The sirens sounded, loud and in its own way low enough to be unsettling.
The piercing clarion call resounded over the city, calling to those within, to seek shelter. To hide, to leave the city if they could.
It served another purpose.
To arms, it cried, for those with power. It spoke of truces, of standing a common and stronger enemy. It was an alarm used only in the most dire of circumstances.
Seventy years ago, those sirens had been used in Europe to warn of air raids, of bombing runs.
They were re-purposed after that. Proliferated across the United States of America, used to warn of tornadoes, used in drills for the nuclear war that never came.
After two decades ago, they were used to herald a new enemy. The disasters that were quite unnatural and known simply as Endbringers.
Once more they sounded. An advance warning, this time. A rarity for the advent of an Endbringer.
I could hear the sirens, hear the babble of the electromagnetic based communications. I could see the masses of crimson orange as they moved about the city, my sight ignored the clouds that lay between the city and where I floated.
The atmosphere and air pressure at the height where I floated on my wings should have been lethal to me, given how unprotected I was in regards to my garments. Said clothes were simply a tee shirt, a pair of jeans and runners.
The radiant light of the sun had kept me warm as they impacted my wings before being converted into something usable for my body. The ambient radiation from the darkness when I slipped behind the shadow cast by the world, they sang to me.
I looked to the distance at where my other companion up here was descending. Based on my memories of geography class, she was descending towards Australia. Objectively, I knew I shouldn't go after her. She was known to bring insanity to those who encountered her.
And yet, she had done nothing to me when we had first met. She had sang to me in waves of electromagnetism, and I had responded in kind. Slowly and unsteady with the flickering of my inner light.
We had conversed, after a fashion.
She could have done something to me, but she hadn't. I would have felt it, would have known from the state of my inner light. My mind was tied to my power and from there. I knew.
Now and then, we met up. It was only natural as we drifted above the world. We weren't friends, nor were we anything more than neighbors in truth. I should fear her, and yet I didn't. I should hate her, and yet I couldn't do so. I saw in her something akin to a peer and thus, we conversed as we flew.
As she drew closer to her target, I sang to her.
"With utmost regret,
I must help them and fight you.
Can you forgive me?"
She laughed in her response, before I caught her song.
"It shall be most fun.
Come, let us play together.
No regrets for us."
An invitation.
I folded my wings and dove deeper into the gravity well of the world. Slight modifications were made to the shape of the barriers around me, to my wings. Gravity assisted me, air flowed around me, and slowly thickened before me.
I pierced it and flew faster.
Before coming to a stop where those like me were gathered. Parahumans, capes, heroes and villains alike.
It was an office building, abandoned due to the clarion call. I could see the human officers directing people about around the building, but letting those with masks in.
I didn't have a mask, but they allowed me entry given my method of transportation and the faint not quite glimmer of the light of my soul.
The sound of words, physically spoke was something that I hadn't had been exposed to in... months. I wet my lips as I walked in. The signs provided to direct people about were easy enough to follow given that there were those here who didn't speak english.
I could see the gathering in the conference room before I entered it.
There was a lovely speech about defying fate, of standing tall. The man in the front wore a blue costume with white electrical flame design on it. He looked like a human male with an absolute perfect physique, defined muscles, a strong jaw and wavy brown hair that had to have been seen to by a professional hair designer.
Even his inner light shone in a way that few had. It was brilliant, it held hold and a trust that there was something better in the world, that people could be better. There were none here whose inner light shone as bright as Legend's.
Not even the man in the blue-green body suit that transformed and shifted from being body tight to a cape, hood and draping sleeves. Not even Eidolon's light could compare, his was cold and hard. He had shaved off his compassion to do what was needed.
I listened to the speech about how winning against my erstwhile companion in the heavens didn't necessarily mean a victory. That her screaming song had to be avoided, that there was a time limit to how long one could stay near and fight her.
"Hebert?" There was a sound of surprise as one of the younger capes walked by me, and caught sight of my face. She was one of the ones handing out arm-bands.
I blinked at her, the dark costume. She seemed familiar to me, that orange crimson light of hers. I allowed one of my barriers to slip ever so slightly. And I could hear once more, an endless whispering roar like a sea. Before I pinpointed the one near me and examined her.
"Ah, Sop... no, Shadow Stalker, it's been a while," I replied with a nod at her, as I accepted the armband, before bringing my barrier back up once more. I didn't need to be more distracted by the thoughts around me.
Slipping the device on my wrist, I spoke my name into it before pressing the confirm button twice.
I could sense my neighbor as she floated above the city.
There was a moment of silence before she 'sang'. Her song now wasn't the one that she used to communicate with me. No, now it was a scream in truth.
I could hear her words as she carved her plan into the world, and her canvas was the minds of everyone in the city. I could see how she did it.
And yet, she didn't touch me.
It seems that it would be a game between me and her.
.
Engel | Games
Worm / Neon Genesis Evengelion