Myrddin saw the portal to the medical camp open once again. These were the last of the injured fighters that the search and rescue capes now carried to the medical camp. The distance from the frontlines to there now a fraction of the original because of the portal.
He had never seen a traveling ability of this magnitude and versatility before, and he couldn't yet figure out who was doing this. He was of half a mind to suspect another new cape to add to the list of three he had already marked, but he wasn't sure.
He flew higher for a better view of the entire beachfront when everyone was through the portal. Leviathan had shattered the boardwalk and destroyed numerous warehouses along the docks with his arrival. His water-echoes and unceasing tides from the ocean had damaged property in all the sea-facing blocks he could see and beyond.
By his estimates, Leviathan would have already reached downtown based on the path he initially took if it weren't for the remarkable heroism shown by a few capes. Most of them were the usual suspects, but one in particular fought with the ferociousness of an Endbringer herself. She had been instrumental in constraining Leviathan's movement mostly to the beach.
While the radio on his arm had not stopped mentioning the names of the dead and wounded, it had slowed down considerably in the last couple of minutes.
He noticed Leviathan generating a building-sized wave from the water and sending it towards the city. He moved to intercept, but another cape was there in the blink of an eye. He had created a spherical forcefield around him which didn't... stop the water? But dampened its strength significantly.
The cape in question somehow dried himself; one moment he was wet, and the next he wasn't – very wizard-like, intriguing. Then the cape closed his eyes and stayed still for a few seconds.
Myrddin's attention was arrested by the ceasing of rain and a feeling of stillness surrounding the entire waterfront. He peered towards the battle and saw Leviathan crouching down almost in the shallows. Then he looked behind the Endbringer and fought to control his heart rate; an ominous shadow of gargantuan scale was forming over the horizon.
He understood immediately: Leviathan had taken a beating today, so he was upping the stakes. This tsunami would easily be one of the largest in history if it stayed this size. And if it hit, then the city of Brockton Bay would be history.
Something needed to be done about that.
He was about to call for a teleporter to take him directly to the colossal tide when he noticed the well-built cape in robes—one who had dampened Leviathan's earlier tide—moving towards the tsunami in great speed. The leader of the Chicago Protectorate made his decision and flew to intercept the hulking cape.
Who blitzed past him.
"Wait," Myrddin bellowed.
The cape stopped, turned in midair, and looked at the Wizard with a questioning gaze; his jet black sclerae and white irises, coupled with his size, made him an intimidating man.
Myrddin didn't waste any time with pleasantries. "You can help with the tide?" he pointed east and asked the cape.
"Yes," the reply was swift.
"We'll teleport there then, no need to fly. We'll be on top of it in no time," Myrddin informed him.
The cape bowed a fraction. "Gratitude," he said. "That would be much quicker."
Myrddin radioed for a teleporter to be sent to his location immediately and then beckoned the cape closer. "I am Myrddin, in case you didn't know..." he said invitingly before trailing off.
"Lindon," was the only thing his new companion said, like it meant anything.
He filed that away to be brought up later if circumstances permitted, as he noticed the teleporter arrive below them. In the next moment, he and Lindon were on the ground, being grabbed by the teleporter who apparently knew his task.
He felt hot air searing his skin – thankfully only a phantom sensation – and then the three of them appeared with a whoosh high above the sea, right in front of the approaching tsunami.
The teleporter – a hero out of Jersey – waved to both of them as he fell away, then disappeared once again, teleporting back to relative safety.
The tsunami, on the other hand, was unlike anything Myrddin had ever seen before. He and Lindon were both high up in the air, and even then, they would have been dwarfed by the sheer height of it if they were near it.
He wanted to banish as much water out of the tide as he could through his power. Every little bit would help in this endeavor. He could see Eidolon building a wall of ice to match the tide, at least in width—a truly astounding effort but not enough in his estimation.
They were a few miles offshore and about a hundred feet away from the tide, constantly having to fly backward to maintain their distance. He drew several symbols in the air as close to the tide as he could, hoping that their powerful suction power would do something to quell the size of the wave by sucking in the water. To start off, the result was not so encouraging, so he drew a few more signs, reserving more of his energy and focus toward his task. As far as he could fathom his powers, these symbols acted as portals to other Earths or dimensions. The pull from these portals sent the water through to other places. As always, he would do anything to keep his people and his world safe.
