Tailwind Flight Plan
NooneImportant
Know what you're doing yet? Because I don't!
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Nope. That would require the existance of the fanon console to be canon.
Not sure if it was specifically named the "Console," but it was a thing in the Sentinel Arc, (Chapter 9) and the Wards do sit at it. (I think Clockblocker or Kid Win, specifically.)
In the name of not necro-ing: Threw this together in about two hours.
(Look, I know the set up to this's spotty, but let me have my escapism.)
"Here's your band. Remember: Phase, Boston Wards, Hero." Nebula hands me a snap band with a box stuck in the middle. I idly swipe it from his hand, looking at the mess that used to be the Boardwalk.
So, a supposed evacuation drill was actually an Endbringer alarm, and I've just been voluntold under false pretenses. It took me turning around and being shocked at Strider of all people performing the mock "Emergency Teleport" that was actually real to realize something's wrong before I'm back here. In Brockton.
I survey the scene. Everyone else was in professionally tailored costumes, power armor, or some handsewn handicraft. I, however, was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, long pants, running sneakers and a standard black eye-mask the Wards get when off-duty, being handed to me by a fuming Weld after Strider left to pick up other people from a different zone. I'd like to believe that he's mad for me and not at me, this time. I'd like to.
A polite woman's voice echoed from the yellow and black band after I snapped it over my right upper arm. "Please state your Cape Name, Affiliation and Disposition."
No point tying Ghost to me, and I know that they want me to "accept my place" in the Wards if I want to have backup going into this Endbringer Fight. I thought they couldn't get lower but, wow.
"Taylor Hebert. No Affiliation. Unwilling Conscript."
Honestly? Have they forgotten how stubborn I am? There's no way I'd trust them to have my back even if I was in the Wards proper.
Legend's gotten through his spiel of "Thanks for sacrificing yourselves, don't expect to come out alive, but celebrate if you do, don't kill each other, we quite literally have bigger fish to fry."
I flickered through two buildings when I saw Ampere headed towards me, Shadow Stalker in tow. No way in hell am I going to stay there.
I'm currently sitting on a rock looking over at the E88 and ABB, since I lived in the same city but never saw them in person before.
The constant ringing in the back of my head identifying that someone's trying to spy on me again is back, and really, can't they give me a break, it's an Endbringer fight I'm forced to participate in. I'm pretty sure that's in violation of the Truce, but it's not like this is the first time someone's gotten away with committing a crime against me. It's probably the Protectorate Think Tank this time.
I see a shadow covering me and look up. It's Alexandria floating down to me! I hop up and turn towards her.
"Hi, Alexandria, so, I'm not supposed to be here, there was a mix-up on the roster and-"
...She just snatched me on the back of my collar and flew straight up into the air.
"Phase, you will do great things today. Your position will be with your fellow Wards on search and rescue."
Something's up. "Hey, I'm not supposed to be here! There was a mistake!"
She floats over towards a different section of the city.
"You have been obstinate for far too long, Hebert. We need your power. The world needs your power."
Ah. I see how it is. "But it doesn't need my rights or freedoms like the other human beings?"
The silence is too telling. When she looks for the Wards near where she wants to drop me, I drop down, phasing through her grasp and the roof of an apartment.
"Come, your friends are waiting for- where did you go?"
It's been about 3 hours since the waves started, and I haven't seen a chance to make a move yet. I've been sticking to Search & Rescue as they intended, but I have managed to attach myself to Rune, an E88 villain about my age, after dodging Emma, Weld, Nebula, and even Alexandria when she was distracted by a particularly large tsunami.
I chat her up on the ride across the waterlogged ruins, interspaced with diving through concrete and water to pick up bodies, corpses and armbands. It feels a bit scummy to talk so casually with a nominal villain, but I haven't been able to spill the truth to anyone since Lisa back in Boston, and live or die, I'm probably never going to be able to talk about the unfiltered truth to anyone again, so I might as well.
Rune filled me in on what I missed in Brockton Bay since I was transferred: apparently a team of three small timer villains named the Undersiders faced an unfortunate end to their careers against Lung, and only after their deaths were certain details that the powers-that-be decided to cover up were released.
Apparently, Grue could've been convinced to work for good if he was given a chance to support his sister, who vanished soon after the PRT came to recruit her after his death.
Hellhound, who preferred Bitch, was persecuted for the death of the matron of her orphanage... who tried to drown her puppy right before. And apparently, Regent was Hijack, who just ran away from Heartbreaker. It really reinforced that I wasn't the only one the PRT pulled this shit on.
