“My back, I think it’s broken,” I said, to no one in particular.  Nobody in particular replied.

Butt out of this, Nobody In Particular. She was talking to your sibling, No One In Particular.

All of them too busy with set tasks.  People seemed to approach my bedside and leave to go attend to another patient elsewhere.

Yeah, this place is too busy right now to spend too much time with each patient at a time.

“Your name?” someone asked.

I looked to the other side of me.  It was an older woman in a nurse’s uniform, pear shaped, gray haired.  A man in a PRT uniform stood behind her, holding a gun on me.

I mean, I get that she’s a known villain, but do you really think there’s that high a risk of her attacking someone right now, in this place and this state?

“Skitter,” I replied, confused, feeling more scared by the second.  “Please.  I think my back’s broken.”

“Villain?”

Please, PRT, do not abuse the truce to arrest your enemies while they’re down after doing all they could to defend the city.

I shook my head.  “What?”

“Are you a villain?”

That said, this is actually a question Taylor needs to be asked around now. Yes, she’s a known villain, but just today, she left the team that was the sole reason she’s not a hero instead. Now she needs to consider her options.

“It’s complicated. My back-”

“Yes or no?” the Nurse asked me, stern.

But seriously, what does it matter to you?

The teleporter touched one hand to my chest, another to Laserdream, who turned her head to look at me.

Oh hey, she’s awake.

There was a rush of cool air, and we were in the midst of chaos.  Nurses, doctors, moving all around us.  I was lifted and placed on a stretcher, hauled up by four people in white.  There were shouts, countless electronic beeps, screams of pain.

Yeeah, there are a lot of people to take care of here.

I was placed on a bed.  I would have writhed with the pain of being shifted if it weren’t for my general inability to move.  There was a heart monitor on one side, a metal rack with an IV bag of clear fluid on the other, thick metal poles beside each, stretching from floor to ceiling.  Curtains loomed on either side of me, making for a small room, ten feet by ten feet across. The emergency room, triage or whatever was in front of me, past the foot of the bed, a dozen more cots, doctors doing what they could for the massed injured, civilian and cape alike.

I wonder if Panacea is around here somewhere, helping everyone she can.

All around me, nurses moved with a rote efficiency, to put a clip on my finger, and the heart monitor started beeping in time with my own heartbeat.  One put some sticky glue on my collarbone, pressing an electrode down there.

With the sheer amount of injured people, there needs to be a massive amount of nurses running around right now.

(By the way, if anyone’s playing the bingo, you can cross off “looks up a word”. Specifically “rote”.)

Ten, fifteen seconds passed, Bitch holding me, averting her eyes from the corpses of her dogs, jaw set, not speaking or moving.

Poor Bitch.

A teleporter appeared beside Laserdream, a distance away.  He looked at us, startled, glanced at his armband.

Heh, yeah, neither Taylor nor Bitch have functional armbands, so they don’t show up on the map.

“You okay?” he called out.

“No,” I tried to shout back, but my voice was weak.  Bitch spoke for me, “She needs help.”

Skitter down, CB-10. It’s time to get out of here.

“Bring her here, I’ll take her back.”

Bitch carried me, dragging me by my collar to where Laserdream lay.  I grunted and groaned in pain, felt those hot pokers through my upper back and middle, but she wasn’t the type for sympathy or gentleness.

Hehe.

A tidal wave appeared in the distance, at the furthest end of the street, near the horizon.

Well, shit. Bitch, Skitter, you need to get to a safer place. We’ve had too many almost-drownings already today.

Scion sent out a blast of golden light the size of a small van, darting to the center of the wave, disappearing into a speck of light before it made contact with the distant target.  The middle third of the wave buckled, fell harmlessly into a splash of water, all momentum ceased.  The other two sides of the wave curved inward, bent, to bear unerringly towards us.

…damn. This is a man who can literally stop a tidal wave with a couple blasts.

Another blast of golden light, and one side was stopped, stalled.  A third blast was spared for Leviathan, who was getting his hands and feet firmly on the ground, crouching in preparation to run.  The Endbringer was knocked squarely to the ground.

Yeah, no, Levvy, you’re in trouble now. You’ve been a bad boy.

Scion stopped the third wave in its tracks with a fourth blast, but the water was still there, and it still bowed to gravity.  The water level around us rose by a dozen feet, momentarily, slopping as gently over us as physically possible, like a lap of water on the beach.

Suddenly the term “tidal wave” makes a little more sense… Normal “tidal waves” have nothing to do with tides, but this one is more similar to them than most.

When the flow of water was past us, I could see a fifth blast of light following Leviathan, who had used the cresting water to swim away.  He was making his way to the coast.  

Run, fucker, run! You don’t belong here! Or anywhere else, for that matter!

Scion rose, flew after his target with a streak of golden light tracing his movement.  Eidolon followed soon after.

The very best outcome would be if they managed to put an end to Leviathan’s reign of terror for good, but I doubt that’s going to happen.

