Current Energy: 2
Current Training:
Magic Resistance (7/10)
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
PRT Headquarters, Brockton Bay
"No. We... need someone to look after the castle while we're gone?" Taylor offers, far too quickly, and with a questioning tone to her voice that elicits a snort from Trainwreck.
"Thought so. H-Hey you think Endbringer fights are a good place to meet women? Asking for a friend." Trainwreck mutters, then awkwardly changes the subject when your Master tears up again.
"Thanks for coming." She says instead of berating him for his behaviour, reaching forward to lightly hug his bulk.
"Wasn't gonna miss out on fighting a giant monster. That's classic superhero shit." Trainwreck answers feebly, obviously not sure what to do with his huge hands while Taylor is hugging him.
"'Wreck?" Taylor asks weepily.
"You know it." He answers immediately, wincing when it becomes obvious that no one else in the room is impressed with his deflections.
"Just shut up and hug me back." Taylor huffs.
"Will do." He mutters, patting her back unsurely, as though not quite certain what to do otherwise.
The moment is quite picturesque in your opinion, with the rest of your team watching the interaction with looks of warmth and familial love.
Of course, because you live in a cold and uncaring universe, this is the exact moment when the familiar voice of Tattletale cuts in.
"Aw, that's so precious. She really does care. Hey, while you're at it, why don't you tell him how many ways you could probably kill him right now." She says smugly, causing a majority of the room's residents to tense up and turn. Not towards Tattletale though. No, they turn to your Master, as if more concerned by her possible response than anything else.
"Ignore her. She actually does think it's cute, but you're blocking the door and she doesn't know a better way to make an entrance." Another voice calls out, and you lean around Trainwreck - who is indeed blocking the door - to get a better look at the speaker, who turns out to be the one you assume is Greg. You say assume, because all of the other Undersiders are present except Bitch, and the only one who joined recently - G-Man - was the speaker. However the voice was most certainly not Gregs, and the body of the person speaking, wearing a poorly tailored suit and a featureless white mask over his entire head, was most certainly not Gregs. The exact nature of the transformation nags at you somewhat, but you quickly put it out of your mind as the cape you presume is Greg swats Tattletale lightly across the back of the head. The obvious look of surprise and mild distress on the Thinkers face is almost - almost - enough to let you ignore her jab.
"Undersiders. I hear you've gone straight." Taylor says, leaning around Trainwreck herself, neither letting go of the man or allowing him to move out of their way, which he obviously tries to, only for both his feet to lift slightly off the ground but never land. He struggles comically for a moment before just shrugging and tilting his head backward to observe.
Tattletale obviously has to stop herself from turning to glare at Greg at this, but visibly masters herself.
"You'd be surprised what's legal as long as someone is paying you to do it. Or maybe not. Half your team is-" She starts confidantly.
"Aaaaaaand that's where I'm going to jump in. Tats. Please." G-Man pleads, putting his hands on her shoulders and steering her through the group, the rest of the Capes present watching. Grue and Regent follow quickly after them - Grue not daring to look at your Master at all while Regent makes an obvious show of looking her up and down on his way past. Taylor's head turns slowly to follow Tattletale's figure as she passes, ignoring the rest of the team until she can turn her head no further.
"Uh. Boss." Trainwreck coughs, waving his hand lazily through the air to draw her attention to the fact that she is still holding him off the ground.
"Oh. Sorry." She quickly apologizes, dropping him the few inches to the ground and causing the whole room to shake slightly. As a group, the entire Oathbound contingent moves to the side, taking up a position near the door while the Undersiders do the same... on the opposite side of the room. You watch curiously as the group breaks into an immediate argument the second they are out of earshot, with Tattletale and G-Man heatedly whispering to eachother while Grue watches the rest of the rooms occupants warily. If you had to hazard a guess, you would say he doesn't really look like he wants to be here.
But you suppose that's true of everyone present to one degree or another.
Another few minutes pass while you all wait for something to happen, during which a few independents trickle in, but no more teams do, which you suppose makes sense. There aren't really all that many teams left in the city. It's really just the Hero's and the Undersiders. What few villainous teams remain in the city certainly aren't the type to show up at an Endbringer fight. Your Master spends some of this time changing into her costume... for certain levels of the word 'change'. You aren't sure when she had the time to craft a spell that swaps her current clothing with her costume, but the magic definitely doesn't look like runecraft, so you suppose it must be an onmyoudo spell - which she has had much longer to get accustomed to. Tattletale looks like she's going to have an aneurysm restraining her commentary on the topic when she does it.
Eventually, Armsmaster draws the attention of everyone in the room by stomping and well... just sort of talking, given the tense silence.
"The Simurgh began descending on Canberra, Australia ten minutes ago." He states bluntly, which immediately draws the every eye in the room to focus on him. Your Masters hands ball up into fists as he speaks.
