The first hint we get that we're under attack is a ghostly blue projectile that strikes the ground next to Gaucho.
"Fuck!" he shouts, trying to trot his horse away as it explodes into a shockwave. I see the blue wall approaching fast and push out bone bone bonebonebone-
It passes harmlessly through us all, eventually petering out into nothingness. I freeze and wait for the secondary effect.
And wait.
And wait.
"Blue area-of-effect projectile impacted our group with no obvious effects, please advise," Whiteline says into their wrist from the back of one of Gaucho's horses, a dappling barely apparent in different shades of black. I decided not to take the Trump I know basically nothing about up on their offer of a temporary power adjustment, but Gaucho and Snapback both did. Snapback is riding behind Whiteline and Gaucho is on his own mount, a beast of a stallion with shoulders that are higher than my head. Four ghosts float around Snapback, the shades far more distinct than when I first saw his power in action. The resemblance to us is eerie, like the too-perfect-to-be-real faces made by the computer programs Amy showed me during one of our lunches together, and I can't help but stare at them while we wait, tense and impatient for action. I know they're there to pull us to him if he needs help, or if one of us needs to get out of danger.
That doesn't make seeing a distorted version of my own wave-patterned face any easier.
I swallow and change my mask, shifting from flowing curves to hard corners and straight lines, flat planes that are almost insectile in appearance.
Water may not have been the best theme for today.
"Incoming!" Big Game shouts, a trio of birds spilling from her hand and streaking out into the rain, faint lines fading in behind them as they home in on targets. I try to track their path, straining my eyes to see whatever it is that she unloaded on-
A blur slams into me, plowing us both into the ground and breaking the crash lattice beneath my ablative armor and what the fuck is this thing? It's like someone took an action figure and ran a butane torch over it, leaving only its hate-filled eyes unwarped.
"Get off!" I snarl, hugging whatever it is that has the temerity to try and hurt me and push out bone in savage-sharp needles from my arms and chest then grind-
A moment of disorientation later and I fall to the ground next to a galloping Whiteline. Snapback is clinging to them for dear life, hat somehow still on his head as the two of them shudder from the bareback riding.
"Va!" he shouts, the two of them already racing ahead of me. I stilt up and grow a few more legs as I hurry after them. I can hear Gaucho cursing up a storm behind me and I spare a moment to look back.
He's riding after us, hoofbeats terrifyingly silent as his horse rapidly catches up. Another blur comes out of the sky, but he waves his hand and a tide of black flows up from the ground, horse heads with silently gnashing teeth and flailing hooves lashing up to snare it. I catch a glimpse of brown skin and slightly twisted limbs too heavily muscled to be pure human before the cape gets pulled down to the ground and the sound of tearing flesh starts.
"Please pay attention to where you're going," Whiteline calls to me. "There's a turn coming up ahead."
I look forward again and up up up! I barely get a pole of bone out in time to vault over the collapsed building in our path. When that slips in a puddle I throw out a claw, catch a windowsill, and begin climbing as fast as I can. I manage to clear the hurdle and pause at the top, looking around. Where is-
Another fucking brown blur slams into mebut this time I'm ready and filling it with more bone than anyone can survive, prying open gashes that stop bleeding as soon as I make them but that's okay I can see the ribs and those are peeling and cracking like so many rose petals and I can see the heart but the brown person with a furious face doesn't stop when I pull it out so I stop playing nice and just tear-
More fucking disorientation later and I'm rolling across the ground next to Whiteline and Snapback again, this time with Gaucho along for the ride.
"Get on up, girlie!" the cowboy-wannabe shouts as I feel a horse form under me. I wrap its neck in bone and fuse my armor to it as I regain my bearings.
"I said turn, not jump," Whiteline says conversationally. "Please trust me to provide reasonable direction." I bite back the urge to show him what I think of his leadership with needles and focus on trying to hold on to the horse, which feels less like flesh and blood and more like sticky jello.
"What the hell are those things?" I ask. "I stabbed one in the heart and it didn't die! Also, where's Big Game?"
My question gets answered by a bellow when a stag wire-frame filled out by what looks like glowing leaves peels off of a nearby street and pulls up beside us. On its back is Big Game, looking shaken but alive.
"My guess is some sort of self-replicator that can fly who also received a Brute rating from Erinye," Whiteline says dispassionately. "And Big Game appears to be fine. Are you?" he asks, pitching his voice to reach her.
"I'm good," she says, voice fragile but stable. "Are we running away?" she asks, her voice in that odd place between hopeful and fearful.
