[center][img]https://i.postimg.cc/V6hv41Rs/living-hell-regular.png [/img][/center]

Was it all hopeless?

Tinker-made weaponry, the Triumvirate, blasts of lightning, even that enormously powerful projection and so much more had done nothing but annoy the Endbringer. All the damage was cosmetic, its blasts still as powerful as before, its kill aura still active…

Metanoia wanted to strike at it, to bring hundreds of tons of mass down upon it and sink tendrils of carapace and bone through its flesh and tear it apart from the inside—but she’d seen what similar Brutes had tried, seen the enormous tidal wave of ink only end in the death of the cape that had been coordinating Search and Rescue. She couldn’t withstand the kill aura either, not without another cape’s assistance, and that cape would be better off protecting those who could actually injure the Endbringer.

Her heart skipped a beat when she heard Abaddon’s voice through the communicator. She turned her eyes to the sky, the wings on her back flapping furiously to keep her in the air for just a little longer so she could witness what her friend was planning to do.

Abaddon looked…[i]glorious[/i], perhaps, would be the best way to put it. A wrathful angel, utterly inhuman, her appearance sending waves of terror flooding through those who looked upon her divine visage. But Metanoia forced herself to watch, locking down all of her spasming muscles and impelling her wings to plow through the air and carry her higher. She opened her mouth to respond, impotent words of caution upon her lips—

And nearly fell out of the air in shock and worry as a bolt of lightning seared her retinas and obscured Abaddon. She began diving out of the air toward her friend’s last location before her eyes even regenerated, only pausing upon seeing that Abaddon was still alive and lowering herself to the ground.

Metanoia wanted to regroup with her, to find out how severely she had been injured, to make sure she wasn’t going to die in some alley on her own...but she still had a job to do, the communicator insistently reminding her of the nearest downed capes and pockets of civilians.

So instead she raised the communicator to her mouth, switched to the general channel, and calmed her nerves before speaking.

“Metanoia to Abaddon—I will.”

She left the message at that, unwilling to risk adding confusion to the general channel and obscuring important information. The communicator blipped at her again, so she folded her wings and dived out of the air, her controlled fall taking her in the direction of the downed cape named “Outsider” that required evac to the medical tents.

Metanoia—or rather, the elephant-sized fluffy wolf on the ground that served as an extension of her body and senses—found the rather distinctive cape in the middle of the street. She’d heard of the cape’s name before and read up on their wiki entry, but seeing the massive body was another thing entirely. She followed the trail of destruction the cape had left as he had crash-landed, portions of the rooftop missing from a nearby building and a deep furrow in the asphalt marking his passage.

The scent of ozone in the air was sharp and stinging as she banked toward him, her wings straining and tearing as she unfurled them to slow her descent. She still hit the ground with considerable speed, however, bones cracking and muscle pulping as she skidded to a stop. Severing her screaming pain receptors as her wounds regenerated, she raised herself up from the small crater in the concrete sidewalk and hurried over to the downed cape.

The cape seemed mostly intact, most of the damage visible as gashes around the “head” and “neck” area. Metanoia glanced at her wolf meat construct as she directed it to come to a stop next to her. The cape was even larger than the elephant-sized wolf, but perhaps she’d be able to rig up some kind of bone sled and pull them to the medical tent. That would take quite some time, however.

Tabling that option for now, she walked toward the “head” of the cape, the tentacled body dwarfing her own human body. Crouching down, she gently tapped the cape’s shoulder, her bone gauntlets clicking against the chitinous armor covering the cape.

“Hello,” she said, wondering how she was supposed to address an unconscious cape. “Can you hear me? Metanoia here, part of search and rescue.”

If Outsider doesn’t respond she’ll repeat her words again, still tapping the cape’s shoulder, and try for another minute or two.