by wildbow
Her eyes widened. Not individual powers. Those were all the same power. She pressed one hand to her ear, opening communications to the rest of her team. “He’s a dynakinetic! He manipulates energy! No Manton limitation!”
How do we even fight something like that?
But she knew they didn’t have a choice. She threw herself back into the thick of the fight.
* * *
January 18th, 1993
“I, Alexandria, do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the director appointed over me, according to the regulations of the PRTCJ.”
Applause swelled around her. As far as the eye could see, there were crowds and flashing cameras. President Griffin extended a hand and she shook it.
He leaned close, “You do us proud.”
“Thank you, James. I’ll give my all.”
He squeezed her hand and moved on.
“I, Eidolon, do solemnly affirm…”
She gazed over the crowd, saw her mother standing there with eyes glistening. The lesser members of the Protectorate were in the front row as well, her subordinates among them.
Turning further right, she saw Hero looking at her, almost accusatory. She turned and faced the crowd. Regal, unflinching, dressed in an updated costume.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” the Vice President spoke into the microphone, “Let me introduce the founding members of the Protectorate of the United States of America!”
Invincible as she might be, she thought her heart might burst as it swelled with pride, the crowd cheering with such force that the stage shook.
* * *
September 15th, 2000
Alexandria and Hero were last to arrive on the scene, entering through the window. Legend pressed one finger to his lips.
“We’ve got her cornered?” Hero whispered.
“Think so,” Legend replied, his voice as quiet. ”We’ve got teams covering the drainage and plumbing below the building, and the entire place is surrounded.”
“She hasn’t tried to leave?” Hero asked. ”Why not?”
Legend couldn’t maintain eye contact. ”She has a victim.”
Alexandria spoke, stabbing one finger in Legend’s direction, “You had better be fucking kidding me, or I swear—”
“Stop, Alexandria. It was the only way to guarantee she’d stay put. If we moved too soon, she’d run, and it would be a matter of time before she racked up a body count elsewhere.”
I’m in this to save lives. Sacrificing someone for the sake of the plan? She knew it made sense, that it was even necessary, but it left her shaken, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Then let’s move,” she responded. “The sooner the better.”
“We’re trying an experimental measure,” Legend spoke. “It’s meant to contain, not kill. Drive her towards main street. We have more trucks over there.”
They operated with a practiced ease. Legend blasted down the door and Alexandria was the first through.
Siberian was there, kneeling on the bed, her body marked with stripes of jet black and alabaster white, her arms slick with blood up to the elbows. The man who lay on the bed—there would be no saving him, even if Eidolon manifested healing abilities.
She looks familiar, Alexandria thought, even as she soared across the room.
They’d underestimated their opponent. Alexandria’s fists collided with Siberian and didn’t budge a hair. She flew out of the way before Siberian could claw at her with long fingernails.
Legend fired beam after beam at Siberian, but the striped woman didn’t even flinch. She was invincible on a level that surpassed even Alexandria.
Eidolon cast out a cluster of crystal that exploded into a formation around Siberian on impact, encasing her.
Siberian shrugged it off like it was nothing, lunged forward, going after Hero.
Alexandria dove to intervene, to guard her teammate, but Siberian was faster. She reached Hero first, her hands plunging through his chest cavity. When she pulled her arms free, she nearly bisected him.
Eidolon screamed, flying close to scoop up the two pieces of Hero, carrying them outside.
Siberian leaped after them, missed only because Legend shot his comrades with a laser to alter their trajectory.
Their enemy plunged to the street, landing on both feet as though she were light as a feather.
The ensuing moments were frantic, filled with screamed orders and raw terror. Alexandria chased Siberian to try to scoop bystanders out of the way, to catch the PRT vehicles that Siberian flung like wiffle balls.
And they were losing. Eidolon was trying to heal Hero, to teleport people out of danger when Alexandria and Legend proved unable, and changing up his abilities every few seconds to throw something new at Siberian in the hopes that something would affect her. She waded through zones of altered time, through lightning storms and force fields, tore through barricades of living wood and slapped aside a projectile so hyperdense that its gravitational field pulled cars behind it.
Alexandria moved in close, hoping to stop Siberian, to catch her and slow her down, saw Siberian swing, pulled back out of the way.
Her visor fell free, clattering to the ground. Then she felt the blood.
Saw, in her one remaining good eye, the chunks of her own face that were falling to the ground around her, bouncing off her right breast, the spray of blood.
It had been so long since she’d felt pain.
Legend called out the order and buried her in containment foam, hiding her from sight.
* * *
September 16th, 2000
Alexandria sat in the hospital. Eidolon’s healing had only been able to do so much. She held a glass eye in one hand, the remains of her other eye in the other.
She looked up at the Doctor. “William Manton?”
The Doctor nodded.
“How? Why?”
“I don’t know what predicated it. His daughter’s in our custody. One of our failures.”
