You know who would be an interesting crossover from Worm to throw at The Power Fantasy?
Scion.
Having finished essentially chapter one of TPF (and it really could just end on issue 16, it's kinda tied up neat, even with the foreshadowing for issue 17 and onwards) I'd like to reprise my original TPF post about a young Taylor being thrust into Superpower-dom. But lets remove her entirely from the equation.
Zion and Eden land on Earth the same way, Eden crash landing and Cauldron sparking up to run their role as per canon, and this happening right around May 20th 1982. That's when Scion is first named and when he meets Vikaire. Far along enough in the TPF timeline to have Etienne, Valentina, Heavy and Jacky Magus (original) on the world stage. Four years after the Brixton, London meeting and the formal formation of the Pyramid and Jacky's announcement to the world and the creation of the Fucking Arseholes. It is also, hilariously, a year after they put the Major in his spherical time out.
Etienne immediately picks up on Scion as an alien being the moment he tunnels through the alternate dimension earth his main body resides, but being literally too vast and maybe a little too alien, he doesn't immediately get Scion's deal. As far as the other superpowers know, this is just an alien visitor with a mysterious purpose. Same thing as Valentina, he can feel Scion's mind but cannot affect it. He can reach out to it and hear his thoughts but he's exceptionally empty, wherever the anti-Thinker shards don't just shut him out entirely.
Parahumans start popping up and I'm gonna say that Etienne can't take them out like Atomics, or at least turn them off the way he has been. Certain Parahumans like Alexandria are outright immune, anybody with anti-Thinker or power nullification work both against Parahumans and Atomics including Etienne. Zion and Eden took the Atomics into consideration when they were deploying their shards, just like the rest of humanity. Course, some Parahumans can just be remotely overloaded just like the Devil, but it draws Scion's attention the first time he does it and it's clear that if Etienne tries to snip problematic parahumans in the bud he'll be exposed for doing the same to Atomics and therefore Heavy.
Kevin Norton still happens. Etienne and Jacky let it happen while they watch on and, to their surprise, Kevin's tirade gets through to Scion, who immediately stops drifting around all hopeless and actually starts trying to be a classic superhero. Unfortunately, this is what would spark the 'incident'. Scion finishes what Valentina started by destroying literally every single nuclear warhead on the planet in under an hour with needle-like precision, leaving them useless lumps of slag and depleted uranium in their silos and warehouses. Having lost the Major the year before and their push into the middle east in the same breath, USAmerica is naturally livid and distraught at the thought of another mysterious doo-gooder angel. Valentina is flipping between a crisis of faith and a little bit of glee at Scion's golden jesus look. Etienne and Jacky are only able to get a read that all the new powers in the world cropping up after Vikare's cancer was cured all stem from him (and not much else), and because all the atomics and magic started popping up because of Valentina, she's convinced he's some kind of angel like her and has been constantly flying around trying to get through to him. She isn't doing much other than just flying side by side with him as he literally does any good deed he can do at the time, but to her it does seem like he appreciates the company.
"He's like a child in some ways. Emotions are most of what I can get from him. Bored most of the time. Engaged whenever doing something Mr Norton told him to, but still bored. Sad mostly. Some immense gulf of sadness without punctuation or nuance. Like a child, nothing but the rawest form of an emotion without the capacity or experience necessary to compartmentalize or process their feelings. Whatever happened, it's still raw. When he saw you in your full form Valentina, I got the sense of an immense, desperate hope, then crushing despair. Where he went for those three days, I haven't a clue. Jacky figures it may have been an alternate dimension or timeline we can't access, but that flies in the face of what we currently know about our universe and its position between heaven and hell. He's back to normal though. But I think you should still give him distance."
Jacky presents his working. I like how the Queen and the Major and Kid Ignition all got little graphical holograms which somehow communicate the totality of their power to Valentina but I think Scion's is like 7 feet wide and tall.
Its 1989, the Second Summer of Love that becomes the true test of Scion. I can't decide if his involvement should be early, fighting tandum with Valentina and using his Stilling to prevent the Queen from plunging the UK into hell.
Its worth noting a little something. Issue 7 is where the Queen shows up, and Valentina is the one that acts like the Superpower's first responder. She's a lot more durable than the other three that's for sure. I'm thinking she showed up to Scion the same way she shows up to the Queen, except he's calm and not putting out enough energy to give "everyone north of Northhampton cancer."
wait post canceled
Masumi is also in 1982. Etienne "talked her down" fuck fuck I need to re-write this.
Actually no. Lets keep the above and explore that then. One of Scion's first acts, instead of Kevin Norton, is to engage Deconstructia in a battle that stops her in a similar time frame, without killing Masumi? Maybe I'm being wishful but it's my post I'll be wishful. I acknowledge that an Entity cleaning house of cycle-level threats is even less likely to leave Masumi alive if Etienne would be totally fine with killing her if it meant Deconstructia could go too. We'll assume Scion doesn't do it for the same reason Etienne doesn't. His Stilling or any number of other Shards he can subtly deploy for a solution can revert Deconstructia back to Masumi, but cannot otherwise risk killing her or there will be a planet-cracking event before he can take her out.
