Exploding Canon (Worm SI)

[Ghoul King]

3.5

… you know, attacking the PRT HQ while I'm tired, hungry, concussed, and on my period is probably not the best of circumstances. Ugh, fucking Coil, can't wait for a better time. I probably need a week of rest, really. Ugh. Probably going to fuck this up. My record so far hasn't exactly been stellar before all this shit.

Okay, um.

Need to find Calvert. I... don't actually know that he's in the PRT HQ. I'm just guessing, because... well, it's basically either that or his house, which isn't nearly as safe for him. Why hide in an ordinary house -well, for all I know he's gotten it modified too, but probably not- when he can hide in a fortress? The flying un-portals are suggestive of helicopter or flying cape access, too, though not conclusive... especially since I'm not actually certain the un-portals are Coil.

Ugh, okay. Just... start from the assumption that he's in the PRT HQ. How do I find him? I don't even know what the building is like, and I don't have anything really convenient for finding him. The scanner's range is probably a bit short for a manual search, and... well, that's all I have, really. It's not like I can build bombs keyed to his genes or something, and low though my opinion of the PRT is, I'm not willing to jump straight to annihilating the entire building to kill Coil. A direct assault without Lung's backing also seems... unwise.

That leaves... what, exactly? Send in Oni Lee, hope for the best?

No, a distraction.

… no, that's dumb. The E88 rampage is already a giant distraction. It would take, what, the Slaughterhouse Nine showing up to be liable to pull more PRT troops away from the HQ? If I could do that level of "distraction", I'd be a fool to do so, basically asking for Alexandria to be called in to kill me, something like that. Mind, I think I could get around Alexandria's durability, but that's not really the point. The point is currently I'm a local big threat -big fish, small pond. I don't want people thinking I'm a giant fish that justifies bringing everything to bear.

I... fuck. I'm not actually coming up with a better plan than "destroy PRT HQ", and I think we're nearly there. Actually, do I even have the gear to do that?

A quick check of my current set of bombs shows: not really. Not unless Oni Lee is hiding the neutronifying bomb somewhere on him. Which leaves me with "assault HQ, hope for the best" and "have Oni Lee pull his assassin bit, hope for the best", neither of which thrills me.

This is not helping. Really wish I'd put a tracking device of some kind into Coil. Had no reason to think any such thing would be necessary, but... would help now. Actually, can I track his portal from a distance or something? Maybe backtrack the unportals to him somehow?...

Ugh. Ugh. This is hard. I don't think there's a good answer. I need one.

… and now we're here.

Welcome to the PRT HQ.

Well, a roof across the street from it at the moment. We'll probably be noticed if we linger, but we should be okay for a minute, which is good because I need a minute to make a decision. I'm just glad cloneporting doesn't induce nausea, or I'd probably be throwing up again. Or dry heaving I guess, since I... probably don't have anything left to throw up.

After racking my head for a minute I sigh and say "Let's just-"

"Something is happening." interrupts me. Oni Lee gestures with his stump toward the PRT HQ. I squint, unsure what he's gesturing at, specifically. We're a bit too far, and the windows of the HQ seem to be one-way glass, excepting near the front entrance area.

Then one of the windows spiderwebs, followed by someone throwing themselves through it. They're caught in mid-air by someone colorful, with a crush of PRT soldiers aiming foam and other things at them as they go swinging away to a roof.

I blink, puzzled. My first inclination is to assume it's an interesting but ultimately irrelevant-to-us break-out. Then Oni Lee "hmms" and follows up by saying "Circus is normally independent."

Fuck. Circus was another of Coil's hires. Has he just thrown out hiding his identity? What's he even planning on doing, what happened? I'm baffled and frustrated. Regardless, I say to Oni Lee "We need to follow them. That's probably Calvert."

Oni Lee puts his arm over my shoulder and then my view jerks around a dozen times before we're abruptly in front of I-guess-Circus and probably-Calvert on a rooftop. (How did Circus pull that off, anyway?) Oni Lee pulls away from me and appears behind probably-Circus, who has already thrown knives at me, which fortunately don't penetrate my chest armor deep enough to hit flesh as far as I can tell, since my attempt to dodge is complete shit. Probably-Calvert -wait, I see a stitching pattern on the side of his head I cut open, it's Calvert- definitely-Calvert makes a break for it, running toward a fire escape. I fight an impulse to pursue, instead checking the portal blocker. It shows an unportal on top of me, and it shows a portal on Calvert.

I hesitate a moment, and then decide to block the portal, half-expecting this to somehow screw me over forever.

Instead Calvert jerks as if struck once the portal is blocked, causing him to trip over the rooftop edge and fall. I wince at the sound of an impact, but I don't trust that he's actually dead. I call over to Oni Lee "I'm handling Calvert." and getting a grunt in return. I have the suspicion I'm missing out on a really awesome fight, but I ignore the allure and just walk to the roof edge.

Calvert's body is laying at an awkward angle on the fire escape, a floor down. I consider making my way down to check his pulse or something... and then decide naw, fuck that. I arm one of my handful of lethals (Acid grenade, think Aliens blood), and angle to underhand it at his body. To my surprise and yet not, he jerks into motion, though clearly disoriented, and yells something angry. His movement isn't good enough to get him out of the blast radius when the grenade impacts part of the fire escape's "floor", and he drops, screaming as smoke curls off his back. The stench that rises is grotesque, and I do my best to not breathe through my nose.

I frown, annoyed. I'm pretty sure he's going to die, but I don't want to sit around waiting for him to die while a Protectorate response is probably on the way to the area right now, and I don't want to walk away and assume. For all I know Panacea is in the area or something.

So I walk down the fire escape a little to get a better throwing angle, arm one of the smaller blast radius lethals I have on me (A concussive shockwave that's portaled out past about 3 feet, giving it a sharply delineated zone), and lob it at him. The weirdly silent effect utterly ruins Calvert's body -as in one of his limbs went spinning off somewhere, and his rib cage is crushed, and the fire escape has been utterly wrecked, and the wall of the building has been shoved in.

Whoops. Shit.

I scramble back to the roof before the fire escape does anything alarming, unsure whether I'm imagining the building creaking or not, and call out "Calvert's dead, time to go!" To my surprise, Oni Lee is calmly wiping blood off a knife, while Circus is laying on the ground, throat very obvious slit. He's using Circus' costume as his wipe, actually.

Um. Okay.

Oni Lee gives a curt nod of acknowledgment, glances at the knife he's currently cleaning, gives a nod, and then holsters it before suddenly cloneporting beside me. A glance around shows that, yes, somebody is approaching in the sky. Oni Lee starts cloneporting me again. (Still queasy about that)

We come to an abrupt halt on a different rooftop, and I glance around. Before I can think of how to frame my question, Oni Lee has stabbed his intact arm down at the street and said "Lung."

I look, and I see what he means. Lung (A fully human Lung) is draped over the back of Armsmaster's motorcycle (I assume it's his motorcycle, whose else would he be riding?), which is moving... rather slowly and awkwardly through rubble and traffic, both car and foot. He bumps up onto a sidewalk as I watch, and Lung rocks bonelessly in response. I also note two other capes -one bouncing ohshit he's coming for us!

I duck as best I can, hoping to avoid Assault, while Oni Lee jumps up, pulling a knife and holding it straight forward. Assault slams into him (Avoiding the knife somehow) in a weird, utterly un-physics-y way where Oni Lee abruptly accelerates to match Assault's prior speed while Assault simply stops in midair, literally hanging for half a second before dropping to right in front of me. I absently note the Oni Lee collapses into ash that keeps going, spraying every which way, and find myself wondering what the health effects of breathing ex-Oni Lee are.

Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

I do not have enough gear, and there's no way Oni Lee can take three capes on. Assault is saying "You know, we can skip past the beating straight to your surrender." while walking toward me, arms held out in a casual-seeming pose while smiling like the world is his oyster, and I'm scrambling backwards on all fours trying to think of a plan. What've I got? It's a motley assembly, not enough stuff, I, fuck, I-

Oni Lee appears behind Assault, but Assault does something and Oni Lee's attempt to cut his throat somehow turns into Oni Lee spinning in the opposite direction. Assault doesn't even glance behind him, not even when Battery appears over the roof edge. She says "Everything okay?" and he responds with "It's all good." while Oni Lee crumbles into ash and I'm still trying to think of a solution that A: works and B: doesn't kill me. I can't chuck a grenade at him, I'm 99.99999999% certain he'd somehow hax things so the impact trigger wouldn't go off and instead it would rebound at me or something.

I find myself thinking I should stall for time, like how Taylor so often did in canon, by talking, but nothing comes to mind. I'm not someone who does snappy dialogue. I can't manage it in a fucking forum where I have time to think of a good response! What am I supposed to do, ask what they'll do to me?

Oni Lee appears behind Battery abruptly, and I see him prime a trigger, but there's a whirling blur and Oni Lee is hurled into the sky, Mario 64 style, where he detonates into a... a... a blur?

... Oni Lee, you fucker, you used a time stop grenade that close to me?!

The easy smile slips off Assault's face and I realize I actually said that out loud. I decide to blame it on the concussion. Or the stress. Or the period. You know, fuckit, whatever. It happened. Whatever the case, Assault and Battery both start moving, Battery a half-second after Assault, Assault straight at me and Battery blurring off... probably to do something to Oni Lee.

I palm a fear grenade and Assault waves one finger at me but I just arm it and hold it and his eyes go wide and

gonna fucking die, no I'll go to the Birdcage and it will be so much worse than simply dying, no, Armsmaster will

no

focus

I can overcome this, I can focus, use the fear, fear can motivate aggression, cornered rat and all

ANGRY FEAR COME TO ME I'M GOING TO HURT ALL YOU ASSHOLES

Assault is running away from me. Ha ha, yes, fuck you!

I need to equalize this.

I need to wake up Lung.

A glance over the rooftop edge shows that Armsmaster is looking up at this rooftop, but hasn't abandoned his bike/Lung. I grab and arm a rage grenade, trying to calm my shaking arm.

Yes, a rage grenade. It got left behind originally for a reason. I thought it was fucking stupid to make my enemies insane with fury, and not really any smarter to make my allies spontaneously go on the warpath. But here? Now?

I have an idea.

Armsmaster drops into an odd pose, but I ignore him (hardhardhard killrunrunkill no ignore him) and throw the grenade at Lung. Armsmaster just... holds still? Or something? I'm not sure what. The grenade goes off and civilians start screaming and attacking each other and Lung snaps awake and, to my surprise, Armsmaster continues to not move.

I get some idea of what's going on when Lung throws a flaming punch at Armsmaster and his arm sheers off where it contacts with some decorative, thin piece of metal on Armsmaster's helmet. That's... different from canon.

Then Armsmaster is suddenly in motion and turns to fight Lung and

wham

I'm rolling across the rooftop, can't breathe, not sure what happened, argh, this is not fun, what, what happened, why does it hurt so much.

"Round three, bitch."

oh, it's Glory Girl.

fuck

"Let's take the bad girl's toys." She hauls me up bodily by one shoulder and it hurts, and starts plucking off my bombs and crushing them in her other hand. I have a delirious moment of thinking she's a fucking moron, for all she knows that would trigger them and she has no idea what I've got, but then the more sensible parts of me note that I'm about to be left completely helpless with Glory Girl, Oni Lee can't do jack to her without using one of my exotic bombs that's liable to kill me too, and Lung is off being an extra rage-y rage dragon, probably clueless that I'm in trouble and so berserk it would just make things worse for me to get his attention.

I'm so fucked.

She crushes the last bomb, and then grabs the portal blocker. Raises an eyebrow, and tuts. "I was joking about toys, bitch. Didn't think you went for this nerdy shit." I still can't talk, can barely breathe. I think she hit me in the diaphragm. I think that's what causes this kind of shortness of breath? I forget. Trying to think of what I can do to save myself. Not really thinking of anything. What, I can hope Genesis saves me out of gratitude? Not fucking likely.

She crushes the portal jammer.

She starts talking again, but I'm not really hearing anymore. I liked the portal jammer. It was a good, non-disposable piece of technology that has really helped me. I'm not sure I can re-create it, given how shard-reliant I am. I... I just... that sucks. That sucks so much.

Sirens start wailing, and Glory Girl shuts up, and that, more than anything, tells me it's bad.

She whispers "Endbringer." and drops me, and I'm stuck looking at the sky, and I'm thinking well yeah the cloud cover is perfect, but there's no rain when the

fucking

SIMURGH

bursts through the cloud cover.

…

…

FUUUUUUUUUU-

 

[Ghoul King]

4.1

-UUUUUUCK YOU

Wait shit, does this mean I'm in Diabolus Ex Machina? Is that what's going on?

Fuck, if that's the case then Panacea needs to die. Now.

… really, even if it isn't, keeping her in the Simurgh's reach is a disaster waiting to happen.

Unfortunately, I'm still hacking up a lung, my breathing rhythm nowhere near fixed. On the plus side, Glory Girl has already gone shooting off somewhere, instead of continuing to focus on me. If, you know, the entire world is lucky, she's off to evacuate her sister.

Kind of doubt it, just because this fucking reality seems to just hate... anything going well at all. Yaaay.

By the time I manage to haul myself to my feet, halfway functional in the breathing department, there's already a swirling morass of fliers and suchlike going for the Simurgh. I notice, in particular, an enormous Chinook-looking helicopter. Is that you, Squealer? Wait, was that a fanfic or was that canon? I forget. Fuck. Whatever.

A quick double-check of myself shows that I actually have my transmitter still on me. Glory Girl didn't break it. I go over to the roof edge to see if I can find Lung, and maybe also my bag of grenades and

oh holy fuck the bag is lifting into the air

FUCK.

I scramble to get the settings on the transmitter set up for long-range transmission to everything I've got, half-watching with baited breath, expecting the bag to open up and spray grenades everywhere. For whatever fortuitous reason, it doesn't, instead hurtling straight at the Simurgh, still tied closed. Odd. No idea why.

I dawdle on pressing the final button, watching the bag approach the Simurgh. Now I'm tempted to see how close it goes to her. Maybe I can kill her -and honestly, fuck you lady, I'm not holding back if you're attacking me- if it gets close enough to her. No idea why she'd not anticipate that though.

… fuck, maybe this is her plan.

Maybe it's not.

I FUCKING HATE PRECOGS

Once the bag is so far away I can no longer clearly see it, I go fuck it and press the button. Not letting her use it as she sees fit is probably better than letting her do whatever the hell.

There's a weird popping, ripping series of sounds, a rush of air, and then a white something hanging where the bag was. The Simurgh's left leg and several winglets are now missing chunks. No response from her, though.

… also feathers are raining down and I can see they aren't falling like feathers, they're falling like javelins made of lead or something, spearing right through cars and people and jamming halfway into the ground.

Holy fuck, injuring her generates attacks. Why. That's not mentioned in canon at all!

The white thing hanging in the air doesn't go away. Did I have any other time stop grenades in there? I don't think I did. What is that? What the hell would dozens of my bombs going off-

fuck I've made a manipulable portal like Tattletale made in canon

FUCK THIS WAS THE SIMURGH'S PLAN

FUCK

FUCK THIS

I'm out, I need to get out of this city before the Simurgh's song gets to me -haven't heard it yet, I think, but it's supposed to start out subtle, right?- and preferably get... I dunno, at least Oni Lee if I can. Undecided on Lung. Hopefully he'll

fuck that's him flying right at the Simurgh

NO WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS YOU MORON

NO THIS FUCKING SUCKS I HATE EVERYTHING

AAAAAAAAAARGH

I make my way to the nearest fire escape, grumbling internally at my lack of mover powers. Where's Oni Lee when you need him? I was expecting him to show up and be emotionless at me. Maybe demand I meet up with Lung. I don't see him anywhere.

I hit the street and get walking, eyeing the vehicles I pass as I go. Maybe I can tinker up-? No, no I can't. Ffff. Okay, guess I'll... steal a bicycle or something. Maybe the Protectorate will evacuate me on their own, if they find me.

Civilians are screaming and running, though not from me this time. Actually, a guy pushes his through the crowd, waving bills and yelling. Hard to hear him over the general mayhem, but I'm pretty sure he's hoping I'll cape up a ride for him. I shake my head and make vague motions at my feet, trying to convey that I'm stuck with you mere mortals, and his face crashes. He actually drops the money, and goes back to moving with the crowd.

I actually am getting a nice little bubble of almost personal space, where people try not to be shoved too close to me. Dunno if it's cape respect or villain fear or what.

I spot Legend joining the fray, going by the addition of rainbow death aimed at the Simurgh in the sky. Lung is still tearing out chunks of the Simurgh, the fucking retarded moron, and what I'm guessing is Dragon joined the aerial battle at some point while I wasn't paying attention. Some kind of metal thingy, anyway.

The civilians are covering their ears, most of them, and some of them are sobbing. I notice the occasional corpse -people who shot themselves in the head rather than deal with this. We're not even that far into this, wow.

… I still haven't heard anything, "song"-wise. Getting creeped out.

Getting pissed. This is taking too long, the cars aren't any faster than people on foot, ugh. Fuckit, kill Simurgh if at all possible. I'm not going out without a bang, so to speak.

I grab the arm of someone in the crowd and demand "Where's the nearest electronics store!", yelling to be heard over the everything, ignoring how they flinch at my touch. They gesture off to our right and yell back that there's a Best Buy a block that way. I nod and go semi-shouldering my way through the crowd that way, in practice getting as much speed as I do primarily because of the bubble thing.

I'm not sure how much time has passed, but I'm guessing more than ten minutes. It'll probably take me another ten to get to the Best Buy. Longer to tinker. Wasn't the Simurgh exposure cut-off point 20 minutes? This... fucking sucks. So many people utterly screwed over, and now I'm getting concerned about what happens if the Simurgh subverts me.

Still haven't heard any song.

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT, LADY, I AIN'T GOT ANY COMPLEXES OR TRAMATIC HISTORY FOR YOU TO TAP. GO AHEAD AND TRY, FUCKER. DO IT!

I SAID DO IT!

….

…

….

I make it to the Best Buy having still heard nothing, Simurgh-wise. Eerie. Tentatively leaning toward promising, but all-too-aware that this is the fucking Simurgh. Raising my hopes to then crush them may be the entire point. Not like my odds of escaping the city in so much as an hour are at all good, and anyway past twenty minutes the PRT/Protectorate will probably act to keep me trapped, assuming that I'm compromised. They will if they're not even more retarded than I think they are, anyway. Best-case scenario is Cauldron decides they want me for something and Contessa says it's okay and Doormaker pulls me out after the Simurgh has left. I'm already just... trapped, effectively.

Gonna kill you, lady. Gonna make it happen.

…

Still nothing. I was expecting a car to drop on me or something.

The Best Buy is mostly empty, except for... looters? Are you shitting me?

"Everybody out, I'm Bakuda and I will end you if you're not out in sixty seconds."

The first of them glances at me and goes "Wait, is that Oni Lady?" but then another one -dragon tattoo prominent on their forehead- glances at me and goes "Oh shit it's Bakuda!" and drops a plasma screen TV and runs. That gets everybody else to run.

Yesss. Reputation of terror does have its uses.

Okay, I need something that won't take me ages, that actually has a chance of doing real damage to the Simurgh, and that I can somehow deliver to her when she's in the sky.

Let's get started.

