Amaranthine

The God-Pattern towered over its warring counterparts, following an impossible curve up into the depths of The Director’s soul. As always, her expression stayed cool and collected, but the ethereal audience of her inner being betrayed her, a gasp of surprise and horror escaping countless ghostly lips. Perhaps even more tellingly, her hand had stopped its teasing motion along Cait’s shaft.

Cait removed her own from the woman’s skirt, taking Elizabeth’s hand and receiving a grateful squeeze in return. Cait tore her eyes from the shifting pattern to look at her. God, beauty was subjective, sure, but she was stunning.

Her statuesque face was hard, jaw set as she glared at a mere fraction of an enemy she had no chance of comprehending in its entirely. The Black Swan had been a lot of people’s favorite Guardian, Cait’s included, and there had always been a lot of debate as to why. She was far from the most powerful. She hadn’t taken down the biggest threats. While, before her daughter hit the streets at least, Cait would have argued vehemently that she was the best looking, it wasn’t like she didn’t have a lot of competition in that area.

No, any discussion on the topic that reached any sort of end came to the same conclusion: The Black Swan represented the best a person could be. It made perfect sense, now that Cait understood her ability, but the fact remained. Elizabeth Swan was not superhuman. Not really. Every single thing she did, someone, somewhere on earth, knew they could do the same. And they saw it being used to defend the world from Titans.

Now, that woman, armed with nothing but the collective skill of humanity, stared down a god with an expression that looked more like someone dealing with an aggravating long division problem.

Masterclassin confidence, Cait thought, smiling to herself as some of the same bled into her by proxy. She turned to face the towering face of a deity-in-absentia with just that much less trepidation.

Absent awe, she was able to examine it a little more closely. Unfortunately, that didn’t lead to further comfort. The God-Pattern was not as removed from those below as it first appeared. Where the stoic stood, it tripped, where the beast attacked, it pushed. Its influence was subtle within the warring patterns, but omnipresent.

Who the fuck were you buddy? Cait wondered, not for the first time, as she looked at the man sat across from her. He looked like a nothing. Like someone no-one had ever once looked twice at. But something in him made him able to weather a storm Cait was certain would have drowned her.

Even now though, he still had that unflappable air B-Man carried with him. Oh sure, the guy could seem nervous and dopey, but he’d tanked an entire change of body plan from ‘man’ to ‘eldritch horror’ and came out better for it. Now, looking at the battle taking place for his very soul, one in which he was almost comically outgunned, he still…. Well fuck, he still looked like he was more concerned with the gorgeous woman hanging off his arm, looking with a mix of awe, fear, and irritation at the sight before them.

The Director broke the silence.

“Willow, ahem,” she coughed, “would you care to explain further?”

“Ah! Yes, of course,” Willow stammered, forgetting to give her voice even a hint of echo. In stark contrast to most of the table, she’d been looking at the patterns with the same look Cait had seen on a lot of the more enthusiastic scientists she’d worked with. They would almost fall into the microscope, or the computer screen, whatever was showing them something that reshaped their understanding of their entire field. “This, uh… well, it is more or less what it looks like. A bond similar to that between Cait and Kennedy, but between our friend Breastman and…,” she gestured dismissively at the monster, still snarling but nearly forgotten in the center of the table, “this.”

She took a moment longer to collect her thoughts, having to be pulled put of another curiosity induced trance by a polite cough from The Director.

“As should also be obvious,” Willow continued as if nothing had happened, “this bond could not be more dissimilar from its closest animantic cognate: Cait and Kennedy’s Wavebond,” She sighed, clearly frustrated by her lack of understanding. “If I had to guess, I would say that the difference lies in volition; while Cait and Kennedy’s bond was likely forced upon them to some extent by the Waves, this appears to have been the result of meddling by a…. By a higher power.”

She waved, entirely unnecessarily, at the towering God-Pattern.

“I’m only using context clues here, but during our flight from that dead universe, I was able to get a good look at the signatures of those monsters. They were identical, which is impossible, yet falls very nicely into the way things have been fucking going with you all. Further, I saw evidence of something very similar to our unknown third party here connecting them, if not controlling them directly, the only appreciable difference being…. Well, you,” she said, indicating Breastman.

