Current Energy: 2
Current Training:
Magic Resistance (7/10)
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
City Limits, Canberra
"Master, I have someone injured here." You report, glancing down to check on the girl currently clutched in your arms. She has since wiped the blood from her nose but appears to be suffering from an extreme headache given she is holding her head in her hands and quivering slightly.
She looks so much like your Master that it is painful to see her in such a pitiful state, and you silently tighten your grip and pick up speed, although you are sadly limited to speeds that the girl in your arms can actually survive moving at.
"The guys got split up by a teleporter. I'm going after Parian, catch up with me and I'll heal them. Is it critical?" Taylor rattles off at you, her barely restrained fury self-evident a ross your mental link.
"No, but she seems to be in pain." You answer, considering the problem.
You pause to consider for a second. Those armbands everyone was given had a tracking function, did they not? If so, you should be able to have your Master locate your other teammates for you without wasting any more energy...
Still, you aren't sure you should delay your current charges healing. Of course, this thought brings to mind the fact that Taylor isn't the only healer on the battlefield. In fact, she had something if a stockpile of paper tags with healing energy in them that she had passed off to the PRT on arrival. You aren't even sure why you forgot that fact in the first place.
"Master, can you ask the armband where the others are?" You query, the decision set in your mind.
"...I forgot they could do that." She mentally mutters to you. There is a pause, and then -
"Aspirant and Trainwreck are both stuck in the Simurgh's range. I'll get Parian and go for Trainwreck. Can you get Jamie out?" She sends to you with a hint of borderline panic in her voice now.
And for good reason. Anyone inside the Simurghs range for too long will set off the bomb inside their armband. Even if they survive it - which they may or may not, depending on how prepared they are for Brutes of their calibre - the PRT would almost certainly lock them away after the battle if they suspected they had been influenced by the flying Endbringer.
Without a moment to waste, you immediately change tact.
"Can you open a Gap to the fallback position? I will leave the injured to the PRT." You request and are immediately responded to in the form of the Gap that is ever present beneath your clothing sliding out and widening until you can comfortably walk through it.
You are just about to do so when the girl in your arms begins to struggle, and you realize you cannot take her through it.
Blinking, you stare down at her. Her nose is bleeding again, and her skin has taken on a sickly sheen of sweat as she cradles her head in her arms.
"Miss?" You query, gently landing on a rooftop and letting her down, while fighting to stop the urgency you now feel from showing on your face in the form of annoyance.
"I- I don't want to." She whimpers at you.
"I assure you, it is safe. The portal merely leads to the staging area on the outskirts of the city. The PRT are there. They can heal and protect you." You explain, smiling gently at the terrified teen.
"No- but- y-you're strong right? Can't I stay with you?" She asks in a panic.
"Some of my teammates were thrown into the battlezone. I do not want to take you towards the Simurgh." You explain plainly, glancing at the Gap hovering nearby.
"I don't understand. You came to fight it right? Why weren't they already in the battlezone!" She snaps, fear turning to anger in a heartbeat as her city is torn down around her.
"Only some of us are allowed to fight the Simurgh. The majority of those present are here for search and rescue. To find people like you and save them. Please. I have to go to my friends." You both explain and plead, unwilling to just throw the girl through the portal for some reason.
She glares at you as though you had just stated the stupidest thing in the world.
"So all of you are here but... but none of you are fighting..?" She asks, her voice trailing off angrily.
"We..." you pause to try and find the right words to explain yourself. It is difficult because if you are being honest, you thought much the same thing when this was first explained to you.
"We have no choice. We have to do as the PRT says." You finally grit out.
The girl turns to look into the distance at the Simurgh, her expression turning briefly apoplectic, before smoothing out into a dull sunken eyed stare. Tears well up in her eyes but she doesn't sob or cry.
She merely turns back to you.
"Fine." She hisses at you, ignoring the hand you carefully hold out to her and merely walking into the Gap.
Once she is safely through, the portal rapidly shrinks, and an orb of blue light escapes it as it slides beneath your clothing once more.
You, of course, instantly recognize the tracking spell for what it is, and without prompting, chase after it.
