Current Energy: 2
Current Training:
Magic Resistance (7/10)
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
City Limits, Canberra
You have very little time to consider your options here.
You're fast, probably faster than even most Parahumans, but the airborne nature of the incoming projectiles makes the prospect of simply dashing out to catch them one at a time questionable at best.
Sure, you could fling yourself out to one of them, grab them, and land safely - that's no problem for you. But you can't walk on air like your Master can. Once you had made it into the sky, you would have no leverage to change directions, and would be forced to wait until simple gravity had done its work and dragged you to the ground.
You could try and angle yourself downward by climbing the build and launching yourself at an angle, allowing you to catch someone and immediately hit the ground, but that carries its own difficulties. For one, your speed and strength do not ignore traditional physics. If you launch yourself from the surface of the building and back again fast enough to catch even a single person, you will likely cause a sonic boom. Or... just obliterate the upper portion of the building with the force of your leap.
Modern construction, it should be noted, is not typically well equipped to behave as a launch pad for your average Servant.
All that being the case, you decide that your best bet is to just... do literally everything you can think of at once.
"Aspirant!" You yell as you shift forward, practically materializing next to him.
"Ye-" he starts to respond, body tense as he too, continues to attempt to figure out what to do next.
"Slow them." You bark at him at the same time as you send a mental message to your Master.
"Master, I shall need a very large gap shortly," you request, whe simultaneously picking up Aspirant, who yelps in surprise.
"Slow them!" You repeat again. You would explain more but the length of time you have to figure out a solution to the problem before it ceases to be a problem, and instead proceeds to become aftermath is best measured in seconds.
It is at this moment that the informal structure of the Oathbound apparently shows its worth.
Under normal circumstances, a team of Parahumans on this world would require days or months of dedicated training to be able to coordinate in any capacity. This is, however, predicated on a team of Parahumans whose powers are static, and unchanging. They might practice the same formations, techniques, and strategies, under set leaders, drilling and repeating them until they are rote.
The Oathbound have no such experience, largely because the entire organization is made up of people whom primarily dedicate themselves to adapting to whatever power or situation your Master is liable to stumble into from day to day. Many people might loosely describe the structure and practices of your team as 'literally insane' but...
What you are trying to say is, your team is exceptional at adapting to insane situations.
Which is why it takes Aspirant hardly a microsecod to put a hand on your shoulder, reposition himself so that his feet are planted in your upraised palm, and then narrows his body - literally - into an almost arrowlike shape.
Then you throw him. Very, very, hard.
"How big?" Your Master demands, as Aspirant unfurls into a multi limbed nightmare creature that begins to rapidly plucked flying men from the sky in such a way that his forward momentum is quickly arrested, leaving both he and several confused men in that brief moment of freefall before gravity takes hold and forces one to the ground.
You rapidly eyeball the spacing of the brutes grasped in Aspirants limbs, then take a sprinters starting pose as you reply.
"As big as possible," you reply, taking off at the greatest speed you can manage without causing the room full of capes behind you to detonate.
It occurs to you that through the majority of this experience, several of them have been alternatively speaking to, and/or threatening you for whatever reason, but you hardly noticed in your rush. You suppose bodily flinging their perceived protector from the building might seem a tad suspicious to them though.
Regardless, the Gap connecting you to your Master practically explodes in size as you fling yourself into the air roughly where you expect the falling Aspirant to land with his payload. It is not fast at first. You doubt your Master could expand one fast enough to adequately trap someone that could see it coming.
But it is fast enough, as your momentum gutters out, and you fall away from the Gap overhead just in time for Aspirants monstrous form fall into it like a fish returning to water, dragging behind him a dozen men and women who scream in terror and desperately attack him in attempts to escape the perceived threat.
Then you hit the ground back first, though it barely registers as an impact to you compared to the blows your past foes have levied against you.
"I've got him. Where am I dropping these other guys?" Taylor asks you, obviously not fully aware of the situation on your end of things.
You pause to consider that for a moment.
On the one hand, those were all people cleared to participate in the Simurgh fight proper. On the other, you aren't sure what the time limit for their bomb collars was at when the Simurgh threw them.
All that in mind, you point out the obvious.
"Ask Dragon?" You reply lamely.
