A jacket was laid over the corpse, covering the head. Taylor stood over it, expression hidden by her mask. The bugs around her were frozen, perfectly still, while the ones further away were desperately searching for something, filling the hills with buzzing. The mechanical swarm under her control was idle, hidden in invisibility. In the distance, Beast's corpse was burning away under Eidolon's power.Taylor heard my steps, saw me from her bugs, but she did not turn her head."Where is she?" Taylor asked, voice shaking. Both in anger and grief. She was breathing heavily."Taylor-""Where is she?" Her head whipped around, eyes wet, breath uneven. She was crying. "She could have avoided all this. Sent anyone else."No one understood better than me what Taylor was feeling right at that moment. The frustration of being moved around like a puppet. The frustration of knowing it was likely the best case scenario.But Taylor wasn't like me. She deserved peace.I said softly, "Taylor, your father is looking for you."That shook her out of her rage, if only for a moment. The fury came back quickly, but quieter this time. Drowned out by Taylor's worry for her dad."Door me, my dad," Taylor instructed the distant Doormaker, and a gate appeared at her feet. She almost walked beyond, but stopped at the edge. Her head didn't turn to look at Rachel's corpse. "You didn't deserve this…" she whispered, then took that final step.The gate closed behind her. Leaving me behind.I walked up to the memorial. Blood covered the names. There was a crack in the black marble, where the bullet had struck.The blood pooled underneath my feet. It reflected the light of the distant moon. Brockton Bay was only lit by the starry sky above us.Sighing, I looked to the side. Glancing at nothing at all, yet someone."Are you going to take her?" I asked.From a spot where light didn't reach, a small silhouette stepped out. Wearing a dark shroud covered in hundreds of small green lights, imitating the starry night sky above us. Each of those lights was a snuffed out life."Will you stop me?" the Faerie Queen asked, her voice echoed by dozens more, overlapped over each other.In answer, I merely placed my hand over the sheathed Habakiri by my side. That earned a smile from her, as she stepped back and raised her hands to feign surrender."I wish not to fight you, interloper, but do not presume that you have the authority to stop me in my task. However, there is little to take from the girl, so I shall respect your wishes."I narrowed my eyes. "Explain.""She-""Rachel.""...Rachel was losing herself. Without an anchor, the fairy would have taken over, turned into a being with few peers. But it seems that wasn't meant to be. Rachel, the human, resisted the push of the fairy. Maybe she was helped by the city, or by a nearby anchor.""Are you saying that she was losing herself to the Shard? Like Ash Beast?"The Faerie Queen smiled but did not answer.I turned my head."Do you see what your 'fairies' do to people? To kids as young as Rachel? All in pursuit of data.""That isn't mine to judge. My role is to tend the garden. Clean the graves.""Then why are you here?"For the first time, the Faerie Queen looked conflicted."That… I suppose I don't know. I thought that Rachel and Quee- Weaver's plight would give me insight into the cycle. But it did not."There was nothing for me to say. I did not dignify the Faerie Queen with an answer. I crouched down, feeling the fading warmth from Rachel's body."May I… follow you?" Glaistig Uaine asked."Do whatever you want."The Faerie Queen stepped into my shadow and disappeared. I could sense her presence, barely.Lifting Rachel's lifeless body, I carried her away.
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The room was quiet, except for the rhythmic beeping sound of a machine. A woman lay on the bed, unconscious. Numerous tubes were connected to an opening on her right shoulder, running beneath her skin and connecting to her heart.Alexandria."Like for her eye, we haven't found a parahuman capable of healing her," Doctor Mother explained, "not even Eidolon. This new wound is too large, and it isn't closing. She'd die of blood loss within the minute if we disconnected her from the tinkertech recycling her own blood."Alexandria's blood carried special properties. Trying to use someone else's blood would do nothing, and no amount of tinkertech would perfectly recycle her own blood.I proposed a way to help her: "We can make a prosthesis for her to live daily life. But even the most resilient tinkertech cannot compare to her body. She would break apart during combat, and she would quickly die.""Millions of parahumans and none have the ability to heal her?" Legend whispered to himself."The price of invulnerability." Doctor Mother shook her head."She has been a key asset in repelling the Simurgh multiple times." Eidolon sighed. "Her loss will be felt all throughout the hero community.""We will still have her Thinker power at our disposal, and she'll be able to focus on leading the PRT," Doctor Mother said."I don't like that we're talking about Rebecca without waking her up. She should have a say in our conversation." Legend was trying to think of any way to help his friend. "I know that we have no way to wake her up, but it still feels wrong.""I agree," I said, "let's put this conversation aside until she wakes. If she doesn't, all of this is moot. We need to start preparations.""Then is it official?" As he spoke, a spark lit up in Eidolon's eyes. He was almost excited at the idea. This was what he had been preparing for decades.Legend and Doctor Mother reacted much differently. The former was tired, exhausted, while the Doctor was emotionless. Indifferent. She'd run the scenarios so many times in her mind that it didn't stir any emotion in her.I stood up, taking a deep breath."Eidolon, we need to talk, in private, about your role in what is to come. But aside from that…"Yes. Before the end of the year, we will attack the Warrior."
