Operation Wyldhand 5.17
A tentacle shot out from her array of limbs, snagging one of the pedestrians He screamed, gripped firmly by his ankle as he pawed at the street, dragged closer and closer to Noelle. Not to her, into her. The people who stood gaping in shock quickly switched to looks of dawning horror as he disappeared into her body. More limbs attached to him, keeping him from trying to escape. One wrapped around his neck, and pulled, a faint crack audible. By ones and twos, people started to flee, screaming or silent, away from the sight of a man being eaten.
The green light around me dimmed, chest swelling as I sucked in air. I was angry. This Noelle was eating people, all because I had let her loose. My lungs burned, but not from a lack of air. I exhaled, lungs emptying, a burst of green flame racing across the street to engulf Noelle. Instead, I burnt a tree to ash. With a series of popping noises, Noelle had tossed a tree right in front of me, uprooting it straight from its planter. The concrete around its former home cracked apart with an accompaniment of noise and dirt.
The tree burned to ash in heartbeats, before the flames reached out and tried to touch her, but she was gone, leaving my flames to spray melted asphalt along their path. A car flew towards me, apparently sent on its way by a flurry of kicks. I reached up and caught it, my claws digging into the metal easily before realizing another vehicle had trailed behind the first one. It slammed into my shins, dropping me to my knees. I returned the gesture, hurling my caught vehicle at her.
My fastball was far quicker than her curveball. The front bumper slammed into her human-sized stomach. She fell backwards, car following and tipping up and over to land entirely on her human portion. I couldn't damage the bottom of her body significantly, so I had aimed at the top of her form instead. And she was down for the count.
I lumbered over to her, feet cracking the pavement from my weight. I started to draw breath for another breath of fire, but the air wouldn't heat. Nothing I tried, from thinking of fires, to imagining the depths of Hell, worked. No fire breath. Fuck. I'd have to get close, and do this the hard way-
I crossed my arms in front of my face, as Noelle's frontal limbs latched on to the road. She pushed off with the more rearward limbs, body coming fully upright, and sending the car I had hit her with towards my face at twice the speed I had thrown it. The car hit my arms, with a chorus of metal screeching against stone. I slid backwards, losing my balance, and falling back despite myself. My wings folded back behind me, catching me from hitting the ground, and I pushed off with them, coming back upright. The car, now a compacted wafer of metal, fell to my feet. Noelle had decided to run away from me.
A cut off scream to my right told me where she had fled to. I turned, lunging in the general direction of the cry for help, but I was too late. Noelle was already absorbing a woman, leaving behind only scraps of clothing and debris - a pair of glasses and a pile of change. The woman's body, head nearly torn off her neck, was dissolving in the the arms gripping her, like a reverse softserve.
I charged after her, but she was already moving, far faster than I could. I beat my wings, leaping into the air. Even though I was a moving mass of twenty feet of stone, I was still catching up to her. She ran straight for the center of the city, not even stopping as tentacles and hands grabbed people. Their deaths were near-instant, but nonetheless horrifying. I could see the expressions of surprise and terror from my position. I swooped down, trying to catch up, but only came within two dozen yards. I skidded, arms reaching out. I grabbed another empty car, and pivoting to a stop, flung it at her back. The sound of a gravel truck being dumped on pavement must have alerted her, because she jinked right, car passing within feet of her upper body.
I sprang back into the air, desperate to catch up. She was eating people, and I had let her loose. At least ten by now, and - there went another! I tried to squeeze another blip of speed out of my stone wings, but couldn't. I wasn't fast enough to overtake her before she reached even more people. I stopped myself from vocalizing my frustrations, but my screams of despair and rage still echoed in my mind.
A car swerved out of her path, honking. She angled her course, running ontop of it, and pulling the surprised passengers along. Trailing broken glass, they barely had time to realize their predicament before they were dead, and absorbed.
She was getting faster at that, and bigger too. Every person she ate made her stronger. I had to stop -
She turned around, limbs shifting to reveal a mouth, studded with teeth like fence posts, the size of a door. It opened and vomited, filth spreading across the street, along with a mass of pulsing flesh, twisted into a parody of a human body. Was she trying to set out decoys? Could she clone herself? The thing stood before collapsing, its legs too fragile to support its weight. It was left behind by its maker, and me, as I overflew it.
