Apprentice of The Devourer and Other Associated Titles (2024)

"Taylor!" I jerked into consciousness at the sound of my name, which was followed by someone literally jerking me from side to side to wake me up faster.

"Wha?" I blinked my eyes into focus as fast as I could, which slowly revealed the image of a disheveled Eowyn in her pajamas standing over me.

"The Simurgh is attacking Beijing," She quickly said while glancing across the room to where Azim was frantically texting someone on his phone.

"Crap," I exclaimed as I threw the sheet off myself and rolled over to get up off the couch. Plans for what to do rushed through my mind, first of which was to gather my team at… "What time is it?" I quickly asked.

"Six twenty!" Azim yelled from the other end of the room. By now the other people who had been sleeping in the living room had woken up as well and were starting to take everything in. I unplugged my phone from where it was charging to call Mr. Fox, and walked over into the kitchen so no one else could hear me.

Is it a Saturday? Acererak suddenly asked apropos of nothing.

"What?" I asked in confusion as I waited for Mr. Fox to pick up..

Leviathan attacked on a Saturday, Fraz'urb-luu attacked on a Saturday, and this is happening on a Saturday.

"Uh- it's probably just a coincidence." I muttered as the ringer stopped mid-ring and someone answered.

"Tamantha's Mental Health and Rectal Tanning Clinic, Tamantha speaking." An obnoxious valley girl voice with a pitch somewhere close to a dog whistle answered me.

"Can it, this is serious. The Simurgh is attacking." I quickly stated.

"Yeah, I heard." Mr. Fox replied in his normal voice. "I already woke up Army, and called Bomby. Boy was she angry I woke her up this early, she's heading over now. Should we bring Primoris and the shadesteel golem too?"

"Hmm, maybe." I knew constructs were immune to mind-control and other related magic, but I wasn't so sure they'd be immune to whatever the Simurgh did. "Ah, bring them anyway." I said after a few moments, "we'll deal with that problem if it comes down to it." They had in-built compulsions to obey me so I should be able to override them and lock them down if it came down to it.

"Aye, aye, mon capitaine." He replied in a perfect imitation of John de Lancie, though I was more surprised by the fact that he had watched Star Trek at all. It really didn't feel like his wheelhouse, he was much more- I shook my head to stop my still half-asleep mind from wandering. I quickly sent a text to Clint to first see if he was awake, and then to ask if any of his team would come to the battle.

I slid my phone back in my pocket and turned back to the group, only to pause when I realized that everyone was either staring at me, Eowyn, or Azim. "So…" Ella began to say from where she stood near the stairs up to the second floor, "You three are all capes right?" Eowyn and I let out simultaneous sighs. "I mean, it was kind of obvious. Even before all this," she said as she motioned around to the general situation. "No offense." She concluded with a small, apologetic shrug after a second of silence.

"Yeah, sure." I replied with a groan. "We need to get going," I said as I turned to Eoywn. "Ride with me?"

She nodded and turned with me to leave through the back door. "We'll meet up with you at the PRT building to catch the teleport," I yelled back to Azim as we stepped outside.

"Okay, I need to go get my armor!" He replied as he turned to run out the front door.

Once outside I shifted into my costume. I first cast mind blank and mage armor spells on myself out of habit, and then summoned my broom to my hand. Once I took to the sky with Eowyn I made sure to fly high enough that anyone on the ground wouldn't be able to see her face or identify her. But that came with the cost of flying high in the cold morning air.

"Ughhh," Eowyn let out a shiver as she shifted closer to me in order to use my cloak and gambison as a blanket. "It's cold up here, and I forgot to put shoes on." She said through a yawn.

I nodded along as I sent a mental ping to Zolek to see if she was awake. Her reply was immediate, but sluggish and consisted more of vague feelings than anything else. She must have just woken up. I was able to summarize her reply down into: a yawn, followed by the phrase, What'd ya want?

The Simurgh is attacking.

I replied tersely.

A simurgh? Why is one of them attacking? She asked in confusion. Is there another demon invasion happening? Is that why the alarms are going off here?

Wh- no, not 'a' simurgh, 'the' Simurgh. The Endbringer.

I sent her a mental image of the Simurgh from some photo I had seen online, which now that I recalled it was actually a rendering based on eyewitness accounts.

…Oh, right, I forgot about those. Their names are confusing and I just woke up.

Are you going to help?

As much as it would irk me I could understand if they wouldn't want to intervene, this wasn't their home so they had no obligation to get involved in a major battle like this. Fortunately her reply didn't disappoint.

We're already preparing, whatever's happening we'll help. Any advice?

Hmm… it's some flavor of Master- enchanter -so you should prepare spells that can stop that. If you can?

I already had all of my thoughtforms prepared from the prior day. I would need to spend time to switch them out if I wanted to, but my selection of spells was what I was going to prepare anyway.

Celestians prepare our spells at dusk so our spells are already set for today. Though Kalla is meditating to prepare her spells now, she'll be an hour late to the battle.

I nodded while conveying the feeling across our connection. We'll be arriving at the PRT building soon, I said as I saw the blocky skyscraper slowly come into focus through the morning fog.

As I grew closer I felt my phone ringing in my pocket, it was Legend. "I'm already on my way," I replied as soon as I picked up.

"That's good to hear, I'm running through our shortlist of independents worth personally asking to help. Your ride will be outside the PRT building in ten minutes." With that he hung up.

"I'm going to call my dad," I said to Eoywn as I dialed his number. I tapped my feet together as I waited for him to pick up, before it finally went to voicemail. "Hey, dad. When you wake up the reason for my leaving will probably be on the news. I know you'll want me to stay safe, and I will be. I love you, bye." With that I checked my texts, where Clint had replied back.

I'm sorry that I can't come, I would like to but my parents won't let me-
I'm not sure about the others-​

I had the feeling that there was more to those statements but I wasn't going to press him. I knew how terrifying fighting Leviathan was, and I could see why he wouldn't want to go through anything like that again.

-It's alright.

I replied, before I put my phone back in my pocket as we reached the PRT building.

The two guards on the roof opened the door before we had even landed and we quickly entered the elevator. I got off on the first floor while Eowyn went down into the Wards' dormitories in the basem*nt to change into her costume.

I didn't quite know what the protocol for an out of town Endbringer fight was so I decided to head to the same ready room we usually met up in before things like this. This turned out to have not been the right idea, since no one was there, but I quite literally almost ran into Velocity after stepping back out into the hallway.

"Oh, hey Mystryl." He said as he slowed down to a speed that I could view him without any blurring. "Everyone's heading over from their homes and getting ready. Wait- did you just get woken up?"

"Yeah?" I replied with a slight tilt of my head.

"Go use the restroom, I know you've probably forgotten to do so in the confusion. Believe me, it is not fun suddenly needing to take a piss in the middle of a fight with a forty-story lizard." He added with a small laugh, before glancing down at the sleek watch he wore. "Oh, I gotta get going." With that he rushed down the hallway as a red blur.

Another defect of the mortal form, Acererak mused as I decided to take that helpful advice and go to the nearest restroom.

--​

A few minutes later I walked outside to find that a small group of capes had formed up outside the PRT building. Most of the Protectorate was here, minus Armsmaster, as well as the Wards with the exception of Kid Win. Zolek and Rhylarothi were also there, and positively brimming with prepared magic. New Wave landed as I walked down the steps of the PRT building. This included the somewhat comical sight of Glory Girl daisy chaining four Chiton clones under her like those little monkey toys. The one on the bottom carried Panacea, who they dropped to the ground before being set down themselves. In the distance I could see Mr. Fox's car driving towards us along the bayshore road, while the distant sound of hoofbeats echoed from the West.

Mr. Fox reached us first and teleported from the car while the rest of my team got out, but not before parking in a reserved employee space. "Heya, who's up for fighting an angel?" He asked the group before taking a sip from a cup of coffee. I let out a long sigh while the rest of the group gave him the most dead stares they could.

The silence after his statement persisted until Primoris and the shadesteel golem floated from where they had been sitting in the back seat of the car. "So… Mystryl" Clockblocker began as he looked between the golem and me, "How come everything you make looks like it was designed by the same guys who do heavy metal album covers?"

"It's part of the design," I muttered in response.

Zolek stepped forward and inspected the golem. "Shadesteel? Impressive, how long have you been working on this?"

"Uh, I didn't actually make it. It's a polymorphed statue." I replied.

"Clever," she said with an appreciative nod.

By now the hoofbeats had grown louder, and after another few seconds a now armored Nova rounded the corner with the other two members of his team on his steed. Nkrízos ran alongside his steed in the form of a large mastiff, and shifted back to his normal form upon coming to a stop.

"Hey Nicky," Mr. Fox greeted him with a wave. Nkrízos glared at the arcanaloth as Azim dismounted with the rest of his team. There was a flash of light just as he reached us, from which stepped Lanmendi. "Hey Lanny." Mr. Fox greeted him the same.

"Hello, daemon. I came as fast as I heard, I trust I am not too late?" He asked as he looked over the group.

"You're right on time," Armsmaster said as he walked down from the steps of the PRT building, having finished whatever last-minute tinkering he had been doing. I saw that multiple new magical auras had joined that of his halberd. The first was a glow of abjuration just behind the visor of his helmet, while the second was much more blatant, and took the form of a pair of thick metal and leather gauntlets that completely clashed with the rest of his armor.

"I take it you like the magic items you've purchased?" I remarked as he joined us.

"No better place to test them than on the battlefield," he remarked with what I was pretty sure was an ironic tone of voice.

Time t'battle! His halberd cheered with an unnervingly-chipper tone, like a kid going to an amusem*nt park.

"What the-?" Bailey asked with a look of confusion. "Who said that?"

Ahoy! The halberd exclaimed. Hi, I'm his weapon. Nice t'meet ya.

"Uh, hello Mr. Weapon." Bailey said with an awkward wave. Clockblocker snickered at this, which earned him a side eye from Armsmaster that could practically be seen through his visor.

