A hush fell over the room as all eyes focused on the big screen. A skinny technician, glancing quickly between the scrolling text on his terminal and the main screen was the first to break the silence.
“Did it, did she, did Death Metal Pony just rip a leg off the Simurgh?”
A pause, then a loud, “FUCK YEAH!” from a burly cape standing in the back of the room set off a chorus cheers and claps. A screeching whistle from Director Preston quieted the room back down in a hurry.
“Keep focused people, this shit ain’t over yet. Thompson! Why’s screen three still filled with static? Whats the status on UAV-4?”
“No telemetry sir, Its gone. The last shockwave just scrapped 2 as well.”
“Fuck, ETA on replacements? We need those eyes on site. Fry, give me a sitrep on Brockton Mobile Command.”
“UAV’s are being fueled at Logan. Time to site 10 minutes.”
“10 minutes! Bullshit 10 minutes, this thing could be over in 2 minutes, get those things rolling.”
“Sir we’re still getting no response from Brockton Mobile, local command has officially transferred to Rally-1, Alexandria is on site.”
“Good, patch her through and detail one of those replacement UAV’s to do a flyby of the last known location of Brockton Mobile. And get someone on the goddamn line that can tell me why the sun decided to set 2 hours early.”
Chevalier stood against the wall and watched the controlled chaos of the Boston PRT operations center as he waited for orders. He was worried about Hannah. He knew she’d escaped Leviathan’s initial attack, but her comm had failed not long after and no one had seen her since. Unfortunately, he did know what happened to Armsmaster. One more of the original wards gone forever. Who else had died today? How many were still to die before the day was over? No matter how many Endbringer battles you had been to, there was no getting over the nervous dread of it.
The rest of his team and others were being staged on the roof for a teleport if and when the call came in. The Thinkers in Chicago were still debating if further cape deployment would help or hinder the alien’s battle against the Simurgh. He told his teammates that he was coming down here to try and get a better picture on what was going on, so that when they were deployed they’d have a better idea what they were jumping into. All of that was true, but really he was down here to distract himself, something external to direct his thoughts to. As one of the static filled screens showed the now truncated form of the Simurgh rise from the ocean his emotions swirled. This distraction isn’t working very well.
He clenched and unclenched his hand slowly, he wasn’t sure what he should be feeling. Elation? No one, not even Scion, had ever caused this much damage to an Endbringer. Disappointment? Regardless of the damage, the Simurgh was continuing the fight. Sadness? At the loss of life and the erasure of another irreplaceable piece of humanity at the hands of the Endbringers and these new aliens. Resentment? Irrationally thinking on the fact that after all the sacrifice they had made over the years in battling the Endbringers, it looked like a couple of aliens were going to step in and save them. If humanity was going to be saved, why hadn’t someone done it before the loss of so much, and he so many friends? Hope? Real hope? Even with the devastation of the day, if it ended with a dead endbringer, it could be the start of something. A turnaround humanity desperately needed.
Last he wondered what he would see, if he met these aliens in the flesh. Before the Endbringer attack Alexandria had been trying to arrange just such a meeting. Were they like us, simply more powerful? Or were they something truly…other?
“…NASA just confirmed that earth’s rotation at the equator has increased to 1,954 kilometers/hour, no they can’t explain it…”
“…Director we have Thinker confirmation that something Twilight Sparkle did, does seem to have limited or interrupted the Simurgh’s singing, but we instituted those protocols for a reason and I’m reluctant to override them when we understand so little about what is going on, and so many capes here close to the maximum exposure limit…”
“…NWS reports abnormal tidal readings across the country, the storm over Brockton Bay is expanding and moving contrary to any of their models…”
“Oh shit-“ Conversation cut off as what looked like an entire city apartment block punched through the sound barrier and blindsided the alien horse. Two more screens went blank in the resulting shockwave from the hit. The technicians frantically worked their comm sets trying to reestablish contact. One of the screens returned. A jittering image of the impact site, subtitled Dragon-fast2. He let out a relived breath as it picked up and focused on a glowing midnight mist rising from debris.
“…45 seconds to Rally-1, you should be getting my telephoto feed now…”
“Confirmed Dragon, good signal, we-what the hell?!”
What the hell?! His thoughts echoed as the mist reformed not into the armored horse, but Eidolon. Another screen clicked back on with a much better feed. Then the Eidolon clone spoke, and spoke with his voice. If it had not been for the alien language, he would not have been able to tell the difference. It even stood in one of the cape’s favored poses.
“Alexandria, are you seeing this?”
“Yes.” She paused for a moment, “Does anyone have a location on the real Eidolon?”
“Mind games.” Chevalier said, mostly to himself, but Preston was close enough to hear him.
“What, explain that.”
“If what Twilight and Tattletale said earlier is true, then the only thing the Endbringers really care about is Eidolon. If Twilight was somehow able to communicate that to this new one, it may be some kind of psychological ploy.”
“The Endbringers seemed to care fuck all whether Eidolon was facing off against them before.”
“Jus-“
Then conversation ended as the alien in Eidolon’s body teleported to avoid another hurled building. She? He? Reappeared briefly, slashed a hand, and half of the Simurgh’s face simply ceased to be. He appeared again, raised his other hand, and a searing beam of energy shot from it. The Simurgh twisted in a blindingly fast movement but the beam still scored a deep line against its remaining torso before cutting off.
Chevalier stared in disbelief at the monitors. The alien was fighting like Eidolon. The alien was fighting like Eidolon had in the beginning, using powers he hadn’t seen the real one use in years. A giant whirling cloud of material, at least a mile wide rose up from the remains of the city and engulfed Eidolon and the Simurgh momentarily before the vortex of material exploded outwards in all directions. Something hit one of the UAVs and its feed tilted and then began to spin in a dizzying blur before snapping off to a blue screen.
The Simurgh was now clutching something in her remaining hand. Dragon’s feed and the remaining UAV tried to zoom in on it as the Endbringer dove and ducked around more beams and explosions that appeared from nowhere.
A jagged hole appeared in mid-air and the Simurgh spun into it. The Alien yelled in rage in Eidolon’s voice and pursued the Endbringer into the hole just before it sealed back up. Twenty seconds of shocked silence ticked by as everyone held their breath, then every feed flashed white and went dead at the same time.
Everyone yelled into their comms at once.