Remnants

Scatter 1-4

Siege

Author's Note: The main reason I had to put this here is because of the time line that Wildbow set up with the Endbringer attacks.

So, looking back on what I wrote, I'm not completely satisfied with it. Not sure why but it feels kinda off? It might be due to a rising set of standards that I'm trying to hold myself too, but this isn't as good as I would like. It feels just a touch too much of telling instead of showing, but I can't point to any given line as my example.

On another note, I've recently been addicted to the works of Brandon Sanderson, a IRL author. All his works a single universe known as the 'Cosmere' and it has me hooked like a merchant on crack. Because of my most recent addiction, I expect to be side tracked on at least four or five stories featuring Cosmere features(even if only Obliquely). So in addition to reviewing this chapter's level of quality and it's story elements, can I gauge the interest in a Cosmere story too? I might do a survey on my profile in the new year, but would the readers of this story be upset if I split my efforts between this and a new Cosmere story?

In either case, Merry Christmas. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

Edit 11-04-2016: Changes inconsistent wording. Thanks to Akuma-Heika for pointing that out!

The alarms were loud enough to reach even to my secret lair. My hands were busy, darting here and there, picking up ammo and sorting them into proper magazines to load in my weapons. I had my uniform on already and including the coloured contacts placed on my eyes. It was the ammo that was most cumbersome, but I don't think I'll have a chance to come back and retrieve more ammo should I run out.

Rank 12 Brute rounds, Flare rounds, Explosive rounds, Supersonic rounds(untested of course), Gust Rounds, Incendiary Rounds and Decay rounds were all slotted on my second belt by the magazine. If I had the foresight, some of them might have been the right calibre for my Stormflowers. As it stood, the only Stormflower rounds I had were Brute 6 rounds and some Flare rounds.

Of course, my main belt held duplicate ammo and some of the raw crystals that I liked using as grenades. Along side those, I had taken some bandages and painkillers. Not the most impressive medical equipment, but it was all I could scrounge up. Soon, my lab was almost entirely ransacked for all of it's usable equipment. I had to leave behind the half finished shotgun staff combo weapon.

The only place that I could think to show up to was the floating base that the Protectorate used as a head quarter for their daily operations. My feet were hitting the ground with a satisfying tap tap tap sound as I speed towards the access point closest to the bay. As the exit approached I slid across the ground, using my legs to absorb most of the speed.

My cloak was flapping as I rocketed out of the small opening formed from a crater that had been left from one of Lung's earliest rampages. As soon as I felt my upwards velocity falter, I snapped Crescent Rose in her rifle form and use a pair of shots to propel myself in the right direction. Even as she was locked into her carrier, my speed surged forwards and pulled me to the most obvious helipad on the flying oil platform.

Like always, the speed was intoxicating. However, it wasn't a gentle grasp anymore. The speed wasn't a cradle that protected me. It was a burning fire that raced through me. My body didn't protest the pain, in fact, it was welcoming it in a way. Just as it tightened around my body, everything seemed to be slower. Not much slower, certainly not slow enough for me to fully act as if I was travelling at normal speeds. Just enough to give me the edge I needed to know where I was going.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw Glory Girl flying towards a much lower opening in the base. Changing direction in mid air should be impossible, but that didn't stop my speed from shifting to land me on the much smaller patio. The speed was snatched from my body just as I approached the floor. Just like that, I began to move at a snails pace. Relatively.

As I landed, my soul flared around my legs as I absorbed the impact. My attention switched to the other in the area as soon as I was on solid ground again. Glory Girl was at the door and was partially turned to look at me. She soon gave a short wave and walked inside. Without anyone else to guide me, I blindly followed her into the building.

The large hall we entered was buzzing with activity. Uber and Leet were hanging over something that Armsmaster was working on, with both Kid Win and, apparently, one of Dragon's suit a short distance away. The mechsuit was cracked open and Kid Win seemed to be installing something inside. On the other side of the room, their was a couple of people direct traffic and preparing for the Endbringer. Most notably was Miss Militia and the waves of colourfully dressed capes she was directing to other rooms.