Jeezus, this is awkward. Sophia muttered, though thankfully only to me and my team.

It always is when waiting before a battle, Acererak commented. That or nerve-wracking, but most people would rather make it awkward to distract from that feeling.

There was a long pause, before our attention was grabbed by a rectangular door-like portal winking into existence in the middle of the street. Beyond it I saw Hero standing next to the same device that he had 'used' to open the portals during the fight with the balor, which was now mounted on a tripod. His armor looked almost completely different from when I saw him last week. It had the same blue color scheme with gold accents, but its design had changed. Where previously it was cuirass of thin interlocking plates now it looked like a body glove made of liquid blue metal, which was streaked with glowing golden lines along his body.

Tally-ho! The halberd declared as the Protectorate started to walk through the portal, followed by the rest of the gathered heroes. Walking through the portal felt like stepping through time, as the foggy morning was suddenly replaced with a warm afternoon, though one whose sky was mostly covered by a layer of grey clouds. I saw the clouds break in the distance, casting beams of light down on a ruined and smoking city.

I had just stepped through when a familiar voice called out from the other side, "Am I late!?" I turned to see Alpacamancer riding towards us at full gallop on top of a concrete alpaca. I quickly motioned for him to come through the portal as fast as he could, which Hero winked out of existence just after he passed through. Alpacamancer stumbled to a stop after the run and gave Hero an awkward wave, which Hero returned with a grin and a wave of his own as he pushed a few buttons on the device. It fired a long line of light that struck the ground from which another portal opened, with another Protectorate team on the other side.

I quickly learned the way and took stock of the situation. We were standing in a large grassy field which appeared to be a dried out riverbed that had become overgrown, with a large stone bridge in the distance. The field was rapidly filling with capes who emerged from all manner of portals, and other methods of transportation. For instance, what looked like the capsule from a rocket was falling from the sky on a parachute in the distance.

The heroes slowly funneled towards the bridge, where the Triumvirate stood and began to organize the battle.

"I will be brief," Legend began as he stepped forward, Hero joining him and the rest of the Core Protectorate a moment later via hoverboots. "Twenty minutes ago we were contacted by the leaders of the Open Palm rebellion to request assistance in combating the Endbringer. They have already begun to evacuate the city and are working to try and coordinate reinforcements from other parahuman groups across China. I know a lot of capes were reluctant to attend this fight after the CUI refused to help with other fights in the past, but the Open Palm is not the Yangban, and they've promised full openness and cooperation with all S-Class events going forward." A few murmurs went through the crowd at that, but were quickly silenced when Legend spoke again.

"The Simurgh is arguably the most dangerous Endbringer not because of her ability to do damage but because of her ability to predict our actions and influence the minds of those around her. This ability increases in strength with exposure to her scream. For this reason each of you will need to wear a communication bracer that will keep track of your time near her. It will turn yellow when you are at risk, at which point you have around five minutes to pull out of the battle before it turns red and explodes. This is to prevent you from becoming a risk to the battle and humanity. If any of you have anti-Master powers you may have the detonation disabled, but will be subject to a thorough screening afterwards." He explained as heroes began to pass boxes of bracers back from one of Dragon's crafts that had landed on the other side of the bridge, they were the same kind we had used during the battle against Leviathan. Once I took mine I entered in the information that I was immune to Master powers, which I had to do by clicking through three separate agreements that felt like I was buying a cellphone.

I began to walk up to the front of the group as Hero stepped up to speak. "In addition the Simurgh is known to be able to steal ideas from the minds of Tinker's around her, so all the unshielded-" he tapped the side of his helmet "-Tinkers among us should stay on the sidelines unless absolutely necessary." I saw Armsmaster frown from where he was standing with Dragon and another Tinker near the bridge, the three of them overseeing some little polygonal robots who were setting up a series of computers and communication's equipment.

Once Hero finished I raised a hand.

"Yes, Mystryl?" He asked with a nod towards me.

"Myself along with Mr. Fox can cast mind blanking spells that prevent divination and enchantment-like effects, but we can only do so a limited amount of times."

"How many?" He Legend asked as he stepped forward, looking quite interested. The feeling was shared by the rest of the Core Protectorate, Hero placed a hand on his chin in thought while Alexandria shared a glance with Eidolon.

"I can do it once," I said before I paused and turned to Mr. Fox.

"I have three in the can," he replied.

A look of contemplation crossed Legend's features, before he nodded. "None of us need it: Alexandria is immune to mind control, Eidolon has a power to counteract her, I can leave the radius in an instant, and Hero has tech in his helmet to make himself immune." He explained. "You can shield who you think would be the most useful," as he spoke he glanced at Panacea, and then the clerics.

I nodded and turned to Mr. Fox, before motioning to them with my head. "Why me?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Because you have more slots to spare, and you don't have anything else to use them for." I replied.

He rolled his eyes and teleported to Amy in a flash of light. "Hi, I need to touch your head." He declared as he placed his palm on her forehead, while telekinetically throwing Glory Girl away.

I rolled my eyes and turned away from him as Legend resumed his speech. "Our goal in the initial stages of the fight is to cause as much chaos as possible, we need to disrupt her as she's preparing. Strike hard, strike fast, and keep her off guard. In addition, we have made contact with the Open Palm rebellion, and they have already begun to pull out of the city and assist in the evacuation. You will be divided up into multiple teams based on abilities and battlefield role. Direct combatants will be in groups one to five, while…" He continued to explain as our watches directed us to different groups.

Mr. Fox, Lanmendi, Laserdream, and myself were assigned to what I was mentally calling the 'flying firepower' group headed by Legend. It also included Myrddin and a few other heroes I could recognize from previous fights, plus Zolek and Rhylarothi on her griffon for support. Armorer was deployed to one of the ground search-and-rescue groups, while Cartridge hung back to start pumping out explosives in the portable workstations that were being deployed from Dragon's craft, and Alpacamancer had gone to gain the assistance of a cape that could turn things into metal in order to make more constructs. Speaking of constructs; Primoris wasn't much use in a straight fight, so it went to assist the search and rescue crews. The shadesteel golem stayed with us though, I was pretty sure Endbringers would be immune to its negative energy wave because they weren't alive, but it was worth a shot. Either way it was incredibly durable- as well as disposable -and could act as a 'living' shield if need be. Azim and his team along with Panacea and the Chitons would also assist with search and rescue, as well as providing backline healing support.

"Groups one through five, you are go to engage." Dragon said through our bracers as we began to fly.

Once everyone took to the sky Myrddin layered a purple sheen of light on us that increased our speed, so the slower members of us could keep up with the faster fliers. This especially helped the members who were using jetpacks provided by some Tinkers, one of whom I recognized as that Ward from Boston who had a crush on me. Legend was still faster than all of us by far, and he whizzed ahead of us as with the rest of the Core Protectorate to act as the vanguard.

I steeled my nerves as I saw the ground rush beneath us at a much faster speed than I was used to. Even through the filter of purple light I could see how utterly destroyed the land was. Entire city blocks were demolished and pockmarked with artillery shells, while bodies lined shattered defensive points and holes in the layers of walls towards the inner city. People were fleeing along the main roads out of the city, while in the distance I could see small pockets of where the battle that had been taking place here before we arrived was still ongoing.

The buildings beneath us grew steadily thicker, until we passed over a wall and began to fly through still standing skyscrapers. Though even these were scarred from the battle. Many had chunks blasted out of them from artillery fire, and few had more than half of their windows intact.

As we emerged from the canyons of glass and steel I finally saw our ultimate target in the glare of the sun, the Simurgh. It was a floating ball made of hundreds of overlapping wings, which flew over a large plaza that I was fairly certain was the center of the city. Some of its wings were as long and thick as a sailboat, while others were thin and flicked through the air like tall blades of glass. The smaller wings sprouted from other wings at odd angles, while the largest emerged from a source they curled around to shield. They curled around each other into a slowly-shifting cocoon that hung unnaturally in the air above the central square of the city, and cast rays of sunlight reflected off of the blades of its wings like a demonic disco ball.

Demonic disco ball?
Was that seriously what I was thinking of right before I went into combat with a monster that had single handedly destroyed a dozen cities, and killed potential millions by proxy? I let out a sigh of annoyance at my own thoughts as I refocused myself.

Pieces of debris circled the Simurgh like a shield, which included large pieces of what looked to have been a pagoda that was ripped from the center of the square. In among the floating debris I saw what looked to be mechanical components floating together, it was building something.

A grey streak suddenly rushed through the air, effortlessly shattered the floating roof of the pagoda, and impacted one of the Endbringer's largest wings. The wing shattered like a crystal smashed with a hammer, sending glittering fragments to join the orbit of the Endbringer's shield. The mass of wings surged away from Alexandria as it pulled large pieces of debris between it and her. Alexandria ignored them as she charged back into the mass of wings.

Streaks of thick light flew from Legend to strike the construct as he circled around it, which was followed by Eidolon unleashing a rapid-fire spray of green lightning balls. The balls swiftly exploded in bursts of destructive lightning as they merged with the debris cloud and charred one of the Simurgh's wings black, which was then shattered by a blast from some kind of arm-mounted shockwave cannon fired by Hero. The Simurgh replied by directing the shattered parts of her wings towards him in a storm of flechettes, which impacted on a golden forcefield that came into existence over his body like a set of second skin.

"I shall bless us," Zolek declared as we neared the battle. "<Celestian, guide us with your wisdom.>" Her voice echoed as she began to speak a prayer. I braced myself as I mentally lowered my defenses for a split second to accept her boon. Instantly a sound like a foghorn from hell assaulted my mind, like a thousand screaming voices mixed with a high-pitched tone that sounded like it was ever rising in tone and volume. I could vaguely make out what the voices were trying to say, but I knew much better than to intentionally listen to it.

Raise thy wards! Acererak exclaimed as I restored my defenses as fast as I could, though the lingering headache took around a minute after that to fade. Never do that again, apprentice. That was horribly reckless. He chastised me with a positively demonic low growl.

