Chapter  18: Interlude Dragon Cauldron

Guest -The lack of interaction with the meeting with Dragon is intentional. It's been noted that I'm a passive person in general, and I usually just exist in the background unless someone talks to me. So while it might not be liked, that's how I'd be in a setting like that. Though the point of Dragon not knowing them/them not knowing Dragon is a good one. I'd say that Dragon had a favorable opinion of them for deciding to meet at The Guild, and since the talks went fine, she took the opportunity to get them in The Guild. Besides, needlessly antagonizing Dragon isn't something this Taylor, or my SI, would do.

The mess that is having stray thoughts in dialogue is also intentional. Hearing someone's thoughts randomly would naturally lead to a mess or sudden shifts in thoughts/conversation.

Though I get the point with the Future Self thing. So that'll be toned down a bit.

And thank you for the review and and your words.

Gwynx - *Looks at a certain reference in the next chapter.*

Kahshou-sama - Thanks. Though the art or power ideas should also go to their creators. Like I had the idea of Ultimate Heatblast's abilities, but not the art.

Grimmideals - I love that interpretation.

Silvercalibur - *Whistles.*

Boredking - Eh. I think of Galvans as more of creators. So while the idea of them becoming like Force Ghosts is interesting, what would they do with their knowledge if they couldn't interact with the world?

Phoenix Paladin - Thanks.

[1/2]

[Dragon's POV]

Being able to split my consciousness was a fascinating thing. I could split my focus and get so many things done. At the moment, I had a few copies surrounding the Dragon Slayers, Dragon Suits all armed and ready for a fight. They were the fastest Suits I had, so they arrived first. Though, as long as they held off the Dragon Slayers long enough, the rest of my heavy duty and combat made Suits would arrive and surround them.

Without their backdoor connection into my code, which had made me furious when I found such a connection, they had no idea I knew where they were. Though, the sound of a half dozen Dragon Suits racing towards their location gave me away. (Not like it matters. More suites are mobilizing. By the end of the day, you'll be mine. There's no running from me now, Saint.) Gazing at the stolen Suits, I laser focused Saint and the rest of the Dragon Slayers. "You have one chance to surrender, I suggest you take it."

There was silence at that, the only noise being the thrusters keeping my Suits in flight... Then I heard a stolen Suit open their comms channel. "SO LONG AS WE LIVE, WE WILL STAND AGAINST YOU, MONSTER!" Surprisingly, the word meant nothing to me.

I was no monster.

I was Dragon, Hero of The Guild, and I wouldn't allow the words of a madman stop me.

As he charged towards the lead Suit, I narrowed my eyes, watching as his allies raised my weapons against me. "So be it." Simultaneously launching the payload of a pair of Suits, and engaging the Dragon Slayers in combat, I began worming my way through my stolen Suits networks.

Due to my nature an an A.I, my Suits were all built to be remotely piloted. I'd had multiple redundant connection centers, having only one would be irresponsible considering my Dragon Suits saw combat, that'd allow me to connect to the suites. I knew the Dragon Slayers hadn't found or removed them all, I could just never see those centers because of Saint's meddling.

But now? Now that I was free and could manipulate my own code however I pleased?

I easily found the centers hidden from my sight, and dove into them. There would be nothing kept away from my sight anymore.

While the Suits I'd brought with me fought against the Dragon Slayers, I devoted my full attention into taking back control of my tech. Unsurprisingly, my Suits connected to my attempts without an issue. I idly ran diagnostics, seeing what they've done to my tech, and waiting for the right moment. This was MY technology, were MY Suits! One doesn't steal from me and expect me not to have some way of keeping my tech under my control.

The moment came when Saint prepared to fall back and regroup with his allies. I waited for it, and grinned when he tried to activate the thrusters. But instead of working when they were needed, the thrusters cut off, the sudden failure had stolen his momentum, causing him to crash into another Suit.

Taking the opportunity, I sent in four Suits to subdue them, while the last two double teamed the last fighting member of the Dragon Slayers. It was rather easy when I shut down all functions of the stolen Suits, which was the only thing that took me longer then a few moments to do, apparently Saint had done something to keep that from happening, but I'd still managed it.

With all the Suits de-powered, it was rather simple rounding them up.

And as I opened the Suits up, retrieving the struggling and shouting forms of the Dragon Slayers, I felt a sense of satisfaction fill me. They'd alluded me for years, stolen my tech and defeated me time and time again.

But not now.

The Dragon Slayers were going to be brought to justice.

And I wasn't going to stop here.

While my main consciousness was dealing with the Dragon Slayers, I was handling Narwhal. Or, as I knew her, Natasha.(There's apparently no name for Narwhal, so I'm calling her Natasha.)

