by wildbow
And just like that, they made it. The dogs passed Behemoth, a hundred and twenty feet of chain maintained between them, and the chain cut through him as easily as Foil’s arbalest bolts had.
Too low. There was just a little slack, and they weren’t high enough off the ground. The chain cut through the soles of his feet, through the lower part of one ankle. Insignificant. He didn’t even fall over.
Then I heard Rachel through my swarm. A shout. “Back!”
The dogs stopped, one doing so so abruptly that Rachel was nearly thrown to the ground. Nearly touched the chain, losing a limb.
The Endbringer moved his hands in anticipation of a clap, and Exalt used his power. Blades of wind, a hundred strikes in a moment, a thrust of telekinetically controlled air from across the city, rushing past Behemoth, making the Endbringer stumble. The clap arrested.
Rachel held on as the wind hit her, held on as each dog turned a hundred and eighty degrees. They passed Behemoth a second time, only this time, Rachel shouted another command. One of the first I’d heard her give. I knew now that it was the command for ‘up’.
Her dog leaped up to the highest point on a ruined building, and the chain caught Behemoth at the knee this time.
They got halfway before Foil’s power wore off. The dog tumbled in midair, Rachel thrown, flipping head over heels.
Behemoth crashed to the ground, one leg a stump.
Eidolon caught Rachel with one arm, and extended the other towards Behemoth.
“Now,” my bugs told Phir Sē, as the field surrounded the Endbringer, a forcefield, extending into the Earth, surrounding Behemoth on all sides, a cylinder.
Phir Sē’s portal opened beneath Behemoth’s feet, aimed upward, and a plume of light speared into the sky, consuming Behemoth, covering him.
Eidolon’s power held. He’d had the situation explained, had been given time to let his power build up to full strength, and his passenger had supplied something with a durability on par with Clockblocker’s ability. Inviolable.
“That’ll do,” Imp said, quiet. The light continued to flow upward, a narrow column no more than fifty feet across, billowing out only slightly as it reached the top of Eidolon’s barrier, parting smoke and clouds in a circular ring, revealing the intensely blue sky above. The entire sky seemed to brighten as the light dissipated beyond our atmosphere.
Phir Sē’s light faded, and the barrier collapsed.
Dust continued to fill the area, plumes of it.
Behemoth lurched forward.
Not quite Behemoth, but a skeleton, something like a skeleton. Emaciated, a black-red frame dripping with ichor, it had all of the key features, the basic underlying structure with the horns and the gaping mouth, the claws and the way the shoulders were broad enough to host his bulky frame, but a good eighty percent of him had been torn away, shredded. A skeleton covered in a veneer of meat.
“Go,” I whispered, feeling a quiet despair. “Go home. Go underground. Leave. We hurt you as badly as we’ve ever hurt you bastards. That’s enough.”
He reached out, and lightning reached across the landscape, striking Golem’s metal hands, into the grounding wires I’d rigged. The hands melted with the intensity of the strikes.
Behemoth wasn’t any weaker than he had been. Not in terms of what he could dish out. As much as he was wounded, he was healing. Even from where we stood, I could see him healing, flesh expanding, swelling, regenerating.
The Endbringer lurched forward on three intact limbs, starting to glow with that radioactive light of his. He was ignoring or ignorant to Eidolon’s escape, as the ‘hero’ carried Rachel away, the dogs following on the ground.
He was continuing to make his way towards Phir Sē, who had formed another portal, was gathering power for a second strike.
“Retreat,” I said, only to realize I wasn’t loud enough for anyone but Imp to hear. I raised my voice for the others. “Go! Retreat and regroup!”
Crushed 24.5
The damage Behemoth was wreaking in New Delhi was, I thought, a microcosm of what was happening all over the world. Three or four attacks a year, since the Simurgh had appeared.
