0.14
From the heavens, a demon descended with a wicked song.
From the earth, a roar of crashing waves deafened onlookers as it surged like a living being.
The Hopekiller was a comet, a dark portent, an ode to the end of things.
Every mortal looked up from the city below.
Men and women, young and old, strong and weak.
The city's mayor sat in his office, his staff and family evacuated. A national guard commander sat across from him. Between them a timer and a handgun with two rounds and a radio.
Trapped on a slowly rolling bus was a mother with her babe wailing. Unable to speak words, but aware that something terrible rushed down upon them all, the child gave voice to the frustration and terror they all felt.
Uniformed, with his trauma vest in place, an unfamiliar rifle cradled in his hands an officer kept the peace - such as he was. Staring down at a looter he'd shot for breaking into a family's house and trying to rob them. He tipped his hat at the four shaken people waiting inside and ignored the beeping coming from the timer he, too, wore.
With helmet in place and fusion torch in hand, sweat beading his brow, a Tinker still tinkered. The gun he was building was bigger than any pistol, bigger than any rifle. It was three stories long and the ominously glowing chamber even now thrummed with life.
All stopped and fell silent, looking up when the sky went dark, as they saw an early morning eclipse when the angel-clad-demon met with its first opposition.
A rain of blows ascended as a multitude of liquid tendrils lashed out. Like a barrage of fists, splitting the air and dousing the city below in fresh dew as it clashed with the monster above, its song penetrating through the rising billows as if a needle had been punched into their heads.
To the onlookers before, the form of the white monstrosity known as the Simurgh was barely visible above them. Not before the massive water serpents coiled and lunged, booming blows bursting into rain drops and dust clouds as they hammered against the creature.
Over and over again, though for them it hadn't even been half a minute, the cacophony above drowned out even their sense of time as the winged form of the demon they had come to know and fear was sent careening away and the pressure on their minds eased for a moment.
But only for a moment.
As high above and down below, dozens upon dozens of the strong gathered to do battle. And win or lose, this would be their stand.
"Tch. She's tougher than she looks."
Taylor, no, Fontaine grimaced as the very same Simurgh she'd just pummeled immediately adjusted her position mid air and pushed herself back from being further driven away.
'Her physical composition appears to contain irregular elements. Likely native to the Sea of Stars. Blunt force will be effective at keeping her away, but by my estimates whatever damage we cause with this approach won't be a decisive blow.'
So just throwing water at her was off the table.
Got it.
"How does the bitch fly?"
Speaking out loud, the dozen or so Blasters around her turned to Legend.
"Telekinesis or anti-gravity. Not sure how it's applied. But she does not need to physically fly. One guy suggested it was gravitic manipulation via dimensional overlap."
"Who was that?"
"Sphere."
"Ah."
She had nothing else to see as the mind bogglingly immense quantity of water she was controlling gathered itself once more.
"Our turn."
King of Hearts, known as The Skewer launched forwards, the others following in his wake as the pyrokinetic rocketed across the sky. Clapping his hands together, a horizontal line of plasma flashed into being.
For a moment, Ziz looked like she might just be bisected, until a line of highway barriers of all things flung themselves in a direct intercept path.
The energy blasted vaporized the metal instantly, throwing up a cloud of scorching dust. Ziz, however, flew through that and flung the incinerated metal directly at the defenders in turn. Fontaine, having gathered moisture from the air, too, and especially in the wake of the attack, simply commanded the water molecules to cling to the greatest concentrations of heat. Meaning it was merely boiling hot steam, not burning gouts of metal, that stood in front of her allies. And she could control steam perfectly well.
Even if she couldn't kill the damn thing, making sure she couldn't get any closer to the city would have to be a victory in its own right. Which was precisely why when the Simurgh tried to descend a second time, she unleashed another cascade of blows to send her back.
Only she didn't expect the Simurgh to literally fly through them this time.
Focalors, analysis!
'It has adjusted its body for improved aerodynamics and momentum. Its power disperses the blunt force with a particulate cloud and allows the creature to move unimpeded.'
Biting her lip, she tried something else.
There was one more way to stop someone.
Stopping the attack, she immediately switched to a massive torrent instead, water glowing and solidifying into long chains as the Simurgh flew through the first blast, only to find itself ensnared by the dense liquid constructs. Tightly constraining it, Fontaine flexed her will over the chains and moved to slingshot the monster away once again.
Only for the Simurgh to literally slip through her hold.
