Tisiphone began to order her corpse puppets to tear and claw at each of us. The puppets began breaking themselves against Julius' bronze skin, and started to climb towards me.Julius jumped towards the prone Adriana and created a bronze sphere around the two of them, to give her time to recover. The weight of having seen her sister just die had left her frozen, though her power was hard at work healing both her body and mind.Weaver began to give me a rundown of the situation:"Tisiphone is sending her metal our way. The one she had stored under the Vatican. Every remaining cape in the city that I can see has just dropped dead, including Aquila and other members of the Swiss Guard."Absent-mindedly, I watched as the Three Blasphemies gathered together and perched upon the debris near to me."Our orders were quite clear!" The smiling Blasphemy chuckled as she spoke, still missing both her arms."Keep Malacoda safe. Nothing about taking revenge." The snarling Blasphemy continued, placing particular emphasis on that last word. She was covered in wounds, the consequence of our fight, including the burnt hole over where her heart should have been."Now she'll soon recall us… To order your demise, Blackwall…" The frowning Blasphemy mumbled, struggling to speak as the gaping hole in her chest caused by Adriana continued to bleed.Their voices barely registered over the ringing in my ears.I watched as within seconds hundreds of people lost their lives."Blackwall?" Someone called my name.To the west, from the Vatican, a black tide rose above the city. It violently crushed every building on its path towards me.The Vatican had been closed to the public ever since Julius left the Swiss Guard, and of that I was thankful."Cover Julius and Adriana. Get ready." I told Weaver.I closed my eyes as the start-up operation of my energy source finished up.Fusion engaged. Start-up complete.Steam began to vent out of the sides of my chest and neck, spreading into a cloud around me.Ignition temperature reached.Immense temperatures built up within my core. The steam that I was producing was enough to burn away the flesh of the corpse puppets that were trying to climb towards me. None recoiled in pain.Magnet after magnet began to lock into position.Within my chest a closed loop of magnets began to become the focal point of the heat. Particles began to flow, quickly accelerating to relativistic speeds within me, trapped in a localized electric field. All of this within the space of my ribcage. A particle reactor, producing no residual radiation. Only energy.Red lightning arced across the entirety of my body.Criticality reached. No maximum capacity. This is what I had built over the course of a month. What had required an entire parallel Earth worth of resources to refine and finish. The kinetic energy of the exploding particles was turned into electrical energy by the magnetic fields.Then turned back to kinetic energy by my limbs.I leapt in the air.The concrete remains of the Blackbranch building shattered like glass under the strength of my body. The corpse puppets too close to me were immediately reduced to a fine red mist as the shockwave rippled through the air. The asphalt below cracked and broke.I was in the sky. Flying forward. The sonic boom struggled to keep up with my speed as I closed the gap towards the incoming black tide of metal.My right arm pulled back, lightning rippled across my fist.I struck the dark metal. Dead center.A loud clap echoed in the sky around us. Windows shattered all over Rome.The black tide shook and broke into a million pieces, starting from the point of impact.I wasn't close to done.Shatterbird's power flared to life, allowing me to take control of my body in the air. Anti-grav boosters made it all too easy to keep up my momentum and ramp up even further.There was more power flowing within me than what humans on this Earth had produced in two thousand years. All of it was funneled right into my implants and Shatterbird's shard.My flight didn't slow down, no, I accelerated in the sky. The outer layer of my skin caught on fire under the air resistance. My clothes, even built to withstand extreme temperatures, turned to ashes. Synthetic skin over my cyberware burnt away, revealing the black implants beneath.I became a falling dark comet as I dove towards the Vatican, leaving a streak of superheated air behind me. Tisiphone's black metal tried to intercept me in the air, but any tendril that got too close to me simply melted away or shattered under the strength of my movement.It surprised me to see that Tisiphone could somehow keep up with my speed.And she had one last trick up her sleeve.From the center of the square, a column of black metal ascended to the sky, breaking through the ground. On top of it was a circular container. The column of metal twisted in the air, shooting towards me, unerring. There was no avoiding it.Once again I pulled back my right arm and met the metal head on. My body easily won the brief impact as Tisiphone's tendrils cracked and broke apart as I continued to fly. A figure was within the container, but my body was much faster than my senses at that point.I struck. The shockwave rippled around me, visible in the air as clouds cleared above me. The ground far below ripped open and shook under the strength of my attack.Yet I felt resistance.Finally my brain caught up with my senses.My fist had met with something impossibly dense. I felt pain lance through my forearm and reach through my shoulder, the kickback from my own strike.For a critical second I had been stopped. My speedware ground to a halt as my systems registered internal damage and overheating. We began to fall from the sky, towards the basilica."