Twisted and Accursed, Chapter 31

The PRT officer stood amid the growing tide of bodies surging toward the evacuation zones. The air was thick with panic, a cacophony of shouts and sirens as the city fell apart. He could barely hear himself think as civilians shoved past, desperate to escape Brockton Bay before the Simurgh arrived. Mothers clutched their children to their chests, faces streaked with tears, fathers shouted for family members lost in the sea of people.

Overhead, the wail of the Endbringer sirens blared, unrelenting, drilling into his skull. He gritted his teeth and pressed forward, trying to maintain order, but it was useless. The crowd was out of control.

A woman stumbled in front of him, tripping over another fallen body, and was immediately trampled as the mass surged forward. He reached for her, but she was swallowed by the stampede, her hand disappearing as she was lost beneath the feet of the fleeing mob. Screams rose around him, sharp and pained.

"Move back! Move back, damn it!" he yelled, trying to clear a path. He caught sight of one of his fellow officers, wide-eyed, yelling into his radio, barely heard above the din. “We need more units for crowd control at the south exit – people are getting crushed out here!”

The officer felt a tremor rumble through the street, a low, distant hum that grew steadily louder, rattling windows and shaking the ground. He looked up, eyes widening as he saw a figure darting through the sky – a blur of black and white – streaking toward a silvery figure hovering high above. Taylor Hebert. Or… whatever she had become. Every PRT Officer knew her face. How could they not? That little girl was apparently the scariest thing since the damn Slaughterhouse Nine, with how even the most veteran heroes were afraid of her.

Fair enough, however, because he’d seen the footage of her fight against Lung and... that girl was right up there among the strongest capes ever.

She threw herself at the Simurgh, eyes blazing, her movements fierce, almost feral. He couldn’t understand why she was even trying. Going against an Endbringer was suicide, even accompanied by a whole army of capes. But there she was, defying logic, charging headlong at the alabaster giant like she had a death wish. Alone. She was doing it alone. While the capes were still gathering to discuss battle plans and whatnot, Taylor Hebert charged right towards the Simurgh, without a second thought.

In response, the Simurgh drifted back, her wings stretching wide, silver feathers glinting under the city lights. She raised her hand, a slow, graceful motion, and the ground beneath him buckled.

Then he heard it - a deep, guttural rumbling from the earth itself, and he felt his blood turn cold. The officer looked up as an entire city block shifted, floating impossibly above them. Dozens of buildings, including a skyscraper, hung suspended in the air, casting a shadow that seemed to swallow everything below. People stopped, stunned, gazing up as the massive structures hovered above them.

“Run! Move! MOVE!” he screamed, but his voice was lost in the collective gasp of horror.

With a flick of her fingers, the Simurgh released her telekinetic grip, and the entire city block’s worth of buildings, dozens of them, was flung violently towards Hebert.

The officer turned and ran, his heart pounding, lungs burning. He heard the shattering of glass, the crunch of concrete, the groaning of steel collapsing on itself. People screamed, scattering in every direction, their bodies tiny specks beneath the falling buildings. He could barely make sense of it – streets that were once familiar now unrecognizable, transformed into hellish ruins.

The Earth rumbled and roared, and the ground was split apart, the roads and pavement torn right off the streets as a thousand cracks appeared and buildings collapsed from the force of the Simurgh’s power.

Through the dust and debris, he caught a glimpse of Taylor. She stood at the center of the destruction, unfazed, arms crossed, watching as the skyscraper descended upon her. Just before it made contact, she raised her hand, slicing through the air. The building split cleanly in two, fragments cascading around her like a waterfall of stone and steel. She moved through the wreckage with ease, untouched, her face a picture of smug satisfaction as chaos raged around her.

The officer's knees buckled, forcing him to the ground as he watched the carnage. A child lay nearby, sobbing as a woman – her mother – tried to shield her from the falling debris. He reached out, his hands shaking, and helped pull them to their feet, barely aware of his own movements. He guided them toward a side street, where other families crouched, trembling, clutching each other.

Another explosion rocked the city, a fireball lighting up the sky as the Simurgh descended further. Taylor leaped up again to meet her, her laughter ringing out, unsettling, echoing across the ruins. The officer staggered back, his heart pounding as he tried to pull survivors out of the rubble. And then, he looked on as Hebert was sent flying through several buildings, right as the Simurgh hurled yet another city block’s worth of ruins at the girl.

There was no escape. Not from this.

He gritted his teeth and reached for his radio, his voice hoarse. "This is Officer Bates, Section Three – total collapse across all sectors. Civilians... everywhere... injured or dead. We need… we need more hands. We can’t hold them back."

The officer’s voice cracked as he called for backup. He clutched his radio like a lifeline, his knuckles white. Around him, the smoke and dust thickened, mingling with the screams and cries of survivors scrambling through the rubble. The air was heavy with the metallic tang of blood and the acrid burn of charred concrete.

He ducked as an energy blast surged overhead, the shockwave sending debris scattering. He turned and saw a cape – Laserdream, one of the heavy hitters – swooping down to pull a trapped family from the crumbling remains of a storefront. She glanced at him, eyes sharp, before turning back to the chaos, her hands aglow as she fired bursts of energy to clear a path. She didn’t stop moving, her face set in grim determination.

