The Fors Collegis Mercuris is, as I've almost certainly already mentioned, the name* of a Hermetic magical school that was located on Mus, the hidden moon of Mercury, until it was attacked by the Technocracy (and then Nephandi) in 1995 (this battle is also where Taylor most recently died, fun fact- also the battle she is remembering at the very start of this story).
*supposedly it means the Accidental College of Mercury, because the writer meant to name it the Fortress College and used incorrect latin, but I'm pretty confident that Fors Collegis Mercuris is also garbage latin, but this is the kind of thing I'm prepared to cut TTRPG publishers a bit of a break on, because eh.
Doissetep is the name of one of the biggest/grandest Tradition Chantries (a Chantry is a mage stronghold/gathering place, etc), and a huge and important stronghold for the Order of Hermes. Tragically, Taylor cannot ever see it again, as it massively and completely exploded in like 1997 or 1998 (I forget).
(I'm not 100% decided, but I think Horizon/Concordia is still there at least)
Other fun Doissetep fact: it used to be located on Earth, but the proto-Technocracy attacked it in 1448 and after a months-long siege it was relocated to Mars (sorta- don't ask me to explain shade realms etc right now)
Finally, it was time. After what almost felt like years of distractions, false starts, setbacks and failures, I was finally going to make a real start at bringing the Empire down. I had no illusions that killing Kaiser would cause his gang to instantly dissolve, but I was fairly confident that it would lead to a power struggle among his lieutenants, and as they turned on each other it would only provide more opportunities for me- and, frankly, the Protectorate.
I had a lot to do, and only a little time left to do it- the rally was scheduled for the weekend. Thankfully, the presence of E88 capes openly in costume meant that they couldn't exactly rent out an event space, or use a property that they otherwise owned or controlled- if anyone found out, then suddenly there was a financial link between a property-owning, tax-paying entity and a criminal gang of neo-nazi supervillains. I'm sure they had all sorts of less blatant events all over town, but once the masks were on, their options became somewhat more limited.
Fortunately for them, if there was one thing Brockton Bay had in abundance, it was abandoned buildings and vacant lots. Fortunate for me, also. Perfect, even, for what I had planned.
The first and least of my preparations was to replace my wand- a simple matter of returning to the same lightning-struck oak tree and cutting another branch. Followed by hours upon hours of ritual preparation. But that was the advantage of such basic tools- they were replaceable. It was still no substitute for the kinds of implements I would have had access to if I was actually in contact with the Order. Like so much of my magic these days, it was quick and dirty. Magic for war-time.
Too much to do.
I made plans, and remade them, trying to account for everything- to the extent that I could, given my resources. Too much of my time was spent spying on Kaiser, and various other E88 members, in between other ritual preparations for the various spells I thought I might need. I also spent an unreasonable amount of time figuring out the spell to remotely etch interlocking pentacles of Mars and Pluto on the bottom of Kaiser/Max Anders' car's gas tank; a rote I'd learned from a charming Flambeau Magus a year or two back- in my mind, anyway. I think it had actually been 1990 or '91. It was a spell to ever-so-slightly twist the strands of fate, to guide a flame to where it could do the most damage, and it could be devastating in the right circumstances.
Until, inevitably, I ran out of time to get ready.
I waited, nervously, on the roof of an abandoned building, watching the street with my eyes while I watched Kaiser with my mind. The quickest way that this could go wrong would be for him to decide to go somewhere else, or even take a different route. I couldn't imagine him randomly deciding to skip the rally, but when if he had another errand. I would have to move quickly to catch up to him, and I might not be able to find a location that would work for the plan.
I was currently waiting at an intersection that I was almost certain he was going to have to pass through. One where, crucially, nobody was around. I'd already been here for hours, searching for witnesses, magically disabling security cameras, and generally preparing myself.
Now all I needed was for him to actually show up.
Or he could just sit in his office reading emails.
Finally, Max Anders shut down his computer and left the building.
I had a brief moment of doubt when I saw his driver get out of the car to open his door for him. An older man, in a suit that suggested a uniform without quite being one. Was he innocent in this? Was I about to murder him?
No. No. If he was taking Max to an Empire rally, then he was an Empire sympathizer. Kaiser wouldn't use someone he couldn't trust with his secrets. There was no way.