-------------------------​

I'd originally wanted to include some kind trap-for-telekinesis thing in my batch, but while I have some vague ideas of how Worm's telekinesis might work mechanically, they're all very tentative and none of them really suggests an obvious angle on a useful trap. Like, maybe I can make it so the bombs detonate if telekinesis is attempted, but that's not so much a trap as it is handing the Simurgh the keys to kill me.

Instead I spent probably half an hour making

-One neutronifying bomb. I'm not aware of any reason for it to not work, beyond Fuck You I'm An Endbringer. Might as well give it a shot.

-One mass portal blocking bomb, amped up to seal things off for about three minutes instead of just twenty or so seconds. I'm in part hoping it shuts down the Simurgh's telekinesis, even if it doesn't kill her, as "portal-based shenanigans" is one of the more obvious mechanisms to me for "telekinesis", given the portals have exactly the kind of arbitrary targeting/mobility that telekinesis has.

-An incredibly crude mortar. I'm... not entirely sure how I assembled it, to be honest, beyond the part where I cut away one of the exposed pipes in the building. Never understood why Best Buy does that. Anyway, it's designed to fire straight up, basically, and I'll be amazed if it lasts the full six bombs.

-One bomb I'm calling a... noise generator. Not coming up with a better name. The idea is to try to jam the Simurgh's brain or something by outputting so much "shard signal" type shenanigans that she can't hear herself think, or can't talk to her sub-shards, or something. I'm skeptical it'll do anything at all, but worth a try.

-A black hole bomb. My black hole bombs are really basically particularly violent portals, and it's marginally conceivable that Wormverse operates on "Bag of Holding inside Bag of Holding=boom". I doubt it, since I'd expect capes operating in each others' vicinity to result in, you know, explosions or something if that was the case, but I haven't gotten around to actually testing if it is or is not the case yet. Point being that detonating this close enough to her core will kill her. Maybe. Probably not. Not even sure how I'll get it to her core, but hey, for all I know Alexandria will be willing to deliver it. A girl can dream, right?

-A resonance bomb. Wildbow has described Endbringer flesh as being "crystalline", and to my awareness he's never clarified what he meant by that. It's possible, albeit tremendously unlikely, that their "flesh" is sufficiently uniform and so on that resonance could shatter them, at least well enough to expose the core. That seems like a really, really dumb weakness, but... it's not like Shatterbird is a hero, and she'd be the obvious cape in canon to exploit it, so canon hasn't explicitly or implicitly busted the theory. Might as well try.

-Lastly, I constructed another "will-to-live-killing" bomb. I find it utterly inconceivable that it would work, but that's not actually a reason to not try. If it does work... the opportunity to study her in safety would be hugely worth it. I might even be able to somehow turn her into an Endbringer puppet, or something. Heck, it might bypass the mechanism that triggers new Endbringers when one dies.

I clip all six of these bombs to my costume, and carry the mortar under one arm awkwardly.

I still haven't heard anything inexplicable, been overtaken by flashbacks, or dwelt overly much on unrelated topics. If the Simurgh is hacking my brain, she's doing it way more subtly than what canon depicts. I'm baffled and disturbed. Immunity to her is too good to be true, and just has me wondering what worse scenarios I'm failing to imagine.

… well, that and, if it is true, unlikely as it is, that just adds a layer of obnoxiousness to this, that I'm still going to suffer the costs of "Simurgh exposure" without having actually been turned into a Simurgh-bomb. Ugh. (Does the Protectorate have tests for determining whether the Simurgh can affect you or not? How do those work, if so? Why is it taken as a given in canon that Alexandria is immune?)

Whatever, for the moment I seem to be my own person. (Barring the concussion, period, exhaustion...)

Stepping out of the Best Buy, I exit to the sight of one of Brockton Bay's taller buildings ripping itself in half and the upper half drifting toward the Simurgh. Urrrgh. I hate her telekinesis. It doesn't even operate under fictional cliches, where a "single object" cannot be broken or the like to then lift segments. More than any Endbringer, she is obviously jobbing, because the stuff she does shows that her failure to do things like rip people in half telekinetically is a choice rather than a real limitation.

Uuuurrgh.

By now the streets are a lot emptier of people. There's people clearly hiding away in their homes or whatever, and there's still people skulking around, but the crush of people has faded and what cars remain have all been abandoned. There's no longer a push to escape. My guess is that the walls are being put up and citizens turned away -or shot if they don't listen.

… fuck, it just crossed my mind they probably shoot babies whose mom is trying to get the baby out, even if they can't escape theirself. That's... really depressing.

No, no, distraction, not a good state to be thinking about this kind of shit. Simurgh, I'm trying to kill the Simurgh. I made a good chunk of one leg vanish with... whatever happened when a bunch of my bombs detonated, so that's promising.

Someone's abandoned a bicycle. There's blood nearby. Uh. Let's not think about that. I grab the bicycle and tentatively push off after getting the mortar sort-of set up in the basket. I botch it. Fuck. Never did learn how to ride a bicycle without training wheels.

I spend a couple of minutes trying to get my balance on the bike, but ultimately give up after one too many falls that would've skinned knees or similar if my costume wasn't full-body protection. Don't want to get distracted by my frustration, either, not given that people are already Simurgh-bombed. Even if I am immune, they aren't, and so I'm not remotely willing to count on sanity or fear or anything specific in psychology from these people. It would suck to have survived all this other shit only to be taken out by some brainhacked normie with a broken bottle or something.

So I walk instead, back to carrying the mortar, making my way toward the Simurgh. I can't tell how many blocks away it is. Too many, in any event. I note that the sky is frequently alight with rainbow streaks arcing toward it, often blocked by floating debris but some of it getting through. I'm guessing that's still Legend, given how often I see individual streaks jerk around debris, not to mention weird effects like... I think covering stuff in ice? It's hard to say at this distance. No idea if he's immune or just staying out of reach or what, now that I think about it. Canon was pretty thin on information like, among other points, whether that 20~ minute limit was per attack or total or what.

It's quiet. Weirdly quiet, really. I hadn't really considered how the Simurgh's telekinesis makes it a quiet kaiju, floating in silence, ripping apart buildings with surprisingly little noise, etc. I pass corpses periodically, including the occasional cape, though nothing I recognize. I do my best to both watch the battle and watch for danger to me, but little of interest is happening around me -just people seeing me and running, or off in the distance down a street ignoring/not noticing me, that kind of thing- and even though the battle is in the sky, only the Simurgh is readily visible. Just... too far. I think I might be seeing Eidolon somewhere up there? Someone green, anyway.

Then something draconic and metallic shoots directly over my head, and I can feel in my bones the sound of rockets launching from it, it's that loud. Pretty sure that's Dragon again. I pout a little, vaguely annoyed she either didn't notice me or isn't willing to approach me. I would really like to get the fucking Simurgh.

Then helixal lasers join the fight. I sort of vaguely think oh cool, Purity is helping.

Then I notice she's not shooting at the Simurgh. She's shooting at the other capes.

Fuck. That's... ominous. She's not readily contained, either, if she's been subverted. Might just be pissed about her baby, but I... kinda doubt it.

It strikes me, abruptly, that I don't see Lung. My first thought is relief: the big lug's left the fight, good. Then it occurs to me... well. Maybe. Not necessarily.

Great.

A few minutes more of walking and I pass a tremendous wreck that takes me more than a minute to parse -the mega helicopter I saw earlier, the one that I'm pretty sure is Squealer's. I decide to duck inside, see if she's still alive. Maybe we'll be able to combine tinker forces or something.

Making my way into the cockpit is awkward, as it's crushed halfway into a building, so I have to come in from a side door. I'm pretty sure I'm only able to get it open because it's been damaged in the crash. Worse, the cockpit just contains two messy corpses. Between my general poor condition and the cramped quarters, I have to fight down a bout of nausea. Unfortunately, I never saw Squealer before, or any of the other Merchants for that matter, so I'm not exactly in a position to ID the bodies, but one is female and the other male, and I doubt any girl would be in Squealer's vehicle other than Squealer herself. So... I'm pretty sure Squealer is dead.

Dammit.

I check to see if either of them had a wristband or similar, but find nothing. Presumably-Squealer's corpse doesn't have any tinkertech on it. I guess that makes sense given that her specialty was apparently large vehicles, but it's still disappointing. Dunno if they didn't get Endbringer whatevers or such wasn't being passed out or what. Disappointing regardless.

Levering myself back out of the vehicle, I'm half-expecting to run into a frothing maniac. Nope. My second expectation is Contessa, because Contessa. Nope.

Nothing happens.

A check around reveals nothing of interest. Even the battle with the Simurgh hasn't changed as far as I can tell... beyond that she's shifted so far I need to change my course if I want to intercept her. Ugh. This sucks. I really need better transportation.

I sigh with frustration but keep walking.

-------------------------​

When I've been walking for way too long, something weird happens. Two teenage girls notice me, start whispering to each other, and then make their way toward me. On guard, I call out "Hey, fuck off or I'm blowing you gals up." They just sort of giggle and start skipping toward me, instead of walking. The fuck, I hate the Simurgh, goddammit, I don't have the time for this.

I arm the "will-to-live" killing bomb and hold it on display. It's the longest odds for doing something to the Simurgh anyway, smallest loss. I call out "Seriously, fuck off or else." One of them -the blonde- gets a weird look on her face for a moment, but they don't stop, and I abruptly notice they're holding hands while skipping. Seriously. The Simurgh is goddamn creepy, stop that.

"LAST CHANCE."

The redhead starts whimpering, which is really weird with the idiotic grin on her face.

I chuck the grenade and skitter back, just to be sure I'm not in its blast radius, and the-

----------------------​

Exchange.

Communication.

Inspiration.

Pleased.

-------------------------​

-theeee

The.

Um.

Why the fuck am I on my back?

I haul myself to my feet and glance at the two girls. The blonde is down, still with the creepy grin, but the redhead is curled up and sobbing. That's... not right. That's not what the bomb does. She should be down and out. Not caring enough to be crying about anything.

After a second she jerks into a sitting position and looks at me, and she flickers in a way that makes no goddamn sense and oh fuck she's a cape goddammit.

Goddammit.

 

[Ghoul King]

I'm not 100% sure the timeline shakes out correctly, but I'm reasonably confident there's wiggle room.

4.d

Dinah

One hour before the Simurgh's arrival

"Mom."

Mrs. Alcott is in the middle of baking blueberry muffins -Dinah's favorite- when her daughter speaks up, standing just inside the kitchen. She has a disturbingly serious manner, but her mother does her best to ignore that, smiling brightly and saying "Yes, honey? Do you need something?"

Dinah doesn't answer the question, instead saying "You need to listen, mom. A man is going to knock at the door in two minutes, asking to see me." Dinah's mother starts to say something, but Dinah talks right over her, something she has never done to anyone, let alone her own mother. She sounds rehearsed, and Mrs. Alcott finds herself disturbed.

"He will introduce himself as Thomas Calvert, on official business." A brief, deliberate pause. "This is a lie. He is a bad man-" Dinah is shaking a little, and stumbles a moment over her words, but resolutely continues talking, ignoring her mother's face dropping. "-who will do and say whatever he thinks will get him in here." She pauses again, looking down, then looks her mother directly in the eye. "You'll need the gun in the sofa."

Mrs. Alcott flinches at that. She already knew about the pistol -a completely justified piece of paranoia, given Brockton Bay- but she'd been sure her daughter had never found it, for all that she'd nagged her husband to move it someplace less at risk of being found by their daughter or a playmate. He'd refused to change its location, insisting the entire point was that it be readily accessible in an emergency. That their daughter or one of their daughter's friends might find it and hurt or kill herself by accident was insufficient to move him... and, well.

Brockton Bay.

Dinah scampers off before Mrs. Alcott can get her equilibrium back. Reflexively, she follows her daughter into the living room, but Dinah is nowhere to be seen -or heard. In the moment it takes for her to decide whether to check upstairs or in the garage, she's struck off-balance again by the doorbell ringing. Almost immediately someone is knocking, calling out "Mrs. Alcott?"

A knot settles like lead in her stomach.

She calls out "One minute!" while making her way to the door... with a brief stop to retrieve the pistol. She doesn't believe Dinah. She doesn't. She's just... on edge. Her daughter was kidnapped. A mother has a right to worry, even if it's irrational. Obviously.

She covers the sound of cocking the gun by calling out "Almost there, almost there." in her best hostess voice, still approaching the door. When she reaches the door, she keeps the security chain in, opening the door only partway and holding the gun behind the door in her left hand. Smiling brightly, she says "Can I help you?" in her warmest and most welcoming voice.

The man in front of her is nondescript. A bit pale, a bit thin, and for some reason wearing an overly large, out of place hat, but nothing about his appearance or demeanor suggests danger. He's not wearing a uniform, instead dressed in black pants and a simple white shirt, somewhere between casualwear and formalwear. He tips his hat at her, the motion obviously unpracticed -this isn't a man who wears a hat normally- and says "Hello Mrs. Alcott, I'm with the Parahuman Response Team-" he flashes an official-looking badge at her and continues "-here to follow up on Dinah's kidnapping, as it's our understanding that she was taken by a parahuman criminal, one... Coil?" Something about his hesitance over the name Coil feels off, almost theatrical. Mrs. Alcott tells herself she's imagining it, that the unfamiliarity is for some other reason. She's never heard of a parahuman called "Coil". Maybe he's just new.

She keeps the gun ready.

The man continues, apparently unruffled by her reserved attitude past her initial greeting. "I'm Thomas Calvert-" what? Nononono "- and I was assigned-" his eyes drift a little, and she feels herself thinking of one of her poker friends' tells, when they're hiding something "-to make sure Dinah is well and, in particular, is not under any lingering parahuman influence." He makes an apologetic motion with one hand. "I understand if you don't want me to take her in for a full battery of tests, but I would be remiss in my duty if I didn't at least see the girl myself."

Mrs. Alcott's eyes drift to the car in the driveway. She notes that it's not a PRT vehicle. It's a nice car, she couldn't name the model, but not something a PRT grunt could realistically afford. So... either he's higher ranking than that, or he's flat-out lying. She pastes an expression of contrition on and apologizes. "I'm sorry, but Dinah is still recovering from the experience. I don't know when she'll be ready to see strangers. She's asleep right now, and I would hate to wake her after what she's been through, Mr. Calvert."

Calvert's expression doesn't change any, and he says "Oh, I understand completely, but this really is quite important. Parahuman powers can be subtle, and dangerous. You'll need an expert-"

She interrupts, still doing her best to look apologetic. "I'll call the PRT or New Wave the moment she's awake, I assure you, but she needs her bedrest. In fact, I can't spare too much time for this, I really should get back to taking care of her, so unless there's another matter, Mr. Calvert?..."

For the briefest of moments, so brief she would've missed it if she had blinked at the wrong moment, Calvert's expression twists into a rictus of fury and hatred. It instantly smooths out and he simply says "That's... unfortunate, Mrs. Alcott. You are making a mistake, though I quite understand your reasons. Are you sure you won't reconsider?"

She shakes her head, and leaves that as her answer. Mr. Calvert waits five, ten seconds, and then turns and leaves, shaking his head slowly, as if feeling sorry for Dinah. She closes the door and locks it, then watches through the peephole. It takes another five minutes for Calvert to start the car and pull out of the driveway.

She lets loose a sigh of relief, glad the gun was unnecessary, unsettled. The whole thing was eerie.

"Mom, we need to go." Mrs. Alcott jerks, thankfully not pulling the trigger or dropping the gun, startled by how Dinah has snuck up on her. Turning to face her daughter, frowning, Mrs. Alcott is brought up short by the suitcase Dinah has beside her, the backpack she's wearing. Dinah gestures vaguely, saying "I was packing, mom, we need to go now, before something really bad happens."

Somewhere between humoring her daughter and genuine, terrified curiosity, she asks "Go where, dear?"

Dinah says "Anywhere that isn't Brockton Bay."

That brings her up short. "Anywhere?"

"Anywhere."

Mrs. Alcott goes quiet for a minute. Dinah waits with strange patience in spite of her earlier urgency and in spite of being just a child, so prone to impatience otherwise. It unsettles Mrs. Alcott, and she makes her decision. With a broad (fake, hopefully Dinah can't tell) smile on her face, she says "You know, it has been a while since we visited your grandmother in Georgia. Give me five minutes to pack, and we can be beyond city limits in half an hour." She pauses while Dinah sags in relief. "Let me call your father, too."

---------------------​

Dinah fidgets the entire time, up until they've passed the city limits. Somewhat absently, Mrs. Alcott notes that the sky is heavily overcast, no rain. Oddly uniform, too. Unusual. She puts it out of her mind, passing the time with idle chatter to distract Dinah. It doesn't work very well, and naming one of Dinah's friends in passing brings her to the very edge of tears. She just focuses on driving after that.

Unfortunately, Dinah's father hadn't been able to make time. Any other day, this would've been cause to shrug and say to Dinah "More fun for us." Today... it leaves her uneasy.

Ten, maybe fifteen minutes after they've left the city, something in the rear-view mirror catches her attention. Something breaking through the clouds, trailing smoky wisps from its many, many enormous wings, body pale as marble and far too large.

The Simurgh.

She blanches and glances at her daughter, unwilling to believe. Dinah looks back, and though she murmurs "The angel" to herself, she doesn't evince real surprise. Sadness, but not surprise.

Mrs. Alcott decides the speed limit is more of a suggestion than a rule. You can tell when any given other driver notices, as they all come to the same philosophical position on the law when they do.

She very pointedly does not think about the fact that her daughter is a parahuman. Too many things to process, others more immediately relevant.

Like that her husband is almost certainly lost to her.

Like that her daughter's friends and father are gone already, and her daughter seemed to know it was coming.

Like that there's no going home.

---------------------​

She drives for an hour before she stops for a break, but the first thing she does after parking is crush her daughter into a fierce hug and say "Oh, Dinah."

 

[Ghoul King]

4.2

The first thing cape-girl does is reach her hand into the blonde's head -yes into- as said hand flickers and turns black. The blonde's eyes roll up into the back of her head and she convulses, and once the hand is removed she pulls herself to her feet, less the creepy grin. She flickers, a white streak zipping from the top of her head down to the bottom of her feet while the rest of her body turns black, locks eyes with me, and then starts running at me.

I've been backing away the whole time, not taking my eyes off of them. I really don't want to waste any of my other bombs on this situation, and anyway they're a bit risky to me at this distance. I don't know what the blonde girl is doing or why she's running at me, but I'm inclined to assume it's to do something horrible to me. So when the blonde girl breaks into a run, I pivot and break into my own run, to the left. Directly away would be better for escaping, but worse for getting me closer to the Simurgh.

The blonde girl twitches at the neck, and then she adjusts to pursue. Hmm. A delay. I glance back at the other girl, but she's wandering off in a different direction entirely, not seeming to pay attention at all. If she's controlling the blonde girl, line of sight isn't a requirement.

To my dismay, the blonde girl is catching up, not because she's faster than me (She isn't, surprisingly) but because anytime I go around or over an obstacle she runs through it, flickering black and white incessantly as long as she intersects it. I try zig-zagging, hoping it'll confuse her or something, but she just keeps running in a straight line, so I abandon that. After a couple minutes I'm starting to get a stitch in my side, while she shows no sign of slowing down.