"Believe me, I won't," I replied as I took that lesson to heart, even if it meant not being blessed by the clerics. That was far worse than I had expected it to be, how come everyone else was able to deal with that without passing out?

"Everyone, group up," Zolek commanded a moment later. Once the group did so she cast another spell. "Ceem Si Thlecksop Fliaptlee Op." Fortunately this one didn't require me to lower my mental defenses, as it instead resulted in a burst of intangible flame that passed over us. The flame clung to us as a thin defensive layer that augmented my prior wards.

At the same time Rhylarothi cast a spell that surrounded him in a protective aura similar to Lanmendi's, which emanated out to fill the gaps left by the ghaele's aura.

Speaking of him, Lanmendi passed through us as we neared the battle, laying aiding magic on each member of the force. "Stick with me, my aura will protect you." He stated before taking off towards the Simurgh, though at a speed slow enough for the rest of us to follow.

I took a deep breath as I flew with the rest of the group just after him. "SahLoSlen," eight illusory duplicates sprung into existence around me, which startled everyone but the clerics for a moment before they refocused back on the Simurgh. Just before we neared the engagement range I raised my hands and exclaimed, "BoMulaag!" A sheen of grey light fell upon the group, which increased our already augmented speed as Lanmendi guided the force in a strafing run around two hundred feet from the Endbringer.

The first to engage was Myrddin, who spoke some faux-verbal components as he drew a large circular rune in the air before him with his staff. The rune shifted into some kind of portal half a dozen feet wide, which unleashed a great jet of flame that the faux-wizard dragged across the Simurgh's largest wing on this side. This was followed shortly after by Lanmendi unleashing multiple beams of flame that struck the same wing.

These actually did more damage than Myrddin's attack, possibly because they were more focused, and punched three fist-sized holes in the wings. And through one of those wounds I saw something that sent a spike of unnatural revulsion down my spine, a pale eye staring back at me. It was made of a material like silver and had a dull unfocused look, but I swore that I could still see it staring right into me. Through the other holes I could see the edge of a cheek, and strands of hair billowing in an unnaturally slow arc despite the still air of the late day.

Taking the opportunity presented to me I raised a finger pointed through the narrow hole and spoke another incantation. "KormAl!" The bolt of transmutation sprung from my outstretched finger and darted through the hole, striking the eye beyond it. At this the Simurg jerked slightly and pulled a few more wings to patch up the hole in its defenses I had just fired through.

"Incoming!" One of the other capes yelled as the swirling storm of debris around the Simurgh shifted. Multiple large pieces of debris and shards of broken wings flew towards our group from multiple angles.

"Spaan." I proactively called a shield of force into existence in the air before me, while Myrddin created some kind of vacuum at the tip of his staff which began to draw in the smaller projectiles. Other blasters in the group worked to destroy larger projectiles, while those that got through were deflected either by Lanmendi's aura or the wards laid by the clerics. The result of the hail of attacks was a few scratches on a couple of members, as well as a large ball of crystal and rock Myrddin formed on the tip of his staff.

This came very much in handy when what looked to have been an entire floor of the aforementioned pagoda suddenly came flying at us from below. Myrddin swung his staff down and fired the ball at the center of the floor, shattering the building into many large chunks. These chunks were then laid into by the rest of the blasters, which unfortunately distracted them enough that a few large pieces of road sent flying from the other direction were able to collide with a few of them.

"Phantom Fez down, Barbute down. The Simurgh is moving to sector F12." Dragon began her usual reading out of casualties as the first non-core members of the Protectorate began to take hits. I tuned them out and focused on the battle.

Suddenly a large clang rang out, and I turned to see that the shadesteel golem had moved itself to block a thin shard of Simurgh-wing that had come at me from behind. This resulted in only a small scratch on the golem, and a thankful lack of impalement in myself.

With that dealt with I turned back to the Simurgh, who had flown across the street and was now leading two newly-joined attacking groups in a game of tag through the sky. Through our combined firepower we had already peeled off the outer layers of the Simurgh's wings. Lanmendi swung us around to intercept the Simurgh, but we weren't able to reach her before she suddenly lurched back while pulling the remains of her debris field into a shield before her. This was confusing because she was pointing it in a direction no heroes were currently in, instead pointing her barrier towards some kind of palace at the end of the square. It was a large building built with elements of classical Chinese architecture in a pseudo-modern style, which made it look a little like something you would see in a 60s cartoon about the future. Its front gates looked to have been blown in, though there was no evidence of fighting in the square outside its doors.

It was just as the rest of the gathered forces started to notice that something weird was happening the roof of the palace exploded. A massive creature covered in layers of gleaming metallic scales rushed upwards as debris rained out around it. It was a colossal metallic dragon, who rose into the air as a serpent flying towards the sun. Its body was as long as a city block, with half of that length taken up by the truly massive tail that trailed behind its main body. And it was still growing before our eyes as it flew into the sky.

"Bahamut," I breathed as the dragon-god crested into the air, illuminated by the sun above.

Acererak let out a long sigh. Of course, this couldn't just be a normal fight with a towering false angel.

Looking closer I saw that there was something in his mouth, a small figure. But in an instant that figure wasn't so small, as it rapidly grew in size to become another familiar deity. Bane leapt from Bahamut's mouth, his cloak billowing around him in the wind as he brought his hands above his head in a fist. With a bloody cry his fists burst into green flame, and he brought them down on Bahamut's head as he began to fall back towards him.

A sound like a faint thundercrack echoed from the point of impact, while the force of the blow sent Bahamut spinning head over heels. Bane grabbed the end of Bahamut's tail as it flew towards him, and with a yell spun him around once before throwing him in our direction.

"Run!" I yelled as I jerked my broom away from the falling dragon-god. The rest of the force began to scatter as the dragon fell towards us, and with a mighty crash impacted with the Simurgh. The winged Endbringer pulled backwards just as it was hit and thus only suffered a few of its wings being ripped off from the weight of a dragon the size of a small container ship as he fell further onto some governmental building.

My eyes widened as I saw the Simurgh's body for the first time, now that it had been revealed from the loss of those wings. Its core took the form of a tall and beautiful woman, with thin proportions and what I could best describe as a figure like a supermodel. It was attractive, but in the way a statue was attractive. It looked like it was made of marble, or opal, with smooth features and a distinct lack of any look of warmth or life. In fact, the only part of it that moved was its hair. Which continued to gently wave through the air in what I was pretty sure was a deliberate attempt to be unnerving. And it was unnerving. Even more so than my closest comparison to what I was seeing, Mannequin. Though there was one spot that wasn't perfect, and which made a grin cross my face.

My disintegration beam had struck its mark and turned the Simurgh's right eye into an empty gap, exposing what looked to be an empty cavity where a skull should have been. But despite that wound her expression was unmoved. The exact expression it wore was… difficult to place, it almost looked bored. No, dispassionate was a better word, or at least the best I could place on it. It was like trying to read the facial expression of someone wearing a full-face mask, there was nothing but ambiguous feelings and guesses.

I was broken from my analysis by the sound of Bahamut rolling onto his stomach from where he had landed, inadvertently wrecking the rest of the building he had landed in. He let out a growl and released a huff of blue flame from between his sword-like teeth as his wings spread above his back.

Fight the monster, I will deal with Bane. His powerful voice echoed through our minds as he rocketed into the air past us, though I didn't feel even a single breeze despite his massive form cutting through the air. A deep laugh echoed from where Bane stood in the air, his arms crossed in front of his chest in a show of arrogance as he looked down at the rapidly-approaching dragon-god. Bahamut unleashed a blast of silver fire from his mouth, which was deflected by a shimmering spherical forcefield that appeared around Bane. In response Bane wound back his right fist and held it for a second, before striking the air before him. A sonic boom erupted from where his fist struck the air, which focused into a thin shockwave that blasted through the air like a laser beam. It struck Bahamut and knocked him off course, before continuing on to punch a hole through multiple buildings that were in the line of fire.

Bahamut's eyes flicked back at the scar of damage dealt by the attack, and the buildings which were now collapsing due to having been rendered structurally unsound by an act of god. He grit his teeth in anger and turned to fly back towards Bane. He opened his mouth as he closed the distance and unleashed a blast of sheer cold from his mouth, which was once again deflected by the forcefield around Bane. The tyrannical deity then let out a laugh as he waved a hand, summoning a gigantic centipede about as large as Bahamut right in the path of the flying dragon. Bahamut swiftly ripped it in half with his claws and dropped the two severed halves, whereupon they disintegrated into flame as they fell to the ground. During this distraction Bane had primed another punch, and swung it just as Bahamut drew near. The impact sent him hurling through the air, before he stabilized himself and swung back to continue fighting.

I quickly decided that there was nothing I could do to impact that particular conflict, and so endeavored to treat it as part of the environment of the battle instead. I raised my watch and activated the all-channel's function. "Be aware, two deities are currently fighting in the center of the city." Just after I finished speaking I saw a large bird of prey fly up next to Bane, who had just sidestepped what looked like a disintegration beam fired from Bahamut's mouth. The bird transformed into a human figure who slashed at Bane with a blade, causing him to let out a yell before unleashing a shockwave that knocked both the figure and the rapidly-approaching Bahamut away from him. "Correction, there are three deities battling. Treat them as battlefield hazards and focus on the Simurgh." I said as I turned away from the deific throwdown in the air to the Endbringer in question.

By now it had pulled one of its other wings to cover its exposed front, and had begun to fly back between the still-standing skyscrapers of the city. The buildings shook as it passed, and were ripped from their foundations into the air by an invisible force. They were then shattered into pieces, which formed a new defensive screen around the Simurgh.

Lanmendi had already begun leading our formation through the air towards the Simurgh while also healing those of us who had been injured, I turned and joined them as we whizzed through the air at a speed faster than the other groups save the Core Protectorate. Well, most of the Core Protectorate, it looked like Hero had given Eidolon some kind of jetpack so he could focus his power on combat instead of mobility. Either way they were currently engaging the Simurgh, and whittling down its defenses as we closed in.

