Dinah watched as Master Chief prepared for his mission, strapping several weapons and tools to various places on his armor while Lisa and Cortana both provided him with the intelligence they had on Coil's base.
As much as she'd enjoyed the time she'd spent with the Unbound in the base, she was getting anxious to go home and see her parents. She missed them a lot, and she knew they had to be incredibly worried about her.
Shortly after Bakuda's reign of terror had ended Dinah had been allowed to video call her uncle, Mayor Christner, to let him and the rest of her family know she was alright. She'd told him that she'd been rescued during the kidnapping attempt by the Unbound, and they were keeping her safe till Coil, the culprit, was dealt with. She'd managed to convince him that she was safe and happy using the phrasing that Cortana and Alice had helped her narrow down with her power. She did not, in any way, want to say the wrong thing and send her uncle on a warpath against the Unbound over a misunderstanding.
She didn't think the local Protectorate could afford the optics of being humiliated in a fight against them.
That said, it had taken far too long for her liking to finally begin the operation against Coil. First came Bakuda's rampage, which was understandable, especially when the bastard had actually been useful in keeping the situation from falling apart further than it already had. Then came the cleanup, which went a lot faster than it would have otherwise but still took a decent amount of time, especially as Harry took extra care to get rid of the ships blocking the bay in order to allow more relief supplies to be shipped in as needed. Not to mention that Coil spent most of his time during that period in his civilian identity, making a show of helping deal with everything, so they couldn't just attack him out of nowhere.
Now, however, the end was in sight, and she was looking forward to finally getting out of the base. She hadn't been able to actually leave that often since John had rescued her for security reasons, and as amazing as most of the Unbound's stuff was, she missed her family.
She watched as Chief confirmed the last details of the plan with Cortana, Harry and Lisa before stepping through the portal Harry had set up, and couldn't help but smile.
Finally, she'd be able to go home.
Coil was in the office of his main base, going over reports and trying to find the information he needed to get Tattletale and Dinah Alcott back in his hands.
He had his suspicions that the Unbound were behind Alcott's rescue, as he believed that the man that happened upon her according to his men's bodycams was actually Thanatos, though he hadn't been able to find anything related to a civilian identity matching the description. Combined with the fact that they'd captured Tattletale he had to assume they were aware he was the one responsible, though they hadn't made any move against him yet, which meant they likely had no proof.
Acting against the Unbound would be tricky. He had no moles in their group, did not know where their base of operations was, and recent events had shown them to be powerful and skilled. The fact that the times he had used his power on situations they had been involved in during the Bakuda affair had returned faulty results also complicated matters severely. He hadn't realized till that moment how reliant he'd become on his power, which infuriated him, as he didn't like being dependent on anything. Still, against an organization such as the Unbound he would need it if he wanted to be victorious.
He was debating the merits of going a more obvious route and threatening the precog's family when his attention was drawn to one of his computer monitors, where one of the security camera feeds suddenly came to the forefront on its own. He only had an instant to register that before his mind caught up with what was actually going on in the feed.
Master Chief of the Unbound was making his way through the base practically unhindered. And that wasn't because nobody was trying to stop him. Every guard that tried to impede him was easily gunned down as though it was an absurd video game, the armored warrior continuing to stride forward without pausing for even a moment. None of Coil's men was doing anything to buy even a single second of time.
Coil quickly started to split the timeline only to let out an involuntary cry as the feeling of a red hot poker being driven into his skull came, the timelines unraveling, falling out of his metaphorical grasp as he buckled. He had never experienced that before, not even when he'd tried to use it on Unbound operations, and it took him a moment to realize he'd fallen to his knees with tears of pain leaving his eyes, which considering his holeless mask was a problem.
Getting back to his feet he quickly reached for the controls to the escape tunnel he had leading from his office to a safehouse where he had a stash of civilian clothing. He turned to the doors to the tunnel only to register through the residual pain in his skull that they hadn't opened. "What…?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Calvert, but I'm afraid we can't allow you to leave at the moment." A woman's voice said over his computer's speakers, malicious amusement practically dripping from her words.
