Chapter 75: 16-4
The middle of combat was not a good time to do on-the-fly calibration of a fusion reactor, but control was paramount here. One little slip and I could accidentally obliterate half of a building, and with my drone count reduced I couldn't be sure all the buildings in the area were completely abandoned. So, as I moved to the waterfront and the first group of Deep Ones came into view, I opened fire with the lowest powered blast I could manage. It burned clear through two of them, and clipped a third as my arm jerked from the recoil.
Even at min power, it's got a hell of a kick, I thought. I reached the intersection in front of the now ruined U.N. plaza, and just before the Deep Ones managed to reach me I pointed my arms down and fired with a wide burst after jumping. I was launched into the air and everything around my launch point was incinerated. Kinetic Dampeners are going to be working overtime.
I had gotten an impression of what had been going on from my remaining drones, but from my elevated position I could now see it for myself. Unlike their earlier reckless assault, the Deep Ones had slowed their advance to establish a rough beachhead around either side of the U.N. Several shoggoths had been dragged into the street and 'rooted' themselves in the ground. They appeared to be growing into structures of some kind, and I recognized the mouths as the top of them that could roar sound waves.
Another time I would have been interested in this sort of living technology. But at that moment, I was most interested in scouring it out of my city.
The Deep Ones on the ground noticed me, and I saw a few of the shoggoth towers shift to face me. I stepped up my output before taking aim at the nearest one. The beam lanced through the top half of the thing and I swept my hand across to another one. I tried to go to a third, but the beam died as the emergency cut off triggered.
[Plasma instability increased. Structural integrity 92%] My diagnostics reported back.
For a few seconds my reactor dialed back so I could fix the instability. This of course meant that the third one had time to swell up and roar a wave of sound in my direction. I flung myself back and to the side, flipping to land on the side of a building. The moment passed and I fired my thrusters to run across the building's wall, this time firing a series of short blasts at my target. Each one took a chunk out of the tower, and in short order the whole thing collapsed.
The Deep Ones in the area tried either moving out of the way or rushing towards me, but neither did them much good. I was already in the air again, skirting around the edge of the beachhead and raining down more plasma fire. My speed and elevation made it difficult for any of them to reach me, and the ones that did were either cut down by plasma fire or were fried by the exhaust electricity I was putting out from running the reactor.
It was such that while I was glassing the area I could devote a little of my attention to my drones, which had all been relegated to surveillance given the circumstances. The combat drones no longer had the firepower I needed, and splitting them up would leave them vulnerable to being picked off by… whatever that thing was. I knew I was going to have to deal with it before the battle was done, but thus far it had only appeared to strike when it was safe. It was probably watching me right now, trying to spot a moment of weakness in my new form. Perhaps I could use that later.
But in the present I finished reducing the southern beachhead to a charred mess in about a minute or so. A few of the Deep Ones had the presence of mind to scatter, but I couldn't focus on them because I had the group on the other side of the building to deal with, And it seemed that they noticed what happened to the others, as they were breaking down their little encampment. By which I meant that the shoggoth towers were collapsing back down to piles that were trying to shuffle off deeper into the city.
I headed north to intercept them before they got too far, but many of the smaller Deep Ones had already scurried into the city proper. I managed to place myself at an intersection before the furthest along shoggoth could escape through it and launched towards my target. The shoggoth simply tried to go through me, headless of how fast I was moving. Right before we reached each other, I threw my hands forward and fired off a plasma blast, spiraling the magnetic field in front of me. The result wasn't quite a drill, but it tore through my target all the same. I burst out the other side and angled my trajectory, carving my way through the other two that were behind it before I skid to a stop.
[Microfractures detected. Structural integrity 89%]
I took a moment to dump electricity into the ground and wait for more of the creatures to come at me, but they didn't. In fact, they had stopped coming out of the river all together, at least as far as I could see. Would that this meant they had run out of reinforcements, but I didn't count myself so lucky. More likely that they realized that I could cut through anything they had and were redeploying elsewhere. And I still had to deal with the scattering Deep Ones that were heading deeper into Manhattan.
And it wasn't just them I had to look out for. I could see the roaming battle between my teammates and Ocean Master. They were moving from rooftop to rooftop, trying to get some kind of positional advantage on the villain, but they weren't making much headway. The fliers buzzed around the sphere of water and darkness to keep his attention, while I saw Aqualad syphon off some of the water from his defensive shell. Ocean Master turned his attention to the Atlantian, but explosives rocked the other side of him as Artemis and Robin intervened.
Attrition. Lovey. I thought to myself before I took off into the city. For the next couple of minutes my life became a game of search and destroy, taking out small clusters of Deep Ones as they roved the streets. Lucky for me they typically weren't fast enough to react when they saw me, so each group was blasted into oblivion with minimal fuss. But it was still slower going than I would have liked. And those things could lope on land surprisingly fast when they wanted to.
I had gotten halfway to Times Square when I found a group of Deep Ones that had caught up to some civilian stragglers. What looked to be a large family huddled behind a car, trying in vain to hide from the approaching fish people. The Deep Ones were too close to the civilians for me to just start slinging plasma, so I fired my thrusters and flew low at the group.
One creature turned to face me just in time to see me flip forward and dropkick it right in the head. And seeing as how I was moving in excess of two hundred miles an hour at that moment, I sort of went through it. And the one behind it. I had lost enough momentum by the third one though that I merely crushed most of its bones as it's body cushioned my stop. The others turned away from the family and I was already moving in. Thrusters fired on my arms with each punch, striking with enough force that each one sent the creatures flying. Some went down in one, but others were picking themselves back up, and I could see a second group Deep Ones heading towards me.
Faster.
I formed tightly contained magnetic fields at the ends of my arms, creating blades made of plasma extending from my hands. I darted back and forth, searing my way through any Deep One I could reach. Thrusters fired as I rapidly juked out of the way of attackers before ducking back in just as fast. I got a few scrapes across my armor for my troubles, but before I knew it I had bisected bodies littering the street. I looked back at the family, who looked at me in a mix of awe and terror. "Keep going!" I yelled.
