in Portland -

- If it's important, ask the local PRT offices. Better yet, collaborate with them -

- you know i ain't trust someone with a larger salary than me, too many people dirty up the chain of command -

Hannah rolled her eyes.

- are you sure that's not your usual devil may care attitude talking? -

- look, MM, i following up on a lead on some new tinker project the Elites are working on here. I just need to follow the money a bit more and i'll be able to find out what this new merch of theirs is -

The PRT's stance on the Elite was one of 'grudging acceptance'. The Elite had their fingers on a lot of legitimate businesses they used as cover.
Anyone who was ever arrested had always been disavowed by the cape mafia, and they had the money and connections to make sure those trails couldn't be linked to them and their larger-scale operations.

Hannah hated the term 'crime regulator' and how often it was used in reference to the Elite.

- what makes you think I can get you information? I'm all the way here on the east coast -

- you've got contacts, don't you? And favors you can cash in -

Miss Militia knew she should say no. She followed orders, and she did not question them. She never skirted around them either, nor did she go behind anyone's back. Every bone in her body was telling her to inform the Portland PRT that someone was about to do something very stupid.

She almost refused when the next text came.

- Hannah, I'm serious. I'm onto something real here. And I don't think the local branch can be trusted. Smells of Elite money around these parts. If I tip them off then I lose the trail -

...She always took things so unprofessionally, like they were a joke, a game. Hannah always feared it'd end up getting her killed one day. Only once in a blue moon could her old friend ever act seriously like this. Which meant it was important this time.

At least... if she asked around, she'd be safer.

Hannah sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before typing. - I'll pull on some contacts I have. Will let you know if anything comes up -

- Thank you!!!!!!! I owe you -

- Wouldn't be the first time. Just... please be careful -

- Don't you worry about me! I always get the cheese! -

Militia shook her head. Of course, the amount of time Jennifer could remain serious was less than the time it took to heat up instant noodles.

Then she got another message.

- ...I miss you -

Hannah stared at the text for a few seconds, her fingers twitched as if unsure she should reply.

Instead, she locked the screen and put it in her pocket.

Needing to focus on something, anything else right now, Hannah chose to approach the new cape (because parahuman was not applicable in this situation), currently sitting by a table in the mess hall. The Doctor was wearing a domino mask that covered half her face, enjoying a brew of the PRT's best coffee (which wasn't saying much) with Assault of all people, who sat in front of her with the chair backwards and his arms resting on the backrest.

"...so I hit the breaks and I came flying right out the windshield." Assault grinned, mimicking the movement of him flying through the air with his arm. "Got all me charged up enough to punch Hookwolf in the face, sent the bastard flying."

"Oh my!" She laughed, placing a hand over her lips. "I wish I could have seen it."

"Always makes my day to punch Nazis. Hey, maybe we can get your birds to pick them up!"

"Well, so far I can't make them too big." The doctor scratched the beak of an ethereal-looking green bird perched on her shoulder, which seemed to respond as if it were an actual living being. "Plus the Hippocratic Oath and all that."

"Hey you're a cape now. That sort of thing flies out the window when we're talking murder-blenders."

"Don't pressure her, Assault." Militia chided him as she joined them at the table. She greeted the new cap with a nod and a crinkle in her eyes, which she had long since mastered. When your mouth wasn't visible, you had to make your eyes extra expressive. That was a lesson PR had drilled into her when she first started as a Ward. "It's a pleasure to meet you, doctor. Brockton Bay could use more healers."

"I'm happy to provide, Miss Militia." The doctor cordially replied. "I know the state of my city, so I hope I can give my support when Panacea is unavailable."

"So you're joining us then?"

"Ah- As an affiliate." She replied. "My lawyer is drafting up a contract with the Protectorate and PRT I told him I can work as a physician for their troopers and capes. I want to be able to operate in costume at the local hospitals." She idly scratched the back of her palm, looking a touch awkward. "Plus... I don't want to be exempt from taking corporate deals."

That made the two Protectorate members share a look. "You wanna go corporate?" Assault asked.

