witch's cape, not hat

[characterquarry]

Grendyne groans and starts pulling on her boots when the alarm goes off. Again. She quick-marches to the broom hangar, sits on her machine and is handed a plethora of loaded weapons by attentive corporals.

"Two flyers in one day? They're getting way too common."

"It's worse," the commander informs them, "South Karlsland got hit with three at once. We're taking Lytee's express and sleeping there. You can sit out if you absolutely need to, but Freya's still recovering so we could use you as a comms relay."

"No, I'll come. I just reserve the right to complain about it."

The 42nd United Forces Witch Wing takes off and assembles into a perfect synchronized formation as Lytee charges her teleport power.



...This is not South Karlsland wilderness.

[note: halfway through this thread I created a unique account for Grendyne. Do not be alarmed by the change in account. -Rockeye]

Comments

[witchwatcher]

Copycat... Teleports to Flechette.

Huh, so that's how it works. Convenient that the now-dead Knight's crystal spear dovetails so nicely with that... Absoluteness.

She teleports again, appearing above the monster and ignoring the fight raging around her, and pins it to the rubble with a forty-foot gold-glowing three-way combination of Knight, Brandish, and Flechette. Goodbye, core.

[wormcan]

The core gets punctured and nailed down, and tries to regenerate. It takes more damage as fast as it does, until the power wears off the forty-foot pin. Its extremities start to rot away, freeing some of the less central hostages.

The Siberian clone leaps to try to make her biggest tactical advantage invulnerable, while every other clone or monster swarms at Gren. The Travelers and heroes provide heavy covering fire. The heroes don't focus on killing anything that leaves a body, but by now there are more than enough Genesises to go around.

[witchwatcher]

She's good at dodging.

Time to start rounding up the Genesises' original bodies while she builds up the strength to do that again.

...The hell? That's a Genesis, or something like one, but shaped differently.

Oh. Ohhhhhh. That's how you get a Siberian from a Genesis. She grabs the clone, stuns it if she can, and ascends sharply, only refraining from immediately killing her so she can study the power.

[whole_new_can]

This clone has no special defenses, but every remaining Genesis is perfectly willing to throw their current projections in front of a stunbolt. Gren being faster than they are, this can't slow her down for long. The Siberian winks out after a bolt hits the clone.

And then the three bear-shaped force fields attacking projections abruptly shatter. A blue flash streaks into the wall behind them and keeps going. "Everyone stand down" comes almost-Legend's voice. "The next one hits Ursa herself."

Ursa Aurora disappears, replaced with a cloned Witch body that could have come from anywhere. The Legend clone fires on Trickster instead, the bolt curving to cut him in two even though he swaps himself around the battlefield repeatedly.

[witchwatcher]

That's bad.

Copycat tries to block not-Legend from doing much of anything with an array of shields winking in and out of existence. Plus some of Grue's darkness and a couple other obfuscating powers she's picked up.

They're more to confuse him than actually block his attacks- most of her concentration is going toward mapping out the edges of the Siberian's power. It seems much less mana-hungry than her trick with the big flashy golden spear, but it'll take a little while.

[wormcan]

Other capes are trying the same strategy. Ursa Aurora can surround the Legend with bears from wherever she is, and Adamant can distract him from more vulnerable teammates. Their opponent isn't targeting Copycat; he's aiming first at people the real Legend knows. Prism goes down, then Prism, then Prism... at least one of her is probably fine. Hopefully.

The monster itself is regenerated enough to attack, if weaker than before. It's much less strategic than any of its clones so far, rushing straight in toward the Travelers. This leaves several Genesises uncovered; their real bodies had been hiding behind it. They don't last long.

[witchwatcher]

More people die. More people die. Every second Gren fails to get this power more people die... Something clicks.

A Siberian appears behind not-Legend and turns his head into paste. "I'm Copycat, not Siberian!" And it starts flickering around the area, rapidly carving the original not-clones people out of the monster.

[wormcan]

It would hardly matter if they did think she was the Siberian. But not wasting their firepower on her means it can be concentrated on the real target, holding it down and tearing at it while she cuts it up. Some clones get revealed, not yet complete enough to be vomited up, and a Protectorate cape mercilessly drains the water from their bodies. When the last hostage is clear, Sundancer incinerates what's left of the monster.

[witchwatcher]

The not-Siberian disappears. Copycat descends and radiates as many different powers' worth of healing as she can, looking glassy-eyed.

"Carnage and death. Just like old times..."

[whole_new_can]

"This is what we fight against," the recently rescued Legend says. "If you hadn't come, that thing would be invincible and spitting out clones until it got another Siberian. Today wasn't anything better than terrible. But everything here, there's more of it not happening."

[witchwatcher]

"I know. I volunteered for the defense, right, but on some level, I thought I'd put in my time and be done. That I wouldn't have to worry about this shit anymore. I know I'm helping, but..." Shrug.

