[ ] Be a diversion – You don't know how well you can fight right now, but you should still be able to fly. Draw her away from the area while Samantha gets Vista and the kids to safety.
[ ] Skill tree
Psychic Smasher 3.5
There's no way you're going to leave now. That woman is clearly not in her right mind, but she was before the Simurgh's device activated. If she can remember what she does when the device is finally destroyed, remembers killing her own children? You wouldn't wish that on anyone. By that same token, you don't want to hurt her just because the Simurgh is using her as a puppet.
"Sam," you say, your Guardian Beast's full attention on you now. "I'm about to do something that's probably very stupid. I'll get her attention and lure her away from the kids. You get them out of the building, then get them and Vista back to the PRT's headquarters. Make sure Dad's safe. I'll meet up with you as soon as I can lose her."
"You're right. That's a terrible idea. How about I distract her, instead? I'm stronger and tougher."
"That's why we're doing it my way." She gives you a dubious look. "It sounds like there are at least two kids in there. That's three with Vista. I can't carry all them at once, but you can. And if you get in trouble, you'll be able to fight back long enough to get to safety. They're going to be safer with you than me. I don't think she can fly, either, so I can stay out of her way." The woman has just passed the second floor and is making her way to the third. Her kids' screaming rises in pitch as they realize what kind of situation they are in. "We don't have time to argue, Sam. I need you to trust me."
Her teeth click together. "Fine. But we
will have a long talk about this when you get back."
You smile at the implicit demand. "Looking forward to it. Let's go!"
Aerial Combat kicks in, throwing you off the building towards the woman. Since you have to do a larger proportion of the calculations than normal, you make sure to slow down a little as you get close. The last thing you want is to distract the woman because you're lying dazed on the ground. A single Flare Shooter forms in your hand and smashes against her head. She wheels around to glare at you, not inconvenienced in the slightest by your attack. You expected that, unfortunately, but it would have been nice for
something to go your way today.
"Hey, Monster Mom! I look a whole lot more appetizing than a couple of brats, don't you think?" You mime licking your arm. "Yep, no doubt about it. Way tastier. Come on, Mrs. Robinson. All you can stomach right here."
You don't know if it was your taunts themselves or just presenting the woman with a different target, but she hurls herself off the building and into the air. Unlike her, you can actually fly, so you swerve out of the way and watch her land gracefully on the street. Because breaking a couple of legs in that fall is clearly too much to ask. You drop down to half your previous height and waggle your fingers at her. "Over here, sweet cheeks."
The woman turns to you, hate and hunger in her eyes. Is it just you, or is she getting bigger?
She runs down the street towards you, and you fly away slowly enough that she won't lose you immediately and return to her previous meal choice. That is actually harder to accomplish than it sounds; even with Perfect Storm damaged the way it is, you know you can still reach supersonic speeds if you had a long enough stretch free of obstacles. The woman starts slowing down, and you have to flip around and fly over her head to get her attention again. "That's right. Follow me," you mutter. Raising your voice, you cheer, "You can do it! Lose those thunder thighs! You gotta hit the gym if you want to earn cougar status!"
«…Perhaps personality upgrades were excessive.»
Your cheeks turn red as you realize what just came out of your mouth. "Storm, you are never to tell anyone I said that."
"Said what?"
"Exactly."
To answer your previous question, yes, the woman is indeed growing still. She's reached somewhere between six and eight feet in length now, and her body has started slimming down and getting longer. Is she adjusting her body type for whatever she's doing at the time? Lung's growth combined with Aegis's adaptability?
You hope she doesn't grow wings. That would add a wrinkle you really don't want to deal with.
The woman leaps up and lands on the side of a building, and then she springs off of that to fly after you. You shoot up this time and watch her soar through where you had just been. She lands on the roof of the building behind you.
You are about to fly away again when you notice her stumble. Her feet are firmly beneath her, so it isn't that she's lost her balance. Something else is going on. She takes a few more steps before slumping to the ground.
Curiosity wars with caution and common sense, but you slowly drift closer, ready to get away as soon as possible.
