[a couple more omakes for; Taylor Varga]

Omake: Feather-Fall

Deep within the Oval Office interior, the US President and his staff sat and listened in disbelief as the Chief Director of the PRT completed her debriefing with an air of embarrassment, about the latest debacle from Brockton Bay. With his head in his hands, the President moaned in imagined pain.

"Why," he groaned. "Why is it always that god damned city! Nazis, Dragonmen, serial killers, lizard girls, giant ship moving monsters and now this! Is there any reason I can't just fire a nuke at this... this apocalypse in the making?"

"Sir.."one of his aides spoke up.

"Yes, yes I know. PR, nuclear fallout and all that bull." Taking another deep breath, the President looked at the women in charge of the government's parahuman response team, in a very quiet and controlled voice he gave the woman an order. "Again Director Costa-Brown, summarize the events please."

The Director nodded to him, "As you wish sir. Late yesterday afternoon, the alert went out once again that the Simurgh had begun its descent once more, this time its target appeared to be Brockton Bay, NH. Dispatches went out across the world, and the response was quick. Parahumans began assembling at the Protectorate base, code named "The Rig" in lesser numbers than usual..."

"Has a reason been determined for the lower numbers of parahumans?" asked one of the members of the staff.

"Not as of yet, Sir," Costa-Brown replied, "but the best guess was that many believed that the Endbringer would turn away again, rather than fight the parahuman known as Kaiju."

"Yet another thing to add to our inquiry list," the President sighed. "Very well. Continue Director."

"As I said, Sir, a lesser than usual number of parahumans had responded to the alert. While we took a few minutes to plot our attack plan for fewer numbers, The Simurgh increased its descent speed, giving us little time to prepare. We deployed to the expected landing zone only to be alerted by Dragon, that The Simurgh had changed course. We repositioned, and the Endbringer changed landing site again. This happened several times, leading us around in circles, until Kaiju got fed up with it, and barked an order at it to land already while pointing at a local schools soccer field."

"Seriously. Did anyone actually expect that to work?"

"Honestly, Sir, No. A few people laughed, thinking she was making a joke to relieve the tension, but no one expected that to work. So of course everyone stopped laughing when the Simurgh immediately stopped it's maneuvers and moved at all speed straight to the field, cutting through and knocking over the school building on the way."

"Excuse me," another member of the staff interrupted, "What was the name of the school that was torn down by its approach?"

Costa-Brown took a moment to look at her notes. "Winslow Memorial High School, sir."

"Were there any casualties, from this?"

"Surprisingly, none. Not within the school, or with the entire battle."

A murmur went through the Joint Chiefs, surprise evident that no deaths had occured during this Endbringer attack.

"What about the 'Scream'?" Another person asked. "Did it give off a 'Scream' at all?"

"No sir. It was silent through the whole thing."

The Joint Chiefs became silent, their world view was trying to change without their command. Again. It wasn't right, damn it!

"Continuing, gentlemen," the Director spoke up. "Once the Simurgh landed, trailing debris and other sundry items from the schools drama department, it began to fashion something while the rest of the attack force came out of the stupor they had been in when the Endbringer actually obeyed the order. The assembled heroes and villains, flanked by The Family members Metis and Ithane to one side and Kaiju taking the vanguard position."

The President interrupted once more, "Just how much damage did Kaiju do, walking through the streets?"

"None, sir."

"None! How is that possible!? She's close to a hundred feet tall, hundred fifty long, if not bigger and weighting at a guess, around 80 tonnes! How could she move through the streets without crushing and knocking over every building in her path?"

Costa-Brown gave a small smile. "It's due to her matter generation ability, that her side of the Family, has, sir. Using that, she reinforced all surfaces she came into contact with, with the substance that Armsmaster of the ENE Protectorate originally dubbed SaurialSteel. Because of its strength, the SaurialSteel coating easily allowed Kaiju to move through the city at speed, without damaging the infrastructure of the city."

"Amazing. Simply amazing... continue."