Back on topic. Second Summer of Love draws Valentina in and plays out differently depending on if Valentina has somehow dragged Scion to Manchester to see the Queen. I think it'd be a little funny and very canon if he's late to Manchester because he was saving a cat or something and only showed up because he picked up on Europe potentially getting destroyed once Eliza sold her soul. So Eliza damned, Jacky still alive maybe, Valentina sorely beaten and Scion rescues Kevin Norton/England/Europe by Stilling the Queen before she and Eliza can start their apocalyptic beat down.
Beyond that point I'm not sure what happens. I think the biggest part of Eliza's character is that she sacrificed herself to save the world but now she cannot save herself. She was born amidst the worst Superpower incident until 1999-2000 kicks of as per current events. Europe was destroyed and Jacky dead. If she doesn't have the Queen to wield her power against, what happens? Frustrated at having sold her soul for nothing? I'm not sure what she does.
Scion for his part is just doing what he's meant to do; deal with outside context problems and float around with these humans who are as close to peers as their species is likely to get. Which is to say that they're exceptionally inferior even by Shard standards, but their power expressions are very interesting. Heavy is giving basically every gravity shard a tacit Ted-talk with his casual manipulation of the fabric of space-time. Etienne is giving all the master/thinker shards a lot of ideas. Valentina looked kind of like Eden at first, but no. She's a little annoying but at least he's not flying alone. Someone can keep up with him, even if he doesn't understand her power, and actively trying to understand her power is another thing to do, ala Wildbow's WoG on Superman + Scion AU. Eliza might get herself killed by Scion. She's supposed to rot or glitch the 'white magic' side of things that Jacky and Valentina utilize so I'm sure that's having effects on shardspace/shards/Scion himself and she's certainly a threat to the cycle. Masumi is unfortunate and I'll get into her in a bit but expect her to feel even worse for herself in 1992.
So what are Cauldron up to? Well, same as canon, except they're also trying to dodge atomics and especially Etienne. First thing to go out of the canon business model for Cauldron is any knowledge of the organization at all is completely expunged. People hear they can get powers. Get dead drops where Contessa has reasonably plotted to avoid Etienne. Clients are brought to the pocket dimension where Etienne and Heavy can't feel what's going on. Valentina can't sniff up the trail with the lines she can see with Etienne, I imagine the connection between Parahumans and their Shards are visible to her in the same way.
Interesting thought, maybe she starts intervening in people's lives before trigger events pop up? Might mean she'd have to make certain concessions to avoid being harassed by the USAmerican government, but without nukes they aren't going to be able to be as stupid as they were before.
Back on topic. So that means Alexandria, Legend, Eidolon and Hero are all on the playing field. In my opinion, and I'm welcome to other ideas, but I think that without their nukes (like Worm canon) TPF!USAmerica is quicker than Worm canon to embrace Parahuman heroes and Cauldron's exceptionally careful manipulations to get them seen as protectors of their communities. For the sake of not having to go through each and every single plot point of both TPF and Worm, lets just assume a total merger of their respective world-states.
November 13th, 1992. Hadhayosh, aka Behemoth, strikes Marun, Iran's second largest oil field. The Protectorate (the team not the org) are there under the same pretense in canon; earthquake relief and a little bit of PR from the USA since they can't threaten war in the middle east with Valentina and Scion roaming around. It's instantly on the Superpower's radar. Etienne connects Valentina and Heavy in, assume Jacky is still alive and is rebuilding the Pyramid but still doing so from the punks and anarchists of before, retaining his left-leaning rhetoric (even in the face of his self-admitted authoritarian magic cop situation) and he says he can barely offer help other than whatever Hadhayosh is, he's incredibly powerful. The Parahumans put up the same fight they did in Worm canon until the Superpowers join in. Everything shifts when Heavy tries to pick up Behemoth and throw him into the Sun. He can't. Behemoth counters with his own grip on the Earth. Main reason for this is the same as Wildbow's WoG on "Why don't they just throw Behemoth into the Sun?" being that, well, it'd just put Behemoth at the heart of a whole star to manipulate. Behemoth isn't there to do that, however, so he's not going to let them do that. Unfortunately, that means he ramps up quite a lot more than he did in Worm canon, using the full breadth of his tricks. The Parahumans and Iranian Atomics lose hard and are turned back. Just as Heavy and Etienne think Behemoth is going to come up and get them, he heads back down into the mantle.
And this is where Masumi comes in. They're calling Behemoth an "Endbringer" but not the first. He's the second Endbringer. Deconstructia becomes the first of the world killing kaiju club and this naturally leaves her in a worse state than even TPF canon. People still tiptoe around her, but there's a lot more anger directed at her. A lot more security is needed and Etienne needs to spin her plate more and with greater attention now. When Leviathan shows up in Oslo on June 9th, 1996, and sinks the whole island, it really starts seeming like the doomsday clock is ticking faster and faster. In TPF, the Superpowers don't really have much of a overarching conflict between the Second Summer of Love and 1999. There's an uneasy peace that threatens to collapse, but no real event that demands their attention or co-operation.
