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♦ Topic: Post-Leviathan Thread
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Tin_Mother (Original Poster) (Moderator)
Posted On May 16th 2011:
Alright.
Here's your thread, everyone. We know the rules here. I don't care what happened- Leviathan spent the entire time break dancing, the Simurgh showed up and ended the attack herself with a club made out of clouds, God him/her/themselves dropkicked the Endbringer- nothing to do with the attack itself is to be discussed here. Obviously the two week silence is still in effect, and
obviously we don't say anything about or speculate on any deaths that may have happened in the attack. This policy is enforced by a week long ban.
And that
really shouldn't need to be said anymore.
This thread is not for anything to do with what went on during the actual attack. I don't care who's saying it, it's not happening here, your post will be deleted and you will enjoy a ban.
This thread is for people to comment on the aftermath of the attack, talking about repairs, situations with the local gangs/the PRT/the Protectorate, and for people to mention anything interesting going on with the local Capes.
Please, for the love of everything, keep to the rules this time. I'm seriously beginning to see why the other mods don't like me doing this, but at least it keeps it out of the other threads more.
Also, remember that I won't be editing this post to add things in unless it's really important, because with how quick these threads explode I'd be here all week doing just that.
(Showing page 15 of 8562)
►Echorealm
Replied On May 16th 2011:
At least the water situation seems to be doing ok there, right?
I mean, I know that's one of the first things people try and deal with after Leviathan, and from what I've heard it's been going really well.
►PoisonedCell
Replied On May 16th 2011:
Yeah, water's doing ok, actually. Lot of the city is back already, though you need to spend some time draining them out first. Whatever company they got doing that, we need to figure out ways to send them to other Leviathan zones after the attacks, it's ridiculous.
►Answer Key
Replied On May 16th 2011:
Is it true that there's some Capes over there helping out with the building stuff? If so, that's pretty cool, but all I've heard are rumours, no images at all.
►LukeLance
Replied On May 16th 2011:
Ask and ye shall receive!
Dauntless and Miss Militia, helping move piping around.
Hookwolf helping cut planks to size.
Othala granting some of the builders superstrength to carry stuff.
Glory Girl carrying cement up into a big truck.
►Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On May 16th 2011:
Can't believe you missed this one, @LukeLance.
Lung, with some gang members, carrying around cinder blocks.
►Helotan
Replied On May 16th 2011:
holy crap lung was there too? thats so cool, wonder why he was helping.
►AllSeeingEye
Replied On May 16th 2011:
Probably because he lives here too, @Helotan! Just about every Cape that can help does, you know.
Then again, it's not just the Capes either, apparently. There's been reports of gang members, ABB and E88, running patrols around the streets looking out for trouble, because the Capes are out of commission for the most part.
Couple of pics here, though I've got nothing on the rumours that there's no fighting between them when they run into each other, nor the ones about them possibly co-operating to keep things calm.
►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member)
Replied On May 16th 2011:
Dang, that's cool. Wish this city was this calm all the time...
Anyway, got a bit of video for you folks, Shadow and Swarm out and about on the same street as Glory Girl. From what I can see Shadow's making things float around, while Swarm was just keeping an eye on things. After a bit though, Shadow went inside and Swarm wandered off with Glory Girl, apparently to get food.
Interesting that GG apparently let Swarm and Shadow both call her by name, though.
►Antigone
Replied On May 16th 2011:
Apparently GG was later seen flying off without either of them, looking pretty thoughtful. Guess they had a talk about something... wonder what?
►AllSeeingEye
Replied On May 16th 2011:
How much fun it is to build stuff like that, maybe? Perhaps we'll get to see a bit more care from Glory Girl now, given that she's been helping put stuff back together and has seen how much work it is.
No offence, GG, but you can be a bit of a bother.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 ... 8560, 8561, 8562
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May 16th, 2011. Monday.
"Hey, isn't that Glory Girl over there?" Swarm pointed, looking down at Shadow.
"Just a minute." The Vulpix murmured, her eyes glowing pink. She finished moving the blocks around, placing them where she'd been asked by the construction workers. She got a thumbs up for her trouble, and she waved back before following Swarm's hand. "Yeah, I think it is."
The flying Brute seemed to be making trips back and forth across a street, moving bags of something from the road side into the back of a truck. Her normal tiara was missing, replaced by a hard hat, and she was wearing a bright orange jacket over her standard costume, which made both girls chuckle a little.
