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Yesterday, this was an ordinary twenty-first century city. Today it's a war zone, tomorrow it'll be walled off and abandoned.
A few collapsed buildings, shattered streets, and assorted craters. The place is mostly empty, with scattered groups of mostly humanoid monsters roaming and trying to escape the guarded fence around the city. The most instantly noticeable change is an ongoing wordless singing in the back of the mind of anyone present. By itself it's just a sound. An unpleasant sound, and almost but not quite predictable as if someone were trying to attack the listener's sanity without saying anything, but possible to ignore. But along with it, any time a listener closes their eyes they get flashes of memories. Not their worst memories, but whatever negative ones can stick with them unforgettably. It builds up associations between the feelings in those images and almost anything else. Sometimes there's a recognizable common thread and other times there isn't.
An angel fights off teams of opponents. She's fifteen feet tall, extremely winged, with more wings than is strictly necessary for an angel. Even some of her wings have wings. All of them are asymmetric and varyingly sized. A spherical halo of weaponry surrounds her, firing at her more distant enemies from across the battlefield. Her opponents cycle in and out: a golden man, a man surrounded by a bubble, a woman in a dark costume, all flying. Others make certain to stay away after taking their turn, on rare occasions spending too long hearing the angel's music. Those ones voluntarily self-destruct.
A small group of ordinary humans takes refuge in a house as far from the battle as they can reach. The song is quieter here, and, they hope, less potent. Some of them run away from and back to the house, occasionally calling for help. They haven't found any.
whole_new_can
wormcan
"That fence," he explains. They are indeed within sight of a chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. "At least they said they would, we didn't actually test it."
ertia
Kithabel does not know where she is or who these people are but she suspects she is not on the side of anyone who leaves deathly injured people and their friends to die and threatens to kill them if they leave. Now everyone's invisible, and she flies them high and fast.
wormcan
The keening gradually decreases past the fence, and it eventually disappears. The strangers visibly become less tense afterward. Or at least invisibly.
ertia
And once they are safely in the middle of some nowhere that can be turned into a pleasant glade by the time they land on it, they're visible, wheel girl can walk, and Kithabel is still really confused.
"So," she says, "I have no idea where I am. Can I get the ten-second version?"
"So," she says, "I have no idea where I am. Can I get the ten-second version?"
wormcan
"You're in Madison, Wisconsin," the one with the briefcase says. "You're not from this earth, are you? I'm Krouse, this is Noelle, Luke, Jess, Mars, Oliver, and Cody, and neither are we."
"What, and now you tell us?" It's news to Cody. "You saying we're on Bet?"
"He's right," the formerly wheelchair-bound girl agrees. "We talked about it back at that house. It's either that or the Simurgh and Scion and the rest came to our Madison, and the rest of the capes followed them."
It turns out Kithabel isn't the only one in need of exposition.
"What, and now you tell us?" It's news to Cody. "You saying we're on Bet?"
"He's right," the formerly wheelchair-bound girl agrees. "We talked about it back at that house. It's either that or the Simurgh and Scion and the rest came to our Madison, and the rest of the capes followed them."
It turns out Kithabel isn't the only one in need of exposition.
ertia
"I'm definitely not from this planet. Mine has four moons and rings, for one thing, and no evil singing winged things, and I don't know where Wisconsin is or what Bet is or what the Simurgh and Scion or capes are."
wormcan
Jess was the cape geek, back before they arrived here. "Capes are people with powers. An ability or two, supernatural as far as anyone knows. I assumed you were one, with all the flying. The Simurgh is one of three Endbringers, they attack and wreck a city every few months. Her thing is singing, it changes people. When she appeared, no one knew what she was and they listened without knowing any better.
The more you hear the more she can predict you, and the more she can change what you do in the future. People fight her wearing explosive armbands so their team can kill them if they stay too close too long. The people guarding the fence were the good guys." She's almost crying. "It's why I was thinking twice about you healing me, because any change might be what she wants, maybe me being able to walk would affect something no one but her could predict, and there's no way to tell."
The more you hear the more she can predict you, and the more she can change what you do in the future. People fight her wearing explosive armbands so their team can kill them if they stay too close too long. The people guarding the fence were the good guys." She's almost crying. "It's why I was thinking twice about you healing me, because any change might be what she wants, maybe me being able to walk would affect something no one but her could predict, and there's no way to tell."
wormcan
"I don't know. Long enough that fighting her at all isn't a suicide mission. We were there for–"
"About fifteen minutes before I ran into you," Krouse cuts in.
