By the time I arrive back at the beachfront where we had set up, Leviathan is long gone, leaving behind only carnage and seawater. The Search and Rescue teams are already on-site, picking up the people who look salvageable and leaving the bodies where they lie. I see a massive slab of concrete carrying a young girl in a black and red robe along with another cape in a bodysuit that appears to be made entirely of zippers touchdown nearby. The cape in the body suit disappears, then reappears next to a pile of rubble. Bits and pieces of rubble start teleporting next to him while other capes pile injured onto the the girl's ride.
I see three bodies. One's a shirtless, muscled teen, missing his head, the stump of his neck slowly leaking blood. Another girl in red and yellow has pieces of metal protruding from her abdominal cavity. The last corpse looks steamed, like boiling water burns but a million times worse.
There were more capes on this beach than lived in Brockton Bay. I could practically see reality peeling apart at the seams as the world was bent around them. Dozens of powers at work, the sand flooded with constructs.
Flooded. I almost laugh.
What a poor choice of words.
Two parahumans look at me, one in black on white polka dots, the other in white on black pinstripes. After a moment they merge into one body that's equal parts both then walk over to me, body tilted forward and head craned back to look me in the eye.
"If you're on S&R, get to fuckin' work. Dragon can send you to the nearest folk, gotcha?" He points at the bracelet on his wrist and slaps my arm. "C'mon, ain't got the time to be standin' around."
"Containment," I say faintly, shifting my gaze from him to the mobile slab of concrete. It lifts off, taking no fewer than seven other people with it. Seven. In seconds. Levithan tore through seven people in mere seconds.
"Oi!" I blink and refocus. The polka-dot-stripe man is snapping his fingers in my face. Once I'm back to looking at him he points of into the distance. "The beastie's thata way. Ask the nice lady for direction if you can't hear him." He points to his wrist and taps the bracelet there twice. Right. Dragon. She'll tell me where to go. I turn to leave, but stop when I feel an hand on my back. I turn around.
There are two of him again, both looking at me.
"It ain't a laughing matter, lassie-" one starts.
"-but keep your head on your shoulders and you'll come out alive," the other finishes as they both nod in sync. They turn in the direction of the cape with the zippers, run over to him, and start digging through the wreckage alongside him.
I turn away and ripple my ribs, taking comfort in the familiar motion. Mask on, White Rose. I stilt up, start running, and heft the bracelet to my face.
"White Rose, I'm with Containment. Which direction is the battle?" I say, forming a shade over my head and wiping my lenses dry with a tiny brush of bone as the rain continues to pour down. After a moment a red arrow appears on the screen, pointing up and to my right. Good enough. I nod and push out more stilts, moving to the rooftops, trying to catch sight of the action.
I don't have to wait long.
Bursts of light bright enough to make the rain sparkle blaze through the sky in a dozen different colors. Massive lashes of water tear through the air, occasionally snuffing out a moving pinprick of light. I catch glimpses of strange constructs through the gaps in the buildings trying to hinder something big and green and fast.
I think it's Leviathan.
I throttle back on my speed a little, enough that I can turn on a dime. It's caution, just making sure I can avoid being pancaked. That's what I tell myself, and I keep telling myself that as I get closer and closer to the fighting, the sounds of which are growing louder and clearer. The sounds of water slapping against concrete, of water breaking concrete, of different Blasters scoring hits on the beast, of the discharge of tinkertech, of-
Then he rounds the corner. Big, bigger than Lung, and much more alien. Grey-green, with four eyes distributed unevenly on his face. He's hunched, more simian than reptile, with long arms and some surface-level damage across his body.
I move to the side out of instinct. Fear. Something.
It barely keeps me alive.
He flies forward far faster than something that big has any right to move, and I catch a glimpse of his hand striking out almost dismissively. I bring up a shield of bone on reflex, then gasp in agony when it shatters and I'm sent flying back.
Pain. Actual pain, not broken bones pain. It feels like the ache in my legs after my morning runs, but a thousand times worse and all over my body. My muscles, I think.
I just got hit so hard that my muscles tore.
Then I crash into a wall and feel my backplate fracture and I'm awake again. Not awake. Aware. Damage control now. I fuse my skeleton together at the joints and suddenly I feel like I can move again. Good. Next step, control of my body. I shift my shell around to grab a ledge and Jesus apparently moving muscles without actually flexing them still fucking hurts. I have to bite my tongue to keep from screaming.