Admittedly Swarm was wearing the same- even though she was only doing guard duty for the looks of things it was still a construction site- and arguably looked
more ridiculous in them, the idea of a highly-invulnerable Brute in a hard hat to protect her from rubble seemed silly.
"She looks like she's doing pretty good." Shadow added, still tracking the girl. "We should go and talk to her."
"Shadow!"
"Right after we finish with this." She finished, putting the illusion of an orange safety jacket over her body and trotting over to the builder who'd hailed her.
Swarm listened absently through her bugs as he showed Shadow some things on a blueprint, pointing out where they'd need to go in the actual physical building in front of them, and explaining where they'd like her to help out. Her little team mate was very attentive, and seemed quite knowledgeable about the subject, to her surprise, but Eon had mentioned once about having helped build their own home in the part of town they lived in- mostly designing it, but clearly they'd both picked up quite a bit from that experience alone.
Most of it went straight over Swarm's head, though, so she just kept an eye on things over there while searching the area for any possible troublemakers.
Not that any was expected. Aside from the obvious fact of the Endbringer Truce still being in effect from yesterday, she, Shadow and Glory Girl weren't exactly hiding their presence, there were construction workers
everywhere who'd probably take offence to their work being interrupted- she'd even recognised a few people who worked with her dad in the Docks, running about being helpful- and she was almost certain that she'd seen a number of both Empire and ABB gangers wandering about in a sort of patrol rota with her bugs.
They'd crossed paths a few times, and each time she'd readied herself for a fight she'd have to intervene in, only for the groups to nod… not
amicably to each other, but at least peacefully, before walking past each other. One of them had stopped to trade information on difficult areas, offering cigarettes all around while they talked.
It had been odd to observe, and Swarm couldn't help but wish it happened more often.
Not the Endbringer bit, though. That hadn't been fun.
Looking around again, she noticed Glory Girl emptying another bag into the truck- it looked like cement- before landing next to a couple of people. They spoke for a few moments, the blonde nodding and taking off her helmet and jacket. She offered them back to the one builder, who waved her off with a laugh. She seemed surprised, based on her body language, but nodded, folding the jacket up and putting it in the hard hat before taking off again.
Curious as to how the girl was doing, and thinking that Shadow would probably want to speak to her friend again to check on her as well, Swarm set a few bugs to fly circles around her, catching her attention. She looked around rapidly, then caught sight of the bug Cape standing down the street and began flying towards her.
"Hey there Swarm!" She grinned, touching down next to her.
"Hello, Glory Girl." She replied, smiling slightly in return. "You seemed to be having fun."
"Heck yeah, was I! It's not every day I get to actually help build things, rather than just trash stuff. It's pretty fun." The girl laughed. "And you can call me Vicky, like Shadow does."
"Ok, Vicky." Swarm acknowledged. "And I suppose it would be a change of pace to get to build things, even if you're just moving stuff from one side of the road to the other. I'm not doing much of that, just playing guard. No Brute powers or magical telekinesis like the others."
"Shame, that." Vicky commiserated, looking around. "Where is Shadow, anyway?"
"She's inside, helping hold some stuff up inside so the builders can put it all into place." Evaluating the face of the Cape in front of her for a moment, then glancing upwards to see the time- already approaching midday- she made a decision. "Say, fancy running to Fugly's and grabbing some burgers? I know I could do with lunch, and Shadow probably could as well when she gets done inside." Poking around the inside of her pack with a firefly for light and a few of the better-sighted bugs, she checked how much money she had on her, then added, "It's on me, if you want."
Vicky looked conflicted for a moment, then nodded. "Sure, I could go for food. Is Fugly's even open, though?"
"I checked on the way over, trying to figure out where we could go for food during the day." Swarm said, as she headed over to the building being worked on. "It's open, somehow. The Boardwalk managed to do pretty ok all things considered, which is nice. There's also a bunch of restaurants Shadow and I were hoping to grab places at if it wasn't. Shadow's curious about Thai food, but that place doesn't do takeout."
"Is that the place down on fourth street? Kinda little place, out of the way corner?" She asked, to a nod. "I've eaten there before, it's nice. Amy loves the panang nua there. Definitely would recommend that, when you've got time." She gave her mask a glance. "How would you manage to eat there, by the way? I guess the mask would make that harder."
"Shadow or Eon could use that illusion from yesterday, it'd work fine." She shrugged. "Might make it difficult for the people that want to take pictures of the Capes eating out, but we could probably either make it only cover the lower bit of my face, or just adjust it a little in some other way that'd let them have their photos fine."
