“Kick her ass, or kick her ass more?” I asked, quiet.

There was a pause.

“Just kicking her ass will suffice.”

I used my aura, putting every iota of violent, righteous, angry sentiment I was feeling and transmitting it to every cape present. Dinah directed, it gave us what we needed to make a final set of moves without her seeing them coming.

Last 20.7

My first instinct on seeing every cape present make their moves was that I’d played a pivotal role in the Simurgh’s master stroke. It was too much, all together, with too many people in the line of fire. All on my signal.

Solarstare’s power gushed into the open lattice and filled the hollow of the Simurgh’s body, right on target, until Chevalier’s second shot hit and jolted her, sending her flying back a good fifteen feet. Excess liquid splashed dangerously close to where Tattletale and the capes she’d gathered around herself were hunkered down.

Three tinkers were using their tech together in what I could only assume was a ‘cross the beams’ maneuver, but they missed in the initial moments, raking the already damaged ceiling—ceiling I’d damaged in earlier fighting, and brought chunks down near the primary group of Wardens.

Damsel was moving unpredictably, using recoil to fling herself around, and Narwhal’s forcefield spikes were traveling in the same airspace.

But this battlefield wasn’t just about those capes. Vista warped the residual ‘splash’ of molten gold and the cascade of falling rock. Hookline and Disjoint were at the ready, Hookline grabbing Damsel and pulling her out of the way of the spikes, while Disjoint reached out with dismembered limbs and shoved capes out of the way.

There were others. Advance Guard had a few members nearby, with Signal Fire hurling out a homing fireball that embedded itself in the Simurgh’s stomach and proceeded to suck in other airborne projectiles, concentrating them in one area. ReSound had a sonic blast that she channeled into that same spot.

Solarstare’s power erupted into superhot flame. Much of it was within the Simurgh herself, and there were spots, especially where she was wounded, where the glow of heat within her made her silver body glow orange and yellow.

Byron’s motes detonated into mist, sweeping over the Simurgh. Vista controlled the mist’s path, concentrating it. Dust and smoke particles froze into frost-like lattices, and her exterior was super-chilled, at the same time she burned from within.

She folded wings around her, and they snapped and cracked with the movement as they drew around her body, frozen on the outside, with her body glowing red-hot from within. A single crack at the lattice at one shoulder widened, inching down toward one nipple-less breast. Just from the stresses.