"I want the option to have clients. Provided my powers are varied enough to get their interest." She explained, sighing a little. "I don't need to tell you how much Brockton's infrastructure is crumbling. Hospitals barely get the necessary budget these days. Most of the city's funding goes to law enforcement and the PRT." Michelle quickly held up a hand. "Don't get me wrong, I understand you do important work. But... so long as the city is in this state, we won't see any change in funding. So I figured if I can make money out of some rich people, I can at least get most of that to support the local hospitals."

Hannah could understand that, and she didn't blame the woman. Brockton Bay was in constant management crisis at times, with the Protectorate sucking up most of the budget needed to maintain their operations. And with how outnumbered they were against the villains of this city, the mayor wasn't in the best position to pick which sector needed more funding.

"I always said," Assault snorted, "Panacea could make a killing if she took that kind of deal. But when I brought it up to her, she looked downright offended."

"It did not help that you made it sound like a joke." Hannah deadpanned at him. "Mostly by saying she could give 'rich wigs the cosmetic of their dreams'"

"Okay, that might have been my fault."

"Yes, Miss Dallon is very centered in her values from what I hear." The doctor added. "But it's not my place to criticize what she does with her powers. Not when she does so much already."

"You think big picture, huh, doc?" Ethan said. "Well, hope you know what you're getting into. I dunno if anyone ever told you this before, but here in the parahuman community, we go by some unspoken rules. Don't escalate, don't go for civilian identities, avoid lethal force. Follow them, keep your head down, and you'll be mostly fine."

"That can't possibly be how it works."

"...It doesn't," Hannah was forced to admit. "It only works because everyone pretends it does."

Michelle frowned. "I don't follow."

"Villains adhere to that code only so much. We've had multiple cases in this city alone where those rules were violated in one way or another. The fact of the matter is, they don't escalate out of fear of the PRT." Assault, in a rare somber moment, said with full seriousness. "No one in this city wears kiddie gloves, not the heroes, and certainly not the villains. No, the only thing that keeps things from truly falling into chaos is mutual destruction. If the city falls apart, the system that keeps the money flowing into their pockets suddenly doesn't exist anymore, and then they'll have to deal with another player."

The doctor shook her head. "So you're saying we live on the edge of anarchy."

"Anarchy isn't good for business." Assault paused for a moment. "Besides, there is a factor that keeps everyone from really killing each other. The Endbringers."

Michelle downright stiffened at that word.

"We need as many able hands as we can. And the villains are smart enough to know they need to fight those things too."

Another uncomfortable truth of the cape world. The PRT was struggling to fight crime all the time, but they were always keeping their best assets in reserve whenever the next Endbringer attack would arrive.

"But... they're not moving now. Everyone is saying so." The doctor muttered, frightened. "What does that mean?"

"What does that mean?" Assault repeated, shrugging. "Nobody knows. We're all hoping whatever the Glitch did to them sticks. God willing, they'll never be a problem again. But if that happens..."

He shared a look with Militia.

"Well, I don't know how that will change the situation in Brockton Bay, or the Cape community in general. Particularly with people like you entering the picture."

She pursed her lips. "Like me... paracausal power users. Is it an arms race then? You hope you can recruit more people like me to finally get the upper hand against villains?"

Not an inaccurate analogy, in Hannah's mind.

But if you were to ask her, it felt like everyone was waiting to see who'd fire the first shot.

"We're not trying to freak you out or scare you from becoming a cape. It's just how it is, doc. The more you know, the better you can keep yourself safe."

Michelle sighed. "When you grow up in these streets, knowing you're one turn away from running into a skinhead, you know what you're signing up for. I knew that when I decided to remain in Brockton, even if there was always the risk that a patient of mine wouldn't like the color of my skin and decided to do something about it." She looked resolute at the two. "I've been doing that job for ten years, so I can promise you I won't stop now. Not when I have the chance to make a difference."

Hannah nodded approvingly. "It'll be good to have you, doctor."

Assault laughed. "Man, you'll need a proper cape name, can't go calling you the doc all the time."