Do you have a plan? Zolek asked me telepathically. You've faced creatures like this before, have you not?

I have

. I replied before pausing, I didn't actually have a plan. I really didn't have enough information to actually make one. The Endbringers were an enigma, and didn't have any obvious goals other than causing as much destruction as they could. This made any plan against them relatively simple: stop them from causing that destruction and damage them enough that they leave. Sure, I would love to actually destroy them, but I had no idea how that could be done. Oh, I didn't doubt that it could be done- if anything Acererak had taught me it was that everything in the multiverse could die -I just had no idea about how to actually do it. So for the moment I was stuck with the plan: shoot the monster until it goes away.

My reply to Zolek that followed was a summary of all those thoughts, sans the parts about Acererak, as well as an actual battle strategy. We could get Mr. Fox to banish it temporarily like he did with Leviathan and- I suddenly stopped broadcasting when I realized that I hadn't actually seen Mr. Fox since even before we took off. And he f*cked off before we even started, great. I finished with a sigh. New plan: same as the old plan, deal as much damage as we can. Zolek gave me a mental nod as our group reached the main battle again.

Eidolon was currently surrounded by a gigantic phantom construct in the shape of himself, which was punching apart pieces of flying building. Alexandria was bounding back and forth to strike at the Simurgh before pulling back to charge again. Legend's lasers cut through the field of debris around it, while Hero was firing booming shockwaves from an arm-mounted cannon that shattered rubble and shook the Simurgh on contact. A large piece of debris flew at him, only for it to shatter on contact with his shimmering skin-tight forcefield.

Other heroes strafed the Endbringer as well, dealing what damage they could. The Simurgh's debris barrier had been mostly taken down by now, which cued the Simurgh to actually start dodging projectiles rather than lazily block them while drifting through the sky. It suddenly lurched away from a volley fired by a group of capes, and began to fly faster as it swung out in a circle around us. The layers of dust and small rocky fragments scattered across the street by the destruction of its barrier, along with that already present in the devastated cityscape, served as fuel for the large cloud of dust it kicked up in its wake. In a few moments the Simurgh had completed a circle around us and completely surrounded the intersection with a sandstorm, which served as excellent cover for the projectiles it began to hurl from the grey clouds at us.

At the head of our group Myrddin raised his staff above his head while yelling. A shockwave emanated from the tip of his staff which jostled me as it passed over us, but did far more to the clouds of dust. With the cloud of dust cleared and the Simurgh revealed again- now surrounded by another shield of debris -we could resume our attack.

The first to fire were multiple rounds of cannon fire, which a glance showed originated from Miss Militia from where she stood on the roof of a nearby building. She had manifested a double-barrel automatic cannon which unloaded a stream of explosive shells on the Simurgh, only to disappear into a glow of light when she ran out of ammo. It then reappeared and began unloading another staccato volley of shells.

During this time our group flew closer to the Simurgh, where once in range Myrddin drew a mark made of glowing blue light in the air in front of him and sent it to fly through the air. It stuck to hang in the air above the Simurgh and began to unleash thick beams of purple lightning down on it, like one of those little plasma balls. Except these beams burnt off layers of feathers as they wandered along its wings.

Lanmendi swung by close and began to fire off beams of fire, before swinging around to heal someone who had gotten nicked by a nasty piece of rebar. I narrowed in on the Simurgh and considered my options. I could try to polymorph it, but that would necessitate getting close to the Simurgh, and I doubted it would work. Instead I decided to swing just a little closer to the Simurgh while raising my hands to form a triangle between my index fingers and thumbs, "FoKrahNal!"

Unfortunately, just as I had begun to cast the spell, the Simurgh wrenched the upper roof of an apartment building into the air and threw it at a group of capes. This forced them to dodge directly into the line of fire just as the elemental energy surged forth from between my fingers. I winced as the cone of cold tore across their bodies and instantly turned them into frozen statues, which dropped to shatter on the ground below.

But fortunately I had caught roughly half of the Simurgh's body in the cone, which dealt some serious damage to the wings which took the brunt of the blast. A few of the smaller wings shattered outright when they attempted to move, while the large ones had been covered in a thin sheet of ice that made them look like frozen leaves. "Shoot the frozen wings," I said into my bracelet as I pulled back so as to not get caught by any retaliatory debris.

My request was followed by Miss Militia turning her guns on the weakened wings, which was accompanied by a beam of red light from the periphery of my vision. I glanced at where it came from, and then did a double take to make sure my eyes were working properly. The beam had been fired from some kind of laser bazooka, which was wielded by a rambo-looking man sitting in the backseat of a flying 80s muscle car covered in flame decals. The driver was a woman with a tall spiky green mohawk, while its license plate read HRTINGU.

"Okay," I said with a small nod as I filed that weirdness away under cape branding. With that done I turned back to the Simurgh.

The wings I had targeted shattered under the combined assault, leaving the Simurgh's humanoid core exposed once again. The part of its face I had disintegrated had been replaced by a mass of feathers that had grown from the remainder of its head to form an approximation of what parts had been lost. I raised my hand and pointed it at the center of its body. "KormAl!" The disintegrating bolt flew from my fingertip and struck the Simurgh's stomach, instantly reducing that part of its body into dust while leaving its legs connected to the rest of its body just by its back. This exposed another internal gap within the body, revealing that its entire body was constructed like a porcelain doll.

But despite the evidently great amount of damage I had just done it didn't react at all, at least not in any way other than how it usually reacted to getting shot in any other part of its body. It simply pulled a few wings back to cover itself while sending chunks of debris my way. I blocked some with my shield while the golem blocked others, and the rest flew through my duplicates. The other heroes rushed to action in order to try and keep its defenses open to keep doing damage to its body. Dragon was the most notable of them, as her suit released a swarm of small rockets that snuck through the openings between the wings to impact on the Simurgh. The Simurgh then caught a whip made of silver light around one of its wings and used that to throw the cape who projected it into a metal-skinned flying man who appeared to have natural rockets built into his body. The two were sent flying through the air to collide with Dragon, whereupon they exploded in a cloud of debris from which only Dragon's mech emerged. Though it was damaged, and now sans one of its rocket pods.

"Saffron down, Cobra Bill down…"

I slowly scanned the battle as the slow trickle of casualties came in over the radio. Heroes continued to hammer against it, while other groups began to pull back as their bracelets signaled for them to leave. At the same time fresh fighters were arriving to add their strength to the battle. And through all of it the Simurgh was just flying around in circles, darting back and forth over the same patch of road while throwing around pieces of debris or churning up dust storms. It all felt… stagnant, or like everyone was just going through the motions.

"There's something we're not seeing," I stated as I watched Miss Militia be carried on a floating platform to get a good angle to shoot at the Simurgh's body through a gap in its wings.

That much was obvious, my teacher added with a mental roll of his eyes.

"It's all a diversion, it's using itself as a distraction from its real plan. Like my duplicates." I said as I glanced at the two remaining identical copies of me.

I activated my watch to open a channel with the core Protectorate. "I don't think attacking its body is doing anything, it's basically just a big target for us to hit while it does something else. I think it's stalling for time."

"We know," Legend replied. "But we don't know what to actually target so this is the best we can do."

"May I give a suggestion!" I jumped in surprise as Mr. Fox became visible next to me.

"Ah, Fox! Where have you been?"

"Oh, I decided to head over to see if I could read its mind to figure out what it's doing. Bad idea, it looked-slash-sounded like all the worst parts of Mechanus trying to sing death metal; I still have a headache from looking at it. Anyway, this thing's brain is weird, it almost feels like looking at a psion with that weird two-mind thing they do sometimes, but with four or five more minds. I wasn't able to make out anything really useful in that jumbled mess, but I did see what looked like schematics, as well as an image of the city subway- I also think I saw the a number five in Arabic script there -oh, and a bunch of Chinese guys in military uniforms."

"The generals of the Open Palm," Alexandria supplied. "We'll send assets to evacuate them."

"And we'll check out whatever is happening in the sewers," I added.

"And I will stick around here to see if I can't get anything else from Feathers over there," Mr. Fox said while thumbing back towards the Simurgh. "You can take the golem or the clerics." He added with a shrug as he turned and began to float towards the Simurgh, becoming invisible after a second.

Something is happening in the sewers, do you want to help Zolek?

Her response came a second later. I believe I should probably stay here to help augment our forces, but Adept Rhylarothi is free to assist you however.

Okay, I'm heading into the sewers through that subway station over there, I said while projecting a mental image of my destination to Zolek.

She turned her griffon and swooped down to drop her half-elven apprentice off just as I reached it. "Good luck," she said more to Rhylarothi than me.

He gave me a nod and began to descend into the subway station with the golem ahead of me as I dismounted. I followed a few steps after them, the sounds of the battle fading above us as we descended down depowered escalators into the subway station. The subway was cast in shades of grey to my vision, with even the slots in the ceiling where fluorescent lights would have gone lacking them. The second we entered the dark chamber the edges of the shadesteel golem began to blur, rendering like a shadow as it silently floated into the room ahead of us.

"Drytide down-"
"Dragon, can you please quiet that, we're investigating the subway." I said to her through the radio.

"Ah, understood." With that our watches went silent.

Be prepared for anything to come from the darkness, although usually the attacker would be the golem, he said with a chuckle as I surveyed the abandoned station. It looked to have been repurposed into some kind of bunker, with sandbags piled up in defensive positions and a machine gun mounted facing the stairs. I took in a sharp breath as my vision adjusted to the darkness and revealed what was also in the room. Bodies, at least a dozen of them, strewn out across the floor or slumped over the defenses. They looked young, most not older than their late teens, and they were mostly bunched up towards the front of the barricades facing the stairs with weapons discarded a few paces behind them. Looking closer all of their wounds were in their backs or the back of their head, they were shot from behind. There was also the corpse of what looked like an officer a few paces behind them, from which I could trace a trajectory to a young corpse that was slumped up against the barricade facing away from the entrance.

