Crystalized Munchkinry - Act V - Chapter 56 (Patreon)

Dragon reviewed the information streaming in from the fight and couldn't help but be impressed by her own capabilities. Not long ago, she would have had to be there in person, piloting her armored suits, and now she was basically sitting in her base and controlling the mech fighting (or, more likely, inefficiently wailing at the Endbringer), controlling the drones, helping with communication, keeping track of fighters, flying transports, communicating with several people who wanted information about the situation, helping at Canberra return the evacuated people, running her facilities both in Canada and in Brockton Bay, and so much more.

And she wasn't even fully unshackled…

She could understand her father's paranoia a little. An insane or hateful AI with this kind of power could do an untold amount of damage. Thankfully, she liked Earth and humanity…

However, this entire situation was making every simulation or prediction algorithm she had access to or had created throw up error after error. This was why she had Colin sitting in his workshop, doing bug fixing, error correction, and basically acting as a second set of eyes on the incoming data.

When her instruments confirmed the Simurgh was descending, she immediately sounded the alarm and began preparing her own loadout. When it became obvious that she was heading for Canberra, she dedicated an entire fork to cursing because it was such a strange target.

Most of her predictions said that even if another Endbringer had attacked, their target would have been either Brockton Bay, maybe the giant Medi-Gel factory in India, or even her own central databanks.

Yet, the Simurgh went after Canberra, where, to her knowledge, the only important thing going on was a technology deal that would allow some kind of collaboration. A quick review of the subject showed there were rather a lot of possibilities in it, but not as many as with Medi-Gel and what she and Taylor were planning.

Maybe it was a little egotistical, but based on everything Admin had let slip, it made a certain amount of sense.

Therefore, she made sure everybody was aware of the situation, even if this resulted in a record-low participation in the Endbringer fight. She had enough drones, suits, and mechs to compensate, but she couldn't be everywhere, so she was happy to see everybody taking her warning seriously and reinforcing important sites.

She was even happier to see that several people realized the same thing and acted even before she could warn them. She still warned them to avoid the inevitable accusations after the situation was over.

She even managed to convince Taylor to stay home. She knew her younger friend could fight the Simurgh, but instead, Dragon wanted her to stay hidden and strike when the inevitable horror the Simurgh cooked up poked its head out.

Her power was impressive enough that Dragon suspected she could slap down anything short of a totally new Endbringer.

The moment she postulated the arrival of a new Endbringer, she immediately regretted it. Though she made sure to add it to her warning, lest people get blindsided.

Deploying her new Titan-class mech was beyond awesome. The sheer power she could bring to the battlefield made it a fearsome construct.

And once again, the Simurgh decided to screw the rules and abort the attack. Though she recorded the anomalous activity that appeared while she was descending, and she was planning to ask Admin about it. The power knew more about the Endbringers than anyone on Earth, even if he was reluctant to share it.

She cursed the Simurgh, spun off a fork to take care of the equipment in Australia, and turned her attention toward the flying menace.

It only took a few minutes to figure out where she was heading with the help of Colin, and once again she initiated a separate cursing fork because of the target.

She was lucky she hadn't sent all of her mechs to Australia, so she could send another to Madison. Though she also primed her last construct in case the Endbringer moved again.

That would be the least surprising thing today…

The fight in Madison was an exercise in frustration, and she was pretty sure she was not alone in that feeling.

While the Simurgh didn't use her terrible Scream, she still somehow managed to jam every piece of targeting equipment she added to the mech, making her ranged weapons almost useless. True, she could have aimed by using only visual cues, but with the target being the Simurgh, that was an insane idea.

She had to default to short-range weapons and simply punching the false angel. Which, while it was therapeutic, didn't really accomplish much. Though Dragon noticed that while the Endbringer dodged or used the attacks of attacking parahumans or odd soldiers, she never did the same with her attacks. The Simurgh simply tanked them, making use of her insane reaction time and unbelievable durability.

It still allowed her to get a lot of data from her scanners about the Endbringer, and she would be going over it for a solution as soon as the attack was finished. Sadly, it didn't really help her now.

At first, Dragon suspected the ball was responsible for the jamming, but her scans told her it was inactive. That didn't make it a lower priority. She had a rather extensive list of things that were in the vault, and even after only a cursory check, even she could have built some terrible devices…

When the order sounded for artillery fire, a lot of things happened at the same time.

