(TAYLOR HEBERT) CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

As morbid as it sounded, the Simurgh’s actions on Earth Bet, before sending her through the portal, had made Taylor accustomed to the casual destruction of lives and property. She had watched buildings collapse, streets disappear beneath the ocean, and people die in numbers so large that it became difficult to comprehend them as anything other than statistics. She had seen what an Endbringer could do to a city, and she had learned that sometimes the best anyone could hope for was to save whoever they could before the destruction became too great to contain.

Still, there was a difference between destruction meant to break her spirit and the deaths of innocent people caught in the aftermath of a conflict.

The Simurgh had intentionally used the former against her on Earth Bet, turning lives and property into instruments of psychological warfare. Here, though, the people of the settlement had simply been in the wrong place when the Endbringer came for her.

And so, seeing tens, if not hundreds, of lives extinguished for the sole reason that she, Taylor Hebert, happened to be there was…

Anger-inducing, certainly, though even that failed to capture the full extent of what she felt. The Simurgh had no reason to destroy the entire settlement just to get to her. She had already demonstrated the ability to construct Tinkertech weaponry capable of inflicting destruction on such a scale, so surely she could have found a more precise way to reach Taylor. She could have waited until Taylor was well away from the settlement, or attacked her directly without dragging everyone unfortunate enough to be nearby into it.

There had been no need for any of it.

Those people had been going about their lives when Taylor and Paradox arrived. They had sold them food and water, then left them alone, apparently content to let two strangers pass through their settlement without demanding anything more of them. Taylor hadn’t even learned their names. She didn’t know what they had been doing before she arrived, what plans they had for the coming days, or how many of them had families waiting for them to return.

Now none of that mattered.

Taylor’s hands curled into fists, trembling with the effort of keeping herself from rushing the hovering Endbringer. She knew how foolish it would be to charge at the Simurgh without a plan, especially when she had no idea what else the creature had prepared for her, but the thought of standing by while it went about its business after slaughtering an entire settlement was almost unbearable. As such, she had taken a step forward, only for Professor Paradox to place a hand on her shoulder, holding her back.

Then his words caught her off guard.

“She wasn’t meant to appear yet,” he muttered, his voice low enough that Taylor might have missed it had they not been standing so close.

She turned towards him, her anger finding a new target as she jabbed a finger against his chest. “You knew!” she spat. “Why didn’t you warn me? Or at least do something to stop her?!”

Paradox raised both hands and took a step back, looking genuinely bewildered by her accusation.

“We were meant to be far from the settlement by the time she appeared. I had accounted for the journey, the time we would spend there, everything necessary to ensure we were well away before she attacked. This…” He glanced towards the Simurgh, his expression troubled. “This is rare for me.”

“What?” Taylor demanded, her anger at him dying as quickly as it came as she lowered her hand. “What is rare?”

“Being wrong about timing.”

Taylor stared at him, struggling to make sense of his answer. He had known the Simurgh was going to attack, and apparently expected them to be somewhere else when she did, yet he had brought Taylor to the settlement anyway. Now he was telling her that the Endbringer had appeared too soon, as though the deaths of everyone living there were merely an unfortunate error in his calculations.

She wanted to demand an explanation, to make him understand that the distinction meant very little to the people who had just died, but movement above the crater drew her attention back to the Simurgh.

Rings of light were forming around the Endbringer as she assembled what looked like an enormous Tinkertech cannon. Taylor watched the weapon take shape, recognising enough of its construction to understand that whatever it was designed to do, it hadn’t been built for a minor skirmish.

Her anger gave way to horror.

“Stop her.”

The order came out before she had time to consider how strange it was to give instructions to someone so much older than herself, let alone someone whose abilities seemed to extend far beyond anything she could comprehend. Under different circumstances, she might have been embarrassed by the ease with which she had spoken, but right now she needed Paradox’s power.

He had pulled her away from the settlement before she could even react, and he had known enough about the coming attack to anticipate it, even if his timing had been wrong. If he could move them such a distance in an instant and possessed the knowledge he claimed to have, surely he could do something to stop the Simurgh before she finished building that weapon.

Yet he remained where he was, shaking his head with an expression that looked almost apologetic.

“I’m bound by strict cosmic rules.”

Taylor stared at him, waiting for the rest of the explanation. When none came, she shook her head, refusing to accept that as an answer.

“What does that mean?”

“I cannot simply fix every problem I encounter. My intervention can have consequences far beyond the immediate situation, and those consequences can easily make matters worse.”

Taylor looked back at the Simurgh. The weapon was still taking shape, and she had no idea how much time they had before it was ready to fire. Every second they spent discussing rules was another second the Endbringer had to finish building it.

“Then how?!” Taylor’s voice cracked as she shouted. “How am I meant to stop the Simurgh?!”

For a moment, Paradox said nothing. Then his gaze dropped towards her wrist, settling on the Omnitrix, now shining green.

Taylor followed his eyes and looked down at the device herself.

She understood what he was suggesting, but she couldn’t see how it would help. The Omnitrix had given her a tremendous advantage against the threats she had faced on Earth Bet, and she had become strong enough to challenge things that most people could barely survive encountering. The Simurgh, however, was a different problem. She could anticipate her opponents and manipulate events long before a fight even began, making it difficult to imagine how Taylor could stop her before she finished building that cannon.

Taylor couldn’t think of any alien strong enough, and she told Paradox as much.

He laughed, catching her off guard. But there was no malice in it. He seemed genuinely amused by her certainty, as though she had overlooked something so obvious that he couldn’t help finding her conclusion entertaining.

Taylor looked up at him, waiting for an explanation, but the professor merely smiled.

“Are you so sure about that, Taylor Hebert?”

No, she wasn't, but that doubt was ironically enough to steady her racing heart. She raised her wrist to eye level and closed her eyes, shutting out the sight of the Simurgh as she focused on the watch.

The Omnitrix had always given her the alien best suited to the situation, even when she couldn’t have guessed what she needed beforehand. She had trusted it through every transformation, and she would have to trust it now, with the lives of everyone in the settlement weighing on her mind and the Endbringer preparing to fire that cannon.

Please.

Drawing a deep breath, Taylor activated the watch and brought her hand down hard on its raised dial.