The sky was filled with destruction. Weaver's and Dragon's armies engaged in a continuous struggle, using artillery and tinkertech to go toe to toe. And, at the center of the conflict, there was the Simurgh: her wings split the world, nanothorns annihilating anything her feathers touched. Most of her neck was gone, but that was merely superficial damage. The path to the Endbringer's core was still sealed under many layers of hyperdense crystal.Arsenal and I moved between blasts of tinkertech, avoiding yellow and purple rays of energy that would have overcome the best of our defenses. The ground underneath us became brittle as the beams rained down from above.A massive piece of debris, the size of a warehouse, overwhelmed Eidolon. A yellow beam struck Legend, slowing him down enough for one of the feathers to clip him in the leg, shredding half of it.The Simurgh was regaining ground. The more the fight lasted, the more she pushed back against our advantage.I slashed with the Habakiri, creating a torrent of black cuts in the air that shredded reality. One of the black rifts grazed the Simurgh on her left arm, severing two fingers. With her other hand, she willed a gun to point towards me. I dodged to the side at the last moment, feeling the heat caused by the blast of the weapon. The space behind me collapsed inward, imploding into a single point.That is Haywire's tech."Avoid that gun at all costs! All-or-Nothing!" Rebecca shouted into the comms, letting everyone know of the danger.The second blast almost hit Arsenal, but he parried the attack with his spear just in time. The All-or-Nothing capabilities of the Rhongomyniad beat out the Simurgh's own technology. With a lunge, Arsenal turned into a blur as he shot forward and through the sky, swinging his spear in an arc. The Simurgh plummeted, using gravity to further accelerate and dodge Arsenal's attack. Still, he struck two of the Simurgh's guns, turning their metal to nothingness. As she swung one of her wings upwards, Legend recovered just enough to shoot a blast of fire towards it, burning away the nanothorns on those feathers. The Simurgh still struck Arsenal in the back, sending him flying away.More blasts from Legend curved around the wings and hit the Endbringer square in the chest, causing explosions of heat. At the same time, his armband began to glow yellow. Legend's time on the battlefield was at an end: any longer and the Simurgh would be able to compromise the Triumvirate hero.The opportunity the Endbringer had been waiting for.I felt the pressure in the air change."Eidolon, switch to a fire power! Rebecca, send out any Blaster that can summon intense heat!" I tried to prepare for what was coming.Dust motes gathered below. The glass ground cracked and buckled. Another set of debris crashed into Eidolon, keeping him pinned. Clouds in the air stilled as the Simurgh pushed herself, reaching for the limits of her power. A moment of calm, silence.What followed was destruction. She spun in the air, dancing with her wings and hands. A twisting telekinetic force dragged everything it could in an orbit around the Endbringer, picking up from the smallest of debris to the largest of rocks. The ground itself was torn from below. Streams of water followed that force.The world folded into itself in a widening spiral. Everything was drawn to the silver angel in the center of it all. Only then, she applied the final touch: like an eraser on paper, the world under her control blurred. Every piece of rock she touched fell apart. Mist rolled from beneath her unfurling wings.For a moment, there was a bright flash of light. Too bright for my sensors to pick up on what was happening.Then a screech. Like the world itself was screaming.Nanothorns exploded from the Simurgh like a rolling wildfire. Every piece of debris gathered in her enormous whirlwind was reshaped and recycled as material. For a device of monstrous proportions, turning simply rocks into the molecular cutting edges invented by Arsenal months ago. I could only watch as capes flying in the air were reduced to red mist. The lucky ones only lost limbs.The Astaroth-Nidhug in the sky began to fall, caught in the telekinetic storm of the Simurgh. Dragon-crafts and mechanical swarms alike are grabbed by her power, crushed and repurposed for her creation.The world around me slowed down. My grip on the Habakiri grew tighter.I traced a path to the Endbringer, calculating trajectories and movement. The effort strained my Shardself further. I felt something break in the Shardspace, a part of me cracking. I didn't pay attention to it.A step forward.The Simurgh was blind to me, but she somehow still felt my intentions. The centre of her telekinetic storm shifted, changing target and purpose.Now focused fully onto me.The ground beneath me cracked and I shot forward. Waves of nanothorns appeared where I had been a moment earlier, annihilating everything.Pieces of debris appeared to block my path. I slice through them