“I’m just a guy,” he protested. “All this… I’m not even fighting like this all the time. I don’t think so at least. This conflict isn’t me. In a lotta ways, I’m, well, I’m honestly more comfortable in that body than I am in this one.”

He tipped his hat towards their monstrous centerpiece.

“Yes, I’m aware,” Willow sighed once more, “but you’ll forgive me if I suspect there is more to it. More you may not be consciously aware of, I’m not accusing you of lying. By all indications you are almost pathologically forthcoming.”

“Thank you, I think,” he responded, to a vaguely slavic flavored grunt.

“Mmh. Regardless, I believe The Director is mostly right, this does indicate an invasion. However, instead of an invading force, I believe it to be an invading entity. One extremely likely to be responsible for the dead universe from which we just came,” she finished, to a silence as heavy as her words.

“This thing kills universes?” Lira asked, giving voice to the thought occupying every mind in the room

“Just a guess, but a good one,” Willow continued. “Given what happens when Breastman loses control, his documented ability to consume, and, based upon his increase in mass and strength, metabolize souls; I believe whatever this thing is, it feeds upon the very animating force of realities.”

“Ah, good, so it only eats universe’s fucking souls,” Lira said, voice dripping with defensive sarcasm, her own small attempt at fending off the well-deserved existential dread that sentence conjured up. Willow could only shrug helplessly.

“I mean… yes, that’s my read on things,” she answered, looking to The Director. “I believe these monsters serve as a sort of digestive system for it.”

“For the Animaphage,” Cait said, “that’s what the Hat Man called it.”

“Apt enough,” Willow agreed.

“How do we fight it?” The Director asked, cutting to the chase. Her demeanor hadn’t changed, but her palm shook in Cait’s hand. She likely knew what Willow was going to say before she said it.

“Fight it?” Willow laughed, not with any joy, the kind of laugh one gave when the utter ridiculousness of existence itself took too firm a hold, “kurwa, Beth we can’t fight it. All we can do is make sure it stays in whatever reality it makes its home.”

“Like you did with The Coven of the Fall’s outpost in that realm,” The Director said, brooking none of Willow’s fatalism.

“I suppose, yes,” Willow admitted, a little reason returning to her features.

“Could you detect if they were attempting more of these rituals?” The Director asked, capitalizing on Willow’s calm.

“Now that I’ve seen one?” Willow asked, chewing on her lip in thought, “Yes… yes I think I could, with the right tools, the right environment. I could set up an animantic web to detect these things. But it would take time, work, and help.”

“I’m recalling you immediately,” The Director said, in the kind of voice that made you realize what she said was already done, it just hadn’t happened yet. “You will have every resource at my disposal to get that up and running.”

She gave a sweet smile to her daughter, with a hint of apology behind her eyes; “Sorry sweetheart, but the survival of our reality trumps self-discovery.”

“Ugh, you would think that Preemie,” Kennedy shot back the nickname for those born -Pre-Wave, but wore a smile that said she understood. Said she was relieved, in fact, since a few minutes ago the situation had seemed pretty hopeless. If all she had to do to give their universe a fighting chance was give up self-actualization sessions with some Witchy eye candy, she was willing to make that sacrifice.

“So glad you understand, Twogee,” The Director said, with her best customer service smile, only fake due to the real warmth behind it. “As for the rest of you, I expect your time in the big city will be coming to an end soon as well. I have reports of at least 5 Guardian level Altereds produced by this Wave in the Technocago area, and while I’d love for you all to be their trainers….”

Her eyes bounced from Cait, to Lira, to Kennedy, to Qi.

“people have a history of getting attached to this group. To say nothing of your relative inexperience. I have Rodeo Squad rotating off the DC front to take over those duties. Far less risk of abuse of station, you understand.”

All eyes were on Cait for that last sentence, punctuated by a firm squeeze of her thigh from The Director. Cait faked her best offended scowl, meeting those gazes with disdain.

“Oh fuck you all, like you wouldn’t.”