So at the next corner, I take the turn and duck into an open door to an apartment (I think?) as quietly as I can, trying to not gasp from the tiredness and the pain of the stitch. A bearded man promptly comes at me with a baseball bat, screaming incoherently (angrily), but I duck under his blatantly telegraphed swing and keep running, trying to find a plausible hiding place.

I haven't found anything when the man's indignant screeching abruptly cuts off. I turn back, stepping quietly, to see what's happening.

The blonde's hand is in the man's head, and they're both flickering black and white, him laying on the ground, baseball bat dropped from nerveless fingers.

Ooooh shit. No no, fuck you, not a goddamn plague, why are you doing this.

I'm a tinker, I need time and resources I'm not canon Taylor come the fuck on!

I grab a flower vase on a nearby table and chuck it at them, out of sheer frustration. To my surprise, the vase clonks the blonde on the head. I was expecting it to pass right through. Uncertain exactly why this is the case, I decide to take the opportunity to use my shitty mortar as a crude club and swing it right into the blonde's face.

With a satisfying crunch, she's knocked away from the beardy man, clutching at her broken nose. Weirdly, she makes no noises of distress, simply rocking in place on the ground. I glance at the beardy man, and then decide fuck it and smack him in the fac-

-the mortar bounces off the ground underneath him as he flickers black-on-white, and he punches me in the forehead through my mask. Ow, fuck, ow. I kick him, and I notice somewhat absently that I feel my actual foot hitting him, not my foot through the boot. That's annoying. Then he flickers white-on-black and awkwardly throws himself at my legs, and now he's not hitting my flesh, he's pressing my pants against my legs.

Regardless, I fall onto him from the unexpected shove (Cheating, so fucking cheating, I want sane physics back), dropping the mortar, which clatters out of my immediate reach. I grab his dropped baseball bat and swing it at him awkwardly, but he flickers black-on-white again and it passes through him as if through empty air. Fucking hell. He takes the opportunity to knee me in the gut, which fucking hurts. I scramble to get some distance and he tries to grapple me, and it's really fucking distracting how this feels like I'm goddamn naked goddammit but I manage to get angled so he's got a good grip on one leg but not the other.

That's when I take advice from Grandpa and start kicking with the leg he doesn't have a good grip on and don't stop. (Well, he was talking about kicking an aggressive dog, but same thing)

His grip slackens after maybe a minute of this. I keep kicking for a while after that. Then I scramble to my feet and look at the guy. His face is a mess of blood, with some bone exposed, and one eye looking... really gross. I think I have a cut on one foot, I'm not sure. Foot's sore, anyway. I double-check on the blonde, but she's still rocking in place, clutching at her face. Not as fearless as I would've expected for what seems to be a zombie mindslave of some kind. I notice she's flickering, which seems odd, given she's not trying to pass through anything. I'd love to know why, but I just don't have the time. At some point the Simurgh is going to be driven away, and there goes my opportunity to try to kill her.

So I gather up the mortar and fast-walk out of there, not up for anything faster than that in my condition. A glance around as I leave exit through the apartment door reveals no other obviously flickering zombies, just people looking fearfully from their windows, plus a trio of thugs on bicycles that seem to be carrying a pile of loot as best as they can off in the distance. Also the Simurgh oh fuck yes she's coming this way!

I glance around, trying to spot a usable fire exit staircase/ladder/whatever to use to get to a roof. I need to get in position before she gets here.

That's when the building behind me explodes.

Twice.

Into bizarre black and white ribbons accompanied by a pair of shockwaves carrying enough force to send me rolling, clutching at the mortar. So glad I don't make my bombs shock-sensitive.

When I climb to my feet and look behind me, there's a bizarre space where black and white lines of stuff drifts like... kelp? Underwater plant stuff. Whatever it's called. Weird noises accompany it. I stare blankly at it for a minute, before it happens to drift into a formation vaguely resembling the building that was once standing there. Oh. I see. What is even the point of this?

… then I notice there's human faces and other body parts outlined, seemingly melded with the building, and I realize the "weird noises" are heavily distorted moans and screams. Lovely.

Goddammit Wormverse, that's like, horrifying, I guess, but you're getting predictable. And seriously, what's the fucking point? Why? These Entities don't even seem to understand psychological warfare! I mean, they obviously kind of understand it... oh fuckit, never mind. This is dumb. I'm beyond caring.

I put the horrible, pointlessly abominable monstrosity out of my mind beyond noting that the flickerphasezombies are... suicide bombers? On a timer, maybe? I guess? Even more dangerous than I'd originally thought. Point is I turn away and go back to looking for a way up to a rooftop. I try to ignore the horrified screams of other people apparently figuring out what they're looking at. I ignore it slightly less when I start catching people yelling things like "Look at what Oni Lady did!"

Goddammit.

I look directly at one of them until he cringes out of sight. I'd stare them all down like this, but I'm on a timer. A bit of wandering finds me a building on the right track -a glance at the Simurgh confirms she's still heading this way, actually, is that Alexandria I see?- with its fire escape usable to climb up. Probably dropped open by someone when the sirens sounded. Which are still screaming for some fucking reason, but I've been trying to ignore the torturous racket semi-successfully.

Some walking and climbing later, I'm on the rooftop. Nobody ambushes me, which honestly at this point is a genuinely pleasant surprise, and I start getting set up.

Get the mortar stabilized, roughly. Load the "noise" bomb -if it works, it'll work at the greatest distance. Angle it. Wait another minute, watching for threats. I keep half-expecting someone in the sky to notice me and decide I need to die, but it keeps not happening. Finally I judge the Simurgh is close enough, remotely arm the noise bomb, and activate the mortar.

It flies...

… keeps flying...

… bursts into a flare of black light.

I watch the Simurgh carefully while I load the mass portal blocking bomb in, sight-unseen. No reaction that I can tell. Doesn't mean it didn't do anything, but certainly nothing dramatic. Some of the flying capes react, stopping for a moment, and two of them buzz me, but none of them seem to have been affected either. Just curiosity.

So that was completely useless.

Now the Simurgh is close enough the highest parts of her shadow are inching onto my rooftop. I can also see the damage to her a bit more clearly -she looks weird, like her wounds are the equivalent of pulling out chunks from a Jenga tower made of jagged white feathers. I don't remember that from canon. Don't remember the Traveler's arc very well. Hm.

I trigger the mortar again and start loading the resonance bomb, again sight-unseen.

It goes up...

… and up...

… starts arcing...

… and smacks into one of the Simurgh's telekinetically held shield-objects and detonates with a small flash of white light within spitting distance of her.

I-

------------------------------​

Nothing to pay attention to.

Move along.

-------------------------------​

-Iiii?

Goddammit, why do I keep losing time when I use a portal blocking bomb? The Simurgh is directly overhead, I didn't see what the bomb did, fuck!

I notice fliers are rejoining the fight, including Alexandria. I don't see Eidolon, and Legend has been contributing the whole time as far as I can tell. I think he's actually firing from beyond city limits. Probably capes lost their flight powers for the duration, the ones that survived got them back.

I guess the Simurgh was unaffected, because Fuck You I'm An Endbringer.

I adjust my angle and trigger the mortar to fire the resonance bomb. It goes up...

… and smacks into an object I didn't notice at all, drifting through the air maybe twenty feet above me.

Hell-o there.

That was wasted, but suggestive. Could be the Simurgh trying to fuck with me, but I'll assume for the moment the resonance bomb would've had a nasty effect on her and she moved to prevent it "coincidentally". Could be an actual coincidence... but probably not.

I start loading the black hole bomb, hesitate. Change my mind and load the neutronifying bomb. She's now passed overhead and is drifting out in the direction of the ocean. Only got one, maybe two chances left.

I trigger the mortar, aimed as best as I can at the Simurgh. This time nothing happens to block the bomb -goddammit, really?- and it impacts directly on her largest wing. A cape flying too close is suddenly a falling pair of legs and... the Simurgh seems slightly smaller overall? Am I imagining that?

Hmm. Neutronifying bomb removes a layer of skin? Is that it? Why?? Does this have to do with the compression effect being spatial warping?... Hmm. Food for thought on whatever future attempts I might have.

Alexandria is suddenly standing next to me snapping out "What the hell are you doing, Oni Lady."

I don't even bother to try to suppress the twitch. This is Alexandria, she probably already knows I call myself Bakuda and knows "Oni Lady" pisses me off and is trying to get me psychologically off-balance by exploiting all that. Or something even more cunning and insightful. Whatever. No point in pretending around her.

Instead I stare at the black hole bomb with a frown, half-ignoring her. Could this work on the Simurgh?... I'm starting to doubt it. Maybe better to keep it to defend myself. In actual response to her I say "Trying to kill the Simurgh." with as little inflection as possible.

She frowns (What is she trying to accomplish by frowning?) and says "Better capes than you have tried many times over the years." Oddly, there's no insult in her tone. She actually sounds vaguely like she's lost in memories... and now I'm wondering if she's actually getting misty-eyed over Hero or if making me think that is somehow a ploy.

Uuurggh. Almost as bad as a precog.

I shrug and say "Doesn't mean I shouldn't try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, ya know?"

Her frown turns severe and she says "Stop killing perfectly good capes over a maybe."

The sheer irony in having one of Cauldron's insiders saying that to me gets me giggling. Also the concussion, period, etc. But mostly... seriously? Wow. Stop killing people over a maybe? Really?

Once my giggling fit settles down, Alexandria says in a very even tone "You're walking dangerous ground..." her eyes narrow behind that visor she wears. "... sir."

I snort vaguely. "Oh yeah, my body language is too masculine or something, you're scary-smart, I'm intimidated now. Not."

She gives a thin smile and says "A guess you confirmed, if you must know." I roll my eyes. Like I care if she knows. Her face closes down. "I can see this won't go anywhere."

She whooshes to directly in front of me and grabs me by the neck and holds me up off the ground and says "If you try to leave the interdicted zone after this is over, I will personally insure you don't survive the attempt. Don't try." in this very calm and even tone that I'm sure is meant to intimidate me but, I dunno, I already knew I was fucked.

I depress the trigger of the black hole bomb in my palm. Her eyes slide toward it. I give my best smile, fairly confident she'll see the muscular motion behind my mask or whatever-the-fuck and know it's happening, and say "Fuck you and your hypocritical bullshit."

Not really wanting to die, if I'm entirely honest.

Alexandria stares impassively at me. After a moment she says "You won't actually follow through."

I let go of the trigger (ie start the countdown to activation) and the next thing I know I've been gutpunched way too hard -why do people keep hitting me in the gut anyway- and then

and then

the Simurgh chimes in.

 

[Ghoul King]

4.c

Armsmaster

Immediately after the Simurgh arrives

Damn it.

His predictive modeling software was 80% done for Leviathan and 45% done for modeling Behemoth... and completely useless on the Simurgh. If Clockblocker were to see the results it provided (… premised under him understanding), he'd summarize it quite aptly as "You're fucked."

That was wrong. No precog was perfect, no plan infallible. You just needed the drive and will to find the way through.

Right away there was a piece of good news; Lung's attention snapped to the Endbringer the instant it broke through the clouds. Their fight was over, done, the man winging his way to the new fight. Very good news, as his suit didn't have much charge left. It would've been terrible to not be able to test his adaptation of Clockblocker's effect on the Simurgh because he'd wasted charge on Lung.

In a worst-case scenario, he could tap the power grid for a recharge, but there were many reasons he preferred to avoid doing that, the most relevant at the moment being it took time, and he had less than twenty minutes before he'd be ordered to retreat or be killed.

He'd thought a lot about how he would fight the Simurgh, but he had always imagined it on his terms -as a volunteer to defend against an attack on another city, maybe even another country. He'd always understood it was possible the Endbringer would attack Brockton Bay, but somehow that particular possibility had never seemed viscerally real. Leviathan or Behemoth, yes, but not the Simurgh.

As such, while "paralyzed with indecision" was a gross exaggeration, he did find himself hesitating. The Halberd he'd developed with an eye for utility against the Simurgh was currently in his armory, back at the Protectorate Headquarters, not on his back. His motorcycle was not amphibious (yet) and the ferry took a good ten minutes to reach HQ on a good day. He'd need the assistance of a cape with a high Mover rating, realistically, and he wasn't sure it was worth spending the time trying to get one's attention.

After a full second of thought, all too aware that he was on the clock (HUD: Compromised ETA 19:55) he decided to focus on the here and now. The specialized Halberd wasn't cleared for field use anyway. If he was caught using it, it'd look bad on his record. (Unless he killed the Simurgh, but he ignored that thought. Unrealistic here and now, the arrogance beneath him)

Instead he sub-vocally activated comms and said "Assault, need Mover assistance to reach the Simurgh." Wait a beat. Frown. "Assault, this is Armsmaster, do you copy?" Beat. No response. Battery wasn't chiming in either. Busy? Their vital signs were stressed, but this was an Endbringer attack. He'd worry about Master influence if they were completely calm. No evidence of actual injury, though. The comm units weren't perfect judges of health, but if they were bleeding from anything worse than a paper cut, he would know. They weren't.

Fifteen seconds wasted.

Not completely -he'd already retrieved his secondary field Halberd from the motorcycle and strapped it to his back.

He cycled channels from the strike unit to PRT Console. His frown grew in response to what he was hearing. Unprofessional, completely unprofessional. He made a note that Private First Class -what was the man's name again? Ah yes, there it was- Anthony Stewart was insufficiently cool in the face of a crisis. Probably recommend moving the man to a desk job, or discontinue his service entirely.

"Oh Jesus, oh god, I, I wasn't trained for this, fu-fuuudge, I, oh god, which button controls the map? Um, Clockblocker, w-what was your location again? Okay, um, First and Ash -wait, was that Ash in downtown or in -okay, yeah, downtown, um, so, um OH GOD WHY IS EVERYTHING SHAKING-"

If only I had the authority...

He aimed the primary Halberd at a rooftop and activated the grappling hook while cycling channels again, this time to Protectorate Console. A woman's voice came over the comms, and he remembered that Private Second Class Melissa Smith was on duty today. He was pleasantly surprised to find that she wasn't panicking pointlessly, instead providing proper support to Dauntless, Triumph and... oh, yes, Aegis was tuned to the Protectorate Console right now. Pre-promotion training, in part.

He cut in as he hit the rooftop with "Aegis, what's Panacea's status?"

Aegis' response was swift and sure. Good. "We're working on evacuating her right now, sir." Nothing in his tone suggested he'd lost the lower half of his body to a booby-trap in Coil's base just two hours ago. Unfortunate that his physiology made the comm unit's medical readings meaningless. Armmaster considered asking what Aegis' condition was, then discarded the idea. Aegis was in fighting condition, that was the only thing that mattered right now.

"ETA?" Grappling hook slotted back in, pneumatics priming. Next shot would be aimed at one of the Simurgh's wings.

"Current expectation is ten minutes until she's five miles out. Strider's already been contacted, but Director Costa-Brown has him assigned to ferrying reinforcements. Minimum of fifteen minutes until he's ready. Right now we've got her si- Glory Girl on, ah, comms." Cell phone. "She's on her way and has agreed to evacuate Panacea, though she's insisting on coming back to fight, ah, the Endbringer once Panacea is evacuated." Probably said more colorfully.

Armsmaster nodded to himself, aimed the grappling hook-

-trash bag floating into the air?-

Crack!

-and the wing he'd been aiming at was gone. In fact, the entire sky above him was missing, a blank white nothing he couldn't see through. (Where is the Simurgh?) A glance showed it had edges, it definitely stopped. Difficult to estimate its size, though. His mind went to Grue's power, the complete lack of depth or shading to it. This was white, but it seemed very similar otherwise, and it was surprising how often color seemed to be purely aesthetic in parahuman abilities. A glance around the rooftop, spot a loose piece of gravel. Grab it, activate the strength enhancements for a moment as he throws it straight up. Watch it fly up...

… vanish into the white space...

… wait.

Wait.

… thirty seconds pass and the Simurgh drifts back into sight, beyond the edge of the effect, before Armsmaster decides the gravel is not coming back.

Different from Grue's power, then. Probably dangerous. He records a message and then sets his comm unit to play it on all parahuman channels for 60 seconds.

"Above the intersection of Willow and Yeats there is a white anomaly of unclear size. Do not touch the anomaly. Preliminary testing indicates extreme, possibly fatal danger. Ensure all capes are informed."

That accomplished, he began striding toward the rooftop edge. The Simurgh was now... three rooftops away, approximately, and drifting still further away. Motorcycle? No. Going for it would slow him down. He grappled onto the next rooftop instead and began jogging, setting his motorcycle to follow him instead. The algorithms for following him when he was traveling by roof still needed work, but they were adequ...

… oh. It was giving him error messages. Too many people around it to move without risking harming civilians. Also, someone was trying to steal it, either unaware or uncaring that this was Armsmaster's personal transport. He activated the shock function, annoyed, and grappled to the next rooftop, eyeing the Endbringer. Hmm. Moved far enough away that he was still two rooftops away. Annoying.

Grapple re-collected, striding forward, he set the motorcycle to wait until it did have enough clear space to then start following him. Lady Photon entered his field of view, firing on the Endbringer, most of New Wave trailing her in some form or another. He grunted to himself, pleased with their swift response. They were even making an effort to avoid hitting Lung, who was attempting to tear at the Simurgh's face. Lung seemed frustrated at the Endbringer's lack of response. It wasn't even hitting back or trying to remove him.

Hmm. Grapple to the next rooftop, recollect grapple. One-and-a-half rooftops now. Actually, a shipping container was rising up to join the Simurgh's loose shield of debris. Better plan. Turn a little to the right, shift to a fast jog, aim, fire grappling hook, reel into the shipping container. Now he was just one more grapple away from the Endbringer itself. Let's see how an Endbringer likes hitting an immovable object.

Grapple onto the Endbringer's torso, aiming for a pre-existing gouge made by Lung. Opposite side of Lung's current position -the "feathers" are dangerous, able to kill with nothing more than gravity's assistance, and damage releases them. Reel in. Carefully begin moving around to the Endbringer's "front" -not its physiological front, but rather the direction it's drifting, which is actually its right at the moment. Hmm. Only enough charge in the suit for 10 seconds at this point. Good enough for a test.

Four minutes and 32 seconds used up just reaching the Endbringer. Irritating. Another ten seconds to get in position once on it. Take a deep breath, seal the suit.

Stasis the suit.

Wait.

Realize that a headache has been building, specifically by the relief at its absence. Hmm. Simurgh tampering. Disappointing. Some parahumans are immune, but they uniformly report no headaches in its presence. He'd hoped he was one of those lucky few in spite of the lack of an overt Thinker power. Then he could've stayed as long as he liked.

Then the stasis shuts off and he can hear the battle -and the "singing", tuneless and grating- again. More immediately relevant: he's falling, and he can't see the Endbringer. Probably not dead. He grapples onto a water tower that has yet to suffer from the ravages of battle, swinging down and then up, like a swing, to bleed momentum. Sticks the landing, though he just barely hears the left ankle joint's protection crack. An aggravating consequence of his feet being different sizes.

An issue for later. Right now, he scans the area for the Endbringer -ah, there it is. Hm. The left side of its main body has a noticeable divot cut out of it... not quite Armsmaster-shaped, but definitely caused by the stasis effect. It seems to have diverted its course to reduce the damage, avoid being punched straight through its center.

Promising.

With the suit down to backup reserves, his options are fewer. As much as he'd like to repeat this attack, he'd need to recharge the suit, which would take time. It's also more important to get this information out -he activates his audio recorder. Even if he dies, his results will survive.

