The Second Archon War: Superbia Hominum 14

Superbia Hominum 14: The Storm

Picking herself up off the ground, Alexandria shook her head, then looked towards where the massive storm was already forming. She could only stare in blank astonishment, her Thinker powers trying to catch up to the new data she’d just obtained. She was still blinking when Wyatt landed beside her. “Alex! Alex, are you OK?”

Shaking her head, she turned to him, giving him a tight frustrated smile. “I’ll live.”

“We tried to spring the Ambush, but first the Aranara kept us out, then…that,” Hero said lamely, gesturing to the gathering storm. As he spoke, not one, not two, but three tornadoes touched down and began shredding the earth around the area. “I, uh, I think we might have underestimated Venti a tad.”

“I fucking told you.”

Alexandria and Wyatt both turned as Legend swooped down beside them, then pointed to the west. “We need to evac. Now.”

“We’re miles away at this point, this should be safe-” Alexandria began, then her senses triggered, and she activated her vision, forming a shield around Wyatt and Legend as a boulder the size of a train car slammed into them. 

“...This is POTUS. All Protectorate forces, gather all allies and civilians and fall back to rally point Charlie. No…rally point…shit. Fall back to Warsaw.”

“Say again?” Chevalier’s voice said over the radio. “Warsaw?”

“Confirm, fall back to Warsaw,” Alexandria said as the storm before them only grew in intensity. “And pray that’s far enough.”

For a long moment, Alexandria stared at the storm, Hero beside her. 

“I’m just going to say it,” Legend said, as yet another enormous tornado sprouted, and the ground beneath their feet rocked as hard as a 7.0 Earthquake. “I told you so. Do you understand now? They’re not parahumans. They’re not Vision Holders. They’re gods. We can’t fight that. Shit. How the fuck are we going to fight Scion, when they’re clearly afraid of him?”

“We have to get stronger,” Alexandria whispered, feeling sick as she watched shards of ice the size of skyscrapers explode into fragments bigger than airplanes and begin to rain down around them. “But for that to happen, we have to survive. Come on.”

They turned about and sped away towards Warsaw, a familiar numbness washing over Alexandria. What they were doing…it wasn’t working. Parahumans, Vision Holders, Delusions…it would never be enough to fight beings on that level. They had to find a way. There had to be a way. Because the alternative was too ghastly to even begin to contemplate. 

Groaning, Amber blinked her eyes. Her head felt like someone had used it as a bongo, and her vision was still swimming. 

“Hey, can you stand? How many fingers am I holding up?” a man’s voice asked. 

Vision focusing, Amber beheld three fingers, held up in the German fashion, with thumb, pointer, and middle finger. “Three…”

“Good. Can you stand? We need to run. Whatever the Tsaritsa and Barbados are doing, it’s creating a tempest the likes of which I’ve never seen before,” the man said. 

Amber’s vision focused on the man, and she blinked. Then let out a scream and tried to scramble away from the Servant. “GET AWAY FROM ME!” Where was the Dancer!? Amber could practically feel those cold strings wrapping about her, twisting her mind, robbing her of her free will, and sending her to kill her friends. Even Lauren. 

“No, stop! Shit, look, I was mind controlled too!” the Servant called, grabbing Lauren’s shoulder and arresting her crawl. “Look! I’m just…I’m free. Oh gods. After all those months…I…I’m…”

He let go, falling to his knees and clutching at his head, sobbing. Despite herself, Amber paused. Was this a trick? She decided she didn’t care. 

Slowly, she got to her feet and awkwardly patted Thoma on the back. “Um, it’s OK. You’re free now. Guess that song stopped the mind control, huh?” 

Still shuddering, Thoma nodded, tears streaming down his face. “I…Yes. I just…I loved her. I would…I would have done whatever she asked. So why…?”

“You…you loved the Tsaritsa?” Amber asked, feeling slightly sick at the thought. Kollei did love her mother, but she had a feeling that was not what Thoma meant here.

“No. Yes. I mean…no, it was…Anastasia. I thought…I thought I loved her,” Thoma said, getting to his feet with a helping hand from Amber. “But she…oh gods. What she did to me…it was worse than rape. Worse than…”

Thoma bent over, heaving out his stomach, while Amber rubbed his back. She looked behind them, and her heart sank as she beheld a giant tornado bearing down on them. “Um, could you maybe, ah, finish so we can run? Otherwise, I think we’re going to die.”

