Dragon touched down amidst what could only be described as the wreckage of a massacre. Torn asphalt, blackened soil, and bloody paste painted the road. All the marks of a brutal cape battle—but she had expected worse given the name attached to the incident. The Slaughterhouse Nine were an S-class threat for a reason. Reports even claimed Crawler had assumed a new monstrous form, yet he was nowhere to be seen. Possibly defeated, if that colorful explosion from earlier was any indicator.
And yet, none of that was her immediate concern.
Her satellites—what few remained after the Simurgh's dismantling of her network—were already trying and failing to track the vessel that had decloaked and flown off moments earlier. Spade-shaped, sleek, and operating on technology that was far beyond what an average tinker could make. It had accelerated at impossible speeds without leaving so much as a sonic boom or the fireball of atmospheric friction.
Worse, she hadn't known it was there until it revealed itself. Not only fast, the ship's stealth systems were inconceivable. If such a craft was in the hands of villains, the PRT could be hunting an untraceable, uncatchable force of parahumans in the future.
She diverted subroutines, spent precious seconds searching, only to find nothing. Every calculation ended in a dead end. Every sensor sweep came back clean. For all she knew, they could already be off planet or halfway around the globe.
At last, with reluctance bordering on frustration, she shut the process down and returned her attention to the present: the field, the PRT vehicles rolling in, and the lone cape waiting for backup. Blue-Ray—one of the very few Protectorate heroes in this region.
Dragon deliberately throttled down her processors, forcing herself to operate at a more human pace to preserve the illusion of face-to-face communication. Her mechanical frame shifted, optics locking onto the young man before her.
"Blue-Ray, I'm glad to see you're okay. Can you tell me what happened to Crawler and the rest of the Nine…?"
As she spoke, her sensors drifted toward the battered RV parked behind him. Its doors hung crooked, hinges ruined. Two twisted shapes had spilled partway from the opening: Jack Slash and Mannequin.
Blue-Ray followed her gaze—whether because he noticed or simply because he was answering her question, she wasn't sure.
"Well… Crawler's dead. Ten-Zero, the group of capes that took off in the ship just now, cut him into pieces and blew him apart right before you guys arrived. As for the rest of the Nine, I haven't gone inside the RV myself, but I think they're dead."
The words struck the assembled capes like sparks in dry brush. Murmurs spread fast—first disbelief, then swelling into open relief and excitement. For many, the Nine were a nightmare they expected to die or worse, live through, fighting if the killers ever struck their small town.
However, Dragon felt no relief. Her voice cut across the noise with authority. "Everyone clear the area. Now. Call in a hazmat team immediately."
Confusion flickered briefly, but her tone—and her reputation—left no room for debate. The capes and troopers moved quickly, retreating on foot, in vehicles, or taking to the air until the roadway was nearly clear.
Dragon turned back toward Blue-Ray. "You stay with me." Her voice softened, though command still underpinned it. If he panicked and tried to flee, she would have to restrain—or kill—him. "Are you experiencing anything unusual? Nausea, fatigue, bloating, sudden cravings for human flesh? Or does it feel like you're forgetting something important but can't remember what?"
Blue-Ray's eyes went wide. His pulse spiked—her HUD confirmed it. He swallowed hard.
"Uh—no. No, I feel fine. Nothing different than usual. I'm not even tired. Honestly, I only fought for maybe ten seconds before I got in the way and had to get sidelined."
The words tumbled out in nervous self-deprecation, followed by an awkward laugh. His hands fidgeted, patting down his arms and sides like he expected to find something wrong.
"D-Dragon," he stammered, voice cracking, "you don't think I got hit with one of Bonesaw's diseases or something like that, do you?"
Dragon shook her head slightly, though her gaze stayed fixed on him.
"I don't believe so. But Bonesaw made repeated threats that if she were ever killed, she would unleash a massive biological attack. I wouldn't put it past her, especially with Jack Slash dead. For now, remain here. I'll check the vehicle myself."
The playback paused as Dragon peeked inside the RV. The Chief Director and Regional Directors all bore witness to one of the greatest nightmares of their era lying dead and discarded within.
