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The Endbringers were something we all understood. A fact of reality, something that touched everyone, struck a chord of fear in cape and civilian alike.

Taylor, Cell 22.4

The Endbringers are monstrous beings that take turns attacking locations around the globe, seemingly with no other goal than to cause as much destruction as they possibly can. After sustaining sufficient damage, they retreat to their respective domains to heal, only to attack again months later.[1] Sometimes called the abominations,[2][3][4] immortal killing machines,[5] and terror weapons.[6]

Personality[]

Creation[]

Eidolon, who has Eden's counterpart shard to Scion's Queen Administrator,[7] is the unwitting[8] creator of the Endbringers.[9][10] His power gives him what he needs;[11][12][13] according to Scion, Eidolon subconsciously needs worthy opponents.[14][15] As a result, Eidolon's shard will order the shard network to begin production of Endbringers when needed[16] out of Eden's[17][18] pool of emergency resources[9] on an alternate Earth.[19] After this manufacturing process completes, the shard network will then transport the finished Endbringer to Earth Bet.[20]

As their creator, Eidolon's belief system influenced how the Endbringers function.[21] For example, their appearance taps into metaphors derived from his experiences as a religious man.[22][23][24][25][26] Eidolon created Endbringers more powerful than the ones in Eden's original plan.[17] However, he is still capable of stopping his creations in combat by design.[16][27][28][29]

If an individual other than Eidolon kills an Endbringer, or if an individual other than Eidolon and Scion decisively drives it into submission,[30] he would unknowingly order the shard network to make an attempt at producing Endbringers that could not be stopped by that individual but could still be stopped by Eidolon.[16] After Scion killed Behemoth, the shard network produced Khonsu[20] whose teleportation allowed him to escape Scion[31] while still allowing Eidolon to be more of a hero with worthy opponents.[32] The shard network can also get an order to produce new Endbringers if the current ones are insufficient opponents. For example, the shard network produced Leviathan as a response to defenders banding together against the too predictable[33] Behemoth; Leviathan is the better combatant against humans.[34] The shard network later produced the Simurgh when defenders started coordinating defenses globally against the Endbringers.[33]

In theory, it is possible for Eidolon to find a worthy opponent without needing an Endbringer; this would presumably stop further production of new Endbringers.[35]

Drives[]

Eidolon created the Endbringers with a fundamental drive to go to war against him.[10] However, because he unwittingly built them from structures derived from Eden's[17][18] pool of emergency resources,[9] the Endbringers also have other drives which give each Endbringer its own paradigm and purpose:

  • Behemoth has a drive to break stasis.[9] For example, France has a long insistence on using nuclear power as its largest source of electricity; he attacked Lyon twice as it has many nuclear plants in its vicinity.[36]
  • Leviathan has a drive to take away resources necessary for survival, and thus force relocating communities into conflict.[9] For example, his attack on Kyushu started a refugee crisis and some 'small' wars.[37]
  • The Simurgh has a drive to collect, consolidate, and sort information[38] produced by parahumans and humanity in a world of conflict.[39][40]
  • Although the other drives of Khonsu, Bohu, and Tohu are unknown, they are different from the first three Endbringers.[41]

All these drives are just as fundamental to them as water and food are for humans.[38]

After Eidolon's death, the Endbringers begin behaving in an erratic manner.[42][43] Tattletale speculates that Eidolon may have inadvertently created them as a way to use his abilities to their fullest and make a unique difference;[29] Scion killing Eidolon denied the Endbringers their purpose.[44] She claimed to be 60% sure of this conclusion,[45] but grew increasingly confident about it when she met the Simurgh.[46][47]

After Gold Morning, the surviving Endbringers except for the Simurgh went dormant.[48][49] Although the Simurgh unsuccessfully tried cloning Eidolon,[50][51][52] she still explicitly intends to recreate him later.[10] According to Titan Fortuna, the Simurgh can only command Khonsu, Bohu, and Tohu by successfully merging with her and then using an Eidolon shade via Titan Valkyrie;[53] the Simurgh-Fortuna amalgamation would then use the other Endbringers as bodyguards.[54]

Tactics[]

As the Endbringers intend to constantly escalate over roughly 300 years[55] in their war against Eidolon,[10] they hold back on a tactical and strategic level in their fight against humanity.[56][57] When their enemies think they are comfortable fighting them, sandbagging Endbringers will escalate[58][55] and gradually unveil new tactics[59][60] and ways to leverage their existing powerset as they figuratively speaking have a lot of cards up their sleeves.[61][62][63][64]

An Endbringer that goes all out would better leverage their existing powerset from the start without worrying about their lifespan: they still work within their established rules and power levels.[65][34][66][55] After tanking Phir Sē's time bomb in New Delhi,[67] Behemoth started burrowing underground[68] and using hit-and-run tactics for the first time.[60] He then stayed underground for an extended duration[69][70] to use shockwaves in key areas to set up fissures[71][72] and shatter the above landscape.[73] A non-sandbagging Behemoth would fight from beneath the city at the start.[66]

Several situations exist where Endbringers will stop holding back. If they realize they are currently fighting a legitimate threat to their life (e.g., Gray Boy), they will go all out against that threat.[74] When Leviathan attacked Brockton Bay, he used non-optimal tactics such as letting Skitter walk right by him without retaliation.[75] However, Leviathan immediately goes all out against Scion after Scion attacks him; he tries out multiple different attacks.[76] After his attacks prove ineffective, Leviathan then tries to run away;[77] he tries out multiple tactics to cover his retreat.[78] Endbringers will also go all out if they are fighting enemies in an unknown world (e.g., Leviathan in One Piece[65]) or when the stakes are too high for their plans (e.g., the Simurgh against the Titans and the Wardens[79][80]).