If she could copy herself, this was going to go from worse, to catastrophically bad. I was almost close enough, that a dive could reach her. If I could get her stuck in one place, I could contain her, at least temporarily. My lightshow, and the destruction trailing Noelle would bring all the heroes in the city, hopefully. I angled up, wings opening wide, almost ready. A cluster of people, men and women together in equal proportions were walking and joking, occupying a whole side of the sidewalk.
Noelle was almost on them. I dove, too far away to pin her upper half to the ground. I landed on a gigantic thumb, jerking her to a halt, but nearly dislodging me as her momentum bled off. I wrapped my arms around her thumb-leg, and pulled back, trying drag her away from the people. Screams and shouts, more from my appearance, than the realization they had almost been eaten, sounded from the group of couples, and I could hear them dropping things and running.
Heels digging into the street, she started pulling me forward, slowly. I jammed the bottom of my wings into the pavement, trying to get more leverage. She only moved faster, as more limbs reached out, pulling her up the street like it was a wall. Clawed limbs dug handholds for arms behind them, and tentacles got more grip than I could. I ground out, teeth pressed together, "Stop fucking eating people."
"I'm so hungry," she whispered back. The words echoed from below, more mouths than I could see repeating her words slightly off-synch. I tried beating my wings to pull her back, but to no avail. I was losing the tug-of-war match.
"I'll buy you a cartload of sandwiches. Just stop!" I pleaded, desperate.
"It feels too good," she mused, ignoring my failing efforts to slow her, "I can feel things, and when it wants me to feel things, I do. It feels so good. It rewards me."
She stopped, suddenly, and I lost my balance, nearly falling on my face. Nearly, because an array of misshapen flesh slugged me across my face, sending me sliding on my stomach away.
"Sorry," she apologized, looking over her shoulder at me, and sounding completely sincere. "I really don't like doing this. But-"
A police car, sirens silent and headlights off, rammed right into her. She only had to take a massive step back, limbs spreading out to steady herself, to stay upright. The officers in the car opened fire, and I heard the roar of a shotgun joining the sharper reports of a pistol. Bullets and shot spread the flesh that had comprised her head across the street. And it didn't help the officers at all, even as I got up, trying to reach them before she did. They were pulled through the broken windshield, right over deflated airbags, and into Noelle.
I needed a weapon, something to deal more damage than she could heal from. Blunt objects just weren't working. At least people were vacating the area - the sounds of screams and gunfire had sent every person running away, leaving Noelle with no more people to try to eat in sight. I drew in breath, and was rewarded with the air in my lungs nearly igniting. I was recharged. She turned at the sudden dimming of the lights, and took a face full of flames. I exhaled, until stars danced before my eyes, followed by Noelle. She ran me over, grabbing me as she did, and pulled me along underneath her. I tried to claw any flesh I could reach, but was restrained by more and more limbs latching on to me. With a jerking stop, she whipped me into a building.
I crashed through, catching a momentary glimpse of a surprised family hiding in a kitchen, before I exited the other side. I landed in a small yard, swing set tangling around me. My flightpath had passed right through over half the first floor of the small building, and even as I watched, it shuddered. Wood, cinder blocks, and steel rebar showered down in a trickle, before it became a flood. The building groaned, and the top two stories started collapsing onto the first. I lunged, to grab the people I had seen out of the first floor.
My claws plunged through a bulging second story wall, now occupying my exit hole. Too late.
She wasn't even trying to kill people, and she was still succeeding! I tore the swing set off my left wing, tossing it aside. I jabbed my mind with the familiar black spike of pain, just like in the hospital, reveling in it washing away my impairments. I couldn't be slowed down, anymore. Pain was my ally.
I took off, moving faster, with greater ease than before. And saw a set of flyers heading straight for me. I was lighting up the entire neighborhood, standing out like a spotlight on a cloudy night. They could see me, but probably didn't think I could see them. But one of them was all too easily identifiable.