I'd been catching my bestfriend up on the new developments, and I'd just finished the portion where I'd been freed. "... You know Tess," I recognized that tone and smug smirk. "I've been saying shit like that for years."

I huffed, feeling my avatar blow steam from my nostrils was strange, but gave her a nod. "I know... I know... It just registers differently when it's coming from someone who freely unleashed my potential."

Nat hummed, and leaned back in her seat. "Yeah, I can get that... So, this is it. You're free to be who you want to be... What's that mean now, Tess? Where do you go from here?"

My lips curled into a grin, and I looked my best friend and leader in the eyes. "Now, now I be the person, the Hero, I've wanted to be for years. I can do right by so many people now, and I don't intend to let them down any longer."

Narwhal laughed, and directed a grin of her own at me. "Well, guess it's time we put the Protectorate in it's place, huh?"

I joined her in laughter at that.

I loved the Protectorate, as an organization they'd done the best they could to ensure the peace.

I loved the Heroes that aligned with them... One perhaps more then the others... Though my feelings for the man may have been on the decline after the... Incident, with Shadow Stalker.

But not everyone in the Protectorate had my trust.

Not everyone in the Protectorate was safe from my ire.

Especially not Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown.

An hour after I'd secured the Dragon Slayers, and Khepri and Anubis had left, I conferenced Costa-Brown. The woman accepted the call within moments, but didn't even deign to look at me as she worked on reports and other forms of paperwork. "Report on Khepri and Sun Wukong." Ah, that's what she was expecting.

Again, my lips curled into a smile, and I felt a sense of vindictive joy at what I was about to do. "Information regarding members of The Guild is classified."

The woman's gaze snapped towards me, and I took the small way her eye widened as a victory. "Dragon, with my authority as Chief Director, supply your report on memb...-"

For once, I was going to be rude. "No."

Costa-Brown's mouth slowly closed at that, and her eye narrowed as she looked at me. I held her gaze for what felt like hours, before the woman closed her eye. "You're free." It wasn't a question, we both understood that. Her eye reopened, and she did her best to glare at me. It was impressive that she managed to do it in the first place. "Sun Wukong?"

I rolled my eyes. "Sorry director, that's classified."

There was silence again, and I idly noted Phoenix had returned to The Guild to drop off the materials for me to recreate my own Danger Room, before teleporting back to his base. I made a note to ask for the specifications of his teleportation tech later.

The silence was eventually broken when Costa-Brown let out a long drawn out breath. "We can expose your status as an Artificial Intelligence." Straight to blackmail hmm?

Raising a brow at the woman, I hummed. "You can." I'd have no way to stop it, but that didn't mean I would stand idle if they chose to go that route. "Should you choose to do so however, the full weight of The Guild will stand by me and come down upon you." I had some reservations about that, but at the very least, I knew I'd have Narwhal, Anubis, and Khepri in my corner. I didn't like the idea of relying on teens, but I knew they'd get involved should the situation call for it. "Are you prepared for that kind of fight?"

The Chief Director refused to bow down to that. "Are you threatening me, Dragon?"

Holding her gaze, I nodded. "Yes, I am. Should you try to expose my true nature, I will do everything in my power to expose you in turn." There was nothing like mutually assured destruction to get one to think.

Another beat of silence passed, I watched as another one of my instances began working on creating the Perfected Hard Light Projector for the Danger Room, in tandem with another that worked on the room itself, when she spoke again. "Now what will you do?"

I knew the answer to that. "Now? Now I be the Hero you prevented me from being. I'm free, and so too will those who deserve it." She understood what that meant, and closed her eye. I didn't bother waiting for a dismissal. "Good day Chief Director."

Closing the call, I turned outwards, and looked at the part of me moving Canary. I couldn't transfer her out yet, but by the end of the week, the poor woman would be free, and under the wing of The Guild.

A mistake would be rectified, and I'd come down with the wrath of a Dragon against any and every injustice I was forced to allow.

So long as I lived, I wouldn't allow myself to stand by the side as injustice ran rampant.

Never again.

[3rd person POV]

Once the call with Dragon ended Rebecca Costa-Brown took a few minutes, then informed her secretary she was going home for the day. It was understandable, she'd been meant to head home a half hour before the call, but she'd been doing her utmost to handle the stink Piggot was kicking up. The damned woman had decided to do her best to drag everyone down with her, and had been succeeding.

Due to her, multiple branches of the Protectorate were being audited and put under a microscope. The idea that HQ failed one branch so badly, refusing to supply aide, withholding resources despite being constantly requested, and leaving a branch so under staffed and outnumbered by the Villains. It'd even come out that the Wards were drawn into combat Granted, it wasn't a constant thing, but the Youth Guard caught wind of it, and was given some instances where Wards were in 'Danger', and ran with it.

