- Location
- Oregon, USA
That last line....
Abaddon Born(e) - (Worm CYOA)
- Thread starter PublicLee S.
- Start date
- Status
- Location
- Wonderland
Each stop Leviathan decides to pull out is terrifying. Good thing that costume cut things off.
craziness
to 'see'
in charge
3/4ths
construct's
incredible
(add period)
I have to say that this line is an amazing demonstration of how much Vejovis was fighting to just survive, and was a good way to loss against a such a beast
I wonder what he gonna do in relation to Tagg and The Fallen (damn cultists)
Last edited:
True, but shooting him with the own tail was must be so damn worth the broken body
- Location
- Germany
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I was arguing that the MC were dead if Levi weren't playing.
- Location
- Oregon, USA
Notice how Levi held back more when there were other witnesses. That was because if people saw Levi going after one person specifically, then everyone would think that person was really powerful/important, and then wonder why Leviathan wasn't putting the same amount of effort into going after others.
Like Eidolon.
And that can't do at all, now can it?
Like Eidolon.
And that can't do at all, now can it?
Yeah, can't argue with with that, Levi and the others EB are in their own league
- Location
- United States of America
Music for the First section:
And the second section:
And the second section:
Deadline 12.Z
- Location
- United States of America
Deadline 12.Z
He was many, he was one, he was Gnomon. Present throughout the city, his hundred eyes watched over a thousand fighters, while staying unseen himself. It was obvious that his power was affecting his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to care. If anything, he found comfort in it. He was spread out across the city, watching, waiting for the right moment. Leviathan had torn apart his body, but he had more, so many more.
He couldn't stand against the Endbringer alone, but he wasn't alone. He would never be alone again, no matter what the gaping, bleeding wound that was his heart told him.
It was a nice thought, but even thirty of him wouldn't do more than distract that monster. There were more of him out there than that, a lot more, but they were spread out, ready to help if need be. They watched those who had no one to watch themselves, helping where he could. Sometimes it was simple, calling to someone so she saw a clone forming behind them, or bumped into someone so she stumbled, a water spike missing her, gone before she could turn around. Sometimes it wasn't. He couldn't stand up to Leviathan, but a dozen of him could delay a clone long enough for her to get away, or to blast it to pieces. They weren't her, but it helped.
While he didn't have one of the armbands that those in charge seemed to have, twenty-six of him where close enough to hear them as they chimed across the city.
"Rabble Rouser down, DF-4. Roll-Out deceased, BC-1. Geomancer down, AC-2. Awe down, CD-2. Shock deceased, CD-2. Sanitizer deceased, FF-3. Visage deceased, BF-4. Dire down, FD-2. Camp-"
There were dozens of him, but it only helped slow down the losses, not stop them entirely. Leviathan was the worst threat, but his creations were just as deadly, and in more places than even Gnomon was. He knew he shouldn't blame himself. This was an Endbringer fight, damnit. People died in them, and it wasn't his fault.
It didn't stop the guilt.
Nothing truly did, but he was here, he could help, and so he did. He kept an eye on the younger ones. The Wards, the villains, and everyone in-between.
"Dude, what the hell!" Clockblocker cried as Kid Win was teleported in by Strider, along with several other parahumans. They all looked hurt, but ready to fight. Half of the Tinker's leg was made of glowing white light, through which the rain fell as if it weren't there.
"Couldn't leave you to try to handle this alone," the injured Ward replied, wincing behind his visor. "This'll last for a few hours, and I've still got some tricks if we need them."
Two of the other reinforcements had similar glowing limbs, a woman in red and blue had a glowing hand, while an older man in blue and green had his left arm, left leg, and part of his side replaced.
Miss Militia walked over to the Ward and told him comfortingly, "He wouldn't've been alone."
The Ward's smile dimmed, but he nodded in agreement, "I know, but I can't help if I'm stuck in bed, and from what everyone's saying, things are bad." He shrugged, looking to his teammate. "What kind of friend would I be if I left you here alone?"
Gnomon unmade the him that was watching, its presence unneeded, looking out across the city with the other hims. Leviathan clones were running rampant through the city. They were destroyed, but more replaced them soon enough. Every one destroyed was a setback, everyone they killed was a loss.
"Solar down, ED-5. Thunderer deceased, BD-6. Odd Man Out deceased, EC-3. BFG deceased, CD-5. Ale-"
A third of the groups were staying where they'd been assigned. Some were hiding, some recovering, and some standing their ground. Some had taken heavy losses, the bodies of the dead littering the ground around them, while others seemed practically untouched. One group could barely be seen inside a bubble of rubble, half of it covered in frozen flame, the other half in frozen water. Several people worked inside to break a section open.
Most of the surviving heroes were on the move, and he moved with them. Legend, Alexandria, and Purity of all people flew together, searching for Leviathan. An orange lightning bolt shot across the city, forming into Eidolon who glanced at Gnomon, a few feet away, and shot off once again.
A glowing group flew high in the air above the flooding streets. "We need to find Vicky!" a blonde woman in white and orange shouted. A man in white and green shook his head, carried in a blood red bubble. "She's doing search and rescue," he shouted back over the storm. "She's safer than she would be with us!"
A group of seven capes raced through the city, led by a woman with pure black wings. Behind her followed a woman made of blue electricity who seemed to float through the air at high speed, a grotesquely muscled man who moved in ponderous leaps, a slender man in red who bounded easily, a woman in grey who was riding a horse-sized cat made of ash, a woman with a circuit patterned costume who blurred as she zipped from place to pace, and a bird headed metallic man who flew behind them all. "Are you sure Leviathan's this way?" the circuit-covered woman -Battery, Gnomon remembered, though it took him a moment and he had to throw himself in the path of a water spear to stop it from impaling a girl in a dress and porcelain mask, the moment of inattention almost keeping him from saving her- demanded.
The man in red shrugged. "It's where he was. He'll either come back after people chased him 'off', or we'll save some people. Either way's a win, Puppy."
"Puppy?" the woman on the smoldering cat laughed. "That fits. She seems like a bitc-"
"You shouldn't be talking nicknames, Ash-hole," the man in red snapped, his unconcerned mask slipping for a moment.
The electric woman cackled as she crackled, "He's got ya there, Ash. But come on, there's no need to be Mad. . . Cap!" she chided with a mock salute. "Still can't believe you weren't Caged!"
"We can talk later!" the fallen angel in front called, spotting another him down the street. He pointed behind the group, where a Levi-clone had formed and was stalking them. "We have foes to fight!"
The group followed the woman's lead as they turned to face their follower, who'd leapt towards them, knowing it'd been found out. They moved as one, except for Battery, who lagged a moment behind, as they met it and destroyed it in an instant. The leader gave Gnomon a nod of thanks as he unmade himself, already busy elsewhere.
Some were hunting, some were trying to rescue the injured, but most of the groups seemed to be trying to gather together, hoping for strength in numbers. Gnomon didn't know if that would work, but he had to agree with the idea. It was all he had left.
"Escutcheon deceased, DC-4. Boytoy deceased, DC-4. Fulguress deceased, DC-4. Miceal deceased, DC-4. Fierceling decea-"
That many fallen meant it was likely Leviathan itself, and there wasn't anything he could do there. He moved, trying to stop deaths, but while he could save them two times out of three, it wasn't enough. A girl, maybe fourteen, who'd been alone now laid dying at his feet. He'd warned her of the first spear, and had blocked the second himself, but there was a third which had pierced her chest. She lay there, her blood mixing with the water of the flooded street, her expression one of despair as the blade she'd been carrying sizzling beside her.
She hadn't been wearing an armband, so he didn't even know her name as she took one gasp, expelling a gurgling breath and going still. Closing her eyes, he looked at the sword. It was still working, so it wasn't power created. That left Tinkertech. Using a Tinker's gear without knowing what it did was a good way to get yourself killed, but he'd already died a hundred times today.
Picking it up, the blade's glowing white edge dimmed to a shining blue, the color of a clear sky. The next him he made had the same blade, as did the one after that. It took a moment for him all to have it, and two of him jumped a Leviathan clone with them. It wasn't enough to stop it, but those two did more damage then the twelve of him had before.
"Faker deceased, DC-4. Chubster deceased, DC-4. Azazel deceased, DC-4. Mutate deceased, DC-4. Tur-"
He wasn't there, but he'd gotten a sense of what the letters meant, though the numbers seemed arbitrary. Before, he would've only been a distraction. Someone might've tried to save him, only to get killed themselves. Now, he might be able to help. Making a him there, there was a crash that drowned out even the thunder going off around them, and the him there died instantly.
All across the city, Leviathan's constructs lost cohesion, water spears turning into strong sprays, clones falling apart, and the rain slackened off, though only for a moment. The clones were torn apart as they tried to reform, the rain started again, and the spears started to form before dropping with the rest of the rain, their targets now aware of their presence.
Making another himself near where the last one had died, he found a scene of total devastation. Buildings were torn apart, the street was barely recognizable, and bits of bodies were everywhere. The shadowed room he'd made himself in before was gone, as was the rest of the building. A slight movement came from one of the more intact bodies, the pure white and blood red costume seemingly untouched by the mud, grime, and blood that painted everything.
"Vejovis down, DC-4," Armbands spoke, and a dark, inhuman figure descended down from above, forming into a person as it carefully tried to pick up the sole survivor, whose costume deformed in ways a human body shouldn't.
The person leapt into the air and didn't come down, moving west, towards the medical area, though Gnomon didn't think it would help. While the body still had a humanoid form, the costume had moved in ways a human body shouldn't.
The rain strengthened, falling even harder, and more clones then ever formed, assaulting every group. Some held fast, some ran. A lot of them died.
A group that seemed lit from an unseen light above them was fighting off seven clones when a water spear arrowed down and struck a man in white robes who chanting in the center. He died and the glow cut out like burnt out light bulb. They group broke in an instant, some charging forward while others ran. No longer unified, even those who tried to stand their ground died.
"Cloister deceased, BF-3. Barrager, BF-3. Gentle Giant deceased, BF-3. Lagann down, BF-3. Apotheosis deceased, BF-3. Dr. De-"
The suddenness of the change surprised him. Cloister must've been a Master, for his death to have that much of an effect. Other groups were under attack, holding better, their numbers letting them fend off the sudden attacks.
One group sped through the streets, all of them sliding over the ground like it was ice, a golden dome in the center carrying injured as over a dozen Levi clones chased them through rain-slicked streets.
Another group of forty was starting to fail, more and more clones forming around them instead of near the other groups, sensing weakness. Water spears firing downwards from above only to be countered by the shots of a trio of parahumans. A man in a golden suit rested his hands on the shoulders of two other as golden light streamed from him into them. The woman to his left held a canon that fired glowing green distortions that blew apart the spears, while the man to his right fired a pair of pistols that intercepted the spears that she missed.
Dozens of Levi clones attacked from around them, pushing them ever backwards. A group of five were cut off from the rest: A man in white armor with a golden lion helmet, a large Italian man, and three identical women. Three thirty foot tall clones surrounded them, one darting forward and gutting one of the women, who vanished in a flash of light. Another one struck for the lion man, the Italian man stepping in the way, taking the clones strike on his crossed arms with a grunt of pain, the clones water claws somehow not piercing his skin.
A man wielding a katana teleported behind one of the clones, beheading it as he said, "Nothing perso-" only for the headless clone to turn and rip him to pieces.
"Regicide deceased, DD-6."
The lion helmed man roared, his voice blasting the clone towards the main group, only to be blasted to pieces by a ten-foot-tall case 53 whose body was made of stone, shot through with lava. Two more clones took its place, while a third moved to attack the rock-man, stopping him from helping the four people left.
The clones attacked as one, the Italian map grappling one while the other two attacked. Lion man blasted his own backwards as the two women tried to fight off their attacker to little effect, their strikes doing nothing. The second woman popped while the third almost dodged out of the way, the water claw cutting a gouging out her flesh from should to her hip in a spurt of blood. She screamed and staggered, unable to block the follow up blow as the clone's tail shot forward to impale her.
"Circulum Vitae deceased, DD-6. Prism down, DD-6. Irn Bro down, DD-6."
The instant before it struck, lion man stepped in front of her, grabbing the clone's tail and trying to hold it back. It pressed downwards, digging through his armor into his chest as he slowly overpowered. Behind them two clones had teamed up on the Italian man with the impenetrable skin. One held him as the other shoved a watery, clawed hand down his throat, the man struggles quickly stopping as he went limp. When it removed its claw, the liquid was dark with blood.
"Lucas Caglioni deceased, DD-6. Full Metal Jacket down, DD-6."
The two other clones turned to the pair of survivors, the woman desperately spraying something on her wound as the man was slowly impaled, forced to his knees.
"Fiddler's Green deceased, DD-6. Triumph down, DD-6. Max-imum deceased, DD-6."
The two clones started to move towards the lion man when Gnomon moved, having made enough hims to make a difference. One or two wouldn't help, it was only working together that he wouldn't fail. Again.
Dozens ran from the alleys, jumped through darkened windows, and fell down from rooftops, all with blazing blue swords. Attacking the Clones from behind, the distraction gave the defenders the opportunity to strike back, blasting the clones to droplets as they did so.
Four hims attacked each of the clones. The first him blocked the left claws, the second the right, while the third launched the fourth him high into the air. The clones' tails struck out in unison, only to be met by the fourths' swords which cut through them as if they weren't there. The third him of each pair cut off the clone's right arm before stepping forward and taking the right leg while the second, now free to move, cut off the left claw, turning grabbing the first and throwing them upwards.
The fourth of each pair came down dead center of their clone, cutting it in half while the third leapt upwards, cutting the right half in half once more, the first copying the third's movement for the left side of each clone, and the second removing the Leviathan clone's left leg, causing both clones to dissolve in unison, unable to keep together when cut into eight separate parts.
Simultaneously, five more Gnomons charged the clone who had impaled the lion man. The first sliced the tail, causing it to lose form and catching the golden-helmed hero as he stumbled forward, the force pushing him back gone. The other four swarmed the clone, dispersing it as well.
The Leviathan clones, finding themselves fighting a force nearly twice that of what they were a moment ago, fought to the last but did not reform there, the clones that pulled themselves out of the water a block away moving off to attack others throughout the city. The defenders gave a ragged cheer as Gnomon helped the two hurt parahumans back to the main group.
A woman in power armor approached one of him as she looked around at those gathered. "Thanks for the assist. I'm Reboot. We've got medivac coming, could you stay until they get here?" she asked.
He started to answer, but without Leviathan's forces concentrated here, the hims across the city were having trouble keeping up with the Endbringers creations even to the low-level he had been before. He started to unmake the ones here to re-make them where they could do more good. He didn't know if he had a limit, but there more of him there were the harder it was for him to handle. He shook his head, "Others to help."
Reboot's shoulder's dropped a bit and she laughed. Even processed through her armor the resignation came through clearly. "I understand, can I at least have your name?"
"Gnomon," he told her, unmaking all but the one hiding nearby, in case more hims were needed here again.
"No one?" she asked the space he'd just been in, shaking her head. "Strangers."
He considered correcting her, but he wasn't doing this for the reputation. Before he would've made sure those he saved knew who he was, how strong he was, how they owed him, and to spread what he'd done. Now, it would just be wasted effort. After all, his reason for needing a reputation was gone, and part of him wished he'd gone with her.
Joe Shotgun was a simple man, with simple powers, and simple ambitions. He'd been workin' as a mechanic down in god's country, far enough away from Clarksville that they shouldn't have to deal with the ugliness that ran through it, but that hadn't been enough. A couple o' common criminals had come through, killed Eddie, and decided they were in charge.
Eddie hadn't done nothin' wrong, guy could just talk to plants so he was the local 'hero'. Didn't want to hurt nobody, bless his heart, but with him gone there weren't nobody who could stop them. Things had gotten. . . bad. One of them could turn to wind, and she liked ta play with people, suffocatin' them slow-like over the course o' hours. The second was a crack shot, could take the wings off a fly half a field away, and liked ta graze people. The third. . . Joe still didn't like to think about her.
He'd asked for help, they all had, but no one came. They were a little town, barely two thousand people, and no one seemed to care. Those three had run roughshod over everything, and everything had gotten worse, until they'd taken Joe's brother. Holdin' his body after they were done. . . sometimes a man's gotta do things himself, and if ya got a problem ya can't shoot, sometimes you just need a better bullet.
And by god did Joe have a better bullet. Dozens upon dozens of 'em, usin' things that had no earthly right to be in ammo, but Joe made 'em work. He hadn't the foggiest on how he could turn corn into something that could create a tornado, but the look on that poor excuse for a woman's face had been priceless. The sharpshooter had been a bit trouble, and the last one, what she'd turned into. . .
Joe'd won that day, avenged his brother and his neighbors, and the scars he'd picked up didn't bother him at all. He'd just wished he coulda done so sooner, but you dealt the hand you were played, ya didn't whine about the one you wished ya got. When asked what his 'name' was, he'd tried to just use his name. It's what his Pa gave 'im, and it wasn't like he had anyone left to worry 'bout. He'd been told that wasn't allowed, for some dumb Yankee reason, and 'Joe Schmo' was already taken, so he'd gone by 'Joe Shotgun'.
It'd fit, as you could get a lot more creative-like with a shell then a round, and that just made his holdout pistols a mighty fine surprise for the next poor soul who'd try to roll in like he'd owned the place. The government had pitched a fit when he'd put down that dog, but Joe didn't rightly care. Things had been good for a bit, he'd had more than enough time to get better, the bounty off those four'd been enough to let him make a lot of 'just in case' shells. He'd even had a thing going on with Caroline, but nothin' serious. Maybe in a few years, but he wasn't dumb. He knew how things ended up for capes, and didn't to make any more winders than the town already had.
It'd been about time for one of those big fellas to show up, and he'd made some plans for this. The ones he'd made for the big guy probably wouldn't work, but the Blindsiding Shots'd probably make that winged girl think twice. Leviathan though, he'd had more than a few ideas. Half of 'em weren't ready when the call came, but you didn't get to put off Game Day, and he couldn't rightly stay home and call himself a man.
So here he was, far away from his stompin' grounds, in the poundin' rain, shootin' uppity waves and trying to keep the people 'round him alive. He'd been glad he'd brought the sack of rounds, even if he'd gotten weird looks for wearin' a hikin' pack in an Endbringer fight. The look that one lady had had when she tried to tell him a shotgun wasn't gonna do nuthin' only for him to blast a water monster to bits with a blast o' fire as big around as a truck was the high point of his day so far, and he'd only had to restock his belts twice.
The group he'd been with had been hit mighty hard in that first barrage, Joe's counter-shot only protecting himself and the two kids he'd stood beside. They'd carried the injured back to the tents, which'd only been a few minutes away, thank god. The person in charge hadn't made it, so now he and the dozen others that had were waitin' around for someone to tell them what to do, and he was fixin' to go out on his own if they didn't get their marching orders soon. He didn't know a lot 'bout Endbringer fights, but from what he'd heard there was supposed to be fightin' a single thing. From the flashes of light, sounds, and hearin' the losses from the speakers, that wasn't happening.
As if called, a woman flew down to their group from above, covered in damp grime which glowed like the cinders of a dyin' summer fire. "We're putting together a rescue group, who's up for it?"
Joe stepped forward, "I am, ma'am. Goin' stir crazy waiting for somethin' to do, if I'm bein' honest."
The woman's eyes flicked to his arm. Not seeing one of the armbands the more 'famous' heroes got, she nodded, giving him directions. "Anyone else?" she called, looking around. When the others refused to meet her eyes, she gave a snort of disgust and took off, leaving a trail of wet, dark dust.
Joe couldn't blame 'em, that first hit'd been bad, and hearin' the death toll on the walk over hadn't been much fun. He left them behind, hopin' they stayed safe, finding a group of fourteen capes at the edge of the tents, most of 'em lookin' as nervous as he felt.
A nerdy lookin' fellah walked over to Joe, offering his hand. Joe took it, stiffening as he suddenly felt the others' presences in his mind. "Wha?" he asked, not sure what to do.
"Name's Crowdsource, I'm a Thinker that specializes in team cohesion and performance, If I could know your name and power I'll help find where you could help us the most in this endeavor, as my power works better the more I know about you, but it isn't permanent or anything so you don't need to worry about it, and, I mean, my power's teamwork, it's not like I could do anything bad with that anyways," the other man said in a long rush, leading Joe to wonder if he also had super-breathing.
"Joe shotgun, Ammo Tinker," he replied, lifting his shotgun to show the Thinker.
"Short or long range blaster?" Crowdsource asked, looking Joe over closely.
He shrugged, "Both. Got all sort o' shells, dependin' on what's needed."
"Guard then," the thin man nodded to himself, turning his back on Joe and walking back to two other capes who'd been watching them: A gal in a black bodysuit and a laid-back looking guy in a suit that'd fit Nashville more than a battlefield. Number 1 & Playmaker, Precog fighter & Plan Thinker, he suddenly knew, though he had no earthly way of doin' so.
Chocking it up to Thinker weirdness, he looked around the group, learning who they were. Slurpy (ice spit), Staccato (vibration Tinker) Agent (physical enhancement), Overlady (minion creation), Redirect (projectile teleportation), Ark (safe zone creation), Metro (mass movement) Candelabra (candle projectiles), & Pretty Pretty Princess (RAINBOWS).
Joe had to stop at the last one, as he stared at the last one of their group, who was a six-foot two guy that could double as sasquatch wearing a frilly pink dress and holding a ribboned wand with a star at the end. Takes all kinds, Joe thought as someone not in the group approached him. It was a young guy, who, when he got close, seemed to be covered in tiny, overlapping force fields.
"You're going out too?" the kid asked him. When he nodded the kid said, "Cool, I'm Foreskin!"
". . . You're what?" Joe asked. He'd heard of some odd names but. . .
"I'm Forceskin," the kid repeated. "Because I can erect a field of Force over people's skin. See?"
Before Joe could do more than blink, the kid had reached forward and tapped him on the chest, some of the forcefields flowing off the kid's arm and onto Joe's shirt, where they started multiplying quickly. "They only last for about ten minutes, but I've been giving them out to the rescue teams. Come find me when you get back so I can harden you back up!"
Joe blinked, watching as the kid went to introduce himself to someone else. For the life of him, he couldn't tell if the kid'd been fuckin' with him or not. Checking out the armor he'd been given, he could reach through it to grab a shell of his belt, but when he went to tap it to test it his fingers bounced off with a sound like he was tapping two rocks together. "Well I'll be," he muttered to himself.
He felt another member of their group approaching, looking up to see the dirty woman who'd asked him if he wanted to join, Cinereal (Ash & Fire powers), fly down to them, followed by an Asian chick that seemed to be carried by a tiny twister. Crowdsource talked to her, and Joe knew that she was Jufeng (air vortexes), and a guy who'd jogged after the pair was 86er (dissolving touch).
Forceskin did his thing before heading back inside and Cinereal strode to the center of the group, commanding them to "Gather!" Joe could feel a gentle pressure to do just that. He wasn't controlled, directly, but he got the oddest sense he'd be letting his teammates down if he didn't.
He snorted, walking over, as he didn't even have teammates, but if that's how Crowdsource got people to work together, it was good to know it. Their leader looked around them and opened her mouth to speak, an explosion of water to the west cut her off as the Armband started to read off names.
"Liger deceased, CB-4. Chill Out deceased, CB-4. Woodsman deceased, CB-4. Pipelay-"
"Metro, move us, we'll talk on route," she commanded. The man in question, covered in bulky metal armor, stamped his feet and a lime green glow sprang up around the group's legs. They all started sliding along the ground out into the city, individuals weaving back and forth until they formed a rough rectangle, quickly picking up speed. It was almost like riding a train, except he didn't feel like falling over while he was standing.
Cinereal took off into the air, Jufeng following, and the pair kept pace with them from above. "We're doing search and rescue. Out job isn't to fight Leviathan, but get those who need it medical aid. If you run off, you're on your own. Am I understood?"
Joe didn't need the prompting to reply, "Understood!" in concert with all the others, turning to look out at the city as they picked up speed, flashing by buildings as they slid across the top of the water as if it were solid ground. A pile of debris blocked their way, but they didn't turn or stop. If anything, they went faster.
Trusting in the group, Joe was still surprised to see Candelabra and PPP slide up the ragged edge before disappearing down the other side. Following them over, Joe felt like he was on a roller-coaster. He could feel the momentum, but he was pushed downwards instead of flying off. He accelerated, moving past a few others before he got the feeling he should fire down an alley they were about to pass, or he'd let the team down.
Ready to do so, he aimed and pulled the trigger as soon as he was in range. It was good he'd already planned to do so, as there was a water monster mid-leap in that alley, a second away from landin' in the middle of the group. The gun bucked in Joe's practiced hand, the buckshot spreading out, connected by lines of fire that cut the monster to pieces, soaking the group but leaving them unharmed.
He was moved back into position, and he glanced back at the core of Crowdsource, Number 1, and Playmaker, who weren't even looking around, deep in conversation. Joe remembered that Number 1 was a 'precog fighter' and realized that she didn't fight precog, she used precog to fight. The group moved on seamlessly, Candelabra shoving a hand forward and a giant birthday candle appeared before her, the size of a crowbar, and blasted forward, lit end at the back. The flame was like a rocket, and it struck something high in the air before it struck something and exploded into fireworks.
They sped off into the storm, coming to a stop next to a group of capes who looked at them with confusion. "Injured come with us!" Cinereal announced, sounding like a drill sergeant from a movie. "Move it, the longer you take the longer it takes us to get to others!" she stated in a way that suggested she'd be holdin' them personally responsible.
Three capes limped over, and four more were carried. Lime green glows sprung up around them and the group was off again. The worst hurt were gathered together. Ark, leaning down, looked like she was prayin' as a dome of golden-green light sprung up around them. The breathing of the injured seemed to speed up as it evened out, and it took a moment for Joe to see that there was some sorta time effect when one of them rolled over fast enough he should've hurt himself.
Getting the feeling he needed to shoot, he did so, blowing a spike of water that'd been arrowin' down towards Ark with a slug that warped gravity slightly, pullin' things towards it as it increased its own mass. It was completely wasted on the projectile, as his aim was perfect, but it'd become obvious that the three planners could only work with what they knew. Joe thought about explaining his shots, but they were busy enough.
Pretty Pretty Princess, slid to the back of the group, swirling his wand in the air as he boomed "RAINBOW POWER!", a solid beam of prismatic light blastin' outwards and catching a water monster in the chest, blastin' it into a building so hard it splattered. PPP moved back to the front as one of the still standing injured capes, an Asian girl who would've been as old as his brother, stared openly.
"Um. . ." she said trailing off.
"Yeah," Joe agreed, having seen it on the trip to get her. "Takes some gettin' used to."
The group turned down a street, coming to a stop in front of a pile of rubble. Overlady held her hands outwards and small, gremlin looking creatures popped into existence, moving to the rubble along with 86er. The latter touched the rubble, which turned to sand, while the former's minions dug it out. Staccato was working something with a display, while everyone else took up positions around the digging.
Cinreal directed her ash upwards, forming a loose dome that blocked out the rain as it thickened. Part of the dome dented inwards, then another part, then a third before it thickened enough that the rhythmic thumping impacts did nothing more than ring loudly.
As Overlady's minions pulled out the first cape, a bald kid, the Asian girl paled. "Know him?" Joe asked, keeping an eye out. Their precog would spot the danger, but it was good to be sure, just in case. Candelabra lit up a water monster that tried to charge them, and there were flickers of movement down the street that were too high up to be capes.
"Not really," she said, "That's Feint. He's a Ward in Anchorage. Met him once for team training."
The minions moved him to Ark, who made room in her bubble. "Well, he's still breathing. With the grace of God he'll live," Joe told her. As she looked at him, seemingly confused, he offered her his hand. "Names Joe Shotgun, Ammo Tinker."
"Um, Flechette. I shoot things," she replied. At his look she unholstered the device on her back, which unfolded into a crossbow, already loaded and ready to fire. Looking out at the darkness, she aimed at one of the shapes that was hiding behind the buildings and ran an index finger down the exposed, foot long bolt.
It seemed to become more real, though Joe couldn't say why. She shot it, and the bolt pierced through the building as if it weren't there. He suddenly had the impulse to shoot, and did so, catching the water monster as it stumbled out. The cryo-slug froze it solid.
"Can you do that again?" Joe asked, staring at the crossbow. It was a nice little piece of tech, but not nearly as nice as what Flechette was doing with it.
She shrugged, muttering, "Not like I'll run out," and repeated the process, shooting another hidden monster through the building like it was paper. Candelabra got that one, but Joe wasn't paying attention to that, he was too busy thinking about what he'd just seen. He'd gotten ideas watching videos of other capes but this. . .
He fired without thinking when he was prompted, absently reloading as schematics and processes spun through his head. He was going to need a lot of equipment, and materials, and so much Jack that it was practically a sin to not drink it, but he could replicate what he'd just seen. It'd take months of work, easily, but when he was done. . . He had armor piercing rounds, and super-armor piercing rounds, but these would be reality piercing rounds.
It wasn't until he felt himself moving that he realized how much time he wasted cloud-gatherin'. Looking around, Flechette was leaning away from him, looking wary. "My apologies, little miss," he told her, "Just had an idea. It'll take a bit, but I think it'll be good. Thank you."
"You're welcome?" she replied. "I didn't really do any-"
She was cut off an enormous explosion from the north end of the city, Flechette's armband announcing "Paninla down, AA-3."
Reminded where he was, Joe didn't say anything else, keeping an eye out. The rain continued to pound down on them as they moved further west, moving in silence other than PPP's call of "PRETTY PULSE!" or something similar whenever he was called to hit something.
With no attack coming, Joe looked towards the center to see they'd pulled four more capes from the collapsed building, three of them kids like the bald one in purple. He shook his head, wondering what idiot brought kids to this thing. He'd known he was putting his life on the line, knew what he was going to do, and why. At their age? He'd likely have joined just for braggin' rights. Someone shoulda been a parent and told these kids no.
The girl next to him was keepin' it together, but barely, flinchin' somethin' fierce every time he shot an attack down, the monsters comin' in larger numbers. Joe reloaded his shotgun with a new loadout, emptying out his belts, and was wonderin' if he could take off his backpack and re-slot new shells when they turned a corner and he could see the distant light of powers through the storm.
Sliding in, they found a raised semi-bunker made out of bluish-purple forcefields. One end opened up completely, allowing them inside. Dozens of injured were laid out on floating forcefields, some with forcefields covering the stumps of missing limbs. The smell of blood was as thick as the humidity, and the sound of the rain wasn't enough to drown out the moans of pain.
Not getting any direction from Crowdsource, Joe lightly took Flechette's shoulder and moved her to one of the open windows. Despite all the wounded, there were only a dozen heroes manning the defenses. "Let's look out and give anythin' comin' reason to think twice," he suggested.
"Y-yeah. Good idea," the girl agreed, letting herself be moved. The fresh, damp air helpin' her, and the single woman already there glancing over at them, bone spikes at the end of her fingers. She gave them a shaky nod before looking back out into the storm. Taking a clearing breath, Flechette noticed that he'd taken off his backpack and was reloading his belts. "How many of those do you have?" she asked.
"When we started, hundred and thirty-four. Now? eighty-nine, I think." Joe dug around in his bag and considered the single, pure black shell that rested in its own latched case at the very bottom. Shaking his head, he left it there, going with a general loadout. He snorted as he looked at his 'stun' rounds. He'd brought everything he'd made, and those probably wouldn't make those water monsters flinch. Closing it up and tying the bag closed, he slung it back over his shoulders, takin' a guard position as he tried not to look like he was listening while he watched them from the corner of his eye.
"-saying is that there's more here than I can move," Metro said, "not without running them into things!"
"We can take the worst wounded, and be back for the others," Cinereal stated.
A chick that would've looked indecent if it weren't for her forcefields shook her head, the weird horn on her forehead making the slight motion almost exaggerated. "We're waiting for Strider to come back. He'll take the critical ones, and you can take the rest. We'll move to CB-4, and gather the heroes there."
Flechette prodded Joe's arm, pointing out into the dark streets. "What?" he asked, but he could kind of see what she was talking about. Just like before, there were monsters out there, waiting. Before he could say anything, Playmaker yelled, "Narwhal, Shields up!"
She did so, the windows slamming shut as dozens of water spikes came screaming in, more than enough to kill everyone inside. They slammed into the bunker like machine-gun fire. The forcefields started to break, becoming more and more translucent as Joe reading his Shotgun, ready to fire the moment it broke.
With a shattering sound, the shield covering his window did so, Joe getting the feeling he needed to fire the moment before it did, the plasma round firing and expanding outwards as it destroyed the last few water spikes. He didn't have time to pay attention to the others, as behind the spikes were a whole mess of water monsters, all charging the bunker. Joe realized they'd used the barrage as cover, and started firing as fast as he could work the pump-action, openin' up the flood gates, and layin' down destruction in front of him. Flechette tried to help, as did the bone-lady, but it didn't amount to a hill of beans as, suddenly, the water monsters didn't care if they were blasted clean through.
They did care when they were blasted backwards with fire, lightning, Ice, buckshot that grew to the size of cannonballs, and birdshot the had bits of whatever they hit teleported twenty feet away. Unfortunately, his ammo ran out faster then green grass through a goose, and his gun clicked dry as more water monsters leapt from the alleys and streets, charging towards them.
Shimmering forcefields, the same type that made up the bunker, sliced four of 'em in half but they didn't care, just running forward and reforming. He focused on getting loaded as fast as he could, another forcefield springing up and blocking the street, slowin' the monsters down as they battered it to pieces, but not stopping them. He could hear PPP hollerin' 'PRINCESS BLAST', "FRIENDSHIP BEAM', and 'TASTE MY FUCKING RAINBOW! From one side, while there was a wave of heat washed over him from the other, the street they came down to get here an inferno.