[You should have taken the deal.]" The man grinned, his face reforming from charred skin. He pointed his index finger towards me.A burst of pressurized water struck me just below the ribcage. The equivalent of nine hundred thousands PSI hit me all at once in a single focused spot, the water flash-vaporizing from the speed. All that force focused on a surface no wider than a fingertip. The water jet skewered my body, managing to pierce through my armor from side to side.We crashed against the dome of St Peter's Basilica, breaking through and continuing towards the altar. The temperature of my body struggled to burn away Cariddi's flesh. We hit the ground at high speed, sending another shockwave that ripped open the marble around us, rippling outwards. Decorations all around us fell apart, broken. Fire still surrounded me.Hell itself fell upon the 'holiest' of places.Cariddi wasn't done, he opened his palms, fingers far apart. The tip of each finger turned blue, ready to shoot more jets of water. This time I was ready: I dipped into my speedware once again, leaping away from the prone Cariddi. Concentrated masses of black threads broke through the marble below me to try and restrain me, slow me down.One of the water jets grazed my ear, carving through the top of it. Not even my armor proved to be a match to Cariddi's destructive power.Cariddi continued to swing his arm to the side. The jets of immense pressure followed his movement, threatening to bisect me in two. Thankfully his arm moved at normal human speed: I managed to alter my momentum in the air with Shatterbird's power, twisting my body in the air to just narrowly dodge the attacks.My maneuvers forced me to the ground.Tisiphone did not miss that opportunity. Another tide of black metal appeared all around and reached for me, weaving a shell of metal to trap me in. At the same time Cariddi turned his whole arm into a gate to his reservoir. A river's worth of water hit me at full strength and forced me back inside the container Tisiphone was creating. Quickly I found myself enveloped by the metal and pushed back by the water, struggling to move.Tisiphone began to close the shell, reinforcing it from outside, leaving only a small hole from which Cariddi continued to pour water inside. Within a second I was fully underwater.Darkness enveloped me.
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Suddenly I felt all too distant from what was happening. Like I was watching the battle from an outside point of view, not through my own eyes.I was still aware of my body. Of my thoughts. Of my mistakes. Connecting to the surveillance I had hacked, I could still see Cariddi there, far in the distance, in another city. I could still see Farfa in an office at the edge of Rome, sorting through paperwork.Tisiphone had managed to somehow get access to Tinker technology that wasn't anywhere among the files I could find. Did she have the foresight to keep a Tinker hidden just for a situation like this? Extremely unlikely.It didn't matter.It felt odd, being so distant from my own body. I watched, from my own eyes, as my body began to struggle against the current that was keeping me trapped between Tisiphone's metal.At the same time, another part of me watched as planets passed by, bare of life. Until one I recognized came into focus, though my thoughts weren't my own in that vision. I was not one, but two.No.A decision was being made. This blue planet in front of me, in front of us, would be a fitting Dest-I. Said. No.Within the Shardspace my true self revolted against the vision. The red and black crystals that made up my true self rippled in anger, counterattacking something far beyond my reach.The vision struggled to hold me in its clutches, but it had already failed.I felt something break and shatter as the vision dissipated before it could fully form.