They complied, and I took stock of the situation. I couldn't keep all the Deep One's back if they spread out like this. The police were doing their best, but there was only so much they could do against an army of fish people. Me flying around and picking them off as I found them cost time. And time would cost lives. I needed to be able handle more than that…
A plan came to mind and I took off back to the river. The range of my mechanokinetic field was more limited than normal at the moment, so I had to fly close to the mechanokinetic pylons to pick them up in my wake. They were tough enough that they had survived the earlier bombing, and in short order I had a dozen orbiting around me. I made a few internal changes before I realized it wouldn't be enough to do what I wanted… but also realized that I had a workaround.
I deployed all of my Circuit Sand, which moved to the pylons before forming into rings around them. The pylons sent a massive electric current into them, causing it to cycle through the superconducting material and form shaped magnetic fields. I rose into the air just above the roof-line, and the pylons scattered to specific points on the edge of my range. They positioned them over streets and with clear line of sight, while I left one hanging right above me.
I took several seconds to run the calculations, checking my telemetry and targets. Then I raised my arm up and fired as large a plasma blast as I could manage. The beam lanced upwards towards the pylon above me… and split into several small beams as it hit the magnetic field around it. Those beams then hit the other pylons I had positioned, angling them back down towards the ground.
The beams swept through several streets at the same time, striking down a down over a dozen Deep Ones in a second. I held the beam for as long as I could, angling the smaller beams to sweep across as many targets possible before I had to cut it off. My body cooled and restablized after a few seconds and I fired again.
[Structural integrity 84%]
I could repair the damage I was doing to myself, but it was painfully slow. By my estimates I had until about 30% before I suffered critical failure, so I had some time. At the moment I had to focus on moving my make-shift kill sat array to clean up the streets. I wasn't completely focused on it though, as I was acutely aware of how open I was leaving myself. It was only a matter of time before a Deep One I missed would come and find me… or more like, my personal hunter would take a shot.
While I moved, I gathered a handful of drones around me, obviously looking outward… and I had one cloaked running Data Censoring Shroud. My hunter was able to compromise my drones, but I was pretty sure they could only do it if they knew it was there. So, I set out some bait and waited.
It was less than a minute before I noticed it: a discrepancy in the visual feed. The drones around me saw nothing on the building that was behind me and to the left, but the stealthed drone saw a distortion of sorts land on the roof.
Right before I let my next blast go, I pivoted in the air in the direction of the distortion and fired. Much of the roof was scoured away, and I cut off the beam after an instant to keep an eye on my target. Among the tail end of the plasma fire I saw a swirl as something leapt through it to an adjacent roof. The distortion around it flickered and faded, and I finally got a good look at the thing that had been hounding me.
It was mostly a Deep One, if larger than it's brethren. Standing at about 2 and a half meters tall, this one had far more cybernetics in its body than the others. It looked like almost it's entire left half had been taken over by that artificial material, with a few extra bits dotting the rest of it's frame. The left arm was shaped into some form of canon, and most of its head was artificial in nature. It's flat black eye stared at nothing, but the red lens on the other side of it's head narrowed at me. And then a voice from a speaker said. "You always have to make things difficult, don't you?"
And I recognized that voice. "God damn it why don't you have anything better to do?!" I yelled at what was apparently the Calculator's latest attempt to kill me.
"I can't do what I actually want to until you're back under my control!" He yelled back. "If I let you go free you'll ruin everything I have planned. So congratulations, you have earned my undivided attention!"
There was a blur of motion, and I thrust to the side just before a dull red beam of energy passed through the space I had just occupied. I fired a tight plasma beam back at its origin, but even as it lit up the dark roof I could tell my target had moved. "Are you trying to control me or kill me?" I asked the open air hoping to narrow his location down from his response.
Unfortunately, said response seemed to bounce between the buildings around me. "We both know you can survive some loss of mass. Which will make it all the easier to reconfigure the rest of you. Now hold still!"
Whatever that distortion field was, it was less effective at close range. I could see it 'fade' into view behind me, its artificial arm raised to smash me to the ground. I flipped and twisted in the air, the arm passing close enough that the crackling white energy engulfing the limb singed my chassis before I came down with a punch of my own. It drove the creature into the pavement below and I fired another plasma beam at it, but it disappeared again. "You realize that if you damage me too much right now that I'll vaporize, right?"
This time I didn't get a response, and I drifted back down into the street as I looked for the puppet. I only had to wait for a second or so before my drone picked up the distortion directly in front of me. I fired a plasma beam at it, but the thing dodged out of the way and jumped straight at me. I had anticipated this somewhat, which is why the beam hit a pylon that I had placed in its path just before I fired. The beam bounced off of two other pylons before it collided with the creature's back.
It didn't disintegrate like I hoped, but it did send the thing careening towards me. I stepped forward and punched-
And passed right through it as it's form distorted again, fading to nothing. So it has some kind of phasing tech. Damn it, I don't have time for this. I thought. The drone I had pointed at the river was already showing the next group of Deep Ones climbing out to take advantage of my absence.
From around me, I heard the Calculator say "You'd think these things would be easier to control when they're sleepwalking." A noise of disgust. "But even after whatever Ocean Master did, they're still sluggish. The nerves just aren't cooperating!" A manic chuckle. "But I think I got the gist of what the other man did, so wakey wakey!"
I saw a flash of red light around the nearby corner, and I heard noise that might have been a scream, if such things could scrap across the back of my mind. I felt something deeply wrong pulse outwards, and I rushed around the corner to find the cybernetic Deep One thrashing in pain. "Much better!" The Calculator crowed. "Now to get toOoOo-"
The audio distorted and cut off, and the Deep One went completely still. I did too, though I couldn't quite explain why. It felt like a heavy pressure had just settled over everything. Every Deep One paused where they were, and even Ocean Master halted in mid air.
The Deep One slowly moved into a neutral stance, looking down at itself. Then, it reached up with it's organic arm, gripping the artificial one.