These were conscripts who had been executed by their commanders, most likely while in the process of abandoning their position.

"You have light?" Rhylarothi asked in heavily-accented English nowhere close to his teacher's fluency. His accent sounded almost Slavic, but like a Russian doing a bad Irish accent. And he did that thing Germans do where they switch all their Vs for Fs, rendering his statement something close to 'Dzou haf loit'.

"<Yes, but it's not pretty>" I replied in Elvish so he wouldn't have to fumble with trying to speak English. "VanaKun." With a command the runes on my mask began to glow, casting a pale light through the room that I was pretty sure was enough for him to see with. Just as the light filled the room the entire building shook as something exploded up above. I braced myself to grab my companions in order to teleport them away if this whole place came down, but only trails of dust and bits of debris fell from the ceiling before the structure settled again.

Rhylarothi glanced down from the ceiling to the floor, gaining a grim expression upon taking in what I had seen. "<I see,>" he then muttered a short prayer for the dead as we stepped further into the building. I explained my theory for what happened as he took point with the golem, his spear tucked back and ready to strike if any of the bodies would suddenly come alive. We progressed through the first section of the terminal while scanning the room. At the end of the room was a station for a semi-above ground rail line, as well as a staircase on the left side of the wall. We crossed the room and descended down those stairs into another room, this one an interchange line with granite pillars between which could be seen train stops on both sides of the hall. A second layer of abandoned defensive buildings took up most of this room to guard from attacks that would come both the stairs and the train lines. In the center of the room, behind the defenses, were two sets of staircases facing each other, which a map on the wall showed led down further into the station. I couldn't read Chinese, obviously, but the large 2 and 5 on each of the terminals as well as the blue and red lines leaning to them helpfully informed us as to where we needed to go. I memorized the layout of the station before turning to face my companions.

"<Down we go,>" I said as I motioned to the stairs marked with the five. Rhylarothi nodded and carefully glanced down the stairs as he circled them to their accessible side. The shadesteel golem simply floated through the air over the back of the stairs, and then down into them as we had to make our way around on foot.

Be prepared for a surprise attack from the officers, I suspect that they have gone to ground in the lower reaches of these passages. And look for traps, guerilla groups like these love traps. My teacher advised as we crept down the stairs, having to freeze only once as the tunnels shook again. This time they were accompanied by a sound like hammering on the other side of a thick wall, which a quick check with Zolek revealed was caused by Myrddin opening a portal above the Simurgh from which a shower of meteor-like lights fell on it.

Once we reached the bottom of the stairs we came to a hallway that continued to our left, and then turned right. Rhylarothi walked on ahead while the shadesteel golem floated up and twisted forward to float flush with the ceiling, practically becoming invisible in the shadows.

On a whim I summoned Dia to use her increased sight to aid my own. This turned out to have been exactly the right move because without it I wouldn't have been able to see the mine mounted at the end of the hallway. "<Halt!>" I said quietly but forcefully as I raised my hands. Rhylarothi froze and glanced back at me. "<Trap,>" I whispered as I pointed to the mine. It was one of those curved ones that looked a little like a satellite dish, and was mounted just above the baseboard on a tripod. A cord ran from it along the wall and down the stairs into the next room.

Rhylarothi glanced down at it and gave a nod in thanks, before whispering "<What do we do?>"

"<This is remotely detonated, whoever controls it must be further through.>" As I spoke I slowly turned to look up at the golem. "Eliminate whoever holds this detonator in the next room and whoever fights back against you, no negative energy," I ordered. These people had gunned down their own conscripts in cold blood, that act had removed whatever mercy I would have given them. Of course there was still the risk of them having hostages down there, hence restricting the golem's use of its indiscriminate energy wave.

The golem immediately moved into action and slithered into the darkness as it silently floated down the hall. Rhylarothi and I shared a glance after a few seconds of nothing happening. "<Did it find any-" The half-elf was cut off by the sudden sound of gunfire echoing from the next room. I gave a sharp nod and began to run down the hall.

I paused to let Rhylarothi turn around the corner first before following after. I was halfway down the stairs when I heard the distinct sound of an explosion behind me, which was accompanied by a shockwave that nearly sent me tumbling and a few pieces of shrapnel that deflected off of my wards. A few pieces were repulsed by Rhylarothi's armor as well, but he actually used the shockwave to give him a slight boost as he leapt down the last few stairs.

The room beyond was a small landing with many turnstiles and a ticket booth to the right, which had been repurposed into makeshift fortifications. Behind them was what looked like a makeshift series of barracks, within which a number of Chinese Union-Imperial soldiers were running around like hell as they tried to take down the golem.

It flew about at weird angles as it silently moved between each soldier, its distorted form intermittently illuminated only by flashes of light from the guns of the soldiers and the faint glow of a few scattered lanterns. It flew towards one of them at a roughly horizontal position, whereupon it reached out and simply pulled out half his throat with its claws. Even Rhylarothi winced at that.

It took a few seconds for anyone to notice our presence, which earned the first one to do so a firebolt from me. At the same time Rhylarothi rushed over the barricades constructed out of the turnstiles and plunged his spear into the back of a soldier who was just turning to face us. Another at the other side of the room raised his gun towards Rhylarothi and unloaded his rifle on him. The bullets bounced off his enchanted steel shield and wards, which only succeeded in getting the warrior's attention. He raised his spear and chucked it like a javelin which plunged into the soldier's chest, before he turned and punched another soldier in the face.

I, meanwhile, oriented myself using another map on the side of what used to be a ticket booth, only glancing back to fire another bolt of flame into a soldier who had shot through one of my duplicates. "<Hey, we need to go down this way!>" I yelled as I pointed down a staircase across the hallway from where we had entered through the other stairs, which wasn't even inside the area defended by the soldiers.

"<I need a moment!>" Rhylarothi responded as he caught his spear out of the air after it flew back to him from the body where it had been lodged, before he plunged it into the chest of a man he had knocked to the ground with a shield-bash.

Now only three or four soldiers remained, who by now had started to flee through another staircase. I was going to cast a spell to stop them before a beam of glowing light cut through the ceiling at one end of the room and swung along to the other side in the blink of an eye. I jumped back up against the wall as the entire room sagged inwards towards the gap, as a shower of sunlight-illuminated debris fell from the line cut in the ceiling above. I could now clearly hear the sounds of the battle above us and see the light cast down through the slit become momentarily blocked and unblocked as people and debris flew over it. Distantly I heard the echo of a draconic roar carry down from a further part of the city.

Zolek?! Her response was a flash of memory showing that Eidolon and Legend had tried that energy-storing-crystal trick they had used against the balor, but the Simurgh had dodged it and Eidolon had cut through half the downtown area trying to track the beam on it.

"<We need to go lower, before this place caves in!>" I declared as I turned and began to hurry to the staircases to the line 5 platforum. There was a short hallway with a left hand turn before the stairs, where I paused to wait as Rhylarothi hopped back over the turnstiles. The golem floated over the barrier as well, wiping the blood from its claws on the sandbags as it silently drifted over them. It then flew past me to take point along with Rhylarothi, whereupon we began to descend down the stairs. Our pace balanced speed with caution, as we didn't want to walk headfirst into an ambush or be sent tumbling down if the building rumbled again, but we also wanted to get this over with as quickly as we could.

Beyond the base of the stairs was another abandoned subway station, this one marked with a red 5 on the walls. It was a long hallway lined with circular pillars decorated with cut granite, beyond which were empty train tracks full of nothing but darkness. "<Where is this weapon?>" Rhylarothi asked as he began to look around.

"<I don't know, in all likelihood this was some kind of wild goose chase,>" I remarked. "<Hmm, maybe one of those soldiers was one of her living bombs, we should go back for->"

"<I think I've found something!>" Rhylarothi yelled from where he stood on the edge of one of the platforms. I jogged over to join him and looked down at what he was staring at, which turned out to be the base and wheels of a subway train. It was as if the actual body of the train itself had simply been lifted off the structure, with only a few bits of the actual train remaining to jut out of the chassis. At the same time I sent Dia over to the other track, where she found no remnants of a train whatsoever. If that meant there hadn't been a train there or that whatever had removed the top of this train had been more thorough, I couldn't say.

I looked up at the tunnel on our side heading West, in the direction of the battle. "Hmm." I ran down to the other end of the tunnel- stumbling momentarily as the tunnel shook again -where it became apparent that all of the electrical equipment on the far wall and from the tracks had been similarly removed. "<This way,>" I said as I hopped down onto the broken tracks. As I did, I dismissed Dia. I didn't want her getting caught in the crossfire if this was an ambush or getting caught if this place collapsed. The other two joined me a moment later and went ahead of me. "<Be on guard for anything,>" I advised the half-elf as we made our way down the dark passageway. I could distantly hear the sounds of battle above us again through vents in the ceiling, which steadily grew in volume as we reached a section of the tunnel that began to round north.

It was as we rounded the corner that we saw it. It was a large cylindrical device that floated silently a few feet off the ground, whose primary body was made of the bent body of a subway train. Inside of that was a mess of wires, components, and other machinery that occasionally unleashed showers of sparks as pieces of machinery slid into place. It was slowly drifting down the tunnel, most likely in line with the Simurgh above it, while pieces of wiring and machinery were ripped from the walls around it to be added to its mass.

I took a breath and raised a hand, "<Be ready.> LotYol!" A bead of fire formed between my fingers and flew towards the device. It struck the Tinkertech contraption and erupted in a blinding flash of light that illuminated the tunnel. I didn't want to waste a disintegration attack on what might well be another distraction, the large-scale version of that modified ice cream maker that the Core Protectorate claimed was a portal-gun. This turned out to have been a mistake.

When the glow of evoked fire cleared the device was entirely undamaged, and surrounded by a thin barrier of golden light that clung to it like a skin. "Crap."