Scion turned away from Eidolon to focus on the enemy once more.  He blasted the Endbringer again.  Floated up and moved past Bitch and me faster than I could see, to strike the Endbringer a fraction of a second after the blast of light struck, stopping there in midair to blast Leviathan a second time as the Endbringer was still flying through the air at the punch’s impact.

Damn, what a combo.

Everything about Scion and his actions was utterly silent. His movements or attacks didn’t even stir the air.  Only the effects, Leviathan striking the water, the breaking of ice, generated any movement, shudders or sounds.

I feel like this ties in with the calming footstep ripples and his lack of talkativeness.

Eidolon froze the water around Leviathan’s four claws, giving Scion the opportunity to land another blast.  Leviathan turned, raised a spraying wall of water to cover his retreat.  Scion sent out one blast of his golden light to strike the wave, following up with a second blast before the first even made contact with the water.

Hm. We’ve seen what the ripples do to the water, but what about the blasts?

Seeing the second blast coming, Leviathan leaped to one side.  No use – the blast of light curved in the air to head unerringly for him, struck him down.

Homing attacks, even. Nice.

Edges of the Endbringer’s wounds glowed golden yellow, drifted away into the air like flecks of burning paper caught in the updraft of hot air.

Huh… interesting.

A fist imprint near the base of Leviathan’s throat glowed with edges of the same light, the wound continuing to spread and burn as I watched.

This light appears to be quite effective.

The movement of the water and the creation of the ice hadn’t been Scion.  Eidolon approached, flying close, raising one hand to create a ragged mess of icicles where Leviathan was to land.

Hey, whaddaya know, I was right. I was specifically guessing that more capes had shown up because the we saw this power from Eidolon before. I was going to specifically mention Eidolon too, but then started thinking that it wouldn’t make all that much sense for him to stop his efforts with the ice wall against the waves.

(In retrospect, I should’ve mentioned all of that.)

Some impaled the Endbringer, but by and large, they shattered beneath him, left him scrabbling for traction and footing for long enough that Scion could shoot him again, send him through the barrier of ice as though it were barely there, tumbling.

He’s definitely on the defensive now!

Scion paused, turning to look at Eidolon, his eyes moving past Bitch and me like we weren’t even there.  His eyes settled on the hero, the most powerful individual in the world staring at the man who was arguably the fifth.

If you’re up against an Endbringer, this seems like a good team to have on your side.

His expression was so hard to read.  I knew, now, what people had meant, when they said they thought his face was a mask, a facade.  Though it was expressionless, though there was nothing I could point to to explain why I felt the way I did, somehow I sensed disgust from him.  Like nobility looking at dog shit.

…if they can work together, that is. Sheesh.

Scion raised one hand, and there was a brilliant flash, too bright to look through.

When the spots faded from my vision, I saw that one of the damaged buildings was emanating that same light the pieces of the car had, was toppling, tipping towards Leviathan.

It seems like his powerset primarily involves movement and maybe destruction, though the destruction may be a result of moving different parts of a thing in different directions.

Scion, fingertips glowing, started his slow advance as the structure was pulled atop the Endbringer.  The ripples of his footsteps erased any disturbance in the water from the building’s collapse.

Hmm.

Leviathan heaved himself out of the rubble, turned to run, only for water to rise and freeze solid in one smooth movement, forming a wall as tall as Leviathan was, a hundred feet long. 

Nice! Scion’s work still, or did more capes just show up?

He paused for a fraction of a second, to gauge which way he might go, poise himself to leap over.  Scion caught him with another golden-yellow blast before he could follow through.

Sweet 😀

Leviathan struck at one of the remaining dogs with a broad swing of his tail, caught it across the snout.  It dropped, neck snapped.  A short leap and a slash of the claw dispatched the last.

Aaand Bitch’s emotional wreckage is complete.

Scion raised one hand, and a ball of yellow-gold light slammed into Leviathan from behind, sent the Endbringer skidding across the length of the street, past Bitch and I.

Fuck yes. Let’s see what’cha got, Scion!

Leviathan leaped to his feet, reared around, swung his claws at the air ferociously.  Water around him rose, rushed towards Scion, a wave three times as high as Bitch was tall.  Three times as tall as I might be if I could stand.

Leviathan probably knows that Scion is one of the few threats he should take seriously.

Scion didn’t move or speak.

Supposedly he doesn’t do a lot of the latter in general.

He walked forward, and ripples extended from his footsteps, soared past us with some strange motive force.  The ripple touched the wave, and the tower of water collapsed before it got halfway to us, dropping straight down.

Niiice.

Liquid as far as the eye could see was being flattened out into a disquieting stillness by the ripples of Scion’s footsteps, like a great pane of glass.

So Leviathan can make water move, and Scion can make it stop moving…

Leviathan lunged up to the side of a half-ruined building, leaped down to a point three-quarters of the way between himself and Scion.  His afterimage slammed into the hero.

I have a feeling Scion’s about to no-sell this.

Scion turned his head, shut his eyes, let the water wash over and past him.  When the attack was over, he squared his head and shoulders, facing Leviathan head on, raised a hand.

Yep.