Another officer staggered over to him, blood trickling down his forehead. “It’s hopeless, Bates. We’ve got civilians scattered across every exit point. They’re either stampeding each other or frozen in place – half of them can’t even see a way out. We need more than just us here.”

“Shit!” The city had already been through one hell that turned it into a goddamn post-apocalyptic nightmare and now the damn Simurgh, arguably the worst of the Endbringers was here.

What in the goddamn hell did Brockton Bay do to deserve all of this at once?

Bates glanced back to the distant outline of the Rig, now half-submerged and crumbling into the bay. Dragon’s suits flew overhead, weaving between buildings, trying to manage the fallout, but there were too few of them against the sheer scale of destruction. He watched as one suit hovered low, extending cables to pull civilians from a collapsed walkway, while another fought a raging fire on a nearby rooftop.

“Where’s our air support?” Bates muttered, looking up as if a miracle might appear.

“Grounded. Too dangerous with the Simurgh here,” the officer replied, his face grim. “They’re rerouting everything to evacuate the most populated zones, but it’s a mess. Every street’s gridlocked with people trying to flee.”

Above, the battle between Taylor and the Simurgh intensified. The Simurgh’s pale figure hovered serenely, her expression unfathomable, yet deadly calm. With a flick of her wrist, she sent a wave of telekinetic force that carved through a line of buildings, sending shards of glass and steel cascading down at the surging form of Taylor Hebert like lethal rain. Bates shielded his face, flinching as a jagged piece of glass sliced his arm.

Another city block disappeared in a haze of dust and debris. “Jesus Christ!”

Then he saw her. Taylor – or whoever was in control of her now – stood amidst the rubble, her four crimson eyes blazing as she sneered up at the Simurgh. She seemed more a demon than human, her stance defiant and eerily confident. She raised her hands and slashed through the air with invisible force slicing through buildings in their path. Skyscrapers groaned, twisting, splitting open, and collapsing like dominoes.

And then, Taylor grinned as one of the Simurgh’s arms fell right off, surprising even the Endbringer, whose serene eyes widened for just a moment.

“Surprised?” Taylor Hebert’s laughter echoed.

The Simurgh responded with a flicker of her wings, silver feathers glowing as she unleashed a powerful shockwave. A wall of wind and force blasted outward, ripping trees from their roots and flattening the remaining structures in its path. Bates watched in horror as entire blocks disappeared, reduced to rubble and dust. People were hurled back, limbs flailing, some caught under debris before they even hit the ground. And Taylor herself was sent hurling through several buildings, blasting through walls just as the buildings themselves broke around her.

“Get down!” Bates screamed, diving behind a concrete barrier as another shockwave tore through the air. Dust choked his lungs as he hit the ground, feeling the tremor shake his entire body. He could hear the panicked breaths of civilians nearby, some sobbing, others praying under their breath.

A young boy, clutching a battered teddy bear, looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes. Bates forced a shaky smile, reaching out to help the boy stand.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he said, though he didn’t believe it himself. “We’ll get you out of here.”

He turned his gaze back toward the battle. Taylor was laughing – no, it was more like a manic shout, a sound that cut through the destruction, sharp and mocking. The ground under her feet splintered as she launched herself upward, a blur of black and red that collided with the Simurgh midair. The shockwave from their impact rattled the ground, sending another burst of debris through the streets.

The Simurgh hovered back, unfazed, her blank, unfeeling eyes fixed on Taylor. With a smooth motion, she raised both hands, her telekinetic grip seizing entire blocks of the city. Dozens of shattered buildings lifted into the air, held aloft like toys. Bates held his breath as he watched, the weight of impending doom settling over him.

With a final, sweeping motion, the Simurgh dropped the entire mass of debris down upon Taylor, the force of it sending shockwaves through the ground, creating craters that rippled through the surrounding streets. Dust and smoke billowed out, obscuring the entire area in a thick, impenetrable cloud. Taylor disappeared in the chaos.

Silence fell, broken only by the distant wail of sirens and the soft, stunned murmurs of those still alive. Bates swallowed, his mouth dry, eyes fixed on the settling dust. Was it over? Had the monster in Taylor’s skin finally been crushed? The civilians around him began to stand, glancing at each other in cautious relief.

Then, out of the smoke, a figure appeared. Taylor emerged, her silhouette a dark, unwavering outline against the gray haze. She was covered in rapidly-closing wounds, her crimson eyes gleaming, lips curled into a satisfied grin as if the entire assault had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

Bates’s heart plummeted. The civilians around him gasped, voices rising in renewed panic. Taylor’s gaze swept over the crowd, lingering for a fraction of a second, and then she looked back at the Simurgh with a predatory gleam. Her hands curled into fists, her stance shifting, as if challenging the Endbringer to try again.

Bates felt a shiver crawl down his spine. They were trapped, caught between an unstoppable force and an immovable monster. There was no way out, no one left to save them. This was the end.

And then, Taylor breathed in and formed a hand sign, and spoke. “Scale of the Dragon! Recoil! Twin Meteors!”