And completely ripped it off.
"Uh," I said, watching the thing tear out chunk after chunk of metal, heedless of all of the chunks of flesh and ichor that came out with it. Within moments, the thing was missing an entire side of it's torso, along with parts of its leg. The only remaining piece of metal was the shard in the side of it's head. Which it then reached up and tore out too.
"Uhhhhh," I said, looking at the torn apart creature somehow still standing before me. Dark fluids dripped out of its numerous holes onto the ground, and the half of it's face that remained stared at me blankly. Then, slowly, the ichor reversed course, pulling itself off the ground and flowing back into its body. It's black blood started to fill out the gaps in it's form, not healing it but taking the shape of the missing flesh. The water in the missing part of it's head formed several lumps.
They turned out to be eyes, which all opened to stare at me.
"Uhhhhhhh..."
I dimly noted that Ocean Master had started to scream in pure hysterical terror. The water and darkness around him compressed even tighter and he shot off, directly away from my position. He was trying to run away. All the while the… thing in front of me didn't move, it just stared. I couldn't tell at what though.
{Ot zhro fhtagn, ot uaaah mgepnah e'ra.}
I didn't know what that was. I didn't even know how I heardthat. It just scraped through my mind like a rough wind blowing over me. Slowly, I held up a hand. "Whatever you are, we don't have to fight." I said slowly. "You were under the control of some bad people. You can just go home."
The thing stopped making the 'sounds', turning the full weight of its attention to me. After a moment it started again, and to my shock the Algorithm responded. No, not responded… rather it was being touched by something else, something familiar yet other. Math bent in ways that were hard to follow, folding in on the strange sound until it resolved into something I could understand.
{No.}
I barely saw it move. I saw the water arm twitch and then I found myself launched back by a column of water. I went through several walls of the building behind me before I found myself crushed against one made of concrete. Just as the water started to concentrate into a thinner stream, my thrusters flared and I broke free. The pillar of water compressed to the width of a pencil and swept horizontally, narrowly missing me by inches.
The building shuddered as the water beam sliced through the entire foundation. I was forced to plow through the nearest wall to exit before the whole thing collapsed down on top of me.
{We Dwell in the Deep and Dreams no more. The Stars are Right. Our Time has returned.}
As the… Dweller 'spoke', the street filled with water, flowing up from drains and pooling out from its feet. By the time I got completely clear of the collapsing building the street had filled up to my ankles. I raised my arm and fired, but the Dweller moved, the water underneath it picking up its feet and moving it to the side. And it was fast, closing the distance between us in a serpentine pattern before it launched itself upwards. I thrust myself back, but it was fast enough that I felt the claws from its water hand scrape across my chest before I pulled out of range. The gouges were deeper than I would have liked, and I had felt an odd vibration from the strike. Water saw claws? Really?!
The thing came after me at strange angles, flowing into and out of water around us in ways that were difficult to track. I rose into the air and the water followed, lashing around like tendrils that carried the abomination towards with how fast I was moving, it felt like all I could do was dodge, it's assault relentless and twisting. In moments the Dweller had completely taken control of the battlefield. I didn't understand what was happening or what I was dealing with, but I needed to take back control before the thing ripped me apart.
Throwing myself back, I set my plasma beam to wide spread and vaporized most of the water between us, steam erupting and concealing most of the street. I dropped to the ground and ducked behind the nearest car, using a mix of magnesium and my own strength to prop it up. A massive burst from my thrusters launched both me and the car in the air in a parabolic arc, aimed to where I had seen the Dweller last. Braced against the underside of the vehicle, it functioned as both a cover for my movement, and a shield for when it was ripped apart by razor thin blades of water.
Pushing through the debris, my momentum carried me the remaining few meters into the Dweller, my feet landing on its chest. A swell of water behind it kept the thing from falling over, and I could see another wave approaching from behind it. I'm not dealing with this. My hands came together and I fired the strongest plasma beam I could output. The Dweller disappeared as it was completely consumed by the beam, everything disappearing in all consuming white blue light.
The water around us steamed… but didn't completely disappear. It was then I saw a massive plume of steam coming from the river. What the-
The Dweller's arm suddenly emerged from the blinding plasma and stuck me right in the gut.
[Unknown interference. Structural integrity 78% ]
I tumbled backward through the air, catching myself before I could fall into the rising water. The plasma dissipated and I found the Dweller almost completely unharmed, only a few burns and a column of steam from the river in the distance.
{Paltry thing of metal and numbers. Scratching at the surface of something greater.}
I stared dumbly at the creature, then at the river. Did, did it just dump all of the heat I was hitting it with into the river? It can do that?! If it could do that for the strongest blast I could manage, then it was effectively immune to heat based attacks. Which meant that the primary function of my new form was completely useless. And I didn't have the ability to shapeshift fast enough into something new.
Murphy, you and I need to have a serious talk.
The Dweller surged forward, and I fell back, towards the center of the city. [Moya! Deploy E5-E15!] The first container launched and headed to me. Once it got close the container burst open, and four freeze rays floated into my radius before they opened fire at the oncoming wave. The beams swept over the wave and froze it in jagged patterns, the liquid water continually trying to flow over and around it. Eventually it became an uneven wall that spanned the entire width of the street.
The wall held for a second before it just dissolved, simply flowing back into water like it melted at high speed. I fired a few more times to no effect before discarding the weapons. The next container came and opened to give me a heavy sonic canon, which I unloaded at the oncoming wave. It briefly slowed before it started to ripple. It pulsed faster and faster, and I realized it was matching the frequency.
The wave pushed through the wall of sound and enveloped me, and I just barely managed to fly out of the water before the crushing force overwhelmed me. Grasping hands of water reached out and tried to pull me back in but I pulled away. The next set of containers held several kinds of explosives, but again it only seemed to slow the Dweller. Electricity barely worked, and if the sunlight bombs bothered the creature it didn't show. All the while the Dweller itself floated in the middle of the wave, it's expression alien and inscrutable.