Legend.
I needed help. I couldn't stop her on my own, and one of the greatest heroes in the country was here. I made a beeline for him, if bees were the size of a semi. Both of his flanking capes stopped, shouting at Legend, unintelligible at this distance. He kept going, and I stopped, wings flapping to keep me at a hover. He closed until he was a half dozen yards of distance from me, and floated.
"Defiler, I presume." Even his voice sounded like a hero. Patently unfair, especially when he had the physique of one. Under normal circumstances, my eyes might have wandered. A skintight suit looked good on him.
"I need your help. There's this thing, Noelle, and she's eating people," I stated, before realizing how dumb it sounded. I added, hurriedly, "She's been absorbing them! And she already ate a dozen, and I can't stop her!"
Legend raised a single eyebrow, increasing my envy at his skill, and looked behind me. No, under me, at the building I had destroyed. Chips of wood were still caught in my stone skin, and were easily visible in my surrounding green light. He turned back to me, face hardening, and opened his mouth. And I knew what was going to come out.
"I don't-" he started, before being interrupted by who I could clearly see was Albatross. A Tinker, famous for both flying, and being named after his many failures. And he had embraced the name, developing a propensity for explosives. His jetpack - could you call it a jetpack if it used wings? - let him move closer, and he shouted at Legend,
"Something is eating people, heading up 8th! Let's go!"
Legend shot away, invisible from his speed, leaving all three of us in mid-air. I turned to follow, Albatross and the other cape behind me. She flew by running, possibly the strangest way I had seen. He pulled ahead, mechanical wings beating faster than mine, and cupped his hands around his mouth.
"This way!" he shouted, before pointing northwest. The sudden blast of light was more indicative of her location, though. Lasers rained down in a continuous barrage. As I closed, I could see Noelle being cut, pummeled, and frozen by Legend's lasers. She was pinned down, finally, unable to move as he cut off limbs before they could regrow. Limbs numbering in singles, pairs, and dozens were raining down as he cut loose. The street around her was a crater already, and he was pushing her deeper. Movement, heading straight for her caught my eye, several people riding an imitation of a chinese dragon. It shot up, heading right for us. Reinforcements had arrived.
And then I was in the crater, surprised, and took what felt like a hundred airliners to the face. I collapsed, stunned. The second, third, and following blasts all missed me, hitting where I had been, before stopping. Dazed, I watched as he shifted fire, shooting at a falling Noelle, who had taken my former position in the sky. The dragon ascended, giving me a good look at who was on board.
The Travellers.
I surged up, out of the crater, trying to get behind the dragon before I could be teleported away again. Noelle was on the ground, and a car had taken her place, falling. Albatross dived down, pulling an object from behind him, and fiddling with it. He got within a hundred feet of Noelle, before he was replaced with a parking meter.
A sickening spalt of flesh on a hard surface told me where he had gone. Right into the ground, switched out by Trickster. And he was almost certainly dead. The meter tumbled to the ground, landing with a clang.
Quintessence, now identifiable from the fractal-patterned forcefield blocking the dragon's path, laid an additional one around Noelle, trying to keep her contained. She had somehow developed the ability to mask her forcefields, by her earlier movement. They were visible now, which probably meant that her ability to make them invisible was size dependant.
Noelle pushed against the field, and it stretched like taffy, before shattering, falling apart in a shower of glittering dust. And she was gone, another parking meter replacing her space in the air. An eye-searing line of light lanced out from Legend, spearing Noelle straight through. In the brief instant where the holes lined up, I could see forty feet into the ground. And why he was so intent on killing her. Quintessence was desperately grasping for a hold on the sidewalk, nails breaking and hands bleeding. Her legs had already been assimilated into Noelle's flesh, and she gave a sharp scream before she vanished.