'Reduced friction? A way to avoid physical constraints by adjusting the structure of the outer shell. How novel, it isn't every day that you meet a being capable of adjusting their physical make up to this extent without undergoing some form of physical transfiguration. Perhaps it is a peculiarity of its crystalline structure? It adapted much faster now than before.'
Fontaine tuned out her powers.
If she had something important to say, she would tell her directly.
Instead she was now faced with a rapidly approaching Simurgh, and the pressure straining against the edges of the mind increased. Not to the point it was audible, but she could tell the people below must have been feeling it as the Endbringer broke through her blockade.
Surprisingly, it was Eidolon that cried out, his voice creaming out over the armband's radios.
"Ready for incoming!"
Millions of pieces of debris suddenly swarmed up from under Ziz's current location. Whole trees came apart into inch long slivers, rocks were reduced to ripping clouds, several vehicles were rapidly and violently turned into metal shreds. At least one person was turned into a mass of ivory grapeshot.
"Shields, now!"
Barriers of light and sound, bolts of lighting and fire, and Narwhal's glowing protections flashed into being. But it was Eidolon himself that stole the show. Conjuring a small, purple orb into his hand, he held his hand high and sent a final command.
"Brace."
Millions of weapons turned into billions. The oncoming volley was… impossibly vast. Ziz's powers merely needed her to skim past a few outlying buildings to create entire waves of jagged ended glass.
Taylor panicked and tried to lash out with her abilities. Concentrating as much water mass as she could around Ziz. But the weapons themselves were everywhere. In a vast orb around her, some of the most potent already rotating up and away and only dipping down to lash out at fliers or block energy beams.
So when the Endbringer's counter attack fired off, Taylor managed to stop perhaps a quarter of it. Mostly by rapidly freezing as much of the ice as she could.
'But our powers are Hydro, not Cryo. That, dear one, is why it responds slowly.'
Unasked question answered, she could only sag in horror when the evacuation collum, the Hopekiller's target, was almost blotted out by the sheer number of attacks.
Barriers buckled.
Shields cracked.
Her own water was moving too slowly to help.
And then Eidolon raised his hand.
The words went weird.
Colors seem to pull and twist, as if the world was a watercolor and the paints too thin. Turning to face the hero, he, himself, seemed to be cracking as some pitch black void in the world violently sucked in everything towards itself.
Then, it stopped.
Ziz's weapons were destroyed in the tug of war between her own telekinesis and the freaking black hole he conjured into being for all of a second!
'Less than. Your perception of time was altered by the presence of its gravitational pull. You will learn to process such things independent of your body's current condition. For now, the… construct. Yes, I think it is a construct. It's attacking again.'
"Movers and Brutes, assist with rescue efforts."
Eidolon managed to issue the command, even as his body, then his costume, began to visibly regenerate - the hero's voice strained and in pain.
But Fontaine was not going to waste this opportunity!
When she attempted to grasp it, it slipped between her fingers.
When she tried to hammer it, it stopped and dispersed the force, and the distance between the Hopekiller and Canberra gradually shrunk.
"We need to herd her away from the population!"
Zipping seamlessly through the gaps in her water tendrils, Legend manifested off to her side. The original plan of keeping the Endbringer from getting close to the city wasn't working, but they could try and herd her away to a less populated area while the evacuation continued.
"How long until we reach the threshold?"
The older hero grimaced.
"Four minutes and counting."
'The threshold' was the numeric value associated with the shortest time span required for the Simurgh's mental attacks to drive an average person past the brink of sanity. It was, at best, an outline of how much time they had before the situation went from a rescue to an encirclement.
She wasn't about to let it get to that.
Canberra wouldn't be walled today.
"Get the Blasters ready. I'll push her your way!" With a clap, more to center herself than to achieve anything, Fontaine felt the water tendrils shift and bundle together into tightly compressed spheres. Like water balloons, they floated weightlessly around the heroine as Taylor took a deep steadying breath.
And with a movement of her hands, let off the next barrage of attacks.
The first bubble to hit the Simurgh was bouncy, elastic. The speeding monster had no time to adjust as her own momentum sent her flying into a salvo of blasts coming from Eidolon, the strange vibrating energy blasts causing the bird woman to stay in place as she broke down two other spheres into tiny, pointed water bullets.
And fired with extreme prejudice.
The creature's beautiful, pristine porcelain skin was riddled with holes, water seeping through the cracks as the strange distortion effect of Eidolon's power vanished and it sped off.
