82

Date

2011 April 14th - Wednesday - Earth Bet Time

Vicky was bored.

Her parents were still arguing about Amy, or more like Carol (she refused to refer to the woman as her mother until she apologizes to her sister) was arguing with anybody who tried to talk some sense into her. So instead of going over and watching Amy sulk, which got boring really fast, she decided to go on a patrol.

Beating up a few druggies was just what the doctor ordered!

So, she left a note and donned her new awesome bracers, shoes, and tiara, then flew off into the rapidly darkening twilight.

Sadly, in her haste, she forgot that thanks to Dragon the parahuman crime level of the city plummeted and even the regular criminals tended to be much more careful nowadays.

It definitely wasn't her awesome new accessories that scared away everybody. And she would swear on it!

As she drifted over the city, just going where the wind was taking her, contemplating calling up Dean for a quick and romantic patrol, she heard an enormous crash.

By the time she located the origin of the sound, she saw a giant plume of smoke over an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city. Without hesitation, she turned around in the air, and a second later she was flying with her maximum speed towards the commotion.

Arriving at the site of the explosion, she took a moment to look over the situation to figure out what happened. Though thanks to the smoke in the air, she could barely see anything, but could still clearly hear the sound of weapon fire and metal clashing with metal.

Then a familiar roar.

"Hookwolf…"

Vicky narrowed her eyes, and without a thought she charged into the cloud, heading for the mass murderer, trusting her new shield to protect her.

Arriving in the area where the warehouse previously stood, she saw a truly surprising scene. Hookwolf was fighting with Kaiser, with the latter one trying to nail the first one with columns of sharp metal, while some gangbangers were taking shots at them. Although she wondered where the other Empire parahumans were…

On a second of thought, she decided it wasn't important now when she had a perfect opportunity to take out two of the biggest players in the city.

She flew up a little higher to get enough space to execute a move she had learned from Taylor's power. Though, why he insisted on wearing green spandex to realize the full power of the move, she didn't understand….

So, she extended one of her legs, and waited patiently until Hookwolf stopped (she knew he could take it, there was no need to get blood on her uniform) then charged while yelling what Admin told her to.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

Hookwolf had exactly half a second to realize what was happening before the full force of a kick from Glory Girl hit him and sent him flying in the one remaining brick wall, which upon the metallic wolf's impact, collapsed onto him.

Vicky turned towards the owlishly blinking Kaiser and punched her palm with her fist, trying to project as menacing aura as he could.

"Surrender. Or don't. I like both options."

As Kaiser processed her threat, and she saw he was about to answer her (probably not surrender, but a girl could dream) a furious roar interrupted them.

She whipped around to witness Hookwolf exploding out of the giant pile of bricks that fell on him, just to directly charge at her. At the same time, she could see in the corner of her eye as swords emerged from the ground aimed directly at her.

Knowing that Kaiser was probably familiar with her old power, and was probably hoping to get some distance from her, she simply didn't dodge.

To the incredulous look of Kaiser (thank god Taylor insisted on making her a pinhole camera that she could hide in her costume) she let both the sword and the raging metal wolf hit her.

The swords simply shattered, while Hookwolf had his face flattened.

There was a pregnant silence, then everybody moved at once.

Hookwolf shook his head as if getting rid of cobwebs as his metallic jaws reformed, and pounced once again at Vicky, while Kaiser took several steps backward, raising a giant wall of metallic swords. Vicky was also in motion, kicking Hookwolf away negligently while simply charging through the wall, then continuing the motion by giving Kaiser a beautiful uppercut.

Watching as Kaiser was launched into the wall of a nearby building, knowing that would take him out of the fight for at least a little while, she turned towards the impotently raging Hookwolf.

Thanks to the training she and Amy received, her fighting techniques and power usage improved, but that didn't change the fact she only had her fists (and legs) to fight. No fancy capturing powers like her cheating sister and Taylor. And she didn't think people would be happy with her if she beat Hookwolf into a pulp. Well… some of them would be happy. He was, after all, a mass-murdering Nazi.

Absently punching the charging Nazi parahuman back, she looked around for some inspiration.

There!

One of those boxes that industrial places have that do something with electricity. She didn't know their name, but she knew there were an awful lot of warning signs on them…

She looked over the Nazi and glanced back at the rubble, which was starting to shift around, and made a decision.

As fast as she could, she flew up, then curved around so as to put Hookwolf between her and the box. The villain had a second to note her bloodthirsty (and somewhat giddy) face before a super-powered fist launched him in a very nice arc towards the box.

It was the same moment when Kaiser got out from under the rubble, coughing and hacking up dust.

"Miss Dallon, I don't think-" he started to speak but was interrupted by a coughing fit. "-you understand what you have done!"

The yowling coming from Hookwolf drowned her answer out as Hookwolf impacted the box and the electricity began coursing through him.

Kaiser took a look at the man he was fighting previously, and Vicky saw him visibly shrug then turn around to leave.

"We shall see each other again, Miss Dallon!"

Vicky snorted and immediately flew after the man who saw her coming, so began to bombard her with increasing amounts of metal swords from all directions while trying to leave the area.

She either powered through them or swatted them away contemptuously.

After a brief struggle, she managed to punch through a wall to come face to a helmet with the biggest Nazi in the city.

Giving a brilliant smile to the man, she grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and began to rocket up towards the clear night sky, while tendrils of metal composed of swords tried to grab her.

