Defiant pulled the craft up.
Agnes Court, I thought. I’d studied all of the major players in anticipation of the end of the world, I knew who the Elite were, and I knew who had built this.
She fit somewhere between Labyrinth and the Yàngbǎn’s Ziggurat. Organically grown structures. Seeds that swelled into pillars, stairs, houses and bigger things, given enough time in proximity to their master. The wood-like substance hardened to stone of varying colors after she terminated the growth.
In the span of two and a half days, she’d grown a walled city, one with an elaborate castle at the northmost end, with shelters and what looked like a sewer system, if I was judging the perfectly round hole in the cliff face below right. It was gushing water.
Two days to make this.
Leviathan had taken less than an hour to demolish it.
The wall, taller than some skyscrapers, was shattered in three places, damaged enough to serve little purpose in others. A shallow river flowed through the spots where the damage to the wall reached the ground.
Leviathan had perched himself atop the castle’s highest tower, though the tower wasn’t broad enough for him to put anything more than two clawed hands and two feet on the very top. His tail wound around the structure, in one window and out another.
Even through the rain, his five eyes glowed.
“Oh no,” I said. “The civilians. The refugees.”
“Relatively few,” Tattletale said. “That’s… yeah. I don’t think we offed people in any substantial numbers.”
In any substantial numbers, I thought.
“I didn’t think they’d get this kind of structure up in time,” I said.
“Court grows things exponentially, given time,” Tattletale said.
She frowned.
“Grew things exponentially.”
If that was the case, then we’d lost a possible asset. Fuck this, fuck the Elite for bringing things to this point.
“There were a thousand people here,” Defiant said. “Many who were managing supplies and resources for the rebuilding and resettlement efforts.”
“I’d explain,” Tattletale said, “But I’d rather not explain twice.”
“Twice?” Miss Militia asked.
Tattletale pointed.
The Azazel had parked on top of a tower at the wall’s edge, almost opposite to where Leviathan was. A crowd had gathered around it.
Too many to be just the Dragon’s Teeth. Far too many.
I swallowed.
Cameras zoomed in on the individuals. Hard to make out through the rain, but I could draw the appropriate conclusions.
The Dragonfly landed, far gentler in the process than I would have managed on my own.
“Time to face the music,” Tattletale said.
I took the time to restructure my costume, raising my hood to protect my head before I stepped out into the pouring rain. Defiant was in step to my right, Tattletale to my left.
No, not pouring. Pounding. As heavy a rainfall as I’d ever experienced.
The other major players had arrived. The Thanda, Faultline, the Irregulars, the Meisters, the remnants of the Suits… Cauldron.
It took time for everyone from the Dragonfly to make their way outside. We looked so small in comparison to the group arrayed before us. People had disappeared here and there. Dead or gone in the wake of the disaster on the oil rig, or the fighting that had followed.
Even after we’d arrived, after the ramp had closed, the group before us remained utterly silent. There was only the sound of the rain, so deafening I might have been unable to hear people if they’d shouted. I clenched my fists, tried not to shiver. If I started, I wouldn’t stop. Staying calm, staying confident, my attention on my bugs as a way of escaping the stresses here… it made for an almost zen moment.
It was in that same moment that the Simurgh descended.
Descended was the wrong word. She fell. It was as though she’d stopped lifting herself into the air, and let herself drop. Her wings moved to control her descent, keep her facing towards the ground as she plummeted. In the gloom of the rain and the heavy stormclouds above, her silver-white body was the easiest thing to make out. If the assembled capes hadn’t already been keeping a wary eye on her, the movement would have turned heads anyways.
A white streak, plummeting from the sky, striking Leviathan.
The shockwave that accompanied the impact tore through the tower. Superficial features broke away first, followed by the internal structures that had provided structural integrity. The end result was a gradual, almost slow-motion collapse, a lingering view of the Simurgh and Leviathan as they’d been at the moment of impact.
