Scion

Zion, incorrectly known as Scion, is the avatar of the Warrior Entity.

Personality
Scion's way of thinking is largely alien, lacking any sort of creativity or ingenuity. In his creation, he was given a facsimile of a human mind to better understand the host species, and can therefore think and feel along the lines of a human being. This simulated mind, however, is distanced from Scion's core being, and is immature from a general lack of hardship and exposure to the real world. Thus, Scion's outward demeanor is almost completely flat and reactionless, like a blank slate.

Internally, Scion feels a deep, profound sadness, which began after he learned of his counterpart's death. Without the Thinker Entity, he is unable to go through with the cycle, and so feels lost and without purpose. This feeling is conveyed through an "emotional aura," making humans around him share his sadness. In a similar manner, he radiated disgust when looking at Eidolon, as he had gotten his powers from a Cauldron vial made from the remains of Scion's counterpart.

For a time, Scion went through the motions of heroism after being told to do so by Kevin Norton, seeing it as a role to fulfill, but never finding any satisfaction in doing so. After being talked to by Jack Slash, he rejected that role and began experimenting with violence. Subsequently, both Scion's entity mind and human mind developed further as he went through with the events of Gold Morning. He derived a faint sort of satisfaction out of wiping out humanity, which appealed back to the past memories of his entity self, and as Gold Morning went on he began taking pleasure in torturing his victims. Additionally, Scion began expressing his emotions through his body for the very first time, conveying annoyance and contempt through his face, and later screaming to show his anger and pain. When fighting against Eidolon, Scion even projected emotions of smugness, superiority, confidence, and amusement.

Scion's deepest desire is to reunite with the Thinker or another entity in order to complete the cycle. This desire is the driving force behind many of Scion's rare displays of emotion. The sight of a third entity during Gold Morning was enough to make him hopeful, before he spiraled into a mad rage once he realized it was fake. Subsequently, being haunted with more simulacrums of his dead partner and other entities caused Scion to regress into a primal sort of panic. Finally, the extinguishing of his one last hope to reunite with the Thinker caused him to lose his will to live, leading to his death.

The Thinker
The Thinker can be considered the most important thing to Scion, as along with himself, the Thinker is vital to completing the cycle. In essence, they gave Scion a sense of purpose. When the Thinker died, Scion was devastated, falling into what can be considered a deep depression.

Kevin Norton
Kevin was one of the only humans Scion listened to, though Scion never followed his commands down to the word. After being told to stop drifting aimlessly and begin helping the world at large, Scion began engaging in large-scale heroic activities. Scion saw this as a task that he could pursue, a role he could fulfill. Scion would return to Kevin every once in a while, and Kevin would either clarify certain imperatives he gave Scion or simply engage in one-sided conversation with him. Scion took his name, Zion, from one of Kevin's conversations.

Appearance
Scion appears to be a flawless, golden man with long hair, a trimmed beard, and no body hair. His eyes and hair are the same featureless gold as the rest of his body, and he glows with a golden light that causes things such as water, blood, and dirt to dispel from his body, hair, and clothes. This golden light leaves a brief trail in the air when he moves. Scion is completely expressionless; where most think Scion looks sad, the truth is that his expression never changes from a blank one. Instead, his emotional aura exudes sadness, leading many to interpret his expression as a sad one.

Scion's appearance is specially crafted to fit within human values, shaped to resemble certain deity figures within the most widespread religions. His form deliberately doesn't fit within any one race, and the golden tint and texture of his skin and hair are meant to appeal to the human worship of gold.

Initially upon his arrival, Scion was naked, displaying a perfectly respectable human form with no modifications, other then the aforementioned coloration. He is stated to be uncircumcised and well-endowed enough that late-night TV hosts aren't able to make fun of him. After their first meeting, Kevin Norton later began outfitting Scion with clothing, first with a sheet worn over one shoulder and pinned at either side of the waist, then with more conventional clothes. By 1999, Scion was dressed in a white bodysuit extending to his biceps and toes. He didn't have shoes or gloves, but his costume did include a plain white cape. His clothing was often stained with blood and dirt, but would slowly but surely clean itself over time, causing the stains to fade as dirt and particles were pushed out of the fabric.