All of that changes with Behemoth's biannual attacks. After Iran gets hit, the next is Sao Paulo, Brazil, and then New York, USA. The former becomes a desperate battle with Valentina and Scion both working together to drive him off, but it's the attack on New York that starts to drastically shift the timeline of TPF. I'll leave the specifics of the attack on New York to others on Wormblr who have speculated as to what he could be targetting at the time. One post in particular that I can't seem to recall enough to track down suggested that he appeared underneath the rich suburbs and then pushed down into the poorest to do the majority of the fighting. A lot of fanon and fanfics suggest the island of manhatten is demolished to the point that it needs to be rebuilt.
Here, Etienne realizes he needs to move himself somewhere safe. As far as he knows, nowhere is safe if Behemoth is going to keep attacking and retreating like this. I think at this point he reveals himself to Heavy just like Valentina and asks for safe haven in Haven. Now, I think this is where my post can get interesting in the TPF fandom. Does anyone think that Lux and Heavy would be able to become roommates? In my opinion, yes. I think that seeing that the world is getting hit with this constant attacker (and when Behemoth hits Jakarta in November 1994 it becomes clear that this is a regular pattern) kinda unifies the Superpowers. Jacky (real) realizes there isn't going to be a world to save if this keeps up. Marrying tinkertech with luminous magitech is something I think the Shards would love to get involved in, though Jacky is of course less likely to trust any Tinkers completely. Valentina and Eliza are constantly hitting Behemoth with their best and it just isn't putting him down the way they need to. He's always able to scamper away back underground and Heavy can't lock in on him without ripping out a giant chunk of earth with him, and the first time Valentina tries following Behemoth down there is the last time she does it once Behemoth starts tapping into luminous energies.
To cap off this post and give it room to breathe and let people interact with it meaningfully, I want to note the last piece of the timeline I'd like to bring up. TPF kicks off in 1999, around November. Before the 12th, since that's when Tonya starts reporting to Etienne about Heavy.
As I've opinioned above, I think the Superpowers look very different in this AU. Etienne and Heavy are a single bloc. Kid Ignition is a known quantity to Heavy. Valentina and Etienne are still trying to be mostly centrists here, a balancing act. One that Etienne can actually do better with Heavy since he's got one hand on the wheel in that sense. Kid Ignition isn't an out-and-about atomic until 1999, but Etienne knows and has met him. Shutting him off now would tip his hand infront of Heavy worse than when he did the same in India with the precog. Jacky is also left leaning, but his Pyramid is a kind of counterbalance with Heavy's Family, trying to offset his more violent approach with Jacky's book-reading punks. Check page 12 of issue 5 for what I mean. On one axis Atomics and Magicians. On the third axis is Scion and his strange affiliation with the Parahumans, a large population of them now sparking up in both north and south americas in particular, but the phenomena is worldwide. The Protectorate (team) has become the Protectorate (organization) and is being more rapidly built up by the USA to increase their chances at getting an american aligned Heavy or Lux to try and scramble some small amount of power back. Scion and Valentina are openly working together and garnering a lot of popular support.
Masumi is reviled by most of the world that has been hit by Behemoth and now Leviathan, who has so far struck Oslo, Busan, Sydney and Madrid himself. It's Leviathan's strike on Busan that really startles the people of Tokyo, just because it's so close to home and they're seeing the influx of refugees and the water crisis Leviathan leaves behind.
In comes what I think would be the main event of this AU. November 2nd, 1999. Kyushu, Japan.
Leviathan shows up to sink the entire island and the fight is worse than all others before. Its Oslo but worse, as Leviathan has had to rapidly accelerate his ramping up of his capabilities just like Behemoth has.
Actually, a little thought occurred. What if, because of the Superpowers, the Endbringers have to start fighting together? Might drain Eidolon faster.
Anyway, the damage is horrible. Not just in terms of human life, but mainly the effect it has on Masumi's personal life. I don't think Isabella would leave her, but I think Isabella might get attacked or something, and that could spark a depressive cycle with Masumi.
That's even if Masumi doesn't just try to go Deconstructia to stop Leviathan. Hi Lung, didn't expect to be fighting more than one Kaiju here huh? Well, Deconstructia can certainly blast them both, though Leviathan might be counting on it and more easily evade it. I think if I were to write something like this, this is where I'd start, rather than the USA trying to assassinate Heavy, since they no longer have Jacky (fake) backing them, and their powerbase no longer has to deal with wiping out Atomics or Parahumans since they've shifted strategies to Cauldron's Cape scene plan, and therefore there's no Etienne killing the President, no paranoid Jacky identity crisis to kill Etienne over, and no loss of holy visions to trip Eliza up and over into the Abyss, and therefore nobody to inadvertently kill Isabella and send Masumi into a global spanning idiot doomspiral--
Someone just threw a rock at Isabella for fucking an Endbringer.
Oh is that the Simurgh showing up three years early?! Ready to take advantage of a mentally unwell young woman?! OFF THE TOP OF THE ROPES WITH THE STEEL CHAIR?!!
