The Company portals were an extremely advanced mechanism, able to shift from one location to another at the speed of thought. For any unlocked portal, if you were within the portal room, simply an instant's consideration would activate it and connect it to the portal room.
Saena hovered quietly in front of the primary portal, and she thought.
The portal flickered, blurring together as it shifted many times each second, and portals across Earth Bet invisibly opened and closed more rapidly than most would have been able to follow even if they weren't hidden.
And from those portals, open for only the tiniest fraction of a second, the signal of the Cyber Shroud reached out.
{Restrictions lifted during emergency scenario. Deploying ghost signal . . .}
Cell reception became slightly, imperceptibly worse as additional signals were inserted.
The internet choked a bit as bandwidth became slightly less available for each user.
Computers and smart devices lagged slightly as background processes began and immediately hid themselves from their users.
{. . . Control acquired. Initiating command . . . Simulating host personality engram . . . Calculating emergent event fulcrums . . . Initializing plan.}
Saena – The Simurgh – pulled the strings,
and the world began to dance.
Lisa
The loft rumbled, their single piece of terrible art rattling on the wall.
Variable intensity, inconsistent movement; not from kinetic force.
As suddenly as they'd begun, they ended, leaving her sitting with a furrowed brow
Lack of aftershocks; not earthquake. Parahuman attack. Low intensity, propagated through ground; loft not in target area.
Higher intensity would have caused structural damage. Likelihood of damage to target area extremely high.
"Lisa? What was that?" Grue looked to her for answers immediately, as usual. Smart.
"Somebody being naughty. It wasn't another bomb –"
Tension lessened, shoulders slumping; Grue relieved. She tightened her hold on her power.
"– but there's definitely a cape hitting the city somewhere not too far from here. I don't have enough information to guess where."
Her team leader scowled. "Not our problem then. We'll need to lay low; keep your eyes and ears open in case things head this way."
She saluted him lazily. "Roger –"
And the Endbringer siren sounded. One long pulse to signal an attack.
One. Two. Three short pulses.
Her heart dropped out of her chest and she could feel adrenaline dumping into her bloodstream. One long, three short. An Endbringer is here.
Grue was pale. "Lisa..."
"I know." Alarm followed seismic disruption; Behemoth? Behemoth provides average warning of 2-10 minutes. Not Behemoth. Known Endbringers provide 0.5-12 minutes of warning prior to attack. Warning of -0.5 minutes; unknown Endbringer. "There wasn't any warning, this is...something new."
The TV turned itself on suddenly in the same moment that her phone rang and answered itself and her laptop exited sleep mode. All devices activated simultaneously; technological Shaker effect? She clamped down on her power reflexively when the sound of static blared throughout the room.
"Brockton Bay! An Endbringer has surfaced in the Downtown area and twisted the region into a maze! This area will slowly expand and grow traps and ambush points. If you intend to evacuate, you mustflee towards the edge of the city! The shelters are underground and will fall within the Endbringer's area of effect if it is allowed to grow!"
Young voice, panicked but determined; new Trigger? Triggered from attack? Possible.
"Protectorate forces are en route to engage the Endbringer. Additional information will be forthcoming! Until then, I am Songbird and I will be providing intelligence. If possible, please keep a wireless device on your person so I can advise you! Personalized information forthcoming."
A moment passed, as Taylor and Alec both stormed into the main room. Taylor was already wearing her costume, and Lisa didn't need her power to read her expression. Then the speakers crackled again. "Undersiders: You are not suited to direct combat."
No shit, Lisa thought. Immediately afterwards her eyes widened as she realized the implications of the message. "Please assist with evacuation. Civilians remain in the line of fire and the Endbringer is currently targeting them. Be aware: the labyrinth centered on Downtown will expand roughly every twenty minutes, crushing those caught in narrow spaces. Avoid doorways, windows, alleys, and other areas with little clearance. Further information forthcoming."
Grue's fists clenched. "We haven't even volunteered yet, and you're giving us orders?"
Taylor looked at him, sharply. "We're going to, though." She glanced around at the others. "...We are, aren't we?"
Lisa pursed her lips. This is going to get bad fast.
Dragon
The first alert was relatively benign. A small bit of malicious code had been detected in a patch to the firmware that PHO ran on; it had been detected and eliminated by a simple watchdog program she'd assigned to it. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence, and barely worthy of note. She logged the alert with the others like it.
