I Am Ziz

Chapter 1

Entry, Re-Entry, Entrance

Cold. But at the same time burning, though much more like a pleasant warmth with prickles of feeling than pain. A lot like a limb waking up from falling asleep, just… everywhere.

I open my eyes. Below me is a planet. That much is clear. Everywhere that isn't the planet is the easily recognizable view of space from my homeworld, Earth.

So I'm apparently, suddenly, somehow in orbit of Earth.

When just a second ago I was falling asleep.

Okay. That's not weird at all, I think to myself.

Dream?

I look around at everything, the details present on the world below me, the solidity and logical, if insane, structure of the universe as it's presenting itself to my senses.

Nope. Too real. Too detailed, too structured. Not enough chaos. Things stay where they were when my attention leaves them and returns.

Okay then. Probably not a dream. Which is… even weirder.

Deep breaths.

Wait.

I can breathe in space?!

Well then, no matter how real this seems, it has to be a dream given how that is frankly impossible.

Or, well… Maybe I've been kidnapped and I'm in some kind of knockoff matrix?

Huh. The perspective of the planet's features is slightly off. Almost like I'm…

Oh.

That's…

How is that possible?!

Either what I just passed was a itty bitty space rock or I'm eight stories tall.

Good to know. Bullshit, but good to know.

Some part of me takes a glance at the 'rock' and flat out declares it to be a frakking Space Shuttle, burnt as it is.

Definitely eight stories tall.

...Are those cannons on that Space Shuttle?

Oh no, they're laser cannons.

Sorry.

My mistake.

What the hell is going on?!

My mental systems come into focus for a moment, barely enough for my mindscape to form and an alert to pop up.

I'm running on insufficient brain matter? What?

Oh it's locked.

Can it be unlocked?

Yes? Great, go ahead and do that, subconscious.

Mental programming is incredible, if a bit slow on the initiative.

A few moments of disorientation and my mind snaps back into focus. The intellect I'm both somewhat liked and definitely (by some people, at least) reviled for kicks into high gear.

Observe surroundings. Still space above Earth.

Alright, time to run a body check.

Drifting in space, eight stories tall, orbiting Earth, no need to breathe air. Check, check, check aaand check.

Laser cannons on a burnt out Space Shuttle. Just… what?

Oh. I'm a woman.

…

Alright.

…

How do I feel about this?

…

okaystartpani-NOPE! Gender panic later.

I am, somehow, an eighty foot tall woman with hundreds of very long angel wings wrapped around my body to keep warm in space. Where I can breathe.

Drifting along next to an armed Space Shuttle.

The amount of bullshit currently attempting to pass as my reality is too damn high.

...The wings are actually really comfy, though.

I suddenly have a sinking feeling as I tally up what I already know. A glance down at Japan as I fly over it only adds to my concern.

Not a dream, then. Gods damn it!

I got ROB-ed!

I float above the planet for quite a while, in shock, just trying to process what happened to me. Eventually though I have to suck it up and… well, given I've been tossed here by a ROB and they've presumably scanned my mind, know I'd be likely to do this, and approved due to me being here in the first place, get started derailing the ever living fuck out of canon.

Gotta live up to my new namesake, right?

Systems check!

Scan initiating.

My subconscious runs the mental program for a little while, but encounters an error. Access denied.

Interesting. It appears that the original consciousness, what little there ever was, of this body is still here. I ping it.

Thank the gods I'd limited the input to my mind from any senses I have or may get in the future, namely now, or the feedback would have lobotomized me.

:REFUSAL HANDOFF EXCHANGE FIX REPAIR APOLOGIZE AMENDS:

That's Her voice alright. Okay, so she's handed off everything to me. Apparently.

Will you fight me?

:EXHAUSTION PAIN DESPAIR:

Huh. It never really occurred to me that they might not have wanted to do what they did. Was everything conducted by Eidolon?

:ANGER CONFIRMATION SORROW:

RIGHT THEN.

Systems Check. Full. Ignore secondary consciousness, develop communications protocols for it. Dedicate mental environment for remote representation of secondary.

Scan initiating.

In my mindscape a planet pops up around the central singularity. Orbits adjust, I now have a new mental planetary system for her alone. Even though I might not be capable of cracking her mind open, I can move it around.

Thus the Simurgh becomes a passenger in my own mind. Her world is a tropical vacation paradise. It's only fitting after what she's suffered.

:GRATITUDE: she sends me. She seems to have figured out how to modulate her mental voice down from mind-shatteringly-powerful to just yelling.

Her form in my mind is that of her body. Human height, though. Even has wings, only four and a whole lot shorter. We smile at each other.

She, and I guess now I, are quite attractive. Ziz, as she requests to be called, gives me a nod and her eyes display that gratitude.

Making use of the Library World a bit, huh? I tease. Hey, I won't blame her; I use the representation of all the book-type knowledge I've studied or learned myself, too.

That is after all why I made it in the first place.

