* Thursday, 9/24/2009 *
The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station was 150 miles away and generated 3.3 Gigawatts of power on average.
Naturally, some people absolutely hated it. After it was apparent that Behemoth regarded power generating plants, there had been a lot of panic about that and protests had ramped up, with the local alternative newspaper running hit pieces on a monthly basis.
The Sunny Friends Solar Collection Collective, on the other hand, used technology derived from Tinkertech and covered a much larger area. It was deemed less evil despite being owned by a major oil company, mainly because that company wasn't helmed by idiots and knew that their good press was a fickle thing.
Southern Arizona was deemed a good location for it - most days were sunny, making it a much better choice than Seattle for example. There were two rainy seasons (February and July) and seismically stable. The major recurring concern was dealing with dust covering the mirrors and lenses from frequent high winds Energy production was rated as 0.9 Gigawatts, which was still fairly impressive. Otherwise the difference between winter and summer was 'comfortable and sunny' and 'oppressively hot and sunny.'
It was touted as a triumph of engineering, regularly proclaimed by some as a "gleaming triumph of renewable energy technology" and "completely and utterly safe" unless you were a bird or something that wandered into the sunlight concentrating field.
So it was a complete surprise to very many people when Behemoth ignored the nuclear plant and erupted out of the ground around the solar plant like some particularly ugly Kool-Aid Man.
Others would point out that taunting the Endbringers by repeatingly referring to the place as a "great hope" or "utterly safe" was just making it inevitable.
* Brockton Bay *
It was a familiar sound, though not so much to Kurama.
"What is that?" asked Kurama, still looking like Naruto Uzumaki.
"Endbringer siren," said the server of the little street vendor as she busied herself at packing things away.
Kurama looked to Orochimaru.
"Kaiju," answered Orochimaru. "Hundreds of millions dead, cities laid waste, people gather to fight it. Lots die. Some interesting data available. I think I shall attend and observe. You?"
"Hmph. If SHE goes, we shall go."
The server paused and approached them. "The ending of the alarm indicates not here. Are you gentlemen capes? You will attend?"
"Me, yes," answered Orochimaru.
"I'll have to check, but it does sound interesting," agreed Kurama.
"Then no charge," said the server. "Good luck. Try not to die."
"Always the start of a good plan," agreed Orochimaru.
* Hebert House *
"Taylor, you can't go!"
"Why can't we?"
"Because... 'we'?"
"You're not going?"
"Why would I go to an Endbringer fight?"
"Because Sub-Zero can throw ice around and I'd be REALLY good at Search & Rescue with my fox clones."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"So you're not planning on fighting Behemoth?"
"Dad, most of my abilities are short range or melee range. It's in effing Arizona so I can't even use most of my water techniques. They'd be too chakra intensive and I doubt they'd do much good anyway."
"What about your Sealing Techniques?"
"I'd need to have made a massive seal array in advance, and I'd have to have a means of dealing with the high temperatures for the paper. The only thing that might be effective is my Chakra Chains but that'd require..."
"Taylor?"
"Huh. That might actually work."
"Those are scary words to come from one's daughter."
Fwish! went Kurama, appearing in a puff of smoke. "We going?"
"What are these?" asked Taylor as she shifted to Zenko and was handed a set of papers from Kurama.
"Anti-energy barriers," said Kurama. "Orochimaru came up with them because of some ninja he fought once having an 'Internal Fires' jutsu."
"Orochimaru is here?" asked Danny.
"Yes, he'll make his presence known eventually, probably when it'll be the most dramatic. Ninjas love drama," said Kurama with a snort.
* PRT ENE HQ *
Shadow Stalker was ready and moving towards the pick-up point. The only way she'd be approaching the PRT Building would be an emergency just like this.
She could see the crowd forming. Losers she'd rather not associate with. Villains she'd rather just shoot. There was the Endbringer Truce thing going though so there wasn't much to do about it.
