Elemental Escalation - Chapter 19 - Illumination (Patreon)

Taylor stepped carefully over the blooming flowers in the field, making sure not to trample anything that would result in the field becoming even one percent less idyllic.

As she wandered through the almost waist-high flowers and other greenery, Taylor couldn't help but remember the old days, when she and Petra and a few other kids ran through the same area, chasing each other or some ornery moa or dolyak that one of the farmhands lost.

She couldn't help but feel a little sad about the innocence she had back then, even after Brockton Bay and Winslow…

After experiencing the tumultuous life of Tyria, facing many dangers, and tangling with gods and eldritch beings, she missed her early naivety about the world.

She missed the time when her only concern was somehow gathering enough money so that she could live comfortably in the seemingly medieval dimension.

Then came Shaemoor, and everything changed…

Looking up from her introspection, she sought out the distant shape of the town of Shaemoor, now, years later, much bigger and well defended.

Over the years, it had developed from a sleepy little farming town into a bustling, moderately sized town that not only dealt with farming and its related industries, but also commerce and some manufacturing. It also acquired a very nice wall to prevent future attacks, like the one that devastated the town so long ago…

There was also a rather large and well-organized market that she loved to visit on the weekends (when she was not at the end of the world, saving zombies and kicking puppies), but the most significant improvement that the town achieved was in the farming industry.

After collecting a little nest egg that Taylor could use however she wanted, Anise recommended that she start a merchant company. Their mandate was rather vague, and the taxes somewhat fair (especially if someone was friends with the Queen), and Taylor could use it to make use of the riches she had accumulated.

The first thing she did with the company was set up an agricultural arm and let it loose on Shaemoor. Then, over the years, as she got several asura and charr scientists (even a few sylvari) known in the course of her adventurous life, she hired them to help the area and her fledgling company develop.

This resulted in an immense transformation to the farming techniques used in Queensdale.

This, in turn, caused the yield of the fields to increase and made her even richer.

And thanks to the rather generous pay and benefits she mandated at her company, the people working for her company also became richer.

And coincidentally, the sustainable farming methods that her company introduced finally caused the local druids to shut up, which earned her a rather big favor from Queen Jennah, who was rather annoyed as she had to listen to them complaining about anything and everything.

Ambling along the path she had taken so long ago, in pursuit of the medicine for Andrew, Taylor couldn't help but immerse herself in nostalgia.

The family Andrew and Petra gave to her by accepting her into their lives was nothing like she had ever experienced.

It wasn't like it was better than when she still had her mother. Instead, it was different.

Andrew acted as a father, but he was infinitely more hands-off than Danny ever was.

He let them make their own mistakes, then he came in (sometimes when they were younger with a few burly men as backup) and saved them from it, then gave them a lecture about what they did wrong and punished them with some work around the inn.

But compared to Danny, he never got angry.

To Taylor, it seemed as if Andrew had a well of infinite patience. Now that she had seen more of the world, she would confidently say that it was one of the secret skills of bartenders everywhere…

Petra, however, was rather like Emma.

She was obsessed with fashion, boys, and parties.

She was so extroverted that Taylor sometimes had a hard time following what was actually happening.

But despite the similarities, Petra never betrayed her.

Granted, they argued sometimes for weeks, but in the end, they always made up.

It was mostly thanks to Petra, who, when something bothered her, would simply come up to her and tell her everything – even if Taylor was the one bothering her.

For example, the moment the first accolades came in from the academy that Anise sent Taylor to, Petra immediately told her, face-to-face, that she was extremely jealous.

Which, after some heart-to-heart, ended up with Taylor taking some of her time and teaching Petra what she had learned at school…

It also helped that, thanks to Petra's seemingly supernatural ability to handle and manage people, Taylor simply set up another arm for her company and told Petra to go nuts.

Thus was born the company's medical arm, which nowadays supplied the guards and the Seraph as well as most of the citizens of Divinity’s Reach with medicine that so long ago was only brought in with military convoys.

Taylor took a moment to gaze at the exact point where she first met the 9th Company, then continued her climb of the mountain.

She walked by the entrance of the cavern, where in the past a multitude of bandits sought refuge, now connected with a well-taken-care-of road to the city, and repurposed as a silo for the immense yields of produce that the upgraded fields of Queensdale produced.

Sometime later, standing atop one of the local mountains (a little bigger than a hill but nothing on the giants of the Shiverpeaks), Taylor looked around the green and gold fields of Queensdale, taking in the river glittering like sapphire, trying to catch the snippets of happy sounds emerging from the now bustling Shaemoor, and just took a deep breath.