I waited, acid burning in my stomach, as the car drove through the streets. I was anxious. Something was going to go wrong. Knowing my luck lately, the Triumvirate was about to drop out of the sky on my head or something.
Until, finally, the car reached the intersection where I was waiting.
Taking a deep breath, I finished casting the spell I had begun when I first saw the car approaching, hurling one of the biggest fireballs I'd ever conjured down at Kaiser's car.
Even thought I knew better, I was still vaguely expecting it to explode as the flames got into the gas tank- it didn't, it just went began burning even hotter. I could feel that heat on my face as I continued to cast, spell after spell. Ignoring the screeaming as I hurled more and more fire down at the car until it was nothing but a scorched ruin.
Then, when I was sure, I reversed it- new spells pulled the heat out, quenched the flames.
I pulled a burner phone- pun not intended- out of my pocket, and dialed a number.
"It's done," I said, when someone picked up. "Send the clean-up crew."
Not waiting for a response, I hung up the cheap flip-phone before smashing it violently with a loose brick I had brought for just that purpose. I gathered the wreckage into a plastic bag, which I would dispose of elsewhere.
And then there was nothing left to do.
Somewhere in the city the Vampire, or more probably one of his minions, was making a call, summoning a team of people who would load the ruined car into a truck, and sweep the street clean of debris. Maybe they would even clean the scorch marks. And then, it would vanish. The car, the bodies, all of it.
Meanwhile, a few miles out of town, a private jet was taking off from a private airfield- both owned by Max Anders. Somewhere during its flight, the jet would disappear, crashing into the ocean. Employees would swear that Max Anders had boarded the flight.
And it would look to all the world like he had tried to flee the city, only to die in a plane crash. Probably people would come to the conclusion that the plane had been sabotaged. It didn't matter. Max Anders had fled, without overtly revealing himself as Kaiser.
It was done.
It was done, and I felt... angry. The Empire Eighty-Eight had been this city's nightmare for decades, long before Taylor Hebert had been born. They had killed so many people, and ruined even more lives, been the cause of incalculable suffering for the people of this city. Overt fucking Neo-Nazis. And nobody had done anything about it! Were the heroes really so ineffectual and indifferent? Any half-trained magus could have wiped out this gang within a year. Instead, they had been left to walk proudly, flaunting their Nazi tattoos on the streets of an American city.
The only thing that had saved them these past few months was my need to re-learn my Arts, and the various setbacks and distractions I'd had to contend with. What was everyone else's excuse?
Fucking Parahumans.
I cast another spell, and took to the sky.
From the perspective of the E88 gang members, I appeared in the air above their rally in the shape of a woman made of fire.
Actually, I wasn't even in the room, although I was close, just to make things a little easier on myself. On my way over, I'd retrieved a backpack and gym bag full of accelerant and fuel, and used it to start a fire in a dumpster a few blocks over from the rally. I was going to need it.
"WHERE IS KAISER?" My apparition howled- actually, transmitting my voice was a completely separate spell- one that also made it significantly louder- but to everyone there it would sound like the words were coming from the burning shape. "I TOLD YOU I WOULD COME FOR YOU. SHOW YOURSELF, COWARD!"
Most of the crowd panicked, trying to flee in every direction, although there were only a few ways out of the vacant lot they had repurposed. On the makeshift stage, the E88 Capes reacted more gracefully. The Valkyrie twins immediately began growing, Hookwolf began to transform, Rune took to the air on a chunk of masonry she had to have brought in with her, and the others moved to take cover.
"WHERE ARE YOU?" I roared again, trying to cement the idea in their minds that I had been expecting to find Kaiser here. Hopefully, they would come to the conclusion that I had called him out and he had decided to skip town rather than face me. It would help sell the ruse I'd been asked to sell, and hopefully demoralize the Empire.
Some of the E88 gangsters with a bit more presence of mind had pulled weapons and begun shooting up at me. I rewarded them with fire, using a familiar spell to take some of the flame in front of me and trans-locate it, raining flame down on the crowd.
I tried to get some of their capes, but the Valkyries stepped in to cover them with their now-massive shields- except Rune, who was already long gone.
