Lilith's Shadow Omnibus: Volume 2, page 68
Lilith reached out into the nothingness around her and offered power to the others, blindly since she didn’t have the links she’d had before. She had no idea if it’d work, but—
A link snapped into existence the next second, one which Lilith had never felt before. The connection was different than the ones she’d sensed before, nowhere near as tenuous as the two had been to Gina and Rachel. No, this one was solid, and filled with boundless determination, enthusiasm, and… frustration? That confused Lilith for a moment, then she realized who it must be, and her lips quirked into a smile.
Compared to the first, the second link came almost silently. It was like a silent rock, steady and unmoving as the earth beneath her feet, at least when she wasn’t dealing with explosions. The faint pain from down the link startled Lilith, and she grew more worried about Archon, yet the woman wasn’t focused on that. No, she was focused on protecting.
Morgan and Warden’s links came at almost the same instant, the former cool and focused despite her underlying anxiety and fear, and the latter angry at… everything, really, Lilith was a little confused about that, but she didn’t argue. She was more surprised to feel them again, and relief washed through her. Then came the two she hadn’t expected.
Decarin was an odd presence, dryly humorous and yet anxious at the same time, frustrated he couldn’t do anything, while Shade… Shade was faintly jealous and uneasy, but at the same time, he had more in common with Archon than anyone else, as he carefully considered his next move.
Energy poured out of Lilith into them, and she could feel them grow ever so slightly stronger as it did so, though it didn’t hit her too hard.
“Wow, this is… okay, awesome! Now, gotta move, keep out of the line of fire!” Spark exclaimed excitedly, then practically vanished into the distance in a blur of blue lightning.
Warden’s shields intensified, and Morgan’s glowing purple spell turned a deeper, brighter hue as she straightened slightly. Shade’s creatures multiplied, the first of them managing to reach the mech’s ankles, and when the wolf-like creature bit the armor, the marks it left showed Lilith that they were anything but insubstantial… then he hit the mech with a bolt of lightning. It didn’t seem to do much, but it was certainly something new.
“What have you done?” Sabra asked, stepping up next to Lilith.
Lilith didn’t reply initially, instead focusing on the link to Archon, hoping that she could do this at a distance, and she began to pour still more energy down the link to the angelic woman, trying to empower her ability to heal even more. In response, the blackened, charred feathers on Archon’s wings began turning white again, and the pain Lilith felt was fading even more quickly, then the woman stood fully, her wings unfurling as she took flight.
“I’m empowering them. That’s my ability, to empower those who truly trust me.” Lilith replied simply, but as she watched Archon fly forward, blocking a beam that lanced out at her with the sword, she felt a hint of frustration wash over her. “I just wish I could do more than that. I’m so… so weak in comparison. If I had my armor, maybe… but Amber took it away.”
The mech lurched as Spark jumped up, grabbing an exposed cable, and electricity surged out of her so brightly that even from this distance Lilith winced. That had to have popped a few circuit breakers, if it hadn’t fried some of the electronics.
“Damnable heroes! If it weren’t for that sneak attack, you’d never have scratched Code Black!” Omega Code bellowed. Lilith thought Archon responded, but she was too far away to hear her.
What she did see was the woman bring her sword down like a cleaver, and this time it managed to tear a section of the armor on the mech’s chest clean off. Coupled with the other damage it’d taken, Lilith could see several weak points, yet she couldn’t even tell the others about them. It was… very unpleasant.
“I believe I understand.” Sabra said, inclining her head slightly. “I am not the most powerful of my people either, nor even as strong as most of those we are watching. However… you know how to break machines, do you not? Are you able to guide me to break this one?”
“Well… yes? I mean, the major weakness of all mechs of that type are their joints, and I see a few critical servos…” Lilith said, frowning.
“I do not know what those are. If you would empower me, as you did them, I will follow your guidance,” Sabra said. Lilith blinked, opening her mouth, but the woman continued, raising a hand. “If you are concerned about the issue of trust, I do trust you. You have garnered the goodwill of my deities, so no matter how much it may confuse me, I trust you in this.”
Lilith paused, debating on replying that she wasn’t sure if she could trust Sabra… but then she realized it really didn’t matter. Their agreement had lasted this long, so it could last a few more minutes.
“As you like,” Lilith agreed, mentally reaching out toward Sabra, telling herself that this could work, that it would work.
The energy hung there for a moment, then another link snapped into existence, and a wave of weariness washed over Lilith, as the same amount of energy that’d been required to help all the others rushed out of her. What startled Lilith was how the link felt, though. Sabra was… conflicted, she realized. The woman felt a degree of sneering arrogance over the other magi, yet when she looked at Lilith, she felt nervous and off-balance. Like the entire world was shifting under her feet, and she wasn’t happy about it. Yet the woman was holding to something else, like a mountain that was unmoving and unchanging.
“Ah!” Sabra gasped, her eyes going wide, and she visibly inhaled, then murmured. “So that was why she spoke that way. Where, Lilith?”
