Omen 6.13
Noah Sutherland
2001, December 25: Washington, DC
The Arlington PRT had begun to recover some semblance of order. Lexington, leader of the Arlington Protectorate, was shouting orders, doing his best to corral the staff. I remembered him, we'd had a few cooperative training sessions between our departments back before he was assigned here. He was a competent enough thinker and we'd taken some of the same leadership seminars. Seeing him take charge of background logistics gave me some confidence that this wouldn't be too much of a shitshow.
"Lexington," I called when he had a spare second. "Been a while."
"It has, Exalt," he replied with a grim smile. He tipped his tricorn hat and offered me a handshake. "Thank you for coming."
I looked back at my team: Dispatch was newly raised form the Wards, but I had faith in him. Greathawk was almost as swift a flier as me. Blue Comet was nearly unbeatable in a straight line. Every name that I could put to their faces made me swell with pride. Houston wasn't just Eidolon's team. We housed the best training facilities in the nation and our crisis response team reflected that.
"Houston will always answer the call. Where do you need us?"
We were then broken up by Lexington into teams, several of us going to reinforce evacuation points while others headed to join either Legend's blasters or Alexandria's brutes. It wasn't a perfect system. In an idea world, small squads of capes would be formed with specific power synergies and objectives in mind. In the chaos of an endbringer fight though, this generalized system was the best we could hope to manage.
I listened to Alexandria give a speech about the capabilities of this new endbringer and wondered just where this in-depth thinker analysis came from. It gave credence to the rumors that someone predicted the previous few endbringer attacks. I could see that I wasn't the only one who wanted a name, but none of us called her on it, not now.
Then, speech over, they were off.
I sighed as I saw Eidolon splitting off to do his own thing. That was him, the big damn hero. I wasn't sure what irritated me more, that he thought we were in the way, or that he was probably right.
I remained behind. It stuck in my craw to do nothing, so I helped the brave troopers with everything from triage to hauling crates of potions. I was an aerokinetic, one of the most powerful in the nation. But… But it came with a charge time. Normally, it took hours or even days before my power ramped up fully, but something about the chaos of an endbringer fight reduced this time to mere minutes. When I had a charge stored up, I could take over the city's entire airspace. Until then, I could be more helpful putting my leadership training to good use.
I sent off the Chicago team and turned to face the newest arrivals from Seattle. These Worldstones were proving to be a godsend as other leaders began to move their teams to the city in droves. This kind of mobilization would have taken fifteen minutes or longer. Now, it was the work of seconds.
Soon, I was the last major cape remaining on the ground. I hated it, hated feeling helpless. I hated sitting my ass down only to watch others wrestle with an endbringer. I should be up there, protecting my team.
I felt the Simurgh begin her song, the screeching a low drone at this distance. Just one more time crunch.
Then, I felt my power hit its peak.
With barely a nod towards Lexington, I took to the sky.
I blasted off towards the thickest of the fighting like a rocket. All around me, I could feel my awareness expand. I imagined wings, wings so large as to cover the entire city.
It was as though she was waiting for me. She turned my way and I thought I could spy a growing smirk on her face. I'd be happy to wipe it off for her. I gathered myself and let out a roar, thrusting my hands forward. I imagined that my wings were all beating towards her, each carrying a stormfront's worth of air that struck like meteors. The satellites that orbited her were of no help. Instead of blocking the wind, they merely acted as extra ammunition as my attack found its mark.
The blow launched her back into some Greco-Roman-looking building, probably some congressional thing. I smiled with grim satisfaction as the roof caved in, throwing the endbringer into the ground. I heard some cheers sound at that and allowed myself to bask in it. It was the first time she'd been struck directly as far as I knew.
Not Legend, Alexandria, or even Eidolon. Exalt was the one who made the Simurgh bleed.