While he's recording a verbal report with the intention of uploading the recording to Protectorate systems, he considers his next move. His first impulse is to go after the Endbringer and try something else, see if something else in his arsenal has bite. Recent events have been infuriating, with a nobody villain turning out to have a secret underground base right under everybody's -hero and villain alike!- noses, his capture of Lung turning into a disaster when Lung is rescued by Oni Lady with many casualties, said Oni Lady evading capture herself when a task force was made to specifically pursue her, the PR disaster that liberating Purity's children had already been turning into...

He was so tired of being made to look incompetent.

Frowning, watching the Endbringer drift through the air...

No. No, he wasn't going to attack it again.

He was going to get out before it arranged for him to die or become a monster, and he was going to come back in a year, and he was going to utterly destroy it. Brockton Bay was gone anyway. Whatever came next would almost certainly involve effectively a demotion -an assignment to an existing team under someone else, a shift from management to patrols and tinkering.

Time tinkering would be time preparing for his big win.

Decision made, he sent the recording and began scanning the comms for a good Mover. Not Strider. Someone who could get him to whatever was being used as the field HQ. Unfortunate that Velocity was dead. Assault and Battery were still not on comms either. Concerning. An out-of-towner, then. Hm. "Speedfreak" sounded promising. He didn't recognize the name as an official Protectorate member... might be a Ward, though, he didn't follow the Wards situation too closely. A smalltime hero with no official support, most likely.

Definitely an early responder wearing one of Dragon's suicide commcollars, given comms chatter. Excellent. That meant he could...

"Armsmaster requesting Mover assistance. Evac, non-medical, low priority."

… put in a request through system channels. Maybe "Speedfreak" would pick him up, maybe someone else was closer. Efficient. For the moment, he activated the handshake protocols to give his positional information to Dragon's system and began walking northwest. He adjusted his course to be straight north when he remembered his stranded motorcycle. Request its position... adjust his course again, slightly northeast. It had moved since he'd last checked on it, though only about half a block before it became stranded by the crowds again.

Before he'd acquired line of sight on the motorcycle, he was being flagged down by a man in black, wearing an oversized orange mask. Unless he missed his guess, the spiky black hair was a wig, possibly attached to the mask. Armsmaster attached his grappling hook to the roof's edge and rappelled down to the street.

His first question once he'd pushed through the hysterical crowd was "Can you take a motorcycle with you?" He ignored the civilians as best he could. Evac was other people's duty.

The man in black shook his head and said "People and anything on them only." Armsmaster looked pointedly at his held Halberd. The man in black shrugged and said "Never taken anyone with so large a weapon. Not dangerous to try, though. If it doesn't work it'll just be left behind."

Sub-optimal. Still. He could make better. Maybe go for a different design outright, sticking to the halberd theme had its limitations.

"Take me to the field command post."

The man in black said "One 'sec." and pulled away one sleeve to reveal a wrist-mounted computer. He spent a horrendously inefficient 40 seconds fiddling with it before he turned to Armsmaster and said "Okay, yeah, that's in my range. Hold still, I have to hug you for this."

Armsmaster held himself very still. Don't think about the indignity. Fortunately, he only had to endure the awkward contact very briefly before everything twisted, drained down into blackness, and then after a timeless period found himself abruptly standing in...

… ah, yes. He recognized this room. Before the PENE had bought the oil rig, they'd been operating out of an abandoned factory not far outside of Brockton Bay city limits. While most of the proprietary gear had been stripped and shipped to the oil rig, it would have taken little time to convert it into a usable command post.

Perfect.

His Halberds had even both made the trip successfully. The motorcycle was probably a loss, but that wasn't too awful. He hadn't invested even a quarter of the time into it that had gone into his suit. Some of his Halberds had been bigger investments. It may yet find its way to him anyway.

More importantly, he was...

… look around...

… yes, he was currently the most senior Protectorate cape in the room.

Perfect.

He stepped forward to take command.

----------------------------​

An hour later, his Halberd slipped from nerveless fingers as he watched his ambitions crumble to dust.

 

[Ghoul King]

4.3

So fast I can barely follow it, Alexandria uses her unoccupied hand to rip the black hole bomb out of my hand and hurl it into the sky in the general direction of the Simurgh. The angle it goes, I see how it arcs unnaturally, drifting off course...

… straight toward the white nothingness hanging in the sky.

I'd gasp in horror, but I'm too busy sputtering from the superpowered gutpunch. Alexandria apparently notices some kind of reaction from me though, because she jerks to look and the next thing I know she's dropped me and launched in pursuit of the bomb so hard there's damage to the roof where her feet were.

I do my best to crawl toward the roof entrance, because while I'm not entirely certain what's going to happen.... I don't like any of the possibilities that come to mind, and if the Simurgh is making it happen... well, I suppose it's possible it's actually a plot to kill Scion, but it's safer to guess that it's Something Bad For Humanity. I want something more solid than open air between me and whatever's about to happen.

The gutpunch slows me down too much, though. After several seconds of squirming vaguely in the direction of the entrance with nothing catastrophic seeming to happen, I glance over where the bomb was flying.

What I see is Alexandria with half her left leg apparently stuck in the black hole, detonated short of the white whatever. Well. Awesome. We're not going to, like, have the white nothingness permanently set to being a giant black hole bomb portal, thus sucking the entire city into it. Which... would arguably be less bad than a city of Simurgh'd people, though... actually... what happens if an Endbringer's target city is utterly destroyed? Do they consider that "mission accomplishing, Endbringing done until next time"? Or do they move on to a new city?...

Never mind. I don't really want to die anyway, and, well, fuck Alexandria.

… with that thought it occurs to me I really ought to be trying to get away before she decides to go back to threatening me. Or decides that removing half a leg is a reason to straight-up kill me. Or worse.

I go back to crawling, glad my breathing is getting vaguely normal again. I need to make several resonance bombs, see if I can get cooperation to deliver them. Maybe I'll get lucky and find Oni Lee so I only need one. Also make more will-to-live-killing grenades. Still a long shot, but I never tested it.

A green-dressed man whose inside of his hood is obscured by a green glow -he makes me think of Tyrael, but green instead of unrelenting shadow- floats gracefully down to in front of me. I'm... 99% confident this is Eidolon.

Oh come on. Can I get a fucking break?

Probably-Eidolon waves a hand and somehow drives away a floating chunk of concrete that drifts overly close to us while I try to pretend to be dead or unconscious. I can't get my ragged breathing under control, so I doubt it's convincing, but I'm sometimes amazed by the shit that fools people. Why not.

"I know you're awake, and exactly how much pain you're in." he says real casually, aside from the weird echo-y effect. So... forget that plan.

I haul myself into a sitting position and glare sullenly at him. Really, I just want to sleep at this point. I say, with less venom and more sulking than I'd like, "What do you want?"

He waves a hand again, I don't see the consequences, and says with this weird note in his voice. He sounds like he's affecting casualness and can't quite pull it off. "I was watching when you fired on the Simurgh. I noticed... how she blocked one-"

Alexandria arrives, seemingly unimpaired in every important respect by her left leg having vanished below the upper thigh -more than half, okay- and interrupts with "Eidolon, you shouldn't be so close to her, she's been Mastered by the Simurgh already." I notice the leg isn't bleeding at all. Huh. But her brain has to be getting blood?... how does this "stasis-body-except-brain" thing work, exactly?

Eidolon shifts, crossing his arms in a pose that reads to me like it's meant to be casual-seeming and is actually defensive. "I have a sensory power running. I'll know the instant she exhibits hostile intent." Wait, I don't read as hostile to him as far as this power is concerned? Or... is this like the whole "killing intent" thing Japan is so enamored of? Because okay yeah I've only considered killing Eidolon as a-

-his hood shifts ever-so-slightly in my direction but he doesn't move otherwise-

-puppies. Let's think about puppies instead.

…

I fucking hate puppies, let's think about something else.

Alexandria is just standing on one leg, and I'm almost certain it's her using her flight power to cheat. I find myself wondering how she plots to hide this in terms of her Director Costa-Brown persona. To be fair, I still have no idea where the implant eye came from, given Hero died in the incident she lost a chunk of her face to. I guess maybe Cauldron has an on-staff Tinker? She glares daggers at Eidolon and says "No power is infallible." and completely ignores me bursting into a fit of giggles. Yeah, tell him that while trusting in your own Simurgh-immunity, enough so to have a petty argument in the middle of an Endbringer attack.

He evenly replies with "I think this is worth the risk." No body language shift.

I glance back and forth between them and say "Hey, anybody mind filling me in on the Cauldron Club's discussion here?"

I'm faintly surprised -and annoyed- when they completely ignore me.

… Bakuda isn't a Cauldron cape, is she? She triggered from the... fuck, we don't actually know. She could be a Cauldron cape. Fuck. Fuck. Please don't tell me I owe Cauldron favors and don't know it.

I barely see Alexandria glance at me through her visor while she says "False optimism. This is the Simurgh. You know it's a trick, a trap. It always is." Getting tired of being ignored. I start dragging myself over to the air conditioning unit. Parts, need parts...

Eidolon ripostes with "She wins by default if we don't even try." I grab a bit and jerk on it. Loose. Yeah, I can pull this off.

Alexandria sounds annoyed, like this is an old conversation, when she responds, but all I can think of is how everything she does is calculated. "It, Eidolon. We've been over this. And it wins if you walk into its trap. Limit the damage, don't try to be a hero." I note the inflection she puts on that, thinking of both Hero and how Eidolon's whole thing is he wants to be a hero, leave a legacy that way. I find myself wondering if this is a slip-up on her part or deliberately playing dirty. Maybe both. I twist off the loose bit, reach in through the gap I've created and start trying to remove the mesh filter just beyond it. Is that normal for a rooftop air conditioning unit? Is Earth Bet weird, or is this how air conditioners are constructed back in Omicron, too?

Eidolon's spine straightens out, I notice out of the corner of my eye. He looks less defensive and more angry. It reflects in his tone, too. "Don't go there." I settle for tearing out a segment of the mesh. I'm just using it as impromptu wiring anyway. Now I need to make an electromagnet, using one of those stupid spinny things on rooftops. What are those, anyway? Whatever, spinny metal bit, foundation for electrical energy.

Alexandria grabs a fallen chunk of concrete and whips it at something down in the street. Someone screams briefly. I notice Eidolon stiffening up. She turns back to him and says "We need to get back to the fight. No more long shots. We agreed."

He ignores her. I think he's watching me assemble a crude electromagnet. It's hard to tell with the hood and the glowing and all. I put the finishing touches on the power supply. Now I need the shell...

Alexandria floats over closer to him and says something in a low tone to him. I stop paying attention now that they're not speaking so loud I can hear. Has me wondering how much of this has been Alexandria trying to put on a show for me, manipulate me somehow. Fuck her. Only good bit of the entire "Skitter turning herself in" stupidity was her and Tagg getting themselves killed via being overconfident super-assholes. (Well. Tagg was definitely an overconfident super-asshole. Still suspect that was deliberate suicide on Alexandria's part. I'll never know now, though)

"Here, I can handle that." snaps me out of the semi-fugue. It's Eidolon, bending a chunk of aluminum into the right shape without quite touching it. I glance at Alexandria, but she just shakes her head and flies off. I get back to work, since apparently I'm not about to be killed or something. Eidolon waits a minute, still contributing to the fight occasionally with a wave of his hand, and finally asks "Is this the..." he waves one hand vaguely. "... the thing the Simurgh was scared of?"

I blink in confusion and turn to him. Scared of-?

Then it clicks. The resonance bomb. I shake my head and admit "No, not this one. This was actually a mutually assured destruction thing if you or Alexandria came after me when your conversation was done."

He startles briefly and says "But you haven't been thinking about killing me or harming me. Or her."

I feel very smug at hearing that, but try not to let it into my voice. "This just makes you the rough equivalent of permanently depressed. No real harm, and I assume Cauldron would keep you taken care of well." I pause, a thought occurring to me. "Well, assuming they didn't kill you off themselves for some reason."

He nods slowly and says, equally slowly "A loophole." Then, after a pause he informs me "The inside of your head must be an... interesting place, if you don't consider that harm."

I smile brightly, putting as much sarcasm into the smile as I can. "I'm pretty sure I'm a sociopath, and frankly fuck you guys."

He shrugs. "Nothing you can say that's worse than I've already thought." Goddamn it I hate these guys and now I want to know why are they not reacting to me talking about Cauldron. Among other things. He continues with "So. Can you make another instance of the bomb she blocked?"

Oh right. Yeah. Resonance bomb. Lemme think...

… yes, yes I can. Shard is not being uncooperative on this. I nod a definitive yes, absently noting a cape in the distance being beheaded by floating whatever. He pushes for more: "Can you describe how it works."

This appeals to the scientist in me, and I'm rambling before I've even considered whether I want to tell him or not. "Well, I dunno if you're familiar with Tesla's work or the like, but you've probably -actually, no, let's talk about Shatterbird. She obviously operates on bullshit hax shard nonsense-" I notice one of his finger's twitch "-but the basic idea of what she's doing is everyday science. A sufficiently uniform object, when struck with its resonance frequency over a duration, will shatter rather dramatically. I have reason to maybe believe the Simurgh constitutes such an object, and my own bullshit hax shard nonsense means I can make a bomb that arbitrarily does that to everything in an area that is susceptible to such, no need to find the correct frequency."

I barely hear him murmur "Resonance..." and then he nods sharply, claps me on one shoulder hard enough to sting, and says "Oni Lady-"

I interrupt. "Bakuda."

He continues as if I hadn't interrupted him at all. "-Bakuda, you may have just done a service to the entire world. If this works... well, I can't actually get you out of the isolation zone, that would be completely irresponsible, but I'll ensure everyone knows you helped make it happen, and ensure you're as comfortable as possible without undue risk."

That's.... rather nicer than I was expecting out of anyone at Cauldron. Though I'm not sure what he's talking about, exactly.

He flies off without another word, leaving me annoyed, heading directly toward the Simurgh.

All... righty then.

I consider arming the kludged together, oversized will-to-live-killing bomb (I keep using these, they keep being relevant, I'm just going to call them Super Depression Bombs) super depression bomb. Then I decide that is a dumb idea and I am a dumb person for thinking it. I can still arm it remotely. I still have the remote.

I double-check that Alexandria didn't crush or steal it without me noticing. Whew. Still have it.

I remember the fire escape I originally climbed to get up here. Forget the regular roof entrance, fire escape all the way. I need to find... either my workshop, assuming it hasn't been trashed, or a place I can use as a workshop temporarily. Also? I need to set up a place to sleep. Probably set up claymores...

… looking out on the city, I notice there's three of those horrible black-and-white screaming face buildings out there. Shit. Should probably do something about the redhead before she kills the entire city.

I start down the fire escape. I pause a moment when I notice it's rattling, halfway down, and realize there's a faint keeening sound. Not sure when that started. Am... I finally hearing the Simurgh's song? Wait, it's in your head, the fire escape shouldn't be rattling. Actually, the fact that it's rattling is concerning. Let's not be on it.

I hurry up in heading down the fire escape, as fast as I feel I can safely manage in my current state. Once I hit the street level I glance toward the Simurgh, still moving away from the fire escape. If something's happening, it's probably happening around/to the Simurgh.

Is that Eidolon?

Too distant to be sure. Might be some other flying cape with green as part of their costume. Or a different color I'm interpreting as green for whatever reason. Whoever they are, there's an effect like heat shimmer centered on them. I can see it expanding and growing more intense with alarming speed. I decide I'd really rather be quite far away from it, as soon as possible. As such, I start jogging -bit too tired to really run- in the opposite direction. I... think this has me jogging toward the ocean, going by the salt water smell on the breeze.

After maybe a minute of jogging, the keening sound has moved from "Oh yeah, there is a sound, it's kind of annoying" to "Oh god my ears, stop puncturing them!" A glance back shows that the heat distortion effect has shifted to a continuous ripple, as if I'm looking at a pond reflecting the image while, you know, rippling. I'm... not sure what would cause that. Wormverse physics. Just... Wormverse physics.

I'm starting to wonder if I should find some form of cover when the sound stops, everything goes silent for a second, and then a woosh of air rushes past, causing me to almost lose my balance. Huh. I was expecting an explosion, with heat and concussion waves and so on.

I look back, and I'm so startled I botch my next step and only barely turn the act of slipping on something on the ground into catching myself on my hands -second time since I got here, still hurts- before pulling myself to my feet to double-check what I saw.

The Simurgh is a thin sketch of itself. Not gone, but much diminished. The largest wing seems least effected, with one of its joints a hard knot of black instead of the Simurgh's ivory white. Her hair is completely gone as far as I can tell, and I think some of the smallest wings have vanished, too. There's a tremendous volume of white blur drifting down from her body, spreading out as it falls. It's not until it's nearly on top of me that I realize it's dust. Much of her body has been reduced to dust.

Huh.

Wow.

I mean... she's not dead -in fact, I can see her retreating into the clouds right now, so she's not, like, dead and falling slower than the dust for some reason- but... wow.

Wow.

 

[Ghoul King]

Somewhat short, experimental Interlude. I keep feeling like I'm doing something questionable, but then I reread it and feel like it actually works? I dunno.

Yes I know my MSpaint skillz are awful. You can probably guess the intention anyway from context.

Edited in: fantastic art produced by @Synth has replaced MSpaint atrocities. Thanks!

4.b

Oni Lee

The world jerks abruptly. One moment, the Simurgh has descended, the battle barely begun.

The next, he is standing amid ruination. It takes a moment to realize the skeletal creature retreating into the sky is most likely the Simurgh. Only Lung can match an Endbringer for size, and it's too vast, even as diminished as it seems to be, to be any other cape. He knows what Lung's bones look like at that scale. They don't look like that.

A glance back shows a Lee-shaped blur of grey in an area where nothing moves.

Hm. An unfortunate event-



-as it was probably caused by Bakuda.

Disturbing.

He should find Lu-



-Bakuda and check-



-cheeeck why she acci-



-deliberately caught him with his own time stop bomb.

Completely inappropriate. He should interro-



-interrooog-



-ooooooooo-



-kill her.

Yes. Bakuda needs to die.

Fingering his knife, Oni Lee begins to scan the rooftops. Last he recalled she was over at that one -ah. But he has been trapped in a time stop. Not for an age, this is clearly the same attack, so no more than a few hours, but... she has likely had time enough to escape.

Hmm. Too much damage to readily track her, particularly given how the passage of time is unclear. What then?...

Eyes tracking across the cityscape, he spots black and white strips of some kind where buildings belong, seemingly swaying in the breeze. Hmm.

Follow the destruction. One of the better ways to track a tinker who builds bombs. He didn't recall any of her bombs having this particular effect, but he had never been able to keep track of all the madness she conceived. It could be something she cooked up while he was inactive.

He transported himself to the nearest one in a matter of moments. Up close he could see people seemingly trapped inside the strips -the strips were black, the people white outlines, circles and dots for eyes. They struggled as if trapped on one side of a pane of glass, clawing desperately for freedom, and he could hear their unearthly screams.

Hm. He had thought little of Bakuda's casual joy when opening up Calvert, as he already knew tinkers lost themselves in their work, heedless of morals. Now he wondered if he'd overlooked a streak of cruelty. An inauspicious trait in a colleague. All the more reason to execute her swiftly.

