Armsmaster opened his mouth to respond, but broke off when Legend called out his name.

“Armsmaster and Chevalier will be leading the hand to hand combatants who do not fit in Alexandria’s group!

I guess that includes Grue.

Anyone who thinks they can harm or hamper Leviathan in close quarters, you’ll be assisting and reinforcing the front line!”

Armsmaster strode away from the Undersiders, and I saw Assault, Battery, Brandish, Night and Fog move to join that group, among others.

Maybe not? To be fair, his abilities in close quarters aren’t quite on the same page as people like Night and Fog. They’re just normal human abilities, albeit trained.

Smaller than the first group, but I suppose it took a certain amount of bravery to be willing to get close to an Endbringer when you weren’t invincible or close to it.

True.

The boy with the metal skin began to pass through my row.  He handed me an armband from a bag, and I slid it over my hand and cinched it in place.

Hi again.

A flat, square screen showed a satellite view of the building we were in, and the surrounding parking lot and beach.  A display read: ‘State name’.

“Taylor Hebert.”
*bzzt* 
“Taylor Hebert!”
*bzzt* 
“TAYLOR HEBERT!”
*bzzt*
“…”
“It wants your cape name, miss Hebert.”
“Oops. …Skitter.”

“We are splitting you into groups based on your abilities!  If you are confident you can take a hit from Leviathan and get up afterwards, or if you have the ability to produce expendable combatants, we need you on the front line!  You will be directed by Alexandria and Dragon!”

The former criterion isn’t really the case for Taylor, and she doesn’t produce the bugs. Not that the bugs are likely to do much directly against Leviathan anyway.

As a share of the crowd moved toward one corner of the room, Armsmaster stepped down from the podium to approach Tattletale, Grue and Regent, “Where’s Hellhound?”

Ah yeah, I was wondering that a bit myself, considering Tattle indicated that they had all agreed to help out.

Did she change her mind?

“At least call her by her real name,” Tattletale glared up at him,

Which one, Rachel Lindt or Bitch?

“She’s not here.  You knocked her dogs around enough to know they aren’t that tough, and that means you’re implying they’re expendable.  Be glad she wasn’t around to hear that and figure that out.”

Oof, yeah.

Who knows if Rachel would’ve respected the truce if she heard that.

Legend called out, “Capes!  If you have faced an Endbringer before, stand!”

I guess that’s how they find out who to clear for unmoderated chat.

I watched as the rest of the Protectorate, about a third of the out-of-town Wards, Bambina, half of a commercially sponsored cape team and the Travelers stood.

Bambina evidently has more powers than “looking young” if she’s faced down one of these before and is still confident (and alive) enough to take on another.

I couldn’t help but notice Armsmaster lean over toward Miss Militia, whisper something in her ear, and point at the Travelers.  Miss Militia shook her head.

Huh, that’s interesting. Are they lying? Although Miss Militia wouldn’t know everyone who’s ever been up against an Endbringer any more than Legend does, so that’s probably not it.

Maybe Armsmaster is just taking the opportunity to as if Miss Militia has seen them around town before. They did only arrive a couple weeks ago, and I don’t know how active they’ve been since then. Armsmaster has met them before, but they might not be terribly well-known to the Protectorate in general.

“When in doubt, follow the orders of the Protectorate first!  We have trained, organized and planned for this!  The others who are standing, now, are the ones you listen to if we aren’t contradicting their order!  They have been through situations much like this, you go with their instincts!

Makes sense.

“The second button is a ping.  Use it in the case of an emergency, to alert others if you are in danger or hurt.

Do the grids on the other people’s armbands start showing the markers of people who are pinging differently? Maybe pulsing circles?

If it is not an emergency, but you want assistance, such as a flier to get you to another vantage point or you see an opportunity to turn the tables, press both buttons, tell the armband what you want.

Nice.

Dragon’s program will prioritize your needs, with assistance being directed your way if others are not occupied with more pressing matters.  The armband tracks your condition and will automatically send a ping if you are badly injured or unconscious.”

This is some hella useful tech. Good work, Dragon.

Armsmaster spoke, authoritative, less impassioned, but confident,

To be clear, the fact that Legend looked to Armsmaster because it was Armsmaster’s turn to speak changes nothing about my previous post. I wasn’t saying Legend looked to Armsmaster because the former was expecting the latter to sacrifice himself or anything.

“The Wards are handing out armbands of Dragon’s design.  These are adjustable to slide over your arm and should be tightened around your wrist.  The screen on the top of the armband notes your position on a grid, as well as Leviathan’s last updated location.  Use this.

That’s handy.

You’ll also note there are two buttons.  The button to the left lets you send messages to everyone else wearing an armband.  It will not, unless you are a member of the Protectorate or otherwise a veteran of these fights, directly communicate what you say to everyone else wearing an armband.