Letting it out, she couldn't help but smile.

This is why she fought.

This is why she did everything.

And this is why she would do everything in the future.

**

Davin stared at their house, the roof slightly smoldering but otherwise intact, holding his weeping, half-asleep sister in his arms, and couldn't help but despair.

When his parents told him to run and take his sister, he did so with the knowledge that his parents would be following them.

But no. They decided, maybe foolishly, to attempt to delay the rampaging centaurs to buy time for him and his sister to flee.

And for that, he would be eternally thankful, no matter how much it hurt that they were no longer with them.

Thankfully, their neighbors were nice enough to help him settle back into the house, along with his little sister.

But then came the problems.

What should he do to make money?

At first, he wanted to join the guards, as he was the perfect age for that, and the guards' salary would have made them rather comfortable. But as he watched over his little sister, Lizzy, as she haltingly toddled around the house, cloaked in sadness, he decided that it wasn't really for him.

He wanted to see his sister every day, watch her grow up, see her smile, and make sure that their parents didn't die in vain.

So, once again, he went to their neighbors, an elderly married couple that was still active in the farming community (mostly thanks to their experience, but the old man still worked the field), and begged them for an opportunity.

The next day found him toiling in one of the numerous fields around Shaemoor, helping to restore it after the centaurs' rampage, with a depressingly high number of similarly aged people.

It was back-breaking work, and he returned utterly exhausted every day to their home, but seeing his sister's face light up as he stepped through the door made sure it was worth it.

Then, a few years later, something happened.

A new merchant company decided to set up shop in their town and began buying up property and fields.

At first, everybody was naturally afraid that their livelihood would be in danger, and so was Davin, but it never came to be.

The company handled everything with a strict but fair hand. The pay was good; the conditions were decent, but the most important thing was that the company somehow acquired the services of several asuran, charr, and sylvari scientists who brought with them technologies that improved the company's capabilities seemingly overnight.

They redesigned almost the entire watering system and brought in machines that increased the speed of harvest several times.

Davin watched from afar, curious but apprehensive about the entire thing.

But then he heard about the pay, and his little sister was about the age where she would be going to school, and he wanted to provide her with the best.

So he applied to the company as a worker.

He was consequently hired and put to work on one of the fields. Just as before, just with better pay.

But then the company started doing things like teaching him about the plants, the soil, and the equipment – having him attend lectures about farming and such.

That, paired with the lectures from the old couple from next door, allowed him to make a few minor suggestions, which surprisingly led to a promotion, and another, and then it just snowballed from there…

Now, several years later, with his sister finishing up her schooling, happy and content, he was a rather well-to-do field owner (and running one of the orphanages), working with asuran machinery under the advice of sylvari druids, and the owner of a modest house in the ever-growing town of Shaemoor.

Standing at the gate and watching as his beautiful sister (hauntingly similar to their mother) came home from school, excitedly waving her diploma, Davin would be forever glad he heard the name Rose Company…

**

·         First Rule of Banditry: You don't talk about Banditry.

·         Second Rule of Banditry: If you think you can take that 'guy', then go home and rethink your life.

o   Corollary: If that 'guy' is a woman with long, dark hair and magic around her that reminds you of a dragon, then turn around and hope she doesn't notice you.

If you manage to survive with these rules for a time, we will tell you the other rules...

— Speech given to newly recruited bandits in Kryta

**

The moment Taylor stepped through the faded, dull golden door, she transitioned from the very mysterious and ever-changing space of the Mist into the real world.

Hovering up in the air, she was rather surprised to see the body of something covering probably almost the entire visible area of the planet.

At first glance, it was definitely organic, but the way it folded into itself, and the crystalline material that seemed to pulse and fracture, then reconstruct itself seemingly a thousand times a second while changing nothing, told her it was more than organic.

Based on the data Taimi provided her, it was definitely intelligent, but whether that was by design or thanks to evolution, her small friend couldn't say.

But the worst was how it looked to her magical senses.

With magic, every action, every thought leaves an imprint on magic.

The more intense or important that feeling or action, the bigger the imprint. That was why magic was so chaotic on Tyria.

It had been soaking up the imprints left by everybody on Tyria, from the giants to the smallest skritt.

And to her magical senses, the body of something in front of her dripped with so much black, tar-like magic that she couldn't help but fly higher to get away from it.

The closest thing she could compare it to was the magic of Zhaitan. But Zhaitan (once) was part of the natural cycle, as death wasn't really evil.