During Gold Morning, Scion's appearance became less and less flawless. As he killed and destroyed, smoke and blood stained his costume and found its way into the crevices of his body, with Scion's cleaning light being unable to render his body as pristine as it should have. His expression also changed for the first time, expressing annoyance at one point and later contorting in a scream to show his anger and pain.

Abilities and Powers
After sacrificing the majority of his shards to seek out hosts, Scion retains only his most essential shards. Even so, Scion has a vast array of powers, and is considered the most powerful individual in the world. He is capable of easily killing even the Endbringers if he puts his mind to it, and is practically invulnerable to all forms of attack.

Stilling
Scion's primary ability is the power to negate any kind of wavelength using manifestations of golden light. This effect is extremely versatile, and can be used to cancel heat and sound, disintegrate molecular bonds, slow or stop motion, and negate the effects of virtually any parahuman ability. At its deadliest, Scion's stilling can simply stop all bodily functions in a human, killing them instantly. Scion's light can be fired as beams, orbs, or area bursts, and can be used as a force field or transmitted by touch. Essentially, he can shape his light into any form he wishes. All of Scion's stilling effects are completely silent, including his movements and his attacks.

Scion's offensive blasts range greatly in power, from pencil-thin cutting beams to continent-destroying blasts. These blasts have practically infinite range and perfect accuracy. The detrimental effects of Scion's light lingers, continuing to eat away at any damaged targets. This lingering effect can kill a man all on its own. Scion can also use his power defensively, using it to create physical barriers or cancel out the effects of offensive powers. His stilling can also close portals and even stop the Simurgh's song. Finally, Scion's light can have healing abilities, such as when Scion cures a man of cancer or when he uses his light to heal the capes around him upon his arrival in the battle against Behemoth.

When Scion uses his stilling, it disturbs electronics.

Flight
Scion can fly at immense speeds as an application of his aura of golden light. At his fastest, he was able to fly to the other side of the world in less than a minute. When flying, he leaves a brief golden trail in the air.

Senses
Scion can sense everything around him, even when his senses are being deliberately obfuscated. He appears to have control over the range of his senses, and can see into other universes if he chooses. He can also use the senses of parahumans, since they carry his shards.

Super Strength
Scion has superhuman strength, sufficient to lift Behemoth several hundred feet into the air.

Regeneration
Scion's body is only an extension of a vastly larger being, and so cannot sustain any meaningful damage. Any damaged tissue is replaced within a fraction of a second with a practically unlimited supply of undamaged tissue from the main body. This happens so fast, it is almost impossible to tell that he was ever injured. This is an intentional design of Scion's body, one meant to demoralize his opponents.

Power Cancellation
Scion is immune to certain types of powers. His actions cannot be predicted with precognition or clairvoyance, his powers cannot be copied, and powers cannot directly interfere with his mind in any way. In addition, his multiple senses make him very difficult to blind or mislead for any period of time. With stilling, Scion can "tune" his defenses to negate specific powers. He destroyed some of Glaistig Uaine's shadows to such a degree that they were still mending six months after Gold Morning. He can block teleportation.

Precognition
Scion can look forward in time to observe countless possible futures. He can learn what actions he must take to achieve a specific future or goal, similar to Contessa. Unlike Contessa, he can use this power in any situation, but it drains from his lifespan, so he uses it sparingly.

Dimensional Travel
Scion can freely move through alternate universes, doing it as easily as a human might walk. Barriers preventing travel between universes can be broken down by Scion in seconds. If necessary, he can attack objects in multiple universes simultaneously, such as obliterating cliff faces on two different Earths. According to Scapegoat, Scion's blasts on Earth Bet also devastated countless versions of Earth Bet.