“Right. Come along,” Thoma said, grabbing Amber’s hand and pulling her close. She winced, but he hastily explained, “My shield. It should protect us.”

Then they booked it as fast as they could away from the tempest, but with every footfall, Amber’s heart sank. She was betraying her Oath to Kollei. How could she do that? She could feel that Venti’s song had scrubbed it from her soul, but still…she hadn’t meant for this to happen.

“Why, Lord Barbados?” Amber whispered as she fled. “I just asked for you to please speak to Kollei and her mother. To explain. To make peace. I never wanted this…”

But all she could do was flee before the wrath of the gods unleashed. 

Colin was dreaming. He knew it was a dream, but somehow, he didn’t care. He was back in Baghdad, sitting in his class on Applied Elemental Engineering. The faces of the other students were blurred and shapeless, and if Colin focused on them, he knew they’d disappear. But his eyes were drawn to the young woman at the front of the room, with her bright smile and enthusiasm for the subject. 

What the lecture was, Colin didn’t particularly care. He’d found the subjects endlessly fascinating and had spent long hours after class doing further research, as well as incorporating them into his halberd. He blinked, and in the manner of dreams, he was suddenly at his workbench, inscribing runes into his halberd so that it could draw on elemental energy, though the runes rippled and changed, even as he wrote them. But somehow, she was still there, at his side. 

“It would never work,” Colin said, looking up at Tessa. “You’re a child. No more than what, five years old? Even if you do look like a college co-ed. That’d still be too young for me. I'd still be more than a decade older than you still.” 

“Excuse me? I’m a what?” Tessa demanded, frowning at Colin and adjusting her glasses. 

The dream…sharpened. Things became more defined, less vague, and Colin looked back down at his halberd. The wires were no longer a random shifting birdnest, instead a perfect replica of what they were in real life. 

Colin sighed. “At least this isn’t a dream where we start off naked. As much fun as those are. I just need to get over it. It’s not like it would work out, even without the age differential. You’re…well, a dragon, and I’m a washed up failure.”

Tessa went bright red, covering her mouth with her hands. “You! Are you serious!? You actually- never mind. Look, I’m immortal, Colin. And I’m not five. Well, OK, technically, I am, but I’ve experienced a hell of a lot more time than that. I’m not a child!” 

“Yeah, yeah, and neither is Kusinali. Why couldn’t women work more like machines,” Colin said, picking up his screwdriver to go back to working on his halberd. “At least I understand machines.”

A hand grabbed Colin’s wrist, and he frowned. He…felt that. Odd. It wasn’t uncomfortable, far from it, just…that’s not how dreams usually worked. “I’m basically half machine, you know,” Tessa told him. 

“That’s half the reason I like you,” Colin said, looking up and meeting her eyes. They were green right now, though they looked human enough, save for the fact that one iris was in the shape of a gear, and the other a flower petal. “The other half is you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I’ve never had conversations with anyone like the ones we’ve had about integrating Elemental Energy with modern technology. Especially after…well. After what Kusinali did to me.”

“I…um, I enjoyed those too,” Tessa said, letting go of Colin’s hand and leaning in closer. He could feel her breath on his cheek. Odd. This was a very odd dream. Pleasant, but odd. 

“Heck with it,” Colin said, and grabbed Tessa, pulling her in close and kissing her deeply. He’d never get the chance to do this in the waking world, so he might as well enjoy a dream for what it was. He reached up and grabbed her breast, giving it a squeeze. He did rather enjoy this human form too. 

“I hate to interrupt, but perhaps you should engage in, ah, courtship rituals later. We must talk, and it cannot wait.”

Tessa let out a squawk and pushed Colin away, even as he jerked up right and spun to find Lesser Lord Kusinali staring up at him. 

“Uh,” he stammered, glancing at Tessa, who was grinning like an idiot as she slowly stood herself. “Please tell me this is still a dream.”