"It took her days to turn everyone in Lausanne into soulless monsters and guided missiles, back when no one knew they had to fight her. We don't have it as bad as they did, but there's no way of knowing how bad we do have it. Us being here at all is probably part of her plan."
"About fifteen minutes before I ran into you," Krouse cuts in.
"It took her days to turn everyone in Lausanne into soulless monsters and guided missiles, back when no one knew they had to fight her. We don't have it as bad as they did, but there's no way of knowing how bad we do have it. Us being here at all is probably part of her plan."
ertia
"Well... I'm kind of reluctant to put you back, and I was barely there five minutes, so I'm probably fine, but maybe you should avoid doing much of anything just to be on the safe side."
wormcan
"I think it might have been her making you paranoid," Luke says. "You turned down an offer of being healed, back there, and that's not something you'd do. On the off chance that being able to stand causes some weird coincidence two years from now?"
"We can't just never do anything," Krouse agrees. "Otherwise we wouldn't even be able to get back to Earth Aleph. There are tons of weird powers and mad science devices, someone here can help us if we hunt around the cape world enough. Can't do that if we're quarantining ourselves."
"We can't just never do anything," Krouse agrees. "Otherwise we wouldn't even be able to get back to Earth Aleph. There are tons of weird powers and mad science devices, someone here can help us if we hunt around the cape world enough. Can't do that if we're quarantining ourselves."
ertia
"Interdimensional travel is beyond me. I thought it was beyond the sorceress who probably put me here, too, so maybe I'll be able to do it eventually, but right now. So I'm not sure I can help you there. Is there anything else you need from me or anything else I definitely need to know before I go do something else?"
wormcan
"Don't let the heroes you're from another world. At best they'll think you're a well-meaning Simurgh plot and won't trust you when you say it was just five minutes, at worst someone might kill you. Fake it as best you can. Maybe you grew up in an underground bunker thinking the world had ended, only just found out that was all a lie, and that's why you don't know anything about the planet.
And us, definitely don't tell people you flew anyone out of Madison."
And us, definitely don't tell people you flew anyone out of Madison."
ertia
"I'll... keep that in mind. Have a nice life, don't make me regret helping you."
And she kicks off into the sky and goes to talk to the "good guys" around the fence.
And she kicks off into the sky and goes to talk to the "good guys" around the fence.
wormcan
As she approaches the fence, from the outside this time, she can see that it's surrounded by armed people in uniforms labeled "PRT." They're all walking on two legs, rather than flying like normal people.
Stop, comes a voice through a loudspeaker. Stay away from the quarantine area. At least nobody is pointing anything dangerous at her.
Stop, comes a voice through a loudspeaker. Stay away from the quarantine area. At least nobody is pointing anything dangerous at her.
ertia
She lands near some people in uniforms. Well, almost lands. Hovering is better than standing around like she hasn't got shit to do. "I want to help," she says.
wormcan
One of them removes earplugs. "You're here to help? Find an armband, hurt her any way you can. They'll probably put you in a rotation. Cape base is over that way," she gets a direction, "make sure you stop by there before going in."
wormcan
The center of operations for the capes is mostly obvious because of the flight units ferrying capes to and from the Simurgh's current location. She's close enough at the moment that the high-pitched keening is present again, if faint.
A cape in spots her and doesn't bother introducing herself. "New arrival?"
A cape in spots her and doesn't bother introducing herself. "New arrival?"
ertia
"Yeah. I might be more useful hanging out of the worst of the singing. I can heal and fix stuff."
wormcan
"We do need more flight. The units here are the ones that still work, you could go to areas the fight moved on from and fix the ones there. The armband will show you where. Same with the healing, we've got a full hospital but most of the patients aren't critical. Start with the transportation, move to healing when it stops being the bottleneck or you get down to five minutes exposure." She offers an armband.
wormcan
"If it gets down to zero. It takes proximity into account, so when it gets low you fly whichever direction quiets the song. In your case you'll be healing instead of repairing with plenty of margin." Her own armband is hardly ticking down at all; the fight is still far from here.