"Huh, cool." Vicky floated behind her as she went over to one of the builders, getting pointed to her team mate a moment later.
"Hey Shadow, Vicky's dropped by. The two of us are going to go grab food, burgers ok?"
"Burgers are fine, thanks." Shadow said absently, focused on floating the boards into the right positions as people worked. "If I'm done before you, I'll come find you guys."
"We shouldn't be long." Swarm told her, before turning and leaving. "Seeya later." Quickly, she went over to one of the builders standing over a blueprint. "Hey, do you want this back? I'm heading away for a bit."
"Nah, keep 'em, the boss won't mind." The man waved off. "There's always more where it came from. Consider it a souvenir."
"Thanks." Swarm smiled, then went back to Vicky, shrugging off her jacket and folding it up, stuffing it into her helmet like she had. "Alright, everything's good, let's go get burgers made of heart attacks."
Vicky laughed, floating alongside her as they left the building site and quickly turned into an alleyway, Swarm using her bugs to guide herself through the minor maze towards the burger place.
"I could've flown us both, you know." Vicky offered, after a few minutes of quiet walking. "You're a lot taller than Ames is, but I could still manage."
"True, but it's not too much of an inconvenience to walk, really. And it's a rare day when a pair of Capes can walk through alleyways without having to intervene in a random mugging or something." She grinned, as Vicky laughed again. "I'd like to make the most of it."
"I can take that as a reason." She nodded. "Seriously, Brockton Bay gets so many muggings, it's absurd. Nice of it to be quiet for once, even if the reasons aren't the best."
"Absolutely." Swarm took a left, checked around once with her bugs, then exited the alley, ending up almost on the main street, about three stores down from Fugly Bobs.
"Huh, I never knew about this." Vicky commented, looking around as they went down the mostly abandoned street.
"I'm not surprised, given that you seem to fly everywhere." Swarm snarked. "Not that I wouldn't do it either, if I could, but being ground bound means you tend to learn a lot of little shortcuts around town." She turned sharply, pushed open the doors, then grinned under her mask as the few people in there went silent and turned to stare at her.
Vicky floated in behind her, hovering at her side as they made their way to the counter, Swarm working a group of spiders to pull some twenties free of the bundle and bring them up to the top of the backpack while others opened it up for her to take.
"Two sets of burgers and medium fries, please." She requested, increasing the amount of insect buzz in her voice slightly. "Vicky?"
"Same, if you don't mind- oooh, they do wings here now?" The Brute noticed. "Maybe we should get some to try as well."
"Shadow tends to like wings, so we might as well." Swarm nodded. "Coke?"
"I'll take Coke."
"And three Cokes, medium, all to go."
"Ahhh…" The server at the counter stuttered, then recovered, quickly typing the order up. "That'll be $30.95, please."
Swarm handed over a pair of twenties, waited a moment for the change, then the two Capes stood over to one side and chatted about nothing in particular while waiting for the order. She had Vicky drop the money into her backpack for her, the spiders closing the pouch again, then nearly five minutes later left with three bags of burgers and fries, a bag of wings, and a takeout plate with three Cokes on it.
They made it around the corner back into the alley before they started laughing.
"Oh, my god." Vicky gasped. "That was hilarious."
"Did you see their
faces?" Swarm chortled. "I've never seen a group of people look so stunned in my life."
"That poor server." She grinned. "I've seen them look like that before, but normally only when the eight of us in New Wave all show up at once for food. Or sometimes when my aura gets away with me, but normally Mom yells at me when that happens and makes me apologise." The girl kept smiling for a moment, then realised what she'd said. Swarm saw her face drop and shifted the Coke to an easier grip in one hand, leaving the other free to wrap around her.
"Hey, are you alright?" Swarm said softly, then mentally facepalmed.
Of course she's not, you idiot.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She lied indistinctly from her shoulder. "It just kinda… hit me again, y'know? Mom's not gonna be around to yell at me the next time my aura goes out of control when we're eating out, or the next time I fly into a building because I got distracted by something shiny in a window." She sniffed. "Or because I forgot to do an essay because I was out patrolling all the time, or spending time with my boyfriend. And she's not gonna ever be able to congratulate me because I did something really good on patrol, or got great marks in an exam." She leaned back, rubbing at her eyes. "I just… obviously I knew all that, but it just kinda hit me for real that it's never gonna happen again." Swarm nodded, searching around with her bugs, then tapped her arm.