Why is this so much fucking worse than a broken bone?
I wrench myself to standing and push all the hurt down into a tiny fucking ball of hate and forget about it. I can still move. It hurts, but life fucking hurts.
Hookwolf was right. I could only take one hit.
I see half a dozen different people in costumes dash past me as I try to regain my bearings. Leviathan. Chase. Get some fucking vengeance. I try taking a step. Pain. I weave bone into my muscles, a minuscule lattice that fractures a little every time I move it but keeps my muscles from tearing further. I take another step. Pain, but easier to manage this time. I sprint after the receding capes, extending more limbs and looking for the fight.
I am not going to stop. Not from one hit.
I catch up with one of the slower capes and match his pace. He's in some home-made getup of blue biker leather and shards of mirror with a full-face mask, stepping on a series of small circular force fields that disappear behind him as new ones form under his feet, panting lightly as he bounces forward at a decent clip.
"Need help?" I ask, forming handholds on my back. He nods once then jumps onto me. I stumble for a moment, a few limbs fracturing under the new weight, but I grow more and get back up to speed.
There's a thunder clap followed by half a dozen eye-searingly bright beams flying down from the sky. I can almost make out Legend through the downpour, along with beams of scarlet and white that are probably Purity and Laserdream, as well as a few more esoteric colors.
There's the fight.
"I'm Springboard, with Containment," the cape on my back says. "You?"
"White Rose," I answer. "Same." I crawl us over a ruined building and catch a glimpse of the battle. Alexandria and what looks like a black skeleton are tearing gouges in the creature's hide while projectiles rain down upon all three of them, turning water into mist with an audible hiss even as the sounds of at least a dozen different projectiles drown out almost all other noise. I can see rents and scorch marks all over Leviathan's skin and places where black ichor flows freely.
I think he's losing.
"Tidal wave incoming."
"Get close to me!" Springboard shouts from my back as two more capes group up near us, one a glowing figure that makes me think of a female tree-person from Lord of the Rings and the other a guy in a purple tunic with bandages around the lower half of his face. Four circular force fields pop up around me, forming part of a dome in the direction of the ocean. Another force construct grows between them, less like New Wave's creations and more like a time-lapse video of a plant growing, green and transparent and organic-looking, and the purple man lifts both his hands palms out towards the incoming wall of water and oh shit bone bone bonebonebonebone-
It hits and I feel fractures but no complete breaks. Thank God.
"Heavy casualties, please wait."
Oh hell.
I pull back the bone and assess the damage. Huh, I grabbed Springboard and the two people around me with tendrils of bone. Don't remember doing that. The force fields are still there and I feel Springboard struggling against his bonds. I pull the bone back in and he brushes himself off, nodding at me. The plant construct and tree-person are gone and I'm holding a naked woman in their place, who's clutching at her head as blood flows from her ears. A Breaker? Changer? The man in purple was at the edge of my range and I can see his right arm sporting a new compound fracture.
A broken bone. I can fix that.
I motion towards him, hands out. He looks up at me, eyes screwed up in silent agony. I point to his arm.
"I can fix that, you just need to let me-"
"Watch out!" Springboard shouts and four force fields appear behind the man in purple. I look just in time to see a horizontal bar of water crash into them, practically detonating as it impacts the fields. Enough slides under and around them that both purple guy and I get swept off our feet. I hear a feminine cry of pain from behind us before my head submerges.
After inhaling liquid, I push myself back up and hack it out of my lungs. The sounds are gone again, leaving only the pitter-patter of rain and the rumble of particularly massive blows. I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn around. Springboard's looking me in the eye, tapping my mask with one hand.
"Good. You're here. Listen, if bone's all you have, switch to Search and Rescue." I feel my hackles rise at that, but he keeps going. "All you're going to do is fill the air with shrapnel. You didn't know that then, you do now. Look after these two," he says, pointing to a now-kneeling purple guy and semi-conscious naked woman, surrounded by fragments of bone. I blink twice, staring at the mess around me.
He's right. I'm not useful here.
