A/N: My apologies, no review responses this week. Like everyone else in Texas, it's been a helluva week and I've got a lot of other things gong on, so no time for responses. Fortunately posting is a matter of reviewing and editing the chapter. If you think my typoes are bad, you have no idea how much worse they could be.
Chapter Forty: Thundered Hard and Mightily
"So, ya doin' anything tonight, love?"
Lord Brutus spoke with forced casualness as he lifted a two-ton lorrie over his head and tossed it through the shattered fencing that separated the freight yards from the rest of Portsmouth.
Narwhal ignored the powerful cape's clumsy pick-up line and instead watched the trajectory of the lorrie through the heavy, constant downpour until it slammed into the pavement. The four villain capes that were attempting to raid emergency supplies bound for the Displacement Camps around the gutted London Metropolitan area scattered into four directions.
Exactly as Lord Brutus wanted.
His fellow King's Knight, Lord Geraint, roared into view over a stack of shipping containers with rocket-like blasts from his hands and feet that shot him right into one of the villains. The two tumbled to the ground before Geraint kicked at the villain brute's knee with a blast of his power.
The villain brute had withstood two punches from Brutus while delivering one of equal power, but screamed at the fire. The man's Brute power could handle all the kinetic energy they could muster, but as Narwhal began to suspect, couldn't withstand heat energy.
The four villain capes were just the latest post-London triggers from the various displacement camps around the kingdom that decided to have a go at the relief shipments from across the Channel and the US. These four unfortunately had more effective powers than most. The weakly powered parahumans tended to stay below the radar and use their powers in a more subtle fashion. The more powerful ones?
Those were the ones who ended up facing the newly formed King's Knights, and the spectacularly sexy Narwhal!
"Feckin' die, you big-assed, ugly feckin' cunt!" One of the villains screamed as she fired off three rounds from a pilfered Glock that did nothing to Narwhal's shields. The cape was the villain team's mover-a line-of-sight teleporter who was effective enough that the local authorities couldn't even identify her, much less catch her. It was her, more than the others, that led to the King's Knights being called in.
The woman was also obviously blind and stupid, not to mention tasteless. The woman's costume consisted of panty-hose over her face and a ripped, red-dyed leather jacket over a see-through body-stocking that did nothing to hide her heavily pierced nipples, or the tattoo of a large penis inked between her barely-there breasts.
"Ugly? Oh you fucking bitch, I've popped pimples prettier than you!" To punctuate her declaration, Narwhal formed a swarm of small, pebble-sized forcefields. She wielded them like guided, reusable bullets. The villain cape teleported to her right just in time for Lord Gereint's wife, Lady Enid, to appear without warning. Enid brought a brick wall with her.
To be precise, Enid materialized a section of red brick wall three meters wide and two meters high that she'd seized from a partially demolished building in the perimeter of the London containment zone. The teleporter, whose longest teleport was only four point five-seven meters, had a choice of going toward where Lord Geraint was burning her brute teammate's leg off at the knee, toward Narwhal's swarm of flying bullets, or left.
Left, of course, being where the brick wall appeared.
The teleporter didn't even have a chance to scream as she splattered into the brick wall. The wall shattered almost into dust, but not before the teleporter liquified into bloody goo.
For one long, painful moment everything around them stopped except for the rain. Even Narwhal stared in shock at the bloody mess that used to be a human being, even if just barely. Enid stumbled away from what she'd done. Like the other knights, she wore form-fitting silver armor that ordinarily would reflect sunlight dramatically, but which in the rain looked dulled and wet. Her helmet left the lower half of her face exposed, and her exquisitely beaded braids hung down the back.
The helmet allowed her to spin away to be noisily sick.
Enid's horror broke the silent tableau. The third member of the villain team-the one who attacked Brutus while Narwhal and Enid dealt with the teleporter—screamed out the teleporter's cape name in anguish. "Abrihet!"
The man was a striker, able to impart massive kinetic explosions with each punch. Of them all, Brutus was the only one who could tank them without a Forcefield. The villain's horrified scream, though, provided just the distraction Brutus needed to deliver a punch that could have broken a sky-scraper. The striker didn't just fall down-the fall broke the concrete of the parkway and sank him a foot into the ground. He didn't move again.
