this is crazy

[from_scratch]

Cam is watching a new recording of Atriama, tail swishing in the gap in his couch, and doesn't stop to pause the show when he feels a summons go by.

Comments

[whole_new_can]

Or that's just what she wants him to think. Always an option with the Simurgh.
The singing does become louder or more varied at times, and this does correlate with when he pays attention to it. Annoyance is limited to what a mundane screech might sound like; it's not detectably becoming more annoying in any weird superpowers way.

Heat is not the most effective weapon against the weird crystal that Endbringers are made of, but enough of it it scorches her. Her human parts don't burn the way human skin would, and her feathers don't burn the way feathers would, but an outer layer gets peeled off and slowly begins regrowing.

The group around the cape Cam is protecting notices their armbands flash simultaneously. "You coming with us?" one of them, a medieval-themed cape with a lance, asks.

[from_scratch]

"I'm not significantly more effective close up. I'll stay back and get in the way if anything comes flying at her," Cam says, aiming a thumb at the girl. Isn't she going to do anything? Maybe she has to charge up.

He moves from plasma through his other options.

[wormcan]

The one with the lance just nods, and that team moves in. All of them are fast, and most of them are flying. The important girl is one of the exceptions; she's getting a lift from a teammate until reaching crossbow range. When she fires, the Simurgh doesn't interpose any of the floating objects around her but either dodges or takes the hit. None of the bolts strike where the largest wing meets the body.

[from_scratch]

"Anything I can do to help?" Cam asks between shots.

[wormcan]

The crossbow-wielding cape is a bit occupied.
The preceding team comes back, having just been relieved, and the one of them with the green-glowing armband answers instead. "Depends. What do you do?"

[from_scratch]

"Make stuff. Would you benefit from a sight with a heads-up display?"

[wormcan]

"Sure, why not. But what you should really do is, give Flechette a proper weapon. I've been telling her for ages, poking things with needles isn't going to cut it. Make a twenty-foot sword if you can make it light enough, she'll catch it. Let's see Ziz dodge that."

[from_scratch]

Cam gives her the sight and the heads-up glasses. "She's the other non-Eidolon person lit up green?"

[whole_new_can]

"Yeah. The one with the crossbow."

The current round of capes is harrying the Simurgh as much as they can, though nothing other than Flechette and sometimes the Triumvirate appears to deal much damage. The boy with the lance disintegrates the hovering objects that the Simurgh uses for both offense and defense, and strikes at her directly when she floats low enough, only to be smashed downward by an unexpected piece of building. The Simurgh gets blasted backward by a laser just in time to not be hit by a crossbow bolt.

[from_scratch]

Cam keeps harrying her with miscellaneous appearing damaging matter.

He asks his armband where Flechette is.

[wormcan]

It responds, "Flechette, BC-6."

"She's the one marked green!"
Flechette is one of the comparative few standing on ground level. She stops while loading another bolt to dodge a projectile, then fires when no teammates are in the way.

[from_scratch]

Cam lands next to her. "Somebody recommended I give you a twenty-foot sword?"

[wormcan]

As Cam approaches, the scream gets louder. And more like a song; now it sounds like someone is singing with a voice like nails on glass instead of just a few isolated tones. Still no unpleasant memories whenever he blinks.

"She's still on that? Here?
...well, the arbalest isn't working like I'd hoped. That might actually help. Does have to be scaled down to where I can move it, unless you're planning to using my power on a flagpole and just topple it on her."

Flechette looses another shot, the three-foot needle flying straight through where the Simurgh would be if she hadn't stopped short.

[from_scratch]

"Will your power work okay on a nanotube structure?"

[wormcan]

"What kind of a structure? It has to be long and thin, like the arrows. A thread won't hold the shape." Another bolt.

[from_scratch]

"It'll - here." He hands her a twenty-foot-long sword, light enough to wield with one hand.

[wormcan]

Flechette takes it with both, only expecting wielding it at all to be physically possible because powers don't have to make sense.
She concentrates on it for a moment, then swipes it toward the Simurgh.

The Endbringer just flies twenty feet higher, and is then struck back down by Alexandria.

[from_scratch]

"I wish I had known about you sooner I would have given you wings and taught you to fly," mutters Cam, adding six feet to the sword. She's got both hands on it, should be fine.

[wormcan]

"You can do that?"

She swings the sword, and it cuts through some of the Simurgh's wings' wings on the way toward the core. Feathers flutter down, along with a few more substantial pieces, but the Endbringer twists out of the way.

The road beneath the Simurgh cracks, then flips upward and launches itself at Flechette.

[from_scratch]

Cam anchors the road to the ground below it and trips, wings outflung, between the chunk and the girl in case it keeps going.

[wormcan]

It does. Cam isn't the only one responding, though, so he gets struck by assorted chunks of recently blasted ex-road instead of by the whole thing.

The Simurgh takes advantage of everyone's distraction to extend a wing through Eidolon. He briefly turns gaseous and then resumes blasting her slightly less powerfully.

[from_scratch]

"Yeah but I can't insta-teach-you-to-fly," Cam replies, getting himself back into a standing position.

[whole_new_can]

At the next attempt, the sword stops mid-swing. It refuses to budge, then snaps into three pieces which clatter to the ground.

"She could do that all along?"

[from_scratch]

Cam hisses and says, "How fast can you apply your power to a sword, if I make it handle first and make it through her?"

[wormcan]

"Split second at least, and I can't infuse anything that isn't there yet. But we have to try it."