Fire and ash surrounded the Entity, burning away at the air and choking the breath out of the helpless humans below. They desperately ran, trying to escape the erupting volcano behind them. Magma rolled down the rocks, reaching the forest in the valley and turning into a devouring fire that ate through the dry timber.
With a wave of his hand, he extinguished the fires surrounding the humans, healed them of the poison accumulating in their lungs, and then slowly floated towards the volcano. A golden cloud followed him, enveloping the humans and giving them but a glimpse of the despair the Entity always felt. Some could not bear the emotion, falling to their knees crying.
He ignored them all, continuing to move towards the still-erupting volcano. Until, for the first time in the decades since his arrival, the Shard Network sent a notice to the Entity. A preliminary warning, not an emergency. A request.
The Entity turned around, looking towards the distant horizon. Seeing beyond what the curvature of the planet should have allowed.
A young human, a girl, sat pressed against a black marble monument. She and her Shard were deeply entwined, slowly turning into a single being. Shards were not made to withstand the weight of human emotions, and humans were not able to understand the amount of data that a Shard perceived. In their connection, each was breaking the other.
The Shard only needed a further push, one more variable, and it and the host would entangle and join fully. Breaking themselves and the Shard Network around them in doing so. Instinctively, the Entity reached for powers he'd long since stored away, trying to understand what had led to this situation, and what would follow.
A simulation began.
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Angelica seemed to notice Rachel's distress, placing her head on Rachel's lap. Further than that, the dog felt the Shard's own distress, the pressure accumulating in Rachel's brain, ready to burst.
Because of that, Angelica never lowered her guard, even as she tried to console and help her master. She recognized the difference between Rachel and her Shard, and more than anyone in this world she wanted to keep the two separated.
And because of that, she reacted faster than Rachel when a bright doorway opened. A figure, a woman, wearing a dark suit, walked through. She held a gun, already leveled at Rachel.
The first shot hit Rachel through the eye socket of her helmet, burrowing into her brain and destroying the Gemma. Rachel's body began to topple."Ah," the girl whispered, disappointed by her end - and, in some other way, happy that it was ending.
Angelica leapt at that moment, blocking the second shot with her own body. The dog felt the pain as the bullet pierced through her own body, reaching for the core of her regeneration, destroying it. She tumbled to the ground beneath Contessa's feet, whimpering in pain.
Rachel's eyes widened. It wasn't anger, it wasn't fear. It was… recognition. The girl realized something at that moment, as she saw Angelica's life slowly drain out of her eyes.
Something broke.
The third shot put an end to Rachel.
We're j- just beasts, in the end.
Contessa froze, realization dawning. She took a step backwards, closing the dimensional door just in time.
The world cracked.
A red void took its place. Reality tore apart as Angelica's body, corpse, crystallized. Shifted.
Rachel's corpse lay still against the black monument, blood pooling beneath. But Angelica's body began to move once again. Her limbs twitched, the spine fracturing and knitting itself back together. Layers of dead flesh appeared over the body, but this time not in the shape of a canine monster.
The corpse stood up on two single legs. Its face twisted, the bones beneath cracking loudly in the empty hills. The fangs remained, but everything else was lost. When the process ended, it was not the face of a dog. It was the face of a girl, hollow-eyed and unfamiliar.
Rachel trembled as she watched her hands. Except it was not Rachel. Nor 'Bitch'.
The howling began once again, this time stronger.
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Eidolon felt that something was wrong before he heard the howling coming from Beast. By instinct, one of his powers shifted. He plummeted from the sky, losing access to his flight, but even as he crashed to the ground he was not hurt. Instead of flight, he'd gained a resilient body, almost indestructible, but most importantly immutable.
The other heroes had no such luck.
With horror in his eyes, Eidolon screamed the name of his friend:
"KEITH!"
Legend froze in the air. His body began to spasm, twisting. He frothed at the mouth, gasping for air, until his desperate breaths became snarling growls. His mask was torn apart by shifting flesh, teeth turning into fangs. Legend's gloves broke apart, claws taking the place of fingers. Spikes cracked the flesh on his back, jutting from his spine.
The same happened to all other capes that heard the howling. Few were spared the suffering, the ones that like Eidolon had access to powers that safeguarded their bodies. Or, that like Blackwall or Arsenal, were no longer human.
Eidolon let go of his blaster power, trying desperately to find anything that could stop the howling, that could stop the transformation. But it was already too late. Dragon shouted instructions to all of the surviving capes, ordering a retreat.
Meanwhile the howling spread further than Brockton Bay, reaching the evacuating civilians. They too were affected by the sound, turning into canine monsters that towered over Rachel's previous minions.
Eidolon- David felt terror at the sight. Not since the Simurgh's first appearance had he ever felt such fear. Such desperation.
He ran away.
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Tattletale heard the howling. She fell to her knees, the transformation taking hold as her powers told her exactly what was happening.Second trigger, except not.
Who else could it be?
Rachel.
Lisa had begun screaming in pain as she watched her body turn into something monstrous, as she was forcefully connected to a network led by a broken Shard.
Her eyes wandered to the side, where everyone else in the Endbringer shelter was affected by the howling. Panacea among them.
