The young healer walked back and forth through the shelter, hurriedly healing all of the injured capes who kept appearing, carried by the neon-green capes. Until suddenly the flood stopped. Something shifted in the air, and teleportation powers stopped working all of a sudden.Contessa knew what steps to follow from that point. She took a step into the light, barely noticed in Panacea. But the healer didn't give any weight to her presence. She didn't know the role Contessa played."The Nine are here." Contessa whispered, voice bouncing off the thick walls of the shelter in just the right way to be heard by Panacea, and only Panacea. None of the microphones picked up the sound.Panacea turned in a panic, looking towards Contessa, who took another step towards her. Rapidly, Contessa dropped Panacea's own phone into one of her pockets. The healer had left it on her desk, and she would soon need it to ask for help. "The Slaughterhouse Nine have come back to Brockton Bay, and they're stopping all teleportation, while also hiding out. The triage here is going to soon be useless, and we can't get to them. You should escape, Amy."With that said, Contessa continued to walk in the same direction, sparing barely a glance at Panacea."But-" Panacea almost protested, but another voice drowned out hers. Someone shouting."Amy!" The hero Glory Girl shouted, flying within the shelter, "Amy! Where are you?!" she continued.Panacea's face went pale. She glanced at the emergency exit. Walking through there would have sounded the alarms, had Contessa not disabled it for the next five minutes. This way, the healer ran out of the shelter and into the open streets of Brockton Bay undisturbed. She made a call to Blackwall, seconds before walking into a mall.Where Bonesaw caught her.
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Rachel looked at the battle of Brockton Bay through the many bots Bonesaw had spread around the city, each feeding videos to her phone. The mad Tinker had disappeared from the base, and Rachel was glad for that. The two had never gotten along.She could do fine on her own.She left Labyrinth's domain, Angelica with her. The dog wasn't transformed. The two appeared close to where the battle with the Endbringer had concluded. Capes and PRT officers were present in the area, but none recognized Rachel in her costume. Besides, most of them were busy trying to keep Rachel's dogs away.That was fine with her. She ordered her dogs in the area to stall, to simply keep them occupied. Rachel glanced at Leviathan's headless corpse, but turned to walk in the other direction."Go! Find!" she gave out the command, and Angelica broke into a quick dash towards the forest.Angelica found Rachel's target.Leviathan's head. It was cracked, a fifth eye visible under the layers of flesh. The head had lost its original green color, and now was a dull gray.Rachel crouched, looking at the head of the most inhuman of creatures.Rain crashing against her skin. "GO! KILL!" She shouted, trying to keep Leviathan at bay.Memories flashed in her mind. Vivid. Painful.Her dogs charged against the monster, crashing and pushing him into a nearby building. In response, Leviathan willed the water to whip around. One of her dogs was bisected in half. Dead. Immediately.Rachel stood up, and placed her boot on Leviathan's head.The Endbringer managed to grab onto another of the dogs. He began tightening his grip around the dog's body. The spikes and grey muscles covering the dog were cracking and giving out. The dog whimpered in pain. Then, silence. Another one of her pack dead.CRACKRachel pressed down on the head. Bonesaw's power armor gave her strength, reducing Leviathan's head to fine dust as she crushed it underneath her feet."Are you okay?" a female voice spoke from behind her. Rachel's head snapped to the side. She almost ordered Angelica to attack, but held off at the last moment.A hero. Her armband kept listing names of downed or deceased capes, never stopping."Where is your armba-" The hero stopped herself.Rachel turned around. Her costume was a horror of bone, metal and sinew. Veins stretched around a metallic frame, her chestplate shaped like a human ribcage, the bone-white plates shifting faintly as she breathed. But what was most dreadful was her mask.Shaped like the top half of a canine skull, meshes of flesh were wrapped around the openings in the bone, holding it tightly to the rest of the armor. The hero looked Rachel straight in the eyes, recognizing her. In one motion, the hero whipped her hand forward. Purple mist turned into a blast of energy of some kind."Hurt!" Rachel shouted to Angelica. The blast fired at the same time. It shot forward and pierced the outer layer of Rachel's armor, exploding. The blast knocked her back, sending her rolling across the ground.That did not stop her from empowering Angelica.The dog leapt for the hero and sank her fangs deep into the hero's arm, the one summoning the purple mist. She screamed in pain, summoning the mist in her other hand, but Angelica drove her jaw in deeper, then whipped her neck around, smashing the hero's head into the ground.A voice spoke from her armband.Purple Tear down, BP-6.Rachel slowly stood up, watched as her armor regrew. The explosion had hurt her, maybe broken a rib. But she was fine. Bonesaw's armor had kept her safe. Or maybe the hero had not wanted to kill her.She walked up to the unconscious hero. Something moved in the trees around them."Go. Hunt," she ordered Angelica, who broke into a sprint and began growing larger. Rachel heard capes and officers cry out in alarm, rattling off orders.Rachel watched the hero's unconscious body. She recognized the name, vaguely, but not from where. She shook the hero, waking her up.The woman groaned in pain, and before she could summon her power, Rachel moved aside her mask and placed a knife at her neck."Where do I know you from?" Rachel asked."W-we were active in the same city. For a while. You're… Hellhound."Hellhound. That name, too, prickled at her senses. She did't like it."What's your name?""Purple-""No. Your real name.""...Hazel. Stop this, you're being manipulated by Jack and Bonesaw.""The dead can't talk." Rachel suspected that Bonesaw, too, was dead by this point.Hazel narrowed her eyes. She was going to do something.Rachel didn't give her the opportunity to do so.A simple cut, like the one she made to kill Jack. Blood spurted down Hazel's neck as she looked down in disbelief. She desperately tried to stop the bloodflow. Fear filled her eyes, together with some other emotion Rachel could not read. It was difficult deciphering her expression when Rachel could remember so little of it.Seconds later, her armband spoke up again."Come," Rachel ordered Angelica, and stepped back into Labyrinth's domain to move across the city.
