I'm moving before I consciously recognize what just happened, nearly slipping in the mud as the tread on my boots fail to catch. I fix that by growing them longer and sharper as I sprint for the wall, ready to rend the life out of the maggot who dared to attack what is mine!
The tent wall is a plastic-y sort of cloth that parts easily as I spear into it, ripping open a tear wide enough for me to lunge through, head snapping from side to side. Where is the walking corpse? I see another spear of light flash out and pull myself to the side with my shell, barely dodging the projectile. There they are. I start sprinting, barely registering the panicked noises and gunshots going off around me because they didn't try to kill Amy!
The walking corpse is a naked woman with long black hair, small enough to be mistaken for a girl. Next to her is a naked man, bald and muscular, with folded arms and face set in a savage grin.They both get to die, then.
The man notices me first, tapping the girl's shoulder and saying something I can't hear over the rain and distance. I see her stamp her foot and send out one more lance of light before jumping onto the man's back. He starts sprinting towards the city and further away from me, moving at an inhuman speed. Oh no you fucking don't!
I put on the gas, but I'm not going to catch them before they get to the line of buildings. I don't like my chances of keeping track of them in that rat's nest, so I improvise. I form a javelin of bone in one hand even as I gauge the distance between us and start timing my steps, figuring out angles and optimal push-off points. Have to get this right.
I shift my stance, take a few more steps, and hurl as I bring my foot down. I never stop pushing out bone, trying to impart as much power as I can into the spear right up until I fracture my last connection to the projectile. I keep shaping it, adding grooves to spin it and fins to keep it on course as the white thunderbolt cuts through the air and slams into the back of the girl/woman, disrupting the man's gait and sending them both tumbling to the ground.
Now to finish them off.
By the time I reach him the man has risen to his knees and is trying to push himself all the way up, a task made more difficult by the corpse pinned to his back. The spear tip is lodged deep, right by the lungs, which explains the splatter of blood on the ground in front of him that grows larger with every wet cough that escapes his mouth as he struggles for air.
Good. Suffer.
He looks up as I move in front of him, a grin with too many teeth to be human crawling across his face.
"You're too late," he taunts. "We already got you fuckers-"
The rest is cut off as I stab him through the eye with a needle of bone, expand, and spin.
He twitches once, then stops moving.
No one attacks what is mine.
The girl shuddered, coughing up blood. I watch dismissively as she lifts her arm weakly, a lance of light slowly forming in it, pointed at me. No. I flick out my other hand and a blade of bone slices out, opening up her neck. Blood wells, then slows, and her hand drops again, the light dissipating into nothingness.
None of that.
I sprint back into the camp, eyes narrowed and searching for more targets. None present themselves, but the bundle of Thinkers is now smaller and surrounded by PRT agents. The medical tents are in disarray, spilling forth patients and personnel alike as chaos reigns. I can see craters in the sand where projectiles have landed, and the Mover landing pads are in ruins, the previously well-organized reception teams now stomping all over the spray-painted circles and walking through caution tape without a care in the world.
What the hell happened?
Eventually I get back to the tent, PRT agents parting before me as I re-enter through the front of it at a dead-run. Isidis is inside the pool patching up her stomach, grimacing weakly all the while. I pause at the door, relief washing over me and weakening my knees. If that spear had hit a little bit higher it would've cut her heart in half. A bit more than that, her brain.
Isidis is lucky. That, or she has someone up above looking out for her.
She looks up, locks eyes with me, and jerks her chin.
"Get over here," she shouts. "We're going to need some more raw materials soon." I nod dumbly, puppetting my limbs with bone to stumble over to the edge of the pool. No rest for the wicked. The three PRT agents in the room back away as Alabaster re-applies his tourniquet, uncharacteristically quiet. I get the wood chippers back online, Dorian slides into his, and soon enough the pool is filling up again. A load of patients comes in and Isidis goes back to making gore-angels, replacing gaping wounds with mended flesh.
As the process restarts, a PRT agent steps up next to us, rifle held across his chest and finger outside the trigger guard.
"We're informing all capes about the relevant details of the attack," he says, slow and stiff, as if he's reading off a teleprompter. With the amount of tech that must be packed into that helmet, that could very well be the case. "Receiving this message does not mean you are a special target, nor does it mean you will receive special treatment." Well, this doesn't sound good.
"After being forced away from the main group, Leviathan disappeared downtown. As our Thinkers and Dragon attempted to locate him, a nearby construction site collapsed, taking several capes down with it. After the main group had re-engaged Leviathan, a Thinker noticed movement in the debris and decided to remotely investigate. A large, monstrous parahuman erupted from the rubble and proceeded to flee the scene. Since then, numerous Search and Rescue capes have disappeared with their tracking bracelets failing to register them as missing."