“He gave his daughter the formula? Without the usual preparations and procedures?”
“I suppose he thought he was qualified to oversee all that. Despite my strict instructions that staff weren’t to partake. Or he had other motivations. It could have been a gift from a father trying to buy his daughter’s affections.”
“Or her forgiveness,” Alexandria looked down at the glass eye, then back up to the Doctor.
The Doctor’s eyebrows were raised in uncharacteristic surprise. “Did you see anything suspect?”
“No. I only met his daughter twice, and it was brief, her father wasn’t around. But I know the divorce between Professor Manton and his wife was pretty bad, as those things go. He was angry, maybe did some things he regretted?”
The Doctor sighed.
“So that was him?”
“Almost certainly. He gave his daughter one of our higher quality formulas, and she couldn’t handle it. When he realized what he’d done, realized that he couldn’t hide it from us, he took one formula for himself and fled. I didn’t know what it had done for him until tonight. The resemblance between Siberian and Manton’s daughter is subtle, but it’s there, and the footage from Hero’s helmet-camera has been run through every facial recognition program I could find.”
“What did Legend, Eidolon and…” Alexandria stopped when she realized that she’d been about to say Hero. “What did they say? About Manton?”
“They don’t know. I suppose we should tell Eidolon. He reacted badly when his powers informed him of our other plans and projects.”
Alexandria hung her head. “How do we stop him? Manton? If he’s transformed into that…”
“The sample he took, F-one-six-one-one, it tends to give projection powers. I suspect his real body is unchanged. But I’m wondering if we shouldn�
�t leave him be.”
Alexandria stared at the doctor, wide-eyed. “Why?”
“So long as he’s active, people will be flocking to join the Protectorate—”
Alexandria slammed her hand on the stainless steel table beside her cot.
Silence rang between them in the wake of the destruction.
“I will not condone the loss of life for your ulterior motives. I will not let monsters walk free, to profit from the fear they spread.”
“You’re right,” the Doctor said. “I… must be more shaken by Manton’s betrayal than I’d thought. Forget I said anything.”
If Alexandria saw a hint of falsehood in the Doctor’s body language, she convinced herself it was the strain of one eye compensating for the job she’d used to perform with two.
“You realize what this means, don’t you?” The Doctor asked.
“That we’re no longer doing more good than evil?” Alexandria replied, bitter.
“No. I still feel we’re working for the forces of good. Manton was a selfish man, unhinged. The exception to the rule.”
Alexandria couldn’t quite bring her to believe it.
“No, this means we simply need to step up our plans. If we’re going to go forward with the Terminus project, we need to advance the overall efforts with Cauldron. And we need the Protectorate effort to succeed on every count.”
“Or we need your project to work out,” Alexandria replied.
The Doctor frowned. “Or that. We still have to find the right individual. Or make him.”
* * *
April 10th, 2008
Mortars, bombs and air-to-ground missiles rained down around her. It had been a decade and a half since she had really felt pain, and she still couldn’t help but flinch as they struck ground in her immediate vicinity. Still, she continued walking, her cape and hair fluttering behind her.
Two people lay face-down on the edge of the street, a teenage boy and girl holding hands. She knelt and checked their pulses. Dead.
But she could see others. She quickly strode over and kneeled by a young man. His stomach was a bloody mess, and he was gasping for every breath.
“To gustaria livir?” she asked, in the local’s anglo-spanish pidgin. Do you want to live?
His eyes widened as he seemed to realize she was there. “Eres an gwarra engel?”
“No,” she replied. She brushed his hair out of his face with one hand. “No an engel.” Not an angel.
“Livir,” he breathed the word before slumping over.
She swept him up in her arms, quickly and carefully. Keeping an eye out for any falling mortars, she quickly ascended into the air.
She was at the cloud-level when the door opened. She stepped into the brightly lit corridors of Cauldron’s testing laboratory and strode down to the cells.
Thirty cells, filled with subjects. Thirty-one now. The cells didn’t appear to have doors, but the individuals within were all too aware of the dangers of stepping beyond the perimeters of their cells, or of trying to harass Alexandria as she strode by.
Only two-thirds of them were monstrous, affected by the formulas. Others would go free with alterations to their memories. Some would have fatal weaknesses inserted into their psyches, reason to hesitate at a crucial moment against a certain foe.
But they would be alive. That was the most important thing. They had been destined to die, in places where the wars never stopped, or where plague was rampant, rescued from the brink of death.
Entering one cell, she brushed the hair from the young man’s face once more, then propped him up while she administered the sample the Doctor had left for her.
She stepped back while he convulsed, his wounds filling in, his breathing growing steady enough for him to scream.
His eyes opened, and he stared at her, wide-eyed, still screaming as sensations returned to him and pain overwhelmed every sense.
“Eres okay,” she said, in his language. “Eres livo.”
It’s okay. You’re alive. She forced herself to smile as reassuringly as she could.
So long as they lived, they could have hope. Living was the most important thing.