The water monsters were almost on them when he lifted the gun, still a few shells short, and unleashed hell once again. The lead monster hit him, its claws stopped by the armor on Joe's chest long enough for his first shot to go off, blowing it to pieces, as well as the two behind him. He took out the newest batch and got the urge to run back and fire in the other direction, but he was out of ammo. Taking his holdout 12 gauge pistol, he threw it to Flechette, tellin' her, "cover there!" instead of doing it himself as he desperately reloaded. He'd be good for a while, but he only had so much ammo.
Ignorin' the feeling that he was letting the team down, he watched her move faster than he could, even with a hurt leg. Leapin' over the injured to get to the window, the guards dead or injured, the gun became more real as she did so. She got in position just as the first monster made it to the window, reaching in to gut her and everyone else, over a dozen more monsters behind her, the ocean behind them.
Firing the pistol flush with her power, his 'oh hell' round went off. More pellets then should've fit sped up faster than any shot had a right to. More than that, they didn't hit and flatten like they were supposed to, but tore through everything in their path as if it weren't even there. The monsters were turned to mist, the road ripped to gravel, and the buildings on either side practically dissolved.
Turning back to his zone, the monsters where almost there before he gave them a face full of super-frozen metal, freezing them and blocking the others before the second round, full of cutting winds, tore 'em all to pieces.
Unloading his entire action, he could see more forming, and sighed. He'd heard these things were bad, but this was goddamn ridiculous. Glancing back, Cinereal had take position next to Flechette, and was covering that street with burnin' ash as well.
More monsters charged, when a crash echoed throughout the city, from the south-center-ish area of the city. More than that, the monsters lost form, the rain cutting off for a moment. They tried to reform themselves, but Joe had more than enough time to reload, takin' 'em all out.
When no more came, Joe let out a long, low whistle of relief. The rain got a bit heavier, but he'd rather be wet than dead. The flames to the west died out like someone threw a switch, the only light in the street once again the forcefield bunker they stood in. Checking his chest, the scales of force were gone in a line across his chest, but the others seemed to still be intact.
"We're all moving," Cinereal declared. "Narwhal, you carry the lightly injured, we'll take the criti-"
There was a pop and a fellah in black and blue popped in, looking around with a low, "Damn. Who do I take?"
Cinereal started to indicate the worst off when Joe, along with everyone else in the group, felt a blaring feeling of danger! Turning to fire, another barrage of spears pounded down, not in waves like before, but all at once. Joe blasted some, as did the others, but a few got few, all heading right for Strider.
A shimmering forcefield sprung up as Narwhal stepped in front of the teleporter, the hits tearing through them and breaking apart the shields covering her chest, the last one digging into her shoulder before it dissolved into a spray of water.
Crowdsource said what Joe was thinking, "They were going for Strider!"
The man in question paled. "Thanks for that," he said, quickly moving over to the heavily injured and disappearing in an instant.
"You alright, Ma'am? Joe asked Narwhal, whose arm was hanging limp.
"I'm fine, she replied, her arm moving up, unnaturally, her own forcefields twisting the limb back and forth as she suppressed a grimace. Moving her arm on her own, she flexed her fingers and turned back to Cinereal. "Same plan as before. Get the rest back, we'll support Bastion's group."
The top of the bunker disappeared, the rain pouring down on them as forcefields appeared beneath the feet of the heroes who'd been guarding it, lifting them up and out, following Narwhal as she flew off into the storm.
"Time to go, straight shot back," Cinereal told Metro, taking to the air herself. More water monsters started to form in the distance as the hero stomped his feet once again, a lime-green glow reappearing underneath their feet and carrying them off the platform and across the flooded street. Joe hurriedly slug his backpack back on as they moved, belts restocked, the bunker fading out of existence behind them.
They'd barely made it two blocks before the monsters attacked. The gunfire from Agent, shots from Flechette's crossbow, and other conventional attacks didn't even stop them anymore, but Joe's group didn't have very many of those. Vortexes of wind and exploding candles blew them to pieces, rainbow beams and blasts of compressed sound knocked them backwards.
The water bolts that got close disappeared, for a moment, reappearing as they were fired straight back at their enemies by Redirect, while the Monsters that closed were met by 86er, whose touch dissolved them, Slurpy, whose spit froze them solid, and Joe Shotgun himself, who blew them away. Overlady created minions from every direction that threw themselves at the Monsters, buyin' the rest of them time as they were torn to bloody pieces.
As they moved, Cinereal left a trail of thick ash, and when the monsters started to come up from behind, the street flashed into flame for an instant, evaporating the watery chasers in an instant. They were making good time, and were in the middle of downtown when they turned a corner only to see a solid wall of water blocking their way, half formed monsters along its length, waiting for them.
The group fired as one, but, before their blasts hit, the rain froze in place in front of them, blocking the shots before it started to fall down again like nothing had happened. The streets to either side were blocked as well, forcing them to retreat. The flooded street behind them started to rise up, but was blasted away before they hit, reaching claws reduced to mist as Metro tried to take them around, turning to find a large wave coming their way, more monsters forming along the top, giant hands grasping in their direction.
They ran again, but it was obvious to Joe what was going on, they were being herded like a fox by water hounds. From the look on Cinereal's face as she looked around, she knew it too. They were forced south-east, away from their destination, and had been running for minutes when they finally could start to make it back, The armbands of a few telling Joe why.
Leviathan's attention was elsewhere.
"Geyser deceased, CB-4. Cruise Control deceased, CB-4.Bastion deceased, CB-4. Garbage Man deceased, CB-4. Fearless Ferret down, CB-4. Derringer deceased, CB-4. Kickstart deceased, CB-4."
Joe wasn't happy others were dying, but if it meant they could get these kids to safety, it'd be worth it. They were still bein' attacked by water monsters and water bolts, but they were making up for lost time. They were back into downtown, just a few blocks from where they'd had to turn back before, when they saw it.
At first he thought it was one of the darker water monster, the kind that moved a bit faster and took a bit more to kill, but the glowing green eyes said otherwise.
It didn't look right, right for how it was supposed to look, that is. Its left arm was thinner than its right, like those comics about guys who spent too long on the internet looking at it instead of going out and getting it. The end of its tail was stubby, not coming to a point but rounded off, like a worm's. Weirdest of all, was that Joe could see through it, a hole'd punched out through its guts, one big enough he could've put his arm through.
It was waiting, bold as brass, as if it had all the time in the world. He could barely hear Cinereal swear over the sound of the thundering storm as he and all the others got the command to fire, opening up with whatever they had.
Joe'd seen clips of Leviathan fightin'. You weren't supposed to have them, but the PRT was supposed to help towns that were being torn apart assholes you couldn't shoot yourself, so Joe hadn't given a damn. He took inspiration from everythin' he saw, and the Endbringers were no different. Leviathan was faster than the others, but he still kinda lumbered. He'd seen it fall, caught, and beat down before managing to slip away while killin' a few heroes.
This Leviathan couldn't trip if the instructions were written on the bottoms of its feet.
It sprang forward, twistin' mid-air 'round a rainbow beam while a water monster came up behind PPP, Jufeng's twister rippin' it apart. Moving in ways that nothing that big had any earthly right to, it dodged Cendelabra's shot and was on Cinereal before Joe could do more than lift his gun, claws piercing her straight through as it leapt over them, the water it left behind forming more monsters as it fell. They were blown to nothing by Joe's Gravity Reversing shot and an invisible cone from Staccato's canon before they could do more than look menacing.
"Cinereal deceased, CC-2. Cinereal up, CC-2," chimed Flechette's armband as the woman exploded up out of some of the ash she'd spread about as they ran, more coming off her in a torrent as she turned to face the Endbringer
Leviathan came again, but this time they were ready. PPP's beam split up into seven different ones, catching the monster in the chest, slowing it down enough for Candelabra to draw down on it, javelin-sized striped missiles impacting him in a stream that knocked it back.
It spun them upwards, turning what should've knocked it on its rear into a jump that carried it over the other shots, its tail lashing out for the golden dome, bouncing off it with a sound like a bell ringing so hard it was liable to break. A bunch of water bolts came down from behind, those that got through Joe & Staccato's blasts disappearing, reappearing as they were shot towards the Endbringer itself.
They turned right around and flew back at us as the monster charged, which was to be expected, and we met it, forcing it back again and again. Leviathan landed after taking a kinetically enhanced slug to the face while Jufeng drilled its chest with a sideways tornado, crouching low and ready to spring back when Flechette got a shot in.
Her bolt didn't glance off like Agent's shots had, but it shot through the Endbringer's knee as effortlessly as it'd gone through stone, forcing the monster to really stumble for the first time since they'd started. The Endbringer froze, the rain freezing in front of it and stopping Candelabra's attacks without it having to move. Its head snapped over to Joe, Flechette, and Agent, who'd all been standing together. In that moment Joe realized its stomach had healed enough that all that was left was a dent, its arms had evened out, and its tail had gotten pointy again.
It'd been playin' for time, and somethin' that Flechette had done had made it stop.
The floodin' on every surface around it came alive, the waist-deep water draining as dozens of clones formed in an instant, outnumbering Joe's group two to one, countin' the injured. They started to move down the street, black with the now dry ash.
Cinereal laughed, finding somethin' funny about their deaths, before she reached out and snapped her fingers.
Joe thought the heat had been bad before at the bunker, but even soaked to the bone and with it over two dozen feet away he was pretty sure he just lost his eyebrows.
The street roared into the kind of inferno that Joe thought he'd have to fight Behemoth to see, the water monsters vaporizing in an instant, great gouts of the stuff rising up off Leviathan. However, the monster didn't seem that bothered, lazily raising a clawed hand. The steam, likely hot enough to cook a turkey in an instant, stopped rising, and dropped back down, the rain that fed into the inferno addin' to the cloud.
It tilted its body slightly, turning its hand over and pointing a single finger towards them. The steam shot forward in a cloud of death, Metro tryin' to move them back but he was no-where near fast enough. 'Fore they could go more than a few feet there was a roar and a giant cat leapt onto Leviathan's back from behind, forcing it into a roll as claws as big as Joe's arm tore into the Endbringer's flesh.
Whoever the giant bobcat was, it didn't mind the heat, its fur not even scorching as it rolled right along with the Endbringer, tearing out ribbons from its hide before leaping away from it, landing twenty feet away, between Joe and the monster that was 'bout to kill them all. It took a moment before he thought to wonder what'd happened to the steam, looking around to see it shooting off into the sky in a solid mass where it couldn't hurt anyone but the birds.
"Get goin', little fishies," the bus-sized cat growled, the asphalt melting as the buildings seemed to sag from the heat. A tingle of fear ran up Joe's spine that even Leviathan hadn't gotten out of him as the cat's words resonated in his skull. "You're not worth my time. Leave the fire though, it's toasty."
Leviathan darted forward so fast it seemed to disappear, the feline moving just as fast as it slammed the Endbringer into a building, knocking it back once more.
"Get out, 'less you want to fight me next!" it snarled, which was enough for Metro to get them moving, the two monsters blurring together as Leviathan leapt for Flechette, Joe, and Agent once more, only to be caught and thrown back again. A water monster formed and tried to jump down on them, only for its form to come apart as the cat, its man-sized saber-teeth glinting in the firelight, clawed Leviathan across the face, one of the Endbringer's eyes going dark. "You're fighting me, Lizard. Not the weaklings you were before!"
They left the giant cat-thing to fight the Endbringer, even the rain letting up a bit, and Joe silently thanked it for savin' them, God love 'em. They'd made it only a few blocks before a howl echoed through the streets and the rain came down hard, feeling like it was tryin' to beat them down. More water monsters were forming, but they all seemed focused on his part of their group. Instead of the wounded like before.
As they slid across the top of the water as fast as Metro could make them go, Joe looked around. He knew if they stood and fought again, they wouldn't get to leave, and for some reason Leviathan seemed to have it in for the little girl next to him.
It was dumb, and nearly suicidal, but Joe never claimed to be a smart man. "Hold this," he told Flechette, handing her his bag.
"What?" she asked, nearly dropping her crossbow as she did so. Joe fired off the last rounds in his shotgun, blowing away a few monsters before they became a problem. Weapon empty, he opened his bag and started grabbin' some very special rounds, loading them in his gun, then his belt. He carefully, or as carefully as a man could be on a roller coaster in the middle of the end of world, reached to the very bottom, unlatching the case and pulling out his very best, very worst creation. Loading it into the twelve-gauge pistol Flechette had returned to him when they left that bunker by the sea, he holstered it, closing up the bag.
"How long does your power last?" he asked her, nearly having to shout over the thunder that blasted nearby.
"Not long. I can't make it much longer than a few minutes," she told him, not getting' what he was really askin'.
"Good," he said, taking the backpack and throwing it around her shoulders, handing her his revolver. "Keep this prepped for me to take, then don't shoot anythin' 'till you're back home safe, you understand?"
"No?" she shook her head.
"Don't matter, just do it and live through this," he told her, turning to Crowdsource, who looked back at him. Metro brought him over, and he told the Thinker, "Next time Levi shows, leave me behind. I'll buy time for y'all to get back safe."
The nerdy man, lookin' like death warmed over, nodded. "If that's-"
Both of them looked, getting the same sense of danger. PPP fired straight down into the ground, yelling "RAINBOW BRIGGH-" as he was gutted from below. Leviathan broke up through the street, tearing the hairy man to pieces, flicking out its tail and narrowly missing them, Metro already moving people away. The group turned and fired, except Joe. He ignored the feeling, not wanting to kill his own group.
Jufeng shot forward, a tornado blowing in front of her like a drill only for a matching drill to form from the water coming off Leviathan's arm, tearing through her power, and then her body, in an instant. The group members split off, going down the alleys and side roads as they scattered. Flechette looked at him with wide eyes as she passed him. He held out his hand, taking his revolver, and he nodded to her as she was dragged away.
The Endbringer started to move after her, and Joe shot him through the head.
He'd been aiming for the chest, center of mass, but his pistol didn't have any drop anymore. Joe didn't sweat the details, it did the job in taking Leviathan's attention off her and onto him, the monster not even bothered by having part of its brains blown out. It hesitated, but another headshot got it moving forward for him.
A black wave of ash slammed into its head, blazing into fire as Cinereal set it alight, staying behind. Agent slapped a hand on his shoulder, surprising the hell out of Joe as the suited man reached over and grabbed a few shells from the Tinker's belt. Holding a shotgun himself, he loaded them up, giving the other man a nod as the Endbringer spun about, putting out the fire and sending the steam to blast the Breaker above them, who didn't seem to mind.
"Don't mind if I take a brace of these, do you old chap? Just didn't seem Cricket to leave you here alone," the man spoke for the first time since Joe met him. Turning his weapon on Leviathan, Agent's shotgun shot a mass of webs that caught on the ragged rents in the Endbringer's flesh, trapping it just for a moment.
Joe just nodded, not having any idea what he'd just said, but willing to accept help here at the end. They both opened up on the monster, tearing into it with blasts of earth, wind, and fire, along with all of the odder things that Joe'd come up with.
With the two of them side by side, and Cinereal right above, they could use the shells that Joe'd never think of using anywhere near innocents, or even friendlies. Space and time distorted, the Endbringer's ability to dodge met with the sheer variety and area of effect of the pair's shots. They took turns firing and loading, catching the Endbringer with the powered-up rounds of his revolver when it got too close, the one thing that Leviathan seemed actually worried about. They'd gone through almost all the shells Joe had left, and all six revolver rounds, Cinereal burning any water monsters that came their way.
They lasted a good while, longer than the cat fellah had, but all good things ended eventually. A water bolt slipped by Cinereal, piercing her through and she fell to the ground, dead, another blasting straight through Agent as well. The other man went down firing, emptying his gun at the Endbringer.
Even as she fell, the woman's armband announced, "Cinereal deceased, CB-6. Cinereal up, CA-3."
Joe was blasted in the side, the shields over him blunting it enough to keep him from dyin' outright. He was thrown through the air, hittin' something hard, spinnin' and landing with a crunch on top of a car. He tried to get up, but the pain almost made him black out, which it wasn't time for, not yet.
He'd lost his namesake weapon, the harness having snapped when he was hit, but he had one, last shot on him. Leviathan kept its distance, forming more water monsters to go finish Joe off. It wouldn't help it.
Joe Shotgun was a simple man, with simple powers, and simple ambitions. All he was, was a man with a gun, who sometimes got crazy ideas, and who just wanted to help those who couldn't help themselves. He'd done that, puttin' to rest those that'd hurt so many, and protectin' so many more. He didn't want to die, no sane man did, but if it meant saving those kids, it wasn't such a bad trade.
He held up his pistol, loaded with something that had scared even him. He was drunk when he'd made it, a month to the day after he'd had to bury what remained of his brother, the only family he'd had left. He'd seen the news 'bout that town in Iowa that'd just been wiped out in an instant, and figured if some punk who called himself 'Voidshadow' could make it work, he could do it better.
Leviathan wasn't close, but for this it didn't need to be.
Joe Shotgun pulled the trigger, and let the blackness take him.
He was many, he was one, he was Gnomon. Present throughout the city, his hundred eyes watched over a thousand fighters, while staying unseen himself. It was obvious that his power was affecting his mind, but he couldn't bring himself to care. If anything, he found comfort in it. He was spread out across the city, watching, waiting for the right moment. Leviathan had torn apart his body, but he had more, so many more.
He couldn't stand against the Endbringer alone, but he wasn't alone. He would never be alone again, no matter what the gaping, bleeding wound that was his heart told him.
It was a nice thought, but even thirty of him wouldn't do more than distract that monster. There were more of him out there than that, a lot more, but they were spread out, ready to help if need be. They watched those who had no one to watch themselves, helping where he could. Sometimes it was simple, calling to someone so she saw a clone forming behind them, or bumped into someone so she stumbled, a water spike missing her, gone before she could turn around. Sometimes it wasn't. He couldn't stand up to Leviathan, but a dozen of him could delay a clone long enough for her to get away, or to blast it to pieces. They weren't her, but it helped.
While he didn't have one of the armbands that those in charge seemed to have, twenty-six of him where close enough to hear them as they chimed across the city.
"Rabble Rouser down, DF-4. Roll-Out deceased, BC-1. Geomancer down, AC-2. Awe down, CD-2. Shock deceased, CD-2. Sanitizer deceased, FF-3. Visage deceased, BF-4. Dire down, FD-2. Camp-"
There were dozens of him, but it only helped slow down the losses, not stop them entirely. Leviathan was the worst threat, but his creations were just as deadly, and in more places than even Gnomon was. He knew he shouldn't blame himself. This was an Endbringer fight, damnit. People died in them, and it wasn't his fault.
It didn't stop the guilt.
Nothing truly did, but he was here, he could help, and so he did. He kept an eye on the younger ones. The Wards, the villains, and everyone in-between.
"Dude, what the hell!" Clockblocker cried as Kid Win was teleported in by Strider, along with several other parahumans. They all looked hurt, but ready to fight. Half of the Tinker's leg was made of glowing white light, through which the rain fell as if it weren't there.
"Couldn't leave you to try to handle this alone," the injured Ward replied, wincing behind his visor. "This'll last for a few hours, and I've still got some tricks if we need them."
Two of the other reinforcements had similar glowing limbs, a woman in red and blue had a glowing hand, while an older man in blue and green had his left arm, left leg, and part of his side replaced.
Miss Militia walked over to the Ward and told him comfortingly, "He wouldn't've been alone."
The Ward's smile dimmed, but he nodded in agreement, "I know, but I can't help if I'm stuck in bed, and from what everyone's saying, things are bad." He shrugged, looking to his teammate. "What kind of friend would I be if I left you here alone?"
Gnomon unmade the him that was watching, its presence unneeded, looking out across the city with the other hims. Leviathan clones were running rampant through the city. They were destroyed, but more replaced them soon enough. Every one destroyed was a setback, everyone they killed was a loss.
"Solar down, ED-5. Thunderer deceased, BD-6. Odd Man Out deceased, EC-3. BFG deceased, CD-5. Ale-"
A third of the groups were staying where they'd been assigned. Some were hiding, some recovering, and some standing their ground. Some had taken heavy losses, the bodies of the dead littering the ground around them, while others seemed practically untouched. One group could barely be seen inside a bubble of rubble, half of it covered in frozen flame, the other half in frozen water. Several people worked inside to break a section open.
Most of the surviving heroes were on the move, and he moved with them. Legend, Alexandria, and Purity of all people flew together, searching for Leviathan. An orange lightning bolt shot across the city, forming into Eidolon who glanced at Gnomon, a few feet away, and shot off once again.
A glowing group flew high in the air above the flooding streets. "We need to find Vicky!" a blonde woman in white and orange shouted. A man in white and green shook his head, carried in a blood red bubble. "She's doing search and rescue," he shouted back over the storm. "She's safer than she would be with us!"
A group of seven capes raced through the city, led by a woman with pure black wings. Behind her followed a woman made of blue electricity who seemed to float through the air at high speed, a grotesquely muscled man who moved in ponderous leaps, a slender man in red who bounded easily, a woman in grey who was riding a horse-sized cat made of ash, a woman with a circuit patterned costume who blurred as she zipped from place to pace, and a bird headed metallic man who flew behind them all. "Are you sure Leviathan's this way?" the circuit-covered woman -Battery, Gnomon remembered, though it took him a moment and he had to throw himself in the path of a water spear to stop it from impaling a girl in a dress and porcelain mask, the moment of inattention almost keeping him from saving her- demanded.
The man in red shrugged. "It's where he was. He'll either come back after people chased him 'off', or we'll save some people. Either way's a win, Puppy."
"Puppy?" the woman on the smoldering cat laughed. "That fits. She seems like a bitc-"
"You shouldn't be talking nicknames, Ash-hole," the man in red snapped, his unconcerned mask slipping for a moment.
The electric woman cackled as she crackled, "He's got ya there, Ash. But come on, there's no need to be Mad. . . Cap!" she chided with a mock salute. "Still can't believe you weren't Caged!"
"We can talk later!" the fallen angel in front called, spotting another him down the street. He pointed behind the group, where a Levi-clone had formed and was stalking them. "We have foes to fight!"
The group followed the woman's lead as they turned to face their follower, who'd leapt towards them, knowing it'd been found out. They moved as one, except for Battery, who lagged a moment behind, as they met it and destroyed it in an instant. The leader gave Gnomon a nod of thanks as he unmade himself, already busy elsewhere.
Some were hunting, some were trying to rescue the injured, but most of the groups seemed to be trying to gather together, hoping for strength in numbers. Gnomon didn't know if that would work, but he had to agree with the idea. It was all he had left.
"Escutcheon deceased, DC-4. Boytoy deceased, DC-4. Fulguress deceased, DC-4. Miceal deceased, DC-4. Fierceling decea-"
That many fallen meant it was likely Leviathan itself, and there wasn't anything he could do there. He moved, trying to stop deaths, but while he could save them two times out of three, it wasn't enough. A girl, maybe fourteen, who'd been alone now laid dying at his feet. He'd warned her of the first spear, and had blocked the second himself, but there was a third which had pierced her chest. She lay there, her blood mixing with the water of the flooded street, her expression one of despair as the blade she'd been carrying sizzling beside her.
She hadn't been wearing an armband, so he didn't even know her name as she took one gasp, expelling a gurgling breath and going still. Closing her eyes, he looked at the sword. It was still working, so it wasn't power created. That left Tinkertech. Using a Tinker's gear without knowing what it did was a good way to get yourself killed, but he'd already died a hundred times today.
Picking it up, the blade's glowing white edge dimmed to a shining blue, the color of a clear sky. The next him he made had the same blade, as did the one after that. It took a moment for him all to have it, and two of him jumped a Leviathan clone with them. It wasn't enough to stop it, but those two did more damage then the twelve of him had before.
"Faker deceased, DC-4. Chubster deceased, DC-4. Azazel deceased, DC-4. Mutate deceased, DC-4. Tur-"
He wasn't there, but he'd gotten a sense of what the letters meant, though the numbers seemed arbitrary. Before, he would've only been a distraction. Someone might've tried to save him, only to get killed themselves. Now, he might be able to help. Making a him there, there was a crash that drowned out even the thunder going off around them, and the him there died instantly.
All across the city, Leviathan's constructs lost cohesion, water spears turning into strong sprays, clones falling apart, and the rain slackened off, though only for a moment. The clones were torn apart as they tried to reform, the rain started again, and the spears started to form before dropping with the rest of the rain, their targets now aware of their presence.
Making another himself near where the last one had died, he found a scene of total devastation. Buildings were torn apart, the street was barely recognizable, and bits of bodies were everywhere. The shadowed room he'd made himself in before was gone, as was the rest of the building. A slight movement came from one of the more intact bodies, the pure white and blood red costume seemingly untouched by the mud, grime, and blood that painted everything.
"Vejovis down, DC-4," Armbands spoke, and a dark, inhuman figure descended down from above, forming into a person as it carefully tried to pick up the sole survivor, whose costume deformed in ways a human body shouldn't.
The person leapt into the air and didn't come down, moving west, towards the medical area, though Gnomon didn't think it would help. While the body still had a humanoid form, the costume had moved in ways a human body shouldn't.
The rain strengthened, falling even harder, and more clones then ever formed, assaulting every group. Some held fast, some ran. A lot of them died.
A group that seemed lit from an unseen light above them was fighting off seven clones when a water spear arrowed down and struck a man in white robes who chanting in the center. He died and the glow cut out like burnt out light bulb. They group broke in an instant, some charging forward while others ran. No longer unified, even those who tried to stand their ground died.
"Cloister deceased, BF-3. Barrager, BF-3. Gentle Giant deceased, BF-3. Lagann down, BF-3. Apotheosis deceased, BF-3. Dr. De-"
The suddenness of the change surprised him. Cloister must've been a Master, for his death to have that much of an effect. Other groups were under attack, holding better, their numbers letting them fend off the sudden attacks.
One group sped through the streets, all of them sliding over the ground like it was ice, a golden dome in the center carrying injured as over a dozen Levi clones chased them through rain-slicked streets.
Another group of forty was starting to fail, more and more clones forming around them instead of near the other groups, sensing weakness. Water spears firing downwards from above only to be countered by the shots of a trio of parahumans. A man in a golden suit rested his hands on the shoulders of two other as golden light streamed from him into them. The woman to his left held a canon that fired glowing green distortions that blew apart the spears, while the man to his right fired a pair of pistols that intercepted the spears that she missed.
Dozens of Levi clones attacked from around them, pushing them ever backwards. A group of five were cut off from the rest: A man in white armor with a golden lion helmet, a large Italian man, and three identical women. Three thirty foot tall clones surrounded them, one darting forward and gutting one of the women, who vanished in a flash of light. Another one struck for the lion man, the Italian man stepping in the way, taking the clones strike on his crossed arms with a grunt of pain, the clones water claws somehow not piercing his skin.
A man wielding a katana teleported behind one of the clones, beheading it as he said, "Nothing perso-" only for the headless clone to turn and rip him to pieces.
"Regicide deceased, DD-6."
The lion helmed man roared, his voice blasting the clone towards the main group, only to be blasted to pieces by a ten-foot-tall case 53 whose body was made of stone, shot through with lava. Two more clones took its place, while a third moved to attack the rock-man, stopping him from helping the four people left.
The clones attacked as one, the Italian map grappling one while the other two attacked. Lion man blasted his own backwards as the two women tried to fight off their attacker to little effect, their strikes doing nothing. The second woman popped while the third almost dodged out of the way, the water claw cutting a gouging out her flesh from should to her hip in a spurt of blood. She screamed and staggered, unable to block the follow up blow as the clone's tail shot forward to impale her.
"Circulum Vitae deceased, DD-6. Prism down, DD-6. Irn Bro down, DD-6."
The instant before it struck, lion man stepped in front of her, grabbing the clone's tail and trying to hold it back. It pressed downwards, digging through his armor into his chest as he slowly overpowered. Behind them two clones had teamed up on the Italian man with the impenetrable skin. One held him as the other shoved a watery, clawed hand down his throat, the man struggles quickly stopping as he went limp. When it removed its claw, the liquid was dark with blood.
"Lucas Caglioni deceased, DD-6. Full Metal Jacket down, DD-6."
The two other clones turned to the pair of survivors, the woman desperately spraying something on her wound as the man was slowly impaled, forced to his knees.
"Fiddler's Green deceased, DD-6. Triumph down, DD-6. Max-imum deceased, DD-6."
The two clones started to move towards the lion man when Gnomon moved, having made enough hims to make a difference. One or two wouldn't help, it was only working together that he wouldn't fail. Again.
Dozens ran from the alleys, jumped through darkened windows, and fell down from rooftops, all with blazing blue swords. Attacking the Clones from behind, the distraction gave the defenders the opportunity to strike back, blasting the clones to droplets as they did so.
Four hims attacked each of the clones. The first him blocked the left claws, the second the right, while the third launched the fourth him high into the air. The clones' tails struck out in unison, only to be met by the fourths' swords which cut through them as if they weren't there. The third him of each pair cut off the clone's right arm before stepping forward and taking the right leg while the second, now free to move, cut off the left claw, turning grabbing the first and throwing them upwards.
The fourth of each pair came down dead center of their clone, cutting it in half while the third leapt upwards, cutting the right half in half once more, the first copying the third's movement for the left side of each clone, and the second removing the Leviathan clone's left leg, causing both clones to dissolve in unison, unable to keep together when cut into eight separate parts.
Simultaneously, five more Gnomons charged the clone who had impaled the lion man. The first sliced the tail, causing it to lose form and catching the golden-helmed hero as he stumbled forward, the force pushing him back gone. The other four swarmed the clone, dispersing it as well.
The Leviathan clones, finding themselves fighting a force nearly twice that of what they were a moment ago, fought to the last but did not reform there, the clones that pulled themselves out of the water a block away moving off to attack others throughout the city. The defenders gave a ragged cheer as Gnomon helped the two hurt parahumans back to the main group.
A woman in power armor approached one of him as she looked around at those gathered. "Thanks for the assist. I'm Reboot. We've got medivac coming, could you stay until they get here?" she asked.
He started to answer, but without Leviathan's forces concentrated here, the hims across the city were having trouble keeping up with the Endbringers creations even to the low-level he had been before. He started to unmake the ones here to re-make them where they could do more good. He didn't know if he had a limit, but there more of him there were the harder it was for him to handle. He shook his head, "Others to help."
Reboot's shoulder's dropped a bit and she laughed. Even processed through her armor the resignation came through clearly. "I understand, can I at least have your name?"
"Gnomon," he told her, unmaking all but the one hiding nearby, in case more hims were needed here again.
"No one?" she asked the space he'd just been in, shaking her head. "Strangers."
He considered correcting her, but he wasn't doing this for the reputation. Before he would've made sure those he saved knew who he was, how strong he was, how they owed him, and to spread what he'd done. Now, it would just be wasted effort. After all, his reason for needing a reputation was gone, and part of him wished he'd gone with her.
Joe Shotgun was a simple man, with simple powers, and simple ambitions. He'd been workin' as a mechanic down in god's country, far enough away from Clarksville that they shouldn't have to deal with the ugliness that ran through it, but that hadn't been enough. A couple o' common criminals had come through, killed Eddie, and decided they were in charge.
Eddie hadn't done nothin' wrong, guy could just talk to plants so he was the local 'hero'. Didn't want to hurt nobody, bless his heart, but with him gone there weren't nobody who could stop them. Things had gotten. . . bad. One of them could turn to wind, and she liked ta play with people, suffocatin' them slow-like over the course o' hours. The second was a crack shot, could take the wings off a fly half a field away, and liked ta graze people. The third. . . Joe still didn't like to think about her.
He'd asked for help, they all had, but no one came. They were a little town, barely two thousand people, and no one seemed to care. Those three had run roughshod over everything, and everything had gotten worse, until they'd taken Joe's brother. Holdin' his body after they were done. . . sometimes a man's gotta do things himself, and if ya got a problem ya can't shoot, sometimes you just need a better bullet.
And by god did Joe have a better bullet. Dozens upon dozens of 'em, usin' things that had no earthly right to be in ammo, but Joe made 'em work. He hadn't the foggiest on how he could turn corn into something that could create a tornado, but the look on that poor excuse for a woman's face had been priceless. The sharpshooter had been a bit trouble, and the last one, what she'd turned into. . .
Joe'd won that day, avenged his brother and his neighbors, and the scars he'd picked up didn't bother him at all. He'd just wished he coulda done so sooner, but you dealt the hand you were played, ya didn't whine about the one you wished ya got. When asked what his 'name' was, he'd tried to just use his name. It's what his Pa gave 'im, and it wasn't like he had anyone left to worry 'bout. He'd been told that wasn't allowed, for some dumb Yankee reason, and 'Joe Schmo' was already taken, so he'd gone by 'Joe Shotgun'.
It'd fit, as you could get a lot more creative-like with a shell then a round, and that just made his holdout pistols a mighty fine surprise for the next poor soul who'd try to roll in like he'd owned the place. The government had pitched a fit when he'd put down that dog, but Joe didn't rightly care. Things had been good for a bit, he'd had more than enough time to get better, the bounty off those four'd been enough to let him make a lot of 'just in case' shells. He'd even had a thing going on with Caroline, but nothin' serious. Maybe in a few years, but he wasn't dumb. He knew how things ended up for capes, and didn't to make any more winders than the town already had.
It'd been about time for one of those big fellas to show up, and he'd made some plans for this. The ones he'd made for the big guy probably wouldn't work, but the Blindsiding Shots'd probably make that winged girl think twice. Leviathan though, he'd had more than a few ideas. Half of 'em weren't ready when the call came, but you didn't get to put off Game Day, and he couldn't rightly stay home and call himself a man.
So here he was, far away from his stompin' grounds, in the poundin' rain, shootin' uppity waves and trying to keep the people 'round him alive. He'd been glad he'd brought the sack of rounds, even if he'd gotten weird looks for wearin' a hikin' pack in an Endbringer fight. The look that one lady had had when she tried to tell him a shotgun wasn't gonna do nuthin' only for him to blast a water monster to bits with a blast o' fire as big around as a truck was the high point of his day so far, and he'd only had to restock his belts twice.
