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

[neuroihive]

This is exactly what the Neuroi wanted. The changing four are apparently now very tough and less mobile. Tentacle-like appendages whip around and extend blades that have the same invulnerability-nullifying properties as the little ones. Space-warping makes another appearance, hindering his efforts to dodge, and one of them stabs his arm, digging in with incredibly fine barbs that will probably hurt like hell to remove.

[whole_new_can]

Eidolon did change out his defensive power for exactly that reason. But apparently he's still incompletely immune to that. Rather than remove the barb on the spot, he applies gravity. A sufficiently strong jerk against one part of the tentacle with an equally sudden grip pulling the other way, only a fraction of an inch apart, ought to snap more or less anything in two. He can remove it later.

If he were only fighting to win, he could leave and clean up the swarm of smaller targets first. He's also fighting to fight, and this is clearly the target. Eidolon has a lot of force to play with. The nearest large Neuroi gets squished inward from every direction except front and back, where the opposite happens. For good measure, he adds in some literal spaghettification. See how well it can defend itself while time-dilated.

[neuroihive]

The Neuroi that is suffering his wrath explodes. The other three deploy some kind of energy shield that... Looks kind of familiar.

It's Copycat's shield. Well, technically, a Witch shield since they can all do it. Where did the Neuroi learn that? At any rate, his gravity power is significantly less effective against anything behind them.

The Neuroi try cold again. The air around him liquefies.

[whole_new_can]

Liquid air is a problem. He stops breathing at all; he'd rather have that air's return to normal take place outside his lungs.

He drops the clairvoyance power, looking for something to make him completely self-contained and resistant to harm. A breaker power, that would do. He turns into what looks to be diamond, and feels it growing even more durable. As soon as it seems powered up enough to protect him from what he's up against, he drops the other defense. Gravity for flight and wide-area destruction of the Neuroi that aren't using Witch shields, ability to hopefully take any hits he can't dodge, and a better weapon for the three main targets as soon as it's ready.

[neuroihive]

The Neuroi start their psychic scream again, but that diamond-breaker power seems to be blocking most of it. The next time one of those annoying invulnurability-piercing blades hits him, it bounces.

The little Neuroi continue to die in droves. A few more big ones have shifted to this new configuration. One of them looks like a bit like a giant umbrella/octopus/jellyfish, it attempts to entangle Eidolon and smash him into the ground. Oh, and they're all still firing beams of various sorts at him of course.

[whole_new_can]

The big ones that aren't behind the Witch shields can get unfair quantities of gravity, just like the last one.

For those that are, his latest weapon is ready faster than anything of this scale has been in years. He always knew one good fight, a real fight, would go better. Here he doesn't have to worry about the world collapsing if he dies; his allies would have time to prepare for the next Endbringer. And he isn't playing a role as Eidolon the all-powerful hero, he's just fighting. His powers are working as well as he can remember, and he's even daring to hope it might be permanent.

A tennis-court-sized area appears and sweeps across the sky. Things it intersects get deleted. Matter, energy, doesn't matter. Magic, maybe, but he'd be surprised. Air rushes in to fill the newly created voids. The one with the tentacles can be the first to go, then those other three...

[neuroihive]

The Neuroi have no defense against this. They scatter and die and flee.

And then a suicidally teleported Neuroi core is occupying the same space as a third of Eidolon's upper chest. This does not end well for either being. Eidolon is still alive long enough to register the injury, then they do the same with a large section of his brain.

They didn't want to kill him, not really. He was extremely powerful, a being capable of actually threatening a grand core. But he was getting that strength from somewhere else. That is not the point of fighting humans.

[whole_new_can]

Eidolon wouldn't have been able to save the world if he hadn't tried this. If he wasn't strong enough and was getting weaker, this is no great loss.

But he was, technically speaking, right. One real fight, if it was a good enough fight, could get his powers back for the rest of his life.

[neuroihive]

The Neuroi take a few minutes to analyze the fight. It's good data, first-hand information on some of the nastiest things this new variety of Power can do.

Then they decide that, with this much power floating around out there, it's time to stop holding back. Fresh Neuroi from the core of the hurricane stream out in all directions, launching assaults on the Witches ringing this section of the world in all directions. There are just enough serious attacks to keep all the dedicated military Witches busy, and plenty of smaller threats to force the non-military humans to join the fight.

By now the Neuroi called/numbered Seventeen, the ship-sized gigantic core in the center of the hurricane, has finished summarizing everything to the other greater Neuroi.

The Twelve decide to invade the Earth that Eidolon came from. Hopping dimensions is tricky to figure out, but they had a good view of someone doing it just now with Eidolon, and a couple months ago when a random anomaly pulled a drone through the wall of universes. In about eight hours, they've managed a configuration that allows a drone to become a Doorway.