Lilith focused on the fight, and as she did so, she found the others hadn’t been idle. Almost half of the weapons she’d seen were gone, though now both Warden and Shade looked like they’d been scorched by near misses, and as she watched the mech slammed a fist into the ground Spark had vacated a moment before. There were multiple spots where it was open to attacks, though, so she pointed at one in its torso, a spot where the armor had been pulled away, where she could see a faint glow.
“There. Just below where its shoulder used to be, with the glowing spot,” Lilith told her, and Sabra nodded, turning and raising her hands as she began speaking in a tongue that felt faintly familiar to Lilith.
Morgan barely managed to get a shield up to deflect the blast from Omega Code’s mech, and she couldn’t say how relieved she was to have the extra power from Lilith, as otherwise she might not have been able to block it. Then she shot upward as he brought the arm of the mech around at her, barely missing, and she put a series of icy blasts into the back of it, trying to slow its gearing down.
Archon slammed into the mech again, pulverizing another weapon, then was launched backward as the machine kicked her away, and Morgan began prepping another spell, just as Warden put up another shield for her now that she wasn’t taking the fire of ten different weapon mounts.
“Even crippled, Code Black will be the end of you!” Omega Code told them, and it was all Morgan could do not to retort. Spark replied in her stead.
“We’re going to rip your tin can apart around you!” the woman exclaimed, firing bolts of electricity into the robot rapidly as she moved fast enough that he couldn’t target her.
“Hah, you’ll never—” Omega Code began crowing, but at that exact moment a beam of light lanced out from behind Morgan.
The beam was light teal, and not like any of the spells Morgan was used to. It was focused down to the width of her finger, and the beam twisted through the air, past the mech’s armor, and deep inside of it. There was a flare of light, then all at once the mech’s speakers and lights went out, metal groaning as the immense shape began to rock in place, then teetered and began to fall.
“What the hell?” Morgan asked, blinking, then turned to look for the source of the spell, only to see the woman who’d been with Lilith nod politely at Lilith, then turned and started flying away.
There was a dull whumping sound from inside the mech a moment later, and Morgan spun back, scowling.
“That was a teleportation, wasn’t it?” Shade asked, a note of resignation in his voice.
“Most likely. Omega Code is a slippery bastard,” Morgan said, eying the mech warily, then sighed. “We’d better dismantle it, just to be sure. Would someone go check on Lilith? I have no clue who that other woman was, but she left.”
“I’ll do it!” Spark volunteered instantly, then added “I’m the one who can do least good dismantling something like that, after all. Even Dec would be better.”
“True, but I need to explain what the hell is going on to the locals. The military is freaking out,” Decarin chimed in.
“Right, then. Looks like we’ll have to save explaining things to Lilith for a little later.” Morgan said, and let out a deep sigh.
“Damn it… but yeah, we can wait,” Warden groused.
Archon simply nodded, flying over to the mech, and proceeded to cut it apart.
Chapter 96
Wednesday, November 5th, 2031
Joe’s Diner, Wichita
“I told you, I’m fine!” Lilith protested, snaking a fry through the ketchup on her plate and taking a bite. It was rather good, and she was finally starting to relax, though she was getting a little tired. She doubted she was as tired as Gina and Rachel looked, but she wasn’t about to comment on that. “Honestly, he treated me pretty well. I just hope that all those devices get removed soon. Seismic inducers, I think he called them in his notes… though he changed the name five times that I saw.”
“Oh, believe me, people are going to be real unhappy to hear anything like that’s in place. I’ve already gotten messages from a bunch of Japanese and Korean heroes thanking you for providing such precise coordinates,” Decarin said, examining his burger happily, then took a bite.
“I expect that all of them, or almost all of them, will be removed within a day.” Archon agreed.
All of them were ignoring the reporters and other onlookers gawking at them as they sat around a table, eating lunch. The diner staff had been kind enough to get a bench for Archon to use, and now they were just relaxing as best they could. Gina and Rachel needed naps, as did most of them, honestly, and one of the local hotels had offered rooms for no charge, so they were planning to stay until the next morning.
For her part, Lilith had finally finished with the interrogations by the police and military not long before, and she was just as glad that the missile now in orbit wasn’t going to be her problem. The majority of Omega Code’s employees were in custody, a few had managed to escape, as had Abasi, from what Decarin had said earlier.
On the other hand, there was a certain nagging question she wanted to ask, but she was hesitant. The links to others had gone essentially dormant after about twenty minutes, and she couldn’t quite sense them anymore, but… she’d sensed things from Gina and Rachel that made her curious how their trip had gone. The problem was that they were in public.
Eventually, she decided to try asking indirectly. “So, um… how did your trip go? You were going to tell me something over the phone, then I got attacked, and my phone got pulverized.”
Gina froze, looking at Rachel beseechingly, and it was almost enough to make Lilith laugh, especially when Rachel gave her an amused look.
“Um, right, about that… so Shadowmind isn’t just a liar, she’s a damned liar that was doing everything she could to ruin your relationships,” Gina said, blushing slightly as she looked away. It was a little odd to see her cheeks were red again, rather than blue-ish like her lips were, but Lilith blinked anyway.
“Ah… a bit of clarity, please?” Lilith asked after a moment. “What do you mean by that?”
