Though he’d disappeared from my line of sight, I saw his afterimage continue rising. Shielder, floating in the air with the help of his sister, used a forcefield to stop the pair of them from being pulverized.
Nice.
The shield flickered out of existence a fraction of a second later. His reserves were exhausted, after helping save me and others from the last wave. He wasn’t strong enough to take a hit from Leviathan or his afterimage.
…not nice.
Jotun deceased, CD-6. Dauntless deceased, CD-6. Alabaster deceased, CD-6.
Well, there goes our favorite Greek-themed hero, among others.
Wait. Why is it CD-6 now? I don’t really know what CD-5 meant to begin with, but something’s changed here all of a sudden. Is it the location on the grid, maybe? We did move.
He lashed his tail, sending out a scythelike blade of water toward the other group, turned and leaped.
Miss Militia down, CD-6.
Well, that didn’t exactly go the way she wanted.
Fenja and Menja moved to attack him, each tall enough to be at his shoulder level, but Leviathan was quicker. He darted backward, gripped the side of a building, and turned to run up the wall.
Like a true kaiju. Gotta get that King Kong in there, y’know.
He used his tail to radically adjust the angle of his ascent, hooking it on an open window and swinging himself forward over the edge of the roof, before anyone on the ground could get a bead on him. Debris fell where his tail had pulled through a section of the wall.
He’s getting away… not good.
The third was a modified explosive I recognized. It bounced off the ground between Leviathan’s foot and the hand he had planted on the ground, landed a ways behind and to the side of him, and exploded much like any other grenade might. What I recognized was the shimmer in the air around it, a near perfect sphere encompassing the surrounding area, catching Leviathan’s leg, the end of his tail, part of his waist and stomach.
Whoop, gotcha!
The explosion made Leviathan rear back, and the water that followed in his wake moved slower in that bubble, slowed down with each passing second.
Okay, yeah, this is definitely Bakuda’s tech.
The time slowing bubble would’ve really gotten him stuck if he hadn’t reared back. It’s hard to get your body parts out of a space that experiences time at a crawl.
Leviathan himself wasn’t as affected, and he had one foot and an upper body outside of the bubble to help him pull himself free.
…except apparently he’s partially resistant to he warping of spacetime itself?? Or is that just because he’s a speedster?
He raised his leg free of the golden string goop and up out of the sphere, lashed his tail toward the crowd I was at the back of, catching three people, entwining the tip around their arms, legs and necks.
Uh oh.
He flicked them into the center of the time distortion bubble, where they got caught, unable to make their exit fast enough to avoid being frozen in time.
Well… shit.
There goes that cleverness they weren’t supposed to underestimate.
It’s possible that it isn’t merely like Bakudatech. It could’ve been confiscated from her on her defeat. Although with how crazy Bakuda is, it would be rather risky of the Protectorate to use her stuff.
“Care!” Miss Militia cried out, “Fire in the hole!”
She fired a shot from her grenade launcher, grabbed another grenade with a blinking LED from her vest and loaded it into her gun. Why? She’d shown with the bazooka that she didn’t need to load ammunition, hadn’t she?
Hm. I actually thought of explosive ammo back when she did that, as a reason why she shouldn’t be using her psyche for ammo, but… bazookas use explosive ammo too, don’t they? I don’t think that’s why she’s suddenly reloading.
It’s much more likely that these aren’t regular grenades that can be produced by her power, but rather some sort of Tinkertech. The kind of explosives you’d expect from Bakuda, though perhaps not quite as advanced (depending on the Tinker’s specialty).
Then I realized why. It wasn’t the kind of ammunition you found in normal guns.
eyyy
The first shot exploded into a mess of golden sticky ribbon, familiar, though it somehow escaped my memory where I’d seen it.
That… does sound familiar to me too.
The second exploded in midair, near Leviathan’s shoulder, leaving the tips of the scales and one gaping wound glinting like crystal. As Leviathan moved to recoil, the edges of the crystal separated from his flesh and seeped with that dark ichor.
Nice hit!
Eidolon was staying behind, raising his hands, and green sparks began rising from the ground, clustering around Eidolon and the fallen, obscuring them.
Hm, now what kind of power is this? Some sort of mass teleport?
A second later, he and half of the bodies that had been scattered around the battlefield disappeared, the sparks blooming outward in twenty small firework explosions.
A showy one. It’s certainly not something you do unnoticed under calmer conditions.
I took that as my cue to join everyone else in the pursuit. Eidolon could help the wounded. I couldn’t, really.
Should’ve brought that first aid equipment.
I ran after the others, nearly tripping into a pothole in my hurry. My armband showed a green icon for Leviathan, and I followed it.
Rounding a corner, I came up at the rear of a small crowd, perilously close to the Endbringer.
Woah, watch out!
