Alexa waved a hand, cutting off the broadcast. Her hologram manifested into the Multiplier's chair, while the hologram of hero Resonance flashed into the Surgeon's chair.
"What's SHE doing here?" Dora's helmeted head turned to Hero Resonance.
"Helping us, obviously," Alexa's flickering projection replied.
"Did we not revoke her rights as a hero after the whole Tartarus incident?" Allana asked, the immovable steel of hero Chalice costume making her body look far too big for her blonde head.
"Superstate bureaucracy is slow," Alexa shrugged. "Much too slow to judge and banish a hero who has good lawyers backing them. I'm putting forward a motion to declare me and Rezzy here as the new members of the five."
"What?" Dora asked. "You can't just..."
"Why the hell should we trust Resonance after all she's done?" Allana demanded.
The digital copy of Resonance pursed her lips.
"Hero Resonance pushed herself further than anyone," Alexa explained. "Her power had always been replicating herself. She's an innate fixer of problems and we have a terrible problem in the shape of the exploding moon that's about to rain down on Earth. We need her."
"Why did the moon explode at all?" Bob asked.
"The moon exploded because someone was trying to build a habitat in it using a dark matter engine to power it," Alexa turned her face to Dora. "Dark matter engines tend to explode catastrophically when the rules of the universe change."
"What?!" Allana barked, sending Dora a glare. "When did you even..."
"I, uh," Dora's pink space suit gloves twitched. "I was going to terraform the interior of the moon, making a habitable space..."
"So the moon exploding is Dora's fault?" Bob asked.
"It's not my fault!" Dora defended herself. "The dark matter engine was perfectly safe! You're all missing the most important question - Why did the rules of reality change at all?"
"That's probably my fault," Alexa said.
The faces of the heroes turned to her.
Alexa's hologram leaned back in the Multiplier's chair. "I may have... let's say, accelerated certain events by my actions. When Agent Three attacked Nonpareil, it caused a major error, which didn't seem to get fixed. I thought that Wizard Revolution would fix it, but I guess that things were too messed up for her to fix, so they simply sent us to the recycle bin.”
"Why is Titanomachy all warped and cracked like this?” Bob asked, looking at the spiderweb of cracks peppering the table.
“Titanomachy is made from super-forged immovable self-repairing alloys,” Alexa explained. “They’re conceptually stable, but can crack and warp when the rules of reality change. It’s fine, the station is already repairing itself. We only lost some air in a couple of sections to decompression for a few minutes."
“Why are we evacuating everyone to the station?” Bob asked. “Chalice told me what to vote for but how is the station safer if reality itself is going to shatter?”
“Titanomachy has greater conceptual stability than the Earth," Alexa explained.
"Meaning what?" Dora asked.
"When reality breaks down enough for otherness to come through," Alexa said. "This otherness is going to seep into unobserved places first."
"What?" Dora asked.
"I've seen this happen before," the supervillain teen said, her voice growing somber. "My father's bracelet sent me to Earth 2424 thousands of times. I've personally witnessed the aftermath of reality breakdown on far too many dead Earths."
The heroes exchanged worried glances as Alexa continued.
"Reality will start to fracture at its weakest points first - places that aren't constantly being observed or interacted with. Think of remote forests, deep ocean trenches, abandoned buildings. These areas will begin to... shift. They'll gradually become unstable, merging with similar spaces from other realities."
Nonpareil leaned forward, his brow furrowed. "And what's going to happen to the people in those areas?"
Alexa's expression darkened. "Best case scenario? They will noclip through the newly formed cracks and find themselves in a slightly different version of our world or a dead Earth or an infinite superstore or something else equally effed up and broken. Worst case? Something big comes through and begins eating everyone nearby."
"Something big like what?" Chalice asked.
"It won't be something specific you could easily kill," Alexa replied grimly. "The point is, Titanomachy is being constantly interacted with by the heroes. It's a focal point of our reality, the heart of our narrative which makes it more stable, safer than most forgotten places on Earth. We're going to need a lot of eyes to enforce the station's stability. Human eyes. Eyes of a hero willing to be copied as many times as it takes, dedicated eyes willing to work for a greater cause for no pay," Alexa pointed at Resonance.
"So we make more copies of hero Resonance to what... Watch the station over the cameras?" Dora asked.