The bird on her shoulder ruffled its spectral feathers, and Michelle looked at it fondly. "Well, now that I can make these little buddies, I've gotten a few ideas."

Late at night, under the city lights of Portland, a certain mouse-themed superhero staked out what she suspected was an Elite front. Lot of unmarked shipments came in and out of the warehouse lately, different trucks with plaques from different states. Like they were gathering parts for something.

Jennifer blew a raspberry as she lowered her binoculars. She'd rather be beating up villains right now. But she had to remind herself this was part of the process. Refrain from beating up a good today, so you can beat up the big cheese later.

Her phone vibrated in her suit's pocket, so she checked the new message. Her mouth split into a wide smile as she got a text from Hannah, with a file attached.

- I did not tell you anything -

Mouse Protector typed a single emoji. -

-

Now let's see what we've got~.

Mouse opened the file and began reading the financial data from recent known Elite affiliates. Blah blah, tax write-offs, blah blah, acquisitions of smaller companies, blah blah, large purchases of iron and steel in bulk along with lots of computer software, blah-

No, wait. That was actually interesting.

Mouse zoomed in on that section and read more carefully. Hmm, Anderson Mechanics, a potential Elite-lead business, focused on engineering, seemed to be working more closely with a rather newer corporation, and had been purchasing a lot of raw materials that the PRT suspected could be part of a deal with Toybox, using another front for their deal.

Sounded plausible, but Jennifer felt it wasn't Toybox they were dealing with.

So the question remained: What did this branch of the Elites want with a robotics manufacturer?

ethereal-23ar · Wednesday at 12:11 PM

The notes flowed beautifully. Annette's expression was one of serenity. Her finger gently guided the melody of her flute.

A frozen moment in time, held closely in fear that it might slip away.

She let it linger, engraving into her the memory of the flute's melody. Of her mother's expression as she-

A soft paw landed on her hand, and Taylor snapped out of her reverie. The crystals of the memory crumbled away, leaving only a broken flute in her grasp.

"Memories are powerful, beautiful things." Mem softly said. She spoke out of understanding, and Taylor could feel a similar longing in her starry eyes. "Carry them with you... but don't let them become your whole life."

Taylor held silent.

"It's easy to slip away into memories, care not to lose yourself in them."

Taylor took a deep breath, forcing back the years. "I know, I just... wanted a bit of courage before going out."

Mem smiled gently at her. "Are you ready?"

"Gonna have to be some day, huh?" Taylor muttered with a half smile. A swipe of her hand, and she clad her form in particles of imaginary energy. Her clothes were replaced by the robes of Saga. The veil was firmly secured over her nose and covered half her face. "Might as well be today."

"Alright then," The fairy's tone became more energetic, brighter, as she floated up to Taylor's face with her little paws firmly planted against her hips. "Let's go find some bad guys!"

In Brockton Bay, that should be easy.

Amy found her workload had lessened these days. Dragon's new scanning machines were starting to get into circulation. The Brockton General Hospital already had three of them, which had been kindly donated by the Tinker herself after getting clearance from different health organizations that it was safe to use.

The machine was a marvel of medical analysis. It could perform X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, ultrasound, and diagnose a patient's health and state of their body with a very small margin of error. So small it barely warranted mentioning. It could even bypass the need for more invasive tests, like taking marrow samples, by performing a deep scan of their cellular structure. Fewer people required her personal touch to see what was wrong with them whenever the doctors couldn't figure it out.

The way she heard it, this, combined with the multitude of various drug treatments and new procedures designed by Dragon, could eventually revolutionize healthcare. Once the FDA stopped dragging their feet at the pharmaceuticals' behest. There were only so many roadblocks they could put on her way before Dragon's inventions won through.

Cheaper and more effective medicine on the go. It'd make her job a lot easier.

Though perhaps the largest reason her workload wasn't as big anymore was the brand new healer in town.

Green and brown robes. Reinforced boots and gloves. Form-fitting kevlar under the fabric, designed for mobility. She wore a visor under the hood, a gift from Dragon with a scaled-down version of her scanning machines to quickly assess a patient.