Soon after their collapse, the mayor's daughter went missing without a trace, and the Wards in Brockton Bay were placed back on active duty despite the investigations into the ENE division, as the ABB got a fucking BOMB TINKER, who naturally went nuts the moment she got here. Uber and Leet died live on camera during a collab episode with her, and Aegis died to being an idiot that wasn't careful around explosives that were not just regular bombs, but Tinker Bombs.
The relatively peaceful conversation wouldn't last; the 'water-echo' of Leviathan flicked his tail mirroring what a swiping Leviathan did a few seconds ago, catching Dauntless, who was flung mid-air, on his unprotected side. We didn't have time to react before his body crashed into the chunk of rubble we were surfing on, folding over backwards and splitting it down the middle. I fell off and phased through and into a ruined building, Rune was forced to retreat after a crash landing.
"Dauntless Deceased, 0-4." He was gone just like that, sent flying as an afterthought...
Picking up his spear, I hurried off towards the action, with a very stupid idea.
I head up towards the beachfront, where I could see Armsmaster on the Leviathan's forearm. He was driving his halberd deep into the skin of the beast, but not deep enough to slow Leviathan down. The Leviathan shakes him off, sending him towards a leaning building next to me. I leap up to catch him.
This was not a good idea. It felt like I was the one crashing into him, and I even felt the edge of a square pillar right before I went intangible, popping out the other side. I get up, but he's stuck in the pillar, folded in a way where he cannot get leverage to pull himself out. I plant one foot on the floor, one on the pillar, and try to pull him out by the arm, but after a few seconds of ineffective effort, Armsmaster stopped me.
"Useless. Get my halberd."
I guess he loses his ability to be polite when he's in a lot of pain. There's an issue with his request, though. I look over to check.
"Problem. Your Halberd's stuck in the Leviathan's arm. And he's healed around it. I've got Dauntless' spear right here though."
"That will do."
I hand the spear to him, and he cuts the sides of the pillar before wrenching himself out, the top part of the pillar falling behind him. He looks up at me.
"You are not Dauntless. Why do you have his spear?"
"He's dead. Crashed into the platform Rune and I were on at high speed."
"Oh. That is... very problematic."
"Yes."
The awkwardness was forcibly ended by Armsmaster hopping onto the broken pillar and stabbing Dauntless' spear into it to brace against the incoming wave. I just stood there and let the water pass over and through me.
"You are... Phase."
"Yes, Taylor Hebert."
"Where's your costume?"
"I did not attend this Endbringer willingly."
"That's illegal."
"So is what Sophia and Emma did. Apparently Alexandria approves."
"Of bringing you here or covering up what they have done?"
"Definitely the first, probably both."
Armsmaster pulled himself up by the spear, looking down at his arm and ponders. Checking his armor's stats, I guess. But a blast and rumbling was heard around and above us.
"Bakuda's leftovers! Shit."
Thankfully, an off-balance man in blue armor is easier to pull than a hurtling-towards-you man in blue armor, so I was able to pull him off the pillar and into the hip high water, before the concrete fell on top of me... And through me, and around me. After fifteen seconds of waiting, the rumbling stopped. I climbed through the rubble, and pulled out Dauntless' spear to see Armsmaster replacing a plate on his mud-encrusted boot.
"Thank you. My Boot Thrusters were not operational. I have rebooted them and will not need more of your help."
That's good. He could've been nicer, but he's probably still a little shocked. Either way, one less person needing her help means two less eyes on her.
"It's fine, shame this isn't the time to ask for an autograph. So, what are you planning now?"
He stares out to the south end of the beach, where Lung is sent sliding back towards the heart of the city from a double shoulder check from the beast and the echo. "My halberd cut it's way into Leviathan's flesh. It can cut it's way out."
Sounds... cocky? But also cool. He's probably got a plan, then. "Alright. Will you need this spear then?"
He shakes his head before clambering up the rubble and along the flooded street.
"No. You would be unarmed, and soon I will be armed. I just need to hold out for an opportunity."
Hold out for an opportunity? I can get behind that.
Now that that distraction was done with. I head south, through the blocks. I had an overgrown fish to hook.
I pulled a couple more people out from rubble, on my way which unfortunately included Weld. It would be rude to dunk him back in, so I vanished through another building looking for a better position to set up.
