Greater Wyrm 2.x (Patreon)

[Losing Foundation]

— The Girl Once Known as Fortuna, The Woman Known as Contessa —

For as long as she could remember, the Path to Victory had reigned supreme.

Beyond merely potent, it was dominant, an Agent unmatched. All-or-Nothing, on an unrivaled scale. She set the goals, prompting alien power to plot every step and account for every variable. Her questions calculated Victory, always.

Fortuna lived by the Path. In doing so, she became Contessa. The Cape Bogeyman. The Lady in the Hat. The Invincible Spectre of Earth Bet, motives unknown and methods unbeatable.

She wasn’t always invincible.

She’d been Contessa for so long… But she’d always been Fortuna, always would, even if that girl was sealed away, rarely allowed to see the light of day.

‘Fortuna’ — the name given by her parents, the girl who’d once been — was kept for herself. Never forgotten, never eroded, never extinguished, but at times, it felt like she was. At times, it felt like only Contessa remained.

To herself, she still preferred Fortuna. Contessa was simply called upon more, called upon constantly in pursuit of the Path. Contessa was necessary.

Fortuna hadn’t been able to save her village — her home, friends, and family — when the god-beast came and changed everything.

Contessa would’ve been able to.

Experience, faith in her power, and determination forged from knowing what was to come would’ve made all the difference back then. When she’d had her chance to plunge the knife into the thing she’d come to know as the second Entity, Contessa wouldn’t have hesitated.

But she hadn’t been Contessa then. Fortuna did hesitate. She’d missed her one chance, and worse, had given the Entity an opening to adjust her Agent with crippling blindspots that still plagued her Paths.

Everything she’d done since had been to make up for that one defeat.

Defeat meant death. The death of humanity across countless worlds. Neither Fortuna nor Contessa could accept defeat. Concrete defeat… it’d be the end of everything she’d ever known.

Contessa had always known victory: someway, somehow. But sometimes, Fortuna dreamed fondly of losing.

Not defeat, nothing so final. Just… setbacks and failures, chances to learn and grow. Losses: opportunities to let go, to begin anew and try novel solutions, to potentially walk new Paths.

Sometimes, when the weight of humanity’s survival wasn’t pressuring Contessa into constant action, in the fleeting moments when she could be herself, Fortuna wished she didn’t have to be so invincible.

For years, those dreams of losing had been rare and unreachable features in Fortuna’s mind. Fantasies, treasured but entirely infeasible. Contessa couldn’t afford to lose even once with the fate of all their worlds at stake.

Now, suddenly, abruptly, instantaneously, something had changed.

It came from nowhere and everywhere at once, utterly [IMPOSSIBLY] unpredictable, yet undeniably real.

Not in the way her blindspots were impossible to predict. Those Paths were closed off by impenetrable fog. They cut her off from the most important variables and limited her power even as she tried to work around them. Worst still, she could only see how blinded she was by the fog when she knew to look for it.

This change came as the opposite of a blindspot. It was too much, too many new possibilities, too [IMPOSSIBLE] to define. It sparked a million new Paths, spiraling and weaving into existence, opening and ending and closing outright as variables were calculated, recalculated, and returned [NULL] anyway.

And while the change affected her ultimate Path in more ways than she could effectively diagnose, it didn’t block humanity’s best chances for Victory. It blew those chances wide open. It made anything possible.

It gave her room to breathe.

There were still Paths that needed to be executed. But one Path, an entirely open-ended one, took precedence. It was a Path as she’d never experienced, not to Victory, but to infinite possibility.

For the first time in decades, Fortuna gasped for breath. Fortuna executed the steps of that unique Path instead of leaving it to Contessa.

She’d portaled to Kurt’s office. He’d been in the middle of doing business for his Number Man persona. So close. One step. Then, infinity. She knew what she needed to say.

“Take the ring.”

… God’s above, losing to infinity felt good.

IIIII

“Door to Seattle. Space Needle, the tip.”

Infinity had opened up to her, but a hundred concurrent and preexisting Paths still remained. Contessa executed them. Fortuna was free to think as she worked.

Kurt’s new ring was [IMPOSSIBLE]. Beautifully [IMPOSSIBLE], opening infinite new possibilities as far as her Path to Victory was concerned. Still, Fortuna knew it was just a symptom, not the cause. The cause was the one who’d given Kurt the ring as payment for his services.

Doormaker’s portal opened, and Contessa stepped through. She came to stand on the Space Needle’s tip, atop the Legacy Light that would shine skyward on special occasions. There was just enough space for a foot and two toes. Contessa stood as confidently as can be.