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Purple Tear deceased, BP-6.An armband, attached to a torn off limb floating in the water, continued to echo notifications. Contessa paid no attention to it, stepping over the arm.As Blackwall and Bonesaw fought one another, Contessa quietly walked to the back of the very same abandoned mall. She timed her steps perfectly with the small waves spreading in the flooding streets, making no sound and splashing no water.Still, she wasn't invisible. One of Bitch's dogs reacted to her presence - barking loudly and leaping over a car to attempt to bite at Contessa.A nanothorn net shot from a large mechanical wasp, invisible until the moment it struck. It shredded the canine, leaving only bleeding chunks of flesh. One of the pieces of flesh wiggled, attempting to heal, but Contessa pointed at it, and a burst of fire from the wasp put an end to the regenerating dog.The dogs, like Crawler, had access to almost unlimited regeneration. But they still needed an anchor, a small organ that acted like a Gemma and from which they regenerated. Destroy that, and the dog would die. Finding it was the hard part.Not for Contessa.From the shadows, a figure stepped next to Contessa. She wore a black costume, made of spider silk and synthetic muscle. Weaver. Her mask's yellow lenses reflected the light of the sun setting in the distance.Contessa pulled out the device Blackwall had made and stabbed at the air. A portal, the size of a small girl, became visible. The one Bonesaw had used.Weaver wielded a knife and gun, gripping the weapons tightly. "Let's go." Contessa did not wait for a response, walking within the portal.On the other side was a boundless plain of greenery. Hills and forests spread as far as the eye could see. The two appeared at the foot of a large castle, partially embedded in an even larger tree. Roots melded with the stone, joining the two structures in harmony. Like it had been taken straight out of a fairy tale.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.In the forest around, dogs noticed their presence and gathered in packs. From the very same portal, Weaver commanded her army of mechanical insects to trickle in and form a perimeter."Keep them occupied for ten minutes."Contessa took out two gloves and put them on, the Tinker-made leather was her only protection against most of Bonesaw's traps. They would suffice.One of the dogs barked an order, and from his pack two others leapt forward in a coordinated assault. Weaver made quick work of them. The Hecatoncheires deployed a wall of nanothorns, catching the dogs in the air. They turned to fine red mist.Contessa did not linger. She stepped into the open castle, no emotions on her face. Inside, the smell of blood immediately hit her:Strewn all across the ceiling were the remains of Crawler, attached to meat hooks that dug deep into his flesh and seemingly neutralized his regeneration. The body of the monstrous parahuman had grown large enough to encompass the whole castle, producing an endless amount of material for Bonesaw, which she needed to keep up with the canine enhancement, and to feed them as well.While still glancing at the ceiling, Contessa took a step backwards, dodging the shifting wall that threatened to trap her in a dead end. Then, taking out something from her jacket pocket, she threw it to the wall far to her left.She put a hand on her hat to avoid it being blown away by the following explosion. The wall crumbled and revealed another passage.Jack had instructed Bonesaw and Labyrinth to design this castle not like a fortification, but like a trap. Every wall was fake. Every door handle laced with poison that would paralyze you or intensify your sensation of pain a thousandfold. Every vine ready to grow spikes and claw at your throat. Not even Blackwall could have walked through this unscathed. Under normal circumstances, neither could Contessa. But without Bonesaw to release the plagues in the air, she had nothing else to fear. Every other trap could be avoided, could be walked around. Contessa needed only for it to be possible. Her power did the rest. Instructing her to walk in odd patterns, sometimes backtracking. It still took her almost ten full minutes to get to her objective.The final door opened, revealing William Manton and Labyrinth within. The latter was prone over a map, seemingly half-asleep. Manton smiled towards Contessa, but in his calm smile there was a trace of anger.The Siberian appeared without sound behind Contessa and swung for her head. Contessa bent her knees ever so slightly, avoiding the blow, then began walking forward.The Siberian disappeared and reappeared around her, biting and clawing and kicking and screaming. Each attack missed by less than a millimeter, but it missed nonetheless. Contessa ducked and dodged, but she did not stop her walk. She calmly reached Labyrinth, then crouched over the prone parahuman."Elle," Contessa spoke softly, imitating the exact cadence of someone she had never met, someone who had kept Labyrinth imprisoned for a long time. "We need you to calm her down. Please. Make a quiet world."The words echoed in Labyrinth's mind. Contessa's soothing voice seemed to have the opposite effect on her, as the wood and rock around them shifted into padded walls, with needles jutting out of the edges and broken glass lying on the floor, bloody. Labyrinth thrashed around, until