"...right. I forgot I could do that. I've got Parian, Aspirant and Huntsman here with me. Trainwreck somehow got to the fall back position on his own, so were going to reconvene and get back out there. No splitting up this time though," your Master explains, and you obliging stand and leap upward to enter the quickly closing Gap above you.
When you re-emerge, it is to find most of your team present, though Parian's dress has suffered some fairly significant damage where it appears as though it has unwoven itself in places, likely at the cloth manipulating capes behest. The four dolls of you she has been puppeting stand defensively about her, and though you're certain they don't actually see with their eyes, the duplicate of your current form eyes you suspiciously as you make your entrance before returning to scanning its surroundings warily.
"So like, that was totally temporary and under your control right?" Oliver pesters Aspirant, who is clearly reconstituting himself very slowly into a form better recognizable as humanoid.
"Yes, Huntsman. I am, in fact, not an insane creature of meat and malice," The biokinetic drawls at his teammate. There is no malice or venom in the statement. Your entire team is familiar with Oliver's background and circumstances at this point. It would be somewhat crass of any of you to begrudge his suspicions of one of his teammates becoming a monster after encountering the Simurgh.
"That sounds like an excellent name for ones genitals." Parian muses aloud in a bad approximation of Trainwrecks voice.
The entire group turns to look at her, Taylor lifting an eyebrow in question as the sole person not wearing a mask.
"It... seemed like something he would say. If he were here." Parian says, suddenly sounding very embarrassed.
"Let's go get him then, shall we?" Taylor chimes in after a snort of amusement, ripping open a new Gap even as the one you came through shrinks down to slide under your armor.
As a whole, the group steps through - and you are promptly met with what was once a bustling camp, managing logistics, housing thinkers safely at the edge of combat, and providing medical attention for wounded capes.
It is now noticeably empty, save for the few dazed and confused capes your Master has just sent here, all of them clearly confused as to what has happened, enough so that they barely register your teams sudden appearance.
"...Dragon. Why is the base camp empty?" Taylor asks hesitantly, pressing a finger into her armband. Curiously, you lean in to hear the answer, and your Master obligingly lifts her arm to you to assist.
There is, instead of a response, a burst of static, then slowly fades to provide a repeating message.
"-aware that our comms have been compromised by an unknown Master. Repeat, all personnel in the staging area, retreat to B4, please be aware-"
Taylor stares at her armband for a second, before crouching down and rocketing into the air, clearly attempting to geta better look at the city.
When she lands, it is with a grimace.
"They're all running at the Simurgh," she explains, tracing a rune in the air and watching it zip in the direction she just looked in.
"...and dumbass is with them," She adds in annoyance that barely masks her mounting dread.
Well. That's... bad. Still, if the Simurgh can be driven off before anyone gets hurt-
"Eidolon down, CD-4. Legend down, CD-4."
"How?!" She yelps in frustrated confusion.
"It's just what the feathered bitch does." Oliver says with a resigned look of defeat on his face.
There is a moment of pure silence, broken only by the sound of debris being launched in the distance, that is interrupted when a set of runes bursts to life above your team, as large as a minibus and inscribed in the air with raw magic. Your own enchantment becomes immediately refreshed an reinvigorated, and your teammates jolt slightly at the sudden change in the perceptions and strength.
"Come on." Taylor says with a steely edge in her voice that sounds disturbingly close to bordering on mania.
"Come on what? Taylor we can't stop literally everyone here at once we-" Oliver begins to explain, waving his hands aimlessly around you to demonstrate the scale of the problem.
"Olly," Taylor says not bothering to look at the boy, but managing to cut an impressive figure as she starts to stride forward regardless.
"Trust me." She says, not turning to see if he heard or acknowledged her.
Neither do you, for that matter, though you quickly sense the rest of your team march into place at your sides.
After all, the Oathbound are Taylor's.
And it's been a very long time since anyone was succesful in taking something from her.
A/N: So, this might feel slightly rushed, but I'm going to be honest here. I hate the Simurgh. I regret with every fiber of my being sticking to canon with regards to this fight. Having to even think of the winged bitch has been slowly draining my will to write this quest, and its no ones fault but my own.
So lets jump ahead slightly, skip the misery porn, and engage in some good old fashioned ultra violence, then return to your regularly scheduled program shall we?
Usual disclaimers apply. Grammar hard, phone writing painful. Join the discord so you can pester me, and hence remind me why I love this community so much.