The third villain screamed as he ran, arms pumping. His whole body began to take on a glow as he gathered kinetic energy similar to what Assault in Brockton Bay might, only with more light effects and less actual control. Narwhal's knew from their briefing that bullets would only feed his power. Instead, she snatched him up in a perfectly round forcefield and lifted him into the air.
The final villain-the one who slaughtered the four guards and two soldiers at the Freight yard gate, finally made herself visible again. She launched herself with superhuman strength into a twisting somersault over the lorrie Lord Brutus threw. She bore a staff with a glowing blue blade at the head that Narwhal knew could cut through almost anything.
"Ye feckin' cow, I'm gonna feckin' end ya!" As the woman screamed, she bore down on Lady Enid with a respectable mover rating that had her blurring.
Horrified by her actions or not, Enid managed to recover herself long enough to slip into nothingness, hiding in her private pocket dimension just in time to avoid the spear.
The villain, however, was not in time to avoid Narwhal's forcefield bullets. The swarm of violet projectiles slammed into the murderous cape's head like a billy-club. The cape, as far as Narwhal knew from their brief fight, wasn't a highly rated brute. The speed with which she dropped proved it.
Enid emerged back into the world. "Is that it, then? Did we get the cunts?"
Brutus walked over to the man he put down, removed a heavy gauntlet, and checked for a pulse. "Aye, Enid, we're done." Like the others, his helmet left his bristling, bearded chin open, while his eyes and nose were covered by what looked like a solid steel visor that was, in fact, a tinker-tech HUD. He tapped the side of his helmet.
"This is Lord Brutus, villains contained. Do you need us at the main riot?"
Narwhal couldn't hear the response. Her own earpiece was keyed into the King's Men channel, but MI5 was testy around foreign capes since London. She drifted closer to the still shaken Enid as MI5 agents in PRT-style black armor and containment foam packs rushed into the freight yard. The rain, if anything, actually got worse as they arrived to start cleaning up the mess.
With the surge of adrenaline fading from her ears, Narwhal could hear more mundane fighting a few blocks away. Gunshots rang out occasionally, and the low roar she'd originally thought was thunder turned out to be people screaming.
Narwhal wasn't at all sure she agreed with what the UK government was doing. The displacement camps were supposed to be for all those who survived the destruction of London but who still lost their homes. However, in the year plus since London died, the ethnic make-up of the camps made them look less and less like safe havens for the refugees from London, and more like concentration camps for refugees from other parts of the world that still viewed a broken United Kingdom as a better alternative than their own homes.
After all, the camps received food and basic necessities, while there were parts of the Middle East so wracked by constant war and the collapse of the oil shipping industry that even basic food was questionable. And though the Saharan Confederation was a bright ray of hope, there was still intermittent fighting from Moord Nag's lingering parahuman warlords that the Desert Ghost and his army were still dealing with.
I'm here as a guest. I'm not going to be able to fix what's happening. The thought had become a mantra ever since she arrived.
The Parahuman Response Service of MI5 deployed much like their American counterparts did, foaming everything that moved. As they did so, Lady Enid drifted toward Narwhal. Her silvery armor fit a curvy body.
"Gods, I thought that bint was a teleporter," she said. Narwhal knew the hero was barely nineteen-a London trigger just like the villains they fought. "But that didn't look like a teleport. She hit the wall running."
Lord Geraint, her husband and elder by four months, walked tiredly over to give his wife a shoulder-hug. Lord Brutus, as the senior member of the squad, was giving his report to the MI5 agent in charge of the operation. "It's alright, love. You couldn'a known."
More gunfire ripped through the silence from the riots a few blocks away. Narwhal suspected it was not villains firing, but rather the over-stressed British army forces deployed to try and maintain the supply lines going to the camps. She wanted very much to go over there to help, but knew the soldiers might actually fire on her too. Instead, she forced herself to pay attention to her trainees.
"By all accounts it looked like teleporting," Narwhal tried to comfort her. "Normally mover powers come with a breaker state to keep them from doing just that."
"Or possibly a minor thinker power to detect and anticipate obstacles," a new voice announced.