Fog was blocking one route, while Sundancer stood at another, her superheated orb between her and Leviathan.
Oooh, I’m sure he wouldn’t like to touch that. Besides, the scorching heat could help get rid of some of the water, especially if Myrddin is involved.
The remaining capes were divided between the other two possible alleys Leviathan might have moved through and the air above him. Legend was hammering Leviathan down to the pavement with a series of laser blasts.
They’ve got him surrounded, it sounds like. Niiice.
Leviathan turned around, lashing his tail behind him to cast three lashes of water our way, then crouched.
Uh oh. Last time that I can recall he crouched, he was getting ready for a leap that caused the first deaths.
“He’s running!” someone called out.
Leviathan dashed away from us, fast, only to skid to a stop and turn a corner for cover as Legend, Lady Photon, Laserdream and a half dozen other heroes opened fire from the skies above.
On the face of it, Leviathan withdrawing seems like a good thing, but it doesn’t actually do any good unless they can get him to withdraw completely, going far enough away that he can’t continue attacking the city with waves or trying to create the sinkhole under the city.
Others had picked themselves up, were moving into the side streets and alleys to follow, intent on cutting him off. I looked around, glancing over at the injured and wounded, knowing Tattletale was among them.
Y’know, I do think Taylor’s reaction to hearing Tattle’s name has been a bit less intense than expected (though admittedly, she’s not exactly a dramatic person). That’s probably because she’s holding on to the doubt in the armband’s definition of “losses”… which means she might actually be about to find Tattletale. It might take actually seeing the body to get the real reaction out of her.
“Be ready!” Armsmaster called out.
This makes me think of the very beginning of the battle.
Leviathan heaved himself up out of the building’s remains in one motion, used his tail to pick up and fling a mess of broken wood, concrete and rebar at us. Aegis threw himself into the cluster of projectiles, but two capes were struck down by smaller chunks. A third was folded in half by the arc of water from Leviathan’s tail.
It’s not looking good.
Brigandine deceased, CD-5. (sic)
At least the two capes that were struck down are still alive.
I couldn’t afford to dwell on what might have happened to Tattletale. I wiped beads of water from the lenses of my mask with my gloved hands, pushed my hair out of my face, and made a note of my bugs.
I think that’s the first time she’s even thought of the bugs in this battle, at least that we’ve seen.
There were scant few in the way of bugs that could navigate in this storm. Myrddin had banished the water from the wave, somehow, but the downpour was making the streets flood fast enough that I didn’t trust anything to crawl. No, my power was dead useless, here.
Basically, the only reason you’re here is because you want to help, not because you’re actually any more qualified to than a fit mundane with first aid training. Though to be fair, you didn’t know the Endbringer in question would be the watery one.
Hm. I wonder if Behemoth and the Simurgh have similar elemental affiliations. If they do, it’s almost certainly air for the Simurgh and fire or earth for Behemoth.
The recitation continued, but I was numb to them. Tattletale? I started, looked around, as if I could find her. Where had she been?
No, what I suddenly really wanted to know was what the armband meant by losses. Were all those people dead? Was Tattletale dead?
Confusion. Denial.
Why wasn’t the armband directing me to help someone? Was there no point, or were our numbers so reduced we couldn’t afford to?
I think Taylor just kinda wants something to focus on other than the fact that her armband just told her her best friend was dead.
I could hope it was the latter, but having seen some of the injuries I had, it didn’t make me feel better. It was almost worse, thinking that Tattletale might by (sic) lying somewhere, bleeding out or unable to breathe, not getting help.
I guess so.
The Armband spoke. Losses are as follows: Debaser, Ascendant, Gallant, Zigzag, Prince of Blades, Vitiator, Humble, Halo, Whirlygig, Night, Crusader, Uglymug, Victor, Furrow, Barker, Elegance, Quark, Pelter, Snowflake, Ballistic, Mama Bear, Mister Eminent, Flashbang, Biter…
Oh shit, I was just thinking, between posts, about the armband DDoS and how Wildbow managed to make it so we might not find out Tattletale’s fate in this chapter after all, but here it is, listing up.
We might hear the name Tattletale on its own in a couple paragraphs.
Also, I see there are some names we know in here – Gallant, Night, Crusader, Victor, Ballistic and Flashbang… damn, Glory Girl’s not gonna like this. She just lost both her father and her boyfriend.
(Oh, and Halo. I choose to believe The Endbringer is such a huge threat that they called in backup from a different story’s superhero organization. Sydney, may she rest in peace, clearly died from the sheer unspiciness of the water.)
The names kept coming. I almost wanted to cover my ears, but not knowing for sure was worse.
…Cloister, Narwhal, Vixen, The Dart, Geomancer, Oaf, Tattletale…
There it is.
Goodbye, Tattletale. You were always the best Undersider for me.
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