To HP: It is a tragedy… And there is more tragedy still to come.
Pegasus leaned forward, his hands planted on the desk in front of him, and stared at the screen in shock. The Tarasque had broken through all containment, shrugged off all attempts at restraining it. The Heroes of Paris and their allies had been scattered. Pegasus' trackers, which ordinarily enabled him to plot the locations of all the heroes, were going haywire as the Tarasque's poison suffused the air, interfering even with wireless signals. Turing had crashed into a building. His cameras were offline, and he wasn't responding to Pegasus' reboot commands. Half their drones had suffered catastrophic damage over the course of the fight and several more were still attempting to locate groups of heroes and civilians spread around the city, leaving him with only a trio of operative drones in the area around the Tarasque with which to monitor the battle. And Pegasus could not bring himself to accept what they were showing him.
Impératrice Pourpre stood right behind him, staring over his shoulder, and clutching onto him for support. Her grip on his shoulder tightened to the point of pain. "Oh, no…" She shuddered, her breathing shallow. Her hand started to slip; Pegasus could feel her beginning to drop to her knees "No, no, no, no, no…"
Pegasus covered her hand with his own and squeezed, wrapping his other arm around her waist to hold her upright. On the screen, Onça Feroz and Dan between them manhandled Lupa Gris toward the side of the street, away from the Tarasque. They had almost reached the sidewalk when Dan stumbled and covered his mouth with his fist. For a heart-stopping moment they hesitated where they were, but Onça Feroz pitched forward, pushing Lupa Gris up against the wall of the building in front of them. A glance at the environmental sensors on the drones showed that while the poisonous nature of the poison cloud had been diminished, it still retained almost 50% of its effectiveness. The Tarasque let out another gust of poison, and the percentage of efficacy spiked. Pegasus' breathing hitched, and his grip around Impératrice Pourpre's side tightened. Dan dropped to one knee, coughing thickly, and Onça Feroz dragged him out of the street and threw him over her shoulder. Stumbling forward, she supported Lupa Gris with one arm and carried Dan down the sidewalk, only a couple paces in front of the Tarasque itself. The Tarasque's eyes tracked them, glowing red.
Coyotemarialada rocketed past the Tarasque's face, peppering its head with fire from her laser cannon before pushing it back into her bag and pulling out a mallet. Shooting higher into the air, she brought the mallet down of the Tarasque's head and bounced away from it, over the Tarasque's back. The Tarasque's tail lashed out and caught her in the shoulder, launching her a dozen blocks directly south in a parabolic arc. As she tumbled end over end, Olivet flew after her and grabbed her by the ankle, pulling her up and over the building in front of her. Coyotemarialada twisted her head and looked up at Olivet, blinking dumbly.
Still the Tarasque continued its inexorable march.
A look of panic on his face, Velocimonio sprinted up from the south, spun around on his heel, swept Lupa Gris up in his arms, and raced back south. Behind him, Onça Feroz broke into a jog, still carrying Dan over her shoulder. The Tarasque was almost abreast with them as Onça Feroz ducked between the next two stores and sprinted out into the street beyond. The Tarasque sent a blast of its fire vision at Velocimonio and Lupa Gris, just as Velocimonio put on another burst of speed. The fire melted a small crater in the street directly behind him.
"We–we need to help Pablo!" Lupa Gris screamed, punching Velocimonio in the arm as he ran. "He needs our help!"
"I have to get you to safety!" Velocimonio insisted, not slowing down. As he ran, he turned his head and glanced back, anguish in his eyes. "Hedor, are you close? Maybe we can still–"
Pegasus commanded one of his drones to move in closer. Águila Altíssimo's chest had caved in, one leg was splayed out at an unnatural angle, his face was burned beyond recognition. The evidence was clear. Pegasus' stomach churned. "No," he interrupted Velocimonio, his shoulders sagging. "I – I am sorry, but he…" His shoulders slumped, and leaned back into Impératrice Pourpre's side. She nearly collapsed, but wrapped her arms tightly around Pegasus' back, burying her face in his chest. Pegasus hugged her back, trying to hold himself upright. His mouth set in a thin line, his jaw clenched. He couldn't allow himself to be swept away by his emotions, no matter what was going on around them. He needed to maintain a level head and continue to coordinate the Heroes and their allies.
Even if everything had long ago devolved into utter chaos.
"We still need to recover his miraculous!" Velocimonio called, as Lupa Gris sobbed into his shoulder.
"Uncanny Valley," Pegasus instructed, quickly scanning the monitor for her, "can you reach the body of Águila Altíssimo?"
"I'm… a little busy here!" she reported, sounding slightly distracted. On the monitor Pegasus finally located her flying above the cityscape two blocks in front of the Tarasque with a pair of children in her arms. The Tarasque sent a burst of fire in her direction, and she dropped lower, narrowly missing a tree and almost skidding across the ground as she flew south toward the closest evacuation center. Its tail darted out, biting deep into the pavement just behind Uncanny Valley. Coming in from the closest side street, Iron Maiden shot between the Tarasque and Uncanny Valley and sent a pulse of energy at the Tarasque's eye. The Tarasque shrieked in outrage, and Iron Maiden looped her grappling hook around the Tarasque's tail, straining with all her might to pull it away from Uncanny Valley in the direction of the buildings to the west. The Tarasque swung its tail around, swinging Iron Maiden around in the same motion and launching her south in a high arc. Iron Maiden tumbled over twice, screaming, and bounced off of an angled rooftop and into the street east of the Tarasque itself before finally catching herself and pushing back up higher into the air. Meanwhile, the Tarasque clomped inexorably south, sending tremors through the ground. Another building near the Tarasque shuddered and fell, sending a cloud of masonry up into the air to mingle with the Tarasque's own poison.