Narwhal turned to see the Knight Commander of the King's Knights striding confidently toward them from the broken fencing. Clad in power armor that added almost a foot to his height, Lord Nelson draped himself in the colors of the Union Jack, even going so far as to include a flowing Union-jack cape. The cape was not normal fabric since the rain washed off it the same as it might have a tarp.
He reached them in time to place a large, gauntleted hand on Enid's shoulders. "But an object moving from a pocket dimension would be the ultimate trump against such a thinker power."
Narwhal schooled her face. Lord Nelson was not a Tinker, despite his formidable armor. He was a Thinker, with a specialization in synergizing cape powers into teams. When the King's Men died in the London attack, he went from a low-level tactical analyst in one of the old team's satellite offices to King William V's personal pick to lead the newly reformed King's Knights.
And he did it by putting young capes like Enid and Geraint into positions where they would almost certainly kill or maim their opponent. Narwhal could see that the brute Geraint took out would almost certainly lose his leg.
The team he dispatched with Narwhal to deal with the villains in Portsmouth were likely the most effective he could have sent. The villains were powerful and could have given any other team a run for their money. But Geraint was the perfect trump against the villain team's brute. Brutus could tank their striker, while Enid obviously obliterated their mover. And the striker/mover combo still floated in a forcefield bubble. She lowered the forcefield down to the ground and let the man fall, unconscious from oxygen deprivation, into the waiting MI5 agent's foam. Her fields only permeated oxygen if she wanted them too.
"I wish you could all have the breaks you deserve," Nelson said as the other knights gathered. "Unfortunately, we have more trouble brewing in in Folkestone. Transport stands ready, you'll need to get there immediately."
Before Narwhal could speak, since she was an advisor only and not allowed too close to National Security issues, Nelson met her gaze through the visor of his great helm. "Narwhal, you I'm afraid we'll have to lose for a time. I've received a request from my Protectorate counterpart to allow an American cape of your acquaintance admittance not just to the UK, but to Ireland in particular. While we're inclined to cooperate, new immigration and visitation laws do not allow for unescorted foreign capes in the UK, but no UK cape can enter Ireland at this time. Because of your Commonwealth status, MI5 was willing to accept you as a compromise. If you're willing, of course."
Ireland? North Ireland had already collapsed into civil war that was quickly bleeding south into the Republic, and with the loss of London last year, the UK just didn't have the resources to step in and try to stop it.
"Then I'm at your service," she said.
They followed after Lord Nelson toward the two helicopters that would transport them in their different directions. As they walked, Lord Brutus sidled up beside her. "You never did tell me if you had plans tonight," he said with a leering smile visible under the visor of his own helmet.
The man had habitually bad breath, crooked teeth and a tendency to only bathe every other day. But he was also strong enough to bench a tanker-truck and made visits to the camps in his civilian guise during his off-days to give treats to the kids. He was a bit of an ass, yes, but he was an ass with a good heart.
"Sounds like I have plans now," she said, watching his smile falter. "But after that? Who knows? For now, take care of your people."
He grinned. "Oh, I will. There may be plenty o'fish in the sea, but you're the only Narwhal I've seen."
"Oh fuck me runnin', you didn't just say that shite," Enid said. "Really? You've been pining over the girl for two months and that's the best you can say?"
Enid continued to berate Brutus for his admittedly awful pick-up line as they broke off for their own transport east.
~~Theogony~~
~~Theogony~~
Narwhal thought it funny that she and Lord Nelson flew in a Huey. Technically it was a Bell 412EP. During her tour with the Canadian army, they used a variant of the same thing-the 412CF. This one had slightly nicer trappings than a typical military transport, but only because of the special accommodations required to fit Lord Nelson's heavy armor and size into the passenger area. In the army she'd seen as many as fifteen people in a chopper like this, including the pilot and co-pilot.
This one had enough room for five, after Lord Nelson. At the moment, it was just the two of them. She spent most of the flight staring out the window. At some point the heavy rain had turned to an equally heavy snow. It was not even December yet, but it was the second winter following the destruction of London, and the forecast across England was for a hard, cold winter.
Within the heated interior of the helicopter, Nelson removed his helmet. Without it, he appeared to be an ordinary-looking man approaching forty, with thinning brown hair and a prominent nose with at least one break in its history. For all his ordinary features, though, she had to admit he'd accomplished a lot in a short amount of time.
