Armsmaster wastes no time in sprinting to his motorcycle, the engine almost audible in the wake of the steadily receding sirens. I stand still, stunned silent, until he guns the engine and rolls up next to me.

"How fast can you move?" he asks. His voice is still flat, but it's a different type of flat, clipped and efficient instead of formal, the diction of a soldier without time for niceties.

"No idea," I answer. My voice sounds far away, like I'm speaking from the bottom of a well. Dad. Dad needs to get to a shelter. Needs to be safe. He's probably at his office. There should be a shelter a short walk away.

"White Rose, the rally point is the PRT HQ. Meet me there." Then he's gone, disappeared in the near-silent rev of engines and a blur of silver and blue. I stay still for a moment as civilians rush past me down either side of the street, pulling out their phones to call loved ones and find a safe place to hide. Safe-ish, anyway. Endbringer shelters don't actually stop Endbringers, they just give the civilians a place they can go to try to survive the splash damage. Civilians like Dad.

I need to focus.

I shatter toes. I still think of Dad. I shatter ribs. Dad. I break the plates of armor all over my body.

A feeling. One I've almost forgotten. Physical pain.

I reach for the feeling and focus on it. Dad will be fine. Civilians do live through Endbringer attacks. They evacuate, their shelters survive, sometimes they just get spared by happenstance. The Simurgh was the last one, so at least I don't have to rush him out of the city before he gets labeled a persona non grata.

I look around. The street is nearly empty.

I need to move.

I run, grow stilts, then legs, then fall back into the multi-limbed monstrosity that let me traverse the city back when Bakuda first went mad as I head up to the rooftops. I see three points of light streaking across the sky. New Wave. Another light, far brighter and faster, a second sun, outpaces them. Purity. The Empire can't be far behind her. I see a long, feathered serpent rising from the ground with three people clinging to it. The Travelers. There's a man in Grecian armor flitting from place to place in blue flashes of lighting. Dauntless.

Any other threat and the gathering would be a powder keg. Having this many capes in one place is usually asking for bloodshed. One wrong word, one bit of "accidental" friendly fire and it'd be a free-for-all of epic proportions.

Now all I can think of is how grateful I am that they're all still alive.

I outpace New Wave and the Travelers easily. The advantages of traveling alone. By the time I arrive, a cordon is already set up around a square of open area just outside the building. I see figures in colorful, professional costumes popping, warping, and fading into existence, typically with at least a few other parahumans. There's a Dragon suit staring out over the water at the approaching thunderheads.

A PRT agent notices me and points at the entrance of the PRT building. I nod and walk inside, weaving between new arrivals to enter a conference room. I see the Triumvirate, more Protectorate capes that I don't recognize, some corporate hero groups, a group of teenagers in costume that I figure are probably the Wards, what remains of the Undersiders, and a frowning blonde girl in a domino mask and an orange jumpsuit with the word "villain" down the side of it. After a moment I realize it's Tattletale. More capes stream through the doors, filling the room in ones, twos, and threes. Groups form, with nervous laughter and solemn silence forming the majority of the interactions between people.

I don't know where to go. Joining one of the groups is probably a good idea, but which one? The hero teams seem too tight-knit to disrupt, and I still want to see how Tattletale fares without-

I cut off the thought. This is bigger than a grudge, and it seems like she's getting her just desserts anyway.

I move towards the far wall and take another look at the room, looking for a place to be. I get a surreal flashback to my first few days of grade school when I didn't know anyone, and I almost laugh. The more things change.

I hear the clanking of metal on metal in two different tones. One grates metronomically, like two steel plates rubbing against one another. The other is chaotic and rattling, like a jar of nails turned on it's side and spun. The Empire enters the room in full regalia, a veritable tide of parahuman might.

It might be more impressive if I didn't know it was a front. That the E88 was on its last legs, hemorrhaging members and capital like a stuck pig. That the only reason they weren't all behind bars was because the Protectorate was waiting on outside help to shut them down once and for all.

I wonder which one of them is going to jump ship first? If any of them will?

Hookwolf, already blades from the neck down and surprisingly unmasked, says something to Kaiser. The Nazi nods and Hookwolf walks towards me, a somber expression on his face.

I school myself into calm. This is a public place, and a Nazi wants to talk to me. The correct thing to do is simply ignore him. I can't do anything about getting the attention, but I might be able to minimize the rest of the fallout.

"You're gonna be alright."

Once again, Hookwolf makes my brain stop.

"What?" It slips out, too fast to for me to stop it. Hookwolf continues.

"You're fast and you can take a hit. Probably only one though, don't get cocky. Don't stick your neck out for other capes unless you're sure you can get away with it. Remember that he's faster, way faster, than you think." He's in a rhythm and I think he'd go on for a while if I gave him the opportunity, but this makes no sense. I raise a hand to chest height.

"Hold on." He pauses. "Are you giving me advice?" It's not patronizing, there's almost no profanity in his diction, and he's looking me in the eye. It feels less like a lecture and more like one of Mom's explanations of Moby Dick. Which makes no sense.

"Yeah," he says before going right back to talking. "This ain't like fighting people, so ignore whatever comes easiest. Unless you've got a Thinker power, then trust that. Know who's around you so you don't lose an arm to a rookie Shaker-"

"Wait." He stops again and this time I can see irritation in his eyes. "Why are you giving me advice? And why should I trust it?"