It didn't matter. As much as I wanted them dead, leaving them alive right now was almost better for me. Killing too many of them right now would make them feel pressured. They would band together. I wanted them to feel secure enough to start turning on each other. It would make dealing with them easier. Not just for me, but for the city. A schism in their ranks would weaken their grip on the police and other local institutions.
So I didn't try very hard to do any actual damage as I continued my display, focusing more on making my apparition dodge and weave through the air as more and more of them began to shoot at me, until finally 'I' retreated.
At this point, I just felt... tired. I'd had a lot of emotions wrapped up in dealing with the Empire, and while I was by no means finished, I'd finally done some actual damage. Finally.
I could have had this done weeks ago, if Coil and the PRT hadn't decided to be difficult.
Well, tomorrow was a new day.
I took to the skies one last time- being able to fly around like this without fear of Paradox was absolutely the best thing about Earth Bet. It was not close- and headed home.
On the way, I remembered to text Tattletale to let her know that Kaiser was gone- that was all I said, 'gone, although she'd probably be able to figure it out.
By the time I got home, she had replied, telling me in a series of somewhat manic texts about how she and the Undersiders had baited Lung into chasing them, leading him on until the lack of challenge had caused him to start to shrink down just in time to 'accidentally' blunder across Armsmaster on patrol, who had promptly knocked Lung out with some sort of super-tranquilizer.
Coil was gone. Kaiser was gone. Lung was gone.
As far as I could remember, that just left Faultline, the Merchants and the Protectorate.
I didn't think I could claim to have fully conquered the city, at this point. The Empire was still technically a going concern, for now.
But it was a very good start.
--
a/n: sorry for the intensely delayed update, but in my defence I did get a brief spot of COVID for a couple of weeks (I'm fine now) that made me completely forget what I was doing. To be honest, this update probably suffered for that, but I just really wanted to get it done.
edit: I also recently got weirdly inspired to do a Worm/MCU crossover that distracted me somewhat a lot, because apparently I think writing 3 stories at the same time is a great idea
Ten days after Kaiser's death, I arranged to meet Tattletale for brunch.
Since Kaiser's death, I had mostly kept off the streets. Part of the plan, at this point, was to give the surviving Empire capes time to stew, to let their paranoia and disillusionment with the way that Kaiser had apparently abandoned them grow before I started turning the pressure back up. I had gone out a few times, found random E88 gang members and levitated them into the air so that I could 'interrogate' them about Kaiser's whereabouts, just to help sell the idea that I was still looking for him- and therefor the idea that he had skipped town rather than fight me. That he had abandoned them all.
But mostly I concentrated on my studies. I had been feeling like I was on the verge of a breakthrough in the Ars Virium, something that I badly, badly wanted.
And so I got to work.
I wrote until my hands cramped, filling notebook after notebook, staying up until I was exhausted, trying every technique I could think of to tease a few more scraps of lore from my jumbled memories. I even tried meditation.
And, day by day, I made progress. Slower than I would have liked, to be sure, but progress nonetheless.
So when Tattletale contacted me to arrange a brunch, I was actually feeling pretty ready for a change of scenery. I couldn't even immediately remember the last time I'd left my house.
Since I was absolutely not going to meet her at Somer's Rock, had no intention of taking her to Elysium, and she'd vetoed the Palanquin, it took a little while to figure out a meeting place, and eventually she had rented out the back patio of a little cafe on the edge of Downtown called Brockton Bake, which I think I remembered hearing did great muffins, or something like that.
It also had a small back patio of three or four tables that was otherwise fairly private, and a staff that was evidently amenable to taking some extra under-the-table cash to not seat anyone else there during our meeting. Who knew what they thought about that, but it didn't really matter. I certainly had no intention of going back there.
But on the day we were supposed to meet- a Saturday- I woke up in a particularly foul mood, so much so that I came close to calling the whole thing off. It was the perfect kind of day for staying home, too, grey and dreary, thick clouds hiding the sun.
But, ultimately, rescheduling seemed like more of an annoyance than actually going. Plus, she still owed me my share of Coil's money
Tattletale- or I guess Lisa, since she was out of costume- was more dressed down than I was expecting, a black long-sleeved tee with some sort of abstract graffiti-style design, a long denim skirt, and a heavy black purse. Her hair was tied back in a tight bun.