Two quick movements later, he was watching his previous self touch one of the black ribbons. They turned black, outlined in white, layered onto the ribbon, and after the usual delay, turned into a dotted mess of white on the ribbon.

Do not touch these ribbons. So noted.

He looked around, ignoring the fearful faces of civilians. Was there a trail? Footprints are harder to track on concrete than dirt, but there can be signs. Mud clinging to the boot, for instance. With some assistance from his power, he investigated all around the ribbons. After he'd moved on from a point, his prior self shouted for his attention -he'd missed something. Something about a car he'd ignored, crushed in by fallen rubble.

Returning to the location, he studied the car more closely. He found what his prior self had likely spotted -irregular black-and-white bands of corrugated material, out of place in the car. It could simply be an atypical piece of customization... but he found a connection to the ribbons more likely. A trail.

He followed it, saw how the road had footprint-shaped corrugations. An easy trail.

He's disappointed when following it leads to branching footstep trails, which branch again. Not a good path to Bakuda. He'd begun to suspect it was unrelated anyway, and found it even more likely now that he'd seen the path branch. A new trigger, or a cape responding to the attack. One with a power that could be spread in some form, if he had to guess.

He returns to the rooftops, and looks again for signs of her presence, this time discounting the ribbons. He de-



-de-



-decides to head for the center of the battle.

He frowned, thinking. Bakuda had kept to the edges of battle in prior combat. It would be out of chara-



-aaaa-



-aaaracter, but she'd been harboring plots without his awareness. Clearly she was a skilled actress, and he should assume nothing about what he "knew" of her was accurate. Much of it was almost certainly deliberately misleading.

He nodded sharply to himself and shifted rapidly toward where fliers were centered, flying below the Simurgh. He paid little attention to the clouds, beyond noticing their new motion. Not relevant. He finds himself wondering where Lung has gone, but the thought doesn't stick. Slides away, his focus returning to Bakuda.

He frowns again. Something about... Master infl-


-unimportant. Bakuda needs to die before she discovers her betrayal failed to dispose of him. Never give a tinker time to prepare. Pressure them, seize the initiative, kill them.

Once underneath those harrying the Simurgh, he-

"Oi! Bloke, ya here to fight or evacuate? Alex-what's-her-face says yer useful." Someone standing on an adjacent rooftop, dressed in a ren faire way. If there was a specific intention behind the design, Oni Lee didn't see it.

He responded curtly with "Fight." more focused on scanning for clues to Bakuda's location than engaging the reject.

"Ya need help getting closer?" Go away I am busy.

The irritation didn't show in his voice as he said "Not necessarily, but help would be appreciated." Maybe they knew where Bakuda was.

Abruptly, the assault on the eyes was bouncing excitedly next to him saying "How close, how close mate? I can get ya right on top of her-"

His head jerked toward the man and he said "Take me." and the idiot clapped him on the shoulder and abruptly he was struggling to grab onto a bizarre surface, tinted slightly blue. What? He struggled for a few seconds, spotted a better place to grip, reappeared on it, and took in the sights. Ah he thought with disappointment, the fool thought I meant the Simurgh.

Still.



He'd sworn to Lung that should an Endbringer attack Brockton-



-Bay, he'd contribute-



-to the fight, and now he had (Which ones remained?) Bakuda's bombs-



-to actually harm the monster.

Bakuda could wait.

He had a promise to keep.

He picked out his next travel point and prepared to arm, ignoring a distant scream.

 

[Ghoul King]

4.4

One of those flickering assholes turns a corner, shrieks in delight, and charges me. I'm so fucking tired, come the fuck on. I turn to jog away as best I can, also thinking about getting out of reach of the Simurgh dust -I don't know what breathing in Endbringer flesh is liable to do to the human body, but I don't want to find out by testing it with my own lungs.

An explosive shriek of agony erupts behind me, startling me so badly I almost fall again, and I glance behind me only to spot the flickering psycho has stopped flickering and is instead clawing at their body, coughing up blood. Uh? Their eyes meet mine, they shriek, they flicker, they shriek again (in pain) and hit the ground.

I stare blankly for a minute, Simurgh dust whooshing past me, before it occurs to me that maybe the Simurgh dust is somehow at fault. Bad interaction with the power? Being no-sold by even disintegrated Endbringer flesh, somehow hurting them?

It feels logical, but I'm in shit condition at this point. I can't make myself jump through the mental hoops. Too tired. Need to just... hope people can kill the Simurgh now, find myself some place to sleep. My workshop?... no, that's... not really very defensible, and I can't expect loyal assistance from the ABB because Simurgh.

Something in the sky -no, about the sky- catches my eye. I stare blankly, partially obscured by the dust, mostly obscured by my brain fog. It takes a while for me to parse that I'm seeing unnatural motion from the clouds. Then I notice the Simurgh, visible again as clouds suck in toward it... glittering?

Glittering??

I squint, confused. It's only when Alexandria smashes into the Simurgh with the sound of cracking ice that I pull together the thought: the Simurgh is forming armor of ice from the clouds.

… super-ice, from the look of things, as it's meaningful armor against parahuman assault. That's... a pretty bullshit use of TK, but as far as I'm aware is basically reasonable physics otherwise. I kind of resent that she's still jobbing. She could be pulling the water out of people's bodies to simultaneously kill most of her attackers and armor herself, but noooo, Endbringers jobber to the bitter end.

I flinch away from an explosion and abruptly remember I was trying to get away from the fight, get to safety, start establishing some place safe for me for the quarantine. More immediately, get out of the Simurgh dust. Breathing this can't be good for me.

Right. It's... not higher than two stories, I think, so... get to a building taller-

I fight the urge to slap myself on the forehead. No, I just need to get inside a building at all and close the door.

I do exactly that, half-expecting to be faced with a lunatic trying to kill me. Or a completely reasonable citizen assuming I am a lunatic trying to kill them. Instead, I find myself faced with a mess, as of people hurrying out with as much as they could carry. Dropped dolls, abandoned phones -I scoop one up, on the off-chance I'll be able to call someone- and scattered papers. I note blood stains -they look to me like someone hurt themselves smacking into something and kept going, ignoring the injury. Not like someone was attacked here.

I think I'm in an apartment building again. People fleeing their homes, I guess. Makes sense, anyway.

I don't hear anyone inside, yet. A glance out one of the windows shows the screaming flickering psycho is not only not any better, but is looking like a cancerous mass of body horror. I'm... surprised they're still screaming, honestly. I wander around inside the building, trying to see if there's anyone hiding here. The doors are mostly open, and the exceptions show no signs that anyone left them at all. Unused tenements?

The lights flicker, but don't die. I find myself wondering if Brockton Bay has a local power supply -and whether it will continue operating after the city is sealed off, if it has one. Pretty sure I can supply my own power, though. Tinker. I'm more concerned about clean (fresh)water and, you know, food. Also, a defensible shelter, which this is not.

My mind drifts to the Best Buy I tinkered in earlier. I... have serious doubts I can retrace my steps to find it again. Might be able to find it anyway, but I really doubt I could retrace my steps per se. Always a pain to do that in a city. Not enough real landmarks. Unfortunate, as it's a ready-made source of tinker supplies and is relatively defensible, with only... two entrances? Maybe not two. Fire escape entrances are probably involved, for one. But not a ton of entrances, and in particular not a ton of easy-access windows. Has bathrooms, for what that's worth. Ovens sitting around, just need to plug them in somewhere to use them. Probably possible to convert an office or break room or something into a bedroom of sorts.

Maybe not the Best Buy per se, but it's the right kind of building.

I grab some food -unopened, minimize germs- from the abandoned apartments, load it into a kid's toy wagon I run across. A shopping cart would work better, but there's none of those lying around inside here. I poke around for other stuff, find a tablet, a handful of DSes, some other electronics that seem worth holding onto that are relatively compact, load them into the wagon too. I also grab a plastic shovel. Then I look outside, see how the Simurgh dust is looking.

Screaming lunatic is unrecognizable and silent. There's just a lump of white where I last saw them, like a slightly higher pile than the rest of the white. I note that the amount of dust in the air seems to be pretty low -it's mostly settled on the ground, on buildings, on cars, etc. Yeah, I think I can go out without the dust being a problem. I also see the fight with the Simurgh is still ongoing, bright flashes lighting up the sky intermittently. The sun is most of the way set, too. I'd rather be vaguely secure before dark.

I maneuver my toy wagon down the stairs without losing its crap as best I can. This involves a fair amount of losing stuff, putting it back, losing it again, putting it back again...

Once I'm outside, I use the plastic shovel to grab a few shovel-fulls of the dust. Maybe I'll be able to somehow tinker up something using it. If nothing else, being able to analyze it should be informative when it comes to creating a proper Endbringer killer. Or at least a Simurgh-killer. I'm a lot shakier in my original confidence that the Endbringers are essentially the same with this bizarre "Simurgh made of feathers" thing.

Wandering the streets vaguely in the direction I think the Best Buy is in, I keep an eye out for trouble. An ear, too. More the ear than the eye, really. Whatever.

I'm tired, basically as close to helpless as I'm going to get without being unconscious. Don't like wandering around like this, but for whatever reason other people -the ones still here- seem to be inclined to just... hole up. I see people watching me from windows again, but at this point pretty much any time I see someone on the ground it's a parahuman. The exceptions seem to be mentally unhinged hobos. So it strikes me as the safest time to be moving around, in spite of being in the middle of an Endbringer attack.

I notice some of the parahumans move to intercept me, stop, and deviate. I guess my persona-non-grata status is being passed around. Could be worse. None of them has tried to put a hole in my head. Yet.

I'm wondering why the Simurgh hasn't left yet, honestly. It's still hanging around, ice armor cracking and melting in the face of the assault, ripping buildings apart occasionally, mostly just collecting existing junk. I hadn't even seen it construct a tinkertech device yet, which just seemed strange now that I thought about it. Like, okay, Squealer apparently died in short order, but I'm still around, if nobody else.

… though I have that too-good-to-be-true theory that I'm unhackable for some reason.

On the other hand, the Simurgh had layers of deception going on in Golden Morning, with a weapon designed to fool Scion and also somehow set up some other thing that Teacher may or may not have derailed. Well, people acting at Teacher's behest, anyway. Now I'm wondering if the Simurgh has been, like, building something underground, out of sight.

… or, I think as I glance toward the ocean underwater.

Awww fuck. That could easily break loose from the quarantine, even with parahuman assistance. Blocking the ocean is way harder than building a wall around a city is. That would let the Simurgh do who-knows-what to pretty much any arbitrary location on the planet. Any location near a shore, anyway. Point is: this could do something in Russia, in spite of having been assembled on the East Coast.

Fucking fuck.

I try flagging down a cape. Several times. They ignore me or shake their head and then ignore me.

Fuuuck. I don't have any tinkertech on me! I'm too tired! Somebody needs to go check this out!

I hang my head for a moment and then divert myself to follow the ocean breeze. I'll do... something, I guess. Figure something out. Maybe I'll somehow have tinker knowledge bounce into my head for how to ruin the thing, if there is indeed a thing. Maybe I'll have the time to assemble something destructive on-site.

I pause and pick up a discarded (wooden) baseball bat. Looks like some kids were playing baseball in the street, to me. Teens, really, going by the size of the bat and the gloves that aren't completely buried. Whatever. Need to be able to defend myself somehow if another one of those messed-up flicker-zombies shows up. Incidentally, trudging through Simurgh-dust is like trudging through snow, only less slippery and wet. But heavier. Heavy dry snow. It's a pain to walk in, and a pain to drag the wagon through. I keep having to fight a temptation to leave the crap I collected behind to make the walk easier.

After trudging for several more minutes, it occurs to me to kick over one of the lumps I'm passing by. It's a human corpse, body horror stuff going on. I think it's another flicker-zombie, though there's always the much-more-disturbing possibility that Simurgh-dust just does this shit to people. I try a few more times to wave down a cape after that, when they happen to pass vaguely nearby me, but it's still a no-go.

It gets worse.

Once I've got line of sight on the beach, I see they aren't sealing things the way I was expecting. For some reason, I was thinking in terms of the quarantine radius cutting through the water. Boats, netting. That kind of thing. What I'm seeing is them building a wall cutting the city off from the ocean. That's... alarming in its own right, even though I can see the logic of it. (I guess they have parahumans who are both suited to building walls rapidly and protected from the Simurgh?)

Naturally, not long after I spot the wall, somebody on a loudspeaker calls out "Code confirm or leave!" Whatever code they want, I don't know it.

Arrrgh.

I turn around without responding, looking for a building to fire the mortar from. It's been a while since I thought about it, but I haven't actually left it behind. It's... even in serviceable condition. Barely. Wouldn't want to risk firing it more than once, but that's okay. I should only need one shot.

--------------------​

After a sloppy tinker session in which I limited myself to building one neutronifying bomb (I had a harder time staying awake than I did preventing myself from going overboard with tinkering. I find this alarming, in terms of how badly I need rest) and an awkward... twenty minutes? Longer? I spent a while trying to find an apartment that was unoccupied and unlocked while being close enough to the ocean. It was a lot more difficult than my earlier luck led me to expect. (Are people prioritizing beach-close property?) Anyway, after all that, I'm set up on a rooftop, struggling to get the mortar set up. It's not in good condition, and neither am I, so it takes way longer to get done than I want.

On the plus side, the Simurgh is like on the other side of the city from me right now. Should be safe.

After taking entirely too long to get set up, I glance around, half-expecting Alexandria to drop down and either tell me "No." or just break my face. It's not like I'm aiming at the Simurgh, but... still expecting it.

I eyeball the angle again, guess it's right or close enough, and arm the grenade, load it, fire it.

It arcs, and there's nothing unnatural about its angle. Not a perfect parabola, but wind, gravitational variation, whatever. Not unexpected. I watch it the whole way, partly because this is important, and partly because I'm just... tired. I should be dragging my thoughts to the next thing, but it's hard.

The grenade hits the water. I can tell not because of the splash, but because there's suddenly a bowl of no water, before the surrounding water rushes in. More disturbingly, I caught a glimpse of black surfaces and dim red lights. I only saw it for a moment, but it looks like I did catch something tinkertech in there.

Concerning. While there's evidence of an uproar from what I can see of the vicinity of the wall, I don't see any investigation of the water. If I did damage, it wasn't much, I don't think. If there's not a follow-up, the Simurgh can probably just stall, replace what was lost, finish whatever it is, and launch it. (What even are the tinkers in Brockton Bay? Me, Armsmaster, Kid Win, Chariot if he triggered early and still as basically canon somehow... though the possibilities are endless if there's no policy discouraging tinkers from helping defend against the Simurgh, which is a horrifying thought)

So. I need to deal with it or... somehow cut through this bullshit and get someone to listen.

I wait another minute to see if anyone investigates the impact point, but see nothing. I double-check the mortar and... yeah, it's fucked. Fracture that could lead to it killing me if I tried to fire it again. I throw it over the edge of the building, retreat into the building. I think there might be fliers looking for where the grenade came from. Not sure.

Okay... now what?

 

[Ghoul King]

4.a

Alexandria

Shortly after the Simurgh's arrival

She's reviewing the latest efforts to track the Slaughterhouse Nine, working through how to arrange the next encounter, when the phone rings. The red one, only used for alerting her regarding threats that deserve the S rating. It's about the right time for an Endbringer strike, though it's more likely to be a different matter -maybe the Slaughterhouse Nine have stopped skulking already, made another big play.

It's the Simurgh, hitting the eastern seaboard -Brockton Bay, specifically.

She frowns. That's the "feudal parahuman society" experiment ruined. It's a point in favor of it being a workable model, though, same as when the Endbringer ruined Sphere. She makes a mental note to work with Contessa on planning a larger seeding of such experiments, spread them across the planet so a single Endbringer attack can't kill the entire experiment. (Again) Consider setting one on another Earth entirely, entirely out of the damned things' reach.

She's already implementing Director Costa-Brown's privacy protocols and moving to change into her costume, thinking for the 3,542nd time that she wishes Cauldron's need for secrecy wasn't paramount. The precious minutes wasted having to Door to Los Angeles and then fly from there to wherever she needs to be that could be saved by having Doormaker take her directly in the first place... she resents them, resents in a smaller way that human failings force her to waste those minutes. If people weren't such stupid, greedy, fearful-

-she cuts off that line of thought as unproductive. It is what it is. Americans send a relief convoy to a third-world country wracked by war, and the combatants waging the war seize it, extending a conflict that might otherwise burn itself out when the soldiers find themselves unable to feed themselves, unable to treat their illnesses. Purchasable powers being widely known, all by itself, would produce class warfare of unprecedented violence and bitterness.

It is what it is.

By a similar token, she doesn't use the tinkertech comms in her helmet to inform Legend and Eidolon. This bothers her less, as they've likely been informed already anyway. A small, debatable waste. Instead, she uses her Chief Director's Voice to start issuing orders -Strider is woken up and assigned to mass transport volunteers in and evacuate civilians out, along with a dozen less impressive Movers of similar utility who are also on the Endbringer Ready Volunteer List, Director Piggot is given a brief pep talk, and other PRT departments are made ready to receive refugees and wounded. Much of this would happen without her, but she adds precision, speed, and makes sure the big picture makes sense. Chicago isn't in any condition to help, for instance, overburdened by the cascades of violence and chaos so common to parahumans and saddled with teamwork problems they've not had time to iron out, so she makes sure they're left out of the proceedings and increases the load at three departments more ready to take on extra strain to make up the difference, knowing the Chicago unit would stubbornly take on the challenge and then buckle under the pressure if she didn't step in.

The list of things to stay on top of is endless, but she manages it easily, a mile and a half into the sky, and the tinkertech reproduces her voice as if she was sitting at her desk rather than flying at tremendous speeds. The only really noteworthy event is learning that Coil was outed in his identity as Calvert, attempted to escape. Fate currently unknown. Well then. Feudal parahuman society experiment dead twice over.

Once her duties as Chief Director are largely carried out, she switches to the discreet comms, text-only and managed by eye movement, and double-checks with Contessa on the far-too-long list of things that need double-checking. She puts on a burst of speed and detours for a full thirty seconds to put down a villain with a useless power in Nebraska who, if left alone, will restore key memories in Subject 557/"Tigerheart", creating further problems down the line. She spends an additional five seconds ensuring the murder looks like an animal attack the villain brought down on herself, and then continues her route.

As she's entering the clouds that helped the Endbringer reach the city unnoticed, she finally learns that Piggot authorized the "rescue" of Purity of Empire Eighty Eight's children -in the most idiotic way possible. One of the children died not long after the Simurgh arrived, and Purity blamed the PRT. Even knowing the Simurgh's tampering is probably involved...

Alexandria finds herself wishing she'd kept a closer eye on Piggot in the past few days. She'd focused on other Directors, with unproven track records or more difficult problems. Piggot, ill-concealed loathing of parahumans aside, had been a competent enough Director. She hadn't seemed to require much oversight anymore, and even for someone who needs no sleep, has perfect recall, and superb analytical ability, there's only so many hours in the day.

Mistake.

She hates mistakes.

She ignores the base, brief urge to seek out and throttle Piggot. It wouldn't fix anything, would create problems, wouldn't even be all that satisfying. Given Piggot's stubbornness, it might not be necessary either.

Instead, she sublimates, focuses her loathing on the Endbringer, and accelerates to her maximum speed, aimed straight for the thing's head.

