Current Energy: 16
Current Training: Dragon Kind Modification EX (9/10) - 1 Point to Complete
Monday, February 14th, 2011
PRT Headquarters, Brockton Bay
Absolute chaos.
Too many enemies. Too many variables. Too much going on. And the local capes are... disorganized. They aren't fighters, not really. Not the way that a soldier is a fighter. Not the way you are a fighter. It's the difference between a bar fight and a trench.
Your Taylor is better than that. Your Taylor doesn't need to be directed to respond. Doesn't need the seeming ages the rest of these people apparently do to respond to an ambush. She just... moves. In perfect sync with you.
The second those monsters appeared in the crowd, you started calculating. Before the first crack could fully form in the ground beneath you, you were finished, and your Master had swung a hand out, expanding a vast barrier of light blue energy at her feet that was rapidly expanding to take up the entire parking garage floor.
You and she make just the briefest moment of eye contact before you return to what you were doing, worried about the strained expression on her face as the barrier continues to expand, but proud. Without further thought, you draw your throwing daggers.
These weapons are not Noble Phantasms. But they come very close. In your - no, your Emulations youth, he had obtained the broken remnants of the weapon that had once been Gram. Gram, the weapon that should have been unstoppable. Gram, the greatest weapon known to your people. Gram, the weapon with the force of a sun bound into its blade.
Broken.
You had reforged it. Borne it's curse. Made the blade whole once more, and even customized it to your own use. These daggers... they were the dross. The leftover. The bits of the blade that were no longer needed. But even still, they were once a part of a weapon that could kill Gods.
And so long as they are in your hands, they will do so again.
With speed that would be blinding to any but the most perceptive of legends, you toss the entire bundle of daggers, all four of them, in front of yourself. Your Dragon Core begins to churn at your will, and your body quickly strengthens as more than mere blood pumps through your veins. Your fists dart out. Once, twice, thrice, and then one final time, slamming into the hilt of each weapon with precision and force. Enough force to cause a small sonic boom, shattering the windows of every car in the garage.
Then you take off after them, blowing forward to catch one just as it explodes through the side of one of the monsters heads.
"Floor!" You yell at Clockblocker, who the Monster was just about to grab, before tossing your dagger and punching it again, chasing after it to your next target. You don't bother to look to see if he caught your meaning. You understand that he's young, and probably not adequately prepared for this moment in time - but you have to secure the garage before you can put any effort into individual people.
You move with a fluid grace, moving from the floor to the ceiling, where your momentum leaves you sliding across it as though you were on solid ground. Then down again, using your body to bulldoze through another monster in a shower of gore on your path to lift another dagger from the wall it's lodged in, which you like wise toss to the side in the same motion that propels you in the opposite direction, in a straight line through two more of the creatures where you come to an abrupt halt, catching another of your wayward weapons just as it passes through the last of the monsters in the garage - and nearly plows into that woman, Alexandria.
"Apologies. I had assumed you would need assistance." You state idly, waving a hand and drawing the rest of your weapons back to yourself using the magic inherent to them. Only now have the remains of many of your kills started to touch the ground, and you begin to survey your surroundings properly now that the temporary threat has been mitigated.
Most of the nearby Capes are only now realizing that they are safe, many of them still cringing away from what amount to corpses that haven't finished falling over yet. Clockblocker has hastily bent forward to lay a hand on the ground and is maintaining that position with a look of focus on his face. As far as you can tell none of the capes that were in the garage with you have been taken.
In the center of the garage - where you saw that baleful eye, your Master is hovering, her hand pointed downward as she struggles against whatever is beneath it, rapidly repairing the construct she is covering the floor with as something slams against it from below.
"This is all your fault Taylor!" A loud feminine voice yells from beneath the barrier in a mocking tone.
"You were the Miracle Girl! You were going to solve it all!" The voice continues to roar, the sound of something large battering against the barrier below. The other capes are starting to look at your Master with some suspicion now, causing you to purse your lips. You are just about to phase through the floor to take the fight to the enemy when the woman you've been standing in front of ignoring this entire time starts yelling.
"Social Thinker! Everyone who can move get to safety, flyers on me! Don't let it talk!" Alexandria roars, quickly zipping around you, but taking a moment to shoot a knowing look over her shoulder at you as she does so. You quirk an eyebrow but don't otherwise comment Alexandria quickly begins directing everyone with a Mover power to help evacuate.
"How long do you think that will hold?" Legend asks, floating to a stop a bit away from your Master.
"...A bit." She grunts through grit teeth.
And then the sound of violence below you stops, and the strain appreciably lessens. But the voice doesn't stop speaking.
"It's all your fault. So you're going to fix it. One way or another." It hisses, and despite being much quieter it's also somehow much more menacing.
You don't bother to keep thinking at that. Instead, you drop through the floor, intangible.
'Don't!' Your Master commands you instantly, causing you to grimace as you land invisibly in a giant, dank tunnel. a small stream of fetid water flows between your feet, and the smell in the air is a sickly sweet, like a cross between rot and sugar.
In the center of the tunnel - staring angrily straight up at the small hole above it - is... you can't actually describe it properly. In terms of mythology, the closest thing you could think of to describe it is the Scylla. The upper body of a beautiful woman, attached to a monster below the waist. Only, instead of a beautiful woman, there is a sickly thin woman with pale white skin and straggly brown hair that extends down to her waist, wearing a bloody t-shirt. And instead of the traditional octopus lower half, there is... honestly it looks like someone took a number of animals and pasted them together into one roiling mass of teeth, maws and eyes. An elephants sturdy limb extends in one place, in another, a massive pseudopod that is extended overhead, presumably the limb that was hammering against your Master's barrier. A billion mouths and eyes stare back at you, each one blinking, twitching, and snapping at the air out of sync with each other. All in one dump truck sized mass off putrid red flesh.
'Master. Look.' You instruct, ignoring her as you continue to reconnoiter. There are a number of naked women smugly floating about the area. Further up the tunnel you can see several more humanoid figures scampering away as though fleeing. Even as you continue to watch one of the mouths begins to disgorge what looks like a... naked Greg. It stands up within moments of being deposited on the floor, seemingly without conscious input from the Echidna, then looks up at all the floating women and grins, before flickering to match them.
'Oh, god. Greg is... he's in that thing.' She hisses to you mentally.
'I could try and carve him out?' You offer, eyeing the competition. It takes a moment for recognition to dawn on you. Without the black helmet or armor, you wouldn't immediately be able to tell, but they look distinctly like Alexandria. Naked Alexandria.
'Do you... think you could?' Taylor asks hesitantly, obviously not having picked up on that last detail right away.
'...I'm unsure. I could possibly tear my way through her once, with the element of surprise to line up my strike and escape, but I doubt it would work while she is wary of the tactic.' You respond after some thought, watching as a naked woman with long distended arms and a potbelly slips free of another orifice, blinks once, then grins and begins to flee further up the tunnel. Only the Greg clones appear to remain behind, and that... worries you.
'We... were almost ready to remove the barrier up here.' Taylor states, taking the mental equivalent of a moment to pause and swallow her saliva.
'When we do, the Blasters will... they're going to try and hold her back by making the hole too small for her to get through.' She informs you.