And here I am, administering poison with a smile on my face.
She turned and walked away.
* * *
June 18th, 2011
“…I guess we have another unanswered question on our hands,” Eidolon said.
Legend sighed, “More than one. William Manton and his link to Siberian, the tattoo on his right hand, our end of the world scenario and the role Jack plays as the catalyst. Too many to count.”
“None of this has to be addressed today,” Alexandria said. ”Why don’t you go home? We’ll consider the situation and come up with a plan and some likely explanations.”
Legend nodded. A small smile touched his lips.
The Doctor turned to Eidolon, “You want another booster shot?”
“Probably another Endbringer attack coming up, it’s best if I’m in top form.”
“A month or two, either Simurgh or Behemoth if they stick to pattern,” Alexandria said. She watched as Legend strode out of the room. Eidolon paused, then gave the hand signal. No bugs, and Legend wasn’t listening in.
The Doctor already had the booster shot ready. Eidolon extended one arm, clutching his bicep to help make the vein more pronounced. The doctor injected.
“The boosters aren’t cutting it anymore,” Eidolon said. “I’m getting weaker. Powers are taking longer to reach their peak, and their maximum strength isn’t what it used to be. If this keeps up, then I won’t be able to offer anything during this end-of-the-world scenario.”
“We’ll find a solution,” the Doctor said.
“You were too calm,” Eidolon spoke. “I was worried you’d miss my warning.”
“Very clever, burning the words into the paper in front of me. Thank you. Was I convincing?”
“You managed to feign skepticism over this apocalypse scenario,” Alexandria spoke.
“Well, that’s the most important thing,” the Doctor spoke.
“He’s suspicious. He knows or suspects we’ve been lying to him,” Alexandria said.
“Unfortunate. Will he expose us?”
Alexandria shook her head. “No. I don’t think he will. But he may distance himself from us to lower the number of opportunities we have to see his doubt for what it is.”
“We’ll manage,” the Doctor replied. “In the worst case scenario, we’ll explain the circumstances, explain our plan.”
“He won’t like it,” Eidolon spoke.
“But he’ll understand,” the Doctor said. “If the Terminus project is a success, the end of the world isn’t a concern. And I believe we will succeed.”
“Provided we come up with a solution to the bigger, more basic problems we’re facing,” Eidolon said. “Or we’ll simply find ourselves in the same circumstances after we’ve gone to all this trouble.”
Alexandria nodded. “The Protectorate is proving to be a failure on that front. Recent events haven’t given me much hope in that regard.”
“So that leaves only my end of things,” the Doctor said.
“Coil,” Eidolon said. “And if he fails?”
“Ever the pessimist,” Alexandria said.
“This revelation about the possible end of the world has decimated our projected timeline. We don’t have time to prepare or pursue anything further,” the Doctor said.
“If we assist him—”
“No,” the Doctor spoke. “If we assist him, there’s no point.”
“In short?” Alexandria leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “He doesn’t even know it, but everything rests on his shoulders.”
Colony 15.8
The benefit of using my swarm-clone to communicate with Parian was that I had relative privacy to talk to Coil. He picked up on the fourth ring. Not quite so prompt as Tattletale tended to be.
“Skitter.”
“I know you wanted me to
use Ms. Cranston instead of calling you, but this is sort of important.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’ve talked with Parian, and we’ve come to a tentative agreement. She’ll need to talk to other people before making a decision, but I think she’d join our alliance.”
“I see.”
There was a long pause. I was getting ready to speak and ask if he was still there when he spoke once again.
“What are her terms?”
“She holds territory, she’ll defend it against all comers, but she’s not going to do jobs or do anything criminal. As far as anyone else is concerned, she’s not a part of our takeover.”
“The implication being that we’re too weak to deal with her.”
“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
“It’s the conclusion others will come to.”
I felt a swell of frustration and anger, powerful enough that I might have snapped at him if I could have come up with what to say any faster. I had to remind myself that I was anxious over the hit Coil had put on my head, and I felt betrayed. I recognized that it was stupid to feel betrayed by Coil when I was actively planning to fight him if he didn’t cooperate on the Dinah front, but I also knew I didn’t tend to handle it well when someone I’d trusted stabbed me in the back.
Not that I’d ever trusted Coil but…
Okay, I wasn’t sure what I was thinking on that front.
I forced myself to calm down before saying, “I’m sure there’s a compromise. Will you talk to her?”
“I will not risk revealing my identity, no,” Coil said.
Damn him.
“But,” he continued, “I will speak to her through a liason.”
“Thank you.”
“Though this could have been done more smoothly, I do appreciate your hard work.”
This from my would-be murderer.
“It’s not a problem. Ballistic might be upset if he realizes I went behind his back on this, so maybe if anyone asks, she got spooked and came to you?”
“Perhaps. I’ll be discreet, in any event. It wouldn’t do to have friction between your two groups.”