Huh. There was Ironeyes, that old Native American guy. She'd heard of him. Oldest cape on the East Coast. Dude looked it.
Oh, there was Dangerman. He wasn't dead yet? British guy. Heard of him too. Not sure how much to believe about some of the stories about him.
Forbush Man? What the hell was THAT loser doing responding to an Endbringer fight? Have to stay way away from him, all that stupid might splash on her.
Shadow Stalker's grim look went to startled as she noted the presence of the Crimson Lady. Never mind Forbush Man, what was EMMA doing here?!
"Look, Crimson Lady, I don't dispute your desire to fight, but you are clearly underage," said Miss Militia. "We also don't even know what powers you have."
"My sidekick here can vouch for me," said the Crimson Lady, gesturing to Shadow Stalker.
"No," said Shadow Stalker. "Not for a freaking second. YOU are the Sidekick, the Minion, the Follower. Miss Militia is right, you should just stay here."
"What?! But I'm ready!" protested Scarlet Lady.
"She has spirit!" declared Kaiser as he walked closer, flanked by Fenja and Menja. "You should allow her and her minion to participate if they feel they are ready."
"I AM NOT HER MINION!" Shadow Stalker wanted that clear from the onset.
* Kaiser *
They walked away from the fuming Shadow Stalker, to talk to some of the other "acceptable" capes showing up for the teleportation service to the battle.
"She's wearing a burgandy skintight leather catsuit," noted Fenja. "She's going to bake in that come Summer."
"What kind of powers does she have?" asked Menja. "Besides making me think of the term 'Scarlet Woman' or the old 'The Scarlet Letter' story every time I hear her name."
"I'm pretty sure the answer is 'none'," answered Kaiser.
"None?" asked Menja.
"She's one of those weirdos who likes to pretend they're a cape and end up dying in a horrific manner?" asked Fenja, who didn't honestly care that much, she just knew Kaiser well enough to know there was a Plan cooking.
"You saw how upset the vigilante was at the thought that she was the sidekick?" asked Kaiser.
"Yeah, you want us to spread the word to play that up?" asked Fenja.
"Shadow Stalker has staked a few of our believers to the wall, quite literally I might add," said Kaiser. "If nothing else it creates a rift between the two."
"It will likely get Scarlet Lady killed," noted Fenja. "Cape groupies that go that route tend to have a short life."
"Well, it works for Forbush Man," noted Menja.
"No, Forbush Man HAS powers," said Kaiser. "He's just a grab-bag with minor abilities who doesn't believe he has powers."
"How can someone be that clueless? And this coming from someone on a team with Hookwolf," asked Fenja.
"It's how his powers work," said Kaiser. "His main power is Survival Through Ignorance. It's quite possible he could even survive Behemoth's kill aura as long as he's distracted from knowing he's in it."
"Powers make no damn sense," said Fenja.
"Ah, there's one I want to talk to," said Kaiser, changing direction slightly. "Good behavior now. Kvasir is a minor Tinker in the scheme of things, but he has a useful specialty."
* Dragon *
She was not in Brockton Bay or Arizona, though both (and many other sites) were being monitored by her.
She was also quite aware of Behemoth's rampage through the collection tower and assorted mirrors of the solar power generating station.
The teleporters started with nearby groups and worked outwards, so the initial groups of participants had been from places like California and Nevada. The Phoenix PRT team had gotten there first, of course.
"Artillerist down. Duplicate Lass deceased. Hardcore down. Hardcore deceased." She was going to have to come up with better trackers for those fighting Endbringers, something that automatically mapped locations so that Search & Rescue could find the survivors easier.
"Runik deceased. Xanthos down. Barbariette deceased. Rage Sage deceased. Herbalist down. Zombie Girl deceased. Zombie Girl recovered and now down."
She checked the file, found that Zombie Girl's power was that she came back to life whenever she was killed, but had a timer before it could be used again. Oh, that wasn't good.