Eleven joins Seventeen on Earth Gimel. FTL is expensive, but things are moving quickly. Proper oversight of the increased stakes is important. It makes another humanoid Neuroi, which spears Eidolon's body on an arm-blade and flies through to wherever-Eidolon-gated-from.

[wormcan]

In approximately no time at all, it's faced by two of wherever-Eidolon-gated-from's other heroes. With an audience of more.

"Why are you here?" Alexandria asks it.

[neuroihive]

It throws Eidolon at Alexandria and screechily lies, Revenge.

Then it starts blasting. The gate moves high into the air, enlarges, and the swarm pours through.

[wormcan]

Revenge. Alexandria doesn't believe that for a second; they'd be striking at Earth Gimel or they would have attacked here after Bet started arming them. But that's hardly the point right now.

Heroes and even villains join the impromptu S-class battle, blasting the Neuroi with whatever they've got.

[neuroihive]

Well, they are also striking at Earth Gimel, but that's beside the point that this city is being blown up piece by piece.

The Neuroi keep pouring through. But it's going to be a short S-class battle unless the heroes pursue- When a huge Neuroi passes through the gate, they retreat in good order, sacrificing themselves to protect it when necessary as the whole swarm flies north. (Still blasting at anything close enough to blast because why not.)

[wormcan]

Some of the heroes pursue. Alexandria and Legend lead the charge. With a Neuroi that size, there's an obvious target, and all the most powerful remaining capes hit it with what they can while the others cover them by firing on the rest of the swarm.

[neuroihive]

The giant Neuroi is pretty tough. It only bothers to dodge the most serious attacks. A storm starts to gather as it moves, and pretty soon it's repeating the tricks it used against Eidolon. Air-liquefying cold, lightning, various exotic beams, invulnurability-piercing blades.

Ultimately, though it's a fierce fight, this looks a battle the heroes can win.

It's also a diversion. The gate moves to the outskirts of the city and an even larger Neuroi comes through once the heavy hitters have left the area. It speeds south as fast as it possibly can.

[wormcan]

And that's just unfair.

Reinforcements are arriving from around the world, but few can keep up with the new Neuroi and even fewer can hope to do anything to it.

[witchwatcher]

Copycat is one of the ones pursuing the new Neuroi. She blasts it with hardlight, slows it down with gravity and aerokinesis, shields other pursuing allies, and screams in rage. The core shrugs it all off even when its body is badly damaged.

Mana burn still hits her after only a couple of minutes of going so all-out. She falls back.

[wormcan]

So does everyone else. The remaining members of the Triumvirate are still pursuing, but without knowing where the core is there's only so much they can do. Both major targets get away.

[neuroihive]

And the swarm of little ones starts destroying those satellites that the Simurgh didn't deem worthy of its time.

They also engage Ziz herself, mostly as a probing attack to judge its capabilities.

[whole_new_can]

This is a terrible idea. The Endbringer wakes up. The small Neuroi get swatted, of course, and it's not even necessarily a very accurate idea. The Simurgh hits exactly as hard as it needs to to squish each individual drone. And then it changes course.

[neuroihive]

There are a lot of small Neuroi. They try very hard to slow the Simurgh down. A few large ones join in, firing beams mundane and exotic from ranges measured in dozens of miles.

The gate reappears a hundred miles south of Cuba, where the gigantic Neuroi currently is. An enormous storm starts to form around it.

[whole_new_can]

The capes are mostly just panicking. A new worldwide threat is the worst news possible, but it's unfortunately not unprecedented. A new worldwide threat that provokes an unscheduled Endbringer attack, that is. But the Simurgh is moving at her ordinary speed, not appearing to aim for anywhere, defending herself and taking damage as if it were an ordinary fight.

[wormcan]

And then Leviathan joins the fight. He's a speedster on a global scale; the surprising thing isn't that he's fast enough but that the Endbringers are openly working together.

He doesn't appear next to the Simurgh. He appears about a hundred miles south of Cuba, and tears his way toward the largest Neuroi. The storm gets thicker.

[neuroihive]

The Grand Neuroi Core ascends hundreds of miles in less than a minute.

Leviathan and the Simurgh are both being pelted with everything the Neuroi have. New Neuroi form spontaneously out of air. More Neuroi keep coming through the gate. The invulnerability-piercing tentacle blades come out again from a dozen different directions, trying to hurt Leviathan.

[wormcan]

They take damage, plenty of damage. Skin stripped away, ichor pouring from places where the more powerful weapons cut into them. It doesn't seem to slow them down.

The Simurgh keeps flying toward Cuba, accelerating but not quickly. And Leviathan launches itself into the air and keeps ascending, with no obvious means of flight. Water crashes down from around it much faster than usual, both in quantity and in speed, as if however much the Neuroi hurt the monster it only gets converted into more water. The cascade does slow down to terminal velocity after getting distance from Leviathan, naturally. Once in the air, Leviathan strikes at the nearest opponents and maintains a shield of water around itself. It does not ascend enough to reach the Grand Core, not yet.