[center][h1][color=#B8EEFF][b]Outsider[/b][/color][/h1][/center][hr] Everything was happening so quickly that, even with his senses, he was having a lot of trouble keeping up with the many capes around him and what each was doing in their efforts to slow the advance of the terrifying beast that was Behemoth. He darted back and forth, accelerating and turning far faster in the air than the size of his body would imply was possible. He intercepted blows and dealt back some of his own keeping the beast off guard. However, it couldn’t last forever and the endbringer briefly focused on him. Immediately he detected the shift in his body and in the air around him. A building of tremendous heat and electricity. His entire body tensed, and then he shifted tacts, turning away from Behemoth and accelerating rapidly and continuously as he retreated. Every molecule of his Second Vessel was beginning to boil...except for the core that was. It was still stable. He felt himself using up significant quantities of energy just to keep his form together and that was when his power failed. Just at the edge of Behemoth’s kill aura, Outsider became a costumed Jake, falling suddenly towards the ground with gradually increasing velocity as gravity remembered to affect him. The sudden shift in form induced nausea and with the fall, it caused him to throw up, the bile and half-digested food falling slower than him. He choked slightly and breathed in sharply as he saw how close to the ground he was getting. Half-panicking, Jake grit his teeth and closed his eyes, willing himself to change. Closer and closer he got to the ground and soon he knew it wouldn’t matter if he changed forms. He tried, one last time, but instead he only felt a disorienting emptiness followed by a violent, jarring impact as he struck---.... [hr][center][h1][color=#3068FF][b]Evelyn Chambers – [i]Tulpa[/i][/b][/color][/h1][/center][hr] Arriving several [i]miles[/i] away from Behemoth and standing upon a skyscraper, Tulpa thanked Cascade and then sat down and closed her eyes. [color=#3068FF][b]“I’m going to focus on my projection. If he’s aiming something at us, teleport us both.”[/b][/color] She glanced at the woman, opening an eye to see the cape nod. [i]Good.[/i] Tulpa then turned her full attention to her projection and in doing so became intimately aware with the storm that was the battlefield surrounding Behemoth. Truly it was a spectacle with energy flying every which way and capes equal parts distracting and retreating from the endbringer. She frowned, they ought to all be retreating, but if they felt their powers were sufficient to defend them after her warning, then so be it. It was their funeral. As the others struggled against the Behemoth, the Seraph lashed out and pulled at the monster’s attention from every angle, making sure it would have trouble focusing on anything while it was present. High above several layers of clouds were apparent, the first was a cloud of debris and the second were clouds likely conjured by another cape’s powers. Sylph perhaps. Of course, to Tulpa none of that was terribly relevant, for while everyone had bought time, she had bidded hers. After all, there was one particular aspect of the Seraph that she wanted to capitalize on, and she couldn’t do that without time. Now, she’d had enough of that to truly begin her plan. Now glowing more brightly than the sun, the Seraph pulled away from its assault of Behemoth and darted up into the choking cloud of debris and beyond, ascending past the gathered cloud cover. Both clouds began to swirl around a central point, flashes of blinding light occasionally revealed amidst their expanse. Behemoth, for perhaps the first time in the whole fight, briefly stopped moving, craning its head upwards for a brief moment, its various wounds rapidly filling in with denser materials as it healed. This lasted but a moment before its attention moved further away, its gaze aiming directly for Tulpa herself. She smiled. Several bolts of lighting, and roiling pillars of fire erupted, cast in her direction. They never hit. In fact, after the first four buildings, they veered away entirely, pulled upwards into the swirling maelstrom of power where they disappeared in violent flashes of light. Silver light. Behemoth paused and lashed out, an explosion of flames breaking glass and shattering bones even further away than his roars had as it tore apart the clouds above. Debris swirled and collapsed to the earth and the Endbringer turned away, focused again on its destination. It took one step and stumbled, then another, and found it could not move. Lightning struck at the ground near its feet. Nothing. From above descended shocks of lightning, draping down from the dust and smoke of the blast. They touched the beast and [i]pulled[/i]. Behemoth roared and then in a flash of blinding power was completely engulfed by an aura of choking, smothering light. Rings of force briefly blasted outwards from the clashing titans. High above, more clouds gathered, but the debris was not among them, instead it spun lazily in a maelstrom several stories high and three city blocks wide. The twisting storm appeared slow, but beneath the outer layer the materials were spinning at incredible velocity, piercing buildings and chipping away at everything within. Then a vibration rang out, a sound like an angel singing one perfect note and the storm collapsed inwards all at once, tiny debris shaped into millions of needles no thicker than grains of sand. The projectiles dug through tiny gaps in the regenerating endbringer’s jagged vessel, pushing deep and with rapidly growing force. Behemoth roared once more, but the needles did not shatter and in fact the only evidence of the sound’s effect was the Seraph’s blinding body fanning out from the force of the noise. Tulpa smiled. The Seraph moved, its form clearly bigger than it had been at the beginning of the fight, the quantity of threads greater, the solid light of its body more intense, and the range of its telekinesis vastly larger than before. With its movement, violent winds blasted out and then converged around its sinuous limbs, becoming cutting gales. The threads closed in and phased through the needles lodged in Behemoth’s body, making itself a part of them. Silence. For a glorious moment there was complete silence, the gale, the fighting, even the crashing of Behemoth totally still, but only for a moment. Light so bright as to eclipse the sun blossomed and then erupted out from every inch of the endbringer’s body. Inhuman flesh was annihilated by the built energy of the entire fight so far and yet as the energy washed over those few capes who had remained, they felt nothing of it. Instead, all they would feel was the gentle touch of fine sand brushing past them. Far afield, Evelyn gasped, opening her eyes even as she doubled over, clutched her head, and vomited off the roof of the building. Cascade reached out a hand, but stopped. [i]Seven minutes[/i]. The Ward grit her teeth and swore through the tremendous pain as the projection disengaged from Behemoth with a tremendous pulse of force that pushed the endbringer off balance. However, its strength could not last and so even as its threads reeled back, readying themselves to lash out at the beast once more...it winked out of existence in several flickers before it was replaced by a faint silver silhouette. Evelyn shuddered and looked up, her head throbbing, her body shaking as all the tension of holding onto the Seraph was all at once gone. Squinting, her vision blurry, Evelyn tried to discern the damage she had done to the endbringer and without thinking words spilled from her lips. [color=#3068FF][b]“Is it over?”[/b][/color] Sounding stunned, Cascade replied, [color=#FFBC57][b]"I--...I don’t know."[/b][/color] A ringing silence was all that followed.