"Not cameras," Alexa shook her head. "Cameras and AIs are good to help with stability but not good enough when it comes to keeping reality together. We need human eyes and human minds that know this station better than anyone. Resonance knows this station because she's worked every job here already."
Resonance turned to Alexa, her gold-orange eyes growing wide as she realized what Alexa was proposing.
"Dora, remember those cloning vats you've been secretly working on? The ones you are hiding from everyone? The ones that can sort of make rough copies of heroes and their hexagrams?" Alexa smirked as Dora's helmet twitched in surprise. "Yeah, those. We're going to need them now."
Dora's voice came out hesitant, "How did you...? Never mind. Yes, I have been developing cloning chambers, but they're not ready for-"
"They'll have to be," Alexa interrupted. "We need to clone Resonance, a lot. And fast."
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"We're already going to be busy evacuating people from Earth as it is," Dora said, frustration creeping into her voice. "Can't we just place them across the station to watch it?"
"We can," Alexa nodded. "But that's only a half-assed measure at best. We can't trust everyone to pay attention to reality for as long as it takes and mundanes don't have reality rewinding powers. Like I said before, this has to be someone who mentally knows the station conceptually, from every angle, from every tunnel."
Resonance allowed herself a small smile at that. Finally, she was going to be useful and not just hated by everyone!
"You see," Alexa continued her explanation, "reality decay isn't just about physical changes. It's about the very fabric of existence unraveling. And the only thing that can hold it together is human consciousness - specifically, an insanely determined, insanely focused human consciousness."
She gestured towards Resonance. "That's where my bestie here comes in. Resonance has already proven her dedication by replicating herself over seventy thousand times to perform every job on this station. She knows Titanomachy inside and out, every nook and cranny, every system and protocol. More importantly, she has the mental fortitude to maintain that focus across multiple copies of herself, is really good at working with herself and can rewind objects backwards in time."
Alexa's gaze swept across the faces of the other heroes. "What we need is not just bodies to fill space, but minds and heroes that can actively reinforce the reality we know. Resonance's clones, spread throughout the station, can act as anchor points, their collective focus creating a web of stability."
She paused, letting her words sink in. "This isn't just about watching for threats as security personnel or maintaining order. It's about wielding the power of human will and perception to literally hold our reality together. Each clone of Resonance will serve as a living, breathing bulwark against the encroaching otherness."
Alexa's expression hardened as she looked at the digital copy of the hero. "Make no mistake, Rezzy, this task will be grueling. It will require a level of mental endurance that most humans simply don't possess."
"You're certain that she..." Dora began.
"Resonance has already shown she has what it takes," Alexa said. "Her unwavering focus, multiplied across an ever-increasing number of clones, might just be our best shot at preserving a ring of stability in a universe that will progressively go mad."
"You are certain that reality will break down?" Dora asked.
"Yes. The moon exploding is just the tip of the iceberg," Alexa said. "We cannot hope to maintain stability across the entire Earth, but we can at least keep Titanomachy free of wrongness. People don't survive wrongness for very long, Dora. I know exactly what it's like. I've been consumed by it far too often, broken down and remade again and again. I died to it..." Alexa's hologram flickered, her voice trailing off as the memories of countless deaths washed over her. "More times than I can count. The wrongness that seeps in when reality breaks down isn't just dangerous - it's limitless. It twists and warps everything it touches, including human minds."
She leaned forward, her blue eyes intense. "Imagine walking down a street you've known your whole life, only to find that it suddenly loops back on itself impossibly. Or looking up at the sky to see it filled with eyes instead of stars. That's the kind of bullshit we're dealing with here."
Bob swallowed nervously his hand slowly sliding to that of Chalice. The armored heroine gripped his fingers reassuringly.
"I know it sounds insane. But that's exactly the point. What's coming isn't just a physical threat - it's a threat to sanity itself."
Alexa turned to Resonance once again. "Each clone will have to maintain constant vigilance, actively rewinding otherness, reinforcing the reality they know against the encroaching entropy. It's a task that would break most minds, but you've already proven you have the mental fortitude for it by torturing me in the simulation for over one hundred thousand years trying to make me... normal."
"I'm... I..." Ember's face flashed red. "That wasn't... me, that was a copy of me running inside the Tartarus simulation!"
"Now you get to fight reality itself, to mentally slap it around to be normal and mundane, yay!" Alexa said.