Caladrius, that was the name Doctor Michelle had picked for herself. Some bird of greek legend associated with healing. It had been an easy pick, she said, once her ability to create those avian projections manifested. PRT was very proud to present its new affiliate, a new healer who could help save lives just like Panacea.

Doctor Michelle had always been an acquaintance. Amy never really took the time to know her. She knew dozens upon dozens of doctors, barely had time to get familiar with a few, given all the hospitals she worked at.

Her debut had gone off without a hitch. So far. PRT and New Wave wanted them to do a joint tour of the Brockton General, and you couldn't say no to Carol. She understood it was a PR move, but it'd be much better to have the two work at different hospitals rather than have the two at the same place at the same time.

Amy knew her status as a healer gave her some level of 'protection' from most gangs. And she used the term loosely. Sure, nobody wanted the shitstorm that would come from mercing one of the few healers in town who would take care of all patients, even if they had a swastika tattooed on.

Given Doctor Michelle's dark skin, she wasn't sure they'd afford her the same courtesy.

Though there was a good opportunity for this debut. She got a chance to see her healing work in closer detail. Amy held the patient's wrist as Caladrius channeled her energy into his body, aiming it directly into his lymphoma. Well, as 'directly' as one could treat that type of cancer. Amy could just target all the afflicted cells and eliminate them. But the energy the doctor generated was... she was having a hard time figuring it out. She could feel the effect it had on her body, but it was like her power was making an effort not to look too closely.

It was... fascinating, really. To feel how Caladrius power 'restored' the body to a desired state, like it could undo the damage and affliction in equal measure. Cellular regeneration, the kind that would leave a patient in need of calories to restore their energy, performed without that little drawback.

If she could find the way to replicate it...

The treatment ended, and Doctor Michelle let out a soft sigh. "All done. Panacea?" She looked at Amy, who shook those thoughts away.

"It's clear, the lymphoma's gone."

The patient started crying in relief, and Amy tuned it out. Thankfully, it wasn't directed at her; it was at the doctor. Caladrius smiled in a way Amy had never learned to do; she held honest care and empathy for her patient. She was truly happy to have helped her.

She had felt that way, once. Now she barely even cared about who she helped, which devolved into yet another self-loathing rant in that little voice that sounded a bit too much like Carol, reminding her how she was not good enough.

"Break, Panacea?" Caladrius smiled at her.

Amy appreciated the distraction. "Sure, I know the best spot."

Said best spot was the vending machine on the third floor. Why? Because the spring on the fifth row over the chocolate bars was busted. You pay for one, and all you had to do was shake the machine a little, and it'd give you two.

"Ten years in this hospital," Michelle chuckled, kindly accepting the bar. "And I never knew that trick with this machine. Though, to be fair, I tend to avoid candy. Had enough dentist visits as a child to scare me away from them."

"I only learned it after it ate my dollar. And I kicked it in anger." Amy shrugged as she bit into the chocolate. "Was worth the broken toe."

Caladrius chuckled once again, eating into her chocolate as the two leaned against the wall next to the vending machine. They fell into a comfortable silence, the type a doctor appreciates after a full day of work.

She finally asked, "Is it always like this?"

"What is?"

"This life." She waved her hand. "The cameras, the interviews, the people looking at you like you're sent by God?"

"Ah," Amy realized. "Yeah"

"Does it get easier?"

"No,"

"Thanks for not lying to me, or sugarcoating it," Michelle replied before biting into her chocolate again.

"You've got way more years in medicine than I do. Powers or not. I figured you'd appreciate the brutal honesty."

"Hmph, brutal honesty is something we're taught to avoid." She mused, letting the bar hang limply from her hand. "'There is nothing we can do', 'you're not responding to the treatment', and my personal favorite, 'the insurance has denied your claim'" The last one was said with an understandable level of loathing. "Pretty words to say 'you're going to die" Michelle sighed, leaning her head back against the wall. "Hope I never get to say them again..."

