Rose 4.12

Around us stood an empty mall, threatening to collapse on itself as my arrival had damaged its structure. Bonesaw spared a glance at the nearby stores, their shelves filled with waterlogged clothes and electronics. The flooding had not fully reached this area, so there was only a thin layer of water beneath us. Rain entered the mall through the hole I had made.Without a word, one of the glass needles shot forward into Bonesaw's helmet, impaling her eye through the empty socket of the skull. Piercing into her brain.Or at least that's what was supposed to happen."Ouchie…" She plucked out the glass needle. It was melting. The needle had pierced the eye, but was stopped by another layer of unnatural bone."That's not polite of you!" Bonesaw shoutedAnd as she did, gas escaped from her injured eye. All of the glass around me melted in much of the same way. It fell to the ground inert, unreachable by Shatterbird's power. The effect spread even further outward, melting windows, sand, and any type of silicate I could feel within my range. Whether the effect spread further than that, I could not tell. I could only trust that Dragon got the message I sent before it was too late."And here I came to pick up my sister from the dangerous Endbringer, tsk tsk tsk…" Bonesaw clicked her tongue in displeasure, but beneath her voice there was always the faintest hint of glee. Delusion. She didn't take what she was saying seriously, knowing the absurdity of it, but at the same time she fully recognized the monstrosity of her actions.Through my sensors I could feel many strange things lingering in the air around us. Contingencies. Most were outside of my ability to decipher - of all Tinkers, Bonesaw was my worst match. I had never managed to fully figure out the mechanics behind her creations. Her power granted access to technology too alien for me to understand. One of them was the most threatening. The air felt 'thicker' to my senses, though there was nothing seemingly slowing me down as I moved my hand around to check. This was…"You like it? It's something I was working on for Ms Alexandria, and I finally finished it for you! Jack had never allowed me to try it out. It was 'unfair', he said. A lot of things I wanted to do were 'too unfair', he always said. I'm sad that he's dead, but also not?"Non-Newtonian fluid, spread through mechanisms that I didn't understand. It would destroy my body if I moved too fast, and would have no effect if I stayed below a certain threshold. Meaning I was restricted in my speed, no doubt to something that Bonesaw could react to.She had months to prepare for me. My fights in Rome and Toronto had given her knowledge of most of my arsenal. To make matters worse, she still held Panacea hostage. "What do you want?" I asked, playing along with her game even as people outside kept dying to Rachel's dogs. But I couldn't allow her free access to Panacea. To her power. If Bonesaw already could engineer world-ending plagues, I dreaded to imagine what access to Panacea's Shard would allow her to do."I told you already. You should pay attention! Jack always told me that I got distracted too easily - maybe, that applies to you too. I'm here to save my sister from the scary Leviathan, and I brought along one of Bitch's friends to help me chase out the scary monster. Where is he, by the way?""D-Dead," Panacea mumbled through strained breaths. Bonesaw was holding her neck tightly, to stop her from using her powers. At the tip of the metallic hand were minuscule syringes, already piercing Panacea's skin. But there was no liquid running through them.If I got Panacea free, she would be able to neutralize everything Bonesaw brought to the table. Starting from whatever turned the air around the mall into the non-newtonian fluid."Dead?! One of the Endbringers! Wooow! Was that you, sis?" Bonesaw looked at Panacea."N-No…""Come on, you can take a bit of credit. I know what you've been doing with the parahumans and the passengers! William told me."I ignored the mention of Manton and took a closer look at the mad Tinker. Even as she joked, I could feel just how tense she was. Bonesaw had control over the situation, but she still feared for her life, and she knew that Panacea and I together were the one combination that could end her. She would never free Panacea alive."Riley," I whispered.Bonesaw's head snapped in my direction, making a mechanical sound as she turned. "Don't. Don't you dare."Multiple reports noted how Jack had used the name whenever he wanted to express his displeasure with Bonesaw. It had been her name, back before she triggered. Years ago.Bonesaw was, like Glaistig Uaine - Ciara - a child stuck in the moment of her trigger event. Steered by the Shard, but not puppeteered. The world had broken her, and she'd resolved to break it back.Glaistig Uaine had been forced into inaction. Bonesaw had been forced into cruelty.And here was Panacea. She held her tears at bay, even as I could see the pain she was in. She, like them, had triggered too early in her life, with an ability too powerful for her own good. "Bonesaw then," I softly said, "what do you want me to do? You know that I won't allow you to take Panacea.""Why not?" She shifted her head like a howl, questioning. "I'm not loyal to Bitch. Not even to William or the Siberian. Give me Panacea, and I'll leave. I don't have a kill-switch within Bitch's dogs, otherwise I'd offer that as well, but really I only want to get along with my sister…"Panacea's eyes widened in fear. Pleading with me silently not to let Bonesaw take her.I took a step forward.Panacea's expression shifted further into panic.At a microscopic level, something in the air moved."Don't!" Panacea screamed, struggling to breathe.I coughed.Then I coughed again. I felt the crystal in my body contract and crack, rendered so fragile that it couldn't withstand even gravity. "Got it finally!" Bonesaw smiled cheerily beneath her bone mask, "I always wondered if I could poison an Endbringer, and your body is similar enough for that to work."The crystalline exterior of my body shuddered as I tried to adapt to whatever Bonesaw had done to my system. Luckily it became immediately apparent that the plague affected only my physical body. It didn't seem to have any effect on the dense core in my brain, nor did it reach my Shardself through the connection.Bonesaw whistled loudly. From outside the mall, a pack of dogs gathered behind me. Stolen novel; please report.A small hole was 'punched' into the