Current Energy: 2
Current Training:
Magic Resistance (7/10)
Thursday, February 24th, 2011
City Limits, Canberra
Your team makes quick time as it travels. Between their auras, their native powers, and the boost in speed provided by your Master's runecraft, it hardly takes any time at all for you to arrive at the rear of the mass of humans currently running towards the Simurgh as though their lives depend on it.
As you approach them, you also find yourself growing ever closer to the Simurgh herself, and you begin to hear the faintest traces of her scream scratch at the rear of your mind.
Mechanically speaking, you are aware that the Simurgh's psychic scream exists largely on the same wavelength your kind use for most forms of communication. Realistically, there is no reason for the scream to exist at all. So it stands to reason that the Terror Engine makes itself audible in this way, in order to, well... cause terror.
You are largely unbothered by this, but your Master and her teammates grow visibly discomfited as you proceed and the scream grows louder.
Your Master - not really being in the mood for bullshit at this particular moment - doesn't actually bother to try and communicate with or interact with the people mindless running forward. She just opens a very large gap in the sky overhead, and then begins physically hurling anyone she can get her hands on into it. It would be highly amusing to take a picture of if the situation wasn't so obviously dire.
"Boss I dunno if that's... uh... safe?" Oliver offers after the tenth such toss. Your Master isn't really going out of her way to save everyone present. In fact, her headlong forward march hasn't actually stopped at any point during these events. She is just so fast that - regardless of the distance between herself and the Gap quickly falling behind you - she can pluck people from nearby and hurl them away.
"And that is?" She asks rhetorically, gesturing ahead where you can see the Simurgh gliding past a few blocks away. Again, you are struck by the strange way in which she always appears to be looking at you, regardless of the direction her head is facing. You would call the feeling uncomfortable but it really isn't. It's mostly just weird.
"...Do you have to throw them?" He complains in response. Taylor gives him a look you've come to associate with any Hebert currently questioning someone's intelligence, then picks up another person nearby - a cape who has visibly pulled their communicator off just in time to hurl it away, hence avoiding the explosion it proceeds to cause.
"Hey. I'm rescuing you. Questions?" She asks him in an irritable tone as a large blue hand stretches from her to pick him up and hold in nearby.
"Let me go! If I fall behind my best friend will be unhappy with me!" He squeals in a hoarse voice, likely from the desperate sprinting he was undergoing shortly before this.
"Uhuh. I see. And your 'best friend', where would that be." She asks, and though you doubt it's intentional, the glowing hand holding the man up begins to squeeze slightly.
"You're just going to hurt her! Why would I-" He begins but doesn't get to finish as the giant hand rises up and flings the man several blocks into the Gap behind you.
"...Okay but what if you miss?" Oliver tries again.
"I won't," Taylor says obstinately, although you do note that the Gap she has been using begins to slowly drift forward to narrow the distance between you and it.
In this way, your group rapidly creates a gap in the ranks of those Mastered, cleaving a path to the head of the group where - predictably - Trainwreck is present.
Less predictably, the front of the human wave has stopped because the Simurgh...
"The Simurgh has broken line of sight. Last seen at C4," everyone's communicators blurt out at once.
"Fuck!" Trainwreck yells, punching a building in the side and collapsing its nearest wall.
"No shit! What the fuck are you doing?" Taylor hisses at him as she approaches.
"Hey, it's the whole gang! Do you think you can do that find any motherfucker thing you do Boss? My best friend asked us to get the kaiju outta here so-" Trainwreck exclaims as he sees you all. He doesn't... seem Mastered. Except for the best friend bit, anyway.
"Hey buddy, you uh, you're kinda Mastered, I think," Oliver says carefully shifting forward but not moving anywhere Trainwreck could easily reach. All around you, confused civilians and capes alike dazedly look beneath rocks and around corners for the Simurgh.
"Nah. I read about that Heartbreaker guy up in Canada, and I definitely don't wanna fuck anybody I didn't wanna fuck yesterday." Trainwreck explains with a shrug, glancing past the group as though hoping the Simurgh will magically be there.
"Purely hypothetically, who-" Oliver asks suspiciously, only for Parian to swat the back of his head via one of her puppets.
"Boys. Please. Trainwreck, could you tell us about your 'best friend'?" She asks carefully.
"Oh yeah, real sweetheart that girl. Can you believe she'd be friends with a guy like me?" Trainwreck says fondly.
Taylor cringes at this, and you yourself frown slightly.
"Master, if I may?" You ask carefully, keeping an eye on your surroundings just in case something happens. Taylor glances at you and waits for you to speak.
"I lack the power to complete Magic Resistance presently, but there is a Rune that replicates it. Predictably, it is somewhat power-intensive but you should be able to-" You begin only for Taylor to brighten at your suggestion and finish your sentence for you.