I hadn't been willing to summon the effort to think about style, defaulting back to a baggy hoodie and jeans, though I still wore my trench coat.
Not exactly a pair that looked like they would be renting out part of a restaurant. No wonder the waitress had given me a strange look when I had come in.
Lisa already had a cup of tea waiting for me when I slid into my seat. Still warm, even, and she stared at me warily as I sipped at it- I knew because one of the several spells I'd placed on myself before leaving the house was giving me an excellent view of her aura.
Another helped me sense active electronics transmitting signals within a certain radius, but there was nothing back here but her cell phone and my cell phone. So at least there was that.
We sat there, staring at each other. Me, watching the colours of her aura ripple, she presumably using her power to learn- what?
I took a deep breath, trying to tamp down on my bad mood.
"You wanted to meet?" I asked, irritably giving up on the staring contest. Not missing the brief triumphant look that flitted across her face.
"I figured we should talk, given that Lung is in jail and Kaiser's-" she hesitated, "gone. That's a huge change in the balance of power in this city. We should coordinate. Plus, I still need to give you your share of Coil's money."
She smirked. Smugly.
"My plan is to let the Empire simmer a little bit longer and then start hitting them again." I said. "I'm hoping that with the right pressure I can get their surviving capes to turn on each other, so if you have-"
But I was interrupted by the sound of church bells, sounding noon- somewhere maybe a block or two away, it sounded like. The sound completely drove whatever I had been intending to say out of my head, and I'd instinctively turned to stare briefly in the direction the sound had come from.
When I turned back to Lisa, she was pale, and her aura was bright, scrambled orange- fear and anxiety.
I also couldn't help but notice that she'd slid her right hand into her purse, which she just so happened to have left sitting on the table between us.
She licked her lips, nervously, opening her mouth to speak but saying nothing.
"What?" I asked, sliding a hand into my pocket- which she clearly noticed, by her sudden frown.
"What are you?" She whispered.
"Excuse me?"
"You really-" she sounded shaken. "You really didn't notice? When the bells rang- you flinched."
"It was loud," I said. She stared at me, blinking.
"You-" She stopped herself, and it was obvious that she was thinking furiously. "Are you a Parahuman?"
"What?" I asked, now feeling a thrill of nervousness myself. What had she seen? What did she know?
"Animals don't like you," she said, slowly at first and then speaking faster and faster as if she couldn't quite stop herself. "Lights get brighter, when you're in a room. Flames bend towards you. Your shadow points the wrong way and you act like you haven't noticed it!-" It did? I resisted the urge to look- "sometimes when you talk your accent, diction and body language make you seem like a completely different person, not to mention the fact that you know languages you couldn't possibly speak. I just saw you visibly flinch at the sound of church bells! And I'm pretty sure that you soured our milk when you visited the Undersiders' loft."
I stared at her as she ran through a list of echoes- the sorts of minor mystical phenomena that commonly attended magi, several of which I apparently had been manifesting without even noticing. Except for the accent thing, that was new to me.
I needed to explain this. Damn it, how was I going to talk my way out of this when her whole power was information gathering? My fists clenched. My head was starting to throb, and I could feel myself getting angrier- too angry, it-
"So, uh... if... if I've made some kind of deal with the devil," she laughed, but it sounded brittle and forced. "I- I really think at this point you can just tell me."
"If there's a gun in your bag, I'm going to be a little upset," I said. "But if you brought holy water, I might actually be offended. You really think-"
"I know you're not a Parahuman," Lisa said. "I know that you've always looked down on Parahumans. You see yourself as better than us- and I know that you just thought that you are better-" OK, she was good, because I absolutely had. "At first I thought it was just because your powers were so much better, like sure the next Eidolon is probably going to look down on the rest of us a bit. But it's more than that. Isn't it?"
I opened my mouth, not even sure what I was going to say. Part of me badly wanted to lash out, put her in her place. Vent all of my irritation. That was when a fat raindrop hit me, just above my left eye. I reached up reflexively to wipe the water away, and I realized.
My eyes widened. So did Lisa's.
I looked up. Her gaze followed.
The sky above us was filled with dark, heavy storm clouds.
And I knew.
"You're right," I said. "But there's no time for any of that now. I'll tell you later, if we live."
