Lindon examined his surroundings with curiosity, Dross matching him in hungrily consuming every detail of this new world. Though he couldn't ignore a slight dash of unease that was permeating the air and affecting him, could be nerves, could be something else. He had no reason to be afraid of anything in this world at this point in time, but the presence of a chaos fiend could make things unpredictable.
The lack of intelligence from the Abidan about the state of this iteration had Yerin quite crass with the closest Abidan sector commander on their way here. Poor elf had apologized profusely to the Reaper's chosen squad every time the subject of information on this iteration was brought up. In typical Eithan style of mentoring, they had embarked on a mission with pretty much no information about it.
A pair of high-ranking Foxes had used the Way to bring Lindon and his team to this iteration. Why this exact place? Because according to the otherwise taciturn Hounds, "it had importance regarding the fate of this world."
They had emerged from their portal on the roof of some building. A grey sky and misty rain had greeted them and a massive storm was brewing in the distance if Lindon knew anything about weather.
They weren't standing on the tallest of the structures, he could see taller edifices made of stone and glass all around him but overall the town appeared modest compared to the picturesque beauty of their lodgings in Sanctum.
Lindon took a step to test the gravity of this planet, it was lower than what his team were accustomed to on Cradle so that should serve them well. They had known it was a smaller planet so it was expected.
Then he realized he had been hearing constant sirens and noticed a panicked bustle in the city which he identified as the primary cause of the unease he was feeling.
"Are you listening? Dross! Snap him out of it." He heard Yerin say.
Mercy and Yerin too had likely realized that something was off.
"Apologies, I got distracted." He said sheepishly.
"We need to figure out what has all these people so terrified." Mercy said to the two of them. "How are our restrictions?" She said to no one in particular but Dross answered.
[You all owe me your thanks because your full powers are still sealed in your marbles, as I said they would be.] Dross sounded smug as usual. He had been the first to figure out, much to Eithan's chagrin, that they would each need to restrict their own power themselves otherwise the process would be unreliable, he had then helped the rest of them in the making of the marbles.
In his little competition with Ruby and Suu he was coming out on top despite the other two being Abidan Presences.
[Limited to Archlord. Should be enough for this mission.] Suu said to all of them. Lindon hadn't gotten used to Mercy's presence having a gravelly voice, in stark contrast to the woman herself.
[No point calling on your icons or the Way from now on, unless you feel it is time to attract attention.] Ruby chimed in; Yerin's presence was named Ruby but was modelled on Little Blue in her appearance and her sound which Blue had found hilarious, Lindon didn't know how to feel about that yet. She communicated in the human languages with them but her voice had the same chiming quality to it as Little Blue.
He ignored others and tried to feel vital aura around him. He sensed nothing as it was expected. "No vital aura here, not that we need it now." He said. Ascension had fundamentally altered how their powers worked, they no longer needed aura to control elements but could affect them directly with a combination of their own power and their will.
"We can use soulfire to fly." He demonstrated it by levitating a few feet in the air.
They had all brought a huge number of elixirs and spiritual treasures with them to replenish their madra and personal power reserves. The void keys were full of items for every type of contingency. He liked the Abidan diligence on the matter, it almost matched his.
"My void key is working. Good idea to check yours too." Mercy said right on time.
"Not like we need to when yours works fine." Yerin said stepping closer to the ledge and peered far ahead. "So how do we find this fiend do you reckon? This place looks normal enough but I'd bet my soul against a rat's tail something has these people utterly terrified. I can sense it from here clear as day."
"Let's get down and talk to some people. Dross have you made out their language yet?" Lindon inquired. The weather had gotten worse and he was eager to take stock and understand what exactly they had landed into.
[Yes, worked out a model. Bring a dream tablet.] It was Suu who answered first this time.
[It was a group effort.] Dross clarified.
Ruby laughed, at Dross most likely.
Mercy took a dream tablet out of her void key and held it up.
[Done. Read it and you will be able to speak the main language people are speaking here.] Suu said after a few moments.
[You could tell them the language's name. It is called English, not too different from what we have seen on other planets.] Dross couldn't help but add.
The three of them briefly read the tablet taking their turns. Dross was right, the language was easy to learn, they would only be able to hold basic conversation in 'English' for now but with their mental enhancements and personal Presences, becoming fluent in a couple of days would be trivial.