And then, a brick rose up from my blindspot and beaned me on the head, so fast that I didn't have time to interpret the shifting airstream. My vision exploded into stars and I heard my helmet crack. I felt myself drop like a stone, but I caught myself before the bracelet could falsely announce my defeat. When I looked back, the sight made me grit my teeth in frustration.
The Simurgh was back. She rose into the air, none the worse for the wear. There wasn't even a single speck of dirt on her feathers, as though my strongest attack was nothing more than a stiff breeze. Her song, that violent screeching in the back of my mind, hadn't dropped a single decibel.
"Well, shit."
Alexandria flew by me. "Exalt, endbringers are immune to kinetic impacts; focus on keeping the sky clear of debris so we can get a clear shot at her tinkertech," she ordered.
"Yes, ma'am," I shouted back, but she was already gone.
X
Andy Yusung Kim
It wasn't enough. It never seemed to be enough. No matter how many walls of mist and ice I erected, the Simurgh always found a way to sneak in an attack or dozen, striking down civilians where she could. I could shoot down an oncoming bus, only to be a hair too slow to catch a STOP sign flung like a frisbee towards some poor man's throat.
The Lamb helped, but she was a reaper of souls, not a hero. She had no great skill in the art of saving lives. The Wolf… He seemed utterly uninterested. For him, this was nothing more than a meaningless distraction from the true prey.
After I saw Brickhouse and Rime show up to cover Metalmaru's portal, I began to hop around to the other evacuation points, helping who I could, all the while keeping an eye on the Madhouse. Even when I could move at supersonic speeds, even when I could teleport to anyone recently dead, I felt like I was playing catch-up.
Still, bit by bit, my burden was lessening. Teams from all across the US and Canada had begun to use the Wayfinders I'd entrusted to them to send reinforcements. Most couldn't hurt the Simurgh, but they clearly had orders to aid in the evacuation. I saw Glace's portal supported by Chicago, Pyro's by San Francisco, Armsmaster's by Boston, and more. It was enough to stir a flicker of warmth in my chest, faith in fellow man. As distrusting of the Protectorate as Taylor was, this was why we were necessary. This was what a national agency should be doing.
"Will this be enough?" I heard the Wolf growl in my mind.
"It will never be enough, dear Wolf," the Lamb replied. "All will die, they merely delay the inevitable."
"You know why I'm doing this," I grunted back. I didn't have time for their philosophizing.
"Your mortal charges are as safe as can be. How long will you delay the Hunt?"
I glanced around and saw that they were right. I'd defended the portals as much as I could and now reinforcements had arrived to pick up my slack. Others could shoot down debris; no one else could drive her away. The sooner I could deal with the Simurgh, the easier things would be for those below. "You're right. Let's go."
"Finally!" The Wolf's shout resounded in my head, his hunger a palpable force. I felt myself begin to salivate as the force of his mind weighed against my own. I pulled on Lamb's tranquility to balance his savagery to moderate results.
I heard my bracelet announce someone else's death but paid it no mind. Instead, I latched onto the Kindred's senses and teleported myself a mere sixteen feet above and behind the endbringer, where some cape had been falling with a broken neck.
"Ghost," I whispered. I allowed myself to tip forward until my head was aimed towards the ground. Isolde grew to be thrice the length of a greatsword in my hand.
Muscles pulsing with Reinforcement, elixirs active, and a trail of Hallowed Mist and snow following my every step, I lunged. I left behind a shockwave that formed a cone of mist, the sonic boom alone scattering what debris the Simurgh had managed to pick up after Exalt's attack.
Less than half a second and I was on her. I slashed down towards the faux angel. Isolde's blades shone a brilliant blue that lit up the sky, almost outshining Legend himself. The azure arc was aimed not at her throat or heart, but at the largest wing. I was a Kindred; nothing short of the killing blow would suffice.
The Simurgh turned at the last second, putting a different wing in the way. With the amount of mana I was channeling, I felt some resistance before Isolde sheared clean through and I had the pleasure of seeing one of her largest wings fall to the earth. A strange fluid splashed from her wound, a mockery of vital lifeblood that I knew meant nothing.