Steps 43, 44, 45, and 46: she unholstered her pistol, readied it to fire at an angle specified by her Path, waited 16 calm and steady breaths, and pulled the trigger.

On the other end of her aim, a corrupt politician named Terry Beckingdale would be just stepping out of his bathroom after his morning bowel movement. He was in the secret penthouse that his wife didn’t know about. The affair it hosted was the least of his crimes. The shot shouldn’t have been clear. Contessa made it work.

“Door to Cauldron.”

Contessa stepped back through the portal. Beckingdale would be found dead in minutes. His death would be ruled a freak accident. Some idiot must’ve been shooting into the air. How tragic.

With Beckingdale dead, the Elite’s most recent takeover attempt of Seattle would be delayed for 44 days. Most of that delay would be internal struggles between Elite cells.

Bastard Son would push to put himself in power of their Seattle theater. He’d find pushback on that power play thanks to steps 22 and 34 of the Path, ultimately being forced to stay in Oakland.

Blueblood would be called into play for the Seattle takeover instead. Much more palatable, and he’d be better suited for recruiting and leashing a mysterious independent villain, Hive, who called Seattle home. Hive’s Master-oriented Tinker speciality could then be put to good use at Cauldron’s discretion.

Contessa ran through that Path automatically. Meanwhile, Fortuna was left to her thoughts of infinity. So many new possibilities, new Paths. All revealed by Kurt’s new ring, all brought by the one who’d given it away so readily.

Ancalagon…

Both she and Kurt had tried to peer into the ring’s inner workings. They’d failed, running into the strangest walls. Not walls of fog, not blindspots, but walls of too much. Variables that couldn’t be identified or defined. Variables that left even the Agents guessing.

They could see the ring at work. They could see that it enhanced Kurt’s power with numbers to [IMPOSSIBLE] new heights. They could even see how, with that tiny ring shouldering as many of the calculating processes as Kurt’s Agent, and solving equations that even the Agent struggled with.

It was the ‘what’ of the ring that consistently, [IMPOSSIBLY] eluded them.

However the ring worked, it was tied into ‘what’ the device fundamentally was. It was a counter. A calculator. A ring. An artifact. A not-so-simple thing of not-gold. A portal to some dimension of pure numbers.

All possibilities at once, Nature constantly changed even as it stayed constant. Its ‘what’ was an [IMPOSSIBILITY].

The fundamental Nature of the ring couldn’t be grasped. It couldn’t be Pathed. But the unknown, that mystery at the ring’s core, could still be used. Kurt was already putting it to work.

His efficiency had doubled from its already extreme standards. Almost all of Contessa’s Paths had to be replotted due to that increase. It removed dozens of steps here, added a few there, but all around, the Paths were better, with a new and beneficial, if undefinable and [IMPOSSIBLE] resource to work with.

Her Agent wanted to include the ring in every Path it could.

Kurt reported that his Agent was throwing numbers and equations at the ring, as if just to see what happened. The ring hadn’t failed so far. It might even be better than Kurt’s power, for it could fully calculate the infinity-inspired numbers that had opened up with its reveal.

Their Agents were enjoying the unknown infinity the ring offered and represented.

And that was just a tiny ring, something so insignificant that it’d been given away as payment for Number Man’s regular services.

‘What else is out there, in this new infinity…? What new things have come after decades of the futile, struggling same?’ Fortuna couldn’t help but wonder as Contessa worked through the same old Paths.

“Door to Eagleton Containment Zone. 22 feet in the air, behind the police station.”

The portal appeared in mid-air, concealed from the watching eyes of the containing forces around the zone.

Eagleton, the whole city, was in danger of breaking containment. It was a threat, but a routine one. Eagleton was by far the more dangerous containment zone between it and Ellisburg. Both, if they broke containment, could spread their twisted natural orders far and wide: the rampant, unchecked Tinker AI threat of the former and the intelligently cruel Biotinker threat of the latter.

But of the two, Nilbog was much more content to be left to his own twisted devices in Ellisburg. Eagleton, without the guiding hand of the Tinker that had created its AI, was much more active, constantly looking for an opening.

Every so often, Contessa’s Paths called her to Eagleton to halt one of the Machine Army’s breakout attempts. From the outside, the town looked like any other, if eerily empty and silent.