His companion's demeanor had changed meanwhile, hands wreathed in a red-black power, and a dangerous aura now surrounding him. In stark contrast with the power he had displayed earlier, at least that's what his instincts told him.
Myrddin widened the distance between them, anticipating something big. Lindon raised his hands, and two bars of black and red energy erupted from his palms. The energy beam, the size of a large pipe, continued to expand as it traveled. By the time it was halfway on its way to hit the tsunami, it was bigger than a bus.
The tremendous heat would have been unbearable for any normal person. More unsettling was the intense feeling of destruction and annihilation that the bar of fire gave off—or was it some kind of liquid instead of fire? Or lava? He didn't get around to deciding as the result of that expanding torrent of flame hitting the tsunami became clear to his eyes.
He liked what he saw.
Whole sections in the onrushing wall of water disappeared when Lindon's attack hit. Some of water turned into steam and turned the air foggy, some of it just vanished.
Lindon upped the ante. He spread his hands wider and his attack got even bigger. So much so that the resulting steam hindered visibility almost completely. The air had a tangible salty flavor, a staggering amount of seawater had been evaporated in a short time.
Myrddin opted to do something about the steam. He drew six symbols in the air, all facing each other in a circle, and activated his power. It took almost all his attention to open this new front while maintaining the earlier portals, but he kept at it. Every little bit helped the city.
The steam started to gather with great speed where he had drawn the latest signs. He had made it a whirling ball of hot vapors to keep it steady in the air, he had to keep it moving with him of course. This would become one of his weapons the next time he faced Leviathan combined with the concussive blasts and other tricks up his sleeve. It would be a lie to say he never wanted to hit the Endbringer as hard as Alexandria or some others could, now he had the right chance.
The wizard tapped Lindon on the shoulder and shouted, "Can you go even wider?" He gestured at the tsunami that stretched from their left to their right, seemingly unending.
They were both alternating between hovering in the air and flying backward to keep their distance with the tide while maintaining their defensive efforts. Myrddin wanted his companion's torrents of black flame to cover more area. Already they had made up half of the original distance to the shore, there wasn't much time.
Lindon nodded and started moving at an angle to the right. At the same time, a portal opened up beside him and several contraptions emerged from it. Some looked like strangely made cannons whereas other looked like more traditional long ranged weapons, old and new. The array of colors they sported was a sight to behold, Myrddin would have loved to study them more but time didn't permit him. His portals and the steam gathering spell also demanded his utmost focus.
The weapons kept up with them in the air and arranged themselves. If Lindon was controlling those he must have had a multi-tasking ability as well. Then at once, all weapons fired, most of them sprouting the same black flame that Lindon was using to annihilate the water, others emitting different types ammunition, he couldn't exactly tell what.
Some weapons fired for several seconds and then went silent, slipping back into the tiny portal, others maintained their assault.
Even more of the water disappeared and evaporated.
Myrddin added another couple of signs to his spell. More steam – courtesy of Lindon's weapons – came flowing to be a part of his whirling ball of hot air and vapors. It had become much bigger than even a beach ball.
He glanced behind, they were coming up almost on top of Eidolon's ice wall, though it was some distance below them.
He adjusted the position of his initial symbols – closer to the tide – and modified their function. Instead of only drawing in comparatively little amount of water from the tide, they now also pulled in steam from Lindon's attacks.
He himself wanted to go where Leviathan was and detonate his compressed ball of steam on the Endbringer. It was becoming difficult to control the spell with each passing moment.
He gave Lindon a nod and turned away. Having seen the Endbringer crouched on the beach before coming here, Myrddin sped towards the shore, hoping to get at least one big hit in before he lost control of his newest and possibly the strongest offensive spell.
"Fucking idiot." Eidolon muttered. His frustration was only directed at himself as he regretted letting go one of his powers. He had the power to turn waves into mist earlier on in the battle but discarded it for a decay energy beam stronger than Legend's when the Endbringer was down on the ground after the swordswoman's attack. Eidolon had felt he could finish off the creature, obviously that turned out to be a wishful fancy. He had struck Leviathan a mighty blow alongside Purity but that had only served to make Leviathan escalate to this level. Now there was an unprecedented Tsunami coming their way. He cursed again in disgust.