The group he'd been with had been hit mighty hard in that first barrage, Joe's counter-shot only protecting himself and the two kids he'd stood beside. They'd carried the injured back to the tents, which'd only been a few minutes away, thank god. The person in charge hadn't made it, so now he and the dozen others that had were waitin' around for someone to tell them what to do, and he was fixin' to go out on his own if they didn't get their marching orders soon. He didn't know a lot 'bout Endbringer fights, but from what he'd heard there was supposed to be fightin' a single thing. From the flashes of light, sounds, and hearin' the losses from the speakers, that wasn't happening.
As if called, a woman flew down to their group from above, covered in damp grime which glowed like the cinders of a dyin' summer fire. "We're putting together a rescue group, who's up for it?"
Joe stepped forward, "I am, ma'am. Goin' stir crazy waiting for somethin' to do, if I'm bein' honest."
The woman's eyes flicked to his arm. Not seeing one of the armbands the more 'famous' heroes got, she nodded, giving him directions. "Anyone else?" she called, looking around. When the others refused to meet her eyes, she gave a snort of disgust and took off, leaving a trail of wet, dark dust.
Joe couldn't blame 'em, that first hit'd been bad, and hearin' the death toll on the walk over hadn't been much fun. He left them behind, hopin' they stayed safe, finding a group of fourteen capes at the edge of the tents, most of 'em lookin' as nervous as he felt.
A nerdy lookin' fellah walked over to Joe, offering his hand. Joe took it, stiffening as he suddenly felt the others' presences in his mind. "Wha?" he asked, not sure what to do.
"Name's Crowdsource, I'm a Thinker that specializes in team cohesion and performance, If I could know your name and power I'll help find where you could help us the most in this endeavor, as my power works better the more I know about you, but it isn't permanent or anything so you don't need to worry about it, and, I mean, my power's teamwork, it's not like I could do anything bad with that anyways," the other man said in a long rush, leading Joe to wonder if he also had super-breathing.
"Joe shotgun, Ammo Tinker," he replied, lifting his shotgun to show the Thinker.
"Short or long range blaster?" Crowdsource asked, looking Joe over closely.
He shrugged, "Both. Got all sort o' shells, dependin' on what's needed."
"Guard then," the thin man nodded to himself, turning his back on Joe and walking back to two other capes who'd been watching them: A gal in a black bodysuit and a laid-back looking guy in a suit that'd fit Nashville more than a battlefield. Number 1 & Playmaker, Precog fighter & Plan Thinker, he suddenly knew, though he had no earthly way of doin' so.
Chocking it up to Thinker weirdness, he looked around the group, learning who they were. Slurpy (ice spit), Staccato (vibration Tinker) Agent (physical enhancement), Overlady (minion creation), Redirect (projectile teleportation), Ark (safe zone creation), Metro (mass movement) Candelabra (candle projectiles), & Pretty Pretty Princess (RAINBOWS).
Joe had to stop at the last one, as he stared at the last one of their group, who was a six-foot two guy that could double as sasquatch wearing a frilly pink dress and holding a ribboned wand with a star at the end. Takes all kinds, Joe thought as someone not in the group approached him. It was a young guy, who, when he got close, seemed to be covered in tiny, overlapping force fields.
"You're going out too?" the kid asked him. When he nodded the kid said, "Cool, I'm Foreskin!"
". . . You're what?" Joe asked. He'd heard of some odd names but. . .
"I'm Forceskin," the kid repeated. "Because I can erect a field of Force over people's skin. See?"
Before Joe could do more than blink, the kid had reached forward and tapped him on the chest, some of the forcefields flowing off the kid's arm and onto Joe's shirt, where they started multiplying quickly. "They only last for about ten minutes, but I've been giving them out to the rescue teams. Come find me when you get back so I can harden you back up!"
Joe blinked, watching as the kid went to introduce himself to someone else. For the life of him, he couldn't tell if the kid'd been fuckin' with him or not. Checking out the armor he'd been given, he could reach through it to grab a shell of his belt, but when he went to tap it to test it his fingers bounced off with a sound like he was tapping two rocks together. "Well I'll be," he muttered to himself.
He felt another member of their group approaching, looking up to see the dirty woman who'd asked him if he wanted to join, Cinereal (Ash & Fire powers), fly down to them, followed by an Asian chick that seemed to be carried by a tiny twister. Crowdsource talked to her, and Joe knew that she was Jufeng (air vortexes), and a guy who'd jogged after the pair was 86er (dissolving touch).
Forceskin did his thing before heading back inside and Cinereal strode to the center of the group, commanding them to "Gather!" Joe could feel a gentle pressure to do just that. He wasn't controlled, directly, but he got the oddest sense he'd be letting his teammates down if he didn't.
He snorted, walking over, as he didn't even have teammates, but if that's how Crowdsource got people to work together, it was good to know it. Their leader looked around them and opened her mouth to speak, an explosion of water to the west cut her off as the Armband started to read off names.
"Liger deceased, CB-4. Chill Out deceased, CB-4. Woodsman deceased, CB-4. Pipelay-"
"Metro, move us, we'll talk on route," she commanded. The man in question, covered in bulky metal armor, stamped his feet and a lime green glow sprang up around the group's legs. They all started sliding along the ground out into the city, individuals weaving back and forth until they formed a rough rectangle, quickly picking up speed. It was almost like riding a train, except he didn't feel like falling over while he was standing.
Cinereal took off into the air, Jufeng following, and the pair kept pace with them from above. "We're doing search and rescue. Out job isn't to fight Leviathan, but get those who need it medical aid. If you run off, you're on your own. Am I understood?"
Joe didn't need the prompting to reply, "Understood!" in concert with all the others, turning to look out at the city as they picked up speed, flashing by buildings as they slid across the top of the water as if it were solid ground. A pile of debris blocked their way, but they didn't turn or stop. If anything, they went faster.
Trusting in the group, Joe was still surprised to see Candelabra and PPP slide up the ragged edge before disappearing down the other side. Following them over, Joe felt like he was on a roller-coaster. He could feel the momentum, but he was pushed downwards instead of flying off. He accelerated, moving past a few others before he got the feeling he should fire down an alley they were about to pass, or he'd let the team down.
Ready to do so, he aimed and pulled the trigger as soon as he was in range. It was good he'd already planned to do so, as there was a water monster mid-leap in that alley, a second away from landin' in the middle of the group. The gun bucked in Joe's practiced hand, the buckshot spreading out, connected by lines of fire that cut the monster to pieces, soaking the group but leaving them unharmed.
He was moved back into position, and he glanced back at the core of Crowdsource, Number 1, and Playmaker, who weren't even looking around, deep in conversation. Joe remembered that Number 1 was a 'precog fighter' and realized that she didn't fight precog, she used precog to fight. The group moved on seamlessly, Candelabra shoving a hand forward and a giant birthday candle appeared before her, the size of a crowbar, and blasted forward, lit end at the back. The flame was like a rocket, and it struck something high in the air before it struck something and exploded into fireworks.
They sped off into the storm, coming to a stop next to a group of capes who looked at them with confusion. "Injured come with us!" Cinereal announced, sounding like a drill sergeant from a movie. "Move it, the longer you take the longer it takes us to get to others!" she stated in a way that suggested she'd be holdin' them personally responsible.
Three capes limped over, and four more were carried. Lime green glows sprung up around them and the group was off again. The worst hurt were gathered together. Ark, leaning down, looked like she was prayin' as a dome of golden-green light sprung up around them. The breathing of the injured seemed to speed up as it evened out, and it took a moment for Joe to see that there was some sorta time effect when one of them rolled over fast enough he should've hurt himself.
Getting the feeling he needed to shoot, he did so, blowing a spike of water that'd been arrowin' down towards Ark with a slug that warped gravity slightly, pullin' things towards it as it increased its own mass. It was completely wasted on the projectile, as his aim was perfect, but it'd become obvious that the three planners could only work with what they knew. Joe thought about explaining his shots, but they were busy enough.
Pretty Pretty Princess, slid to the back of the group, swirling his wand in the air as he boomed "RAINBOW POWER!", a solid beam of prismatic light blastin' outwards and catching a water monster in the chest, blastin' it into a building so hard it splattered. PPP moved back to the front as one of the still standing injured capes, an Asian girl who would've been as old as his brother, stared openly.
"Um. . ." she said trailing off.
"Yeah," Joe agreed, having seen it on the trip to get her. "Takes some gettin' used to."
The group turned down a street, coming to a stop in front of a pile of rubble. Overlady held her hands outwards and small, gremlin looking creatures popped into existence, moving to the rubble along with 86er. The latter touched the rubble, which turned to sand, while the former's minions dug it out. Staccato was working something with a display, while everyone else took up positions around the digging.
Cinreal directed her ash upwards, forming a loose dome that blocked out the rain as it thickened. Part of the dome dented inwards, then another part, then a third before it thickened enough that the rhythmic thumping impacts did nothing more than ring loudly.
As Overlady's minions pulled out the first cape, a bald kid, the Asian girl paled. "Know him?" Joe asked, keeping an eye out. Their precog would spot the danger, but it was good to be sure, just in case. Candelabra lit up a water monster that tried to charge them, and there were flickers of movement down the street that were too high up to be capes.
"Not really," she said, "That's Feint. He's a Ward in Anchorage. Met him once for team training."
The minions moved him to Ark, who made room in her bubble. "Well, he's still breathing. With the grace of God he'll live," Joe told her. As she looked at him, seemingly confused, he offered her his hand. "Names Joe Shotgun, Ammo Tinker."
"Um, Flechette. I shoot things," she replied. At his look she unholstered the device on her back, which unfolded into a crossbow, already loaded and ready to fire. Looking out at the darkness, she aimed at one of the shapes that was hiding behind the buildings and ran an index finger down the exposed, foot long bolt.
It seemed to become more real, though Joe couldn't say why. She shot it, and the bolt pierced through the building as if it weren't there. He suddenly had the impulse to shoot, and did so, catching the water monster as it stumbled out. The cryo-slug froze it solid.
"Can you do that again?" Joe asked, staring at the crossbow. It was a nice little piece of tech, but not nearly as nice as what Flechette was doing with it.
She shrugged, muttering, "Not like I'll run out," and repeated the process, shooting another hidden monster through the building like it was paper. Candelabra got that one, but Joe wasn't paying attention to that, he was too busy thinking about what he'd just seen. He'd gotten ideas watching videos of other capes but this. . .
He fired without thinking when he was prompted, absently reloading as schematics and processes spun through his head. He was going to need a lot of equipment, and materials, and so much Jack that it was practically a sin to not drink it, but he could replicate what he'd just seen. It'd take months of work, easily, but when he was done. . . He had armor piercing rounds, and super-armor piercing rounds, but these would be reality piercing rounds.
It wasn't until he felt himself moving that he realized how much time he wasted cloud-gatherin'. Looking around, Flechette was leaning away from him, looking wary. "My apologies, little miss," he told her, "Just had an idea. It'll take a bit, but I think it'll be good. Thank you."
"You're welcome?" she replied. "I didn't really do any-"
She was cut off an enormous explosion from the north end of the city, Flechette's armband announcing "Paninla down, AA-3."
Reminded where he was, Joe didn't say anything else, keeping an eye out. The rain continued to pound down on them as they moved further west, moving in silence other than PPP's call of "PRETTY PULSE!" or something similar whenever he was called to hit something.
With no attack coming, Joe looked towards the center to see they'd pulled four more capes from the collapsed building, three of them kids like the bald one in purple. He shook his head, wondering what idiot brought kids to this thing. He'd known he was putting his life on the line, knew what he was going to do, and why. At their age? He'd likely have joined just for braggin' rights. Someone shoulda been a parent and told these kids no.
The girl next to him was keepin' it together, but barely, flinchin' somethin' fierce every time he shot an attack down, the monsters comin' in larger numbers. Joe reloaded his shotgun with a new loadout, emptying out his belts, and was wonderin' if he could take off his backpack and re-slot new shells when they turned a corner and he could see the distant light of powers through the storm.
Sliding in, they found a raised semi-bunker made out of bluish-purple forcefields. One end opened up completely, allowing them inside. Dozens of injured were laid out on floating forcefields, some with forcefields covering the stumps of missing limbs. The smell of blood was as thick as the humidity, and the sound of the rain wasn't enough to drown out the moans of pain.
Not getting any direction from Crowdsource, Joe lightly took Flechette's shoulder and moved her to one of the open windows. Despite all the wounded, there were only a dozen heroes manning the defenses. "Let's look out and give anythin' comin' reason to think twice," he suggested.
"Y-yeah. Good idea," the girl agreed, letting herself be moved. The fresh, damp air helpin' her, and the single woman already there glancing over at them, bone spikes at the end of her fingers. She gave them a shaky nod before looking back out into the storm. Taking a clearing breath, Flechette noticed that he'd taken off his backpack and was reloading his belts. "How many of those do you have?" she asked.
"When we started, hundred and thirty-four. Now? eighty-nine, I think." Joe dug around in his bag and considered the single, pure black shell that rested in its own latched case at the very bottom. Shaking his head, he left it there, going with a general loadout. He snorted as he looked at his 'stun' rounds. He'd brought everything he'd made, and those probably wouldn't make those water monsters flinch. Closing it up and tying the bag closed, he slung it back over his shoulders, takin' a guard position as he tried not to look like he was listening while he watched them from the corner of his eye.
"-saying is that there's more here than I can move," Metro said, "not without running them into things!"
"We can take the worst wounded, and be back for the others," Cinereal stated.
A chick that would've looked indecent if it weren't for her forcefields shook her head, the weird horn on her forehead making the slight motion almost exaggerated. "We're waiting for Strider to come back. He'll take the critical ones, and you can take the rest. We'll move to CB-4, and gather the heroes there."
Flechette prodded Joe's arm, pointing out into the dark streets. "What?" he asked, but he could kind of see what she was talking about. Just like before, there were monsters out there, waiting. Before he could say anything, Playmaker yelled, "Narwhal, Shields up!"
She did so, the windows slamming shut as dozens of water spikes came screaming in, more than enough to kill everyone inside. They slammed into the bunker like machine-gun fire. The forcefields started to break, becoming more and more translucent as Joe reading his Shotgun, ready to fire the moment it broke.
With a shattering sound, the shield covering his window did so, Joe getting the feeling he needed to fire the moment before it did, the plasma round firing and expanding outwards as it destroyed the last few water spikes. He didn't have time to pay attention to the others, as behind the spikes were a whole mess of water monsters, all charging the bunker. Joe realized they'd used the barrage as cover, and started firing as fast as he could work the pump-action, openin' up the flood gates, and layin' down destruction in front of him. Flechette tried to help, as did the bone-lady, but it didn't amount to a hill of beans as, suddenly, the water monsters didn't care if they were blasted clean through.
They did care when they were blasted backwards with fire, lightning, Ice, buckshot that grew to the size of cannonballs, and birdshot the had bits of whatever they hit teleported twenty feet away. Unfortunately, his ammo ran out faster then green grass through a goose, and his gun clicked dry as more water monsters leapt from the alleys and streets, charging towards them.
Shimmering forcefields, the same type that made up the bunker, sliced four of 'em in half but they didn't care, just running forward and reforming. He focused on getting loaded as fast as he could, another forcefield springing up and blocking the street, slowin' the monsters down as they battered it to pieces, but not stopping them. He could hear PPP hollerin' 'PRINCESS BLAST', "FRIENDSHIP BEAM', and 'TASTE MY FUCKING RAINBOW! From one side, while there was a wave of heat washed over him from the other, the street they came down to get here an inferno.
The water monsters were almost on them when he lifted the gun, still a few shells short, and unleashed hell once again. The lead monster hit him, its claws stopped by the armor on Joe's chest long enough for his first shot to go off, blowing it to pieces, as well as the two behind him. He took out the newest batch and got the urge to run back and fire in the other direction, but he was out of ammo. Taking his holdout 12 gauge pistol, he threw it to Flechette, tellin' her, "cover there!" instead of doing it himself as he desperately reloaded. He'd be good for a while, but he only had so much ammo.
Ignorin' the feeling that he was letting the team down, he watched her move faster than he could, even with a hurt leg. Leapin' over the injured to get to the window, the guards dead or injured, the gun became more real as she did so. She got in position just as the first monster made it to the window, reaching in to gut her and everyone else, over a dozen more monsters behind her, the ocean behind them.
Firing the pistol flush with her power, his 'oh hell' round went off. More pellets then should've fit sped up faster than any shot had a right to. More than that, they didn't hit and flatten like they were supposed to, but tore through everything in their path as if it weren't even there. The monsters were turned to mist, the road ripped to gravel, and the buildings on either side practically dissolved.
Turning back to his zone, the monsters where almost there before he gave them a face full of super-frozen metal, freezing them and blocking the others before the second round, full of cutting winds, tore 'em all to pieces.
Unloading his entire action, he could see more forming, and sighed. He'd heard these things were bad, but this was goddamn ridiculous. Glancing back, Cinereal had take position next to Flechette, and was covering that street with burnin' ash as well.
More monsters charged, when a crash echoed throughout the city, from the south-center-ish area of the city. More than that, the monsters lost form, the rain cutting off for a moment. They tried to reform themselves, but Joe had more than enough time to reload, takin' 'em all out.
When no more came, Joe let out a long, low whistle of relief. The rain got a bit heavier, but he'd rather be wet than dead. The flames to the west died out like someone threw a switch, the only light in the street once again the forcefield bunker they stood in. Checking his chest, the scales of force were gone in a line across his chest, but the others seemed to still be intact.
"We're all moving," Cinereal declared. "Narwhal, you carry the lightly injured, we'll take the criti-"
There was a pop and a fellah in black and blue popped in, looking around with a low, "Damn. Who do I take?"
Cinereal started to indicate the worst off when Joe, along with everyone else in the group, felt a blaring feeling of danger! Turning to fire, another barrage of spears pounded down, not in waves like before, but all at once. Joe blasted some, as did the others, but a few got few, all heading right for Strider.
A shimmering forcefield sprung up as Narwhal stepped in front of the teleporter, the hits tearing through them and breaking apart the shields covering her chest, the last one digging into her shoulder before it dissolved into a spray of water.
Crowdsource said what Joe was thinking, "They were going for Strider!"
The man in question paled. "Thanks for that," he said, quickly moving over to the heavily injured and disappearing in an instant.
"You alright, Ma'am? Joe asked Narwhal, whose arm was hanging limp.
"I'm fine, she replied, her arm moving up, unnaturally, her own forcefields twisting the limb back and forth as she suppressed a grimace. Moving her arm on her own, she flexed her fingers and turned back to Cinereal. "Same plan as before. Get the rest back, we'll support Bastion's group."
The top of the bunker disappeared, the rain pouring down on them as forcefields appeared beneath the feet of the heroes who'd been guarding it, lifting them up and out, following Narwhal as she flew off into the storm.
"Time to go, straight shot back," Cinereal told Metro, taking to the air herself. More water monsters started to form in the distance as the hero stomped his feet once again, a lime-green glow reappearing underneath their feet and carrying them off the platform and across the flooded street. Joe hurriedly slug his backpack back on as they moved, belts restocked, the bunker fading out of existence behind them.
They'd barely made it two blocks before the monsters attacked. The gunfire from Agent, shots from Flechette's crossbow, and other conventional attacks didn't even stop them anymore, but Joe's group didn't have very many of those. Vortexes of wind and exploding candles blew them to pieces, rainbow beams and blasts of compressed sound knocked them backwards.
The water bolts that got close disappeared, for a moment, reappearing as they were fired straight back at their enemies by Redirect, while the Monsters that closed were met by 86er, whose touch dissolved them, Slurpy, whose spit froze them solid, and Joe Shotgun himself, who blew them away. Overlady created minions from every direction that threw themselves at the Monsters, buyin' the rest of them time as they were torn to bloody pieces.
As they moved, Cinereal left a trail of thick ash, and when the monsters started to come up from behind, the street flashed into flame for an instant, evaporating the watery chasers in an instant. They were making good time, and were in the middle of downtown when they turned a corner only to see a solid wall of water blocking their way, half formed monsters along its length, waiting for them.
The group fired as one, but, before their blasts hit, the rain froze in place in front of them, blocking the shots before it started to fall down again like nothing had happened. The streets to either side were blocked as well, forcing them to retreat. The flooded street behind them started to rise up, but was blasted away before they hit, reaching claws reduced to mist as Metro tried to take them around, turning to find a large wave coming their way, more monsters forming along the top, giant hands grasping in their direction.
They ran again, but it was obvious to Joe what was going on, they were being herded like a fox by water hounds. From the look on Cinereal's face as she looked around, she knew it too. They were forced south-east, away from their destination, and had been running for minutes when they finally could start to make it back, The armbands of a few telling Joe why.
Leviathan's attention was elsewhere.
"Geyser deceased, CB-4. Cruise Control deceased, CB-4.Bastion deceased, CB-4. Garbage Man deceased, CB-4. Fearless Ferret down, CB-4. Derringer deceased, CB-4. Kickstart deceased, CB-4."
Joe wasn't happy others were dying, but if it meant they could get these kids to safety, it'd be worth it. They were still bein' attacked by water monsters and water bolts, but they were making up for lost time. They were back into downtown, just a few blocks from where they'd had to turn back before, when they saw it.
At first he thought it was one of the darker water monster, the kind that moved a bit faster and took a bit more to kill, but the glowing green eyes said otherwise.
It didn't look right, right for how it was supposed to look, that is. Its left arm was thinner than its right, like those comics about guys who spent too long on the internet looking at it instead of going out and getting it. The end of its tail was stubby, not coming to a point but rounded off, like a worm's. Weirdest of all, was that Joe could see through it, a hole'd punched out through its guts, one big enough he could've put his arm through.
It was waiting, bold as brass, as if it had all the time in the world. He could barely hear Cinereal swear over the sound of the thundering storm as he and all the others got the command to fire, opening up with whatever they had.
Joe'd seen clips of Leviathan fightin'. You weren't supposed to have them, but the PRT was supposed to help towns that were being torn apart assholes you couldn't shoot yourself, so Joe hadn't given a damn. He took inspiration from everythin' he saw, and the Endbringers were no different. Leviathan was faster than the others, but he still kinda lumbered. He'd seen it fall, caught, and beat down before managing to slip away while killin' a few heroes.
This Leviathan couldn't trip if the instructions were written on the bottoms of its feet.
It sprang forward, twistin' mid-air 'round a rainbow beam while a water monster came up behind PPP, Jufeng's twister rippin' it apart. Moving in ways that nothing that big had any earthly right to, it dodged Cendelabra's shot and was on Cinereal before Joe could do more than lift his gun, claws piercing her straight through as it leapt over them, the water it left behind forming more monsters as it fell. They were blown to nothing by Joe's Gravity Reversing shot and an invisible cone from Staccato's canon before they could do more than look menacing.
"Cinereal deceased, CC-2. Cinereal up, CC-2," chimed Flechette's armband as the woman exploded up out of some of the ash she'd spread about as they ran, more coming off her in a torrent as she turned to face the Endbringer
Leviathan came again, but this time they were ready. PPP's beam split up into seven different ones, catching the monster in the chest, slowing it down enough for Candelabra to draw down on it, javelin-sized striped missiles impacting him in a stream that knocked it back.
It spun them upwards, turning what should've knocked it on its rear into a jump that carried it over the other shots, its tail lashing out for the golden dome, bouncing off it with a sound like a bell ringing so hard it was liable to break. A bunch of water bolts came down from behind, those that got through Joe & Staccato's blasts disappearing, reappearing as they were shot towards the Endbringer itself.
They turned right around and flew back at us as the monster charged, which was to be expected, and we met it, forcing it back again and again. Leviathan landed after taking a kinetically enhanced slug to the face while Jufeng drilled its chest with a sideways tornado, crouching low and ready to spring back when Flechette got a shot in.
Her bolt didn't glance off like Agent's shots had, but it shot through the Endbringer's knee as effortlessly as it'd gone through stone, forcing the monster to really stumble for the first time since they'd started. The Endbringer froze, the rain freezing in front of it and stopping Candelabra's attacks without it having to move. Its head snapped over to Joe, Flechette, and Agent, who'd all been standing together. In that moment Joe realized its stomach had healed enough that all that was left was a dent, its arms had evened out, and its tail had gotten pointy again.
It'd been playin' for time, and somethin' that Flechette had done had made it stop.
The floodin' on every surface around it came alive, the waist-deep water draining as dozens of clones formed in an instant, outnumbering Joe's group two to one, countin' the injured. They started to move down the street, black with the now dry ash.
Cinereal laughed, finding somethin' funny about their deaths, before she reached out and snapped her fingers.
Joe thought the heat had been bad before at the bunker, but even soaked to the bone and with it over two dozen feet away he was pretty sure he just lost his eyebrows.
The street roared into the kind of inferno that Joe thought he'd have to fight Behemoth to see, the water monsters vaporizing in an instant, great gouts of the stuff rising up off Leviathan. However, the monster didn't seem that bothered, lazily raising a clawed hand. The steam, likely hot enough to cook a turkey in an instant, stopped rising, and dropped back down, the rain that fed into the inferno addin' to the cloud.
It tilted its body slightly, turning its hand over and pointing a single finger towards them. The steam shot forward in a cloud of death, Metro tryin' to move them back but he was no-where near fast enough. 'Fore they could go more than a few feet there was a roar and a giant cat leapt onto Leviathan's back from behind, forcing it into a roll as claws as big as Joe's arm tore into the Endbringer's flesh.
Whoever the giant bobcat was, it didn't mind the heat, its fur not even scorching as it rolled right along with the Endbringer, tearing out ribbons from its hide before leaping away from it, landing twenty feet away, between Joe and the monster that was 'bout to kill them all. It took a moment before he thought to wonder what'd happened to the steam, looking around to see it shooting off into the sky in a solid mass where it couldn't hurt anyone but the birds.
"Get goin', little fishies," the bus-sized cat growled, the asphalt melting as the buildings seemed to sag from the heat. A tingle of fear ran up Joe's spine that even Leviathan hadn't gotten out of him as the cat's words resonated in his skull. "You're not worth my time. Leave the fire though, it's toasty."
Leviathan darted forward so fast it seemed to disappear, the feline moving just as fast as it slammed the Endbringer into a building, knocking it back once more.
"Get out, 'less you want to fight me next!" it snarled, which was enough for Metro to get them moving, the two monsters blurring together as Leviathan leapt for Flechette, Joe, and Agent once more, only to be caught and thrown back again. A water monster formed and tried to jump down on them, only for its form to come apart as the cat, its man-sized saber-teeth glinting in the firelight, clawed Leviathan across the face, one of the Endbringer's eyes going dark. "You're fighting me, Lizard. Not the weaklings you were before!"
They left the giant cat-thing to fight the Endbringer, even the rain letting up a bit, and Joe silently thanked it for savin' them, God love 'em. They'd made it only a few blocks before a howl echoed through the streets and the rain came down hard, feeling like it was tryin' to beat them down. More water monsters were forming, but they all seemed focused on his part of their group. Instead of the wounded like before.
As they slid across the top of the water as fast as Metro could make them go, Joe looked around. He knew if they stood and fought again, they wouldn't get to leave, and for some reason Leviathan seemed to have it in for the little girl next to him.
It was dumb, and nearly suicidal, but Joe never claimed to be a smart man. "Hold this," he told Flechette, handing her his bag.
"What?" she asked, nearly dropping her crossbow as she did so. Joe fired off the last rounds in his shotgun, blowing away a few monsters before they became a problem. Weapon empty, he opened his bag and started grabbin' some very special rounds, loading them in his gun, then his belt. He carefully, or as carefully as a man could be on a roller coaster in the middle of the end of world, reached to the very bottom, unlatching the case and pulling out his very best, very worst creation. Loading it into the twelve-gauge pistol Flechette had returned to him when they left that bunker by the sea, he holstered it, closing up the bag.
"How long does your power last?" he asked her, nearly having to shout over the thunder that blasted nearby.
"Not long. I can't make it much longer than a few minutes," she told him, not getting' what he was really askin'.
"Good," he said, taking the backpack and throwing it around her shoulders, handing her his revolver. "Keep this prepped for me to take, then don't shoot anythin' 'till you're back home safe, you understand?"
"No?" she shook her head.
"Don't matter, just do it and live through this," he told her, turning to Crowdsource, who looked back at him. Metro brought him over, and he told the Thinker, "Next time Levi shows, leave me behind. I'll buy time for y'all to get back safe."
The nerdy man, lookin' like death warmed over, nodded. "If that's-"
Both of them looked, getting the same sense of danger. PPP fired straight down into the ground, yelling "RAINBOW BRIGGH-" as he was gutted from below. Leviathan broke up through the street, tearing the hairy man to pieces, flicking out its tail and narrowly missing them, Metro already moving people away. The group turned and fired, except Joe. He ignored the feeling, not wanting to kill his own group.
Jufeng shot forward, a tornado blowing in front of her like a drill only for a matching drill to form from the water coming off Leviathan's arm, tearing through her power, and then her body, in an instant. The group members split off, going down the alleys and side roads as they scattered. Flechette looked at him with wide eyes as she passed him. He held out his hand, taking his revolver, and he nodded to her as she was dragged away.
The Endbringer started to move after her, and Joe shot him through the head.
He'd been aiming for the chest, center of mass, but his pistol didn't have any drop anymore. Joe didn't sweat the details, it did the job in taking Leviathan's attention off her and onto him, the monster not even bothered by having part of its brains blown out. It hesitated, but another headshot got it moving forward for him.
A black wave of ash slammed into its head, blazing into fire as Cinereal set it alight, staying behind. Agent slapped a hand on his shoulder, surprising the hell out of Joe as the suited man reached over and grabbed a few shells from the Tinker's belt. Holding a shotgun himself, he loaded them up, giving the other man a nod as the Endbringer spun about, putting out the fire and sending the steam to blast the Breaker above them, who didn't seem to mind.
"Don't mind if I take a brace of these, do you old chap? Just didn't seem Cricket to leave you here alone," the man spoke for the first time since Joe met him. Turning his weapon on Leviathan, Agent's shotgun shot a mass of webs that caught on the ragged rents in the Endbringer's flesh, trapping it just for a moment.
Joe just nodded, not having any idea what he'd just said, but willing to accept help here at the end. They both opened up on the monster, tearing into it with blasts of earth, wind, and fire, along with all of the odder things that Joe'd come up with.
With the two of them side by side, and Cinereal right above, they could use the shells that Joe'd never think of using anywhere near innocents, or even friendlies. Space and time distorted, the Endbringer's ability to dodge met with the sheer variety and area of effect of the pair's shots. They took turns firing and loading, catching the Endbringer with the powered-up rounds of his revolver when it got too close, the one thing that Leviathan seemed actually worried about. They'd gone through almost all the shells Joe had left, and all six revolver rounds, Cinereal burning any water monsters that came their way.
They lasted a good while, longer than the cat fellah had, but all good things ended eventually. A water bolt slipped by Cinereal, piercing her through and she fell to the ground, dead, another blasting straight through Agent as well. The other man went down firing, emptying his gun at the Endbringer.
Even as she fell, the woman's armband announced, "Cinereal deceased, CB-6. Cinereal up, CA-3."
Joe was blasted in the side, the shields over him blunting it enough to keep him from dyin' outright. He was thrown through the air, hittin' something hard, spinnin' and landing with a crunch on top of a car. He tried to get up, but the pain almost made him black out, which it wasn't time for, not yet.
He'd lost his namesake weapon, the harness having snapped when he was hit, but he had one, last shot on him. Leviathan kept its distance, forming more water monsters to go finish Joe off. It wouldn't help it.
Joe Shotgun was a simple man, with simple powers, and simple ambitions. All he was, was a man with a gun, who sometimes got crazy ideas, and who just wanted to help those who couldn't help themselves. He'd done that, puttin' to rest those that'd hurt so many, and protectin' so many more. He didn't want to die, no sane man did, but if it meant saving those kids, it wasn't such a bad trade.
He held up his pistol, loaded with something that had scared even him. He was drunk when he'd made it, a month to the day after he'd had to bury what remained of his brother, the only family he'd had left. He'd seen the news 'bout that town in Iowa that'd just been wiped out in an instant, and figured if some punk who called himself 'Voidshadow' could make it work, he could do it better.
Leviathan wasn't close, but for this it didn't need to be.
Joe Shotgun pulled the trigger, and let the blackness take him.
Last edited:
- Location
- Pennsylvania
Aww. Did you have to kill off Pretty Pretty Princess?
Also yay, flechette and a "fuck everything in that general direction" shotgun shell. Probably will injure his core. Even odds that it will kill him.
Also yay, flechette and a "fuck everything in that general direction" shotgun shell. Probably will injure his core. Even odds that it will kill him.
- Location
- Burlington, KY, USA
Excellent chapter. I hope Joe survives. We need a tinker that can make Sting ammo.
- Location
- Wonderland
I like the idea of Joe Shotgun, even if I don't like how he thinks.
Even though this is also a possibly-alarming revelation, I believe you meant "affecting" (altering) rather than "effecting" (bringing about).
curriculum
fourth's
thank God…if that's whom one is thanking.
same capital option
whose
Its
them
you're
Deadline 12.7
- Location
- United States of America
Deadline 12.7
"Don't die, don't die, don't die," someone said, over and over again.
Everything hurt, though it was a distant pain, like stubbing your toe in a dream. I got the sensation of movement coming in waves, as the air rushed past me, or as I rushed past the air. I knew I was hurt, but weren't you supposed to not feel pain if you were hurt enough.
P̴e̷ak ̢C̸on͠d̛i̶t̷io̴n.̴
Right, right, that'd keep me aware. Hard to be in 'Peak Condition' if you didn't have functioning nerves. The chanting continued, sounding scared, tired, angry, and whole bunch of other things. We started to slow, and I could feel a lot of people below me, messing with my ability to Warp Space, though that power was mostly still tied up keeping the working that Vista and I'd made going.