The fight with Leviathan in Brockton Bay had been a good day. We’d lost people, we’d lost good capes, but we’d more or less bounced back, made it three-quarters of the way back to where we needed to be, in a matter of months. There had been ugliness, infighting, a hell of a lot of doubt, but we’d started to make our way back to where we should be. It had been the lowest number of casualties we’d had in an Endbringer attack in years, not counting a few of the Simurgh attacks. A good day.
This? This isn’t a good day.
Behemoth roared.
This is the other end of the scale.
For nearly twenty years, we’d endured intermittent Endbringer attacks, and the end result was, globally, what was happening here in a matter of hours. We were divided, scared, fighting among one another, and our defenses were being eroded. We were being forced into pockets of defense, instead of a united one where we all stood together. Those pockets, in turn, were at risk of being wiped out with a series of decisive blows.
Yes, we had our good moments. Doing as much damage to him as we just had, that was a good moment. But we had bad ones too, and the end result was always the same.
The bastard—the bastards, plural—kept coming.
Phir Sē’s light had cleared smoke and dust from the sky, though it had been almost entirely directed upward, with concentric rings still marking the skyline. Smoke was free to rise, and Behemoth was in plain sight. He was moving on three limbs, planting hands on the ruined, half-toppled and flame-scorched buildings to stay more upright.
His body, though, was a mix of high contrasts. His flesh, what little was visible through the black ichor that dripped from his frame, glowed a silver-white. The remaining material of his claws, teeth and horns remained black.
Tecton had pulled ahead of the group, and turned abruptly, skidding to a stop. Cuff’s body was folded over the back of the bike, limp. The Yàngbǎn had two more bodies with them, as well. I’d taken my flight pack back from Imp, and was airborne as he raised a gauntlet to get my attention. I descended to meet him, and we were soon joined by Dispatch, and Exalt, who carried an unconscious Revel.
“Where to?” Tecton asked. His voice was hoarse. He was recovering, it seemed.
“If we’re sticking with the regular plan,” Dispatch said, “we should gather with other capes, form another defensive line. I think we should hold to the plan. Working together with a less than ideal plan is best, until we can come up with something better.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Behemoth’s barely visible profile. How far away was safe, if he was emitting that kind of radiation?
Far, far away, I answered my own unspoken question.
“Weaver?” Tecton asked me.
I ventured, “There’s a temple, not far from here. Tattletale’s there, medical facilities. Direction he’s moving, he’s headed in that general direction. We protect them, hold position, see if we can’t figure out a way to keep him away from Phir Sē. It fits with Dispatch’s idea of sticking to the plan.”
“Why don’t we press the offensive?” Grace asked. She still sat astride her bike.
“Believe me, I really want to press the offensive,” I said. “But I don’t want to get close to him while he’s glowing like that. That would be a pretty good reason unto itself.”
“He won’t be using the radiation forever,” Tecton observed.
“There’s another key reason,” I said. “Our guys are scared, maybe a little desperate. It’s not a good mindset for fighting.”
The heroes turned to look at the others, who had apparently taken our stopping as an excuse to tend to other business. Golem had stopped to raise some hands, more lightning rods between us and the Endbringer, and others were flanking him. The Yàngbǎn were looking after their injured.
“Desperate,” Exalt said, gazing at the rank and file troops.
I wanted to join the others, to get involved and help, offer what little medical care I could, and the mental and emotional support I knew they needed, but we needed a greater direction, a mission. I turned my attention back to Exalt. “Regent was desperate, maybe, and he died. I’m scared that our side would take risks or put themselves in danger if we ordered them back into the fight. This is getting uglier by the minute, and we’re prone to doing stupid shit if we’re backed into a corner, or if we feel like we need to end this fast so our friends can get the medical help they need. Let’s get the medical help, catch our breath.”
“There’re more capes joining the fight now,” Grace said. I wasn’t sure if that was a rejection of my plan or an agreement. I followed her gaze to see a torrent of flames making its way in Behemoth’s general direction. A cape was hurling fireballs with some sort of space-warping effect tied to them, so they swelled dramatically in size with each second they were airborne.
