Slaughterhouse Fight in Los Angeles

The Protectorate, Wards and Undersiders entered and cleared the Slaughterhouse Nine's extradimensional base. They found that the teleporter had been used to send Nine members to Houston, New York and Los Angeles - specifically, the Santa Fe Springs area of Los Angeles, that had been rendered uninhabitable by Tohu.

Weaver had observed their departure using her power. The group that had travelled to Los Angeles was known to include Jack Slash, Siberian, Hookwolf, Gray Boy, all eight Harbingers, Psychosomas, Nyxes, and others she couldn't identify. It was decided that most of the heroes would teleport to Los Angeles; heroes already in the field would deal with the New York attack, and Defiant would deal with the Houston attack with the help of other organisations that had pledged to help against the Nine.<ref name=":0">Interlude 26a</ref>

Battle

The group teleported into Los Angeles, surveyed the area and discussed tactics. Parian created a humanoid figure to walk ahead in case of traps or illusions.

Golem heard a voice in his earpiece that he interpreted as Dinah Alcott. He established a system of binary questions - blue for back, right, retreat, solo; red for forward, left, attack, team. This system warned them to retreat, and a group of Harbingers revealed themselves and overwhelmed the group.

Dinah warned that Scion was approaching the area. Her answers began to get fuzzier as Scion approached.

Dinah advised Golem to go ahead while the others fought the Harbingers. With Dinah's help, Golem figured out that it was imperative to call in the "big guns", even though this broke the quarantine designed to deny Jack access to someone he might prompt to end the world.

Golem broke an illusionary building created by Nyx, turning it into poisonous smoke and revealing a number of Psychosoma's monsters. He successfully defeated them.

He found Jack waiting in an area that seemed to be covered in slashes from his power.

Jack was wielding a sword forged from a tinker-made material, immune to Golem's power. He and Golem bantered. Dinah warned that Hookwolf and Nyx were nearby, although Grey Boy wasn't. Guided by Dinah, Golem attacked.<ref name=":0" />

Scion arrived. Weaver tried to persuade him to leave,<ref>The Entity slowed as a figure barred its path. A female, with her arms outstretched. Smaller life forms were arranged around and behind it. Vaguely familiar. "Stop, Scion," the female said. [...] "I know you want to help, but it's too dangerous. You're too strong, and this situation is fragile. It'll do more harm than good."

More harm than good. Scion accepted that as a given and decided to stay where he was.

- Interlude 26</ref> but he was frozen in midair by Grey Boy.<ref name=":0" /><ref>A shard flared to life, and the entity saw an effect take hold around it.  It reached out and found a barrier it could not penetrate.

Cell. Its hand was moved back to the previous position. It was caught in a sinkhole of distorted time. Over and over again, it moved in a steady loop. Snare. A trap. - Interlude 26</ref>

Elsewhere, Contessa and Number Man appeared from a Doormaker portal. They killed several of the Harbinger clones, and the remainder surrendered.<ref>The entity observed the ongoing conflict. No less than five seconds after it had been trapped, two figures had emerged from a doorway between worlds. The entity could see the paths forming, trace them back to the source. Another world, a living world without a shard occupying it. They engaged the eight with their own perception abilities, intervening to assist a group of others. As a pair, they opened fire with guns, then waded into hand to hand combat. The entity looked at the male, and it saw the connection to the same shard as the eight. His connection was stronger, more mature. [...] The female felled three of the eight, and the situation was decided. The remaining five dropped to a position where they sat on their knees. She spoke, and an interdimensional portal appeared behind them. They crawled through, heads down, and the portal closed. - Interlude 26</ref>

Bored by the fight, Jack destroyed a nearby illusionary building-face. Hookwolf was revealed and Jack climbed on his back. A number of Nine clones were also revealed, including Crawlers, Mannequins and Crimsons. Jack channelled his power through Hookwolf's blades, creating a storm of slashes that destroyed Golem's cover in an instant.<ref name=":0" />

With Golem injured, Jack stopped the attack to monolog at him. He struck Theo with his sword, slicing his armour in two and injuring him further, but Theo used his power to repair the armour. The assembled Nine ran forward to attack as the injured Golem fled.

Theo collapsed several buildings into the group of villains using his power.

He was attacked in an alley by a Mannequin clone, but imprisoned it using his power. A Crimson clone and a Murder Rat followed; Theo fled onto the top of a nearby building using his power to create footholds. Using his power to sense Hookwolf's blades, he toppled more buildings to harry Hookwolf and Jack. Reaching the rooftop, he encountered a Chuckles clone. Overwhelmed by the two villains, Golem collapsed.

Weaver arrived, killing the Murder Rat and chasing the Chuckles off.

More heroes and Undersiders arrived - Bitch, Tecton, Parian and Foil - and together they set out after Hookwolf and Jackon the back of one of Parian's creations. When they found them, he was in the company of the last Siberian clone.

