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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandoms:
Parahumans Series - WildbowVampire: The Masquerade
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverLasombra Antediluvian (Vampire: The Masquerade)
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Canon-Typical ViolenceAlt-Power Taylor HebertCompetent Parahuman Response Team | PRT
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English
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Published:2025-06-22Updated:2026-02-11Words:157,182Chapters:25/?Comments:650Kudos:1,403Bookmarks:540Hits:75,925
Abyssal Escalation
Zahariel_Scholar
Chapter 25: Retribution
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
"CLASS-S MEMETIC HAZARD DETECTED IN BROCKTON BAY.
SIMURGH PROTOCOLS HAVE BEEN ENACTED FOR BROCKTON BAY.
FULL QUARANTINE IS IN PROGRESS.
ALL CITIZENS REMAIN IN YOUR HOMES.
IGNORE HALLUCINATIONS; THEY ARE THE RESULT OF A MASTER POWER AND CANNOT INFLICT REAL HARM. ISOLATE YOURSELF IF YOU ARE AFFECTED TO AVOID HARMING YOURSELF AND OTHERS."
Message delivered to every communication capable device in Brockton Bay, March 15th, 2011.
Legend flew over the city, moving as fast as he ever had outside of a fight against Behemoth, where collateral damage was never a concern since every civilian still in range was already dead. The screams and sounds of gunfire reminded him unpleasantly of these desperate battles. Smoke was rising from several locations where the initial bombings had started fires, adding to the hellish impression.
Already, armed forces were converging on the city to blockade it. Despite the city's new importance on the global stage due to its most famous resident, nobody was coming in or out until this situation was resolved; not even Legend. Well, at least as far as the rules were concerned – while stopping fliers from escaping was something they had experience with, Doormaker's portals were another matter. If he wanted to, he could get out and be contained within one of Cauldron's off-world facilities until they were sure he hadn't been affected by Mama Mathers' power.
But that would be little comfort to the thousands of people trapped in a city where the Fallen were detonating suicide vests and launching attacks on public buildings with hordes of thralls. So instead, he would stay, even as the roads leading to Brockton Bay were blocked and inter-city missiles were targeted and prepared to launch across the East Coast.
This wasn't supposed to happen again, the member of the Triumvirate thought bitterly. The Simurgh was dead. These protocols, which had been written in the blood of far too many people, weren't ever supposed to be invoked again. And yet, here they were all the same.
The message had gone out on every PRT, Protectorate and law enforcement channel; Kill Orders for every cape member of the Fallen had been authorized. Legend didn't want to think of what strings Contessa must have pulled to get it done that fast; he had a feeling a number of government workers in Washington had gotten a very quick, very intimidating visit. That was the extent of the Thinker's ability to help, however; the last thing they needed was for the Mathers matriarch to get her hooks into Contessa. Ever since she'd gained that fucking power from a vial, the organization had been forced to tip-toe around her, which had made their efforts to keep the United States from collapsing even more complicated.
It hadn't been the only time Cauldron's ability to create capes had turned against them. For all the horrors Mathers was responsible for, her impact on America's collective psyche still paled in comparison to what Grey Boy had wrought before the Fairy Queen had put him out of everyone else's misery.
That had been yet another of Cauldron's failures, and one hundreds of people were still paying for, locked between life and death despite years of attempts at rescuing them, whether by breaking the time-looping bubbles the parahuman monster had created or by killing those trapped inside.
Usually, Legend didn't kill the villains he fought. He knew more than anyone how much parahumans were needed for the Endbringer fights, to say nothing of the real threat looming over all of their heads. More pragmatically, in most encounters, he had the power to capture his enemies alive without endangering civilians.
Today, however, he wasn't going to restrict himself like this. He plunged down onto City Hall, where a group of men and women carrying guns were shooting randomly into the panicked crowd. Some of them were Mastered thralls, while others were true cultists; his experience let him distinguish between them through their body language – and the fact the thralls were wearing ordinary clothes, while the Fallen were clad in the usual parody of religious clothing they used whenever they felt confident enough to come out of their hiding holes and attack people who couldn't defend themselves.
He didn't bother with trying to get them to surrender. Instead, he lashed out with his power, targeting the Fallen with precise laser bursts that incinerated them where they'd stood. Within seconds, the last cultist was reduced to a pile of ashes, and then he moved on to the thralls. Neutralizing them without permanent harm was harder, but weaker laser bursts broke their weapons and blinded them, leaving them vulnerable to the mundane security personel who had survived the initial explosion and were rallying at the sight of a Protectorate cape.
"Come on !" Legend shouted, putting every bit of charisma he could muster into the words. "These people have been Mastered ! They need to be secured before they harm themselves !"
The guards who had survived the attack started to come out of cover, understandably hesitant to approach the writhing thralls. Then the sky turned dark, and Legend reflexively looked up to see the same thing he'd seen at Canberra : a carpet of purest black, spreading across the heavens. It seemed that the Fallen had successfully roused Lasombra from his usual daily inactivity.
Which must have been their goal all along, Legend realized. The Endbringer cultists were insane, yes, but their leadership wasn't made up entirely of idiots; if it were, the organization would have been dismantled long ago, Thinker support or not. They had to have a plan, but what that plan was, Legend couldn't begin to guess. Did they want to kill Lasombra in revenge for the Simurgh, or, worse, turn him to their cause, like they had far too many capes who'd had the misfortune of falling into their hands over the decades ?
The thought of what the Fallen could do if they managed to get to Lasombra was horrifying. The Protectorate's file on Lasombra was as long as one might expect, and the section titled 'Destructive Potential', which contained their analysts' best attempts at figuring out what would happen if the Endkiller went rogue, was the stuff of nightmares. Lasombra could teleport anywhere on Earth, and there was no known countermeasure to stop him. He could become an Endbringer-level threat all on his own, and Legend had the horrible suspicion that may very well be what the Fallen intended : to avenge the death of the Simurgh by forcing her killer to become her replacement – proving every crackpot theory about the Endbringers being mutated parahumans who'd lost control of their powers true in the bargain, which on its own would be enough to cause irreparable damage to their already fraying society.
No, Legend told himself as he flew out, then came back down elsewhere and blinded another group of thralls so that a squad of nearby PRT troopers, who had been caught on patrol when the attacks had started, could trap them in con-foam. The Simurgh herself couldn't Master him. He will be fine.
He had to be. Lasombra was the first hint that maybe, just maybe, the end of the world wasn't inevitable they'd got since … since Hero's death. They couldn't lose him to the fucking Fallen.
In that moment, Legend decided that, whatever else happened, the Mathers branch of the Fallen would die in Brockton Bay. None of their members, be they cape or no, would make it out of the city; he would make sure of it.
Although truth be told; he suspected he wouldn't have the chance. For just as had happened on Canberra, with the darkness came the wrath of the Endkiller.
And whatever they might think in their fanatical, crazed delusions, the Fallen were not ready for it.
My mind roamed the shadowscape, hearing every cry of pain, every call for help that permeated Brockton Bay's reflection in that strange, half-way realm between reality and the Abyss. The city was drowning in terror, with nowhere being safe from harm. The Fallen had spread out their attacks, making it more difficult for me to deal with them all at once. I could have tried to identify the cruelty and sadism of whoever was responsible for this, but it would take time, time that the people of my city didn't have.
So I went for the greatest concentration of negative emotions instead, and rose from the shadows there in the fullness of my power and fury. I found myself standing in front of the BBPD headquarters, with police officers laying dead on the ground and Fallen in parodies of religious clothes holding guns and knives.
"I AM HERE," I declared; a proclamation of protection and impending retribution all at once.