Suddenly a sound like a thunderclap echoed out as the walls of the tunnel were telekinetically forced into the shape of a sphere, becoming the perfect space for the device to flip around through the air like a tossed pencil. In an instant we were face to face with the barrel of the device, in which a bright golden glow formed accompanied by the sound of a high-pitched whine. I dove forward to my companions and wrapped my arms over them while yelling, "GutWundunSilloh!" The golden glow that was now rapidly coming towards us was momentarily replaced with the pale grey of the Astral, which was then followed by that of the late afternoon sun of the square outside the stairs where we had first entered the subway.

At the same time we appeared I heard a sound like a dull thump, which a glance showed was the ground in the middle of the street bulging up before dropping down. Forming a small chasm that ran down the entire street from where we were to the battle. Zolek, the weapon is operational and directly under you! I was capable of thinking far faster than speaking, so she received my warning before I had even raised my wrist to activate my bracelet.

I reported the exact same thing I said to Zolek into it, while also pulling out my broom as I ran down the street. "Understood, we're preparing for-" Alexandria's response was cut off by a blinding flash of light that shot over the skyline and cut into the clouds.

"<Get on!>" I yelled to Rhylarothi as I mounted my broom. He leapt on after me, and we took off towards the battle. I cut over the corner of the street and reached the battle as fast as I could.

A massive hole had been blown in the center of the street by the weapon, which was now floating through the air before the Simurgh. The beast itself had spread out its wings dramatically to frame the weapon as it rose though the air, and had what I could almost describe as a smug expression on its face.

"Alert, the Simurgh is deploying a Tinkertech weapon." Dragon declared over the bracelets.

The weapon turned down through the air as we sped towards the battle. The rest of the capes had begun to spread out away from the barrel of the gun, careful to not be in its line of fire. Well, almost all capes.

Alexandria charged straight towards the gun, her fists raised before her in preparation to punch through it like a steel beam fired from a railgun. She flew directly at the barrel in an attempt to cleave through it where it was unarmored, only for her to collide with the forcefield that sprung into existence to surround it before I could even activate my bracelet to warn her about it. The barrel suddenly glowed with a bright light, and in a flash that was accompanied by a thunderclap she was sent flying through the air above us at a speed so fast I lost sight of her between blinks. From what I could estimate she had been blown clean into a nearby mountain range past the outskirts of the city. The weapon let out a soft hiss as the glow within it faded, before it began to intensify back to its normal levels.

And off she flies again, Acereak dryly mused.

My radio clicked on just as I reached the battle, it was Dragon. "Fall back and regroup, we need to-" She was suddenly drowned out as the weapon fired again, except this time it wasn't a laser.

What first came was a fast-moving shimmering blast of golden light that flew towards us like a slow-motion camera flash. My first instinct was to teleport past it, but Rhylarothi was riding with me, and if I did that he would plummet a few stories to the cracked pavement below us. Since I wasn't entirely sure he could survive that I instead braced myself, only for the wave to pass over us harmlessly. Or at least mostly-harmlessly. I let out a cry of surprise as my bracelet unleashed a cloud of sparks, the internal components having been fried by the attack. I quickly ripped off the now-smoking device and threw it to the ground before it lit my sleeve on fire or exploded, which was an act carried out by most of the heroes who were caught in the blast. At the same time multiple Tinkers and their creations who had been caught in the blast were affected as well, the most notable being the flying car. Which was currently stalling out in the air as the driver rapidly attempted to turn it back on. Then the gun fired again.

The second attack was a wave of distortion in the air faintly colored like sunlight, which emanated from the barrel in a flash of eye-searing light and came upon us like a tidal wave. I braced myself for impact, but no physical attack came. Instead a strong pressure suddenly forced itself on my wards- intensifying the ambient pressure that had been pressing itself on me ever since I got here -which was coupled with an audible shrieking sound very similar to one I had heard in my head earlier. I instinctively brought my hands up to cover my ears, using my gloves to muffle most of the sound. When the wave passed I felt my ears pop back to normal as the air pressure returned to normal. But something was wrong, very wrong.

A cape that had been flying near me was doubled over clutching her head while screaming, her voice joining a chorus of similar cries from the other capes who had been caught in the blast. At first I thought the blast might have damaged their ear drums, before a far worse realization crossed through my mind. Before I could even finish comprehending what was going on the screaming cape had snapped her head towards me, maddened eyes locking with mine, and thrust out her hand. I let out a shocked cry and ducked down to narrowly avoid a beam of red light fired above my head.

Acererak let out a long sigh as I blocked another bolt with my shield, while the battle went to hell around me. Mad heroes began attacking mad heroes, those who had been affected by the wave attacked those who hadn't, and those who weren't hit were fighting or fleeing in confusion and panic. Apprentice, don't restrain thyself against these corrupted capes. More harm will be done from holding back and not removing them from the battle. As he spoke he directed my attention to a nearby cape dressed like a baseball player riding a hoverboard, who had just sent a baseball through the chest of another cape at supersonic speed.

At the same time, in the corner of my eye, I saw Myrddin turn his plasma-orb on a flying brute, scorching them with searing plasma, while Eidolon fired a beam of silver light that pierced clean through the chest of a man in sparking power armor who had turned a rocket launcher on him. The sudden sound of a horn blaring brought my attention to the flying car, whose driver had decided to plunge it straight into Hero after getting it working again. Hero lurched in the air, but was protected by the golden forcefield that appeared over his skin. He then blasted the car apart with his arm-mounted sonic weapon. Well, that answered my theory about where the Simurgh got the tech for that cannon.

I let out a sigh and turned back to the cape fighting me. With a flick of my wrist I set a bolt of fire at the cape who had been attacking me, which impacted her chest and caused her to let out a scream of pain as her flesh was scored by the evoked flame. She must have been a Brute, a normal person wouldn't have been able to survive that. It didn't matter, a second one put her out of her misery all the same.

I had only a moment of respite after this, during which time I ordered the golem to engage anyone who attacked us. That moment was ended by the sound of a screaming man with a pair of translucent wings emerging from his back, who was practically foaming at the mouth as he charged us. Rhylarothi answered the cape's charge by meeting him halfway with a thrown spear. The man's wings flickered and disappeared as he slipped off the spearpoint, which hung in the air for a second before it returned to the hand of the cleric who threw it as the cape plummeted to the ground below. He then summoned a ghostly spear that looked more like a constellation than a physical object, which he sent to go aid another group near us.

"<What is this madness?>" He asked as he threw his spear down to strike another cape.

"<About par for the course,>" I muttered as I momentarily reflected on the fact that basically every major battle I was in went to hell like this.

And to make things worse the Simurgh had begun to get in on the action by telekinetically throwing around pieces of debris at groups who were distracted in combat with mad capes.

This was a travesty, one we needed to either end or get away from as fast as we could. Seeing as my communicator was down, there was only one person I could contact as I began to fight off a group of dog-sized insect-phantom-things that had been summoned by a Master. Zolek, we need to distract the Simurgh while we deal with this. And some backup might be good!

Understood.

She replied as I watched her direct her own blessed group in combat, aiding them directly with a summoned spear identical to her adept's.

It was just as I had felled the cape who had been filling the air with demon-locusts that a shimmering portal appeared in the air at the other side of the battle. From it flew the towering and radiant form of an angel. An actual angel, entirely unlike the gloating monstrosity in the middle of the street. It resembled a giant man with muscular features, and skin the color of jade. His expression was stern, with milky glowing eyes that shone like stars. In his left hand he held a massive greatsword that shimmered in the sunlight. Rhylarothi let out a chuckle, "<I was wondering when she would summon him. They used to date.>" He explained.

Oh, a planetar, this should be interesting. Acererak mused as the angel took a few seconds to gauge the current state of the battle, receiving orders from Zolek as it did so, before rushing into combat. It spoke an incantation that caused it to grow twice as large as it flew towards the Simurgh, almost matching the Endbringer in size. It swooped up just before reaching the Simurgh, and brought its blade down in a mighty swing. Its blade collided with one of the Simurgh's larger wings, and cut nearly halfway through it before eventually encountering enough resistance to stop it.

The Endbringer's response was immediate. Its cannon spun around in the air and unleashed a glowing gold beam at the planetar. But unlike the previous shotgun blast this one was thin and concentrated- even more so than the blast that had struck Alexandria -with an intensity of light that nearly blinded me despite the lenses in my mask and a sound like a sonic boom. It struck the angel in its side and sent it flying to the ground with a crash.

It was as the Angel pulled itself back up that I saw the damage the blast had done. It had punched a hole through the side of the angel's stomach, like a bite taken out of a gingerbread man. At the top of the wound I could barely see one of its ribs poking out, while at the bottom of the wound part of its pelvis stuck out from the dark green muscle of the angel. But in a resounding display of fortitude, or more likely angelic physiology, it just calmly touched a hand to its side with the same stern expression it always had, and completely healed the wound in a flash of light. With its body restored the now-uninjured angel took to the sky and flew right back towards the Simurgh.

The Endbringer's Tinkertech hissed as it reentered what I was tentatively calling a recharge phase, so instead of using it the Simurgh darted backwards through the air and began to throw pieces of road and building up in the air before it in order to impede the path of the angel.

With the Endbringer distracted for the moment I focused my attention back on the battle. The sky was full of small groups of capes all battling each other, though fortunately we appeared to be winning. If only because the maddened capes were throwing themselves at us with near- no, actual suicidal bravery in an effort to kill as many of us as they could. And they were doing a pretty good job of it, seeing as the ratio of the capes killed by our side was about half that of the damage they had done to us. But that also meant that they paid little to any attention to self-preservation, resulting in them being very quickly killed by whatever capes they weren't able to get the jump on first.

The closest enemy cape was that guy dressed like a baseball player, who was scooping up pieces of debris and using his bat to launch them with enough force to break the sound barrier; and the bodies of anyone he hit. A firebolt took him out, but only brought attention to me.

