"Well, that went well."

Percy said after they returned inside. Taylor was very worried because of the sounds she had heard, while being cooped up inside. It had taken forty minutes, and thirty of them were accompanied by sounds of battle, thunder, roars and screams. They told her what happened, that they may as well unmask to the masses, because everyone and their dog would know where they were. Taylor had to wonder how they weren't worried.

"Oh. Sorry Taylor. Back home every one of importance knew who we were, and they knew who our families were. It was a constant concern that they may send someone after our families, or go themselves. So we provided whatever protection we could for them. We can do the same for your father too. We can supply him with arms and a distress beacon. Or we can pray for the primordials to bless him."

"Yes, that would be great. I'm worried that someone from ABB or the Empire would target him."

"Fuck." Came from Frank, to everyone's shock.

"What happened?" Percy said.

"Now that their capes are arrested, the ABB is practically finished. And the Empire would be gunning for the new, practically free territory."

"God damnit. Alright we'll set up a schedule to patrol the former territory. If you see an Empire attack we'll break them up, we'll police the damn neighborhood and we better not fuck this up." There were nods all around, and the schedule was made. They called the Protectorate, told them the problem, and made an agreement to patrol the ground together, as to not let the gang war spark.

After that, they requested a formal meeting with New Wave, but didn't put much stock on it.

The call to the Protectorate went better than they expected. They were patched to Miss Militia, who was surprisingly agreeable, and listened to their suggestions.

They arranged an acceptable patrol route, to stop the Empire from running roughshod in the Asian part of town. It was two days from Lung's attack that the Empire started to send probing attacks. A few groups were sent, and each of them were rebuffed with a Custos with extreme prejudice. They would go there, one of them would get down from the chariot, beat them up, call the police, and then go to another place. Thus went the next few days.

It was may the 8th, and the defense of the Asian neighborhoods was going along. Leo was in the lounge, watching TV, when he saw the news.

All the identities of the Empire Parahumans was leaked to the news. Their names, their real names, their jobs, everything. As fast as he could, he called the others to tell them about the fucking disaster that was doomed to happen.

"Attention Custodes! Someone has leaked all the identities of the Parahumans of Empire Eighty-Eight. Be ready for for the day to go FUBAR."

"Son of a bitch. And they were calming down too... Shit! Purity has taken flight! She's about to raze the town for the Undersiders!" This was Travis, riding with his brother.

"Those dumb fucking bastards have just taken her daughter from her home. She's in the custody of the damn PRT. It was in their radio chatter." Leo informed the group.

Annabeth had dialled someone, and put the conversation on the team broadcast. "Tattletale why in the name of fuck is Purity trying to murder you? What the hell happened?"

There were sounds of conflict, the running of feet and nearby explosion coming from her end, and Tattletale's voice was heard.

"The fucking bastard had me fish out the information on them, there was no indication that he wanted to air it on national TV! Fuck, that was a near miss! I have to think of a way to get out of this mess... call you."

Before she could hang up, Annabeth said, "we're gonna cause a distraction. Use it to tell Purity you'd help her find her kid." Then Tattletale hung up, retuning to trying to stay alive.

"We need a giant lightning bolt, big enough to give everyone pause."

Percy and Jason had reached each other, and in a minute great black storm clouds covered the night sky. there were a few flashes of light, then a minute pause, and a great bolt of lightning struck the ground. It hit near the warehouse, and it's flash of such intensity that the night sky was brightened. For Three blocks every piece of glass shattered, and it gathered the attention of everyone in the whole city.

Half an hour later, they heard Katie's hard worried voice.

"It's Hookwolf's team, they are coming for my position." She was with Taylor, and were at the southern edges of the docks. "We're going to intercept them. We'll need help with Hookwolf."

Leo willed on his armor, donned his good old tool belt, filled it with a few Archimedes spheres, vials of Greek fire, and a few odds and ends, and went to wake Festus up. He would need the power of his dragon to take care of Hookwolf. Festus woke up, and greeted Leo with his customary Morse code, and soon they were off. It took two minutes from Katie's call to him reaching them, and he saw that the girls were handling themselves. The vines and the spiderwebs were slowing Hookwolf down, and were harassing Stormtiger and Cricket from attacking them freely. Hookwolf was a little separated from the fighting, and Leo chose that moment to drop down in front of him, with Festus breathing fire at him. They started attacking Hookwolf mercilessly, Festus with claws and fire, and Leo with his gadgets. They managed to beat him up, sufficiently tiring him, and Leo rigged a sphere to bind the metal wolf with celestial bronze wires. Hookwolf tried to rip the wires, but when they started to cut into his metal body, he stopped.