"Hey, take us up to that building there, would you?" She requested, taking a hold of the two bags the flying Cape was holding. Vicky stared at her for a moment, then nodded, lifting her up. They both sat on the edge of the building, Swarm putting down the food, and she opened her arms to Vicky while sending Shadow a text with her bugs. "I had… a similar problem when my mom died, though that was years ago for me. I wasn't a Cape then, though I've wondered a lot what she would've thought of me doing Cape stuff and what she would've thought of my team. But when she died, it took kinda a while to sink in that she was gone. I was just… numb, for a while, like I was half expecting someone to jump out at me and tell me it was all a prank, then one morning I just woke up and burst into tears because it hit me that she was gone. We used to do loads together; she'd help me with my homework and she'd let me help with her marking- not really, I'd make little notes on a piece of paper with a pencil about things I thought were wrong, and she'd put them down if they really were. But we did loads of stuff, and it hit me that morning that we'd never be able to do that ever again."
Swarm shrugged, resolutely ignoring the tears in her eyes. "But I still had dad, and some friends, and they helped me out with it."
Vicky was quiet for a moment, still burying her face in Swarm's shoulder. "I'm sorry about your mom."
"And I'm sorry about yours, too." She said quietly. "But I manage by thinking about how she must be feeling about me being a hero, and helping people. Even though I don't do much, compared to my team mates, I still do my best to help out and be a hero, and I hope I make her proud with what I'm doing."
"I made the same promise to myself yesterday." Vicky admitted. "It was after that thing with Shadow. I want to be a better person, someone who'd make mom proud for being a good hero. That's part of why I was out there today, helping with the building. I want to be a good person and help people, not just be a flashy hero that fights crime and wrecks people's shit. I kinda want to be more like you guys are, to be honest; you're all good people, you patrol and help with big and little problems, but you're always so nice to anyone you see on the street too. I just… want to be more helpful, and try not to make any mistakes, and hopefully mom'll be proud of me for that."
"You're not gonna make
no mistakes, Vicky." Both girls startled slightly at the sound of another voice behind them, and turned to see Shadow jumping down from a wooden plank that she had used to carry herself up with her telekinesis. "Literally everyone in the world is gonna make mistakes. We made mistakes, both starting out and even now. But just do your best, and I'm sure your mom would be proud of you doing that and taking things seriously."
The three of them sat there for a while, Vicky slowly recovering from her sudden breakdown, when Shadow came in again.
"I know what you mean about things just hitting you like that, though. About… fourteen months ago, give or take some, about a year after Eon and I started our team, we got a letter that meant we had to go visit my aunt and uncle. She'd had a clutch of eggs, and one of them had hatched wrong." She pursed her lips, looking down. "Did you know eggs can have twins?"
"Really?" Swarm asked, while Vicky blinked at the non sequitur.
"Yeah, but it doesn't normally work out. The two babies in the egg can't share the yolk in there properly, so normally one of them ends up pretty weak when they hatch." Shadow sighed. "For my aunt, though… neither of the babies survived hatching. The yolk split weirdly, so neither of them lived when they hatched. She was absolutely devastated; she'd already picked names and everything, Eltria and Destine for girls, or Felix and Leimen for boys. There were a couple of others in the clutch, too, and they were fine, so she clung on to those while everyone got together for a funeral for them." She pawed at her eyes, while Vicky and Swarm both ran hands down her back. "It really, really sucked, and she was grieving for ages. She had so much trouble getting up some days, because she didn't want to have to deal with it." She lashed a tail and looked up at Vicky. "But she kept getting up for the sake of the other little ones, because she knew she had to do something. Sometimes my uncle had to get her up, or sometimes the others in the town would come to the house and get them up, and just drag them both to a park or something, to make them do things, until they got better. They were still recovering when we came here, but they were a lot better when we last spoke.
"So do me a favour, and make sure Amy gets out of bed on the days she doesn't want to, even if it's just to go for a walk down the road. Get Amy to do the same thing for you, if you don't want to do anything that day and just want to cry; at least cry with your sister. And, if neither of you want to do anything, send me a message on PHO. I'll show up at your door with a pint of ice cream and nick your spoons, we can watch terrible movies or something." She reached up and laid a paw on Vicky's leg. "Let the grief run its course, sure, but don't just wallow in it, ok?"
"Yeah." Vicky nodded, swallowing heavily. "I can do that, sure."
"Good." Shadow smiled, then reached behind her and telekinetically grabbed the bags of food, now slightly cold. "Now, I smell wings in here."