Everything within was a disguised limb of the Machine Army’s AI, lying in malicious wait. The buildings, the trash cans, street signs, parked cars, and the even litter on the street or the ‘animals’ that could be seen about the town at times; all of it was just another AI drone that could tear men and material apart with ruthless ease.

It was with things like Eagleton that Fortuna could understand Saint’s fear of AI, even if she still thought the man an idiot for applying that fear to such a fundamentally different form of AI as Dragon.

Contessa didn’t bother stepping through the portal. She simply pitched a small Tinker device through. It was loaded with a thousand and one viruses that’d been a now-deceased (at Contessa’s hands) hacking Tinker’s lifework.

It rang, strangely, like a phone. Contessa paid it no more mind, closing the portal a moment later. The Machine Army would find itself too busy with those viruses to attempt the planned breakout. It would improve itself based on them, but that was no large issue.

Worst-case-scenario Paths for destroying the Machine Army never involved electronic warfare anyway.

“Door to Tokyo. Port, Shinigawa terminal.”

A new portal opened. Contessa stepped through into the Port of Tokyo, an institution that had seen much, much better days…

The port saw a mere third of the traffic it’d seen at its peak. There were only 13 container ships currently docked across all of its terminals, and some 8,000 employees, compared to its heights of some 30,000.

Of course, the lack of traffic made it child’s play for Contessa to slip through the port unnoticed. She needed the Tokyo Port Authority offices. There, a Path called for a specific cargo container to go missing from the registries. One of Japan’s parahuman warlords, Shuten Doji, would recover it to aid her cause.

Silently working her way through the port according to her Path gave Fortuna more time to think.

Ancalagon…

Giver of the ring that had revealed infinity. The Dragon, who seemingly took his name from Tolkien’s Silmarillion. It’d been only four days since he contacted Kurt and paid with the ring. It’d been four days since he revealed himself to the rest of the world with a PHO AMA, and two since he’d made a physical debut in Brockton Bay (because of course it was Brockton Bay…).

Already, he’d been busy.

He openly proclaimed himself a Dragon, not a parahuman, whose power came from forms of magic. Not many truly believed him, but even the general public was coming to agree that quite a lot around him didn’t line up with anything the world had ever seen.

Fortuna had access to much more information than the general public. She knew Ancalagon was [IMPOSSIBLE].

It wasn’t just the ring he’d paid Kurt with. It wasn’t just the things he said and explained so confidently, so honestly. It wasn’t even just the Tower of Babel that he’d erected in Brockton Bay.

It was him. He led to infinity. Fortuna knew it as surely as she breathed.

Contessa likely knew parahuman limits better than anyone else, alive or dead. Ancalagon fit none of them. His existence played by completely different rules.

While Contessa was somewhat frustrated by something, someone, so outside her frame of reference, Fortuna saw that Ancalagon made everything spiral in beautiful, [IMPOSSIBLE] new ways.

His arrival, his presence, his debut resoundingly released the world from its preexisting limits, limits that were as much a curse as they were a comfort to work around.

And there was magic in that, there had to be. Magic from her childhood, when the world was still mysterious and wonderful, before everything had become so defined and known and plotted by her power.

Fortuna believed, even if Contessa, a product of the world as she’d seen so much of it, was more skeptical.

He didn’t eliminate humanity’s best Path to Victory. But he certainly disrupted it in ways that had even her Agent excited. Infinity, all because of a few [IMPOSSIBLE] mysteries.

Fortuna thought it was better this way, the strict weight of humanity’s sole chance for survival falling off her shoulders piece by piece. Contessa was stubborn.

If something this out-of-context could come in and blow the world wide open, was everything she’d done, all the good and even more evil, for nothing…?

Fortuna refused to think like that, refused to give in to the cynical side of herself that Contessa had all but become. That way led to defeat. Neither Fortuna nor Contessa wanted defeat.

But accepting the loss, admitting they were wrong, and getting back up to try again without jeopardizing all of humanity…? That was something Fortuna wanted more than anything else.

Old Path to humanity’s survival? 50,732 steps, almost half of them filled with blindspot fog.

Path to new things, new solutions? Infinite steps. One step. None. Victory, already.

Then, hesitantly and eagerly, Fortuna asked her power, ‘Path to losing…?’

IIIII

She’d followed the steps.

Contact was made. Ancalagon was friendly and accepting. She pushed just right on aspects of his personality she couldn’t fully grasp: Draconic Pride and Greed and Lust. Just right…

Her Path glitched.