"I'll get the Travelers, you get her!" I shouted to Legend as I rose up to his height. His answering barrage of light informed me of his agreement, as he redoubled his efforts to destroy that abomination. I dove towards the dragon, catching up easily. I didn't have surprise, but I could at least keep them off Legend's back while he dealt with the more serious problem. Did Trickster have a recharge time on his teleportation? If I could keep him occupied -
My feet hit concrete as I was teleported, again. That was starting to get irritating. I took off once more, trying to get to the dragon before I was -
I skidded along a rooftop, displacing an AC unit, this time. The dragon was staring right at me, and I flinched back as I was shot, repeatedly. No muzzle flash accompanied the shots, and they were not as powerful as a bullet from gun, though they still were annoying. It had to be Ballistic, shooting change, nails, or something similar. How could I get away from-
In the air I beat my wings, as Trickster switched me out for the falling AC unit. Below me, Noelle was almost encased in ice, as Legend blasted the water spraying from a broken water hydrant onto her, and freezing it with additional lasers. Smart. Without leverage, she couldn't move. And I had to stop Trickster from-
And I was in the ice. I let out my fury in a wave of flame erupting from my mouth, burning the front off the giant ice cube. I stepped out, watching Noelle fall, before she was replaced by a water tank. How did his power work? He was switching out similar sizes and weights - not identical, but close enough. He didn't have a time limit, and was switching anything he saw-
Anything he saw. I took off, keeping below the dragon. It twisted, aiming its head at me, letting its passengers see me.
Or try to, as a cloud of shadows cloaked the dragons passengers, and likely flight path. It stopped, surprised. Even better.
"Legend!" I shouted, pointing at the mass of darkness. He might not have been able to see it, as it was night, but as I closed, my glow highlighted the dragon's temporary hiding spot. He had flown above, trying to get a better shot at Noelle, and cut loose, a quartet of lasers cutting through the darkness.
The dragon was in pieces as it fell, followed by Trickster, Sundancer, and Ballistic. The latter's left arm cleanly burned off at the shoulder. Trickster switched himself out with the broken hydrant, before trying to swap out his team. Sundancer landed nearby, exchanged for a now falling trash bin. He tried to get Ballistic. He would have, had he been able to see him. I covered him once more with shadows, and watched Ballistic fall.
A barked order, audible even up here, and Sundancer lit up, a pinprick of blinding light forming in front of her. As it expanded, it burnt away the shadows as if they had never existed. The entire street was lit as if it was day, allowing the remaining Travelers to see Ballistic land on his head, with sound like a potato being smashed by a wooden mallet.
A scream of rage came from Noelle, which I ignored, diving at the remaining two Travelers. And I ran straight into a forcefield, bouncing right off. A forcefield nearly identical to the one's Quintessence made, barring a different pattern. She was dead, and why was she helping Noelle?
I got my answer as I corrected my course, from heading into a building. A Quintessence, naked, was focusing, looking straight at me. I stopped, hovering in midair, as a forcefield appeared right where I would have been. Another Quintessence, this one wearing a twisted imitation of her costume, gestured at the buildings behind Noelle. They stretched, like they were being pushed from within, and then burst. Sending everything flying. Hundreds of tons - thousands of tons- of brick, concrete and steel flew into the air, heading away from us. And plenty of people, too. They completed their short journey, landing after a hundred foot drop.
Legend managed to grab three. I couldn't reach any of them in time. The rest broke skin, bones, or bodies. Cries of pain and panic sounded up, before they were silenced by another pulling, and another row of buildings, including the debris that had landed on them, were sent flying. I stopped flying, stunned.
Hundreds of people. Dead, just like that. Trickster switched himself out with a man trying to reach his crying daughter, and I saw him glance back at me. Or possibly Sundancer, or most likely Noelle, as she scuttled forward, grabbing bodies as she passed them. I dropped a wall of shadows, this time, blocking his view of Sundancer.
He was next, but none of them were getting out of this alive. I'd make sure of that.
I dove at Sundancer, twisting to dodge any blasts of sunfire. Her power had burnt through my shadows, and could probably cook me like a kiln. But she didn't fire anything at me, only falling to her knees to dodge. I landed behind her, and nearly flipped over in my haste to grab her. My clawed hand grabbed her head, and could I squeeze her? Killing her? Feeling her life ebb?
Yes.
"Do it," she whispered, sounding empty.