“It is a Dream, but not an ordinary one. It seems Tessa has pulled you into our realm, Colin. It’s good to see you again! I’m glad you two are getting along! Tessa has been very lonely without you,” Nahida said with a giggle, covering her mouth with one hand, her eyes sparkling just like a little girls, even if they were far too wise for that.

Colin felt like his face had just burst into flames, and he slowly turned to Tessa, his heart sinking. “Oh God. Tessa, I, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m not much of an expert on kissing but that was pretty good,” Tessa said, still smiling at him. “Still think I’m a child, eh?”

There was quite simply no way to answer that question, so Colin did the only possible intelligent thing. He shut his mouth and kept it that way.

“Tessa. What happened? Why have Barbados and Dantalion clashed?” Nahida asked. “I was keeping an eye on things, but when the Tsaritsa arrived, my vision of the event was scattered as the Aranara fled,” Nahida said, looking up at the Dendro Dragon.

Tessa grimaced and shook her head. “You heard the song, right? The Tone Deaf Bards broke some sort of enchantment on the Servant. It was bedlam. I tried to restore peace, but I failed! Oh gods, Nahida, I think…they’re going to kill one another! This was our one shot at peace, our one hope Kollei would finally gain wisdom, and it’s all ruined because of me?”

“No, don’t blame yourself,” Nahida said firmly. “You did all you could. They violated the truce and defiled sacred ground. I think I see the picture now. Someone threatened Kollei, did they not?”

Bile filled Colin’s stomach, and he felt lower than a worm. He knelt down before Nahida, bowing his head. “I…I’m sorry. Lord Kusinali…we, that is, the Protectorate…we planned to betray and ambush the Princess to draw out the Tsaritsa. What fools we were. We thought we could fight a god and win. Instead…it seems we ruined your own plans with our hubris.”

“What!? Colin, how could you?!” Tessa demanded, sounding truly hurt. 

“It was…the only way. We were losing. Badly. Eidolon is out of commission. Possibly for weeks,” Colin explained. “I know it doesn’t justify it, but…Poland…it’s the land of my ancestors. Something had to be done to save it. And with that poor girl Amber in the Dancer’s clutches…I couldn’t just see another innocent soul brainwashed and turned into a sick puppet.” 

Then he swallowed and met Tessa’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you, but it was my duty to follow the plan. And…I would have done so regardless. We have to stop her. I hope you can understand. And forgive me.”

Tessa looked away, folding her arms over her chest and looking hurt. “I thought you were better than that is all.”

“I am afraid that regardless of how the conference went, Wisdom would not have prevailed,” Nahida said, taking Tessa’s hand and squeezing it. The Dragon looked down at the Archon, sniffling, then knelt and let Nahida give her a hug. 

“Thanks. I just…it’s all so senseless. We should be fighting Scion! He’s the real threat.”

“Hmm,” Colin said, shifting uncomfortably. The official Protectorate line was still that Scion was one of Earth’s greatest heroes. Unofficially though…how could anyone even think of hurting Nahdia? Colin and Hannah had argued about it more than once, but Miss Militia just couldn’t see past her redeeming Farasha. There was something else too, something about that strange woman named Ziz, but Colin didn’t have the clearance for that. Though he did have a theory. Maybe Farasha wasn’t the only monster Nahida had tamed. 

Then Nahida turned to Colin and smiled up at him, so he knelt before her as well. “There does come the matter of what to do with you. How are you holding up? To see the wrath of an Archon unleashed…it’s not something mortal minds were meant to behold.”

Touching his forehead, Colin grimaced. “I’m fine, I suppose. Ever since…whatever it was you did…I’ve been better. I don’t know how you did it, but I even let go of my grudge against Legend and Chevalier.” Colin had held on to that anger for sending him to play second fiddle to Rime in Philadelphia for years. But after Nahida touched him, he’d come to a startled realization. He hadn’t been ready for leadership. He was too focused on his own advancement, and not being a team player. 

“That was your demon, not you,” Tessa said, giving Colin a wan smile. 

Demon. Passenger. Shard. Where did they come from? Colin was certain Visions came from Archons, along with elemental energy. It was painfully obvious, since upon the arrival of each new Archon, a new kind of Vision was introduced to the world. As for Shards…that brought up an interesting question.

