Angry Bird 8.2
February 23, 2011, Lisa's Apartment - Brockton Bay, 11:48 PM

"This way please." The PRT troopers who were escorting us were extremely professional. I could tell from their Observe results that they were hardcore, no-nonsense, career soldiers. They wouldn't bat an eyelid even if they were told that they were going to be quarantined today, and they were aware of the possibility. I gave them a nod out of respect as they left us in a large underground hall, which, by the looks of some of the equipment moved off to one side, was some sort of a training and testing facility, which made sense since The Rig wouldn't be able to provide this volume of naturally shielded space. There were troopers all around, setting up cordons and signboards, preparing the staging area.

"Wow, you guys are early!" Velocity, who jovially greeted us, arriving in a fast forward walk, unlike before, our enhanced perceptions didn't see him as just a blur. Then he stilled, whipped out a tablet, and paled, "You're not early, she's coming here." Swarm gave him a nod, Taylor had already found somewhere else to go, if it was our city then she didn't need her body to be outed.

Velocity continued in a much less jovial tone, "Okay then, thanks for coming, please wait in that area, the briefing will start soon." He pointed at an area marked off as 'First Time Defenders'. As we walked over, troopers escorted in more of our local capes, Velocity continued his zippy host act. We were soon joined by the Undersiders and the Travellers, then New Wave arrived, Laserdream and Glory Girl headed for our group while the others, who were apparently not first timers, went to stand in other designated areas.

A big white marked-out circle started flashing lights, then the teleporting capes started to arrive, the hall filled up pretty fast, the majority of us first timers. There were a spread of levels across the assembled capes, the lowest being Level 12 (a thinker whose power was to precisely know where anything in his LoS was) and the highest were quite a few capes who were Level ?. Observe gained quite a few levels as I spammed it on everyone. I'd read the infodumps later.

Soon the ceiling opened up a slice, the sliver of clear black night sky was broken by coloured streaks as the Triumvirate floated down with a gaggle of others, their own teams, I presumed. For the first time since Noelle's core I saw ? levels, on all three of them. 'Holy fucking cow! This changes things!' Lisa's message echoed in my head, surprise and excitement and a tinge of caution radiating from it. Wow, the last I'd felt her emote this intensely was when… Ahem, uh, never mind. It's annoying how Gamer's Mind makes me slightly loopy in non-combat scenarios, I eased up a bit on it.

Worry, trepidation, anxiety, I felt all of them, the Horror Fairy was coming here after all.

Loopy or not, I would still thank Gamer's Mind, feeling these full blast would definitely turn me into a gibbering wreck. Then I remembered Lisa's message and turned to look at her, she gave me her patented I-got-all-dem-secrets smirk number 4, shook her head and said, "It can wait."

Normally I'd poke her relentlessly but for the moment I shrugged and let it go as I saw Legend approaching me… "Hello, Swarm." Correction, not me, he stopped in front of Swarm and gave her a nod in the same regal manner that Swarm herself does, frickin' high charisma shenanigans. "I hear that you can provide some special contributions? Care to elaborate?" Huh, Taylor must've been talking to Dragon from wherever she was.

Swarm nodded back, "Essentially, I simply have battlefield awareness and signalling at a level of every insect in the city, all Three Quadrillion plus change." I would have chastised her for laying down her cards like this - were this not an endbringer situation.

Legend was busy proving he could even make gaping like a fish look graceful, he took about ten seconds to recover, "I see, so what can we do with that?" Swarm just said, "I have already guided more than 95% of the population either to shelters or out of city limits. Given a space with a giant digital projector and a high resolution camera, I can share a large amount of Dragon's logistic communication burden. The most conveniently placed facilities for that are one of The Rig's labs, one TV station and two conference halls spread across the city." Legend looked slightly skeptical, "Can you show me what you mean?"

Immediately a marquee of hovering firefly arrows formed and pointed from Legend to the exit in the ceiling and out, Legend vanished in a streak of light along that path, too fast for any of us to track. Swarm's body also broke apart and dissipated into nooks and crannies, I spotted a line of ants crawling into the armbands heaped up on one of the tables to the side.

Legend flew back in and spoke up in calm voice that carried surprisingly well, "Fellow parahumans, we don't have much time. Thankfully the city is mostly evacuated, If there's any advice that I could give you, it would be firstly to monitor your armbands and keep your exposure to the scream as less as possible. Secondly, the best attacks are ones which do not depend on subterfuge. And finally, don't second guess yourself, the Simurgh probably knows and plans against what you are thinking, and that makes no difference. Do what you can. Our goal is to make her leave within 27 minutes to stop Brockton Bay from becoming another quarantine zone. Best of luck." That was short and informative, I'd heard he did more elaborate speeches when they had more time.

Armbands were being given out, I took and strapped on mine without complaint, not like the bomb in it could do me any real damage from the scans that I saw. The troops also gave us first timers some extra pamphlets with clear instructions in block print, basic stuff about the nature of the scream and quarantine protocols and whatnot, then they told us to join up with the others. Lisa left for the area marked "Thinkers" while messaging me with an arrival countdown, which was at 2m:52s and counting, I could sense her tension, she knew we wouldn't die but this was her home city, she wanted to save as much as she could, a sentiment echoed by Taylor.

Alexandria started to rise up, "Stay within the lines of your group, a teleporter will come and transport you to staging areas relevant to your classification. If some of you find yourself completely away from the action, don't fret, you will receive updates and be ready to be called upon the moment we think your powers could be of help." That was obvious, a number of capes among us couldn't meaningfully contribute to a Simurgh defense in any way, better to have them out of potential quarantine zones.

Teleporters started popping in and taking people away in singles and clumps.

My armband chimed with Dragon's voice, "Maker, can you tell us about your teleportation?"

I chose to lay my cards down too, "Of course, people within fifty feet of me, time varies with distance, but anywhere in the city in less than a minute." My lvl 43 flying skill, plus the 5 spare bodies I had dispersed among the city could easily make those times.

"Huh, can you demonstrate by moving the healer contingent to the foyer of St. Clement Medical Centre down south? Do you need coordinates or instructions?"

I shook my head, "No. I know where that is." I looked at the healer area, among the 8 or so capes there the only known faces were Gregor the snail, Panacea, Othala and Victor. Oh well, more data for me, I yelled at them, "Brace for teleport!" Then scanned, biomassed and inventoried the folks standing there, inventoried the armband, and vanished into an ID leaving a small hole. Said hole I immediately closed when I saw Alexandria looking directly at the hole/me with narrowed eyes.

Geez, fine, meanwhile I had swapped primary to the body which had already run very close to the destination hospital, entered an ID, and reached the foyer in question. Medical and PRT staff were running around, and there was a neatly marked teleport zone. I equipped the armband and regurgitated my charges there. That was 9 seconds total, fast enough I'd say.

"That was impressive, are you good to do a few more?" Dragon's voice chimed through the armband. The couple minutes were spent placing certain sets of capes and troopers at strategic locations according to Dragon and Taylor's combined plans. Within a few minutes, Taylor's message came through:

"She's here, near the trainyards, people can hear the scream"