And sure, I could survive this Uriah Gambit attempt to rake them over the coals online for forcing me into an Endbringer battle under false pretenses, but the only thing you could trust the Protectorate to do well is cover up their ass. Even if they let Danny know of my involvement as probably per law, he wouldn't make enough of a fuss to do anything about it. But then again, sticking it to the PRT was never my goal...
Armsmaster has finally pulled his catch out from the sea colored flesh of the Leviathan, before the beast spins around, hurtling him clutching his halberd through two windows, into a balcony. Other capes are also sent flying, either from a limb, tail, or high volume of water hitting them like a wrecking ball. I think one tiny slip of a girl in all green ended up being sent into the sky. A wild guess from the trajectory: Her corpse will crash land in Boston.
"Armsmaster Down, 0-1" rings among the many other names I do not recognize at the moment from my band, and a crowned and curvy figure clad in white and gold flies over to the balcony he crashed into.
Glory Girl doing the glamourous job of Rescue? More likely than you think.
While the Blue probably-not-steel-clad man is ferried off to the Med bay, I am close enough to Leviathan while no longer have any eyes on me.
I lie in wait, Waiting for the chance to strike at the Leviathan. Knowing full well I won't get nearly as deep as Armsmaster did.
It may look like I'm stupidly trying to spearfish the Leviathan, but I'm actually trying to bait the Leviathan to hook me.
As the Leviathan passes by, I phase up through some rubble and leap, hoping to stick him and get him to spin in place again, when I feel a searing pain, ripping in and out my left shoulder. I scream and turn, seeing a stick in the back of my arm, and a broad arrowhead sticking out.
"Well, this wasn't planned."
I look up and see the Leviathan's three sea-green eyes staring at me in an unidentifiable expression I think is confusion, before turning away. I react right at the tail's impact, and am sent flying through buildings.
After two buildings, (I assume because I felt at least four crashes against the spear,) I phase the armband through my arm, where it's caught on the spear. Once the light glows red, I smile, and I let go of Dauntless' spear and clutch my bleeding shoulder, as I let the world pass by me.
"Taylor Hebert deceased, A-4."
When I'm fully intangible, I can pass through the air itself. That means no air resistance.
I can even skip across the water at this speed or just hurtle through it if I crash into the ocean on my way, and I can selectively use my power to negate injuries other than that arrow for some weird reason.
Burning the PRT to the ground was never my goal. It was always about getting out of their clutches.
What comes next depends on my flight path: If I was smacked north, Canada. If south, Mexico.
I never got to finish Physics or Geography, so I don't actually know where I'm going, only that it's away from Boston, Brockton, and those Bitches.
I'm not sure what I'll do next, but I'll figure something out, later.
So, a supposed evacuation drill was actually an Endbringer alarm, and I've just been voluntold under false pretenses. It took me turning around and being shocked at Strider of all people performing the mock "Emergency Teleport" that was actually real to realize something's wrong before I'm back here. In Brockton.
I survey the scene. Everyone else was in professionally tailored costumes, power armor, or some handsewn handicraft. I, however, was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, long pants, running sneakers and a standard black eye-mask the Wards get when off-duty, being handed to me by a fuming Weld after Strider left to pick up other people from a different zone. I'd like to believe that he's mad for me and not at me, this time. I'd like to.
A polite woman's voice echoed from the yellow and black band after I snapped it over my right upper arm. "Please state your Cape Name, Affiliation and Disposition."
No point tying Ghost to me, and I know that they want me to "accept my place" in the Wards if I want to have backup going into this Endbringer Fight. I thought they couldn't get lower but, wow.
"Taylor Hebert. No Affiliation. Unwilling Conscript."
Honestly? Have they forgotten how stubborn I am? There's no way I'd trust them to have my back even if I was in the Wards proper.
Legend's gotten through his spiel of "Thanks for sacrificing yourselves, don't expect to come out alive, but celebrate if you do, don't kill each other, we quite literally have bigger fish to fry."
I flickered through two buildings when I saw Ampere headed towards me, Shadow Stalker in tow. No way in hell am I going to stay there.
I'm currently sitting on a rock looking over at the E88 and ABB, since I lived in the same city but never saw them in person before.
The constant ringing in the back of my head identifying that someone's trying to spy on me again is back, and really, can't they give me a break, it's an Endbringer fight I'm forced to participate in. I'm pretty sure that's in violation of the Truce, but it's not like this is the first time someone's gotten away with committing a crime against me. It's probably the Protectorate Think Tank this time.
I see a shadow covering me and look up. It's Alexandria floating down to me! I hop up and turn towards her.