I assumed it would be to Behemoth’s advantage, to have access to that kind of flame, but he wasn’t deflecting them. The fire exploded through the area around him, and I could see him lose his grip on a building as he reeled from the impact, slumped down to a place below the distant skyline of damaged and half-collapsed buildings. Orange light lit up the area around him, marking the areas that had been set on fire.
The fireball hurler, barely visible as a speck against a backdrop of black-brown smoke, stopped abruptly.
“Why’d he stop?” I wondered aloud.
“The radiation?” Grace offered.
“The radiation was there before he went on the offensive,” I said. “I don’t see Behemoth retaliating, but the cape stopped lobbing fireballs.”
My bugs noted Eidolon’s descent. I turned around to see him depositing Rachel on the ground. She shrugged out of his grip without so much as a ‘thanks’.
“He went underground,” Eidolon informed us.
“He ran? It’s over?”
“No,” Eidolon said. He didn’t elaborate as he watched Rachel back away and whistle to call her dogs. The opaque pane of his mask was heavily shrouded beneath the heavy hood he wore, a dim blue-green glow emanating from within. He was burned, his costume scorched and shredded in places, but the body armor beneath had more or less held. Shaped to give the illusion that he had more muscle than he did, it seemed. I could see blood running along the cracks at one panel of armor, where he’d apparently sustained a heavy blow. He was mortal, after all. Eidolon could bleed.
Fitting, that he layered disguises behind disguises. Regent had done the same thing, to a lesser degree, had worn armor behind the deceptively light and delicate shirts he’d worn, had padding beneath his masks to cushion any blows, had hid a taser in his scepter.
I felt a pang of guilt, a swelling lump in my throat. I’d never really gotten to know Regent, not to the extent that I’d gotten to know the others. He hadn’t really revealed much about himself, either. I’d reminisced before about the intimacy of friendships, about the sharing of vulnerabilities, allowing others to be close, exposing oneself to possible harm. I’d done it with Emma, back in the day, and I’d suffered for it. I’d allowed myself to form a kind of intimacy with the Undersiders, and it might well have been a reason we’d survived this far. Regent hadn’t established that kind of intimacy with us.
Except maybe for Imp.
He’d hidden so much. I’d only glimpsed the seriously disordered personality that lurked beneath the outer image of the lazy, disaffected teenager, had only seen traces of that part of him that just didn’t care that he could enslave a person’s body and leave their mind as little more than a helpless observer. And beneath that aspect of himself, he’d had something else, something that had driven him to distract Behemoth so Imp might live.
My eyes fell on Eidolon. Was there a similarity to Regent? Lies, deception, a false face behind a false face behind a false face?
What was at the core?
Eidolon turned away from his observations of Behemoth, and he briefly met my eyes.
I felt intimidated, despite myself, but I didn’t look away.
“Alexandria,” I said. “How is she—”
And he took off, not even waiting for me to finish.
“—still alive?” I finished.
“I don’t like him,” Rachel commented.
“Nobody does,” Dispatch said. Rachel seemed to accept that with a measure of satisfaction.
“And why won’t this motherfucker die?” Rachel asked, looking towards Behemoth.
“He’s been fighting us for twenty years and he hasn’t died yet,” I said.
“So?”
“So… he’s tough,” I said. It was hard to answer a question so… what was the word? Innocent? Guileless?
“We’re tough. Let’s fuck him up.”
“I was arguing for that,” Grace said.
Oh great. They’re of like mind.
“But,” Tecton cut in, turning his head her way, “Skitter had a good reason as to why we shouldn’t. We need to recover, recuperate. Other heroes are picking up the slack, applying some pressure. Or they were until he burrowed,”
Rachel snorted. “We do the chain thing again, cut him in half at the middle instead. Or cut off his head.”
“Honestly?” I spoke up, “I’m not sure he’d die if we cut off his head. And correct me if I’m wrong, but he could go after the people that carry the chain. Even if it’s someone like Eidolon, he could overheat and melt the part they’re holding on to.”
“You’re really a buzzkill,” Grace said.