I walked up to her and waited for a couple of seconds while she talked to another group of people, "Head down that hallway and third door on the left will have the mobilization plans on a map." She turned to me and I took that as an invitation to introduce myself.

"Ruby Rose, here to help with the Endbringer."

"Can you take other with you while travelling at high speeds?" her face as mostly covered by her scarf, but her eyes betrayed her exhaustion. She had a clipboard she was looking at, and consulted it as I responded.

"Yes, I can. What should I do?" It was strictly true, but who knew how difficult it would take to carry another person?

"We need you to take Panacea to the established field hospital. The exact location will be on the map in the room three doors down that hallway." Her hand pointed down another hallway that was about ten feet across. I gave her a nod and proceeded down to where she mentioned.

The room was white and had a map on the far wall and bags with what I assume is medical supplies. The map had an area north of the city outlined, with all of the Endbringer shelters represented with a red dot at their entrances. I made sure to memorize the map, before picking up a single bag. If I was running Panacea out to the field hospital, might as well take some equipment with me.

"Excuse me? Are you here to bring me to the field hospital?" I heard a tired voice ask from behind me. When I turned around I saw a young woman wearing a white robe with a red cross on it. Panacea, the universal cure. She was able to heal any damage short of brain injuries. It wouldn't be inaccurate to call her just as important to the world as Legend or Alexandria.

"Yup, Ruby Rose, at your service." I made sure to strap the bag I picked up tightly. After making sure the bag wouldn't come off I turned and faced Panacea. "Ready to go? It's probably not going to be comfortable."

"Okay, sure." Panacea led me to another balcony, separate from the one I arrive on.

"You okay? You seem out of it." Panacea shook her head a little as I spoke and her eyes took a moment to focus on me.

"Just tired. So, how is this going to work?"

"I was planning on just carrying you piggy back, you okay with that?" I bent down a little to make it easier for her.

"Sure. Thanks for the help." Her grip on my back wasn't particularly strong, so I made sure to grab her legs before going.

"Why are you wearing so much cloth? Doesn't it get in the way?"

"It's quite light." I bent my knees and ran off the edge of the building. My speed grasped me tightly as I was swept towards a high rise building downtown. My landing wasn't as solid as normal, but I was carrying another person. Oddly, my speed didn't drain my soul any more than it normally does. Not that it made it any easier to maintain my balance with Panacea on my back.

"What was that?" Panacea squeaked out as her arms tighten around me.

"Just how I travel. You okay?" She seemed rather worried.

"It felt unsettling." Her body gave a small shudder. "Let's just get this over with."

Soundlessly, I beckoned my speed once more as I gave a small jump. Panacea's shiver seemed to grow more intense as my speed carried us to the other side of the bay. Odd, that my speed would have such an intense reaction. Either way, I only had to make another jump and we had arrived. Velocity, in all of his misty nature, zipped past us as he used his insubstantial form to accelerate towards the Protectorate HQ. The moment I forced my speed back, Panacea practically jumped off my back and onto solid ground. I gave her a small smile and left the medical supplies with the respectable pile already here.

"Take care. Hopefully I'll see you when this is all over." Oh, wow that sounded a lot more grim then I intended. Thankfully she didn't seem to notice or care about my comment. I turned around and gave a short run up before letting go on the restraints on my speed. Before I was hurried from ground and into the air, I managed to hear a final sentence from Panacea.

"Good luck."

When I next arrive at the Protectorate, it was vastly more organized. A veritable army of capes were in the main atrium with a raised platform. From the doorway, it looks like it was mostly heroes with the only villainous capes being those local to the Bay. On the far wall, a map of the Bay was shown with every other street highlighted one colour or another.