"That brings us to this attack. Several of the parahumans participating in the assault exhibited powers similar if not identical to the missing capes. This in conjunction with testimony from a source close to the parahuman in question has lead us to believe that the new parahuman, codenamed Erinye, has a Master/Trump power of some sort which lets her control parahumans and adjust their powers."
I feel myself go cold at the trooper's words.
Did I just kill heroes?
No. They attacked first. Unprovoked. I was just defending others from future assaults. With prejudice.
"Who did they get?" Isidis asks as she lathers a ragged chest wound with slime, interrupting my train of thought. "Any big names? Anyone who could level the city?"
"Any parahumans can level a city if they're smart enough," the trooper says tightly, off-script for a moment before returning to his original tone. "A full list of missing parahumans is being compiled as we speak, but we can assure you that none of the Triumvirate or Protectorate Division Leaders have been caught." His posture relaxes and he leans back on his heels for a moment. "For now, Leviathan seems to be backing off. The people with the speed to stay on him are going to keep trying to damage him, but everyone who's less mobile is forming up around here and settling in for a siege." He twists his head from side to side. "Erinye and all the capes that have sided with her are considered kill-on-sight targets, so weapons free." Alabaster nods as the PRT agent leaves.
"I do hope they'll let me borrow one of their guns," he muses idly. "It's been a while since I really cut loose."
"Oh yeah, the low-tier regenerator cutting loose," Isidis deadpans. "What are you going to do, bleed more aggressively than normal?"
"No, I was thinking I'd shoot them in the head from a hundred feet away," he says as he turns to look at me. "You slew the ones who tried to kill Isidis, didn't you?" Fucking- does he have a Thinker power or something?
"They hit her first. That made them fair game," I say, spinning the blades a little more aggressively in Alabaster's wood chipper. It doesn't faze him at all, unfortunately.
"So there's another Endbringer?" Dorian asks. The sudden spike of fear in the room is a physical thing, like a cold, slimey blanket.
"Not even close," Isidis says, slapping a recovered parahuman on the ass when they don't get out of the pool fast enough. "They'd have told us if it was an S-Class threat. Worst case scenario, Legend takes a minute off from hitting Leviathan to turn the new cape into a grease smear and we never have to hear about them again."
After that things quiet down. At least, for a certain measure of 'quiet'. There's a brief spike in warm bodies needing colder flesh as the casualties from the ambush pour in followed by a long stretch of peace, presumably to let the capes who are trying to fight the new monster regroup. When injured do come by, it's only three or four at a time, and we're really not seeing any new types of injuries. Just more broken bones and ruptured organs.
When shit goes south, it goes south fast.
A trooper storms into the tent, a rifle in each hand and bandoliers of ammunition slung across her chest.
"We're moving out," she says in a tone that will brook no disagreement. "A Certain Indefinite Didact and Mercury Haberdashery are detecting an incoming group of parahumans. Not ours," she adds. She holds a rifle out to Alabaster. "Do you know how to use this?"
"Oh yes," he says, taking the gun and examining it, nodding contentedly as he runs his fingers over the sides. "I believe I can work with this," he adds as he unclips the tourniquet from his arm. A moment later his coat flickers and it's back on his arm and buttoned up, once more in place rather than hanging loose. The agent looks at the bone cylinder holding Dorian.
"What about you?" she says, voice slightly raised. I shake my head.
"He can't answer you right now," I say. "Give me a minute." I close my eyes and pull the bone wood chippers back into myself, my armor becoming coated with blood and meat as I reabsorb the bone. Dorian slowly emerges from the woodchipper, finally stumbling out once he's no longer filled with blades, a pained grimace on his face.
"Why are we stopping?" he asks, looking around curiously. Isidis is already out of the pool, biological material sliding off of her to reveal long, bare legs and-
I snap my attention back to the PRT agent, who's holding a rifle out to Dorian. He's eyeing it like it might bite him. Alabaster sighs and walks over, picking up the rifle and pushing it into Dorian's hands.
"Come now, I'll show you," Alabaster says, doing something with his hand next to the barrel as he holds his other hand out towards the trooper, who deposits two belts loaded with magazines into it. "Shooting is the easiest thing in the world with guns as nice as these," the white man finishes, pulling a still-naked Dorain out through the tent flaps. I raise an eyebrow as I watch them go. Powers of a feather, I guess. I turn back to Isidis, who's once more clad in a hospital gown, her hair held back by a scrunchie. She jerks her chin towards the agent.
