Dawn and Reincarnation part 30 (Patreon)

Willow smiled as the massive black sphere of dark energy floating over the city imploded, taking the cursed city with it and leaving a truly massive crater that would eventually become a lake according to Mat. “I love it when a plan comes together.”

“You just like blowing shit up,” William said sarcastically.

“That too,” Willow agreed as she reached around Bodewhin’s waist and pulled her into a one armed hug. “Now we celebrate!”

Bodewhin laughed as she leaned against her friend. “Nah, we should probably deal with the thousands of versions of Shadar Logoth scattered around the mirror worlds before we celebrate.”

“I was trying to ignore that,” Willow admitted.

“That’s because you’re being lazy,” Xander teased as he watched the water pour out of the river, falling into the crater with a dull roar.

Willow glanced over at her friend. “We just accomplished the impossible, we deserve a break.”

“Nah, merely the improbable,” Dawn said cheerfully, trying to ignore the strange feeling that her job was done and if she just let go she’d end up somewhere else, somewhere that she needed to be. At the same time she knew she had enough time to finish a project or two and let the Tower know that they could stop hunting men that could channel. “I wouldn’t mind some cake or maybe pie before I shuffle the Avendesora from the Seanchan mirror world to the Shadow Coast in our world. I have this weird feeling that if I let go, we’ll end up elsewhere.”

Xander raised his eyebrows. “Elsewhere?”

Dawn shrugged. “Yeah, elsewhere, not a mirror world, just somewhere else.”

“How long do you think you can hold on?” Xander asked, figuring it was a key thing.

“A few days, a week?” Dawn glanced over at Rand and Ethan who were drinking tea and sitting down while Nynaeve and Moiraine checked them over. “It’s not urgent yet but I have a feeling that it’s just a matter of time.”

Xander nodded, not terribly surprised that they’d be moving on now that the dark god was crippled or dead. “In that case, let’s deal with the tree so we can send the Aiel on their way and make another run in the giant ring unless you want to start raiding mirror worlds for recruits?”

“I wouldn’t mind doing some recruiting before we leave, Shara has entire towns filled with men that can channel that they treat like slaves.” Dawn wanted to grab a few hundred male channelers or future male channelers to increase the genetic diversity of her island.

“I wouldn’t mind sneaking in and grabbing some of the better accepted and novices from various mirror worlds,” Willow said thoughtfully.

“We should probably also deal with the Seanchan in the Tower in the mirror world before we leave,” Bodewhin suggested.

“I’ll take care of it,” Nazar spoke up. “Now that the source is cleansed and Ethan figured out how to make half of the Guardian, we shouldn’t have any problem sneaking in and capturing all of the damane and sul’dam.”

Dawn glanced over at the ter’angreal figurines that connected to the massive stone statues. “We should probably torch the Blight while we’re thinking about it.”

“Just open a bunch of gateways and burn them from the air,” Mat said with a grin.

Nazar laughed. “That’s the spirit.”

Willow glanced over at Moiraine. “How are we going to deal with the Tower?”

“I was planning on letting Moiraine deal with them while we went recruiting in the mirror world. I should be able to use my key to jump to a world that never lost their knowledge of ter’angreal crafting or at least not completely,” Dawn explained her plans.

“If nothing else, we can recruit someone with the talent and send them through the ring after feeding them a story about sending them to a world where they never lost the skill, that worked fairly well with Egwene.”

“I wouldn’t mind learning how to rip metal out of the ground,” Bodewhin spoke up.

“Where are you going to steal the metal from?” Willow asked.

“There are probably countless mirror worlds where things are just lying around for the taking, either because humanity got wiped out or because humanity never existed. There are probably worlds where we can buy entire herds of cattle and sheep which would go a long way toward feeding everyone we’re going to recruit.”

“Not to mention wherever we end up next probably has some interesting stuff,” Xander offered, hoping their next world had something that passed for modern civilization.

Amys sat up. “We turned off the dreamspike when the city collapsed in the dream.”

“In that case, we’re good to go,” Dawn said as she opened a gateway to Emond’s Field. “Let’s pick up some pie then we’ll get back to work.”

“Slave driver,” Xander teased as he walked through the gateway.