She stared at me, eyes wide, jaw slack.
"This isn't a natural storm," I said. "I can feel it. Something is doing this."
Lisa just stared at me, visibly terrified, and I knew I was going to have to say it.
"Leviathan. It's coming."
--
a/n: LEVIATHAN INTERRUPT.
Plus the other huge thing that just happened.
(I'm actually not 100% satisfied with the Taylor-Lisa conversation. I wanted it to be a bit longer, but I kept finding that it wasn't working, so I just sort of cut to the chase [edit: perchance not the best move when I've already been repeatedly told that this story rushes a bit too much but I just got sick of fiddling with it], hopefully it's ok)
So, uh, yeah... enjoy? Award ReplyReport159Behold!17/10/2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Interlude 4.D New View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward Recipient1/11/2025Add bookmark#763Daniel Hebert sat quietly in the room that had been provided to him at the Protectorate HQ building- if 'building' was the correct term for a converted oil rig loaded down with Tinkertech gadgets. Which it probably wasn't.
It was funny- he'd spent years looking out at this thing but it had never really felt quite real to him. He was old enough to remember the world before all of this, and every now and then the insanity of it all it would just hit him- like he was trying to catch his balance as the ground shifted under his feet.
And now he was here. He was one of them. A "superhero". Him, of all people.
The itching in the back of his skull proved that. Even if there were no rats in this place, no birds, no bugs, it was like his power still wanted him to know it was there. Like it wanted to be used.
And he wanted to use it. He was still grappling with everything he could do, but the enhanced sensory aspects- all those eyes!- those he welcomed.
They might help him find Taylor.
That was the only reason he was here. The only reason he had joined up with these... cops.
Find Taylor.
Or whatever was walking around with his daughter's face.
He couldn't stop replaying it in his mind. Everything she'd said during the interview. Every expression. He'd watched the security footage over and over. Trying to find meaning in every gesture. Every expression.
Every time he did, he was filled with the renewed urge to find Armsmaster outside of his stupid armor and beat him into the ground. To reach out with his- no!
Not that. Not unless he absolutely had to.
He'd come to this place because he thought it was his best chance at finding Taylor, and they had failed. Not just failed, but threatened to jail her. Did they actually think that he would just stand by for that? Were these people that stupid?
What the hell was he still doing here?
"Hi, dad," Taylor said.
Danny leapt to his feet, choking down a shout of alarm and/or terror, whirling around searching for the source of the voice.
"I'm not here," Taylor said. "I'm halfway across town, projecting my voice to you."
"Taylor!" This time he really did shout.
"I'm sorry to do this, but we don't have time," Taylor's voice said. "Leviathan is coming. Here."
"What?" Danny fell back into his chair, head swimming as he tried to make sense of this conversation.
"This weather isn't natural," Taylor said. "I can feel it. This storm is being caused by something. Something that I've never felt before. Leviathan."
"No," Danny said.
"Dad, I need you to get up and tell your bosses that a city-killing abomination is hours-to-minutes away," Taylor snapped. "Now!"
Danny rose, putting a hand on the wall for support as he tried to make sense of everything. The feeling was back- the ground, shifting beneath his feet. This couldn't be happening. Not here.
Not to his city.
He pulled himself together, and walked to the door. His room had an intercom panel built in next to it, which included an alarm button. He slammed it.
"Console here," the voice came instantly. "What is the nature of the emergency situation?"
"I-" He hesitated, searching for words. "I've been contacted. By a reliable source. She told me... she says Leviathan is coming. Here."
Silence.
"I-" The console operator sounded shaken. "Connecting you to Armsmaster."
Silence, again.
"Taylor?" Danny asked. There was no answer. But maybe that was just because she didn't have time because it was only a moment later that the intercom crackled to life again.
"What source?" Armsmaster said, grimly focused.
"It was Taylor," Danny admitted- for a brief moment he had the insane urge to lie, but then what would he even say? "She contacted me. She says that she can feel that this weather isn't natural."
"She contacted you?" Armsmaster asked. Danny fought the urge to scream.
"Is that really important right now?" He asked.
"I am currently running a suite of predictive analysis programs based on work originally designed by Dragon to predict the movements of class S threats," Armsmaster said. "While I wait for the results, I thought I might get more information about the interaction between a known villain and a cape under my command."