Your caution is unwarranted. The monstrous form is panting far too quickly for your peace of mind, and its chest doesn't look like it's moving as much as it should. The woman's eyes lose the feral spark that had lit them, leaving only confusion and pain. It took long enough, but it looks like she's finally getting over whatever the Simurgh whammied her with. Big brown eyes look up at you. "Be'," she growls from a throat that is far better suited to earth-shaking roars. "La'."
Names, maybe? "Your kids are safe. I had my partner carry them to the PRT while I distracted you."
The fang-filled mouth twitches. Her body relaxes completely. Her breath escapes in one final sigh.
And just like that, another innocent person has fallen to the Endbringers' rage.
Rage of your own fills you. What was the
point of all this?! What does the Simurgh gain from turning people into monsters and then killing them not two minutes later?! You fly to another, taller building and send your hottest glare at the feathered monster.
The Simurgh no longer has her machine; that is now laying on the ground and sparking fitfully. She drifts over the battlefield, head moving this way and that as though examining the aftermath of her attack. Then she stops and looks at you.
You don't know how much good Flare Shooter will do, but you're ready all the same. No going nonlethal on her.
The Simurgh doesn't attack, though. She spreads her arms wide, then she lands on the ground and bends her knees. She holds that position for a moment. Is she taking a fucking
bow?! Like this is all just some big stage production?!
Her wings flap once, and then she rockets into the sky.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Ta— Calamity!"
You run over and give your dad a hug. You don't even care if people are watching; anyone who doesn't like it can go hang. Samantha is standing right behind him, and it is her you ask, "Any problems?"
"Nope. The effects of the Simurgh's gadget didn't even reach here, but it did blow out the cameras the Thinkers were using. No one had any idea anything was going wrong until capes started retreating."
A couple of capes and several PRT agents in black body armor march towards you. "Calamity Witch," the man in front barks, "return behind the barricade. Noncompliance will be treated as hostile action."
"What are you—" A couple of agents raise their weapons, and you can see that these aren't containment foam sprayers. They look more like the laser rifle Dad purchased from Coil. "Okay, okay," you tell them, slowing raising your hands in the air until one of them twitches at the motion. Right, capes. Never can tell if an upraised hand is accommodation or preparation to blast you. "Take it easy. I'm going."
"You need to excuse them," a stern voice says from behind you once you stand with the rest of the capes coming off the battlefield. You turn around and find yourself face to face with a black-haired heroine wearing a dark helmet and an eyepatch, a black cape tumbling down her equally black bodysuit. You know this face. Everyone in the whole world does.
Alexandria is talking to you!
The corner of her mouth quirks while you stare speechlessly at her, and her voice is softer when she continues, "Simurgh fights are always bad in terms of morale. It's better when we have the armbands that can keep track of exposure. Speeds up the process immensely. But even without those, we do have means by which to identify who is most likely to be effected by the Scream. It isn't as exact as Dragon's technology, but…" She doesn't shrug. Alexandria is too elegant to do something so casual. She does give the waiting line a small frown, though. "It is always good to have contingencies."
"Alexandria." The sole woman in the Triumvirate gives you a small nod and walks over to the hero in a bluish-purple business suit and domino mask. He doesn't do anything but wave her on. Not too terrible a surprise; everyone knows that Alexandria is immune to the Simurgh's song. Then he looks at you and glances down at the clipboard in his hand. "Calamity Witch."
You he gives a more thorough inspection. After a moment, he frowns and holds out his hand. You lay yours on top of his, and if anything, his expression becomes even more disturbed. "Red, blue."
"Blue?" Alexandria repeats. "Not green?"
"Not even a hint. Bright royal blue."
"What does that mean?" you ask in rising panic.
"Spectrometer measures a cape's inherent threat level," the world-famous heroine says. Waving her fingers in a beckoning motion, she walks away from the Thinker cape, and you hurry to keep up. "Red is the highest, followed by orange, yellow, green, and lastly blue. He can also see any effect on someone's mind caused by a Master, again using that same scale. Very, very few capes walk out of a Simurgh fight with a blue rating, particularly if they have been near the thick of the fighting. Even fewer are red-level threats, too." She stops and turns around to place a heavy gaze on you. "Before today, there were only three of us. You're number four."