Hopefully Dad got to a shelter okay. He should have, he works just a couple of minutes away from one. My attention was pulled from the map when Legend flew onto the stage from outside. He landed softly and turned to the gathered parahumans. His face was grim, but not fearful. I could see the others stand up straighter as they saw Legend.

"Thank you all for coming. As many of you are already aware of, the Simurgh was sighted and is making swift progress towards Brockton Bay. However, thanks to the vigilant work of Dragon and Armsmaster, we've had the warning to get everyone brought in quickly. Anyone with teleportation, or similar mass transport abilities, we'll have you help evacuate as many people as possible. Tinkers, as normal you will be located outside of the Simurgh's largest documented range." I couldn't even help!? I know that the Simurgh could access my tinkertech if I got in range, but what else was I supposed to do?

"We will have Thinker support on the ground and helping us to orchestrate our ranged support. The areas on the map are where we expect the Simurgh to idle and construct her machine are shown in red. I have full confidence in all of you gathered, but don't let yourself get careless. By the end of today one in five of you will be dead or insane." A chill shot down my back. One in five dead?

"Be careful, and follow the instructions Dragon will relay to you. Take one of her communications bracelets before leaving. The left most button will transmit a message to the buffer server. The right button will transfer you to and from the search and rescue channel. In the event of a vitally important message, press both buttons simultaneously and it will be immediately heard by Dragon, and myself so that we can react appropriately. I trust that you will understand and respect the importance of this system."

"Healers and first aid staff, the medical tent is outlined in green on the map. Fliers are going to keep people rotated out of the scream area. Everyone else, be careful and hinder the Simurgh while you are in the scream zone. Remember after twenty minutes inside the scream, you will be reminding to leave before it can manipulate you. Good luck."

Irrelevant to the lack of any meaningful way to aid them, I memorized the location on the map and began to make my way out of the hall. I belatedly remembered to grab a communicator on my way out. I tightened my belts and made it out to the large helipad I had seen on my way here. The base itself was moving out of the way, but it wasn't going to move fast enough to get completely out of the way. The Simurgh was only twelve minutes out.

I saw several fliers filter out of the large hanger to the left and gave a bitter smile. How many of them would have a chance to help out in this fight? How many would die because I happened to be a Tinker and unable to help them? My thoughts were in a dark place, and no matter how much I shook my head they refused to leave me.

A couple of deep breaths and I was ready to go. I stepped off the pad and fell straight down towards the water. My speed snapped out of my body and swung me off towards the far end of the city. The usual feeling of contentment and satisfaction was enough to get me focused on the task at hand. I almost bounced off of a small building, sending me flying off into the air as I travelled off towards the edge of the city.

This time the landing was much smother, as I used my soul to absorb the damage that would have been done to my legs. I shoved my speed down and stood up straight. While I wasn't the first person to arrive, the area was still pretty empty. The work benches were several metres long and had dozens of tools I've never even seen before.

Kid Win and Armsmaster had already arrived and were working together some project. Oddly, I didn't see Leet here. I mean, he could have just left the city, but I kinda assumed he would be here to help. A pair of giant mechsuits were stationed here and one was ripped open and had several pieces removed.

I turned and looked out at the horizon, staring until I could just make out the white thing that must be the Simurgh. It was approaching at a constant pace, seemingly uncaring for the force arrayed against it. If I had to guess, I'd say that it was about ten minutes out, give or take. I turned back to the tables with the tools and began to sort through what we had available.

Even if I couldn't get close enough to physically help, I would be damned before I would let myself do nothing on the sidelines. A quick glance showed that the first giant mechanical suits had some redundant components, but without knowing the technology behind it, I was a little hesitant to begin to work on it. Instead I pulled Kid Win's hoverboard from behind him and cracked it open.

The components inside were physically separated by their apparent function. I snagged some wire snips and cut out the power generator. It was held in with six small screws, and it took a good twenty seconds to find the right sized bit to remove them. Once I had freed the compact slab, I began to take apart the case that held the unit.