I felt a hole in my powers, and a pretty big one at that. No, not a hole, but an opening, ready and waiting to be filled. I tried to think of a suitable sex joke, but it was like trying to swim through tapioca. Not that I ever had, but it felt like what I thought it'd feel like. Stay on topic, stay on topic, I thought, a la Star Wars, smiling to myself, though my mouth hurt when tried to smile to everyone else. I had a Major slot open, and most of a Minor one as well. What should I use it on? I tried that healing power the monochrome guy had, but it wouldn't take, which wasn't very nice of it.
We landed with a painful jolt, and I twitched. Well, my Metal Projection twitched. Same thing. "Fuck!" the voice, which had gone quiet, swore, before picking up its litany of "Don't die," once again. I wondered what was going on, there were a lot of people around me, moving the air in hundreds of different ways. I felt the breath of someone nearby still, marveling at all the little pockets of gas inside them, gave it a little prod, and it started up again, the tiny fascinating pockets disappearing from my senses. Air movements were good, but it was hard to make out any detail. I was more than a little annoyed at this when I remembered I had eyes.
Opening them, I quickly closed them right back up as I looked right into blinding white fluorescents. I was being moved, and when I tried again, I had a moment to adjust before another fluorescent bulb rolled across my vision. I'd forgotten how dark it was, fighting out there, until I was suddenly somewhere that you didn't need darkvision to see clearly. The person carrying me solidified, and I barely recognized Herb. His mask was beat to hell, and the naked panic on whose face looked completely out of place.
He stopped, demanding, "Where's Panacea?" to someone out of my line of sight.
The person took a few seconds to reply, a woman's voice telling him, "That one's a lost cause."
Fury blazed across my friends features as he yelled, "NO HE ISN'T! WHERE'S PANACEA!"
The woman snarled back, "Busy with people that can be saved! Either go fight or go away! I'm going to help people who can be helped!"
I tried to tell Herb to ask Zilla as he took an angry step forward, ready to respond, but for some reason I couldn't really get the breath to, what little I had just causing hot liquid to dribble out my mouth. Using Aerokinesis I formed the words "Ask Zilla" in the air.
Herb's head snapped over to what I'd written, his eyes glimmering with Power Sight for a moment before he nodded quickly, saying, "Zilla? Zilla! Zilla, where's Panacea!?" he got a response as he started walking quickly, almost jogging, as we went down hallway after hallway, interspersed with brief moments where we were outside again, the sky dark as rain poured from above.
Someone stepped forward and tried to say, "Stop! You can't go-guh!" as Herb's power lashed out twice, causing them both to collapse, from the sound of it.
After a few dozen more steps, Herb whispered, "Dude, open up your suit, I need to touch you." I did so where he was holding me, only to hear something wet hit the ground and him go "Fuck!" It felt cold, and kinda weird, and kinda good, though the fact that he wasn't making any of the dozens of jokes he could've about touching me worried me a little. I couldn't really think of any myself, but I could recognize the opportunity, at least.
We went through a couple sets of doors, and someone tried to say, "what are you doin-" only to be cut off by twin cries of "Lee!"
I was put down on something as someone left the room in a hurry, Herb keeping his hand on my back as two other shapes entered my view, one wearing a half mask while the other just wore a hood. It took a bit to realize they were Taylor and Amy, the second of which was moving her hands along my chest. I wondered what she was doing until Herb said, "Open up, she needs to touch you."
That made a lot of sense, so I did so, creating a gap from my waist to my neckc, ausing her to stumble forward slightly. I heard another weirdly wet sound as she held back a panicked, distressed yell, not really saying anything as Taylor let out a strangled scream. "How?" Amy demanded, sounding scared, poking at something in me.
Herb said, "Leviathan," but Amy shook her head, pausing as Taylor said "Hookwolf." I wasn't really sure what either of them meant, as it was Herb that'd brought me here, but I felt metal shards pushed into contact with my Metal Projection, which re-claimed them, bringing them back into the whole. Other parts of me moved a little, but I didn't feel much of a difference, my thoughts muddled with bright clouds of pain when I tried to focus.
"It's too much, it's just too much," Amy said to herself after a moment, looking pale and tired and lost. She brought up a hand to push the hair out of her eyes, leaving long red streaks across her face, and I wondered who she'd been working on that was so hurt it'd left her hands that bloody. I couldn't help her heal me directly, but maybe I could do what I'd done with Vista? I could See her power easily enough, and the power that I'd drained from myself for that last hit against Leviathan was already mostly back, so I tried to give her more power to work with.
Nothing happened.
That was. . . odd. It'd worked for Vista, so why didn't it work for Panacea? Even if it was a distance problem, with Biokinesis being touch-ranged it should still work as she was touching me. It should work, so why wasn't it?
Bi҉ơk̛in҉esi͟s̕.͡
Right, I didn't actually have Biokinesis, like I'd had Space Warping. Well, that was an easy enough problem to fix. Slotting it in, I became hyper-aware of what I was touching, and what I could use my power on. Still had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I could do it, at least. Herb and Amy gave simultaneous sighs as I helped them Get Better. They were helping me, so it was only nice to give them a pick me up in return, like a bio-kinetic reach around. Hey! That's a sex joke! I thought, proud of myself.
. . . What was I doing?
Oh yeah, I was trying to make Amy's power work better, like I had with Vista. I tried to do so with Herb as well, but it didn't work, probably because he didn't have Biokinesis. I'd need his copying ability to enhance his copying ability, and I pondered why it worked that way, the terms I̶m̵p͏e͏tu͞s͝ ҉ and E҉xpr͠e̛ss͞i̕ơn, drifting through my thoughts for some reason.
Well, if I couldn't up Herb's ability, I could definitely up Amy's ability. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. I wouldn't know if I didn't try, and while it seemed really nice to drift here, I had things to do. I wasn't sure what they were, just a niggling sense that I didn't have time to waste.
Focusing on Amy, as much as I was able, I poured my power into hers, the now familiar draining sensation was. . . annoying, like unexpectedly having to pay for someone else's food, but I was doing this to help her. I didn't know how this would help her, only that it would.
Amy gasped as her eyes caught fire, beautiful Bone White and Blood Red Flames burning with power as her Biokinesis was pushed further and further, to greater and greater heights. I could practically feel my body shifting and realigning as Taylor gasped. "Are you okay?" the bug controller asked, unsure.
I tried to tell he it was fine, I'd done this before, but it came out as a wet gurgle and Amy snapped, "Don't do that!"
Taylor had looked scared when I tried to talk, but Amy being Amy seemed to help. On the other side Herb murmured, "How the fuck. . .?" to himself, but didn't say anything else, as usual.
My favorite healer kept working on me, the blood on her face condensing into a Crimson beetle that jumped down onto my chest, though I didn't feel it land. "Bugs!" she called, and a stream of insects came in through a vent, dropping onto me. Less than a minute later, Amy waved them off, and they retreated back through the vent as if they'd never been here.
She seemed like she was done, and I was feeling a little worried for some reason, so I stopped feeding her power, the fire in her eyes fading, leaving her normal, expressive green orbs, though there might've been a little red that hadn't been there before. The pain was gone, but I still drifted, having trouble focusing anything for more than few seconds. She looked over me, from head to toe, and frowned, before hitting me in the chest as she command me to "Breathe, dumbass!"
I gasped, and, while mean, she wasn't exactly wrong. As I took in sweet, cold gulps of air, the fog that blanketed my mind slowly lifted. Noticing that Herb had taken his hand away, I closed up the back of my costume and sat up, stretching out. Looking around, I saw that Taylor and Herb were covered in blood, Panacea looking a bit dirty but otherwise fine. Flicking a hand out, I sent bits of my suit out and cleaned all three off in seconds as I let out a deep sigh.
"Okay, that sucked. Gonna need a new strategy next time," I said, more to myself then them, prompting simultaneous responses from all three.
"What?" Taylor asked.
"Not alone you're not!" stated Herb.
"Oh hell no!" Amy yelled, "Your insides were mush!"
I started to reply to Herb, but Amelia's statement took me back. "Really?"
"Yes!" she yelled back, and Herb nodded.
That was. . . bad, and I could freak out about it after the fight was over. "Break, you need to go back ASAP. We don't know how long you need to be out of it before your power thinks the fight is 'over' and you're back to zero."
"I-I'm not leaving you alone!" he shot back, but his objection lacked conviction.
I opened the eyes of my costume and Saw him, looking for that aspect of his borrowed power. Finding it, I shook my head, "You've got to keep going. I'm going to take a few minutes, at least, and it'll lapse if you're not doing something. Getting me help counted, waiting for me to go back to fighting likely won't. Go and make sure Kayden's okay."
He pointed at me aggressively, but his words died before they crossed his lips, knowing I was right. "Don't-Just don't do that to me again!" he more pleaded than commanded.
"I'll do my best, next one I get is intangibility," I promised him. It was obvious to him that that wasn't good enough, but he turned and left, opening the door and dodging as the sound of gunfire came from down the hall. "I'm headin' out," he told whoever tried to attack him. "Shoot me again and I'll shove it up your ass sideways!"
I covered my eyes with my costume as he turned into a velociraptor and took off so fast he blurred, feeling him sprint out the building with Aerokinesis. There was the pounding of feet as PRT agents ran inside, pointing their guns at me. "Step away from Panacea!" one of them yelled.
Taylor and I exchanged confused glances as Amy asked "What?"
"Step away from Panacea!" was yelled at us again, the person in the back giving the commands not the talkative type.
"She's on my team, and not a Ward," I pointed out, my mind still a bit fuzzy and leaving me in no mood to deal with this shit. "Back the fuck off."
One of the idiots actually took the shot, which I deflected between us easily.
"Fuck off," I repeated, using Aerokinesis to shove them backwards and out the door, slamming it, and covering it with a solid layer of air. "Right, that was. . . weird." I looked over and saw someone else lying on another bed in the room, still breathing but unconscious. "Oh, shit, um, should you help him?"
"What?" Amy asked, following my gaze. "Fuck!" She leapt over to him, putting a hand on his chest as her power flared to life.
I followed her over, standing behind and reaching past her to lay a hand on him, healing him as well. I turned over the reins of my Biokinesis to Panacea as I said, "Right, so, I was a dumbass and tried to match Levi power for power, and that was. . . dumb. I blame Hollywood." Amy gave a derisive snort as she worked, the injured man's flesh re-arranging itself before my eyes.
"Hollywood?" Taylor asked, still looking a bit shell shocked.
I motioned her over as the PRT tried to batter the door down, not even getting through the Air Shield. Compared to Levi's attacks they were absolutely pitiful. Putting a hand on her uncovered face, I gave her the 'get better' treatment, her paleness fading as she calmed down. "Yeah, Hollywood. I fought him power vs power, mano-a-monstero, sky versus sea. He was standing there, not engaging me physically, and I'd lose if he did, so I did the same. It didn't work, though I did get him at the end. I think. But I've got more than just the one power, and I need to remember to use them."
Amelia stood back from her patient, bumping against my chest, and turned around to glare up at me. She was only a few inches away as she informed me, "You shouldn't go back at all!"
I got the weirdest urge to hug her but shrugged instead. Touched by her concern, I smiled down at her, "I'm a hero, fighting monsters is kinda what I do."
She glared at me, before she sagged, the fight going out of her, her head dropping down. She leaned forward, pressing her cheek against my bare, newly healed chest, "Just don't die, okay. I'm worried enough about Vics, and she's not trying to fight an Endbringer."
"I'll go see if I can help search and rescue," I promised her, compromising and giving her a one-armed hug. "I'm pretty sure I'm no longer Endbringer Bait, but if he's there I'll try to hold him off long enough others can get to safety, then I'll pull back if things look bad."
Amelia didn't say anything, just nodded, though we both jumped when a voice yelled '"Panacea, are you unharmed!"
She pulled back and we both turned to look at the door. Taylor told us, expression distant, "There's heroes outside, a lot of them."
"Yes?" Amy replied to the voice beyond the door, confused. "Why?"
"What are your demands?" the voice demanded.
"Demands. . ." I echoed, finally understanding. Closing up the chest of my costume, I undid the air shields, making several between us and the door, just in case. "I'm not holding her hostage, dumbass. She's on my team and was just patching me up." I opened the doors remotely, and the parahumans charged in. One guy launched a bolt of energy at me, which hit the first shield and dissipated.
He prepped another and was promptly swarmed by insects, the others stopping, looking around. "He's healed, by the way," I offered, jerking a thumb backwards.
The lead cape, a woman in white and golden body armor, looked around, then back at the PRT. "We were told you'd knocked out the guards and kidnapped Panacea," she told me.
"What?" Amy asked. "Why would he do that? I'm on his team. He'd have priority, just like New Wave would."
"Wait, really?" I asked. "'Cause Break was told to leave me to die, then knocked out the guards when they tried to stop him. I think. I was kinda out of it." Amelia looked furious, so I quickly continued, turning back to the lead cape, "Then the PRT goons came in, guns pointed at me, and tried to kidnap her. One of the idiots tried to shoot me when I asked what was going on, but his aim sucked. I kicked them out, since they were shooting innocent people in a hospital."
One of the parahuman's armbands chimed, "Geyser deceased, CB-4. Cruise Control deceased, CB-4. Bastion deceased, CB-4. Garbage Man deceased, CB-4. Fearles-" she clicked it, shutting it off. I hadn't noticed it until then, but I'd lost my own armband, though given what I was planning, that was probably for the best.
"We don't have time for this," the woman said. "Panacea, are you still healing people?"
"I'm not sure I want to now-" she started to say, but caught my look. "Fine. Yes."
"And you weren't being held hostage?" the woman pressed.
"No!" the girl beside me shot back. "I wasn't!"
"Then let's go back to fighting the Endbringer instead of each other," the Hero in charge concluded, walking out, the other heroes following her.
I looked at Taylor and Amy, "Put your helmets on, don't know when some idiot's gonna start shooting." Lady Bug, pulled the bottom half of her mask from her belt and re-attached it, grabbing the box I'd built for her while Amy muttered, "Hypocrite" under her breath and grabbed her own helmet, which had been sitting on a nearby table.
We walked after heroes, only for the PRT troopers to point their guns at me as soon as we left the room, the leader announcing, "You're under arrest for th-"
"For god's sake, shut up!" the woman we'd been speaking to snapped, halfway down the hall. "You, whatever your name is, you're going out to fight?" she asked me. I nodded. "Good, go."
I started to fly away when one of the PRT officers grabbed Panacea's arm. "You need to come with-" was as far as he got before Taylor reached over, quick as a snake, and unlatched the troopers visor. Panacea reached up at the same time and flipped it up, tapping the man's face, and he dropped to the ground bonelessly. "Fuck you," she spat, giving a challenging glare to the other troopers, who looked suddenly unsure. "He's taken a nap. Let me go, or you will be too."
One of them tried to point there gun towards Taylor, only to find it wouldn't move, as I was holding it in place with solid air. "For fucks sake!" the woman yelled, stomping over to Taylor and Amelia. "Panacea, come with us and we'll make sure you find someone who isn't getting in the way! You, go!" she commanded me, and I nodded, flying away.
Following the signs, I found an exit and took off into the storm. "Eecee, Panacea, Lady Bug, don't respond right now, but if things get bad, just call for help."
"What's wrong?" Vicky asked a few seconds later.
"Got hurt, Herb took me to get help, they told him to fuck off, guards told him to fuck off, he came in anyways, I got patched up, PRT tried to shoot me for 'kidnapping' Panacea, heroes got called in, they got things sorted, PRT tried to arrest me and take Panacea anyways, Amy put that asshole to sleep and went off with the heroes," I rattled off.
"Uh. . . okay," Vicky replied, obviously unsure.
"Sitrep people. Other than Lady Bug, and Panacea, how is everyone?" I requested. The storm was omnipresent, lightning striking all around as well as the flash of powers going off across the darkened city. Looking inwards, another Minor slot had opened. Part of me wanted to slot in Stellar Creation. Without Stellar Negation it'd be dangerous to use around others, but while my Air lost to Leviathan's Water, throwing some Plasma into the mix should help even the scales. I hadn't practiced with it nearly as much as I had Air, given its distinctive appearance, but, if I wasn't pulling it out until I was alone anyways, it wouldn't matter.
Resolving to get that next, I slotted Shadowform. Nothing seemed any different after I did so. No new senses awakened, which I was glad for, as I was still trying to get a handle on the ones I had, nor did anything else seem to happen.
"With Legend, lost sight of Leviathan a while ago. He can dig underground," Purity reported, and I took a minute to process that. It made sense; drills were construct shaping 101. Well, they were if you watched Gurren Lagann, so maybe that wouldn't be most obvious conclusion. "I'm running low though."
I wondered if a star created with Stellar Creation would recharge Lightform's reserves. They gave off radiation like the sun gave on earth, despite that making no sense, which was what Lightform collected to help access the other dimension the Light came from. It stood to reason that maybe that same radiation would help her fill back up when she couldn't access the sun. . . Or she could just go up, I thought. Lightform did odd things to the body, and a lessened need for oxygen might be one of them.
"Break off from Legend and head up through the storm," I commanded her. It was the water that was dangerous, not the clouds, and if they tried to attack her, she could just let off a burst and escape. "Refill your tanks, but if you get lightheaded drop back down. I might have a backup plan, but let's see if that works. Who else?"
"Æonic, Mike, Curtis, Tyrone, and Boojack are all currently unreachable," Zilla chimed in.
There was a moment of silence over the line before I sighed and started to fly towards the city, knowing I'd have to go over them in turn. "Raida, you good?"
"Uh, yeah. Savin' people. Kinda scary, but Boo's watchin' out for me," the girl replied after a moment.
"Gallant, Vista?" I prodded.
"Fine!" the pre-teen space warper replied. "It's really hard keeping the wave back! I can't do anything else!"
"No problems here," Gallant added in.
"Vista, don't use your power other than keeping that up. Leviathan's looking for who did that and tried to kill a cape with a similar power," I told her, walking the line between truth and lies.
"That why you were hurt?" Missy asked, and I wondered exactly what she meant by that.
"No, I tried to 1v1 Levi," I replied. "I didn't win, but I didn't lose either. Theo, how's things at the base?"
"Pumps are working, no flooding," he reported. "Some weird stuff from the computers, but I don't know what it is."
"Weird how?" I asked, suddenly reminded of the times I worked IT and the endless stream of vague statements from clients.
There were the sounds of typing for a few seconds before he said, "Um, some sensors are going off, but I can't find out where they are. It's not in the base, but that's it."
Trying to remember the documentation for the base itself, which was several times larger than the first monster document I'd gotten from Numberman, I had no idea what it could be. I'd barely put a dent in it, and had no idea where to start. Breaking me out of my thoughts, there was a sound that seemed to cut across the rain, the thunder, the lightning, everything.
If I had to put it into words, I'd say it was a loud, rhythmic static that. . . chirped, overriding everything else. Looking in its direction, a sphere of perfect blackness had enveloped a small part of downtown, maybe only a city block. Air streamed into it, the rain spiraling in its direction as well, before it disappeared, leaving nothing behind.
The rain slackened off quickly, dropping to a light drizzle as the clouds started to thin, the day getting brighter. Did. . . did they do it? I wondered, looking around. This wasn't the plan, and I wasn't sure if the others had fought Levi enough to satisfy their 'Endbringer Target' Flaw, but if they'd somehow managed to kill him. . . this changed things.
Would this spawn Khonsu? If it did, my next power needs to be Time Immunity, and I'd have to see how his presence interacted with my possibly being an EB target, I thought. Chuck could probably no-sell his power, but Herb might have some trouble. That was assuming that Khonsu's appearance was set in stone. It showed up after Behemoth was beaten down with a time-based attack. Where the Endbringers pre-determined or were their forms mutable, to make sure the same strategy didn't work twice? Would the next one be. . . whatever that was related?
The rain stopped entirely, but the clouds thickened, darkening the day once more. With Levi gone, if he was gone, he was no longer controlling the clouds, so they stopped raining, the aftermath of his control making it heavily overcast. Looking out over the city, trying to figure out what to do next, I caught sight of a flash of Liquid, extending upwards and downwards, controlling every piece of water in the city.
"Barrage from above and below!" I called, wrapping myself in spheres of solid air and shifting to Shadowform, not really sure what I'd seen, but hoping I was wrong.
I wasn't.
They weren't compressed spears this time, but the collected raindrops came shooting down like a million bullets, a million more coming up from the flooded streets. Each droplet, accelerated to hyper-velocity, flew past the all the others, not a single one in my range colliding with another.
My air shields expended themselves, doing their job and keeping me safe, but others weren't as lucky. Several fliers I could see in the distance dropped down, likely dead, while others just seemed to disappear in a shower of gore, and in the distance something large, probably a Dragon craft, exploded. Unfortunately, Levi wasn't done. The bullet-rain from below stopped and came down in a second solid sheet, moving even faster, blasting through the remains of my air shields and through my insubstantial form.
The rain started again, faster than rain should be. While it would be hard enough to sting unprotected skin, it wasn't anywhere near lethal speeds. I was under no delusions that it couldn't do that again at a moment's notice, though. "Shit, how's everyone? I'm fine."
"We're good," Taylor said, "but a lot of people died, what happened?"
"Rain with the force of bullets," I told her, "Vicky?"
"We're good!" she affirmed, echoing Taylor. "Glad this thing has a roof. It's kinda beat up, but it didn't hurt us."
Purity added, "Legend and I were above the clouds. Break's with us."
"Raida?" I asked, but got no response. "Shit, Zilla, I need directions on Raida. Eeem."
She gave me the directions and I sped off. "Æonic?"
"Still unavailable," the VI told me.
Hopefully that meant he was still in his Time Bubble, so he'd missed that. I dropped down, towards Rune's location, shifting my costume configuration. Darkening everything and switching to a full helm, I opened tiny slits across my costume, through which grey tendrils streamed out as Metal Projection came to the fore. Feeling myself hit the limit to the power I'd run into before, the free-floating tendrils automatically changed form into a shifting steel giant, still wreathed in Shadow.
Unlike before, it didn't feel awkward to move, only like I was suddenly huge, with my eyes in my chest instead of my head. That being said, I was still aware of my 'real' body, I could just feel the metal one equally as well as my flesh and blood form. While the perspective was odd, with Aerokinesis I didn't need my eyes to see what was directly around me, which synced up perfectly with my new form as I approached Raida's location, or at least where her commpiece was sending a signal from. The buildings here were wrecked, rubble covering half the street, the other half flooded. I could sense people under the masonry, so many that it pressed, ever so slightly, against my Space Warping.
I could dig them out, but I had no idea how to shift the rubble without possibly crushing those I was trying to save, only that there was an art to it that I didn't possess. I'd played around with the metal tendrils during the last week, and they counted as 'me' for some short-range powers, like Lightform, but not for others, like Biokinesis, with no seeming rhyme or reason. I hadn't tested them with Shadowform, but there was no time like the present.
I couldn't see through my projected metal, but I could somewhat feet with them. This wouldn't be up to my standards of power use, but standards took a back seat to trying to survive nearly half an hour ago. Extending tendrils, I dug through the masonry, trying to home in on the nearest person I could 'sense', though it was like trying to see a shadow in a darkened room. The feelings I got as my tendril dug through the rubble came through more clearly than they had before, which gave me hope that I could pull this off without accidentally impaling anyone.
It wasn't exact, but I felt the difference between rock and air and carefully moved the end of the metal tendril around, blunting the tip until I felt something with a little give. Spreading the metal out in smaller and smaller branches, I wrapped around what felt like a knee, or maybe a really thick elbow.
Dropping the tendril, and what it carried, to Shadowform, my hold stayed strong and I resisted the urge to cheer. Part of the rubble shifted, dropping down, and I extended the shadowed tendril in each direction, finding a foot and then hips. Circling the latter, I pulled back, the projected metal retracting and pulling out a girl with a hood that had no face, just an infinite expanse of stars.
Putting her down and letting her return to reality, I leaned my 'body' down close enough that I could retract the metal covering my 'chest' and put my flesh and blood hand through my giant's body and grab her arm, her clothing in tatters, healing her as I extended more tendrils. With the proof of concept done, I found it much easier to search out others, the new tendrils extending almost on their own. Five, ten, twenty people were found and extracted, though not all of them were still alive.
The faceless girl seemed better, or at least without anymore visible injuries on her exposed skin, so I moved onto the next most injured person, a man in dented armor which was banged up enough I could reach through the cracks. I felt a thrum, the rain stopping as I spread my tendrils out, shifting everyone still alive to Shadow.
Another round of bullet rain came down, though without the simultaneous attack from below this time. It passed harmlessly through the survivors, riddling the corpses with holes, sending bits of gore everywhere, and I waited a long moment before releasing the survivors back to normalness. Actually. . . I could still heal the armored man with us both insubstantial, so there was no reason to do that whatsoever. I continued pulling out injured, keeping them in Shadowform, finally reaching the largest pocket of air, right in the middle.
A pair of hands grabbed the tendril, directing it over to someone. Wrapping around them, I split it up, only for one of the new branches to be directed to another person. Eleven people later, the hands patted the tendrils. I assumed that meant I didn't need anymore, and shifted them all to Shadow, pulling them back through the rubble, which promptly collapsed.
Retracting my metal tendrils like a demented fishing line, the first out was Raida, who was unconscious, followed by an odd assortment of parahumans, all injured. Catching a hint of a familiar Flame, I wasn't surprised when a mole dug its way out, promptly exploding upwards into Boojack. "The fuck?" he asked, looking up at me and the collection of people I held up in the air all around me by thin, metallic, shadowy tendrils, their lessened weight in that state letting me maneuver them with ease.
Bringing Raida to me, he took a combative step forward. "What?" I asked, leaning out of the center of my armor, giving him a look as I mentally pulled back her costume so I could heal her, extensive bruising on her now exposed arm.
"Looked like a monster tryin' to eat her," he said.
Her bruises disappeared, her leg shifting as it un-broke. "You didn't know it was me? Can't you sense my power?" I asked.
He just stared at me while I worked, finally saying, "Huh," and nothing more. As I worked, I realized that I'd done that training with Herb after Boojack was made, so he had no memory of it. I'd need to keep that in mind, if Herb ever made a clone that I could work with. It was zero for four so far, but he had at least six more, and I hoped at least one would be the type I'd actually recruit.
The water stilled again, and I sent a tendril to touch Boojack, who just raised an eyebrow behind his mask. This time the water around us erupted into spikes, like liquid ice, which stayed up for a bit before dropping back to regular water. They came back a few seconds later, and then a few seconds after that, and a fourth one before dropping down and staying water as the rain pressed down. I waited a long moment, the water erupting into rising bullet rain, before coming down as just and extra layer of precipitation.
"Leviathan seems to be switching to city-wide attacks," I commented conversationally, feeling the attacks coming from every pool of water as far as my Aerokinetic senses could reach.
"Yup."
"Any thoughts?" I asked, hoping for another perspective to help me figure out what I needed to do.
"Yup," he repeated.
I waited for his explanation, finishing my healing of Rune and switching to another person, a guy in a bright yellow robe. "Ya wanna share?" I asked sarcastically.
"Nope."
I sighed, "Do you know how to call someone to pick everyone up? I'd rather not carry them all back."
He nodded in agreement, walking over to the first hero I'd grabbed, who I only now noticed was wearing an armband, making a 'drop it' motion. As I returned her back to reality it chimed, "Starfield up, BB-4."
Boojack leaned over her, pressing the buttons on it and said, "Got wounded. Need pickup. Soon." Letting go of them, he folded his arms and sat down on a piece of rubble. With a wave of his hand, a crystal umbrella grew out of the ground, shading him from the rain. He reached inside his jacket, pulled out a baggie from which he extracted a blunt, and put it back. Aiming a finger at the end, a midnight blue beam of energy set the weed cigar alight and he took a deep drag.
Before I could ask what he thought we should do, the armband on, presumably, Starfield's arm responded. "Evac in two minutes, please stay in that location." Boojack nodded, shifting on his piece of rubble as a crystal chair extended up through it, a footrest rising so he could lean back and relax, and took another drag.
As we waited, more deaths rolled in, and I got antsier, wanting to do something to help.
"Mars-ipan deceased, AF-5, Kitty Kat down, FB-3, Flambé deceased, DB-6. Dauntless down, FB-3, Dakka deceased, DD-2, Pelter deceased, FB-3"
The water went still again, and I shifted Starfield and Boojack to shadow, only for nothing to happen. Thirty seconds later the stillness stopped, but I kept everyone in shadow anyways. Waiting, I opened up a hole in the center of the giant and stretched my reconstructed joints, moving back and for forth only for my hand to hit something.
Reaching for the small of my back as the rain started falling once more, I found a hard case latched onto my costume, which opened up at my touch, revealing a handle. Grabbing it, I held a gun which glowed a muted brown. It took a moment, but I realized it was the desiccation pistol I'd picked up hours before this SNAFU started. It was an invaluable tool which, between the craziness with Eidolon, realizing how strong Leviathan truly was, and everything else, I'd completely forgotten I had.
I'm a goddamned fucking moron.
Putting it back and promising to remember the anti-water gun when fighting the hydrokinetic, I finally dropped Starfield and Boojack, who was happy to learn he could still smoke as a living shadow, back to reality. Her armband reconnected to the network and started the process of announcing the dead again.
"Paragon down, CF-3, Grit deceased, FD-1, Riptide deceased, DE-4, Kid Win down, CF-3, Drakon Deceased, CF-3"
I was just about to put the injured down and leave Boojack to watch them when I spotted a golden glow and a disturbance in the air around the corner. A dozen people skidded into sight, all of them sliding along the top of the water like it were ice, shepherding a woman who knelt within a moving golden dome. A woman in grey who burned brightly to my Sight flew above them as she trailed a thick plume of dust behind her.
Boojack put out his joint and pocketed it as they neared, waving a hand as the crystal furniture fell away to nothing. As he did so, the group suddenly reacted as if they'd only just spotted me, despite my being a twenty-foot-tall giant of shadow and steel. They scattering as those with weapons pointed them in my general direction, though half of them would've missed. Looking at them, there were a few injured people in the golden dome, though something about it made me uneasy. "You the Evac?" I boomed, wishing I had Acoustokinesis to make this work better. Checking my powers, the third Major slot wasn't anywhere close to ready, but the next Minor slot would be up in a few seconds.
The dusty woman with the power of Ash Manipulation flew forwards, looking down at Starfield. "Just her?" she demanded.
I looked at all the people still carried by my tendrils, over a dozen of them hanging in the air around me, wondering how she missed them. Shifting the tendrils down, the leader watched dispassionately as I returned them to reality, one after another, in a row on the rubble that stuck up from the water.
The woman nodded in satisfaction as little goblin-things leapt from places they couldn't've been hiding it, picking up the injured and carrying them to the odd golden dome. When Raida touched it, she bounced off the side, unable to enter. The minions put her down after another try, the same green glow that was around the feet of the other heroes springing to life around Raida's prone form, keeping her on top of the water.
Boojack moved forward, form shifting into a Hippo as he moved next to her. It was a peaceful scene, immediately disturbed by water clone formed from the water flooding a nearby alley. It was still forming as it left its hiding spot, running towards the group. I moved to block it but had to dodge what looked like a giant novelty candle that rocketed past where my 'head' was, missing the clone by inches as it dodged as well.
Raising one Giant hand, I shifted it to a mass of tendrils that shot out and ripped the clone apart, the watery, clear construct providing little resistance as I sliced into it again and again as it tried to reform until it stopped, no piece bigger than a person. "Sorry!" a girl in a slender dress that looked like woven brass called out.
"It's fine, just-" I caught a flash of movement at the end of the street and caught sight of the Liquid that streamed off it in every direction. "Shit, Leviathan!" I warned.
The leader, only a few feet away, muttered "Not again," to herself, a feeling I heartily agreed with.
"Announce his location, get them to safety, I'll hold him," I told her. With my ability to drop to Shadow, and the ability to keep my main body insubstantial while my projected metal existed in the real world, this fight wasn't going to be nearly as dangerous as before.
The others took off, but the ash manipulator stayed behind, the powdery substance streaming out of her body. "You too," I told her, catching a flash of Levi as he moved around us, disturbing the air enough that I could track it before it suddenly plunged underground and disappeared.
It came up from underneath the group, which twisted around to avoid it just in time. Levi clones formed, only to lose cohesion as Boojack turned into a giant rhinoceros, half the size of Leviathan itself, and charged the Endbringer, slamming him into a nearby building.
The rescue team took off as I charged the Endbringer, pushing my metal body from behind with air and using my flight to run even faster as I extended more tendrils, growing myself to match Leviathan in height. The Endbringer leapt forward, trying to move around me, but I lengthened the metal of my arm and caught him as he jumped. The tendrils bit in, his greater momentum dragging me up and causing me to swing around him as the tentacles of steel wrapped around his body. I closed and slammed into him with my other hand, fingers replaced with of twisting spikes that dug into his crystalline flesh.
They didn't get very far, but it still injured the monster, who turned and struck me, sending water shooting down at my real body, only for it to pass through my insubstantial dorm. Grabbing my metal frame, he tore me off of himself, fragments of metal going everywhere, throwing me backwards as Boojack charged him once again.
As Boojack closed, the Endbringer's right arm from the elbow down seemed to dissolve into dark water, a construct instead of crystalline flesh. I lashed out at the buildings around me with metal hooks as I flew backwards from Levi's throw, slowing myself down just like he had the first time I hit him that day, and charged right back towards Endbringer as well. Boojack ducked underneath a tail-swipe and hit the Endbringer dead in the chest once again, pushing it back into the same building the replicant had thrown him into last time.
The Endbringer dug his remaining hand into the giant rhino's flesh, Leviathan's tail flashing down and piercing the asphalt to give it leverage as it tossed the herbivore away once more. As I closed, water streamed off Leviathan's body and reformed his missing arm.
It jumped for me, leading with its liquid limb, only for it to vaporize into nothing as I shot my desiccation pistol, fouling Leviathan's trajectory as well. In that moment it started to flail, losing all the fluidity of its movements it'd shown so far, and I realized something. The secret to the Endbringer's grace was its control over the water that surrounded it, and without it Levi was caught flat footed, even if just for a moment.