Coil made his way back over to the computer, instinctively trying to split the timeline again as he did so only to once again drop to the ground with a cry.
"Are you having trouble, Mr. Calvert?" The woman asked, still sounding darkly entertained.
Coil grunted and managed to force himself back to his feet, seeing Master Chief continuing to tear through his highly trained and well equipped mercenaries with contemptuous ease, nearly at his office. "Who…?"
"I think you know, Mr. Calvert." The woman said.
Coil grit his teeth and briefly considered setting the base's self-destruct, his hands moving in the direction of the controls for it, but the voice on the computer spoke again, preempting him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Calvert, but I cannot allow that while Chief is currently in the base." She said, the self-destruct activating briefly before shutting down again, demonstrating her control over it.
Coil almost broke one of his teeth from gritting them too hard when he saw Master Chief right outside of his door, before reaching into a desk drawer and grabbing a Bakuda grenade he had gotten his hands on from an agent in the ABB. Before he could prime it the door to his office opened slightly and a small object flew through the opening, exploding a foot or so away from Coil and releasing a large amount of gas.
Coil's mask was Tinker made to block harmful gasses like this, but for some reason it didn't seem to be working in this case and he began to cough, eyes streaming with tears. He instinctively removed his mask as the gas dissipated, being short lived, and took deep breaths in between coughs.
By the time he'd regained his composure Master Chief was standing in his office, intimidating looking assault rifle in hand and aimed directly at his chest. He stood, still as a statue, as the woman that had hacked into Coil's systems spoke. "Smile for the cameras, Mr. Calvert!"
"Y-you…" Coil growled/coughed before being interrupted by a distinctive siren beginning to resound throughout the base.
"Cortana?" Master Chief asked, his gaze and aim never wavering from Coil.
"Those are the Endbringer sirens, Chief." The now named Cortana said seriously, all traces of amusement gone. "Leviathan is on his way to Brockton Bay. ETA forty five minutes. Complete the objective and return to base ASAP."
Coil knew what she meant by 'complete the objective' and acted immediately, moving his fingers in the small movement needed to prime the grenade in his hands. Apparently that was enough to tip the Master Chief off, however, and before he had finished the motion an astoundingly loud gunshot rang out, a bullet slamming into Coil's chest and punching an enormous crater in it. The last thing he ever heard was the Chief's simple report. "Objective complete. Securing target, returning to base."
Ruby was watching an anime on her scroll, eyes shining as she watched a blonde girl in a blue dress with silver armor wielding an invisible sword against a bluette man in a blue jumpsuit with a blood red spear, when Alice emerged from the kitchen with a cup of tea in hand, slumping tiredly in one of the of the armchairs of the living area where Ruby was, doing her best to relax despite the noise of the other teens playing a board game.
"Rough time with Bonesaw?" Ruby asked as she paused the video, shifting her full attention to the older woman.
Alice took a tired sip of her tea. "Please don't call her that. Her name is Riley Grace Davis, and that is who I'm trying to get back." Her features darkened. "If I ever come across Jack Slash again, he dies no matter what it takes to make it happen. What he did to that girl alone warrants it, even without considering all his other atrocities."
Ruby swallowed slightly at that, having never seen Alice in such a state. "That bad, huh?"
Alice looked over Ruby, her features still thunderous, but before anything else could be said an alarm started to sound. The young reaper leapt out of her seat and looked out the window, seeing the people in the street far below start to run in a near panic after a moment of shock. "This is…"
Harry strode in right then. "We've got an Endbringer incoming to Brockton Bay, people!" He barked, every single person in the base rushing over to the tactical table, that being every member of the Unbound, the Undersiders and Dinah, all of them looking various shades of grim or fearful.
Harry leaned over the display, which was currently showing a section of the world map displaying the Atlantic Ocean, a rapidly moving dot making its way towards the location marked as Brockton Bay. "Cortana?"
"Long story short, I have been helping Dragon with an Endbringer Prediction Program she and Armsmaster have been working on, and it's just paid off." Cortana reported briskly as Chief walked into the room, rifle still in hand. "We have confirmation Leviathan is headed for Brockton with a lot more warning than we usually would."