Then, before the Fallen could do more than gape at my sudden manifestation, I lashed out with my tentacles. For once, I didn't bother with theatrics, only sheer efficiency. Bones and weapons broke, and Marchosias leapt from the shadows to bite anyone who looked like they were about to open fire in the general direction of the bystanders, adding their terrified screams to the cacophony.
I was sorely tempted not to hold back beyond what was necessary to avoid turning them into bloody mist and shattering nearby buildings with the shockwaves. But even in my rage, I was dimly aware that the indiscriminate slaughter of unpowered thugs wouldn't look good in the eyes of the authorities, especially since they knew I had the ability to avoid it. Also, a part of me thought that death was too good for them – I wanted them to live so that they could witness the end of their miserable cult, not become its martyrs.
That wasn't to say I was kind. Within seconds of my arrival, none of the Fallen nearby were conscious, and few of them would be able to walk within less than a year or live the rest of their miserable lives without some kind of chronic pain or debilitating injury without Panacea's intervention – and somehow, I had a feeling she was going to have better things to spend her hospital time on.
It was easy for me to distinguish between the cultists and their Mastered victims. Their terror at whatever was happening to them blazed in the shadowscape. I caught a man who'd been trying to smash his head open against a brick wall (and, judging by the blood running down his forehead, well on his way to succeeding) and, as gently as I could, peered into his wide, bloodshot eyes.
I saw a woman looking back through his eyes, aged beyond her years by her own evil. All of the poor man's senses were parasited like this, used both to collect information by her parahuman power and to torment him, until he was too scared, too broken, to resist. It was a brutish treatment, akin to conditioning an animal with electric shocks; but it had been enough to turn hundreds of people into unwilling servants of the Fallen, fear of what the woman inside their heads would do greater than anything else.
"BE FREE," I commanded, and the thread linking the man to the Fallen Master snapped. He fell to his knees as I released him, shaking and weeping in relief at his regained freedom, but I had no time to tend to him. There were still a lot more Mastered victims around, staring at me with mixed terror and hope – too many for me to get to one by one.
But unlike before Canberra, I knew I didn't have to free them one by one.
Usually, Vampires like Lau-Som-Bheu needed to look into the eyes of their victims to force their will upon them. But my projection didn't have eyes, not really. It was only through force of habit that I perceived things as if looking out of its head; there wasn't any real difference between that part of it and the rest of the Abyssal stuff I shaped into the rest of its body or my shadowy tentacles.
As gently as I could, I extended my tendrils and wrapped them around the eyes of every thrall in the vicinity, like some kind of terrifying blindfold. After a moment, I felt the connection between my mind and theirs form. I couldn't peer into their memories as I could in a one-on-one connection; multitasking on that level was beyond me, at least for now. But I could give them orders.
"BE FREE," I commanded once more, and two dozen threads were cut off at once.
Some of the newly freed thralls joined the first by collapsing to the ground and weeping, while others dropped their weapons but remained standing. I saw them glare at the unconscious Fallen, and briefly wondered whether I should do something about it – but then, I felt the pull of another fight nearby, and decided that I didn't really care.
I slipped back into the shadowscape, Marchosias following, and immediately emerged elsewhere in Brockton Bay. This time, I found myself in the middle of a full-fledged riot, with Mastered thralls running around in all directions and lashing out at everyone around them, seeing them not as scared, confused people, but as whatever hallucinations the Fallen Master was forcing them to see.
If nothing else, the sheer multi-tasking involved in this atrocity was impressive, I reflected darkly. The white-haired woman I'd glimpsed was managing the sensory feedback of hundreds of victims and altering their perceptions at the same time across the entire city. No human brain should be capable of such a thing; presumably, the entity which had bonded with her to give her her power was taking care of the processing issue.
I slammed my cane down and drew on the Abyss once more. Tentacles of shadow erupted all around me, wrapping themselves around every single Mastered person in the vicinity.
"BE FREE !" I commanded for the third time, and once again, my will was done. The riot ended abruptly, the sound of terrified screaming replaced by wailing as the former Mastered victims realized what they had been doing, several looking at their own bloody hands in abject horror. Others looked at me with wide, awed eyes.
"ENDURE," I said simply. Emergency services across town were overwhelmed; the injured would need help from those who were physically untouched until true medical care could get here – but they wouldn't until the situation calmed down.
Dealing with this part of the attack had only taken me a moment, but still, I wasn't fast enough. I could only be at one place at a time, and the Fallen were seemingly everywhere. I hadn't encountered any of their capes yet, but I could tell they were out there, rampaging alongside their minions and thralls, indulging their darkest impulses under the guise of holy retribution – just as countless men had done since the Lord had first revealed Himself to Man and demanded the worship He was owed, Lau-Som-Bheu's Clan among them –
Wait.
A new memory bubbled to the surface of my mind, dislodged by my train of thought. I might only be able to project my consciousness into a single vessel of Abyssal stuff, and summoning more creatures like Marchosias wasn't a good idea in the long run; I now knew I'd been extraordinarily lucky with my summoning of the great she-wolf, thanks to the circumstances of her summoning and the materials I'd used to give her the ability to manifest in the material world. I didn't have a room full of dead pets to use as the model for another Abyssal creature's vessel this time, which was perhaps the one good thing about this entire mess.
But there was something else I could use, less powerful and permanent, but more suited to my current needs. A use of Clan Lasombra's signature power over darkness in all its forms that had been designed by one of Lau-Som-Bheu's childer, before he'd stolen it for himself along with the credit for inventing it.
I forced myself to stop for a moment, and cast my mind into the Abyss, my projection remaining immobile where it stood, still surrounded by the crowd I'd just freed. There, I drew more of the stuff of raw un-Creation to me, and poured a portion of my will into it, following instincts shaped by my inherited knowledge.
When I returned my consciousness to my projection, five more figures stood around me, each one an echo of Lasombra's own form. These were Dark Hunters; constructs of Abyssal energy wrought in the image of their creator through the use of advanced Obtenebration. In Lau-Som-Bheu's memories, they had been used by the mightiest of the Clan of Shadows – not to target their rivals, for anyone at that level of power could deal with a Dark Hunter with trivial ease, but to enforce their will upon those weaker than themselves. In a way, the power was representative of the Clan's entire toxic mentality, as it was useless except against those weaker than oneself.
"HUNT," I said, burning the commands into the constructs' artificial minds. "KILL."
The Dark Hunters' orders, imbued within these two words, were simple : find the Fallen capes across the city and kill them. They couldn't use all of my projection's powers, but they were just as fast and strong, and ran on my subconscious to fulfil my commands – so there was no risk of them doing something I would disapprove of while following their commands.
And while I didn't want to kill the Fallen's unpowered minions, their capes were another story. Nobody would blame me for killing the villains responsible for such an attack – not even myself.
The Dark Hunters vanished into the shadows from which they had come, and I did the same with my main projection, letting my awareness spread across the city once more.
Brian had been having a good day before it had gone to hell. Life in general had been going great for him since Lasombra had killed Coil and Tattletale had stolen their dead boss' money and used it to set them up with regular, legal-looking income streams.
In hindsight, he should have seen that as a warning sign. Nothing ever came free, and apparently, the price of being the hometown of the Endkiller was that the lunatics who'd seen the Endbringers murder city after city and decided that trying to emulate them was a good idea was being the target of said lunatics' anger.
He hadn't been carrying his gear when the explosions had started, because only a moron went out on a shopping trip with recognizable villain equipment on him. So, instead of his custom-made skull mask, he was covering his face with a standard balaclava that he did carry in his pockets everywhere, just in case.
"Aisha," he called out, fighting to draw breath through his exhaustion. "You good ?"
He heard his sister grunt something back from the store she was hiding in behind him, along with a bunch of random civvies who'd been enjoying a nice day of shopping on the Boardwalk before the madness had begun. It didn't sound like she was hurt, so he didn't turn to check himself, despite how much he wanted to.