Hovering above the sea, he rapidly cycled through powers one after the other. He was hoping to find something that would eliminate the gigantic tidal wave heading in their direction but the earlier power or something even better hadn't come back yet. He kept hold of flight and ice mastery but for the third one he needed to find something useful.
Teleportation? No. A couple of useless tinker powers he wasted no time letting go. Forcefield projection? He deliberated for a second then discarded that one too, he already had ice which he had been throwing around extensively for over half an hour, so he was getting even better at it, and as a last resort, he could just try and build an ice wall like he had earlier and save at least a little bit of the city. Mental enhancement? Pointless in the face of so much water. Gravity manipulation? It wasn't absolute or very large scale from his intuitive understanding of the power but allowed him to change or affect gravity in some limited way. Could that be used to his advantage in stopping the water? He was about to let it go but stopped as a voice popped up…
"Hello Eidolon." A woman's voice.
He looked around; there was no one nearby. It wasn't Dragon speaking from the radio either. So, someone was speaking in his head, a telepath. He didn't think anyone with those abilities was here.
"I am speaking in your head. For your information, I am just a computer program, an artificial intelligence as you understand. I am coordinating some of the defense against this tsunami," the voice probably attempted to clarify, but it only raised more questions for him. "I cannot read your mind, so you will have to speak aloud. You can call me Ruby," she added in a weirdly formal manner.
"How? Did Dragon...," Eidolon began to ask, then shook his head. There was no time for such questions. "Never mind, go on, why're you speaking to me?" he said gruffly. Someone talking in his head was not something he enjoyed.
"Most defenders in the city are retreating. But there are also many fresh blockades at the beach which will be useless if this much water arrives. You have strong ice abilities since you built some walls before. But you have also displayed more powers. Can you tell me what those are?"
"You interrupted me when I was figuring that out you know, finding the right power," Eidolon said. "I have flight, ice and some gravity manipulation."
There was a long pause. Then the voice was back, "How quickly can you build an ice wall? If it is big enough and your gravity manipulation works on it, we can perhaps redirect a lot of water."
The idea had potential, he could try it. He conjured a block of ice and applied his third power on it. Then he let it go.
Nothing unusual happened. The block of ice fell away.
He tried again, creating two blocks of ice this time: one in each hand. He imbued only one of them with his power and then let go. Both blocks fell away initially, but then the regular block sharply curved towards the imbued block, breaking it apart before resuming its fall along with the debris of the shattered block.
That was interesting.
The voice in his head became a tad informal as he heard some excitement creeping in it. "You can send much of the tsunami to either side of the city by encouraging the direction of the water flow along specific vectors. If you combine this with a big enough wall, you can save the city from complete destruction."
Judging by the growing darkness on the horizon, he didn't have much time left. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Alexandria and the sword-wielding cape fighting with Leviathan, oh what he wouldn't do to join them. But another glance at the enormous tsunami made up his mind.
"You were saying something about redirecting the water? How'd that work?" Eidolon asked the voice, Ruby, he reminded himself of her name.
"I will show you a wall. Tell me if you can build something like that in a few minutes." Ruby replied.
In the next instant Eidolon was seeing a massive wall made of ice out on the ocean, it was a few hundred feet high and looked extremely real, even though he knew it to be an illusion. He felt a hologram was more suitable for an AI.
The wall was not as high as the tsunami was going to be but creating one that tall in a few minutes would be impossible anyway. It was also very wide, covering much of the area between the two ferry stations.
"We are short on time so you don't need to make the wall much thicker, Narwhal and other heroes will support it with forcefields." Ruby told him.
The absurdity of the task at hand produced an involuntary chuckle from Eidolon. "You have a very high regard of my abilities to think I can build even this in a few minutes." He said in a dry voice, although as the battle had progressed today, he had gradually felt closer and closer to his best self. Maybe this wall would be one of his crowning achievements. After all, saving people was the entire point of his existence now. He used to be a useless cripple before cape powers, so fate was balancing the scales for him as far as he was concerned. 'Rightfully so' he thought.
"I think you can, and I think you know that too." The voice had responded and continued its explanation. "The slope and the curve in the wall will serve to reduce the force of water and also guide it north and south of the city."
Eidolon flew closer to the image of the wall and started building the wall from the illusion in front of him. It was strangely reminiscent of experiences from his childhood of connecting the dots to complete a picture or filling up a drawing with colors. The slope tapering out towards the tsunami and the convex curve meant he had to construct a lot more than a simple wall.