She turned to the others.
"We don't have much time. Every moment we delay, the cracks in reality grow wider. We need to start the cloning process immediately, as we begin evacuating Earth's population to Titanomachy. It's the only chance we have of saving as many people as possible. I know that many will refuse, that some will choose to remain behind, choose to fight what's coming. Sadly, they don't know the full horror of it all."
She looked at each of the heroes in turn. "I know you don't fully trust me. I know my methods have been... questionable at best. But right now, I'm not asking you to trust me. I'm asking you to trust your own eyes. Look around you. Feel the station warping beneath your feet. This is real, and it's happening now. We need to act, and we need to act fast."
"This... will need a new protocol," Allana said.
"Let's call it Protocol Anchor," Alexa declared. "The primary objective will be to maintain the stability of Titanomachy's reality through constant observation and repair."
She turned to Resonance, whose hologram sat silently in the Surgeon's chair. "Resonance, you and your clones will be the cornerstone of this protocol. Each clone will be assigned a specific sector of Titanomachy. Your task will be to continuously observe, interact with, and mentally reinforce the reality of your assigned area."
Alexa's hologram stood up, pacing around the table. "We'll need to establish a rotation system to ensure constant coverage without mental fatigue. Each clone will work in shifts, with regular breaks for rest."
She paused, looking at each hero in turn. "But this isn't just about Resonance and her clones. Every hero, every civilian we bring aboard will need to be briefed on the importance of active observation. We need to create a culture of vigilance, where everyone understands that their perception and interaction with their environment is crucial for maintaining stability."
Alanna nodded, already planning the future out in her head.
"We'll need to set up training programs to teach people how to recognize signs of reality decay. Things like spatial anomalies, temporal inconsistencies, or objects behaving in ways that defy our understanding of physics. When these are spotted, they need to be reported immediately, so that the Resonance clones can rewind them with her power."
She turned to Dora. "We'll need your expertise to develop technology that can assist in this effort. Sensors that can detect reality fluctuations, devices that can help stabilize areas showing signs of decay. GLMs that monitor everything everywhere at all times."
Alexa looked at Nonpareil and Chalice. "And we'll need a response team. Heroes ready to act at a moment's notice once something truly horrendous appears on Earth or comes from the depths of space."
"If we depopulate the Earth, won't reality down on the planet decay faster?" Dora asked.
"We have to abandon the planet to save humanity," Alexa shrugged.
"Forever?" Bob let out.
"Not forever," Alexa shook her head. "Only until we clear the barrier."
"What barrier?" Dora asked.
"Let me explain," Alexa snapped her fingers creating a massive hologram of a wall of a mesh of gray Earths above the table and a green-blue Earth flying towards them. "Our reality, our Earth, is currently falling towards the inner edge of everything horrible. We're going to be passing through a barrier of doomed, depopulated planets, like a ship navigating through stormy waters surrounded by an ever growing number of jagged cliffs. This passage is what's causing the breakdown we're experiencing."
She gestured to the warped walls around them. "The cracks, the spatial anomalies, the moon exploding - these are all symptoms of our reality colliding with others. But it's not permanent. If we can hold out long enough, maintain a stable pocket of reality here on Titanomachy, we'll eventually pass through to the other side."
"The other side?" Dora asked. "What's on the other side?"
"On the other side of this omni-Earth barrier is a vast universe, filled with countless other Earths that managed to survive the barrier. Endless, strange, different Earths and suns... circling an infinite megastructure formed from dead Earths that didn't make it out. Some of the Earths that survived the barrier will be similar to ours, others wildly different. But they're stable, and once we're through, we can begin to explore them, perhaps even find a new home for humanity."
"How do you...?" Dora began.
"Because I've been there," Alexa sighed. "I've been there and I died there. I saw it all."
The terraforming genius crossed her arms, not wishing to place the entirety of her trust in the words of one potentially insane girl supervillain.
Alexa moved her gaze across the gathered heroes. "I know it's hard to think about abandoning Earth, even temporarily. But we're not giving up on our home forever. We're preserving what matters most - our people, our knowledge, our culture. Once we're through, we can start thinking about how to reclaim and restore our Earth. Our current goal now is to survive the coming onslaught. You'll see it yourself soon, Dora... it won't be pretty."