Or it tried to.
'I see, using water to inject an influenced substance into the enemy's body. Allowing you to restrain it.'
"Damnit, she's pushing me out!"
"She's a regenerator." Narwhal flew up next to Taylor. "Can you get her to stay where she is, though? Dragon's about to arrive. Her carriers are going to finish evacuating the nearest rally points."
Focus on helping evacuate the citizens.
The temporary stop was more than enough for a flying bear to shoot a beam at the Endbringer, sending it further away towards the outskirts. But at the same time evaporating the water that had been coalescing around and inside the Simurgh's body.
Had she taken that attack to shake off her hold?
Still, there was no time to let up. And so she exploded three of the bubbles that had floated around the Simurgh, souped up versions of her first attempt, each was strong enough to blast the endbringer upwards with sheer force.
'Concussive power does not appear to trigger irregular reactions from the crystaline flesh. Or rather, the flesh replenishes itself? It cannot disperse it as easily as blunt trauma.'
The next barrage of lasers from Legend seared through the air, curving around a hastily pulled together shield of debris to punch into the monster's shoulder. The same bear man from before capitalized on it, firing a beam of his own, much larger and more powerful, a continous stream that pulverized the pieces of stone and rebar as it blasted the Simurgh further and further off the center of the city.
"How is the evacuation?"
She pressed the communicator against the side of her face. Really it was just some kind of repurposed radio, but those who had been considered 'necessary firepower' were given a direct line to the big shots, while those down below had their own network.
"Dragon's transportations are on site, the first group is on their way. The second group is still gonna take another minute."
Sixty seconds.
A short amount of time by most accounts, but not when it comes to an Endbringer.
"Fontaine, your band should be nearing red. What is your status?" Narwhal's voice called to her from the other end of the line, interrupting before she could ask them if they needed help.
"Unaffected. I have a… membrane. I think the Simurgh can't reach me through my water echo. I've been up on her face for a while now but nothing's changed so I don't think it's going to."
There was a brief pause on the other side of the line.
"Very well, we'll start rotating the first team out. You, Legend, and Eidolon are to hold the Simurgh in your position for as long as you can. Avoid all unnecessary risks until we can mount the next wave."
It was better than admitting she already had a voice in her head.
The Simurgh, for her part, seemed to have decided to maintain position instead of trying to charge through them this time. Staring them down as if trying to measure them up, for a moment she considered the idea that they might have actually stumped the Endbringer for once.
'It is a distraction.'
What?
'She is using herself as a decoy while focusing her attention elsewhere. Her powers do not require physical tells or cues.'
As if on cue, a storm of debris rose from the ground below. Chunks of wood, metal, concrete peeled off the road showering Canberra in loose dirt as the Simurgh conjured a swirl of death around herself; a flying lamp post hitting Taylor away as it grew and expanded in size before being pulled back towards the Enbringer.
Tightly, brutally crushed together, it was as if a shell of an egg was being built around the monster.
Blasts from Legend and Eidolon carved into the surface only for more debris to cover it, solid matter pressed together into a pulverized smooth surface, rebuilding itself everytime attacks sheared off chunks of it. She wasn't even sure how matter could behave that way but somehow it was and now where once stood the Simurgh now was a massive ball of death.
And it was flying right at her.
"Oh shit!"
As if by reflex, one of the water spheres wrapped around her barely in time to absorb the impact as the now armored Simurgh barreled through her and made a beeline through the Triumvirate's counter strike, the regenerating membrane of the eggshell regrowing and attracting rings of detritus as it continued to hover closer and closer to the center of the city.
Oh no you don't.
Lashing out, she disassembled two bubbles, shaping them into massive hooks. Swinging them like an expert fisherwoman and latching the pointed ends into the sphere.
'The protective layer is adjusting its structure.'
"Well then focus on helping evacuate the people then!"
She couldn't help but snap back as a familiar shape came flying from ground level, a layered shield bashing against the sphere as Narwhal pressed her body against the shifting mass of debris. Down below, Taylor could see the hurried shouts and thundering steps as people tried to scramble away from the Endbringer's range.
Unfortunately, even with the two of them working together, the Simurgh still managed to move, dragging Fontaine along with Narwhal as the Endbringer continued on its path, until it finally stopped to hover above a building.
But why there?
Trying to figure out what was going on, she sent a wave of water into the buildings under the Endbringer and found… resistance? There were things, or multiple groups of things, moving around under the cover of the building and every time she tried to get more water into the area there was a stutter. Then nothing.