Weaver warned that the figure that appeared to be Jack was actually an illusion, with the real Jack hidden nearby. The group were spotted by one of Nilbog's creations that had been fitted with a control frame by Bonesaw, but Foil killed it before it could warn the Nine.

Chevalier arrived. Golem told the assembled heroes that he believed Jack had a thinker power; he was reacting faster than should be possible, like Weaver had when he sparred with her. Unable to think of a solution and warned by Dinah that the odds of success were growing worse by the second, the heroes attacked. The illusionary Jack was destroyed, turning into gas.

Guided by Dinah, Golem set out in search of Jack. He encountered a Hatchet Face, Breed, Cherish and King, but the group didn't join the battle, standing by as the others fought. Foil managed to kill Hookwolf.

A dragoncraft arrived with reinforcements: Cuff, Grace, Clockblocker, Kid Win and Vista.

Golem attacked the remaining Nine, but two were mysteriously unaffected: King and Hatchet Face. The heroes realised that they were actually Jack and Siberian, protected by Siberian's power and hidden by a Nyx illusion.

The heroes attacked the other Nine members; when Golem killed the apparent Cherish, she was revealed as a Nyx and all the illusions in the area shattered, revealing a clone of Gray Boy.

Gray Boy attacked, and Foil was seemingly caught in his power.<ref name=":1" />

Golem, pondering Jack's power, had an idea: Jack surrounded himself with capes, much as Weaver did with bugs. Perhaps a non-cape was the answer. Dinah confirmed that he was thinking along the right track, and he went an fetched a Dragon's Teeth soldier. Everyone attacked to serve as a distraction. The D.T. soldier attacked with containment foam.

As Jack was distracted by the attacking Dragon's Teeth member, Tecton managed to disrupt the footing of the Siberian that was protecting him, and punched Jack in the stomach with his power suit.

Gray Boy used his power to freeze the incoming foam, but then turned on Jack, looping him within a time-field and torturing his fallen leader with a knife.

Foil revealed herself from behind a field of looped time, not trapped but simply pretending to be with her enhanced sense of timing. She destroyed the Grey Boy and Siberian with her power.

Golem and Tecton used their powers to bury Jack.<ref name=":1">Interlude 26b</ref><ref>The entity observed as the fight concluded elsewhere. The broadcaster remained unaware as an individual without any attachment to shards at all entered the confined space, unloading a vaguely familiar substance over the group. Something the entity might recollect if it had access to all of its memories. A technology. It didn't matter. The entity watched as the broadcaster was sealed in a time distortion. A female, standing just outside another time distortion, walked around the effect, charging objects with energy. The entity could see as the small pieces of alloyed metal unfolded, taking shape in not just this world, but all realities, at the same space and time, bristling with an effect that would sever their attachment to most physical laws. They were thrown, and they disrupted connections to two shards at once. The projection disappeared, only to reappear a distance away. The boy who had created the time distortions fell as well. Sting, the entity thought. Once it had been a weapon for his kind, against his kind, back in the beginning, when they had dwelt in oceans of gray sludge. The others hurried to confine the broadcaster. They were apparently aware of what he could do. - Interlude 26</ref>

Aftermath

Bonesaw stood down in New York when she heard that Jack had been defeated.<ref name=":1" />

Trapped in time and buried, Jack began speaking to Scion.

Elsewhere, Tattletale and Charlotte spoke, and Tattletale realised the true nature of the Entities and Scion. She contacted everyone and called them to act immediately to try and stop what was happening. Saint, listening in, recalled an old report Dragon had ignored about a woman who claimed she could talk to Scion; he contacted Defiant and scrambled to get him to help him contact her.

Defiant did so. A dragoncraft wrapped itself around Scion, trying to block Jack away from him, and began relaying Lisette's message to him. Scion broke free of the time-loop effect and flew away. He ruminated on Jack's words as he floated in space, and used his power to examine alternate futures where he had come to the same conclusion.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

Then he began to attack humanity.<ref name="I26" /><ref>Extinction 27.1</ref>

Trivia

Although Golem notes that Revel and Hoyden are missing at the end of the battle,<ref>Chevalier approached. Nearly blind, he crouched in the center of the roof.

Hoyden and Revel were conspicuously absent. - Excerpt from Interlude 26b</ref> they both appear in subsequent chapters.<ref>Revel was stock still, not far from him. I watched as she stepped back, leaning against a wall, then let herself slide down until she was sitting on the street. She placed her head in her hands. - Excerpt

from Extinction 27.1</ref><ref>Had to mix it up.  Raw physical strength, then a cape who was strong because of a telekinetic bubble that surrounded them.  More raw strength, then explosive power like Hoyden's.

[...] I could feel the fear of the people I was sending into the fray. Hoyden's fear was like the scared-little-girl fear I'd experienced while concussed, wracked with pain and helpless at Bakuda's feet. - Speck 30.5</ref>

References