------------------------------------------​

When Powerpoint abruptly vanishes, his legs from the knee down his only remains, Oni Lady's efforts stop being cute. Whatever she's doing, it's not doing much to the Endbringer, but it sure as hell has cost several capes their lives.

Alexandria drops down and demands "What the hell are you doing, Oni Lady." This is not going to continue. She notes details of posture on her way down, collates patterns, guesses: concussed, on her period. Impaired judgment. Possibly just not thinking ahead? Might be possible to talk reason with her. Would be nice to have a reasonable villain for a change.

Oni Lady twitches, makes no effort to hide the twitch. Touched a nerve of some kind. Twitched at the name, specifically. Doesn't like the name. You should have made sure everyone knew what name you wanted to go by if you care that much. No sympathy felt. Oni Lady stares at the bomb in her hand, frowning, seeming to ignore Alexandria deliberately. After a slightly too long delay she responds with "Trying to kill the Simurgh." with almost no inflection. Sounds deliberate, an affectation. Not entirely untrue, her lack of passion, but trying to hide something.

Alexandria frowns and says "Better capes than you have tried many times over the years." Like Hero, Eidolon, Legend, and myself. Dozens of others. Thin justification for casual murder. Oni Lady doesn't care about the lives she's ruining. Wouldn't care if she was killing them for no reason at all. If Alexandria's control weren't inhumanly perfect, she'd probably be feeling sick right now -she hates people like this, the monsters of the world, worse than anything she's done as part of Cauldron. Only puts up with them at all because one of them might be the one who kills Scion one day, saves everyone still alive.

Oni Lady shrugs and says "Doesn't mean I shouldn't try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, ya know?" The casualness isn't affected -she really doesn't care. She understands people are dying, discards their lives as unimportant. Something off about her body language, tone of voice, too. Alexandria can't quite pin it down, the wrongness. A parahuman ability? Some tinkers have secondary powers.

Alexandria renders her frown severe and says "Stop killing perfectly good capes over a maybe." Only haven't wrung out your neck because you might kill Scion. Maybe. I doubt it, narrow tinker power. Just a bomb theme, varying effects, nothing really interesting bar maybe the time stop effect. Clockblocker's is more useful, though. Tempting to crush her skull.

Oni Lady bursts into giggles. They're... strangely masculine giggles. Slightly hysterical, but the register is low, the pattern off. They don't fit the body they're coming from, and not in the way of parahuman abilities -she isn't producing giggles a woman couldn't do, she's producing giggles a woman wouldn't do involuntarily, without thought. Odd. Trans? (But isn't she on her period?... might be a power involved)

In most situations Alexandria would ignore that detail, pretend she hadn't noticed. Once someone is triggered, there's little point to provoking them -second triggers never deviate far enough from their original abilities for a power that is questionable against Scion to become a power that could be instrumental. So she normally ignores trans people who have triggered, lets them think she believes them to be whatever gender they present as. It's convenient.

Non-parahumans are another matter entirely. Trans people have a higher trigger rate than a randomly selected person, on average, and more critically they are 2.3 times more likely to significantly deviate from typical patterns. Most cases aren't helpful -a power that heals people with a soothing aura of darkness isn't any kind of relevance against Scion or even just an Endbringer, as atypical, psychologically, as it is- but they still present a higher proportion of the kinds of powers that might "break the rules" and provide a real shot at survival.

So even though she has 3-and-a-half plans for how to potentially stamp out 90~% of all forms of relevant bigotry, she's never bothered to run them past Contessa. The suffering of a small percentage of humanity is worth the potential for all humanity, in all dimensions, to survive. She tolerates bigotry in the ranks, and even slightly encourages it -if she can promote a trooper who "hates faggots" or a trooper of peerless moral character, she'll promote the latter. That way, the bigot will be out there in the world, interacting with people with better odds of triggering, helping make those triggers happen.

She tells herself that when they win, she'll make it up to the trans/genderqueer/etc community. Sometimes she even believes it.

In the here and now though, in this case, she'll toe the bigot line. Get Oni Lady off-balance, see if she can be talked down from doing this shit from there. If respect for human lives won't sway her, maybe shame or guilt about her own condition will. Once Oni Lady's giggling fit settles down, Alexandria says in a deliberately even tone "You're walking dangerous ground..." narrow the eyes for effect "... sir."

Oni Lady snorts. "Oh yeah, my body language is too masculine or something, you're scary-smart, I'm intimidated now. Not." Alexandria makes sure she doesn't blink. Unexpected. Not necessarily the response itself, but the body language, the tone: Oni Lady has no guilt, shame, or psychological discomfort. No dysphoria. Then why does she self-identify as male in a female body? What happened? Something about her trigger event? The report on the Cornell Bomber, the files on Alicia Black, nothing suggests a woman who has self-identified as a man -and she certainly wasn't a man who became a woman when she triggered. Photos from before her trigger are not of a trans man trying to pass for a woman, and it doesn't fit the psychological profile of the parents anyway. They both desperately wanted a son and seemed essentially happy with their daughter's life choices. Pushed for her to be her best. Not sufficiently accepting to be supportive of a trans child, either.

None of it fit.

Alexandria lets none of this show, giving a thin smile and pointedly saying "A guess you confirmed, if you must know." Oni Lady rolls her eyes behind her mask. Defiant. Disinterested. She thinks I'm trying to impress or intimidate her. Wouldn't admit to being impressed or intimidated if either happened: more relevantly, is genuinely unimpressed. Intimidated by my presence, but not by my deductive ability. She doesn't feel she has secrets to hide. She just doesn't want my fist going through her face. Alexandria smooths out the emotion on her face, produces the blank, unyielding face that intimidates people. "I can see this won't go anywhere."

Then she puts on a burst of speed, grabs Oni Lady by the neck, lifts her off the ground, and lays down the law. "If you try to leave the interdicted zone after this is over, I will personally insure you don't survive the attempt. Don't try." Scared, but not scared off. Reacts to fear by lashing out or becoming intractable. Fight or flight? Fight or fight in her case. Made a mistake. Shouldn't have threatened her -not yet, at least. I still don't think she'd have listened to reason. Maybe a bribe would have worked better?

Oni Lady arms the bomb she's holding. Alexandria slides her eyes toward it. She'd noticed it of course, but ignored it. The way Oni Lady handled it, it was clear that she felt it too dangerous to use in self-defense. Too likely to backfire. Ignorable, therefore. Oni Lady smiles the smile of someone staring death in the face, the fearless face of someone who knows they are dead and decides fear is pointless. "Fuck you and your hypocritical bullshit." Alexandria pays attention to the body language: the bomb is engaged, but not counting down. If it was counting down, Oni Lady would be paying more attention to it, waiting for it to explode, but she is being careful to keep the trigger down, hand tense, tighter than necessary. The bomb is only fully armed once she releases the trigger.

Alexandria lets no emotion show while she studies Oni Lady. Fearless because she thinks she's dead, doesn't actually want to die. Still looking for a chance to survive, thinks I might back off if she holds this threat in my face, save her life. Glancing at the roof's entry point: thinking about escape once I let go.

Won't follow through.

"You won't actually follow through."

Oni Lady follows through.

Damnation.

Alexandria slams a fist into Oni Lady's gut, grabs the bomb, hurls it away as far as she can. I am going to put her dow-

Oni Lady's eyes track something, the eyes widening in shock, possibly some horror, all of it genuine. The bomb. A glance, and Alexandria spots the bomb, its course all wrong for the angle she threw it at. She'd deliberately avoided throwing it at the anomaly, and yet the anomaly is exactly where it is headed. She curses the Endbringer, spends a nanosecond considering punching Oni Lady again -more for the satisfaction than for any practical reason- and then discards the notion as taking too much time and launches herself after the bomb.

She's already thinking about what's the least problematic body part to lose if Oni Lady is right and this bomb is a threat to her. Left leg. It's her weaker leg, she strikes at foes with her legs much less than her hands or arms, she doesn't actually need either of her legs for full mobility, and even the best tinkers struggle to make a completely believable, fully articulate hand. Legs are easier. In the worst case scenario, Director Costa-Brown can suffer an accident or be attacked by a villain and left bound in a wheelchair without raising too many questions at the coincidence. A missing hand would be harder to explain -require a villain whose MO includes cutting off a hand (I can think of three in America, none convenient to the main HQ) to be used, probably still result in tinfoil hats drawing connections. Too early to risk the reveal happening.

So she kicks it with her left leg, right leg tucked into her body as far from the bomb as she can physically go, trying to strike it toward the Endbringer. If it doesn't detonate on contact, then it will have been turned on the monster. If it does detonate on contact... acceptable losses.

It detonates on contact (of course it does), and even with her inhuman reaction times she is only barely able to prevent the suction it creates from pulling her in more than a couple of inches. She stops feeling everything inside the complete blackness, instantly. No report of pain. No temperature, no touch. It's simply gone.

She ups Oni Lady's threat rating and reconsiders her desire to kill the girl. Definitely quarantine, definitely quarantine, but if she can be maneuvered into producing plausible Endbringer killers after the battle (she dares not hope for Scion killers), then Contessa can retrieve them with Doormaker's assistance after the Simurgh has left. Slightly risky, but only slightly -Contessa and the Endbringer cancel each other out to an extent, foil each others' plans, the Simurgh foiling Contessa more than the other way around... but Contessa's influence is able to make such a plan safe enough.

Alexandria activates the comms in her helmet, maintaining the right amount of propulsion to seem trapped, unmoving, and switches to the Triumvirate's personal channel. (The Protectorate's she thinks in a small, barely acknowledged corner of her mind, but even in the privacy of her head she prefers clarity over sentiment) "Eidolon, I need your help placating Oni Lady. She's not going to listen to me at this point, but one of her bombs just removed most of my leg."

She ignores Legend's dismayed outburst. She doesn't need the man's sympathy, and he can't enter the Simurgh's "song" range safely. He doesn't understand the import anyway. It'll come to him in a few minutes. She waits a long, long eight seconds for Eidolon's response, already thinking about how she'll coach him, planning out how she'll "interrupt", be "talked out of" killing the girl, pull good cop/bad cop with Eidolon as good cop...

Eidolon's voice is level, careful. He's surprised, a little concerned, but he recognizes the significance too -they've harmed the Endbringers before. Only (Doctor Manton) the Siberian has ever harmed her before. "I see her. I'm on my way." She coaches him until just before he lands on the roof Oni Lady is gasping on top of.

The following ten minutes are a carefully managed balancing act in which Alexandria keeps herself threatening enough for Oni Lady to see Eidolon as the "reasonable" one, but not so threatening the girl closes up entirely, expecting death. The argument they have is a carefully selected one -for all his virtues, David is a depressingly bad actor, so she selects one he has strong feelings on, one they've been over before. That way his acting is limited to hiding that this is planned -she avoided an actual script, trusting him to be natural and stick to the goals. He does splendidly, doesn't get caught up in the moment, only has two, maybe three moments where he's not genuine enough for her senses (but more than genuine enough for the rest of the world), and she takes the opportunity of "private" conversation to switch over to briefing him.

"Might be oppositional-defiant disorder. Sociopathic, has low affect. She does have emotions, stronger than she evinces, but her low response is not all faked. Don't give her orders, keep to questions, if you try to get her to do something without it being a direct question be subtle-" she gives him a pointed look. He knows which incident she's thinking of. "-and keep ignoring any attempt to bring up Cauldron. She's doing it to provoke us, thinks she knows a lot, doesn't. We can figure that part out later. Right now we need her alive, we need her pliable, we need her ready to tinker. Encourage tinkering if you can without making her think you're trying to do it."

Eidolon gives the prearranged signal that he understands: he crosses his arms (again) as if defensive.

She leaves, trusting Eidolon to handle this, and starts talking to Legend. He figured it out on his own, though he's still upset that she's hurt. His earnest compassion annoys her, useful as it is for managing the Protectorate. She's fine, she makes sure he knows it, she cuts him off when he won't let it go. Not important.

She gives him coordinates to subtly stop some of the threats already forming around Oni Lady. (Bakuda, she hears through Eidolon's earpiece. Whatever) Most of his options are comparatively flashy, but he has invisible lasers, and he puts them to good use to clear out some of the "zombies" searching the area. She makes a mental note -killing the zombies prevents them from triggering their Shaker effect. Useful to know.

Then she turns 95% of her attention to the battle with the Simurgh.

-----------------------------​

When Eidolon informs her that "Bakuda has given me an... idea. For the Simurgh, I mean." Alexandria doesn't bother to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. The conversation they played out for Bakuda's benefit wasn't entirely fake, after all. David's endless, baseless optimism grates. She says nothing, while Legend makes polite noises.

Once the Simurgh's "flesh" melts off its "bones", she finds herself glad she said nothing. This way, she doesn't have to admit to being wrong about anything. She's fairly sure Eidolon will be rubbing it in her face for weeks anyway. Not that he ever intends to gloat, but he never restrains himself from lingering on his big successes when they happen. Self-esteem problems. She understood it. Still found it irritating.

She punches and kicks the Simurgh as hard as she can and feels no give at all. She's already guessed the black knot is either a weak point or a trap, but she's more concerned with determining if she can even contribute anything against this inner layer. The answer: not really.

She flies away, intending to build speed and hit the black knot full-tilt, but is distracted by the clouds converging on the Simurgh's position. It's unprecedented from this Endbringer, and frankly baffling. She racks her brain, trying to imagine why it would be doing this, what's the point, and continues to fly out to her intended starting point.

Once there she turns around, takes a deep breath (More for the psychological effect than any other reason), and goes.

Halfway to impact she sees the glitter of ice and thinks Ah.

Three-quarters of the way to impact she correlates the ice's visual properties to the densest, toughest ice known to the world. She finds herself unsurprised.

On impact with the ice surrounding the black knot, the outermost layer cracks, but nothing more. She also notes that grit and small rocks are mixed in. Protection against the resonance effect? She considers berating herself for not trying to hit the black knot sooner... but it may yet prove a trap, and other parahumans were firing on it to little or no effect. (She makes a note for public benefit that projectiles seem to enter the black knot, rather than impact it, uploads it to the Protectorate database)

Punching the ice provokes small cracks, chips off pieces. She can contribute against this new layer of armor, at least, where her efforts against the "bones" themselves seemed to be in vain.

She puts her back into it. (More metaphorically than literally)

-------------------------------​

Oni Lee finally abandons the fight, injured, around the same time comms chatter brings to Alexandria's attention that somebody -Bakuda, by the sound of it- had tried to approach the growing ocean wall. They'd already turned away, but Alexandria frowned regardless. If it was Bakuda... the girl was already trying to circumvent the quarantine?

Dammit.

Her first impulse is to do something a bit more... permanent. Ensure the girl gets the memo that she is not leaving the city. She's halfway into analyzing the benefits of breaking an arm vs breaking a leg (Leaning toward breaking a leg: impair mobility without impairing tinkering) when she decides she needs more information, first. So, while she continues to pound the Endbringer's ice armor -which is much diminished, apparently difficult for the Endbringer to replace now that the clouds have all been sucked out of the sky- she switches her helmet's mode to "Costa-Brown", cycles to the channel temporarily assigned to the contingent constructing/defending the sea portion of the quarantine wall, and demands "What's this I'm hearing about a cape trying to breach the perimeter at the sea wall?"

"Oh!" Vocal analysis: PRT trooper who never expected to personally talk to the Chief Director. "Chief Director sir, uh, ma'am? The parahuman was successfully dissuaded from approaching and has left. Unless you mean-"

"What did the parahuman do?"

"... nothing, ma'am. They approached to within... two blocks, I'd say, I got on the horn to demand a confirmation code, they left." There was a noise Alexandria pinned down as abrupt displacement of air. She mulled over the information. Given Bakuda's pattern of behavior so far, she'd expected the girl to react to the obstacle by trying to blow it up. It seemed to be how she handled all her problems. Parahuman tunnel vision, she thought with some condescension.

The PRT Trooper apologetically says "Oh. I'm sorry ma'am, I'm to be evacuated now. I have to go." and she hears a click as he turns off his radio.

She doesn't bother to acknowledge his response. She's busy trying to parse Bakuda's behavior. If Bakuda was trying to escape the quarantine, it doesn't add up for her to then turn around and leave because someone had stern words for her. It seemed unlikely Bakuda had expected to go to ground at the ocean -her tinkertech has no particular utility at sea, and there is no reason to believe she could make a tinkertech lair in the ocean, at least no stronger evidence than the fact that she is a tinker. Bakuda's desire to kill the Simurgh didn't offer an explanation -the Simurgh's current position is almost at the other side of the city from the ocean, currently drifting further away.

Blind wandering was a possibility, but a questionable one. The girl had been obviously flagging before making this trek. The most likely thing she would do would be to find a place to rest, or find a way to defend herself and then find a place to rest. Manic focus on her objectives would just loop back to the prior problems -that it didn't make sense for trying to escape the quarantine, and it didn't make sense for trying to kill the Simurgh.

Bakuda's affiliation didn't clarify anything either. It was the wrong part of the city to be trying to reunite with her gang members, it was the wrong part of the city to be engaging in an idiotic attack on the white supremacists even if they hadn't already evacuated their surviving members, and Alexandria was skeptical that Bakuda had any particular grudge with the Archer's Bridge Merchants. She wasn't a biotinker, so she was unlikely to be interested in the animals in the ocean or the people that hadn't been evacuated...

The obvious answer, all things considered, was that Bakuda had been subverted and this somehow advanced the Endbringer's agenda. Even that didn't quite add up -Bakuda would've been bent to the Endbringer's purposes long before she started attacking the Simurgh. Even considering some of the twisting paths the Endbringer's plots could take at times, even considering some of the more convoluted plots Contessa had pulled off, it seemed... off, to hack someone's brain and then allow or force them to attack you, ultimately leading into the Endbringer being substantially weakened in an unprecedented fashion.

The fact that sloughing off more than 95% of the Endbringer's body hadn't allowed them to kill it wasn't even a major blow to morale. Comms chatter made it clear that most of those present were focused on the fact that this was more damage than it had ever taken before, not on the ongoing difficulty in causing further harm to it. A number of parahumans had reacted to the ice armor as proof that the Endbringer was on the back foot -why reveal a new defense if it wasn't vulnerable, after all? Alexandria was skeptical, fully aware that the Endbringers were canny and prone to subterfuge, but that was beside the point.

The point was: "It's a Simurgh plot" was a shaky theory. The best one she had, but not a good one. Especially since she wasn't going to be fooled into thinking Bakuda was immune just on that basis -it wasn't a plot to trick the Protectorate into evacuating a Simurgh bomb, because it wouldn't work.

She pushed it to the back of her mind and returned her focus to the Endbringer.

----------------------------------​

Legend's superhuman sight and inhuman intake of visual information means he spots Bakuda's latest attempt to explode something before anyone else.

She's firing at the seawall.

Oh for the love of-

"No wait,-" Legend corrects. "-she's firing over the seawall."

Alexandria allows a frown to take over her face for a moment, back to being puzzled. What possible avenue of thought could Bakuda's mind be going down? Was the nature of her tinkertech being fundamentally misunderstood somehow, such that firing at the ocean made any sense at all?

She breaks off another chunk of the Simurgh's ice armor, silently waiting for Legend to report on the outcome.

