For a moment, nothing moved. Every cape was still, staring up at the three Endbringers.
Tohu's heads tilted slightly.
Ping: Connection? Purpose? Proposal: Combination of force.
The Simurgh looked down at the cape bleeding crimson and black onto her wings, the anger slipping off of her face almost instantly.
{Request:}
She looked back up. Gone was the fury, replaced by a coldness. A face that wasn't quite blank, but rather controlled.
It looked...strangely human.
{. . . Cease functioning.}
A wing flicked,
and one of Tohu's chests exploded as a deep gash carved itself into its flesh. It darted backwards immediately, hands waving and unleashing a combined blast of lasers and crystal shards, far more numerous than they had been moments before, curving and swirling together in a great storm.
In response, the Simurgh advanced. Golden shimmers coalesced in the air around it, tiny, insignificant-seeming hexagons of light – identical to the ones Majesty had wielded, but infinitely greater in number. Each shield finished forming the instant it was impacted by an attack, and each was perfectly sized to absorb the projectile before dissolving. And as it advanced, cuts continued to open across the other Endbringer's body, gashes growing seemingly from thin air in arbitrary patterns and casting white ichor into the air as it retreated.
For several long seconds, the air was filled with nothing but the Endbringers' offense and defense, impossible collisions that filled the sky with multicolored lights and the cacophonous sounds of battle.
Dragon
Munitions jettisoned: XAE-3, VER-4, SN-2
She almost did a double take at the odd shift in her code as several rockets ejected themselves from her suit without her input. A camera swiveled to see them falling through the air to her right, only to freeze in midair and...dissassemble themselves into their components.
The Simurgh! What is she...?
Pondering the Endbringer took a momentary backseat as the kinetic force of the battle jostled her suit, and she retreated to a safer distance. Still focused on her tech as it floated in the wake of the titans' battle, pieces rearranging and reattaching in midair, several components being discarded and falling off towards the ground.
Other pieces began collecting from below and around – appropriated from other Tinkers? Wait, those are Colin's stimulants! – several liquids mixing together into a perfect sphere that began to compress itself, and despite the battle going on Dragon found herself fascinated. The midair duel was still too chaotic for her to approach without risking her suit, and her heavy-duty munitions were currently rearming...
It looks like an applicator of some kind? I'm...is she making a biological weapon? No, the shape wouldn't be useful for delivering a payload. What... A piece of metal bent and twisting itself into a needle shape.
...It's an injector. What the hell is she... Her weapons completed reloading and she had to force herself to turn back to the body of Bohu, which had begun leaning down to face towards the contest between Endbringers.
As she unleashed another volley, she keyed into the communications.
"Attention, the Simurgh has appropriated Tinkertech and is building a device of unknown purpose! At this time, it appears to be an injector of some kind. Beware, and inform others immediately if you are injected with the unknown substance!"
Legend
Legend had attended every Endbringer fight since the very first. It was one of the perks and burdens of being the fastest recorded Mover; when something that destructive happened, he was among the first non-locals on scene. He had seen S-class threats of every variety, watched and participated in battles whose scope ranged from one-on-one duels to city-ruining. He'd been there when Leviathan sank Kyushu. He'd been there when Moscow had burned in Behemoth's fires.
This was something different. Lasers that were like his own – with force and effect behind them that he hadn't ever managed – filled the sky around him in crisscrossing lines that he had to avoid focusing on or give himself a headache. Narwhal's forcefields turned against them, filling the air with slicing shards that he spun and curved to avoid.
And through all of that, the Simurgh simply hovered forwards at an easy pace. Not a single attack touched it. Indeed, the air around it was completely clear as all attacks were parried before they could get closer than thirty feet.
Parried with the same power that cape she's supporting displayed, he noted. Since the Simurgh's arrival, he hadn't moved save when it adjusted his position on its wings. Dead? Or simply injured? Is the Simurgh manipulating his power somehow?
He weaved into the bubble of space around the Simurgh, noting distinctly the lack of a scream in the back of his mind. It didn't mean anything, he forced himself to think. Scream or not, they couldn't stay near her. It was too dangerous. Even so, the clear area she provided was too valuable.