[whole_new_can]

"You're right. There's always an emergency. And when things seem to be going well, someone appears from another earth and tells you your problems are spilling over to them."

He gestures toward the Travelers, who are being thoroughly arrested by the surviving Protectorate members. They're not resisting.

"But you can stop. If you don't want to fight, you can leave it to us; it's why we're here. If you do want to fight, well, we both know how much difference you can make."

[witchwatcher]

"I could stand to help end some of the nastier threats, yes. I'll probably come and go if I join up, though. At least the Neuroi have been much less of a threat lately, thanks to Bet's tech. Did you catch the Travelers?"

(Places has deposited Flechette halfway across the city, still on Earth Gimel, and subsequently disappeared.)

[whole_new_can]

"They're not going anywhere. Do you think you're up to getting us back to New York?"

The surviving Travelers are sufficiently caught, with the exception of Oliver, who as far as anyone knows is just an unusually good-looking civilian. He even has his arm back, thanks to all the healing.

[witchwatcher]

"Mm. In a few minutes, maybe. Using too much power in too few minutes hurts Witches, even me. There's other teleporters, though. I wonder where Lytee got to? She can 'port a full squad when she's rested."

[whole_new_can]

"She said getting us here was about all she could manage at the time. But we can wait."

The Protectorate people set about getting the full story, as much as the innocent bystanders can tell them and then from the Travelers. Civilians and Oliver get dispersed; he gets to worry about how to convince Places to help with a rescue.

And Gren finds out that when Coil described Dinah, he wasn't making everything up.

[witchwatcher]

The nation of Liberion is getting more than a little testy about foreign capes having a battle on their soil. They're not about to try and arrest anyone, and they're certainly not complaining that it's over, but some UDF diplomats have arrived. They're talking a lot and looking up things like reparation agreements. But they relent once they receive a promise to sort everything out later.

Gren closes her eyes when she's reminded of Coil. "Ugh. I have to wonder how he manages to cause so much trouble, with no parahuman power."

[wormcan]

Aaaand the identity of the mysterious figure who was helping them contain Noelle is blown just like that. Yep, Coil was the employer they've been avoiding naming. At least they can refrain from correcting her about his power.

"This one wasn't him," Genesis says. "He didn't even know we were going. It was to cure Noelle, and you can see it helped." Noelle is normal-sized again, after all. "More than he ever did. It's just...we never expected that."

[witchwatcher]

"I think you're all very lucky to still be alive. And I'm half-convinced to have another go at finding Coil if he and his are going to keep making things worse. He kidnapped and as good as tortured me, you know."

[wormcan]

"Oh, you're that Copycat," Ballistic doesn't say. Sundancer at least has the decency to look awkward about it.

"Convince these people to let us and we'll help you do it," she says. "We had three reasons to work for him, none of which apply anymore, and it's not like he doesn't deserve it."

"No." Ursa Aurora is adamant. "I haven't heard them deny what that clone said. No way is anyone going in with Simurgh puppets at their back. They should be in quarantine for the rest of their lives."

[witchwatcher]

"Don't thinkers interfere with each other? And a precog made this two hells of a lot less terrible. Seems like they might be clear, or clear-ish."

[wormcan]

"That was why we were working for him," Genesis agrees. "He said he had a precog working for him who would help. He didn't mention that 'working for' meant 'enslaved by,' for some reason."

"If it were that easy, quarantine wouldn't exist," the hero counters. "I'm not even saying it's their fault—though, you know, notorious mercenaries—but they're not exactly trustworthy." But it's not up to her anyway.

"We can let the PRT and the Brockton Bay team decide if they want the Travelers' help," Legend says.

[witchwatcher]

"Anybody know where Lytee went? I've got a feeling she was involved in this somehow. Ech, nevermind." She sighs. "I'd better go watch that Siberian-clone. Kept her alive so I could watch her exist for twenty minutes and copy that ridiculously invulnerable projection permanently instead of temporarily, but nobody wants her to wake up. She should be out for hours, but better safe than sorry."

She zips over to a roof past the edge of the battle-zone. The clone is still unconscious.

[whole_new_can]

"The Siberian clone is alive?"
Pause.
"The Siberian is a projection?"
Pause.
"You left a Siberian clone unattended?"

Legend zips there before she does; he can spot an unconscious person on a roof and is very good at zipping.

"Do you still need her alive?"

[witchwatcher]

"I need her alive for twenty minutes, maybe ten but it's slippery."

"...Look, I'm not that reckless. I can kill her in less than two seconds. Knight and Flechette go through the invulnurability, Flechette more than Knight, the master is ordinary human and I hit her with enough stun to knock someone out for days and if she woke up and started Siberianing again anyway I'd have teleported directly behind the master and deathtouched her."