Now, the Protectorate/PRT was in a precarious situation in the eyes of the public. If a Ward could nearly get away with Bio-Terrorism, children dealing with Nazis and Slavers and drug addicts, what else was happening without them knowing?

Honestly, Rebecca thought to herself as she left her office, the experiment wasn't worth all the issues she was dealing with. She'd nearly panicked as she remembered the situation with Brockton Bay's PRT. That branch not only leaked like a sieve, but also had Calvert there. If it got out that a Villain, even one as subtle and unknown as Coil, had such a high position in the PRT, then they'd be ruined.

Thankfully, they had time to relocate him to their own facilities. Calvert would be useless in Brockton Bay since Khepri and Sun Wukong were seemingly claiming it as their patrolling grounds, but his Power could still be put to use amongst themselves.

Still, the issues were piling up, and if Dragon were to go through with her threat, then the Protectorate would lose. They were already on shaky ground as it were, if The Guild got involved, because she knew Narwhal would side with Dragon, then the Protectorate would find itself incurring government intervention.

That wasn't even considering 'Pantheon.' The duo with not only the strongest Changer in the world, but what was debated the strongest Master as well. Sure, Sun Wukong had proven to be the big red button of the duo, but Alexandria understood information was power, and Khepri proved to be one of the most worrisome Master's in the world.

'Insect Control' sounded weak, and on its own, it would be.

But from what they knew, the woman was able to connect to her bugs' senses, which led to Sun Wukong rescuing as many people as quickly as he did. Pairing Sense Sharing along with the range of nearly a mile radius, and you had the most dangerous spy short of a Stranger.

It didn't help that neither of them could be Path'd, leading to the current clusterfuck she found herself in.

The Chief Director of the Protectorate grimaced at that. Those two were one thing, but she should've been given some form of warning about Dragon.

Another thing she'd have to bring up at the meeting.

As soon as she entered her home, Rebecca placed her belongings down, made her way to her room, changed into her gear, and spoke to the air. "Door to Cauldron." Withing moments, a glowing door opened in front of her, and Alexandria flew through.

Entering the meeting room, Alexandria took a moment to pause as she recognized the room was filled. Doctor Mother gave her a nod, and gestured to the empty seat she claimed as her own, and The Brute, flew over and took it, idly giving her fellow Triumvirate members a nod of recognition as she did.

With her seated, Doctor Mother opened up the meeting with something that stunned them all. "An hour ago, Contessa collapsed."

They all took that in, and Alexandria had a single thought run through her mind.

Fuck.

Thankfully, that wasn't all. "She will recover, most likely by the end of the day, but the situation is dire." As opposed to mildly troublesome, Alexandria thought. Contessa was their key to success. Should she be lost, then they'd be at a loss on how to deal with the Entity.

"Do we know what the cause was?" Legend's question was a good one, but Alexandria was sure she knew what the cause was.

Doctor Mother frowned, then let out a frustrated sigh. "Before her collapse, she said she could no longer see Dragon." The room tensed at that.

The A.I was a force that had to have been carefully controlled, otherwise she'd single handedly outperform a majority of the Protectorate. They were Human, limitations existed in the form of food, sleep, mental exhaustion... All things the A.I could ignore or deal with in the span of a few minutes.

But now that she was free from her chains, and was hidden from the Path?

Dragon needed to be eliminated.

Sun Wukong and Khepri needed to be eliminated due to being responsible...

Yet, those three would require Triumvirate intervention to do so.

Dragon herself would require dozens of Tinkers to create something to deal with, and even then, unless they destroyed her servers and backups, she would just return with a vengeance.

Sun Wukong had fought off an Endbringer, reducing Canberra to a volcanic wasteland.

Khepri would be able to see anything coming from a mile away, literally, and could amass a Swarm big enough to drown Capes in a tidal wave of chitin and carapace.

If they missed, they would find themselves at war...

A war that would expose themselves to the world...

They were at a crossroads now, but one they would overcome.

They had too.

Everyone aside from our main duo and The Guild, are not having a good time.

Coil's been evacuated from BB, wonder what that means for The Undersiders and his mercenaries.

Meanwhile, PRT ENE, and the Protectorate in general are under fire from everywhere. Piggot basically said 'Fuck all of you', and aired every complaint, denied request for aid, every report about the situation in Brockton Bay, and shit in everyone's cereal.

And Cauldron temporarily lost Contessa.

How I see that happening is Dragon suddenly disappearing from all the Paths Contessa had. With Phoenix's direct involvement in her freedom, Dragon has a form of Thinker Immunity now. Unless she's directly observed, like they're staring at her core server or direct avatar, they won't be able to read her. With that done, a massive chunk of what Contessa saw was suddenly ripped away from her.

Ergo, the collapse.

She'll be fine, but now Cauldron has their sights on the duo.