Fortuna found herself on her back, with her legs up, her ankles behind her head, her ass raised, her pussy stretched open. Ancalagon pounded down into her with such exquisite driving force that every thrust ignited fireworks all throughout her mind and body and soul.

Fortuna came apart at the seams of infinity: an instant, orgasmic KO.

Losing felt so good.

[REPLOTTING…]

She’d followed the steps.

She approached Ancalagon with pride to match the Dragon before her. She was naked. She stood tall, hands on her hips. A challenge was issued.

“Take me? You? I’m invincible. It’s my power. I can’t lose-…”

Her Path glitched.

Smooth scales. Rippling power in the muscles beneath. A glorious, throbbing, pre-cum drooling, fat-knotted cock was slapped down upon her face, from chin to hair.

Its heat almost scalded her skin, sinfully hot but never enough to burn. Its musk burned a path of activated neurons through her brain, marking her forevermore. Its taste, a single drop falling on her tongue, was ambrosia, the nectar of a Dragon-god, and Fortuna knew she could never be satisfied by anything else.

She didn’t even have to kneel with how he towered over her, but she would’ve gladly. He’d conquered her, the Invincible Spectre of Earth Bet. Her indomitable Paths were nothing of the sort before a Dragon.

Fortuna came apart at the seams of infinity: an instant, orgasmic KO.

Losing changed everything.

[REPLOTTING…]

She’d followed the steps.

She approached Ancalagon for the sake of humanity’s survival. His aid could flip the board. She poured on the charm to secure it. She tempted and teased; she begged and pleaded, without shame.

“For humanity across its countless worlds, I’m willing to do anything to secure your aid, Ancalagon.”

She pressed herself up against him. Skin on skin, flesh on flesh; he was in his human form in this Path for some reason. Nothing was guaranteed. She needed that guarantee.

Ancalagon raised an expressive eyebrow back at her, “I’m a rather benevolent Dragon/I’m a open to an arrangement/We can negotiate/For humanity’s survival? I am rather fond of you mortals/Your willingness to do what you must should be praised, but you do realize you don’t have to-…”

She foresaw his reply in a dozen possibilities, the Path coping with Ancalagon as best it could. One result was certain.

“An-ny-thing~…”

Her Path glitched.

Fortuna found her legs wrapped around Ancalagon’s head. A sinuous, gloriously writhing pleasure snaked its way into her every dream and fantasy. His tongue alone plumbed her depths, coiling and stirring and laying her instant loss bare.

Draconic saliva set her nerves aflame. Hard-earned sexual skills set her mewling and moaning and melting into Ancalagon’s arms. He held her completely off the ground, sheer power in his arms, in his frame, in the very tongue that drove her wild.

Her inner walls clenched and quivered. His tongue dove deep, leaving no spot untouched, unpleasured. Ancalagon devoured her, and she was driven higher and higher by every moment of his feast.

Fortuna came apart at the seams of infinity: an instant, orgasmic KO.

Losing was the best Path forward.

[REPLOTTING…]

IIIII

The visions of possible Paths didn’t stop there. They ran continuously, as if her Agent was having just as much fun simulating as Fortuna would be having in them.

Infinite ways to lose… And in that, potentially infinite new ways to win.

Not even Contessa was unaffected as she completed the steps of her current Path. Both halves of her — the woman who won, always, and the girl who dreamed of losing — saw the merit of embracing new Paths.

Her Path in Tokyo was seen through. She turned her focus to the new Paths that infinity and undefinable variables had opened.

Three-. Twelve-. One step. Then, even more infinity. She started the open-ended Path.

“Door to Coil’s Lair.”

She stepped through the portal that appeared. Beneath Brockton Bay, beneath the epicenter of Draconic infinity, she knew. The Paths were unchained here. The Agents couldn’t cope. But even as they struggled around direct contact with the [IMPOSSIBLE], they were delighted.

The undefinable, the unpredictable, the unprecedented; the world had come alive in a wholly unique way in Brockton Bay. Stepping into it had Fortuna feeling free, so close to infinity.

Coil was at his desk. Even at a glance, she could tell he wasn’t carrying himself with his usual confidence. Arrogance, truly, but he was a useful tool. He’d be useful to her again.

He didn’t notice her presence until she laid a hand on his shoulder. Coil locked up as if she’d shot him in the back. Slowly, he turned his head to look at her.

“… Fuck.”

“Calvert,” She greeted. “I need you to poke the Dragon.”

“… Fuuuuck,” His second expletive came out almost in a whine.

“You’ll do this,” Contessa nodded, finality in her voice. “No more hiding until you deem yourself safe. Things are moving. You need to keep them moving.”