My rending strike caught it in the face as I copied its technique and sent tendrils of metal through my feet into the street to ground myself. The metal of my form groaned under the strain of my more massive foe, some tendrils snapping, but I brought Leviathan to a halt. The Endbringer's other hand came down, tearing into my metal as compressed bolts of water riddled my giant's metal chest and shot through where I was, passing harmlessly through the other side.
Slamming the Endbringer to the ground, holding its head firmly with my metallic right hand as more tendrils shot between my fingers to keep Leviathan down, a royal purple sword of plasma blazed to life in my giant's left as I slotted Stellar Creation, the metal tendrils starting to glow as I 'held' it. While I lacked Stellar negation to keep the metal cool, my own immunity to heat made it no issue for my own safety. Stabbing downward, a water clone grabbed my arm from behind as the water construct boiled away, stopping me for a moment.
My metallic arm to Shadow, but that gave Leviathan enough time to bring both its arms up and tear through the metal tendrils holding it down, skidding backwards as the flooded street carried it away like a giant moving sidewalk. This only lasted for a moment before the Endbringer suddenly started skipping across the water like a giant thrown rock, an enormous mastodon slamming into it from behind, trunk encircling the Endbringer's thin waist.
Charging forward as Boojack slammed his foe down into the ground, over and over, Levi's tail whipped out and stabbed through the center of my metal construct, slamming directly into the shield covering my chest, draining it despite my body being in Shadowform.
Not bothering to try to figure out how, I just changed the plan, assuming that Leviathan himself could hit me even if his water couldn't. While that sucked, this was still doable. Leviathan's tail struck out again and I parried with my flaming sword, which deflected the thrusting appendage, cutting deeply into it. I closed the distance and struck, But Levi rooted himself in the ground and tossed the mastodon at me, coming with it himself, hiding behind the hairy mammal.
As the Endbringer flew at me, he dug his remaining clawed hand into the flesh of the replicant's trunk, ripping through it as the flesh across the Endbringer's ragged, crystalline chest bulged. Freeing himself, he jumped backwards, out of Boojack's copying range as the rain above us accelerated to the speed of bullets once more, water spears coming in at us from every direction, so many they were impossible to dodge. Even the desiccation gun didn't help, the attacks coming in so fast, and from so many directions, that they couldn't be stopped.
My exposed metal was torn apart, and Levi forced the steam from the water that hit my sword to cover me in an attempt to burn me, but I was unharmed. Boojack was not so lucky, his shaggy hide pierced hundred of times over in the second as I reached for him to try to shift him to Shadowform, dead before I could save him.
With Boojack gone, and the others likely having retreaded to safety, I dropped the star saber and gave Leviathan a one finger salute as I shifted fully to Shadow and dropped through the ground, ready to let him become someone else's problem.
Leviathan objected.
He darted forward with insane speed, claws slamming into my giant and ripping pieces away, tearing its head clean off as I disappeared below ground. Dropping further down, just to be sure, I heard a loud grinding sound and Leviathan's tail shot through the dirt, ripping into the metal giant's shoulder, cutting off an arm. Dropping down even further, the Endbringer dug below me and slammed up into me, water drills cutting through earth as easily as if it were sand, as he shoved an arm through the constructs chest and grabbed me directly, pulling us both up to the surface where another hundred water spears passed through me to no effect.
Still in Shadow, I created a pair of suns in my flesh and blood hands and shoved them into Leviathan's claws. They passed through the water covering him as if it weren't there, but struck the Endbringer's talons, super-heating them as they started to eat into the material. The heat in that other dimension transferred to the real world, causing the water to vaporize as the twin stars sank deeper and deeper into his green flesh despite seeming to do no real damage in the real world. The super-tough material of his hands resisted my suns, but they burned through it anyways.
Leviathan squeezed tight, trying to crush me, but just broke my shields, the normal one covering my chest having just returned from being struck by his tail. Finding no success there, he threw me upwards with enormous strength, hurling me higher than the skyscrapers, giving me nowhere to run. He crouched down before launching himself after me, his injured hand reaching out to pierce through my armored chest.
A dark shape blurred into view and a German Shepard the size of a city bus slammed into Leviathan, knocking him down, into, and through a building. Looking around, I could distantly See Purity and Legend coming in from the north, Alexandria from the South, Eidolon from the South-west, and a number of other powers streaking in from across the city.
If Levi was smart, he'd try to cut and run, attacking someone more vulnerable, and I couldn't let that happen. I had an open power slot, and reached to put Speed Zones in it, to make me even faster when Kaiser's Metal Creation took its place in my mind. It didn't slot itself, but I could feel my power pushing me in that direction, waiting for permission. Following its suggestion, I did so, not sure why. I felt something in myself shift and twist, my power ringing like a struck bell, nausea assaulting me as the metal I'd projected out of my body retracted all at once.
Something connected, interfaced, and a͠d̴̶a̢pt̴̴͜e̸̕d̨̕, before metal streamed from every pore as if my body were purging itself. They tendrils extended and reformed, as they had when I first used the power, forming another body of metal, though this one was different. Not the dull grey of steel, but a shining gold shot through with pure white.
My Orichalcum body flexed, feeling light, tough, and strong as I turned my attention down where Tyrone was harrying Leviathan, keeping him busy. While I couldn't meet the Endbringer shot for shot, I could steal his techniques, and there was a lot more air here then there was water.
Extending out a 'tail' of braided metal, I flew downwards, shoving myself along with it exactly like Leviathan did to move himself through the sky. I blasted towards the pair, flying far faster then I had ever done without Lightform to push me, and struck Leviathan like the fist of an angry god.
While my punch's momentum wasn't enhanced, lacking the solid spiral patterns needed to do so, I was still hitting the Endbringer with several tons of incredibly hard metal moving at over a hundred miles per hour. As Leviathan tried to dodge my descent, Tyrone grabbed onto his tail with his teeth, slowing him down just enough for me to strike the Endbringer dead in in the chest. There was a thunderclap of force as Leviathan was blasted down and through the street, which crated with an explosion of water that shot off in all directions.
The Endbringer, chest deformed in the shape of my fist, started to sink into the ground but Tyrone appeared over him, latching onto the Endbringer with his jaws and throwing him upwards. As soon as the Endbringer left Tyrone's range, we were both assaulted in every direction as every free piece of water on the block blasted towards us, ripping apart buildings as he tried to kill us.
I shifted all but the outermost layer to shadow, but the Orichalcum took the hits, denting but not breaking. Tyrone disappeared completely, reappearing behind Leviathan, who hung in the air, covered and held aloft by his shroud of water. The Endbringer's assault stopped instantly as the water shroud lost cohesion, but Leviathan was waiting for this and speared the hound through the chest with its tail, impaling the replicant.
Tyrone growled, deep and echoing, as water formed around him in its own shell and he forced himself further down the tail that impaled him, catching the Endbringer's claw with his jaws as they both fell to the ground, destroying a building as they rolled over each other. Leviathan was trying to kill Tyrone and get access to his Hydrokinesis once more while the replicant was just trying to hold him in place and countering anything the Endbringer tried.
As I charged, Legend and Purity blasted by, strafing the Endbringer with explosions and piercing lasers. With company here, I pulled back my projected metal, dropped out of Shadowform, and created a blood red flaming sword, diving at the Endbringer. Getting close, I stabbed it in the back while the enormous hound raked its front, flying around the pair as they both rolled over. The Endbringer tore at Tyrone with its clawed feet as the end of its tail, the middle still piercing the replicant, swung around to stab him again and again, ripping the enormous hound to pieces.
He held on though, Alexandria arriving and slamming into the Endbringer as well, her punch rocking its head back as the Endbringer's blow bounced off the hound's suddenly impenetrable skin. She pulled back and Leviathan struck with everything it had, finally killing the hound, water bursting from its form and exploding outwards in every direction.
Alexandria was thrown back by the solid wave of water and gore as I shifted, for an instant, to Shadow, letting attack pass me by. What was left of Tyrone was blasted to pieces, Purity darting in front of Legend as she let out a shining white sphere of her own, matching and blocking the indiscriminate attack.
Leviathan darted away, only to run headfirst into a glowing blue brick wall which held fast against the impact, the unnatural construction tethered by a thin line of light to Eidolon's right hand, the 'strongest parahuman' finally joining the fight. He held out his left and a sparking ball of fractal light started to grow within it. "Hold him!" the man in green and white yelled, and Alexandria shot forward to do just that.
I followed, the Orichalcum running through me, creating a thin sheath over my skin and under my armor that let me put myself under the pressure needed to enhance my speed more than before, though I lacked the tail to fully copy the Endbringer's technique. Leviathan tried to dig underground, but Alexandria caught him by the tail and pulled, straining, to keep him up, finding a handhold in the cut I'd made when I'd deflected its tail with solidified star a minute before.
The Endbringer turned and clawed at her, its missing arm re-grown past the elbow, and it tried to shove the rest of its watery hand in her face, only for it to bounce off an invisible field of force.
I reached the Endbringer and it slashed at me with its real arm, which I deflected with my sword, barely. My power strained to hold the star in place from the force of the blow, mostly succeeding, allowing me to move with the imparted momentum in a spin that swirled me around its limb to stab it in the side. I left the blade there, mentally growing it deeper into its flesh to get a better grip. It blasted me back with a column of water, and while I blunted the impact with an air shield, I let it carry me away, focusing on keeping the sword in place, holding Leviathan where I stabbed him.
Eidolon's power had grown, an impossibly deep sphere of light the size of his head held at the ready while his other hand directed a tether of blue energy to create a blue collar that latched around the Endbringer's neck.
Lasers pierced the Endbringer's hide, holding it in place as Eidolon shoved his hand forward, throwing the sphere towards Leviathan, bound as it was. "Get away!" the man yelled, and I complied, pulling back as fast as I could while the others did the same.
Leviathan broke its bonds, ripping itself free in a geyser of gore as it tried to escape the attack, accelerating as it went off. The sphere expanded outwards, encircling the Endbringer completely. Lines of fractal light appeared, each reaching from one end of the sphere to the other, rotating in complex patterns as they sliced through everything it touched, from the bodies, to the cars, to even the buildings.
The Endbringer danced around the patterns, blurring as it tried to get out of the sphere, only to break off again as more beams blocked its path. The beams quickened, as did the Endbringer, my perception of the world slowing to keep track of them both. The Endbringer moved faster and faster, each attempt to escape stopped by another beam, finally making a break for it but not quite dodging in time. The beam caught the Endbringer's tail, slicing through it cleanly as it escaped, leaving only a sliver of flesh trailing behind it.
Alexandria and Legend blasted off, flying around the sphere to try to get to the Endbringer, but it escaped, dropping down into the ground and disappearing. The light from Eidolon's attack faded as Leviathan's sixty-foot-long tail, sliced into hundreds of pieces, dropped into the wreckage below.
I let out a long breath, looking at the Triumvirate. "Do you think that was enough to make Levi pack up and go ho-"
The rain stuttered, before coming down like a hailstorm of bullets around us. Purity poured Light above herself in reactive shield, A pyramid of blue force appeared around Eidolon, I wrapped myself in a sphere of Air Shields, Legend turned to a laser and ran, and Alexandria just floated there. A moment later, it came down on us again before it stopped. Purity let the projected light fade, breathing hard, as Legend returned, and Alexandria turned to look at me. "I believe he's not leaving until we're dead, or he is," she told me, looking me over. "Where's your armband, Vejovis?"
I shrugged, "Leviathan broke it."
"Get another," she commanded, flying off. Eidolon followed suit, not saying a word as he headed off in the opposite direction.
"Vejovis?" Legend asked, and I looked over at him and nodded. "Good job. I'd like to talk to you after this," he said, a weary smile on his face.
"Um, okay?" I replied, not sure how else to respond. He gave me another friendly, strained nod and flew off, Purity nodding to me as well before following him.
Looking around, I wondered where the hell Leviathan was. Deciding to at least appear like I was following Alexandria's. . . let's say advice, I started to fly back towards the medical tents, which was the closest thing to a base I knew about. Trying to make sure I was fully ready for the next confrontation, I grabbed my pistol which had been gone unused during the fight and reloaded it. Too many tools, I thought. While everything looked like a nail if the only thing you had was a hammer, it was really easy to remember to use that hammer in the first place. When you had a toolbox, you'd probably use it all, but I vividly remembered how, despite having a full workshop, my father tended to use the same dozen tools for everything.
Restricting myself down to a few powers per persona helped focus me, but I'd gotten into the habit of using a hammer for everything when I was wearing white. I'd had powers that I'd barely touched, and while I didn't need that level of capability against normal opponents, this in no way counted as normal. I wouldn't seek Leviathan out, again, but we'd hurt him badly here, and if he hadn't left yet, then Alexandria might be right, as much as it galled me to agree with that psychopath.
Checking, I'd picked up another Minor slot. And yet more tools. I slotted Speed Zones into it, feeling it activate and mix with all the others without incident. Fighting Leviathan was all about speed, and this power I'd practiced quite a bit with. Mass uses of them would be obvious, but minor uses could make the difference on the battlefield just the same. Feeling it finish threading itself into place, I put a Speed Zone along my arm, just to test it. It seemed the same, though the feedback was so much clearer then that evening I'd spent playing tag with Velocity. I hoped he was okay. I hadn't heard him die this time, but I'd been somewhat busy.
"Um, Vejovis?" my comms buzzed, the worry and constrained panic in Theo's voice almost tangible. "I figured out the computers."
"Eecee, Yeah Theo, what was it?" The last thing I needed was for Eclipse to start breaking down right now. Was it something I'd missed? Cauldron's interference? A Coil plot? It was just another thing that I couldn't spend time worry about, and I was glad that he'd figured it out so I'd be able to put that issue aside and focus on the fight.
"It was the sensors, just the long-range ones," he explained, hesitating.
Was it another, even bigger, Tidal wave? I worried, glancing over towards the bay. I didn't know the range, and I'd always seen Levi's power extending towards the bay. What if it wasn't just feeding into the current tidal wave, but was bringing an even bigger one here? The one that Leviathan had arrived with still was straining against Vista's construct, and if another came it could flow right up over the wall we'd made. "So it wasn't a bug?" I clarified, hoping I was wrong.
"Um, no," Theo told me. "It wasn't."
"Then what was it?" I asked him when he didn't say anything else, getting annoyed, not having the time to play twenty questions. "Spit it out, Theo."
"It's The Simurgh," he said helplessly, and I felt my stomach drop.
"The Simurgh is coming."
"Don't die, don't die, don't die," someone said, over and over again.
Everything hurt, though it was a distant pain, like stubbing your toe in a dream. I got the sensation of movement coming in waves, as the air rushed past me, or as I rushed past the air. I knew I was hurt, but weren't you supposed to not feel pain if you were hurt enough.
P̴e̷ak ̢C̸on͠d̛i̶t̷io̴n.̴
Right, right, that'd keep me aware. Hard to be in 'Peak Condition' if you didn't have functioning nerves. The chanting continued, sounding scared, tired, angry, and whole bunch of other things. We started to slow, and I could feel a lot of people below me, messing with my ability to Warp Space, though that power was mostly still tied up keeping the working that Vista and I'd made going.
I felt a hole in my powers, and a pretty big one at that. No, not a hole, but an opening, ready and waiting to be filled. I tried to think of a suitable sex joke, but it was like trying to swim through tapioca. Not that I ever had, but it felt like what I thought it'd feel like. Stay on topic, stay on topic, I thought, a la Star Wars, smiling to myself, though my mouth hurt when tried to smile to everyone else. I had a Major slot open, and most of a Minor one as well. What should I use it on? I tried that healing power the monochrome guy had, but it wouldn't take, which wasn't very nice of it.
We landed with a painful jolt, and I twitched. Well, my Metal Projection twitched. Same thing. "Fuck!" the voice, which had gone quiet, swore, before picking up its litany of "Don't die," once again. I wondered what was going on, there were a lot of people around me, moving the air in hundreds of different ways. I felt the breath of someone nearby still, marveling at all the little pockets of gas inside them, gave it a little prod, and it started up again, the tiny fascinating pockets disappearing from my senses. Air movements were good, but it was hard to make out any detail. I was more than a little annoyed at this when I remembered I had eyes.
Opening them, I quickly closed them right back up as I looked right into blinding white fluorescents. I was being moved, and when I tried again, I had a moment to adjust before another fluorescent bulb rolled across my vision. I'd forgotten how dark it was, fighting out there, until I was suddenly somewhere that you didn't need darkvision to see clearly. The person carrying me solidified, and I barely recognized Herb. His mask was beat to hell, and the naked panic on whose face looked completely out of place.
He stopped, demanding, "Where's Panacea?" to someone out of my line of sight.
The person took a few seconds to reply, a woman's voice telling him, "That one's a lost cause."
Fury blazed across my friends features as he yelled, "NO HE ISN'T! WHERE'S PANACEA!"
The woman snarled back, "Busy with people that can be saved! Either go fight or go away! I'm going to help people who can be helped!"
I tried to tell Herb to ask Zilla as he took an angry step forward, ready to respond, but for some reason I couldn't really get the breath to, what little I had just causing hot liquid to dribble out my mouth. Using Aerokinesis I formed the words "Ask Zilla" in the air.
Herb's head snapped over to what I'd written, his eyes glimmering with Power Sight for a moment before he nodded quickly, saying, "Zilla? Zilla! Zilla, where's Panacea!?" he got a response as he started walking quickly, almost jogging, as we went down hallway after hallway, interspersed with brief moments where we were outside again, the sky dark as rain poured from above.
Someone stepped forward and tried to say, "Stop! You can't go-guh!" as Herb's power lashed out twice, causing them both to collapse, from the sound of it.
After a few dozen more steps, Herb whispered, "Dude, open up your suit, I need to touch you." I did so where he was holding me, only to hear something wet hit the ground and him go "Fuck!" It felt cold, and kinda weird, and kinda good, though the fact that he wasn't making any of the dozens of jokes he could've about touching me worried me a little. I couldn't really think of any myself, but I could recognize the opportunity, at least.
We went through a couple sets of doors, and someone tried to say, "what are you doin-" only to be cut off by twin cries of "Lee!"
I was put down on something as someone left the room in a hurry, Herb keeping his hand on my back as two other shapes entered my view, one wearing a half mask while the other just wore a hood. It took a bit to realize they were Taylor and Amy, the second of which was moving her hands along my chest. I wondered what she was doing until Herb said, "Open up, she needs to touch you."
That made a lot of sense, so I did so, creating a gap from my waist to my neckc, ausing her to stumble forward slightly. I heard another weirdly wet sound as she held back a panicked, distressed yell, not really saying anything as Taylor let out a strangled scream. "How?" Amy demanded, sounding scared, poking at something in me.
Herb said, "Leviathan," but Amy shook her head, pausing as Taylor said "Hookwolf." I wasn't really sure what either of them meant, as it was Herb that'd brought me here, but I felt metal shards pushed into contact with my Metal Projection, which re-claimed them, bringing them back into the whole. Other parts of me moved a little, but I didn't feel much of a difference, my thoughts muddled with bright clouds of pain when I tried to focus.
"It's too much, it's just too much," Amy said to herself after a moment, looking pale and tired and lost. She brought up a hand to push the hair out of her eyes, leaving long red streaks across her face, and I wondered who she'd been working on that was so hurt it'd left her hands that bloody. I couldn't help her heal me directly, but maybe I could do what I'd done with Vista? I could See her power easily enough, and the power that I'd drained from myself for that last hit against Leviathan was already mostly back, so I tried to give her more power to work with.
Nothing happened.
That was. . . odd. It'd worked for Vista, so why didn't it work for Panacea? Even if it was a distance problem, with Biokinesis being touch-ranged it should still work as she was touching me. It should work, so why wasn't it?
Bi҉ơk̛in҉esi͟s̕.͡
Right, I didn't actually have Biokinesis, like I'd had Space Warping. Well, that was an easy enough problem to fix. Slotting it in, I became hyper-aware of what I was touching, and what I could use my power on. Still had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I could do it, at least. Herb and Amy gave simultaneous sighs as I helped them Get Better. They were helping me, so it was only nice to give them a pick me up in return, like a bio-kinetic reach around. Hey! That's a sex joke! I thought, proud of myself.
. . . What was I doing?
Oh yeah, I was trying to make Amy's power work better, like I had with Vista. I tried to do so with Herb as well, but it didn't work, probably because he didn't have Biokinesis. I'd need his copying ability to enhance his copying ability, and I pondered why it worked that way, the terms I̶m̵p͏e͏tu͞s͝ ҉ and E҉xpr͠e̛ss͞i̕ơn, drifting through my thoughts for some reason.
Well, if I couldn't up Herb's ability, I could definitely up Amy's ability. Probably. Possibly. Maybe. I wouldn't know if I didn't try, and while it seemed really nice to drift here, I had things to do. I wasn't sure what they were, just a niggling sense that I didn't have time to waste.
Focusing on Amy, as much as I was able, I poured my power into hers, the now familiar draining sensation was. . . annoying, like unexpectedly having to pay for someone else's food, but I was doing this to help her. I didn't know how this would help her, only that it would.
Amy gasped as her eyes caught fire, beautiful Bone White and Blood Red Flames burning with power as her Biokinesis was pushed further and further, to greater and greater heights. I could practically feel my body shifting and realigning as Taylor gasped. "Are you okay?" the bug controller asked, unsure.
I tried to tell he it was fine, I'd done this before, but it came out as a wet gurgle and Amy snapped, "Don't do that!"
Taylor had looked scared when I tried to talk, but Amy being Amy seemed to help. On the other side Herb murmured, "How the fuck. . .?" to himself, but didn't say anything else, as usual.
My favorite healer kept working on me, the blood on her face condensing into a Crimson beetle that jumped down onto my chest, though I didn't feel it land. "Bugs!" she called, and a stream of insects came in through a vent, dropping onto me. Less than a minute later, Amy waved them off, and they retreated back through the vent as if they'd never been here.
She seemed like she was done, and I was feeling a little worried for some reason, so I stopped feeding her power, the fire in her eyes fading, leaving her normal, expressive green orbs, though there might've been a little red that hadn't been there before. The pain was gone, but I still drifted, having trouble focusing anything for more than few seconds. She looked over me, from head to toe, and frowned, before hitting me in the chest as she command me to "Breathe, dumbass!"
I gasped, and, while mean, she wasn't exactly wrong. As I took in sweet, cold gulps of air, the fog that blanketed my mind slowly lifted. Noticing that Herb had taken his hand away, I closed up the back of my costume and sat up, stretching out. Looking around, I saw that Taylor and Herb were covered in blood, Panacea looking a bit dirty but otherwise fine. Flicking a hand out, I sent bits of my suit out and cleaned all three off in seconds as I let out a deep sigh.
"Okay, that sucked. Gonna need a new strategy next time," I said, more to myself then them, prompting simultaneous responses from all three.
"What?" Taylor asked.
"Not alone you're not!" stated Herb.
"Oh hell no!" Amy yelled, "Your insides were mush!"
I started to reply to Herb, but Amelia's statement took me back. "Really?"
"Yes!" she yelled back, and Herb nodded.
That was. . . bad, and I could freak out about it after the fight was over. "Break, you need to go back ASAP. We don't know how long you need to be out of it before your power thinks the fight is 'over' and you're back to zero."
"I-I'm not leaving you alone!" he shot back, but his objection lacked conviction.
I opened the eyes of my costume and Saw him, looking for that aspect of his borrowed power. Finding it, I shook my head, "You've got to keep going. I'm going to take a few minutes, at least, and it'll lapse if you're not doing something. Getting me help counted, waiting for me to go back to fighting likely won't. Go and make sure Kayden's okay."
He pointed at me aggressively, but his words died before they crossed his lips, knowing I was right. "Don't-Just don't do that to me again!" he more pleaded than commanded.
"I'll do my best, next one I get is intangibility," I promised him. It was obvious to him that that wasn't good enough, but he turned and left, opening the door and dodging as the sound of gunfire came from down the hall. "I'm headin' out," he told whoever tried to attack him. "Shoot me again and I'll shove it up your ass sideways!"
I covered my eyes with my costume as he turned into a velociraptor and took off so fast he blurred, feeling him sprint out the building with Aerokinesis. There was the pounding of feet as PRT agents ran inside, pointing their guns at me. "Step away from Panacea!" one of them yelled.
Taylor and I exchanged confused glances as Amy asked "What?"
"Step away from Panacea!" was yelled at us again, the person in the back giving the commands not the talkative type.
"She's on my team, and not a Ward," I pointed out, my mind still a bit fuzzy and leaving me in no mood to deal with this shit. "Back the fuck off."
One of the idiots actually took the shot, which I deflected between us easily.
"Fuck off," I repeated, using Aerokinesis to shove them backwards and out the door, slamming it, and covering it with a solid layer of air. "Right, that was. . . weird." I looked over and saw someone else lying on another bed in the room, still breathing but unconscious. "Oh, shit, um, should you help him?"
"What?" Amy asked, following my gaze. "Fuck!" She leapt over to him, putting a hand on his chest as her power flared to life.
I followed her over, standing behind and reaching past her to lay a hand on him, healing him as well. I turned over the reins of my Biokinesis to Panacea as I said, "Right, so, I was a dumbass and tried to match Levi power for power, and that was. . . dumb. I blame Hollywood." Amy gave a derisive snort as she worked, the injured man's flesh re-arranging itself before my eyes.
"Hollywood?" Taylor asked, still looking a bit shell shocked.
I motioned her over as the PRT tried to batter the door down, not even getting through the Air Shield. Compared to Levi's attacks they were absolutely pitiful. Putting a hand on her uncovered face, I gave her the 'get better' treatment, her paleness fading as she calmed down. "Yeah, Hollywood. I fought him power vs power, mano-a-monstero, sky versus sea. He was standing there, not engaging me physically, and I'd lose if he did, so I did the same. It didn't work, though I did get him at the end. I think. But I've got more than just the one power, and I need to remember to use them."
Amelia stood back from her patient, bumping against my chest, and turned around to glare up at me. She was only a few inches away as she informed me, "You shouldn't go back at all!"
I got the weirdest urge to hug her but shrugged instead. Touched by her concern, I smiled down at her, "I'm a hero, fighting monsters is kinda what I do."
She glared at me, before she sagged, the fight going out of her, her head dropping down. She leaned forward, pressing her cheek against my bare, newly healed chest, "Just don't die, okay. I'm worried enough about Vics, and she's not trying to fight an Endbringer."
"I'll go see if I can help search and rescue," I promised her, compromising and giving her a one-armed hug. "I'm pretty sure I'm no longer Endbringer Bait, but if he's there I'll try to hold him off long enough others can get to safety, then I'll pull back if things look bad."
Amelia didn't say anything, just nodded, though we both jumped when a voice yelled '"Panacea, are you unharmed!"
She pulled back and we both turned to look at the door. Taylor told us, expression distant, "There's heroes outside, a lot of them."
"Yes?" Amy replied to the voice beyond the door, confused. "Why?"
"What are your demands?" the voice demanded.
"Demands. . ." I echoed, finally understanding. Closing up the chest of my costume, I undid the air shields, making several between us and the door, just in case. "I'm not holding her hostage, dumbass. She's on my team and was just patching me up." I opened the doors remotely, and the parahumans charged in. One guy launched a bolt of energy at me, which hit the first shield and dissipated.
He prepped another and was promptly swarmed by insects, the others stopping, looking around. "He's healed, by the way," I offered, jerking a thumb backwards.
The lead cape, a woman in white and golden body armor, looked around, then back at the PRT. "We were told you'd knocked out the guards and kidnapped Panacea," she told me.
"What?" Amy asked. "Why would he do that? I'm on his team. He'd have priority, just like New Wave would."
"Wait, really?" I asked. "'Cause Break was told to leave me to die, then knocked out the guards when they tried to stop him. I think. I was kinda out of it." Amelia looked furious, so I quickly continued, turning back to the lead cape, "Then the PRT goons came in, guns pointed at me, and tried to kidnap her. One of the idiots tried to shoot me when I asked what was going on, but his aim sucked. I kicked them out, since they were shooting innocent people in a hospital."
One of the parahuman's armbands chimed, "Geyser deceased, CB-4. Cruise Control deceased, CB-4. Bastion deceased, CB-4. Garbage Man deceased, CB-4. Fearles-" she clicked it, shutting it off. I hadn't noticed it until then, but I'd lost my own armband, though given what I was planning, that was probably for the best.
"We don't have time for this," the woman said. "Panacea, are you still healing people?"
"I'm not sure I want to now-" she started to say, but caught my look. "Fine. Yes."
"And you weren't being held hostage?" the woman pressed.
"No!" the girl beside me shot back. "I wasn't!"
"Then let's go back to fighting the Endbringer instead of each other," the Hero in charge concluded, walking out, the other heroes following her.
I looked at Taylor and Amy, "Put your helmets on, don't know when some idiot's gonna start shooting." Lady Bug, pulled the bottom half of her mask from her belt and re-attached it, grabbing the box I'd built for her while Amy muttered, "Hypocrite" under her breath and grabbed her own helmet, which had been sitting on a nearby table.
We walked after heroes, only for the PRT troopers to point their guns at me as soon as we left the room, the leader announcing, "You're under arrest for th-"
"For god's sake, shut up!" the woman we'd been speaking to snapped, halfway down the hall. "You, whatever your name is, you're going out to fight?" she asked me. I nodded. "Good, go."
I started to fly away when one of the PRT officers grabbed Panacea's arm. "You need to come with-" was as far as he got before Taylor reached over, quick as a snake, and unlatched the troopers visor. Panacea reached up at the same time and flipped it up, tapping the man's face, and he dropped to the ground bonelessly. "Fuck you," she spat, giving a challenging glare to the other troopers, who looked suddenly unsure. "He's taken a nap. Let me go, or you will be too."
One of them tried to point there gun towards Taylor, only to find it wouldn't move, as I was holding it in place with solid air. "For fucks sake!" the woman yelled, stomping over to Taylor and Amelia. "Panacea, come with us and we'll make sure you find someone who isn't getting in the way! You, go!" she commanded me, and I nodded, flying away.
Following the signs, I found an exit and took off into the storm. "Eecee, Panacea, Lady Bug, don't respond right now, but if things get bad, just call for help."
"What's wrong?" Vicky asked a few seconds later.
"Got hurt, Herb took me to get help, they told him to fuck off, guards told him to fuck off, he came in anyways, I got patched up, PRT tried to shoot me for 'kidnapping' Panacea, heroes got called in, they got things sorted, PRT tried to arrest me and take Panacea anyways, Amy put that asshole to sleep and went off with the heroes," I rattled off.
"Uh. . . okay," Vicky replied, obviously unsure.
"Sitrep people. Other than Lady Bug, and Panacea, how is everyone?" I requested. The storm was omnipresent, lightning striking all around as well as the flash of powers going off across the darkened city. Looking inwards, another Minor slot had opened. Part of me wanted to slot in Stellar Creation. Without Stellar Negation it'd be dangerous to use around others, but while my Air lost to Leviathan's Water, throwing some Plasma into the mix should help even the scales. I hadn't practiced with it nearly as much as I had Air, given its distinctive appearance, but, if I wasn't pulling it out until I was alone anyways, it wouldn't matter.
Resolving to get that next, I slotted Shadowform. Nothing seemed any different after I did so. No new senses awakened, which I was glad for, as I was still trying to get a handle on the ones I had, nor did anything else seem to happen.
"With Legend, lost sight of Leviathan a while ago. He can dig underground," Purity reported, and I took a minute to process that. It made sense; drills were construct shaping 101. Well, they were if you watched Gurren Lagann, so maybe that wouldn't be most obvious conclusion. "I'm running low though."
I wondered if a star created with Stellar Creation would recharge Lightform's reserves. They gave off radiation like the sun gave on earth, despite that making no sense, which was what Lightform collected to help access the other dimension the Light came from. It stood to reason that maybe that same radiation would help her fill back up when she couldn't access the sun. . . Or she could just go up, I thought. Lightform did odd things to the body, and a lessened need for oxygen might be one of them.
"Break off from Legend and head up through the storm," I commanded her. It was the water that was dangerous, not the clouds, and if they tried to attack her, she could just let off a burst and escape. "Refill your tanks, but if you get lightheaded drop back down. I might have a backup plan, but let's see if that works. Who else?"
"Æonic, Mike, Curtis, Tyrone, and Boojack are all currently unreachable," Zilla chimed in.
There was a moment of silence over the line before I sighed and started to fly towards the city, knowing I'd have to go over them in turn. "Raida, you good?"
"Uh, yeah. Savin' people. Kinda scary, but Boo's watchin' out for me," the girl replied after a moment.
"Gallant, Vista?" I prodded.
"Fine!" the pre-teen space warper replied. "It's really hard keeping the wave back! I can't do anything else!"
"No problems here," Gallant added in.
"Vista, don't use your power other than keeping that up. Leviathan's looking for who did that and tried to kill a cape with a similar power," I told her, walking the line between truth and lies.
"That why you were hurt?" Missy asked, and I wondered exactly what she meant by that.
"No, I tried to 1v1 Levi," I replied. "I didn't win, but I didn't lose either. Theo, how's things at the base?"
"Pumps are working, no flooding," he reported. "Some weird stuff from the computers, but I don't know what it is."
"Weird how?" I asked, suddenly reminded of the times I worked IT and the endless stream of vague statements from clients.
There were the sounds of typing for a few seconds before he said, "Um, some sensors are going off, but I can't find out where they are. It's not in the base, but that's it."
Trying to remember the documentation for the base itself, which was several times larger than the first monster document I'd gotten from Numberman, I had no idea what it could be. I'd barely put a dent in it, and had no idea where to start. Breaking me out of my thoughts, there was a sound that seemed to cut across the rain, the thunder, the lightning, everything.
