Fight for Power

I asked Captain about information regarding the various prosthetics Omicron made. He responded, "Depends. There's a wide variety, from simple limb replacement to more weaponized pieces. Mine are more focused on high speed movements, for instance."

"What about G3 and G4?" I wondered.

"G... oh, those are the ones Libera built, aren't they? I... don't quite remember what happened to those... I think they deployed G4 during the war against the Fist of Zeromus," Captain noted.

"Did G3 really make you go blind?" I asked, recalling what Omicron told me about G3.

".................................... no comment. >_>" replied Captain.

"Can you bring some of the others that were taken to us? I'd like to talk with them as well," I requested.

"I'll see if I can convince some of them to come. They've been out there for so long, they've gotten used to the darkness," Captain responded.

"AO, do you have anything to ask Captain? You've been silent throughout this conversation," I asked Alternate Omicron.

"Ah... I... I'm just a touch distracted, is all," Alternate Omicron replied, clutching his head.

Captain glanced between Alternate Omicron and me.

"Wait, are you..." Captain paused for a moment, before realizing, "Oh, I see. You're a... different Omicron, aren't you?"

"Yes... yes, not the one you know. A fair bit younger, I think. And right now, I have a pounding headache," Alternate Omicron stated.

"Ah. Yes, I suspect you will experience quite a lot of those. I believe our Omicron always solved that by applying pressure to the back of his head, right at the top of his spine," Captain explained.

Alternate Omicron followed Captain's advice. "Oh. Oh, that's delightful. Any other tips?"

"... try to learn at a sedate pace, hm?" Captain suggested. Alternate Omicron only tilted his head in confusion in response.

"Ha. I suspect you'll find out eventually," remarked Captain.

At this point that Captain has headed off to gather some people from among the taken.

"AO, now that it's been some time since you absorbed that double-helix glowing green thing, how do you feel? I wonder what that thing was anyways..." I asked Alternate Omicron.

"Uh. I'm not sure? That feeling I had, of information, of things I shouldn't know coming into my brain? That feels a bit stronger. I think I'm definitely going to have to talk to my other self about that. I mean, he's the one that had it right? He has to know something about it," replied AO.

"Wanna join Hero Squad?" I offered.

AO tilted his head. "What's that?"

"Hero Squad is a force for good! We're a team that travels around the world, helping people, leaving places better off than we found them, adventuring, exploring, and having fun, fighting evil, and doing various other stuff," I explained.

"Sounds exciting! Being out in the field would also give me excellent opportunities to learn as well... Very well, I accept!" said Omicron.

It was at this moment that an anguished scream from Rune can be heard emanating throughout all of spacetime. Simultaneously, I perceived an expression of pure horror from Quicksilver, overlayed over the cloud cover.

"Yep, welcome aboard!" I exclaimed, handing Alternate Omicron his Hero Band.

"For example, one of the adventures we went on recently was exploring some kind of laboratory filled with hostile mutants; it also had a despairing guy made of stone who had weird blood and some kind of storm power," I told AO.

"Ooooo, that sounds very interesting indeed!" replied Alternate Omicron, who strapped on his Hero Band.

I tested the teleport function. "Apparently we can't teleport to HQ right now, so I can't show you around as of this moment, but everyone in Hero Squad lives at Hero Squad HQ. There, in Hero Squad Headquarters, each Hero Squad member gets hir own Hero Zone, with said Hero Zone being something said member can shape into whatever they want."

I then tried accessing my weapons, such as the Prism Cannon and Gurgurant. "That said, I can still access my weapons... well, that'll be helpful in case we have to go into combat whenever we are."

I tested summons next. "Summons also seem to work; makes sense, since the weapon summoning and creature summoning work off of parallel systems to HQ teleport."

Now since we have some spare time, we decided to examine the area more closely. I attempted to have a clone fly out above the cloud cover. What I found was that the cloud cover is several miles thick at its thinnest parts, but there seems to be an area centered above the colony where the clouds extend much farther than should be possible. Beyond that appears to be... nothing.