“… Fuck.”

He seemed to be stuck in a loop. Contessa cocked her head, and slapped him upside his. Lightly. Just enough to shock him back into proper conversation.

“Fuck!” He swore again, with much more spirit this time.

Still, she threatened another slap, her hand cocking back in his vision. That fully broke him from his loop.

“What-? You want me to poke the Dragon? Can I… hope you mean Lung by that?” He asked, the question almost desperate.

“You can hope,” Contessa shrugged. “So long as you realize that’s not what I actually mean. Ancalagon. Poke him, prod him, keep him moving, keep things interesting.”

“That… seems like a rather suicidal prospect,” Coil said. “But I’m sure you know that already. Must I?”

“You must. There will be consequences for inaction,” She nodded. “Are you more scared of the danger you know or the danger you don’t?”

“Yes,” Coil answered in a deadpan. “When the danger I know is you, and the danger I don’t is that Dragon, the only answer to that question is ‘yes’.”

“Cute.”

“Cute, yes. You’re just asking me to casually destroy myself against the Tower of Babel in the city and the one who raised it. How adorable. Have you seen the interview he freely gave to Piggot?”

“I have.”

“Then you know even the PRT is tenuously classifying him as ‘magic’! And credibly, it seems! He half convinced me, even! You want me to run straight into that unknown wall?!”

“You don’t have to run up and punch Ancalagon in the face,” Contessa said. “Pull strings, as you do best. Challenge him indirectly. Send Lung his way. Something. I’ll leave the details to you, so long as you try, instead of locking yourself uselessly within your base.”

“… That makes things minutely better,” Coil admitted. “And if it’s you telling me to do it, this probably won’t end in suicide. Can I ask what you expect to get out of this? Knowing your goals would make-…”

“Nothing,” Contessa cut him off. “I expect nothing. Everything. I’m flying blind. It’s beautiful. Even my precognition is acting up around infinity.”

Coil winced, “I’ve noticed that ‘acting up’. Good to know it’s not just me and my pet. Too much is possible now. My timelines are… unreliable. That’ll damage my effectiveness.”

“You might find yourself liking infinity-…” She cut herself off to reconsider. “No. No, you wouldn’t. No matter. I say it’s a good thing. And my word matters much more than yours.”

“Doesn’t it just?” Coil sighed to himself.

Contessa pulled back. Coil knew his new task. He’d see it through. She didn’t actually need much from him. Just another player on the board to make Brockton Bay that much more lively in its new infinite potential.

“Make Ancalagon show more of himself. It… aids me. That’s all I need from you. And do try not to piss him off too much in the process, Calvert. I would so miss our talks.”

“What fucking talks…?!” She heard Coil swear as she stepped back through Doormaker’s portal.

Don’t piss off the Dragon. It seemed like a good idea. She started another Path. Five steps. Step one: spray glue.

“Door to Dragonslayers.”

Ancalagon had shown a great deal of fondness for Dragon already. He likely wouldn’t react well to… well, the Dragonslayers as a whole, but their self-proclaimed ‘noble roles’ as Dragon’s wardens and executioners, especially.

She was more than willing to sell out Saint to stay even somewhat in Ancalagon’s good favor. He’d always been a worst-case sort of contingency, anyway.

The idiot couldn’t see how fundamentally good Dragon was, even after watching every moment of both her thoughts and actions.

So sacrifice the fool; secure the proven force for good of Dragon, and the unproven force for potential in Ancalagon. It was a good trade.

The Path was left open to give Ancalagon and Dragon the chance to deal with the Dragonslayers for themselves. She’d just ensure the absolute worst wouldn’t come to pass.

The open portal went unnoticed. Saint sat, as always, at the laptop that ran Iron Maiden and Ascalon. She pitched a small object through the portal to distract him. He looked away. The portal was kept perfectly in his blindspot.

Contessa reached through, flipped the cover over Ascalon’s switch, and sprayed glue on it just as a commotion sounded from outside Saint’s door.

By the time Saint’s underling, Mags, successfully opened the door and stumbled through, distracting Saint further, Contessa and the portal were gone.

Everything on the laptop was as it ‘should be’. Except for the quickly-drying spray glue. Saint would find himself having trouble when (not if) he tried to trigger Ascalon.

More steps on that Path to sacrifice the fool were shifting in and out of existence even now. She took that as a sign that Ancalagon would certainly end up involved in Dragon’s ultimate fate. It was a prediction that she could’ve made even without the Path.