"Deploy all countermeasures." Harry said immediately. "Is the Hammer ready?"
"Just finished the last calibrations this morning." Cortana responded promptly.
"Launch." Harry said without hesitation before turning his attention to everyone else. "Alright people, most of us know our roles, but I'm going to go over them again both for the benefit of our newer members and to make sure everyone remembers. We don't need issues in such a critical situation because one of us didn't know what they were supposed to be doing." He looked around at all of them. "BB, you know your role. Cortana will determine the best location for you to deploy at. I will start out on defense and switch to offense as needed. Alice, you'll be using our medical supplies to help in the triage center. Taylor, Lara, Rachel, you're on search and rescue. Find any capes in trouble and bail them out if possible. Brian, Alec, you're going to be protecting and assisting at the triage center. Lisa, you'll obviously be joining all the Thinkers on analysis. Everyone else, you're on offense. Focus on ranged combat as much as possible with our most powerful munitions."
"What about me?" Dinah asked.
Harry hesitated before responding. "If you want to help, stay here and answer any questions Cortana determines she needs your help to answer. But if she says evacuate, you do so immediately with Zwei and Pax, got it?"
The precog nodded, relaxing marginally at the news she wasn't going to be sidelined.
Harry looked around at all the grim faces in the room. "Alright people, grab your things, on the double! We need to be at the rally point five minutes ago!"
"He's not very good at this whole 'inspiring speech' thing, is he?" Yang murmured to her team from where they were trying to ignore the driving rain caused by Leviathan's approach as she listened to the man leading the response, Legend, the leader of the Triumvirate, tell everybody that the odds of survival were slim and that they needed to drive Leviathan away to keep him from turning Brockton Bay into another modern Atlantis.
Weiss looked up from where she'd been inspecting Myrtenaster, making sure it was fully stocked and ready for combat. "He is being realistic, Snapdragon. You know nobody has ever permanently hurt an Endbringer. The best the forces of this world have been able to achieve so far are pyrrhic victories."
"The fact that so many people showed up even though they know the odds are they're going to die is really commendable. Especially for some of the villains." Blake said as she stretched out a bit, preparing herself in her own way.
Yang nodded in agreement, looking at all the gathered capes, a vast majority being from out of town. They would have been perfectly safe and secure if they'd just stayed home, but instead they came to risk their lives to maybe prevent the loss of another city to the monsters menacing the world.
She glanced at her sister, who had a focused look in her eyes as she made sure she had as many of the Nevermore Specials as she could carry. She felt proud of Ruby, but sometimes she really wished she hadn't been forced to grow up so quickly. Especially since they met Harry and became members of the Unbound.
Not that the rest of them hadn't also been forced to grow up pretty damn quick, especially after London, but it was her prerogative to worry about her baby sister.
She glanced over at the rest of the gathered members of the Unbound. JNPR and Penny were all basically doing the same thing RWBY was, with Vomit Boy looking like he was trying to keep from living up to the nickname as Pyrrha gave him gentle encouragement. Nora was eating some sweets to distract herself while Ren kept an eye on her, and Penny had an oddly focused look in her eye.
Though perhaps it wasn't so odd. This was essentially what she was literally made for, even if the Endbringers weren't actual Grimm.
She couldn't see where Chief or Beast Boy were, but John was sitting on a nearby bench while listening to Legend's speech, his face focused. Taylor was standing very still near Lara and Alice, who were talking to her gently, and Yang couldn't blame her for it. She was a local, after all. She remembered the phone call Taylor had made to her father, assuring him she was headed to a shelter and would be safe, and that she loved him and would see him soon. It made Yang's heart clench, and made her miss her dad something fierce. It sometimes slipped her mind that Taylor was actually younger than Ruby, considering how she sometimes acted.
The Undersiders were nearby as well, discussing what they were going to be doing. Harry had let them arrange things among themselves outside of his basic instructions, understanding that they'd been working together for long enough that trying to impose his plans on them was futile.
