Seizure 18.x (Legend)
Legend watched Vejovis, waiting for the explosion he'd been warned against, or really any kind of reaction at all. Instead the white and red clad man had gone still. Very still. Almost unnaturally still, some part of his brain practically screamed, used to dealing with Case 53's and power-created creatures. All sound seemed to drain away, and, despite being covered, the Triumvirate parahuman got the sense that the other cape's eyes B̴͖̅͝ū̷͇͓r̴͙̐n̶̼̪̾̿e̵̻͗d̸̠̄.
And then the moment passed.
Vejvois took a deep breath, and Legend realized the other man hadn't even been doing that, before he let it out in a deep sigh. "Okay. Why?"
"It's not just you," the Blaster reassured him, oddly relieved for reasons he couldn't place. Because the other Cape was handling this maturely? Yes, that must be it. Rebecca had warned him about the other man's temper, apparently without need. "We're asking anyone from Brockton Bay not to attend. What happened last time, we can't afford another one. Especially not with the Simurgh."
"I've already warned you," the other Hero noted, not arguing. "Cat's out of that bag."
"Possibly," Legend agreed. "But possibly not." Doctor Mother, Contessa, and Alexandria had been hard at work, but the precog blackout over this city, combined with how many new things had happened here all at once, rendered a lot of their plans worryingly shaky. Vejovis started to respond, but caught himself, prompting Legend to ask, "You think they might be right?"
Leaning back, the insect controller mulled over his response, picking his words carefully. "Levi, Levi seemed to have an odd hate-on for a couple of people: Me, Boardwalk, Break and his family, and Æonic. Me in particular, or maybe it just felt that way. Asshole went after me three, maybe four times personally."
"That's. . . unusual," Legend hedged, inwardly glad that his friends' guesses seemed to be correct. Sometimes, most times if he was being honest, they asked him to do things without saying why, sometimes without even knowing why themselves, and it was good to hear they seemed right this time. "If it goes badly again, we'll contact you and the others. At that point, it couldn't hurt," he offered, getting a wince and a wan smile from the other man.
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Bright side, even if it does, the innocents will be out of the way," the Hero shrugged. "However, if I might make a suggestion?"
The Triumvirate parahuman nodded.
"Don't let the Wards fight," Vejovis said, dead serious. "I know you normally do against the Simurgh, but-"
"We're not," Legend interrupted, finding himself smiling despite the oncoming disaster. It was good to see the other hero had his head on straight. "I made the case to Director Costa-Brown myself, and she agreed. While they might help, the losses if things ramp up again. . . Leviathan was enough, and they're our future."
"Agreed," Vejovis nodded, smiling himself, though the expressive man's face was overtaken with a flash of worry. "But, if things get bad, you will contact me, right?"
"We will," Legend promised, turning to the door. "Thank you for being understanding about this. Most Heroes don't take not being able to fight that well."
Standing, Vejovis looked incredulous. "But it's not about fighting, it's about saving people," he argued, prompting a laugh from the Triumviteer. "What's funny about that?"
"Nothing funny, nothing at all. Just, are you sure you don't want to join the Protectorate?" Legend asked. "I was told you wouldn't, but we could use more people like you."
The other parahuman had been walking over to him, but paused, going absolutely still for another moment, before shaking his head. "You. . . you don't know why?" the hero asked, good mood gone, tone searching.
"No, I was told by the Chief Director that you wouldn't," Legend confirmed, frowning. "Something about personality conflicts."
Vejovis stared at him, sighing again. "You could call several days of torture 'personality conflicts'," he commented blandly. "You could call threatening to kill everyone I care about 'personality conflicts'. You could hide a great number of things under that seemingly harmless moniker. No, Legend, look into what happened to Director Tagg, and why I have an agreement with your other organization not to leave this city."
Legend wanted to disagree, to say that what Vejovis was suggesting, or outright stating, wouldn't happen, but the tired conviction in the other man's words, as well as his other statements, and some things Legend himself had heard, made him hold his tongue. "After this, I'll look into it. If what you're saying is true, and I'm not saying it's not, amends need to be made."
The other hero looked at him, before chuckling sadly. "And if the Protectorate had more people like you, I might've joined." He frowned. "Didn't we do this last time we met?"
Pausing, the Triumviteer realized they had. "I'm seeing the same things that caused me to make the offer before." He shrugged, continuing with remorse, "And it looks like others have only given you more reasons to say no. Regardless, I'll look into what you said. There's few enough good people; they should be protected."
Looking into his eyes, Vejovis nodded, "I couldn't agree more."