"I don't want you to die Rosie," he says bluntly. "And I actually know what the fuck I'm talking about with this thing, so take it as gospel."

"You've fought Endbringers? When?" Why would a Nazi go seeking out fights with city-killing monsters?

"Rockaport in June of oh-seven and Duisburg in January of twenty-ten. And Endbringer, not Endbringers. Can't fly so Ziz's out, and the big bastard can fry me. Don't always get notified in time and I ain't going down to Africa or South America." He rattles off the information casually. "Now do you want to know about Leviathan or not?"

After a moment I nod. Hookwolf nods back.

"I'll be talkin' to the rest of the Empire. Walk over or don't." With that he spins on his heel, steel scraping a groove into the floor, and rejoins his gang. This time he's the center of attention, with even Kaiser deferring. I scan the rest of the room and see similar situations playing out. Wards talk to the older members of the Protectorate, the ones with thousand-yard stares who calmly finger their various implements and speak in dull but focused monotones. Armsmaster, a second halberd strapped to his back, is talking to Kid Win, whose mouth is twisted into a frown. The Ward nods and Armsmaster goes back to talking to Legend. Independents and villains speak quietly, a stilted politeness between previous enemies. I see the orange-suited Tattletale approach Isidis with Hellhound in tow, and after a short conversation the latter two leave the room. Then Legend walks up to a podium and the room falls silent.

He gives us the odds. One in four dead. He explains just how scary Leviathan is. How smart. How fast. He explains that we can't afford to play it safe, and that experience means more than power here because most fatalities are first-time volunteers. I get an armband from a Ward. Legend explains how to use them and how to call for help. When he asks for people who can interfere with movement, I stand up. We'll be going to the shoreline to try to blunt the effects of Leviathan's waves with Eidolon. Bastion, a man in metal armor reminiscent of a castle, motions for us to gather around him. Once the other groups are formed, Eidolon walks over to our group and claps his hands.

A moment of disorientation later and we're on the beach, increasingly large waves already turning the sand dark, rain coming down in sheets. Eidolon floats into the air without another word and flies off over the Bay, leaving us with Bastion, who has to shout to be heard over the roar of the ocean.

"We got a nice, early warning thanks to Armsmaster, but that doesn't mean we have forever so I'm going to make this quick. Don't think in absolutes. You're not going to be able to stop all the water and we're not going to be able to hold him in place for longer than maybe a few seconds. Think about how to minimize damage. If you're a matter projector, remember that Leviathan can toss your stuff around. Create responsibly. Focus on wave breakers for now and wait for orders when he does show up."

He gestures and a tent-like pair of force fields appear on the beach. Shielder steps up next to him and a jagged blue wall forms next to Bastion's construct. More and more types of barriers appear, everything from a series of organic-looking bubbles to a block that slowly shifts through the colors of the rainbow. A few people just stand still and talk, their Shaker effects subtly or not-so-subtly changing the landscape around them.

I shake my head. Observation later. I have a job to do.

I keep Bastion's words in my head as I push out bone. No absolutes. Minimize collateral damage. That means a lump of bone the size of a semi truck is probably a bad idea. The wall should be flexible, capable of breaking off pieces at a time without going all at once, and porous enough to let the water through after it absorbs the momentum from a wave.

I think back to my experiments with the botanist and nod to myself. I know of a few things that can take nature's worst.

I start warping bone into thorny stems, long and thin, packed loosely. I keep growing the blackberry bramble, pushing it down the beach in either direction, just behind and between the other creations. When a wave crashes into some of the growth, the bone flexes but doesn't break. Another wave breaks against it further down the line, going from a single cohesive mass to droplets as it pushes through the pseudo-mesh.

The idea works. Now I just need coverage.

I keep pushing until I can't see either end of my bramble. Then I turn to Bastion, who's staring at his tent city of force fields. I'm not sure how long they'll last, but he's covering at least fifty square feet all by himself.

"I can't see the ends of my reinforcements. I'm going to need to move if I want to expand them further."

"How fast can you do it?" Bastion asks. His eyes never leave the beach and I see another tent forming slowly where his attention is focused.

"Mover rating fast," I answer. He nods once, a quick, jerky motion.

"Do it."

I'm stilting up to speed as soon as he finishes talking, a single tendril keeping me connected to the bramble as I travel north. When the end of my formation comes into sight, I start pushing out bone again, forming braids and lattices and tangles as I let my feelings and half-formed thoughts work their magic, only taking real control when I have to twine between the creations of the other Shakers who've also traveled up along the beach. One of them is building something out of black and white pillars of some alien material, noises echoing oddly as the pillars rest against one another. A different cape is standing in front of an amp the size of a car, a cigarette between his teeth and an electric guitar held across his chest, occasionally strumming it and sending all the rain around him radiating outwards.

Soon I'm alone, growing the wave breakers maybe half as fast as I can move. I take a moment to look back and see the results of my handiwork, and a little bit of hope springs up as I see the extent of my reinforcements. Maybe it won't be as bad as Legend made it out to be.

Then I feel a shattering sensation behind me and my armbands starts chiming.

Leviathan has made landfall. Bastion down, QR-8. Goesgone down, QR-8. Cyster deceased, QR-8. Spindle-Eye down QR-8, AbblyBabbly deceased, QR-8 ...