Background
Scion is an extension of the Warrior Entity, created as an avatar in order to interact with and better understand the host species, humans. After Scion's creation, he waited for a year to appear on Earth Bet, as planned, before realizing that something had gone wrong. Stepping into Earth Bet, he saw his shards raining down alongside the damaged shards of his counterpart, the Thinker. He destroyed them on sight, and after expanding his perception across the world and other realities, he learned that the Thinker was dead, and realized that he could not complete the cycle. With his simulated human emotions, Scion experienced a deep, profound sadness for the very first time.

In his haze of depression, Scion stayed floating above the Atlantic Ocean for an indeterminate amount of time. On May 20th, 1982, Scion noticed an ocean liner approaching him, marking the first sighting of Scion by humans. He saw one of the Thinker's shards taking root in one of the passengers, Andrew Hawke, and noticed that he was dying of cancer. In order to ensure the shard's safe growth, Scion used his powers to kill the cancer cells, also curing Andrew's sister in the process. Then he turned away from the gathered crowd and flew away.

Scion then spent a period of time wandering the world, observing but never doing anything. As he spent time on earth, numerous theories emerged regarding his origins and nature. One day, in York, England, Scion was approached by a man down on his luck named Kevin Norton. Kevin flew at Scion in a rage, demanding to know what he had to be sad about and telling him to go do something with his power, suggesting that it might help him feel less miserable. Scion considered his words, then decided that it was a role he could fulfill.

Scion proceeded to follow Kevin's instructions: traveling from place to place at supersonic speed without pause, helping people, saving orphans in wars, and stopping fires and natural disasters. After flying past Behemoth to talk to Kevin, Kevin told Scion to also fight the Endbringers and any other monsters like them. Scion would also intervene in certain crisis events, raiding groups and paramilitary groups in Africa and the Middle East, and intervening in the Cold War, which had the potential to kill large numbers of people and prevent shards from finding hosts. However, Scion never prioritized the importance of certain crises, meaning that he could be helping with something relatively unimportant while an Endbringer was attacking a city. The heroes had no way to contact Scion, meaning that they had to simply hope that Scion would notice when they were in a dire situation and intervene.

By the middle of the 1990s, Scion was traveling from crisis to crisis, flying faster than the speed of sound. He would regularly return to Kevin and listen to him, who gave instructions on how to better save people and rambled to Scion about different things. He could be overly literal in interpreting Norton's suggestions, and didn't always follow them to the letter. In 1999, he was given a white bodysuit by Kevin and was told to keep it clean. One day, Scion encountered a woman on a balcony as he was extinguishing widespread fires in Alexandrovsk, Russia. The woman asked what Scion was, to which he replied with his first words: "Zion." The word was remembered from a story Kevin had told him, appealing to Scion because it reminded him of the promised land of a completed cycle. However, after the word was caught on camera and circulated, "Zion" was misinterpreted as "Scion," and soon Scion was the name attributed to him by the public.

Canon Start
Scion appeared at the Battle against Leviathan, and was pivotal in driving the Endbringer away. He projected an aura of disgust upon seeing Eidolon.

Post-Echidna
After getting a chance to see Scion's fights against the Endbringers on the internet, Kevin Norton realized Scion was only fighting the Endbringers, not trying to kill them. When Scion met with Kevin once more along with Lisette, Kevin tried to clarify one of his commands, telling Scion to actually try to kill the Endbringers in order to stop them permanently. Kevin then told Scion he was dying of hepatitis, and didn't have long to live. He shifted command of Scion from himself to Lisette. Without any sign of acknowledgement, Scion flew away.