"-break the Mastering!" She exclaims, drawing an uncomfortable amount of sudden attention from all those present.
"Uh... I don't think they liked that." Oliver notes, pivoting to close ranks with the group.
"Hey, hey, no biggy all right? Hey, it's cool guys, she's with me!" Trainwreck yells quickly, gesturing wildly around himself to get everyone's attention. Oliver blinks at this.
"Isn't he mastered?" He whispers to you, as Taylor warily begins to trace a rune in the area between herself and Trainwreck.
"It doesn't appear to completely change their personality. Just makes the victim think of someone as their... best friend?" You offer carefully as the rune completes and Trainwreck is suffused with a soft glow that quickly fades away.
He blinks once. Then twice. Then looks around himself in obvious confusion for a moment before turning back to your Master.
"Can I get that shit in a can for next time or what?" He says lazily.
"You-!" Taylor opens her mouth to begin berating him before visibly mastering herself.
"What happened?" She finally asks.
"Dunno. Some dick tossed me over there somewhere, I got back to Camp by following one of my tags back to the tech who gave me this thing," he explains, wiggling the finger his comm unit is on, "then next thing I know this little girl that looked kinda like you before the hotness powers is tapping me on the shoulder and asking me to make her a chicken dinner," he finishes, gesturing to where the Simurgh was with a thumb.
Taylor looks less than pleased by the brief explanation, but much of the tension she was obviously feeling prior to this has obviously drained away now that all the people she actually cares about are within arms reach.
Still, leave it to Trainwreck summarize an entire Endbringer fight in a few sentences and jokes.
"So what now? Looks like the wicked bitch of the west is outta here for now so-" Trainwreck begins only to be cut off by a new voice.
"What the hell is going on?" Alexandria angrily barks as she drops out of the sky to come to a stop a few inches off the ground nearby.
"You didn't get the comm message? A Master took over the fallback position and sent all these people at the Simurgh." Taylor explains quickly, obviously still somewhat in awe at the elder heroine, although it is clearly tempered by recent events, down to mere respect.
"What comm- no nevermind. Use your Mover power to get them out of combat. I'll deal with them later. Where's the Master?" Alexandria commands, obviously expecting to be listened to on this.
"Dunno. Haven't seen her since she got me back at base." Trainwreck shrugs.
As one might expect from someone openly admitting to being Mastered in the middle of a Simurgh fight, Alexandria responds in the only way that makes sense.
She darts forward to try and punch out Trainwreck. Realistically, given your current location, she was probably going less for 'knock out' and more for 'decapitate'.
Funnily enough, it doesn't work.
"Yeah, you like that baby? What passes for my spine and all my bones in this motherfucker are partially submerged in the tectonic plate under the fucking city. I could fuck a continent to death in this thing!" He croons from around the fist he is currently holding steadily in place on his forearm.
There is a tense silence as Alexandria darts backward, and then Trainwreck adds-
"Also, the Boss broke the Mastering with her magic bullshit powers. You know how it goes."
Alexandria spins around to stare at Taylor as though she has just encountered something particularly alien to her.
"...can you do it again? How much preparation do you need? Does it work on the Simurgh?" She rattles off quickly.
"Yes, depends on how many people you want me to get at once, I don't know?" Taylor answers, obviously supremely unimpressed not just by the failed attack, but by Alexandria's complete dismissal of it even happening.
"How many people can you affect at once? Legend and Eidolon are still down. If you can reset their timers then we have a shot." She continues, ignoring the look Taylor sends her that silently says 'apologize to Trainwreck'.
Under other circumstances, your Master might just press the issue. Unfortunately, now is not the time for it.
"Fine. I can only power this for a little bit. Cover for me I guess." She grouses.
"You didn't say how many-" Alexandria reiterates irritably.
"No, I didn't," Taylor says through grit teeth as she draws her sword and waves fiercely overhead. The blue energy of your Master's version of Lesser Magic traces the path of her sword, firing itself skyward and leaving a glowing blue line in the sky big enough to be visible the entire city over.
Nearly everyone present stares upward in either awe, confusion, or both. You say 'nearly' because, as previously noted, your team's entire composition is predicated on dealing with... well with this mostly.
If they weren't accustomed to the absurd and bizarre by now, they never would be after all.
"Hey just putting this out there, but if we kill an Endbringer can I get a date? Don't gotta be you. Actually, wait, you totally just tried to kill me. Never mind, it's gotta be you." Trainwreck says, stepping forward to hunch protectively near your team.
"Trainwreck!" Parian exclaims in place of your Master who is obviously busy concentrating, who pauses for a second to focus before cleaving another line in the sky.
"What?! The Simurgh is like, Satan or some shit right? If I kill Satan I wanna get laid." Trainwreck complains loudly.
