To Lyger 0: I mean, is there anywhere else this could have ended?
"Helfen!" The Knight leapt into the air as the portal shimmered to life in the center of the field, taking Valkyrie's hand in his as she lifted up, the tips of her toes just grazing the churned-up ground beneath them. Closer to the portal, Ladybug and Cat Noir, both with mystical full-face masks covering their heads and wing-suits on their backs, along with Majestia, were the first three through the portal. "Are you ready?" the Knight asked Valkyrie, trying to keep the note of trepidation out of his voice.
Valkyrie's mouth set in a thin line, her chin jutting out, and she nodded. "Y–yes; let's do this."
Clutching his sword tightly with one hand, the Knight took a deep breath, turned, and shot through the portal, just in front of Valkyrie and the Lancer. The portal had been opened just outside of the city limits, away from the churned-up, devastated ruins of Tarascon, at least a fifteen-minute jog south of the Tarasque. A line of buildings marking the end of the city limits stood in front of them, though looking further down the line, the Knight caught glimpses of the catastrophic damage the Beast had done to the north sides of these buildings – that any of them were even still standing was a small miracle.
The Knight held Valkyrie's hand firmly, feeling the tightness of her grip, as the two of them and the Lancer fanned out away from the portal, ascending quickly. As they entered the poison cloud, Valkyrie exhaled, forming a bubble of clean air around her nose and mouth. Ladybug, Cat Noir, and Majestia were well above them already, flying in a wide circle just above the dense cloud of poison clinging to the ground up to a height of at least 15 meters. Iron Maiden and Mecha-Man flew through the portal just behind the Knight, skimming the ground as far as the edge of the city before turning to shoot up out of the poison cloud. The poison stung the Knight's eyes and nostrils, despite the sword's magic – he needed to get out of the poisoned gas! Setting his sights on Ladybug and Cat Noir, the Knight led Valkyrie and the Lancer up higher into the air, clearing the area in front of the portal for others to come through. On bursting through the cloud into the fresh air above, the Knight gasped, sucking in a deep, cleansing breath.
With a mechanical thrum, the two space-planes rocketed through the portal next, followed by the small makeshift drone aircraft. The three planes churned up the poisoned air with their transit, mixing the clean air from Angola into the poisoned air around them. Bursting through the layer of poison, the two space-planes shot to the east, steering a wide berth around the Tarasque as they flew around it toward the north. Hovering close to the ground in front of the portal, the drone tipped its nose up and dropped its tail as a large fan set into the center of its body activated, blowing the poison back, away from the area closest to the portal.
As more and more flying heroes emerged above the poisoned air, the Knight released Valkyrie's hand, drifting forward to place himself between the Tarasque and the heroes closest to him. Raising his free arm, he muttered, "Wehren." A shimmery white kite shield formed from his gauntlet, expanding rapidly until it was twice as tall as him. At a thought, a thin transparent slit appeared just in front of his face, giving him a clear line of sight forward.
Below them, most of the miraculous users and others gathered in the area of mixed poison and fresh air between the drone and the portal, wearing regular gasmasks provided by Rugindo Leoa's contact in the Angolan Army. Quickly the heroes fanned out through the rubble, picking their way carefully toward the center of the city and the Tarasque itself, still only barely visible over the rubble in the distance. Close to the portal, Bandruí tossed a handful of seeds on the ground, which sprouted but almost immediately began to wither.
"The poison is too strong for anything to start," she announced. With a cough, she stumbled to one knee, covering her mouth. "The gas – it can still get through!"
"Wind Dragon!" Ryoku drew her sword and in the same motion slashed through the gas in front of her, pushing her hands out in either direction and propelling the poison away, forming a small pocket of fresh air in the middle of the poison gas, between the drone and the portal. Next to her, Kamikaze swung around and waved both his tessen, pushing the poison further away to expand the bubble of fresh air in both directions.
"Maybe you should go down and help them," the Knight called back over his shoulder to Valkyrie.
Valkyrie put her hands on her hips, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Sure you're not just trying to keep me out of the fighting?"
The Knight tensed, his brow furrowed. Was he? He didn't want her getting hurt… and staying closer to the portal would help her stay safe…
Valkyrie sighed heavily. "But it makes sense," she allowed. "Just… be careful yourself, if I'm not going to be watching your back."
He nodded, as she slowly descended back into the poison gas and the bubble of air around her head expanded to encompass her whole body before merging into the already-clear air surrounding Ryoku, Kamikaze, and the others on the ground. The bubble of clear air fully engulfed the portal and expanded as more and more of the heroes came through it. The Knight swallowed nervously. Now, if the bubble collapsed, Greta would be stuck in the middle of that poison. If the Tarasque charged, she could be directly in its path, and he might not be close enough to help her. His jaw clenched. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted by her: she had a job to do, and so did he. Resigned, he turned north and rose higher into the air to face the wreckage of the city of Tarascon.