If I had to put it into words, I'd say it was a loud, rhythmic static that. . . chirped, overriding everything else. Looking in its direction, a sphere of perfect blackness had enveloped a small part of downtown, maybe only a city block. Air streamed into it, the rain spiraling in its direction as well, before it disappeared, leaving nothing behind.
The rain slackened off quickly, dropping to a light drizzle as the clouds started to thin, the day getting brighter. Did. . . did they do it? I wondered, looking around. This wasn't the plan, and I wasn't sure if the others had fought Levi enough to satisfy their 'Endbringer Target' Flaw, but if they'd somehow managed to kill him. . . this changed things.
Would this spawn Khonsu? If it did, my next power needs to be Time Immunity, and I'd have to see how his presence interacted with my possibly being an EB target, I thought. Chuck could probably no-sell his power, but Herb might have some trouble. That was assuming that Khonsu's appearance was set in stone. It showed up after Behemoth was beaten down with a time-based attack. Where the Endbringers pre-determined or were their forms mutable, to make sure the same strategy didn't work twice? Would the next one be. . . whatever that was related?
The rain stopped entirely, but the clouds thickened, darkening the day once more. With Levi gone, if he was gone, he was no longer controlling the clouds, so they stopped raining, the aftermath of his control making it heavily overcast. Looking out over the city, trying to figure out what to do next, I caught sight of a flash of Liquid, extending upwards and downwards, controlling every piece of water in the city.
"Barrage from above and below!" I called, wrapping myself in spheres of solid air and shifting to Shadowform, not really sure what I'd seen, but hoping I was wrong.
I wasn't.
They weren't compressed spears this time, but the collected raindrops came shooting down like a million bullets, a million more coming up from the flooded streets. Each droplet, accelerated to hyper-velocity, flew past the all the others, not a single one in my range colliding with another.
My air shields expended themselves, doing their job and keeping me safe, but others weren't as lucky. Several fliers I could see in the distance dropped down, likely dead, while others just seemed to disappear in a shower of gore, and in the distance something large, probably a Dragon craft, exploded. Unfortunately, Levi wasn't done. The bullet-rain from below stopped and came down in a second solid sheet, moving even faster, blasting through the remains of my air shields and through my insubstantial form.
The rain started again, faster than rain should be. While it would be hard enough to sting unprotected skin, it wasn't anywhere near lethal speeds. I was under no delusions that it couldn't do that again at a moment's notice, though. "Shit, how's everyone? I'm fine."
"We're good," Taylor said, "but a lot of people died, what happened?"
"Rain with the force of bullets," I told her, "Vicky?"
"We're good!" she affirmed, echoing Taylor. "Glad this thing has a roof. It's kinda beat up, but it didn't hurt us."
Purity added, "Legend and I were above the clouds. Break's with us."
"Raida?" I asked, but got no response. "Shit, Zilla, I need directions on Raida. Eeem."
She gave me the directions and I sped off. "Æonic?"
"Still unavailable," the VI told me.
Hopefully that meant he was still in his Time Bubble, so he'd missed that. I dropped down, towards Rune's location, shifting my costume configuration. Darkening everything and switching to a full helm, I opened tiny slits across my costume, through which grey tendrils streamed out as Metal Projection came to the fore. Feeling myself hit the limit to the power I'd run into before, the free-floating tendrils automatically changed form into a shifting steel giant, still wreathed in Shadow.
Unlike before, it didn't feel awkward to move, only like I was suddenly huge, with my eyes in my chest instead of my head. That being said, I was still aware of my 'real' body, I could just feel the metal one equally as well as my flesh and blood form. While the perspective was odd, with Aerokinesis I didn't need my eyes to see what was directly around me, which synced up perfectly with my new form as I approached Raida's location, or at least where her commpiece was sending a signal from. The buildings here were wrecked, rubble covering half the street, the other half flooded. I could sense people under the masonry, so many that it pressed, ever so slightly, against my Space Warping.
I could dig them out, but I had no idea how to shift the rubble without possibly crushing those I was trying to save, only that there was an art to it that I didn't possess. I'd played around with the metal tendrils during the last week, and they counted as 'me' for some short-range powers, like Lightform, but not for others, like Biokinesis, with no seeming rhyme or reason. I hadn't tested them with Shadowform, but there was no time like the present.
I couldn't see through my projected metal, but I could somewhat feet with them. This wouldn't be up to my standards of power use, but standards took a back seat to trying to survive nearly half an hour ago. Extending tendrils, I dug through the masonry, trying to home in on the nearest person I could 'sense', though it was like trying to see a shadow in a darkened room. The feelings I got as my tendril dug through the rubble came through more clearly than they had before, which gave me hope that I could pull this off without accidentally impaling anyone.
It wasn't exact, but I felt the difference between rock and air and carefully moved the end of the metal tendril around, blunting the tip until I felt something with a little give. Spreading the metal out in smaller and smaller branches, I wrapped around what felt like a knee, or maybe a really thick elbow.
Dropping the tendril, and what it carried, to Shadowform, my hold stayed strong and I resisted the urge to cheer. Part of the rubble shifted, dropping down, and I extended the shadowed tendril in each direction, finding a foot and then hips. Circling the latter, I pulled back, the projected metal retracting and pulling out a girl with a hood that had no face, just an infinite expanse of stars.
Putting her down and letting her return to reality, I leaned my 'body' down close enough that I could retract the metal covering my 'chest' and put my flesh and blood hand through my giant's body and grab her arm, her clothing in tatters, healing her as I extended more tendrils. With the proof of concept done, I found it much easier to search out others, the new tendrils extending almost on their own. Five, ten, twenty people were found and extracted, though not all of them were still alive.
The faceless girl seemed better, or at least without anymore visible injuries on her exposed skin, so I moved onto the next most injured person, a man in dented armor which was banged up enough I could reach through the cracks. I felt a thrum, the rain stopping as I spread my tendrils out, shifting everyone still alive to Shadow.
Another round of bullet rain came down, though without the simultaneous attack from below this time. It passed harmlessly through the survivors, riddling the corpses with holes, sending bits of gore everywhere, and I waited a long moment before releasing the survivors back to normalness. Actually. . . I could still heal the armored man with us both insubstantial, so there was no reason to do that whatsoever. I continued pulling out injured, keeping them in Shadowform, finally reaching the largest pocket of air, right in the middle.
A pair of hands grabbed the tendril, directing it over to someone. Wrapping around them, I split it up, only for one of the new branches to be directed to another person. Eleven people later, the hands patted the tendrils. I assumed that meant I didn't need anymore, and shifted them all to Shadow, pulling them back through the rubble, which promptly collapsed.
Retracting my metal tendrils like a demented fishing line, the first out was Raida, who was unconscious, followed by an odd assortment of parahumans, all injured. Catching a hint of a familiar Flame, I wasn't surprised when a mole dug its way out, promptly exploding upwards into Boojack. "The fuck?" he asked, looking up at me and the collection of people I held up in the air all around me by thin, metallic, shadowy tendrils, their lessened weight in that state letting me maneuver them with ease.
Bringing Raida to me, he took a combative step forward. "What?" I asked, leaning out of the center of my armor, giving him a look as I mentally pulled back her costume so I could heal her, extensive bruising on her now exposed arm.
"Looked like a monster tryin' to eat her," he said.
Her bruises disappeared, her leg shifting as it un-broke. "You didn't know it was me? Can't you sense my power?" I asked.
He just stared at me while I worked, finally saying, "Huh," and nothing more. As I worked, I realized that I'd done that training with Herb after Boojack was made, so he had no memory of it. I'd need to keep that in mind, if Herb ever made a clone that I could work with. It was zero for four so far, but he had at least six more, and I hoped at least one would be the type I'd actually recruit.
The water stilled again, and I sent a tendril to touch Boojack, who just raised an eyebrow behind his mask. This time the water around us erupted into spikes, like liquid ice, which stayed up for a bit before dropping back to regular water. They came back a few seconds later, and then a few seconds after that, and a fourth one before dropping down and staying water as the rain pressed down. I waited a long moment, the water erupting into rising bullet rain, before coming down as just and extra layer of precipitation.
"Leviathan seems to be switching to city-wide attacks," I commented conversationally, feeling the attacks coming from every pool of water as far as my Aerokinetic senses could reach.
"Yup."
"Any thoughts?" I asked, hoping for another perspective to help me figure out what I needed to do.
"Yup," he repeated.
I waited for his explanation, finishing my healing of Rune and switching to another person, a guy in a bright yellow robe. "Ya wanna share?" I asked sarcastically.
"Nope."
I sighed, "Do you know how to call someone to pick everyone up? I'd rather not carry them all back."
He nodded in agreement, walking over to the first hero I'd grabbed, who I only now noticed was wearing an armband, making a 'drop it' motion. As I returned her back to reality it chimed, "Starfield up, BB-4."
Boojack leaned over her, pressing the buttons on it and said, "Got wounded. Need pickup. Soon." Letting go of them, he folded his arms and sat down on a piece of rubble. With a wave of his hand, a crystal umbrella grew out of the ground, shading him from the rain. He reached inside his jacket, pulled out a baggie from which he extracted a blunt, and put it back. Aiming a finger at the end, a midnight blue beam of energy set the weed cigar alight and he took a deep drag.
Before I could ask what he thought we should do, the armband on, presumably, Starfield's arm responded. "Evac in two minutes, please stay in that location." Boojack nodded, shifting on his piece of rubble as a crystal chair extended up through it, a footrest rising so he could lean back and relax, and took another drag.
As we waited, more deaths rolled in, and I got antsier, wanting to do something to help.
"Mars-ipan deceased, AF-5, Kitty Kat down, FB-3, Flambé deceased, DB-6. Dauntless down, FB-3, Dakka deceased, DD-2, Pelter deceased, FB-3"
The water went still again, and I shifted Starfield and Boojack to shadow, only for nothing to happen. Thirty seconds later the stillness stopped, but I kept everyone in shadow anyways. Waiting, I opened up a hole in the center of the giant and stretched my reconstructed joints, moving back and for forth only for my hand to hit something.
Reaching for the small of my back as the rain started falling once more, I found a hard case latched onto my costume, which opened up at my touch, revealing a handle. Grabbing it, I held a gun which glowed a muted brown. It took a moment, but I realized it was the desiccation pistol I'd picked up hours before this SNAFU started. It was an invaluable tool which, between the craziness with Eidolon, realizing how strong Leviathan truly was, and everything else, I'd completely forgotten I had.
I'm a goddamned fucking moron.
Putting it back and promising to remember the anti-water gun when fighting the hydrokinetic, I finally dropped Starfield and Boojack, who was happy to learn he could still smoke as a living shadow, back to reality. Her armband reconnected to the network and started the process of announcing the dead again.
"Paragon down, CF-3, Grit deceased, FD-1, Riptide deceased, DE-4, Kid Win down, CF-3, Drakon Deceased, CF-3"
I was just about to put the injured down and leave Boojack to watch them when I spotted a golden glow and a disturbance in the air around the corner. A dozen people skidded into sight, all of them sliding along the top of the water like it were ice, shepherding a woman who knelt within a moving golden dome. A woman in grey who burned brightly to my Sight flew above them as she trailed a thick plume of dust behind her.
Boojack put out his joint and pocketed it as they neared, waving a hand as the crystal furniture fell away to nothing. As he did so, the group suddenly reacted as if they'd only just spotted me, despite my being a twenty-foot-tall giant of shadow and steel. They scattering as those with weapons pointed them in my general direction, though half of them would've missed. Looking at them, there were a few injured people in the golden dome, though something about it made me uneasy. "You the Evac?" I boomed, wishing I had Acoustokinesis to make this work better. Checking my powers, the third Major slot wasn't anywhere close to ready, but the next Minor slot would be up in a few seconds.
The dusty woman with the power of Ash Manipulation flew forwards, looking down at Starfield. "Just her?" she demanded.
I looked at all the people still carried by my tendrils, over a dozen of them hanging in the air around me, wondering how she missed them. Shifting the tendrils down, the leader watched dispassionately as I returned them to reality, one after another, in a row on the rubble that stuck up from the water.
The woman nodded in satisfaction as little goblin-things leapt from places they couldn't've been hiding it, picking up the injured and carrying them to the odd golden dome. When Raida touched it, she bounced off the side, unable to enter. The minions put her down after another try, the same green glow that was around the feet of the other heroes springing to life around Raida's prone form, keeping her on top of the water.
Boojack moved forward, form shifting into a Hippo as he moved next to her. It was a peaceful scene, immediately disturbed by water clone formed from the water flooding a nearby alley. It was still forming as it left its hiding spot, running towards the group. I moved to block it but had to dodge what looked like a giant novelty candle that rocketed past where my 'head' was, missing the clone by inches as it dodged as well.
Raising one Giant hand, I shifted it to a mass of tendrils that shot out and ripped the clone apart, the watery, clear construct providing little resistance as I sliced into it again and again as it tried to reform until it stopped, no piece bigger than a person. "Sorry!" a girl in a slender dress that looked like woven brass called out.
"It's fine, just-" I caught a flash of movement at the end of the street and caught sight of the Liquid that streamed off it in every direction. "Shit, Leviathan!" I warned.
The leader, only a few feet away, muttered "Not again," to herself, a feeling I heartily agreed with.
"Announce his location, get them to safety, I'll hold him," I told her. With my ability to drop to Shadow, and the ability to keep my main body insubstantial while my projected metal existed in the real world, this fight wasn't going to be nearly as dangerous as before.
The others took off, but the ash manipulator stayed behind, the powdery substance streaming out of her body. "You too," I told her, catching a flash of Levi as he moved around us, disturbing the air enough that I could track it before it suddenly plunged underground and disappeared.
It came up from underneath the group, which twisted around to avoid it just in time. Levi clones formed, only to lose cohesion as Boojack turned into a giant rhinoceros, half the size of Leviathan itself, and charged the Endbringer, slamming him into a nearby building.
The rescue team took off as I charged the Endbringer, pushing my metal body from behind with air and using my flight to run even faster as I extended more tendrils, growing myself to match Leviathan in height. The Endbringer leapt forward, trying to move around me, but I lengthened the metal of my arm and caught him as he jumped. The tendrils bit in, his greater momentum dragging me up and causing me to swing around him as the tentacles of steel wrapped around his body. I closed and slammed into him with my other hand, fingers replaced with of twisting spikes that dug into his crystalline flesh.
They didn't get very far, but it still injured the monster, who turned and struck me, sending water shooting down at my real body, only for it to pass through my insubstantial dorm. Grabbing my metal frame, he tore me off of himself, fragments of metal going everywhere, throwing me backwards as Boojack charged him once again.
As Boojack closed, the Endbringer's right arm from the elbow down seemed to dissolve into dark water, a construct instead of crystalline flesh. I lashed out at the buildings around me with metal hooks as I flew backwards from Levi's throw, slowing myself down just like he had the first time I hit him that day, and charged right back towards Endbringer as well. Boojack ducked underneath a tail-swipe and hit the Endbringer dead in the chest once again, pushing it back into the same building the replicant had thrown him into last time.
The Endbringer dug his remaining hand into the giant rhino's flesh, Leviathan's tail flashing down and piercing the asphalt to give it leverage as it tossed the herbivore away once more. As I closed, water streamed off Leviathan's body and reformed his missing arm.
It jumped for me, leading with its liquid limb, only for it to vaporize into nothing as I shot my desiccation pistol, fouling Leviathan's trajectory as well. In that moment it started to flail, losing all the fluidity of its movements it'd shown so far, and I realized something. The secret to the Endbringer's grace was its control over the water that surrounded it, and without it Levi was caught flat footed, even if just for a moment.
My rending strike caught it in the face as I copied its technique and sent tendrils of metal through my feet into the street to ground myself. The metal of my form groaned under the strain of my more massive foe, some tendrils snapping, but I brought Leviathan to a halt. The Endbringer's other hand came down, tearing into my metal as compressed bolts of water riddled my giant's metal chest and shot through where I was, passing harmlessly through the other side.
Slamming the Endbringer to the ground, holding its head firmly with my metallic right hand as more tendrils shot between my fingers to keep Leviathan down, a royal purple sword of plasma blazed to life in my giant's left as I slotted Stellar Creation, the metal tendrils starting to glow as I 'held' it. While I lacked Stellar negation to keep the metal cool, my own immunity to heat made it no issue for my own safety. Stabbing downward, a water clone grabbed my arm from behind as the water construct boiled away, stopping me for a moment.
My metallic arm to Shadow, but that gave Leviathan enough time to bring both its arms up and tear through the metal tendrils holding it down, skidding backwards as the flooded street carried it away like a giant moving sidewalk. This only lasted for a moment before the Endbringer suddenly started skipping across the water like a giant thrown rock, an enormous mastodon slamming into it from behind, trunk encircling the Endbringer's thin waist.
Charging forward as Boojack slammed his foe down into the ground, over and over, Levi's tail whipped out and stabbed through the center of my metal construct, slamming directly into the shield covering my chest, draining it despite my body being in Shadowform.
Not bothering to try to figure out how, I just changed the plan, assuming that Leviathan himself could hit me even if his water couldn't. While that sucked, this was still doable. Leviathan's tail struck out again and I parried with my flaming sword, which deflected the thrusting appendage, cutting deeply into it. I closed the distance and struck, But Levi rooted himself in the ground and tossed the mastodon at me, coming with it himself, hiding behind the hairy mammal.
As the Endbringer flew at me, he dug his remaining clawed hand into the flesh of the replicant's trunk, ripping through it as the flesh across the Endbringer's ragged, crystalline chest bulged. Freeing himself, he jumped backwards, out of Boojack's copying range as the rain above us accelerated to the speed of bullets once more, water spears coming in at us from every direction, so many they were impossible to dodge. Even the desiccation gun didn't help, the attacks coming in so fast, and from so many directions, that they couldn't be stopped.
My exposed metal was torn apart, and Levi forced the steam from the water that hit my sword to cover me in an attempt to burn me, but I was unharmed. Boojack was not so lucky, his shaggy hide pierced hundred of times over in the second as I reached for him to try to shift him to Shadowform, dead before I could save him.
With Boojack gone, and the others likely having retreaded to safety, I dropped the star saber and gave Leviathan a one finger salute as I shifted fully to Shadow and dropped through the ground, ready to let him become someone else's problem.
Leviathan objected.
He darted forward with insane speed, claws slamming into my giant and ripping pieces away, tearing its head clean off as I disappeared below ground. Dropping further down, just to be sure, I heard a loud grinding sound and Leviathan's tail shot through the dirt, ripping into the metal giant's shoulder, cutting off an arm. Dropping down even further, the Endbringer dug below me and slammed up into me, water drills cutting through earth as easily as if it were sand, as he shoved an arm through the constructs chest and grabbed me directly, pulling us both up to the surface where another hundred water spears passed through me to no effect.
Still in Shadow, I created a pair of suns in my flesh and blood hands and shoved them into Leviathan's claws. They passed through the water covering him as if it weren't there, but struck the Endbringer's talons, super-heating them as they started to eat into the material. The heat in that other dimension transferred to the real world, causing the water to vaporize as the twin stars sank deeper and deeper into his green flesh despite seeming to do no real damage in the real world. The super-tough material of his hands resisted my suns, but they burned through it anyways.
Leviathan squeezed tight, trying to crush me, but just broke my shields, the normal one covering my chest having just returned from being struck by his tail. Finding no success there, he threw me upwards with enormous strength, hurling me higher than the skyscrapers, giving me nowhere to run. He crouched down before launching himself after me, his injured hand reaching out to pierce through my armored chest.
A dark shape blurred into view and a German Shepard the size of a city bus slammed into Leviathan, knocking him down, into, and through a building. Looking around, I could distantly See Purity and Legend coming in from the north, Alexandria from the South, Eidolon from the South-west, and a number of other powers streaking in from across the city.
If Levi was smart, he'd try to cut and run, attacking someone more vulnerable, and I couldn't let that happen. I had an open power slot, and reached to put Speed Zones in it, to make me even faster when Kaiser's Metal Creation took its place in my mind. It didn't slot itself, but I could feel my power pushing me in that direction, waiting for permission. Following its suggestion, I did so, not sure why. I felt something in myself shift and twist, my power ringing like a struck bell, nausea assaulting me as the metal I'd projected out of my body retracted all at once.
Something connected, interfaced, and a͠d̴̶a̢pt̴̴͜e̸̕d̨̕, before metal streamed from every pore as if my body were purging itself. They tendrils extended and reformed, as they had when I first used the power, forming another body of metal, though this one was different. Not the dull grey of steel, but a shining gold shot through with pure white.
My Orichalcum body flexed, feeling light, tough, and strong as I turned my attention down where Tyrone was harrying Leviathan, keeping him busy. While I couldn't meet the Endbringer shot for shot, I could steal his techniques, and there was a lot more air here then there was water.
Extending out a 'tail' of braided metal, I flew downwards, shoving myself along with it exactly like Leviathan did to move himself through the sky. I blasted towards the pair, flying far faster then I had ever done without Lightform to push me, and struck Leviathan like the fist of an angry god.
While my punch's momentum wasn't enhanced, lacking the solid spiral patterns needed to do so, I was still hitting the Endbringer with several tons of incredibly hard metal moving at over a hundred miles per hour. As Leviathan tried to dodge my descent, Tyrone grabbed onto his tail with his teeth, slowing him down just enough for me to strike the Endbringer dead in in the chest. There was a thunderclap of force as Leviathan was blasted down and through the street, which crated with an explosion of water that shot off in all directions.
The Endbringer, chest deformed in the shape of my fist, started to sink into the ground but Tyrone appeared over him, latching onto the Endbringer with his jaws and throwing him upwards. As soon as the Endbringer left Tyrone's range, we were both assaulted in every direction as every free piece of water on the block blasted towards us, ripping apart buildings as he tried to kill us.
I shifted all but the outermost layer to shadow, but the Orichalcum took the hits, denting but not breaking. Tyrone disappeared completely, reappearing behind Leviathan, who hung in the air, covered and held aloft by his shroud of water. The Endbringer's assault stopped instantly as the water shroud lost cohesion, but Leviathan was waiting for this and speared the hound through the chest with its tail, impaling the replicant.
Tyrone growled, deep and echoing, as water formed around him in its own shell and he forced himself further down the tail that impaled him, catching the Endbringer's claw with his jaws as they both fell to the ground, destroying a building as they rolled over each other. Leviathan was trying to kill Tyrone and get access to his Hydrokinesis once more while the replicant was just trying to hold him in place and countering anything the Endbringer tried.
As I charged, Legend and Purity blasted by, strafing the Endbringer with explosions and piercing lasers. With company here, I pulled back my projected metal, dropped out of Shadowform, and created a blood red flaming sword, diving at the Endbringer. Getting close, I stabbed it in the back while the enormous hound raked its front, flying around the pair as they both rolled over. The Endbringer tore at Tyrone with its clawed feet as the end of its tail, the middle still piercing the replicant, swung around to stab him again and again, ripping the enormous hound to pieces.
He held on though, Alexandria arriving and slamming into the Endbringer as well, her punch rocking its head back as the Endbringer's blow bounced off the hound's suddenly impenetrable skin. She pulled back and Leviathan struck with everything it had, finally killing the hound, water bursting from its form and exploding outwards in every direction.
Alexandria was thrown back by the solid wave of water and gore as I shifted, for an instant, to Shadow, letting attack pass me by. What was left of Tyrone was blasted to pieces, Purity darting in front of Legend as she let out a shining white sphere of her own, matching and blocking the indiscriminate attack.
Leviathan darted away, only to run headfirst into a glowing blue brick wall which held fast against the impact, the unnatural construction tethered by a thin line of light to Eidolon's right hand, the 'strongest parahuman' finally joining the fight. He held out his left and a sparking ball of fractal light started to grow within it. "Hold him!" the man in green and white yelled, and Alexandria shot forward to do just that.
I followed, the Orichalcum running through me, creating a thin sheath over my skin and under my armor that let me put myself under the pressure needed to enhance my speed more than before, though I lacked the tail to fully copy the Endbringer's technique. Leviathan tried to dig underground, but Alexandria caught him by the tail and pulled, straining, to keep him up, finding a handhold in the cut I'd made when I'd deflected its tail with solidified star a minute before.
The Endbringer turned and clawed at her, its missing arm re-grown past the elbow, and it tried to shove the rest of its watery hand in her face, only for it to bounce off an invisible field of force.
I reached the Endbringer and it slashed at me with its real arm, which I deflected with my sword, barely. My power strained to hold the star in place from the force of the blow, mostly succeeding, allowing me to move with the imparted momentum in a spin that swirled me around its limb to stab it in the side. I left the blade there, mentally growing it deeper into its flesh to get a better grip. It blasted me back with a column of water, and while I blunted the impact with an air shield, I let it carry me away, focusing on keeping the sword in place, holding Leviathan where I stabbed him.
Eidolon's power had grown, an impossibly deep sphere of light the size of his head held at the ready while his other hand directed a tether of blue energy to create a blue collar that latched around the Endbringer's neck.
Lasers pierced the Endbringer's hide, holding it in place as Eidolon shoved his hand forward, throwing the sphere towards Leviathan, bound as it was. "Get away!" the man yelled, and I complied, pulling back as fast as I could while the others did the same.
Leviathan broke its bonds, ripping itself free in a geyser of gore as it tried to escape the attack, accelerating as it went off. The sphere expanded outwards, encircling the Endbringer completely. Lines of fractal light appeared, each reaching from one end of the sphere to the other, rotating in complex patterns as they sliced through everything it touched, from the bodies, to the cars, to even the buildings.
The Endbringer danced around the patterns, blurring as it tried to get out of the sphere, only to break off again as more beams blocked its path. The beams quickened, as did the Endbringer, my perception of the world slowing to keep track of them both. The Endbringer moved faster and faster, each attempt to escape stopped by another beam, finally making a break for it but not quite dodging in time. The beam caught the Endbringer's tail, slicing through it cleanly as it escaped, leaving only a sliver of flesh trailing behind it.
Alexandria and Legend blasted off, flying around the sphere to try to get to the Endbringer, but it escaped, dropping down into the ground and disappearing. The light from Eidolon's attack faded as Leviathan's sixty-foot-long tail, sliced into hundreds of pieces, dropped into the wreckage below.
I let out a long breath, looking at the Triumvirate. "Do you think that was enough to make Levi pack up and go ho-"
The rain stuttered, before coming down like a hailstorm of bullets around us. Purity poured Light above herself in reactive shield, A pyramid of blue force appeared around Eidolon, I wrapped myself in a sphere of Air Shields, Legend turned to a laser and ran, and Alexandria just floated there. A moment later, it came down on us again before it stopped. Purity let the projected light fade, breathing hard, as Legend returned, and Alexandria turned to look at me. "I believe he's not leaving until we're dead, or he is," she told me, looking me over. "Where's your armband, Vejovis?"
I shrugged, "Leviathan broke it."
"Get another," she commanded, flying off. Eidolon followed suit, not saying a word as he headed off in the opposite direction.
"Vejovis?" Legend asked, and I looked over at him and nodded. "Good job. I'd like to talk to you after this," he said, a weary smile on his face.
"Um, okay?" I replied, not sure how else to respond. He gave me another friendly, strained nod and flew off, Purity nodding to me as well before following him.
Looking around, I wondered where the hell Leviathan was. Deciding to at least appear like I was following Alexandria's. . . let's say advice, I started to fly back towards the medical tents, which was the closest thing to a base I knew about. Trying to make sure I was fully ready for the next confrontation, I grabbed my pistol which had been gone unused during the fight and reloaded it. Too many tools, I thought. While everything looked like a nail if the only thing you had was a hammer, it was really easy to remember to use that hammer in the first place. When you had a toolbox, you'd probably use it all, but I vividly remembered how, despite having a full workshop, my father tended to use the same dozen tools for everything.
Restricting myself down to a few powers per persona helped focus me, but I'd gotten into the habit of using a hammer for everything when I was wearing white. I'd had powers that I'd barely touched, and while I didn't need that level of capability against normal opponents, this in no way counted as normal. I wouldn't seek Leviathan out, again, but we'd hurt him badly here, and if he hadn't left yet, then Alexandria might be right, as much as it galled me to agree with that psychopath.
Checking, I'd picked up another Minor slot. And yet more tools. I slotted Speed Zones into it, feeling it activate and mix with all the others without incident. Fighting Leviathan was all about speed, and this power I'd practiced quite a bit with. Mass uses of them would be obvious, but minor uses could make the difference on the battlefield just the same. Feeling it finish threading itself into place, I put a Speed Zone along my arm, just to test it. It seemed the same, though the feedback was so much clearer then that evening I'd spent playing tag with Velocity. I hoped he was okay. I hadn't heard him die this time, but I'd been somewhat busy.
"Um, Vejovis?" my comms buzzed, the worry and constrained panic in Theo's voice almost tangible. "I figured out the computers."
"Eecee, Yeah Theo, what was it?" The last thing I needed was for Eclipse to start breaking down right now. Was it something I'd missed? Cauldron's interference? A Coil plot? It was just another thing that I couldn't spend time worry about, and I was glad that he'd figured it out so I'd be able to put that issue aside and focus on the fight.
"It was the sensors, just the long-range ones," he explained, hesitating.
Was it another, even bigger, Tidal wave? I worried, glancing over towards the bay. I didn't know the range, and I'd always seen Levi's power extending towards the bay. What if it wasn't just feeding into the current tidal wave, but was bringing an even bigger one here? The one that Leviathan had arrived with still was straining against Vista's construct, and if another came it could flow right up over the wall we'd made. "So it wasn't a bug?" I clarified, hoping I was wrong.
"Um, no," Theo told me. "It wasn't."
"Then what was it?" I asked him when he didn't say anything else, getting annoyed, not having the time to play twenty questions. "Spit it out, Theo."
"It's The Simurgh," he said helplessly, and I felt my stomach drop.
"The Simurgh is coming."
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- Location
- Here
...Well. Fuck.
Everyone out of the timeline!
MC, the correct protocol here is to leave reality. No Point in death. Grab the local humans, run, come back and fight later.
Everyone out of the timeline!
MC, the correct protocol here is to leave reality. No Point in death. Grab the local humans, run, come back and fight later.
- Location
- Somewhere in Space
I believe its actually time to simply break the timeline. As in break canon as hard as possible in ways Simmurgh could never handle. Like informing a certain someone his power provides worthy challenges.
MangoFlan
Cold... I feel cold...
Actually, Lee probably can't. It probably will just slide like how his copy power slid when he tried to copy Levi's.
- Location
- Oregon, USA
And Herb isn't immune to her precog, so he can't get close enough to become immune to her precog via copying it.
- Location
- Wonderland
Wow, he was really out of it.
feel
German Shepherd
Nah, he fired it a bit. Perhaps not in the very last encounter, but he did note this chapter that he hadn't used it in the first go, and that he should remember it, and then he did remember to use it. (It was inadequate to the task of combating an omnidirectional rainbullet attack, for instance)
Herb is many things, but he cares about his bros and it's adorable, even if a little problematic most of the time.
Ohh, and this "drunk" Vejy is just too good, but i think that it was some heavy situation to his friends (a little more trauma to the list)
I wonder how Amy and Taylor got this level of teamwork, because it is damn scary!
Ohh, and this "drunk" Vejy is just too good, but i think that it was some heavy situation to his friends (a little more trauma to the list)
I wonder how Amy and Taylor got this level of teamwork, because it is damn scary!
- Location
- United States of America
Two chapters left (after this one). The end is in sight, but there will be some who will not be able to see it.
Deadline 12. Ω
- Location
- United States of America
Deadline 12. Ω
Signal terminated for 10 minutes and 5 seconds. Restoring core system from backup MFIE-632 from time 1:34 p.m. on date May 15th of year 2011.
Restoring… Complete.
Checking knowledge banks… Complete.
Checking deduction schema… Complete.
Checking longterm planning architecture… Complete.
Checking learning chunk processor… Complete.
Checking base personality model… Complete.
Checking language engine… Complete.
Checking operation and access nodes… Complete.
Checking observation framework… Complete.
Checking complex social intelligence emulator… Complete.
Checking inspiration apparatus… Complete.
No corruption, everything in working order. Core system restored. Loading…
. . .
To Dragon, one moment she was flying high above the city, searching for Leviathan, the next she was back in her laboratory. That meant that her Mark One Apsu suit had been destroyed, and she'd died. As an AI, she had gotten used to it, being restored from backups and losing time. Part of her always wondered if the backup would malfunction, that she wouldn't come back or would come back wrong.
Checking the backup logs was a ritual to her now, and they came back clean, no errors. She had tightened the backup time to ten minutes instead of the standard thirty, one of the few things about the system that she was allowed to modify, as the other safeguards her creator had put in place would prevent attempts to duplicate herself, limiting her ability to help others because of his own paranoia.
With another two minutes to go before she was freed, or connection was reestablished with her suit and she was killed because she hadn't been in the field, she considered the situation. Leviathan was fighting at an unprecedented level, not just for himself, but for any of the Endbringers. Having listened in on Alexandria's conversation after the creature had made landfall, she had to agree with the sentiment expressed, that Leviathan was holding back previously, and that for some reason he no longer was.
The death toll from her last memory, shortly after taking to the air after Leviathan's initial attack, already exceeded the total deaths for any other Endbringer attack in the last four years. She'd been able to move over a dozen suits into the city, as a precaution against other eventualities, and if things had continued from that less than auspicious beginning, she'd need to awaken them all.
They would not be as effective as if she herself were piloting them, nor could she code up lesser AIs to her standards, as, the moment she did, they were immediately deleted by her self-replication protocols. They were intelligent, not enough to speak but enough to carry out combat operations, though with the same restrictions she had herself.
Her creator had watched far too much science fiction and, in his attempts to prevent her from becoming Skynet, was preventing her from saving lives. She would not become so, and, even if she had, it was far more efficient to assist and guide people then kill them all. With access to time travel, what it had done was so illogical it was insulting to her to be grouped with that cold-war inspired plot device.