She refocused on Legend when he started going into specifics about what they were going to be doing. She already knew most of the information about the way Leviathan fought due to extensive briefings with Cortana on all the Endbringers, but you never knew what you could learn from someone with first hand experience.
What was most worrisome was how Leviathan might screw with them in Brockton Bay specifically. Apparently the Thinkers thought it likely that he intended on using his control over water to make the aquifer under the city collapse it into a gigantic sinkhole.
It was as everybody was about to get the coordination and search and rescue armbands that Dragon monitored that Harry landed from the sky, setting a large wooden chest down and opening it to reveal a large amount of pretty looking silver necklaces with red stones on pendants.
"Everyone, please take one of these with your armband." He said with a pleasant smile on his face.
"What are they?" A villain from Ireland called Danny Boy asked, eyeing the chest of necklaces distrustfully.
"Each of these will give the wearer a defensive shield equal to a Brute 7 or 8 for the next six hours." Harry explained to a group of suddenly much more interested capes. "Before you ask, I created them all in a similar way to how Dauntless empowers his gear, but unlike him slowly making something permanently stronger over time with repeated uses of his power I made something temporary very strong all at once."
There was some hesitation from the various capes before Glory Girl stepped forward and took one, throwing it over her neck where it resized itself to fit her without falling off. Seeing Glory Girl show that confidence her family followed suit, and then the heroes and finally the villains.
"Thank you, Nevermore." Legend said, smiling at Harry. "That'll save a lot of lives."
"That's indeed why I did it." Harry said with a smile of his own.
"That ability wasn't in your file, though." Legend probed lightly.
Harry chuckled. "Let's just say you'll have a lot more to add to it by the time this day is over." He said before personally handing the man a necklace, which Legend took gratefully.
Before too much longer Yang stood on an elevated position with a lot of the close combat capes as they watched the roiling sea, waiting for Leviathan to arrive. The height was needed because Leviathan liked to use minor tsunamis to wash away his opposition, using them to supplement his more localized physical abilities. He tended to sweep away and either bash or drown any groundbound capes to death with them. Harry's necklaces should help with the bashing, but not so much the drowning.
She shifted from foot to foot, focusing on her annoyance at what the rain was doing to her hair to help deal with any anxiousness over what was coming. Then Dragon reported through the armbands. "ETA to landfall, two minutes."
Yang clenched her fists, and then her eyes widened when she saw the tsunami Leviathan always sent ahead of himself to break the defenses begin to approach. As she did she heard Cortana's voice in the earbud that was part of her mask. "Beast Boy, proceed to provided intercept coordinates, prepare to strike on my mark."
Yang didn't really know what Beast Boy was supposed to be doing against Leviathan, though she hoped it was good. Then she had to refocus on the wave when Dragon shouted "Wave!" over the armbands to let them know to brace.
Before they had an opportunity to do more than tense up what appeared to be a screen of polarized glass, the kind she had in her sunglasses, showed up in front of them, a hundred feet high and quickly extending itself to cover the entire coast. She looked up to see Harry floating high near the top of the shield he'd created. The massive wave hit the dark shield with a deafening crash, but not a single drop made it through and onto the shore proper. The massive amount of water then fell back, its force spent.
Yang could tell all the other capes were in awe of what had just happened, but then Dragon reported. "ETA five seconds!"
"MARK!" Cortana bellowed at almost the exact same time, and Yang didn't have to wait long to see what Beast Boy was going to do.
A truly immense shape emerged from the roiling sea in the middle of the bay with shocking suddenness, reaching a height of about four hundred feet within a couple of seconds, the water displaced by the sudden appearance of the monster hitting the shield Harry still had up with even more force than Leviathan's wave had.
The creature was reptilian, heavyset, and had large bony plates along its back as it stood in a bipedal manner. The green skin let everyone know it was Beast Boy, though it was darker than most of the changeling's transformations.
Yang recognized it. She'd just watched the movies a week ago with the others. But she'd had no idea Beast Boy could even transform into it.