It doesn't take long for you to catch up with Aspirant. While the exact ability of the armbands to provide a location is apparently limited to a general area, the tracking spell holds no such limitation. Unfortunately, rather than finding Aspirant at the edge of the battlefield like you would have hoped, you find yourself following the tracking spell closer and closer to the Simurgh.
The Simurgh's scream as you approach her is... unpleasant. And describing it as a scream is nothing if not misleading. While the keening noise in the back of your school could be loosely described as a scream, you would liken it more to a ringing. A high pitched, keening ringing, that seems to randomly change in pitch and tone over time - often just as you are getting accustomed to ignoring the previous tone.
As you sprint forward, still enhanced by your Master's runework, you casually dodge beneath a hunk of debris thrown at you from the center of the fighting - which you are still far enough away from not to have drawn notice from many of the fighters.
You help where you can. Your speed is practically unheard of compared to most Capes, but you find your ability to leverage that speed swiftly curtailed by a never ending torrent of debris that always seems to be positioned perfectly to cut you off and stop you from assisting the people in your path - mostly Blasters trying to avoid the most dangerous parts of the fight while providing covering fire, or trying to launch attacks against the swiftly assembling device in the Simurgh's orbit when possible.
Not that this stops you. You aren't just fast. As such, you quickly change tactics, and simply begin to batter away incoming debris before it can reach it's targets, all the while trailing behind the spell leading to your teammate. To those watching, you must look like a blur as you move, a grey streak passing through only barely noticeable to the defenders, but appreciated regardless.
Finally, you reach your destination, a balcony in the middle of a high rise providing an overhead view of the fighting to the handful of Capes present.
You wonder briefly what Aspirant is doing here, instead of fleeing back to your Master, when the answer to the question becomes self evident. A barrage of debris flies towards the building - which in hindsight is a terrible place to be standing during this fight - and Aspirant, who until that point had been standing patiently on the balcony while the Blasters did their work, moves. He is not quite as fast as you - that would be physically impossible - but even still, the sheer economy of motion he displays as he shifts forward and unfurls into a meters long bundle of tooth and claw is astounding. You barely feel the need to even help, only deflecting a single hunk of stone away from the building's facade before landing, Aspirants whiplike tendrils lashing out at the rest with measured and even strikes in several directions at once.
When the barrage ceases - or pauses you suppose - you land on the balcony.
And are immediately met with every fighter pleasant point their hands at you.
"...Aspirant." You carefully query as your teammate retracts his various body parts, reforming into his Gorilla-Esque armored form.
"Emmy! Thank god. Can you assist me in evacuating this group? The stairwell is blocked and every time I attempt to climb out with one of them we are attacked." He explains quickly. His familiarity with you seems to calm a number of those present, but one outlier is quick to point something out.
"Where's his armband?" He shouts abruptly.
"I do not have one. I am not a Cape." You explain.
"What he means is, that he is a product of someone else's power. My team leader, who is not actually here. Emmy is a... projection." Aspirant rushes to explain when it becomes obvious your own explanation was not sufficient. There is a distinctly sour note in his voice at that last part, likely because all those who join your Master's team know better than to describe you as less than a person.
Someone - the same person who originally brought up the issue - begins to argue the point, but is swiftly ignored by both you and Aspirant as you notice another attack headed this way. You instantly move to obliterate the incoming attacks with your daggers, when the reality of what is being thrown at you sinks in.
All across the battlefield below, the people most active on the frontline, that being, the Brutes are being launched at you. Your mind temporarily locks up as you process this. Yes, you could still bludgeon them all out of the way - but there is no telling if the people involved will survive the endeavor. For the Simurgh's purposes, this is actually quite ingenious. The beast may be unable to grasp people directly with her Telekinesis, but she can certainly grab their clothing. Therefore, this move serves not only to pin you down but to remove many of her current combatants from the battlefield. You just don't understand why. It isn't as though you are actively fighting her, and this certainly won't serve to stop you. Suspicion begins to form in the back of your head but quickly disperses under the ongoing keening of the scream. You can address the thought later. Right now you need to solve this problem.
Aspirant, obviously having come to the same conclusion, twitches slightly in frustration. The two of you will be fine. Both of you are strong and durable enough to survive even the collapse of the entire building atop you. And while Aspirant likely couldn't escape, he would be fine as long as you got to him in time. The others, however...