Behind me, the specter of the Wolf manifested from the roiling mist and let out a savage howl. The mist coalesced around the Simurgh no matter what she did to try and disperse it until it formed a familiar circle, an emblem that all of Valoran knew to dread: the Mark of the Kindred. It was painted over her as a mana construct, immovable by any save us. The significance of its location was not lost on me.
The Lamb loosed her arrows and I watched as they bit deep. Every one seemed to home in on the Mark, only to be blocked by debris or the corpses of the recently dead. The Wolf bit her hand, tearing off a finger as he let loose his guttural laugh.
I lunged again, spearing towards her largest wing. Even amidst the bedlam of battle, I could hear the whistling of my blade, a sharp, rending sound that only reached me long after the swing. I could see it clearly now, her singular point of mortality. There was no need to guess where on the wing because the Mark guided my strikes.
A chaotic dance followed as the four of us waltzed through the air. Ten. Twenty. Dozens of times I sliced at her, using everything I knew of Shojin kenpo and Wuju. But she was bigger and had no need for footing. She leveraged her size masterfully. Every time Isolde got close to finding its mark, she would give something of herself. A few feathers here, a finger there. None of it mattered so she was happy to force that trade.
I knew that the fact that she was making this trade at all meant we were close. The Mark wasn't wrong. Soon enough, I'd know what it looked like for an endbringer to die.
A telekinetic blast rocked the Lamb and Wolf, scattering their corporeal forms back into mist. Like with Anivia, they were here, but lesser for it. I lamented the fragility of their presence here. Every time they scattered, I had to spend a bit of my limited focus reforming them. Were we fighting on Runeterra, were I a more capable host, I didn't doubt the battle would already be over.
"Just one," I whispered. Off in the distance, I heard several cheers ring out as two more of her speakers were destroyed, but I dared not join them. If I took my eyes away from her for a moment, it could mean the deaths of dozens. "Just one hit…"
Alexandria came out of nowhere. She flew in with zero regard for the sound barrier, decking the Simurgh with enough force to crush a skyscraper, a wordless cry on her lips. The endbringer reeled and for a moment, I thought I had the opportunity I needed.
I thrust towards the Mark.
It wasn't enough. A washing machine of all things struck my elbow and threw off my aim, allowing her to parry Isolde with her left arm. She lost the arm, but it was just enough to twist my aim further off course, once again missing the Mark.
That must have been the point she stopped humoring me because a telekinetic slap flung me hundreds of yards away. It was a heavier blow than any so far and I felt my body fly through several stories' worth of concrete and rebar. Without Anivia's Grace and the Elixir of Iron, I would have been turned into so much slurry.
I had no idea how she was reading me. Shards were supposed to be incapable of processing metaphysical concepts and right now, I was Death, or at least near enough I'd thought.
"Are you not a man? You are kin, but do you not breathe or stir the air with your every movement? Do not let our influence subsume you," Lamb chided.
I grunted. That explained that. She couldn't see Isolde, but she was predicting the path of the blade based on my stances. She didn't need to understand mana or any metaphysical concept; she just needed to see the effect I had on the atmosphere around me.
Bullshit. Pure. Fucking. Bullshit.
I pulled out the mass accelerator again and took aim. If the Simurgh could still see me or whatever, I'd just hit her faster than she could react. Precog didn't mean anything if you were too slow to abuse it. I felt the mana begin to coil and whispered, "Curtain Call."
A blinding light neared the Simurgh, only for a mirror shaped like a snowflake to deflect the beam elsewhere. It struck down into the city and I felt a dozen candles get snuffed out.
"Longstride deceased. Calavera deceased."
I frowned at that. Range wouldn't work. The only person I knew who could make a mirror like that was Glace, perhaps with a dash of Hero-tech in it too. It had to have been one of the things she was making in the Madhouse that I couldn't recognize. I swore under my breath and folded my wing back into my pauldron.
