Chapter 66: Interlude Alexandria

AshOfTheBurningWorld - Being told someone likes rereading your story has to be one of the best compliments someone can give an author, so thanks for that.

Guest - Alien X is literally too busted for any story. It's a living win condition and cop out.

Guest - Writing Amy's Bisexual panic is hilarious to me too.

Hoak - I've got an idea of what that could be, though I'm not sure when, or even if I'll implement it.

lol - Ik how broken some mon are, though they aren't invincible. They'll have a early start nerf though, so hopefully that'll balance it out.

balut76 - I never thought I'd be good at writing fluff, but then I get reviews like this.

TheClowningPrince - I can see how that happened.

ArashiNokitsune - *Laughs in Sans.*

BiazarKaiser - I mean, were there any other options?

Nonyaarb - I'm not sure about how good the idea is, but hopefully it's good.

Akasha Drake - lol.

[Alexandria's POV before the ransom was sent]

Looking over the current plan of action, I wondered, not for the first time, about any areas we were neglecting to consider. The obvious one was in regard to those 'Ultimate' forms of Anubis, and the sheer amount of power they had. As of now we were only aware of 5, out of the 16(I'm pretty sure that's how many have been publicly seen) documented and rated forms, alternatives, yet what we knew was too much to leave be.

Agni was a Brute 9/Blaster 12+/Shaker 12+ with enough power to rival Endbringers, capable of large scale terraforming, and had already beaten back one Endbringer. The fact Anubis had used it in a populated area, causing the deaths of Cape and civilians alike, was precedent for him to perhaps do it again should he be pushed to it. (First course of action would be to Door him away. His lack of mobility would make it simple to remove him from the equation... Worst case scenario, Eidolon will be needed... However, we could attempt to make the asset focus on Gray Boy bombs.) The new asset was already contributing to the eventual removal of Pantheon, and would only continue to do so when we returned to the proper Path against The Enemy.

Cabrakan was a Brute ?/Striker 12+/Shaker 12+ capable of creating large scale, yet somehow contained, earthquakes, and seemingly had advanced geokinesis. Reports were that the creature was blind, so that could easily be handled by my own interference. (That'll need to come later however. Ensuring they can't trace any actions against them to us will go a long way to removing them from play once we're ready.)

Anubis, no matter how fitting the name was for the form, having his primary Cape identity share a name with one of his forms was a minor inconvenience. The form itself was identified as a Brute 9/Mover 5/Blaster 9 that seemed suited for crowd control due to its ability to create sonic blasts strong enough to pulverize flesh and stone. (Should be simple to neutralize, anyone capable of flight could exploit their aerial superiority to take it down. Plus given its canine like resemblance it may be possible to overpower any enhanced senses by bombarding it with smells powerful enough to give it sensory overload.) That wasn't factoring him simply changing forms, but contingencies could be created for when that happened.

Sylvanus... Sylvanus was only a step away from being considered an Endbringer in my, and the rest of Cauldron's, files... For good reason going by what happened in Michigan. The Brute 12+/Shaker 12+/Blaster 10(+) had all the makings of one, being capable of wide scale terraforming, the likes of which were just as prevalent as the volcanic region in Canberra, as well as having a rather powerful healing/regrowth factor. (However it's a massive target, one that should easily be felled by a combination of clones and bombs.) There were also elemental and esoteric means of bringing down something like that, especially because no matter how intimidating it was, it wasn't an Endbringer.

Nuckelavee, the most worrying of these 'Ultimates', was a documented Breaker 12+/Brute 3/Mover 6/Shaker 12/Striker 10. The creature could freeze the area around itself, manipulate the ice with cryokinesis, had the ability to become completely intangible, as well as freezing anyone/thing it came into physical contact with. Then there were its scales, easily countered as they were, which could home in on heat signatures and flash freeze any targets they came in contact with. (The intangibility will require some of our more esoteric abilities, perhaps direct intervention by Eidolon with a proper Power to counter it, while the scales can be easily neutralized by a strong wind.)