It was a mess of wires and components twisted into a nightmarish web. I deftly traced the important wires and loosened them so that they could be threaded out of the case. I left the exposed generator out as I moved on into the other components. One pair of spherical pieces looked like they were responsible for providing lift to the board, so I pried them out.

My left most pouch had some solid kinetic dust, so I pulled a couple of those crystals out. They weren't the most useful, but the directional force it could provide would be essential to allow the hoverboard to operate. They formed the base of the rectangles that would be the new propulsion method. Some green gale dust found it's way into the constructed pair soon enough, giving the directional movement that would also double as the firing mechanism to the projectile launchers.

The final touch, a pair of strings infused with yellow electric dust woven into the dense dust block before locking it all together with some plexiglass I "borrowed" from one of the tables. I left the new units off to the side as I began to cut away most of the remaining components inside the hoverboard. I tried to be careful, but ultimately everything was getting replaced by my new components so I wasn't that careful.

The barrel and loading mechanism was cobbled together with crude parts, mostly because anything else would require a complete redesign of the base chassis and I didn't have the heart to completely invalidate Kid Win's previous work. The two dust blocks had to be partially taken apart so that the barrel would fit between the key projectile accelerators, leaving me with less room to try and work in some folding mechanisms. Not really a loss, but it did leave the design with some spacial inefficiencies.

Kid Win's generator module was placed inside a modified version of it's initial case so that it had the room to connect the metallic wires with my dust based variant. The new case would be easily fashioned from the scrap components I had already removed with some of the scrap metals on the furthest table. It took be a couple of moments to locate the right alloys and some shaping tools.

When I returned to the hoverboard, Kid Win had left Armsmaster's side was was going over the changes I had made. For a moment I was worried I had upset him, but his shoulders weren't squared. If anything, he looked more curious than anything. I walked over to his side of the table and he looked up from the board.

"How does this even work? I can't make heads or tails of it." His voice was confused and he had an eyebrow raised. Kid Win had traced out the wires on a sheet of scrap paper beside the board, leaving a lot of space empty for the components I had added or altered.

"I replaced most of the internal components with a specialized crystal. They do most of the work your old pieces did." I layered the pieces I had taken into an approximation of the new frame, albeit two dimensional. Kid Win helped to lift the generator component when I wordlessly motioned to it, so I begun to fit and rivet the piece in place.

"Interesting. What about surge protection? Many villainous tinkers have the ability to mess with tech. I had to get Armsmaster to add in some of his safeties into my board." Kid Win gestured to a bunch of the components I had removed, "Without those, my board was sensitive to EMP weapons and the like."

"They don't need the redundancies. Can you hold this piece in place." My hand reached out for the point welder as I connected a support piece to the bottom of the board. A couple quick welds and the back of the generator was well and fully supported.

"Shouldn't you use screws in case you need to repair this?" Kid Win's fingers twitched towards one of the pieces on the table, a movement I was intimately aware of. After all, I did the same thing when my power acting up, pushing ideas into by head. Wordlessly, I handed Kid the welder. He practically jumped forward to grab it.

It was interesting to see Kid work on the board. He was bolting several of the generators components directly to the base, using the supports I built up to manage the dust wires I had laid down inside the core of the piece. In fact, I'm pretty sure he made it easier for me to finish off the project, now that the wires all passed through the top, I could easily lace in a couple of the modules I wanted to add.

I stepped around Kid and began to set up the mechanical levers that would run the projectile thrower. They wound up right where the heels would go while he piloted the hoverboard. Next was some form of lighting. Thankfully, I didn't need to bother with the wires, as they were already near the front. It just took a simple switch and a pair of flare crystals and the board had headlights.

"What do those crystals do?" Kid was off to the side, updating the diagram he had drawn out before.