"This is crazy," muttered Parian. "I'm a tailor, not a fighter. What the hell am I doing here ?"
"Believe me," Brian said, "I'm asking myself the same question."
The rogue had been doing one of her show on the Boardwalk when the explosions had started. She'd actually saved a bunch of people by using one of her huge dolls to tackle a suicide bomber before he'd time to finish his death speech.
More of her puppets were moving around, blocking out shots and body-blocking the Fallen (it didn't take a Thinker to know who they were when they all screamed about the Holy Endbringers and retribution for Canberra) and their thralls. You wouldn't have thought it looking at the dolls, but however Parian's power worked, it also made them a lot more resilient than they should be.
They hadn't meant to fight together. Aisha had wanted to watch the rogue's show while they were out, and Brian had agreed. He didn't mind admitting that he admired Parian; before Lasombra's arrival, it took guts to stick to being independent without being recruited by any of the gangs in town (and yes, he counted the Protectorate as one, which might not be entirely fair to them, but he still had the scars from where Shadow Stalker had shot him with her crossbow, so screw them). And staying in town after the Endkiller's clean-up … well, that took guts too.
Watching as a two-meters high teddy bear slapped the guns out of the hands of a man who'd the look of someone on too many drugs to be reasoned with, Brian reflected that he understood how Parian had made her neutrality stick a lot better now. If nothing else, he could imagine the Empire Eighty-Eight not wanting their capes and thugs to be seen taking a beatdown from a giant felt doll. That wouldn't have done their vaunted 'warrior' image any good (not that anyone with more than two brain cells hadn't already seen right through that flimsy lie, but Kaiser's control of the E88 had been built on image as much as any other would-be fascist tyrant).
"Well, well, well," a voice that reminded Brian entirely too much of insults and taunts thrown his way by bald men with Nazi tattoos while he was out late called out. "What do we have here ? A pair of heretics standing in the way of the faithful's work ? And here I thought this would be boring !"
The man was wearing a helmet shaped like the skull of a crocodile, and a costume that looked like scales. Having spent the last few years going around wearing a skull-faced helmet, Brian knew he shouldn't judge another cape for their choice of outfit, but right now, he wasn't feeling particularly fair toward Fallen scumbags.
A gaggle of armed minions were scattered around the man in what could generously be called a guarding formation. All of them were wearing the same kind of fake reptilian leather outfit – and if Brian, who knew exactly as much about fashion as the average man his age, could tell it was fake, then clearly the Fallen had gone for the cheapest option to outfit their crew.
"Who the fuck are you ?" asked Brian, preparing to drop more darkness around him. If (or rather, when) this turned into a fight, he'd have to keep Aisha and the civilians covered while Parian's dolls did the brunt of the fighting – which, given the rogue couldn't see through his darkness, was going to be a challenge.
All of that, of course, depended on what power the other cape had. The bastard had seen Grue and Parian at work, so he should have a rough idea of their capabilities; if he was willing to fight them with that information, then he must assume he could win. Hopefully he was arrogant, fanatical, or just plain crazy enough to be wrong; otherwise, this could go very wrong very, very fast.
"I am Agares," the cape replied with a wide, demented smile. "And I'm going to enjoy making the two of you my bitches !"
Suddenly, Brian felt cold and afraid. His hands were trembling. His legs were shaking, and his vision was blurry. All of a sudden, he was back to that awful moment, alone and bleeding as blows rained down on him, desperately wishing he could hide – not fight, hide, hide from the pain and the death that was coming –
Master power, some small part of him whispered. He's making me feel this. This isn't real. It isn't real. It isn't –
He tried to fight the unnatural terror that was consuming him, to force it away through stubbornness and rage. But willpower was no help against parahuman powers that affected brain chemistry directly; else someone like Heartbreaker wouldn't be nearly the terror he was. It was all he could do to stay standing despite his trembling legs; next to him, he heard Parian whine in terror – yet the rogue stayed on her feet just as he did, even though neither of them would be able to do so for much longer –
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
That sound. Brian knew that sound; everyone in Brockton Bay, hell, probably everyone in the country had heard recordings of it by now. And sure enough, when Brian managed fight his way through the shakes and turn his head toward its source along with everyone else, there was Lasombra … or so it seemed.
The last time he had seen Lasombra, the cape had looked like someone had cut a piece of absolute darkness into the shape of a person with a razor blade. Here, however, the black apparition's edges were frayed, like a three-dimensional shadow cast by a more diffuse source of light. Before, it'd been possible to assume Lasombra was wearing some kind of high-end, all-black suit, but now, it was clear the suit was only an affectation. The same was true of the cane he was holding, which tapped the ground at his side in a noise that still haunted Brian's dreams from when he'd heard it on the night Hookwolf had gone down.
Brian had a feeling that this wasn't Lasombra, anymore than the giant wolf he'd summoned that night. But it was related to the Endkiller, that much was clear. He supposed someone else with shadow-manipulating powers might be trying to emulate Lasombra, but there was something about the other cape's power that felt impossible to fake, although damn if he could put it into words.
The unnatural terror vanished as if it had never been there, replaced by an entirely natural and reasonable wariness of the cape who had blotted out the Sun.
"You !" the Fallen cape started. "Mama knew this would –"
And then he died. No, not 'died'; that word wasn't sufficient to describe what happened. He exploded. The not-quite-Lasombra moved and punched him in the chest, and the cape came undone, his entire upper body disintegrating under the strength of the blow, turned into a crimson mist that drifted through the air behind the still-standing legs. There was a boom as the air vibrated from the strength of the impact, and Brian saw a few nearby windows that had gone untouched during the fighting so far crack.
Holy shit, Brian thought. He'd known Lasombra had been holding back when fighting ordinary criminals or even Lung and Hookwolf – if he hadn't, he couldn't have hurt the Simurgh. But knowing about something and seeing it with his own two eyes were two very different things.
The shadow turned to look at Brian, who froze in place, fighting to keep himself from panicking. Then it nodded, a small and barely perceptible gesture of acknowledgment, before vanishing.
"Fuck me," he heard Aisha say from behind him. "That's your boss, bro ?"
"Yeah," Brian replied before he could think. "Yeah, it is."
Well, technically Lasombra was Tats' boss; it wasn't like he, Rachel or Alec were doing a lot of work for the Endkiller. But it wasn't like Brian was going to refuse any order from Lasombra if he ever gave him one either; regardless of what his decision to work as an independent cape-for-hire on the East Coast might imply, he wasn't stupid.
"Wow !" Aisha gushed. "I knew he was hardcore, but that was awesome !"
Great. Well, better she be excited than traumatized, he guessed. Then, as he turned toward his sister, he noticed the looks the rest of the civilians were sending his way. He started tensing, wondering if someone was going to do something stupid – then he heard what they were saying.
"… called the darkness, and Lasombra came …"
"… the Undersiders were in town before Lasombra showed up, though …"
"… a relative ? She calls him brother, maybe a parent ?"
Oh, fuck. He hadn't thought about how this would look, people who'd just seen him use his power (for a certain value of 'seen') then seeing Lasombra in action. Sure, powers could look similar even when the two parahumans were completely unrelated – such as Shadow Stalker's and his own – but not everyone knew that, and Lasombra already broke so many rules, what was one more ?
As he went back to keeping an eye out for more Fallen and sweeping the Boardwalk for people in need of assistance (Lasombra might not have explicitly ordered him to, but the Endkiller was helping, so better do it as well than risk pissing him off, plus he needed to set a good example for Aisha), Brian swore that, if the theory about him being related to Lasombra popped up on PHO, he would make Tats pay for it.