As Legend left, he had the vaguest sense that Vejovis hadn't been talking about himself.
AB
Legend floated in the air, ready for battle to begin. It was just after midnight, and if Vejovis was correct, the Simurgh was going to be attacking in the next few minutes. With their warning, they'd managed to completely evacuate Washington D.C., and, unlike the first time, they were prepared.
Tinkertech weapons emplacements, needing hours to set up, were powered up and ready to fire. Heroes, Villains, and everything in between had gathered, equipped with armbands, armed with explosives for those who stayed in the Simurgh's danger zone, which extended just over a mile in every direction of where she floated.
While terrible, the armbands were built to warn the fighters of the invisible time-limit they were under before mental subversion took place, and were half the reason anyone came to fight what many agreed was the most terrifying of the Endbringers. When presented with the option of death, or becoming a mind-controlled puppet, most would take the first. Just one of many bad practices, to avoid worse outcomes, he thought, the armbands an odd metaphor for Cauldron as a whole.
"Are we sure this is gonna happen?" Eidolon asked, coming up beside Legend.
As if to respond, Dragon announced through all armbands, "The Simurgh is en-route. Estimated time of arrival three minutes."
Legend turned to give his friend a tense but ready smile. "What do you think?"
The green clad man nodded, power literally crackling at his fingertips, as electricity seemingly made of brown ice formed, shattered, and disappeared. "I think it's time I put one of these monsters down," Eidolon stated, voice full of grim determination.
Glad David was ready to fight, his friend having been oddly. . . distant these last few weeks, Legend smiled, looking up to try to catch some hint of their foe. On his other side Alexandria flew up, greeting them.
"We should all get to our positions," she reminded them after a moment, Dragon announcing the Simurgh's arrival in two minutes.
Nodding, Legend sped off, taking his place near one of the Tinkertech cannons, preparing for the fight to come, as much as he could. Some might think that, after ten, twenty, or even the thirty Endbringer Fights he'd been in, you would get used to them, but he never had, each fight terrible in some subtly new way. It was odd to say, but the knowledge that the creatures had been holding back, terrible as that was, made sense.
If the monster's strength been anywhere near truly matched, he and the others should've won at least one fight by now, not the 'victory' of driving the creatures off, just to attack another day, but true victory, where the threat was ended for good. Letting out a deep breath, he readied his lasers, glancing around at the collection of Heroes and Villains around him, all united in common purpose, taking strength from it.
"Thank you all for being here," he told them, "I appreciate it. I really do."
The others looked at him, some thankful, some mostly dismissive, but many of the Villains stood a little straighter, their stances a little firmer. One of the others, still looking up, frowned. "Are those shooting stars?" she asked, her helmet's visor whirring to life, as Legend's head whipped up.
It was hard to see against the starry sky, but, indeed, it looked like some of the stars were moving, but slowly, very slowly. Before he could do more than notice the several dozen mobile dots of light, Dragon's harried voice crackled over their comms. "Warning! I repeat, Warning! Target is towing satellites and asteroids!"
They're in the atmosphere, so they're actually, meteors, the hero thought, the idea striking him oddly. His son had just finished a project on them a few weeks ago, not expecting to see any anytime soon. The 'stars' grew, and grew, dark trails starting to obscure the true stars, as Legend waited for Alexandria's orders, but when it didn't come he took measures of his own, turning to the others, commanding, "Fire on the meteors! Largest first! Don't let anything bigger than a bus hit the ground!"
Those around him jerked, as if coming out of a daze, and nodded, the longest-range Blasters already starting to sight and fire, while the Tinker manning the gun looked doubtful. "Um, I was told to only shoot at the Simurgh," she offered, casting a worried look as the descending projectiles continued to grow. Bolts of fire, lightning, and light jumped up, at first from his location, and then from others as those assembled joined in.
"You don't hit the biggest of those before they land, Telenath, we won't be around to fight it," Legend told her, peering into the dark, picking out the meteors that were once solid asteroids instead of fragile satellites. "That one, that one, and that one," he directed, pointing to the largest. "Now fire."
Charging his own beams, he let loose on the fourth largest, wishing that, for once, his lasers actually moved at the speed of Light, to better hit his targets. However, he was able to hit it, gritting his teeth as his blast dug into it, barely slowing the rock, but he didn't need to stop it, he needed to crack it.
Pushing hard, the canon beside him fired, sending a ball of scintillating orange plasma that flew up, blasting an asteroid to hundreds of pieces that arced, trailing fire, across the city, as a blue pulsing beam hit another, solid rock disappearing on contact but, not slowing in the slightest.