Within four months of London's destruction and the death of most of the King's Men, Lord Nelson had presented the newly crowned William V with a proposal for a new parahuman defensive organization that answered directly to the king personally. And like the mythology they used as their naming conventions, every member of the King's Knights were actual Knights or Ladies, appointed by the King personally as part of a new parahuman order of chivalry.
Their junior organization members were called the Squires. The naming alone went a long way in helping the people of the UK forget the role the King's Men had in London, and Galahad's role in the Chunnel explosion. The prolonged media campaign and already closed inquiry to convince the world that Galahad was a Ziz-bomb helped that perception.
The new organization was already a hundred capes strong, with at least fifty Squires across the kingdom. They were growing so fast the King asked for allied and Commonwealth nations to send volunteers to help train them.
Hence Narwhal's presence.
She'd come to respect Lord Nelson's determination and work ethic. A day rarely went by when he didn't work fifteen hours. She'd also come to intensely dislike his habit of manipulating people. She knew it was an aspect of his power, but it ensured they would never be close friends.
"So, who is this cape we're meeting?"
"A young woman of some renown in your country," Lord Nelson said. "Her cape name is Telos, though I believe you know her as Taylor Hebert."
Narwhal leaned back in her seat. They were speaking through headpieces, of course. The helicopter was not tinker-tech, and so was as loud as any such craft would be. Even speaking through headsets, his eyes studied her intently. "Evidently the child believes she is a god," he said with a wry smile but an intent gaze.
"I've seen the videos and watched the news," Narwhal said with a casual tone. "A girl with Alexandria's strength and speed with a mix of other powers approaching Eidolon's can pretty much say whatever she wants."
"Do you believe her?"
"I believe I'll keep my opinions to myself," Narwhal answered. "Try to remember, Lord Nelson, that I'm not one of your capes. I am the head of the Guild and came here to help your people. Please don't play head games with me."
To the man's credit, rather than take offense he chuckled. "My apologies. It's...actually quite difficult not to, to be perfectly honest. A consequence of my power. I have good reason to believe most Thinkers suffer something similar. Be that as it may, I ask because evidently Alexandria does believe the child is either a god, or a supernatural being of some kind. If that is the case, she's either been mastered, or she has access to independent verification I do not."
"Given Alexandria is one of only a handful of capes who can withstand long periods of being exposed to the Simurgh's scream without being affected, I'd say it's unlikely she's been mastered."
"Agreed. We're travelling to Holyhead. Alexandria understands the heightened Visa restrictions His Majesty's government was inclined to put in place. That makes the child flying here under her own power problematic. So, she's being brought to us via teleportation."
"And then?"
"And then, Narwhal, it will be up to you, Alexandria and Telos to determine how best to enter Ireland. As a representative of his Majesty's government I cannot enter without risking an incident. Things are not well right now, as you know."
~~Theogony~~
~~Theogony~~
Narwhal's breath caught in her throat when Strider appeared with Taylor in tow. The moment they materialized; the teleporting cape reared away from his passenger with a pained expression. "Fuck!"
Narwhal ignored the man's cursing; she didn't even see how his knee buckled. All she saw was Taylor...no, Telos. She wore her costume. The long kilt looked almost Roman, ending at her knees where bronze-colored greaves met the fabric and ran down to her ankles with a black tinker-weave body suit under it. Her feet were bare, showing the intricate tattoos that ended with black-tipped toes.
She wore a chest plate fashioned to fit around her wings. It ended just under her ribs, turning into a loose weave of what looked like metallic-colored ballistic fabric. She wore bronzed vambraces that ran from her elbow to her wrist that looked almost like tinker-tech, but it was her headpiece that was the best part of the costume. Rather than hide her face or tattoos, it was a mostly open frame of bronze-colored metal that seemed to highlight the tattoos while holding her long, dark hair from her eyes.
The costume was as good as anything Glenn Chambers ever designed. But the girl in it?
Taylor's skin had a faintly burnished glow, almost like a phosphorescent illumination that was noticeable under the clouds. Her eyes gleamed brightly as well, as if she could see more than other people. She was easily six foot even without the wings.