"Hi, Alexandria, so, I'm not supposed to be here, there was a mix-up on the roster and-"
...She just snatched me on the back of my collar and flew straight up into the air.
"Phase, you will do great things today. Your position will be with your fellow Wards on search and rescue."
Something's up. "Hey, I'm not supposed to be here! There was a mistake!"
She floats over towards a different section of the city.
"You have been obstinate for far too long, Hebert. We need your power. The world needs your power."
Ah. I see how it is. "But it doesn't need my rights or freedoms like the other human beings?"
The silence is too telling. When she looks for the Wards near where she wants to drop me, I drop down, phasing through her grasp and the roof of an apartment.
"Come, your friends are waiting for- where did you go?"
It's been about 3 hours since the waves started, and I haven't seen a chance to make a move yet. I've been sticking to Search & Rescue as they intended, but I have managed to attach myself to Rune, an E88 villain about my age, after dodging Emma, Weld, Nebula, and even Alexandria when she was distracted by a particularly large tsunami.
I chat her up on the ride across the waterlogged ruins, interspaced with diving through concrete and water to pick up bodies, corpses and armbands. It feels a bit scummy to talk so casually with a nominal villain, but I haven't been able to spill the truth to anyone since Lisa back in Boston, and live or die, I'm probably never going to be able to talk about the unfiltered truth to anyone again, so I might as well.
Rune filled me in on what I missed in Brockton Bay since I was transferred: apparently a team of three small timer villains named the Undersiders faced an unfortunate end to their careers against Lung, and only after their deaths were certain details that the powers-that-be decided to cover up were released.
Apparently, Grue could've been convinced to work for good if he was given a chance to support his sister, who vanished soon after the PRT came to recruit her after his death.
Hellhound, who preferred Bitch, was persecuted for the death of the matron of her orphanage... who tried to drown her puppy right before. And apparently, Regent was Hijack, who just ran away from Heartbreaker. It really reinforced that I wasn't the only one the PRT pulled this shit on.
Soon after their collapse, the mayor's daughter went missing without a trace, and the Wards in Brockton Bay were placed back on active duty despite the investigations into the ENE division, as the ABB got a fucking BOMB TINKER, who naturally went nuts the moment she got here. Uber and Leet died live on camera during a collab episode with her, and Aegis died to being an idiot that wasn't careful around explosives that were not just regular bombs, but Tinker Bombs.
The relatively peaceful conversation wouldn't last; the 'water-echo' of Leviathan flicked his tail mirroring what a swiping Leviathan did a few seconds ago, catching Dauntless, who was flung mid-air, on his unprotected side. We didn't have time to react before his body crashed into the chunk of rubble we were surfing on, folding over backwards and splitting it down the middle. I fell off and phased through and into a ruined building, Rune was forced to retreat after a crash landing.
"Dauntless Deceased, 0-4." He was gone just like that, sent flying as an afterthought...
Picking up his spear, I hurried off towards the action, with a very stupid idea.
I head up towards the beachfront, where I could see Armsmaster on the Leviathan's forearm. He was driving his halberd deep into the skin of the beast, but not deep enough to slow Leviathan down. The Leviathan shakes him off, sending him towards a leaning building next to me. I leap up to catch him.
This was not a good idea. It felt like I was the one crashing into him, and I even felt the edge of a square pillar right before I went intangible, popping out the other side. I get up, but he's stuck in the pillar, folded in a way where he cannot get leverage to pull himself out. I plant one foot on the floor, one on the pillar, and try to pull him out by the arm, but after a few seconds of ineffective effort, Armsmaster stopped me.
"Useless. Get my halberd."
I guess he loses his ability to be polite when he's in a lot of pain. There's an issue with his request, though. I look over to check.
"Problem. Your Halberd's stuck in the Leviathan's arm. And he's healed around it. I've got Dauntless' spear right here though."
"That will do."
I hand the spear to him, and he cuts the sides of the pillar before wrenching himself out, the top part of the pillar falling behind him. He looks up at me.
"You are not Dauntless. Why do you have his spear?"
"He's dead. Crashed into the platform Rune and I were on at high speed."
"Oh. That is... very problematic."
"Yes."
The awkwardness was forcibly ended by Armsmaster hopping onto the broken pillar and stabbing Dauntless' spear into it to brace against the incoming wave. I just stood there and let the water pass over and through me.
"You are... Phase."
"Yes, Taylor Hebert."
"Where's your costume?"
"I did not attend this Endbringer willingly."
"That's illegal."
"So is what Sophia and Emma did. Apparently Alexandria approves."
