Amelia, Ch 214
"That sounds so boring," Vicky argued. "You have all this cool stuff. You should use it mercilessly." I paused to listen, it wasn't like I had much else to do right now. Taylor was off with her dad again. I probably could have went with, but it didn't seem right cutting into their family time like that. Despite the public identity, Taylor liked to keep her father away from her cape life, and vice versa.
"But that's not how it's done!" Riley whined. "It has to be normal or it's not fun!"
"Never thought I'd hear you say something like that," Zach spoke up. "Oww. Riley, please stop teaching people how to not set off my rejuvenation power. It's lost its charm."
"She has a point," Missy replied, completely ignoring Zach's comment. "All the cool toys just get in the way. It needs to be the traditional way. Especially since this is Riley's first time." The fuck are they talking about?
"Really? That's awful," Theo spoke up. "Okay, normal way it is. Missy, you need to change. Vicky, you too."
"No I don't," Vicky insisted. "You can do what you want, but I make this look way too good to give it up. Just check out these curves."
"Yes ma-oww!" Zach exclaimed.
"Emma," Theo continued. "You can find something to put on. Sorry."
Okay, now I have to know. I finally walked into the group area. Riley was closest, wearing a headband with two red puffballs held up cheap aluminum stems. Vicky was dressed up in a very realistic copy of Alexandria's costume, though without the helmet. She'd even turned her hair black.
Missy was dressed up as a knight, although the outfit looked far too realistic to be any kind of store bought costume. I saw Zach and just sighed. "Zach... why are you dressed up like a princess?"
"What?" he put his hand on his hip in a complete mockery of feminine grace. "Oh, I see how it is. Missy gets to anachronistically cross dress and you're not asking her any questions. But when a maaaan does it, suddenly it's wrong."
"I wanted Theo to wear it, but he chickened out," Missy complained.
"He doesn't have the hips to pull it off anyway," Emma teased, putting her arm around Zach. "But now I don't have a costume. Do you know how hard it was to get a dragon costume to go with the theme? From Dragon, no less."
"You're suppose to be giving her armor a biotech interface upgrade," I pointed out. "Not wearing it to go trick or treating."
"Well, it needs field testing," Emma argued.
"Where's Eric?" I asked.
"Oh, apparently he's too old for trick or treating," Vicky informed us. "He's at a party with Crystal, Sabah and Lily. I'll probably swing by later, after the bartender gets too bored to check for ID. It'll be just like old times."
"Vicky," I replied dryly. "You do realize that regeneration means you're immune to alcohol, right?"
"What?" she asked. "Seriously?"
"Yup," I confirmed. "And pretty much every other drug, illegal or otherwise, that you can come across."
"Well, fu-udge me then," she sighed. "No wonder Lung had anger issues. Can't get drunk, there's nothing left to punch, can't even take a cat nap. How is a girl suppose to relax around here?"
"Speaking as someone in the same boat," Zach spoke up. "Whenever I need some good stress relief, I-"
"Finish that sentence and you won't get any 'relief' for a month," Emma threatened darkly.
Zach paused. "Babe, you know I love you, but if you threaten to take away my video games I will have to break up with you."
Emma glanced around. It was Vicky who started laughing first, and then I followed. That was the permission that everyone else needed to join in.
"Umm... I don't get it?" Riley spoke up. We just laughed harder. And then the alarms went off. Fuck.
I pulled out my phone and my stomach dropped. "Endbringer," I stated. ConcernAnticipationFocus. "The prediction tech thinks it's Behemoth."
"He pussed out last time," Zach replied. "I bet a fifty he does it again."
"I'll bet you five grand that you won't keep the princess costume on during the fight," Vicky added. "And it doesn't count unless it's over the battle armor."
"You're on!" Zach ran off, and everyone else started scrambling as well. We needed our costumes, the real ones this time. The others would arrive in their own time. Honestly, we probably didn't need to rush, we had almost thirty minutes of warning time before they could even narrow down the target location. Over an hour of total ready time. New Delhi, we had over four hours of warning, but that was a fluke brought on by the Simurgh for maximum devastation. Over four times the number of capes were there as was typical, and it resulted in the highest casualties of any Endbringer, or for that matter any anything, in history.
I slipped into my standard costume, then opened the floor beneath me so I could drop into the labs. My Dryad was now officially the least advanced tech in the building, but it was still my battle harness. Riley had her Clarice controls on and was waiting for me. "Think I can take Clarice into the front lines this time?" she asked.
"Didn't you just finish making the new one?" I asked.
"Yeah," she admitted. "But she's extra powerful now. I think she's good enough to fight Behemoth."
"Let Taylor handle that," I told her while fusing my armor to my Dryad and climbing in. DeterminationThrill. I smiled. The SEB upgraded Zerg were incredible, and my General was just aching for a chance to really use them. "You focus on saving lives and running analysis with the rest of our tinkers. You're our best hope for learning how they're made, and how to shut down their makers. That's more important."
Emma was busy suiting up as well. Her armor was, well, I wasn't sure how it worked. But it could give her over an hour in her hybrid state, with all the data collection advantages which that entailed. My armor overheard her conversation. "Behemoth's core should be in its lower body, if our estimates are correct," she spoke. "Try to sever a leg if possible, we want the densest EB tissue we can acquire for our tests and future weapon development. Atropos already knows. Sorry I couldn't get the majority of the tech completed. No, thank you. We're about to jump over, see you at the fight."
Who was she talking to? I was about to ask her when I was interrupted when Crystal appeared in the middle of the lab, followed a minute or so later by Eric, Lily and Sabah. "Sorry it took so long," he apologized. "Took a bit of effort to sneak out of the party."
"Our reputations are ruined forever," Lily complained.
"I'm sorry!" he insisted. "I panicked. It was the first thing I could think of..."
"Telling my classmate we were going off for a threesome was the first thing you could think of?" Lily growled.
"It worked, didn't it?" he defended. "Did you have a better idea?"
"How about anything?" she suggested. "Anything at all would have been a better idea. You're lucky I don't turn you back into a girl the hard way."
"Well, at least I didn't say it was going to be a threesome with me," he argued. "So you don't have to worry too much."
Sabah just stood there looking embarrassed.
"Get in your costumes," I instructed. "You can vent your frustrations on Behemoth."
Lily moved toward her armor, giving Eric one last glance. Sabah followed suit, and Eric started putting on his own suit. It was one of the generic outfits. The teams hadn't had a chance to really optimize his power, except to provide tinker bombs to teleport to the Endbringers. He'd mostly be watching from a safe location and rescuing the injured and teleporting the occasional Zerg into combat range for Taylor.
We started shunting over. The mobile command center was already waiting, flanked by over a thousand zerglings and a hundred gargants. Most were the old fashioned variants, but we had plenty of the SEB upgraded versions, shimmering an unnaturally flawless white in the afternoon sun.
"Rey called in," Trevor informed us from the command center. "He'll be catching a ride with Rapture."
We destroyed the Simurgh with less than a quarter of these forces, I smiled. DeterminationCertainty. I looked over at Taylor who was only barely visible, but heading toward us fast. Today the hero killer would die.
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A/N- Yay Endbringers!
... Also, for anyone who can't figure out who Eric is? Let me preemptively call you a moron.