"It's–it's too much…" Impératrice Pourpre released her hold on Pegasus and put her trembling hands on her face. The lavender outline appeared around her eyes, and she waved it away. "I can't–I can't–" She dropped to her knees on the lab floor, bent over double, clenching and unclenching her fists while whispering to herself agitatedly.
He couldn't continue monitoring the fight. If Impératrice Pourpre was becoming overwhelmed, she had to be his priority – and not only because they needed their emotional guide to help them through the fight. Pegasus forced himself to breath the way that Sabrina had taught him. He needed him to be strong for her; she didn't need his emotional turmoil compounding everyone else's.
Pegasus knelt next to her and took one of her hands, placing his other hand on her shoulder. She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing. "It's–" She gasped, shuddering. Her voice trembled. "I don't think I've ever felt this kind of pain and suffering… So many people sad and grieving. Such intense grief and emotions. I–I can't–"
He rubbed her back slowly, closing his eyes. She was always being so strong for everyone else; so rarely did he have to return the favor. This wasn't the first time he had seen her become overwhelmed by the emotions she felt. But it was by far the worst. "We have our friends and allies here with us," he whispered soothingly. "We are going to stop it."
She sniffled and shook her head. Her shoulders slumped in defeat. "No, we're not. Sauveteur is getting exhausted, even with my Akuma power to keep him going. The others are getting worn down. Half a dozen heroes are down – injured or, or–" She swallowed back a shudder. "We can't beat this thing! Nothing we throw at it does anything!" She shivered, withdrawing inside of herself and closing her eyes momentarily. "Daddy is moving again," she whispered, staring up at Pegasus. "We've retreated from half the city."
Pegasus put his hands on her shoulders. "We cannot give up, Sabrina," he insisted. "We are the Heroes of Paris. We protect our city and defeat evil! There has to be a solution!"
"There isn't!" she moaned, her eyes wild. "We can't defeat it! We can't protect our city. we can't–"
The communicator clicked audibly. Pegasus cocked his head: someone new had entered the channel. "Looks like hell down there!" Joey's voice came through, ringing out through the Heroes of Paris' Headquarters. "Need a hand?"
A screeching wail echoed through the Heroes of Paris Headquarters, a sonic boom reverberated through the ground from outside. The shock wearing off in moments, Pegasus sprang to his feet, pulling Impératrice Pourpre up with him and supporting her with an arm around her waist. At a command, the surviving drones spun around to scan the sky above Paris, searching for the surprise newcomers. Four triangular silver shapes cut through the clouds in a tight diamond formation, contrails trailing behind them. The space-planes shot across the sky, straight at the Tarasque, as the weapons systems deployed below their wings, spitting energy beams and missiles, almost without any break. The back hatch on the rearmost plane opened, and several figures jumped out.
"They came!" Pegasus enthused, squeezing Impératrice Pourpre's hand and kissing her temple. "They are going to help us! That means nothing can stop us!"
Eight energy beams struck the Tarasque in the face, moments before two dozen missiles burst apart in a shower just in front of the Tarasque, peppering its eyes with shrapnel. The jets raced past the Tarasque and circled, taking a second pass at the Tarasque. Several of the heroes who had deployed from the back of the plane activated their jetpacks and scattered in all directions, angling to land somewhere in front of the Tarasque. Still in midair, Big Blue expanded in size and landed with a crash between the Tarasque and the retreating heroes, punching it with an uppercut to the chin. The Tarasque screeched as the second round of energy beams struck it between the eyes. Another round of missiles lanced across the distance, and the Tarasque's eyes glowed red.
Pegasus' stomach clenched in dread. "New Atlantis pilots!" he shouted, fumbling with the communicator control as he did so. "Evade! The Tarasque can–"
Red fire burst from the Tarasque's eyes, detonating the missiles meters away from itself, directly in front of Big Blue's eyes. Big Blue threw his hands up to shield himself, but too late. Crying out in pain, he stumbled backward, nearly stepping on Perez-Oso as he did so, and the ground shuddered with every step. The surviving missiles careened wildly, exploding against the ground, deflecting into the Tarasque's shell, careening wildly into the buildings on either side of the Tarasque. Its fire vision burst through the cloud of missiles and into the space-plane formation. Two planes rolled away from each other to avoid the fire beam, barely clearing the area in time. The fire beam struck the lead plane from below, cutting a hole clean through one wing. The plane yawed and pitched wildly at the sudden loss of control, clipping the plane beside it and sending both planes into an uncontrolled dive, screaming downward into a hotel building.
Pegasus stared at the screen in horror, unable to breathe, unable to think. "Punch out! Punch out!"
One plane's rear door opened and a parachute deployed just before it slammed into an apartment building in a ball of fire. The other plane's door did not open.
Impératrice Pourpre shuddered and gasped, clutching Pegasus tightly. Pegasus swallowed hard, staring at the planes' wreckage without blinking. The Tarasque lashed Big Blue with its tail, catching him in the shoulder and knocking him to the side, into a building which collapsed around him.
"There's–there's nothing we can do…"