The water surging around us stopped abruptly, evaporated into a mist in a second.  Swirling, the mist began drifting.

Myrddin, working with Eidolon. They stood in the center of the road, Eidolon turning the water into mist, while Myrddin gathered it.

Ooh!

Myrddin’s wooden stick was held aloft, and the mist was forming a sphere the size of a beachball at one end.

So what’s the technical description of this power? Mist control? Something more general?

Ok, I could almost buy the wizard angle, seeing that.

Hehe.

Leviathan leaped from the roof of a nearby building, landing in the midst of one group that was still reeling from the wave, started tearing through them.

Aaand here we go again.

The armbands remained ominously silent, even as I watched the casualties.

Cod dammit. Did he really just set up a circumstance where the one thing I was certain about regarding Tattletale’s situation might not apply when we get there?

Well played, Wildbow. Well played.

I heaved another breath of air into the lungs of the fat man, he sputtered, coughed up a mouthful of dark water.  I knew I was supposed to follow up on the CPR, but there was no way I could move or roll this guy.

Hm… I wonder if this is Chubster, and if his power actually involves his size.

Unable to do anything but wait and see if he recovered, I raised my head to watch the continuing battle, feeling just a touch dizzy.

The ranged attack continued.  Miss Militia had a bazooka as long as she was tall, and was firing a series of warheads into Leviathan.  She wasn’t reloading, either.  Between shots, the weapon crackled with energy, fresh ammunition loaded into the chamber by her power.  One projectile fired off each second.

Niice.

So her power is able to conjure up ammunition for her psychic weapon, whatever she chooses it to be, that probably isn’t also part of her psyche.

There was the girl with the crossbow, who had been with Shadow Stalker.  She had a teammate next to her, handing her the needle-like bolts from a quiver, was loading them into the large crossbow and firing them as fast as she was able.  More than any other attack, the bolts were stabbing deep into Leviathan.

Interesting… I wonder if his tough skin is porous. Maybe he’s like a really hard sponge up close.

The attacks were actually having an effect.  He was on the defensive, now, and he was hurting.

We’re winning, I thought.

It could look like that, but I really don’t trust that “I thought” right there, or the fact that we’re less than two chapters into the fight.

A flash to my left caught my eye.

It was my armband.  The screen was ringed by a square of yellow, a yellow triangle with a black exclamation mark pointing in Leviathan’s general direction.

Uh-oh. Is that the alert for the wave we saw from Tattle’s perspective?

People were shouting.  Screaming, Narwhal was moving forcefields up in between us and Leviathan, other forcefields were going up.

Gotta stop the sploosh.

“To me!” someone near me shouted.  I turned to look, saw Shielder from New Wave.

Tidal Wave.

Quick, get Shielded!

The fat man’s eyes weren’t even open, he moved too slowly as I shook him.

There was no helping it.

…welp. No CPR is gonna help this guy anymore.

There was a horrendous crash, I looked up, pausing to catch my breath, saw the remains of a car falling apart around Leviathan.

And there’s Ballistic, right on cue.

Another crash, a piece of rubble turning to dust from the speed of the impact.  I couldn’t see through the bodies, but I had an idea of who it was.  Ballistic.

Yep.

A dumpster hit Leviathan in the upper body with the speed of a bullet, and he folded backward, his shoulders hitting the ground while his legs and feet were still held against the ground by a mess of razor blade forcefields.

Nice!

Narwhal sent another forcefield flying into his neck, and it cut as deep as any attack had yet.  Blood spilled down from the opened wound, thick, more like ichor than anything I was used to seeing.

Because of course he can’t have human-like blood either. Though Tattle’s revelation that he was never human kind of makes the extremely unusual biology somewhat less… surprising. It does raise a question about the true origin of the Endbringers, though.

Let’s hope she gets the chance to actually tell someone about that.

It was my first time giving CPR for real.  So much harder than it was in the class, on so many levels.  I don’t know if it was the fat man’s powers, his weight, his armor, or some combination of the three, but it took incredible effort to actually fill his lungs.  Just doing it made me want to gag.

I’d imagine it gets a lot harder once you do it on someone with lungs that are bigger than your own.

