Orb Weaver: Storm, Chapter 5

I was continuing to work, providing assistance, although the continual lightning was making coms difficult. The wind was now gusting up to 75 miles per hour, massive rainfall, estimated at about 4 inches per hour.

Not everyone had gotten out in time, and now the Endbringer sirens were wailing for any who hadn’t noticed. Fortunately, we weren’t the only ones working evacuation. The PRT, emergency services and Protectorate had evacuated well over a million people safely out of the region, including our groups from Galveston.

The ones remaining were now heading to Endbringer shelters, but fortunately, the most vulnerable shelters could be left empty, routing people to more secure ones.

“Leviathan approaching shallows. Blasters engage.” The words were barely finished when a beam of energy sliced down, bright enough to banish the gloom, and the thunder actually rocked the vehicle.

“The fuck was that!” someone shouted, “Scion?”

“No.” I said. Power enhancing trumps? A parahuman who needed time to build up his powers?  It was clear that the Protectorate had used their time well.

The water was now nearly a foot deep, the extraction point just a few miles away. On the left, I saw a billboard go flying, promises of free dinner for children slamming into a store.

The sector directly fighting Leviathan was far away, so we were spared the litanies of the dead and injured. But even so, the other messages were not comforting.

“NASA Bypass is now impassible.”

“E and Deats Endbringer Shelter now full.”

More lightning shot down and the few lights I saw flared and died, the only remaining ones battery powered units. Our lights were trying to penetrate the sheets of rain, the APC in front of us barely visible.  Behind us, that incredible beam fired again, followed by several other bolts.

“Hard Override, Leviathan has been injured. He is moving to sector 7A”

Seabrook and Clear Lake.

“Hard Override, major tidal wave incoming!”

“Holy Fuck!” someone shouted, looking behind us. The lightning flashed long enough to show it, tiny in the distance, even as I looked at the tablet, the PRT drones showing it in all its horrifying glory. We would never be able to escape that, hell most of the Endbringer Shelters…

The wave was nearly 90 feet tall, rising almost without warning. I could see energies unleashed, shields, bolts of energy but it was—

“Alexandria and Vista Inbound, Trump squad, stand by.”

****

Missy had been warned she might be called up. She’d said yes, even though she wanted to hide under her bed. But when Alexandria grabbed her and shot for the coast, she felt it. Felt the change in mass as the water rose at the Endbringer’s command.

“I was helping Legend!” A cape said, as Alexandria stopped on a dime, above the roiling waters.

“We’ve hurt him—we can’t let him wreck the city.” Alexandria held Missy like a little kid, and then the other cape reached out and took her hand.

Energizer was a power granting Trump. A rogue, and after the fifth or sixth attempt to kidnap him he’d gone into hiding. Vista didn’t know how they’d got him out, but he’d helped her with the roads.

“Don’t got much more, Kid, make it count,” the man said, his gray muttonchop’s soaked.

“Right…” She closed her eyes as she felt the energy fill her, and spread her awareness out. There were tiny cliffs, curbs, cracks…

And she lifted them. Nobody was out in this. No people around to mess with her ability.

And if anyone had been around, they would have seen the eye-hurting warping of space, as those little cliffs went from six inches.

A foot.

Five feet.

Fifty feet…

A hundred feet.

The wave struck it—trying to somehow, impossibly, climb a slope that shouldn’t exist. And then it fell back, defeated by gravity.

“It worked,” Alexandria murmured. “This is Alexandria, Dragon, call out any further waves.” She paused. “That was sudden. He was hoping to overwhelm us by surprise.” Then she was shooting back for the emergency station.

“I can help!” Missy said.

“You have. But especially now, we absolutely cannot risk you falling to Leviathan. Hopefully he won’t have time to create any more tidal waves.”

Missy wanted to argue.

But Alexandria didn’t give her the time as she put her down by the emergency center, then shot back into the fray.

“You okay, Kid?” Bulwark asked. The small man had a big umbrella that he extended over Missy.

“I could have kept fighting.” Missy said, trying to ignore the way she was shivering, remembering that wave…

“Nah, you did enough. Besides, we’re gonna have to do a lot of work helping people after this,” Bulwark said. “Think you can do that raise ground thing to help the city drain?”

“Maybe?”

“Cool. Want some hot chocolate? Need to take the time to rest we have.” He handed one out to her, the short, skinny man looking out into the storm.

Missy wanted to say something, but the hot chocolate was good and…

Bulwark was right. They’d need her soon enough.

***

In the car, I quickly looked at the information. The wave had been getting bigger before Vista had stopped it—Leviathan’s plan was obvious now. Spend time moving around, then quickly send a massive surge into the city. As it was, Galveston was more or less gone, but Vista had stopped the worst from hitting the—

The car jumped.