This crystalline being, however, was dripping with so much death, so much unneeded violence on the innocent, that Taylor couldn't really believe it hadn't turned into some kind of cursed abomination trying to destroy the universe

Though, on further thought, maybe its complete lack of knowledge of magic prevented it from fully anchoring it to the being.

Maybe it denied magic's existence so hard and so long (based on Taimi's data, it was rather old) that it itself granted it a measure of protection against magic.

Well, not that it mattered.

After today, it would be a moot point, as she planned to put an end to its rather cruel existence.

She reached for her magic, which was already enveloping her on several levels, as she wasn't stupid enough to try to visit the enemy unprotected, and began the formation of a magic lance that would cut through the entire geometrically impossible being sprawling beneath her.

But before she could even start the spell, somebody appeared in front of her.

Scion, in his weird clothing and rather familiar dull golden coloring, hovered in front of her, empty eyes looking at her. Despite the complete lack of emotion on his face, she could still feel the suffocating apathy rolling off him, sprinkled with a small amount of curiosity.

As if her presence at the inner sanctum of this being didn't even warrant a minuscule wariness.

Redirecting the magic she previously aimed at the crystalline impossibility, she instead enveloped herself with it, giving it a rather specific purpose.

Translation.

At its core, it was like Beastspeak, the spell people used all over Tyria to talk to all manner of beasts and non-sapient beings. It took the words you spoke and translated them into whatever form the receiving party interpreted words or even information.

Granted, the less intelligent the being one wanted to communicate with, the more magic and focus it required, but with Scion, Taylor just wanted to make sure there would be no misunderstanding due to the difference in languages.

Scion, after all, wasn't famous for talking a lot…

“Greetings! I have come to…” she began speaking, watching in fascination as the magic took her words, churned them, worked them over, and in the end spat out something completely alien to her.

Taylor didn't even have words to describe what came out on the other end of the translation spell.

It was as if her entire small speech was condensed into one word, with a multitude of information layers added to it.

Scion just watched her for exactly sixty seconds, then opened his mouth, and information was literally slammed into the cloud of magic acting as a translator.

[QUERY]

Taylor allowed the magic to slowly dissect the information bomb while she took in the unchanged Scion, who was, or rather what was, upon closer inspection, the avatar of the crystalline being under their feet.

Turning her attention back to the information slowly flowing towards her, the magic removed the unnecessary parts and conveyed what Scion wanted from her.

In the end, it was rather simple.

He, or rather it, as Taylor was pretty sure it didn't really have genders, wanted to know who she was, what she was doing here (and how), and what she wanted from Scion.

Contemplating a little, she watched Scion drift almost aimlessly in the air, then sent out her magical senses to see if there was any threat towards her. Everything seemed to be quiet, so she readied her magic – she wasn't stupid enough to think she would solve this with talking, but she owed at least to herself to try it – and began to speak once again.

“I'm here to put an end to this entire thing. Your actions have been destroying humanity. I've had enough. It's time to…”

As she spoke, Taylor split her attention to the translation spell as it took in her small speech, and in the end, spat out one word filled with meaning and information.

[CESSATION]

For a long time, Scion did nothing. It simply continued to hover across from Taylor Hebert, who was watching it idly, wondering what the results would be.

Taylor was about to attempt to give the speech again when, in the blink of an eye, she found herself flying backward at speeds that would disintegrate a normal human.

A second later, and several dimensions over, she crashed into a mountain that simply vaporized under her.

Slowly extricating herself from the rubble and dust, barely winded thanks to the immense protection she prepared, she looked through the dimension towards the rapidly approaching avatar and couldn't help but murmur while rising back into the air.

“The hard way it is…”

**

The battle raged over mountains and seas, over continents and planets, through endless dimensions.

Though it seemed Scion was courteous enough to avoid populated dimensions, even so, every time Taylor Hebert clashed with the avatar of the parasite that seemed to be enveloping Earth, they left behind mountains turned to dust, enormous forests turned to ash, oceans turned to deserts, and sometimes, when one of them brought out some kind of big gun, cracked continents.

Scion seemed to prefer beams of all kinds, while Taylor wielded the mysteries of magic and the elements as her weapon.

Though thanks to Scion's complete lack of understanding of (or care toward) magic, his attacks – which depended on the physical laws of the universe, even if his understanding of those laws was higher than even the smartest asura – lacked the ability to affect magic.

Thus, they were ineffective against Taylor's defenses.