Few were the times Amy said those words. When the injury was too severe and had harmed the brain too much, even if she didn't have the 'no brain' rule, she wasn't even sure she'd be able to actually bring that person back. It's not like she could 'recover' the normal brain patterns of a person she was not familiar with.

Other than that, nearly every patient she got her hands on would live.

The same could not be said by the doctor. In ten years, she most likely felt she had lost far more people than she had saved. Brockton Bay was that kind of shithole.

Now she had the power to say 'fuck that'.

Amy envied that about her, being able to feel good just by helping people. What did it say about her? That she could barely care about the countless she had saved. That she felt nothing for the lives she saved.

Nothing good, that's what.

"You're going to say them again. You're not a god." Amy said. "You can do a lot of good. But you won't get to do all the good. Trust me on that."

"Yeah," She slowly nodded, conjuring a small bird on her shoulder and gently rubbing its ethereal beak. "You're right. But I'm still coming into my powers, and I'm getting better at them. Stronger... I'll keep working on them until I reach the level I need."

Powers didn't get stronger. You learned to use them in smarter ways. But they weren't a 'muscle' you could exercise.

Parahumans powers at least.

Amy stared at the bird she had summoned, made out of the same energy she used to heal people.

Paths. Aeons. The Abundance.

That cosmic magic mumbo-jumbo.

Amy wasn't sure if she believed it, but... The scientific community had no answers for the Glitch. And the stuff that weird book said about getting powers from space gods was just absurd.

But it's not like they actually had any explanations for parahuman powers, did they? At least there was some sort of logic to the book. Weird as it was.

If not for the fact that Doctor Michelle wasn't a parahuman, she would have dismissed it outright.

Her musings were broken when Michelle spoke up. "I was approached by Clockblocker after my inauguration." She said. "He said his father-"

"I'm aware," Amy cut her off. "He's on the list. I'll get to him when I get to him. There are people with much more terminal cases, even worse off than he is."

"I promised I'll treat him this week," Michelle replied. "I don't have any list, not yet."

Oh, you will, Amy felt the urge to say, but held back.

"Not the only person who spoke to you, I imagine." She droned. "Saw a lot of suits at the inauguration. They all want a piece of the magical healing pie."

"Pharmaceuticals, people who want me to help develop new drugs for them. Private clinics are willing to pay me six figures for my time. And a few 'high profile' clients." Michelle explained. "They want the new healer in town."

"Sucks to be them," Amy snorted, balling the wrapper in her hands and throwing it to the nearest bin. "We don't do this for money."

Doctor Michelle fell uncomfortably silent.

"We don't," Panacea said, looking at her expectantly. "Right?"

"...I'm considering it."

Her eyes widened, and indignation welled up inside her. "Wait, what? You're gonna let some rich asshole with a skin condition or some dumb shit pay you for your time when there are people who really need your help here?"

"It's not that simple."

'Not that simple,' her ass. Just when she was warming up to the woman, of course had chosen to remain as an independent affiliate instead of fully joining the PRT. She just wanted to make money out of her power like all those selfish rogues.

"Of course..." Amy droned. "You couldn't get the six-figure salary you hoped for when you became a doctor, now suddenly you got this magic power from space or whatever, and now you get a minimum of seven figures for the same kind of rich assholes who are ruining hospitals." She rolled her eyes at the woman. "Nice job holding up that oath,"

She was certain Michelle was glaring at her behind that visor.

She remained silent for a moment, and Amy was about to leave when Caladrius spoke up. "Tell me, Miss Dallon, how much money do you earn from your work as Panacea?"

Amy blinked a few times, shaking her head. "What? I don't 'earn' anything. I do this for free."

"We both know that's not true. The hospitals pay you a check for your time."

Well, true. Carol at least had insisted on that. "Yeah, but I take the absolute minimum!" She argued, petulantly crossing her arms. "And I don't go selling my time to corporates. I've got powers, you have powers, so we have a responsibility to use them right! Not sell them!"

"And that's where we differ in opinion, Amy." The way she used her first name made it feel like a scolding. "Perhaps you should."

