The whole world partied nonstop for a solid week.
Probably not the
whole world, actually. Someone had to keep the lights on. But I saw none of that because the Protectorate, at the behest of the PRT, ferried Amy, Sabah, Lily, Dennis, and I from celebration to celebration non-stop. Everywhere we turned, from New York to Boston, San Diego to LA, Toronto to Berlin, we were met with thunderous roars, crowds eager to meet the kids who were supposed to be the new most powerful capes in the world.
The first few times I came on stage, people actually bum-rushed me. No harm done of course, and they hadn't meant any either. We learned quickly that I needed to step into the crowd as soon as I was introduced, trusting my multiple super strength and toughness boosts to keep me safe, so I could touch as many people as possible. Every party got better when the participants no longer had their neuroses hanging over them, after all! Eventually, I just took to crowd surfing, waving my tentacles around the upstretched hands and wiping out tens of thousands of illnesses in a few hours.
I'd never seen the appeal in being a rockstar, but this was even better!
In each city we visited, Amy and Sabah would go to the biggest hospital in town and, together, cure everyone. I kept a close eye on them, but they seemed to have figured out exactly how to work together and around each others' limitations at that scale. They would only need me, in the future, to take down another Endbringer!
Every time they worked their miracle, every patient and most of the staff would flood the streets, joining the rest of the world in their celebration.
Dennis and Lily, though they didn't have powers to directly help the cities we were visiting, honestly had a better time than the rest of us, though! Both of them seemed born for the spotlight, drinking in the sunbright glow of the adulation of millions. Dennis had perfected the showy, dramatic entry, running in from offstage while freezing notecards beneath his feet as stairsteps, to tower over the crowds, then taking advantage of his reinforced frame to jump to the ground, rocking the stage. Lily's power was obviously too dangerous to use like that, but she more than made up for that as she conducted the crowds.
They both seemed to really be getting on well with the ladies as well. Those of appropriate age, of course. I could tell our PRT handlers didn't particularly like that, but the Youth Guard was out in force as well, and they had some very specific things to say about "stifling the interpersonal growth of adolescents."
All thirteen of the Butchers laughed for several minutes when they heard that one.
One week after BD Day (Behemoth Down Day, the media were calling it), we teleported with Strider to Tokyo.
The moment we stepped out from behind that curtain, an entire nation roared. The stadium we stood in, once a symbol of Japan's re-emergence on the national stage following the devasation of World War II, the home of the 1964 Olympic games, had lost its luster when Kyushu sank and it became the home of hundreds of thousands of refugees. The nation sundered, it had taken years to clear them out, and this entire part of the city had fallen into crime and disrepair. There were still signs of that dark time here. Rough concrete crumbled around the edges, weathered seats and weathered faces in the crowd a testament to the struggles following the cataclysm. They had more to cheer about than most, for the death of an Endbringer.
As for what I saw…
Nearly every person in the crowd suffered from some form of trauma. Depression and anxiety ran rampant, the things Japan had borne too great for their psyches, their cheering more a mask for the horrors they'd witnessed than a mark of true enthusiasm.
We will fix this. Three stated.
Lily, in costume as we all were, stepped forward first, taking a Tinkertech mic that broadcasted and translated at a reasonable volume to every human in a prescribed area out as she began her speech.
"People of Japan!" The crowd roared for almost thirty seconds before they quieted enough for Lily to hear her own thoughts again. "You have suffered more than most, at the hands of the demons we call Endbringers. Your nation was shattered that day, all that you worked for taken away." She paused for a beat. "But you never lost your hope. You did not give up, in the face of all that you had lost. Even as the world around you grew darker, you still did what you could for those of your children who remained. But perhaps what I admire most about Japan is your strength, and determination, to see your culture survive. No matter where its children wound up in the diaspora."
Lily had volunteered for this next part almost immediately upon learning we would be making a stop in Tokyo. She removed her mask, beaming up into the crowd, arms outstretched. As the crowd realized what had just happened, she continued exultantly. "For I am a child of that diaspora! Whether it is Fate, or Chance, or perhaps the Kami, something conspired to see that one of those with the power to slay mankind's greatest foes would be Japanese!" As she said Kami, a small tilt of her head indicated her thoughts on that matter echoed those of most of the crowd. Very few Japanese were religious these days.
Lily knelt before the crowd as their titanic approval washed over us. She bowed her head. "I swear, upon this ground, the homeland of my ancestors, that I will not rest until all of the Endbringers are dead. Until Leviathan is nothing but ash, and the millions who died on that dark day are avenged! Japan, I swear that you will not have hoped in vain!" She stood, with clenched fists, and the sea of cheers did not calm for minutes.
----
I took the mic from Lily, once speaking was practical again. "Tokyo! I see in this crowd terrible suffering." I let a small smile curl my mouth. "We can't have any of that! My usual MO isn't going to work at all, so we're going to go...bigger. Parian and my sister are going to extend me to cover this entire field. Anyone who wants healing need just walk down and touch the ground." I let the smile become a full-fledged grin. "I will stay as long as needed."
Thousands in the crowd began to surge towards the field as I held outstretched hands with Amy and Sabah, their powers coursing through me once more. The torrent of misery that was Tokyo began to vanish before my eyes.
----
Amy set it up so that I could survive in this state for a while without her interference as long as I didn't move. I took a seat and let them get to Tokyo General Hospital, as hundreds of thousands of people surged into and out of the stadium around me. Lily and Dennis left me there, the stage protected by armed security and a forcefield around the podium, to go do their thing.
Fine by me. This was what I was made for.
----
Night approached and I began to nod off. Fortunately, the torrent of people had dwindled to a trickle after a few hours, not everyone wanted fixing. I could understand that. Amy disentangled me from the mass and restored the grass of the stadium to its normal state and we took off for the hotel we would be spending the night in.
I was about to nod off when Amy burst into my room waving her phone and beaming, a confused Sabah behind her. "Taylor! Medhall's going to move their headquarters back to Oasis! We're going to have an economy!"
If Sabah's reaction was anything to go by, she hadn't been told about this before Amy burst in.
This was kind of bizarre, actually. I raised one eyebrow. "Umm, Amy. When we were providing a beatdown on Behemoth, how much awareness did you have of your general surroundings?"
She seemed confused by the apparent non-sequitur. "Umm. Not much? I was more focused on keeping all the biomass in an entire city alive and functioning than on actually paying attention to it. I can do that, but it's really bad for me, you know that. Why? What's wrong with Medhall?"
I nodded and stood. "Well. Sabah knows this too, I think." She nodded. I sighed. "Amy, Max Anders, the CEO of Medhall, is Kaiser."
