2.6
Due to my method of descent, I reached the ground a great deal sooner than my companions on the roof. Which, in turn, meant that I was the only one fighting the clones for at least half a minute. I probably should have thought that through a bit more. Oh well. Stepping forwards quickly, I mentally reviewed my options. Blade of Grass? It was probably my best close quarters weapon. The Starfury was incredibly powerful, but it was also not that easy to aim when I was actually thinking about it. Swinging it without thinking hadn't failed me yet, but unlike what the other students at Winslow thought, I
couldn't stop thinking at will.
In the end, I decided to go with something with a bit more brute force, but still at range. My Ball of Death, a massive purple flail on a chain that didn't quite behave how gravity would prefer, was flung out towards the pair. The Lightslinger clone quickly slid aside, but the other, a Harmonic clone, I think? She wasn't quite so mobile. The impact with my flail flung her across the street, but she crawled to her feet a moment later. Some sort of Brute, I guess. I didn't have much time to analyze that, however, as the Lightslinger clone attacked while my flail was returning to me. The mass of light moved in a way that was smooth, but changed directions erratically. I only had a few seconds to consider where the attack would come from before a spear-like protrusion was disgorged from the clone.
Fortunately for me, with all the speed boosts that I had, a few seconds was more than enough. Sidestepping the attack, I moved into my flail, withdrawing it into my inventory as I did so. Sweeping out the Blade of Grass in another smooth motion, I bisected where I thought the center of the ball of light to be.
The result was instantaneous, as two halves of a corpse fell to the ground near me. Now that the main threat was gone, I turned my attention back to the Harmonic clone, who was now attempting to stagger away from me, supporting herself against a building. Apparently her Brute rating, assuming that whatever had saved her from dying on impact with my flail
had been a Brute rating, was very, very low. Shrugging to myself internally, I pulled out the Harpoon gun and shot her with it. Just to make sure, I shot her with it a few more times, making sure to hit her in the chest and head. She didn't get up this time.
I heard a clanking thump as Jouster finally made it to the street. He was breathing heavily, but when he looked at me, and then around me, he gave me a tentative smile. "O-oh, wow. Um, great job Terrarian. Lightslinger is really good, and based on some of the earlier ones, it looked like his clones inherited his skills. Taking one of those out is really impressive."
I looked at him a bit blankly. "Really? Huh. That wasn't... Well, anyways, what do we do now?" Normally, I would have been all too content to bask in some admiration, as when did I ever get
that? Right now, however, there were, presumably, at least a few clones running around out there, not to mention Echidna herself.
After we had returned to the vantage point atop the roof, we settled back in to wait once more. I wasn't too happy with that, as I felt that I could make a much bigger difference if I was some sort of mobile reinforcement or something. With my speed, any group having trouble with their opponents could call in and I was capable of reaching pretty much anywhere within a couple blocks in half a minute, give or take. Sadly, it would seem that I was getting the 'Ward' treatment, which meant pretending I was made of glass.
I understood why they did it, I mean, what sort of organization would the Protectorate be if they took in young people with unfathomable powers and sent them off to fight in battles that nobody had a great chance of surviving? Obviously, to reassure the public, the Wards' families, and even the Wards themselves in some cases, they had to take a gentler approach. I just objected to being lumped in with them. I wasn't assigned here. I chose to come. I know the risks, and I made the decision anyways. All the same, I'm being told to sit and wait here with these Wards when I could be out there helping. It was incredibly frustrating.
There were monsters out there, and they needed to be put down.
After what seemed like an hour of grinding my teeth, but was probably closer to ten or twelve minutes, we received a message on Roulette's radio.
"Echidna has come into the open. She is engaging the first responders on Eden street. All direct combatants and support capes are to meet on Bartlett street where a more detailed plan of attack will be drawn. Command Close." The voice was crisp and clear, but I recognized it from the news and from videos on PHO. Dragon was directing this herself. That honestly made me feel better already.
I quickly turned to the others. "I'm from Brockton Bay, so I don't know where those places are. Do any of you know?" I had to get there as fast as I could, but all the speed in the world wouldn't help me if I didn't know where to go.
Roulette nodded and pointed in a direction. "Bartlett is in that direction. We should probably head there on-" But I didn't hear the rest of what she had to say, because I had already flown into the air. The Gravitation Potion's effects were still up, and I took advantage of the ability to ignore all the obstacles in my way.
Ten seconds later, I touched down on what I assumed to be Bartlett street, as a small crowd of capes was growing. It was mostly disorganized, but that was quickly being fixed by a group of Protectorate members led by Alexandria herself, organizing people into groups. I looked on for a few minutes before suddenly, a man was grabbing my attention through the sudden invasion of my personal space.