"How the hell am I supposed to kill her?"
"Strike. The Hunt is eternal. Be relentless."
"Rip and tear."
I rolled my eyes but obliged, Isolde leaping back into my hand. "Nothing for it."
With a twist of their power, I teleported to the Mark, already mid-swing. I didn't expect it to hit and, as expected, she twisted her body in an impossible display of gymnastics to evade the blow. One of her wings stretched out to punch me. I remembered reading that a swan could slap a man hard enough to break his arm; I imagined this felt a bit like that.
Still, Lamb was right. I couldn't afford to relent. I slashed forward with attack after attack. I froze her wings to her body, only for her to shatter the ice with a single flex and use it as ammunition to throw at Legend's flock.
The Simurgh was not idle. The drones made using Pyrotechnical's tech became nodes, each connected to the others by threads of superheated plasma. They formed a net around Alexandria and I, giving the other defenders enough leeway to break the fourth speaker. The blazing cage closed like a snare, but fizzled out against us, Anivia's Grace more than up to the task of withstanding the heat. It burned away at my partners, but they reconstituted themselves from the mist with ease.
She was testing me, I realized. Slowly, bit by bit, she was gathering information about the limitations of my armor, all the aspects that she could not foresee. Seeing that the laser drones were no good against me, she immediately sent them off to wreak havoc elsewhere.
Ice. Mist. Light. Death. The different forms of mana swirled within me like a barely controlled maelstrom and I felt my body protest with every step I took. I was on borrowed time.
X
Penelope Myers
I tore open a jammed car door with the Atlas Gauntlets before using it as a shield to bat away an oncoming office chair.
"Go!" I shouted to the family trapped inside. They didn't need any encouragement as they ran off towards Bluesong and the portal she guarded.
The Phoenix Protectorate had been among the fourth wave of arrivals after the Founders, Guild, and a few other major branches. We were briefed by a harried Lexington about the song before being assigned to a portal to give other defenders a breather. Royalle and Oathkeeper led us, their office politics put aside in the name of the greater good. Cloudstreak, Redbird, and I made up the hero's contingent.
Surprisingly enough, I also saw Calavera, the only villain who showed. Why? I couldn't begin to guess; I was glad she'd shown at all.
As soon as we arrived, we were split into smaller teams meant to either keep people safe from the dogfight above or perform search and rescue. I cursed myself as I watched Redbird send out a flurry of explosive feathers to break up incoming debris. I should have asked Andy for mobility. Or area defense. Some kind of big forcefield would have been excellent right about now. Instead, I asked him to make me a good duelist, as if being a good fighter is all there is to being a good hero.
I knew he was good. I could have asked for anything and I asked him to let me punch harder. Idiot.
My fingers clenched over the gauntlet's grip and its fingers mirrored mine. With an enraged punch, I shoved an overturned truck to the side of the street, clearing the way for pedestrians.
The more I worked, the more obvious it became that I was out of my depth. I couldn't strike at the Simurgh. I couldn't protect ground troops. Even my best extended punches wouldn't reach her stereos. I was barely better than the EMTs even with the Elixir of Iron.
'Andy was right. An endbringer is beyond me.' I shook my head violently. "No. Work with what you've got, Sting."
It was something my coach liked to tell me. When I first started boxing, I was ten. I boxed with the boys at the gym, no one caring about my gender because puberty hadn't hit anyone yet. As the years passed, I found myself losing more and more spars. One day, when my frustration boiled over, my coach joined me on the gym floor and told me straight up that I'd never be as strong as a boy.
Girls are just built different, he said. I'd just have to work with what I had.
It pissed me right the fuck off. I put in more hours. First to arrive, last to leave. I spent weeks and months perfecting my form. I punched the heavy bag until my hands bled. I didn't want to accept it, that I would fall behind just because I didn't have a penis. I wanted, so badly, to prove him wrong.
Instead I proved him right. No matter what I did, I could never seem to bridge the gap. Sure, I could beat most of the boys, but most wasn't good enough for me, not when I thought none of them put in half the effort I did.
