My 'feet' landed on a surface not dissimilar to the one I had started from, except that the vivid red color of the crystals was slightly faded away. No lights flashed beneath. The landscape of this island was different from most I'd seen: instead of jagged hills and canyons, it was made of rectangular and spherical shapes jutting out of the ground. Many of them ended abruptly, as though someone had perfectly cut through it. A rough attempt at architecture, though I could not tell the intent behind the design. No, as much as I could gather, it looked hastily made and improvised.I floated through the landscape, flying at high speeds. This was one of the bigger islands, an entire mountain range. It wasn't the biggest island I had seen, not by far, but it was among the largest.At its center stood the avatar of this island: a tall humanoid figure, taller than the mountains which surrounded it. The resemblance to Endbringers was uncanny, especially to the Simurgh. …except that this one clearly took after its host.Shatterbird. The avatar had the same face and body structure, with two large structures jutting out the back. Not wings, no, but rather something that more resembled multi-pronged tuning forks.The avatar was unmoving, her mouth slightly ajar, revealing an infinite void within. Like a shark's mouth, I could spot circular teeth lining the interior, though they looked not organic but artificial. Glass shards?.I found it odd that it was so similar to the human host it had dwelled in. I had seen two other avatars, Jack's and the one that was going to bond with Andrea Blackwell, and neither resembled their host in the slightest. But they were also active, immediately resorting to violence the moment they spotted me.This one had yet to attack me, even after I made my presence known. No, it was more like it wasn't able to attack me… Or do anything, really. It wasn't dead. I had killed Andrea's Shard so I knew what a 'dead' one looked like, this one was more like… inactive. Not sleeping. Not awake. Awaiting instructions?The avatar didn't react as I got closer, close enough to touch it if I wanted. It still didn't react as I breached my own defense, reaching a limb through the black sphere, and actually made contact.An exchange of data began. From my end I simply imitated what Jack's shard had done. A greeting, laced with hidden data that would allow me to spy further, but there wasn't anything to find. Jack's Shard focused on information regarding the physical world, and this Shard lacked a host, so I got nothing in return.The other avatar sent back an authorization request. A checksum. One that I failed, immediately.It still didn't attack.I reached out again, this time focusing on whatever authorization it was asking of me. A rather simple thing, but in its simplicity it was something I could not fake: it was a biological scanner, looking for a specific pattern. Shatterbird's DNA. Which I lacked. I couldn't fake it, it was skilled enough to avoid any attempts at tricking it, though it didn't care about them.My physical body, in the real world, got up and approached the terminal, still connected to the two cylinders. I detached Shatterbird's one and connected it to my own port.Now, back in the crystal dimension, I again reached out to the avatar for a third time. I allowed its probe to pass through my being and find the trace of Shatterbird I now had connected to my body.Everything went wrong at that moment.Alarms screamed across my cyberware: every computing unit in my body was going overclock, trying to parse the massive data that was being sent. It was no use, every processor began overheating as smoke began to rise from my body in the real world.I wrenched the cylinder off my body, throwing it across the room. At the same time I detached myself from Shatterbird's avatar in the crystalline dimension, activating all defensive measures I had prepared.The avatar opened its mouth and let out a scream. It echoed all throughout the island, moving the landscape: new mountains rose from beneath, while others began to shatter and crumble under the force of the shifting ground. Synapses began firing underneath the avatar, creating a pattern of light.It wasn't an attack. I was still in danger.In the physical world, the terminal closest to my body suddenly exploded: shard glass hit my chest and arm, stopped by my subdermal armor.Then the avatar quieted down and all went still. It was likely over.I had made contact with it for less than half a second after sending Shatterbird's bio-data, and it had activated for that exact same amount of time, as far as I could tell. I would need to clean up the mess in the real world but that could wait a while.I processed the information, then decided to move on towards another location in the crystal dimension.
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The various landmass constantly shifted. Large as an island, often much more, yet as mobile as a ship. By the time I left Shatterbird's avatar behind, the islands surrounding us were not the same.Which was why it was surprising to say that Cherish's parasite behaved much differently. Rather than isolated islands, I would say that Cherish power was part of an archipelago. It and many others were tidally locked between each other, keeping up with each other at a constant distance.It didn't take long to make sense of it. Cherish was the daughter of a parahuman, one who famously had many, many parahuman offsprings. These here were likely the source of their powers.And unlike Shatterbird's, these were all alive and well. Already I could spot the silhouette of their avatars moving about on their islands. Even Cherish's own.Her avatar was also roughly humanoid in shape, but looked much different than Cherish: it floated in the sky, limbs and head relaxed downwards, face missing all features, chest jutting upwards. As though it was being lifted by something. From its chest hundreds of clawed hands sprouted upwards and stood relaxed. At the center of each of their palms was a mouth with the tongue jutting out.This meant that Shatterbird's parasite odd behaviour was not due to the death of the host… But something else.And this time I didn't get to even reach the island before something went wrong. One of Cherish's 'chest limbs' moved faster than I could react, crossing over the void and brushing its 'tongue' across my defenses. That small touch was enough for me to quickly send an annihilating counterattack, but the avatar simply tore off the arm before the damage could reach the main body.What followed was a dozen Shards all focusing on me. Hostility clear.A billion attacks made of crystals reached me, the islands changing their shapes and position to allow them to better strike at me. Tendrils made of that crystals were their means of attack, colors shifting slightly based on the Shard that they came from, each hiding terrible subroutines that would wreck my core if they managed to reach me.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.I stopped all of them. Some managed to reach my defenses and create small cracks before being destroyed, but the rest I simply dodged around, using the density of my body to tear away some of the tendrils and use them to slice through the rest.Then the next wave of attacks came.This time it wasn't billions.It was trillions. The empty void was filled by the multi-coloured tendrils, leaving no gap bigger than an ant in between them. The scale would be incomprehensible to the human mind.A significant portion of the computing power within the avatar went into understanding the attacks. Trajectories were easy to calculate, but each tendril hid within subtle attacks that were meant to work around my defenses. They lacked the sophisticated tactics that Transcendental AIs often used, but the sheer amount of computing power behind the Shards meant that each attack could pose a serious danger if it connected.Were this attack directed at my island, I would've been able to fully defend myself and counterattack. But as it was, the avatar just didn't have the means to. Were I closer to Cherish's island I would have been able to hijack its own resources, but I wouldn't be able to bridge the gap before the trillion attacks reached the probe.So, detonated it, reducing it to nothingness. I had no way to tell the damage the explosion might have caused to the Shards, but I hoped it had been painful.