"It's-" he stops. That's ominous. After a second he says, in the tone Alexandria recognizes as the one he uses when he's very upset and trying to keep it out of his voice, "There's some kind of tinkertech in the bay. It's huge, sprawling, and I think it'll be self-propelled when it's completed. Bakuda's grenade cleared away water, did some damage to it, but not nearly as much as I'd prefer."

He doesn't need to say it for Alexandria to know: the Endbringer built it. That's never a good sign.

She does a mental tally of all the tinkers that have been in the Endbringer's reach at any point in this battle, trying to work out what kind of device this might be.

Squealer: specializes in big machinery, primarily vehicles.

Armsmaster: specializes in producing compact, multipurpose tools.

Kid Win: specialty not yet discovered. Has produced hover technology, "laser" weapons that have stun settings, and a "cannon" that teleports in piece-by-piece.

Bakuda: specializes in bombs or grenades, with a versatile output in effects.

Leet: methodology seems to allow him exceptional versatility, but he's been noted to avoid repeats. A limitation?

Trainwreck: Cauldron-made Case 53. Specialty was poorly tested before release, but appeared to be focused on producing cybernetic limbs and other enhancements for himself.

That was the local tinkers, and it already painted an ugly picture. If Leet's capabilities were as they appeared to be, by himself he was granting the Endbringer an alarming array of possibilities, and Kid Win and Trainwreck were sufficiently unclear in their capabilities that it was all too easy for the Endbringer to spring a nasty surprise.

Then there were the visiting tinkers, the ones here to defend against the Endbringer, and not for the first time Alexandria found herself weighing the benefits of allowing Tinkers to participate in fights against the Simurgh against the costs of allowing the Endbringer access to their tinkertech.

Dragon: seems to replace originality with reverse-engineering. Possibly a more esoteric methodology obscuring her true specialty.

On the plus side, Dragon's participation had yet to have a clear manifestation in abuse from the Simurgh -possibly related to her proven immunity to the Endbringer's "song". It was unlikely she'd been tapped by the Endbringer for whatever was being created.

Gremlin: rapidly produces short-lived robots that are especially adept at sabotage of technology.

Host: produces nanotechnological enhancements to her own body (Known to reach Brute 3, Mover 2, Thinker 2, still early in career), possibly others as well.

Orchestrate: constructs robots that he controls with music. If he has a specialty beyond that, it's not yet clear.

Ares: specializes in melee weaponry and heavy (unpowered) armor.

Nautilus: villain specializing in aquatic tools. In spite of name, not known to have produced any kind of submersible vehicle, though this may be a matter of preference or secrecy.

She was especially unhappy that there were two robot-producing tinkers in the area. Three if you counted Host's nanotechnology. (Nautilus' influence on the tinkertech was obvious) It strongly suggested that the tinkertech in the bay would be an autonomous intelligence once completed, presumably working to advance some hideous agenda of the Endbringers'. It seemed unlikely to limit itself to the Endbringer schedule, too.

This made it a priority target, potentially more of one than the Endbringer itself. In the worst-case scenario, the machine might be able to manufacture more devices, more copies of itself not even necessarily the worst possibility. The fact that it was hidden underwater was a problem as well -only a small fraction of parahumans were particularly functional underwater, suffocation was one of the only ways to kill Alexandria herself (Contessa-tested), and many blaster powers and tinkertech weapons had poor penetration into water. Destroying the device would be difficult.

It was a worrying combination, reeking of the kind of no-win scenario the Simurgh arranged routinely. Focusing on the device would take effort away from fighting the Endbringer, buying it time to enact some other plan, while ignoring the device was obviously unacceptable. If it wasn't destroyed, it would be entirely unaffected by the quarantine measures, and the device would probably be able to reach any coastline in the world -which meant it would go to whatever was the most problematic one, of course.

For the moment she confirms that Legend is contributing damage against the device and starts thinking of what capes would be best to handle it. Gremlin and Nautilus working together provide an obvious avenue, but even tinkers with a positive relationship under better circumstances often struggle to actually tinker cooperatively. Usually tinkers who try end up tinkering in each others' vicinity and drawing inspiration from the creations and process of each other, rather than producing a combined whole. Then there was the question of time. More likely she'd have to turn to non-tinkers -the ones that hadn't already been exposed to the Simurgh's song for too long or evacuated to avoid that fate, that is, which wasn't many at this point. There were other parahumans with immunity present, of course, but the list was not eminently suited to attacking the device.

She considered the possibility of ordering inter-city missile batteries to fire on the device in her role as Costa-Brown. After a moment's consideration, she rejected it: it was far too likely the Simurgh would arrange for them to cause cape collateral damage and very possibly not even hit the device. Even much-reduced -and it seemed to have grown a thin layer of its usual flesh underneath the ice at some point- it wouldn't surprise Alexandria if it could use its own body as a shield against missiles. The PRT didn't (yet) have tinkertech missile batteries in place, either.

After a full minute of discarding options, she again switched her helmet's mode to open communications with Contessa.

Simurgh tinker device. Need solution.

You know I can't promise a solution.

Give me one anyway.

So long as you understand the risk.

Alexandria scoffed to herself, but didn't take the bait, simply waiting for Contessa to get on with it.

After a moment's delay, text began smoothly scrolling, paced to match her reading speed exactly. She implemented the instructions perfectly, keeping her awareness up for evidence that the Simurgh's presence was compromising the instructions but otherwise focusing solely on enacting them.

She swooped down at a seemingly arbitrary location and grabbed what was obviously a bomb of Bakuda's, presumably lost at some point and overlooked by others. A short flight later, she grabbed one of the "zombies" -a teenage girl with hair going almost to her knees- by the hair, dangling them such that they couldn't reach her, not unless they thought to start pulling theirself up their hair. The incoherent screaming didn't suggest that much intelligence.

From there she flew over to directly above the tinkertech, using the tallest building in the city as a visual reference point as instructed by Contessa. Then she jerked the "zombie" up, stuffed the grenade into their mouth, activated the grenade, and with a violent spin threw them head-first into the water, all before the "zombie" could react and attempt to convert Alexandria.

The final step was to flee as fast as she could West.

This final step ran into the Endbringer.

It was a small thing, which was why she knew it was the Endbringer. A misaligned attack from one of the Blasters -she recognized it as the work of the independent hero "Sticking Point"- missed the Endbringer, missed every defensive measure the Endbringer's telekinesis was controlling, passed cleanly through the handful of capes remaining to fight the Endbringer, and went straight for Alexandria. She had all of 1/100th of a second to see it coming as she turned and infer these events before it impacted her.

Sticking Point's Blaster power was convenient for a hero who wanted to make live captures. This was ironic, as Sticking Point had tried repeatedly to execute Kill Orders and also to convince the local department to issue Kill Orders on villains he had a grudge with. Where most Blaster powers imparted heat or concussive force in an attempt to inflict damage, Sticking Point launched a pitch-black net that enshrouded an individual on impact and proceeded to carry them along its ballistic trajectory until it impacted a solid surface, after which there was a 57.7 second-long delay before the net crumbled to a fine powder scientists had determined was identical in all observable ways to coffee grindings. The net had yet to be destroyed, deformed, or in any way caused to deviate from its course by any parahuman he had interacted with, nor by non-powered efforts. There were powers the scientists suspected would work, but as Sticking Point was an indie hero, he wasn't very obliging about showing up for tests. Alexandria had her own suspicions of viable options, and they included none of the capes that were currently in Brockton Bay.

Naturally.

Bar Eidolon, of course, but he would take too long to pull a relevant power.

The result being: Alexandria was plummeting down toward where she'd just set up an insanely destructive combination at Contessa's direction, where the final instruction was to escape as fast as she could. Not only was it a near-certainty that she would be unable to escape the net herself, but it was too late anyway.

"Door me."

She fell through the portal, which promptly winked out, almost certainly to preserve Cauldron's oh-so-important secrecy.

She was still in Brockton Bay, still falling toward the "zombie" that was in the middle of its own effect triggering, its body surprisingly intact for having impacted water at speeds that would make it equivalent to slamming into concrete. Additionally, the grenade inside of it should have detonated by now, and Alexandria could find no evidence of such. She worried for a moment that Contessa's plan had failed, but then the "zombie" rippled with green lights, expanded grotesquely for a moment, and then burst into a stark white effect that, in short order surrounded Alexandria, though not before she took a deep breath.

The net did not break or vanish, and she realized it was still dragging her down, further into the water. She saw, dimly, the Tinkertech device in all its vast, black-plated terribleness, become consumed by the white effect, seeming to turn into an origami version of itself, black outlines on white paper. The process was slower than she might have imagined, not complete by the time she had impacted the sea floor, churning up thick brown mud. Her vision cleared before her breath failed, after 15 seconds, the mud overtaken by the white effect and vanishing.

The white effect stopped expanding, Alexandria mulling over her life choices, wondering what, if anything, she should've done differently. Her brain insisted "Nothing, save perhaps not trusting Contessa to be sufficiently proof against the Simurgh." Her heart disagreed vehemently with her life choices. She ignored it, as she usually did, and focused on watching the effect of what she had done.

It was difficult to parse, and she was beginning to truly suffocate, which was not helping. The device shuddered and activated, climbing to many spidery feet, or so she guessed, the visual input sufficiently bizarre she was not certain she understood it. The device tried to move East, out into the ocean, but almost immediately stopped as if it had bumped into a wall. Alexandria guessed it had hit the edge of the effect, though it was hard to say with how there was no depth perception at all, no shadows or other subtle clues to provide a 3-dimensional understanding of the image.

Her mouth opened on its own, conscious control over her involuntary actions be damned. She sucked sea water into her lungs and immediately, viscerally regretted it, while a more analytical portion of her mind thought Well then, dumb primate instincts, why did you force me to breathe it in?

That was the moment the net disintegrated, and Alexandria was abruptly not underwater, instead sharing a endless white void with the black tinkertech machine. It turned its attention to her the instant she vomited up sea water, and she barely had time to suck in air -empty of most scents, but gloriously breathable- before it was aiming some kind of weapon at her and firing.

She threw herself to one side and choked out "Door me."

Nothing happened, aside from a sky-blue ray striking her previous position.

Wonderful.

-------------------------------------​

It was only once she'd fully dismantled the device that Alexandria realized that, barring some form of rescue occurring, her fate would be to die of dehydration. She needed little in the way of fluids, only needing to support her brain, so it would take longer than if she were not a parahuman, as well.

She settled herself in to be rescued, attempting to avoid thinking hard. Don't overwork the brain, draw it out...

------------------------------------​

By Alexandria's estimation it had been three months, and she felt no worse off, no closer to death. No evidence that rescue was coming had manifested itself, either.

Alexandria had begun to suspect that this was meant to be a fate worse than death. She hadn't gone mad from boredom and isolation yet, but that didn't mean it wouldn't happen. There was nothing to explore -it had only taken three days of effort to determine that the space contained nothing except her, the device's broken remains, and the remains of various fish. They weren't rotting. She'd tried eating one, but it had tasted like nothing and seemed to provide no nutritional benefit.

Nothing to do, unable to kill herself -she'd tried suffocating herself, but that damn reflex wouldn't let her hold her breath for long enough and nothing in the space had sufficed to block off her lungs- her fate was to go mad over an eternity.

She couldn't quite tell herself she didn't deserve this personal Hell.

She returned to looking for a escape from this damnable cage, ignoring that she'd run out of possible ideas a month ago.

 

[Ghoul King]

4.5

So, okay. Okay. Need to do... something about the tinkertech horror show. Before it's activated, ideally. Which is a problem since I'm out of stuff and already blew up my entire bag of stolen stuff and -you know, I might've blown up the lair when I set all that off. Might not even be an option to go back there.

Wonderful. Fucking wonderful.

I move to rub at my forehead tiredly, hit my mask. Ugh. I'm sweaty, too. Tired... hungry, now that I think about it. I'm feeling nauseous at this point, which could be any number of things that are going on. For all I know I've got some infection from one of my injuries or... whatever. Haven't exactly put a lot of effort into my health since the Simurgh showed up.

I make sure to retrieve the little red wagon of stuff I've already collected. Don't want all the effort I put into it to go to waste because I'm too derp. Then I dig around in the apartments for snacks -stuff like pop-tarts I can just open up and eat, no need to cook it or anything. I end up focusing on plainer foods for a bit, as the first chocolate pop-tart I bite into makes the nausea worse. Fortunately, plain isn't hard to come by. Unfortunately, I have trouble eating all that much, too screwed-up all around to cope with food particularly.

After I've spent a few minutes recuperating, I add some snacks to the wagon, and then make my way to the rooftop to scout my surroundings. Maybe I'll spot a workable hideout while I'm up there, and if nothing else figuring out where the phasing jerks are most concentrated is a worthwhile benefit.

As a result, I get to see the tinkertech device have... something done to it. Like an inverted version of one of the phase zombies triggering its effect? Huh. Thank everything. I... didn't actually have any new ideas for what to do. I'd hoped food and a few minutes rest might help me think, but no, I've had no new ideas.

I start looking around, trying to make a determination for where to go from here, but the Simurgh catches my eye: it begins ascending, quite rapidly at that.

I stare at it until long after it's become such a small point in the sky that I'm not sure I'm not imagining it still being visible.

… really?

That was... anti-climactic. I guess it considered itself foiled now that its tinkertech plan was foiled? (Or the device's true goal accomplished, but, ugh, fuckin' Simurgh. Let's just... not go there) I... well, I'd not dared hope it would get killed here, not really, but I was expecting more fanfare? There's not even cheering or anything from people that I can tell.

Then I remember my suspicion that once the Simurgh leaves things will get really bad, since for some reason most of the trapped people seem to be lying low.

Which means I need to rush to find a lair.

Goody.

I look around, but nothing jumps out at me as an obvious... Best Buy or Walmart or whatever. Gotta be something somewhere, but I'm not seeing anything from this rooftop. So instead I head back indoors to retrieve my little kid's wagon of stuff and then go outside with it and just... wander. Which is a fucking terrible plan, but I'm not in any condition to come up with a better plan. Too tired, too sick, too everything.

The initial few minutes are kind of peaceful. With no looming Simurgh, no aerial battle as capes try to drive it off, etc, it's just... quiet, aside from distant screams and other far-away signs that things aren't so peaceful. But so long as they're distant and don't sound like they're getting closer, I can mostly ignore them. Not like there wasn't that kind of stuff going on when the Simurgh was around. I just didn't pay it much attention is all.

God there are a lot of bodies, though. I'm not looking forward to these rotting and turning the place into a giant pit of disease. I'm going to need to try to do something about that, and hopefully other people will deal with it -not via cannibalism, that's not how you control corpse-based disease hazards. Fortunately, this is America, so proooobably basically nobody is sufficiently psychologically comfortable with the idea of "food doesn't actually just come from a grocery store fairy" for that to be a problem. On the other hand, modern people seem to be bad about underestimating disease, which makes no fucking sense to me but whatever. Have to worry that Brockton Bay's survivors won't think to torch the corpses... even without Simurgh interference making people crazy and/or stupid.

I should probably start working on plans to combat disease once I'm set up and defensible. Also need to keep in mind the potential for rotting corpses to contaminate any water source I end up using. Even piping isn't necessarily safe, so if the water systems are still functioning for some reason, that won't automatically mean that the water is a good idea to use.

The longer I walk the more I hear signs of other people skulking around. None of the screaming lunatic types, not yet, and thankfully most people are... terrible at stealth, frankly. Makes it easy for me to sneak past where possible, even with the wagon making noise as I drag it.

The first time someone spots me in spite of my efforts has me tense, uncertain how I'm going to defend myself. No tools at all, no time to make anything. It ends up being a moot point -they slowly back away and duck out of sight, clearly scared to confront me.

Oh yeah. I am a costumed person, so obviously a parahuman, one most people aren't familiar with.

I'm not willing to just trust in this, though. For all I know the Simurgh has hacked a bunch of people to go ballistic if they see me. I can't actually expect reasonable behavior -especially since there's the phasing, exploding zombies, which are clearly not concerned with personal survival and not interested in rational discourse. And they're all infectious, so unless some factor I'm unaware of limits their potential to spread, it really shouldn't take all that long for most of the remaining population to be reduced to just the zombies.

Kind of wishing I'd offed the originator when I had the chance. I could've done it, would've missed out on testing a bomb type on the Simurgh, but... ugh. Risking myself short-term in hopes of long-term gains isn't so good a strategy when I can't just load a save. Not much use to going for a better future if you don't have a future. Need to work on that habit.

To be fair, I wasn't expecting an exotic plague...

Ugh, whatever.

I continue to skulk around the city, trying to not look as nervous as I am, increase the likelihood of people interpreting me as a Scary Cape, Don't Mess With, rather than as a Scared Cape, Kill While Still Vulnerable. It seems to work okay, or at least other people are disinclined to mess with me for some reason.

When capes occasionally fly overhead, I try to be inconspicuous without looking like I'm trying to do that. I find myself wondering how much longer that's going to keep happening. At least Alexandria isn't on my case again. That was not fun, and I still worry Contessa will step through and end me for having removed a chunk of Alexandria's leg, no chance of doing anything because fuck you PtV is dumb bullshit. Fucking hate the idea of existing in a world Contessa exists in. Hopefully the Simurgh dust is shield enough. I mean, that would be kind of dumb, and there's that "models" thing, but I can hope. Would be kind of ironic, I think. Somehow. Okay maybe not, I'm tired and just... ugh.

Then a metal dude turns a corner, spots me, and starts jogging at me. Fuck.

I turn and dart off to one side, but I stumble when the motion reminds me of the wagon I'm dragging by virtue of some of the stuff slewing its way out of the thing. Shit. I need as much of this stuff as possible.

Metal dude calls out, "I'm just here to talk!" I snort, because yeah right, and try to find a balance between speed and stability of the wagon while fleeing. Then he yells, "I don't tire, you know!"

… shit.

I pull to a stop and watch him, backing away a little when he gets closer than I'd prefer. I want some room to flee if he lunges at me. To my surprise, he comes to a halt once I start backing up. Usually people try to match me, completely negating the point of backing away from them.

Disgruntled, I bite out, "What."

Very seriously, he says, "Oni Lady-" Oh come fucking on "-I'm here to deliver a message to you."

Wait. What?

Slowly, not at my best and just plain puzzled, I say, "That doesn't make sense."

He shrugs, and there's a brief metal-on-metal screech, which confuses me because other than the muted clanking as his feet have hit the (Simurgh dust-coated) ground, his movement has been no louder than a flesh-and-blood human. Then he says, "I volunteered, if that helps any." After a pause he adds, "I'm also as safe from the Simurgh's plots as you can get. Safer than even a drone would be."

I'm about to say it doesn't when a glowing woman, flying below rooftop height, comes into my line of sight and very obviously spots us and heads our way. My heart rate picks way up again, because I recognize her from earlier -it's her of the DNA beams, Purity. I'm basically helpless against her, and I wouldn't want to go up against her with bombs. Running won't help. She'll just kill me. Metal man here is probably fucking useless as even a distraction.

Which leaves talking to the racist who... oh god. I think she's been here the whole fight.

I feel more fucked than I have at any point tonight, which feels faintly... unfair? I stood up to Alexandria and attacked the Simurgh and have repeatedly pissed off Lung and had to deal with Coil's hax and I'm pretty sure I'm going to die to a character who was barely relevant to canon, however powerful she might have been. Not even one so little covered that the lack of information on them is what gets me killed. Just... wrong place, wrong time.