"Come on. Let's go," she says, striding forward. I follow as she passes me, leaving behind the pool of gore and the torn-up sod of the tent.
Outside it's chaos, but organized chaos, in a way that reminds me of the landing pads earlier in the day. Black-clad PRT troopers usher capes from place to place, moving with purpose and managing to stay out of one another's way. Different colorful figures are also coming in and out of the periphery of the camp, slowly draining the population. It's dizzying to watch, like putting my face right next to an anthill, and the noise is near deafening as orders, calls for help, and the cacophony of movement all overlap into something halfway between the roar of a stadium and the rumble of a freeway.
"ETA on Strider is two minutes, taking ten people!"
"Do not send Thinkers out with Scarlet Circle, her power interacts very poorly with enhanced perception!"
"Listen, if you're scared of dogs you can fucking wait!"
"A-1 capes to Pad 5!" a plain-clothes police officer shouts into megaphone, pointing it up and at an angle to avoid deafening passersby. "That means healers and Thinkers, you know who you are and you know who you aren't!" Isidis starts pulling me that direction, barely making any headway through the crowd.
"That's us," she says, shouting to be heard over the crowd. "Come on, let's go!" She pulls me forward only to come to a sudden halt as a line of EMT's carrying injured between them cuts us off. I growl behind my mask and step close to Isidis. We don't have time for this!
"Hang on," I say.
"What-" the rest is cut off as I sweep her up into bridal carry and stilt up, tall enough that I can step over the whole mess. I stick to two legs, pushing and pulling bone into myself to adjust my center of gravity and maintain my balance. I get a few stares as I literally walk over people, but not any more than the various fliers streaking above us do as they transport everything from medical equipment to insensate patients.
"There," Isidis says. I look down and follow her pointing arm. "There's the landing pad." A post with the number 5 is sticking out of the ground, a group of parahumans already gathering around it. It only takes a few steps to get there, and when we reach it I gently let Isidis slide back to her feet.
"Sorry about-"
"It's fine," Isidis says, flashing me a small smile. "If I had a dime for every time Vicky did that I'd work for free." After taking a moment to steady herself, she walks up to a nearby agent and clears her throat.
"Isidis. I can graft dead flesh to people and make it take perfectly." The trooper holds up his finger for a moment, then waves her through before motioning to me. I step up to him, trying not to loom too much.
"White Rose. Bone manipulation, anything visible, and I can project more of my own," I say. He holds up his hand for a moment.
Then he shakes his head.
"You're on the long list," he says, pointing away from the pad. I stand there, looking into his blank faceplate.
Huh.
I guess I'm not that important.
"No no no," Isidis says, stomping up beside the trooper in a spray of mud and water. "I need her to chunk material for healing. Without her I'm basically useless." I nearly laugh at that. Anyone with a sufficiently destructive power should be able to pulp people for her, and the right type of regenerator is more important than that anyways. That, and she doesn't need either of them anyway, just a corpse, the knives on her fingers, and some time. She grabs my arm again and tugs. "Come on-"
"Ma'am, she's on the long list because she doesn't have a power critical to the battle against Leviathan and what she does have lends itself to fighting capes," the trooper interrupts, placing an arm between us and looking down at her. "We're trying to get everyone out before they approach anyway, but-"
"Fuck that!" Isidis spits, slapping away his hand. "Listen, she comes or I don't!"
"Isidis," I say. Her head whips around, hair plastered to her skull and cheeks, an almost angry look in her eyes. "I'll catch up, okay?" I say, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze. "I mean, he's right. I can handle a lot, and there are more important capes who can't. It's like triage, right?"
"Triage is for prioritizing the wounded, not deciding who gets left behind!" Isidis snaps and now she really is angry, hands clenched into fists and teeth bared. "Don't give me any of this self-sacrificing utilitarian shit! You can heal, you can help, now-"
"Tee-off in one minute!" a feminine voice calls out. "All passengers please get on the ball!" The trooper looks meaningfully at Isidis, who spares him a withering glare before punching me in the chestplate lightly.
"Don't die," she hisses, the water on her face shining in the floodlights. Then she hugs me. After a moment of not knowing what to do with my hands, I wrap my arms around her too.
"I won't," I promise as I let out a small snort. "It'd be anticlimactic if the girl who killed Lung on her first night out died to an Endbringer." I feel another impact, this time just above my liver. Again, soft.
"Don't tempt Murphy like that," she mumbles before pushing me away. On impulse I reach out to her ear and form a flower, the stem tangling in her hair and the petals gently snapping off my armor as I release them. A hibiscus. She fingers it for a moment, looking at me with an odd expression on her face.