Danny ground his teeth.
"She just... she just called me," he lied, and then stopped, cursing himself for forgetting that the man had a lie detector. "Called out to me. Like her voice, out of nowhere. She said that Leviathan was coming. That was it."
"Hmm," Armsmaster said. "I'm seeing elevated risk factors, but nothing I would consider quite actionable..."
"You don't believe me, or you don't believe her?" Danny asked.
"Neither," Armsmaster said. "I'm simply stating that the analysis is not conclusive, which may indicate that the event is far enough in the future that it is outside of the programmed window of confidence. Increased time equals increased complexity. Events farther in the future are harder to predict. These programs are designed with that in mind. Has your daughter contacted you before?"
"No," Danny admitted. Hating the word. Hating himself. Even hating Taylor, a little, not that he would ever admit it.
"Implying that she considers this situation to be serious enough to change her behavior," Armsmaster mused. "Hold on a moment." A brief pause. "Dragon, that program you gave me, predicting the patterns of class S threats, remember it? I made a few modifications, to see if I couldn't catch any highlights. I've just run a new set of analyses. Forwarding now."
"I've got it," a woman's voice said. "Interesting. I think I see what you've done here. But I'm not sure it's good enough to call for help."
"Can you factor in a warning from a high-powered cape with a variable power expression including an untested Thinker rating?" Armsmaster asked. "You've always been a faster coder than me."
"I could..." Dragon hesitated. "There's no cape in your department with that kind of power."
"It's Elementalist," Armsmaster said. "Or Decima, I suppose. She reached out with the warning. She claims to be able to sense active weather manipulation."
There was a moment of silence.
"Do it," Dragon said, finally, and a thrill of fear ran down Danny's spine. "Make the call."
And the sirens began to wail.
--
a/n: I tried to write so many different versions of this- not just versions of this, but different interludes with different characters, and I didn't really love any of them. I don't know that I love this. But I did want to get it done so that I could write something else.
Also, I straight up lifted 1-2 lines of dialogue (I forget at this point) from Worm Interlude 7. Credit where it is due.
anyway, enjoy Award ReplyReport148Behold!1/11/2025NewAdd bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Deluge 5.1 View contentBehold!impervious to your most powerful magnetic fieldsAward RecipientSunday at 9:13 PM Awarded ×1Add bookmark#809What were the Endbringers?
It was a question that I'd been avoiding, but one I'd known that I would eventually need to face.
I'd just hoped for more time.
The fact that I couldn't remember anything like them did strongly suggest that they were somehow related to the source of Parahuman powers, but I couldn't be certain of that. There were other possibilities. I had certainly reaped the benefits of how... permissive Earth Bet's paradigm was. Maybe I wasn't the only one- they could be ancient Bygones, fantastical beings who had lost their grip on reality as it shifted away from them over time, now broken free to rampage across the world. But, while they did somewhat evoke certain ancient mythological archetypes and concepts, there was something about their construction that didn't feel right... didn't feel historically true.
Maybe they were the ultimate form of Marauders, so lost in their madness that they'd become completely inhuman. Or maybe they were Technocratic constructs. Their rigid pattern of attacks, the fact that each new one had appeared to present a new type of threat just as the world started learning to deal with their predecessor, it spoke to some sort of controlling intelligence or agency.
The Endbringers killed a lot of Parahumans... but they also killed a lot of non-Parahumans, and did an incredible amount of collateral damage. Would the Technocracy do that? Would they create something like the Simurgh? Could they?
And of course there were always the Fallen to consider.
But I was getting ahead of myself. Worrying about the origin and nature of the Endbringers was going to have to wait. The only thing that mattered now was surviving the next few hours. Maybe saving the city, if I could.
I could feel the power in that storm, the unnatural twisting of the weather. Without even casting a spell, I could feel it. Like a weight, bearing down on me, the product of some malevolent will.
'Let those call it the wind who will; there are fell voices on the air; and these stones are aimed at us.' I quoted to myself.
This storm was aimed at us- at this city. I could practically taste it. Even here, in my ritual space/basement, it felt like if I tilted my head up, I would see storm clouds instead of ceiling.