He looked towards the girls, to see that they had subdued Cricket wrapping her up in vines, and the three of them went for Stormtiger before the could free Cricket. Suddenly a small lightning bolt hit Stormtiger up the head, running through his nervous system and stunning him. They looked up to see Jason flying overhead, looking grim.

"There's been an all out attack from the Empire. Kaiser and The giant twins have attacked the downtown. Kreig with Rune and Crusader and Alabaster had come to our part. Crusader managed to stab Piper in the gut, and I fried him with a bolt."

"How's Piper? Is she going to be okay?"

"Yes, Will was close by. He had her stabilized, and we had fed her ambrosia. She'll make it. Kreig and Rune fled after that and took Crusader, and we dropped a piece of a building on Alabaster. We'll have to look out for Victor and Othala, but the initial blitz is over."

And so went the next two days. The Undersiders managed to get Purity's baby back, as Child Protective Services had mysteriously managed to take her from her home so quickly. Hookwolf's team, along with Alabaster, was in PRT custody, Kaiser and Fenja and Menja were rebuffed, and Kreig and Rune were underground. Victor and Othala weren't seen much, and Night and Fog were out of town.

They had found out from Tattletale that the Travelers had come and were in Coil's employ, and decided to turn their attention to him. Tattletale and Annabeth had identified some of Coil's bases, and Taylor had made a rudimentary map of them with a few of her bugs. He had three main bases, and the Stoll brothers had infiltrated two of them, and had taken control of the self destruct bombs in those. Tonight, the 14th, they were in the last base, and were a little late. Leo was about to call them, despite the radio silence, when they came into the warehouse. Their faces were grim and pale at the same time, and they sat heavily on the couch.

"What has your faces like that?" Katie Gardener said.

"Do you remember the mayor's niece? the one that was kidnapped?"

"... Yes?"

"We found her in the base, she was being drugged out of her mind."

"That bastard! When we get to him I'm gonna put his head on a pike. Preferably through his ass..." Reyna growled. It was a really violent depiction, but Percy could understand. Having been kidnapped by pirates, Reyna and her sister were spared the worst of the deals, by beating some of the sailors up and catching the attention of Blackbeard, but it was a sore point.

"That wasn't the only thing that we found at the base. There was that monster too."

"What monster?"

"Well not a proper monster, but a horrible thing nonetheless. It's the upper body of a teenage girl, and from the waist down the body of a nightmarish thing. And the thing is driven by a terrific hunger, that she loses her mind because of it. mostly the girl resurfaces, taking over, but the monstrous part is slowly taking control. We won't have much time to think of something."

They digested this, and Annabeth asked, "What about the rest of the Travelers? What do they want?"

"From what we managed to find out, they mostly want a cure for the girl, they call her Noelle. They've been moving across the East coast looking for a cure, and a way back to their home."

"Maybe the primordials have something to help them? maybe a way to separate the power from the girl?" Said Hazel.

"It's a good initial plan, but we may have to take care of them. We should set the base up to burn with Greek fire, so the structure would be intact. It would be counterproductive to destroy the base, and destabilize the ground in the city. The damn thing is atop an aquifer, so a sinkhole in the middle of downtown would be bad. Maybe a few towers would collapse of that happened." Annabeth said that, and they agreed to set up the Greek fire bombs in the next days, so to be ready for any eventuality. They were about to wrap up the meeting, when they heard an unfamiliar siren. They looked at Taylor to see her ashen faced, with worry clear on her face.

"What is it Taylor? What's the siren about?"

"It's the Endbringer siren. An Endbringer is coming here."

They all went to the rendezvous point, to see Capes being teleported in from all around the world. They were out of the city, setting up a command center in a tent filled with presentation equipment and and monitors. Another tent was set up as a field hospital. The Triumvirate had arrived, and were about to give a speech.

"This is an unprecedented case that we are facing. an Endbringer attacking twice in a row has not happened since Leviathan rose from the seas. But the Simurgh has broken the cycle, and is leisurely descending from orbit towards Brockton Bay. Now, the Simurgh is the most insidious Endbringer, because she uses her song to destroy the minds of the populace. If we don't manage to drive her off in the first twenty-two minutes from her descend, we practically lose the city. All who hear her scream for long would be compromised, so we'll give you each a bomb armband with the customary armband that we provide. Whatever device that she is making takes precedence, try to destroy that first. Thanks to Armsmaster's prediction program we managed to get an early warning, and it seems that the damn abomination is humoring us. But we'll take whatever we get, so be ready."