"I'm going back to the fight," he adds after a moment, stepping up into the air onto one of his force fields and rushing off towards the sound of battle. That arrogant little shit who does he-
I shove it down. Fine. I can't stop Leviathan. Nursemaid it is. I thumb the button on my communicator and lift it to my mask.
"White Rose, switching from Containment to Search and Rescue," I say as I walk over to the man in purple and hold out a hand. He grabs it and pulls himself to standing, swaying on his feet. After I get a nod from him I head over to the naked woman, who still has her hands over her ears, but is slowly getting back up. "You okay?" I ask and she winces, hands going to her ears.
"Quiet place," she whispers, barely audible. "Place to rest. To change." Purple guy walks over to her and covers her with part of his cape, giving me a pointed look as he does so. Right, time for the Rescue part of Search and Rescue. I start growing limbs, tall enough that purple guy has to crane his head back to look at me. After an awkward moment I grow a set of stairs that lead up to my back.
"We don't have all day," I point out, and he nods in agreement. Slowly, oh so slowly, he helps the naked woman up the steps. Once I've grown a harness around her and the guy in purple has a solid grip on the handhold I pushed out, I stilt up to the rooftops and head towards the PRT building, looking for the triage center. It's pretty easy to find, what with all the brightly-dressed people flying in the same direction towards it. I start moving, trying to keep my gait even for the sake of the people on my back. I'm not sure how well it works out, but inside of ten minutes I'm there.
It's a madhouse, but an organized one. A thousand different sounds clamor over one another. Boots splashing through water are overlaid with the distinct noise of at least three different types of teleportation and the howl of something big and canine. Somehow I can still make out shouted orders through the din. Movers are arriving and departing rapidly, each one dropping off the wounded and picking up hale capes from their own designated landing pad. A telefragging countermeasure? That structured organization is actually a problem since I haven't been assigned a space, so I'm forced to stand around awkwardly waving a tendril of bone at nearby EMT's. Eventually one of them notices the fifteen foot bone monster with the two injured on its back and comes sprinting over.
"How bad?" he asks, motioning for the guy in purple to come down.
"He's got a compound fracture and she's got something wrong with her head. Power based, I think. He doesn't speak," I add and the doctor nods, water spraying from his hood.
"Can you get them down?" I nod and make stairs again. Once they're off, I shift down into my knight's armor and tap the unbroken arm of the guy in purple. He pauses and looks back at me
"I can fix your arm," I repeat, pointing at the awkwardly bent limb. The EMT and guy in purple exchange looks, then skeptically turn to me. I make a rose in my hand and hold it up. "I can shape bone," I state. "Mine and any I can see. I've worked with Isidis before-"
"What the hell are you doing out there?" The EMT interrupts, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me away. "The healer tent is over here!" I barely resist the urge to lacerate him for his disrespect, and instead dig in my heels and shake off his hand.
"What are you talking about?" I ask. "I can cover distances quickly and make barriers. So what if I can fix a break?" It's not like that's so impressive. You still need to cut people up for it to work, and Isidis needs to make sure my bone grafts actually take. The EMT stops, pinches his nose, and takes breath. I flex a rib in irritation. Yes, condescend to a cape at an Endbringer fight, that can only end well.
"There are a lot of Movers and Shakers," the EMT states slowly. "Capes that can help people? Nearly zero. Victor is just a really, really good surgeon, and he's one of the top five medically-oriented capes in the North East. Othala? The only person I've seen with a power even remotely close to true healing, and I've been to seven of these. So when you tell me that you can fix shattered limbs on a level that Isidis found useful, forgive me for being a little short. We've got a lot people who can carry bodies," he says, eyes going tired for a moment, "And not a lot who can fix them."
We stare at each other for a second, two people still in a storm of activity. Then I grit my teeth and nod. I'm just behaving optimally. Prioritizing. It's not the sickening fear of Leviathan that keeps me from walking away. Not the knee-weakening relief at the thought of staying away from the fighting, from the messy bodies, from attacks that actually hurt.
I tell myself that and I still feel like a coward.
"Lead the way," I say, quiet enough that I can barely hear it over the rain and the rush, quiet enough that the shame in my voice gets washed away in the cacophony.
"Less talk, more fixing people," the EMT says, turning away and motioning towards the two white flaps. "'C'mon, no rest for the wicked." I stifle a retort and follow him into the medical tent, leaving the chaos behind me.