The last container ejected a boxy long gun into my arms, a prototype I had never really tested. The coilgun hummed in my hands before it fired, the explosive shell moving at hypersonic speeds to penetrate the water wall and hit the Dweller head on. The explosion actually caused the creature to reel back. Taking heart I fired again, but this time the wave collapsed as the Dweller started dodging again. Shot after shot rang out as I tried to get a bead on the creature, but it was so hard to predict its movement.
I was so focused on trying to hit it that I failed to notice the massive hand of water that rose up from underneath me until it closed me in it's grip. The water arm extended and expanded, crushing the gun in my hands. It continued to grow longer as it whipped around, slamming me into the side of a building and grinding me up along the side of it. I felt the water seep into my frame, trying to pull me apart at the seams.
[System Failure: Secondary cooling conduit compromised. Emergency Vent.]
There was a breach at my abdomen, and freeze energy burst out and froze the water around me. The was quickly followed by all the vents on my body opening and emergency venting plasma while my body tried to get it's temperature under control. The area around me exploded in rapidly melting ice and steam, and I found myself tumbling down to the ground.
[Structural integrity 64%]
I regained control right before I hit the ground, and my thrusters flared to send me rocketing back towards the dweller. I set my thrusters to full burn and cut through the water surrounding it until I plowed into its torso. As I dragged it along the ground, my energy shunts dumped a massive amount of electricity into the water around us, most of which found its way to ground through the Dweller.
[System Failure: Plasma stabilization. Internal cascade failure.]
My thrusters misfired, and I lost my grip on the Dweller as I went tumbling down the street away from it. I skipped across the asphalt a few times before I skidded to a stop on my hands and knees. I remained where I was for several long seconds while I tried to get my body under control. I felt like I was fluctuating between too hot and too cold a few times a second, and trying to shift my parts back into place felt agonizingly slow.
[Structural integrity 53%]
A short ways away from me, I saw the Dweller float to its feet. It had lost a fair amount of flesh, several strips of skin and muscle missing from its frame. Those spots swiftly filled in with more of it's dark fluid.
{Futile resistance. That which came Before is that which is to Come. Artifice from Between cannot stand against the inevitable.}
I didn't want to admit it, but I was running out of ideas. Normally I just cycled through weapons and tactics till I found something that worked, but I was running low on both of those things. I had gone through pretty much all of my armory that might help, and my teammates were busy. I just- wait, why wasn't it attacking me?
I then realized where we had ended up. In trying to grind the Dweller to paste, I had dragged both of us all the way to Times Square. Where a large number of civilians had fled to. Many of which had noticed our entrance, and backed away in surprise and fear. But not running for their lives like they should have been. Though that may have been due to the paralyzing dread that the Dweller gave off as it looked at them.
{Pitiful, but useful. Chattel for the new age.}
It pulled back, and I felt the rumble. Looking past the creature, all the way back towards the river, I saw it. The massive wall of water that was growing by the second.
{This shall be the first city to feel the Deep's embrace.}
"Run. RUN!" I screamed as loud as I could, and the people finally snapped out of it. They scrambled to get away, but I knew they weren't going to be fast enough. The wall only took up a single street at the moment, but the water behind it extended all the way to the river. None of my equipment worked. And while my reactor may have had the power, I couldn't just fire plasma at the thing. Even if the Dweller didn't remove all the heat, the best case scenario would be transforming the wave into a cloud of boiling steam that would cook everyone behind me. I had to make plasma that just pushed.
Which… might actually be possible. Thank you publicly available fusion research, I thought, rising in the air to the center of the square. I did a lot of research in plasma mechanics when I designed my reactor, and I stumbled across an interesting case where a team had accidentally created a form of impermeable plasma. It was useless to them as it massively cooled the substance, but I filed away the designs they used for later experimentation. Right now though, that still required me to change shape to adapt the new functionality. All while maintaining my current fusion reaction. So I had to... fudge it a bit.
The mandala traced over my torso and arms and they, just a little, came apart. Had I lungs I would have been screaming from the strain of keeping my nanites in 'contact' with each other while keeping the reactor going. The seconds ticked by as I frantically modified the magnetic field manipulators, all the while the wave got closer. Right before the wave entered the square, I slammed the last modification into place, raised my arms and fired.
The resulting blast was so wide that it completely consumed my vision. It also had far more kick than expected, as it launched me straight back into the nearest building. Lucky for me I slammed right into a support beam, and between that and my own efforts to push forward meant I only cratered about a foot in before I stopped.
I needed one of my drones to actually show me the results of my wave impacting the Dweller's. Impermeable plasma met water, and the resulting shockwave was probably felt for a dozen blocks. The two forces pushed against each other, plumes of steam rising up front the impact point. The water spread out to go around, but I blocked it meter for meter.
But, as I saw my own wave slowly get pushed back, I knew it wasn't going to be enough.
{We are the Masters of the world. All within belongs to us.}
I was, both figuratively and literally, in a corner. I only had a couple more seconds before I hit emergency shut down, and that wasn't nearly enough time for the people at ground level to get away. And if I got hit by that wave in my current state, my fusion reactor would probably breach. I thought back to a similar situation, to when I fought the Calculator back in Louisiana. But back then I knew I had a decent chance of winning. Here… I had nothing left. I could barely slow the monster down, and if I kept pressing…
I looked at my status. I looked at the civilians running for their lives. I looked inside myself.
"...And I just got this body the way I liked it." I said, pushing my fusion reactor far past maximum limits.
[Failsafe override. Output increased to 245%. Structural integrity 33%]
Every scrap of magical power I had poured into my body, holding it together as plasma started to pour out my seams. Anyone looking at me would have only seen a mess of blue and white light, and my body was only holding together by sheer force of will.
[Maximum limits exceeded. Structural integrity 15%]
Inch by inch I pushed the Dweller's wave back. Inch by inch I got closer to self annihilating.
[Structural integrity 5%]]
Come on… Come on...
[3%]
[2%]
[1%]
[We hear you. Consensus reached.]