So basically the expert channel? Any exceptions for this? Maybe that it does go in to Dragon or someone else who can redistribute it if it’s important?

Dragon has a program screening messages and passing them on through the network based on priority, to cut down on unnecessary chatter that could distract from crucial information.

Something else, fair enough.

Unless it’s an AI that’s advanced enough to be a person of its own, the limits of which is grounds for endless philosophical discussion.

If you must bypass this three to five second delay, speak the words ‘Hard Override’ before conveying your message.  Abuse of this feature will lose you the ability to send any further messages.”

Good call adding in an override. Sometimes that short delay can be dangerous enough.

“You are doing a good thing.  The greatest thing.  This is why we are tolerated, why society allows and accounts for the capes that walk the streets and fight in its towns.  

Those pesky capes can play their little game, as long as when it really matters, they put their lives on the line to protect everyone from the true threats.

Because we are needed for situations like this.  With your assistance, we can forestall the inevitable.  Your efforts and, if you choose to make them, your sacrifices, will be remembered.”

Even those of the villains? I mean, you did bring up the villains who had sacrificed their lives in the past in this meeting, but I mean by the public. Will the public remember their sacrifices? Or will the Protectorate gloss over it like they did with the villains’ efforts against the ABB?

He looked to Armsmaster.

Okay so in response to “sacrifices”, I was thinking of maybe repeating that I think Armsmaster might end up performing a heroic sacrifice (and if he doesn’t, he still has a huge death flag). I decided not to because it seemed a bit redundant, but that was before Wildbow put this immediately after a line about being remembered for one’s sacrifice.

My doubt is dropping. I think Armsmaster is going to sacrifice his own life in a way that may be critical to the victory of this battle.

Legend frowned.  The windows were rattling with the force of the rain against them.  It was almost impossible to see through them with the water that streamed down, and the overall gloom beyond.

I genuinely do wonder if Leviathan has weather manipulation as a power of its own.

Either way, the rain gives him a clear advantage that he can use even if driven away from the sea.

“This is what the Endbringers are.

Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that. Thank you for all your answers.

As of yet, we’ve been unable to stop them, unable to get through even one confrontation without grievous losses, be it civilian casualties, the loss of a city, or the loss of the lives of some of the bravest and strongest of us.  And they will keep coming, one after another, winning these small victories, and winning some major ones.

And that’s when they come alone.

Can you even imagine if they hit a location together? Damn.

“Brockton Bay, this location, is a soft target.  The city was originally founded at this location because of the proximity to the coastline for trade routes and an aquifier that provided the first settlers with access to fresh water.

Interesting!

This aquifier, essentially an underground lake beneath the city, is our weak point.  From the moment Leviathan shows himself, we expect Leviathan will stir and manipulate this underground reservoir to erode the surrounding sand, silt and rock.  Add the tidal waves from above, with the resulting tremors and impacts…”

…plop, suddenly Brockton Bay is a jumbled mess in a wet pit.

I doubted anyone failed to understand what would follow.  A section of the city, perhaps most of the city, could collapse into the aquifier.

He paused, “We have to end this fast.  Each wave he brings on top of us is stronger than the last.

There’s that bit about him getting stronger again. It really does sound like it’s a part of his power that it gets stronger each time.

This means we have two priorities.  First, we cannot let him out of our sight.  From the moment the battle is initiated, we hem him in, sustain an offensive onslaught.  If we let him slip past our defensive lines, precious time will be wasted chasing him, getting him in another situation where we can contain his movements.

Plus he’d be able to get to a more tactically advantageous position for himself if he wanted.

“Our second priority is that we need to find ways to hurt him.  If you cannot, if your attacks are deflected or prove otherwise useless, work to support those who can.

Sounds reasonable. I guess that’s the situation Taylor ends up in.

It is vain to hope to kill him, but he can be whittled down enough that he will flee back to the ocean, and if we hurt him enough, it may delay the time before he is capable of making another attack elsewhere.”

Nice.

The television screen showed a cross section of Brockton Bay as seen from ground level.  The West end of the city was bordered by hills, and the terrain sloped gradually from the base of the mountain down to the water.

It’s unclear to me from the maps and Wikipedia whether this is the case for our world’s Brockton or Plymouth, Massachusetts, but one thing I did find out was that Plymouth is in an area called the Plymouth Pinelands.

I think we’ve had enough pines for a while, so I should probably move on from trying to figure out an exact location for the city for now.

Directly below the image of the buildings that marked the city’s location, there was a large cavern, bordered by rock on all sides except the part nearest the beach, which was sand.  It was marked blue – filled with water.

Shit.

This is the kind of formation that causes sinkholes, and here we have a villain who can use the water inside the hole to make it unstable. If Leviathan knows the cavern is there (and there’s a good chance he can sense water like Taylor senses bugs), he can theoretically make sinkholes swallow large portions of the city.

That would be a teeny tiny bit inconvenient.