"As you can see," Dragon narrated, "inside the van I found the remains of the other members. Half an hour later we determined Blue-Ray wasn't infected, nor was the battlefield. In accordance with PRT regulations, we cordoned off and investigated the area."
Her voice carried evenly, but her digital avatar betrayed the faintest satisfaction. As a Guild member who had responded to countless S-class disasters, she was relieved to see one so vile as the Nine ended.
"Hatchet Face and Bonesaw's bodies are unaccounted for," Dragon continued. "But genetic analysis of a large bloodstain where the initial fighting began matched Hatchet Face. The volume of loss is consistent with fatal trauma. Forensics place the probability of survival at zero. And given the fate of her companions, it is likely Bonesaw is also deceased."
The recording shifted to footage of the forest clearing: the vast bloodstain where the brute had fallen, giant footprints from Crawler's new form, battle damage to the forest and forensic overlays layered across the image.
Director Alfred Carr broke the silence first. "Then it's done. All of them. The Nine are finished."
Emily Piggot gave a sharp nod. "About time. We've lost good men and women to them for far too long."
Dan Seneca leaned forward, fingers steepled. "The public will want a story. We may not have thrown the punches, but if we play this right, we can frame it as a collaborative victory. Play up Blue-Ray's part. Spin it as the Protectorate working with emergent allies."
"Careful," Director Hearthrow cautioned. "If we overreach, we risk alienating this… Ten-Zero. We don't know how they'll react, we don't even know if they are truly our allies. They seem like heroes now but Capes are unstable and unpredictable and these ones have been in contact with the Simurgh, they could be part of her plan for all we know.."
"Dont let paranoia rule you Hearthrow, the engagement wasn't nearly long enough for them turn into a bombs. As for overreaching, I wouldn't waste time worrying about that. That's what we pay Glenn for," Kamil Armstrong replied smoothly.
Dragon stayed silent as the directors continued their discussion, her digital gaze locked to Rebecca Costa-Brown. The Chief Director hadn't moved since the recording ended. Not at the Nine's confirmed deaths. Not even when Dragon revealed William Manton was the Siberian. Rebecca's calm, unreadable eyes stayed locked on Dragon's display.
When she finally spoke, her voice was measured, emotion was there but it was indiscernible what it was. "Tell us about Ten-Zero."
The other director stopped their discussion to listen immediately.
Not for the first time, Dragon wondered how this woman remained so unshakable. Still, she answered. "I can't say much more than what's already in my report. They are practically ghosts. They didn't exist until their engagement with the Simurgh in orbit earlier today. But my personal assessment is that the tinker—or tinkers—responsible for their technology already surpasses me, and possibly any other tinker on the planet."
The Chief Director responded without pause. "Even Hero?"
"I believe so,"Dragon responded with confidence.
Rebecca absorbed the answer in silence. When she spoke again, it was with finality. "We need to get on top of this fast. I want everything we can find on Ten-Zero. Bring in Watchdog if you must. Learn their capabilities, intentions, and how they have hidden until now."
The other Directors gave muted affirmations before she continued.
"They're powerful, confident, and competent. We treat them as tentative allies for now. Try to recruit them into the Protectorate. Sweeten the deal as much as reasonably possible. If they still refuse, push for affiliate status. Since Ten-Zero hasn't claimed public responsibility, and the area lacked civilian presence, we'll keep the fight under wraps until we craft a proper story for the media. Now, unless there are further issues, I trust you all have important duties to attend to…"
The meeting should have ended there.
But Dragon's HUD flickered. An urgent-red alert pulsed across her display. Parahumans Online. High-priority flag. She diverted a thread of attention, opened it and froze for milliseconds in surprise. Someone had hacked PHO.
At the top of the boards, a new post titled: Slaughter House Zero. Username: Ordis (Ten-Zero PR Manager)
Attached: high-resolution footage
The cycle had broken.
The Thinker was dead. The Warrior, having exposed himself to human emotion, was compromised.
The vast design that had carried them across galaxies in order to find the Answer had ended, truncated in this sector of space. However this planet remained a viable testbed. It would never be the true continuation, not until another pair of entities arrived here, but the most efficient path was clear: maintain the testbed until a new iteration of the cycle could occur. All the futures she followed led to the preservation of this plan.
But then the futures began to collapse.