As it had when last he saw it, the Tarasque stood in the center of a sea of destruction, the crushed remains of countless buildings strewn about the ground around it and pushed up to form high berms surrounding a five-square-kilometer basin near the center of the town which had been trampled down almost flat, with the shape of the Tarasque itself pressed into the dirt and rubble along one of the walls. Nothing green was visible within the "nest"; hardly anything could possibly have survived the destructions. The Rhone River still flowed sluggishly through the city, but one of the piles of debris had shifted and fallen over into the river, cutting off most of the water and creating a small reservoir along one side of the "nest." The Tarasque itself threw its head back, spewing more of the poisoned gas into the air, turning the air around it a deeper shade of green. It did not seem to have noticed them yet.
"You know, when you described it, I think you might've left a couple things out," Cat Noir observed wryly as the Knight rose to his altitude.
"It does lose something in the telling," agreed the Knight, nodding. His stomach clenched as one of the half-collapsed buildings closest to the epicenter of the destruction swayed slightly in the breeze. The metal and brick creaked and groaned; the Tarasque's tail lashed out and struck the building near the center, piercing through the wall and shattering it into pieces which fell down around it in a cascade. With a flash of red, the Tarasque's fire vision melted the metal and stone, charring away the wood.
"Looks like someone needs a nap!" Majestia growled, cracking her knuckles. "A dirt nap."
Below them, the fan-drone swept forward, rising higher to clear the piles of debris and shattered buildings as it neared the city, expanding the air bubble as it went. Several of the heroes flanked the drone on either side, Valkyrie among them. Finally, as the air bubble expanded in all directions, it reached the leading edge of the city. Through the green haze, the Knight watched as Sent-Bee and Sk8r Girl, along with Caridad, Ronin, and several more of the non-powered heroes, fanned out through the rubble, pushing aside the debris. Bu-Geisha jabbed the butt of her naginata into a hole in the ground which must once have been a basement, pulling it back as it met resistance.
"I can't hear… anything down here," Sk8r Girl finally reported, kicking a brick out of her way. "All the animals are just… gone."
"Hang on…" Bu-Geisha crouched next to a cellar door. "I thought I heard something tapping from below here!" Forcing her naginata's blade into the crack between the two sides of the door, she pushed the long handle to one side, breaking through a thin layer of sealant. The cellar door burst open, and two women poked their heads out, blinking owlishly up at Bu-Geisha.
"There are survivors!?" Ladybug gasped, staring down at the two women as Bu-Geisha helped them out of the cellar and passed them off to la Gymnaste and a Guardian Initiate. "But – how?"
"So do we search for more survivors, or do we take on the Tarasque?" asked the Lancer, turning to Ladybug.
"I–I don't–"
"There can't be all that many of them," Majestia pointed out.
Kneeling next to the cellar, Knightowl hummed. "I can't imagine anyone surviving if they didn't seal themselves in securely – and even then they would need a lot of oxygen to last this long. At a guess, the Tarasque must have been here for at least a month by now. Probably longer."
"What do you think we should do?" Cat Noir asked, turning to Ladybug.
"Um…"
Sent-Bee scoffed. "Who says it has to be one or the other?" she interrupted. "You take care of the Monster; we'll find any more survivors."
Majestia shrugged. "Sounds fine by me." With a sonic crack, she shot up higher, hovering well above the Tarasque, and drifted to the right, moving herself well away from the rest of the group. "Ready when everyone else is!" she called, her eyes beginning to glow red from barely-contained energy. The Tarasque's head cocked to one side, its eyes shifting in all directions, searching for the source of the noise.
The Knight took a two-handed grip on his sword, concentrating on the fire rune embedded in its hilt. Beside him, the Lancer tensed. Closer to the city, Iron Maiden and Mecha-Man hovered side-by-side just below the tops of the tallest buildings. Hato Gozen, Olivet, and a dozen more spread out in all directions.
Ladybug paused only a moment before she shouted, "Fire!"
"Wehren!" The Knight brought his sword down in a slash. The shield on his gauntlet faded away as a smaller shield expanded out from his cross guard, perpendicular to the blade, spreading in all directions to shield himself and anyone directly behind him but exposing those to either side. Two vicious beams of fire lanced out from Majestia's eyes, at the same time that a single blast of fire erupted from the Knight's sword, shooting straight at the Tarasque's head. To either side of the Knight, lightning crackled from both Hato Gozen and Olivet, arcing between them and the Tarasque and crashing into its tail. Iron Maiden and Mecha-Man darted up above the buildings and rocketed to the west, unleashing their own energy beams and rockets as they went as, from the opposite side of the Tarasque, the space-planes did the same. Smaller energy and fire blasts hurled at the Tarasque from the ground out of the leading edges of the air bubble.
The Tarasque bellowed in outrage, its own fire vision adding to the swirling inferno around it.
The battle had begun.