dimensional layer of Earth Bet. No wider than a fingernail. The Siberian appeared. Silently, like always.She could kill me.Had Contessa arranged all of this to put me down? Had I been betrayed so close to achieving our goal?No. That didn't make any sense.Bonesaw's glass-melting plague made it difficult to form implants capable of communicating with the outside, but from the few short bursts of message I received it was clear that the tide of battle was already shifting. Without the Siberian, the sky was safe. Without Bonesaw's active monitoring of the city, her planted plagues were spotted and quarantined. Rachel and Labyrinth were nowhere to be seen.I closed my eyes, for just a moment.My body was slowed down, poisoned, weak. But my mind was sharp, faster than ever. I weighed all of the variables of the fight, then spread my perception wider. Taking into account every moving part of the city, every element that I could keep track of. Then beyond that, I calculated the speed at which Bonesaw could inject her venom into Panacea's neck, at which the human mind could think, at which Manton could reform the Siberian.I opened my eyes. In my right hand I held the Habakiri, black and red lightning crackling over the edge of the blade. In my left hand I held the black knife, already vibrating at the right frequency.A step forward.The Siberian lunged for me. Her claw ripped through the air at her fastest speed, ignoring Bonesaw's preparations against me. She was a hole in reality, devouring and annihilating anything she intersected with. I had already begun to dodge before she moved one millimeter.My left ear disappeared as her claw grazed against the side of my face. I moved precisely, without wasting any motion. The black knife in my left hand clipped against the Siberian's stomach, 'popping' the projection.Behind me, the dogs barked and roared, breaking into a charge. My back glowed a dim blue as a torrent of water burst from me. The pressure pushed against the dogs, slowing down their assault.The Habakiri's edge flickered as I pressed the trigger and sent a signal. Black tears spread from me, like a thousand tiny cuts over the air, overlapping with Labyrinth's own intrusion into reality. The Siberian 'popped' again the moment she appeared, brushing against one of the dimensional cuts.More importantly, one of the tears appeared at the wrist of Bonesaw's mechanical arm. The metal was severed cleanly, but the mechanism inside the hand automatically triggered and began pumping a purple liquid through the syringes piercing Panacea's throat."NO!" Bonesaw shrieked in anger and panic.Faster. More precise.The Siberian appeared again, avoiding the traps I had set. Water splashed beneath her striped feet as she leapt towards me from far closer than before. Dodging her now would cost me the focus I needed elsewhere.Another pulse spread from the Habakiri. Five minuscule tears cut into reality and severed the syringes hidden within the torn hand. Purple liquid splashed in the air, burning Panacea's clothing. But it had little effect on the healer, as she instinctively turned the poison inert once it touched her skin.Ripping into my chest, the Siberian smiled in primal glee as she tore off my right arm and bit into my neck. I did not react to the pain. The Habakiri slipped from my severed arm . But again I stabbed her with the black knife, even as pain spread all over my body. The projection disappeared. I dropped the knife and reached for the Habakiri as I pushed forward. The air limited my speed, but I pushed against it as hard as I could.Fear finally broke through in Bonesaw's eyes. She shrieked in panic as another mechanical arm sprouted from her back, aiming for Panacea's spine. But Bonesaw too was limited by the air around her, giving Panacea ample time to react and throw herself forward.The space between me and Bonesaw was now clear. The Habakiri hummed a song of death as I slashed forward.A horizontal line tore through the concrete walls of the mall. Clothes fell from cleanly cut mannequins, walls began to buckle under their weight.Bonesaw's head was severed from her body. That wasn't enough to kill her. She kept shrieking, louder now. My sensors spotted a hundred plagues exploding from her headless body.To no success.Panacea rolled across the flooded ground to reach Bonesaw's falling body. Her power visibly spread through the air, identifying each of the plagues concocted by Bonesaw and making them inert. Now that she wasn't held hostage, she got to work neutralizing the non-Newtonian air and the poison meant against Endbringers.My body immediately began to heal. And with access to my full speed…I took another step forward. Only one was enough.The world blurred as I grabbed Bonesaw's falling head by the stump at its base. Hundreds of tiny wires and veins spread from the bottom of the head, meant to connect to her implants. Allowing her to control her tech with a thought."Riley," I whispered her name again, embracing the head with my arms. The crystal over my hand shifted as I connected to one of the wires."NO! STOP! NO!" Bonesaw kept screaming, beginning to cry. She felt what was happening. She felt me establish a direct connection to her brain.Her blue eyes flashed red. Then, they lost their focus. Her jaw went slack. Her breathing slowed down, then stilled. A second later, her eyelids closed, and all activity in her brain ceased.Bonesaw died.But Riley did not. A dormant copy of her mind appeared in my Shardself. Kept safe in the only place that I was sure no one could breach.The dogs outside growled as they circled us, hesitating to jump forward. They felt the threat I now represented. I turned around and helped Panacea up. Reports began coming in: Manton had decided to go back to keep control of the sky, using the Siberian. More of Dragon's suits were destroyed.The titanic monster outside howled again, and another explosion flashed in the city. Not nearly as powerful as its initial roar.Panacea struggled to speak, massaging her neck, "She… she called it Beast."Beast. A fitting name.I took over the priority channels in the communication systems."Threat has been identified as Beast. I'll take it down. Focus on evacuation efforts." The dogs around us sensed that something was wrong, but before they could move, the Habakiri had already activated: I swung the blade, and the space where they stood disappeared. Nothing was left of Rachel's smaller monstrosities.As my mind turned to Rachel, I prepared to join the fight against Beast.