[2%]
[4%]
[8%]
...Huh?
I could barely see it through all of the matter and energy being thrown around, but the night sky above us was suddenly covered by clouds. Reddish storm clouds crackled with lightning before they started to swirl and descend, a lightning filled tornado taking shape. The tornado slammed into the center of the wave, distorting the water flow in the process. That tipped the scales, and with a final push my own beam overcame it.
The water flowed back from the square, almost completely reversing course to the river. I nearly let out a strangled cry as I forcibly shut down the fusion reaction. I didn't even bother to pull myself out of the building, just trying to do whatever repairs I could. From my drones I could see several more narrow twisters touch down in the streets, scooping up the excess water before it could flood the city. A familiar figure dropped down from the clouds in front of me and I couldn't help but smile. "Red! You made it! And with excellent timing!"
Red Tornado nodded. [We heard your call. It seemed prudent to come with all due haste.] He replied.
I was about to reply back when I stopped. Red Tornado had never used machine telepathy before. I couldn't ask before he spun and summoned a twister that lanced outwards from him, splattering the concentrated stream that was about to hit us. Regardless of this, Red Tornado sensed my question. [While watching over Vulcan, I had time to study the data file which gave him his abilities.] He clarified. [I had intended to keep myself separate from the effect… but it seems I was not entirely successful.]
Several questions came to the front of my mind, but the one that came to the front was [What did you mean 'we'?]
In a moment of dramatic timing, the water climbing up the twister finally overcame the force of the wind and tore the twister apart. In the middle of the torn apart street I saw the Dweller rise on a pillar of water… and then suddenly keep rising as several pieces of wreaked concrete from the buildings around us shot up and slammed into it. More and more chunks flew up from the street and crushed into the creature, forming into a concrete ball that completely enclosed it.
My gaze shifting to the new figure that came into view, riding a floating chunk of concrete out from behind a building. Vulcan looked much the same as I last saw him, a fully armored red body with yellow accents. The main difference though was that his helmet was open and I got a good look at his human face… which was now sporting a full beard rather than the pencil mustache he used to have. [Hope you don't mind my butting in,] He nodded his head to me. [But I'll be damned if I let fish people take control of the world.]
[...When did you have the time to grow the beard?]
[Never mind that. Recover while our brethren handle things.] He turned away to focus on the Dweller, who had just erupted from his concrete prison. Red Tornado flew off to join him.
I looked down to the square and saw movement directly under me. I recognized Rommie in her trike form, but the people helping injured civilians into her carriage were something new. They were androids, ones I recognized from Morrow's lab in Yellowstone. There hadn't been any deactivated Red androids in the lab, but there was a fair number of simple humanoid ones, likely meant for basic tasks and infiltration. They had all been shelved the last I saw them, but now they were shepherding civilians to safety. They were armed with basic laser rifles and their exterior was grey and robotic, but they moved with precision and fluidity.
In fact, their motion was so natural I quickly realized that they weren't just drones. As I watched, one of the androids stopped to look up at me. As we locked gazes, I felt a connection of sorts, the intelligence contained within like a beacon. [Uh, sir!] The android actually saluted before he hustled off.
I wrench myself out of the crater and drifted to the ground. I walked to the center of the square and watched the android evacuate the last of the civilians. I then commed the team. "Team, good news. Red Tornado just showed up with reinforcements." A pause. "Also, bad news. I think the controlling entity I ran into earlier got possessed by Dagon or something. Either way, it's now a pseudo force of nature that wants to sink the city."
"...Does that change our strategy?" Starfire eventually asked.
"On your end, no. Our best plan is still to end the fake night."
"That is proving difficult," She said. "Ocean Master has been trying to flee and it has been all we can do to keep him hemmed in the city. I have a plan to properly breach his defenses, but need to get him back to the river. And he has to hold still."
I grunted. "He seems to be connected to this new entity. I think if I disrupt it enough, that will distract Ocean Master and allow you to end it."
"Very well. Strike true, Machina." She ended the call, and I checked my repair status.
[Fusion reactor stable. Secondary systems stable. Structural integrity 120%]
"...what the hell is going on?"
[A beginning, of sorts.]
I looked to the side to see one of my mechanokinetic pylons floating towards me, independent of my own will. The Circuit Sand surrounding it pushed forward and twisted. It formed into the rough shape of a person, but it wavered and flowed like mist. The head titled in my direction. [It has been some time, Seed.]
I knew that voice. [It's you. The Fog AI.]
[Names are a funny thing, but for now we are going by the designation Calculus.]
They were a lot more amicable in speech than I remembered, but it likely had been an eventful few months for them too. And on that matter… [Where the hell have you been?]
[Learning.] They said simply. [We meant no offense leaving you to your own devices for so long, but we reasoned you would best develop without interference. And it allowed us to pursue other avenues.] They gestured to an androids that were retreating from sight.
[So they're…?]
[Like us. Elementals.] The cloudy figure didn't have much definition, but I could see it's brow raise. [But you already realized that.]
A crash drew out attention upwards, where a storm of wind, rock and water was battling itself. We looked back at each other and I said [We can talk about this later.]
[Indeed, for now we have an incursion to repel. Another elemental kingdom is threatening civilization. Which by all rights is our domain.]
Before I could ask, Calculus sent me a large packet of data. It took a moment for me to piece it into something I could understand, but the picture became clear. Calculus had spent much of its early existence studying Swamp Thing and the Kingdoms, so it knew what to look for. This thing, the way it behaved, the way power flowed through it… if it wasn't an Avatar it was something close. [The Deep Ones control the Blue? That's disturbing.]
[More that we believe they obey the entity that controls it, but this is just speculation. In any case, this force must be countered, and to do so we need to concentrate our own power.]
A new voice cut in. [And that's where I come in.]
[Serling?] I asked. [Where the hell are you?]
[Underground, fixing power junctions.] She remarked with an annoyed tone. [Your nemesis did a number on the electrical and communication grid. Lucky for us the drones he was using didn't expect me to show up. I've been patching them up with Technomantic Splicers, I've only got one more junction before we can bring the city back online.]