Nynaeve helped Rand to his feet. “No channeling for at least a day.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Rand admitted, feeling worn out and more tired than he remembered feeling in his entire life.

“Yeah, let’s not do that again, ever,” Ethan grumbled as he stood up. “I have a feeling that would have been a lot worse if we hadn’t had your sa’angreal.” He tossed the crystal bracer to Dawn.

“Probably, it’s awesome,” Dawn replied smugly as she put the bracer on, feeling ready to take on the world despite or perhaps because they’d killed or captured most of the Forsaken, at least in her world. They needed to hunt them down in the mirror worlds but that could wait until everyone had picked up a bit more training and experience dealing with channelers. “For pie!” she said cheerfully as she walked through her gateway.

Xander laughed as he followed her through the gateway. ‘Hopefully the next world isn’t too screwed up. Then again, if it wasn’t screwed up we probably wouldn’t be going there.’

0o0o0

Dawn blinked as she found herself in a concrete room holding a tablet computer and looking at a man in a slender black costume that looked less than heroic judging by all of the snakes on his costume. ‘So much for avoiding switching worlds while I slept.’ She coughed to get the man’s attention on the off chance he wasn’t actually a Bond villain. “Hello?”

Coiled grabbed his gun and spun around. “How did you get here?”

“No clue, I went to sleep on my island with my friends and the next thing I know, I’m in your office. I don’t suppose you can tell me where I am?” Dawn asked then frowned when the man looked at her blankly for a couple of seconds before he twitched and grabbed his head in pain. “Huh, that’s new...” she trailed off as he started twitching and possibly having a seizure. “Hopefully that doesn’t happen to everyone.”

Coil managed to wake up enough to hit the alarm under the desk. “Intruder alert, kill her!”

Dawn blinked. “Did you seriously just order people to kill me? Fine, I’ll ask someone else directions, fucking wannabe James Bond villain…” she trailed off as he shot her in the chest, putting a hole in her shirt. “That was uncalled for. Where am…” she trailed off as he continued shooting her, despite the fact that it was obvious that the first shot hadn’t worked. “No one ever accused you of being real bright, did they?” she asked as she used threads of air to bind his hands to his knees. “Okay, let’s try this again. What world am I on? If you don’t answer, I will start breaking things, starting with your testicles. You do have those, right?” she asked only fairly sure he was human under the costume.

“Earth Bet,” Coil snarled, pissed and terrified that his power wasn’t working.

“Earth Bet? Right, never heard of it. Is dressing up in a Halloween costume like a discount Marvel villain common? Because your ‘outfit’ is really tacky.” Dawn smiled as she realized that she could actually remember her life in Sunnydale rather than bits and pieces. “Seriously, I’ve seen better Halloween costumes from Walmart.”

“No DNA samples, no skin showing and it disguises my face, you’re not even wearing a mask, what type of hero are you?” Coil asked.

“I’m not a hero, I’m a problem solver. That reminds me, do you have a dark god in this world?” Dawn asked, wondering how much effort she’d have to put into killing him.

“There are no such things,” Coil sneered.

“Excellent,” Dawn replied as she used a thread of air to twist his head 180 degrees around. “He seems close enough to human.” She turned her attention as the door opened and heavily armed soldiers burst in. “Can you tell me what city I’m in?”

The leader of the guards, looked at Coil’s backwards facing head and decided that loyalty to a dead bastard didn’t exist. “Brockton Bay.”

“Which is where?” Dawn asked, hoping for a few more details and a place to hole up while she sorted out her memory and what she was going to do next.

“New Hampshire, USA?” he asked, hoping that the cape didn’t kill him.

“What can you tell me about the dead guy, other than the fact that he was an asshole?” Dawn asked.

“That sounds about right, Coil hired us to pull a few jobs, mostly attacking the various other parahuman led gangs but he was always a little off, knew things he shouldn’t and made sure you knew it,” the leader complained.

“I don’t suppose you want to show me around my new base?” Dawned asked with a grin that made the professional soldiers a bit uncomfortable.

“I’d be happy to show you around the base while everyone grabs their personal effects,” the leader said, happy to be done with the city and Coil.

“Excellent,” Dawn said cheerfully.