I stopped, shook out of my green-tinged rage. With a voice like crashing boulders, I snapped, turning her to face me, "What?"
"We said we would stop her. And we never did. Fucking do it!" she screamed, the beginnings of tears running down her face.
I dropped her, pissed beyond any measurement. I ground out, angry that this didn't have to happen, "Then fucking live with it! It's on your head!"
I took off, air from my haste blasting her back. I twisted over in the air, looking at her as I left. She had collapsed to her knees, silently crying. I had more important things to find, and more importantly, to kill. They were at fault for every death from that monster they brought with them - that I had let out by accident - and they would pay.
In the distance, I saw a skyscraper, easily twenty stories, shift, and collapse like a cut tree. It crashed into an adjoining building, knocking off its top. A massive cloud of dust blew out, coating the buildings below me. Were they trying to kill everyone in the city?
Legend was firing near constantly, right through the dust cloud. He must have known where they were, because he didn't waver in his targeting. I flew up to his position, high above the dust, and reported, "Done. Only them."
A blast of flames briefly illuminated the dust cloud, as another cape entered the scene. Legend kept firing, and ordered, "Get down there. We have to stop them."
I didn't argue, diving straight down even before he was finished. Noelle could clone people, and they had powers. Another building was destroyed, another skyscraper, this time shooting upwards like a sprinkler, chunks of building falling around in its spray. I saw a bed with a man in it, and grabbed it as it passed right by me. He screamed, louder, volume increasing as he saw my stone face. I flitted over, dropping him on a roof, watching him softly tumble across it.
Only one out of hundreds.
I pulled back up. I couldn't see through the dust cloud. It wasn't darkness, and I didn't have a power to use for seeing through the damn coating of concrete, dust, and ash. I almost made a loop, heading back to Legend. I shouted, and at my size it was a substantial shout, "We have to get her out of the city!"
In a blur of movement, he was two feet away from me. "Go down there, and find her. I'll blast her out, and we can deal with her. No more-"
Whatever he was about to say, he was interrupted by an explosion, blowing out glass across the city. I could see tiny little shards across the entire island, from the Park to the most southeastern tip. Every moment we spent up here meant more people dying.
I stumbled on my words in my haste to get them out: "Can't hurt her - get her in the water! Slower!"
Somehow, he understood me, nodding, and I didn't wait for an answer. Every second counted now. The dust nearby had somewhat cleared, only to be replaced with the dust from whatever had blown out half the windows in New York City. Visibility was down to nothing, at ground level, but I could see the faint glimmer of a forcefield. Her clone-capes were protecting her. I passed Volcano on the way down, a brief glance at him as he shot a blast of flame at something in the dust cloud. Heavy was punching a forcefield, with hits I could feel a hundred yards away. A human-shaped flamethrower, Jerry Can, was spraying a Quint-clone down, even as he was being twisted into shapes unseen out of beginning art class. I passed them all, and more - capes and cops fighting against mutated people, mutated capes, - looking for the source of the problem.
Noelle.
She wasn't too hard to find. She had several Quintessence clones with her, and more than a dozen more that I couldn't identify surrounded Trickster. I didn't engage her, no matter how much I wanted to. I couldn't stop her.
I pulled out of my lazy dive, heading up. Legend saw me, and in less time than it took to blink, was next to me.
"Right below me," I said, grimly. It was time to end this. "I'll bring her up as far as I can."
He nodded, and added, "Thank you."
I plummeted, wings folded behind me. She wasn't moving, letting her clones doing the heavy lifting. Buildings were collapsing left and right, an indescribable cacophony. She hadn't moved. I grabbed her by the back of her neck, and pulled up. She was so much heavier than before. I tried to race up, carrying her up for Legend to shoot. But to no progress. We were rising slower than a hot-air balloon made of lead, and only Trickster's inability to see kept him from switching our positions.
I pushed harder, forcing my will on my body. It had to be faster, had to be better, had to be more. There wasn't any other option: every moment I dallied was another moment the clones had to destroy New York City.
I was faster. I pulled her up, her limbs trying to reach me. They failed.