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I sat on a metal chair as I observed the training room below: there, a striped silhouette was running around, occasionally swiping at training dummies that appeared from the ground or walls. Her claws ripped through the armored plates without meeting any resistance, like a hot knife through butter.The "woman" was unassuming. Faceless. She was an empty projection.Manton's power, adapted to be used by me.I was limited in where I could make her appear. The power simply wouldn't work if I tried to make the Siberian appear too close to a person. And her invulnerability could not be spread to me.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.But most of all, the power was slow and imprecise. There was a level of automation to the way the Siberian worked. I could give her orders, and it would follow them to the letter up to a certain point. I could tell her 'attack' and she would. But a precise instruction like 'use your left arm to aim at the right arm' would be simply interpreted as 'attack' by the projection. I couldn't puppeteer the body.At best, the Siberian would prove to be an indestructible shield that I could place to protect key assets in the battles to come. Otherwise, she'd be another offensive tool added to my arsenal. Another alternative to the Habakiri or Arsenal's Rhongomyniad.Speaking of…"This feels strange." Arsenal reached up and touched his fixed-up face. "I was more comfortable with the metal.""Well," Dragon said as she stepped up from behind him, "that is much better than what you had before. It's just a bonus that it feels so…" she placed her hand on his cheek, "human."Arsenal only coughed in response, glancing towards me. But I could see the edges of his mouth move into a smile."Oh. Right. Sorry." Dragon blushed.With Bonesaw's tech, Dragon had vastly improved her own and Arsenal's synthetic bodies, while I focused my attention on her plagues to see if there was anything with the potential to arm Scion or the remaining Endbringers.I had made a virtual copy of Bonesaw's mind. It was still asleep, as I hadn't decided what to do with Riley. But we still had access to her memories, digitized. A person's memories couldn't normally be trusted, but Bonesaw's Shard had given her a perfect recollection of her own work, though most everything else was scrambled and impossible to parse. It was as though someone had corrupted everything from right before her trigger, killing Riley. And giving form to Bonesaw."I don't mind. It is good to see you happy, Dragon."And Arsenal too, I guess."Yes but I do mind," Arsenal sighed, "we should focus on our work.""...maybe we should," Dragon agreed, then sat on a nearby chair. Her body froze as she disconnected from it. Arsenal walked by my side and looked towards the Siberian projection.His eyes were conflicted."We're wielding the weapon that killed Hero. The Hero… You two would have built great things together," Arsenal said. "I will begin working on Leviathan's core."I did not say anything in response.He walked away, quietly.
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Brockton Bay's flooded streets were being quickly drained, mostly thanks to Dragon's efforts in improving the infrastructure. Debris and ruined cars still littered the cracked asphalt, but at least it was possible to walk around the city.The moon in the sky was barely visible beyond the heavy clouds. There was no rain, but parts of the tempest had yet to fully clear.Buildings had been carried all the way from the coast to the inner neighbourhood I was walking through. Collapsed upon themselves, then crushed underneath the monstrous stampede of the Nine.Packs of now normal-sized dogs filled the city. They didn't cause any trouble, but rather they mostly stayed out of sight. Bonesaw had significantly lengthened the life-span of Rachel's dogs. The hills around Brockton Bay would be home to many packs of enhanced dogs for years to come. Dragon had already begun preparing contingencies. Mostly in the form of trying to split up the packs and welcome them into dog-shelters equipped to deal with them.Many thoughts filled my head as I stopped upon the entrance of a specific structure. There were signs of water damage in the lower sections of the wall, some older than others. This building had not been fully restored following Leviathan's attack in May.Red and white tape hung from the doorway, signaling that the building was at risk of collapsing. I tore it off and walked in, my 'shadow' following behind.Andrea Blackwell's apartment had been wrecked multiple times since I left it. Scavengers. Looters. And people with a vendetta against me, looking for anything to blackmail me by kidnapping Blackwell's relatives. The couch had been ripped open, stuffing spread across the floor together with broken glass and debris. Furniture and shelves had been ripped from the walls and burned, leaving black scorch marks all across the apartment.I walked upstairs, to the first floor. The bedroom was in a worse state, part of the ceiling had collapsed upon itself. There was nothing I could recognize. But my sensor picked up an oddity underneath the rubble. I pushed aside the concrete debris with ease, picking up a framed diploma.Andrea Blackwell's master's in education.The woman had studied for her role. Spent most of her life preparing herself for a role in education. She even taught for a time. But still she did so many horrible things to Taylor, to many other kids. Decided that her career was more important than some kids' happiness and safety."This is your host?" a voice asked from my side. The Faerie Queen, stepping out of the shadows. She was looking at the diploma in my hands."She was. I left her body behind in Rome, months ago. But she died at Leviathan's hands, back in May.""It is a sad thing," she said quietly, "to know the dead so closely."I glanced towards her. She wore a pitying expression on her face. "Your ghosts, how much of them is still there?""I merely hold court with the-""Don't," I said, closing my eyes. Today had been a long day and I had little patience for her delusions."...it depends, mostly on how the fairy and the host were bonded, and which of the two rose as the dominant party in the fight for control. Some of my flock are fully there: those that bent the fairy to their will and resisted the allure of power. They're the ones that I rely on most. Their powers are stronger and they can give me advice when I ask for it. Though with time, their personality has degraded.""Then, Rachel…""There would likely be little left of her, and that little would have disappeared within hours. I'm sorry, Blackwall."And in her tone, I could tell that she truly was sorry."...I could've saved Rachel. Back when I first woke up in this body. I could've killed Jack. But I made mistakes, and she paid for it. Rachel and so many other people, the people she killed.""..." Glaistig Uaine did not immediately answer. "I've seen enough. Thank you. Tell Dragon that I will… lengthen my leave of absence from the Birdcage."She didn't turn into shadows once again. Rather, she slowly walked down the steps. I kept track of her even as she left the building and moved slowly through the streets. Until she suddenly froze. Walking to the window, I glanced down.A dog had stopped the Faerie Queen. Angelica. There was an exchange between the two, the Faerie Queen used a power to ease the communication between the canine and the human. They reached an understanding.When Ciara resumed walking away, Angelica followed behind her.