Having a clone dig through the sand and tunnel underground, all I found was sand. Forever.

"I had a clone check above the cloud cover, there isn't outer space or stars or anything above there, just... nothing. Anyone have an idea of what that means? There also appears to be nothing but sand underneath us. Forever," I noted.

"Probably Omicron knows. The rest of us sure as hell don't. Whatever happened to the colony, to all of us, I can only assume Omicron is responsible," Delta replied.

"Perhaps the wormhole system can be used to escape wherever we are?" I suggested.

Delta pondered that for a moment. "... I question if we even want to. As dire as this seems, if what Captain was saying is true... I have to believe there was a reason that we came here. A reason that Omicron brought us here. No matter what state he's in, I think we need to talk to him."

"Oh, Omicron brought you here? A hypothesis I have is that some party attacked Omicron's colony, causing it to fall, and then Omicron used some kind of transport system to bring everyone who was in the general area here. Possibly to escape and regroup?" I hypothesized.

"I assume it was something like that," responded Delta.

"Perhaps we can examine the fallen colonies themselves to search for evidence of who attacked them, to see if it was any of the usual suspects, or if it was some other party," I suggested.

I then examined the silver sand all around us. "This silver sand appears to be a metal, and I can affect it with metal control. Hey Delta, are you capable of controlling this weird silver sand?" I asked him.

"Yes, though it's a bit more difficult than regular sand." replied Delta.

I then asked AO to analyze the silver sand.

"Well, that's interesting... it's certainly some variety of silver. It's definitely not normal silver, I can tell you that much. I haven't exactly got the tools for a closer examination here... seems a bit odd, but maybe we should take some?" noted AO.

I took some of the silver sand as a sample to be analyzed later. As for how much I took, well... I'll get back to you on that later.

I attempted to make glass from the silver sand. As it was silver, this results in a mirror. A curiously flexible mirror.

Hmm... I scratched my head, examining the silver mirror. Simultaneously, I had my clones spread out, examining the colonies themselves, searching for evidence of who or what attacked said colonies.

<Alternate Omicron>

Well... I suppose it's time to find my other self and have a chat.

"Delta, you said you know where Omicron... err, this timeline's Omicron is, yes?" I questioned. Delta nodded. "I'd like to talk to him, then. It seems like we'll get the most answers out of him."

Delta sighed and rubber the back of his head. "Maybe. He's... well, you'll see. Follow me," he said, before turning and heading into the colony. "Still hard to believe everything that Captain said..." he muttered as he ducked through a hard-to-spot entrance.

"That's understandable," Orvtre replied as shi ducked through as well. "Considering how long you've apparently been fighting them, I suppose just up and trusting those shadow creatures might be difficult to ask."

Delta shrugged. "Honestly I'm not sure what to think yet. I trust Captain, but..." he trailed off, continuing forward through a twisty, circuitous route of hidden doors, secret hallways, and a few still-active defense mechanisms in complete silence. Orvtre and I left him to his thoughts as he lead us through a thoroughly confusing route, before ultimately stopping at a totally nondescript door. He took a deep breath as he walked up to it, then exhaled harshly.

"Alright. This is the one. I'll warn you though, Omicron's... well, he might not... oh, just see for yourself," he sighed, placing a hand on the wall next to the door. It slid open with a quiet hiss, allowing us into the room.

The first and most obvious thing to notice was the throne-like chair set in the middle of the room, surrounded by a host of computer towers with dozens of wires running between them, with several additional devices - pods of some kind? - lining the walls. The chair was pointed away from the entrance, towards a large window that looked directly out onto the colony's exterior, exactly where we'd been talking with Captain earlier, in fact. My other self had been watching the whole time?

Delta rounded the chair first, slowly moving in front of it. "You have guests."

I heard a few vague mumbles in response, and stepped forward to see my other self in the flesh.