After she reached an altitude which she suspected would be lethal to the man if he were let go (and out of the range of those icky tentacles), she raised the man so he was facing her, while he was trying to get her to let him go with swords emerging from his armor.

She ignored them and spoke up with her chirpiest voice possible.

"Surrender, Kaiser!"

His answer was a growl and more swords.

So she let him go.

Vicky watched him fall for a while, then flew after him, caught him, and asked again.

"Still don't want to surrender?"

"You will pay for this girl! You and your sister and your entire family will pay for this!"

"Wrong answer!"

She watched him fall towards the rapidly approaching ground and wondered how many repetitions it would take for the man to give up.

This time, she deliberately caught the man by his legs, just to increase the humiliation.

"You know, I have aaaaall the time…"

"I will make you watch as I kill your precious sister, then-"

A fist burying itself into his stomach interrupted Kaiser. The punch was strong enough to shatter the metal on him, and thanks to Vicky's hard-fought control only drove the air out of his lungs (and bruised him like nothing else, but nothing was broken).

She was about to punch him once again when she heard a voice speak from behind her.

"How about we take over from here, Glory Girl?"

She whirled around, still holding the wheezing Kaiser to see Dauntless hovering not far from her, while on the ground she could see PRT cars flooding the area.

With a sheepish face, she held out Kaiser, holding him by one of his feet.

"Sure, here you go!"

Date

2011 April 14th - Wednesday - Earth Bet Time

Day 6153 - Wednesday - Administrator Network Time

Finishing his last checks, he made sure the address to Path to Victory and to Zion were correct before he took a second (which thanks to his processing power were days to him) to think about his target.

He could go after Path to Victory, but then Zion could go on a rampage. And while he could stop the depressed Entity, it would still cause untold damages. Or he could go after Zion, but then Path to Victory would have another opportunity to do whatever it wanted.

Or he could do both at once.

It's not like he didn't have the processing power.

He was leaning towards Zion, because as of now Path to Victory was only dangerous to him, while the remaining Entity was dangerous to all the dimensions of Earth.

As he was about to make a final decision, warning began blaring. And as he turned towards them, and looked for the source, he was just in time to watch a giant brilliant beam of energy annihilating the rebuilt body of the Administrator Shard, and a good chunk of the planet under it.

Tracing the attack took ridiculously little time, as Zion simply fired directly at the Shard.

It seemed the decision was taken out of his hand. He quickly put his Network Security Shard on high alert, then began his counterattack.

Soon, another giant fuck-you beam flew through dimensions (though for now, he wouldn't use Sting since he wanted the Data from Zion) impacting Zion's considerable defenses.

Thanks to his improvements, this attack put the Entity squarely on the defensive. So he kept up the bombardment, just strong enough to almost break Zion's shields while doing a few things in tandem with the attack.

Using the communication channels still open, he began sending all sorts of viruses, some overt, some so stealthy he shuddered to think about, while also bombarding Zion with trash data, trying to overwhelm his processors.

Also, now that Zion was actively hostile to him, he activated his own scanning Shards, finally completing his own Network, while setting a few of his processors to start taking over the old scanner and central Shards, while downloading all the data from them.

During this Zion wasn't idle either.

As soon as he realized that the attacks wouldn't break through the shields, he resumed his own bombardment, obliterating more and more of the fake body and the planet on which it was on.

He could practically smell the Entity's confusion.

While he continued the 'fight' with Zion, he also made sure to keep an eye on Path to Victory. Which was a good thing, because as soon as his first attack hit Zion's shield, the Network Security Shard reported an infiltration attempt.

While predictable, and easily defended against, he didn't let his guard down. He increased the resources going towards the defenses while giving the Shard instruction to delay the attacks as much as it could do.

Thankfully, his viruses improved by the knowledge gained from Eden and the Butcher infiltrated Zion, so he immediately started the by now well-practiced routine.

He isolated the mind, and while Zion impotently raged behind bars, he turned off the weapons and defenses and began draining the data, while still keeping an eye on the ever-changing infiltration attempt.

Making sure he had everything he needed from the last Entity infecting Earth and its alternate dimensions, he sent over one last communication.

[DATA]

In it, he described exactly what he did, and how, and what he would do after Zion died.

Zion's one last desperate and furious roar was drowned out by the roar of a beam of energy, coruscating with every hue of light possible, emerging from the between-space and obliterating its crystalline body, silencing him forever.

Date

2011 April 14th - Wednesday - Earth Bet Time

Stefanie was a journalist. Granted, some called her a blogger, but dammit, she published actual news about parahumans, not stupidly regurgitated events or articles from other news sites that most blogs did.

She did her own legwork and research and posted nothing she didn't have at least one reputable source for.

So, she called herself a journalist.

Even now, she was doing research on her next piece about Scion, the first and greatest hero. So, as the golden man floated leisurely through the streets of Edinburgh, she followed him, with at least three different cameras, one of which uploaded everything live to a cloud server.

One never knew what could happen!

She was about to try to talk to the golden man for her research when everything changed.

The floating man stopped in the air abruptly, and Stefanie had an excellent view of his face.

At first, it was the usual blandness, then surprise, and then a deep-seated rage flashed through it before the hero's entire body vanished into thin air, like a bubble that was just popped.

Stefanie stood there for an entire minute, just as everybody in the surrounding, before her brain rebooted itself.

She had to get home and post it!