“Lord Kusinali,” Colin said slowly, his mind formulating an answer. “Visions come from Archons, yes? I know it’s more complicated than that, but in essence, that is true, is it not?”

“Correct,” Nahida said with a nod of her head. “Are you certain you want the answer to your next question? It will rock your world to the core, Colin.”

“I do,” he said, having to remember once again that this adorable child was the most powerful Master in the world, and could read minds like books, which made his thoughts about Tessa all the more uncomfortable in her presence. “Scion. Is he the source of the Shards? Parahumans began appearing after he did. Is he a sort of Archon?”

“Once more the answer is more complicated, but yes, Scion is the source of shards.” Nahida said sadly. “He, and his fallen mate. But unlike Visions, they send their demons as a scourge to mankind, to devour their souls and use them as fuel for their Cycle. But he is no Archon. He is a demon, not of this world, come to consume it. The Archons, even the Tsaritsa, love humanity, and see you as our children. We were sent to save you, I think.”

And if a Thinker as potent as Nahida believed that, then Colin would too. If parahuman classifications even applied to an Archon. “So, it follows then that Scion is also the source of the Endbringers.” 

Nahida hesitated, her eyes darting to Tessa, who grimaced. “No, Colin. He is not. The other one, that Nahida mentioned. The Dead God that…never mind. Scion didn’t create the Endbringers, but they are of the same source as he is.”

“The mate you mentioned,” Colin said with a slow nod. Things were making sense now. “As her last act, she must have unleashed the Endbringers.”

“That is…one way of viewing it,” Nahida said, nodding slowly. “I do not fully understand the situation yet. I require more knowledge before I can gain wisdom. The next time the Simurgh and I meet, I shall find out. There must be a way to stop them and keep more from appearing. For the Demon Beast I see on the horizon…it is the most terrible of all.”

That made Colin’s blood run cold. An Archon found an Endbringer horrifying? Who would preserve them when even God’s angels trembled in terror? “How much of this should I share with the Protectorate?”

“All of it,” Nahida said immediately. “Please. Tell them all I have said. All Tessa has told you as well. America must turn back from the path they walk, or your people will suffer the fate of Khaenri'ah. I have not the time to tell its full story here, but return soon. And I will explain all I can, save for the Forbidden Knowledge. If such knowledge is unleashed upon this world…I do not know how we will save it, for that is a threat more dire than even the Sustainer of the Cycle.”

“Alright.” Colin bowed his head to Nahida, then stood up and turned to Tessa. He felt himself blushing again. “I, ah, I’m sorry. I thought this was all a dream, and well, ah…I behaved unprofessionally.”

“Hmm. Nahida, cover your eyes,” Tessa said. 

Nahida giggled and complied, and Colin steeled himself for the slap he knew he was coming. Tessa reached for him and-

Pulled his face to hers so she could lock lips with him. Colin stiffened for a moment, and his mind raced with all the reasons this was a bad idea. 

She won’t mind. And she isn’t a child. Go on. This was written in the stars long ago, Nahida’s voice said in his head. 

Well heck with it. If the Angel of Wisdom approved, who was Colin to gainsay her? 

When they finally broke apart, Nahida was gone, which made Colin feel a bit better. 

“You could stay. In Baghdad, with me. We could go over blueprints and schematics every day,” Tessa said, holding Colin close. 

“I’d like that,” Colin said, his voice hoarse. “But I can’t. I have to see this through to the end. My friends, my country…they’re counting on me. I can’t abandon them now.”

“I know,” Tessa said, wiping away tears. She’d already taken off her glasses so they didn’t get in the way. “If you would, I don’t think I’d be so fond of you. I’ll send you back to the base near Lask. That’s far enough from the battle you’ll be safe for now. Come back safe, OK?”

“I’ll always think of you in my dreams,” Colin said, cupping her face. There was time for one last kiss, and then he returned to the waking world, stepping out of the Dream. He turned to the East, where he could see the massive storm. The earth shuddered slightly, and Colin braced himself. 

Whatever came next was going to be ugly. 

Contessa started at the storm, looking at it from the doorway that stared out onto the open plain. It had been going for hours now, and was only expanding. Warsaw was being evacuated, as was all of Eastern Poland. The destruction so far was staggering, with entire towns and villages obliterated by the Storm. It was the same on the Ukrainian side. 