I didn’t deny it. “There’s one more reason we should go, though. He’s going to—”
Retaliate.
Behemoth rose from beneath the ground a distance away. In a heartbeat, things shifted from a near-quiet to chaos. He was still glowing, and his claws crackled with electricity as he struck quickly, violently, and indiscriminately.
Three capes taken down, struck out of the sky by the bolts of electricity. Even if they’d survived that much, the kill aura and the radiation would end them.
He turned, facing us, but the Wards were already moving, their wheels squealing on the pavement before they peeled away.
It’s the Endbringer’s pattern. We hurt them or stall them enough, they change tactics, hit us back.
“Go!” I shouted.
Rachel moved, climbing astride her dog in an instant. She whistled for her other dogs, directing them to Imp, Parian, Foil and Citrine.
Golem’s hands absorbed some of the lightning that crackled around us. Not one stream, but a storm, with Behemoth at the eye of it.
And he was standing. He didn’t necessarily have a full leg, but he had the ability to stand upright, now.
And Rachel, as I saw her making her way to the Undersiders, looked determined.
Was it weird that she seemed more comfortable in the here and now than she had before the fight started? It wasn’t that she didn’t look scared, I could see the way her entire body was rigid, her hands clenched, white knuckled. But she had a role here, she fit into a dynamic.
We took off, moving behind cover, running, as Behemoth crashed through a line of buildings. Heroes from even half a mile away were lobbing attacks, and the stray shots that missed the Endbringer crashed down around us, tearing through buildings, turning stone to liquid, igniting nonflammable materials, one doing little damage but detonating so violently with the impact that my mounted teammates were nearly thrown free.
Behemoth roared, and I could see the Wards and Undersiders suffering. A dog shook its head in an attempt to shake off the noise, and lost its sense of direction. It crashed into a bike and sprawled. Parian, Foil and Grace were dismounted. Grace landed on her feet and physically ran, reaching for Tecton’s outstretched gauntlet. He extended a piledriver to give her something to hold onto.
Few bugs had managed to keep up, much less the ones with wires, but I brought a curtain between us and Behemoth. I was past the point where I wanted
to conserve them. If it was lightning, I could only hope that Golem’s makeshift lightning rods and my wires would protect us.
But it was flame. It sheared through my swarm, and it splashed down around Parian, Foil and the dog.
The Endbringer had more aim than I’d expected. He wasn’t blind, despite the fact that his eye socket was empty. But he wasn’t entirely on target otherwise. Was he relying on another sense?
The Yàngbǎn intercepted the attack, raising forcefields. Parian did something with her thread, slapping the dog’s hindquarters, and it bolted. They were carried off, tied to its side, a flame still burning on Parian’s sleeve and the hem of her dress.
Someone, an Indian cape capable of getting inside Behemoth’s kill aura, closed the distance, and Behemoth was momentarily distracted by orange cords that bound his head, lashing him to the cape. With that, the others had a chance to escape.
“Regroup!” I called out, as I descended to the midst of the Undersiders and Wards. “I’ll point the way!”
The sound of the fighting stopped with a crash. Where was the motherfucker? I rose higher to check, but saw neither Behemoth nor the cape who’d been binding him. He’d burrowed.
It was quiet, all of a sudden, if not quite silent. The defending capes were spreading out, and were hovering in place or holding positions, rather than bombarding the landscape. The lightning and fire had stopped, and no shockwaves ripped through the city. The rumbling was intermittent, mild when it wasn’t almost imperceptible. The ringing in my ears was louder than the ambient noise.
This was his new tactic, burrowing, surfacing. But where was the retaliation? Their whole damn pattern centered around repaying us twice over for any abuse we inflicted on them.
The armband crackled, and I jumped, despite myself. The first message didn’t come through the static, but the second was clearer. “Be advised, seismic activity suggests the Endbringer is still local. Regroup and form defensive lines.”
I did a little mental math, then pressed the button on my armband. “Armband, note that Behemoth may have a likely target, roughly eight to fifteen miles north-northwest of India Gate.”