- Location
- behind you
Then they went on a magical journey, then explosions happened
Exploding Canon (Worm SI)
- Thread starter Ghoul King
- Start date
-
- Tags
- worm bakuda self insert oni-lady
Then they went on a magical journey, then explosions happened
- Location
- Germany
[...] and then the Simurgh chimes in.
A piece of the floating rubble separates from the rest and glides into the Simurghs waiting hands. It turns out to be an old boombox and as her finger presses the play button, a slightly static but loud eighties melody begins to chime forth. Some words are garbled, but can still be heard, albeit with new meaning:
"Oni, Oni Lady"
"Like there's no tomorrow"
"Take my heart, don't lose it"
"Listen to your heart"
"Oni, Oni Lady"
"To know you is to love you"
"If you call me baby"
"I'll be always yours"
[aka the moment Ziz reveals to like Modern Talking]
GorgonEyed
Five-Star Horror Ham
- Location
- Central Library, Hole-In-The-Sky branch.
Of all the mistaken details of a character's appearance a fanfiction author can fall for, the hair color of an adolescent girl is one of the simplest ones to hand-wave away.
Just saying.
Last edited:
- Location
- Some park.
YESyesyesyesyesyesyes...
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Bakuda primed her black hole bomb and had just set it on a countdown, right there, next to Alexandria. The implication is that she was going to use it on Alexandria, or on both of them.
- Location
- Madison, WI
Ohh, I thought she started the count down, and Alexandria gut punched her before she can load the bomb and shoot it at the Simurgh. And I was thinking wtf why, the collateral damage is bad, but trying new things against the Endbringers should be encouraged?
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Well that was more him being stupid enough to get up close, and as she didn't have a way of communicating....
Plus, did anyone really like Leggy all that much?
- Location
- Wherever
Eeeh. I interpret Alexandria's death in canon as a deliberate act of a super-intelligence who, intellectually, believes Cauldron's actions to be the best of a bunch of terrible options, but emotionally cannot stand the guilt and so on. Doctor Mother and Contessa both consider themselves to be monsters that death is too good for, to the point that Doctor Mother is able to casually chat with Sveta and company about potential horrible fates she might suffer if she takes a Cauldron vial, and wouldn't you be so happy if I was some obscenity of misery and suffering? Given that Alexandria is supposed to have perfect conscious control over even normally unconscious body language and so on, I can easily buy that Alexandria hates herself while showing exactly zero evidence of such to everyone around her.
So I interpret her death in canon as "Suicide-by-
I actually considered saying "Well, Madison might've just dyed her hair blonde by now in Exploding Canon", but it felt a little too much like "GUYS, NOT THAT I'M ADMITTING THIS IS MADISON, BECAUSE I'M TOTALLY NOT ADMITTING THAT, BUT IT COULD STILL TOTALLY BE MADISON."
Where what I wanted it to sound like was "Well, something worth pointing out is..."
- Location
- Over the hill and far away
You're a very generous reader
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Intriguing idea. I don't really buy that she was expecting Skitter to suffocate her with bugs, but intriguing nonetheless.
- Location
- italy
Didn't she, like, deliberately (for an Alexandrian value of deliberate, anyway) point out to Skitter that her big weak point is the fact that she still needs to breathe?
Seriously, she lied to her saying that Tattletale had hired a hydrokinetic to drown her...and wouldn't you know it, she drowned in bugs.
- Location
- Wherever
She's goes out of her way to plant the idea of "I'm technically vulnerable to suffocation" in Skitter's head -one of the times she "goes out to retrieve one of the Undersiders" she comes back wet and claims they tried to drown her. (But failed because blah blah superstrength etc)
It reads as too deliberate a choice to me. The narrative Alexandria is spinning for Skitter is: "I'm inevitable, unstoppable. When I say things will happen, they happen. Stronger than a promise, more like a curse. We do things my way, because I am simply too powerful for it to be otherwise." Why suggest any possibility of defeat when she could make Skitter believe that every single Undersider put up no fight worth commentary, furthering the narrative she's spinning?