They tilted as the tower did, but neither Endbringer moved. The Simurgh had both feet pressed against Leviathan’s stomach, one hand reaching up to grip his face, the other hand holding the gladius she’d made, buried so deep in Leviathan’s sternum that only a little bit of the handle stuck out.
Pieces of her halo began to fall, including her fabricated guns and the other debris she’d arranged to form the ring itself. It rained down like a localized meteor shower, striking the castle, the base of the tower, the wall, and Leviathan.
The Simurgh managed to avoid being struck, even with her vast wingspan. She leaped up, kicking herself off of Leviathan, and found a perch on the wall, folding her wings around herself and the top of the wall, as if to ward off the worst of the rain.
Maybe six or seven seconds later, the tower finished collapsing, and Leviathan’s massive, dense body hit ground, crashing through several buildings before settling, the handle of the sword still sticking out of the wound.
He didn’t rise. He twitched, lashed out with his tail, dashing three already tattered buildings to smithereens, then gushed with water, producing four or five times his body weight in water without even moving.
Death throes?
She’d hit his core.
Beside me, Imp wiped at the lenses of her mask, tried again, and then pulled it off entirely. She stared at the scene with her mouth agape, then looked to Tattletale, mouthing three words in a voice too quiet to make out through the pounding rain.
Tattletale’s hair was soaked through, streaming with rivulets of water that ran down her back. Dark makeup ran from the eye sockets of her costume.
However bedraggled she appeared, just after a minute of standing in the rain, she also looked contemplative, rubbing her chin as she hugged her other arm close for warmth.
Leviathan went utterly still.
I watched the faces of the others. Every set of eyes was fixed on Leviathan’s body. Nobody seemed like they were willing or able to tear their eyes away from the scene.
Slowly, almost at a glacial pace, Leviathan moved. One hand with the disproportionately long claws was planted on the ground, then another. His tail provided some of the support and strength to leverage himself to his feet.
That, oddly enough, seemed to surprise Tattletale. Her hand dropped from her face to her side. She fumbled to hook her thumb over her belt as if she needed the extra leverage.
When Leviathan had pulled himself to an upright position with both feet beneath him, his head hanging down, the tail snaked around the handle of the sword.
He wrenched it free, and tore out chunks of his own chest in the process. There was little left but the handle and the base of the sword. Needle-like lengths of metal speared out from the base, but the bulk of the sword’s material was gone.
Leviathan continued to move with an almost excruciating slowness as he reached out with his claws, extending each arm to his sides, like a figure crucified.
The wound was superficial, but he was acting like he’d received a more grievous wound than any of us had dealt in the past.
The wind turned, and the wall ceased to provide a curtain against the rain. For a moment, Leviathan was only a silhouette.
I could see his shape distort.
Others reacted before I saw anything different. The Number Man,
Tattletale, Dinah, Faultline… they saw something I couldn’t make out through the curtains of torrential rain. The Number Man said something to Doctor Mother, and I saw Dinah fall back just an instant before Faultline gave a hand signal to her crew. They adopted fighting stances.
Did they really think we could fight, if it came down to it? Against two Endbringers?
It was maybe twenty seconds of stillness, seeing only vague shapes through the shifting downpour, before the wind turned again. I got a glimpse of what the Simurgh had done.
I could hear a squeak from beside me. I expected it to be Imp, saw it was Shadow Stalker, instead. She clutched her crossbow in both hands.
Fins. Leviathan had fins.
They were like blades, points sweeping backwards. A fin rooted in the side of his arm, from wrist to elbow, the point scything back. Had it not been limp enough to trail on the ground, it might have reached his shoulder. More at the sides of his neck and along the length of his spine, forming an almost serrated pattern where multiple fins overlapped. Perhaps some at his legs. The fins ran down the length of his tail, and ended in a cluster at the end, like the tuft of fur at the end of a lion’s tail, exaggerated many times over in size.