Years of this later, I triggered. I don't even remember what exactly set me off. All I remembered was getting so pissed at my coach that I punched the heavy bag and… and the bag flew off the chain to crash through his office wall.
"Work with what you've got."
I was always doing that, playing catch-up to people more talented than me. Powers didn't change any of that. Sure, I was the strongest in the gym now, but that meant jack shit to the Protectorate. I only mellowed out when I met David in the Wards.
Slowly, I came to terms with the fact that Penelope Myers would never be more than adequate. A "good" boxer. A "good" hero. Never great. There would always be people with better talent, better powers. It took a while, but I realized that my coach wasn't trying to belittle me, he was trying to teach me to throw aside my pride and envy.
Bit by bit, boxing and heroics both became about self-improvement rather than a competition against others. I returned to that gym a year later and begged my coach to teach me again.
It was only when I started to loosen up that I realized what I had. I had powerful mentors, a director who cared more about our city than playing politics, and a wonderful boyfriend who put up with my teenage angst. Before I knew it, the Wards became like family to me. My team. My boyfriend. My little brother and sisters.
In the end, that was why I was here. My little brother, the smug brat who wormed his way into our hearts in a matter of months. I couldn't do anything during the Red Sands Incident, sidelined as a Ward as I was. I refused to be sidelined again.
"God, I hope Andy's safe," I whispered.
Every once in a while, I'd glance at the sky and see flocks of capes led by Legend or Alexandria harrying the Simurgh as best they could. Then Eidolon joined the picture. He created a wave of emerald crystals that chased the Simurgh like homing missiles. They gave him enough breathing room for him to fire some kind of black death ray that injured a wing.
I heard something vaguely ominous about the Madhouse and tinkertech but put it out of my mind. It was none of my business; people far stronger than I could handle it. All I had to care about were those before me. If I could reach one person, that was a lifetime's worth of difference I'd make.
So I told myself. I found myself casting worried eyes across the streets anyway.
Then, a loud, earth-shaking bang resounded. I whirled, hands up to try and face a threat that wasn't there. When I found the source, it was a rooftop four or five buildings away. There, I could see a white figure wielding some kind of rifle. They had a singular wing coming off their right shoulder. By their side was some kind of lamb Case-53 with a glowing bow.
A trail of vapor and azure heat shimmers led straight from their rifle to the floating building and I could see a neat hole bored cleanly through it.
I prayed that destroyed whatever the Simurgh was making.
The next time I checked in on the dogfight, it was to see that same white figure run on clouds. A gigantic pair of scissors several times as long as I was tall was swung like a claymore, every swing sending violent arcs of blue light through the mist that seemed to cling to them like a hookah bar.
The lamb-like cape loosed an entire army's worth of arrows and I wondered why I'd never heard of someone that capable before. The mist then swirled into a wolf's head before taking a bite out of the Simurgh. Was that a third cape, or perhaps a power?
They were swift, faster than I could ever hope to be, so fast that could barely keep track. Every swing came close to bisecting the Simurgh and I wasn't the only one who stood with bated breath.
Then a wooden beam beaned me hard enough to crack my skull if it weren't for the elixir. That was reason enough to get back to work; a reminder that we were all on borrowed time. Still, my gaze kept trailing back to the figure in white. The more I saw them, the bigger the pit in my stomach became.
It took me an embarrassingly long second to figure out why the figure dancing with the Simurgh made me nervous. Then, my mind caught up with my eyes and my heart leapt towards my throat.
"Andy…?"
Author's Note
Noah Sutherland is Exalt. Legit just went for one of the most common names in Houston and rolled with it.
All of this is happening within the first ten minutes of the fight. Why Stingray's POV? I… honestly don't know. It just came out. I did say the Phoenix Wards wouldn't just get dropped when Andy moved to DC. Her appearance in a later crisis was always the plan, though not necessarily this one specifically.