Metal dude finally notices that I'm not looking at him, but past him, or maybe notices Purity's approaching glow. Whatever the case, he stops with trying to talk bullshit at me and turns to face her. To my surprise, he very calmly nods once she lands nearby and says, "Ma'am."

She demands, "Where is my son." without bothering to really acknowledge him.

I shift uneasily, but the metal guy holds out a hand in a handshake (Purity is surprised, I think, though it's hard to tell with her glow up. I think I catch her recoiling a little, anyway) and says, "I'm Weld, here to help. You'll forgive me for not knowing who your son is, miss?..."

My brain finally goes Oh. Metal guy. Weld. Duh. while Purity introduces herself seemingly reflexively, including accepting the handshake. She shakes herself, regains her focus for a moment, and I consider edging away while their attention is on each other, but I don't think I'm remotely enough of a ninja to sneak the wagon away and I'd probably fuck up even if I abandoned the wagon and ugh. Once she's introduced herself, Purity's face twists up, and she says, "Please, they've already killed my precious daughter, I can't lose my son too."

Weld claps his hands together with a clink and magnanimously says "Well ma'am, the PRT will do everything in its power to ensure he's safe."

Purity goes very still when he says the PRT and now I start edging away from Weld because I think I know where this is going.

She vaporizes him.

It... takes a while for him to be reduced to a metal skeleton, with him first trying to escape the beam, failing, and then moving to slam into Purity, but she just flies into the air and keeps the beam focused on him. The beam runs down after a minute, quiet enough for me to hear her screaming abuse at his still-standing skeleton, but I've been backing away this whole time and take the opportunity of her starting the beam back up to take things at a run, hoping that either the noise will cover me or her crazy will cover me. Or both. Both works.

Fucking hell, I need a place to hide. And sleep.

It occurs to me that just earlier I was thinking to myself that I need to stop trying to optimize my future by taking risks with my present, and the fuck am I doing? Wandering around, trying to find ~the perfect hideout~ while unarmed and burdened by this wagon of shit I do, admittedly, really actually need... but still. What I can and should do is find a short-term place to hole up, get some sleep, eat, tinker, and then go looking for a more long-term hideout when I'm rested and armed.

Once I'm a block or so away from Purity and have broken line of sight, I duck into pretty much the first apartment-type building I find -the door thankfully open- and make my way to... the second floor, I decide. First floor is too convenient to potential looters, but I really just need to get sleep, so I shouldn't go hiding on a higher floor. Takes too long, takes too much energy, and also anybody trying to hide has good odds of selecting the top floor for maximum distance from the ground floor entrance, so my attempt to find a place to sleep might turn into a fight I'm not ready for if I do try to go to the top.

So I go to the second floor, close the door of an abandoned apartment quietly, and go to lay down in... the kitchen is what I end up using, just because I don't want to go to the bedroom, too obvious, and I can sleep hidden from the door, using the kitchen thingamabob as a visual barrier. It takes a long time to fall asleep, probably in part because I'm half-expecting to never wake up again if I fall asleep under these circumstances.

Still, I eventually drift off...

--------------------------------------------------------------------​

When I wake up, I feel like crap. Not exactly surprising. After a second I wake up enough to wonder if I was woken by something in the building, rather than just having gotten enough sleep, and I tense up and listen in. I can hear... something moving, somewhere. Having difficulty placing direction and nature. Not bugs. Human? Might be a dog, though it's an unusually quiet dog if it's a dog. I'm not thrilled at the idea of it being a dog. Then again, I'm not thrilled with the idea of it being a human either. Well, mostly I'm worried about the possibility of a parahuman, but while I've gotten some sleep now and feel less crap than I did earlier, I've not actually got gear. An unpowered human with a baseball bat could still kill me pretty easily.

I sit up as quietly as I can, trying to triangulate the noise by moving my head back and forth. It takes me a minute to remember that this is some kind of apartment building and this is basically guaranteed to do nothing except confirm the sound is coming through the door. Which it is. Shock.

It takes me a minute to remember where my pile of crap is in this apartment. My initial impulse is to start pulling stuff from it and get me tinkertech, but I hesitate before actually committing to that when it occurs to me that I need to be careful and not make noise and I struggle enough with the tinker fugues I can't really trust myself to actually pull that off. Maybe if I was faster that wouldn't be a concern, but it takes me a couple minutes to make even a quick, simple bomb. That's too slow if there's somebody wandering around with a gun. "When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away," only replace 'the cops' with 'my next tinkertech device.'

Iffy plan.

I've been continuing to listen while thinking, and there's someone talking. Two people, in fact, which is sort of reassuring. One person talking to themselves would be a lot more likely to be a deranged lunatic who cannot be reasoned with. Two people implies they're at least capable of cooperating and communicating with each other. Which... doesn't prevent them from having been reprogrammed to hunt and kill me in specific.

Still. Probably less screwball.

I can't make out actual words, but I can work out tone. They're cautious in a casual sort of way. Like, they're not specifically expecting anyone to hear them, but they're trying to keep their voices down on general principle. Not quiet enough, in my opinion, but I've run into worse. I think they're scavenging? I'm periodically hearing... rustling, or clanking, or something. Stuff running into other stuff. Loading a bag? A box? Can't work it out. I'm... pretty confident they're not intending to stay here, though. Might be wrong.

Doesn't mean it's safe for me to just wait them out, though. If they come in here and attack me, I'm basically fucked.

Carefully, carefully, I move to go looking for weapons. I'm sort of hoping to find a loaded pistol somewhere, but even just something to hit people with would be a big improvement. I wince a little at every sound I make. I'm quieter than most people, but I've never achieved the total silence I want. I push a bedroom door open, wincing at the tiny creak it make-

-and that's when Oni Lee appears behind me and slits my throat.

Okay, not exactly. It's what he tried to do, but my costume's neck piece is some kind of uncomfortable rubber tubing that's tough enough the knife didn't reach my flesh at all. Which itself indicates he wasn't using the mono-molecular knife for whatever reason (Lost it?), thank god.

I have an impulse to pull a Taylor and drop to the ground and play dead. I dismiss the impulse because no, that's fucking stupid. Shadow Stalker is an idiot for falling for that in canon -if you slit someone's throat, they don't drop like a sack of potatoes and go silent. They bleed all over the place, they make horrifying sounds as air tries to go in and out of a hole in their throat that's spraying blood as well, and they're probably going to be flailing until they're weak from blood loss or asphyxiation. As far as I know, you only just drop and stop moving if your heart or brain are destroyed. Oni Lee's done this a million times, he's got to know better.

So I reject that as a dumb plan with barely a moment's thought and go for trying to smack him with an elbow. I technically succeed, but there's abruptly another Oni Lee in front of me going for a stab so said success is pretty pointless. I try to sort of twist so the new Oni Lee is stabbing the old Oni Lee, but he's too canny for that and the knife smoothly cuts through one of the straps of my armor. Ooooh shit. I kick out at new Oni Lee as old Oni Lee collapses into ash behind me, but new Oni Lee is apparently already old Oni Lee because quite abruptly a body is landing on me from above, knocking me to the floor, pinning me, and calmly starting to cut at my armor's weak points.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

Emergency measures! Use words!

"I thought we were on the same side or something?" I go for laconic. Not sure how well it works.

Oni Lee grunts. To my surprise, this is followed by a real response. "You are a traitor. You will die." Okay, plan: Talk At Him is a bust.

Distantly, I can hear the two people I heard earlier scrambling to get away. No idea what they think they're hearing, but apparently they want nothing to do with it. I try to roll over, but Oni Lee blocks that, because of course he does. I try to kick at him, but this is completely the wrong position to put power behind such a kick. (Though to my surprise I have the flexibility for my feet to make contact with his back, briefly) I abruptly relax, collapsing to the floor, but Oni Lee rides it out with an unimpressed grunt.

Then my armor finally gives way and that causes Oni Lee to loose his balance for a moment and I push off the ground and he falls over and for a second I'm thinking I'll run but then I remember this is Oni Lee and instead I lunge for him, he's already rolling to his feet, I jump and slam into his back and throw my right arm around the front of his head to cover his eyes and he starts slashing at the arm but the armor is taking it and I get my other arm around his throat and he's falling forward toward the ground and I think he's trying to cause me to be launched over him but I just tighten both of my grips and we hit the ground and Oni Lee makes an unpleasant sound as my arm around his throat digs in and he's made a mistake he can't cut at me anymore, the knife went skittering away and his arm made an even more unpleasant sound.

I'd sag in relief except I still need to kill him. (Why isn't he exploding on me? It's the obvious thing to do, so why isn't he? Shit) I'm not sure what he's trying to accomplish at this point, but he's moving oddly underneath me -ohshit he's trying to get his legs under him, he can jump like that, I use my newly-discovered flexibility to swing my lower body up and back and then pull my lower body back down so it slams into him and he staggers, one leg slipping off to one side, and his hands are starting to clutch convulsively at my arms and he's making these really ugly choking sounds and he's still trying to get his legs underneath him so I repeat the slam from earlier, and he... does something, but I think he's too weakened because nothing comes of it that I can tell so I think he failed.

My arms are sore by the time he slumps. I'm not willing to assume he's actually unconscious, though. He's way too skilled for me to assume that, and I don't actually have any real experience or knowledge when it comes to this kind of stuff. So, rather awkwardly, I maintain my lock over his throat and eyes and awkwardly push us both over toward where his knife has ended up. This takes... entirely too long.

Once there, I experimentally move my left arm away from his throat. Just a bit. No reaction. I hesitate, still half-expecting a trick, but finally bite the bullet and lunge with my left hand for the knife. My heart rate spikes when Oni Lee moves, but then I realize it's just his body settling, not conscious motion.

Then I slit his throat.

(This is not nearly as smooth or easy as it sounds, and it's utterly disgusting)

I keep his eyes covered with my arm, glance around. Bag, paper bag, abandoned on the kitchen floor. I drag his bleeding body over, and awkwardly make the exchange, bag going over until it covers the upper portion of his face and then arm being removed. Then the bag goes the rest of the way down.

Then I breath a sigh of relief. He's probably not dead-dead yet, but he will be shortly, and even if he wakes up before he dies, blood loss should prevent him from getting the paper bag off.

… when I was plotting how to kill Oni Lee, this is not at all how I thought it would go.

Now that the whole thing is over, I realize I'm... feeling almost human. I must've gotten a decent amount of sleep after all.

I lock the front door and start tinkering.

----------------------------------------------------​

All right, now I'm armed and ready to take on threats on my way to finding a place to lair long-term. A dozen relatively standard fragmentation grenades, one black hole bomb, three freezing bombs, and two bombs that temporarily... reverse time? That can't possibly be what they'll actually do, but I still have a conviction it's what they'll do. I made them while thinking I wanted some less-than-lethal options for if combat gets too close, so presumably they're safe for me to drop on top of myself. Either that or my shard has no idea what I wanted and I'll die if I try that.

That done, I find a mirror and more closely examine what's been done to my costume. It turns out what I've lost is an outer layer of stiff, thick body armor that I'd thought was more directly integrated with the under-layer of more flexible stuff, but no Oni Lee cutting at stuff separated the two. Closer examination of the arms and legs reveals they have a broadly similar setup, and they haven't lost their outer layer of stuff in the combat, which is probably why he couldn't cut up my arms. Kind of worrying that he already knew what his knife would be able to cut through and what it wouldn't, though. Makes me think he'd been thinking about killing me for a while. The Simurgh attacking might have prevented him from successfully killing me, because it wouldn't have been remotely this half-assed if he'd done it under non-Endbringer circumstances. Probably just one day I'd have gone to sleep and not woken up. (Or woken up amid an explosion)

Happy thought, right? Right. (Should I be grateful to the Simurgh? Would it even care?)

Okay! Time to explore!

----------------------------------------------------------------​

Okay, wow, that wall went up surprisingly fast. I mean, it's clearly not done yet, but it's already taller than a single-story building, mostly. I know it is, because I can see some single-story buildings nearby it, which it is towering over.

I'm going to assume cape involvement and move on with my life.

In the time I slept, a lot of chaos seems to have happened. There are more bodies littering the streets than there were earlier, a lot of buildings have been broken into and looted -commercial buildings seem hit hardest- and to my surprise I'm seeing people moving in groups. Armed groups. Some of them seem to have already made symbols: one group, for instance, has impromptu armbands depicting a red circle with a blue line through it, with the same image on a makeshift flag carried by the center member of the group. That particular group tightened up and eyed me warily when I spent too long looking at them in interest, so I moved on, but they're not the only group to do that.

Post-Simurgh politics?

Naturally, one of the groups I run into is a bunch of skinheads -some of whom have quite obviously been shaved recently, not to mention incompetently- who have stopped bothering to pretend to hide that they're E88 gang members. Or maybe just ideologically aligned, given none of this particular group has any guns. They sneer, do stuff I suspect is supposed to be sexually evocative, and otherwise indicate they're coming for me and are going to do terrible, awful things to me.

I hold up one of my bombs, and the group visibly deflates. Oh, they jeer and sneer, but now they're moving away, and nervously glancing at it while trying to look like they aren't.

It could be considered irony that the group I run into that is a problem is actually a bunch of ABB gangers.

"Miss Bakuda, over here!"

Aaaah shit. I thought I was done with this!

Reluctantly, I turn to face the group of teen-to-twenty-somethings in ABB colors, one of them waving a flag (Read: bedsheet, hanging from a rake) with what I'm pretty sure is meant to be Lung's mask depicted on it. It's a sufficiently impressive likeness I find myself thinking seriously, why is so much artistic talent being wasted on this gang?

Then I focus on actually interacting with these jerks.

"What?" I'd say that I said this in my surliest tone, but really it's just my normal level of grump. This just happens to be higher than most people's level of grump, and more importantly is probably more grump than these ABB dudes (and dudettes) are expecting from me. After all, ~obviously~ I would love to be reunited with my gang, right? Right. (Wrong)

And yeah, there's a pause, some glancing back and forth. I notice it seems to be among the younger members of the group. The older ones take it in stride, no visible reaction.

… oh, right. Their primary boss is Lung, their secondary boss is Oni Lee, and I wasn't exactly a warm and friendly individual when I was actively cooperating with ABB interests. Of course they're inured to surly, irritable people on their side, at least out of the parahuman bosses. Of which I am one of.

Right.

… fuck.

"A Walmart's been secured, boss. Our little group-" The guy talking jerks a finger to indicate the half-dozen other ABB gangers with him. "-is out looking for peeps to bring back, get organized." He shrugs with one shoulder. "Wasn't 'specting to find capes, but hey, here ya are."

I squint at the guy talking. That's a fuckin' weird accent he's got. Is it a Brooklyn accent?... no, he doesn't sound like Harley, I'm pretty sure that's not it. Whatever. Not sure why his accent even bothers me. I mull over whether -no, no. I've got a promise from Eidolon that I'll have support in the quarantine zone. My biggest motive for not giving the ABB the middle finger has been how unlikely it's been that I'd manage to either stand on my own two feet successfully or integrate into another group. While I'm not going to integrate with Cauldron, and I'm not precisely standing on my own, I still don't really need to bother putting up with the the ABB.

Which is good, because I don't want to be any kind of racist, and I don't see myself successfully managing to navigate the social minefield of the ABB in the long-term anyway. It's worked out amazingly well so far, but... for one thing, Oni Lee is dead, and Lung is either gone or tainted by the Simurgh, and I have this suspicion that their influence was a big factor in how well things were going. Very risky to try to keep leaning on that.

The ABB thugs shift uncomfortably. I assume I've been silent for too long. I consider literally flipping them off, but provoking them serves no real purpose for me. I can (probably) break from the group without making them hostile outright.

"I'm already situated." Which is arguably a lie, as I'm still looking for a place to hole up, but it is true that I've got -probably- my direct physical needs handled for the foreseeable future.

An eyebrow goes up on Talky McWeirdAccent. "Tha's good, boss, good to hear. We could use some more space for the Boys-" I find it faintly amusing for him to say that when women are clearly a part of the ABB frontliners and I'm Bakuda. "-truf be told. Lead on."

Dammit. I really don't want to be putting up with this crap. Also, I have nowhere to lead them to.

Hmm. Maybe I should put up with them and hope they meatshield for me.

No, I really don't want to be associated with the ABB anymore. And for all I know it's a Simurgh trap anyway. I mean, anything can be a Simurgh trap, but minimizing contact with affected people worked okay (Well, better than not doing so) in canon, so it should work for me, here.

So no, I'm not doing that.

Instead, I raise an eyebrow -no idea if they can see me doing so, but whatever- and idly comment, "Are you sure you really want a volatile maker of volatile bombs who's been Simurgh-ed 'defending'-" I do air quotes with my fingers and everything. "-your people? 'cause I see problems with this plan."

There's some shuffling and uncomfortable glances thrown about by the group. I'm kind of curious as to whether it's Simurgh influe-? Wait. She'd probably make them react differently to having this pointed out to them, if so. Never mind. Anyway, they're clearly having second thoughts... except for the guy doing the talking.

He shrugs. "Anybody's a risk. Ain't seein' no reason to be turnin' down an ally 'cause they might flip out."

Aaaand now people are sort of nodding along. Nobody is explicitly and verbally agreeing with him, but they're also not exactly acting like my point stands.

Fuckit.

I palm a freeze bomb, and hold it up, clear and visible. "I. Am. Not. Going. Back. 'kay?"

Weird Accent Guy sort of... rolls his eyes at me. "Yeah, sure. Whatever. Ya won't."

I sort of wave behind him with my other hand. You know, where the rest of the ABB folks used to be? They ran. They know what's what.

Weird Accent Guy stares, apparently in shock (Surprised he didn't hear them fleeing), and then turns back to me. I smile under the mask and wiggle the bomb a little and now he's properly freaking out and running.

I don't relax until several minutes after he's out of sight.

---------------------------------------------------------------------​

Finally I manage, after three scares involving those fucking explodey-zombies and burning a frag on what I think was a Merchants group reveling in the chaos, to find a place that seems like a defensible little location that will hold me for a while.

It's a hotel, a high-ish class one. More entrances than I'd like, but fewer than some of the alternatives, and its parking lot is fenced off well enough that it helps limit traffic right out the gate. The actual people-sleep-here structure only has four entrances, one for each cardinal direction, though I'm worried about the windows on the ground floor. More of them are intact than I'd expect, all things considered...

What decides me is that it's clearly not popular after the local apocalypse. Not sure why, but the Simurgh dust lacks more than a couple of footprint trails, and when I poke around inside -cautiously- I don't see or hear other people lurking about. Not even too many corpses -gonna need to get those out of here, and quick- to spoil things. It's got food, for at least a little bit, and it provides access to water, electronics for tinkering, and I can use... desks or whatever for other raw materials.

Plus an individual room is small and only has one door plus the window. On the top floor, that gives me something reasonably secure to sleep in, so long as I set up claymores or something at both entryways. And I can riddle other parts with traps semi-randomly, to fuck with would-be invaders who aren't sure where I'm operating from.

Some searching establishes that there are suites with built-in kitchens, even... though those are also the largest, most open ones, and I suspect other people would beeline to them for various reasons. Still, having the option to cook my own food without having to wrestle my power into letting me make a goddamn hotplate is definitely nice.

Well.

Time to start making claymores from dirty dishes and televisions.

… so glamorous.