His Alternator Cannon was the real gem.  It had been the result of a medication the PRT’s doctor had prescribed, which he’d been forced to stop after two weeks when he began to get increasingly dizzy, anxious and nauseous.  

Sorry, dude, but it really does sound like you legitimately have ADD.

While he’d been taking the pills, he’d been focused, had a glimpse, maybe, of what he could do if it weren’t for his distractibility and daydreaming.  When Piggy had spoken of destroying the thing, the mere thought had been crushing.

Oof, yeah. That would hurt a lot.

Then Leviathan had destroyed it for real, maybe the only truly brilliant thing he’d be able to make.

For fuck’s sake, Leviathan!

I’m counting this as a death, like with the Boardwalk and the Protectorate HQ. This gets a #dang it timmy.

Rest in piece, Alternator Cannon, a.k.a.

“Tiro Finale”.

He harbored fears it might even the only brilliant thing he’d ever be able to make.

😦

Leviathan took a step forward, putting me behind him and just to his right.  He lashed his tail again.  Another dozen or two dozen civilians slain. 

He’s cutting through them like they’re made of whipped cream.

Mr. Gladly’s girlfriend was screaming, burying her face in his shoulder.  Mr. Gladly stared up at Leviathan, wide eyed, his lips pressed together in a line, oddly red faced.

Leviathan: “NO ONE’S GONNA DO IT IF IT’S OPTIONAL”

I didn’t care.  I should feel bad my teacher was about to die, but all I could think about was how he’d ignored me when Emma and the others had had me cornered.

Oof, harsh.

I still don’t think Mr. Gladly was necessarily as in the wrong in that situation as Taylor thinks. Taylor had just gotten done telling him how much she didn’t want his help. He may have simply decided to respect that. It wasn’t a really good decision as a teacher, but still, I don’t think it was as malicious or uncaring as Taylor makes it out to have been.

One hand on my shoulder to steady my throbbing broken arm, I slipped behind Leviathan, hugging the wall, slipping around the corner and moving up the vault door with padded feet.

There’s really not much Taylor can do here. Besides the armor, she’s pretty much like the civilians here.

This is all about survival, it seems.

And he was there, climbing through the vaultlike door, so large he barely fit.

…the downside to having a large bandwidth is that big bad things fit through. Well, shit. Running back into the shelter seems to have backfired a bit.

One claw on either side, he pushed his way through.  Stood as tall as he could inside the front door, looking over the crowd.  Hundreds of people were within, captive, helpless.

Yeeeah, you fucked up, guys.

Although… if they’d gotten out, would they actually have gotten anywhere?

A lash of his tail struck down a dozen people in front of him.  The afterimage struck down a dozen more.

No death notice from the armband for civilians.

Yeah, that’s a thing I’ve been painfully aware of for a while – we know there have been lots of cape deaths, but we have no idea how many civilians have perished during the chapters up to now. This city does seem to largely respect the evacuation orders, but there’s always going to be those who don’t make it to a shelter, and those who decide to be “brave” (read: foolish). Neither of those are facts that this story is the type to ignore.

Add to that the effects of panicked masses and people who can’t handle the stress.

It was surprising how much that chance meeting bugged me.

A shriek startled me out of my contemplations.  It was quickly followed by a dozen other screams of mortal terror.

Uh oh. Did Leviathan catch up?

Impel deceased, CB-10.  Apotheosis deceased, CB-10.

How many capes were there working on unblocking the door, again, besides Laserdream and Skitter? I think it might’ve been two.

I felt him arrive, a small few bugs still inside him, though most of the rest had been washed away in his swim.  There were so few I’d missed his approach.

Leviathan.

In other words, he’s significantly closer than the outer range of the power.

People ran back inside the shelter, screamed and pushed, trampled one another.

Can’t blame them, really. Waist deep in water is arguably better than being open prey for an Endbringer. Although in this case, said Endbringer could easily kill them with that water, too.