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Awareness slammed into me once again, together with pain. The pain of Tisiphone's black metal trying to pierce my skin through the hole Cariddi had made. Suddenly the current that was pushing me back changed direction, like another exit point had appeared within the shell.I glanced to the side, where my head had just been.A crack had sprouted from nothingness, cutting through reality. A hole no bigger than a fingertip, yet a hole nonetheless. Unnatural. Unintended. Dangerous.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.Water rushed towards that hole, drained into another dimension. The crack soon began to mend itself - through mechanisms I didn't fully understand, and didn't have time to understand. But through it I had gained a small pocket of freedom in the black shell Tisiphone had locked me in. I needed to act fast, before Tisiphone managed to reinforce the shell to the point that I couldn't breach it anymore.My left arm opened into a cannon as I placed it flat against the metal. Then fired.The cannon tore itself apart. But the explosion broke through some of the metal and weakened the rest. I kicked at it, freeing myself.Water pushed me through the hole, making me stumble to the ground, rolling along the cracked marble. Blood poured out of my left arm, the cannon now made unusable and unrepairable. I felt the water that had entered through my many wounds and flooded my internals, but soon enough it evaporated under the immense heat of my internals. I struggled to my feet.Cariddi was still pointing his hand at the small opening on top of the shell, continuing to pour endless water inside. A tendril of dark metal appeared around his face and cut into his cheek, alerting him that I had escaped."[Slippery…]" He mumbled, before swinging his other arm in my direction.My speedware turned back on. I jumped up, rolling in the air to avoid the blade of water that almost grazed me. It slashed across the wall behind, carving a thin line through the side of the basilica.Cariddi moved in slow motion to my senses, while Tisiphone's threads continued to actively lunge towards me. Her power was much faster than Malacoda's own, able to somehow keep up even while I was boosted.It wasn't enough to stop me from closing the gap between me and Cariddi. I placed my feet against his shoulders and began to claw at his face, tearing off his nose and eyes with a single swing of my hand. I continued to tear at what I could, even as I felt the density of his flesh and bone increase under the stress of my attacks. Soon enough Cariddi became so dense that my attacks stopped having any effect. As he reached that point his body became exponentially heavier. The ground could not support his weight.An alarm alerted me that I was reaching the limits of my overclocking, so I jumped away, striking at Tisiphone's tendrils that attempted to keep me pinned. The moment I returned to real-speed, I watched as an immensely dense Cariddi began to sink to the ground. The marble below moved apart like it was a liquid rather than a solid.That was how dense his body had become.For a moment the battlefields around me calmed down. My heart kept beating in my chest, hard. The ringing in my ears had become almost deafening."Blackwall."A voice spoke from far behind me.A man. Elderly. Black veins spread between the numerous wrinkles on his face. Yet he stood straight, not bowed down by the years that his body carried.The Pope. Puppeted by a sadistic madwoman."Beatrice." I answered. My voice shook as I spoke. Fear? No, that's not it."You killed my sister. You put in jeopardy a decade of work," the puppet spoke, voice calm, "we were not meant to be enemies, I simply needed you to leave. But now you must die."I took a step towards the corpse puppet. It was undeniable that Tisiphone was trying to buy some time, but I also needed that time. My internals were still at too high of a temperature. "You trapped your sister in hell for half of that decade. You did not hesitate to send the Blasphemies to London in 2006, breaking the Simurgh quarantine zone and causing at least a million deaths.""It was necessary. My hand was forced. You also forced mine when you killed my sister. Many more will die because of what you did today.""Necessary? Did you not spare a thought for what Adriana told you? You could've played a different game, sent the Blasphemies to fight against the Endbringers instead of twisting the knife in the wounds they caused." I glared at the moving corpse, bloodlust overwhelming my thoughts. I recognized that Tisiphone was somehow hitting all the right notes to get under my skin. Like she was reading my mind, but not quite. It reminded me of Tattletale. "We're still facing the consequences of you freeing those Simurgh victims. Some of them are still hiding out there, sleeper agents waiting for the right moment to cause untold casualties. Because of what you did, the Prime Minister of Britain was-"I froze. Tisiphone had unwillingly given me the final clue.What had allowed her to outplan me so far. What the skeleton of her scheme was…Because of the Blasphemies, Britain had lost its position of power among the European nations. Italy had begun to rise once more, ready to fill the power vacuum left, and the Vatican had been welcomed back to the world stage as a rising power. But Britain would have eventually recovered, were it not for the assassination of the English Prime Minister, at the hand of a specific parahuman.That was the final piece.Tisiphone hid from the Thinkers of the world through the black metal, which had an anti-thinker property embedded within. But that didn't explain her meteoric rise to power, her ability to hide from Cauldron's more mundane tools. There were more than