"Holy shit, cuz, you look awesome," Narwhal said.
Divine or not, Telos blushed. "Thanks. You're looking good too. Um, Strider, are you okay?"
Narwhal's fascination with the young woman finally broke enough for her to notice the famed teleporter was stretched out on the snowy grass beside the small parking lot where they'd been instructed to meet the incoming Americans. Beside him, Lord Nelson knelt down with his Union Jack-themed armor whirring loudly.
"Do you require medical attention?"
"No," Strider said as he stared up into the heavy gloom of a British December morning. He didn't even seem to feel the snow he lay in. "Just a stout drink and a day of sleep. I don't know what that girl's made up, but it sure as hell isn't sugar, spice or anything nice. I've teleported groups of twenty easier than just her."
"You have an agreement with the King's Men, Strider," Lord Nelson assured the man. "If you need accommodations make your way to my helicopter and we'll make sure you're settled."
"Will do. Just gonna lay here for a second."
Assured the man wasn't going to die, Lord Nelson stood. His full-face helmet bore the stern countenance of the man who inspired his name, and he turned that mask to Telos. Narwhal waited for the awkward, embarrassed Taylor Hebert she met in Canada. Instead, the winged goddess stood still and stared right back.
"Telos, a pleasure," Lord Nelson said without an offer of a hand. "We received Alexandria's note that you needed to go to Ireland. Unfortunately, we here in the United Kingdom cannot assist you. But we can, at the least, explain why."
He held out one huge gauntlet, turned it palm-up. From a colored circle in his palm, lights flickered into a full-color hologram. It showed a city carved up in places with tall walls topped with razor wire. Columns of smoke rose at various points as people ran to and fro. The scene shifted to people in ski masks or other face coverings throwing Molotov cocktails at armored vehicles.
One of the vehicles opened fire with a huge machine gun right into the protestors. A dozen dropped where they were before a winged, silvery figure dropped from the sky right in the middle of the armored vehicle. It crumpled like an aluminum can. The winged cape spun with a large club in hand and swung it, almost as if it were a spear-thrower. The throw resulted in a ball of energy that seared through the air into a second armored vehicle. The second didn't explode, but rather crumpled just like the first.
"She's named herself the Morrigan," Lord Nelson said. "After a Mythological Celtic goddess. She has been fighting against the RUC and our Royal forces stationed in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, her efforts have been all too successful. She's begun pressuring the Republic of Ireland to participate in a fight that the RI wants nothing to do with. Right now, Miss Hebert, Ireland is not accessible to us. If you go there, you will be flying into a war."
Narwhal watched from Telos's side as the winged figure moved and tore through the army personnel as if they were children. The club she wielded was clearly powerful, but it's effects were confusing. It looked like a tinker weapon, but the damage it caused was kinetic, rather than energy-based.
Her wings, though, looked almost like Taylor's. Rather than black and silver, they looked black and white. But the structure still looked just like Taylor's.
From the young woman's enraptured face, she too recognized them. "I have to go there," Telos said.
"Very well," Lord Nelson said. "Understand that should you need assistance, the King's Men cannot intervene."
"I understand," Telos said.
"Then I wish you and your companion God's speed. Strider, my good sir, if you are coming, now is the time."
"Right. Coming." The teleported climbed tiredly to his feet. His eyes looked blurry behind his mask. "No offense, girly, but I'm not giving you another ride. I'm gonna be useless for at least a week."
"I'm sorry," Telos said. "Next time I'll just fly."
With that, Strider stumbled after Lord Nelson toward the helicopter. When the helicopter started to take off, throwing snow everywhere, Telos turned and used her left wing to shelter Narwhal. "Aren't you cold?"
"Insulated body-stocking," Narwhal said. "Uses a chemical heater that lasts about five hours. But yeah, I can't feel my nipples right now. What are we doing, Taylor?"
The young goddess turned to Narwhal and smiled brilliantly. "We're going to find another goddess! Her name is Brigid, and she was powerful enough to hide every mention of herself in every book and computer in the world! Pythia only found out about her from an Earth Aleph source."
"Why?"
Taylor blinked. "Because mother told me to. Do you want me to carry you?"