"Regrouping," Whiteline clarifies. "Gaucho is one of the few mass-Movers left, so we'll be-"
I see a flash of light out of the corner of my eye and try to jerk my horse right. Instead I fall completely off as my tenuous hold slips, the bone collar sliding through the horse's neck without resistance. Fucking powers. A silvery projectile flashes over where I was previously to hit the side of a building beside me, leaving a small star made of silver lines. A moment later a pile of debris flies through the air, following the projectile's path through where my head used to be and demolishing the building's wall, sending the structure tipping over. I manage to stilt back up and rejoin my group, who are weaving and zig-zagging to avoid the silvery spears and subsequent barrage of ruin.
"Puta madre!" Snapback shouts as Whiteline jerks particularly abruptly. "¿Qué diablos está pasando?"
"We're being shot at," Whiteline says. "Two-step shot, first one marks a target and the second brings local loose objects towards it. I haven't seen a max weight yet. I don't suppose one of you could track them down?" they ask, sparing a second to glance over their shoulder.
"Tell me where to go," I say, already pushing out more limbs to accelerate-
"I'll come with," Big Game says. When I shoot her a worried look, she meets my gaze unflinchingly. "Someone needs to distract them while you close the distance." I resist the urge to tell this girl of maybe eleven to stay out of danger and just jerk my head in a nod. Gaucho is the only reason Whiteline and Snapback are mobile, so he can't exactly split off from them, and those two aren't going to be much help dealing with a ranged threat. I glance back up at Whiteline, who gallops in serpentine for a moment before looking back questioningly.
"Big Game should have a better understanding of where the target is than I," they say and I can almost detect a note of amusement. "Listen to her." They point to an upcoming cross street. "We split here. The rendezvous point will be marked on your bracelets. Please don't get captured." Then we hit the crossroad, and the three of them go right; Big Game kicks her heels into her projection and leaps forward, and I have to shift deeper into bone to keep up with her. Another trio of birds split off from Big Game and soar up into the sky, flitting between the remaining rooftops. She promptly takes a hard left.
"They're on top of a building three blocks away from here!" she shouts. "Four of them! I'll try to keep the Blaster from harassing us! No promises!" More birds start peeling out from her and I see her hand point up to a commercial building with freshly-broken windows and a flat top. A silver bolt flies out from on top of it and we both swerve, leaving the follow up projectiles to harmlessly impact the flooded street. I see Big Game slash her hand down and flickers of light fall from the sky. Shortly thereafter a faint scream filters down from the building and the silvery bolts stop coming. I think she looks a little green at the gills.
Then two figures rise from the rooftop and blur forward into brown thunderbolts and not this time you living wastes of flesh!
I stilt up in front of Big Game and slam into the foremost one, snagging the other with a hook of bone to its collarbone that pulls him off-target. No, you fight me! The one in my arms gets to see what it's like being stuffed so full of needles they're more bone than flesh while Mr. Hook gets to have his throat torn open by a lash of bone reaching across and carving a bright red laugh into him.
Apparently the one in my arms doesn't like that though and spins in midair, sending me flying across the street and leaving him with lungs full of bone which doesn't seem to bother him at all!? As I look the bone pulls into him, shifting and molding until the material is seamlessly integrated into its body, a patchwork of smooth white and dark brown skin. The other one's throat closes up equally fast as the two of them float there, grinning at me.
"Bitch thinks she can put us down," the now-part bone one says, cracking its neck and grinning widely. It has too many teeth to be human, with a head that's just barely too long.
"Bitch is wrong," the other one says. This one looks melted like the first cape that attacked me, but more pulpy and less streamlined. There's a slight slur on the 'buh' sound as it speaks. "Gonna show her how wrong she is."
I settle into a lower stance, forming thorns on my armor and recreating the crash layer underneath it. I add teeth to my mask, sharp jagged things meant for taking bites and tearing free meat from muscle.
"Fucking try," I hiss. They take the bait and blur towards me. Perfect.
The part-bone cape falls to pieces in midair as I reach out and twist the exposed bone-parts of it, shattering its torso and letting it rip itself apart as it flies. Fool. The other one charges into a spear of bone, runs all the way down it (oh no you don't) and catches on the cross guard that I grow inside of its belly. Its arms scrape weakly at the air in front of me, just an inch too short to reach. What a shame. I push some bone up and down, slowly drawing its body painfully straight as columns press and burst through meat. It still doesn't die, flesh tearing marginally as it jerks around on the pike. Looks like you can take a beating. How much of one? I grow the bone wide, ballooning its chest. It starts coughing, choking as blood sprays from its lips, and its droopy eyes go wide as its hands go to its chest and its face turns purple. I watch as this worm wriggles on a hook, learning that it wasn't such hot shit after all.