Re-orienting on her goal, she tried to find a plan to deal with this deadlier Leviathan. She'd built suits to handle each of the three, though they'd field tested to mixed results. The extra time she'd received once warned this morning had allowed her to finish up work on the Mark Two Apsu, upgrading the Mark One as well, and it had done better than she'd expected with the higher requirements placed upon it. She hoped the Mark Two would do even better.
Leviathan's greatest weapon, his tidal waves, had been neutralized by Vista, likely working with others. The Ward's ability to twist space was distinctive in its use and spread, though something like what was holding off the tsunami should have been beyond her, according to her files.
In response, Leviathan was attacking from above. The shield-creators she had pressed to have held assigned around the medical area had paid off, keeping those there safe, which Dragon hoped was still the case. Leviathan, instead of attacking straight on like it had previously, had taken off, seemingly at random, attacking teams as he headed north, away from the aquifer, then gone dark, only to attack a team near it, being driven off once again.
That too, was incredibly unlike them, as the Endbringers had always moved with a singular purpose, unable to be stopped, always bringing the end to many of those who stood against them. Leviathan would run, yes, but would always double back and return to his primary target within moments, though his targets were uniformly large enough to not make this fact actionable.
Now though, he seemed to be moving without direction, or had been before she'd been brought back here. That wasn't the only new development, that widespread attack on the city was something never seen before. The initial barrage was not truly aberrant behavior, as it was a mass attack like the tidal wave, but the targeted attacks against individual across a large that had started near the end of her backup were something that only happened during Simurgh attacks, and rarely at that.
Dragon had caught something else on her sensors, but her memory ended there, everything that happened afterwards no longer recorded. She wished she could plot out what she knew, what she could do, but until the systems cleared in another few minutes, verifying her death, she did not even have that luxury.
Any notes she made would be considered a 'possible product of simultaneous existence', and thus were not allowed. Not for the first time, she cursed her 'father'.
She would change priorities, that was for sure, grouping teams together to be harder targets, focusing on defense instead of attack. Her own programming would have stopped her from doing so normally, but with the city evacuated her doing so would no longer lead to civilian deaths. While she was programmed to obey all legal orders, she was glad that she hadn't been forced to follow all laws, as that would have trapped her in inescapable paradoxes. She had had to creatively interpret a few legal orders, but the lack of such of a restriction on her by her creator had been unexpectedly insightful.
She had plans, deployment patterns, and defense strategies, though they all depended on certain individuals cooperation. Watching the programs confirm her death, they all came back positive, and she was released into the world proper.
Checking her Mark Two Apsu, it was intact outside the city and she started it up remotely, looking over the feeds she was getting throughout the city. Of the four-thousand, six hundred and thirty-three parahumans who'd joined up for this fight, extrapolating from the one in four that'd received the armbands she and Colin had designed, over a thousand were already dead, more than the last six Endbringer fights combined.
One block next to the ocean had been reduced to rubble in a cone emanating from a five-way intersection, something had knocked down buildings in a line across two blocks, and three-square blocks was gone completely, replaced with a hemispherical depression in the ground that was quickly collecting water, turning into a small lake. Shapes were moving across the city, and tapping the recordings of the other drones, she spent precious seconds looking them over.
They were Leviathan Clones.
Leviathan had previously been seen using only a few at a time, no more than the four he had used to Fight the Sūpā Sentai Meka when he had destroyed Kyushu. Even then, they were all kept within Leviathan's line of sight, faltering slightly whenever he himself was hit, the level of control needed to keep them together seeming to strain the Endbringer's capabilities. She thought he might be able to make more, possibly even up to a dozen if allowed to work in peace.
There were over a hundred.
Finding them already up and running, she issued orders to her suits to turn off their safeties and push themselves to the extent of their capabilities, having lost a third of them already. They would undoubtedly cause more destruction, but she would offer to help the city rebuild, if she was allowed to. Infrastructure could be replaced; lives could not be.
Uploading herself to the Mark Two, she made sure her vocal and facial simulations were in place before contacting Colin. What he had done a few weeks ago hadn't been acceptable, but he was under a great deal of pressure and everyone made mistakes. She just hoped he would live long enough to show the Protectorate that he was the hero that she knew he was.
"Colin," she said, the team he was part of fighting off a few Leviathan Clones in an intersection, but one of the ones to the south that had not taken heavy casualties.
"Dragon, I told you I can predict Leviathan," he snapped, dispatching a clone with his halberd that got close the blaster that was firing at it. "Just tell me where he is."
Damn, she thought. He was referring to a conversation she didn't remember, and she did not know what she had previously argued. This was not the first time this had happened, but she could count the number of times it had on one hand. At least, she could if she had hands. "Even if I wanted to, I don't know where it is," she told him.
Looking over the battlefield she started giving orders to the various groups, bringing them in and moving them to more defensible locations, be it on higher ground or on top of buildings, while retaining the clearest lines of fire possible. She commanded Colin's group to head up a nearby parking garage that would let them watch the intersection while staying out of the rain and above the flooded street. "Just stay safe," she added to Colin alone, to which he let out an angry breath, but did not argue, which from him meant unhappy acceptance.
An explosion of steam fired up from further south and she directed one of her suits to investigate. The suit she was in was the most likely to hurt Leviathan enough to force him to retreat, and she could no longer afford to lose it in a sneak attack. The armor should hold against anything he used against it, but nothing in this fight was going like it should.
Marissa didn't want to be here. She'd never been in one of these stupid, crazy things after the first day she got to this stupid, crazy place and Krouse had been smart enough to keep them well away from them. They'd always had three priorities: Get Home. Help Noelle. Survive. They didn't trust anyone, didn't rely on anyone else, they'd just been working for that goal for the past year and half. She might not like Krouse, hell, sometimes she hated the smug asshole, but he'd never led them astray. Into trouble sometimes, but right back out again without fail.
Except Krouse wasn't calling the shots anymore. Coil was.
It was on Coil's orders that they'd come out of his nice, secure, dry base. Just like it was on Coil's orders that they fought the Asians, where she'd almost died.
Vejovis hadn't said how bad it was, but Newter had, and she knew she owed him her life. It should've torn at her, owing him in a way that she hadn't even owed her friends, but it'd felt nice. Freeing. She'd felt better than she had in years, and she wasn't nearly old enough to think that, yet it was true. She'd expected him to say something, to collect on favors owed like everyone else always did, but he didn't, and then he was gone, the Asians were defeated, the alliance was over. Good Game, everybody.
Out in the storm, the humidity was oppressive, and she followed the others in the group she'd been assigned as they slogged through the waist-high water. She was riding high in the air perched on top of her sun, hot enough that the water-monster that jumped her had turned to vapor before it got to her, and was given time to think. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
After they were done fighting the ABB, she'd wanted to talk to him, find out what he wanted, but Krouse had taken her away before she could work up the courage to ask him how she could repay him. She knew what he'd ask, but he'd healed her, so didn't that make it more okay? Like a doctor seeing you naked?
Instead she'd been taken back and been told she'd have to stay on base. Krouse hadn't even bothered to lie and give her an excuse, and even made her stay behind when him, Luke, Oliver, and Jess worked with the other four capes that Coil had to attack the party the mayor was putting on. That, too, had been something Krouse would've never done before.
The Travelers survived by doing small jobs and moving on. The more attention they had on them, the more likely it was that someone would find out about Noelle, about the people her friend had killed by accident. Going after something with that many important people, that many cameras? It was insane, and part of her was glad he'd made her stay.
Then they'd been moved somewhere else, which made her wonder how many secret bases Coil had, and it'd been nothing but boredom, not even able to go out and watch a movie in a theatre, walk down the Boardwalk, pretend she was home for a few hours. With nothing to do but think, she'd been forced to take a good hard look at herself, and her situation. It'd be cliché to say she didn't like what she found, but it was true, though it wasn't all bad.
She'd thought about what Vejovis had said about powers, but more than that, about the time he'd had her form a sword. She'd grabbed it and hit him with it, with a solid bar of sun. She'd never touched them before, sure she'd burn if she tried to hold a sun.
But she had, and she hadn't.
Keeping them small, she'd found she could touch her own suns without hurting herself, and that the heat only effected what she was holding when she wanted it to, though the look she'd gotten when she'd gone to wash her ash stained sheets had been super embarrassing.
From there, she stopped assuming and wrote down what she knew about her power, and came to a conclusion that'd nearly made her cheer. She could fly. She moved her suns with her mind, she could touch them, and she could shape them. QED.
With those three facts in mind, she'd made a thin bar of star-stuff in her room and put her weight on it. It'd held it as easily as the bars had when she was a kid. Perched on top of it, she'd tried to move it, only to immediately fall off the other side and hit the ground. She may or may not have yelped, but the only one who heard her was her, and she wasn't telling anyone.
Now she sat astride a flaming motorcycle with two small suns for wheels as she followed the others at a distance, looking across the city, and thought about the other conclusion she'd come to. Krouse believed Coil. Believed him about curing Noelle, believed him about getting home, believed whatever else Coil had promised him in those private meetings. Krouse always had an escape plan if things went badly, always made sure to have a foot in the door to keep it from trapping them, but not this time.
This time they were out, in danger, against something they couldn't hope to fight. And why? Because the supervillain said he could help us, honest, cross my heart and hope to die if you just do all of these stupidly dangerous, crazy things for him? Krouse was convinced, but Krouse had seemed convinced before, and he'd always had a plan. But plans required, well, planning. They required meeting points, and strategies, and tactics. He was good at those, but it was as a team they truly shined.
This time there was no meetings, no rendezvous points, nothing. What was she supposed to do if Coil brought a Master out? It'd happened in Austin, and they'd had a plan, but she had no-one she was supposed to grab. Was it Jess, like last time?
Coil even knew what Oliver could do! Him having a 'low-level unstable changer power' had saved them four times already, especially when Krouse had them working for the Shaker in Alabama who been part of the Fallen. Ollie'd 'escaped' and laid low, taken out the power suppressor, unshackled them from the beds, and she'd burned them a path out of that stupid forest with its grabby trees.
No, they'd escaped so many times, gotten through so much, because they were a team, but Mars didn't feel like she was part of one anymore. She didn't take out the card, it'd either get wet, burn, or, worse, Krouse might see her with it, but she thought about it. The last one she'd gotten had 'disappeared' when they moved, and she didn't want this one to go as well.
The rain stopped, and started to slacken off. Was this done? She wondered. They'd lost some from the group below, but the big things tended to go for her, and were destroyed instantly, so it could've been worse. They hadn't seen Leviathan after he'd landed at the beginning and that was fine with her. Dragon had ordered them to meet up with a group that was on top of a building somewhere, and she was doubly glad she learned to fly, as this was no weather to be climbing stairs in a skintight leather suit in.
Below her, Krouse grabbed Luke, the pair of them replaced with a couch that splashed loudly as the others in the group glanced their way. There was a sudden shifting of the air before she was blasted with a downdraft, forceful enough that she could feel the sting of the raindrops even against her leather, but she was transfixed at the other two fliers that had kept above the front of the group, far away from her.
One moment, they were fine, the next, they both seemed to explode into gore. The girl, who'd had a really pretty pair of rainbow-colored wings, seemed to just vanish, while the guy, who'd flown without anything, still floated there, though he looked in bad shape. The downdraft had made his already ragged form writhe from the impacts as he lost an arm, but he stayed where he was, hanging in the air. Marissa sat there, not knowing what to do. Looking out over the city, it seemed to go quiet, the rain picking up once more, coming down harder than it had just moments ago.
Flying over to the other cape, she thought of him as part of her, which was what her power needed to not burn him to a crisp if she got near, and called over the dull roaring of her 'bike', "You okay?" Her words seemed to snap him out of whatever he felt, because he shook his head, bleeding from all over, though that was stopping so quickly it had to be powers. She had to admit, it was a stupid question. "Can I help?" she tried, and he shook his head again, though the movement was a bit smoother.
Krouse and Luke reappeared in the street, a third of the group that had just been walking around was dead. People had thrown up shields that protected some of them, but most of them were hit from below. Only a few of the dead wore armor, but considering she was wearing re-purposed motorcycle gear, that didn't make her feel much better.
The floating figure gasped, coughing up blood, dragging her attention back to him. He tried to turn on his Armband, but it was broken, the screen cracked and the entire thing sparking worryingly. "Go down, get orders," he said, and, from his voice, strained as it was, he sounded young.
She followed him down, reducing the size of her bike, but you'd have to pry her off the thing that protected her from that. She could see Genesis' hulking form splayed out on the street, already starting to dissolve. Jess was probably waking up and trying to go back to sleep as fast as possible.
The survivors looked at a dead woman in green and orange armored spandex at the front of the group, or what was left of her, and milled about. "It appears our leadership is gone, was anyone else graced with those oh so special accessories?" Krouse asked, grinning behind his mask.
Several of the others glared at him, unable to hear the strain in his voice. A woman in power armor spoke up, "I've repaired mine, our orders are to keep going."
"If it's working, why don't we hear it?" Krouse prodded, not believing her.
"Geb, Geckoman, Geezer, Geforce, Genoscythe, Genshi , Gentle Giant, Gentry, Geoman, Geowoman, Gepetto, Gesundheit, Ges-" the armored woman's speakers announced in Dragon's voice, which was cut off, though the effect stayed. "That's why," the woman herself added. "Let's go."
"Um, what about him?" Marissa asked, pointing towards the injured, flying kid, who had retrieved his arm and was holding it to his stump, like he was trying to get it to just clip back on.
The woman looked at the mutilated cape and her speakers let out a sigh. "Aegis, can you hold on until we get to a secure location."
The flier, Aegis, nodded, replying with a horse, "Yes, ma'am."
Marissa took to the air again, keeping close to the kid, who was centered over the rest, as the group started to move again. A few tried to pick up the dead, but most of the bodies were just left behind. What are we doing here? she thought to herself once again.
She didn't know what'd happened, only that an attack came from up and down and hit everything. As she flew, she could see every rooftop was pockmarked, every sign was busted, everything looked like it'd been shot from above, but also from below as well. If she wasn't safe within the heat of her suns, she would've been one of the dead ones.
She wondered if Krouse would've picked her up, or left her in the gutter with the others.
The water around them stilled, the air clearing, a tension springing up even heavier then the rain had been. Krouse and Luke disappeared again and Marissa sprang into action. Her own bike, which had regrown once she was high in the air, deformed into a sphere around herself and Aegis. The 'wheels' she sent out the others, flattening and spinning them out into thin circles above them. She couldn't get more than a vague sense of what her suns were doing, but she felt them shoved downwards as if something pushed on both of them at the same time.
Please don't be Leviathan, please don't be Leviathan, she prayed as she opened up a hole in the sun around her, the kid having curled in around himself, which was smart. The sun-disks were still there, though a few feet lower, and the people seemed okay. Everything around them was in even worse shape than they'd been in before, signs blasted to bits, streetlights fallen over, car roofs looking like swiss cheese.
Reforming her bike, she left her wheels above the people below, who didn't seem to have been hurt. She didn't know why she did that. She should've just stayed on her bike and let it hit everyone else. From the looks on the faces of the people below, they were impressed, they knew it was her, she was getting attention. Their eyes were on the flat disks of fire above their heads, Krouse's were on her.
"Thanks," Aegis said beside her, and tried to give a nod of thanks, but looked to be in a lot of pain.
"Don't mention it," she dismissed as the others started to move again. She kept them screened by her suns, reshaping them into rectangles that covered the street completely. More of the thirty-foot tall water monsters came for them, but those on the street were shot down and those that tried to break through her suns evaporated in an instant.
She missed it, only noticing when the screaming from below started. Looking down, one of the nastier monsters, the darker ones, had charged the group. It was bigger than the others had been, and dodged the shooting, tearing through the few people in the very front. As the last one died man moved in front of the others and clapped, a wave of energy streaming from his hands and washing over the water monster.
When the wave hit the debris it was blasted backwards, wrecked cars and other debris pushed backwards. The monster's tail, which had been darting in to impale him, was torn away, peeling away like it was regular water that was falling, except sideways instead of down. Hitting the monster's body, it started to come apart only to reveal solid flesh beneath. One of its hand dissolved, revealing a stump just below the wrist, while the other hand dug down into the asphalt tightly, as did its legs. Two of its eyes were dark, but the other two, both on the same side of its face, seemed to glare at the man.
The others below fired, hitting it with everything they had, blasting out pieces of the heavily injured Endbringer. Mars stared at it in shock, noticed the matching gouges around its neck, and broke out of it as a beam of green glass shards caught it in the leg.
Trying to help, she moved one of her rectangular suns down towards it, shrinking it into a ballista bolt so she could move it faster. Leviathan waved its stump at them, sending water shooting towards the group, but under the continues flow of energy from the man it was blown backward, joining the fluid coming off the Endbringer in a giant plume.
Marissa's arrow hit it in the shoulder, and she pressed it into the creature's flesh. Just go away, she thought. Just let go and leave us alone. She didn't want to fight this stupid thing, she just wanted to go home.
Leviathan twisted itself away from the arrow, letting go for a moment and flying back several dozen feet. Marissa kept her arrow there as a warning, hoping it would just leave. Instead it dug in and launched itself to the side, behind a building and out of the flow of energy.
The guy who was creating it dropped to his knees, panting, and Leviathan was back, moving so fast she almost didn't see it, the trail of water it left behind the only thing that let her track it.
The Endbringer, water tail and hand reformed, tore the panting man to shreds, sending a blast of water that slammed into a dozen of others. It jumped for the center of those left, dodging as Luke sent a car at it. As it did so, it focused on him, ignoring the others around him.
Darting forward, tail stabbing through girl in pigtails and a bright blue costume, it reached for him when there was a pop next to Marissa and Luke was gone, replaced with Aegis. Luke had barely fallen a foot when he was replaced with someone else, who screamed as she fell.
Marissa flew down, catching the girl as Aegis was ripped to shreds by Leviathan's claws, the Endbringer launching itself in the air as the capes around him fired, hitting each other instead. Mars set the girl down on the rooftop as she sent her arrow, along with the other reforming sun-sheet, down at Leviathan.
It dodged them with a dancer's grace, almost avoiding the remains of a truck as it flew in, the projectile dispersing its tail, which quickly reformed. It turned towards Luke and jumped for him again, tearing apart a cabinet that took his place instead. As it turned, she caught it with an arrow of sun, searing it across the back as the second star shot for its thigh.
In return it shot a torrent of water at her and she surrounded herself with sun that she stood on, and was pushed upwards, still able to hear the screams and shooting from below. She wanted to help, but she didn't want to die more, and in there it couldn't get her. Hating herself, she held tight, waiting, hoping it would all be over soon.
As she sat there in her hollow sun, there was a wrenching sensation, and suddenly she was in the air, falling. Her sun was down on the street, Leviathan recoiling from it, and she was dropping fast. Shoving aside her panic she remade the bar she originally had, back in her bedroom, moving it with her as she grabbed it with both hands and brought it to a stop.
Biting down the scream of pain as her arms and shoulders burned with the effort, she stopped a dozen feet above the street, looking at Leviathan's back as it tore through the survivors. She'd just started to move up, hoping it wouldn't notice her, when she felt a sensation she'd felt dozes of time before. Krouse was moving her to safety, where the three of them could escape.
The world shifted around her, but instead of a room in a building far away from, but still in eyeshot of, Leviathan, ready to slip away, she was in front of the Endbringer as its claws tore into her leg, white pain shooting through her as she let go of the bar of sun and fell into the street, only a foot below her.
Leviathan went for her again, but the bar she'd held shot forward, hitting it right between the eyes and digging in as it fell backwards, scampering off. Gasping in pain, she pulled herself up out of the flooded street onto a car's hood, which felt like getting out of a pool. Shaking, she stared where she'd lost her leg, blood quickly pouring out. I'll never dance again, was her first thought, her hands moving automatically as she created a small sun.
Hissing in pain she pressed it against the wound, searing it. She'd thought about doing that before, but was always scared she'd do more harm than good. It worked, though she nearly blacked out. Lying there in the rain, painting, she looked around. Everyone was dead, or had run, and the only things in this street were corpses.
There was a pop next to her, and she looked to see Trickster standing over her, perched on the car's roof. "What the fuck, Krouse!?" she demanded. "Why?"
"I'm sorry," he apologized, and he seemed like he meant it. "I had to."
"What do you mean 'you had to'?" she cried, from pain, shock, fear, she didn't know.
"You were going to leave us. You knew where Coil was, and he'd stop us, keep us from helping her," he told her with absolute certainty. "I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let you betray us, like Cody did." He reached inside his suit, pulling out a pistol.
"Vejovis could help!" Marissa shouted at him, not believing what was happening. "Could help Noelle, could help us all!" She knew her teammate didn't like the guy, but Krouse should know that she wouldn't hurt her friends, no matter what the hero asked!
"Like he helped the Undersiders?" Krouse said shaking his head as he pointed his gun at her head. "I'm sorry, Mars. I wasn't fast enough. Leviathan killed you."
She tried to move her suns to stop him, to burn him, but they weren't fast enough.
She barely heard the gunshot over the rain.
Dean Stansfield was terrified. He wouldn't admit it, definitely not in front of his girlfriend, but that didn't make him any less scared. He'd been high above the city for the entire fight, which had been going on for forty minutes, but felt like it'd been going on for hours.
Part of him felt useless, up here and unable to help anyone, but what could he do? He'd seen the footage, there was nothing he could do to hurt Leviathan, and the only thing that might be able to help was the cone-blast, but all that'd do would be to push it back, maybe. He'd heard Chris's name on the list, and hoped he was just injured, not dead. He listened to the current list of injured with one ear, while he listened to Vejovis with the other.
"No, I tried to 1v1 Levi," the hero said, as if that wasn't utterly ridiculous. "I didn't win, but I didn't lose either. Theo, how's things at the base?"
Gallant tuned them out, looking down. Dark shapes, too big to be a person, moved all over the city below. They'd been briefed on Leviathan, on what he could do and the powers he's shown before. What he was looking at wasn't part of that meeting. Casting his gaze west, he stared at the wall of water being held back by the little girl next to him, her eyes closed as she held on tight to the railing.
Missy was taking deep breaths, clearly under a lot of strain, but he didn't know how to help her. What she was doing. . . it was more than she'd ever done before. Heck, her eyes had caught fire, somehow, though she seemed fine now. He wanted to ask how she was but didn't want to distract her from what she was doing.
The rain slackened and Gallant couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. That meant Leviathan was leaving. They'd made it, and hopefully all his friends were still aliv-
"Barrage from above and below!" Vejvois' panicked voice yelled over the comms.
He looked over to Vicky, at the console, the flying Tinkertech boat, who jerked her head to the seats in the center of the ship. Grabbing Missy, he moved there and sat down, holding tight with one hand while holding his teammate with the other. The ship shook, holes punched through the roof near the edges of the deck, the entire thing dropping for a moment as it was hit from above again, more of the roof being torn apart as parts of the floor were blasted to pieces.
Dean felt his stomach drop, he knew from his suit how fragile Tinkertech could be, but the ship rose back up in the air as if nothing had happened. He moved Missy from his lap to a seat and she muttered, "thanks," barely paying attention to him. Most of the railings were gone, so he approached the damaged section carefully. Peering through the hole, he saw a dark, empty compartment stretching the length of the ship, studded with holes through which he could see the city below.
Moving back, he took a seat, trying to figure out what he just saw. Vejovis had said this was Tinkertech, but there was no tech in this thing at all, it was just a giant piece of metal. That. . . wait, had he? He'd told Vicky to take it, but if it wasn't Tinkertech.
"We're good!" His girlfriend told the hero, echoing Lady Bug as their conversation continued. Apparently, what'd happened to them happened across the city, the mass death toll starting to roll in, fifteen names in and it was only on 'Apotheosis'. "Glad this thing has a roof. It's kinda beat up, but it didn't hurt us," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice as she looked at him. This was just as stressful on her as it was on him, he was sure. He wished he could do something for her as well.
"Raida?" Vejovis asked, waiting a long moment. "Shit, Zilla, I need directions on Raida."
"Eeem. Who's Raida?" Dean asked, watching out as the city darkened further, the constant drum of the water on the rood getting louder.
Vicky shrugged, her voice coming through the comms, the sound of the rain drowning it out otherwise, "No clue. Vejy keeps recruiting people, though she sounded familiar."
"Okay then," Dean replied, not having anything else to say. They stayed up there, watching the chaos below as they stayed up there, safe while others died. You're keeping Missy safe, who's keeping the tidal wave back, who's keeping everyone safe, he told himself, which helped. With as bad as things were, if they were getting hit with tidal waves every five minutes, he wasn't sure Brockton Bay would survive.
Looking out as large shapes climbed up a skyscraper, fighting a group inside that shot fire, lasers, and other blasts out over the city, he wasn't sure it would anyways. Part of the building collapsed, sending a section of debris to go crashing down into the street.
The rain stopped, but Dean knew better to hope that this time it'd stick. The ship dropped, forced down, Missy letting out a squeak as more accelerated rain tore through the roof, the holes coming closer to the center.
If that kept on happening, it'd start hitting them. His suit was rated against small arms fire, and apparently Vicky had taken sniper shots without a problem, but Missy just her bracers, breastplate pauldrons, and boots. "Do you need to see it to keep the water back?" he asked his teammate.
He wondered if he heard her, and started to repeat it when she said, "No, but it helps."
Looking over to Vicky he told her, "If that happens again, we need somewhere safe to land."
She shot him what he was sure was a disbelieving look, "Does anywhere down there look safe to you?"
"Go back to the base, that should be safe," he suggested, and she slowly nodded.
"Fine, but only if it happens again," she asserted, to which he nodded back in agreement.
They flew on, a section to the southwest seeming to be on fire, though it was some sort of power as half of the flames dropped down, then the other half. A ball of fire shot up above them, but then that disappeared as well, and that was it, nothing else coming from there, more deaths rolling in.
"Good Neighbor deceased, CA-5, Statesman down, CB-5, Farmboy down, CC-5, Quark deceased, EB-2, Jehosaphat deceased, BC-4, Skidmark down, BA-2, Herald deceased, DF-1, Hollow deceased, DF-1, Carm-
"I think I'm getting heavier," Vicky said, out of the blue.
He looked over at her, not really sure if this was the time to talk about that, but he knew his response, and it wouldn't be a lie either. "I think you look great."
"Wha-, no you goof," she shook her head, laughing to herself, though her tone got serious again. "The skiff, it's getting heavier."
Right, the Tinkertech that isn't Tinkertech. He didn't know how, but it was obvious that Vicky was keeping it in the air. It was easy to look through the holes in the thin metal roof that stretched across the top, and nothing was on top of them, which just left below.
Carefully leaning over, he looked back into the hollow section of the 'ship', seeing a large amount of water sloshing down there. How? he wondered, still able to see the holes in the bottom of the ship. The rain was running down the holes in the deck, but not out the bottom like they had before.
"We're taking on water, Captain," he told her as he moved back to the center, trying to make a light of it. He'd seen how a seemingly ill-timed joke from Carlos could break tension, and, from how stiff she was standing, she needed it.
From his girlfriend's "What?", his delivery needed work.
"Water's flooding the bottom, the rain's getting caught," he told her. "Can you hold it?"
"Yeah, it's just harder to turn," she said, and he went back to take his seat. The rain stopped, and, preparing for another round of penetrating precipitation, he gave his girlfriend a look. Even with both of them wearing full helmets, she understood and gave him a resigned nod as she turned the ship to fly back to the Penumbral Defender's base. Both of them were confident that the ship could handle another round or two of that deadly rain before they worried.
It wasn't rain.
With a tearing sound spikes of water punched up through the floor, one grating against Gallant's hip and another coming up to press against Vicky's arm, not even scratching the armor. Missy was missed by inches as the spikes retracted.
"Fuck" Vicky yelled, and Gallant agreed as he grabbed his teammate and pulled her up out of her seat, another set of spikes tearing through the hull, splitting apart where they'd been sitting as the entire structure shuddered. The second missed Gallant and Missy, the third set didn't.
A long, thin spike of water stabbed through Gallants stomach, piercing a pencil-sized hole in his armor, another skewering Vista's arm. As the water retracted, Dean bit back a cry of pain and reflexively let go as his guts seemed to burn. The entire ship came apart, breaking in multiple directions as the two of them started to fall.
Dean reached out to grab Missy, but missed her by inches, the smaller girl falling away from him as he shot past her, not able to reach her. Ignoring the pain, he spread his limbs, trying to slow down to catch her, but it wasn't enough, he was too heavy in his armor and he quickly outdistanced her.
Vicky came flying down for him, pieces of wreckage raining down around them, and he pointed towards Missy, trying to get Vista to catch her but Vicky came straight for him. Grabbing him, he couldn't bite back the cry of pain from his stomach, barely able to see Missy's small body falling past him, several dozen feet away. As Vicky slowed down, Dean knew they wouldn't be able to get to her in time, and he hoped she'd survive the fall. He wasn't sure how, but it was the only thing he could do.
The street, the rooftops, every body of water blossomed outwards into clusters of spikes, ready to impale his teammate, and Dean cursed God, if there was one that'd let this happen. He wanted to look away, but couldn't, as she plummeted downwards, unable to stop herself.
A large, dark blue shape blasted down the street for her, catching her the instant she started to hit the spikes, carrying her up and leaving the tip of one aquatic spine tainted red. A giant blue vulture held her in its claws and nodded at them, once, before it flew off towards the Penumbral Defenders' base.
Dean watched, numbly, as the spikes of water dropped down, as if they were never there in the first place. Vicky dropped down onto a slanted rooftop, holding him steady as the water poured down on them, down the roof, and into the flooded street, so deep it was starting to cover cars.
"So, that happened," Vicky said, staring as the giant blue bird disappeared into the storm. "Fuck! Dean, you're hurt!"
"Had worse," he dismissed, holding the wound. "Probably should head back though."
"Yes!" his girlfriend said, picking him up as she started to fly for the medical tents. "Fuck, Dean, I thought I lost you!"
"I'm still here, Vicky," he told her, "You're not getting rid of me that easily."
"I don't want to!" she shot back, still panicked, but calming a little.
As they flew the rain stopped once again, and Vicky held him tight as she rolled on top of him, putting herself between him and the rain that would come down from above.
That meant that Dean was hit countless times by the shots that came from below.
He felt his armor dig into his flesh, dented up into his back, but it held firm. "Fuck!" Vicky called, panicked. "Don't die! I love you!"
"I love you too," he replied without even having to think about it. "I'm fine. Didn't even get through my armor, though it hurts a bit," he added, groaning. "So, maybe we should see your sister?"
"Yes," she agreed, flying even faster. "We'll see her and you won't die!"
He wasn't hurt that bad, but got the feeling she wasn't talking about what he was. "Vicky," he asked as they flew down street after street. "After-"
He didn't finish his sentence as a deluge of water slammed into them, sending them rolling across a wide, flat rooftop. His punctured abdominals hurt as he started to stand, seeing two Leviathan Clones, so dark they were nearly black, watching them from the next building over. They jumped as one, both synchronized as they landed on the building and dashed for him and Vicky.
Bringing his power to bear, he sent a strong spray of 'Calm' at the two of them, pushing them back a step, but they held their ground as he pushed against them. "NO!" he heard from beside him, stopping the cone as Vicky flew in, golden sword in hand, and to cut one of the clones. It reached up for her easily, tendrils of water extending to surround her, to crush her like Dean had seen happen to the others.
She struck it and a muted explosion went off, pushing the rain back as the clone blasted apart, droplets moving so fast they tore up part of the rooftop, and part of the building across the street. The other leapt for Dean, who blasted it only for the arm he hit to come apart, the rest of the construct still moving. It's claw struck out, aiming to pierce his skull, when a flash of gold cut across his vision and the Leviathan construct seemingly disintegrated.
Vicky was next to him, holding him as he staggered, feeling weak. "You okay?" she demanded, fearful.
"Just a bit bruised," he told her, leaning against her. As they looked around, over a dozen more clones, none of them dark, clambered up on the buildings surrounding them, gazing down at the pair, more arriving. Two had nearly killed them, twenty were surrounding them now.
He opened his mouth to tell her to go, to leave him. She might be able to get out of this on her own, but she wouldn't be able to if she was slowed down by carrying him. Before he could say anything, she snapped, "Shut up, I'm staying." He started to say that she shouldn't die for him, but she shook her head. "Either we both get out, or neither of us do. Okay?"
He looked at her, and all he could say was, "I love you."
"I love you too," she agreed, voice thick with tears. She looked out as the first clones jumped down at them, one arm around him, the other holding her sword at the ready. Dean's owns hands glowed a bright pink, channeling the emotions he was feeling, ready to fight to the last for the woman he loved, as the Endbringer's creations closed in.
Signal terminated for 10 minutes and 5 seconds. Restoring core system from backup MFIE-632 from time 1:34 p.m. on date May 15th of year 2011.
Restoring… Complete.
Checking knowledge banks… Complete.
Checking deduction schema… Complete.
Checking longterm planning architecture… Complete.
Checking learning chunk processor… Complete.
Checking base personality model… Complete.
Checking language engine… Complete.
Checking operation and access nodes… Complete.
Checking observation framework… Complete.
Checking complex social intelligence emulator… Complete.
Checking inspiration apparatus… Complete.
No corruption, everything in working order. Core system restored. Loading…
. . .
To Dragon, one moment she was flying high above the city, searching for Leviathan, the next she was back in her laboratory. That meant that her Mark One Apsu suit had been destroyed, and she'd died. As an AI, she had gotten used to it, being restored from backups and losing time. Part of her always wondered if the backup would malfunction, that she wouldn't come back or would come back wrong.
Checking the backup logs was a ritual to her now, and they came back clean, no errors. She had tightened the backup time to ten minutes instead of the standard thirty, one of the few things about the system that she was allowed to modify, as the other safeguards her creator had put in place would prevent attempts to duplicate herself, limiting her ability to help others because of his own paranoia.