"I mean when you put it like that-" Oliver starts only for your hand to come down gently on his shoulder.
"-totally inappropriate bro." he finishes, changing what he was going to say.
"And it's sexual harassment!" Parian adds.
"What is she doing?" Alexandria demands angrily, after a few failed attempts to draw your Master's attention.
"What you asked." You reply flatly.
"How does that," She gestures at the sky, "have anything to do with what I asked."
"""It's magic.""" Your entire team responds at once.
You can tell Alexandria is becoming apocalyptically mad at your teams seeming lackadaisical demeanor but well, this isn't anything new for you. Very few Heroes' managed to remain stoic over the course of their entire careers, at least the Heroes you are aware of as a Servant of the Throne. There simply comes a point in time when 'Doomsday' becomes 'Tuesday'.
Honestly, you're more surprised Alexandria hasn't reached that point yet.
"Hey, so I didn't actually get an answer to my question?" Trainwreck tries again and is summarily ignored by Alexandria.
"Simurgh spotted at D8," All the nearby armbands sound off, just as the Simurgh floats into view on the horizon. Whatever device she's working on looks like it's nearly complete which - you assume - is bad.
More so than that, your sense of perspective is temporarily skewed by the fact that - as far as you can tell - a majority of one side of the city side is in the air with her, and most of it is pointed at you.
"Did she fucking do that on purpose?" Trainwreck asks in distress, glancing at your Master who is still painstakingly carving a spell on the skyline.
"Probably. Shall we?" Aspirant replies, limbering his shoulders up and stepping forward to stand astride Trainwreck and Huntsman.
"Cockblocked by Angel-Satan. I hate this planet." Trainwreck complains, pounding one fist into an open palm.
"In truth Trainwreck, I think you do it to yourself," Parian says, and although the cloth controlling cape is clearly more stressed by what is going on around you than the others, she shifts to allow one of her Dolls to pick her up.
"This is such bullshit. I want it known that I asked for a pile bunker." Huntsman complains, jumping onto the position on Trainwrecks back and drawing the folded-up canon Trainwreck built for him, then leveling it over one of the Tinker's tremendous shoulders.
"What are you doing? We have to move." Alexandria hisses, shifting towards your Master, obviously to pick her up.
You step into place between the two, and - possibly remembering the numerous duplicates of her you murdered - she pauses.
"Nah, we got this. Hey, do we have like, a team battle cry thing?" Trainwreck asks lazily.
"Avengers assemble?" Huntsman offers hopefully.
"We're already assembled dumbass. We live in the same castle." Is the last thing you hear Trainwreck say before the wall of buildings and other such vast, heavy, objects begin to fly towards you.
Ahead of you, the Oathbound begin to charge. The loud bark of Oliver's rifle rings out and a quick measured pace, even as Trainwreck's prodigious strength pushes them forward, the massive tinker swatting large objects out of the sky even as the nominal railgun hanging over one of his shoulders obliterates objects further afield.
To his left, Aspirant has once more unfurled into a multi-limbed night terror, dozens of nearly human arms all of them inhumanly long, dragging him forward. They whip up and around at multiple angles, each motion practiced to perfection, each attack an example of martial arts from another dimension entirely. Each blow, shattering vehicles and portions of buildings before they can pass the group to slam into your Master.
Parian remains at the rear of the group, her four puppets bouncing around them, ranging further afield than any of them can easily reach along their path to the Endbringer, deflecting what debris they can, and redirecting that which she can't towards the front of the group to be crushed beneath Trainrweck's heel.
Not all the debris is so easily dealt with of course. Some of it does reach your Master. Or rather, it reaches you, and you are nothing, if not dedicated to her defense. With lightning-quick reflexes, you fling your throwing knives outward, dashing around the five-meter radius surrounding your Master with a speed that only a Servant could match.
It only takes Alexandria a few moments to get with the program and start helping. You notice she doesn't make any attempt to help those unfortunates nearby who are obviously still Mastered. You do your best to shield them where possible, obviously, but you have obvious priorities, and so too does Alexandria obviously.
"I don't understand. The Simurgh has never focused so much on one Cape before." Alexandria growls.
Now, you don't dislike Alexandria. Neither Sigurd, nor your Shard self sees a problem with most of her actions, nor with having power and holding a political position.
So it is with absolutely no malice that you reply;
"None of you mattered before."
Still, you would be lying if you said the look of pure astonishment on her face wasn't gratifying.
You're sure she would respond if she could, but your Master chooses just that moment to complete her rune in the sky. There is a brief flash of light, and then it's done. And every living being in the city becomes abruptly, and temporarily, extremely resistant to Mastering.
"Now, you do." You explain, grabbing your Master before she can fall over from the exertion.