"When the attack force arrived, the Simurgh had finished whatever design she had in mind, and raised a white flag." At the Joint Chiefs looks of skepticism, Costa-Brown assured them it was true. The Endbringer, Simurgh, had raised a white flag of truce. "It shocked all of us, sir. It was even more surprising when the thing dressed itself up in a purple costume and mask made from the school's auditorium. Ithane commented afterwards that the costume bared a striking resemblance to the one the former villainess known as Tattletale used to wear."

"Please don't tell me an abomination like that, actually began to hero worship a villain."

"No sir. I won't tell you that."

The silence stretched on for several uncomfortable seconds.

"Aw, hell!"

"As you say sir. The Simurgh then proceeded to dawn a mask, before it raised a sign it had written out, which kind of brought the whole thing to an end."

"And what was it that this sign said?"

Costa-Brown coughed, "Well Mr. President, the sign said, and I quote; 'Hello, my name is Feather-Fall, I am a parahuman from a different Earth in a parallel dimension. I wish to join the Family as a hero, a member in good standing.' End quote."

The amount of curses that follow this statement were enough to make a longshoreman blush and the air turn blue.

"That doesn't explain why everyone went home, just a few minutes later!"

"I understand that sir. What happened was the Rules sir."

"Explain!" the President barked sharply.

"Simply, that the Simurgh is an civilian identity of the being the happened to be a notorious killer. While Feather-Fall is a masked hero that wants to do good in the world."

"I don't understand, cut thought the bullshit Director!"

"It's the Unwritten Rules sir. We can't go after capes, hero or villain, in their civilian identity, and we can't civilians who commit crimes, when they put the mask on. It's a catch twenty-two scenario that happens more then you'd think."

"That makes absolutely no sense! No sense at all!"

"Sir, I don't write the Unwritten Rules, I'm just forced to follow them."

~End~

616

Daily Bugle photographer, Peter Parker, became hyper alert as another crash sounded through the maze of concrete and steel of New York City. Being trapped in the middle of public made it impossible to discover what was going on nearby in the guise of his alternate identity of the amazing Spider-Man. All he could do was ready his camera for action as he was dragged along by the crowd in the New York streets.

Coming around the corner, that just so happened to lead to the Daily Bugle building, their was another crash sound, followed by the sound of falling debris, and someone calling down from on high.

"Whoops!"

Peter brought his camera to his eye and focused it towards the rooftops above. Whatever it was causing the disturbance became crystal clear to his eyes, and despite all the adventures and world saving action he had been through, still caught him off guard enough that his jaw dropped.

"Don't worry. I can fix that!" Came the deep feminine voice of what looked to be a dark-blue lizard creature wearing armor and sporting a pair of sunglasses. "It almost worked that time." it said.

Peter held down the shutter button as the lizard girl motioned to someone behind her, and was surprised when another armor wearing lizard girl appeared, only this one was pitch black with red highlights down its body. Taking position next to the first one, it looked to the other before pointing across the road.

"Are you sure this won't hurt, Saurail?" it asked the first one.

"Of course it's safe, Metis!" this Saurail replied. "Just look at Ithane."

Peter quickly pivoted, and found himself taking pictures of yet another lizard girl, only this one was embedded into the side of a building across the street.

"See, totally fine."

"Whatever," the black one, Metis, grumbled. Peter turned back to the other two lizards catching sight of something that wasn't there before. some sort of long rope that went across the street and was anchored to a sightly higher building.

It took a moment for Peter to figure out what he was seeing. "No way," he whispered to himself. "no %*%$&$# way!"

Before he could voice any more, the lizard leap. And with a call of, "Tally-ho!" was swinging across the street on a thin strand of something, laughing all the while until she embedded upside down in the building next to Ithane.

"Okay, I can fix that too!" Called Saurail, before another rope materialized in her talons. "I got it this time, for sure!"

Saurail took a running jump to add momentum, add was soon soaring across the road way herself with a scream of, "Cowabunga!" Saurail made another scream of joy, as another rope appeared in her hand leading back across the street, allowing her to correct her trajectory. Her cry of jubilation was brief, as the rope snagged on a gargoyle causing the lizard girl to flip up and threw the windows of upper floors of the Daily Bugle building.

Peter grinned, if he wasn't mistaken, the lizard girl, just smashed into ol' JJ's office.

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."