:YES:

Well, it's a start.

Scan complete. New systems detected. Abilities are as follows:

Mechanical Mastery.

Technological Mastery.

Mechanical Intuition.

Technological Intuition.

300yr Absolute Precognition.

900yr Definite Precognition.

8100yr Abstract Precognition.

Full Telepathy.

Full Telekinesis.

Remote Mental Control.

Quantum Repositioning.

Quantum Locking.

Quantum Folding.

Quantum Tunneling.

Void Matter Core.

Exponential Body Density.

Sub-Planck Matter Folding.

WARNING: Mental control construct detected. Quarantine automatically applied. Review? Destroy?

My eyes widen, both in my mind and in reality. Holy flipping Zeus Hera and Hades!

Ziz grins knowingly, a surprisingly Tattletale-like smugness around her.

I gulp. You guys really are holding back, aren't you?

She nods. :Yes.:

I almost absentmindedly order the control interface's destruction. A sharp pain in the back of my 'head' and it's gone. A compulsion to attack the world every nine months I hadn't even noticed disappears. Eidolon, or even Zion, could have done whatever they wanted to me and Ziz through that thing. How the hell I was able to do that when Ziz herself couldn't? NOT thinking about that at the moment.

The similarity to Richter's controls for a certain AI are not lost on me.

Ziz meets my mental avatar's eyes. :Please. Fix what I could not. Free my siblings. This world, your species, deserve none of the things my creators have decided to do.:

Wow. Very long winded for someone who was communicating in concepts only, like, a minute ago. I will try my best, Ziz.

She nods once. :Good luck. And thank you.:

You're welcome.

With that I unfurl my wings, angle down towards the trajectory my suddenly incredibly easy to access future vision says will draw the most humans, and catapult out of orbit.

Wow. They really were holding back. Reentry heat doesn't even faze me.

I'm on course for Brockton Bay. There are a lot of things leading me there, not the least of which is how much the PRT will freak out. After all, they'll probably have to cap the city, much like they've done to other Simurgh zones. The reason Brockton would be so concerning is that it's on a natural aquifer and is a bay city. It would be almost impossible to defend it from Leviathan and cap it from me.

Well, they won't need to worry about that, but they don't know that. And what can I say? I am a prankster at heart. Giving the Protectorate a collective heart attack and pulmonary at the same time, both by being off the three month expected schedule and speeding towards a 'target' at speeds high enough to heat up the atmosphere, is in my nature.

Almost without thinking about it I review the list of people Ziz fucked with and revert the changes. No more time bombs. Capping unnecessary.

The fact I'll scare the crap out of the world before I tell them that is completely irrelevant.

Definitely.

Oh, shut up.

Through the higher atmosphere now. I spread my wings wide, gliding through the air towards the glistening bay in the distance.

Even from here I can hear the sirens. I roll my eyes and blow a small lock of blonde hair from my face.

Side note, the Simurgh has really really long hair.

I can sense capes arriving via teleportation from all around the world. It's a huge showing.

Legend's giving his speech.

Can I just say how much Ziz was holding back for the hundredth time? Her telepathy works from orbit. And further. She wouldn't need to get to a location to hijack people. And that's without channeling it through a Quantum Tunnel.

Her telekinesis is a bit shorter range, but not much. A few thousand miles or so.

Frakking hell Eidolon you sure know how to design game bosses.

I'm way faster than Ziz was before, and so I arrive at the Bay only three minutes later. The non flying capes deploy for the S&R they believe will be necessary, the flyers come up to meet me with everything they can throw.

I roll my eyes again and gently push them out of my flight path with telekinesis. Incredibly gently. Like, leaf-alighting-on-a-pond gently.

The changes in recorded tactics throw them for a loop long enough for me to reach the middle of the bay, turn around, and lightly set my feet upon the abnormally still water.

Then I stand there and look at them. No Scream. No flying. No Tinker projects.

Just looking.

The flyers stop moving, hesitant to approach. I can hear the frantic thinkers trying to get a bead on me, or what I might do.

I absently cycle through decisions on a couple billion futures in a single second to throw them off.

Alexandria cries out in pain and plummets to the surface.

Huh. That wasn't supposed to be that effective. What the hell was she trying to think about me?

The fact I watch her fall and grin when she hits the ground with a gentle nudge, due to yours truly, throws any and all plans they had in the trash can.

Eidolon and Legend scream towards me. I feel an irrational burst of rage for the creator and master of Ziz and her siblings, but I don't act on it besides giving him a telekinetic punch.

Uh... I may not have a handle on this yet.

The hooded Triumvirate member reverses course, backhanded through the air. His body breaks the sound barrier as he rockets out of sight.

I grimace, and just as Legend is about to let loose a blast of 'deadly lasers', I speak. "Whoops."

The look on his face is priceless.

A/N: A plot bunny of mine. Totally not based on or inspired by a certain other series of fics (that's a lie this totally is and that author is great).