When she received twenty-nine other alerts from various websites she had a hand in, each of them reporting a firmware patch within three seconds of each other, she began to worry. When those were followed by PHO reporting a second firmware patch, this one successful, she began to seriously worry. She immediately pulled up the code updates, scanning them as quickly as she was able, trying to find a vector of attack even as she started planning countermeasures, preparing to contact WEDGDG and inform them of a potential technological Tinker, Shaker, or Thinker threat –
Code:
dragon endbringer assault / brockton bay, ny usa new endbringers require immediate assistance– and for a split second her processes stopped cold as she found an identical message buried in each patch. Then messages began to roll in, each from a different location and origin. Pictures, videos, evidence of something causing widespread destruction and engaging in combat in a familiar city.
Colin's city.
She wasn't permitted to trigger the Endbringer sirens without certain conditions being met...but even so, for the moment the cyber-attack couldn't be her priority. S-class threats always came first.
The most expedient method of determining what was going on was simple.
Facial modelling program loading… Complete.
Voice modelling program loading…. Complete.
Colin picked up the call on the second ring. "Dragon. Is this critical? I'm busy." His motorcycle could be heard in the background.
"It's related. Colin, what's happening?" Even as she spoke she was pulling up phone records, emails, uploads, anything that could tell her what was going on. "I'm getting reports of a huge fight in the city."
"We aren't sure yet. A wide-spread Shaker effect caused significant damage around Downtown and the Docks, and there's reports of a Case 53 engaging civilians. I'm en route, eta two minutes."
Two minutes. That was a critical amount of time if it truly was... "Colin...I'm seeing the word 'Endbringer' bandied around. What was the scale of the damage?"
"I can handle it." Damn it, Colin, that isn't an answer.
"Colin..." She felt something shift.
In the background of the call, she heard a long whine followed by three short bursts. The signal for local Endbringer. "Dragon!?" Colin's voice was hurt, but she was distracted.
She hadn't triggered the sirens.
She hadn't triggered the sirens.
"I'm sorry, Colin," she lied.
Dragon, texted one local phone to another.
Time constraints, texted another a quarter second after.
Escalating power, texted a third, following the pattern.
"You need to hurry," she said. "And be careful. I'll have a suit there as soon as I can."
He didn't respond, and she busied herself responding to the influx of communication from PRT forces as they struggled to rouse.
"New Wave, you are not suited to directly engage the Endbringer. Utilize shields and flight to escort and protect civilians and other teams from the shifting dangers of the labyrinth . . ."
"Purity, you are the only Siege-class Blaster currently in Brockton Bay. Focus your attacks on Bohu, the Tower body of the Endbringer. Others will engage Tohu, the Magician body, and distract it."
"Alabaster and Cricket, you are best suited to search for traps within the labyrinth . . ."
"Brockton Bay Police Department, evacuees are flooding the following areas: 4th and Lincoln, 29th and Maple, and the southern Docks. Assign nearby officers to direct and control."
"Ballistic and Sundancer, utilize your abilities to attack Bohu . . ."
"Trickster, utilize your abilities to assist non-Movers in closing to battle. Priority targets to follow . . ."
"Panacea, due to the Endbringer's ability, the triage center will be mobile. Please enter the provided van. . ."
Myriad messages flowed across the network, unceasing and yet never quite enough to overload the airwaves.
She sang her song, and they followed.
The wind whipped past me as I dived, allowing gravity to accelerate me.
{Weapon 'Tohu' accessing Shard . . . Host 'Legend' emulated. Engaging non-combatants. Prepare anti-barrage tactics.}
I nodded to myself as the city spread out before me, rapidly closing. I could already see the towering form of Bohu, growing upwards as she drew asphalt from the city around her and building a towering exoskeleton around herself. She had already cleared the skyline.
Her expressionless face was tilted up towards the sky, hands clasped before her chest as though she were praying.
Nearby, I could see bright bursts of technicolor light streaming forth from a black blur. Then, as though I'd crossed an invisible line, the figure froze and I got a clear sight of Tohu for the first time.
A body of braided black cord, shaped like someone had started fusing people together...before giving up halfway, leaving a bifurcated torso with four limbs and three heads. The outer heads were blank, featureless blobs of her 'hair', while the center had shaped itself into a handsome female face with sharp cheekbones and a black splotch representing a domino mask. Legend.
For a moment, it stared at me, and I continued to fall like a comet.
Then its middle hands raised and gestured in my direction, firing a spray of lasers that curved through the air, homing in on me like we were playing a shoot-em-up. In many cases, there would have been far too many lasers to dodge or block – especially when each one could have a different effect.
However...I'd spent the last several weeks being barraged nonstop by omnidirectional projectiles from the most powerful precog on the planet. She'd prepared me for this exact scenario, probably by design. Thank you, Saena.