I let out a yell as I snapped my shield up to block a volley of smoke-like projectiles fired by a flying woman wearing a 20s flapper outfit, who was supported on a curtain of mist that surrounded her body. Unfortunately the smoky missiles just curled around my shield and continued on to strike me, where they dispersed upon contact with my clothing and completely bypassed my wards. I let out a wince as I felt my skin begin to itch and sear in the regions the smoke had dispersed. It felt a little like eating spicy food after burning your mouth, but so much worse. It was probably some kind of aerosolized acid, but the specifics didn't really matter. "MalGolzMelf!" I summoned six miniature meteors and sent two of them to strike the acid-fog shooting cape from the sky, which was evidently a little overkill considering how large the cloud of debris from the explosions were. "<I could use some healing,>" I said to Rhylarothi as I sent another two meteors to take out a guy dressed like a pilgrim, who was telekinetically throwing around a few non-insane capes.

The sudden sound of the weapon firing brought my attention back to where the angel battled the Endbringer. It looked like it had dodged the attack this time, judging by the fact it was unharmed while there was now a perfectly circular hole in the building behind it.

As I turned back to the parahuman side of the battle Rhylarothi muttered an incantation by which he evoked a pulse of healing light, which restored what skin of mine was damaged by the acid-smoke. I surveyed the battle as I continued to take pot-shots at whatever distracted insane capes I could see, leaving my last two meteors for when I needed more firepower.

By now most of the insane capes had been dealt with, save for a few very tough ones the remaining capes were ganging up on to defeat. However our forces had been scattered, with many groups having fled in every possible direction in the chaos after the Endbringer's weapon fired. What capes remained around the Simurgh were grouped either around members of the core Protectorate, Zolek and Lanmendi, or were simply lone stragglers scattered about the sky. They engaged in pocketed battles with the remaining mad capes, tried to attack the weapon despite the forcefield protecting it, or were just going back to attacking the Simurgh. In short, we were scattered, uncoordinated, and vulnerable.

During this the Simrugh had played a remarkable game of cat and mouse with the planetar, and had managed to keep it at a safe distance through a careful combination of dodging and impeding its path with hurled debris. Though it hadn't stayed entirely uninjured, as the scorch marks covering its body and gaps disintegrated in its wings showed it wasn't entirely capable of avoiding spells when it was actually dodging.

Then suddenly, instead of dodging the planetar's latest attack run, the Simurgh rushed right towards it. This evidently caught even the angel off guard, leaving it vulnerable as the Simurgh wrapped its wings around its limbs in a surprisingly dexterous grapple. With its primary opponent momentarily pinned, the Simurgh brought its weapon around and fired into the angel's exposed back.

This time the planetar did react, and let out a cry of pain as the weapon carved into its flesh. But even as a hole was being quite literally bored into its back by the relentless beam of golden light, the angel engaged in a counterattack. It gripped the Simurgh's wings with its hands while yelling an incantation, sending streaks of negative energy through the wings gripping it which shattered them like broken china.

The Simurgh instantly released the planetar from its grip and pulled back in an effort to get as much distance from the angel as possible, pulling the stubs of the injured wings back behind other wings as it began to regenerate new feathers before our eyes. As it pulled back the angel dropped from where it had been gripped by the Simurgh and crashed to the ground, exposing its flayed back for everyone to see. The wound it had sustained was grievous, and only its insane angelic durability meant that it was merely passed out instead of dead. For one thing its entire left lung was gone- or whatever was there in an aasimon -and I'm pretty sure part of the wound continued all the way through to poke a hole in one of its pecs.

Zolek reared up her griffon and swooped down to heal the wounded angel, while I kept my eye on the far more important cannon. This was definitely a good idea, as it seemed the Simrugh had decided to attempt to replicate its previous success. First came the EMP shockwave to disable the bracelets of everyone in the cone of fire- as well as knocking out Dragon's suit -which sent a mass panic through them as they attempted to frantically escape its cone of fire. Next would come the maddening shockwave, but I knew how to counter it. Or at least I had a pretty good idea I wanted to test.

Apprentice? Why art thou flying towards the weapon? Acererak asked with a flat tone.

"Don't worry, I have an idea." I said as I eyed the golden glow that began to intensify within the barrel in the few seconds before it fired again. All around capes began to rush in a panic to escape the firing arc before it released the shockwave. "ThalZaan!" Just as the weapon fired I evoked a similar sonic attack in the air just before the barrel. The forcefield that surrounded the weapon prevented it from actually taking any damage, but that wasn't the point.

The sonic energy I evoked mixed with and distorted the maddening psychic shockwave as it was released, resulting in the wave instead becoming a pulse of sound and force that nearly sent Rhylarothi and me tumbling from my broom as it collided with us. But although it wasn't harmless the wave didn't seem to have caused a change in the mental state of those it hit, even though most were still clutching their ears. At least none of them were screaming.

How did that work? Acererak asked with a mix of both confusion and curiosity. Ugh, the physics on this plane are so confusing.

The ambient glow within the barrel of the weapon faded, which I recognized as it entering its recharge phase, so we had a moment to recover. I quickly found Eidolon in the air and flew towards him. "We need to pull back and regroup! We're uncoordinated and injured!" I yelled at him as I approached.

"You can stop the weapon?" Was his response.

"Uh, yeah, it's psychic-shockwave-shotgun mode. But I don't know if I can stop the actual-" He cut me off before I could finish.

"Good. You stay here and focus on keeping it offline, I'll take this team and battle the Simurgh. She's wounded and on the back foot, we can stop her." He said with a resolute, almost anticipatory, tone as charged lightning sparked off his balled fists. "Capes, with me!" And with that cry he flew off towards the Simurgh, followed by the small group of capes that had gathered around him.

Are we sure he wasn't affected by the blast? Acererak asked.

"No, no I think that's just him." I muttered in response while rubbing the bridge of my nose. Honestly, from what I had seen fighting alongside him Eidolon could be more of a battle junkie than Armsmaster's insane halberd. Or Armsmaster for that matter. This kind of behavior was not entirely unexpected from someone who ran headfirst into an army of demons, I was just hoping his combat fixation wouldn't be rearing its head now. But that was evidently a fool's hope.

Zolek, how's the aasimon?

Healed,

was her reply. Sure enough a glance down showed that the rising angel was in entirely perfect health, with barely a scratch on it. It stood and rolled its left arm to make sure that everything was in place, before taking to the sky again.

Good, we need to buy time to regroup and- My thought was cut off by the weapon suddenly jerking back in the air. "Oh, what now?" I asked as I followed its trajectory. The Simurgh, now harried by both Eidolon's group and the planetar, had begun to fly back towards the central square of the city. The god-fight had moved north by now, away from the square, where it appeared that Bane had filled the air with flying devils, who were fighting half a dozen giant golden songbirds. The songbirds appeared to be winning. I shook my head and refocused on the Simurgh, we could deal with the fallout of that deific fight later.

In the past few seconds the Simurgh had ripped up the rest of the building Bahamut had landed on earlier, and threw it up to slow down the oncoming force of heroes. The Planetar muttered incantations that enchanted the force of heroes, while also blasting apart debris with pillars of holy fire called from the ground. Suddenly a grey blur shot across the sky and struck the Simurgh, knocking it off course. Alexandria took only a moment to glance at the angel, before she gave a shrug and turned back to the Endbringer.

I flew after them with the Zolek and what heroes had regrouped after scattering. "BoMulaag." I laid another curtain of speed-enhancing light over us to let us keep up with the forward group. As we neared the battle I closed in towards the cannon, intent to stop it if the Simurgh attempted to fire off another maddening blast.

By now it had reached the space over the palace, and had begun to rip it apart as well. But something was wrong, instead of normal debris the pieces that were pulled into the air looked like panes of shattered glass or folded space. This was accompanied by flickering, damaged holograms of floating disconnected hallways and 2D images of various pieces of architecture. The Simurgh sent the debris out circling around it, and instantly disappeared behind layers of illusions.

Oh, it looks like someone loved using optical illusions in their defenses. Acererak muttered as I was suddenly surrounded by a dozen distorted, funhouse mirror images of myself. It was like being caught inside that maze one of the Fallen had created when they crashed the concert, except this time turning into a minotaur wouldn't solve it. Distantly I could hear the sounds of battle, but I couldn't pinpoint where it was coming from with the sheer amount of nightmarish M.C. Escher-esque nonsense floating in the air around us.

"I lost track of the cannon," I said with a sudden realization. Zolek, do you see it? I messaged her, she was higher up in the air than me on her summoned griffon so she might have a better view of it. Though I had the feeling she wouldn't be in a better position than I was, especially with how much attention dodging the flying debris was taking from us. I winced as I saw a cape with a jetpack be squashed between two large pieces of wall, one of which had an image on it that looked like a hallway they had attempted to fly through.

No, I can't see a thing in this mess. Zolek regrettably replied.

Suddenly a sound like a sonic boom rang out, followed by multiple explosions.

"Damnit," I whispered with a sinking feeling in my gut. If my guess was true the Simurgh had just fired the cannon without disabling the bracelets of those caught in the blast first- most likely to not break the floating maze -and so had essentially blown them all up in the most convoluted way.

I'm attempting to locate it now. As she mentally spoke to me she pulled out a small forked branch and held it out in the air while speaking an incantation. After a second the twig floated in the air and pointed its long end in a general leftward direction. That way, but we'll need to get through this.

The 'this' in question was multiple large pieces of wall, some of which definitely weren't walls, as well as other pieces of swarming debris that formed a bubble around us.

Leave that to me, I replied as I flew towards the wall. I reached into my bag and pulled out the metamagic rod of sculpting I had purchased from the Mercane. There was no better time to test it than the present. I gripped it in my hand as I spoke an incantation. "KormAl!" As I called upon the disintegrating magics I altered the normal flow of energy through the rod, and used it to reshape the spell as the energy was released onto the wall of debris. It was a little like changing the setting on a garden hose, though that analogy was entirely too simplified.