"We done?" Yerin asked and jumped off the building down to the ground without waiting for an answer. She didn't bother to control her flight with soulfire and landed in an empty alley with a loud crack of stones. Lindon and Mercy followed behind.
So far they had not been given much attention and Lindon preferred that. They still did not know much about this world and its inhabitants, they had to figure out the immediate dangers facing the world and its people as well as how to solve those problems and they needed information for that, quickly.
Making their way to the largely deserted main streets he saw a few people hurrying and others outright running in more than one direction, one or two racing past them in their vehicles. Nobody gave them a second glance and they blended in to be another such group of three moving hastily through the city.
"What have you observed?" He said quietly to Dross who opted to reply to all of them.
[Some big monster is attacking these people, or is going to attack soon, called an "Endbringer" or "Leviathan". Sounds ominous doesn't it?] It did sound ominous.
"Does it bleed?" Yerin asked with a glint in her eye. At the same time Lindon realized that the weather had continued to get worse, the storm was much closer.
"Is it affecting the weather?" Lindon asked suspiciously; their luck that they had arrived at the only place that this world's version of Dreadgod was attacking, presumably. There could be more of these monsters, and they too could be attacking elsewhere right now.
"Could this be the fiend?" There was some alarm in Mercy's tone.
"If it is we need to be cautious. Although I doubt we are this lucky." Lindon replied to her.
[It seems some people called capes and heroes and villains will be fighting this monster.] Dross continued. [Should we find out where that is and head there?]
"In due time. We need information first." Lindon wanted to know more before barging into any situation, least of all a fight, with what could be a class two chaos fiend.
"There", Mercy had identified a building that had some people gathered in front of it trying to rush in. The foot traffic around them was had a clear destination now. "That looks like a shelter, see the number of children." Mercy observed. "We also had a few in Moongrave and other cities in the empire. But there were always some protectors with them in case of an attack. Hmm, could the ones in armor be that." She said excitedly.
"They would know." Yerin pointed to a group of five uniformed and armored personnel hurriedly making their way towards the building and in a flash appeared beside them running beside them.
Lindon had completely forgot to test the Moonlight Bridge after coming here, Yerin had apparently done it herself. Or she hadn't and this was the first time she used it only to startle some strangers. He couldn't help but smile a little at that.
"Hey!" Yerin exclaimed, "What is going on here?"
They all stopped in fright and jumped away from her with varying cries of 'what', 'whoa' and 'hey'. Their hands going to their weapons on their belts.
Lindon and Mercy reached them in that time. The uniformed squad had settled back into their formation but none of them answered Yerin's question.
"Apologies." Lindon said as he got in front of Yerin and Mercy. He tried his best to appear friendly with his best smile. "We are new here and would like to know what is going on?"
The man in front looked at all three of them like they were crazy. "Are you serious?" He said angrily. "You don't know what an Endbringer attack is?" He sounded very affronted and then he rounded towards Yerin, "And you, if you are teleporter why are you here and not bringing fighters to the battlefield?"
Lindon stayed patient. "As I said, we are new. We just need one of you to give us some information and then tell us where the 'Endbringer' fight is." He almost stumbled with the unfamiliar word.
"You see, we are of a mind to stick a few holes in that monster." Yerin said with a dangerous smile; she was getting better at those.
The man who appeared to be the leader of the squad by the looks of it, was still looking at them with palpable distrust and anger, his fellows the same. "Are you with the ABB?" He asked sternly.
"Not at all, we don't even know what that is." Lindon reassured him.
The leader didn't quite believe him it seemed. "How can you not know?" A little mutter escaped his lips, then he seemed to reach a decision internally. "You four go ahead, get these people to move faster. I will catch up in a few minutes." He ordered his soldiers who obeyed in no time and marched away.
He then turned to Lindon and said, "Alright, I don't know what kind of joke this is, none of you looks like a case 53 but I will give you five minutes on the slight chance you are genuinely clueless. What do you want to know?"
Mercy took the lead this time. "Hi, my name is Mercy, these two are Lindon and Yerin." Yerin waved at him. "Will you tell us your name?" Mercy looked expectantly at him after finishing.
"Sergeant Shawn." Came a gruff reply.
"How often do these attacks happen Sergeant?"
"Every few months, they attack anywhere in the world. Don't ask me why, no one knows why these monsters do anything."
"They?" Yerin had said as soon as the man said the word.
"Yes, there are three. That is Leviathan." The man flung a hand towards what Lindon thought was East. The storm seemed to be emerging from there. "Comes from the sea, wrecks the coastline, destroys whole cities, kills heroes and villains alike and then goes away."