"For those of you unaware, only certified and screened individuals are brought to participate directly in the fighting. New Wave will be leaving with the Protectorate in approximately three minutes with Strider. Those of you who have been to a Simurgh fight before but have not been screened can join us for the trip, where you will be on perimeter guard. Those of you who have not will be watching this short video explaining what will be required of you." He rattles off
"Wait so, we aren't even fighting?" Regent blurts out as New Wave moves up to stand alongside the Protectorate - now much more organized.
"No. Watch the video." Is Armsmaster's swift response. Putting action to his words, he nods to one of the techs nearby, who starts a video on the large screen setup in the back of the room. Despite his seeming irreverence towards the subject, Regent, along with everyone else in the room redirects his focus towards the screen, which flickers to life with a picture of Legend on it.
"Hello. If you're watching this, you are about to participate in an Endbringer battle..."
The video is... dry. But succinct and to the point. And absolutely no one is happy with that point.
The image of Legend basically had this to say of Simurgh fights - they are soul crushing. Even outside the range of her scream, and even with the relative lack of collateral damage she causes compared to her siblings, the Simurgh is the most psychologically punishing of the Endbringers. Fighters at Endbringer battles typically have communication devices assigned to them - for tracking and coordination purposes. The Simurgh neccessitates an additional function for these devices.
A Bomb. Every Simurgh fighter straps a bomb to themselves. The Endbringers psychic scream is such a danger, the subversion of a hero such a threat, that should anyone be exposed to her for too long, their device will detonate - killing them. You can feel a quiet horror radiating from your Master and the rest of your team at this revelation, even if no one present will be participating in the actual fight. Unfortunately, there is yet more.
Because of the Simurhg's tendency to predict and assault her surroundings with carefully placed traps, even those Capes not directly engaging her have to deal with a certain degree of trauma. Civillians at Simurgh fights are to be treated as enemy combatants. Without exception, they are to be subdued and held at a location within the city. Even as you watch, the video explains that there will already be a perimeter being set around the city who's sole purpose is to gun down anyone trying to escape. Because the Simurgh doesn't just traumatize people - she sets up complicated plans using her precognition that can have consequences far in excess of the domino that started the chain of events.
Your Team hasn't signed up to fight a monster. They've signed up to rescue people from collapsed buildings that have every possibility of having been left there explicitly to hurt them.
Sometime during this rather unpleasant presentation, a man in a stylized conductors outfit appears in the room, gives a few instructions, and then vanishes again with the Protectorate and New Wave. Almost exactly as the video you are watching ends, he returns.
"Alright, get in close, make sure you're holding onto someone else, or me. I'm not coming back if you get left out." The cape Armsmaster referred to as Strider says in a business like tone. Surprisingly, in the oppressive aura that has taken over the room, it is Greg that responds first, striding forward to place a disproportionately sized hand on Strider's shoulder.
The rest of you, quickly follow suit, and then - you are somewhere else. There is no real sensation of transition or movement. You merely go from where you were to where you are in the single blink of an eye. And where you are is... some kind of military staging ground. There are soldiers everywhere, tents set up hastily throughout the hilly landscape, and a large congregation of Capes quickly passing by a large table with a number of black armbands on it.
All of that is secondary to the fact that in the distance, over the rooftops of the city scape that you are just outside of, you can see her.
The Simurgh. At a glance she is a statuesque woman of immaculate proportions, drifting lazily in the sky as though posing for an old painting. Dozens of differently sized wings radiate out from her, but none of them are flapping or being used to keep her afloat. Instead, they are bent at odd angles, overlapping eachother in ways that seem to defy casual description or physics. Despite the way she rotates in place as the battle rages around her, you can't quite seem to determine where the wings start or end. It's as if they aren't actually attached to anything at all. Swirling around the building sized vision in a hurricane like swirl that belies the peacefulness of her marble visage, are hunks of stone and metal torn from her surroundings, some of them spinning into place just in time to swat away a nearby cape, or to deflect a blast. The creature is, for all intents and purposes, at the eye of the storm, almost completely unaffected by her surroundings.
And the most distressing part about it, is that much like the eyes of a painting that always seem to follow you through a room, she feels as though she is looking at you, regardless of which direction she is facing.
Your attention is drawn back down from the uncanny sight by your Master, as she snatches up an armband to slip on, presses a button on its side and states her Cape name.
"Nexus." She calls to it, and the blinking yellow light on its surface immediately turns green.
Next to her, Trainwreck is curiously examining his own armband - to small for his gargantuan power arms bicep - before slipping it on one of his suits fingers, like a ring.
"Hey, you think Dragon is single?" He asks absently - completely ruining the solemn mood of your group as they are directed towards the western quadrant of the city.
The area furthest, you notice, from any of the actual fighting.