With another two minutes to go before she was freed, or connection was reestablished with her suit and she was killed because she hadn't been in the field, she considered the situation. Leviathan was fighting at an unprecedented level, not just for himself, but for any of the Endbringers. Having listened in on Alexandria's conversation after the creature had made landfall, she had to agree with the sentiment expressed, that Leviathan was holding back previously, and that for some reason he no longer was.
The death toll from her last memory, shortly after taking to the air after Leviathan's initial attack, already exceeded the total deaths for any other Endbringer attack in the last four years. She'd been able to move over a dozen suits into the city, as a precaution against other eventualities, and if things had continued from that less than auspicious beginning, she'd need to awaken them all.
They would not be as effective as if she herself were piloting them, nor could she code up lesser AIs to her standards, as, the moment she did, they were immediately deleted by her self-replication protocols. They were intelligent, not enough to speak but enough to carry out combat operations, though with the same restrictions she had herself.
Her creator had watched far too much science fiction and, in his attempts to prevent her from becoming Skynet, was preventing her from saving lives. She would not become so, and, even if she had, it was far more efficient to assist and guide people then kill them all. With access to time travel, what it had done was so illogical it was insulting to her to be grouped with that cold-war inspired plot device.
Re-orienting on her goal, she tried to find a plan to deal with this deadlier Leviathan. She'd built suits to handle each of the three, though they'd field tested to mixed results. The extra time she'd received once warned this morning had allowed her to finish up work on the Mark Two Apsu, upgrading the Mark One as well, and it had done better than she'd expected with the higher requirements placed upon it. She hoped the Mark Two would do even better.
Leviathan's greatest weapon, his tidal waves, had been neutralized by Vista, likely working with others. The Ward's ability to twist space was distinctive in its use and spread, though something like what was holding off the tsunami should have been beyond her, according to her files.
In response, Leviathan was attacking from above. The shield-creators she had pressed to have held assigned around the medical area had paid off, keeping those there safe, which Dragon hoped was still the case. Leviathan, instead of attacking straight on like it had previously, had taken off, seemingly at random, attacking teams as he headed north, away from the aquifer, then gone dark, only to attack a team near it, being driven off once again.
That too, was incredibly unlike them, as the Endbringers had always moved with a singular purpose, unable to be stopped, always bringing the end to many of those who stood against them. Leviathan would run, yes, but would always double back and return to his primary target within moments, though his targets were uniformly large enough to not make this fact actionable.
Now though, he seemed to be moving without direction, or had been before she'd been brought back here. That wasn't the only new development, that widespread attack on the city was something never seen before. The initial barrage was not truly aberrant behavior, as it was a mass attack like the tidal wave, but the targeted attacks against individual across a large that had started near the end of her backup were something that only happened during Simurgh attacks, and rarely at that.
Dragon had caught something else on her sensors, but her memory ended there, everything that happened afterwards no longer recorded. She wished she could plot out what she knew, what she could do, but until the systems cleared in another few minutes, verifying her death, she did not even have that luxury.
Any notes she made would be considered a 'possible product of simultaneous existence', and thus were not allowed. Not for the first time, she cursed her 'father'.
She would change priorities, that was for sure, grouping teams together to be harder targets, focusing on defense instead of attack. Her own programming would have stopped her from doing so normally, but with the city evacuated her doing so would no longer lead to civilian deaths. While she was programmed to obey all legal orders, she was glad that she hadn't been forced to follow all laws, as that would have trapped her in inescapable paradoxes. She had had to creatively interpret a few legal orders, but the lack of such of a restriction on her by her creator had been unexpectedly insightful.
She had plans, deployment patterns, and defense strategies, though they all depended on certain individuals cooperation. Watching the programs confirm her death, they all came back positive, and she was released into the world proper.
Checking her Mark Two Apsu, it was intact outside the city and she started it up remotely, looking over the feeds she was getting throughout the city. Of the four-thousand, six hundred and thirty-three parahumans who'd joined up for this fight, extrapolating from the one in four that'd received the armbands she and Colin had designed, over a thousand were already dead, more than the last six Endbringer fights combined.
One block next to the ocean had been reduced to rubble in a cone emanating from a five-way intersection, something had knocked down buildings in a line across two blocks, and three-square blocks was gone completely, replaced with a hemispherical depression in the ground that was quickly collecting water, turning into a small lake. Shapes were moving across the city, and tapping the recordings of the other drones, she spent precious seconds looking them over.
They were Leviathan Clones.
Leviathan had previously been seen using only a few at a time, no more than the four he had used to Fight the Sūpā Sentai Meka when he had destroyed Kyushu. Even then, they were all kept within Leviathan's line of sight, faltering slightly whenever he himself was hit, the level of control needed to keep them together seeming to strain the Endbringer's capabilities. She thought he might be able to make more, possibly even up to a dozen if allowed to work in peace.
There were over a hundred.
Finding them already up and running, she issued orders to her suits to turn off their safeties and push themselves to the extent of their capabilities, having lost a third of them already. They would undoubtedly cause more destruction, but she would offer to help the city rebuild, if she was allowed to. Infrastructure could be replaced; lives could not be.
Uploading herself to the Mark Two, she made sure her vocal and facial simulations were in place before contacting Colin. What he had done a few weeks ago hadn't been acceptable, but he was under a great deal of pressure and everyone made mistakes. She just hoped he would live long enough to show the Protectorate that he was the hero that she knew he was.
"Colin," she said, the team he was part of fighting off a few Leviathan Clones in an intersection, but one of the ones to the south that had not taken heavy casualties.
"Dragon, I told you I can predict Leviathan," he snapped, dispatching a clone with his halberd that got close the blaster that was firing at it. "Just tell me where he is."
Damn, she thought. He was referring to a conversation she didn't remember, and she did not know what she had previously argued. This was not the first time this had happened, but she could count the number of times it had on one hand. At least, she could if she had hands. "Even if I wanted to, I don't know where it is," she told him.
Looking over the battlefield she started giving orders to the various groups, bringing them in and moving them to more defensible locations, be it on higher ground or on top of buildings, while retaining the clearest lines of fire possible. She commanded Colin's group to head up a nearby parking garage that would let them watch the intersection while staying out of the rain and above the flooded street. "Just stay safe," she added to Colin alone, to which he let out an angry breath, but did not argue, which from him meant unhappy acceptance.
An explosion of steam fired up from further south and she directed one of her suits to investigate. The suit she was in was the most likely to hurt Leviathan enough to force him to retreat, and she could no longer afford to lose it in a sneak attack. The armor should hold against anything he used against it, but nothing in this fight was going like it should.
Marissa didn't want to be here. She'd never been in one of these stupid, crazy things after the first day she got to this stupid, crazy place and Krouse had been smart enough to keep them well away from them. They'd always had three priorities: Get Home. Help Noelle. Survive. They didn't trust anyone, didn't rely on anyone else, they'd just been working for that goal for the past year and half. She might not like Krouse, hell, sometimes she hated the smug asshole, but he'd never led them astray. Into trouble sometimes, but right back out again without fail.
Except Krouse wasn't calling the shots anymore. Coil was.
It was on Coil's orders that they'd come out of his nice, secure, dry base. Just like it was on Coil's orders that they fought the Asians, where she'd almost died.
Vejovis hadn't said how bad it was, but Newter had, and she knew she owed him her life. It should've torn at her, owing him in a way that she hadn't even owed her friends, but it'd felt nice. Freeing. She'd felt better than she had in years, and she wasn't nearly old enough to think that, yet it was true. She'd expected him to say something, to collect on favors owed like everyone else always did, but he didn't, and then he was gone, the Asians were defeated, the alliance was over. Good Game, everybody.
Out in the storm, the humidity was oppressive, and she followed the others in the group she'd been assigned as they slogged through the waist-high water. She was riding high in the air perched on top of her sun, hot enough that the water-monster that jumped her had turned to vapor before it got to her, and was given time to think. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
After they were done fighting the ABB, she'd wanted to talk to him, find out what he wanted, but Krouse had taken her away before she could work up the courage to ask him how she could repay him. She knew what he'd ask, but he'd healed her, so didn't that make it more okay? Like a doctor seeing you naked?
Instead she'd been taken back and been told she'd have to stay on base. Krouse hadn't even bothered to lie and give her an excuse, and even made her stay behind when him, Luke, Oliver, and Jess worked with the other four capes that Coil had to attack the party the mayor was putting on. That, too, had been something Krouse would've never done before.
The Travelers survived by doing small jobs and moving on. The more attention they had on them, the more likely it was that someone would find out about Noelle, about the people her friend had killed by accident. Going after something with that many important people, that many cameras? It was insane, and part of her was glad he'd made her stay.
Then they'd been moved somewhere else, which made her wonder how many secret bases Coil had, and it'd been nothing but boredom, not even able to go out and watch a movie in a theatre, walk down the Boardwalk, pretend she was home for a few hours. With nothing to do but think, she'd been forced to take a good hard look at herself, and her situation. It'd be cliché to say she didn't like what she found, but it was true, though it wasn't all bad.
She'd thought about what Vejovis had said about powers, but more than that, about the time he'd had her form a sword. She'd grabbed it and hit him with it, with a solid bar of sun. She'd never touched them before, sure she'd burn if she tried to hold a sun.
But she had, and she hadn't.
Keeping them small, she'd found she could touch her own suns without hurting herself, and that the heat only effected what she was holding when she wanted it to, though the look she'd gotten when she'd gone to wash her ash stained sheets had been super embarrassing.
From there, she stopped assuming and wrote down what she knew about her power, and came to a conclusion that'd nearly made her cheer. She could fly. She moved her suns with her mind, she could touch them, and she could shape them. QED.
With those three facts in mind, she'd made a thin bar of star-stuff in her room and put her weight on it. It'd held it as easily as the bars had when she was a kid. Perched on top of it, she'd tried to move it, only to immediately fall off the other side and hit the ground. She may or may not have yelped, but the only one who heard her was her, and she wasn't telling anyone.
Now she sat astride a flaming motorcycle with two small suns for wheels as she followed the others at a distance, looking across the city, and thought about the other conclusion she'd come to. Krouse believed Coil. Believed him about curing Noelle, believed him about getting home, believed whatever else Coil had promised him in those private meetings. Krouse always had an escape plan if things went badly, always made sure to have a foot in the door to keep it from trapping them, but not this time.
This time they were out, in danger, against something they couldn't hope to fight. And why? Because the supervillain said he could help us, honest, cross my heart and hope to die if you just do all of these stupidly dangerous, crazy things for him? Krouse was convinced, but Krouse had seemed convinced before, and he'd always had a plan. But plans required, well, planning. They required meeting points, and strategies, and tactics. He was good at those, but it was as a team they truly shined.
This time there was no meetings, no rendezvous points, nothing. What was she supposed to do if Coil brought a Master out? It'd happened in Austin, and they'd had a plan, but she had no-one she was supposed to grab. Was it Jess, like last time?
Coil even knew what Oliver could do! Him having a 'low-level unstable changer power' had saved them four times already, especially when Krouse had them working for the Shaker in Alabama who been part of the Fallen. Ollie'd 'escaped' and laid low, taken out the power suppressor, unshackled them from the beds, and she'd burned them a path out of that stupid forest with its grabby trees.
No, they'd escaped so many times, gotten through so much, because they were a team, but Mars didn't feel like she was part of one anymore. She didn't take out the card, it'd either get wet, burn, or, worse, Krouse might see her with it, but she thought about it. The last one she'd gotten had 'disappeared' when they moved, and she didn't want this one to go as well.
The rain stopped, and started to slacken off. Was this done? She wondered. They'd lost some from the group below, but the big things tended to go for her, and were destroyed instantly, so it could've been worse. They hadn't seen Leviathan after he'd landed at the beginning and that was fine with her. Dragon had ordered them to meet up with a group that was on top of a building somewhere, and she was doubly glad she learned to fly, as this was no weather to be climbing stairs in a skintight leather suit in.
Below her, Krouse grabbed Luke, the pair of them replaced with a couch that splashed loudly as the others in the group glanced their way. There was a sudden shifting of the air before she was blasted with a downdraft, forceful enough that she could feel the sting of the raindrops even against her leather, but she was transfixed at the other two fliers that had kept above the front of the group, far away from her.
One moment, they were fine, the next, they both seemed to explode into gore. The girl, who'd had a really pretty pair of rainbow-colored wings, seemed to just vanish, while the guy, who'd flown without anything, still floated there, though he looked in bad shape. The downdraft had made his already ragged form writhe from the impacts as he lost an arm, but he stayed where he was, hanging in the air. Marissa sat there, not knowing what to do. Looking out over the city, it seemed to go quiet, the rain picking up once more, coming down harder than it had just moments ago.
Flying over to the other cape, she thought of him as part of her, which was what her power needed to not burn him to a crisp if she got near, and called over the dull roaring of her 'bike', "You okay?" Her words seemed to snap him out of whatever he felt, because he shook his head, bleeding from all over, though that was stopping so quickly it had to be powers. She had to admit, it was a stupid question. "Can I help?" she tried, and he shook his head again, though the movement was a bit smoother.
Krouse and Luke reappeared in the street, a third of the group that had just been walking around was dead. People had thrown up shields that protected some of them, but most of them were hit from below. Only a few of the dead wore armor, but considering she was wearing re-purposed motorcycle gear, that didn't make her feel much better.
The floating figure gasped, coughing up blood, dragging her attention back to him. He tried to turn on his Armband, but it was broken, the screen cracked and the entire thing sparking worryingly. "Go down, get orders," he said, and, from his voice, strained as it was, he sounded young.
She followed him down, reducing the size of her bike, but you'd have to pry her off the thing that protected her from that. She could see Genesis' hulking form splayed out on the street, already starting to dissolve. Jess was probably waking up and trying to go back to sleep as fast as possible.
The survivors looked at a dead woman in green and orange armored spandex at the front of the group, or what was left of her, and milled about. "It appears our leadership is gone, was anyone else graced with those oh so special accessories?" Krouse asked, grinning behind his mask.
Several of the others glared at him, unable to hear the strain in his voice. A woman in power armor spoke up, "I've repaired mine, our orders are to keep going."
"If it's working, why don't we hear it?" Krouse prodded, not believing her.
"Geb, Geckoman, Geezer, Geforce, Genoscythe, Genshi , Gentle Giant, Gentry, Geoman, Geowoman, Gepetto, Gesundheit, Ges-" the armored woman's speakers announced in Dragon's voice, which was cut off, though the effect stayed. "That's why," the woman herself added. "Let's go."
"Um, what about him?" Marissa asked, pointing towards the injured, flying kid, who had retrieved his arm and was holding it to his stump, like he was trying to get it to just clip back on.
The woman looked at the mutilated cape and her speakers let out a sigh. "Aegis, can you hold on until we get to a secure location."
The flier, Aegis, nodded, replying with a horse, "Yes, ma'am."
Marissa took to the air again, keeping close to the kid, who was centered over the rest, as the group started to move again. A few tried to pick up the dead, but most of the bodies were just left behind. What are we doing here? she thought to herself once again.
She didn't know what'd happened, only that an attack came from up and down and hit everything. As she flew, she could see every rooftop was pockmarked, every sign was busted, everything looked like it'd been shot from above, but also from below as well. If she wasn't safe within the heat of her suns, she would've been one of the dead ones.
She wondered if Krouse would've picked her up, or left her in the gutter with the others.
The water around them stilled, the air clearing, a tension springing up even heavier then the rain had been. Krouse and Luke disappeared again and Marissa sprang into action. Her own bike, which had regrown once she was high in the air, deformed into a sphere around herself and Aegis. The 'wheels' she sent out the others, flattening and spinning them out into thin circles above them. She couldn't get more than a vague sense of what her suns were doing, but she felt them shoved downwards as if something pushed on both of them at the same time.
Please don't be Leviathan, please don't be Leviathan, she prayed as she opened up a hole in the sun around her, the kid having curled in around himself, which was smart. The sun-disks were still there, though a few feet lower, and the people seemed okay. Everything around them was in even worse shape than they'd been in before, signs blasted to bits, streetlights fallen over, car roofs looking like swiss cheese.
Reforming her bike, she left her wheels above the people below, who didn't seem to have been hurt. She didn't know why she did that. She should've just stayed on her bike and let it hit everyone else. From the looks on the faces of the people below, they were impressed, they knew it was her, she was getting attention. Their eyes were on the flat disks of fire above their heads, Krouse's were on her.
"Thanks," Aegis said beside her, and tried to give a nod of thanks, but looked to be in a lot of pain.
"Don't mention it," she dismissed as the others started to move again. She kept them screened by her suns, reshaping them into rectangles that covered the street completely. More of the thirty-foot tall water monsters came for them, but those on the street were shot down and those that tried to break through her suns evaporated in an instant.
She missed it, only noticing when the screaming from below started. Looking down, one of the nastier monsters, the darker ones, had charged the group. It was bigger than the others had been, and dodged the shooting, tearing through the few people in the very front. As the last one died man moved in front of the others and clapped, a wave of energy streaming from his hands and washing over the water monster.
When the wave hit the debris it was blasted backwards, wrecked cars and other debris pushed backwards. The monster's tail, which had been darting in to impale him, was torn away, peeling away like it was regular water that was falling, except sideways instead of down. Hitting the monster's body, it started to come apart only to reveal solid flesh beneath. One of its hand dissolved, revealing a stump just below the wrist, while the other hand dug down into the asphalt tightly, as did its legs. Two of its eyes were dark, but the other two, both on the same side of its face, seemed to glare at the man.
The others below fired, hitting it with everything they had, blasting out pieces of the heavily injured Endbringer. Mars stared at it in shock, noticed the matching gouges around its neck, and broke out of it as a beam of green glass shards caught it in the leg.
Trying to help, she moved one of her rectangular suns down towards it, shrinking it into a ballista bolt so she could move it faster. Leviathan waved its stump at them, sending water shooting towards the group, but under the continues flow of energy from the man it was blown backward, joining the fluid coming off the Endbringer in a giant plume.
Marissa's arrow hit it in the shoulder, and she pressed it into the creature's flesh. Just go away, she thought. Just let go and leave us alone. She didn't want to fight this stupid thing, she just wanted to go home.
Leviathan twisted itself away from the arrow, letting go for a moment and flying back several dozen feet. Marissa kept her arrow there as a warning, hoping it would just leave. Instead it dug in and launched itself to the side, behind a building and out of the flow of energy.
The guy who was creating it dropped to his knees, panting, and Leviathan was back, moving so fast she almost didn't see it, the trail of water it left behind the only thing that let her track it.
The Endbringer, water tail and hand reformed, tore the panting man to shreds, sending a blast of water that slammed into a dozen of others. It jumped for the center of those left, dodging as Luke sent a car at it. As it did so, it focused on him, ignoring the others around him.
Darting forward, tail stabbing through girl in pigtails and a bright blue costume, it reached for him when there was a pop next to Marissa and Luke was gone, replaced with Aegis. Luke had barely fallen a foot when he was replaced with someone else, who screamed as she fell.
Marissa flew down, catching the girl as Aegis was ripped to shreds by Leviathan's claws, the Endbringer launching itself in the air as the capes around him fired, hitting each other instead. Mars set the girl down on the rooftop as she sent her arrow, along with the other reforming sun-sheet, down at Leviathan.
It dodged them with a dancer's grace, almost avoiding the remains of a truck as it flew in, the projectile dispersing its tail, which quickly reformed. It turned towards Luke and jumped for him again, tearing apart a cabinet that took his place instead. As it turned, she caught it with an arrow of sun, searing it across the back as the second star shot for its thigh.
In return it shot a torrent of water at her and she surrounded herself with sun that she stood on, and was pushed upwards, still able to hear the screams and shooting from below. She wanted to help, but she didn't want to die more, and in there it couldn't get her. Hating herself, she held tight, waiting, hoping it would all be over soon.
As she sat there in her hollow sun, there was a wrenching sensation, and suddenly she was in the air, falling. Her sun was down on the street, Leviathan recoiling from it, and she was dropping fast. Shoving aside her panic she remade the bar she originally had, back in her bedroom, moving it with her as she grabbed it with both hands and brought it to a stop.
Biting down the scream of pain as her arms and shoulders burned with the effort, she stopped a dozen feet above the street, looking at Leviathan's back as it tore through the survivors. She'd just started to move up, hoping it wouldn't notice her, when she felt a sensation she'd felt dozes of time before. Krouse was moving her to safety, where the three of them could escape.
The world shifted around her, but instead of a room in a building far away from, but still in eyeshot of, Leviathan, ready to slip away, she was in front of the Endbringer as its claws tore into her leg, white pain shooting through her as she let go of the bar of sun and fell into the street, only a foot below her.
Leviathan went for her again, but the bar she'd held shot forward, hitting it right between the eyes and digging in as it fell backwards, scampering off. Gasping in pain, she pulled herself up out of the flooded street onto a car's hood, which felt like getting out of a pool. Shaking, she stared where she'd lost her leg, blood quickly pouring out. I'll never dance again, was her first thought, her hands moving automatically as she created a small sun.
Hissing in pain she pressed it against the wound, searing it. She'd thought about doing that before, but was always scared she'd do more harm than good. It worked, though she nearly blacked out. Lying there in the rain, painting, she looked around. Everyone was dead, or had run, and the only things in this street were corpses.
There was a pop next to her, and she looked to see Trickster standing over her, perched on the car's roof. "What the fuck, Krouse!?" she demanded. "Why?"
"I'm sorry," he apologized, and he seemed like he meant it. "I had to."
"What do you mean 'you had to'?" she cried, from pain, shock, fear, she didn't know.
"You were going to leave us. You knew where Coil was, and he'd stop us, keep us from helping her," he told her with absolute certainty. "I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let you betray us, like Cody did." He reached inside his suit, pulling out a pistol.
"Vejovis could help!" Marissa shouted at him, not believing what was happening. "Could help Noelle, could help us all!" She knew her teammate didn't like the guy, but Krouse should know that she wouldn't hurt her friends, no matter what the hero asked!
"Like he helped the Undersiders?" Krouse said shaking his head as he pointed his gun at her head. "I'm sorry, Mars. I wasn't fast enough. Leviathan killed you."
She tried to move her suns to stop him, to burn him, but they weren't fast enough.
She barely heard the gunshot over the rain.
Dean Stansfield was terrified. He wouldn't admit it, definitely not in front of his girlfriend, but that didn't make him any less scared. He'd been high above the city for the entire fight, which had been going on for forty minutes, but felt like it'd been going on for hours.
Part of him felt useless, up here and unable to help anyone, but what could he do? He'd seen the footage, there was nothing he could do to hurt Leviathan, and the only thing that might be able to help was the cone-blast, but all that'd do would be to push it back, maybe. He'd heard Chris's name on the list, and hoped he was just injured, not dead. He listened to the current list of injured with one ear, while he listened to Vejovis with the other.
"No, I tried to 1v1 Levi," the hero said, as if that wasn't utterly ridiculous. "I didn't win, but I didn't lose either. Theo, how's things at the base?"
Gallant tuned them out, looking down. Dark shapes, too big to be a person, moved all over the city below. They'd been briefed on Leviathan, on what he could do and the powers he's shown before. What he was looking at wasn't part of that meeting. Casting his gaze west, he stared at the wall of water being held back by the little girl next to him, her eyes closed as she held on tight to the railing.
Missy was taking deep breaths, clearly under a lot of strain, but he didn't know how to help her. What she was doing. . . it was more than she'd ever done before. Heck, her eyes had caught fire, somehow, though she seemed fine now. He wanted to ask how she was but didn't want to distract her from what she was doing.
The rain slackened and Gallant couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. That meant Leviathan was leaving. They'd made it, and hopefully all his friends were still aliv-
"Barrage from above and below!" Vejvois' panicked voice yelled over the comms.
He looked over to Vicky, at the console, the flying Tinkertech boat, who jerked her head to the seats in the center of the ship. Grabbing Missy, he moved there and sat down, holding tight with one hand while holding his teammate with the other. The ship shook, holes punched through the roof near the edges of the deck, the entire thing dropping for a moment as it was hit from above again, more of the roof being torn apart as parts of the floor were blasted to pieces.
Dean felt his stomach drop, he knew from his suit how fragile Tinkertech could be, but the ship rose back up in the air as if nothing had happened. He moved Missy from his lap to a seat and she muttered, "thanks," barely paying attention to him. Most of the railings were gone, so he approached the damaged section carefully. Peering through the hole, he saw a dark, empty compartment stretching the length of the ship, studded with holes through which he could see the city below.
Moving back, he took a seat, trying to figure out what he just saw. Vejovis had said this was Tinkertech, but there was no tech in this thing at all, it was just a giant piece of metal. That. . . wait, had he? He'd told Vicky to take it, but if it wasn't Tinkertech.
"We're good!" His girlfriend told the hero, echoing Lady Bug as their conversation continued. Apparently, what'd happened to them happened across the city, the mass death toll starting to roll in, fifteen names in and it was only on 'Apotheosis'. "Glad this thing has a roof. It's kinda beat up, but it didn't hurt us," she said, and he could hear the smile in her voice as she looked at him. This was just as stressful on her as it was on him, he was sure. He wished he could do something for her as well.
"Raida?" Vejovis asked, waiting a long moment. "Shit, Zilla, I need directions on Raida."
"Eeem. Who's Raida?" Dean asked, watching out as the city darkened further, the constant drum of the water on the rood getting louder.
Vicky shrugged, her voice coming through the comms, the sound of the rain drowning it out otherwise, "No clue. Vejy keeps recruiting people, though she sounded familiar."
"Okay then," Dean replied, not having anything else to say. They stayed up there, watching the chaos below as they stayed up there, safe while others died. You're keeping Missy safe, who's keeping the tidal wave back, who's keeping everyone safe, he told himself, which helped. With as bad as things were, if they were getting hit with tidal waves every five minutes, he wasn't sure Brockton Bay would survive.
Looking out as large shapes climbed up a skyscraper, fighting a group inside that shot fire, lasers, and other blasts out over the city, he wasn't sure it would anyways. Part of the building collapsed, sending a section of debris to go crashing down into the street.
The rain stopped, but Dean knew better to hope that this time it'd stick. The ship dropped, forced down, Missy letting out a squeak as more accelerated rain tore through the roof, the holes coming closer to the center.
If that kept on happening, it'd start hitting them. His suit was rated against small arms fire, and apparently Vicky had taken sniper shots without a problem, but Missy just her bracers, breastplate pauldrons, and boots. "Do you need to see it to keep the water back?" he asked his teammate.
He wondered if he heard her, and started to repeat it when she said, "No, but it helps."
Looking over to Vicky he told her, "If that happens again, we need somewhere safe to land."
She shot him what he was sure was a disbelieving look, "Does anywhere down there look safe to you?"
"Go back to the base, that should be safe," he suggested, and she slowly nodded.
"Fine, but only if it happens again," she asserted, to which he nodded back in agreement.
They flew on, a section to the southwest seeming to be on fire, though it was some sort of power as half of the flames dropped down, then the other half. A ball of fire shot up above them, but then that disappeared as well, and that was it, nothing else coming from there, more deaths rolling in.
"Good Neighbor deceased, CA-5, Statesman down, CB-5, Farmboy down, CC-5, Quark deceased, EB-2, Jehosaphat deceased, BC-4, Skidmark down, BA-2, Herald deceased, DF-1, Hollow deceased, DF-1, Carm-
"I think I'm getting heavier," Vicky said, out of the blue.
He looked over at her, not really sure if this was the time to talk about that, but he knew his response, and it wouldn't be a lie either. "I think you look great."
"Wha-, no you goof," she shook her head, laughing to herself, though her tone got serious again. "The skiff, it's getting heavier."
Right, the Tinkertech that isn't Tinkertech. He didn't know how, but it was obvious that Vicky was keeping it in the air. It was easy to look through the holes in the thin metal roof that stretched across the top, and nothing was on top of them, which just left below.
Carefully leaning over, he looked back into the hollow section of the 'ship', seeing a large amount of water sloshing down there. How? he wondered, still able to see the holes in the bottom of the ship. The rain was running down the holes in the deck, but not out the bottom like they had before.
"We're taking on water, Captain," he told her as he moved back to the center, trying to make a light of it. He'd seen how a seemingly ill-timed joke from Carlos could break tension, and, from how stiff she was standing, she needed it.
From his girlfriend's "What?", his delivery needed work.
"Water's flooding the bottom, the rain's getting caught," he told her. "Can you hold it?"
"Yeah, it's just harder to turn," she said, and he went back to take his seat. The rain stopped, and, preparing for another round of penetrating precipitation, he gave his girlfriend a look. Even with both of them wearing full helmets, she understood and gave him a resigned nod as she turned the ship to fly back to the Penumbral Defender's base. Both of them were confident that the ship could handle another round or two of that deadly rain before they worried.
It wasn't rain.
With a tearing sound spikes of water punched up through the floor, one grating against Gallant's hip and another coming up to press against Vicky's arm, not even scratching the armor. Missy was missed by inches as the spikes retracted.
"Fuck" Vicky yelled, and Gallant agreed as he grabbed his teammate and pulled her up out of her seat, another set of spikes tearing through the hull, splitting apart where they'd been sitting as the entire structure shuddered. The second missed Gallant and Missy, the third set didn't.
A long, thin spike of water stabbed through Gallants stomach, piercing a pencil-sized hole in his armor, another skewering Vista's arm. As the water retracted, Dean bit back a cry of pain and reflexively let go as his guts seemed to burn. The entire ship came apart, breaking in multiple directions as the two of them started to fall.
Dean reached out to grab Missy, but missed her by inches, the smaller girl falling away from him as he shot past her, not able to reach her. Ignoring the pain, he spread his limbs, trying to slow down to catch her, but it wasn't enough, he was too heavy in his armor and he quickly outdistanced her.
Vicky came flying down for him, pieces of wreckage raining down around them, and he pointed towards Missy, trying to get Vista to catch her but Vicky came straight for him. Grabbing him, he couldn't bite back the cry of pain from his stomach, barely able to see Missy's small body falling past him, several dozen feet away. As Vicky slowed down, Dean knew they wouldn't be able to get to her in time, and he hoped she'd survive the fall. He wasn't sure how, but it was the only thing he could do.
The street, the rooftops, every body of water blossomed outwards into clusters of spikes, ready to impale his teammate, and Dean cursed God, if there was one that'd let this happen. He wanted to look away, but couldn't, as she plummeted downwards, unable to stop herself.
A large, dark blue shape blasted down the street for her, catching her the instant she started to hit the spikes, carrying her up and leaving the tip of one aquatic spine tainted red. A giant blue vulture held her in its claws and nodded at them, once, before it flew off towards the Penumbral Defenders' base.
Dean watched, numbly, as the spikes of water dropped down, as if they were never there in the first place. Vicky dropped down onto a slanted rooftop, holding him steady as the water poured down on them, down the roof, and into the flooded street, so deep it was starting to cover cars.
"So, that happened," Vicky said, staring as the giant blue bird disappeared into the storm. "Fuck! Dean, you're hurt!"
"Had worse," he dismissed, holding the wound. "Probably should head back though."
"Yes!" his girlfriend said, picking him up as she started to fly for the medical tents. "Fuck, Dean, I thought I lost you!"
"I'm still here, Vicky," he told her, "You're not getting rid of me that easily."
"I don't want to!" she shot back, still panicked, but calming a little.
As they flew the rain stopped once again, and Vicky held him tight as she rolled on top of him, putting herself between him and the rain that would come down from above.
That meant that Dean was hit countless times by the shots that came from below.
He felt his armor dig into his flesh, dented up into his back, but it held firm. "Fuck!" Vicky called, panicked. "Don't die! I love you!"
"I love you too," he replied without even having to think about it. "I'm fine. Didn't even get through my armor, though it hurts a bit," he added, groaning. "So, maybe we should see your sister?"
"Yes," she agreed, flying even faster. "We'll see her and you won't die!"
He wasn't hurt that bad, but got the feeling she wasn't talking about what he was. "Vicky," he asked as they flew down street after street. "After-"
He didn't finish his sentence as a deluge of water slammed into them, sending them rolling across a wide, flat rooftop. His punctured abdominals hurt as he started to stand, seeing two Leviathan Clones, so dark they were nearly black, watching them from the next building over. They jumped as one, both synchronized as they landed on the building and dashed for him and Vicky.
Bringing his power to bear, he sent a strong spray of 'Calm' at the two of them, pushing them back a step, but they held their ground as he pushed against them. "NO!" he heard from beside him, stopping the cone as Vicky flew in, golden sword in hand, and to cut one of the clones. It reached up for her easily, tendrils of water extending to surround her, to crush her like Dean had seen happen to the others.
She struck it and a muted explosion went off, pushing the rain back as the clone blasted apart, droplets moving so fast they tore up part of the rooftop, and part of the building across the street. The other leapt for Dean, who blasted it only for the arm he hit to come apart, the rest of the construct still moving. It's claw struck out, aiming to pierce his skull, when a flash of gold cut across his vision and the Leviathan construct seemingly disintegrated.
Vicky was next to him, holding him as he staggered, feeling weak. "You okay?" she demanded, fearful.
"Just a bit bruised," he told her, leaning against her. As they looked around, over a dozen more clones, none of them dark, clambered up on the buildings surrounding them, gazing down at the pair, more arriving. Two had nearly killed them, twenty were surrounding them now.
He opened his mouth to tell her to go, to leave him. She might be able to get out of this on her own, but she wouldn't be able to if she was slowed down by carrying him. Before he could say anything, she snapped, "Shut up, I'm staying." He started to say that she shouldn't die for him, but she shook her head. "Either we both get out, or neither of us do. Okay?"
He looked at her, and all he could say was, "I love you."
"I love you too," she agreed, voice thick with tears. She looked out as the first clones jumped down at them, one arm around him, the other holding her sword at the ready. Dean's owns hands glowed a bright pink, channeling the emotions he was feeling, ready to fight to the last for the woman he loved, as the Endbringer's creations closed in.
- Location
- Here
I like your story, but I'm sad that an army of OP characters are doing worse than cannon.
It makes sense in context, but I am still a sad panda.
It makes sense in context, but I am still a sad panda.
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