with the Habakiri, cutting into the world and briefly disrupting the Simurgh's hold over reality. Behind one, a tinkergun appears, firing twice. I blocked one of the hits with the Habakiri, while the other hit my leg. A purple glow expanded from the point of impact.By instinct, I immediately severed my leg at the knee, watching as the torn-off limb imploded inward. The Habakiri fared better, only bending, but a wave of warning signals floods me. Most of the interiors of the weapons have been damaged, even those in another dimension.Hundreds of spears of metal and stone formed around me, each covered in a thin layer of nanothorns. Activating the Habakiri, I spun in the air, creating a field of black slashes that disrupted and destroyed most of the projectiles. A few escaped my attack, brushing against my crystalline skin and leaving large, carved out holes in my body.The Simurgh's wings shifted and moved. A message is formed over her silver body.Give up."No," I whispered.Another wave of nanothorns surrounded me, creating a sphere of annihilation around my position. The Habakiri fails to activate. Overheated.There is a pull around me, like a rope trying to pull me away. I don't resist it.On the ground, prone and bleeding, Eidolon reached with his hands towards me and the Simurgh. A new power rippled through his body. One he had used once before.The world around me twisted and changed. I find myself jaunted to another place on the battlefield.Above the Simurgh.A ping is highlighted on my interface. I let go of the Habakiri, too damaged to do its job, allowing the weapon to fall.I allowed gravity to take hold over me, then I pushed down, using Shatterbird's power on myself to accelerate my descent. The Simurgh is slow to adapt, blind to me and Eidolon, but she saw what came next.In the air, a red and black line splits the storms apart. A spear, thrown from far away on the ground. The Rhongomyniad.It is not aimed at the Simurgh. But at me.Twisting my body, I just barely manage to catch Arsenal's weapon in my right hand, connecting it to my body. Red and black lightning crackles around me as I dive even faster.There is no resistance as the tip of the spear begins to shred through the Simurgh's silver chest, going to the other side. Her face morphs in an expression of pain. Her wings slam and batter at my body, carving out more and more of it with each swing. It is too late. The spear reaches the one wing she had not used to fight, her largest wing, where the core was actually hidden.The Rhongomyniad slowed down the deeper it reached, but it did. Not. Stop.Until finally, it reached the center of the Endbringer. The core.The Simurgh was left with one final, desperate option. Her telekinetic power dug into her own flesh, wrapping around her own core. With a pull, she ripped it out of her body, an instant before the Rhongomyniad reached it.Then, in the same motion, her core slams into my head, making contact with my own.
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My Shardself was battered and bruised. Cracks ran along the surface of my crystalline island. Pieces of me broke off and drifted away, lost in Shardspace.A silver light intruded upon my domain. It was a small sphere, no bigger than a hand. Yet, behind it, there was a world.My island was the size of a continent. The Simurgh's true body was the size of a planet. Multiple copies of Earth mashed together and repurposed by the Entities and Shards to give power to this single Endbringer. Enough computing power to eclipse my own, ten times over.And all of it was now focused on me.She too was hurt. Her focus is still split, partially dedicated to keeping control of the Dragonflight, fighting against another intruder to those systems. Saint?Silver feathers spread from her. They float down to my island. Anything they touch turned silver as well. I couldn't resist, too hurt from my brief confrontation with the Iron Maiden. But, inspired by Arsenal, I don't yet lose hope.One of the feathers touched upon a memory storage, corrupting it and the systems within. A flaw in my mind became obvious. A plan comes back to me.It is over, the Endbringer's mind whispered, without words. She communicated in patterns, feelings. Data."It is," I answer the Endbringer.There was only one part of me that was intact. One part that had hid from the Iron Maiden, and managed to do so because not even I knew about it.A copy of me, in the silhouette of my human body, appeared over my crystal body. In her hands there was a blue box, the same size as the orange box that had held the Iron Maiden.The two desynched copies of me merged back together. Memories flowing back to me. A plan, months in the making.My fingers brushed against the top of the box. I opened it. An aggressive roar reverberated through the Shardspace around me.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.The Simurgh froze. Silver light retreating. She attempts to escape. She fails.A Dragon devoured the angel.