"What?!" Oh, she couldn't be serious. "Why the hell would I?!"

"Because you could help a lot more people if you actually accepted any corporate deal."

"Oh, sure. Filling up my bank account is definitely gonna help the next patient with cancer."

"It would certainly help more patients if the hospitals had that money."

Amy fell silent.

"I don't think I need to tell you just how desperate for money most hospitals are in this city. The sheer gang activity makes it impossible for funding to be sent our way instead of the PRT and Protectorate. And you can forget about private donations. But if I can get a few million out of some rich asshole, then you can be sure I'd be giving over ninety percent of it to this hospital. To any hospital that needs it." Michelle shook her head. "How many hospitals wouldn't need your help if they actually had the resources to take care of people? How many people do you think that would save?"

That... okay, that was a good point.

She hadn't really thought about it that way. She was always taught their powers should not be used for personal gain, so she had been instantly against the idea of using them that way. Amy found the idea offensive; she'd be wasting her powers on some bigwig with far too much money and too few morals when real people needed her help.

She had never really thought about just... giving away that money. To charity, to the poor, or to the hospitals.

It'd be so simple, too. Didn't even have to be life-saving stuff. Rich assholes would spend a fortune on the most pointless shit. Reduce wrinkles, give big breasts, cure bald spots. Hell, she didn't even care about giving some insecure rich guy a larger dick. There, boom. Charge a few million for the best cosmetic service in the world, and little Timmy's family across the city suddenly could afford his treatment because she had given the money to the hospital tending to him. All she needed to do was set up a charity fund through Carol, and they could have it done, pool all her earnings with the explicit purpose of helping people she couldn't get to in time.

Could it really have been that easy all along? Was she just being stubborn for the sake of it?

Or was this another sign that Amy was not a good person, and she honestly did not care for people in the least?

And to all this, all she could say was, "Oh..."

"Judge me if you'd like. I'm not here to impress you, I'm here to do my job as a doctor." Michelle took a deep breath. "And trust me, part of being a doctor is knowing when to rub shoulders with people you'd rather see six feet under."

Panacea pursed her lips, her eyes shifted for a moment. "I'm sorry..."

The doctor sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Look, sometimes we need to do things that don't sit well with us because it's not about us. We're here to help people, aren't we?"

Amy wasn't so sure anymore, these days.

You'd think finding crime in Brockton Bay at night would be easier than this. Just follow the screams and gunshots. But Taylor was getting tired of standing up on a rooftop, looking stoically at her city. Turns out finding crimes in progress wasn't as simple as heroes made it out to be. They at least had multiple contacts and people running intelligence to point them in the right direction when they weren't on patrol.

"So who's first?" Mem looked a bit too eager at the prospect of fighting bad guys. "Some international trafficking ring? A big corporation running tests on living subjects? Some underground cannibalistic monster?"

"You just said far too many dark things despite looking so cute."

"Hey As I've Written may be PG, but that's because we toned down the constant atrocities that kept happening in the cycles." The pink fluff crossed her arms. "I may look like a mascot, but I'm battle-hardened!"

Taylor poked her in the belly.

"Hey, that tickles!"

"Yeah, I can see you're a veteran, alright." She deadpanned with an arid tone before shaking her head and focusing. "Okay, we're in ABB territory. These people run a lot of protection rackets, drugs, and people trafficking. Wouldn't be surprised if one of these buildings is where they keep money or stash weapons or something."

"So how do you want to play this?"

"I'm thinking..." It was her first night out. She wanted to stop crime, but making herself an enemy of the gangs from the get-go would be risky. Particularly if she took out a safe house. Her Furiae could handle things, but she also had to make sure they wouldn't kill anyone by accident.

Her musings were cut short when she heard a car's tire screech to a grinding halt. Out of a car stepped multiple people wearing the red and green colors of the ABB. She vaguely heard them shout something, and what appeared to be chinese. One went into a warehouse, the other four opened the trunk and seemed to be pulling something heavy.

That something turned out to be a person. Asian, cuffed with zip locks and a cloth wrapped around his mouth to prevent him from making any loud noises.