"Oh. Oh my," I breathed in mild alarm as Orvtre rounded the chair from the other side and caught sight of this timeline's version of me, sucking in a breath through hir teeth as shi did.

The other me has... seen better days, shall we say. A large number of wires are plugged into the back of his head, the rest of which is covered by what seems to be some kind of oxygen mask. A series of thick stitches are clearly visible around every single joint on his body, and to be quite frank he looks... withered. His every breath comes in slow and ragged, and his eyes are closed.

"Holy s***," Orvtre breathed. "What happened to him...?"

"Question for the ages, that. This is what he was like when I found him, though he was at least a little more lucid at first. He directed me in setting all of this up for him. What little I've gotten out of him since that has basically been gibberish," Delta replied, a bitter edge creeping into his voice.

I stepped closer to my other self, an odd and terrible feeling welling up within. How had I come to such a state? Did I... did I do this to myself...?

"Dark... darker... shadows... fall..." the other Omicron muttered.

"Like I said, gibberish," Delta piped up. "I think being disconnected from the Colony is what did it." I ignored him, leaning closer to the other me.

"Dark... here... forever... worm... wait... what... will... be..."

I gripped my other self by his shoulders, a strange desperation coming over me.

"It was you, right? The one who talked to me through the lights. A code only I could know. The helix that you sent me to find, this information I shouldn't know, you know what's going on, don't you?"

The other Omicron opened his eyes, only slightly. His gaze came with an icy feeling, like something crawling down my spine.

"Gestalt..." he muttered, before slowly, laboriously holding up one of his hands, as if expecting something. "Alignment..."

The black and gold pyramid was in my hand before I even knew I'd reached for it. I stared at it, at Omicron's open hand, and placed it in his grip. As soon as his fingers closed around it, it began to glow, and he very, very slowly raised it up over his head. The golden cap of the pyramid shone brightly, and then a thin beam shot straight up through a tiny hole in the ceiling I hadn't noticed prior.

"My... dear friend... speak to me..." the other Omicron whispered. A moment later, a pulse traveled back down the beam and hit the pyramid, which projected a holographic image throughout the room. Numbers, letters... an equation. A very, very long one. At this point, Omicron pulled himself up straighter in his seat, as a commotion started up outside.

"Do not have... much time to talk. Mind is... overloaded..." Omicron hissed, as Delta stared on in shock. Orvtre's attention seemed divided between the other me and whatever was happening outside; everyone was staring up at something.

"What was it that you had me find...?" I asked gently, as Orvtre's attention was pulled more towards the commotion outside. Shi pressed a hand against the glass, and was surprised when it simply folded up into the ceiling to clear the way.

"The... the Spiral Gestalt..." Omicron replied, "You will... understand it in time... you may see it as... something of a burden... but I know... I know you will make good use of it."

Orvtre, meanwhile, trudged outside to see what it was that everyone was looking at. Following the beam of light peaking up from Omicron's room, shi looked up and found something quite massive there.

Roughly triangular and with three huge 'tusks' pointed forward from the front, it appeared to be some kind of enormous space ship. A triangular 'mouth' was where the beam from Omicron's device had gone to. With a start, Orvtre realized that this behemoth had been hidden by the 'tower' of clouds shi had seen when shi'd flown up there.

"This is Omicron's... friend...?" Orvtre muttered to hirself. Shi was pulled out of pondering the massive vessel when a blue blur shot past hir towards Omicron's room, a blur shi shortly identified as Captain.

"Sir!" Captain shouted as he skidded to a halt just shy of the room's exposed entrance. Omicron smiled at his arrival.

"Ah. Good to see... that you came back... in time," he coughed. "Gotten a... better understanding of our situation...?"

Captain stared down at his feet, clenching his fists.

"Please understand... it was the best I could do... at the time."

"What did you do?" Orvtre asked, returning to the room. A small crowd began to gather just outside as well, as people began to realize just who was inside that room.

