Even if they are supremely fucked up mentally and physically by their powers, to the point of possibly being Lovecraftian or the like, I suppose at least some Endbringers must be somewhat sane. The Simurgh is suspected to be able to read minds, and for people to work out that theory, the Simurgh needs to be sane enough to act or speak with others’ thoughts in mind.

“What- but-”  I turned toward the stairs, then back to Tattletale, “My dad.  I’ve got to-”

Tattletale cut me off, “He’ll evacuate or get to a shelter like everyone else.  Taylor, look at me.”

I did.

“The others and I, we talked about this possibility.  It came up before we met you.  You listening to me?  You know what happens, the usual response.”

“But the real evidence to my ‘cops and robbers’ theory,” Lisa continued, “Is the reaction you see when someone crosses the line.

You’ve heard about it happening.  Someone finds out another cape’s secret identity, goes after the cape’s family.  Or a cape wins a fight and decides his downed opponent isn’t in a state to say no if he’s feeling lusty?

Word gets around, and the cape community goes after the fucker.  Protecting the status quo, keeping the game afloat.  Bitter enemies call a truce, everyone bands together, favors get called in and everyone does their damndest to put the asshole down.”

“Like we do with the Endbringers,” I said.  I sheathed my knife.

By the sound of it, the Endbringers are terrible enough to warrant a truce á là Hive simply by their presence in the city.

Interestingly, what’s happening here seems to treat a single Endbringer much like a natural disaster approaching the city. Maybe that’s sort of what they are. Maybe it’s not so much a team as a designation, for someone who has been fucked up to such an extent by their power that they’re practically a single-person natural disaster roaming the planet.

I nodded.

“We all decided we’d go.  That we’d try to help, however we could.  But you weren’t a part of that talk, and there’s tensions in the group.  You’re pretty much not on the team, right now, so if you don’t want to-”

I understand what you’re getting at, Lisa, but you’re telling the person who’s preparing to leave the team specifically because the rest of you weren’t willing to help out a single innocent person that it’s okay if she’s not willing to do her part in protecting a whole city full of innocent people.

“I’ll go.”  I didn’t even need to think about it.  I would never be able to forgive myself if I walked away, knowing there was something I could have done to help.

Thought so.

Lisa moved out of the doorway to let me through.  When I turned in the direction of the living room and the stairwell, Lisa almost deliberately turned in the other direction, toward the kitchen.  As if following me to the exit constituted some vague sort of farewell, and she was sticking to the idea of refusing to say goodbye.

“See ya.”

I was halfway down the stairwell to the first floor when I heard it.  A whining noise, like you might hear from a particularly large baby preparing to scream.  The nasal ‘wa’ sound stretched out, so loud it was painful to listen to.  A siren?  An air raid siren.

…what.

This sounds a bit too loud to be Tattle having stopped managing to restrain her feelings.

I reversed direction and ran back up the stairs.  Tattletale was already in the living room.  The TV was showing evacuation directions in a rotation of images:  Leave your homes.  Find the nearest shelter.  Follow the directions of local authorities.  Leave your homes…

Well, shit. What’s prompted this?

“Bomb?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over the siren, “Bakuda leave something behind?”

Lisa shook her head.

It’d be just like her to, really.

I’d seen her in the presence of Lung, around Glory Girl, Bakuda, Purity, Night and Fog.  Looking at her, now, I saw an expression on her face that I hadn’t seen in any of those scenarios.  There was no trace of her vulpine grin, none of her characteristic humor or reckless abandon.

Sheesh, must be bad.

“Then what is it?”  I asked her, though I already had a dark suspicion.  Even the Bakuda’s terrorism campaign against the city hadn’t warranted the sirens, and that left very few possibilities.

Her response was one word, final. “Endbringer.”

Fuck.

“You’re aware that there’s an outside chance that if you try, we might have to try and stop you.  Depending on what agreement the rest of us come to about the current sitch.”

Tattle is being rather generous with that “try and stop you”.

“Do what you have to, I’ll do the same.”

“Alright, then.”

Fair enough.

I slung the bag over my shoulder, faced the door.

Tattletale spoke, “I’m not saying goodbye, because this isn’t.  I’ll resolve this situation with Coil and his captive myself, if I have to, if it means we can have another civil conversation in the near future.

She really cares about Taylor, but she’s resigned to the idea that she needs to let Taylor make her own choices.

Stay alive, don’t do anything rash, and be open to hearing us out in the future?  Surely our friendship is worth doing that much?”

“Maybe.”

After a moment, then I gave her a single nod.

Aw. 🙂

I turned to look at her, and her expression changed.  Was it the look on my face?  I wasn’t sure what emotion I was conveying.  Anger?  Disappointment?  Regret?

Sadness?

“A motel, maybe,” I said.  “Why?  Are you going to have to hunt me down?  Tie up a loose end?”

“You know we wouldn’t.”

I… have a feeling Taylor might admit what she was originally planning by the end of this exchange.

“Sure.  I suppose he’ll send the Travelers after me if he goes that route.”  I pulled my mask off and put it away in the backpack.

…fair point. The Undersiders are too unreliable given their personal attachment to Taylor.

“I don’t even want to look at myself in the mirror, right now.  Even if we came to some sort of agreement, made a plan to save her together, go against Coil…” I trailed off, trying to find the words, “I can’t face everyone else and pretend like things are normal.  Even if we were working to save her… it feels disrespectful.  Dinah deserves better than that.”

Yeah…

“Believe it or not, Brian’s as freaked out as you are.  If he’s being weird or out of character, it’s just him defaulting to his core programming, you know what I mean?  Like Bitch getting angry, or you going quiet and wary.”

People cope with things in different ways, a lot of which are like this.

But, Tattle, I think this is pretty much the problem. Taylor is upset at seeing what the core programming really is here.

I shrugged, tied my sweatshirt around my waist, told her, “In hindsight, I don’t think it was that out of character for him.  Part of the reason I’m leaving.”

Yeah.

“Is this leave permanent or temporary?”

“Don’t know.”

“Are you going to do something stupid like try to rescue Dinah yourself?”

“Don’t know,” I repeated myself.

Heh. Well, at least she’s sort of acknowledging that she might come back. Mostly, though, she’s saying there’s a lot she doesn’t know about her future.

The alarm clock marked the time at 6:40 in the morning.  If Coil hadn’t called for the meeting at this strange hour, if I hadn’t been packing, this would be about the time that I headed out the door for my morning run.

Kinda fitting, really.

(Also, Coil called the meeting? Well, better mark that down as another thing I was wrong about.)

Leaving like I was, hurrying to be gone before the others caught up with me, I was leaving a lot of stuff behind.  Clothes, furniture, pictures.  Without even realizing it, I’d sort of begun making this space my own, decorating and personalizing it.  Settling in, in a way I hadn’t when I’d been planning to betray the group.

In a way she specifically avoided.

I was putting clothes on over my costume when Lisa’s voice came from the doorway, “Where are you going to go?”

Too late, Taylor.

And hey, it’s the one member Taylor has connected with the most except for Brian. The one whose whole shtick is knowing what to say.