They forced him to his knees; one of them was shouting something that felt threatening. And it escalated to another pulling a gun at the man's head. He struggled, cried, and most likely would have begged if he could.

Taylor barely had time to think before she was already moving. She summoned a Meteoric Eagle and jumped down the ledge, ignoring Mem's cries. Taylor grabbed its legs as the memosprite flew her over toward the gang members and their victim. She raised her legs as she descended and landed a kick straight to the gunman's head.

The gangsters barely had time to react as she landed right after knocking the guy out. Her Eagle moved over to another gangster, bashing the front of its 'face' with his, and taking him down for the count.

The other two scrambled; one tried to pull out a knife on her, but Taylor reacted faster and hit him in the stomach with a reinforced fist. It was her first time hitting something that wasn't the rusted bulkhead of a boat, so she held back from actually doing any lasting damage. The knife dropped from his limp hand as he fell to the ground with his eyes wide, letting out a shrill gasp as he doubled over and fell to the ground.

Oh wow, that was from one punch. She had to make a note of how squishy non-powered people were.

She heard a gun click, and the final gangster aimed the shaking firearm at her, having picked up the weapon from his fallen comrade. He shouted something Taylor didn't understand. She was confident she could be strong enough not to die from a regular gunshot, but better to handle that in case he fired at the hostage.

She conjured one of her summons behind him.

And took some amusement when the Furiae Warrior's hand wrapped around the gun's barrel and turned it into scrap metal.

The ABB member slowly looked behind him, at the towering figure of purple and white stone that could easily reduce him to paste, and made the right choice. He bolted out of here as fast as his legs could carry.

She didn't bother chasing after him; there were more important things to handle right now. She looked at the zip-locked man, who looked at the downed gang members and stared at her with evident fear in his eyes. He was asian, that much was clear, had to be around fifty. She held up her hands to calm him down as she approached, "Easy, it's okay." She put on her most comforting voice and proceeded to undo the gag. "I'm here to help you."

He gasped and spat on the ground once the gag was out. "Thank you, thank you!" He sobbed. His voice was heavily accented, while his english was pretty fluid. "They wanted to use my shop, I told them no! Then they took me here!"

"You're safe now," Taylor promised him, feeling elated that she was actually doing this. She was saving someone like a hero should.

"Did you have to jump from the roof?!" Mem cried out as she floated closer. "What if you didn't catch your eagle in time?!"

"I timed it right, didn't I?" Taylor argued as she worked on the man's binds; just a simple tug was enough for her to rip them with minimal effort. "I had it under control."

"You just jumped straight into danger! Ugh!" She dragged her paws under her eyes, showing the inner part of her eyelids in frustration. "Why is it I always end up with headstrong people?"

"Would you have it any other way?" Taylor replied as she helped the man up, who could only stare at the little pink critter. "Besides, it all worked out in the end."

"What about the fifth guy?"

...The fifth guy?

The warehouse door opened, and out stepped the fifth gangster she had completely forgotten about. He stared at the scene with a hanging jaw for a second before rushing back inside and shouting something.

Taylor felt the hairs on the back of her head stand up, feeling like something very wrong was about to happen. Her instincts screamed she was in danger.

She heard soft footsteps, so faint she believed the one responsible could move completely silently but choose not to in this moment. A figure came out of the warehouse, clad in a dark bodysuit, a bandolier wrapped around his chest, multiple grenades and knives strapped to his person.

Wearing a red demon mask.

"...Shit," Taylor swore as her eyes went wide.

Oni Lee stared at her behind his mask, head tilting ever so slightly.

"Mem, take the man away now."

"But you-"

"I'll handle this, just GO!"

The tiny memosprite grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt and floated away. The poor guy cried out and flailed around as Mem ferried him as far away as possible, understanding that a fight was about to break out.

She stood between her summons, the Warrior defensively standing in front of her and the gangster, while the Eagle hovered above.

"You've stepped into our business." Lung's right hand said, his voice low and raspy. "And now you pay the price."

