This was originally planned to be 5.8, but it would have been too much telling as opposed to showing, and I couldn't think of a better interlude, so you get Sam's POV for a while.
Escapades 5.x
Samantha made a brushing-off motion with one hand and gave her mage a blip of telepathic encouragement. Taylor was a big girl, but there were days like now that getting her to do anything even remotely social was like pulling teeth. Here there was a combat element, which put her mage a little more at ease, but the teenager still looked and acted somewhat shy upon being faced with a crowd of the size as the one that had been gathered for taking on the Empire Eighty-Eight.
She added another item to her mental list of evidence that her creator was mildly agoraphobic.
It was time for her to go where she was needed, too, but she also hesitated, though for completely different reasons. Part of it was the drive to be at her maker's side. That, according to Perfect Storm, was an inherent aspect of being a Guardian Beast; as an organomagical construct literally designed to protect her creator at all costs, it would be more of a surprise had she
not had such instincts. Most of the time when they were apart, she could suppress it with the rationalization that her mage would not be in danger. There were no risks when the young woman went to school, for instance, though she would be lying if she said she had not tailed Taylor to Winterrose Academy for the entire week after that ill-fated party and stood guard just to make sure no Beasts attacked. Now, though, her mage was going to be on her own against enemies who wanted her dead, and Samantha would not be there to serve as a keen-edged sword with which to slay all challengers.
Another part was far less intuitive, though not incomprehensible. Perhaps it had to do with the difference in their ages, or perhaps that she had kits of her own when Taylor found her, or perhaps that Taylor had been without a mother for so long, but she sometimes had to stop herself from trying to treat her mage like a child who needed guidance. And other times, she failed at that and wound up mothering her creator whether the teenager liked it or not, though she had been doing better at that, she believed. The first few weeks of her existence had been a series of crash courses in all sorts of ways, and only now was she starting to feel like she had all four feet beneath her.
Taylor was under the impression she watched soap operas because she enjoyed them, and while that was also true, they were an invaluable resource from which to learn how a stepmother-figure should and should not interact with a teenager.
Forcing herself to turn around, she waited a moment before walking over to the ABB group. Taylor would be fine. She had Perfect Storm with her, and she knew a number of useful and powerful spells, and the other heroes alongside her would protect her unless they wanted Samantha to slice open their bellies and strangle them with their own intestines and paint the whole
Empress-damned city red with their lifeblood—
"Samantha. Are you ready for this?"
Oh. She was already here.
Blinking away her momentary confusion, she took in the highly decorated group before her. Legend and Chevalier stood to one side, their whispered conversation not a friendly one by their expressions. Myrddin stood beside Nightingale, a short-range teleporter from Chicago who carried an overstuffed first aid kit on her back. The entire Haven group seemed to be here to help in the fight against the Fallen, their seven combat members huddled around Benediction, the group's healer. A very tall and very naked woman who could only be Narwhal, whose imposing height was still dwarfed by the blue-skinned leader of Philadelphia's Winter Hill gang, Jotunn. Armsmaster, formerly from Brockton Bay, next to a female knight who would look imposing were it not for the black felt ears glued to the sides of her helmet. Multiple copies of Satyrical, head of the Las Vegas Protectorate branch. And many more.
Not every Protectorate team leader, but most of them, along with their strongest subordinates and their numbers further bolstered by a variety of powerful villains.
Samantha turned her attention back to the black-caped woman in front of her and tipped her fedora at the world-famous heroine. "I'm already here, Alexandria. Whether I'm ready or not is a moot point, wouldn't you say?"
"You could always back out. No one would fault you."
"I would fault me. Calamity Witch would fault me. That is enough."
Alexandria gave her a nod and began the short trek back to the rest of the group. "I am somewhat surprised I do not see her with you," the Los Angeles leader said nonchalantly. "From what little you said about her abilities yesterday, it sounded like she would be a boon to our task."
She shot the other heroine a surprised glance; she had not thought she said
that much about Taylor's abilities. Just a couple of offhand comments about how handy having a powerful artillery fighter would have been, really. Or had Taylor's brief conversation with Alexandria the last time they were all in Brockton Bay impressed the older woman more than they believed? "I offered her the chance," she replied after a moment's pause, "but she felt hunting for Nazis was where her strengths would be best leveraged."
A small shrug was her only answer, Alexandria's idle curiosity assuaged. Ahead of them, Legend rose into the air. "This is not the time for speeches," he said, cutting off the numerous side conversations, "so I will be brief. According to those on watch last night, the Teeth and the Fallen left the area some time around midnight and have yet to return. That means we have the advantage. The Fallen are not insurmountable. The Teeth are not insurmountable. Even Lung is not insurmountable. Not so long as we can keep all our enemies in front of us.