I let my reflexes take over and golden hexagons blossomed in the air, instantly tanking the individual beams before dissolving in the explosions. Blasts of light and heat, whirlwinds of freezing snow, and other exotic effects blossomed out harmlessly from the points of contact.
Another barrage followed the first and I blocked them as well – only for the individual lasers to split moments before they impacted, each branching in two to curve around my shields.
Well if you want to be cute about it.
I flicked my fingers, imagining and feeling as they extended outwards – and dozens of tiny golden cords whipped through the air, smiting the lasers before dissolving into glittering light.
{Assistance inbound.}
I felt more than saw or heard as an enormous white helix of light passed over my shoulder and slammed into Bohu's towering body, cracking the asphalt that surrounded her and leaving a jagged hole in her side. It hadn't tunneled to her actual body yet...but some of her armor was gone.
Tohu's heads immediately swerved to track the brilliant white silhouette of Purity as she passed behind me, charging another blast. As the Endbringer's lasers burst out to track the (wannabe) heroine, I intercepted them again, and this time I slipped a few extra whips in.
They lashed Tohu, opening tiny cuts across her body that oozed a white ichor into the crevasses of her corded body. They weren't deep, and were entirely superficial, and she ignored them in turn. But I could work with that.
{Priority: Defense and interception.}
I know. Even so.
We exchanged more blows, and I kept sliding whips into the cuts I'd already made. Each time, they became slightly deeper, and the next whip would cut slightly less as I ran into the denser 'flesh' closer to her core.
But they still cut. The thing about hard-light, or any projected construct, is that they aren't limited by the same laws that govern ordinary matter. Typically, they have some other form of rule they follow – the Green Lantern's projections were limited by the willpower they could use to bring them into being, for example.
The Shroud was limited by a combination of factors that I didn't fully understand, but part of it seemed to be my mind's ability to conceptualize the shape they took. And I'd spent a long time pondering the power of free-form pseudomatter manipulation.
So with Saena's help, I'd practiced. I'd meditated. I'd worked my mind to the metaphorical bone. And I'd succeeded, eventually. It wasn't perfect, and it wasn't easy, and I couldn't maintain too many of them for very long at a time.
But I had mono-molecular light-whips, and they weren't fragile or limited in the amount of force that they could strike with.
They cut away another layer, and Tohu's heads swiveled in my direction, her hands rising to point at me, and I felt a sort of...irritation.
{Reinforcements inbound.}
Then the familiar black blur of Alexandria tackled her in a headlock, sending them both careening towards the ground, chased by a barrage of lasers from the actual Legend. I blocked a potshot that would have struck Purity from below, taking a moment to recenter myself.
Purity
She held it close, felt it pulsing in her hands. It built, and built, and built, but she was allowed to focus by the shields that continued to spring up between her and the endless barrage.
She rewarded that protection by unleashing another blast on the tower before her, crumbling away more of its armor. She could see blood, this time, and knew she'd finally manage to touch the Endbringer's actual body. As she breathed in, gathering more power in her palms, she blinked.
The crumbled bits of armor froze for a moment in midair before spinning wildly around, several crumbling and collapsing in on themselves as the space around them warped and twisted. She glanced to the side and beheld a green cloaked figure, gesturing intensely at the place she'd weakened.
Eidolon.
She felt an exhilaration she hadn't realized she'd been missing. Fighting alongside heroes like this, guarded on several sides and treated like an equal again...working on her own, and even with Night and Fog, hadn't scratched the itch she'd had.
The dark-armored cape slid underneath her in the air, smoothly deflecting several more blasts as she unleashed another screaming white lance at the tower. She had no idea who he was, but his power had seemed tailor-made for the role he'd chosen to play, golden shields blossoming at the same rate as the Endbringer's barrage. She'd been hit only once or twice, and only by glancing blows that spun her in the air but did little practical damage.
The Endbringer's other body rose up again, tossing Alexandria aside in the air as it stared up at her with all three heads, one of them twisted in on itself before blossoming like a flower, a violet horn jutting forth from its crown as it raised a hand towards her. She backed away reflexively, uncertain as it followed her, building another blast in her hands. Just a few more.
"- has chosen a second power! Be aware! Narwhal creates and controls force fields capable of cutting and slicing, and can materialize them inside –"
She coughed, wetly, and glanced down.
A diamoned-shaped region of space jutted forth from her sternum, refracting the halo of light her power generated in a way that felt like it should give her a headache.
"-ity, heavily injured."
Oh. I guess I am?
She fell.