"A last resort... an escape..." Omicron muttered. "It's dark here... so dark... but we can live... in the darkness. Yes... we can live here forever..." he chuckled. His laugh was... unpleasant to hear. "As long as the Worm will wait..."

"The Worm?" I echoed. Something tickled at the back of my brain. My other self chuckled again.

"Heheh... ask Chi, when you... get the chance. For now, let us say... that time is not a... corridor, so much as a labyrinth... the Worm is the... the labyrinth's monster... or perhaps... its creator... you will understand, eventually. As I once did... what was, will be..."

"Tell me clearly," Captain demanded. "Where are we?"

"Event Horizon," Omicron croaked. "The edge of a singularity. The transition was... so smooth that... most of you never noticed..." he continued, before falling into a brief coughing fit. "I had a friend... provide some help. We are... safe here. Safe..."

His eyes widened and he took a deep breath, as it seemed something occurred to him. His gaze settled upon Orvtre.

"You... yes... you can... you can deliver a warning... yes..." he muttered, raising a decrepit hand to point at hir.

"You must... tell them. The project... the project must be completed. The timetable... it is not fast enough. They need... they need to hurry. It. Is. Coming," he snarled with an almost feral desperation, a crazed look flashing over his face.

"It?" Orvtre echoed, "What's coming?"

"THE MONSTER," Omicron growled, before suddenly slouching back down into his chair, his energy seemingly depleted, his breathing shallow. He turned his gaze to me once more and held the black pyramid up, beckoning me to take it. As soon as I gripped it, another pulse came down the thin beam it was sending up. This one, however, carried with it a tiny point of light.

"The shard!" Orvtre gasped, as I reached up to take hold of it. Time and space began to crack around it, just like last time. How fascinating...

"W-wait! I still have so many questions!" Orvtre shouted, to no avail. Time and space fractured and fell away around us.

<Hydross>

My brain currently feels like someone has doused it in gasoline and set it on fire, so it took me a few moments of writhing around in agony before I was lucid enough to acknowledge my surroundings. The first thing to resolve itself was that I was in a woodland area, which was very definitely not the hospital where I'd been before. Also the bandages and head brace were gone, which would be concerning if the accompanying pain wasn't also gone. Huh.

"Eeergh! What in the world was that?!" came a very angry female voice from nearby. Pulling myself to my feet, I spotted Vashj slowly rising from the ground the same as I was.

"Well, that doesn't get any less unpleasant for occurring more than once..." came Orvtre's voice from nearby, with an agreement shortly following from Rune.

"Well s***, first we're in Dusty Desert and now we're... uh... where are we?" Rune grumbled, bringing up some kind of holographic screen in front of her.

"I went somewhere else in between there and here... but maybe we should talk about that later," Orvtre said, turning towards the source of a whole lot of noise nearby.

"Would someone mind explaining what the hell's happening?!" I growled, hurrying to follow as the other three rushed towards the noise. Vashj echoed the sentiment.

"Time troubles! Has something to do with Chi, probably!" Orvtre shouted back. Oh, grand.

After a bit of running, we quickly found the source of the noise, which turned out to be an entire goddamn fleet of Gearteeth, in hot pursuit of something moving very, very fast. Fast enough to dodge bullets. Fast enough to be...

"Quicksilver?" I muttered aloud. Sure enough, I could see the little white blur zipping in between Gearteeth at incredibly high speeds, dodging bullets like they were the slowest things in the world. When had this happened...?

"He hasn't got those things on his legs..." Rune noted, a touch of suspicion in her voice.

"He's still a member - or, future member, anyway - of Hero Squad! So let's go wreck us some Gearteeth!" Orvtre hollered, before charging into the fray. Oh boy... screwing with past events is, from my experience, not a good time. But hell, if this is some Chi Trouble, then maybe that's what we're supposed to do. f*** it then.