I was better. I cleared the dust, and I could see Legend. She was done.
I was more. Whatever the hell she was, I was winning. No more deaths, save hers.
Legend saw me, and I let Noelle go. Before she had dropped a single foot, a blast of light shot her a hundred feet in the air. Another, and another, and Legend juggled her on concussive lasers, across Manhattan. Over at least a mile, he sent her flying hundreds of feet in the air, each time he stopped moving.
Over past the island I had crossed the other night, he turned to me, and said, "She's healing any damage we do to her. We need to do enough to put her down, permanently."
A nuclear weapon? A bomb? They were the only things I could think of that could completely annihilate her. Enough to burn her to ash, to stop her ridiculous regeneration. A moment later I thought of something better, in that it was actually available - an oil tanker. Long, with piping across its top, it could be nothing else. It was fleeing the harbor, trying to escape from whatever was in the city. A rational choice, but one that still gave me an option.
"Get them off the ship!" I yelled to him, even as I dived towards the ship. A quick succession of blasts sent Noelle even higher in the sky, before Legend sped down. He was incredibly fast. I followed, tearing off a very thick and heavy pipe that connected two of the bulges lining the ship. It would serve as a spear. Some sort of chemical sprayed out, but I ignored it, flapping my wings to bring me back up, even though I felt exhausted. But I only had to stop her, then I could rest. So close to victory.
Noelle was tumbling, trying to right herself, but unable to. I flew up, trying to get above her, before a beam blasted out of the blocky section on the back of the ship, knocking her higher again. Legend.
I flew higher, even as she bounced up and down, never letting Noelle leave my sight. When I was above her, Legend stopped firing. Smart man. I gripped the pipe like a lance, aiming at Noelle, diving. At a hundred feet from her, our speeds matched. Until Legend shot her straight up, nearly impaling her on the pole. The jagged edge, torn from the force I had ripped it off with, punched through her midriff as I dove.
She tried to grasp the pole, but didn't have enough time. Green flames licked along the pole, I knew what I needed. I needed the flames to burn through anything, to get at the juicy center of the tanker. And shouldn't they? Shouldn't the flames that could burn flesh with unnatural ease burn metal as well? It was logical, and it felt right.
"Call me Ishmael," I snarled, plunging my impromptu spear, still with her stuck on it, into the middle tank. The metal around my impact point warped, green cracks expanding out in an ever growing circle. I shot past her, letting her take the force of the fall. Behind me, the flames stopped spreading, but glowed brighter, smoking. A circle, the size of a living room shattered, dropping a surprised Noelle into the elevated tank. She vanished, as a expanding cloud of white vapor spread out, rapidly, out and up. I had to get away, much farther away -
The world exploded.
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I blinked, shaking off mental cobwebs. I was falling, head first, into the water. Which was on fire. I tried to pull out of my uncontrolled dive, but to no success. A glance at my wings showed the reason: They were ruined, great chunks of flesh missing. I needed to fix them, unless I wanted to hit the water at terminal velocity. I had half my outer pool ready. I had the power, but the question was, did I have the ability?
Yes. The feeling of bronze substituting for skin - I knew it well, from my injuries. The alien healing, flesh replaced with a material stronger than flesh. I spent the rest of my power, the bronze spider shimmering into existence above me, to fix my damaged flesh. Wings whole once more, I glided, rather than fell into the river.
I landed with a splash, fifty yards from shore. I swum, easily, even with my wings acting as an unintended anchor, and headed right for the sea wall at the tip of Manhattan.
I washed up against the wall, spitting out disgusting river water. A quick flap of my soaked wings had me on the street. I ached all over, had a variety of new injuries, and had let the entire world know that I was here. But I had destroyed something undoubtedly evil. I felt good. I had saved Daphne, and - Damn, she was still in that apartment! I had to go get -
A piercing wail broke my thoughts. I knew what it was. Everyone did. It was a warning to us all to take shelter, and for capes to assemble.
The Endbringer alarm.
CHAPTER 5: END.
Author Note: AND THEN EVERYTHING DIED
FIN~
(Story will continue in Chapter 6: Black Nadir.)
