It was time. The alert for the second wave to advance had gone out. Our group had more than a few non-movers, but they were easily carried by the fliers. I had the pleasure of ferrying Templar's unwieldy form to the frontline. Thankfully my anti-gravity field extended for about two feet in every direction away from my armor when in flight, so all he had to do was hold onto my neck.
"So, you're some kind of trump?" He asked me as we flew the ten miles from the camp to the city to the city. I was forced to keep a relatively slow pace, about a tenth the speed of sound, so as to not accidentally dislodge my passenger.
"Excuse me?" I questioned.
"An effect of my power is that it lets me see anyone in my range if they use a power. It doesn't tell me what that power does, but it lets me see differences between each. I've seen you use about six different ones since we got grouped." In all honesty, I was too impressed to be shocked.
"That's a handy skill to have." I replied neutrally. It was also a skill I wouldn't mind having either. "The short of it is that my power lets me form connections with other capes, and I can copy their power, albeit a watered down version thereof. I'm currently running five brute powers. Plus the armor is a powered exoskeleton, meaning that my strength is enhanced even more. Or as Napalm would put it-" I held up a clenched fist and adopted a dumb-sounding accent. "-me punch hard."
"And you can form these connections with any cape you meet?"
He didn't need to know the whole truth, at least not yet. "No, the connection takes time to work and it's rather difficult to do during combat. Come see me after we kill this thing then I'll see about setting up a connection with you." After a moment I added. "If you want me to."
It seemed that something in his brain had finally clicked. "Wait, you mean to kill the Simurgh?" He asked incredulously.
I laughed lightly. "Of course. What other reason would I be here for?"
Templar remained silent for the remainder of our flight. The moment we entered the city, both of our armbands bleeped a loud warning, saying we only had forty five minutes of safe time left within Canberra. Well, that proved one thing: either I was immune to Master abilities or my armor blocked out whatever frequency the Simurgh broadcasted on, because I didn't hear a thing as we crossed the barrier.
A couple of minutes later, we set down at the US Embassy. The Endbringer was hovering a short distance away. It paid us no notice, the only signs of it even being alive were the occasional twitches of its absurdly long wings. If it hadn't been the source of so much death and destruction, I'd say that it looked beautiful.
"Go ahead," I told him. "Do your thing." Two other flier capes maneuvered into position around him. They were his assigned bodyguards, making sure that the Simurgh couldn't get to him if it turned out that it saw him as a threat. I drew my sword and ignited it. Almost instantly, a piece of debris flew in my direction. It wasn't very large, about five feet in diameter. Fortunately, it missed the building that Templar was on.
I rocketed towards the Endbringer, diving around numerous pieces of debris as it kept trying to splatter me. It didn't stop me from closing to melee range, however, and I lashed out with my sword. It caught the hard light blade easily with one hand, an ominous vibrating noise coming from where the two met. The blade didn't dig in far, maybe a third of an inch. Unfortunate. I twisted the blade sideways and pulled back, taking a chunk of its flesh with me. Black ichor leaked from the wound as it flew backwards slightly, sending much larger debris in my direction.
The entire time it never made a single sound.
I dived, both to avoid the projectiles and to retrieve the piece of flesh I had carved off of it. Debris cratered the ground around me as I finally scooped up my floppy prize. The weird, gray flesh in hand, I deactivated my sword and headed into a nearby building. One single projectile the size of a minivan smashed into the façade before the sounds of the fighting were reduced to far off explosions and dull thumps.
I ducked further into the empty room, what appeared to be a large lecture hall, and clipped my sword to my waist. My helmet retracted as I prepared the only possible way to both invisibly conceal my pilfered goods and have it in direct contact with my body so I could study it with Shaper: by swallowing it whole.
To my disappointment, the flesh was almost completely unpalatable. It held so little actual biological material, that subsuming the entire Endbringer would take years. On the brighter side of things, studying the stuff revealed a manner of rearranging my cells that would serve to even further increase my strength and durability. Unfortunately, this would take too long in the heat of battle, so I resolved to pick back up on it after the fight.
My helmet went back on and I stepped out of the partially collapsed building. I spotted bright, blue lasers impacting the Simurgh's wings as it moved to use them as shields. Legend flew closer to the beast, his latest laser bending implausibly around a cluster of debris to strike it in the face. The Endbringer reared back silently, black ichor dripping from the impact site, as I rejoined the fray.