I was forced into the corner by the door as they ran into the shelter, tried to make some distance between themselves and the Endbringer.

Laserdream down, CB-10.

Aaand there she goes down too. You’re stranded, Taylor.

As our footing dropped beneath us, Laserdream reluctantly grabbed at my hand and Parian’s belt, hauled us back up into the air.

Above me, her armband flashed yellow.

Hm? Do we know what that means? I don’t remember that being mentioned in Armsy’s walkthrough.

“Armband!” I called up to her. “Tidal wave?”

“Can’t see unless I drop you,” she responded, over the dull roar of the waves beneath us.  With a bit of sarcasm and harshness to her tone, she asked me, “Do you want me to drop you?”

Ah, right, an alert for that kind of thing.

Also, hehe.

Right, I’d kind of messed with her cousins at the bank robbery.  She counted me as an ally, here and now, but she wouldn’t be friendly.

Ah, right. Fair enough.

Myrddin and Eidolon moved from the coast to the ‘lake’ in the upper end of Downtown.

Might as well start thinking about what to name the lake if the city survives. Lake Leviathan? No, sounds too celebratory. How about Lake Heroic, to celebrate all those who helped fight against the threat that created it? Including the villains, though popular history might conveniently forget that detail.

I saw and sensed Leviathan leap from the water like a dolphin cresting the waves, moving no less than two hundred feet in the air, toward the pair, lashing out with his afterimage in every direction.

Sheesh.

I didn’t see how it turned out, because Laserdream carried Parian and me away.

At least we haven’t heard any deceaseds or downs from the armband since the sinkhole started.

I could sense the Endbringer through the bugs that had made their way deepest into his wounds, the ones that had found spots where his afterimage couldn’t flush them out each time it manifested.  With my power, I could track him beneath the water.

Sweet! Now to make that useful by warning when and where he’s about to breach.

He was moving so fast that it was almost as though he were teleporting, finding the drowning and executing them.

Scalder deceased, BW-8.  Cloister deceased, BW-8.  The Erudite deceased, BW-8.  Frenetic deceased, BW-8.  Penitent deceased, BW-9.  Smackdown deceased, BX-8.  Strider deceased, BW-8

Oof. There they go.

I wondered if she was one of the capes that thought of what she did as being ‘magic’.  Her power was esoteric enough.

Ooh, like Ebony might be.

A slash of Leviathan’s tail brought down two of the stuffed entities, and Hookwolf tackled him to ensure the Endbringer didn’t get a moment’s respite.

That damn tail. Real shame Armsy didn’t manage to cut through it, seriously.

Leviathan caught Hookwolf around the middle with his tail, flecks of blood and flesh spraying from the tail as it circled Hookwolf’s body of skirring, whisking blades.  Leviathan hurled Hookwolf away.  

Ah, yeah, Hookwolf isn’t someone you hold on to very long.

Browbeat saw an opening, stepped in to pound Leviathan in the stomach, strike him in the knee Armsmaster had injured.  Leviathan, arms caught by Parian’s octopus and goat, raised one foot, caught Browbeat around the throat with his clawed toes, and then stomped down sharply.

Browbeat down, BW-8.

Ouch. It was a good try.

Leviathan leaned back hard, making Parian’s creations stumble as they maintained their grip, then heaved them forward.  The ‘octopus’ remanied latched on, but the ‘goat’ was sent through the air, a projectile that flew straight for Parian.

Uh oh!

Hm. I suppose if it’s actually a form of telekinesis, she has to actively keep it up. If it’s more of an actual breath of life, making the stuffed animals autonomous golems serving Parian, they might keep going even if Parian herself is knocked out.

Her creation deflated in mid air, but the piles of cloth that it was made of were heavy, and she was swamped by the mass of fabric.  Leviathan darted forward, held only by her octopus, and the afterimage rushed forward to slam into that pile of cloth.

Shit. I think I know what the next line is.

Parian down, BW-8.

That was the second option.