"Are you capable of delivering a moderate attack, say, on the level of a rifle, from a distance of 50 feet, minimum?" The question was rather specific, but asked in a very bored tone. I could only wonder at how many times this man had had to ask this question in the past five minutes alone.
I began to reply. "Yes, I can-" But I was cut off almost immediately.
"Good, go report to Lightslinger." He pointed at a cape wearing a mostly intact armored body suit, though it was missing one of the sleeves from the elbow down. I had an odd feeling, remembering killing one of this man's clones not fifteen minutes earlier. All the same, I did as instructed and strode over to the specified cape, around whom there was already a sizable crowd. Which wasn't very odd, come to think of it. I mean, among capes with powers that can dish out some damage, the power of a gun was rather
low on the spectrum.
Lightslinger waited, rather impatiently from what I could tell, until the stream of people joining us had slowed to a trickle, at which point he spoke out to the group. "Alright, each of you are going to be paired with either a Thinker or someone that can provide battlefield awareness, as well as a Brute. Each of these cells will be expected to work in tandem when required, but by and large, our jobs are going to be to provide a slowly shrinking perimeter and to ensure that no threats escape into the city at large, which may sound familiar, as many of you were already engaged in that on a wider scale. Well, that's because this is still
really important." He paused to take a deep breath to calm himself. "We aren't expected to engage Echidna directly, because that has ended badly a large number of times. Instead, the heaviest hitting Blasters and Shakers, like Legend, are going to be hitting her from a distance while keeping her as immobile as possible. Got it?" After a round of nods and sounds of agreement, people were picked out of the crowd, one by one, and grouped with a pair of other capes.
My group consisted of a rather solidly built teen made of metal that I recognized pretty much immediately. Weld was a pretty popular Ward, and I had read some articles on him on PHO before. He was probably our Brute. The other was a female cape that I didn't recognize.
"Swarm." She said, a curtain of bugs around her shoulders buzzing out the word as she spoke it. I shuddered, and stepped back a little. The bugs themselves weren't that bad, I had seen larger ones in the caverns in Terraria, but the general effect of her appearance was more than a little unsettling. "I control bugs." Underneath the creepy buzzing, her voice sounded... dead. As though she were reading the words off of a script rather than speaking her mind. She was pretty tall, and her costume was pretty dark, predominantly black and grey, with green lenses over her eyes. Bugs of various kinds were crawling over and around her, including among their ranks, that I could see at least, cockroaches, spiders, and various other kinds that I couldn't quite recall the names of at the moment.
After waiting a moment to see if she would elaborate any further, Weld spoke up. "Weld, a Ward here in Boston. I'm pretty tough, if I do say so myself, and over time, I can manipulate the shape of metals on my arms and such, turn my arms into weapons and so on."
They both looked at me, and I fidgeted a little. "Terrarian. My power is... weird. But what's relevant here, is that I have a variety of weapons I can pull up at a moment's notice." I quickly cycled through a few weapons, like the Blade of Grass, Ball of Death, Boomstick, and Harpoon gun. "I'm also a Brute and a Mover." I didn't really want to get any further into my powers, so I clammed up then.
Weld just nodded, and proceeded. "A bit like Miss Militia, then, but with some good accompanying powers. Nice. Alright, our area's over here. You've heard the plan, we just have to make sure that no clones or any other threat get past us into the city. At certain intervals, we'll be ordered to close in a little and shrink the perimeter. Swarm, can you tell us if there are any clones coming through?" She nodded, but didn't say anything.
Weld continued to try and make small talk, but the conversation was quickly strangled after I quickly downed a Hunter Potion, Nightowl Potion, and a Dangersense Potion before setting up vigil on a rooftop. On occasion, I would pull out the Harpoon gun and take out a clone that scrambled towards us, but while it was fairly common to have to deal with them at the beginning, after a short time, the incursions ceased. We were waiting for about five minutes in silence, keeping watch, when a message came from our radio.
"Eidolon is down, repeat, Eidolon is down. All cells, converge on Eden street. We are beginning Contingency Seven. Repeat, We are beginning Contingency Seven. Cell leaders, explain as you move. Command out."
OoOoO
Author Note: Just wanted to make note, Eidolon was NOT cloned in this instance, he was taken down by an especially clever combination of clones by Noelle. This chapter feels a little short, but I think it needed to be gotten out of the way so that the REAL excitement can begin.
(Boss fight in Earth Bet, yeah!)