"Of bringing you here or covering up what they have done?"
"Definitely the first, probably both."
Armsmaster pulled himself up by the spear, looking down at his arm and ponders. Checking his armor's stats, I guess. But a blast and rumbling was heard around and above us.
"Bakuda's leftovers! Shit."
Thankfully, an off-balance man in blue armor is easier to pull than a hurtling-towards-you man in blue armor, so I was able to pull him off the pillar and into the hip high water, before the concrete fell on top of me... And through me, and around me. After fifteen seconds of waiting, the rumbling stopped. I climbed through the rubble, and pulled out Dauntless' spear to see Armsmaster replacing a plate on his mud-encrusted boot.
"Thank you. My Boot Thrusters were not operational. I have rebooted them and will not need more of your help."
That's good. He could've been nicer, but he's probably still a little shocked. Either way, one less person needing her help means two less eyes on her.
"It's fine, shame this isn't the time to ask for an autograph. So, what are you planning now?"
He stares out to the south end of the beach, where Lung is sent sliding back towards the heart of the city from a double shoulder check from the beast and the echo. "My halberd cut it's way into Leviathan's flesh. It can cut it's way out."
Sounds... cocky? But also cool. He's probably got a plan, then. "Alright. Will you need this spear then?"
He shakes his head before clambering up the rubble and along the flooded street.
"No. You would be unarmed, and soon I will be armed. I just need to hold out for an opportunity."
Hold out for an opportunity? I can get behind that.
Now that that distraction was done with. I head south, through the blocks. I had an overgrown fish to hook.
I pulled a couple more people out from rubble, on my way which unfortunately included Weld. It would be rude to dunk him back in, so I vanished through another building looking for a better position to set up.
And sure, I could survive this Uriah Gambit attempt to rake them over the coals online for forcing me into an Endbringer battle under false pretenses, but the only thing you could trust the Protectorate to do well is cover up their ass. Even if they let Danny know of my involvement as probably per law, he wouldn't make enough of a fuss to do anything about it. But then again, sticking it to the PRT was never my goal...
Armsmaster has finally pulled his catch out from the sea colored flesh of the Leviathan, before the beast spins around, hurtling him clutching his halberd through two windows, into a balcony. Other capes are also sent flying, either from a limb, tail, or high volume of water hitting them like a wrecking ball. I think one tiny slip of a girl in all green ended up being sent into the sky. A wild guess from the trajectory: Her corpse will crash land in Boston.
"Armsmaster Down, 0-1" rings among the many other names I do not recognize at the moment from my band, and a crowned and curvy figure clad in white and gold flies over to the balcony he crashed into.
Glory Girl doing the glamourous job of Rescue? More likely than you think.
While the Blue probably-not-steel-clad man is ferried off to the Med bay, I am close enough to Leviathan while no longer have any eyes on me.
I lie in wait, Waiting for the chance to strike at the Leviathan. Knowing full well I won't get nearly as deep as Armsmaster did.
It may look like I'm stupidly trying to spearfish the Leviathan, but I'm actually trying to bait the Leviathan to hook me.
As the Leviathan passes by, I phase up through some rubble and leap, hoping to stick him and get him to spin in place again, when I feel a searing pain, ripping in and out my left shoulder. I scream and turn, seeing a stick in the back of my arm, and a broad arrowhead sticking out.
"Well, this wasn't planned."
I look up and see the Leviathan's three sea-green eyes staring at me in an unidentifiable expression I think is confusion, before turning away. I react right at the tail's impact, and am sent flying through buildings.
After two buildings, (I assume because I felt at least four crashes against the spear,) I phase the armband through my arm, where it's caught on the spear. Once the light glows red, I smile, and I let go of Dauntless' spear and clutch my bleeding shoulder, as I let the world pass by me.
"Taylor Hebert deceased, A-4."
When I'm fully intangible, I can pass through the air itself. That means no air resistance.
I can even skip across the water at this speed or just hurtle through it if I crash into the ocean on my way, and I can selectively use my power to negate injuries other than that arrow for some weird reason.
Burning the PRT to the ground was never my goal. It was always about getting out of their clutches.
What comes next depends on my flight path: If I was smacked north, Canada. If south, Mexico.
I never got to finish Physics or Geography, so I don't actually know where I'm going, only that it's away from Boston, Brockton, and those Bitches.
I'm not sure what I'll do next, but I'll figure something out, later.
Help, @FirstSelector ! It seems I have written an omake in my need to "um… actually" someone!
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