He flexed a claw, and I could see webbing between each finger, mottled in black and an iridescent green that matched his eyes. It made me think of the bioluminescence of a jellyfish in the deep ocean.
In synchronous motions, the Simurgh unfurled her wings, stretching them to their full length, and Leviathan flexed his fins, letting them unfold in kind. Each fin was the same as the webbing, mottled black and a eerie green, and the echo-image of water that accompanied his movement produced mist as it washed over the fins. It obscured him almost completely, and as much as the pouring rain served to drive it away, the rainwater produced more mist as it touched the fins.
It took some time to clear, and even then, it only cleared because Leviathan had folded the fins up again. When we could see Leviathan again, he had collapsed into a sitting position, one overlong arm draped over his legs, ‘chin’ resting on one shoulder, completely at ease.
Above him, the Simurgh slowly folded her wings closed, like a reversal of a flower blossoming.
Doctor Mother turned to face us.
“Wha- The-” she stuttered.
Contessa, holding an umbrella to keep the both of them dry, set an arm on the Doctor’s shoulder. The Doctor fell silent, stopping only to look at Leviathan, then turned back to Tattletale.
Tattletale managed a grin. “I’d say there’s a silver lining in all this, but that phrase has sort of lost it’s cachet over the last decade or so.”
She gestured in the vague direction of the Simurgh before hugging her arms against her body. “…He’s probably stronger, which helps if he’s going up against Scion, right?”
“I think,” Doctor Mother said. She paused very deliberately. “It would be very wise to keep the Endbringers separated from here on out.”
“We might have to fight them, before or after we take on Scion,” King of Swords, leader of one division of the Suits voiced the concerns that everyone was harboring.
Lung was the next one to speak. “What did she do?”
“Upgraded Leviathan,” Tattletale said. “Attuned some device to the right frequency or setting, then tapped into his core without doing too much harm to Leviathan. Fed things into there. Knowledge, data, nanotechnology.”
Defiant’s head turned, as if Tattletale had said something.
“Yeah,” Tattletale said. “Nanotech. Why do you think the fins were turning water to mist?”
“My tech?” Defiant asked.
“Among one or two other advancements. If the density rules are in effect, I’d bet those fins are just as hard to cut through as Leviathan’s arm or torso. Disintegration effect, maybe something else.”
“Mecha-Leviathan?” Imp murmured.
“That’s not- it doesn’t fit with what we know of them,” Defiant said.
Tattletale spread her arms, a massive, exaggerated ‘who knows?‘ gesture.
“It’s the fucking Simurgh,” Rachel said.
“I hope you can understand why we’re… distressed with you,” the Doctor said.
“Fuck you,” Tattletale retorted. “Cope.”
I put my hand on her shoulder. She didn’t relent, nor did she release any of her tension.
“You wiped out two defending forces,” the Doctor said. “We lost the Yàngbǎn’s support when you took out their infiltration squads, and the Elite are wiped out.”
I squeezed Tattletale’s shoulder. She gave me an annoyed look, but she backed away.
I took in a deep breath. I could see the Doctor fold her arms. Like a mother or schoolteacher awaiting an apology from the recalcitrant student.
“Fuck you,” I said.
“You don’t want us for enemies,” the Doctor said.
“We have the fucking Simu-” Imp started. Tattletale elbowed her.
“The Yàngbǎn were doing more harm than good,” I said.
“They were limiting their strikes to civilians. Not something I agree with, but with Earth, with every Earth on the line, I’d forego two or three thousand lives for the help of over two hundred of the C.U.I.’s trained parahumans.”
“They’d given up,” Tattletale said. “They were taking territory to run and hide.”
“Contessa would have changed their minds.”
Tattletale shrugged. “Don’t blame us for not taking your plans into account, when you don’t share your plans with anyone.”
“This is common sense. No matter. The Elite, though?”
“They were attacking civilians.”
