Leviathan caught the streetlight ‘lance’ and clawed through the tiger’s chest, doing surprisingly little damage considering that it was just fabric.  After three good hits, the tiger deflated explosively.

We’ve had humans with protective outfits taking fewer hits before deflating explosively (best new death euphemism). Parian wasn’t kidding when she said her suffed animals were stronger than one would think.

R.I.P. Sir Tony.

The octopus and goat grappled Leviathan while Purity blasted him with a crushing beam of light.  By the time he recovered, Parian was inflating the half-created shape in front of her, so it could stumble into the fray.  She turned her attention to repairing the ‘tiger’.

Oh right, repairing is a thing. We might not have seen the last of Sir Tony just yet!

I was curious about her power.  Some sort of telekinesis, with a gimmick?  She had a crapton of fine manipulation with the needles and threads, that much was obvious, but the larger creations she was putting together – whatever she was doing to animate them with telekinesis or whatever, it left them fairly clumsy.

I can’t help but imagine them moving like in 30′s rubberhose animation.

Did her control get worse as she turned her attention to larger things?  Why manipulate cloth and not something stronger, sturdier?

I mean, it could be that her power is specifically limited to cloth and other textile arts materials, like needles.

A flick of his tail, and he sent a blade of water slashing through the air at the rain barrel, slicing through the swarm and stilts.  The barrel crashed to the rooftop, and water cascaded out.

Again: Good thing you weren’t there.

A twisting movement of his claw, and that cascade of water flowed off the roof in a small, controlled wave, moving like a speeding car, straight towards the carport on the other side of the street, toward me.

Ah, shit, so much for him not having noticed you.

I caught a glimpse of Leviathan rearing back in reaction to something as I legged it, left my swarm behind as I ran perpendicular to the wave’s direction, away from Leviathan.  I leaped as I felt it make contact with the swarm, felt it slam into my legs a fraction of a second after.

Oof.

And then Leviathan was in view, entering the same street I was on.

Well, shit. Hi there.

As if to herald his coming, a massive wave crashed hard against the barrier of ice Eidolon had erected around the wrecked Boardwalk, the spray seemingly reaching nearly to the stormclouds above.

Strike one.

One shoulder was bloated, five times the normal size, twisted, like it was covered in elephantine tumors, bleeding openly.

Huh, nice.

I have a feeling Tattle’s power would still say he has no weaknesses, but it’s a good sign.

Hm. Maybe the bloating is the result of one or more of Bakuda’s bombs?

He was injured in other places, had a hole through the side of his stomach, a larger blackened wound at the base of his neck, and a fifth of his face was missing, torn off below the cheekbone.

I’m not sure he has a cheekbone, but this is good nonetheless.

He didn’t seem to be suffering much.

This, not so much.

He held Kaiser’s upper torso in the one claw, tossed it casually to one side.  The man’s legs were nowhere to be seen.

…

Look, it’s no secret I didn’t like him. That doesn’t mean I wanted… no, you know what? Fuck you, Max, you’re a piece of shit and I can’t finish that sentence and feel entirely sincere about it.

Wait, what?  I hadn’t heard the report on Kaiser’s death.

…also, this. I was going to comment on that, but forgot.

Is this some sort of false Kaiser?

I checked my armband, where my arm hung immobile at my side.

It was dead, offline.  Black screen.

Oh. Hm.

That’s not good.

Fenja deceased, CC-6.

rip

I think this is the first time we’ve actually gotten both “down” and “deceased” for a character, but I’m not sure.

It wasn’t doing them a lot of good.  Not Fenja, anyways.

You don’t say.

I saw a light as Kid Win rose above the level of the buildings, fired a painfully bright beam down at the Endbringer.  After the laser petered out, he rose up higher again, to keep out of reach.

Get ‘im!

He was in the middle of firing another beam when the laser flicked around nearly three hundred and sixty degrees, spun by a massive impact.

Kid win down, CC-6.

I wasn’t talking to you, Leviathan!

I was shoved back – not by the water itself, but the tide of bodies that were struck, crushed and thrown by the afterimage.

Dominos!

…I don’t know, I’m just trying to find some kind of brightness in here.

As I was pushed backward, hard, I was spun by an impact at my shoulder.  My arm slammed against a windowsill, and it exploded with a sharp, jarring pain.

Ouch!

I landed on my back, saw someone else get sent head over heels over the crowd, colliding against the wall with an audible cracking sound, landing limp as a rag doll, a matter of feet from me.  He had a trumpet and a flag on his chest.

That, uh, doesn’t sound very promising for Trumpetflag.

Escutcheon deceased, CD-6.  Herald deceased, CD-6.

Trumpetflag wasn’t good enough for you, eh, Herald?

I’m honestly surprised that attack only killed two people.

Leviathan wrapped his tail around the spherical forcefield that surrounded the siblings, bringing it and the pair down toward the roof as he fell.  When they were halfway down, the constriction of the tail broke through the forcefield, snaked around Shielder’s body and Laserdream’s arm.

Welp.

The Endbringer landed on the roof with a shuddering impact and a showering of detritus, crashing through the roof.  He bounded up to the edge of the roof, lunged off it.

It’s generally a good idea to land in a spot that can sustain your landing. Not that it seems to have slowed Leviathan down by any significant amount.

I could see it like it was slow motion.  Laserdream’s hand glowed and she fired, using the concussive force of her laser to get her trapped hand free, flew up and back out of the way as Leviathan continued to fall.

…but we’ve just established that Shielder isn’t as good at either of the things his sister is using to survive. I don’t feel good about his survival chances.

Shielder, still in Leviathan’s grip, had his upper body brought down against the ragged edge of the building in passing.

Shielder deceased, CD-6

Yeah.

“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.