Sure, they might bend some of her shields through sheer power output, or even wound her through some kind of exotic radiation or effect the attacks produced, but it took her barely seconds to heal from it, and then adapt her defenses against that particular effect.

On the opposite end, even Taylor had minimal effect on the avatar.

She managed to destroy, or pop, the avatar several times, but it returned instantly, with the same bored-looking face and dull golden coloring, raining down another barrage of beams with exotic effects.

This was because the avatar itself was not the true target.

She had to aim toward the infinitely small and extremely well-connected connection point through which the alien entity puppeted said avatar.

Which was rather hard while dodging beams that disintegrated matter, froze anything moving, or lit everything it touched into a green fire that spewed gamma radiation.

When Taylor Hebert realized that at the current tempo, they would first run out of dimensions to fight in before she could damage her enemy in any meaningful way, she tried to skip through dimensions, heading toward its body, ignoring the avatar.

This resulted in Scion following her, appearing in front of her every time she jumped to a dimension even marginally closer to its body, while ripping up the upper crust of continents and throwing entire masses of terrain at her in an attempt to stop her.

In one memorable dimension where Earth had two moons orbiting around each other, Scion somehow took the smaller one and slammed it into her.

It took all her considerable talent in manipulating earth magic to split the celestial satellite into two, preventing it from striking her fully.

After fighting for hours, destroying countless natural wonders and celestial bodies, Taylor had to admit it wasn't working.

The stalemate, in this way, would probably last forever, locking them in a deadly, never-ending duel.

Though Taylor knew she could have circumvented Scion's superior ability to determine and sense dimensional travel by simply stepping into the Mist, thus making use of her opponent's complete lack of knowledge about magic, she was afraid that if she let off for even a second, Scion would target Earth either as an act of revenge or to draw her out.

Scion didn't seem to be the most intelligent, but even Taylor had to admit he had at least a kind of talent for fighting.

So as she floated over an alternate Earth, where the planet was still in the “everything-is-a-volcano” phase – exaggerated by the impacts of their attacks – facing Scion's unmoved face as he aimed his hand at her once again, glowing with another mysterious light that would undoubtedly cause untold devastation to the planet below, she began going over everything she knew, hoping to chance upon a solution to her current predicament.

While dodging “f-you-in-particular” lasers.

She hated when somebody else did that…

**

The people of Earth Bet were low-key panicking.

All over the world, aside from the governments, there were several big and small organizations whose job – or even mandate – involved following the greatest hero on the planet, Scion.

They would note where he was, what he was doing, and when it happened, right down to the last millisecond.

While also spending an inordinate amount of time charting out his movements, trying to find commonalities, and researching a way to predict his movement, with the eventual goal of profiting off said research.

And on one average spring day, the unthinkable happened.

Scion, in the process of rescuing a dog for a change from being stuck on a balcony, stopped moving the moment he set the dog down.

While the dog ran happily, barking toward its owner, the onlookers, researchers, and even journalists were surprised to see that the first hero froze for half a minute (somebody later timed it, and it came up to exactly thirty seconds, not a millisecond more), then, without a sound or any other indicator, vanished.

The people present stared at the spot where he had been for a good while, but then everybody who was not panicking began running to make a report to their superiors, or to be the first to post it online.

Not even an hour later, every major and minor news outlet was talking about it.

And the people in their homes wondered what it meant, and what had happened to the strongest parahuman…

**

The meeting room in the Cauldron headquarters was rather tense, while in the background, several screens were playing the news talking about the disappearance of their enemy on low volume, as they stared at each other, hoping that somebody would offer a miraculous solution that would solve everything.

Eidolon was walking agitatedly from wall to wall, murmuring under his breath.

Number Man was immersed in two laptops at the same time, Alexandria was observing either the newsreels or her own laptop, while Legend was sitting with his arms crossed in front of him, eyes closed as if meditating on the issue.

They were interrupted by the door opening, admitting Doctor Mother supporting an exhausted-looking Contessa, who looked as if a truck had driven over her.

Eidolon stopped his anxious movement and turned towards them, but before he could even utter the first syllable, Doctor Mother raised a hand, requesting silence while assisting Contessa into a seat.

Legend unfolded his arms and opened his eyes, but otherwise patiently waited as Contessa situated herself, Alexandria similarly turned fully to the two women, her entire attention fully on them, while Number Man continued to type away on his laptops but occasionally glanced up to take a look at Contessa, and Eidolon was impatiently tapping his boots on the floor, waiting for the chance to ask his questions.