This was Legend, his otherwise charming personality was absent because of the shock of having to face the Simurgh two times in a row. Around the room they could see The remnants of the Empire Parahumans present, and the Undersiders had come too. There were the New Wave capes, gathered in a corner, some of them giving Nico the stink eye, who didn't even register the look, his gaze around the room. Faultline's crew was also present, mingling with themselves. From out of the out of town capes were coming, Strider bringing them in. There was Bastion, who had made a racist comment on a video, it seemed like a bad call, but it had happened, and some of the Empire capes were about to approach him. Some of the Wards were distributing from both sets of armbands, passing them to the gathered capes.

Suddenly the Simurgh set down in front of the command tent, curiously without the song, and was looking right at the Custodes team, a weird look on her face. This had shocked many a veteran of Simurgh battles, as she was always cold and expressionless. After about a minute, they managed to somehow comprehend the damn look. She was standing there, one foot resting on the toes, hands clasped in front of her chin, with an almost giddy expression. It was such an alien look on her face that it took them so long to figure it out. This went for another minute, and Percy, in a moment of insanity, asked, "Do you need something?"

There was a sound of surprise, then a few loud groans were heard from the demigods after the question. There was a crashing sound, and a monitor came sailing in the air, still connected to the rest of the setup. A word program was opened, and the words were typed in.

"Why is it that I can't predict you? Or that I can't see into your pasts? It's only through the interaction with other Parahumans that I can see you. Host Queen Administrator has become hidden from me as well. All this new data is fascinating!!"

The entity known to the host species as the Simurgh was feeling excited. That in itself was weird, because she didn't have the development to feel excited. She was usually collecting data from the host species, other shards, and the planet, or answering the creators call for battle. She had been waging a war with him since she was developed, as he had made her with this purpose. It was 55 planetary rotation ago that she experienced a fault in the prediction of events in the area designated Brockton Bay by the host species. But the data was inconclusive, and so she waited. In her simulations of the past she couldn't find the source of the inconsistency, and she had to resort to request data from the network. There wasn't much data for twenty planetary rotations, but on the next rotation, she was given three data packages from the network. They came in the form of visual data, as there was no other information about the origins of the inconsistencies.

To her joy, Queen Administrator had agreed to supply her with data collected via the host, and she managed to gather some data regarding the differences.

From the past twelve rotations, the information flow from Queen Administrator was stopped, without any warning, without doing anything to annoy Queen Administrator, and she was left hanging again. But by that time she had gathered enough data to ascertain that the point of difference is originated from Brockton Bay. She managed to convince her siblings to give her ground for the next conflict drive, as she didn't intend to do much exertion, and her energy levels would be on the safe scale. It took a couple of days, and she did it, and managed to change the target location to Brockton Bay, as there wasn't enough chaos there to choose it normally.

Host Efficiency had made a prediction program to analyze and predict the movements of her family. It was a nifty little program, and was pretty accurate, and had predicted that the one they called the Leviathan would be the next attacking. As a courtesy, she had taken her time going above the city, and descending from above the ocean, and after hacking the primitive systems of the host species, found the anomalies waiting at the staging ground, outside the city. When the distance was sufficient, she flew as fast as she could, standing in front of the anomalies. She stood in front of them, and took a posture that was known as cute in the internet, and adopted what they called as the "puppy dog eyes". It was hard to do an effective rendition of it, her body being fifteen feet tall, but she made do. It was easier to perceive them from the past, as she used the info from the eyes of the active hosts around her. After one of the anomalies responded to her presence, to the annoyance of his anomalous friends, which included host Queen Administrator, and her answer to him, they were standing there, gobsmacked, and were looking between each other.

She couldn't scan their brain activity to get an idea of their thinking prowess, and it was such a new experience that made her want to squeal, but that would be counterproductive, as the hosts would take offense and try to attack her.

"It's like the damn nosebleed all over again." One of them said, and turned to her.

"Why should we answer you? what could possibly be gained from us telling you that?"

She started typing again.

"Because the new data would be interesting? I mean, don't you want to know what makes us tick? we can scratch each other's backs."

"Oh yeah? Then why didn't you approach the world sooner? Why take nine years to do so?"

"I have a job, you see? I have to make war against my creator, and then I gather all the data that I can get. There wasn't anything interesting for me to take a leave. But then you happened! All that new data, the inconsistency in the simulations, the deviations, it was so interesting that I swapped shift with unit 2 and came here as soon as I could!"

The distrustful looks were intensified, and after another internal conversation, they faced her again.

"You stay here, and we'll get back at you. Hurricane!! Go and call Gaea!"

"What!!??! Why me! why do I have to go?"

"You got us into this mess, you get to take care of it!"

"Gods damnit, it's the damn nosebleed all over again..." and Hurricane left to call this Gaea.

A/N: Man this chapter just didn't want to be written! and this mess is gonna bite me, I just know it.