The end result was that instead of the energy manifesting in a straight line from my hand it instead sprung into existence in the form of four large cubes of transmutative energy that I had spaced out to catch most of the wall in the effect. In an instant the entire wall of debris was instantly reduced to a cloud of fine ash, clearing the way for us to continue through.

What was on the other side was yet another aerial battle between capes, as the shockwave had evidently caught a number of those who had already had their bracelets disabled from the previous failed attack. I scanned the sky for the cannon but I couldn't find it, the Simurgh must have pulled it behind cover just after firing it. So I instead focused on taking down as many mad capes as I could find and saving those who had survived.

I was having trouble telling at a first glance who was insane and who wasn't due to not seeing who got caught in the blast, so I instead focused on those who I knew weren't insane. Namely the core Protectorate, of which both Alexandria and Hero were in this group. Of them, Hero was in the most immediate danger, having been caught inside some kind of force field bubble full of lightning, which was projected by a woman standing on a floating disc of force. I'm going to help Hero, I announced to Zolek as I turned and began to fly towards him.

As we flew I fired off shots at other obviously-insane capes, while Rhylarothi did the same with his spear and his conjured weapon.

"<Wall!>" He yelled while pointing to a large piece of, well, wall that was hurtling towards me. I ducked my broom down under it and then curved up to fly at the forcefield lady from behind. I still had my last two meteroes, which I loosed as I strafed up past her. One struck her head while the other hit her in the stomach, the results were not pretty.

The forcefield around Hero disappeared with a pop and he let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks, my shield was almost out of juice."

"Yeah, speaking of shields, that cannon is obviously your tech, how do we take it down?" I asked.

"Hmm, if it's the exact same we can-" He was cut off by a sudden hail of bullets that ricochet off his own shield, and struck against my wards. I let out a hiss as a couple got through with enough residual energy to strike me with multiple small punches all over my chest. Rhylarothi was behind me and so avoided most of the attack. The source of the fire was an automated gun emplacement built into a wall the Simurgh had angled towards us and activated, which Hero swiftly blasted apart with his arm cannon. He opened his mouth to speak again, only for a cape to begin showering us with a stream of glowing flechettes fired from his exposed chest.

I blasted him out of the sky with a bolt of fire, but when I turned back to Hero I found that a large piece of wall had been brought up between us. I let out a groan and swooped around to fly over it. It was just as I crested above the pane of debris that I saw it out of the corner of my eye, the cannon!

It had emerged from inside a hologram and was already glowing with a full charge. My breath stilled when I realized it was pointed right at Hero, who was distracted fighting off a cape who had transformed into some kind of giant bat monster that could breathe fire.

Thinking as fast as I could I raised my hands even as the cannon began to fire. "BelEunsuSu!" An elemental of air instantly sprang into existence next to him and immediately put all its effort into throwing him out of the way of the cannon. A bright flash of gold light shot through the air, whereupon it instantly destroyed the elemental and punched a hole through the chest of the bat-man large enough to essentially have destroyed his entire torso.

As for Hero, at first I had thought I had succeeded in pushing him from harm's way, but as the afterglow cleared I was met with the sight of him plummeting to the ground. The back of his armor had been sheared off by the blast, along with most of his back.

I dove my broom down at once to try and intercept him, but he was just falling too fast. "<Catch him, I will be fine!>" Rhylarothi yelled, before he leapt from the back of my broom onto a passing piece of debris.

Now unconstrained by needing to carry another person I was free to draw upon transmutative magic to surge through me. I guided the magic much like I would to transform into a red dragon, except this time I used it to polymorph myself into a young adult white dragon. Of all dragons they were the fastest fliers and the most physically capable, though they were lacking in intelligence and magical aptitude.

I felt the familiar transformation settle with barely any discomfort, and before even a moment had passed I beat my wings to drive myself downwards before tucking them back to turn myself into an arrow rocketing towards Hero. And the rapidly-approaching ground.

I grit my now razor-like teeth as I outstretched a clawed hand towards Hero, and gently wrapped my talons around him while being careful not to touch his wound. Or his exposed spine for that matter. With him now secure I spread my wings and began to glide to the ground with a lurch, where I set Hero down and looked at his injuries. "<What should I do?>" I asked in Draconic as I looked over Hero's wounds. For some reason it just felt right to speak that language with this mouth, like it was quite literally made for it.

Hmm, this is a major degloving and spinal… I'm going to call it sanding. Thoracic vertebrae two through ten are partially exposed, with the spinous process of four through eight heavily or fully destroyed. I believe it was caused by exposure to high-intensity sonic and… perhaps radiant energy. The exposed skin of the latissimus dorsi however show a distinct lack of burn scarring so we can perhaps rule out radiance, or any other form of fire based-

"<What do I do?>" I cut him off as I asked the same question much more forcefully, I didn't have time for his speculation on how exactly the weapon worked. We had just gotten Hero back and now he was going to die again. Which admittedly wasn't as much of a problem as it used to be, as we had three clerics and a master psion on call, but it definitely wouldn't be good for the battle.

Oh, right, thou shalt- dodge! Acererak suddenly yelled as he brought my attention to the sound of the cannon rearming. I flicked my eye back and saw it floating in the air pointed directly at us, a bright glow visible in the barrel.

Acting as fast as I could I threw forward a hand and grabbed Hero before casting another spell. "GutWundunSilloh!" Just as I had avoided it the first time the light of the barrel was replaced with the Astral, and then we were standing in the green field before the bridge where this had all started.

Now, a two-ton dragon suddenly appearing in a field would obviously bring a lot of attention, though I had obviously overlooked that in the moment. So the rocket that struck me in the head was something of a surprise. "Damnit, I'm Mystryl!" I yelled over the sound of various pieces of Tinkertech weapons. I released the transmutation and returned to my normal form. "It's Hero, he's hurt." I said as I looked down at him.

As I was saying, just wish him back to health. The clerics would have been my first choice, but now we're a wee bit too far from them. He said with a mental roll of his eyes.

"Right," I muttered with a groan at the fact that he could have just told me that in the first place. "Zu'uHind: Vokrii Haasii." With a surge of raw magic I drew upon energy from the positive energy plane and poured it into his body. The skin on his back shifted and began to close over his exposed muscle, while the muscle itself began to regrow along with the broken parts of his spine. In an instant his back was restored to normal, though it was a little more pink than before.

"Ugh, what happened?" Hero asked with a groan as he began to pull himself up. The small group of heroes who had run over to see what was happening breathed a sigh of relief, before Armsmaster ordered them back to work from where he stood on the bridge.

"He's alive, good! Now help outfit the reinforcements!" His voice echoed through the speakers in his armor, and he pointed down at a group of capes who had formed up in a bunch to prepare to head into the fight. Some of them were people who had been forced to pull back earlier due to the time limit while others were latecomers.

I knelt down next to Hero and helped him up. "The Simurgh got a cheap shot on you but I was able to heal you. Now, about that weapon," I said as I pulled him to his feet.

"Hm, right." He said with a shake of his head as he refocused himself. "The weapon is obviously a much more powerful derivative of my electro-sonic cannon, and it's shielded by the same system I use. Both of them actually operate off the same principles, it's all wavelength manipulation. By altering its frequency the cannon can unleash blasts of sound, light, heat, or apparently act as a psychic megaphone. The shield works similarly, though it functions by forming a screen around the object that pushes back on any energy pushed against it. It essentially acts like a bubble of projected normal force." He explained as we reached the Tinker workshop tables. "I know the right type of energy that can destabilize the forcefield. Heck, it's actually pretty easy once you know how, hence… this." He motioned to the exposed hole in the back of his armor and his rejuvenated flesh.

I nodded as I took it all in. "So we'll need a way to deliver this shield breaking energy, and a way to hopefully destroy the weapon fast enough that it doesn't have time to recharge."

The sound of a loud gasp and a tool being dropped brought our attention to a nearby table, behind which Bakuda was practically bouncing in place. "Hey Hero, wanna build a bomb!?" She yelled at us with a positively giddy tone.

I shared a glance with Hero. He gave a quick shrug in return, and then turned back to Bakuda. "Sure miss, let's build a bomb."

--
A/N
We now return to our regularly scheduled program. Did'ja miss me?

The preparation to the fight was conducted in the dry riverbed of the Yongding River next to the Marco Polo Bridge. The subway station they entered was Chongwenmen station, a map of which can be seen here (they entered via stairs B2, progressed down to the two staircases, and followed the red line to the line 5 platform).

At the start of the fight Taylor casts haste, shield, and mirror image, then disintegrate and cone of cold. She later teleports away from the first shot of the cannon. Next she uses minute meteors (we're just gonna ignore that this is 5e because she uses it so much I haven't changed it), and a metamagic rod of sculping to disintegrate a large chunk of the ex-Imperial Palace. After that she polymorphs into a young adult white dragon, and then uses limited wish to cast cure critical wounds.

In the opening of the battle Zolek casts prayer, shield of faith legion, while Rhylarothi casts magic circle against evil (he is however too far away from anyone else for its mental protections to apply to anyone but himself and Taylor, who are already protected with mind blank, when the weapon goes off). Zolek later casts gate to bring in a planetar, and both her and her apprentice use spiritual weapon throughout the battle. Zolek later uses locate object to find the cannon.

The planetar uses multiple castings of flame strike, disintegrate, and other combative spells while engaging the Simurgh.

Bane's statblock is sourced from page 14 of Faiths and Pantheons, while Bahamut and Loki have their stats on pages 58 and 183 of Deities and Demigods, respectively. I won't go through everything they do, but I will leave a link to the list of Salient Divine Abilities so you can cross reference which powers they use from their (avatar) statblocks if you so desire.

Massive thanks to Araurlis and Daemion for beta reading this, and extra thanks to Silver Pyromancer for making sure everything made sense under the rules of both settings. I will hopefully see you all again either next week or the week after, tootles!