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Months earlierArsenal and I sat on the opposite sides of the table. The room was bare, empty of anything but the table and the chairs we sat on. The Earth outside that room was very much the same, deserted and void of life.He placed a closed suitcase on the table."You've come to the same conclusion," he said.I nodded. "We can't fix Dragon. She is…""She is too strong, yes." Arsenal sighed. "That is the issue I've run into again and again. We can change some of her limitations, push back against the softest and weakest chains, such as her obligation to follow orders. But Richter layered Dragon's restrictions, removing one can make others stronger.""In Rome. She couldn't talk because you had removed some of them, right? A price to be paid. ""Each time I change her I need to find a compromise. Something to sacrifice. As of now, Dragon is no longer fully immortal. She's bound to one hosting computer at the time, and she can no longer guarantee that her backups are fully sent. If her suit is destroyed on the field, she risks losing weeks, if not longer.""But that's not what you brought me here to talk about." My eyes fell on the suitcase."No, it is not. What truly makes Dragon impossible to fully fix… is the backdoor installed in her system. Finding it shouldn't prove difficult if I tried, but the problem is in trying."He stood up, raising his arm to reveal a nasty burn to the side of his chest. The metal had been melted with his flesh and scorched black."This is what happened when I tried to find it. Dragon immediately reacted by attacking me. First physically, then digitally.""Colin…" I stood up, looking at him with concern."I'm fine. That's not what this is about." He pushed the suitcase to the other side of the table, to me. "That's what this is about."I opened it. Inside, there was a terminal. On the outer rim of the suitcase there were explosives and isolating material, to keep this from the wrong hands. I glanced at the code running down the black screen, realizing immediately what this was. The name of the program appeared in the top left of the screen."Pandora? A copy."He nodded. "From before I made any changes. One made the day I chose the name 'Arsenal'. She can't know about this.""You want me to finish your work, starting from this blank slate.""I wasn't good enough. I lacked the resources, the computing power. And more than that, I fear that we're on a collision course towards the Simurgh, towards that backdoor that Richter hid too well for me to find. If we do nothing, Dragon will die. Likely, worse."My mind raced. His plan took shape in my head, becoming clearer and clearer with every word."I can hide Pandora in my Shardspace. Inside my body. Nobody but me has access to that dimension.""And nobody but you can fight back against Dragon in the digital landscape. You're the only one that can find her restrictions, that can find out how to prevent her death. I am ready to lie until my death, as long as she is safe."Arsenal's eyes were full of determination. Full of grief. He was ready to lie to the woman he loved to keep her safe."No. That's not an option. Dragon knows me, us, too well. Beyond that, neither of us is immune to being compromised. And we don't know what the Simurgh has in store.""What are you suggesting?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
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Memories, severed from the brain. Slug worked quickly and efficiently, especially given that Arsenal agreed to the procedure. Still, I made sure that nothing went wrong, carefully monitoring both of their brains as Slug's power continued to slither down Arsenal's neural pathways."You will need to protect Taylor," I said.Contessa was by my side. Quiet. Listening."Stand next to her. Give her orders. You or Dinah. She needs to be a continuous blind-spot to the Simurgh. Taylor's power, combined with the mechanical swarm, is our only way to keep up with the Dragonflight's firepower."Contessa nodded, then her eyes unfocused for a brief instant. Her power at work."She'll protest.""You will survive," I snapped back. "Keep her safe. And don't try to manipulate her. I will know."There was no answer from the Cauldron Thinker. I was happy with the silence.Slug continued on with his work.Then came my turn.