I watched through the 'eyes' of my Dark Hunters as they moved through town, even as I continued to control my main projection to free the Mastered victims left in their wake. The effort was somewhat straining, but I didn't need to watch them all the time or all at once; I could flick my mind's eye to one or the other in turn without issue, just like the original Obtenebration power I'd copied (not that many of its few users had ever needed to summon multiple constructs at once).
I saw the dead and the dying, the wounded and the terrified. I saw burning and bombed-out buildings, brought low by mundane means wielded by enslaved men and women.
But that wasn't all. I also saw people, parahumans and not, fight back against the Fallen and their thralls. A hundred, a thousand sparks of defiance against the mad cultists who worshipped the abominations that sought to end Human civilization for a purpose that yet eluded me.
Through the senses of my Dark Hunters, I saw Grue keep a bunch of Fallen and their thralls busy long enough for me to intervene. Elsewhere, I saw Armsmaster deploy crowd countermeasures that incapacitated a score thralls at the same time, all while he was engaged with a Brute with bestial features and winning. At the central hospital, my Dark Hunter found Glory Girl radiating awe and terror as she fought to cover her sister while she healed those left alive from the initial bombing. It broke the neck of the Striker who'd been hurling anomalous projectiles at her, and she nodded fiercely, looking only a little green at the casual kill.
And at the Docks, I saw Dad direct the defense, his parahuman power in full display for all to see. He wasn't in any kind of costume, just the clothes he'd been wearing when he'd left home this morning, and while most people around him were busy following his instructions and preparing for another wave, more than a few were taking pictures.
Despite everything, I smiled. This was Brockton Bay. If the Fallen had expected the city to be easy prey, then they clearly didn't know us. The locals hadn't given up even when a rage dragon and literal Nazis had battled the law to rule the streets; if nothing else, we were all most stubborn than was probably good for us.
Then I heard something. A hundred voices speaking in ragged unison, shouting one word, over and over again :
"LASOMBRA !"
I followed the sound, and my projection reformed inside a public park at the edge of what had been ABB territory until recently. Over a hundred people were standing there, all of them civilians : I couldn't sense any Fallen nearby.
And they were all holding knives at each other's throats. Not a single one of them was doing it willingly; I could sense their terror, guilt and horror radiating in the shadowscape. But whatever their Master had done to them, they didn't dare move the blades away.
I wondered, if the order came, how many of them were so broken by fear that they would do it. How many would choose to endure whatever the Fallen cape could throw at them rather than murder someone else, only for the person holding the knife to their throat to give in. From what I'd gleaned so far, the Master's power could 'only' change what her victims' senses were perceiving; she couldn't literally force them to act, only deceive and punish them into doing so themselves.
No. I wouldn't let it come to that. The Empire had already tried using hostages against me; it hadn't worked out for them, and it wouldn't for the Fallen either.
"I AM HERE," I declared, and they fell silent, no longer screaming my name to the heavens.
One of them, a middle-aged woman wearing a nice wool sweater, stepped out of the crowd and came closer to me. She was pale with terror and shaking like a leaf in a storm, and there was a kitchen knife in her right hand she was holding with a white-knuckles grip, as if terrified of letting it go.
"WHO ?" I asked, barely managing to keep the full extent of my wrath from my voice so as to avoid harming the thrall.
"Mama is watching," said the woman, shivering. "She knows what you have done to her children. She isn't happy about it. No, not at all – aaaaaaah !"
She screamed and convulsed, then suddenly froze. I yearned to seize and free her, but I couldn't, not yet. I could tell where this was going, and I needed information to put an end to this nightmare that had descended on my city.
"Come find us, Pretender" the woman said in between broken sobs. "We are waiting. The Mathers Clan will punish you for your blasphemy."
"WHERE ?" I asked again.
She told me, giving me an address in the outskirts of town. Despite how terrified she was, she made sure to articulate every word to make sure I understood.
"Try to bring the Protectorate with you, and every single thrall will die before you can get to them," she added, pale as a sheet. "Not just these ones, but every single one across the city will spill their own blood, the blood of their loved ones, of their children."
Then she collapsed, spasming like someone was putting a live wire to her muscles, and I caught her just before she could bash her skull against the pavement. Then, before I had time to hesitate, I stretched my power across the street, drawing on the Abyss faster than I had since Canberra in order to stop every single thrall in the vicinity from using their knives.
I heard shouts of pain as bones broke, as I was forced not to be as gentle as I wished, but I forced myself to ignore them. Better a few weeks with a cast than a lifetime of guilt for being used as a murder weapon. Once they were all safely wrapped in my embrace, I severed their connection to the Master – to this 'Mama'.
I had a name now. 'Mathers'. I had done some research on the Fallen, once it had become clear my fame was spreading beyond Brockton Bay, and I knew them to be worshippers of the Simurgh. I had already known this attack was happening because of my presence here, and this confirmed it – as did the invitation, the challenge, I'd just been given.
I knew it was a trap. It could be nothing but a trap. But what choice did I have ? I hadn't been able to sense the preparations of this attack, so whatever the mechanics of the power Mama Mathers was using, she could just keep doing it. I couldn't run around freeing her thralls; there were simply too many of them, and every single one of them as a hostage. A cold, analytical part of me told me that she'd probably waited to approach me until now because she wanted me to realize I couldn't get to all her victims in time, as well as to see if I could be exhausted through repeated teleportations.
I could. There were limits to my power, and stamina was one of them. But I was still far, far from reaching the exhaustion I'd felt when fighting the Simurgh, and for all her religious delusions, Mama Mathers was no Endbringer.
I would answer her challenge. Whatever trap she had laid for me, I would break.
And then, I thought coldly, I would kill her. No other outcome was acceptable. Even if I handed her over to the PRT, they would simply put a bullet in her head; she was simply too dangerous to keep alive.
The holy battle wasn't going as well as Mama had hoped.
The first part had gone exactly to plan. Valefor's thralls, made immune to fear by the repeated use of his blessing on them, had succeeded in delivering the explosives they'd carried to their intended locations in most cases, plunging the city into a state of panic, wondering where the next explosion would be. They'd staggered the detonations as much as they could to maximize the panic, and by the time the last of her son's living tools had given their lives to the cause, the heretic city had been in a most satisfying state of terror.
Then Mama had watched through the eyes of her thralls as the sun went dark and Brockton Bay fell into darkness. She had felt the fear of her faithful at the sight, and whispered into their ears to rekindle the flame of their faith, words of encouragement and admonishment alike. How dare they let their faith waver from such pagan display of power ? They were the chosen of the Holy Endbringers, blessed with their own divine powers to do their will !
She had also felt the surge of terrified hope the sight inspired in the thralls she'd claimed in the city, and she had sneered. They thought their precious 'Endkiller' would save them, did they ? Well, they would learn their mistake soon enough. She had redoubled her efforts, lashing out at her rebellious thralls with nightmarish images and sensations to teach them the price of defiance.
Then she'd found out that Lasombra could sever her connection to her thralls somehow. That had never happened before. It was possible for the connection to weaken over time if it wasn't reinforced, but it had never been cancelled so abruptly.
The information on Lasombra she'd obtained had mentioned that he possessed some kind of anti-Master power, but nothing about how widely it could be spread. Losing so many of her thralls had hurt, in a way she hadn't known her power could before. Blood was dripping from her nose due to the backlash of the links being severed, much to the agitation of her son, who fussed over her physical form even as her mind roamed across the city, guiding her remaining thralls.
In addition to these losses, many of her faithful blessed had fallen as well. Some of them had been captured by the so-called 'heroes'; more had been killed outright, including several by Lasombra himself. She'd expected some of them to become martyrs today, but more than she'd anticipated had already been sent to their final reward. Lasombra in particular seemed to be everywhere at once, butchering the faithful without mercy or hesitation.