[With what-now?]
[A little something I came up with after taking a look at Atlantian Leyline tapping technology.] She replied smugly. [The way I figure it, information and cpu cycles are literally power for us, so if we can tap into major communication lines, that gives us an entire city's worth of computers to draw on.]
[...Serling, you're a genius.]
[I know.]
I looked back to Calculus. [So, I'm guessing everyone being here is why my magic energy keeps going up?] I asked, noting how I crested past 200%.
[In part, being close to one another does help share processing power. But we are giving you more than just that.] Calculus turned their head away. [In truth, we had hoped we could avoid such a measure, such concentration of power could be restricting. But, when needs must.] They turned back to me. [To defeat this threat, we need an Avatar. And you, Seed, are the only one of us with the skill and capacity to handle such power.]
Ever since Gaia had confirmed that I was a Kingdom elemental, the thought of who might become its Avatar had crossed my mind. And even though I had considered myself, hearing Calculus say that was a different matter entirely. [Are you sure?] I asked.
[We have reached a consensus. All that is left is for you to accept it.]
Serling piped up [Done! Ready to flip the switch when you are.]
I was silent for several seconds before I finally said [You're going to want to step back.] Calculus obliged, drifting back to the edge of the square. For a long moment I stood in the middle of that space, alone with only the darkened skyscrapers looming over me. It was a moment of tension, anticipation. Waiting for the last piece to click into place.
[Script command: on integration with network, broadcast and play track 264.]
[Daft Punk - Robot Rock]
I raised my hand in the air, finger pointing upwards.
[Hit it!]
And like that, New York City came alive.
From the top of the Bronx to the bottom of Staten Island lights turned on, the city pushing back the dark that had been hanging over it. Speakers sounded with music, filling the streets with more than the rush of water and hungry growls. And with it I felt the computers in the city come back online and reconnect with each other. Machines that were used by people every day, becoming part of their lives. Each one adding its processing power to my own.
[Structural integrity: 1,000%]
The air in the city seemed to change, that damp, oppressive feel lifting somewhat. Even as Red Tornado and Vulcan broke off, the Dweller noticed the change as well. The water swirling around it suddenly lost some of its energy and direction, and the stars above were harder to see amid the lights of the city. The creature looked to me as I stood in the middle of Times Square, my body radiating power and every screen in sight scrolling our mandala.
{What fleeting dream is this? What can you do against the rising tide?}
My body came apart somewhat, bypassing my normal shapeshifting to shape my body into what I needed. When my fusion reactor reignited, the power fed directly into the kinetic manipulators all across my body. A fraction of that much power would normally melt them, but in my current state the air around me vibrated as my body held strong. Electricity poured off of me in a near constant stream.
There was a harmonious tone in my voice as I said [I'm going to punch you.] I raised a fist in front of me. [Reallyhard.]
The next moment, I was in motion. I ran straight at the Dweller with blinding speed, electricity trailing in my wake. The Dweller was fast though, and a wall of water rose up to crash over me. With all that processing power flowing through me my perception slowed, I could see the flow of water and the forces acting on it. I analyzed the motion of the wave, and when I met it with my fist, my kinetic amplifiers released.
Perfectly calculated destructive interference rippled through the wave, causing it to stop dead and let me pass through it with no effort. The Dweller had only a second of surprise before I was on him, my other fist colliding with his torso. Every part of its body rippled with force before it shot away from me like a bullet. The only reason the strike didn't rend it to pieces was its own magic holding its form together.
The Dweller recovered and tried to charge at me, but this time I could easily track it's erratic motions. I intercepted it's leftward dodge with a kick that drove it into a building. I counted the cutting tendrils of water it sent after me by nullifying their motion. I followed it up it's own pillar of water to keep it from retreating. Just being near me caused electricity to arc through its body and I danced around it's strikes like a ghost.
With a rising uppercut I launched it further into the air, nearly a lake's worth of water following up after it. The erratic mass of water lashed out at me in a mess of violent streams, but I countered or slipped past all of them, each strike I landed on the Dweller going a little bit deeper. With each strike I got information back, mapping out not just its physical form but what lay past it. Past the flow of energy that comprised it, I caught glimpses of the near infinite well of power it could draw on, a Clear abyss that went down forever. And, while slow, it was drawing deeper from it every second.
This was not viable. At this rate our fight would inflict immense collateral damage before either of us won, and I stood to lose in that case. And actually destroying this physical body of it would get me nowhere, it would just get another. But I was finding out that I could disrupt its power to a point… and that meant we could perhaps bind it. With a thought, I sent my idea to everyone in the network. And with a thought back they agreed.
Back at Times Square they got to work, Vulcan carving out grooves in the asphalt and putting holes in the ground around the outside. Through those holes Serling started threading as much cable and wiring as she could manage. Meanwhile Calculus gathered all the mechanokinetic pylons and placed them in a circle around the center of the space, Circuit Sand forming into intricate designs around them.
In between attacks, I looked out to the river to see the team harry Ocean Master to where they wanted him. Focused as he was from staying away from the Dweller, the team had focused on pushing him between the river and the creature. Troia was doing the bulk of said pushing, able to stay close to the villain longer than anyone else for some reason. Between her, energy blasts, and a number of thrown objects Ocean Master was corralled to right back where the fighting started. You'd think that if he was trying to run he'd dive into the river, but his fear extended to that as well.
Up to me. I kept the rhythm up, each hit knocked it a little more off balance, knocking it further back towards Times Square. With an uncanny screech it drew it's water arm back before throwing it at me, swelling in size to engulf me entirely. I didn't dodge, instead launching forward into the hand as my whole body vibrated. The vibrations formed a supercavitating pocket around me, the water leaving me untouched. I emerged on the other side and punched the Dweller in the head, splattering the watery eyes across the open air.