"To that end, we are splitting up into two groups. Most of you will stay here with me to fight off the Teeth and Fallen when they return." He waved to one side with his right hand, and with the other he pointed at the gaping hole in the wall from which Lung had escaped and where he slunk back when he realized he could not win the fight yesterday. "Those who think you can hurt Lung? You will follow Alexandria into the city, where you will hunt down that overgrown gecko. After a long discussion with Chief Director Costa-Brown last night, it was determined that Lung is too dangerous to be left free to wander. He was already bound for the Birdcage upon his capture. He now bears a Kill Order."
The assembled parahumans muttered amongst themselves at that revelation. Samantha had done a little research on capes and their customs shortly after her creation, and one of the tidbits she had found was that Kill Orders were not something handed down lightly or often. Only the most powerful villains were deemed worthy of them, and by the time they reached the tier of infamy and strength required to receive what was in truth a federal warrant of execution, any fight to the death was all but guaranteed to have immense collateral damage. For the vast majority of capes, even the strongest ones, pushing them that far into a corner was considered more dangerous than backing off and trying to capture them another day.
She wondered which poor judge had been woken up in the middle of the night to get
that signed off. That he had gone along with it was even more telling.
"That should give you some idea of just how dangerous a fight you will be getting into should you choose to face him directly," continued Legend. "S-class events are never a time for bravado or arrogance, but this will be even worse. If you have any doubts whatsoever about your ability to survive such a battle, do
not volunteer to go. Your talents would be equally useful here on this front."
Alexandria turned to her and tilted her head almost tauntingly, to which Samantha gave a vicious smile. Her Inherent Forcefield thrummed along and through her skin, ready to take any hit anyone wanted to dish out.
"That is all. Lung team, good luck."
The flying brick of the Triumvirate took to the sky and began calling for anyone dumb enough to volunteer to follow her, though she used slightly different wording. The raccoon moved to be said idiot when a voice called her name. She looked behind her to see a young man running towards her. Well, sort of. 'Man' did not exactly capture the cape's appearance as a somewhat lopsided mass of bony plates and exposed musculature, nor did 'running' do his loping justice. He was young, though, or at least his voice was. She had met him yesterday, a Case 53 whose thick bones he could grow and then cut and shape with far greater ease than a blacksmith could steel.
…What was his name again?
The cape slid to a halt, panting breaths quickly covered up. "Just… wanted to give you something." Reaching behind him, he pulled off a length of bone that had been forged with far greater care and detail than the slabs of bone he had thrown around the battlefield to be used as shields and impromptu swords. This was perfectly straight and cylindrical, the pointed end also carrying a couple of spurs and pressed flat. She gave it another look and nodded to herself. Yes, it looked almost like whaling harpoon. "You said you were going after Lung right? I thought you could use this to do a little more damage to him than you could with your fists. Not that you weren't doing great on your own!" he added hastily. "But maybe this would work with your powers?"
Taking the weapon from him, she gave it a couple of twirls and jabs. Each motion pulled knowledge she didn't know she had from the back of her mind, and when she came to a halt, she felt like she had been practicing with a spear for years instead of seconds. So
that was what Perfect Storm had meant by 'innate mastery'.
A moment's thought was all it took before she reached for the dark hunger lurking inside her. She had heard Taylor and Perfect Storm discussing the hows and whys of magic, but the way they did it, with calculations and programming and such? That was not at all how she cast her spells. Her magic was tied to a deeply buried rage, a feral aspect of herself that she did her best not to push too far. Not that all her magic pulled on it an equal amount; flight, Wide Area Search, Recursion Field – all spells she learned from Taylor – barely stirred it, but her own personal powers? Those got her dark side's attention. She knew if she prodded it enough, it could all too easily go on a violent killing spree, stopping only once everything in front of her was dead or she was. She never wanted that to happen, and it was only with the bone-deep knowledge that even at her worst she could not imagine turning tooth or claw on Taylor that she used magic at all around her mage.
A quicksilver sheen covered her hands and flowed onto the spear, and she wore a predatory grin when a spin left behind a glimmering echo. Cutting off the spell, she purred, "Yes, this is exactly what I was missing."
He stuttered something out, but she had already given him a grateful hug and was chasing after the rest of the strike team. Only a half-dozen or so were there, though it was hard to get an exact count with three times that many Satyricals running around. Alexandria shot her a glance but went back to scanning the area, and Samantha slipped among the quiet buildings like the raccoon she used to be.
The team moved with cautious haste. They were in for a fight and knew it, and they would rather that fight happen deeper in the ruins where they could keep Lung isolated from everyone and everything else. They also did not want to rush in and let an angry dragon get the drop on them. That was just another way to spell 'elaborate suicide'.
Maybe twenty minutes into the search, Alexandria's wristband squawked.
"How are things going in there?"