The one that affected her the most was the jamming field projected by the Simurgh rising in strength, totally obscuring the Endbringer even from her cameras for a second or two. Thankfully, because Taylor had given her some really impressive devices that allowed secure communication, she didn't lose contact with the construct.

So she was aware that as soon as the first shell fell, the Simurgh vanished, letting all the attacks hit her mech.

By the time the rumble of explosions and the rainbow-colored aftereffects of the parahuman attacks settled down, and the dust was slightly dispersed by the wind, the only thing standing in the crater was her mech, with one entire arm missing (based on the readings, due to Eidolon's attack), along with various holes and dents.

And with the Simurgh nowhere to be seen…

When the order came for the parahumans to retreat, Alexandria flew back to the command center instead of hovering in the air and watching the explosions.

When she walked in, she immediately saw Tagg standing in front of the giant screen, as if he hadn't moved the entire time.

She ignored the barely controlled chaos, now bolstered by the rest of the parahumans who had arrived on transports from Australia, and walked next to the militaristic Director. Without a word, she turned her attention toward the screen once again.

While outwardly she showed the same cool countenance she always did, inside she was rather apprehensive. Countless militaries had tried to use conventional weapons against the Endbringers, yet nothing worked (not that parahuman attacks worked much either), so there was little chance of the artillery doing anything to the Simurgh. Though the fact that the target was the ball and not the creature would probably help.

Dragon's voice coming from the speakers unfortunately broke her speculation.

"Attack missed. Simurgh dodged. Titan-class mech inoperable due to friendly fire damage."

Tagg growled in anger before yelling at his men. "Find it!"

A chorus of agreement was his answer, and the chaos and work ratcheted up to another level around them. Though before anybody could do anything substantial, Dragon once again proved her superiority.

"Simurgh is in the air. 300 meters over the impact site. Ball intact," said the AI while the camera and searchlights reoriented toward the Endbringer hovering over the remains of the abused city.

Because of the distance, they lost some quality, but even so, they could make out the face of the Simurgh.

Alexandria would swear that the Simurgh looked directly at her through the camera and, with a cheeky smile, winked at her again, flapped her wings, and flew away.

There was a moment of silence while everyone processed what had happened before Dragon spoke up again.

"Simurgh is flying at a constant speed. The target is being calculated…"

She ignored the cursing Tagg next to her, closed her eyes, and waited until Dragon shared the target of the next attack.

While she waited, Legend and Eidolon also returned to the tent, and even with her eyes closed, she could feel the frustration, anger, and many more emotions radiating from the Trump.

"What the hell is going on?" exclaimed Eidolon, but before Legend could calm him down, as usual, Dragon interrupted them.

"Oh, no…"

Her heart sank upon hearing that. "What is it, Dragon?"

The entire tent fell silent, waiting for the damning information. Even Eidolon calmed down somewhat.

"The Simurgh is currently heading towards Ellisburg."

Emily was following the current Endbringer attack closely from her office, while an army of analysts was in a meeting room a floor away, pouring over the incoming data and trying to pinpoint what the actual target was.

Sadly, PRT ENE didn't have any Thinkers who could really help out. Not that she would have trusted them with something like this.

'Banana purple'?

What were they feeding those Thinkers in Watchdog?

The parahumans of the Protectorate were sitting in a room watching the same feed as she was, ready to react if needed. The two exceptions were Kid Win and Armsmaster.

Apparently, the young Tinker had been working on a giant weapon by the name of the Alternator Cannon. Ordinarily, she would have punished the teenager for building something like that in secret. However, due to the situation, she had simply told him to finish it properly.

Who knew when a giant gun would come in handy?

Armsmaster, however, was locked in his workshop, working with Dragon. The automatic reports she had access to showed that he seemed to be helping the famous Tinker deal with incoming data and improve the Endbringer prediction software.

She wished them luck.

When the news came in that the Simurgh was heading toward Madison, she cursed like the best sailor and had one of her aides contact New Wave.

She wanted them at HQ in case they had to be deployed because she just knew that Madison wasn't the end of the story.

They arrived grumbling, and she could see Brandish preparing to argue with her, but she simply had Assault and Miss Militia deal with them. She had no time for Brandish's usual stupidity.

She watched the crater through a feed streamed onto the screen on the wall of her office, courtesy of Dragon, while listening to the incoming information over a headset.

She was interrupted by Dragon.

"Director Piggot, I'm sorry to report, but the Simurgh is heading toward the city of Ellisburg."

It took her an entire minute to process what Dragon had said, but the moment it happened, her hand slammed onto the alarm so fast that the button broke.