"Keep going, don't leave any detail out." He told Ruby while he released more ice from his palms than probably any ice cape in history.
"Use the gravity manipulation to increase the attraction between ice and the seabed, that will anchor it securely."
Eidolon found the suggestion instructive, he hadn't thought about using the gravity to further entrench the ice blocks. The pressure of the water once it struck the barrier would be off the charts. He began creating wedges of ice and imbued them with extra gravity so that they were nailed into the ocean floor.
He saw a flying cape carrying another who was creating breakwaters with his stone powers. He was unsure how effective that would be but wished them the best of luck. It was a measure of how busy Leviathan was being kept that the Endbringer hadn't been able to disrupt any efforts at building blockades at the City and also here in the sea.
"We don't know how long your gravity manipulation lasts so you might have to strengthen that repeatedly along the curves in the wall. You might need to do this when the wave is on top of you, because the water can't all splash over and head towards the city. We must make sure it goes to the sides as much as possible. Can you do that?"
"Don't worry about that. I'll manage." Eidolon would get a teleportation power too but he didn't want to think that far ahead; his entire focus was on making the wall as wide and as tall as he could and then infusing only the right areas with artificial gravity. He could now see red arrows on the actual wall guiding him where to imbue his power.
Working with an AI was easier for sure, they would find out very soon if it was effective too.
Eidolon liked the design of the wall; too bad it was meant to be temporary as the AI voice let him know. The ice would need to be exterminated completely as it was unnatural and could affect weather patterns, sea life and much more. He would find the right power after the battle for that, a problem for later.
The slopes and curves were designed so that most of the water would follow a set path and miss the main city as it goes on to devastate the land. Much also depended on the capes who were directly attacking the wave to reduce its force, if they managed to affect the water, and if the breakwaters made by other capes helped, and if the forcefields held, and if the ice wall did its intended job, then Brockton Bay would not be completely destroyed. It would only be partially destroyed, on top of being completely submerged.
There was solace in that at least. It was better than nothing and the people here would be able to repair and rebuild, possibly.
Eidolon continued to imbue the walls with artificial gravity in specific areas. Since he didn't need to touch the wall to use the new power, he simultaneously also kept raising the height of the wall as much as possible. He could clearly see that it wasn't going to be enough, as the tidal wave was about to hit his barrier in a few seconds, and he had a good estimate of its size from so close.
A cape had somehow burned away probably an entire lake's worth of water, but still, the wave towered above the wall. The hastily constructed breakwaters, a dozen of them, helped, but it wasn't enough.
Eidolon braced for impact while trying to hold a fourth power. He wanted teleportation to be able to be able to instantly repair and support the wall after impact if needed. But if he got something better like matter erasure or water removal, he wouldn't complain.
After a few tries, he got what he wanted, a basic teleportation power which wasn't the quickest but offered him enough mobility.
Then he flew higher, higher than the tidal wave and watched as the unstoppable force of millions of tons of water crashed against the barrier he had constructed. His heart sank to see so much of it spill over the wall to resume its path towards the city, albeit much smaller than before. The supporting forcefields snapping like twigs didn't help his mood either. Then his spirits rose as he saw so much of the wave going either side of the wall and on course to miss the city if it continued that way.
Wherever Ruby showed him, he reinforced the wall with more of the imbued ice, affecting the immense water flow to the best of his ability.
After what felt like a long time, the remnants of the mountain-sized tsunami resumed its inexorable progress towards the city. His wall had played a significant role in reducing its mass and height but it still dwarfed any wave he had ever seen Leviathan generate. But all Eidolon could do now was watch as he saw the first row of barriers shatter against the water, then the second row held some moments longer, the last row with the strongest fortifications held for an impressive period of time before crumbling under pressure.
Eidolon who had been flying above the water lost track of Leviathan and the capes fighting him with so much water overpowering everything else.
He saw valiant and, in a few cases, effective, resistance against the unprecedented waterflow from individual capes. The rows of blockades against the tide had saved most of the city buildings from being destroyed. Except for the blocks near the beach, those were all completely gone.
He had, after all, saved the city.
But he knew that the battle to keep Leviathan on the outskirts of the city was lost, they would have to fight within the city where Leviathan would have a speed and strength advantage.
No other tsunami or even a regular tidal wave was in sight. Eidolon began looking for better powers to fight Leviathan head on.