Looking down at Eighty, Contessa asked the God of the Path aloud, “What will be the result of this storm? Who will win?”

It was silent. Useless. 

So Contessa took out a bowl of water, a pipe of Dendro infused hashish, and a Catalyst she’d been gifted by Nahida Saeed. Lighting the pipe, Contessa puffed on it, and let her mind drift. She used her Catalyst to infuse the water with Elemental Energy, creating Hydro. Then she blew smoke from her pipe over the water, creating a Bloom core. Picking up the core, Contessa held it in her hands, focusing on the energy inside. 

“What will be the result of this storm? Who will win?” she whispered. 

Constellations formed in her mind, twinkling stars that unraveled a tapestry of images. She saw the Wind battle the Snow, both vying for dominance. Great stones fell from them, striking a flat plain. The stones grew, becoming enormous towers that loomed over the plains, and monsters spawned from them. Creatures of howling winds and icy gales that fell upon the denizens of the plains. Then she looked to the stars, where she saw a flashing series of images. 

A white eagle squawked and lost some feathers from its right-wing, but remained mostly whole.

A knight on a white horse with a golden shield was thrown and lost his left arm to the wind.

A trident was rent in two, its right tine falling off and consumed by ice. 

Another white knight on a white horse with a blue shield lost its shield and horse to ice. 

A griffin and a lion were separated, the lion consumed by a bear, the griffin going to roost on a windy peak to lick its wounds.

Three blue lions were chained and slaughtered, a great bear feasting upon their flesh until it had completely consumed them. 

And a bear sat by the sea, bloody, battered, its fur coated with ice…and grinned. It turned south, licking its chops, then ambled towards a camel under a crescent moon. Still hungry. 

Contessa’s eyes flashed open. Someone was shaking her. She blinked, looking up to find the terrified face of Doctor Mother. 

“WE HAVE TO GO!” Doctor Mother shouted, bodily lifting Contessa up. Ice covered the ground around them and the wind raged and howled. Boulders and shards of ice the size of horses were scattered about Contessa, the open doorway behind her. How long had she been out?

“I had a Dream,” Contessa mumbled as Doctor Mother carried her towards the doorway. “I saw…I saw the future.”

“You always see the future, foolish girl,” Doctor Mother snorted as she reached the threshold. “This time, it nearly got you killed.”

“That was the safest spot,” Contessa mumbled. She reached into her jacket, and took out Eighty, looking into its googly eyes. “But the Path wasn’t what helped. It’s so useless.”

Her path started to flood her with answers, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to drown out the droning voice of the little god. It was lies. It was all lies. She’d discovered these truths. Not through the Path, but through her own Dreams and Visions. 

Doctor Mother set Contessa down on a couch in her office, where she lay, still half drugged, still listening to the buzz of her path as it tried to interpret her dreams. But it was so bad at it. It lacked any and all imagination. She felt a warm cup pressed into her hands, and she looked down to see a mug of green tea. 

“Drink. You’re half frostbitten,” Doctor Mother ordered. 

Sitting up, Contessa slurped down the tea, burning her tongue slightly. There was honey in it, and she enjoyed the sweetness. She hunched over the cup as Doctor Mother fussed at her and made her take off her jacket and hat, which were both soaked. “Honestly. You’d think a Thinker 12 would have more sense. Did your path tell you that you wouldn’t get sick from this?

You will run a fever for three days. Take medication immediately and raise core temperature to prevent viral pneumonia. 

“My path is stupid. You put Dendro in the tea. I’ll be fine,” Contessa mumbled. 

The path paused its horribly misplaced diagnosis. It couldn’t even tell how the infusion of Dendro would heal Contessa and reinvigorate her body. She’d know Doctor Mother would take care of her if she overdid it. But the Path hadn’t even calculated that. It started to rattle off a correction.

Shut. Up. 

Doctor Mother sat quietly with Contessa for long minutes. She could tell that her mother-

Contessa paused, her eyes going wide as she slowly turned to Doctor Mother. 

“Well?” the Doctor asked, raising her eyebrow. 