"No contact yet," she answered. "You?"
"Not as bad as we feared," said Legend.
"Someone managed to kill Animos early on, so that complication was nipped in the— Oh, fuck."
She stared at the wristband, confusion writ large across her face. "Legend?"
"Get back here. Now! Lung's here!"
The rest of the group fell behind, even the couple of other fliers unable to keep up with her and Alexandria as they blasted through the ruins and back to the battlefield. What met her was chaos, three groups previously organized against the others now struggling to adapt to the sudden presence of a massive dragon. And he truly was massive. Nearly fifteen feet of metallic scales, foot-long talons, bony spikes jutting from his shoulder blades almost as a warning of the wings they could become. Blows and blades and blasts of light slid off him, and the serpentine cape shook for a second before exploding into a wide wave of flame. Too many capes were cooked in an instant from the surprise attack, and more would have fallen were it not for Jotunn weathering the fire while another cape siphoned it up into their blazing armor.
Alexandria hit the dragon like a five-foot-eight wrecking ball while Samantha took a moment to find Legend. "What happened?!" she demanded once she was at his side.
"I have no idea! One second several capes were fighting the Teeth, and the next second one of them bursts into flame and turns into that!"
That made no sense. Lung's powers were famous in Brockton Bay, but so were his limits. He never stopped growing stronger, but he had to ramp up to that. He couldn't just go from normal to a giant beast, not unless he had been hiding some aspect of his power for years. And yet, somehow he had done just that. Steeling her nerves, Samantha let her powers play along the length of the spear and jumped into the fight herself. The edge of the blade was sharp, but against Lung's scales she might have been hitting him with a baseball bat.
That was fine. For her purposes, a blunt weapon was just as good as a sharp one.
The spear twirled in her hands, and with each pass she tapped the monster's scales. Shredding Claw, despite its name, was not a straightforward attack meant to rend and tear. It was an adder's bite, a poison that ate away at her enemy's defenses. A light touch was all it took, and the more she touched, the weaker he would get until he stared down in confusion at how her hand had sunk so deep in his invulnerable chest.
Except Lung apparently did not know how this was supposed to go. There was a faint effect, his foe's attacks doing just a tiny bit more than they had before, and then he was growing again. Definitely more than fifteen feet in length now, and the rest of his half-formed wings ripped themselves out of his back while liquid muscle and membrane leaked out of innumerable cracks and wrapped itself around the bones. He would be flight-worthy in just a few minutes, less if he could pull off this sudden growth trick a couple more times.
A figure wearing blood-red armor and with a string of all-too-realistic skulls hanging from one shoulder teleported to them in a flash of fire and noise and slammed a stone axe into Lung's side.
The dragon screamed, his pain and rage speeding up his growth, but that did not matter. Alexandria might have backed off at the newcomer's sudden appearance, but Samantha was not going to let this opportunity go to waste. She moved faster, her shape blurring to anyone watching as she boosted her speed as far as she could go without getting lost in her own cruel fury. She danced around Lung's lunges, dodged blows that could have ripped her head off even with Inherent Forcefield, and jabbed her spear again and again against the beast's armor. Her impromptu ally took advantage of her power's effect, each blow of the enormous axe reaching flesh before the hole inevitably refilled.
Twisting around a strike at his face, Lung let the other woman's weapon dig deep into his neck before he pounced on her. A hand grabbed her mask and slammed her into the ground, and then his short snout, quadruple-jawed like no creature on Earth, opened wide. For a second Samantha thought he would bite the other cape, but instead he vomited up a torrent of flame that wrapped around them and hid his head and her entire body.
Samantha thwacked his right-hand wing joint, but then he exploded once more into flame. The fires did not discomfort her in the slightest, but the unexpected blow across her back from his wild writhing flicked her off. She hit the ground and carved a trench ten feet long before finally stopping. Laying there for a moment was nice, especially with her body aching in a crumbly way that she instinctively knew meant her Inherent Forcefield had taken too much punishment for her peace of mind. Only when a gloved hand came into view did she reach up and let Myrddin pull her to her feet.
The battleground had gone strangely still, the only motion Lung still looping around on himself and— Was he trying to scratch himself to death? "What did that woman do to him?" she asked.
The wizard-themed cape – or maybe a mage in truth, though his staff was entirely too wooden – shot her a startled glance. "You do know who that was, don't you?"
She shook her head.
"That was the Butcher. And Lung just killed her."
…Oh.
Lung lashed out at nothing, finally giving everyone a chance to see his new look. The stubby tail he previously had was now nearly the length of his body, which had rapidly reached a good twenty-five feet. Two rows of spines raced down his spine, their sharp points glinting wickedly. Three more sets of spines poked out from his cheeks and chins in a caricature of the wise old Chinese man stereotype. His armored body was wreathed in the fires of hell. And
still he was growing! How was he managing that nonsense?!