"Incoming!" I bellowed, following behind Orvtre. Rune instead began to gather energy and start sniping at the Gearteeth, while Vashj settled for zinging water droplets at them at speeds high enough to pierce their hulls. Damn, I have GOT to learn that trick... Ah well. Failing that, I dove into the fray, ramming my reef spear through one Geartooth and slicing off another's gun with my bone blade. Orvtre smashed through several at once, wreathed in flames and electricity.

Quicksilver, naturally, noticed this immediately and ran back to run some circles around me. "Sup Hydross! Some uh... some new friends ya got there?" he asked, casually failing to notice the swarms of bullets being directed at us.

"Something like that..." I replied noncommittally. The less I need to explain, the better.

"Well, hope you're up for plenty of smashing, cause there's more where those came from!" he said, pointing at an even larger swarm of Gearteeth charging through the trees. I turned my head to look at them, then turned around and he was already zooming off. Typical... A yelp from his direction got me looking back his way, however, as a form I could immediately identify as Metal Scythe closed in on him.

"Hold still you pest!" Metal Scythe's booming voice echoed through the woods as he carved completely through a few trees to get at Quicksilver, who blew a raspberry and circled back around towards us.

"Hey, I found another friend," he commented as he swooped past again. As Metal Scythe approached, I could feel something off about him. I was never too keen on fighting this guy when he was around... I feel like this might be a problem.

@-Rune-@

Hmm... that's Metal Scythe, isn't it.

Last I checked, we don't really have much combat data on Metal Scythe, so I'm not sure how strong he is. That said, I'm getting a unsettling feeling from him...

Out of the people we have here, the only one who may have any kind of combat data on Metal Scythe is Hydross, who went in for a punch with his electric claw thing. However, Metal Scythe caught his arm, then slammed him into the ground hard enough to leave a crater. Orvtre, Vashj, and I fired various projectiles at the robot, who deflected a significant portion of those with a swing of his namesake scythe. However, this gave Hydross the opportunity to stab him with his reef spear, forcing Metal Scythe to release his grip.

Once Hydross caught his breath he pointed out that Metal Scythe is strong, but not THAT strong. Somehow I can tell that Metal Scythe's powerup stems from this Time/Space f***ery...

Anyhow, I fired some more arcane bolts at Metal Scythe and he returned fire with a pair of miniguns. I moved to the side while putting up energy shields, but he rushed me and then brought that huge scythe down, cleaving through my shield. I rolled to the side, before slamming my staff into the torso the scythe-wielding robot, unleashing a point-blank arcane blast and forcing him back.

Orvtre took out the Prism Cannon and fired some kind of electric-lava blast at Metal Scythe, Vashj fired a few water droplets at the robot, while Hydross chucked the wreckage of a Geartooth at him. Metal Scythe handled most of that, but that was when Orvtre made some clones which began mobbing him and stabbing him with the Gurgurant.

Unfortunately for Metal Scythe, I took this brief reprieve to prepare and launch a bigger attack.

"Prismatic Barrage!" I snarled, bringing down a deadly rain of arcane beams onto the bladed robot, the ground shaking as the beams kicked up a massive cloud of dust.

#Vashj#

Machines are such a pain to fight. There's no water in them like there is in regular people, which cuts off a lot of my more useful techniques. That leaves me with just the less elegant methods to deal with them. Namely, water spears.

Having closed the distance to the... 'Gearteeth', was it? I was now able to see Metal Scythe standing amidst the cloud Rune's attack had kicked up, a black, polygonal shield projected around him. He pointed his arm at her and fired several missiles, as well as a pair of gatling guns mounted at the base of the blade. As she put up her own shield to block, Metal Scythe suddenly... phased out? In the blink of an eye he was behind her.

"What in the...?!" Rune gasped, dodging just enough for the blade to gouge into her side instead of her chest. With a grunt she swung her staff around to club the mech in the head, while Orvtre blasted it from the side, keeping it distracted long enough for me to step in and jab at its back. Annoyingly it was canny enough to thrust away from me to avoid any serious damage.

"Could have told me he had a teleporter!" Rune growled, charging energy for a summoning spell.