"Leave some for us, you silly trickster." Swarm scolded, reaching for her own bag. "And give me a cloak, will you?"
"Sure." She flicked her tail again, blurring her team mate's face, then dove through the bag again. After a while, she began telling stories again, just rambling about some adventures, even though she knew Vicky wasn't listening, the girl soon flying away with a murmured goodbye.
"What sort of Pokemon were your cousins?" Swarm asked lowly, curious.
"A Rockruff and an Eevee. Aunt was a Jolteon, Uncle was a Lycanroc." She replied softly, slightly miserable. "I miss them. I wrote to them about a week before we left, saying I probably wouldn't be around for a while, and that I was glad she was getting better. I hope she's still doing well."
"She will be. She's got her family, and all of yours, and from what you've said there's a lot of you." Swarm assured her. "She'll be fine, and when you go back, you can tell her all about the stuff that happened here."
"Yeah…" She mused. "I can."
[/indent]
(Showing page 8559 of 8563)
►Aloha
Replied On May 19th 2011:
To be honest, there's apparently been a lot of work thrown into things the last few days. Its pretty cool to see, actually, I've looked out of my window and just seen construction going on, but it's amazing how quickly everything's happening.
►bothad
Replied On May 19th 2011:
at least things are good now taken very little time
►Singlet
Replied On May 19th 2011:
Things really are going quick, and I for one love it!
Wish we could talk about why...
Ah well, it's only two weeks of silence before we can begin speculating and/or announcing what went on during the attack, right?
►GellSine
Replied On May 19th 2011:
If you want to be technical, it's ten days. But yeah, @Singlet, I get what you mean, I'm desperate to know what happened!
Not desperate enough to risk a ban, though.
►BrocktonBayMod (Moderator)
Replied On May 19th 2011:
And that's a good thing, @GellSine, we tend to have enough work in these threads as it is.
►Acree
Replied On May 19th 2011:
coughVoidCowboycough
Sorry, something stuck in my throat there.
Anyway, anyone else hear the rumours that Team Inari were supposed to be having a meeting at Somer's Rock today? No idea who it's with, maybe someone in the Protectorate?
►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
Replied On May 19th 2011:
Ah.
I didn't hear anything about that...
But I did hear from a buddy that Lung apparently had business today, and someone was driving him to Somer's Rock...
►Chrome
Replied On May 19th 2011:
...
Damn, really?
►Arombee
Replied On May 19th 2011:
What would Lung want to talk to Team Inari about? Is he going to try and persuade them to join the ABB? Could Swarm even do that? No-one knows what colour she is.
►AllSeeingEye
Replied On May 19th 2011:
I highly doubt Team Inari would be leaving the side of the heroes, @Arombee. They like being nice too much, from what I've seen. And you might want to back away a bit on the thing with Swarm, might come too close to speculating on an identity, and we wouldn't want to give the mods more work.
But yeah, no idea what Lung might need to say to Team Inari. Ought to be an interesting meeting to be a fly on the wall in, that's for sure...
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 8557, 8558, 8559, 8560, 8561, 8562, 8563
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May 19th, 2011. Thursday.
"All set, girls?" Eon asked softly, under the cloak of the illusion.
"Good to go, Eon." Swarm replied, while Shadow just nodded. "Lung's not there yet, though it's nearly the meeting time."
"Can't see him anywhere?" He checked.
"Nowhere."
"Then we're going in now, and we'll wait for him." The leader decided. "Might as well, and I somehow doubt he'll keep us waiting too long. Don't suppose either of you want to order a drink?" Shadow snorted.
"Do they even do drinks other than alcohol here?"
"I don't think they do alcohol at all, actually." Swarm commented, as she organised herself into the third
'slot' of the team. "Given that this is a meeting place, and normally used by people who have pretty high tempers and a lot of reason to disagree over things. Alcohol seems like a poor choice of things to be serving."
"That's true."
"Still wouldn't want a drink, though." She added. "I'd assume the place takes care of things, and I know Shadow can do an illusion to cover the fact that my mask's up, but I don't think I'd like to sit there drinking something when there's a conversation like this going on. Even if I can't contribute much."
"You contribute what you need to, in the end." Shadow shrugged. "Sometimes, after a Dungeon, I've been in the report meeting and never said a word, because I didn't have anything to add that my team mates hadn't handled just fine. If you need to put something in, because you think it might be helpful or because we forgot it, then you do."
"Right." Swarm nodded. "So, time to go?"
