System Supervillain, Chapter 196 (Patreon)

Chapter 196 – Debrief

(Australian SDI Headquarters, Main Experimental Hall)

The portal flared with power, a sign that someone or something was coming through. Everyone worked to get into defensive positions. No one knew what would be coming through, but everyone knew that letting it run around unchallenged would be a problem. Of course, shooting first and asking questions later had its own problems.

I took a breath, one hand on the hilt of my sword. Ready, but not drawn, since I could not sheathe the blade once it was drawn unless it first tasted blood. Drawing the sword committed me to combat, in one form or another.

An aura of ice and cold flowed out of the portal as a figure stepped through. He was slightly taller than I was, though that may have been due to the plate armor, which was further reinforced with icy armor over the top of it, in the same way I was reinforcing my costume. A helmet covered his face, though I could see an icy glow where the eyes were, and white hair extended from under it. In one hand, the man held a two-handed sword with glowing runes along the blade, and the device of a ram’s skull at the hilt. In the other gauntleted hand, he held something that looked like a detonator, with a bright red button.

He pressed the button, and the portal flashed, fizzled, and forcefully shut. The machinery that had been generating it exploded and burst into flames. Rebuilding the portal without a significant infusion of mad science was… less than likely.

Then, the sound of dial-up internet screamed through the air, and three more figures appeared around him. Two of them were somewhat familiar. A man in silver power armor, and a woman that was a dead ringer for the Technician, though in a costume that looked far more ‘postapocalyptic’ than the costume I was familiar with. Alternate world versions of Silver Knight and the Technician, no doubt.

The third figure was dressed in black, with four robotic arms attached to her back, making her look like a humanoid spider. Strands of light wove between the hands, that formed a web of gleaming computer code. Clearly, this was the alternate version of Web Mistress. Which gave me some idea who the icy warrior was.

“”Wait!””

Both Web Mistress and the spider-woman spoke at once, their voices a half-shade off of each other. My guess at her identity confirmed. I saw the icy warrior glance her way, the way I’d glanced at Web Mistress more than once, and decided my other guess was correct, as well.

“So,” I said, “I am Iceblade. What brings the alternate versions of Silver Knight, Technician, Web Mistress, and myself to this world, especially since it looks like you blew up your way home? I’m guessing something truly horrible is chasing you, and there’s no other refuge?”

The alternate Silver Knight cocked his head. “You realized that we destroyed the path back? And that we were the last humans from our world?”

I turned to look at the icy warrior, and said, “Because, I know Web Mistress, and this is clearly another version of her. And I know myself. The look is different, and the weapon, but I know me when I see me. And a detonator with a red button, followed by explosions and the portal closing, is fairly obvious. And since I know me, I know I wouldn’t go through a portal on a one-way trip, literally blowing up the portal behind me, unless whatever I was running from was worse than anything I could find here. So, what is it?”

The icy warrior spoke in a voice deeper and colder than my own. “You can call me Frostknight. As for what we were running from? Do you know of a being known as Enskerka the Undying?”

I sighed. “So, someone broke the Seal of the Immortal King, or whatever it was in your world? What happened? Was it the Gel-Nak?”

Frostknight shook his head slowly. “No, though they came later. The Master of Time and the Doctor of Paradoxes fought in Cairo, like they had so many times before, but something about their battle caused an explosion. It not only caused the System to come online, throwing the world into chaos, but it also shattered the seal. The dead rose, and began killing. And those they killed rose again, and if they had powers, they retained them. The Squadron Supreme, led by Supreme Victory,” he nodded towards Stolen Victory, “gave their lives to slay Enskerka, and then called down nuclear fire upon themselves to lay waste to much of the undead army. But with the master dead, the army became feral, uncontrolled.”

The spider woman said, “I am Lolth, the… parallel of your Web Mistress. I have shared my logs of the undead’s spread throughout the world with her. I understand your world has an individual named Lady Abstract? Our version volunteered to be wired into a supercomputer, to make and hold the portal that allowed us to come to a world that would be safe, and bring through everyone that could be saved. She gave herself so that the imprints of every remaining human could be brought through the portal. The bomb was so that she could be put to rest before the undead reached her, destroying her body so that it could not be raised.”

I nodded once. “So, what kind of undead were they? There’s a difference between zombies, skeletons, ghouls, vampires, mummies, and so on, after all.”

The Technician cocked her head at me. “Why does it matter? The portal is sealed. They cannot come through.”

It was Frostknight that answered for me. “Because even if the explosives worked and ended Abstract’s suffering, putting her body beyond the possibility of being raised, that does not mean the risk is wholly gone. We never got a chance to test what happened when one of the bodies burnt out from uploading was exposed to the undead. Would they still have their powers and abilities? Would they be a mindless husk? Or would the magic not have enough of ‘them’ left to reanimate? Even if the facility was completely collapsed, there is still a chance that the undead could rip open a new portal, if they dig to someplace where the barrier between dimensions is already weak.”