“She means that the only adjustments to our emotions we could find were the ones made while we were in Vegas, plus a little while before that.” Rachel said, reaching down and stirring her salad intently. “Which means we put you through all of that for no good reason.”
“I…” Lilith paused for a long moment, looking around the table, but when Emily swiped a fry off her plate, she exclaimed. “Hey!”
“Stolen fries have no calories. Not that it matters to me,” Emily said, grinning widely. “Plus, sure, things may have been started by your… um… bah, by Shadowmind being a loony bitch, but you were completely on your own after they left. I have no regrets about trying to seduce you, and I’m not giving up now.”
For a moment the table was silent, then Archon silently slipped a pair of fries onto Lilith’s plate, and stole one as well. Lilith gave her an exasperated look, and the woman just gave her an… well, an angelic smile, which made her glower even more.
“Do you all have to make my life more difficult?” Lilith demanded.
“Hey, I’m not part of your fan club,” Shade protested, pausing for a moment, then added. “Though since we’re on the subject, if you’re intending to reject Morgan I’d like to ask her out.”
“You what?” Rachel yelped, her eyes going wide.
As laughter rippled around the table, Lilith looked back and forth, then put her head in the palms of her hands, a headache starting to form.
Just why, she wondered, had she thought that being rescued would make things simpler?
Of course, at that moment Gina’s phone rang, and she spoke up happily. “Oh, hey, it’s Blooming Orchid! You think she’s going to confess too?”
Lilith hoped no one could hear the whimper that escaped her throat. Maybe Daemonia would have been safer.
Epilogue
Wednesday, November 5th, 2031
Shadowmind Redoubt Invincible, Asteroid Belt, Sol
“You didn’t manage to kill Omega Code,” Amber stated, annoyance rippling through her despite the lovely coffee and crepes she’d had.
“That is correct, Mistress. Unfortunately, Lilith was in the blast zone if I’d used any larger munitions, and getting proper targeting with sub-light weaponry was difficult.” Circe confirmed calmly. “However, Lilith was saved and Omega Code’s base was demolished. It also sounds like they will have recovered enough of the mech that I will be able to acquire some of its technology for your use.”
“Well, that’s something, at least,” Amber replied, scowling heavily as she settled back in her chair. “Did you get anything else useful out of it?”
“Most certainly, Mistress,” Circe replied, and Amber sat up at the surprising tone of glee in the AI’s voice. That was unusual.
“What is that?” Amber asked, her curiosity piqued.
“I’ve determined Black Harbinger’s true identity, and I believe that the man that is seen in the battles isn’t his true body at all. It’s just a construct,” Circe replied promptly. “Shall I threaten him, or keep the information for you to use at an opportune moment?”
“Oh… now that’s useful information,” Amber replied, slowly smiling as she processed the information. “Send the data to my terminal, as well as how you figured it out. I’d like to examine this personally before making a decision.”
She settled in to examine the data, and as she did so, she decided she’d worry about Lilith later. Maybe she needed to take the extremely direct approach with her.
Omega Code Spider’s Lair
“I hate this, Percy. They ruined Code Black, took my nuke into orbit and are planning to dispose of it in the sun, and even are breaking my inducers! It isn’t fair, I tell you! It isn’t fair at all!” Omega Code complained.
Percy simply rolled onto his back, curling his paws as he looked up at Omega Code meaningfully, and the sight of him being so adorable caused a smile to grow on Omega Code’s face, even as his frustration eased. Chuckling, Omega Code slid off the couch and down to the cat’s level, then reached over to pet Percy’s belly.
Percy promptly wrapped around his hand with both front paws and began wrestling, though his claws never extended, and he playfully bit Omega Code’s hand, his tail lashing wildly on the floor.
“You do have the right idea, don’t you? I should just let this all wash off me, so I can try again,” Omega Code said, grinning slightly. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Alright, Percy, I’ll stop complaining. Let’s have playtime, then I’ll get us both lunch and I can start on the next plan. Promise.”
His motivation restored, Omega Code began playing with Percy more vigorously, putting his most recent loss aside for the time being.
The Internet
Seismic Rock was disoriented and disappointed. He’d come out of the trap that he’d been thrown into, and the first thing he’d noticed was all the beautifully collated data which Circe had left for him. It was all the data she’d gathered and analyzed while posing as him, and it was… disturbing, really. It looked almost exactly like the work he always did, with the parts of it he had done while trapped almost perfectly matching what she’d left. It was dismaying, that anyone would copy his workflow so easily. Still, that wasn’t the main reason he was upset.
No, that was because he’d just learned that Omega Code had managed to build a device that could trigger volcanoes and earthquakes. It was an insane discovery, one that the scientists were already beginning to discuss, and they were sending Seismic Rock inquiries about it, while trying to figure out which of the tremors they’d found might have been tests by the supervillain. Worst of all, he hadn’t anticipated anything like this, so he was behind schedule.
“Curse you, Circe! I had a schedule!” Seismic Rock bellowed into the internet, aiming it in a direction he was sure she’d pick up, then he turned back to his job.
It was time to pick up the pieces and figure out what else he’d missed.