Half a minute later, as Contessa was finally settled in, with a glass of water in front of her and Doctor Mother sitting next to her, almost hovering, they all turned their attention toward the Thinker and waited for her to speak.

They didn't have to wait too long, as Contessa immediately began to talk with a hoarse voice, staring at the immaculate surface of the meeting room table.

"The Path is gone."

Instantly, everybody (except Number Man, who was still typing) began to talk at the same time until Doctor Mother exclaimed.

"Enough! Let her finish!"

They quieted down, and Contessa continued, still refusing to look them in the eyes.

"Our plan is useless. Either we activate it and find the Enemy, or it would be worthless. Our second option is to wait until 'something' destroys Earth…"

There was a sharp intake of breath from Legend upon hearing that, while Alexandria's face looked like it could have been carved from stone.

"The last choice is the weirdest…"

"Which is?" asked Legend softly, leaning forward with a concerned expression.

"Unknown," came the answer, barely above a whisper.

The room descended into silence as everybody processed the information.

The silence was, in the end, broken by Eidolon, who exclaimed angrily.

"Then why the fuck are we waiting here? Let's find out what the fuck is happening, where and how, and deal with it!"

Alexandria nodded, Legend simply shook his head, deep in thought, while Number Man finally looked up and asked one simple question:

"Does anyone know where Weaver is? Because I can't find her anywhere on Earth…"

**

Staring at the ashes of the latest planet in the latest dimension they had devastated with their ongoing and unrelenting battle, Taylor couldn't help but feel annoyed.

At first, when they began to fight, Scion seemed powerful and mighty, with an array of abilities and attacks at his beck and call that could and would devastate celestial bodies. But then that turned into disappointment.

No matter what she did, what attack she used, what angle she tried, Scion ignored everything and just kept coming after her.

Yes, his attacks sometimes buckled her shields or sent her slamming into moons or tectonic plates. But, in the end, Taylor simply recovered and continued the fight, while Scion didn't react in any way or change his tactics.

The longer they fought, the more she noticed how uninspiring and monotone his attacks were. It seemed as if he was simply going through a checklist of attack types.

If type A didn't work, then it would go to type B and so on.

If something didn't work the first time, it was never tried again.

Curiously, Taylor had undone a modification to her shielding that prevented an attack Scion used before from affecting her, just to see if it would react.

But no – Scion just kept trying newer and newer attacks, seemingly hoping that something would stick.

Yet, at the same time, its speed, reaction time, and defenses were such that Taylor couldn't hit that little connection point between the avatar and the gigantic crystalline entity or get closer to its home dimension.

It was supremely frustrating…

Then, as she dodged another barrage of silver beams that seemed to separate specific molecules from materials, she had a stupid idea.

Activating the still-present, but dormant magic that she used after stepping through the golden door, she began to speak, injecting as much contempt and disgust as she could toward her enemy.

“Why do you fight?”

Which was shortly translated into one super-condensed word.

[QUERY]

Predictably, Scion didn't react. It just changed weapons, this time burning oxygen molecules out of everything.

But Taylor didn't give up.

She had a good feeling and was supremely out of fucks to give.

She continued to barrage her enemy with similar, hopefully demoralizing statements.

“You'll never win, so just give up!”

[STATEMENT]

“Can you really keep this up?”

[QUERY]

“What's the point of all this?”

[QUERY]

“You're rather bad at this, you know!” exclaimed Taylor while dodging hyper-condensed hydrogen molecules.

[ADMONISHMENT]

And so on, she continued to dance around beams or tank them with shields while raining down similar statements on Scion.

While it outwardly didn't react, Taylor's keen eyes and senses noticed a slight delay in its actions after a few such exclamations.

Capitalizing on it, Taylor ramped up the heckling, going into even more detail, criticizing Scion’s actions, and pointing out how useless it was to fight her now that she knew her words were reaching the alien.

So Taylor continued to talk, yell, and belittle the avatar of her enemy, while watching as slowly but surely its actions and movement slowed until they came to a stop in another unpopulated dimension, hovering barely a few inches over the unending ocean that seemed to cover this planet.

Scion just hovered there, hand stretched toward her in a firing position, but he didn't follow up on the motion.

Taylor took the opportunity, stopping her barrage of insults, and focused all her attention – while leaving enough aimed at Scion so she wouldn't be caught flat-footed if it attacked – and delved directly into the connection that linked the puppet to the puppet-master.

Soon, her awareness was zooming along an extra-dimensional channel.