Web Mistress nodded. “That, and the fact that we have a Seal of the Immortal King in this world, too. Our Doctor of Time and Master of Paradoxes fought in Istanbul, instead of Cairo, like your Master of Time and Doctor of Paradoxes did, but the Gel-Nak were thinking about blasting Cairo off the map when they invaded. Stolen Victory and Titania damaged the ships they were on enough to make them reconsider, but it is a threat we need to take seriously.”

Silver Knight nodded once. “In that case, we classified them as Revenants. They still had whatever flesh remained after their deaths, so they weren’t skeletons or ghosts. They weren’t mindless like zombies, and didn’t have any of the normal features you’d see in ghouls. They certainly weren’t vampires or mummies, either. And they retained their powers, and elements of their personalities, so revenant seemed best.”

I took a deep breath, and let it out slow. “So, every individual with powers kept them, but turned into hungry undead. Lovely. Anything else about these revenants we should know about? Strength, speed, toughness? Weaknesses?”

The Technician pulled out a datapad, and read from her notes, “The baseline revenants did not feel pain so much as register damage, and their bodies were significantly harder to injure physically. In the System, it was listed as a 75% Resistant Damage Reduction to Physical damage. Some enhancements to speed, endurance, and the like. They also had a good deal of Mental Defense, with exceptions for anyone who was using magic or powers focused on the undead. Their hands and teeth gained bonus damage from the Hand-to-Hand Attack power, and anyone who received BODY damage from their hand-to-hand attacks was infected, and would turn into an undead when they died, even if it was days or weeks later.

“As for weaknesses? Cold temperatures slowed them down, disabling the physical enhancements they got from their undead state. Silver weapons did increased STUN damage, and Fire dealt double STUN and BODY, making it the most effective weapon. Unless they had protections from Fire in life. The pyrokinetics were hell to put down when they turned.”

Frostknight nodded. “Indeed, it was only due to the fire abilities of Pyratechnique and Lady Kitsune that the Squadron Supreme was able to clear enough room for the fight against Enskerka and keep things clear long enough for the fight to be won, even though it cost them all their lives. And it is why nuclear fire was so effective in clearing away the undead when it became necessary to cleanse an area long enough to set up defensive lines.”

“Yes,” I drawled, “most things tend to react poorly to getting a nuke to the face. What about fallout, though? Were the undead affected by it, for better or worse? I can’t imagine they had to worry about cancer, or mutations, or anything like that, but flesh is still flesh, so the radiation should have done something.”

Lolth sighed. “If they remained in an irradiated area? They took damage at roughly the rate that they were damaged. Unless they had weaknesses or resistances, of course. Unfortunately, radiation resistance was a common feature in any costume where the individual had some form of the Life Support power. Mostly because super-science loves to play with radiation, which makes it an obvious thing to guard against.”

Silver Knight looked around at the room, and said, “Not to change the subject, but what is this facility? It is clearly a super-science research facility of some sort, but I can’t help but notice that there’s signs of combat, and so many supers gathered together means something big was happening. And, no offense, none of you look to be the mad scientist or gadgeteer types.”

I chuckled at that. “None taken. You’re standing in one of the last facilities the Superhuman Defense Initiative had. They were an organization that was basically formed by racist ‘normal’ humans who saw supers of all kinds as a threat. When the Guild was presented with evidence that they were planning eugenics on a global scale, they issued a kill order on the entire organization. All facilities around the world were uncovered, raided, and destroyed, with any research that wasn’t horrific being diverted to better ends.”

The Technician frowned. “They sound like the Human Action League from our world. The facility in Graham Peak where they were attempting to find a vaccine to keep the dead from rising as revenants was supposed to have been a former HAL facility. The military government took it over, but when the vaccine failed, the undead overwhelmed the facility’s defenses, since they weren’t designed with revenants in mind.”

Silver Knight shook his head sadly. “Some things apparently transcend the boundary between realities. So, what were these SDI people doing, here? We know it had to do something with interdimensional portals, since that is what allowed our Lady Abstract to lock on to this world, and get us here.”

Web Mistress shook her head. “The documentation is a mixture of super-science, arcane theory, and madness. Literally. The people the Guild brought in to try and figure out how to shut the machines down all went mad, or worse.”

“Lovely,” Silver Knight said in a tone that suggested he thought it was anything but lovely. “Do we know where these scientists are? They did not come through to our side, or we would have seen them.”

Soulcaller spoke up for the first time since Frostknight stepped through the portal. “The portal was unstable, randomly hopping to different dimensions at different intervals. When faced with the choice of getting caught or fleeing into unknown dimensions, they chose to flee. There were six shifts of the portal between then, and when it settled on your dimension.”

I took a breath, and said, “Right, Web Mistress and I will see what we can do about hardening the dimensional walls against further intrusions from your world, and we’ll worry about the idiots who went through a random portal when it becomes relevant. Stolen Victory, you and the girls chat with our guests while we work, and we’ll figure out what the next steps will be.”