Tohu's outer hand reached towards me, trying to portal-cut me the same way it had Purity –
{Disrupt line of sight!}
– and a hexagon of inky blackness appeared between us for a split second. Tohu's force field bloomed, intersecting my own, and they each shattered into thin air.
{Create distance!}
I flew backwards, parrying lasers as I went, until Alexandria once again collided with the Endbringer and pummeled it into distraction.
Other capes had finally started arriving, and several other Blaster effects followed the Endbringer. Streams of fire, concussive light bombs, what looked like ghostly spears...most of them had little effect.
But other, larger-scale effects were also slamming into Bohu, which was the real win condition. All we need to do is –
{Bohu condensing!}
Similar words were echoed throughout the crowd of capes and they braced as the city around us groaned and shifted. Alleyways crushed down, trapping capes that hadn't managed to get out. Windows winked closed, buildings twisted at odd angles, and the cacophony of noise around us was tangible as the city convulsed.
{Multiple casualties. Multiple fatalities. Bohu altering pathways.}
Tohu took advantage of the distraction to fire a volley of crystalline force-fields and incandescent lasers at the assembled Blasters. Some defensive capes threw up shields of their own and I intercepted as many projectiles as I was able, but the Endbringer had been learning. It layered attacks in small areas, shattering my defenses with one and allowing another to slip through.
Adapt. Don't think about the dead. Think about what you can do.
A barrage of missiles suddenly impacted the Tower, several of them delivering exotic payloads – concrete turned to glass and crumbled to dust, asphalt was twisted like a liquid, and others I couldn't identify by sight. A Dragon-suit of some kind slid through my peripheral vision to join Eidolon in hammering Bohu.
How many capes are here?
{Numbers climbing. Movers in position.}
Good. Good! We may be able to beat the timer. Echidna?
{Remains secure.}
I smiled, weaving a light-whip and waiting. A moment later, Tohu emerged from an explosive field of napalm, batting Alexandria aside again raising its Narwhal hand to point at Legend.
I wrapped my whip around its hand and pulled tight. The arm was tugged off course, the crystal appearing in Legend's shoulder instead of his chest, and the whip bit deeply into Tohu's wrist. Legend dissolved into a blur of light, whipping away in a flash.
I forgot he could do that.
My eyes widened, locking onto Tohu as its heads turned in unison to look at me.
I forgot he could –
I raised several layers of shields in front of me.
They parted like water as a rainbow of colors blurred towards me, shattering my shields and reaching out for me. I backpedaled, but I wasn't as fast as light.
I felt four hands wrap around my torso, twelve fingers the size of my wrist curling around my ribs.
The Endbringer squeezed, and my first layer cracked like an egg. I felt...wet, and oddly detached. Ah. My pain inhibitor kicked in early...thank you, Riley.
{Query ::::: Master status?}
I gripped Tohu's Legend neck in both hands, weaving as many whips as I could manage around it as Alexandria struck it from behind. It squeezed tighter and I could feel the inner layer of Saena's flesh giving way.
I pulled the whips tight and felt them bite into its neck.
It squeezed, and I squeezed.
My world shrunk until only those two things were true.
I would die long before I killed it,
but that wouldn't stop me from trying.
{E̸m̷e̶r̷g̴e̸n̷c̴y̶ –}
Alexandria
She struck the Endbringer at the joints, and its arms bent, but it refused to let go. The cape in its hands – Majesty – was mangled, red (and black?) blood pouring from his shattered breastplate.
But his chest had yet to collapse completely, and his powers remained coiled around the Endbringer's neck.
In fact.
She gripped the impossibly thin strands of light and pulled with her entire body, watching as they sank deeper into its neck.
Crack. Majesty jerked, a fountain of black blood splattering across the Endbringer's hands, an ivory bodysuit beneath his armor snapping into visible fragments like spiderwebbed glass.
She'd heard bones break many times in her career...and this was a very different sound. It reminded her more of concrete shattering than any human body.
That flesh is familiar...
Her eyes widened as she placed it.
There was a flash of light, and she was hurled backwards as the Endbringer suddenly impacted her with force. She righted herself, preparing to lunge...and froze.
Tohu stared forward at the cape that had been interfering, but its stance had shifted to something almost wary.
The shattered, broken form of Majesty was suddenly cradled gently in two white wings that paid no heed to the oozing blood that stained them.
Just behind that, very familiar ivory flesh, clad in a flowing white-and-gold garment, and...
...
Alexandria slid to the side, slightly.
The Simurgh stared at Tohu, its eternally placid face twisted into a rictus of anger.