Eventually, its hands stop moving.
I snap off my connection to the spear and let the thing fall back, splashing into the water to float uselessly still. Then I turn on my heel and head to finish the job.
The upper torso of the ragged one is crawling along the ground, dragging itself with one hand and groaning. As I watch it presses a rock into the area under its ribs, the stone deforming to shape into something tube-like.
It doesn't hear me come up behind it. It certainly notices when I stomp its head under the water, shove a needle in its ear, extend and spin.
It stops moving after that.
I break off the needle and look up, leaving bone sticking up and out of the water, scanning for Big Game. I don't have to look long. She's trotting her elk back over to me, skin turning paler as she takes in the stiff in the water and the ragged remnants of the thing in front of me.
This probably looks pretty bad.
"They were really tough," I say, wincing internally at how defensive I sound. Acting like there's a problem is a great way to make people think that there is one. Fortunately, Big Game doesn't seem like she wants to make a big deal of it and just nods quickly.
"I think I hit the capes up there, but they got away," she says, a strange note in her voice, something between disappointment and relief. I let it pass and stilt up, checking my bracelet.
"White Rose and Big Game. We dealt with two Brutes on the corner of Freebooter and Nietzsche," I say. "Where can we meet up with more capes?" There's no verbal response, but the screen lights up and an arrow points off towards the north. I look to Big Game, who holds up her own arm and nods. Same page, then. I start moving, bone splashing quietly in the water as Big Game follows me, her birds zipping off to scout the path ahead.
The rendezvous point changes as we approach it, the arrow slowly crawling east as the sounds of battle grow louder. Sometimes I can hear the screech of something that sounds almost human, only the sheer volume of the noise betraying its unnatural source. Other times all I hear is the clap of water crashing into something, the lack of noise as telling as anything else. Flashes of light and other distractions provide visual markers for the main engagement, clear markers of where to avoid traveling, so Big Game and I skirt the edges of the conflict.
Neither of us can hurt Leviathan. Neither of us want to fight whatever is crying out loud enough to shake the windows either.
Eventually the bracelet starts beeping and a number pops up which rapidly ticks down as we approach the meeting point. Big Game looks at her own and what I think might be a small smile graces her face.
"We're almost there!" she says, her mount tossing its head once and moving fractionally faster. I match her as we race down the street, turn a corner, and come across the main body of capes.
Or, what's left of them at least.
I remember feeling vertigo when I looked out at the Endbringer fight attendees only a few unbelievably long hours ago. I remember mentally calculating the amount of damage they could do, of figuring out that a select handful of them could scour the Bay to the bedrock, of feeling reality nearly peeling away from the sheer affront to conventional physics that occupied the building.
There might be a few dozen capes left at most.
Some of them look no worse for wear. Chevalier and a black skeleton are both standing tall in the middle of a circle of capes, his words inaudible over the pounding rain as the skeleton makes gestures with its hands, a ragged-looking cape next to it speaking after each flurry of gestures. There are a few more like them, either too proud or too durable to be bothered by something as pedestrian as exhaustion, but most of the others are haggard and worn, hunched over, leaning against a wall or sitting down wherever it's dry enough. A woman in a cocktail dress that's seen better days is lounging on a block of stone, fire flowing off of her and providing warmth for a number of other parahumans.
"Oi! You two!" Big Game and I turn our heads towards the shout and see an old man with receding white hair waving a hook hand at us. "Getcher arses over here and figure out where ya belong!" he yells, making a beckoning motion with his arm. The two of us trade a glance before walking over to him.
Up close he looks even older, skin creased with wrinkles made worse by the wet. Next to him are two other capes, one a girl in an emerald Zorro mask and top hat set at a jaunty angle and the other a guy dressed in loose sweats and the bottom half of a paintball mask, with a far-out look in his almond eyes and a greasy man bun.
"Now then, whatcha say about the girlie here's odds of taking on the clones?" the old cape says, slapping me on the back. I bat his arm away and give the lousy carcass a glare, but he's focused on the other two. Green Hat cocks her head so the brim of her hat is almost parallel to the ground, while Man Bun slaps his face. A hissing noise escapes from his mask and the scent of something sickly sweet fills the air.
"Cogs'll turn and catch and tear but never, ever, life forswear," Green Hat mutters, bobbing her head in time to the rhyme. I blink in surprise.
"I got chills," Man Bun says, rubbing his arms and looking at me with genuine fear in his eyes. "Got the chills for you girl." I take a step back, unnerved by the contrast of nonsense words and absolute certainty in their voices.