"Sure thing." Eon agreed, dropping the illusion over the three. They made their way into Somer's Rock, nodding in greeting to the woman by the bar, and sat down in a seat with a good view of the door.
After a few minutes of waiting- Swarm leaning back in her seat slightly, Shadow curled into a sort of ball on hers, and Eon sitting bolt upright in the centre- Swarm stiffened, shifted a little to her left, and tapped the very end of one of Eon's tails, making him flick an ear towards her.
"Car just entered my range. Black, big car, I think maybe a limousine, no bugs on the inside and the windows are up so there's no chance of me getting some in there. Blacked out windows too, by the way, and heading towards us based on the movement I'm getting."
"Guess that's probably Lung." Eon muttered, straightening a little further. Shadow, hearing them, huffed a little and sat up as well. Swarm remained where she was, just shuffling back to her original place.
Another few minutes later, and the Dragon of Kyushu strolled into the pub as well, waving off the bartender and coming straight to their table.
"Greetings, Team Inari." He offered a half bow before sitting down. "I hope I did not keep you too long."
"Not at all, Lung." Eon returned, with a courtly nod. "Now, you made the request for this meeting, and from the tone of your letter, I'd assume you have questions."
"I, and every other who saw your team's part in the attack a few days ago, and your actions since." Lung rumbled, a deep chuckle in his voice. "But yes,
Kyuubi, I have questions. I was hopeful that you would answer them."
"Naturally, that will depend on what the answers are." Eon quirked a smile. "But go ahead, Lung. We will answer what we will."
"As you will." The masked dragon looked at the three for a moment, evaluating them. Eon easily met his gaze in return. "Shadow." The Vulpix tilted her head. "How powerful are you, in truth? To take out Leviathan in that way… I do not believe any Parahuman has ever managed to do such a thing." He paused. "Leviathan has been driven off through damage to itself before, however it is rare. Normally it seems only to leave after some time. Not even I, in Kyushu, was able to fight it off in time."
Trading a look with Eon, who nodded and ceded the floor to her, Shadow thought for a moment. "You know what we are, yes?"
"A kitsune, and your
Kyuubi partner."
"Basically, yes. Eon's older than me- I'm not certain
how much older, we leave that sort of thing alone- but old enough to be who he is, obviously. We were sent here by a friend, a portal-maker, to help fix things here. We came in not knowing what we were supposed to fix, admittedly, but we found that out fairly quickly." She explained. "It was rather confusing to see what we were up against, there's far more powerful… spirits, I suppose, than us that would've been of use, but we've managed so far."
Lung's eyes had gone wide, enough to see through the mask.
"Our world has many of these spirits on it." Eon put in. "Some weaker, some stronger. For the most part, we like to help. Personally, Shadow and I were both unaware of your world until the portal-maker, considered one of the most powerful, came to us to help it. I feel it's likely that the situation is the same for most of those in our world, though
why I wouldn't know."
"Perhaps it's something similar to Earth Aleph." Swarm suggested. "People here didn't know about there until the day the portals started opening and we made contact."
"Perhaps, but there are some powerful spirits back home. I find it hard to believe they were unaware of here." Eon shrugged, rippling.
"Whatever it might be, though, we were sent here by our portal-maker friend to help. Perhaps dealing with the Endbringers is what we were brought here to to do, perhaps it's something else." Shadow continued, bringing their attention back to her. "Whatever it is, we'll do our best to help."
"I see." Lung murmured. "And your strength?"
"A lot of that was from dumb luck, if I'm honest." She said honestly. "All of us- from the kitsune and
Kyuubi to those spirits that look like turtles or mice- have the ability to boost ourselves in different ways, or weaken others. That's... what I did when I first met you, in fact. We call these abilities Moves; the one I used on you was Charm, which lowers the physical attacking power of whoever's targeted. I can chose
not to target someone, which spreads the effect out across everyone in the room- most Moves target by room- but at cost of some of the power."
"Ahhh, so you were using that on Leviathan, then." Lung said, in tones of realisation. "Or rather, Eon did, given that you were healing."
"Actually, no." Eon admitted. "While the Moves worked fine on you, and seemed to work ok when we used them against other Capes, we weren't certain whether or not they would work on an Endbringer, given that they don't seem to work the same way as normal Capes from the things we found online. So I didn't bother trying to weaken Leviathan; I'd've just been wasting time if it hadn't worked."
That, and I don't have that many great debuff Moves anyway. Eon added privately.
Should work on that.