“What the fuck was that!”  someone shouted. Ahead of us, geysers were shooting up from the street…

The sewer system. He tried the tidal wave, but it had a secondary component. Flooding into the sewer system pipes, maybe even the water system, and water is incompressible. He could use it to not only smash the system, but use the water to erode the surrounding—

“Everyone out!” I shouted. “Now!” The convoy was stopped in front  of a swirling whirlpool of mud and debris, forming into an ever growing sinkhole.

“Go, go, go!” Doors were opening and PRT troopers, cops, Wards were bailing out. The lead car was sucked into the water, a despairing cry coming from inside—and then with several flickers, Krewe was by me, holding a shivering, shocked officer.

“Yeah, you know, they should probably put a warning: seatbelts shouldn’t be worn when fucking Endbringers are around.”

I didn’t bother to say anything. “WE need to get away from any…” I gestured. “There!” The abandoned auto shop was rapidly falling apart, but the roof and walls were still intact, and needing to work on heavy trucks, it was on a concrete slab. Not invulnerable, but safer than standing out there.

We took off, running in a sodden mass—except for Kanshi, who had…

A paper parasol? What the fuck?  She was holding it in one dainty hand, ignoring the fact that the rain was going every which way.

Okay, there was maintaining your image, and going a little bit too far, and that was a little bit too far.

“Gentlemen,” I said as we came in. “We cannot stay here—not when another tidal wave could ruin our evening plans.”

Aegis shook his head. “Going out in the storm…”

“The flyers could move people out,” Glory Girl said.

“There are almost thirty people here,” I pointed out. “Kid Win, do you have any drones still up?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Put one on the roof. I really do not want to turn around and find that the Endbringer has joined our conversation.”

Half the people involuntarily looked to the storm just beyond the building.

“Dragon, this is Aegis,” Aegis said. “Where is the nearest Endbringer shelter?

“Carlton Street shelter, but we have lost contact with it.” Dragon paused, no doubt concerned with the fight that was still going on, even though all we could see of it were flashes and thunder in the distance.

I checked my pad. “It’s four blocks away. We can get there, and then secure ourselves within.”

“Understood. We do not currently have drone coverage. They’re all trying to keep track of Leviathan.”

“Understood.”

“Glory Girl and I will provide top cover,” Aegis said. “The rest stay on the ground.”

“I can—“ he cut Kid Win off.

“In this weather, you’ll get knocked off your board. Glory Girl and I are brutes, so we’re less vulnerable, and we can see anything coming. I got these.” He handed one pair of night vision goggles to Glory Girl and put the other one.

“Let’s go.” He said, and then he and Glory Girl shot up into the dark sky.

The walk was…

Not something I ever wanted to do again. The lightning flashing gave us a vision of hell, cars being pulled down the road, geysers and sinkholes opening up. Across the corner I saw a liquor store, insanely enough with some looters in it, drinking and laughing as they watched a small truck go bobbing down the road.

Few insects were available, but enough that I was able to route us around some sinkholes.

“So you’re also a water dowser?”  Clockblocker asked. “Is there anything the Detective cannot do?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Stay dry?”

“Pay attention,” Tenebrae growled. He had a flashlight out. “Sooner we get out of this, the sooner we’re safe.”

Once or twice I thought we’d seen leviathan, a fast moving form, surrounded by a cauldron of energy blasts and other powers. The reports I was getting spoke of greater than-normal damage, organized Trump and Blaster teams attacking, Shaker teams hemming the Endbringer in. It was probably why we had only had to deal with one major tidal wave. He had less time.

Not our problem, unless he appeared on the street, and I expected we’d be dead soon in that case.

“We have a problem,” Aegis said as he landed in front of us. 

“What?”

“The shelter.” He looked grim.

A few moments later, I saw what had happened. The shelter hatches were open, water flooding into them, one actually hanging from its big hinges. The ground around the shelter was broken, mud and debris swirling around. It looked like the structure was actually sinking into the ground.

Water is incompressible. If you had enough you could raise the floor slab, and not all Endbringer Shelters were built to the same standards.

People were coming out, splashing through the water, screaming in panic.

“Dragon, this is Aegis. The Endbringer shelter is breached and flooding. We have numerous civilians—“

“Aegis, this is Dragon. We have no aid units to deploy. You can find another shelter at—“

Aegis cut her off. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, Ma’am. We will stay on scene and provide rescue services.”

I glanced at him, at the others, Brian clenching his hands, looking at Aisha, and then back to the panicked people, at Kanshi who nodded.

“Right,” Aegis said. “Anyone got any ideas?”

I shook my head. The PRT Image told everyone Wards were heroes. Sometimes you got the ones like Sophia. Sometimes you got the ones who just wanted to join a club.

And then, you got the ones who decided if they were called Heroes, they would be Heroes.

Very well.

“I have a plan,” I said, and everyone turned to me.

And then the rain started to get worse.

Next, the Battle of Carlton Street Shelter.