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"..."I sat on my deep-dive chair, contemplating what had happened in the Shardspace. Starting from my failure to fight against Cherish's island and its neighbours.The issue was rather clear, as was the solution: my avatar just couldn't keep up a fight where it was so heavily outmatched in computing power, and at the same time I could not put too much of myself within the avatar. The resources on the island were beyond what the Earth could offer, but they were still finite in the end."..."The solution would be to move my island. Use my own real body to attack other Shards. Only, I did not know how to do that. I did not know if it was even possible. There was no pattern to the shifting movements in the Shardspace, at least not one that I could make sense of.Furthermore, that would put my life at risk. There were still things I didn't understand about the battle between Shards: for example, Cherish's first probing attack had been unreasonably fast. Almost instantaneous. Faster than anything I could manage… Though for some reason the Shard didn't use that same technique again in the following attacks."..."Thankfully it hadn't been a useless exploration. Shatterbird's avatar was-"You two are really weird."The door on the side opened, forcing me to focus back on the situation at hand.I sat on my deep-dive chair. Opposite me was Arsenal, standing with his arms crossed and in full armor.Neither of us had spoken a word for the last twenty minutes, at least until Dragon got here:"I reasoned that waiting for you would be more productive than trying to interrogate Blackwall by myself.""That is reasonable, yes. But did that mean you had to stand still and look at each other without even saying hello? You're basically friends.""I enjoy the quiet." I spoke up.Arsenal glared at me, but I could tell that he, too, enjoyed having silence around him.As Dragon stepped closer, glass cracked beneath her armor's boots. She was glancing around my now messed up laboratory, trying to better understand what had happened.But it was Arsenal that continued speaking:"13323 seconds ago an alarm rang across the facility, before being shut down by internal damage. All cameras that had been placed throughout the hallways close to your labs, and those within, went out. When we got here, shards of glass were covering the ground, while you were laying down on that chair, unmoving with your eyes open.""An accident. I was testing out something and it went out of control. I shut it down before it could spread beyond the hallways.""That's true." Dragon commented, nodding. She removed her helmet and moved to glance closer at my broken equipment."You should've taken better precautions if you were going to mess with Shatterbird's power."I neither confirmed nor denied his suspicions, showing no reaction."We've already tested your truth-telling algorithm Colin, it doesn't work on me."Arsenal frowned."Let's keep to operational titles.""But she's right. Are you going to share this tech with us?" Dragon asked, walking up to me and smiling all the while. She wasn't taking this seriously. She trusted me?"Could I have a sample of your nanothorns? Or a sample of Haywire's tech?""No." "Can't, sorry." Arsenal and Dragon answered at the same time, in that order."There you have my answer as well. If it is any consolation, I'm rather sure you wouldn't be able to make use of this even if I gave it to you. It requires a specific implant to interface with it, one that needs to be drilled into the spine."Arsenal almost asked for it anyway, before Dragon's glare shut him down. She wasn't too bothered by Arsenal's body modifications, but something of that nature could either paralyze him or fry his brain if he didn't know the exact schematics."Alright… Honestly we don't have much more than this. We're not here to arrest you, or even give you a warning-""Even if I very much would like to.""Shut up Colin. As I was saying, we're just here to check up on you. Be more careful, okay?"…Was that concern in Dragon's voice?Concern for my safety?That gave me pause.
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Dragon and Arsenal's stay had been a short one. They'd passed by to check up on the Dragonsuit and pick up one for their mission, but they were gone by the time I finished cleaning up my lab.Neither of them had spotted the new implant hidden within my arms. Very small micro-processors with trace Shatterbird's DNA and synthetic silica components.I glanced at my katana, a newer model than the one I'd used against the Nine, sitting on the opposite side of the room, I dipped my consciousness into the Shardspace and sent a miniscule connection to Shatterbird's island. The coordinates I'd gotten from her Corona Gemma kept working even as everything shifted within the crystalline dimension.The moment contact was made, a controlled pulse with Shatterbird's DNA was sent along that connection.My implant began to vibrate in my arm. Resonating.From the other side of the room the sword shot forward and slammed into my palm, the strength of the impact pushing me back ever so slightly.I could very much work with this.As if on cue, an alarm rang out as multiple requests for help reached me. From Director Piggot and Miss Militia.Now it was time to cut away at this city's tumors.