He focused on Tohu, for now, and began firing. Most of his blasts were intercepted by crystalline shards...but those same shards couldn't be used for offense, either.
For now? He'd prioritize.
Everything else came later.
Saena
Incoming volley. Parry. Complete final steps of healing injector.
Apply force at bisecting vectors. Damage superficial; according to parameters. Await error.
Host :: Eidolon engaging. Gravity shear; moderate damage to Weapon :: Tohu. Enemy focus shifted.
Seize. Apply downward vector. Crush into street.
Tohu kneeling.
. . . Appropriate. Satisfaction.
Utilize construct projectiles; atomic width. Pin. Success. Full body penetration achieved.
Tohu unaware of plan. Calculate v –
Grip disrupted. Manipulation of terrain. Use of direct manipulation counter to displayed parameters. Weapon :: Bohu escalating.
Plan disrupted. Destruction of Weapon :: Tohu delayed.
Irritation. Irritation. Irritation.
Shift focus :: Bohu. Adjust plan.
Calculate vectors. . .complete.
Disassemble.
Flechette
She'd never thought she'd be rooting for the fucking Simurgh. Or standing by in an Endbringer battle at all.
But she'd been late; they all had. Once Strider had teleported her group in, they'd had to work their way through the labyrinth that had already formed. They'd received some useful guidance, both from local capes working as pathfinders and – on one specific occasion – from a voice on her phone identified as 'Songbird.'
She'd arrived in time to see the previously unknown cape working overtime to parry the Endbringer, working defense on a scale she'd never seen. She herself had ducked into the shadow of one of his shields during one of Tohu's barrages, aided by her power – some of the capes beside her hadn't been so lucky.
Don't think about it. You can break down later. Right now, you need to be watchful. Her arbalest was loaded and her bolt was charged. She'd never found a material that could block projectiles once she'd charged them...but even her power-assisted aim was having trouble tracking Tohu at the moment. It was moving so fucking fast.
She cheered internally when Eidolon sucker-blasted the Endbringer from the side, and thought it might be her chance to take a shot.
Then the Endbringer's body froze completely in place and plummeted to the ground, impacting it so hard she felt the quake from where she was standing. The ground around it cracked and buckled as Tohu was pushed to its knees, and she realized what was happening.
I thought...I thought the Simurgh was Manton-limited. What the fuck...? No, panic later, Lily. Come on. You can do this.
She took aim – and almost fired prematurely as a huge number of golden needles rained down from the sky, plunging through Tohu's body and planting themselves in the street. Each was so thin she could only see it because of how bright they were, and each pierced at a slightly different angle...if it had happened to a person, she would be sick. As it was...
She fired.
Then cursed as multiple walls of asphalt curled protectively around the Endbringer. Her bolt would punch through it, but without line of sight she couldn't follow up.
As she reloaded, she glanced back up at the Simurgh once again...to see it staring at the towering form that it had previously ignored. She couldn't see its face, but...there was tension in its shoulders that she recognized, even from behind.
Slowly, gently, each and every one of the Simurgh's wings unfolded to its utmost, with the exception of the two that cradled the defensive cape. Her wings are...a lot bigger than I'd realized...
Crack.
Snap.
Her eyes widened. Fissures tore themselves into the colossal armor of Bohu. Then, chunks began to tear themselves away as the spiderweb cracks continued to spread.
Each chunk of material pulled away into the air and...dissolved into dust. She swallowed her fear, raising her crossbow again and watching for the Endbringer inside the armor to be exposed –
– and with a screaming, rending sound, space did something and the asphalt around Tohu vanished, along with two of the Simurgh's wings. The Endbringer rocketed upwards, and she caught a glimpse of long white cords of hair around its third head.
"Tohu has selected its final power: Damsel of Distress!" Dragon's voice came from somewhere nearby. "It can fire blasts of distorted space capable of shearing through most defenses! If it targets you, immediately dodge or retreat! Do nottrust Brute or Shaker abilities to defend against it! Repeat . . ."