I wasn't prepared for this. Not nearly. But I was a Wizard of the Order of Hermes, and whatever Leviathan had in store for me, I was going to meet it like a Mage.
Once upon a time, I could have held back the tide by my word and my will, but not today. Not yet. The story of my Awakening, that. I had so many ideas for things that would be useful, just now. A ward to keep water from so much as touching my flesh, or summoning Ondines to contest the beast's control- even one, just to protect my house from water damage. Trapping Leviathan in a pocket dimension, spatial fold, or time warp. Or, as long as I was wishing, I might as well wish to bind the thing into my service. All out of my reach. Because I was so much less than what I'd once been- not that it was fair to compare myself now to the amalgamated heights I'd achieved across nine lifetimes. I couldn't help it, though. The knowledge of what was beyond my grasp haunted me.
But there were still things I could do.
Preparations to be made.
The last of which was a fairly simple spell, a twisting of forces around myself to provide some semblance of protection from the energies of the storm. After that came my familiar flight spell. Finally, I pulled on my coat, and made one last check to make sure that all my things were where I wanted them, both in my pockets and the gym back full of supplies I had packed.
Time to go.
I walked out of my house, stopping after I'd opened the front door to step back and quickly cast a basic invisibility spell on myself- just to cover me until I got away from here. I didn't exactly want to be seen flying around my sanctum.
Finally, I walked out, into the rain, feeling each drop raining down on me like a blow, like wrath from above. The Endbringer's will, manifested. Maybe it was just my imagination, but being out here, under the sky... it was worse.
I took a deep breath, and rose into the air.
I flew quickly through the storm, protected from the wind by my spell, until I reached the top of Medhall tower- and yes, I appreciated the strange irony of using this place.
First things first- I could sense a number of electronic devices around me that closer investigation revealed to be security cameras. Easy enough to destroy with a fairy simple spell.
Second, I conjured a shield above and around me, like a small dome pushing away the wind and the rain. I would need the calm. I also conjured a few blasts of hot air, to try to push away as much of the water on the roof as I could.
That done, I began retrieving items from my bag. First, a large iron pot, and placed it on the roof, sliding it out from under my shield, to allow it to fill with rain.
Next I got out several telescopes on stands, which I carefully placed at intervals along the edge of the roof, marking each spot with a chalk circle and some Enochian, making sure to angle each precisely. Connecting them, I drew a long chalk line, doing my absolute best to mimic the shape of Brockton Bay's coastline, along with Enochian letters and a number of other occult seals, sigils, and symbols. Effectively creating a symbolic representation of the city, or at least the part of it where land met sea, up here on this roof. I suspected I was going to need it soon.
That done, I retrieved the pot, tipping some of the water out until it was at the level I wanted before dragging it back under the shield, and got out a container of wax, heating it quickly until it began to melt. Carefully, I layered the wax over the water, using magic to make sure it formed the way I wanted it to. Resisting the urge to hurry. I had no idea how far away Leviathan was. I was just thankful I had realized that he was influencing the weather relatively early.
And here I was, basically trying to improvise a rite that would tear control of the storm from his grasp. An anti-storm, in a way.
When the wax was ready, I quickly bent over it, taking out a knife and carefully carving in a series of secret names and phrases invoking angelic powers. Then, atop that, I poured on a layer of kerosene.
Then I took a break from that to cast a series of sensory spells that would hopefully vastly expand the range at which I would be able to sense Leviathan coming. I didn't feel anything yet, but I wanted to know when the thing got here.
Finally, I drew my dagger again, holding it high above me for a moment, as I began to chant.
There was a flash, as a thin bolt of lightning leapt down from above and ignited the fuel in the pot before me, setting it ablaze- and burning a vivid afterimage into my vision even through my eyelids, which I ignored in favor of continuing my spell.
Leviathan might be able to control the weather, but so could I. And I was going to show it the difference between the powers of some monster, and reality bending before the Awakened Will.
And then I was going to do my level best to kill the thing.
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a/n: this was originally going to be a longer 5.1 but then I decided that this was a better break-point (next chapter will actually start the Leviathan action) and also I got super busy across December/January (fun fact, since I wrote most of this over a month ago, I actually only vaguely remember where I was going with the details of the rituals here).
Anyway, sorry again for the delay. Life gonna life.