During the battle against Behemoth in New Delhi, Scion showed up when it seemed like the heroes were going to lose. Upon his arrival, he healed the damage that Behemoth's radiation did to the defending heroes, then proceeded to fight Behemoth with an intensity not ever seen before. After a very one-sided fight, Scion annihilated Behemoth with one final beam, killing the Endbringer.

After Behemoth's death, the other Endbringers began engaging in hit-and-run tactics, never staying long enough to allow Scion to kill them.

Post-Timeskip
During the final battle against Jack Slash, Scion showed up. His presence disrupted Dinah's power, causing problems for the heroes. Scion briefly noted that the shards in the area were very mature, but despaired at the pointlessness of it all due to the cycle having been disrupted. Before he could intervene in the battle, he was stopped from coming closer by Weaver, who flew to intercept him in the air. She convinced him that the situation was delicate, and that he would do more harm than good. Weaver then tried to convince Scion to turn away and go somewhere far away, to no avail. Instead, Scion observed the fight between Jack Slash and Golem below, then the Harbinger clones. After multiple failed attempts by Weaver to move Scion away and obscure his vision, Scion turned his attention back to Jack Slash and Golem. It was then that he was trapped in a time loop by Gray Boy. Scion was unfazed by this development, continuing to watch the fighting. He saw the Harbinger clones being defeated and taken in by Number Man and Contessa, then saw Jack Slash become looped by Gray Boy.

While the heroes thought that they had won, Jack Slash talked under the containment foam that covered him, audible to Scion's omniscient senses. He criticized Scion for being a "blank slate," and asked why Scion performed good deeds instead of reverting to violence and predation, something inherent in the ancestors of humans and entities alike. While Tattletale caught onto what was going on, dispatching people to try and drown out Jack Slash's speech, it did nothing to prevent Scion from hearing. When Lisette, brought in from a Dragoncraft as a last ditch effort, told Scion to turn away, he did, breaking through Gray Boy's time bubble with ease. He ignored Lisette's further attempts to talk with him, flying away until he was above the Atlantic Ocean. Above the ocean, Scion introspected. He thought about how the acts of heroism he'd been performing for so many years had brought him no joy. He looked into possible futures, such as one where Jack Slash had died and hadn't talked to Scion, and saw that he himself had eventually came to the same conclusion regardless. Coming to a decision, Scion resolved to begin experimenting with another course of action. Aiming at Kevin Norton's birthplace, Scion fired a beam and annihilated the United Kingdom.

The Beginning of the End
After destroying the United Kingdom, Scion fired a blast that devastated the eastern coastline of Canada and the United States. Scion found satisfaction in destroying things, and soon embarked on a rampage through Earth Bet. He followed a very specific formula, specifically reversing the good deeds that he had started with during his first years as a hero. One attack was on Mali, targeting and killing only those that had reached puberty. This left an approximate four hundred and thirty thousand orphans, reversing his directive of saving children. In Russia, Scion started fires where he had once stopped them, cutting off escape routes and creating large rings of fire that encroached inwards and cooked anyone within. He killed any heroes that tried to stop him. Soon after, Japan was hit, with an estimated 22 million dead, raising Scion's total kill count to around 500 million.

Parahuman Retaliation
Following Scion's initial attacks, a parahuman response was organized against him. The first clash against Scion was during the Oil Rig Battle. During the battle, Scion was hit by String Theory's G-driver, which launched him out of the atmosphere. He returned unscathed, however, and attacked the gathered parahumans with a powerful golden glow that devastated almost all of the parahumans on the oil rig. Soon, Eidolon and Glaistig Uaine were the only ones that were truly fighting Scion. The three duked it out, with Scion chasing the other two across multiple earths. Then, Scion used his path to victory ability to utter four words to Eidolon, which led Eidolon to realize that he had created the Endbringers. This devastated Eidolon, causing him to give up and let Scion kill him. Glaistig Uaine retreated, and Scion won the battle.