Oh. You stumble a bit as you figure out what you're supposed to say to
that. "I… I kind of figured the immunity part out. I couldn't hear the Scream at all, even when I was within sight of her. Samantha, my partner, is the same way."
"Two capes, working on the same team, both immune to the Scream." She crosses her arms. "Interesting."
Your grip tightens on Perfect Storm. You are okay with telling the Protectorate about your immunity to the Simurgh and giving them what Perfect Storm knows about telepathy, but admitting that it's a product of possessing your Device, something that can be taken away from you? That goes a bit outside your comfort zone, even if it's Alexandria you're talking to.
"No! Let him go!"
You turn around to stare at the situation brewing at one of the evaluation benches. The woman who shouted wears a red bodysuit; the man being held captive is dressed more casually, black slacks and a red dress shirt underneath a breastplate. It takes you a moment to recognize them as Othala and Victor, capes from the Empire. A power-granter and a skill thief, respectively, if you remember correctly.
"You said he was yellow!" Othala yells at Spectrometer. "So was Glory Bitch! You let her go on!"
"Procedure is procedure," says the Asian officer in charge of the squad that is pulling Victor away. The nightstick in his hand spits out a couple of small sparks. It's a taser, too, then. "He'll stay here unless he is granted clearance to leave. Should only take ten months to figure it out one way or another."
"You fucking chink! Let him go or—" What would happen was left unclear when the officer slams his baton into her gut and switches on the taser. Othala seizes briefly before dropping like a rock. Definitely more force than necessary, but if he's a Brocktonite, you can understand his vindictiveness. Victor soon joins her after throwing one of the agents restraining him to the ground.
"Where are they taking her?" you ask when you notice that both Empire capes are getting dragged away.
"She will be filed as someone who needs processing and will be contained here." You whirl around to stare at Alexandria. "There is no rule that people who are unaffected have to leave the city being quarantined. Nor is there any rule that people cannot enter once the quarantine is active. It is where most of the medical staff who will treat the civilian injuries will come from. Even though they need to go through the same assessment and clearance procedures that people who were stuck here will need to undergo in order to be released, since they only entered the city after the Simurgh was already gone, they will not have to deal with the requirement to inform employers and landlords about being in a containment zone once they leave. She will likely go on that list as well, but since the only identity that will be recorded is her cape name, she will need to be processed in that identity or else she will receive the tattoo and suffer the same requirements as a potentially influenced civilian."
You take a moment to try to process that. It's a little too much for you to deal with right now. "Was what she said true?" you ask instead. "Do heroes get preferential treatment?"
"Despite how famous Sphere's story is, villains are statistically more likely to have increased aggression for a given level of influence." Alexandria flicks her eye around you. "And just between us, yes, there is a bias against them as they contribute nothing to society. A potentially influenced hero is dangerous, but she will try to work for the greater good until it becomes clear whether she is or is not a Ziz-bomb. A villain will not be as helpful, and so there is no point to giving them the benefit of the doubt."
All you can do is stare at her in shock. Sure, you wanted to get rid of the villains in Brockton Bay, but locking them up in a Simurgh containment zone still seems a little much.
"I would suggest you, Samantha, and Captain leave while traffic is still relatively light," she says once the silence drags on too long. "The military is quick to set up a boundary following a Simurgh attack, and while they have your names and descriptions, there is only one processing area. If you delay, you will be stuck waiting in line for possibly an hour before you are freed to go." Reaching up, she lays her hand on your shoulder. "This was an ugly battle, particularly for your first Endbringer fight, but I hope to see you at the next Simurgh fight if not against the others. Every cape who is immune to her Scream is a cape who can fight without worrying about a time limit. I can't stress enough how important that can be. Keep that in mind, Calamity Witch."
Giving you a gentle squeeze, she walks away and rockets into the sky.
And that is the end of the Simurgh's attack on Brockton Bay. Glad it's over with, personally.
You get one spell choice for participating in the fight. If you had at any point attacked the Simurgh directly, even if it was only in this chapter, you would have gotten two instead. Oh, well. All the choices are listed in the character sheets. Don't worry about the descriptions that follow; just vote for the name.