I don't find it satisfying to suggest that Alexandria simply made a dumb mistake with the "hint: I can be suffocated" bit. If she was a dumb person making a dumb mistake, I'd expect a completely different kind of mistake. She's not so dumb she doesn't think to hide her weaknesses -indeed, she talks about how she eventually stopped trying to remind people that her superpowers include perfect recall and so on, so she could take advantage of her opponents' ignorance. She's not Glory Girl, so confident in her invulnerability that she takes no extra measures to protect herself.
So not only do I interpret it the way I do, but this is a rare case where I strongly suspect my interpretation is, in fact, the author-intended interpretation, handled in a very subtle way.
- Location
- italy
This part made me lose suspension of disbelief: kicking something barefoot fucking hurts, and it's extremely odd that SI!Bakuda wouldn't comment on this, especially since she kicked the guy into unconsciousness afterward.
Seriously, get a sack of rice or something and try kicking it with your shoes off, it hurts a lot.
Mechasaurian
Big Bossu
- Location
- Lost among fields of history
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Given their positioning (the guy was grappling for her legs while she was scrambling away, then she decided to start kicking) I assumed she was heel-kicking the guy in the face. Which, while potentially hurtful to the kicker, is very different from toe-kicking a sack of rice.
This, too.
- Location
- Over the hill and far away
He's also kicking with all the mighty strength of an awkwardly positioned, small, not-particularly-athletic girl. I kind of imagined it as sort of foot-flailing, not exactly perfect form goin' for the goalposts king of kicking.
edit:
Ninjas! Ninjas everywhere!
- Location
- Wherever
Yeah, kicking toes-first hurts a lot, but yeah, the intention was that by "kicking" I meant "slamming with the heel/thereabouts of the foot", and also yeah, adrenaline. Thanks, ninja collective!
Also I'm not someone who pays a lot of attention to pain. I think I've said this in the thread before, but I've had incidents where a foot ended up cut and the first time I noticed it was when I was all "Why is my foot wet? I haven't stepped in a puddle or anything lately." and looked down and oh, that's blood. Huh. Usually there was pain preceding it, but I interpreted it as something like having a rock rubbing against my foot and consequently ignored it as trivial.
As a child, I would do athletic/reckless stuff, get hurt, go running to my mom all "Waaaah it hurts!" and get one of two responses: "This requires medical attention, hold still while I deal with it" or "Well then, don't do that (whatever it was I did that got me hurt)". In the latter case I was assured the injury was not serious, regardless of the pain, and would promptly go run off and do it some more, because even as a small child I was not impressed with pain in the slightest. It wasn't a reason to not do a thing: it was a reason to check whether the injury was serious or not, and keep going if it wasn't serious.
Also I'm not someone who pays a lot of attention to pain. I think I've said this in the thread before, but I've had incidents where a foot ended up cut and the first time I noticed it was when I was all "Why is my foot wet? I haven't stepped in a puddle or anything lately." and looked down and oh, that's blood. Huh. Usually there was pain preceding it, but I interpreted it as something like having a rock rubbing against my foot and consequently ignored it as trivial.
As a child, I would do athletic/reckless stuff, get hurt, go running to my mom all "Waaaah it hurts!" and get one of two responses: "This requires medical attention, hold still while I deal with it" or "Well then, don't do that (whatever it was I did that got me hurt)". In the latter case I was assured the injury was not serious, regardless of the pain, and would promptly go run off and do it some more, because even as a small child I was not impressed with pain in the slightest. It wasn't a reason to not do a thing: it was a reason to check whether the injury was serious or not, and keep going if it wasn't serious.
- Location
- italy
...you mean stomping, then? A
And yeah, I figured that that was one way to do it (using the part of the foot that is basically bone covered by skin instead of a ton of little crumply digits)
4.c
- Location
- Wherever
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.
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.
Requiem_Jeer
The Most High
Everything's turning up Armsmaster. I suspect a Ziz plot.
Edit: How did I miss that last line!? I suspect a Ziz plot.
Edit: How did I miss that last line!? I suspect a Ziz plot.
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