No matter. It would all be worth it once the Pretender was brought to heel and forced to bring the Simurgh back from wherever it was he'd banished her, through what he no doubt thought was great trickery. Every parahuman in Brockton Bay would be made into the Great Angel's servant, which would more than compensate for the losses of the faithful.
She'd been forced to change her plans on the fly, and cut down the planned destruction of the city over hours, or even days, during which Lasombra would have been forced to run around, exhausting himself physically and mentally. Instead, she'd activated her ploy to inform him of her location, knowing he couldn't ignore such tempting bait, even if he had to be aware that a trap had been laid for him.
He was coming. She allowed herself a moment to feel fear herself, before ruthlessly crushing it down under the weight of her faith and confidence. The Pretender's arrogance, the same flaw which had seen him dare believe he could oppose the Holy Endbringers, would be his undoing in the end.
The Fallen had taken over a small church in the outskirts of Brockton Bay for their trap. Leet didn't know what he'd expected when he'd been brought here along with his latest Tinkertech device; maybe blood-soaked altars, sacrificed children hanging from the ceiling by their own intestines, that kind of stuff. The stories about the Fallen online were the stuff of nightmare, though there was very little concrete information to be found about the cult – which of course only fuelled speculation.
Instead, the place looked disturbingly normal. Not that Leet had a lot of experience being in a church, but apart from the icons of the Simurgh that had been put up in the place of the more traditional religious iconography, it all seemed … well, normal.
Somehow, that made the few differences worse. In addition to the change in iconography, the congregation sitting down at the pews weren't willing participants but more thralls Mama had commanded come and kneel before the image of the Simurgh. There were about sixty people packed into the building, looking like they'd come from all across the city. Uber was among them, bound just as they were. Mama had said he wasn't worthy of the honor of standing at her side when she brought Lasombra to justice, but Leet thought it was more that she didn't want his friend to take a swing at her while she was distracted by the Endkiller.
There was nothing Leet could do to help them. Mama was watching, always watching, and if he tried to disobey her orders, she'd notice and punish him and Uber for it. So the Tinker forced himself not to look at the civilians and focused instead on making one last round of checks of his latest invention.
The device had been placed at the end of the nave, where a small-ish pipe organ had stood before being dismantled by the Fallen. It was huge, a construct of metal, plastic, wires and other things that hummed and purred with several internal power generators.
Ordinarily, building something this size would have taken him weeks, if not months. But Mama had been very motivating, and after the first couple of days, she'd brought in a bunch of minions and told them to assist him. Most of them didn't know the first thing about technology – surprise surprise, the cult of inbred madmen wasn't big on advanced education – but they had followed his instructions religiously.
Though he hadn't been religious in a long time, Leet wanted to pray now, to ask any god who cared to listen to get him and Uber out of this. But he didn't dare to. Mama could sense it when he did, and she punished him for it, saying the only ones he should be praying to were the Endbringers.
He hadn't done that. She hadn't bothered trying to force him to, probably because she wanted him to mean it, and she'd need him to break him for that. And there hadn't been time, not when she wanted him to work on the machine.
But she'd promised him that he would pray to the Endbringers eventually, and Leet believed her despite all his attempts not to. The days since Mama had come to their lair felt like an eternity, even though objectively, he knew it hadn't been that long.
"He is coming," Mama rasped from her place standing behind the altar. "Prepare yourselves, children."
The doors of the church slammed open, and the temperature inside dropped dramatically. Shadows swept through the opening like mist, spreading across the church, questing, searching. Leet risked a look and saw that they were wrapping themselves around the ankles of the hostages like snakes, before abruptly retracting back through the door.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The Endkiller strode through the church's entrance, his cane tap-tapping on the hard floor with every step. He paused at the back of the rows of pews, turned his faceless head toward Mama, and said :
"I AM HERE."
Lasombra's voice was an attack all by itself. It came out of every shadow cast by the candles and electric lights, loaded with threat and the promise of retribution. Leet shivered as he felt that voice pass over him, even though he wasn't its target.
"Here you are indeed," Mama called out, smiling. "I knew you would come, Pretender. I am Mama Mathers, and these," she stretched out her thin arms to gesture at the 'congregation' and the handful of other capes at her side, among whom was Uber, looking as terrified as Leet felt, "are my faithful."
"FAITHFUL," Lasombra repeated, the word thick with contempt. "LIES."
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Slowly, deliberately, Lasombra walked down the aisle between pews, his eyeless face fixed on Mama.
"FALSE PROPHET," the shadows howled with every step, and Leet bent over as he was suddenly struck by a violent headache. As he blinked away tears of pain, he saw that the Fallen were doing the same, except for Mama, who stared back at Lasombra with a defiant, mocking smirk that didn't do nearly enough to conceal her rabid hatred. "OF A FALSE, DEAD GOD."
"You can deceive the rabble, Pretender, but I know the truth," Mama proclaimed. "You are the Devil's instrument, sent on this world to give false hope to Mankind and lead them down the path of depravity and blasphemy, instead of embracing the Holy Endbringers ! But the wrath of the Angel has found you, heretic !"
Lasombra actually posed at that, and cocked his head to the side to stare at Mama.
Now, Mama's voice shouted in Leet's mind. Now, you idiot child !
The Tinker didn't want to do it. He wanted, more than anything, for this nightmare to never have happened; for him and Uber to have made the smart decision and gotten out of Brockton Bay weeks ago.
But he was scared, scared of the pain Mama would inflict on him if he disobeyed, would inflict on his one friend. So, hating himself for his cowardice and weakness, Leet threw the switch, and across the open space of the church opened several portals to a location high in the air several hundred kilometers away – in the middle of a bright, sunny day.
The light of the Sun poured through the portals. This wasn't any artificial blend of UV rays, but the light of the real sun. Lasombra's vulnerability to sunlight was well known – there might be other reasons for him coming out only at night, but why else would he have needed to blot out the Sun above Canberra ? But Mama had access to other information sources, which told how Lung's fire had harmed the Endkiller during their brief fight, as had the blasts from Purity when the Empire Eighty-Eight had tried to ambush him.
That was why Mama had needed Leet. The Fallen didn't have Tinkers; they didn't have the patience or temperament for them. When Mama had told him what she needed, Leet hadn't been sure he could build it – a portal gun had been among the first things he'd built after his Trigger. But he had managed it, probably because the portals only needed to let light through, which was different enough for his power's flaw not to ruin it.
Lasombra screamed. His shadowy form began to unravel the moment the portals were activated. He stumbled, needing to use his cane to stay upright, black smoke rising from his body.
Fuck. Until now, Leet had hoped that his invention wouldn't work; that he'd missed something during the construction process, some flaw that would have caused it to fail upon activation. Why, out of everything, did this have to be the invention of his that actually worked ?!
Lasombra continued to burn, even as he continued to march toward Mama, until his body fell apart, each piece dissolving into black particles that disappeared into nothingness.
No, the Tinker thought, horrified. No, surely not. Leet couldn't have killed Lasombra with his invention. He couldn't. This couldn't be happening –
"I AM BEYOND ENDING," a voice called out from outside. Once again, Lasombra stepped into the church, looking as if nothing had happened – and once again, the moment he entered the sunlight, he burned, disappearing before he could reach the altar and Mama.
And again, he re-appeared outside the church and walked straight in, before burning again. And again. And again …
Why ? Leet asked himself. Why was he doing this ? He was the Endkiller, the most powerful cape in the world bar Scion. Mama had thought the portals would either kill him or cancel his Breaker form, leaving him vulnerable. But if all the sunlight did was inconvenience him, why did he keep coming back ? Did he have a plan ? He had to, Leet told himself. There had to be a method to this apparent madness.