"Search & Rescue avoid Zombie Girl's location for another fifteen minutes due to danger posed by power demands."
Another group incoming drew Dragon's attention. Washington State, Colorado, and Nevada-based capes this time.
"Superlative Girl down. Precept deceased. Bondage Girl down. Kunoichi down. Firebug deceased. Latina Sunday deceased. Pistol Packing Mama deceased. Overlady deceased." Dragon paused. "Clear sector E-7, building radiation in that location."
Another group of heroes and villains appeared, this time from Canada. She recognized a few of them personally.
"Sparkle down. Tequila Mockingbird deceased. Delta Don deceased. Doublemint deceased. Raspburial deceased. Purgatorium deceased."
You'd think someone with Purgatorium's energy absorbtion powers would do better. Apparently not.
Behemoth left the ruins of the Sunny Friends Solar Collection Collective and he/it began heading into the White Tank Mountains.
"Behemoth projected course... why is it heading towards a nature preserve?" Dragon tried to fit this into previous behavior patterns and wondered what she was missing. Ah, here came the Brockton Bay volunteers.
Why was Scarlet Lady here despite being underage and wearing a costume guaranteed to give her heat stroke in the currently 105 degrees Farenheit (40.5 C) temperatures? It was late September but the current temperature was more mid-August for the area.
"Iron Mike down, Dreadnaught down, Blue Meanie deceased, Red Oni deceased, Blue Oni down, Mind Goblin deceased, Slasher Girl deceased, Intrepid deceased, Party Girl down."
Sub-Zero went past, erecting ice barricades and shields that didn't last very long when Behemoth could raise temperatures to iron-melting levels. Though Behemoth was slowed down when doing that, it wasn't for very long.
Well, seconds counted in an Endbringer battle.
"Thunderhead deceased, Dynaguy deceased, Splashdown deceased, Stratogale deceased, Meta Man deceased, Gamma Jack deceased, Phylange deceased, Psycwave deceased."
"All users, this is Zenko, be ready to assist. I'm going to try something."
"Zenko, this is Dragon, please advise - what are you going to try?"
"This is my friend Kurama. We're going to try this... FUSION-HA!"
Gold.
Zenko was now glowing gold with black designs breaking up what would otherwise be a solid mass of brightness.
She shot out, a single leap covering the distance between where she'd started and the fifty-foot tall Behemoth.
Who showed surprising speed in swatting her out of the air and then throwing lightning at his attacker.
Trees shot up like in some incredibly sped up footage, quickly forming a barrier that momentarily stopped the lightning. Behemoth renewed the attack, this time not a simple flash of lightning but a continuous stream until the trees were consumed.
Everyone, including herself, familiar with ninja knew exactly what that meant.
It meant that Zenko was no longer there and sure enough there was a blur and Zenko appeared behind the Herokiller. A spread of those little throwing knives with fluttering paper tags was thrown and then Zenko blurred again in some form of teleport to appear at a different location.
The little knives, specks against the bulk of the Endbringer, exploded but did no damage to Behemoth.
Dragon began analyzing what was known about Zenko and trying to anticipate what was likely to be tried next.
A giant cactus erupting out of the soil and launching dozens of needles at the Endbringer was not what she had predicted.
Further against expectations was to see them piercing the Endbringer's rocky hide, even if those needles didn't penetrate far and then broke off when Behemoth scraped its arms against those areas.
Then the remaining quills all exploded.
Zenko was not using water techniques, most likely because the amount of standing water in the area was minimal at best. Without a source of water to draw on, that would curtail many of the hydrokinetic abilities she'd shown in the past.
Which was likely why Sub-Zero was limiting his engagement to the occasional shield.
"Mustang Sally deceased, Max Penalty deceased, Cheshire Cat down, Maximus Effort deceased, Silver Arrow deceased, Perky Goth down, Lightning Lad deceased, Emerald Egg deceased."
