Narwhal added, “There will be further instructions for sub-teams and groups. Noncombat capes are being held in reserve at key locations. Team leaders will be notified about these preparations. Finally, civilians are deployed and are waiting to target specific sites in the crystal landscape. Be prepared.”

Chevalier addressed us. “I can’t say much more than that. I don’t give long speeches—”

There were a few chuckles. There was a rare smile from Narwhal.

“—Don’t panic, believe. I trust you.”

There was light applause, some whoops. Dinah Alcott rose from her seat and approached Legend and Chevalier. Giving them input.

As much as it was a speech staple for Chevalier to talk about giving short speeches, I couldn’t help but feel like they were rushing things because we didn’t have time. I could feel the touch of panic already.

⊙

Present

The scream filled my head, impossibly high and drawn out, cold and changing just often enough that I couldn’t anticipate it or get used to it.

My teeth were clenched so hard that the sides of my face hurt.

The early part of the fight was supposed to be the crucial part, where we did as much damage as possible. I could liken it to how Contessa got fatigued and needed to devote more resources to staying on task, but again, always, this Endbringer wasn’t brutish and noisy, not feral and animal-like, but graceful. There were times she moved like a dancer with wings would move. Not so much spinning and leaping, but moving in measured ways, with a full awareness of her body and an audience in mind.

The early phase of the fight was passing. In my vision, people and the powers they were using were being marked out in a dim yellow. We weren’t doing a lot of damage.

Yeah, panicking a little.

She swept her wings out, and across this stage she’d created inside the ring of broken buildings, snow and dust picked up, with a gravelly sound as it pulled free from ground, debris that hadn’t been picked up clattering back down to earth.

“Ick.” the background noise said, sounding very much like someone with stiff enunciation was whispering in my ear. “Sick.”

A building, leaning against another building, creaked. Again, the sound threatened to become a sound, and my brain reached to interpret it as a human utterance, even though I knew it wasn’t.

“Awww. Uugggh.”

The tracker Dragon was providing me with fritzed, going dark, showing a vague Simurgh silhouette in the cloud, then another, a hundred feet away.

After that second guess, there was nothing. Only the cloud of cover she’d made, labels and indicators for where people were being tracked by the phones or other devices they carried, and alerts for distant battlefields.

The battlefield went still, quiet. A few powers flickered and flared, but the dust hung in the air.