0o0o0

Xander blinked as he found himself falling through the air toward a city filled with lights, it was strangely refreshing and a bit terrifying on account of him not having flight. “Help! Fuck!!!! Fucking help!” he screamed as he dropped toward the ground. He had just long enough to see a collection of people in an intersection before he slammed into the ground and bounced.

“What the fuck?!” Rune asked as she stared as the man that had just slammed into the ground in front of her stood up and dusted himself off.

Xander glanced between the girl wearing green robes and a visor that was standing next to some skinheads and the seven foot monstrous guy with a deformed face that was near some asians with guns. “Normally I’d help kill the monster but I’m not actually sure which one of you is the monster.”

“Lung kidnaps girls and forces them to be whores,” one of the smarter Empire guys quickly pointed at Lung, wanting nothing to do with a cape that could walk off a fall from the sky without a mark to show for it.

“I’ll kill you all,” Lung snarled as he conjured a ball of fire in his hand.

“You want to play with fire?” Xander asked as he pulled in power and channeled a cable thick thread of Fire and burned a fist sized hole through Lung’s shoulder. “Surrender and I’ll take you to the local authorities…” he trailed off as Lung jumped at him, easily clearing the twenty feet between them. “Okay.” He slammed his fist into Lung’s chest, expecting to maybe break a few ribs, not punch through the guy’s chest. “Shit.”

Lung screamed in pain and collapsed as his regeneration was having problems keeping up with a large hole in his left lung.

“Fuck me!” Rune gasped as Lung crashed to his knees. “What the fuck?”

Xander yanked his hand back and stepped back, shocked that he’d punched through the man’s chest. “Sorry, I didn’t know you couldn’t take a hit.” He made a mental note to test his strength a bit more.

Rune blinked, her thoughts racing, ‘Couldn’t take a hit? It’s Lung, fuck I don’t want to fight that.’

Xander turned to look at the green robed teenage girl that was in the process of flying away with her friends. He turned to watch the monster and check on the asian thugs only to find them running like the devil himself was after them. “Yeah, I really need a cheat sheet or something to let me know what’s going on.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Lung snarled as tossed the ball of fire at Xander.

Xander reached out with threads of fire and pulled the heat into the ground. “Wrong element.”

“I’m going to kill you and your loved ones.” Lung snarled as he tried to punch Xander.

Xander grabbed Lung’s wrist then put his fist through the creature’s head causing it to explode like a watermelon stuffed with an M80. “Yeah, I don’t care if you’re cursed and human or a monster, you’re too stupid to live.”

“Halt!” Armster shouted as he dismounted, having seen the man execute Lung.

“Yes?” Xander asked as he turned to look at the man in high tech armor. “What do you need?”

“You just executed Lung,” Armsmaster said, trying not to take a step back or show the fact that he was seriously unnerved about someone killing Lung when he was already ramped up to alter his face and get a dusting of scales.

“He shouldn’t have said that he was going to kill my family, I would have ignored him threatening me,” Xander explained.

“Why don’t you have a mask?” Armsmaster asked.

“Why would I need one? I was minding my own business then fell from the sky and hit the ground. I was trying to figure out where I was when he decided that he wanted a Darwin award. It was a clear cut case of self defense.”

Armsmaster briefly considered following regulations and placing him under arrest until they finished an investigation but decided it would be counterproductive because it would probably just piss him off and he’d just pulped Lung’s head with a single punch, a man that had single handedly fought off an endbringer. Sure he’d been far more ramped up when he’d fault Leviathan but Lung wasn’t a joke even when he was only a foot taller. He grabbed his notebook and a pen. “Can I get a full statement?”

“Of course,” Xander replied then walked him through the scene, telling him nothing about where he’d been before he appeared over the city. “So yeah, he was going to try to kill me and my friends.”

“In that case, you’re free to go,” Armsmaster assured him, making a mental note to place some calls to see if he could get a retroactive kill over on Lung so they could avoid pissing off the cape when it was obviously self defense. “Do you have a way we can get a hold of you? We might have questions.”

“No but I’ll call you when I get a number,” Xander replied, happy that he’d run into reasonable member of law enforcement.

“Good, I’ll take care of his body. Feel free to stop by the PRT office to pick up the bounty on Lung.” Armsmaster figured he’d pay the man himself if it meant that he’d show up for the rest of the paperwork that Pigot would likely want. The next step was making sure Pigot didn’t piss the man off.