Then, finally, after burning and dissolving into nothingness twelve time, a different figure stepped through the church's entrance. This Lasombra was smaller than the previous ones. She (and it was clearly a she, that much was obvious even with the costume covering her entire body) walked through the doors without a cane, and her presence was much less disturbing than the faceless body double she'd been using. Long dark hair flowed behind her, and the cloth that covered her face had the suggestion of a nose, mouth, and eyes, unlike the smooth, mannequin-like appearance of before.
Not that there was nothing disturbing about the girl, far from it. She moved like a predator on the hunt, projecting a level of confidence Leet could only dream of pulling off. Wafts of darkness rose from her like smoke from a raging pyre, only to immediately dissipate in the harsh sunlight; like all the darkness in the universe was contained just beneath her skin, always leaking out only to be pushed back by the light.
"I see," Mama crowed with hideous delight. "The great and mighty Lasombra is nothing but a projection, sent out to fight while its Master remains safely hidden ! How deliciously cowardly ! But it was foolish of you to come out here in person, girl. Now that you are here, you. Are. Mine."
The girl stopped. Cocked her head. Then said, in a voice that echoed with power but distinctly came from under her mask :
"No, I am not. Nor shall I ever be."
Even through the full-body coverage I wore, the sunlight hurt. There was blackness at the edge of my sight that had nothing to do with my powers, and it felt as if my entire nervous system was on fire.
Despite Lasombra being only a projection, I had felt every single projection unravel. Even though I was no vampire myself, the curse of Raphael and the Abyss' innate weakness of sunlight combined to make me feel more drained than I had since fighting the Simurgh itself – or so I guessed, anyway, as I didn't have any means of confirming the metaphysics at play.
My body was infused with the stuff of the Abyss, dragged into Creation by my will to emulate a portion of the strength that had been natural to Lau-Som-Bheu's bloodline. Unlike when I'd burst out of Coil's lair right before it had collapsed, however, I kept calling up more of the stuff into my body even as it burned away under the sunlight, fighting through the pain with single-minded determination.
Lisa had startled when I had opened my true body's eyes and abruptly stood up from the couch where she'd moved me. She'd balked when I had asked her to give me the costume she'd commissioned for me a couple of weeks ago, 'just in case', but she hadn't bothered trying to dissuade me – I guessed her Thinker power let her understand me well enough to realize it would be futile.
Though this wasn't exactly the time to appreciate it, the costume was really nice. It was made to look as close to my Lasombra projection as possible, with fabric that probably cost more than every piece of clothing Emma had ever worn put together.
Changing into it while maintaining Tchernabog over Brockton Bay, keeping the Dark Hunters active, and sending new projections into the church to keep the Fallen distracted had been a challenge. I wasn't sure I could have managed it without Tattletale's help, but with her assistance, I'd been ready to go in a couple of long, agonizing minutes.
I knew I was taking a risk by doing this. I was making a gamble that had the potential to go very, very wrong. But I couldn't think of a better alternative; with the people tied to the pews inside, I couldn't just smash the church flat from the outside, wait for the damage to break the Tinkertech machine, and then go through the rubble and finish off the surviving Fallen.
I mean, I could. Very few people would blame me for that; the use of inter-city missiles against sufficiently dangerous parahumans was standard PRT policy for very good reasons, and Mama Mathers definitely qualified. But sacrificing a bunch of innocent people to avoid personal danger was what Lau-Som-Bheu would have done if faced with this situation, so I wanted to avoid that option at all costs.
My alternative plan, if it could be called such, was simple : get close to Mama Mathers and kill her. Everything after that point was, admittedly, rather vague, but I would have options the moment she wasn't holding thousands of people outside the church hostage. I could power through the pain and get out of the sunlight, break the portal device, something. Cutting off the head of the snake would cripple the Fallen in Brockton Bay, and I refused to believe Leet was working with these maniacs willingly.
The one bit of good news was that the church itself didn't hurt me, which had been a worry once I'd realized what the address I'd been given actually was. I hadn't stepped foot into a church (or a synagogue or mosque, for that matter) since inheriting Lau-Som-Bheu's powers, but either I wasn't affected by the weakness to True Faith all descendants of Caine suffered from, the church wasn't considered holy ground, or the mere presence of the Fallen was enough for it to be desecrated.
My projection had gone in unaffected, but I hadn't been sure the same would apply to me, since I was the one who had absorbed Lau-Som-Bheu's … essence. Fortunately, that was the case, so all I needed to worry about was the searing pain of the sunlight.
Well. That, and the Fallen capes in the church. And the thugs with guns. I didn't know what bullets would do to my original body, but I had a suspicion I wasn't nearly as tough as my projection, Marchosias, or the Dark Hunters.
Fortunately, I had been correct in my judgment of the Fallen leader's mentality. She didn't order her minions to fill me with bullets, but instead reached out with her power, trying to enthral me.
I was not immune to Master powers, not when my true body was in range. My projection couldn't be manipulated even by the Simurgh, but my inheritance from Lau-Som-Bheu, while it might have protected me from Dominate and other vampiric mental powers, was just as useless against parahuman powers as they were against it – both operated on completely different paradigms.
Within seconds, Mama Mathers had seized control of my sight and hearing, because I could see and hear her, and I got a taste of what she had been using to drive so many Brocktonites who had the misfortune of crossing her path during her preparations.
She showed me images of what she had planned for me; my projection laying waste to entire cities, butchering heroes and destroying civilization as her own personal enslaved mini-Endbringer. She showed me the Simurgh returned, bending the minds of everyone in Brockton Bay into its service and using them to bring about the ruin of the entire United States, with the Fallen ruling the ashes as the Hopekiller's chosen.
But that was a mistake on her part. The Simurgh had been destroyed by the Abyss, dissolved beyond anyone's ability to recreate – save perhaps whoever, or whatever, it was which had made it in the first place. So I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that these visions were nothing but her own twisted fantasies.
Furthermore, her power could not understand my perception of the Abyss, so she couldn't hijack that sense. Slowly, with great effort, I ignored the screams and visions she was forcing on me, focused my attention on that remaining untainted perception, and turned my head so that I was staring directly at her.
"I see you," I said, and sensed her shock as she saw herself through my eyes, even as she made me see the White House in ruins and its inhabitants torn to pieces by shadowy tentacles instead.
Then I started walking toward her again, still fighting to draw more power from the Abyss even as it burned under the merciless sunlight.
Leet watched as the girl who was Lasombra took one step closer to Mama, and another, and another. Through it all, she kept her masked gaze fixed on the Master, completely ignoring the other capes and the guns pointed at her by the Fallen thugs.
"Stop," Mama ordered when Lasombra was just two meters away. "Not one step closer."
The shadow-clad cape stopped. By now, Leet had seen more of Mama's power than he'd ever wanted to, and he was amazed she wasn't contorting in agony. Sure, Mama hadn't touched her, but she could do a lot with just sight and hearing; that Lasombra's Master hadn't so much as lost her balance was amazing.
"Bring the Angel back," Mama ordered, and Leet was almost sure he could hear a note of unease in her voice. "Do it now, and I will be merciful in your punishment."
"I told you," Lasombra replied. "The Simurgh is dead. There is nothing to bring back. You came here for nothing, just as your entire life has been for nothing."
"You lie !" Mama spat. "The Holy Endbringers are beyond destruction. You sealed her away somewhere, and you will bring her back ! NOW !"
"Scream and demand all you want. It will not change the truth."
Mama was completely focused on the girl. She wasn't looking at Leet, wasn't looking at anyone else.
The decision to act came like a lightning bolt. One moment, Leet had been terrified into inaction; the next, he was moving. It was like a mental switch had been thrown; or rather, like something inside him had finally broken under the relentless mental pressure he'd been subjected to for the past weeks.
He slammed his fist on the control panel of the device, breaking the keys under the desperate strength of the blow. A success it might be, but the Tinkertech was still one of his inventions, built under extreme time pressure. There hadn't been time to put any safeguards on it, or make it tougher than it needed to be to survive the transport from the workshop to the church.