He’d vomited a little at some point, and though I’d wiped it away as best as I could when I was done checking his mouth for blockages, the taste lingered.  The taste of salt water only accented that flavor, sort of the same way table salt did with a cooked meal.

Ew.

Strapping Lad down, CD-5.  Intrepid down, CD-5.

Strapping Lad? Sounds like someone’s thinking highly of himself. 😛

Intrepid sounds familiar, though I don’t know if it’d because they’ve been mentioned before or because that’s a reasonably common word in reference to heroes.

I was aware of Narwhal stepping into the fray, in my peripheral vision.  She raised her hands, manifesting a dozen forcefields like oversize crystal shards around her, then flicked them forward.  Like guillotine blades, the forcefields raced toward Leviathan, faster than the eye could follow, sunk into his flesh.  Those that glanced off stopped mid-air to turn around, edges against his body, getting in the way of his legs moving.

Huh, interesting. I wasn’t expecting forcefields to be physical enough to “glance off”.

Although I suppose if they’re physical enough to cut people, that just makes sense. It’s just… I’m not used to forcefields obeying physics to any notable extent.

Also? Getting closer.

I realize that the pronunciation of “Hew” might be “hyou” in this case, ruining the joke… But hey, it’s a text-based medium, who knows what kind of dialect the armbands speak.

(Newfoundlander, maybe?)

It was a contingent of lesser heroes that joined the fray, now.  It was as though the tougher fighters were staggering their attacks, to ensure that just the right amount of force was being exerted to keep Leviathan on his heels, taking the maximum amount of damage while being prevented from taking out too many capes at once.

Hm… I guess that might work?

These three were clearly members of the same team, flying in formations, moving in sync.  Two of them had super strength, and were gripping at the damaged areas of Leviathan’s flesh, tearing, pulling away as he lashed out in response, while the third had a massive battleaxe with what looked like a chainsaw setup on each blade, opening more wounds.

Oh hey, massive battleaxe guy. We’re getting closer.

And we’re actually doing some damage against Leviathan!

The damage was superficial, only taking off slices of Leviathan’s hide, but surely stripping away his hard exterior would help in the long run?

It may take about a thousand licks to get to the center of a lollipop, but we’ve got a lot of people doing the licking here.

I nodded, pressed both buttons on the armband and spoke, “Next!”

Hm… maybe last time, the armband recognized that the guy with the crushed leg was coming back to whatever sort of base has been set up to take care of the wounded.

As we emerged from the alley, there was a massive explosion,

“We”?

five times what had followed when Dragon launched her missiles at Leviathan.  Leviathan reeled – He had a shallow burn along one side of his neck, more on his face, one of the four glowing orbs of eyes were dim, but it wasn’t as much damage as I might have suspected.

Is this when Dragon’s mech explodes, or is that what Taylor means by “what had followed when (…)”?

He lashed his tail violently, as if in anger, or maybe he intended to use the echo of his tail’s lashing to strike down others, I couldn’t be sure.

Could be both.

His eyes widened, “I can’t do that!  Her face-”

“-Is half scraped off.  She’s not going to care about a burn.

Heh. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.

There’s nothing close to a clean bandage anywhere here, and she’s going to die if we don’t stop the blood loss.”

Looking a little sick, he nodded, wreathed his hand in flame and then pressed it against the woman’s face.  She pulled away, made a gurgling noise.  I gripped her head and shoulder to keep her in position.

This is a somewhat odd medical procedure, but if it works, great!

“Come,” I said, after he pulled his hand away, “Help me move her.”

Greenfire – I wasn’t sure on his name, and it didn’t seem the time to ask

–

Heh. Not a bad impromptu name, at least.

If I had to give him a more thought-through one, I might’ve gone with something involving “Jade”, but that’s probably just because I’ve been reading Miraculous Ladybug fanfics with a “Jade Turtle” recently.

I hooked one arm under her armpit, I used both hands under the other one, and we hauled her off to one side, into an alley, propped her up sitting.

“I’ll stay here,” Greenfire said, “Keep an eye on her.  You go.”

Greenfire can probably do more against Leviathan, but there are a lot of people on that already.