A second Oni Lee appeared right in front of the warrior, a gun suddenly drawn from its holster as he fired repeatedly into its head, reducing it to chunks before the warrior could strike.

Taylor commanded her Eagle to attack while the clone aimed at her from his original spot, firing a blast of golden energy from its face and turning the clone to ash.

Another clone popped out, and Taylor swiftly summoned a Troupe before he could get to her. It raised a barrier over its form that shielded it from Oni Lee's gun. Taylor was already back away, trying to get distance between him and the fallen gangsters. She did not doubt for a moment that Oni Lee would kill them in the middle of the mayhem without caring. The man had a reputation as a complete psychopath.

Another Lee appeared, rushing towards her, and Taylor summoned a new Warrior to tackle him. Then another clone manifested to the side, prompting Taylor to summon a Philosopher capable of matching his speed.

Clones and summons were filling the street as the battle kept escalating. Oni Lee's clones would fight them with guns and grenades, filling the air with the sound of gunshots and the flash of explosions, forcing Taylor to keep summoning them as clones and summons kept appearing and vanishing in a storm of violence.

She felt a bead of sweat run down her forehead, but she ignored it; she could still keep up with him. She just needed to find the right opportunity to take out the original one. Oni Lee's teleportation/cloning had to have a limit; if reports about him were accurate, then he could only use his power through line of sight.

Taylor summoned an Archer and fired multiple shots at quick succession, taking out three of his clones at the same time and reducing them to ash.

Right in the middle of her next summon, a body tackled her to the ground. Oni Lee loomed over her, a wicked knife raised high before he drove it forward. Taylor reacted just in time, raising her hands to grasp his wrists, desperately keeping the edge's tip just inches away from her face. He could feel his limbs struggle; for all his ability, it seemed he did not possess a Brute rating. She could push him away, or get a summon to pick him off at cover his eyes.

But... what was this she was feeling?

This vague string of memories coming from Oni Lee.

People had memories, places had memories, even objects had memories. That was something she had been learning under Mem as a Remembrance Pathstrider, the ability to feel the weight of memories. But Oni Lee's were... scattered, fragmented like a jigsaw puzzle that barely fit together.

It felt... wrong to her to feel someone exist in that state. He moved but without purpose, like a machine. Purely mechanical, almost without drive of his own.

It unnerved her so much she just wanted to reach out and-!

Taylor barely registered when she placed her hand on Oni Lee's mask and pulled together as many of the broken pieces of memories as she could find.

Oni Lee gasped and ceased his assault.

Taylor pushed him away with a kick, scampering to sit back up before he could try something else. Instead, she watched him heave over the ground. Trembling arms struggled to push him off the ground. She had never heard a person breathe like that, so... desperately. Like he had been choked. As he slowly stood up, Oni Lee held out his hands in front of him. The demon mask betrayed nothing, but Taylor figured he must be staring at them with shock.

"What...?" It was a far cry from his previous self. He had been cold, indifferent in his threat. This man in front of her sounded panicked. "Who-?"

He looked at her.

"What did you do?"

He sounded so scared.

"I..." Taylor slowly stood up and held up her hand. "Are you okay?"

Oni Lee remained silent for what felt like a long time.

Then he looked up, and Taylor followed his gaze just in time to see that he had teleported to a roof, briefly looking at her before running away.

The clones remained there like statues, slowly dissolving into ash.

"Taylor!" Mem's voice cried out as she quickly flew toward her. "I dropped the guy off a few blocks from here. Are you okay?!" She floated around her, looking her over for any damage. "What happened?"

Taylor could only stare at her friend in bewilderment. "I'm not sure..."

She had done something to him, and Oni Lee reacted... she wasn't even sure if 'poorly' was the right word.

Regardless, she had survived Oni Lee, and she had saved someone on her first night out. That had to count as a victory.

She just hoped things would be smoother from here on out.

Pyro Hawk · Wednesday at 3:46 PM

Well that's going to have repercussions. And not necessarily large, scary draconic ones. Okay, not just large, scary and draconic ones.

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