she snapped awake, fully aware. Her power folded upon itself.There had been more than a thousand tiny holes in the reality Labyrinth had previously formed, each made by the Siberian through the way their power interacted. But now each of those tears had been painted over, and Manton had no way to summon the Siberian outside of his field of view. They were no longer in a pocket dimension, just a transmuted section of Brockton Bay. Near where Faultline's Crew once kept their base before Burnscar had destroyed it all.Tapping her ear, Contessa briefly communicated with Weaver, sending her a message. Rachel's location. "Thank you," a 'voice' made up of buzzing answered from the bugs around Contessa. Sending anyone else but Weaver or Tattletale would cause at least five hundred thousand more deaths, for reasons Contessa could not foresee with her power. Tattletale would die on the way there, unless Contessa herself escorted her, and she was more useful alive, so only one option was left.In the same motion, Contessa sent a message to someone else, sharing her position.She turned to Manton. The Siberian had appeared by his side, towering over the sickly man. He was pale and gaunt, a striking contrast to the striped woman, who stood tall."Cauldron finally comes to take its toll," Manton sighed.Contessa shook her head. "You created more parahumans than you killed. You gave us a glimpse into a power that could kill an Endbringer, giving us proof that it was out there. The strength of your power allowed us to better prepare against the Warrior.""Is that right? I guess that excuses my actions in your eyes. But that's not how the world works." He brushed his unkempt beard with his right hand. The 'omega' tattoo on the back of his hand had been a constant reminder of his origin, of the truth of the world."It is not," Contessa agreed."Except!" Manton chuckled, grinning, "except that it is how it works. You never concerned yourselves with human casualties, you and Doctor Mother. We could have made a medicine that could heal all diseases… That could stop all future diseases. Instead we made horrifying weapons that half of the time killed the user and the other half left them scarred. Mentally. Physically. Both."He glanced at the Siberian. A projection of Manton's own daughter. Not alive, not truly. Shards could not bring back the dead.He slammed his foot against the padded floor, crushing the glass underneath his boot. "Your powers tempted me! Allowed me to hope for a better future for my daughter!"And then everything went wrong. His daughter had not reacted well to the vial. She had turned into a Case 53, one of those that couldn't even think. Even Blackwall could not find the human back in that living corpse. The Shard had devoured everything.William Manton's daughter was dead. By his own hand.Contessa removed her hat."I am sorry." There was nothing else she could say. She would be lying if she said she felt remorse at pushing William along that path. She would be lying if she said that she regretted the choices she had made to get this far.But she was sorry. In the deepest part of her, where Fortuna still held her humanity, she realized the part she had in the death of William's daughter."You!" William continued to scream, making the Siberian take a step forward, "you! You could've stopped me! Saved her! But you let her die. You let me kill her, then you let me kill everyone else. And only now, after I danced in the palm of your hands, I realize that maybe you arranged it all."Fortuna's eyes looked at William with pity. Here was a broken man. A cruel, dangerous and broken man."I did not, William," she spoke in an odd cadence - not because of her power, rather, because of its absence, "I cannot predict trigger events. You know that very well."William's eyes narrowed. The Siberian prepared to leap forward to tear Fortuna's neck off."Do not deceive me, or yourself. You always wanted to escape us, to escape the truth of a predetermined path. That is why you took those two vials, because you accepted the fate the Warrior had for us all. You surrendered. And even if your main purpose in giving your daughter a vial was to get her to forgive you, to mend your broken family, you know deep down that you also did it to stay out of my sight."The Siberian launched forward, creating a shockwave that broke apart Labyrinth's reality. She roared as she swung for Fortuna's head.Then she froze. Unnaturally. Before disappearing.On the other side of the room, William's body fell prone to the ground, nothing above his neck. Blackwall was there, holding his decapitated head by the scalp. "Now you have both Bonesaw and the Siberian at your disposal." Contessa stood up, leaving Elle on the ground amidst the needles and broken glass. "Don't send anyone to help Weaver. If you do, I can't see what Rachel does next. A second trigger, most likely. Weaver will take care of it."Blackwall remained quiet, even as her red eyes betrayed the fury she held back. In one of the models Contessa had made of Blackwall, this is where she would die, killed by Blackwall swiftly and painlessly.It seemed that model had been wrong. Contessa was still alive. Manton vanished from her mind, discarded like all other feelings that could endanger the mission. All of the other pieces were set in Brockton Bay. There was nothing else to do here, not for now.And so she walked away. Stepping on another Path.