Contingencies were in place for those specific forms, but Anubis was known to have atleast 11 more base forms, which we were forced to operate under the assumption that all of his forms had 'Ultimate' variants... Variants that ranged from A tier Capes to Endbringers... (A tier Capes and Endbringers immune to Thinker Powers.) That was still the biggest complication in the grand scheme of things, and what made Anubis a priority for elimination. Capture would be the absolute best case scenario, if only to liberate his technology, but not something viable.

With no information on the entirety of Anubis' arsenal, we couldn't create foolproof contingencies for him, or Khepri. It didn't help that Khepri could seemingly transform into one of his base forms whenever he entered one of his 'Ultimate' Changer forms. The fact she could also use her own Power despite the change in form just made her as dangerous as Anubis. Like Anubis, capture would be the ideal, but given how versatile her Power was shown to be in her hands, it wouldn't be the main objective.

Pushing the current plans away, I closed my eye and took a breath. The lack of information on Anubis and Khepri was a weakness we couldn't overcome just yet, not even obtaining a possible asset in the way of Khepri's Father helped in that endeavor. Oh we learned some information, information that could actually aid us in the removal of Khepri, yet we couldn't act on it without getting the girl in order to test and act on it. (Still, what little we learned can be excused once the operation begins.) We knew full well that Khepri would come after her Father, bringing Anubis along given neither would come without the other following, which made setting the trap a rather simple affair. (Even if nothing truly comes from this one, we'll still be gaining information for the future.)

As it stood now, Pantheon was as much as a threat as The Enemy was. The Path was nearly non existent now, rendering our efforts worthless. Decades of planning, gone because some unbelievably fortuitous upstart won the Power lottery and gained a Tinker Power capable of shielding anyone wearing his tech. Our efforts, everything and one we'd sacrificed, and for nothing!

Contessa could no longer Path Brockton Bay, Boston, any Guild owned location, which included the Birdcage, a significant portion of Canada, Canberra, and the site of the 9's end in Michigan. We estimated she'd be unable to Path anything in the North American continent in 5 days, 13 at most. (13 days. By the end of the next week our most important asset will be useless for long term planning.) Even knowing we had years worth of time before The Enemy killed all life in our universe wasn't enough of a consolation compared to the loss of Contessa.

Thankfully she could still Path people, so efforts to keep The Protectorate under our control were still progressing at a proper pace... (For now.) One day Contessa would lose the ability to Path anything and everything, of that we had no doubt. Pantheon, and The Guild by association, were gaining too much ground, spreading their influence too far. That went double for their actual fame as well. By the next Endbringer battle they would undoubtedly be seen as above the Triumvirate, if not in strength, then in popularity.

The latter didn't matter, popularity and fame came and went at the whims of the masses. It was the former that we were weary of.

Pantheon was powerful, there would be no denying that, but they were a wildcard. A wildcard that we could not predict, nor control. If we could do either of those two then we could set them upon The Enemy and arrange for their deaths, which would solve a multitude of problems if we could do that.

The issue there was that we couldn't.

Without being able to predict or control Pantheon we wouldn't be able to control the damage their clash would bring. What would be the point of killing The Enemy if all of our reality was destroyed in the battle?

...

...

...

I let out a breath, minutely shaking my head, getting rid of those thoughts. Any confrontation with The Enemy was years away, and would take more planning then ever before with the eventual loss of Contessa. Right now I'd need to focus on the opening salvo against Pantheon.

It wouldn't work. None of us were as naive as to believe our first strike would be enough to remove them from the equation.

Especially considering we were using disposable assets in the form of mercenaries, clones volatile enough to kill themselves with their own Powers, as well as a few failures. Nothing that could be tied back to us, yet still be enough to earn some kind of information from the encounter. (Ideally, they'll force Anubis to show another of his 'Ultimate' forms, denying him another card he can use against us. Worst case scenario is they're easily dispatched and we learn nothing new...) That outcome would be... Unfortunate, but not something that we couldn't move on from.

Besides, they wouldn't be the only ones we would be attempting to gain information on during this first move.

The spike in natural phenomena around their base was deserving of another inspection after all.