“Would…would you mind if…” Contessa almost asked her Path. She was so used to always going to it for answers. Always relying on it to guide her. No. She would forge her own way ahead on this. “...can I call you mom?”

Doctor Mother blinked at Contessa for a moment. Then, her eyes filled with tears, and she wrapped her arm around Contessa. Both women were crying now, hugging one another tightly. 

“Yes, Fortuna. You can call me mom,” Doctor Mother, no, mom, whispered in Contessa’s ear. 

“Thank you. Mom.” Contessa cried, squeezing Doctor Mother tightly.

After that, they sat quietly together for several minutes, drinking their honeyed tea. At last, Contessa sighed, and set her cup down. 

“They’re going to divide Eastern Europe, and create a new mountain range. After licking her wounds, for no more than a season, the Tsaritsa will attack Kazakhstan.” 

She quickly explained her visions and how they represented different countries in Europe. It was a rather straightforward and blatant vision, for which Contessa was grateful. 

“So, you’re saying that a new mountain range will stretch from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, dividing Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, the Ukraine, and a small chunk of Poland,” Doctor Mother said slowly. “And where are these mountains coming from?”

“They will be made of ice and wind, and of the earth, torn and sundered by the wrath of the gods,” Contessa said, closing her eyes and thinking back to her vision. “The world once more will be shaped by the gods.” 

“That is disturbing. They’ve been fighting for twelve hours now, and the storm already stretches for hundreds of kilometers. How much longer can it last?” Doctor Mother asked plaintively. 

Contessa met her eyes. “Until one is the victor.”

For three days and three nights, the Great Storm raged. Starting in Poland, pushed to the east, then it expanded both north and south, stretching for more than 1500 kilometers on a jagged path that cut through Eastern Europe. Relentlessly, the Great Storm was driven eastward, until it was just east of Riga, then down to the west of Minsk,  passing just to the west of Kyiv, and finally ending west of Odessa. Beneath the storm, great peaks were ripped from the earth and built upon by layers of Cryo and Anemo that condensed, infusing the rocks with power. 

By the end of it, the Storm Range covered tens of thousands of square kilometers, its highest peak, Mount Burya in Northern Ukraine, rising to 3671 meters in elevation, where the low plain had once been less than 200 meters. The average height was somewhat less, around 2000 meters, but it was still a near impossible task to calculate just how much energy and power had gone into creating the mountains. 

The storm did not peter out. Instead, after raging for 80 hours, it simply ceased. The winds calmed, the barrage of ice ended, and the clouds scattered, revealing the new mountain range in all their terrible glory. Craggy peaks of nearly raw elemental energy. 

The death toll had been surprisingly mild. While multiple cities had been completely leveled and some even swallowed up by the mountains, those caught in the storm had found themselves picked up and almost gently deposited away from the storm itself. Only those who had been foolish enough to charge into it or a few who had fought against it were ripped to shreds, never to be seen again.

The Great Storm was also highly discriminating in where it placed those who survived it. German and Polish POWs on the Russian side were universally blown back to their own allies. Similarly, Russians and those loyal to the Tsaritsa found themselves placed on her side of the new range. 

Still, it amounted to thousands dead, an almost incalculable amount of damage, and the landscape of Europe so drastically altered that scientists would be attempting to map the peaks for centuries to come. It was a hard task: the raw elemental energy infused and twisted whatever life inhabited the peak into horrific monsters, born of the wrath of the gods. Such creatures zealously defended their homes, and any expedition that was not well armed and armored found itself slaughtered. And even then, many brave and cautious explorers were killed in the attempt.

It was the greatest sign that the world had changed. More than the advent of monsters, more than the arrival of visions, more even than the slaying of Endbringers. The Great Storm showed that gods once more walked amongst mankind, and the world would be reshaped according to their whims. 

And while the world watched and trembled, one entity beheld the destruction…and smiled. 

The Cycle would be completed. 

Author’s Note:

I am fully aware that Contessa and Doctor Mother having a loving daughter-mother relationship is incredibly OOC and non-canon. But that’s because even Cauldron gets to have depth and loved ones in this story instead of just being a clown fiesta of depression and incompetence. 

I mean, they still are a clown fiesta of depression and incompetence, but they get to be cool and multi-dimensional at the same time.