“They were nonviolent. Refugees in the vicinity of the portal were evacuated. The Elite then made contact with possible settlers who they thought would be interested in paying a premium for good shelter, for resources and supplies. If not paying with cash, then paying with skills. Doctors, talented artists, scholars… it was one of our best bets for re-establishing a hub of development across all of the Earths.”
“They broke the truce,” Tattletale said.
“Again, they were an asset. They were cooperating. The truce hardly stands in this dark hour.”
“They broke the truce,” I echoed Tattletale. “The code has been there since the beginning. If a bigger threat shows up, we band together. We don’t distract each other with attacks or murder attempts, we don’t take advantage of the situation to fuck with civilians. The truce is there for a reason, and it has weight because everyone knows that they can’t handle the trouble that gets express-delivered to their doorsteps when they’ve defied it.”
“Siding with Endbringers could be seen as a violation,” Queen of Wands said. “I seem to recall you participated in an effort to drive out a gang that had escalated too much, too violently, too fast.”
Her eyes fell on Lung.
Were they serious?
“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Faultline said. “If you start going after the Undersiders and Guild for trying to amass enough firepower to take down Scion, then nobody’s going to be able to put up a fight.”
“Hey,” Tattletale said. “Faultline, sticking up for me? This is a first.”
“So you agree with this? Using the Endbringers?” one of the Thanda asked.
Tattletale grinned. “Agree? It was her idea.”
Faultline whipped her head around. “No. No it wasn’t.”
“Talking to the monsters. Well, you said talk to Scion, but this is close. You can have partial credit.”
“I’ll have no such thing. I don’t disagree with this, but I won’t condone it either. This is the Undersider’s plan, they can reap the consequences if it goes wrong.”
Tattletale smiled, but it wasn’t quite a grin. Confident, calm. I doubted anyone but the perception thinkers on the other side could see, but Tattletale was clenching her jaw in an effort to keep her teeth from chattering.
I felt just a little warmer, owing to my hood.
I spoke so Tattletale wouldn’t have to try and risk an ill-timed chattering of teeth. “That’s fair. We’ll deal with the consequences, be it a stab in the back from the Endbringers or punishment that follows from any real issues that follow from this. But we will keep going after anyone who violates the truce.”
Rachel stepped forward, her arm pressing against my shoulder and side, as if she was bolstering me with physical presence. Through the bugs I’d planted on him, I could sense Lung folding his arms.
“You will not be taking charge of all of the Endbringers,” the Doctor said. “Teacher emerged with a small force at his disposal. He defeated the Protectorate squads that were deployed at one empty location…”
“The place Khonsu or Tohu were supposed to appear,” Tattletale said.
“Quite. It was Khonsu. The Endbringer has imprinted on Teacher’s group, and he has offered to sell that squad, along with the Endbringer, to a sufficiently wealthy buyer. We agreed, if only to keep this from becoming a monopoly on Endbringers.”
Tattletale smiled a little, but didn’t talk.
“How good of you,” Defiant said.
“We strongly advise you leave Tohu for another party to claim,” the Doctor said. “Focus on the three you have.”
Defiant glanced at Tattletale and I. I looked at Tattletale, reading her expression, before coming to a conclusion. “That’s fine.”
“Then we’re one step closer to a resolution,” the Doctor said. “Much better than the alternative.”
Veiled threats, now? Just how badly had we fucked her plans?
“This is more firepower than we expected to have at this juncture,” the Doctor said. “But not enough by itself. Without sufficient distraction, Scion will treat the Endbringers as he treated Behemoth. We’ll step forward and unveil our own plan B and plan C at the time of battle.”
“Armies,” Tattletale said. “You were collecting people for a reason, and you didn’t release every Case Fifty-three you made.”
“Essentially,” the Doctor said.
“Five groups,” I said, and my eyes fell on Dinah, who was standing beside Faultline. “We should split up so we can respond the instant Scion appears. We make sure every group has some way to maybe occupy him or pin him down, and we move to reinforce.”
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