"Think of somewhere sunny," I say, putting what little cheer I can into the words. "We'll grab a meal somewhere outside later."
"Thirty seconds!" the voice calls out again. Isidis shakes her head, then walks up the hill without replying to join the group of five capes at the launch pad. Once they're all within a circle spray-painted on the ground, a stocky woman in a neon orange shirt, khaki shorts, and a plain white domino mask motions at four of them, and at her gesture an opaque sphere pops into existence around them. She picks up a golf club, takes a few practice swings, and then strikes the ball. There's a loud shattering sound, like metal striking glass, and I see the wake in the rain and clouds as the sphere disappears into the distance.
"White Rose?" I look back at the trooper, who's pointing to a group of people at the other end of the encampment. "Head over there. They'll figure out where you should wait." I nod, and stilt back up into the rain.
"Melee, ranged, or other?" the agent asks curtly when I finally reach the front of the line.
"Melee," I say. "So where-"
"Over there," he says, pointing to a clump of capes idly standing around at the far end of the clearing. "Next!" he shouts, motioning for me to get out of the way. I shift to the side, shoving down the irritation and urge to cut him for his insolence and head towards the gathering.
I recognize Snapback, the cape in white, and the black cowboy-hat cape. There's also a small parahuman in a domino mask and heavy leather duster decorated with feathers who nods once as I approach. She looks even younger than I am.
"Hello," she says, barely loud enough to be heard over the rain. The part of her face that isn't covered by her mask is spotted with acne, and she barely comes up to my shoulders. Snapback cranes his head towards me, arms crossed and baggy clothes looking even less practical now that they're soaked through. The cape in white stops their pacing for long enough to turn completely towards me.
"White Rose, was it?" they ask, staticky voice somehow carrying more clearly through the rain. I stick out my hand.
"Yeah. We saw one another earlier," I reply. They look at the hand for a second, then back at me. Black cowboy barks out a laugh.
"Yeah, Whiteline don't care for the courtesies of us regular folk," he says, walking over to me and giving my open hand two quick pumps. "Name's Gaucho." He lets go of my hand and points to Snapback, then the new cape. "That's Snapback, and she's-"
"I can introduce myself," the girl snaps, a little fire entering her voice. Gaucho raises his hands in feigned surrender, smiling as he backs away from me. "I'm Big Game," she says, looking me in the eye like she's daring me to comment on it.
I don't.
"Nice to meet you," I say, extending a hand to her as well. After a moment of surprise she shakes it, squeezing a little harder than she needs to before walking back over to her spot by Snapback. Gaucho chuckles, shaking his head.
"Don't take her personally, wouldja? Little miss there doesn't much like anyone," he says, slapping me once on the back. I manage to bite back a threat to him and his life to match his disrespect, and settle for a frosty silence instead. "Now come on, let's put together a game plan," he says, moving to form a half circle next to Big Game. After a moment, Whiteline stands across from him, leaving enough room for me. I steel myself, step forward, and close the circle.
"I will begin," Whiteline says, hands behind their back, inscrutable as ever. "I am a Five by Six Trump who specializes in temporarily manipulating the boundaries of powers. Snapback and Gaucho can attest to my effectiveness." The other two capes nod, Gaucho's face solemn and Snapback's too covered up to tell.
"Master/Blaster. I shoot things I've killed," Big Game says, holding open her hand. A fuzzy wire-frame of a bird appears in it, with what looks like ice filling out the middle. "If it breaks I don't get it back."
"Saben que hago," Snapback says dismissively. Gaucho rolls his eyes.
"The boy taps people, makes ghost copies of 'em, and can call back the real McCoy anytime he wants," the older man drawls. "Got a whole toolkit set up with Whiteline here. I make horses," he says, shifting his tone to something more serious. "Lotta little ones or one big one, and I make 'em outta this inky black stuff that only I can touch, 'less Whitey here gives me a tweak." There's a pause, and after a moment I realize it's for me.
"Bones," I say belatedly. "I can project mine and shape ones I can see outside my body." Whiteline nods, then pulls off a glove. Underneath is a scarred hand with crooked fingers, no nails, and flesh that looks both partially melted and partially torn, apparently left to heal in a way that strikes me as wrong. I'd almost think it must have been intentional, but the scarring is so haphazard I can't possibly imagine why they would mutilate themselves this way. It's not pretty or deep or expressive. It's just nauseating.
I manage to keep my feelings from showing on my mask. I think.
"Let me see," they say, static hissing with something that can only be excitement.