“Sounds like a plan,” Xander said as he glanced around. “I don’t suppose you know where the nearest pawn or coin shop is because I don’t have any currency that’s legal in his country? I also have no idea how I fell through the sky and landed here.” He was fairly sure it was Dawn’s fault but he didn’t see a reason to tell the local authorities anything he didn’t have to.

“I’ll put that in the report,” Armsmaster assured him then directed Xander to the closest reasonable coin dealer that he knew about as he didn’t want to deal with a dead pawnbroker right now.

“Thank you,” Xander replied cheerfully as he started walking, wondering where the rest of the group had dropped in.

0o0o0

Winifred ‘Fred’ Dallon woke up feeling more than a bit out of sorts as she found herself in the hospital break room on a recliner. “I’m awake, you can stop poking me,” Fred grumbled as she tried to mentally sort three entirely separate lives, one from Texas and L.A., one from Earth Bet and another from Emond’s Field. “I fell asleep again, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you decided that you weren’t going to heal the Merchants from the crash unless they paid us then you stormed out when one of the new doctors started talking about with great power comes great responsibility.”

“Yeah, my name is not Peter Parker or even M.J. Doctors get paid, that means I get paid,” Fred replied as she studied the bags around her twin sister’s eyes. “You should try it, it’s great.”

“Carol is going to flip,” Amy complained.

“She can suck an egg,” Fred replied, less than impressed with her neurotic foster mother as she remembered what proper parents should be. ‘If nothing else, I’ll steal Amy and we can live on the island, assuming Dawn ended up in Brockton Bay.’

“Yeah, she’s going to scream when the doctors tell her that you wanted to be paid.”

“If I’m not going to get paid, I’m not healing people at the hospital. I’d rather set up a walk in clinic or put up a sign on the street, they can pay 10 to 50 dollars and I’ll fix their problems. That’s dirt cheap compared to visiting the hospital and I doubt I’d have problems getting people to pay it. That way the hospital won’t be making a killing off of us.”

“They have expenses,” Amy said halfheartedly. “Besides, Carol would never go for it.”

“I’m over sixteen, if she bitches, I’ll file paperwork to live by myself or walk into a news station and let people know that she has issues. I’m sure someone would love to print or share a story about her issues.”

“That’s cold,” Amy pointed out, knowing there were plenty of people that wouldn’t mind taking New Wave down a peg or two.

“More like tropical compared to the ice bitch,” Fred complained, thinking about the times that Carol had yelled at her and Amy over the years because they weren’t perfect or whatever excuse she had at the time. “If we leave, we’re taking Vicky with us.”

“Agreed.” Amy wasn’t going to leave her sister to deal with Carol’s rants if she could help it. “Of course, that would leave Mark to deal with Carol.”

“He married her,” Fred muttered, knowing that was sort of a flaw in her bug-out plan and the reason she hadn’t left before. “Fine. How much healing do we have to finish?”

“I took care of the cancer patients and burn victims, the rest are either gang members waiting for treatment or coma patients.”

“In other words, let’s get out of here and have a burger unless you want to listen to Vicky gush or rant about Dean?” Fred asked with distaste, knowing he annoyed her twin for some reason.

“I could eat,” Amy admitted as her stomach rumbled.

Fred smiled as she stood up and pulled her shorter sister into a hug. “Time to feed the little monster, maybe we’ll even get you to smile.”

Amy stuck out her tongue at Fred. “Let’s go.”

0o0o0

The soldier showing Dawn around stepped back as Trickster glared at him. “I’m just showing her around, don’t cause trouble.”

“The guys said she killed Coil, I needed him to help us fix Noelle!” Trickster ranted.

“What’s wrong with her?” Dawn asked, wishing she had Willow’s ability to read minds as it would come in rather useful right now.

“She’s mutating and getting less stable,” Ballistic explained as he walked in, keeping his hands out front as he didn’t want to start a fight if he didn’t have to.

“I’m not sure I can heal mutations but I can take a look,” Dawn offered.

“You’re a healer?” Trickster demanded.