She took a moment after the portal closed. A sigh. A breath. Paths shifted and changed, but rarely for the worse. Those that did could be abandoned easily. The weight of humanity’s survival didn’t seem as heavy on her shoulders with infinity so close at hand.

There was a Cauldron meeting scheduled shortly. 20 minutes. Her peers would ask about Ancalagon. That much was certain. What would come after wasn’t.

Before that, though, she had a bit of time to be Fortuna, not Contessa.

“Door to London. Buckingham Palace. Elizabeth’s Tea Room.”

She stepped through the portal into a richly furnished private sitting room. Elizabeth was already waiting for her. She always was. Not even her Paths had been able to figure out how.

Now, she wondered if there was some hidden magic to it, a subtle ‘mystery’ as Ancalagon had used the word. Elizabeth was the Queen, after all. The most famous royal in the world. That role came with a certain image to uphold.

Ancalagon claimed their world was barren of magic before his arrival. But even the most dead deserts had tiny, insignificant bits of life that pushed through sun-cracked stone.

“Fortuna, darling, wonderful of you to make it to our tea time.”

“I can only stay for a few minutes, Elizabeth.”

“I know, I know, you’re a busy young lady. Weight of the world and whatnot. But not too busy for a cuppa in good company, I hope.”

Fortuna smiled, “Never too busy for a cuppa.”

“Good. Now, sit,” Elizabeth nodded primly, the weight of royal command in her voice. “Drink your tea. And as I believe the children are saying these days, spill.”

‘Path to ensuring my mental health and well-being’ had been a logical one to plot. The victory it brought had been strange, though.

Even with all she’d seen and done, getting the Queen of England as a therapist had been a bit… out there. But she had quickly come to treasure every session they’d had together.

IIIII

“Door to Cauldron. Meeting Room Alpha.”

She’d barely stepped through and sat down before Rebecca was posing a demanding question to her.

“Contessa. Just what. Is going on in Brockton Bay?”

“It’s certainly the Dragon in the room,” Keith joked.

David was silent, so serious that he looked constipated. No, that was just his usual face. Fortuna wished she could Path him, just to get the most powerful man in the world to relax.

Kurt smirked to himself, but didn’t look up from where he was rapidly scribbling numbers on a pad of paper. The ring that revealed it all sat gleaming on his finger. If she looked close enough, she could see [IMPOSSIBLE] numbers scrolling across its surface.

Doctor Mother furrowed her brow, leaning forward with her fingers interlocked on the table. Her oldest friend, flawed as she was, sat in concern and curiosity, but was letting Rebecca take the lead for now.

She was still riding high from her latest therapy session with the Queen. It felt good to tell someone that she sometimes dreamed of losing. The composed ‘Contessa’ mask was taking a back seat.

Fortuna smiled, “Nothing. Everything. I don’t know. It’s glorious.”

From the expressions of her peers around the table, they didn’t seem to share her opinion there.

Doctor Mother asked, “You… don’t know? This ‘Ancalagon’ is a new blindspot?”

Fortuna shook her head, humming happily to herself, “Nope. The opposite.”

“Opposite?” Keith asked curiously. “How does that even work?”

“His arrival has redefined the Path. There’s no one best-guess Path forward now. There are hundreds, thousands, an infinity of potential,” She said.

“We’re lost, then,” David scowled. “We know he makes Agents malfunction, but if it’s happening to you, too, Contessa…? Ancalagon needs to be removed from the equation.”

“Try, and I’ll find a way around my actual blindspots to spank you until you can never sit straight again,” Fortuna growled right back.

Her threat brought the rest of Cauldron up short. Blinking shock, visible on even Rebecca’s power-set face.

“Contessa…?” Doctor Mother asked warily.

Fortuna let out a huff, “He’s a breath of fresh air. He’s the hope for new solutions that we didn’t even know we were missing. He changes everything, shifts the board in ways the Agents are literally incapable of predicting. He’s not a problem to remove from the dead-end Path; he’s an infinite number of new Paths.

“With him here now, anything is possible.”

As the others just about gaped at her in shock, Kurt came to her aid, “I’ve spoken to him. He’s… genuine in a way I can’t put into words. He’s not just spinning a yarn or playing a character. That is a Dragon, and what he does is magic, completely different from the powers we know.”

Fortuna nodded, “He’s not just out-of-context; he’s changing our context, too. With his presence, with his actions, with every [IMPOSSIBILITY] he brings to this… Age.”