"An' the great Whale?" Hook-hand says, clapping one-handed. The two of them shake their heads, then look at me again.
"Lope and laugh and lose a half, then the rest comes tumbling after," Green Hat says, this time a note of sorrow in her voice.
"Juju's tearing at my eyes, man!" Man Bun shouts as his hands shoot up towards his face. Green Hat catches his fingers before they make it though, and there's a brief bout of wrestling between them while Hook-hand claps my shoulder and points with his prosthesis towards a group of capes standing by a statue of some colonial figure.
"You'll be fighting Erinye along with all them other capes, alright?" he says. I nod, then turn to look at Big Game. She steps forward, looking up at the two Thinkers as they fix their gaze on her.
"Quick and caught and licked a lot, nothing left but ash," Green Hat says, panting slightly as she traps Man Bun into a headlock.
"Lighting me up by looking at her," Man Bun whispers, eyes wide as he shudders in Green Hat's arms.
"Didact and Hatter'll find a spot for her," Hook-hand says as he pushes me away. "Now get on and collect some heads!" I stay for long enough to see Big Game head towards Chevalier and the black skeleton, then leave to join my own group.
This gathering is bigger than the one at the medical center, big enough that I don't think I could remember everyone's names if we went around. There are a few stand-outs, though. I recognize the guy that had the speaker from the beach, a trumpet now slung across his chest and a violin and bow in his hands. I think the woman in the kimono floating just above the water is from Myrddin's group, Rave or Revel or something, and she gives me a brief nod before looking back towards the three capes I just left.
A few more capes join us. I recognize Dauntless and Miss Militia from the local Protectorate, along with the black and white parahuman from the coast. Now he has five hatchets strapped across his body and is staring at Revel, inscrutable behind his checkered, striped, polka-dotted, plaid, and urban-camouflage suit. Eventually, people stop coming in and the woman in the kimono floats above the crowd, holding her bracelet to her mask.
"I'm Revel, and I'll be the commanding officer of this task force. In case you weren't briefed, the parahuman codenamed Erinye surfaced during the Endbringer attack. Thinkers initially pegged her as a Brute/Trump/Master hybrid, an A-class threat that nonetheless took a backseat to Leviathan." Her voice is coming from my wrist. A function of the bracelet? I can hear her just fine from where I stand, but I dutifully put my hand by my ear anyway, listening closely. "We assumed that the process of modifying the parahuman's powers warped their personality, making them psychopaths loyal to Erinye. We were wrong," she says bluntly.
"Erinye doesn't mind control parahumans; she creates them." I feel my blood go cold at the thought as a mutter runs through the crowd. "Thinker and eyewitness testimony reports that she can absorb biological organisms on touch, then spit out warped versions of them," Revel says, pressing on over the noise. "These parahumans have powers that are similar to the original but rarely identical, though Erinye's minions appear to be stronger on balance." Revel looks at the gathered capes, eyes hard above her mask, her lantern turning nearby raindrops into short-lived stars.
"As of now Erinye is an S-class threat, with kill orders signed and approved for her and all of her creations. The Triumvirate and a selection of other capes will attempt to force Leviathan away while we go after her. Thinker audits put her current count of prisoners at less than a dozen and it is key that we keep that number from growing. Those of you familiar with Master/Changer/Stranger protocols, share them with your companions, level nine plus for all. Briefly, that means you stay in contact with control and with your team, and if anyone approaches you without our say-so, assume hostility and shoot to kill." She waits for that to sink in, then starts moving towards the three capes that screened me. "Dragon has set rally points for your groups. Go there, set your passwords, and godspeed."
"Wave incoming," our bracelets chime. I pull mine away from my ear as half a dozen different projections take shape, the gaps between the buildings ahead of me being filled in by everything from gently shining spheres to angry, sticky flame. A few people step forward, pushing others back behind them and digging in their feet, figures covered in plates of stone or steel or simply walking with a confidence that says they think they'll be alright. Brutes, probably, or Tinkers who trust their tech to take the hit, wavebreakers for whatever gets through the Shaker fields.
I feel a hand pull me back and I turn to look at its owner, a fat man with modern-looking armor over his chest and limbs.
"Stay behind me!" he shouts, setting one foot in front of the other and crossing his arms. I shift further behind him, the motion oddly difficult. A Shaker? The raindrops start falling more slowly around me as another pair of capes flank him, one a woman in a neon-green skintight suit covered in googly eyes and the other a sexless pile of flaking stone.
Then I see the wave crest, water coursing furiously down the streets in a mass that reaches three stories tall, prompting even more force fields to pop up.
Deep in the heart of the water I see four asymmetrical glowing green eyes.