By the time Weaver recovered from the oil rig battle, Scion had killed about half of the population of Earth Bet, and had started traveling between different earths in order to hit major population centers. After attacking Earth Samech, Scion traveled to the settlement on Earth Gimel, destroying two of Dragon's ships and their occupants. He then engaged with the parahumans gathered at the settlement, slaughtering many of them. Then the Simurgh along with various other reinforcements came in. After a short-lived battle with the reinforcements, including Gavel, Scion seized both King of Cups and Queen of Swords, and forced King of Cups to watch as he slowly crushed Queen of Swords' head into the ground. King of Cups second triggered, and Scion patiently waited as the capes around him experienced trigger visions, trigger visions specifically meant to drive in how pointless fighting him was. Then, after being attacked by the newly empowered King of Cups, Scion killed the man with ease. Scion clashed some more with the reinforcements, including the Simurgh and Lung, but after a second wave of reinforcements arrived, Scion disappeared to pursue other targets. One of these subsequent targets was Earth Dalet, where Scion's attacks steadily became more and more ugly and sadistic.

Attack on Cauldron
Eventually, Scion used precognition to follow a path that led to reuniting with Eden. This led him to the Cauldron Compound, where he took his time rampaging through the individual levels to destroy the Case 53s, which he saw as abhorrent. Then he came across a room full of Cauldron vials, and sensed the signature of his partner's shards within them. He destroyed them all at once, shattering them all, then moved on into a huge, hangar-like room. He arrived to find Eden's body, having not anticipated the possibility that what he would find was her braindead, gutted corpse. Shocked, bewildered, and saddened by the sight of his partner in such a state, Scion began destroying the body, uprooting the entirety of Eden's corpse and disintegrating it with his golden light. Throughout the process, Scion lashed out in anger, destroying sections of the hangar containing the body. With the combined efforts of Sveta, Number Man, and Alexandria, the parahumans at the scene were able to collapse the entire hangar onto Scion and escape from his wrath.

Rise of Khepri
One of the penultimate conflicts took place on Earth He, and was between Scion, Khonsu, and Leviathan, the latter of which was given mechanical upgrades by the Simurgh. Scion's final battle with humanity began when Khepri rose to face him. Scion had been fighting the faltering resistance of parahumans and Dragon suits when Khepri came in, having consolidated an army of about three-thousand parahumans. After taking control of Glaistig Uaine and the rest of the defending parahumans, increasing her force to five-thousand, Khepri engaged Scion, starting off by throwing Ash Beast at him. With Khepri's control and coordination, and Doormaker's portals, it became considerably more difficult for Scion to fight the defending army of parahumans.

After being locked on an earth with the help of one of Teacher's devices, Scion was bombarded with bombs from every single earth, including nuclear bombs. He escaped from the dimension, but briefly lost track of Khepri's army before finding them again. Using his precognition, he dodged a devastating ranged attack coordinated by Number Man, retaliating with a blast that killed nearly thirty capes, including Lady Photon and Revel. Throughout the battle with Khepri, Scion became increasingly frustrated, screaming louder and attacking in broader, unfocused ways. His attacks were largely ineffectual, with capes being portaled away before he could reach them, and the fact that Khepri used different methods of attack every time meant he couldn't tune his defenses accurately, forcing him to be defensive. At the peak of his frustration, he activated his path to victory. First, he feinted, releasing a golden light which penetrated transparent forcefields and melted the flesh of the surrounding capes. He then unleashed the true attack, a powerful stilling clap that instantly stopped the bodily functions of every cape in his vicinity.