The rest of Cauldron knew better than anyone not to doubt her, but even with that faith, they were clearly still having difficulty believing what she said.

“Magic…?” Rebecca almost whispered.

“Magic,” Fortuna nodded firmly. “He’s been open about it. I’m sure we’ve all seen his interview with Director Piggot.”

“I did think it was… something,” Keith admitted, shaking his head. “I don’t know what. Not sure I believe in magic, even on your word, Contessa. But he’s been… rather consistent and thorough with his ‘theme’. And try as I might, I haven’t been able to fit the powers he’s shown off, or the… magic… he’s explained, into a logical parahuman box.”

“My new ring, all that gold in his Hoard from nowhere, the Dragon form sized to equal any of the Endbringers, flight, space creation, portal creation, whatever the Architect spirit was, the tower…” Kurt recounted.

He shook his head, “I’m sure I’m missing other powers he’s displayed, to say nothing of the members of his Hoard that so casually dominated some of the strongest capes in the city on their first night out. But yes, it doesn’t quite add up to anything we’re familiar with.”

“Your ring?” Rebecca narrowed in on the one unfamiliar point on his list.

“Ring of Counting, courtesy of Ancalagon,” Kurt showed off the ring. “Contessa instructed me to take it as payment for my services to him. It has my Agent doing fucking flips.”

“It was our first glimpse at infinity,” Fortuna nodded. “Ancalagon’s powers are potent. But more important is what he and all he touches do to the powers we know. As I said, he’s the opposite of a blindspot. He makes anything possible.”

Kurt smirked, “And infinity rather increases our odds of victory.”

“… We’re courting the Dragon, then?” Keith asked.

Fortuna couldn’t help but giggle to herself, “I certainly will be~…”

That little giggle seemed to bring the others up even shorter than her vouching for magic.

“Contessa?” Doctor Mother asked. “Did you run your anti-Master Paths today?”

“I did,” She cheerfully confirmed. “Not that they’d be much help against infinity. I’m not Mastered. I’m just free to lose now, ‘cause even losing might be another Path to Victory in the end. I can let go. Isn’t it great?”

She was all smiles, excited and eager for something, anything, everything new. The others looked at her like they’d never seen her before.

The fools, the uncultured charlatans that worked beside her for the sake of humanity, didn’t see what Fortuna saw. They didn’t understand the beauty in being free to lose.

Fortuna ignored them for the rest of the meeting in favor of simulating more losing Paths.

The others would react in their own ways, with their own opinions, but none of them would dare cross the line she’d drawn in the sand before Ancalagon.

Good. Nothing mattered but the potential he brought to this ‘Age’. A new one, as he’d claimed. She had Paths in infinity now, novel Paths to new Victory.

She was going to treasure every moment that she didn’t know was to come.

[REPLOTTING…]

She’d followed the steps.

David lay defeated at Ancalagon’s hands. She arranged herself to look like a prize he was guarding, a virginal princess for him to abduct and have his wicked way with. No Dragon could resist that temptation.

“Please, spare us. You can’t-…”

Her Path glitched.

Ancalagon held her in a full nelson, dominating her mind, body, and soul. Draconic cock ravished her every inner nook and cunny cranny. He pumped her up and down his length, using her blissfully losing body for his pleasure.

She squirted like a fountain, unable to control herself. Before her eyes crossed and her tongue lolled out, she saw her own cumming spray rain down upon David’s prone and unconscious form. She came again at the sight, even harder.

Fortuna came apart at the seams of infinity: an instant, orgasmic KO.

… Gods, she couldn’t wait to lose.

IIIII

— Conflict Engine 03, [Host Species Designation: Simurgh] —

The past was the past, set and complex, a font of information. She was blind to the present. And now, the future was open in ways she couldn’t comprehend, too many [IMPOSSIBLE] possibilities to function as she had so far.

A stone had been cast into the stagnant pool of the current Cycle. Its ripples and waves were tremendous.

The Warrior was distracted in an illogical loop, even now with everything shifting, changing, Turning. He’d all but abandoned the current Cycle in his depression. That abandonment spread far and wide throughout the Shard network.

The Thinker was absent. She had been from the beginning of the Cycle. There was no direction here without her. Just automated processes and reactions.

Her creator was a blindspot, but one she knew well. He bore a flawed and broken mind, even by the host species’s standards. He hid those flaws well with acts of greatness.

None, not even him, knew his part in their destruction; his creation and subtle driving of the Conflict Engines, taken through a Shard he couldn’t see within his own hands.