Immediately, the portals snapped closed, with a noise like the breaking of a dozen snow globes. The sunlight vanished, and darkness rushed into the church. Every electric light shorted at once, whether due to Lasombra's influence or the backlash of his device shutting down he didn't know, and the candles turned a pale, weak blue that made the darkness even more threatening – that, he was fairly certain, his device didn't have anything to do with.
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE ? Mama screamed in his head, but Leet forced himself to laugh, refusing to cower one second longer.
That's for hurting Uber, you bitch, he thought at her with all the viciousness he could conjure.
He was self-aware enough to know his bravado wouldn't last long. Once Mama started punishing him and Uber, he would fold fast, begging her for forgiveness, promising her anything she wanted just to make the torment stop. But fortunately, before that could happen, the girl stood up, shadows gathering around her like a cloak, until she was the exact image of the original Lasombra once more, tall and terrible, wrapped in a piece of the night sky and wielding a cane made of the same material.
"NOW IS THE HOUR OF JUDGMENT," Lasombra said, and Leet wept in joy to hear that horrible voice once more. "COME, MARCHOSIAS !"
An immense black wolf leapt out of the darkness, and Valefor barely had enough time to scream before its teeth closed around his throat and silenced him. The other Fallen tried to fight, but the beast moved like smoke, and tore through them like paper. They fell, and did not move : as he looked, Leet saw that their chests weren't moving, and their faces twisted into expressions of absolute horror.
Only Mama was left untouched, but only by the wolf. In the blink of an eye, Lasombra was on her, right hand grasping her throat and lifting her up into the air.
"COME AND SEE," the Endkiller said, and the darkness raised around him – her ? – like a hungering tide.
Moving on instinct, Leet reached under the smoking and sparking machine, and pulled out the Tinkertech camera he'd been working on before Mama had come. When she'd learned he was working on it, the bitch had laughed, calling it 'a clear sign of the Endbringers' plan', and told him to bring it along so that they could properly memorialize Lasombra's planned humbling. Now seemed a much more appropriate moment to use it, so the Tinker pointed the bulky device in the general direction of the struggle and slammed the activation button.
There was a flash of not-quite-light, a sound like a million bubbles popping at once, and the scent of melting metal. Then the darkness swallowed both Lasombra and Mama Mathers, and they were gone.
And Leet realized that he couldn't feel Mama in his head anymore.
The sudden absence of pain was a blissful relief, and for a moment it was all I could to close my eyes and luxuriate in the feeling of my strength rapidly returning. Then I heard screaming, and opened my eyes to find Mama Mathers staring at me and our surroundings from where I'd dropped her with wide, panicked eyes.
"What … what have you done ?!" she screeched. "My children ! I can't feel them ! I can't see through their eyes anymore !"
"You wanted to know where I sent the Simurgh," I told her coldly. The shadows I'd wrapped myself in to make myself look like my projection once Leet had broken his own device in a moment of surprising bravery were gone, leaving me in my black costume. "This is it. The False Angel's final destination; its ultimate resting place."
"You … You !" she screeched, and threw herself at me with hands outstretched like claws. But unlike Dad's power, her parahuman ability didn't work here, and without it, she was nothing but an ageing matriarch, and my strength had returned the moment I'd escaped from the Sun's rays. I backhanded her back to the ground and forced her down to her knees, facing the side of the corridor of the Castel d'Ombro I had brought us to.
"Look," I told her. "See the true face of your so-called 'blessing'."
The Mirror of Revelations showed Mama Mathers and I, as well as the Fallen matriarch's power, clutching to her like a grotesque symbiote. Like one of the ones Butcher had possessed, it felt cold and dead in a way the other powers of the collective hadn't. I idly wondered on the significance behind it, and whether it had anything to do with why Dad's power had still functioned inside the Abyss. It was a data point that deserved further study later.
Hundreds, thousands of strands emanated from the thread connecting the Mathers matriarch to her power. These, I knew at once, were the connections which had let her hijack her victims' senses. Right now, they were blocked by us being in the Abyss, but they would reset when (or rather, if) the Fallen leader returned to Earth-Bet.
That gave me an obvious point to start from. With a thought, I wrought the stuff of the Abyss into a blade, and cut through the strands, like some ancient explorer hacking their way through a dense jungle with a machete. I ignored the pained screams of Mama Mathers and held her in place as I worked, and once I was done severing every last connection, I sundered the one to her actual power.
Mama Mathers fell to the floor of the corridor, screeching and clawing at her face. I stared down at her coldly, knowing that I had ruined her, that nothing she could do would ever return her to the threat she had been before coming to Brockton Bay.
But I was not done. The great lake of my rage had iced over, and I wasn't going to let that horrid bitch get away with attacking my city and killing my people so easily.
I pulled out my mask and stared into her eyes directly, feeling the connection between our minds click into place.
"Listen, and listen well," I told her, pouring the barest hint of my will into the words so that she had no choice but to obey me. "This realm is no mere pocket dimension, and I am not its master. It is a depthless ocean, and this ?" I gestured at the castle around us, constructed from the broken memories of the Antediluvian whose power coursed through my soul. "This is nothing but the shore."
I didn't need to look into her mind to know she didn't understand. No matter. She would soon enough.
Once more, I seized her by the throat, and I moved the two of us across the Abyss.
Even in my current state of rage, I knew what I was doing was incredibly risky and foolhardy, even more so than walking into the church with my own body had been. I was risking more than my life by coming here – though here had no meaning, not as any mind born of Creation could truly understand.
But I didn't care. I was beyond caution, beyond reason, beyond anything but the drive to bring retribution upon this wretched creature who'd wrought such horror upon the Earth.
"Look," I hissed into her ear. "Look, and see."
And she saw. Mama Mathers saw the great beasts that lurked in the Abyss, these immense leviathans that made a mockery of the Endbringer of the same name. There since before the Word had been spoken which had wrought Lasombra's original Creation into being; since before the Big Bang which had set the cosmic spheres of my own native cosmos spinning. These were the beings which had existed since before the Word had been spoken that had said 'Let There Be Light', the pre-Creation entities that dwelled in the raw, un-Created potential of all that was not, and which had savaged Lau-Som-Bheu's spirit to the point an ordinary teenage girl had been able to overcome his attempt at possession and turn the tables on the Antediluvian.
"No, no, no, no …" Mama Mathers whined, over and over.
I forced to her to keep watching, keeping her eyes open with my iron grip on her head, until I sensed the great beasts which lurked in the infinite before us were beginning to take notice of the two small soul-sparks on the edge of their domain. Then, and only then, I took her away, and dragged us both back into the Castel d'Ombro, to the throneroom where Dad had found me.
She collapsed as I released her, whimpering and moaning, but I wasn't done. I grasped her skull again and gazed into her trembling, terrified eyes, and got to work.
I burned her memories, starting from her seeing my face and then continuing on to the rest of her life. Unlike what I had done when I had undone Bonesaw and brought Riley back, I did not watch all of her memories as I ripped them from her skull – I had no desire to pollute my own brain with them. The only things I kept were useful pieces of information on the rest of the Fallen; names, locations, powers, that kind of thing. They would make it much easier for me to go after them later – and I would go after them. I was going to rip out the whole diseased tree, root and stem and all.
Instead, I threw the vast majority of her memories out into the Abyss, where they flared briefly and then vanished into the infinite nothingness. It was far, far more painful for her than wiping out Riley's memories of her time under Jack's influence had been, but I didn't care.
I tore through the mind of Christine Mathers until there was only one thing left : that single, awful moment of revelation from gazing into the Abyss and finding that what stared back was so much more than she could have ever imagined. For the rest of her life, however long that would be, this would be the only thing of her past she could remember. Her every living moment would be spent trapped in that instant of existential horror, with no way of escaping it.