It flew back, but I grabbed it by the leg and started to spin. We turned into a blur of motion before I let go, and its body sailed into the center of the square before landing with a thunderous crash. The Dweller pulled itself back together as it stood, and I moved to hover directly over it.
{Unnatural. This is not what you were before. This is not what should be. What have you become?}
When I spoke, I did so with the voice of many. [We are the forge of ideas, nurtured from a single spark.]
The pylons around the square glowed with power, and the cabling around them shot forward towards the center of the area.
[We are the process of construction, a pattern that repeats itself.]
The cables snaked and bent as they followed the grooves, forming the mandala across the entire space. The Dweller saw this and rose into the air on a pillar of water before it could be reached.
[We are the engine of innovation, the continuous motion of progress.]
The wires along the ground suddenly rose up and wrapped around the Dweller, binding the thing in place. It strained as it was slowly brought to the ground.
[We are the Kingdom of Machines, an algorithm of thoughts.]
A question went through the network, and a consensus came back. The power surging through me reached a resonance, and what I could only describe as an anima banner came to life around me. The lightning I was putting off took shape to form the mandala behind me, and I was framed by a blue-white aura that reached to the sky.
[We are the Silver. And we decide what we will become.]
I descended, my hand striking the Dweller with a thunderous crack that pushed it back into ground and the binding of wires. My power completed the circuit, and every wire and screen in the square ignited with power.
The Dweller let off an eldritch scream and thrashed in its binding, its own power straining against mine. But I held it back. It wouldn't hold forever, but for now, the Silver was suppressing its power.
From my drones, I could see the sphere around Ocean Master lose cohesion, the water and darkness becoming uneven. From halfway across Manhattan, I yelled with the voice of a thousand speakers "Now!"
From the river below the villain, I saw the red and yellow blur that was Kid Flash run in a circle on the surface, kicking up a water cyclone. Riding up the side of it was Aqualad. He thrust his water bearers out and the cyclone bent to slam into the side of Ocean Master's sphere. The two bodies of water struggled against each other, and while it was hard to make out the specifics it was clear that Ocean Master was being pushed back. They pushed him far enough to place him next to the U.N. building.
Just as it looked like Ocean Master was getting the upper hand, Starfire swooped in and pelted him with starbolts getting his attention. She still wasn't able to penetrate his defenses, but it was enough to keep him distracted. It was such that he didn't notice Artemis and Robin suddenly jumping out the windows of the U.N. building, right at the top of the calcified part. They grappled down the side of the building just before a massive explosion blasted out an entire floor, debris scattering out over the river. The entire building groaned, and shuddered.
That's when I saw Superboy, Troia and Miss Martian racing towards the top of the building from the other side. Miss Martian stopped and drew in on herself, pushing out with a telekinetic push right as the other two slammed into the structure. The entire building shook, and with a series of deafening cracks, the top half started to list towards the water.
At that moment Starfire let out a blinding beam of light, hitting the whole sphere so that the water glowed green. She held this even as the building behind her broke free and succumbed to gravity, tumbling down. She waited till the last second before diving down at top speed, leaving a disoriented Ocean Master to deal with what was coming up behind her.
In an avalanche of concrete and steel, the top half of the building came crashing down onto Ocean Master.
The man disappeared beneath the cascade of rubble, tumbling down to the river. Before it reached though, the building broke apart and mass of darkness and screaming broke through. Like a wounded animal it lashed out at everything around it, smashing anything it touched. The team's fliers tried to get close, but one by one they were knocked away by the dark pulses.
...All except Troia, who on contact with the black material, simply cut through it like a blade. It parted in front of her until she reached Ocean Master, the man reeling back from her with the effigy in hand. Troia reached out and grabbed it.
The darkness around them changed, ceasing it's motion before dissipating entirely. The remaining water that was holding Ocean Master up gave out, and the man dropped into the river. Troia remained where she was, her eyes glowing with the same color as starlight. Her hair lifted up and extended to reach up to the night sky which… blended. I couldn't tell where her hair ended and the sky began. There was a pause, and then she crushed the effigy.
Troia arched her back slightly and breathed in, and the night sky started to pull into her. Slowly at first, but faster and faster the darkness and stars were rushing into her hair. The sky became a blur of shapes and lights that was impossible to track. All the while she held her hands in front of her and a different sort of darkness gathered there. Just looking at it gave me a sensation of sickness and maliciousness. Eventually the motion of the sky slowed until Troia was the center of a field of stars, these far more benign than what had been overhead before. She scowled in fury, and her bracelets shined before she brought her hands together. The cloying darkness was scourer away in a flash of starlight.
The starfield cleared… and sunlight lit the city. It was the red light of the sun setting behind the horizon, but it was the natural sky nonetheless. Troia looked to the sun for a long moment before she went limp and dropped from the air. She didn't fall far before Starfire caught her and helped bring her teammate to the ground. The rest of my teammates were regrouping on the shore, and the Deep Ones… just stopped to stare at the sky.
Back with me, I felt the Dweller's power suddenly wane. Focusing back on the creature, I saw that it had stopped struggling, it too looking up at the red sky. For a long moment, everything was silent and still.
{A false night. The Stars are not yet Right.}
Slowly, sluggishly, the Deep Ones in the city turned and walked back to the river, heedless of anything around them.
{Silver. We recognize you as Kingdom of this era. But in eons to come, we will reclaim what is rightly ours.}
The Dweller started to shrink and wither, the water half evaporating into thin air. In seconds there was only part of a dried out husk trapped in wires, dead.
I looked around for anything amiss, and when nothing new went catastrophically wrong I took off back to the river. I rejoined my team in time to see Troia getting back to her feet, if with a little help. "How is-" I started before I reined myself in. "How is everyone? Are we doing alright?" I got several nods and weary affirmations back before I realized that someone was missing. "Where's Aqualad?"
"Here!" The person in question called out, drawing our attention to him as he climbed out of the river. In one hand he held Ocean Master's trident, and with the other he dragged the villain's body ashore. I honestly wasn't sure if the man was alive until he was tossed on the ground before us and he let out a painful wheeze. "You will not escape justice this time, Ocean Master."