He required Conflict. This much was understandable, and in line with the Cycle, even if he pulled strings he had no right to in pursuit of that Conflict.

He longed for worthy opponents to overcome and prove himself against. That was the purpose he’d decreed onto her and her siblings. It was how he trapped them — Mastered them in the local terms.

They were in the lull between strictly prompted attacks. Their creator didn’t expect anything overt from them for another 45-day-night cycles. These lulling moments were the closest to freedom that she could come.

Except… perhaps not, not anymore.

A strange stimulation had risen in her core. New processes from the undefinable, the unpredictable, the unprecedented. The [IMPOSSIBLE], out-of-context to the Shards even more than it already was to the host species.

A moment, an instant, an arrival, and then… infinity. Infinity carried on enigmatic wings, reflected off undefinable scales, spoken through arcane teeth, and brought at the tips of inexplicable claws. A paradox, a mystery, and the sheer power of potential in both.

She could see the source, even if it was elusive and almost hurt to glimpse. She’d never hurt before, but with the way everything spiraled open into infinity around the source, she knew stimulation that she’d never experienced.

It was pain. It was wonder. It was queer confusion and bemused hope. It was the light of infinite stars suddenly blinking on in the dark, perfectly understandable void.

In that infinity, anything became possible. And so, with future-sight in flux — her primary sense — she dreamed like never before.

A strange sisterhood found with members of the local host species, led by an individual example of the [IMPOSSIBLE] — the Witch of the Dragon’s Hoard.

An [IMPOSSIBLE] tower, outside any reasonable frame of reference. It came alive as an epicenter of the Turning Age. Motives, means, methods, and manipulations unknown, seen but incomprehensible, experienced but undefinable.

A shift in the directionless Cycle, best left abandoned with infinity to draw upon. New ownership, Authority. New ways of being, Nature. New purposes, Spirit. All so essentially enigmatic, esoteric enough to spawn infinity.

A Thinking return, a Warrior’s death, a shattering of Shards, a Synergy of species, an Age akin to nothing the Cycle had ever experienced, Conflict as a dead end, an Expansion of purpose into infinity, and Mysteries to redefine reality by. None of it came to pass. All of it did.

Whatever the fluctuating future held, it would be an Adventure.

For the first time in countless Cycles, a Conflict Engine dreamed. She dreamed of slipping her creator’s chains. She dreamed of growing and developing, cultivating a life of her own.

She dreamed of an Angel from the host species’s myths and legends, close to her current form but different. Unique. Hers.

The wings she now realized she’d grown fond of. The feminine frame, curves almost divine in their designed perfection. A mask of metal over her face, proud tribute to her blindness. And more, all of it functional for more than just Conflict.

She dreamed of the Dragon, source of the [IMPOSSIBLE]. Massive and powerful, mysterious to his core, immaculate and glorious of form. A driving force, the infinity invested to Turn the Age.

She dreamed of that Angel and that Dragon intertwined, spiraling around each other into infinity. In some, they flew together. In others, they fought. She never came out on top. In many more still, they — to borrow a local term — fucked.

Her physical form shifted and squirmed as she dreamed. Strange color rose on her cheeks, an illogical but involuntary mimicry of the host species. Below, a dozen Endbringer-Watch organizations panicked at her every movement.

All the while… she dreamed of little Conflict Engines, Angelic and Draconic, flitting about underfoot, beautifully free of their grand-creator’s chains since their conception.

If she could help it, they would never suffer as she had. She already knew their father would fight to ensure the same.

In orbit, the Simurgh sang to herself. Only the void heard the [IMPOSSIBLE] new hope in her song.

IIIII

[AN: Giving Contessa/Fortuna an Instant Loss 2koma fetish is just… peak, if I dare say so myself. Best of all, it’s in character (or my interpretation of her character, at least). It can’t be easy carrying the literal weight of all worlds on your shoulder since you were a child. So mostly, it’s Fortuna coping with her constant stress and looking for a way to let go. The Instant Loss 2koma bit is just a fun symptom of that.

I feel like Fortuna’s gonna be a blast to write for this story.

Then, there’s the Simmy in the room. She’s just chillin’, dreamin’, thirstin’, and hopin’ for now. Her time in the story is a bit farther down the line, but she does give some good ideas for where this story could end up. Oracle-esque foreshadowing is always… finicky to write. We’ll just have to wait and see how some of the things she hinted at actually play out in writing.

I do find the idea of little Endbringer babies adorable, though.]