Without wanting to, she felt her power drag her toward the worst-case plans. Plans to use Panacea's powers, to use every other power now bound into that network. Lisa felt it clearly as her mind lost control over her own power, giving it away to another. To Rachel, or whatever had taken her place. She warned her of Noelle, slumbering underneath. She warned them of the nukes hidden away in the city, ready to detonate if the situation proved unsalvageable. She told them how to deactivate those nukes.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Lisa's fate befell all other humans in the city. Few were spared the grim transformation.
The pack was now formed, and it would forever last.
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A wave of monstrous abominations spilled over the tall walls established by Dragon. Usually filled with PRT officers, today there was no one to stop Goblin King's minions from breaking through steel and stone.
The distant sound of howling reached them first. The abominations stopped at the border of the quarantine zone, as if that alone were warning enough
The distant sound of howling was the only warning they got.
Two canine monsters appeared in the sky. One was partially made of light, while the other was covered in mechanical implants. Legend and Bonesaw.
The latter dog simply opened her mouth, releasing a wave of bacteria below. The plague spread quickly through Nilbog's forces, melting flesh and bone. Nilbog's creations eventually adapted, but this wasn't meant to end the fight - only to slow the Goblin King's forces down
The howling grew closer every second.
Legend moved in the sky, tracing a trajectory over the ruins of Ellisburg. Reaching for the greatest of Rinke's creations.
Eventually, James Rinke heard the howling loud and clear.
■
Weeks passed. Desperate attempts by the USA, PRT, Guild and other organizations or governments failed. Blackwall herself had tried and failed to put a stop to the threat.
The meeting room was quiet as four people stood around the table, facing a large set of screens. Blackwall, Arsenal, Dragon and Eidolon. The few that truly understood the weight of the situation. Government officers from all over the world were connected to the meeting.
Alexandria had bled out on the battlefield, and so Rebecca was missing from the call. The Triumvirate had fallen.
"Codename Typhon." Dragon's voice was flat. "Rachel has turned into something beyond what we can handle."
"Is there anyone-" Eidolon started, hope and dread equally creeping in his voice.
"No. The east coast is fully lost. Anyone who is in range of the howling is transformed into a canine monster," Arsenal interrupted the Triumvirate member, "worse still, any parahuman keeps their powers even as they fall under Typhon's influence. Including Thinkers and Tinkers. The president authorized a nuclear strike to destroy it all. Typhon intercepted the message and disabled the attack from remote, using Number Man's and other Thinker's abilities."
Blackwall remained silent."The 'howling' has a 50 kilometer diameter. It covered all of Brockton Bay in an instant, and then spread even further."
On the screen, one of the officials leaned forward. "A strike team to decapitate the pack? This is the work of a single parahuman, I was told."
"It doesn't work, Typhon can reform from any of her afflicted minions. The 'howling' is centered on her current host, but she can shift as she chooses. And it takes less than an instant.""She has Nilbog and Bonesaw under her control. What can we do at this point?"
"Wait. And pray," Blackwall spoke up for the first time. "There is only one 'parahuman' that can fix this, out there."
Scion.
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Typhon sat on a throne of sinew and bone, unthinking and unmoving. Her body was unrecognizable - a crystalline hybrid of canine and human features. Her fingers ended in claws, which dug deep into the side of her 'throne'. The howling filled the air around her 'court'.She looked upon her pack and felt nothing. 'Rachel' was a distant notion, as was anything she cared for. Typhon had not grieved for Angelica's death, and she had not cared when she felt Lisa's mind buckle and break.
Typhon could feel them all. Their minds. Her own pack was losing their humanities. Those who had been by her side since Brockton Bay were lost, no longer able to form complete thoughts. The latest additions to her pack still felt 'humanity' beneath their canine fur, but that would not last.
Only one being stood close to her and kept her 'human' form. Crouched by the side of Typhon's throne was a savage figure with striped skin. Her mouth and fingers were covered in blood, the blood of one of Typhon's pack.
"Siberian, behave," Typhon ordered. Her voice had changed, too. Each time she opened her lips, the howling grew louder.
The Siberian glanced back at Typhon, and merely nodded her head. Of the two, Typhon was the apex predator, holding the Siberian's life in her grip. It would take only a thought to extinguish what remained of 'William Manton', and the Siberian knew that. But, at the same time, Typhon held enough respect for the striped woman to allow her freedom.
"We've come very far, my Master. What is next? The civilized monsters continue to scheme against us. They don't see the weakness of their facade."
Typhon did not deign to answer the Siberian. Instead, her focus fell somewhere else.
A warning spread through her pack, reaching her within the same instant. Panic. Anxiety.
Typhon stood up from her throne, ordering her strongest dogs to reach her. The howling grew stronger, warping the air around the queen of dogs. Typhon herself began to grow taller, preparing for battle. Around her head, crystalline cracks formed in reality, spreading outwards like cracking glass.
From the sky, a golden glow announced the arrival of a god. Golden fire rained on the pack of monstrous dogs. A preliminary strike.
Typhon pointed her arm and-
■
The simulation broke. Discarded. Someone had acted, a decision had been made to avoid the breaking of the Shard. There was no more need for the Entity to simulate the future, to simulate a world that now would never come to pass.
Still, his attention lingered on that distant city, even as the humans below him continued to scream and cry as ash filled their lungs once again.But, as always, the Entity grew tired of thinking. So he stopped, waving his hand. Golden light fell on the volcano ahead, putting an end to the eruption and earthquake. The ash dissipated in the air. The humans below were healed, again.
And so, the Entity flew away.