"He doesn't," Hydross called back, cutting down a Geartooth that was trying to run him over. "Least, not as far as I know. I'd think he'd have used it more often if he did."

"Think that it's more of those time shenanigans?" Orvtre commented, calling in several of hir summons to fight back the Gearteeth. Rune followed suit, occupying most of the fleet's attention that way.

"Time shenanigans you say?" came Quicksilver's voice from in-between us. When had he...? "Verrrry interesting. But maybe not the kind of interesting I'm cool with," he mused. Whatever reply anyone had was interrupted by Metal Scythe swooping in swinging his arm blade and club tail in a wide arc, spraying gatling gun fire as he went, forcing everyone to spread out.

"Gearteeth, overhead fire! Make sure they can't just fly out!" Metal Scythe shouted, a crisscrossing layer of bullets flying overhead in response. Seems Orvtre and Rune's summons weren't enough to occupy all of them.

The metal menace chose me as his next target, charging in my direction with his bladed arm drawn back. Bad decision. He swung low, guns blazing in case his aim was off, but neither the blade nor the bullets reached me as I jumped high over his attack and flipped forward.

"Six Thousand Brick Axe!" I roared as I slammed my heel into the back of the machine's head hard enough to produce a metallic squeal, smashing Metal Scythe face first into the dirt. As soon as I landed I spun around and swung my water spear down to finish him off. It pierced through, but at that moment he phased out again and appeared just below the overhead fire, undamaged. So it's not just a teleport?

Rather than jetting back down to attack, he flicked his tail several times, dispensing several oblong metallic objects covered in spikes. They exploded a second later, sending the little metal spikes all over the place. I felt something tug me in several directions in rapid succession, then turned to find Quicksilver giving a pilot's salute before zipping out of sight again. A quick examination of myself revealed that I hadn't been hit by any of the shrapnel from those grenades. So he can be helpful...

boop

?-Orvtre-?

I can tell that that isn't a normal teleport... hmm I better kick things up a notch.

First things first, I gave the entire Squad various buffs to help things along, power everyone up a bit. Second, I started using various water attacks to give Vashj water sources to capitalize on. Rune followed suit, utilizing various water spells.

I along with a bunch of my clones fired water blasts and threw various ice projectiles at Metal Scythe, before blasting him from below with a few "Rapid Geysers". The first one took him by surprise and hit home, but he evaded the subsequent ones.

Metal Scythe rushed forward, blasting away several clones with missiles and gatling guns, before taking down more with a swing of his namesake scythe.

Rune used a water arms spell to grab Metal Scythe and slam him into the ground. Upsilon and Hydross used the water in the area to give Metal Scythe a huge dose of electricity. Unfortunately, before Vashj could fire off a huge attack to capitalize on all of that, Metal Scythe "warped" out again, this time appearing behind me.

The instant I saw Metal Scythe change locations, I put up barriers around myself and the others. It slowed down his blade just enough for me to get Gurgurant up to block it, and hit the machine with a huge point-blank blast of water. Unfortunately, his scythe swing had enough power put behind it to stagger me, and he capitalized on that by blasting me with missiles and machine gun fire, sending me skidding back.

Metal Scythe didn't get a chance to follow up on that however, as he was promptly distracted when two of the summons, the Blasting Corkoink and copies of the strange, Asura-like cyborg beast with dozens upon dozens of arms, decided to take potshots at him. The mechanical Scythe retaliated, cleaving through multiple copies of the multiarmed cyborg beast, however he was interrupted from pursing the summons when Rune fired a multitude of water jets at his head. Metal Scythe deflected most of that, but Rune and I pincered him with a "Grand Deluge!" from above and a "Rapid Geyser!" from below, before freezing the water surrounding him, holding him place for but an instant.

It was an instant enough for Vashj to capitalize.

"Spear Wave!" Vashj roared, pulling a bunch of water into a spinning water spout and launching it like a spear at Metal Scythe.