“Healing is one of my talents,” Dawn said, trying to ignore the feeling that she could temporarily give the idiot in the top hat and mask a mental stability power that would fix his mental issues and protect from outside mental influence. ‘I might as well try it considering he’s being an ass,’ she mused as she pushed with her new power. ‘Huh, feels like I can hand out four more powers. I’ll let the power work on his issues for a bit then I’ll take it back.’

“In that case, you should try to fix her,” Trickster said as he walked toward the vault.

“Just don’t touch her, bad things happen,” Ballistic warned Dawn.

“On that note, I’ll get out of your hair,” the mercenary said as he headed for the exit, wanting to get as far away as he could before someone called the authorities or opened the vault, considering he knew what was in it.

“Try not to work for anymore Bond villains,” Dawn replied absently as she followed Trickster to the vault.

Trickster pushed the intercom button. “Noelle, we have a healer that might be able to help.”

“Good,” Noelle said as she backed into the deeper shadows in the vault.

Dawn barely managed to avoid gasping as Trickster opened the vault and she saw the four legged abomination ‘hiding’ in the shadows, every grotesque detail visible thanks to her enhanced eyesight. ‘Yeah, I don’t think healing is going to cut it.’ She reached out with threads of power and delved the monster, trying to figure out what was going on with her biology. ‘Yeah, there is something very weird about part of her body, like a pulsing alien ball of nasty.’ She dropped her delving threads and focused on her new power, trying to get a sense of what it could do. ‘Yeah, my power is basically support staff or maybe evil overlord, supplying minions with powers. I’d be a little annoyed that it’s not directly useful if I didn’t have magic.’

“Can you fix her?” Trickster demanded.

“Give me a minute,” Dawn replied as she focused on what she wanted then gave Noelle a power that should transform her into an elf, she figured she could always fix it later if she didn’t like it. “Just focus on activating your new power.”

“New power?” Noelle asked.

Dawn shrugged. “Apparently I can give out powers.” She smiled as Noelle changed from being a large monstrous four legged centaurian dragon like abomination into an attractive elf in a sweatshirt. “That should help...” she trailed off as Trickster ran forward like an idiot and pulled Noelle into a hug and a naked man appeared out of thin air next to Noelle. “What the hell?”

“You know how stupid that was?” Trickster’s clone asked sarcastically as he shoved Trickster away from Noelle, a touch surprised that he had no desire to kill the original, unless of course you counted the urge to kick him in the nuts for being a stupid fucker but that was probably justified considering his recent actions. “What the fuck is your damage? What if I’d been insane?”

Ballistic held a rock at the ready, ready to send the rock through Trickster’s clone. “You’re seriously trying to claim that you’re sane? Not only are you an evil clone, you’re a clone of Trickster.”

The clone held up his hands. “Fair enough, I don’t feel homicidal, maybe the new cape fixed her powers?”

Dawn shook her head. “I just loaned her a power to transform her into an elf and Trickster a mental stability power a minute ago because he was being unreasonably anxious.”

“What the fuck?” Trickster demanded as he glared at Dawn.

“You were acting nuts,” Dawn said as she focused and swapped the elf transformation power she’d loaned the girl for a mental health power, wanting to improve the girl’s mental health as she doubted spending time as a monster had helped her sanity.

“Can you fix my power?” Noelle asked hopefully.

“Considering I don’t really understand powers, it might take a bit,” Dawn admitted as she reached out her magic and delved the clone. ‘He seems human or at least close enough to human that I can’t tell a difference.’

“How long is a bit?” Ballistic asked, wanting to find a cure and get on with his life.

“No idea,” Dawn admitted. “I need to track down some friends of mine and get settled but I should be able to help, just give me a week or two.”

“That’s fine, you’ve already done more than I was really expecting,” Noelle said, feeling hope that she’d get better for the first time in months.

“On that note, my tour guide seems to have wandered off.” Dawn glanced between Ballistic and the naked clone. “I need a new one.”

Ballistic looked at Trickster’s clone. “If you kill him, I expect you to dispose of the body.”

“No worries,” the clone replied.

Trickster glared at his clone. “What the hell?”

Dawn shook her head and followed Ballistic out of the vault as the man in a top hat stared arguing with his clone. ‘Hopefully everyone is safe.’

0o0o0