"They emit light. For now, it will just turn them on and off." I reached out and took the top of the board and began to cut out holes for the new switches with one of the Stormflowers. Kid stepped up to my side to offer me a tape measure, only to rescind his offer when I cut without measurement.

"Let me handle putting the cover on, I'll need to know how to take it apart to maintain it."

"You wont have to maintain most of it, just your generator and maybe oil the hinges. The rest of it can run for years without any maintenance." Either way, I did grudgingly hand him the plate. It wasn't my best working, not even a quarter as good as my Crescent Rose, but my baby was pretty great like that.

"Really? That must be convenient." Kid sounded wistful as he took over on the piece. I sent a quick look at the Simurgh in the distance. I flinched as I saw it significantly closer than it was before. What surprised me the most was the small number of tinkers that had joined us while I was working on Kid's hoverboard. Either way, I saw Armsmaster in the guts of one of the two mechsuits. The other was still inert, although it does look significantly more complete. Nothing better to do, I walked over to Armsmaster.

The tall man didn't react as I walked up, so I took that as an invitation to take a look at what he was working on. The suit itself didn't seem to have a lot of room for a pilot, but then again, not everyone was as tall as Dad. He was fiddling with some form of launcher, judging by it's design. Of course, it seemed to function mainly off of electromagnetic fields, well outside my area of focus.

"Hey, pass the soldering set?" I jumped as Armsmaster suddenly spoke, but used my speed to grab that tool from the table and get back in a blink.

"Here." This time, it was Armsmaster's turn to jump as I was suddenly behind him once again. He silently took it from me and began to attack some cables to the circuit board on the projectile launcher. I watched him work for a couple of minutes trying to see where he was implementing the new board. It didn't look like it was a part of the launcher itself.

"That was quick." Well, that was as subtle as a bull in a china shop. Sudden too, but I imagine that I sound a lot like that at times too.

"I'm fast. What are you adding?" I tilted my head to the side as I tried to get a better look at the pieces inside the mechsuit.

"An EMP generator. It got destroyed in the Simurgh fight three months ago, and we didn't expect to need it so soon." Armsmaster bolted the board he had been working on to the back of the mechsuit. The large barrel of the generator was slid up a sheath in the spinal region, the rest of the device attached in the centre of mass.

"Don't the Endbringers rotate? Shouldn't it be Leviathan or Behemoth?" I will admit that until I recovered from the locker, I hadn't really been paying attention to the attacks. I felt a stab of guilt that I hadn't even remembered the Endbringers until now.

"Yes." Armsmaster didn't elaborate any more. He instead reached even farther inside the mechsuit and began to attach the main body of the EMP device to it. I was going to ask for elaboration, when the armband on my arm crackled to life.

"Simurgh entering contact range. Estimated time until scream, hundred and twenty seconds." A woman's voice cracked out of everyone's armband. "Ranged combatants, begin engagement."

My hand drifted towards Crescent Rose, but with the Simurgh's telekinesis, she would be impotent. Instead, I let my eyes flit over the gathered tinkers. The dozen of us had about four major projects that I could pick out. Of them, I couldn't see a single item that I would be able to help with.

The Simurgh's biggest threat was her scream and whatever it tries to make. While I can't stop the scream, I could probably do something to stop it from activating it's device. But what? Just dust ammo wont actually do anything, because telekinesis. What else was in my reach. I could try to make a weapon, but what kind of weapon could destroy the Simurgh's device without backfiring?

I could make an aircraft, but there was no time to grow the quantities of dust it would take. Not to mention that the ones off the top my head wouldn't have the offensive capabilities required to make it effective. Artificial humans require far too much time and training to be effective. The Beacon Project is huge, but it would have been useful to have. If only I had build it sooner. That's what it came down to. Time

How much time did I waste studying or learning history or language when I could have been preparing for these monsters? What kind of damage could I have stopped if I had only been devoted to my tinkering? How many lives could a single dustship save? Who had I doomed by not taking my powers seriously?

Far too many.