In the middle of this frantic hail of fire, the Simurgh descended, pure white wings caught in the light of the barrage, but completely untouched, the few attacks that neared it missing by seeming inches, the Endbringer not so much as twitching as she approached.
Silently.
That wasn't to say the battlefield was quiet, now that everyone was firing and fighting, the sound was almost deafening, Dragon's voice heard from Telenath's armband to better direct her fire. But the Simurgh's Cry, the single constant of every attack with her, the shriek that was simultaneously voice, tune, and grinding noise, was absent. Even outside the danger zone, she should've been heard, even if it wasn't strong enough to rewire a person's mind. But now?
Silence.
"Connect me to Alexandria," he commanded, hitting the buttons on his armband, Dragon handling the comms. "I can't hear the Simurgh, can you?"
"I can't," she replied, "neither can anyone else. Focus fire on the Simurgh, it's controlling the satellites."
Legend didn't feel like that was the best idea, but he went with it anyways, looking to the others, only saying, "Do it," the others shifting and blasting at the Endbringer, doing their best to hit it. Normally, the Simurgh surrounded herself with a swirling cloud of debris, which would always interpose themselves just so in order to block the shots. Now though, she was undefended as their attacks streaked in towards her.
And then they. . . curved.
It was only Legend's practiced eye that caught it, the attacks shifting their trajectories slightly, seeming to just miss, but he knew his beams and they hit something, splashing off, even as he tried to twist them on target, only to skip off more invisible blockages. Focusing, he wrenched his attack around, the beam moving at a right angle towards the Endbringer's head. It hit something, digging deep, before it fractured, curving outwards and losing cohesion.
More attacks came in from other directions, while the Simurgh, still silent, turned to look at him, expression frozen in a disdainful, disinterested gaze. More attacks started to come for the Endbringer, but she deflected them too. As a car-sized ball of lava passed over her head, and started to come back down, Legend's eyes widened, realizing it was, having been directed upwards, now on a path right for them.
"Dragon, Simurgh is moving attacks at other groups!" he rattled off, looking around, "Destra, Stalwart, focus on defense. Watch out for friendly fire!" Two nodded, the first throwing up fields that ate away anything that touched them, while the other used his power on the rooftop to thicken the walls they were on, ready to grow more up into battlements in an instant.
More and more fire arced out, a chaotic network of energy, projectiles, and more as everyone tried to handle both the initial barrage of meteors, and their own fire redirected towards each other. Legend wanted to tell his people to pull back, or at least stop shooting, but Alexandria had been clear that, once the attack started, they needed to not stop. He agreed, intellectually, as the things the Simurgh could do, when allowed to work, were truly monstrous, its Tinker ability adding a level of danger that was easy to overlook if you hadn't seen it firsthand.
No, they fired, and held, only to start to be overwhelmed, Legend yelling, "Stalwart, shield!"
The other man nodded, stomping a foot and raising a hand, walls quickly rising as Destra's disintegration fields were slowly overwhelmed. The walls shuddered, but held, until a thin beam of scarlet energy punched through the stone, piercing Destra's heart as the girl crumpled, dead, costume burning with deep red flames.
"Acero deceased AC-5, Barrow deceased BA-6, Cant deceased CA-4, Destra deceased DE-6, Eddy deceased ED-4, Fang deceased FA-4," the death toll rolled in, something about it seeming wrong, but Legend didn't have time to think about that, rising up through the hole in the top of their hastily constructed dome.
The firing positions were scattered or walled in, attacks now sparse except for the occasional cape that'd split from their assigned group. The Simurgh was still floating there, still without making a sound, as it stared, before it lifted one winged arm.
In the distance the Washington Monument seemed to shudder, before a dull crack was heard, and it started to lift, higher, and higher, before, twisting, it shot through the air. Legend tried to fire at it, but it spun, just so, his shot missing by inches, as well as those from countless others.
The giant building came towards the Simurgh, and for a half moment he hoped someone else had taken control of it, only for her to turn and twist it around herself, lengthwise, like an enormous bat, where, with a sound like glass shattering, it hit Eidolon, who had become invisible, sending the Triumviteer flying like the ball hit on a home run.
Legend pushed his flight, partially turning to a laser himself, dodging more errant attacks as everyone present tried to fire at the Simurgh again, some of them seeming to try to miss in order to catch the Endbringer mid-dodge, but it didn't matter, their shots not hitting either as the monster casually drifted between the attacks, laser deflecting on nothing, projectiles exploding without cause, clouds of burning energy parting like the creature was Moses himself.