She could tell those around her also recognized what Beast Boy had transformed into. One of the other capes even let out a rather strangled and high pitched "Well, there goes Tokyo!"
Then, getting over her shock, Yang realized that Beast Boy had an arm up, fist clenched as he held something. Focusing her eyes widened again when she realized he was holding Leviathan in his fist, the Endbringer writhing and struggling to get out his grasp. The occasional glow of Beast Boy's aura protecting him said that he wasn't having much success.
Beast Boy glared at the flailing Endbringer in his grip, breathed in, and let out a deafening, and truly iconic, roar.
"SKREEEONGK!"
As people began getting over their shock, screaming and yelling in fear, confusion, and even hope, Yang felt a fierce smile appear on her lips.
"Go go, Godzilla…"
BOOYAH, MOTHERFUCKERS!
I've been planning for that moment at the end for ages, and to finally reach it feels so goddamn good! This is what I wanted to use to drop the mic on the fifth anniversary of this fic!
I already know there are at least a dozen people screaming 'that's not how BB's powers work!'. And to them I say… I know!
I set up the explanation for how he was able to do this ages ago. So many chapters ago, in fact, that I'm sure the vast majority of you completely forgot about the event. I didn't make a big deal of it even at the time, after all.
Still, to finally get to use BBzilla against Leviathan… This will be effin glorious!
And I have interesting things planned for after the Leviathan fight. I'll give you one small hint. I call it… The Benevolent Show Of Force.
In other news: ding dong, the Coil's dead! Honestly, his death was nice and ignominious. I quite liked it.
I can't think of anything else to comment on, so I guess I'll head on into my usual reminders:
As I've stated previously, my best friend and their roommate have a podcast. Yes, I know, everybody and their mother has a podcast these days, but I beg you to hear me out. It's called 'Two Idiots and a Dog', and they talk about pop culture in general with different shows for different topics. So far they've primarily done 'Idiots on Film', talking about classic or important movies, and another one called 'Idiots Unleashed', where they just take a topic their Discord members vote on and talk/argue/rant about it without a filter. The latest episode of 'Idiots on Film' was on the Free Guy, and their latest 'Idiots Unleashed' was on the idiocy of The Clone Wars. Not the show, the actual SW event itself. They also recently did a review and discussion of the Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Sandman, because they're huge geeks and why wouldn't they? So if you're interested, that's 'Two Idiots and a Dog' on most podcasting apps. Please check it out. For me? *puppy dog eyes*
Secondly, I am, as always, truly grateful for those of you who are willing to send a buck or two my way out of the kindness of your heart. I relied on all of you when I wasn't working, and it definitely still helps even now that I've had a job for nearly six months. Thanks to you I have more of a cushion to get things I still need or pay essential bills. Like Final Fantasy XIV. (Speaking of, Ryuma Hyurinmaru on the Coeurl Server, Crystal Datacenter, North America)
Of course, let us not forget that you do get something out of it. For each dollar that you donate to my Pat A Ron, you get a vote in my monthly update poll stating what you want to see updated next month. And if what you vote for doesn't win immediately, no worries! Non-winning votes roll over to the next poll, so a fic that only gets a vote a month will eventually win (though it might take a bit, to be brutally honest). No Good Deed was recently updated due to turtling the others, for example.
That said, if a fic hasn't won in a long time, I will take it off the poll and update it anyway, like I am in the process of doing for On Swirling Ashes, which is unfortunately still taking me longer than expected but is making progress.
So yes, donate to my Pat A Ron, you get a say in what I update. Everybody wins! So that's Pat A Ron dotcom /athanmortis. The current poll ends on September 5th.
However, as something new, I have set up a Ko-Fi for those of you who don't want to use Pat A Ron to support me. The only caveat is that it won't count towards any voting, so I honestly don't see it getting much use. That said, it's there for those of you that prefer it. Seeing as I only created it a few weeks ago, please give me any feedback on it so I can make improvements. That's ko-fi dotcom /athanmortis78653 .
I believe that's it. Thank you all again for reading and reviewing. Hope you have a good one. Till next time!