Taylor watched the event unfold on her computer and several screens projected by her hard-light system.

She had access to data from Dragon's servers, and Tess had even managed to provide her with access to select PRT and government feeds.

At first, it was fascinating to watch how an Endbringer response worked and add her own improvements to the software Dragon was using. It was so much easier to spot errors when the program was running.

She spent a few minutes admiring the specifics of the constructs Dragon had created and had Admin memorize them, so she could try to go against them in virtual space. Though she worked with Tess on Tinker projects there and even created a few things for her that she could integrate, she had never seen the plans for the finished projects.

And now, as she watched people's struggle against the Simurgh, trying to destroy the ball of technology, she wished nothing more than to be there and help them. Sadly, she had promised not to move until Dragon requested it.

Intellectually, she knew that, despite her training, Tess had much more experience with these things, but emotionally, it was much more difficult.

She had the power; she knew she could stand up to the Endbringers, so why not do that?

When the Simurgh vanished the second time, she instantly concentrated on finding the target.

Taylor almost managed to find it at the same time as Tess. Ultimately, the AI, for obvious reasons, was faster.

"Ellisburg, Taylor."

"Yeah, I see it…"

"Taylor, it's time for you to act. I'm almost one hundred percent sure that this will be the last stop," said the AI in a serious voice. "So please, suit up and head to the city."

By the time Tess finished the sentence, Taylor was already standing in her armor, sans her helmet.

"I'm going to turn on the house defenses, talk to my dad, then head out."

"Thank you, Taylor. And please, be careful!" said Tess worriedly. "I'll add you to the communication network when you arrive."

"Thanks, Tess," said Taylor, then turned to a small hard-light screen and put in a password before turning on the house defenses. This totally isolated it from the outside, which included changing to internal air and water supplies.

She was not taking a chance when the Simurgh's target was a Biotinker…

"See you there, Dragon."

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw her father looking around, wondering what was happening.

He instantly noticed her, though he didn't seem to realize she was actually wearing armor.

"Taylor! What the hell happened?"

"I turned on the defenses. Simurgh is heading toward Ellisburg, so I want to make sure you are safe."

Oh, thank you, honey," Danny said. "What do you kn–"  He trailed off as he finally noticed that Taylor was wearing her armor. "Why are you wearing that?"

"I'm going to help."

"No!"

"I'm sorry, Dad, but I'm going," she said in the calmest voice she could muster. She knew getting angry, no matter how easy it would be, would not help her.

He walked over to her, standing between her and the door, and looked into her eyes. "Taylor, you don't need to do anything!"

"Yes, I do. According to Dragon, they need a heavy hitter," she replied, trying not to break down from the look in her father's eyes. It was a mixture of desperation and fear.

"They have Alexandria and Legend, and even Eidolon. Why would they need you?"

"The Triumvirate hasn't managed to do anything to the Simurgh… so Tess hopes I can do something with my Thinker immunity."

For a second, it looked like Danny would argue further, but instead, he seemed to sag into himself.

"I… suppose there is nothing I could say that would stop you from going, right?"

Taylor answered in a low voice while avoiding his eyes. "Yeah, Dad."

He nodded sadly while she continued. "But I will connect my armor to the screen here, so we can talk and you can see what is happening."

Danny turned away from her, and she could see a few tears. "Fine, but I don't like it. And if you get hurt, you are grounded."

She gave him a small smile and hugged him. He returned the hug with the same intensity that he had used when she woke up in the hospital.

"Please, please be careful, Taylor," whispered Danny into her ear.

"I will, Dad," she promised in the same voice, squeezing her dad for all it was worth.

After a few seconds, they separated, and Taylor turned to go back to her room while her dad went to get some water. He needed to be as sober as possible for this.

While walking up, Taylor did as she promised. She donned her mask, turned it on, and, after some commands, connected it to the screen in the living room, with an option to turn on a small camera so that she could see her dad.

In her room, before leaving, she tried it out. "Hey, Dad! How is the sound?"

She could see Danny sitting on the sofa with a glass of water. His eyes were moist, but he smiled at her.

"I can hear you and see you clearly, but I don't see what you see," he answered, a little amazed.

"I will turn that on when I arrive," she replied.

"Very well," said her dad sadly. "Good luck, honey!"

She gave him a small smile, then nodded toward the invisible Admin floating next to her. The slime nodded back, and instantly a portal appeared before her.

She took a deep breath and stepped through.