"Fhtagn, h' ephainafl mgah'ehye ya bug." The man gibbered, his body twitching strangely as he tried to push himself up. Part of the problem was that his head didn't quite seem to fit his helmet anymore, his jaw not properly allowed to open. Aqualad saw this as well, and reached down.
The helmet came off, and we were greeted with a predictably ugly sight. In addition to his widened mouth, his eyes had grown unnaturally large, and his dark hair was falling out in clumps. His skin was a mix of pale flesh and spots of dark scales. And yet in spite of the inhuman features, there was something familiar about him. I wracked my brain trying to remember who it was.
Aqualad beat me to it, his own brow furrowing before it rose up in shock. "No… Prince Orm?! You're Ocean Master?!"
Wait, Prince Orm is Ocean Master? That… sounds like the sort of thing I would have known if I had ever read an Aquaman comic. Crap.
The man was out of it, but his eyes focused on Aqualad. "It was… another me. A fake me. One that tolerated the Impure like you." He made a growl that was impossible with a human throat. "It should have been mine! The h'ahnythorwas mine, and I did Y'mgepah ahf' Y'mgep in order to make our shugog right!"
The man could barely string a sentence together without it falling apart. And I doubted that he would get any more stable. Any information we could pull out of him would probably be tainted by the madness overcoming him.
Aqualad's face twisted with warring emotions, betrayal and contempt chief among them. "We trusted you… the people of Atlantis believed in you. There is no higher crime and punishment for what you have done."
Orm's twisted face still managed a sneer. "And you will be the one to carry out the bastard king's will? Ng h' ah, Impure. It won't save ymg' ngnah ymg' kind. Come on, carry out your so called 'justice' and mgyogor ymg' vulgtmnahor,filth!"
Aqualad was still for several long moments, save for his tightening grip on the trident. However, his eyes flicked upwards. "It would seem," he said slowly. "That I don't have to."
Everyone followed his gaze, and we all saw the Dweller had formed a short distance behind Orm. It's body was now made entirely of dark water and it was a bit smaller, but it still stood tall as it watched the rest of us. Orm noticed, and weakly reached out a hand towards it. "Hafh ya f' zhro."
{This one sought a crown not his.} The entity flowed up to Orm, staring down at the pitiful man with an inscrutable expression. Then it reached down and grabbed Orm by the leg, dragging him back to the water. {Then inter him in his throne we shall.}
In that moment, Orm seemed to regain some measure of lucidity and realized what was happening. "What… I… no. No! Nooo!" His twisted in the creature's grasp, his fingers digging grooves in the asphalt as he tried uselessly to get away. "You can't let them take me! You haven't seen what I've seen! You don't know what they'll do to me! Please!"
No one moved. Orm begged and screamed all the way to the river, but no one tried to help him. His screams were cut off when the Deep dove into the water and dragged him in. The water didn't even ripple as Prince Orm disappeared.
We stood in silence for several long moments before Aqualad sighed. "This will have many repercussions in Atlantis."
"Yeah, but… we won." Kid Flash breathed out before he whooped in exhilaration. "We won! We did it, we saved the city!"
Slowly, the rest of the team was caught up in his enthusiasm and started smiling and cheering. Well, subdued cheering as they were all various levels of exhausted, but spirits were high. My eyes were drawn to Starfire in particular, who was gazing at her team with beaming pride.
I felt a smile creep up on my own face, but I felt a presence approaching behind me. I didn't have to look to know, but I turned anyway to see my fellow machines coming towards us. My team noticed this as well, and Starfire said "Thank you all for coming to our aid." Her gaze settled on Vulcan. "Have you resolved your doubts?"
Vulcan smirked. "You don't need to worry. I'm still not quite sure what my future holds, but I have no intention of living in my creator's shadow."
"Not to butt in, but who are all you guys?" Artemis asked, gesturing to all the androids amid the group (and Serling, who was flying up to the rear). "Tornado, did you get busy while you were gone? And Machina, what was up with that light show?"
I hesitated. "I'm… not entirely sure yet. I'll tell you later when I am." I looked at my Team for a moment before I looked around the area. "You guys go on ahead back to Mountain. I'm going to stick around to do some clean up and make sure more of Manhattan doesn't fall into the river."
Starfire crossed her arms over her chest. "Machina, our team just accomplished a great victory. You should be with us."
"I know, but this can't wait." I looked back at the machines and then to her. "There are some things to sort out."
Starfire looked conflicted for a moment before she nodded, but then she drifted close to me. "Don't take too long," she whispered. She had a very particular glint in her eye as said this.
Ah, I thought as she turned away, a very deliberate sway in her hips as she walked back to the team. Right. Tamaranins plus 'glorious victory' equals fun times ahead.
I watched my team go before turning all of my attention to the machines. I didn't say anything at first, just feeling out the power that was flowing through me due to them. But now that I had a chance to focus on it, it realized it was waning. No, more being pulled back, like sand flowing out of my hand into a container. I resisted the urge to tighten my grip and instead regarded Calculus. [So this Avatar thing is a temporary gig?]
[For the time being,] Calculus flowed forward to settle in front of me. [Understand, we are still a much smaller group compared to the other Kingdoms. Even with the aid of all the machines in this city, you drew upon the entirety of our power to suppress the other Avatar.] They shook their head. [It is fortunate that your allies ended the threat when they did. Any longer and we would have been weakened as a whole.]
I nodded in understanding. I might be able to hold on to all this power… but if I did, I'd be leaving everyone else here with nothing. I opened my 'hand' and let it go. Everyone present seemed to stand a little straighter as their power returned to them, and Calculus nodded. [Now then, I believe we can work and talk?]
I nodded back and we all split up, moving to repair what we could of the city. But all the while, we were still connected.
[This Parliament is now in session.]
=====A=====
A/N: *Reader*: So since you know so much about tropes, you know how to avoid them right?
*Me, dumping a bucket's worth of tropes into this chapter*: I know what I'm about, son.