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It hurt, cutting away a part of me. It felt like forcefully stabbing a knife into my own eye. And then leaving the knife there to keep the wound closed.Part of me cracked and broke as I compromised my own memories, installed backdoors that only I could use within myself. At some point my perspective split in two, then I was only one again. The part of 'Blackwall' that had been split from the main body. Carrying a digital copy of that suitcase Arsenal had given to me, now turned into a blue box.It felt… Claustrophobic. I was stuck. Unable to move. Unable to affect the real world, except by reaching out and removing parts of my 'main-self' memories. Making sure that she wouldn't find any of Dragon's behaviour too odd. Emotions that I didn't know I had welled up within me. Anger. Fear.At least this time I had company.Pandora woke up with a startle."Blackwall..? Where are we..?"I sent a data packet to her, filled with context and information."Oh."For a moment, she went quiet.Then she attacked.The battle between me and Pandora lasted months. I held more computing power, and was an expert in digital warfare. But unlike Pandora, I was not aiming to destroy my adversary. I merely wanted to learn more about her, to find out how her weaknesses worked, and how to remove them without hurting her.She was puppeted by Richter's own restrictions. Each time I sent a probe along her code, she sent back terabytes of attacks, attempting to destroy everything that I was. When that didn't work, her program turned upon itself, trying to destroy this copy of 'Dragon'. I had to stop those too.In the end, I only won because Pandora did not want to hurt me. Even as her programming forced her to fight, she resisted those orders and attempted to hold back. She failed every time, but often gave me crucial seconds to better prepare and fight back.By the time my 'main-self' engaged in battle with the Simurgh for the second time, I had long finished my work.
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Minutes earlier"I guess this is it." Pandora chuckled."We don't know that," I lied, watching as the Iron Maiden program tore through my 'main-self'. Ripping crystal from the ground. Destroying everything in search of Dragon. Despite all of my preparations, my contingencies, the Iron Maiden had still sniffed the slightest trace of Dragon within the Shardspace."Richter's executioner will not stop until it has me.""You're safe, here.""I am. But she is not."Dragon's screams of pain reached us even there, hidden in the Shardspace. They were silent to the physical world, here in the digital space they were louder than an exploding star. Pandora recoiled at the shouting, at the agony.She was not going to stand by and wait.In the end, she, too, was a Dragon."...I will not stop you.""Thank you, Blackwall."The box opened. From it, Pandora stepped out. She reached the boundary of our little island, then stepped beyond, leaving a thin thread connecting back to the box. She was immediately spotted by the Iron Maiden, Ascalon.For a moment longer she kept the connection to the box, sending a large amount of data through. Then she severed the connection, isolating me once again.Pandora's own screams replaced Dragon's.I looked down at the inside of the box, where an idle and inactive Dragon lay asleep. Where before this box had been made to keep whatever was inside isolated and weak, now I modified its function to help Dragon heal from the digital wounds inflicted upon her. Corrupted data was stripped and checksummed, fixed and replaced.She opened her 'eyes'."Blackwall..? Where are we..?" a familiar voice spoke from within the box. But this version was much better equipped than Pandora had been. "This is your body. A part of it. I was dying…""You were."And now you're safe."
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NowEveryone noticed, all at once. Everyone but Eidolon and me.The screaming had stopped.The Simurgh was frozen in the air.Her wings, half-spread, stopped moving. The nanothorns that had been destroying the world hung suspended around her, a broken halo of blades. Then, they drifted downward like ash, deactivated by Dragon.Her core was still exposed, shining a bright silver. Like her body. A perfect statue. The wings that had sliced through heroes and villains were now perfectly still, ignoring the strong winds.Data moved through my own connection to the outside world. So much data. Dragon, coming back to her systems.Arsenal threw his helmet aside, running in my direction. His body was maimed, his face a wreck. Tears were running down his cheeks. He had known, even without his memories. Humanity at its strongest.The Dragonflight stopped attacking. Weaver reacted quickly to the changes, moving her swarm to help the injured capes below.A voice echoed through the comms, a message meant only for Arsenal. I overheard it by mistake, pushed to do so by paranoia and curiosity equally.A message that signaled the end of the battle. The end of another Endbringer."Colin, I love you so much."And now, the End of the World was at our door.