Scion was baited into another earth that was closed off by Alexandria using Teacher's device. He was subjected to another barrage of explosives, and had to rip Alexandria into pieces before escaping the closed off world. Furious, Scion came at Khepri, destroying two continents on two different worlds on his way toward her. Khepri avoided him using Sifara, using him to transport her army en masse across dimensions. Khepri consolidated her tinkers, using their combined intellect to create a house-sized weapon that was meant to target Scion's main body. The dimension that housed this body, however, was tightly sealed off, and the machine was unable to attack it. Scion, using his path to victory once more, started a collision course straight for Khepri, bowling through the capes that Khepri set in his way and easily destroying a razor blade trap that was charged by Foil's power. Scion reached Khepri, and rather than killing her outright, began choking her with his bare hands, wanting her to show fear. The Undersiders tried to defend her, and Scion noticed, bringing Khepri over to where the Undersiders were to kill them in front of her. As Scion prepared to kill Rachel, Khepri unleashed a desperate attack from every cape she had available, unexpectedly hitting him due to the omission of Foil, who Scion had set up contingencies against. Leveraging the distraction, Khepri drove Scion out of the building the Undersiders were in.

Attempting to keep Scion distracted, Khepri continued to throw her forces at Scion. She then constructed another weapon with her tinkers, using it, Sundancer's sun, and Chevalier's cannonblade to attack Scion. This attack gave the Endbringers an opening, with the Simurgh, Leviathan, Bohu, and Tohu coming in to engage with Scion. Then, as Khepri prepared another attack, a simulacrum of a third entity began forming, formed out of Bastard's body through the power of Panacea, Lab Rat's formula, and the coordination of Tattletale. Scion fought through the Endbringers to get to the apparent entity, shocked and bewildered by this new appearance. As he reached out to touch it, he realized it was fake, causing him to let out a scream of maddened sorrow. He lashed out, destroying the shelf of land underneath New Brockton, the destruction of which was only prevented by intervention from Ziggurat's power. Scion went on to deal massive damage to other worlds, no longer holding back. On Earth Gimel, he fought the Endbringers with a renewed viciousness, tearing into Leviathan. With one last sphere of golden light, he killed Leviathan by hitting his core. He then destroyed a fake version of the Simurgh and moved on to Earth Bet, New York, where the final battle began.

Scion's Death
After Doormaker's shard ran out of power, Khepri reconsolidated a small part of her army, including Scrub and Labyrinth, who served as her new method of creating portals. Taking the cue from seeing the simulated entity and Scion's reaction to it, Khepri began a psychological assault on Scion, using projection capes and the changers that were under her control along with Labyrinth's power to imitate the body of Eden. The city slowly turned into a garden of body parts, with the changers altering themselves into avatars of Eden and other similar entities. Scion reacted violently to these imitations, trying to destroy them on sight. The other capes that weren't under Khepri's control caught on to this, and nearly every cape that could contribute to the effort began doing so.

Soon, Scion was being haunted by reminders of his dead partner at every corner, with the imitations that represented third entities seeming to bother him even more. He began spending more time trying to destroy the landscape around him more than the parahumans fighting against him. With his mind still immature and his grief over his partner still raw, Scion's rage steadily turned into a sort of panic, forced to confront the source of his sorrow. Then, after the Simurgh joined in on the effort, shaping clouds of dust to create imitations that loomed over Scion, he finally snapped, releasing a omnidirectional scouring light that passed through portals and annihilated all matter that it touched.

When the light had faded, Scion was still curled in on himself. More attempts to torment him with imitations formed by Genesis's projection and Khepri's bugs were only met with minimal retaliation. Then, Oliver was brought in, whose power was the same one that allowed Eden to create her avatar. To Scion, Oliver registered the same as his dead partner. Scion allowed himself to feel true hope, just for a moment. When that hope died, Scion gave up. As he was impaled by two bolts affected by Foil's power, he offered no resistance. Using Scion as a portal to his main body, Khepri aimed the collaborative tinker weapon into him, firing until Scion's body was completely destroyed. Scion was dead.

Quotes

 * "You needed worthy opponents."

Trivia

 * The idea of Scion having a true name (Zion) was hinted at by Wildbow in a reply in the comments of Interlude 1.x.
 * Scion's role in the story was largely unchanged from how his character was originally conceived.