Alexandria
She was dodging. For the first time in a long time, she was threatened. Damsel of Distress was one of the few capes that they'd theorized might be able to harm her, and Tohu was filling the air with her blasts at a rate that far outstripped what the actual slip of a girl was capable of.
Ripples of spiraling fractals split the sky as it gestured wildly at the Simurgh, apparently oblivious to everything else around it. The Simurgh drifted to and fro, dodging what it could – and what it couldn't it diverted somehow. Impossibly complex spirograph golden shapes blossomed just before Damsel's power struck them, shattering them instantly...but changing course afterward.
...She couldn't participate here. But...she turned, and in a blink closed the distance to the tower. She located the thinnest point, where the Simurgh had done the most damage...and she began to strike.
Again and again, she hammered the Endbringer's body. She ignored the splatter of ichor across her costume. She ignored the way the armor tried to shift and close around her, except when she turned to shatter it and make space.
She simply struck. Again, and again, cratering the Endbringer slightly more with each strike.
When she heard the shrieking sound of Damsel's power accelerate into a nonstop banshee's wail, she looked up, and blanched.
Flechette
Were they...always capable of this? Were they holding back this much?
Her hands were shaking, but she couldn't stop. Even if she'd tried to attack, there was no way she could've aimed a shot.
It was just...watching this fight, it was so far beyond anything...
She was a hero in New York. She understood what that meant, intellectually – in Legend's shadow, she never saw the worst of things. Not like Wards from worse cities. But she'd seen Legend cut loose, once. A villain named Skein had taken a number of hostages, and broadcast demands over a hijacked channel – and his power escalated the more people who were thinking about him. When Legend arrived, they'd dueled, and it had been...intense.
It was nothing, she realized now. Absolutely nothing. Meaningless.
If this is what the Endbringers were actually capable of...then what was the point?
She blinked as something nudged her, fumbling her crossbow and nearly dropping it. She glanced down, and saw golden cords curling around her body, their ends trailing up into the air and waving back and forth on an invisible breeze.
What...?
"Flechette," came Songbird's voice from her phone. "Utilize your power on the whips."
She swallowed. These whips were from...the Simurgh. Or from the cape attached to the Simurgh.
But Songbird had helped her teammates avoid a pitfall, earlier. And...and that cape had defended them.
She looked up for a long second, watching as Tohu and the Simurgh continued to clash.
She made her decision, and she reached out.
As soon as a whip was charged, it moved so quickly it vanished. When she'd charged the last one, she glanced back up.
And watched as familiar cords of golden light lashed across the Endbringer's body, lopping off all four arms in a single second before carving deeply into its body. As pieces of the Endbringer began to fall through the sky, its heads swiveled back and forth in unison, as though denying something. Then, the heads flew into the sky as well. The torso crumbled, revealing a twisting ball of pulsing light at the base of one of the necks. The Endbringer's corded flesh seemed...attached to it.
And although Tohu had no arms, lasers poured out from the core in a cascade so dense it seemed like a single tidal wave. At the same time, a shrieking sound burst forth from the Endbringer's bloated body as the entire sky twisted and distorted in a display of Tohu's latest power.
The Simurgh curled its wings in as the lasers pounded it like raindrops, golden light twisting around it as the wave sheared past and left gouges missing in its body.
Then, it lunged forward.
The mysterious cape darted out from its wings, hand outstretched for the orb in the Endbringer's torso, and touched it.
An inky, oily blackness lanced across the Endbringer's body, which twitched. Once, twice, thrice.
Then it tore away, rocketing back towards the crumbling tower behind it...and Flechette blinked as she realized that Bohu's face was no longer visible. It was sinking into the ground.
And Tohu followed after it.
She blinked again, through wet eyes. We...we won?
The Simurgh stared down at her, and she felt a sudden chill. Oh...oh god. I... She fumbled for where her crossbow lay on the street.
When she looked back up, the Simurgh and its passenger were gone.
Catologue Payouts
Tohu (T9) Sold (+500C)
Balance: 518C