Whatever it was down there, she wasn't getting at stealthily but-
"Heads up!"
Off to the side, a young man wearing a one-eyed scarlet mask came sliding through the air on what looked like a surfboard made out of water. Wait a second… was that one of her bubbles?
'Since when had he…'
Whatever train of thought she was about to follow never came to be as the young man landed on top of the eggshell, hands sinking into what should have been hardened matter only for it to ripple, chunks of wood, stone, and metal peeling off as they were pulled apart of the whole and shaped into a long double ended spear.
Which he promptly stuck through the shell.
For a moment, she thought it might have worked. Before a billboard came flying through the air, hitting the boy before he could do anything else, swatting him away like a fly.
"No!"
Snapping, snarling, throwing her hands up, Taylor sent a vast sheet of water towards the boy. He was moving too fast and an impact with a mass would cause further injuries, but by spreading out small, increasingly densely packed layers of fluid, she could slow down and cradle the hero without risking further damage.
And then it would be up to the medics as she rotated the seemingly barely breathing young man back down to the staging ground.
However… his actions hadn't been in vain.
There seemed to be a massive, jagged hole in the sphere where the strange spear had managed to pry open a gap. Some aspect of a Striker power resisting further alteration, perhaps, but it did give her a chance!
So she stopped playing around.
Gathering up about half of all the water she'd collected - from the atmosphere, lake, and all the destroyed plant matter tossed around - she then did the most sensible thing she could.
She forced it straight into the big hole in the enemy's defenses.
A singular line containing hundred, thousands, no millions of liters. As if focused down the barrel of a gun, the water rushed forth, punching through the fracture in the shield, before expanding, drilling, cutting, crushing. No matter how compressed and hardened the defenses were, in that singular moment, the pressure blew past not only the tons of material, but carved a deep gaping wound into the Endbringer.
Fontaine grit her teeth.
Because the rebound as physics asserted itself once more was… bad.
Even if she was immune to the liquid directly hurting her, the force of the water blast nearly knocked her backwards, bones groaning and muscles screaming at the unnatural force that threatened to make physics tap out once again. But hold her position she did as the world's greatest and most oversized water hose blasted the Simurgh into the distance.
Further and further away, Ziz was pushed away from her perch, away from the battle raging beneath their feet, away from the buildings and vehicles, further and further until the form of the winged horror went from looming over Canberra like a shadow, to a specter in the distance before she was forced to allow her blast to relent.
An unfamiliar pain.
Like something warm and sizzling was coursing through her veins, making her muscles spasm and twitch.
'Oh dear. It would seem you might have overdone it a bit. Congratulations should be in order, however. You have just consciously channeled elemental energy for the first time.'
Fontaine didn't think to ask what she meant by that. She knew what she was talking about.
Magic.
She didn't expect it to hurt this goddamn much though. But there was no time to waste on it, already she could see the Simurgh speeding towards the city again like a freight train, the shapes of Legend and Eidolon, as well as other fliers, passing by her to intercept the Endbringer.
For the first time since the fight started, Taylor allowed herself to catch her breath. It wasn't over, not by a long shot. But she managed to buy the evacuation some time and she needed to work through what she was filling.
It was like someone had taken a live wire and jammed it directly into her chest. Even now she feel tingling in every extremity, and some sort of… rushing sensation inside of herself
But that was for later, because right now the threshold clock was stopped with a minute to spare.
Canberra was officially out of the Simurgh's range.
Now? They needed to keep it that way.
Nautile frowned, more of a slight downturn in his lips, and sighted the next target.
The pneumatic hiss of his rifle and the kick of the projectile was familiar, even if he would have a bruise tomorrow morning.
'No matter.'
His weapon struck true, the barbed harpoon burying itself in the guts of the shuddering, clanking, hissing metal monster standing before him. And the whine of the suddenly retracting line was just as pleasing as the snap-crack-screech of the splitting guts of the tinkertech construct.
"Torch."
At his request, the large, heavy footfalls of the armored woman slammed out along with a strangled warcry.
"Get over here, you bloody rubbish bin!"
Coming out in a digitized screech, the easily ten foot tall suit of construction armor careened into the nearly ten foot wide walking bathtub he'd wounded. And promptly buried a whirring saw blade, lit on fire by a white-blue hot fusion torch, into the thing's open wound.
He simply sighted his next shot, waiting for the inevitable.