"Instead, both Eon and I focused on using those Moves to boost ourselves." Shadow took over. "Eon especially. None of my own abilities would help me in healing, which is what I was doing, aside from a… meditation technique, I suppose, which helped me focus. Eon, on the other paw, being the one doing more combat, would've been boosted a lot more."
"I believe that's likely why you were escalating so quickly when we fought before you went after Leviathan." Eon continued. "I'd boosted myself up to almost maximum, and while that did degrade as the fight went on, I put them all back up as soon as you went back into combat with Leviathan."
"So that is how
you did so much damage to Leviathan,
Kyuubi." Lung nodded understandingly. "But Shadow?"
"I was boosting as well, from the moment Eon was fully healed to the moment I fired that Thunder." Shadow told him. "The technique I was using, Calm Mind, helps make my ranged attacks more powerful, and Charge helped it along as well. It makes my electricity more powerful, after all, and it was also helpful for actually letting me
use the attack I wanted. Normally spirits that can do that can also make their own clouds, being lightning-spirits, or dragon ones. I can't do that, I need someone else to do it for me and to Charge myself to the right polarity to let me call down lightning afterwards." She grinned widely, shrugging a little. "I got incredibly lucky with which way I was Charging."
"I… see." He stumbled. "And the power behind it?"
"Mostly the boosts, like I said." She shrugged again, the grin growing minutely wider. "Of course, I overpowered it a little as well. Because of all the rain, I wasn't quite sure whether or not the lightning was going to end up dispersing into the rain around it, which would take some of the power out of it. So instead I threw as much power as I could into it to make sure that whatever hit was still powerful enough to hopefully scary Leviathan off."
"And, of course, when that didn't happen, the Thunder ended up much
more powerful than expected." Eon chuckled.
"True, but it did what I wanted." Shadow nodded to her team leader, then looked back at Lung, who seemed to be in shock. She could vaguely hear Swarm chortling to herself in the background, under the cover of quiet coughs, and suppressed a snicker of her own. "Is there anything else you wish to ask?"
"Ah- perhaps not, kitsune Shadow." He managed, after a moment. "However, I do have an offer for you."
The three members of Team Inari swapped covert glances, then Shadow shuffled slightly back to allow Eon to handle it.
"An offer?" He asked carefully, mentally preparing himself.
While he trusted Swarm to be correct about the truce, both on Somer's Rock and behind the Endbringers, he still wasn't completely certain it would be safe. And while both he and Shadow were perfectly fireproof, Swarm very wasn't. He wouldn't risk that.
"Indeed." Lung paused, apparently organising his thoughts, then said slowly, "I assume you are aware that most of the gangs in this city have moles within the PRT."
"We were… vaguely aware of this, yes." Tattletale had basically admitted that outright, during their talk nearly a month before, and hinted that it was practically an open secret- among both the villainous
and heroic circles, though not so much in the public eye.
"I have already had my moles keeping an eye out within the organisation for any mention they see of your team." He explained. "I am quite willing to arrange for any information that may be potentially… worrying, to your team, to be delivered discreetly to you, so you can be properly forewarned. A copy of your threat report, also, if you wish."
"That is… incredibly generous, of you." Eon stated, after a moment of slightly wide-eyed thought. "And in return?"
"I would like to request that you do your best to leave my people alone." He said. "An alliance, basically. I know you have been avoiding my gang for the most part anyway, aside from the times you see them obviously doing something, and word from some of my other informants is that you prefer the Merchants as a target for the most part anyway." He huffed. "Something I can very much agree with. I do not ask that you leave my people entirely alone, nor that you help me should I conflict with the Empire again rather than stand with other heroes trying to split us apart. If you find one of my gang attacking someone in an alley, as heroes you would obviously try and help. But avoiding my activities as best as you can would be my request, though I will also do my best to keep my activities out of your eye." There was an audible smirk behind the metal mask. "To give plausible deniability, of course. You cannot possibly deal with events that you never see or hear."
"Naturally." Eon smirked in return, shooting a glance first at Swarm, then at Shadow. "Might we have a moment to speak?"
"Of course." The Dragon of Kyushu stood and walked away, and Eon layered a quick silencing illusion over them all.
"Thoughts?"
"Sounds like a good plan to me." Swarm put in immediately. "We've already been mostly avoiding the ABB anyway, to avoid annoying Lung after what happened back in April. We'll basically be getting some information we wouldn't normally have access to for continuing to do what we're doing."