Not change. Not blocked or hidden. Vanished. Whole branches of possibility winked out of her perception in clusters with no alternatives to fill the gaps.
That was not supposed to happen. Had another pair like the Warrior and Thinker entered the space? No. If they had, even the Warrior in his current state would react and he was still saving kittens from trees.
To find out what had caused this, she increased the power in her scream—what the locals misinterpreted as a psychic bombardment but was really a wide-band information tool. She had even asked for assistance with scouring the planet from her siblings. For long moments they found nothing, her perception, and those of her fellow conflict engines could not identify the source of the disturbance of her sight.
Then she found it, a point in Orbit. A wound in reality that was located not because of what she could detect but that she could detect nothing.
What the anomaly truly was wasn't something she could parse. It did not even have form in her vision, near blind as she was at the moment. It was just a colorless blotch sucking in and eating away at the past and future like a black hole, but not of gravity. Of time and causality.
She approached carefully, halting at the distance optimal for her telekinesis as she focused her scream on the scar, attempting to extract data. But as expected, just like before there was nothing. Her probe collapsed on contact, consumed without return.
Seeing she could not observe it in any meaningful capacity and it interfered with her ability to perform her function, her intention shifted from observation to elimination. Telekinetic force wrapped the anomaly. Her intent was to try and crush it and end its interference. But when her power touched the anomaly, it slipped. Input dissolved into static and instead of crushing it she only managed to push it aside, sending it spiraling away rather than destroying it.
Then to her surprise, the anomaly fled and she realized that this was not a natural phenomena but a being containing some form of intelligence.
From there a chase ensued, the anomaly dodging and retaliating against her psychic might while she followed. It was difficult for the Simurgh to attack and dodge, extremely so due to not being able to see the future properly but her scream made up the difference where it could and allowed her to block many of the retaliatory attacks and build.
She also realized far too late that the weapon the anomaly fired had equally anomalous effects. Setting her on fire in the vacuum of space, freezing her, and corroding her. These effects, interesting as they, were nothing her physiology couldn't handle. As long as the attacks never reached her core, it would not matter.
Or so he thought.
Because something else had slipped in alongside them. Something that should not have been possible. Poison. The realization struck her with a rare, jarring dissonance. She was not organic. She did not metabolize. There was nothing to infect, no bloodstream to carry a toxin—yet her responses slowed. What little remained of her future sight collapsed entirely. The segments of her core that sustained her scream and her telekinesis faltered.
Yet even as she reeled at the impossibility, she pressed on. She struck a blow that disrupted the anomaly's assault long enough to complete her device. It had been intended as a black hole bomb, but in her rush she had assembled only a crude gravity well.
It activated, dragging at the anomaly and slowing its impossible speed. At full strength she could have barraged it until nothing remained. But now, maintaining both her own flight and the device's stability demanded everything she had. If she wanted to end this confrontation, she would need to do so physically.
She believed she could. Its reaction to her psychic force suggested it was vulnerable to direct physical assault. Victory was within her grasp.
And then something happened.
Even now, hours later, wounded and deep in the process of repair, she could not identify what had occurred. One moment she had been poised to strike and the next, she awoke spiraling through orbit, her device collapsing into wreckage beside her.
It was… difficult to accept that she may have somehow lost consciousness, almost as much as it was to accept she had been poisoned. The concept itself felt impossible. She was meant to function until her processes completely ceased or she was shut down.
Which left only one explanation she found remotely plausible, at least when it came to her black out. Her creator had intervened and forced a temporary shutdown to allow the anomaly to escape. There was even precedent: Cauldron and their endless desperate search for a "silver bullet" to turn against the Warrior could see the anomaly as that and try to save it.
But regardless of the truth, her path forward remained the same. She would repair. She would wait. Inevitably, one of her brothers or the many pawns she had would cross the anomaly's path, and she would either have answers or new information to work with in order to neutralize it.
Now, If only she could isolate the corrupted shard of her core responsible for that persistent glitch.
Rap. Tap. Tap.
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A/N: Not my best work, a little disappointed actually. I wanted to do more like a pho interlude and i dont think i captured the heart of all the character i put in here well so I'll probably rewrite it later. But I figured I needed to get food on the proverbial table today so here we are. Enjoy!