Catching his friend as he careened through the air, Legend held Eidolon steady as David switched powers, the man swearing to himself, "That should've worked!" A green glow, more seafoam than the man's emerald costume, sprung up around him and he darted forward once again without another word, fist crackling with frozen brown lightning.
The man accelerated at the last minute, nearly to the same speed as Legend could, as the Simurgh turned and moved slightly to the right. Eidolon corrected course, and was almost on her when a solid orange beam of light, almost hexagonal, blew past the Endbringer's head and caught the hero in the face, the man falling to the ground, covered in bright orange ice.
Once again, the deaths, which had suddenly stopped after the first set, started again. "O deceased BC-1, El deceased AE-2, Mal deceased CD-3, Runt deceased EA-4, Drone deceased AD-5, Malice deceased DD-6."
Again, something about that sounded odd to Legend, if only because it had been nothing but deaths, but he'd fought the Simurgh before, and odd occurrences, things that put you off your game, where just part of the fight. If anything, he was happy that so few of them had died after the initial attack.
Flying back to his command, Stalwart had lowered the walls to let the others fire, but, as often happened, the parahumans were starting to flag. Normally when the Simurgh took the field, they hit her at least a little, but this time, this time they couldn't even touch the Endbringer, no matter what they tried.
"Keep firing!" he called to them, letting off another blast of his own, having to jink the beam sideways to keep it from hitting Alexandria, who was flying his way.
"Stop firing!" she called as she approached, tone calm, but he knew her enough to read the tension in her face.
The others around him paused, looking to him for confirmation, and he nodded, amending that to "Fire only if we're about to be hit by something." The others nodded, and he turned to his friend. "I thought you said to keep firing?" he asked, keeping an eye on the Simurgh, which just seemed content to. . . sit there. It watched Eidolon as he tried over and over again, but was unable to even reach her, constantly blasted by the attacks of others.
"I told you to stop!" she stated vehemently, looking around. "Are you saying you didn't hear me?"
Legend had a sinking feeling in his gut, as the Simurgh, seeming to grow bored, turned her back on Eidolon. The hero, lifting high up into the air, crackled with pale pink light, and shot a beam down at the Endbringer, the attack surging with power and as thick around as the Washington Monument itself.
In a flash the Endbringer twisted around, pulling something buried in its wings out, a device resting in her palm as she lifted it up to meet the blast. The attack hit, then fractured, splitting into 10 different smaller beams, each going to a different group. The groups tried to throw up defenses, but the pink beams passed through as if they weren't even there, Legend watching the two closest as one cape in each group was atomized in an instant, but one a fraction of a second before the other.
"Arkanaon deceased HA-1, Dervish Dan deceased HA-2, Galaxar deceased HA-3, Jest deceased HA-4, Mary Mars deceased HA-5, Pericles deceased HA-6, Salazar HA-7, Vesiculator deceased HA-8, Yig deceased HA-9, Zastruga deceased HA-10."
Legend froze, looking to his armband in dawning horror. The mapping system broke the combat area into a six by six grid, lettered A-F with each grid containing nine more subdivisions. There was no H columngrid, nor was there a grid coordinate ten. On a whim, fear roiling in his gut, Legend toggled the armband to broadcast to all frequencies, his voice oddly calm as he instructed, "Legend to all, Alexandria says to stop firing."
A half second later, his own voice, only now tense and fearful, though badly covering it under battlefield confidence, demanded, "This is Legend! Alexandria says to keep firing!"
Those around him froze, horrified, as they looked down at their own arms, and the bombs they were all wearing.
Exchanging a glance with Alexandria, her eyes covered but her mouth expressive enough, he nodded to her, as she flew off, and he turned to the others. "Armbands are compromised, don't listen to them, do what you can and only take orders from Protectorate team leads," he told them, getting nods, before flying over to another group, this one firing with abandon, passing the message on. He was onto the third when a voice rang out across the battlefield, Alexandria having found someone who could help them, because that was just so her.
"Armbands have been hacked, do not listen to them!" the man's voice rang out. "Stand down and stop firing until you receive Protectorate direction!"
Some listened to that order, but some didn't, still firing. He moved to one such group, arriving the same moment that Alexandria, nearly invisible in her black and grey costume at night, did, but before he could move on, every armband crackled to life, a woman's voice singing with ethereal beauty.
"All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel;
The monkey thought it had a good chance,"
Legend jerked as one of parahumans, a woman in black and yellow stripes, looking nothing so much as a large hornet, had her armband detonate, screaming in pain as she lost the limb, going into shock near instantly. The death, while violent, was quick and painless as they could manage, for those that'd been corrupted by the Simurgh.
"Pop goes the hero."