"Sorry Pers."
The sudden emergence of a six foot tall penguin, with razor sharp beak, electro lash tongue, and fully automatic drill bit launcher was expected - that's what the tubs carried after all. But this time, instead of watching a Brute take twenty hits to the face, he was ready.
*Thunk-snap-hiss!*
Hitting home, he skewered the weaponized robo penguin in the head. And was very glad his little buddy wasn't around to see this.
"Dang it!"
And dropped the weapon when the machine's tongue cooked off, electrocuting him enough to make his chest hurt. But Torch was there, smashing a small insect like bug off of his back before it could do more than try to dig through his suit. Then, noticing that more of them were spilling out of the badly mauled tub thing, he took out his directed sonar.
Then flinched when he pressed the button on the side of the boxy device.
Underwater it would have made a little "boop", pinged the nearby surroundings, and wouldn't so much as hurt a jellyfish.
Up here though?
His mouth went dry when every tiny robot, getting ready to try and swarm his protector, suddenly screeched like a living thing. Yes, it was just their battery packs overloading and their metal components grinding against each other. But when he watched them start to cook off and explode with mechanical cries, well, Nautile was reminded why he was support.
"More are coming from - wait, get back. Everyone get back from the warehouse!"
The command from the radio was answered immediately by the Australian Tinker he'd partnered with, the giant, pounding suit of ivory armor scooping him up gently and then hauling ass much as a two thousand kilo suit of powered construction armor could.
Not much.
But enough.
When the warehouse went up with a massive, earth shuddering crack-boom the building itself just kinda… disappeared. His visor darkened in automatic response to the explosion and when it lightened up, there wasn't even much in the way of debris.
And, more surprising, was a man in a red costume, bent over wheezing for breath, who suddenly appeared next to them.
"You - you guys, whoo, you guys ok?"
Nautile just took his flask off his belt and handed it over.
"Ice cold water." He mumbled. "Keep it."
"Thanks."
Being set down, Nautile gave Torch's armor a pat on the shoulder, glad the very badly scorched suit had held up. Because his gear was more suited for cold water.
"That your work?"
The digitized voice ground out.
"Sorry you guys didn't get more heads up. Ziz's little shop of horrors back there was… I wanna say nasty, but it was fucked up. There were - had been - people in there." The man shivered, handing the flask back to Nautile with a wistful smile. "I can't drink any more or I'll be sick. But yeah. Sorry. I just couldn't wait any longer."
"S'ok." He managed. "Torch looked after me. And we got close." He took his pack off and opened it. "These guys got lost."
A pair of cats, of all things, stuck their heads out of the backpack. The two terrified things looked like they were more angry with the backpack being opened up and Nautile didn't keep it open for very long.
"You rushed in to save some cats? I…." The man sighed. "Velocity. From America. Well done kid."
He smiled and Nautile smiled back, though no one could see it under his helmet, and just nodded. Torch, however, hefted her buzzsaw.
"I'm picking up gunfire from down there." She gestured off towards the rally point. "Maybe we missed some?"
"Yeah. Might be Miss Militia. Just glad that with that damned song gone for a bit I can think. It's not pleasant to experience that when in sped up time. Like a pulsing, droning beat slamming against your skull."
This time he gave Velocity a pat on the shoulder.
"Nautile. We'll go help your friend."
"Torch. Yeah, get some rest, big guy. You kicked ass today. For a Mover."
The last bit was said playfully and she got equally as playfully flipped off, the suit of armor letting out a loud, mechanical laugh before the American hero rushed off.
None of them looked up.
None of them looked at where Ziz was returning.
None of them stared at the every thickening, every growing cloud of black death gathering around the Hopekiller. Because when she came back, this time she'd be ready. When she came back, it wasn't going to be one or two attacks. This time it was going to be a flood. That was when a streak of blue light shot through the skies above Canberra, Nautile's cameras barely able to catch the sight of a mass of water shaped like a sea anchor making a beeline towards the Endbringer as the skies above misted over and a surging billow followed on her trail.
"Heard you were the one who brought that lady."
"Yeah, we… met by chance." Nautile checked the seals on his helmet and climbed on Torch's back, not liking where the conversation was going.
The lady inside the suit chuckled.
"Well, you better ask her out to do something after this!" Nautile opted for ignoring that, and thanked his lucky stars that nobody could see his face.
"No time for that. Time to smash, so mush and we'll win the race."
He smiled thinly when Torch had more than a few rude things to say back.