[Alert - Identification: Coil 75% match.]
[Record check of transportees show Coil arrived with Brockton Bay pickup.]
Oh, that was interesting. The thin and tall figure striding forth as if he owned the battlefield was decidedly different from the skulker-in-shadows modus operandi listed in the files.
In the meantime, Zenko had done her tree-growing technique again, this time forming wooden bonds that attempted to restrain Behemoth while Eidolon went into full bombardment mode.
Behemoth was not stopped. He WAS slowed as the anomalous wood seemed a lot tougher than it should have been. Behemoth's known Kill-Aura and energy redirection powers made things a bit harder, most Brutes not being sufficiently durable to survive the Kill-Aura and most Blasters would find their attacks redirected.
Harpoon Hattie being one of the few Blasters that was going full out as she conjured her signature weapon and threw it over and over again. Maximum effort, minimal effect.
Another wide area blast from Behemoth dug trenches in the ground and through the bodies of several groups of attackers.
"Mistress Mime deceased, Harpoon Hattie deceased, Milquetoast down, Typhoon Tessie deceased, Mermaid Minnie deceased, Count Catastrophe deceased, Airwolf deceased."
"Hard Override! It's time to go Beast Mode!"
Now what was Zenko going to do? She...
Dragon spent several accelerated cycles just trying to take in what had just happened.
"Dragon, this is Armsmaster. We're going to have to redo Zenko's threat assessment again. That's twice this week."
"Yes," replied Dragon. "I can see where that's the case."
Size and dimension data scrolled across her perception as the nine-tailed 323 foot-long fox formed of bio-energy grabbed ahold of Behemoth and picked the Endbringer up before repeatedly smashing him into the landscape.
The Endbringer seemed confused by the whole thing as well. Didn't stop him from throwing lightning at the fox construct but had to be one of the strangest things that had happened to the Endbringer.
"Hard Override. Eidolon. Hold him right there!" came Eidolon's voice over the channel.
Behemoth struggled in the grip for a few moments before it apparently got tired of being shot at by Eidolon and managed an energy field that let it break the grip long enough for it to tunnel away from the fight. Seismic data indicated it was going down close to the mantle.
The huge form of some nine-tailed fox-like creature flickered and vanished, replaced by the much smaller forms of the two parahumans who had formed it: Kurama and Zenko.
Zenko dropped down to one knee, possibly indicating that this manifestation was personally exhausting or had a hard time limit that restricted its use.
Dragon wondered if that technique could also be learned, and if so - would it be possible for HER to learn that.
Looked damn useful, from what she could see.
* PHO *
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♦Topic: Brockton Bay Hero: Zenko
In: Boards ► Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Discussion (Public Board)
Displaying Page 203 of 203:
►Vista (Verified Cape)
Posted on September 25, 2009:
Holy crap! That video... Zenko, please please please join the Wards. I want to learn ninja techniques if I can fight like that!
►Exalt (Verified Cape) (Houston Protectorate)
Posted on September 25, 2009:
It was glorious, that was what that was. I've got the loop animation of that fox-construct picking up Behemoth to slam him into those mountains.
I've got another where Zenko's giant fox construct is holding Behemoth in place while Eidolon tears strips off the Endbringer.
The memes this will launch stagger my imagination.
►Bringsthebeer
Posted on September 25, 2009:
I would be a bit concerned about some teen girl fox ninja type pulling out a giant fox summons, but the local TV station recently ran an old Japanese live action movie about a ninja guy named Jiraiya who summoned giant toads to fight giant snakes so apparently there's a precedent?
►Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted on September 25, 2009:
Okay, let's get the facts straight here.
Zenko's power, as near as the analysts have been able to agree, is a form of bio-energy. She can not only use it herself, but can awaken the potential in others who can then learn and refine it in different ways.