"Heroes and Villains eh? Which do you belong to?" Yerin inquired with a frown.
"I'm not a Cape, just a PRT officer helping the Police with the evacuation of Civilians and when that is complete we will withdraw from the battlefield too, some will go inside shelters and others to the field hospitals further inland. It is the capes who fight Endbringers. How can you not even know that?" The man sounded exasperated. "You do know what Capes are yes?" He asked with barely hidden dismay.
[It's piece of cloth isn't it.] Dross said to Lindon and chuckled.
"Enlighten us." Mercy said sweetly.
"Capes are the people with powers; flight, super strength, projectile weapons, crazy scientists, weird powers you know. You, lady! You teleported, you are a cape." He stared keenly at Yerin now, probably hoping she would agree with him.
"I am? Well cheers and celebrations for that Shawn. So should we go towards that if we are to fight this calamity or should we head someplace else?" She gestured towards the sea and the coming storm.
"If you are capes then yes, you should go there and fight, or rescue the wounded. What are your powers?"
"Never mind that. We can handle ourselves." Mercy said, dodging his question.
The distinction between capes and regular humans made sense to Lindon and was in line with what little information they had received for this mission. The average person on this planet was expected to only be as strong as a foundation level child was on Cradle but there were some who were different. [Those would be the capes then.] Dross concluded.
Sergeant Shawn apparently had enough of them. He took out a device from his pocket and tapped on it a few times. Lindon felt Dross go very alert. "In that case you should hurry", the sergeant said, "According to this Leviathan will be here in less than ten minutes."
[Would you get that from him?] Dross said to Lindon.
Shawn attempted to put the device back in his pocket when Lindon moved and the device/construct was in Lindon's hand before the man knew what happened. "What the fuck?" the sergeant jumped back.
"Apologies, we will just examine this for a minute."
"What the fuck man?" The man repeated. "You could have just asked."
[Ah, an electricity-based construct. What information does this have on it is the question.] Dross sounded excited. [Go on, find out.]
"Again, apologies. Can you tell us what information does this construct have on it?" Lindon said to the man who was a little calmer. Mercy and Yerin were now huddling over the device as well.
"It is my phone. PRT issued, works on a rechargeable battery, long range communication and such, does not have much information on it. But when it is connected to the Internet, it can access all the information in the world."
[Ah interesting.] Dross sounded distracted. He was probably sifting through the construct, or in communication with the other two Presences, or both.
"The Internet? Is it the hub of knowledge and information in this world?" Lindon asked, finding the idea pretty similar to Emriss Silentborn's Dreamway and indeed the Way itself.
"Well, you can say that." The man said with a snort. "It is also a shitshow of..." He hesitated, "never mind."
Dross was getting more excited. [How does his 'phone' get information from the 'Internet'?]
Lindon obliged. "How does your phone get the Internet?"
"What? Shawn looked thoroughly confused now. He gestured vaguely around him and said, "well it catches signals..."
[Information in the air all around us, very effective. I wondered why there was a slight current to the air hehe. You see what I did there? You didn't, that's okay.] Dross was in the mood now.
"I'd like my phone back please." Sergeant Shawn extended a hand towards Lindon who gave the phone back. "Thank you for letting us borrow it."
The man muttered something unintelligible.
"So, how does this Leviathan fight? What are his powers? How does he cause destruction?" Mercy asked the man.
"What hurts him best?" Yerin had her own concerns.
"You should go towards the beach. All the capes are gathering…" His voice was drowned by the sound of a massive crash in the distance to the East. Lindon with the help of Dross could make out a humongous wall of water, a Tsunami, crashing onto buildings and massive barriers made of energy.
"It's here." The sergeant said in a shaky voice, turned and ran towards the shelter.
Then they all heard a massive roar and scream. Leviathan had come and the time for information gathering was over.
"Wait!" Lindon said to Yerin in particular who raised an eyebrow towards him. "We go together and see how the defenders are faring, what their strategy is. Then we intervene."
"Of course, Lindon." Yerin rolled her eyes and then smirked. "I won't leave you behind."
"I will try to engage from afar unless I need to come closer, you two get stuck in if you feel it's the right thing to do." Mercy said amidst the sounds of crashing and roaring coming from the beachfront.
Having agreed on their approach, the three of them rose up and flew towards their first battle as the Reapers.