"Oh, dear," Myrrdin muttered. "I hope the other Butchers in his head don't count as opponents where his power is concerned. That would be bad."
The terrifying dragon belched out another wave of fire before taking to the air. His roar could likely be heard for miles off, and he swerved in midair as though unable to figure out where he should go before his gaze locked onto something in the distance. A quick glance was all Samantha needed to see figure out his plan.
With a lusty war-cry, Lung beat his wings and flew much too quickly towards the National Guard's base of operations. A black missile slammed into his belly, Alexandria trying desperately to throw him off course, but the huge beast vanished only to reappear with the same explosion the former Butcher had used, now halfway to his destination. Every flying cape jumped into the air, and Samantha nearly joined them, but she knew that would not be enough.
Danny was in that building, him and the other support and coordination capes, and while she would not mind the harlots making eyes at her mage's father succumbing to Lung's fires, she would not risk his life for petty revenge.
Taylor would break into a million pieces if anything happened to her father, and damn it, Samantha had plans for him, too!
«Access protection priorities.»
The orange light of the mana she and Taylor shared came into existence around her, and she envisioned the entryway of the base. Two or three seconds, that was all their teleportation required, but with an unstoppable dragon attacking, those scant seconds were an eternity. Finally,
finally the curtain rose, wiping away the world around her and replacing it with the interior of headquarters. "Captain!" she yelled out, running for where she thought he would be. "Captain! We need to go!"
«First: sovereign (Taylor Hebert). Absent. Not applicable.»
Danny looked up at her, confusion plain on his face. "What are you talking—"
«Second: Perfect Storm. Absent. Not applicable.»
"Lung's on his—"
«Third: sovereign court. Active.»
The roof tore open to give everyone a good look at the face of Death, and she
moved. In an instant she had her hands around Danny's arm and she yanked, whipping him around so he was no longer in the line of fire. A massive paw slammed into her back, talons just managing to punch through her much-abused Inherent Forcefield and drawing long lines of blood, but she forcibly lifted her mage's father and flew. Screams echoes around her, Thinkers being burned to cinders, but the thought of helping them never even crossed her mind.
«Fourth: self. Active.»
She would probably feel guilty about that later. Maybe. If forced to choose between Danny and any of the other capes here, she'd choose him. He was too important to Taylor and her both to risk.
«Fifth: general citizens. Conflict with higher priorities. Expendable.»
The far wall shattered at her strike, and she carried him out of the killing zone.
xxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Samantha!" She looked up to find Taylor skimming the ground, and her mage slammed into her with all the force a desperate teenager could muster. "Are you okay? Where's Dad? Is he…?"
"He's fine. I'm fine. We're all fine." Taylor nodded, ignorant of the fact that she could have outed her connection to Danny. Not that anyone was paying attention to them; other teams were having their own reunions, and all those not checking on teammates' health were carefully ignoring the personal conversations going on all around.
"I got here as fast as I could once I heard the news. What happened?"
She shrugged helplessly. "We got cocky and underestimated Lung, and he bit us for it. Things were going bad enough before the Butcher jumped in, but then he just kept on growing. Once he was stronger than the Butcher could withstand, that was it. I don't know if he got tired of attacking the base or what, but he left on his own after a couple of minutes and flew north. I think Dragon's tracking him, but everyone else let him go without a fight. Not like we could have done much to him, anyway, not as big as he was."
Taylor turned to take in the burnt-out shell of the National Guards base. "How many survived?" she finally asked.
"Very few. I teleported in once I realized where he was going," she said when she saw her mage's nervous gulp, "but I didn't have enough time to get anyone besides Captain before he tore his way inside. It was get him and me to safety or try to save everyone and risk saving no one. I chose the sure thing."
She half-expected Taylor to try to chastise her, her charge's idealism as strong as it was. Instead, Taylor flung herself into Samantha's embrace. "Thank you," she whispered. "If you and Dad had died in there… I don't know what I would have done."
Wrapping her arms around Taylor's shoulders, she let the girl shiver in realization of how bad things could have been. It was heart-warming to hear just how much she meant to her mage, but Taylor did not have to worry. She had no plans of leaving her family.
Not for a long, long time.
The Butcher is dead; long live the Butcher. And now you know what those dice rolls a couple of votes back were about. Those were survival rolls.
That's the end of this arc! After-action report next weekend, but now it's time to pick your prizes. Because you participated in both parts, you get to learn two spells, just like you did during the Simurgh fight. The winners will be the two spells with the highest number of independent votes, not the most-voted-for pair. As always, the available spells are on the character sheet on the first post, with those still unpurchased now colored red for better visibility.
On a tactical front, those dead Thinkers were assets that will be very difficult for the Protectorate to reconstitute.