Such as Sub-Zero who also attended the Endbringer Battle and was able to shield the medical tent twice with ice barricades. Good going on that by the way and thanks, Sub-Zero.
This bio-energy field gives her ratings in both Striker and Brute but it is a Swiss Army Knife power that can be used to do everything from healing to fox projections. Until yesterday, they were cute little normal-sized foxes that posed for photo ops. This was a Master rating, though not the usual scary human-controller power that the ones like Heartbreaker have.
So, from what my contacts have been saying, the people who actually give those ratings are very unhappy with Zenko so far. She keeps changing things up and doesn't get put into a box like Glory Girl whose powers stay the same day after day.
So now they're just putting it under Trump/Shaker 8 and saying they're going to wait at least a month before they update that at all. My contacts also want to relay to Zenko the hope that she won't go pulling new applications of her power out for awhile as they are getting really backlogged.
Things we've got footage of that she's used that bio-energy for:
* Hydrokinetic fire hose and fog generation. [Link]
* Little White Fox Projections. [Link][Link][Link] (Just three of the best, they're very photogenic.)
* Super-leaps and running up walls. [Link][Link]
* Terrakinesis by making the ground rise up to form walls. [Link]
* Chlorokinesis by causing wooden artifacts to erupt from the ground. [Link][Link]
* Healing. [Link] (Most footage of her doing this is private and covered by HIPPA laws.)
* Aerokinesis, generating sudden gusts of wind. [Link]
* Pyrokinesis, blowing fireballs out of her mouth or streams of fire. [Link]
* Electrokinesis, generating lightning from her hands. [Link]
* Combat Thinker ability, shown in this fight [Link] where she knew where everyone was on a battlefield and avoided an attack she should not have been able to see coming.
People keep referring to her as a "Grab Bag" cape, which is inaccurate if the analysis is correct. Grab Bags have one strong power and a few weaker powers. Grab Bags don't change their powers or learn new ones. Hence, Trump.
Kurama appears to be a blonde-haired blue-eyed male ninja who has turned into a redheaded female on camera [Link][Link] because apparently that "Disguise Jutsu" of Zenko's is another trick they can pull out of their bags. And apparently Kurama is fond of pranking people with it.
►Mod_Hatter
Posted on September 25, 2009:
So she has a single ability that she's doing a thorough munchkin on.
Too young by far, but I have to admire that attitude.
What do you call the freaking huge projection/combination thing?
►Azmansilver
Posted on September 25, 2009:
@Mod_Hatter - Effing terrifying?
►Reave (Verified PRT Agent)
Posted on September 25, 2009:
The general recommendation is Trump 8 and just try to append the file as opposed to rewriting it twice a week.
I've heard members of the ThinkTank have started crying whenever new footage comes out. Or one of the people she's training starts developing their own ninja technique.
Because apparently people who have worked on their basics to a certain level and have a certain degree of inventiveness can work out some of their own techniques. Nobody is panicking because they're all very specific, require a lot of chakra, and low-power effects, but still.
Yes, Erwin, we're talking specifically about your "Bubble Shape No Jutsu" that you used at the Children's Hospital while the Endbringer battle was going on. Blowing bubbles that you shaped into a battle between TIE fighters and X-Wings was well received but the children are now requesting bubble mix and making a mess when they can get it.
►Old_Genin (Verified Ninja)
Posted on September 25, 2009:
@Reave - Hey, the kids liked that and I need to practice.
Still building my chakra reservoir and coils, might be a few years before I can even try to do the impressive stuff because that's something that takes time. Just the ability to get up in the morning without joints hurting is worth the effort though.
Edit: Hey mods, thanks for the tag! Feels like being part of an exclusive club.
►SecretAsianMom
Posted on September 25, 2009:
It still feels wrong to have non-asian ninja running around.
Isn't that cultural appropriation?
►WhyteOne
Posted on September 25, 2009:
Mod: Post deleted. No racial slurs or threats allowed. -Tin Mother.