enough smart individuals in the world that should have seen through her ruse and at least denounced her to the world.Tisiphone didn't simply have a single powerful Thinker power or parahuman on her side.She had taken control of the Three Blasphemies through their Tinker-nature, something to do with their origin. She had taken control of the Vatican. She had tricked me multiple times, and had beaten Cauldron at their own games. No single parahuman power could explain it all.It hadn't been luck. It had been a collaboration with another world-class parahuman. Someone that had only to gain from undermining world powers.Cariddi had already told me the answer to all of these questions when I first met him, inadvertently. Agnes, the corpse puppet I had kidnapped and brought to another Earth, had told me of the presence of a man, another parahuman. Adriana's rapid recovery had shown me the means in which Tisiphone's power could synergize with the 'unknown' parahuman's.Teacher.I unholstered my gun and swiftly shot the Pontiff's corpse in the head, then both knees. The corpse had spoken to me with the cadence of a Thinker, because that's what he was. Tisiphone's control and Teacher's power synergized together, in some way. Were Tisiphone's puppets alive enough for Teacher's power to work on them? Did she have an army of Thinkers and Tinkers at her disposal?Adriana's power healed her own mind, even from traumas. Did Tisiphone's power do something similar to the puppets, even as she maintained control?Tisiphone had at her disposal a wide array of Teacher-given powers that likely didn't decay.Thinkers and Tinkers. Contessa, Dragon, Jack, Bonesaw. In the end, it always comes down to them.Behind me a geyser of water exploded from below, reaching the broken ceiling and smashing through, bringing down the already ruined basilica. From the now enormous hole in the ground, Cariddi climbed out, blood pouring from his face and limbs. His regeneration was slow, not immediate, like Crawler's or Julius's, but it was also inevitable. His reserves were finite, but also so large as to be impossible to exhaust. Right now he was still blind and unable to speak.My attention fell on St. Peter's Square, where Tisiphone's real army began to gather.Two hundred men armed beyond what was reasonable. Tinker power armors, given to puppets that were enhanced by Tisiphone's power, and likely with a combat Thinker power granted by Teacher. Under each armor, they wore the colors of the Swiss Guard: blue, gold and crimson red. Their equipment differed in design, coming from different specializations and different Tinkers… Though oddly enough there was a pattern to their spread.No, rather… I scanned a sword with a small imperfection along the blade, and then noticed tens of other swords that had the very same flaw. Exact duplicates.Grayson Crowley. Malacoda either got him, or he's working with Tisiphone.If I was right, this was a force comparable to the CUI Yàngbǎn. Two hundred combat Thinkers with tinkertech gear. And with just how many other Thinkers and Tinkers held in reserve to build more gear or analyze threats?Yet, even against the might in front of me, I could not help but think one thing:All of this military power and she is still scared.How pathetic."Blackwall!" Weaver's voice finally reached me. "Report!""Cariddi is here. On her side." I began walking down the steps. Tisiphone's puppets moved back."Worst case scenario then…" Julius muttered. Adriana remained quiet."No," I corrected him, "it's worse. Julius, Adriana, you need to keep Cariddi occupied." The crowd of puppets began to move apart, keeping their distance as I reached the bottom of the stairs. "Weaver, you have to pin down the Blasphemies. They need an order from Tisiphone herself in order to act, likely given to them in person. As long as Tisiphone can't reach them, the Blasphemies will hold back."I felt a newfound resolve building within me. Even as the odds continued to be stacked against us, I saw a path.The part of the city between the Vatican and the Quirinal had been devastated. Partially by me. Partially by Tisiphone. I did not doubt that the damage would likely spread in the fight to come, especially as Cariddi was now involved.The army in front of me continued to glare through their blackened and dead eyes. Tisiphone did not speak as I walked down the steps.Weapons clicked. Tinker engines turned on. Shields flared to life. Swords began to emit heat. Each puppet readied their Tinker equipment in eerie coordination.Behind me, in the sky, one of Weaver's Wasps appeared. Carrying Julius and Adriana, and dropping them off over the ruins of the basilica. They would be an excellent counter to Cariddi, a good combination that should keep him pinned for five, maybe ten minutes.Far in the distance I watched the Blasphemies begin to fly closer, before being stopped by Weaver's Swarm. And at the helm of her army of machines and bugs, Weaver herself stood on a roof. Burya and thermal knife at the ready.I glanced back towards the army of Corpse Thinkers that loomed ever closer.Raising my gun, I fired the first shot.