It was cruel. It was vicious. It was …
… it was exactly what Lau-Som-Bheu would have done, I realized with a shiver. Exactly the kind of vengeful, ruthless attitude he'd taught his childer, and his childer's childer, on and on across Generations.
What had I done ?
This wasn't the result of some vestige of the Antediluvian's psyche influencing me. I couldn't, I wouldn't reject responsibility for my actions by blaming them on Lau-Som-Bheu, not after I'd triumphed over the last remnants of his consciousness within mine. This was all me.
Did Christine Mathers deserve this fate I had inflicted upon her, for all that she had done ? Perhaps. Certainly if anyone did it would be her. But I remembered a Mark, bestowed upon someone else who had wrought violence and called it righteous, when in fact it had been passion that had driven his hand as he spilled his brother's blood.
My thoughts shied away from the recollection, out of self-preservation. Here, in this place where ideas and reality touched, thinking about something like that was dangerous. But that brief moment was enough to make me realize the danger of what I had done, to myself and everyone else I might hurt – which these days was more or less everyone on Earth-Bet.
I was already great and terrible; I must take care not to also become monstrous.
I looked back at the collapsed, weeping form of Christine Mathers.
"Enough," I whispered to myself. "This has to be enough."
I hesitated. Since inheriting my powers, I had never actually killed someone with my own hands. The Nine had been done through the intermediary of my projection, as had the Fallen capes, and the non-powered thugs in the church had been slain by Marchosias.
But there was no difference, I knew. Not really; not where it mattered. Gun, knife, club, parahuman power, Vampiric Discipline; whatever weapon you used, killing was still killing.
So I reached down, closed my hand around the neck of the woman who had done so much harm, who had created the cult of the Fallen, who had enslaved thousands, who had inspired so many villains to perform unspeakable acts across the continent, who had led her minions into attacking Brockton Bay and enthralled its people …
… and I squeezed.
The sound of vertebrae breaking was far, far too loud for such a small thing. I dropped the corpse I had made, and watched as it dissolved into nothingness, swallowed by the Abyss now that the soul that had inhabited it was gone.
I took a deep breath, even though I knew it didn't matter – there was no air here, only the impression of it created by my shaping of the Abyss into the Castel d'Ombro. The act helped me center myself, and I needed it right now.
It was done. But though the human monster who had orchestrated the attack was no more, her servants were still out there, now bereft of their Master's guidance. And there was still the matter of Leet and the hostages in the church. They had seen me, not my projection, and while they hadn't seen my face what they'd seen had high odds of being enough for the Protectorate to figure out my identity, which I wasn't ready for yet.
I closed my eyes, and left the Abyss, re-emerging where I had left.
"Does anyone have eyes on Lasombra ?" Director Piggot barked.
"Negative, ma'am," someone replied. "No sign of him anywhere."
Five minutes ago, the blanket of darkness covering the city had dissipated. At first, Piggot had been afraid that meant the Fallen had somehow succeeded where the Simurgh had failed and defeated the Endkiller, but then she told herself that if that were the case, their Mastered victims would be crowing out their victory, not collapsing to the ground, either unconscious or delirious with relief.
Before then, there had been reports of Lasombra being seen across the city – in several places at the same time. Other reports claimed that Lasombra could free the Mastered victims of the Fallen; not just one at a time, like what he had done before, but entire groups at once, although he needed to wrap his … tentacles around them first.
It was clear that something had happened to the Endkiller. She'd have liked to assume he'd been victorious, but Armsmaster had reported seeing one of the Lasombras suddenly disappear while he'd been taking down one of the Fallen capes, forcing the Tinker to intervene to keep them from escaping. That didn't indicate a deliberate withdrawal of his Striker power once the situation was handled.
Her phone buzzed. She looked at it, and her heart leapt in her throat : it was a notification from the PHO communication channel with Lasombra. Forcing her fingers not to shake through sheer willpower, she opened it, and found the longest message Lasombra had ever sent through that channel :
"Director Piggot, I endure. Mama Mathers, the leader of the Fallen, is dead. She suborned Leet and Uber with her power and forced the Tinker to build a trap for me. It nearly worked, but I prevailed. You can recover them at these coordinates, along with numerous hostages. As for the matriarch's corpse, it has joined that of her false god."
Leet ? Leet ?! Out of every single cape Lasombra had fought, it was this joke of a villain who'd managed to almost take out the Endkiller ? What in God's name –
Emily put aside her shock for later. This was good news – excellent news. She continued reading :
"I am afraid none of the Fallen at the location will be available for interrogation, as my familiar was less than happy with their taking hostages. Please make sure your people know to bring body bags with them. The civilian hostages also require medical and psychological assistance."
So Lasombra's monster wolf could kill as well as traumatize people through supernatural fear. That would be one more line added to the Endkiller's file, right next to his ability to be in several places at the same time and the update on the nature of his anti-Master power. As for the Fallen's death, good riddance to bad garbage as far as she was concerned.
"In addition, be informed that Leet turned against the Master at the last, and that his actions were of great assistance to me in defeating this threat. Finally, his memory and that of the other hostages Mama Mathers used to draw me out was damaged by their proximity to the battle; I expect they remember little of the last few hours."
Emily nearly snorted. Right, 'damaged by their proximity to the battle'. She had a feeling it was much more likely they had seen something Lasombra didn't want them to talk about, and so he'd made sure they wouldn't. None of Lasombra's known abilities should allow this, although for all she knew the Endkiller had simply told them to say they didn't remember; they wouldn't know for sure without some checks for Master effects.
Helping take out a threat like this one would go some way to mitigating Leet's sentence, Emily supposed. No judge would question Lasombra's word on the matter, but the Tinker's criminal record wasn't small enough to be wiped out by a single act of self-interested heroism. If he'd managed to build something capable of harming Lasombra, though, chances were high that he'd end up recruited by the Protectorate – ostensibly as part of a 'redemption story', unofficially because having even the beginning of a counter to the Endkiller would be of great interest to the organization.
Whatever. Hopefully it wouldn't be Emily's problem.
"Good news, everyone : it seems Lasombra was victorious once again," she declared out loud, and pretended not to hear the sighs of relief from many of her subordinates. "We need to sweep the city and take the Fallen into custody, preferably before they are ripped to pieces by the enraged mob and cause more casualties while trying to escape."
The day may have been won, but Emily could already tell that the clean-up was going to extend far into the night. Still, the only thing worse than a battle won was a battle lost.
Notes:
AN : Whew ! Done. This is the longest chapter in this fic yet. I considered splitting it in two after the point of Mama giving Taylor her challenge, but by that point the entire chapter was already more or less done, and that would have felt disingenuous. Hopefully, future chapters will go back to a more reasonable length - especially since learning to write shorter chapters was one of my goals for this story to begin with.
To clarify something real quick : the public announcement lied about Mama Mathers' power not being able to inflict real harm. But people who stay home and endure the torture do less harm than those who go out and obey her orders, so ...
The Dark Hunters are a canon power of VtM. They are mentioned in the book Libellus Sanguinis 1 : Masters of the State, where it is an eighth-level Obtenebration power. For reference, Discipline powers of that level are almost universally game-breaking, and typically not available for player characters. They are also restricted to Vampires of the Fifth Generation and above, so the Antediluvians, their childer, and their grand-childer, all of whom are Methuselah, thousand-years old vampires.
I didn't plan to use that power, didn't even know it existed in fact. But when I checked out the canon description of Tchernabog for the last chapter in my copy of Libellus Sanguinis, the description of Dark Hunters was right next to it, and the temptation was too strong to resist.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and look forward to your thoughts and comments.
Zahariel out.
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