"On the other hand, we have no idea if the information we'd be picking up is correct, or if Lung was messing with it to bring us into a bad situation, or make us more confident in dealing with the PRT when we have no reason to." Shadow countered.
"Why would he do that? He's pretty much terrified of you, thinking that you're genuine kitsune and
Kyuubi from Inari, or at least something similar, he's seen how powerful the two of you are and you've already admitted that neither of you are anywhere near the most powerful
'spirits'," she gave the word a slight air quote, "In your world. He's got no good reason to want to trick you, and several good ones
not to."
"We've already said we can't access any of the others, though."
"You… actually haven't." Swarm corrected. "You said earlier that there were others stronger than you, and they're not here, but you haven't said you couldn't reach them. For all he knows, your portal-maker friend is just waiting for you to call to send in back up. He's already aware that you can take him out, could probably kill him just as easily, and while he's under the impression of you being proper kitsune he probably thinks of you as tricksters and jokers, waiting to get under his guard, and he's trying to build up goodwill so that you
don't decide to completely wreck him for some insult he probably didn't realise happened, either from himself or his gang." Eon raised an eyebrow at her, and she shuffled a little, most likely blushing below her mask. "I read up on a
lot of kitsune myths since we met. I'm no expert, but I know a bit now."
"Good job." He smiled at her. "Shadow?"
"Honestly, I think we should do it too." She admitted. "But I felt like someone needed to play the other end here."
"Then we're all in agreement about taking the deal?"
"Mhm."
"Sure."
"Alright then." Eon hummed a little, glancing between the two girls. "Hopefully nothing goes wrong."
"Like I said, I doubt it." Swarm shrugged. "Lung'd have to be mad to try pulling one over on us, given what he thinks you two are. Keeping his word is the smart thing, if we keep ours." She suddenly chuckled. "He might even keep it if we
didn't, since he thinks you're kitsune."
"Perhaps, but we ought keep our word anyway." Eon laughed softly back. "If only because it's polite." Flicking his tail absently, he removed the audio cloak, then caught Lung's eye from where he was lingering, making the Parahuman return to the table. "Team Inari gladly accepts your offer, Lung. It would be a pleasure to work alongside you in such a way."
"Similarly,
Kyuubi Eon." He held out his hand, which the Ninetales shook. "I hope my team can be of assistance to yours." He shot a glance to where a clock was sitting above the bar, quietly ticking away, then back to them. "I will not keep you and your team for longer. I'm certain you have other things to be dealing with, given your work around the city."
"And you would as well, of course." Eon nodded, as the gang leader stood up. "May you have good fortune in your work."
"And yours." Lung looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, based on his body language, and quickly made his retreat outside. There was the sound of a car door opening, then closing before driving off a few seconds later.
They all relaxed minutely.
"Come on girls, let's get moving." Eon told them, shifting and jumping down from the chair with an easy movement. To his left, Shadow did the same, following him out of the door a few paces behind, and Swarm pushed herself to her feet and began walking in the same moment on his right. He waited until they were all across the street, then led them all into an alleyway and dropped a cloak over them all. "Swarm, I think you ought to head home. Tell Danny what went on if you want, but there's not really a need for you to be out and about. No criminals wanting to risk the Truce and all. I'm going to look around a bit more, see if I can help anyone, and Shadow you can do the same if you want."
"I'll take Swarm back home first, then go for a wander." She replied. "Meet back at the base by ten?"
"If we don't run into each other before then." Eon agreed. The illusion collapsed again, the two girls splitting off in the vague direction of Taylor's home, while Eon went further into the city, looking around at the ongoing construction around him and waving at Glory Girl, who was hovering in a doorframe holding up a segment of building, looking like she'd recovered from the conversation she'd had with Swarm and Shadow on Moneday.
"Hey, Eon!" Someone called from another building, making him look up and trot over to the source of the voice, a construction worker who was waving him over. "Mind helping with this?"
"Not at all, sir." Eon said, following the man towards a pile of metal beams. "What do you need?"
"We need some help getting these into position, they're stabilisers to take some weight off the walls while we work." He explained, waving at the wall, which had an awfully large hole in it. "If you could just put these there…"
"Colin?"
"Dragon? Is something wrong?"
"One of the drones I've set to looking over the bay for damage found something… odd."
"Odd how?"
"It's a massive chunk of turquoise something. It looks like crystal, but from my scans it's not made of any kind I've ever seen.
"Was it power generated or something?"
"I don't know, but… it's almost exactly in the path Leviathan took when he ran away."