Appearance[]

Each of the Endbringers is unique, but all of them are at least vaguely humanoid in appearance, with various monstrous, animalistic or otherwise "inhuman" features. Several of them bear an uncanny resemblance to legendary or mythological beings from various human cultures; for example, the Simurgh strongly resembles a Judeo-Christian angel, Leviathan is reminiscent of a sea dragon or various other legendary sea monsters, and Khonsu vaguely resembles a twisted depiction of a Buddha.

Abilities and Powers[]

Aside from the regeneration and incredible durability associated with their physiology, all Endbringers have some offensive time-intensive ability (e.g., the Simurgh's scream,[81][82][83][84] Leviathan's waves,[85][86][87] Behemoth's radiation,[86][88] Khonsu's time fields,[89] Tohu selecting relevant masks,[90] and Bohu's space warping[91][90]) that allows them to threaten and exert pressure against their opponents over a broad area.[92][93]

Endbringers cannot be predicted easily with the typical Thinker danger sense[94] and are also a blind spot to the typical precognition,[95] including Contessa.[96]

Physiology[]

According to Tattletale's power, the Endbringers have irregular biology, were never human, and have no conventional organs.[97] Despite their alien physiology, the Manton Effect treats them in the same way as other biological living entities.[98][99]

With the possible exception of the Simurgh (i.e., much of her body is hollow[100][101][102][103][104] and her human body is a decoy and relatively fragile[105]), the Endbringers' bodies are made up of onion-like layers of tissue.[106][107] Tattletale inferred that Leviathan's main body and limbs have around 200 and 33 layers, respectively.[108] Located at the center of these concentric layers is a "core", a lens that essentially projects the Endbringer's mass into reality.[109] Each successive layer leading down to the core roughly doubles in durability from the one above it; in the case of Leviathan, the outermost layer is as hard as aluminum alloy.[108]

In general, the other Endbringers have similar amounts of durability as Leviathan.[110] Without taking advantage of their vulnerabilities, a conventional attacker would effectively have to dig through a galaxy's equivalent of matter to reach their core.[111] Although the main body of an Endbringer is only present in one reality,[112] their bodies use spatial warping[113] and dimensional layering via 1.5 space[114] so that the effective amount of matter surrounding the core does not correlate with the actual mass of the Endbringer in its current dimension;[115] for example, Leviathan only weighs around nine tons.[116][117] Endbringers are not immovable objects as they can be pushed around by external forces.[118][119][103][120]

Endbringer cores are not immune to the effects of parahuman powers;[121] however, they employ space warping that can overwhelm the space warping that capes such as Chevalier use.[122][123] The core is generally present somewhere near the bulkiest part of the Endbringer.[124] Behemoth's core is buried deep at the base of the throat between his shoulders,[125] Leviathan's core is buried in the central part of his chest,[124][126][127] and the Simurgh's core is probably in one of the joints of her largest wing.[105][128] Khonsu's core is presumably buried deep within his spherical central body;[129] the core locations for Tohu and Bohu are unknown.

Because of their composition, a typical Endbringer is variably hyperdense[30] as layers closer to the core have higher density.[130] Due to their density, they are immune to most capes who teleport living things.[98] However, Endbringers can travel through large enough portals,[131][132][133] though Ligeia could not portal-cut Behemoth.[131] The Simurgh can pass through Doormaker's portal, though the outer edges of the portal started to waver when her feathers rasped against the boundaries.[133]

Endbringers give off strange electromagnetic signals[134] and can even scramble a transmission to a satellite should their bodies intercept its path.[135]

After examining tissue from Behemoth, Leviathan, and the Simurgh under a microscope, Blasto determined the Endbringers are made out of some type of crystalline material.[136] He could not see any individual cells and determined the crystals were barely differentiated from one another.[137] However, Blasto did discover more differences in crystals collected from deeper inside an Endbringer than crystals collected from different parts of the Endbringer's body.[138] Both Leviathan[139] and Behemoth[67] leaked a thick ichor-like substance after taking sufficient damage, suggesting a nonstandard cardiac system for these Endbringers.[108] The Endbringer's nervous system is also nonstandard enough[140] to prevent body control powers such as Regent[141] and Khepri[142] from working. Scanner was capable of reading the Simurgh's thought patterns, however.[143]

According to Tattletale, the Endbringers' physiology is based on similar principles and uses the same material as the manifestations of shards in shardspace,[144] and the Titans, by extension.[145][146] However, Endbringers can function outside shardspace, as their creator unknowingly took the time to build them for this purpose;[16][19] the Titans can only do the same after Scion's death and reality breaking enough for them to get shardspace support.[147][145]

Energy Reserves[]

Eidolon's shard hooks up Endbringers to its well and allocates them energy reserves so that they can operate for roughly 300 years.[148][55] The addition of these massive energy drains arguably explain why Eidolon's powers weakened over time;[148] more Endbringers would accelerate this drain.[16] Only when fighting against Endbringers[149] can he sense these energy reserves and thus feel as if his lost power is within reach.[28] In theory, the creation of more Endbringers and the resulting drain could eventually push Eidolon to the point where he would learn (without the help of Glaistig Uaine[150]) how to drain the shards of other parahumans to refill his energy reserves.[35]

In their hibernation state, Endbringers can absorb ambient light/radiation to serve as nourishment while regenerating; this state is less energy-intensive and allows them to better pace themselves between fights.[151]

Regeneration[]

As long as their core remains intact, an Endbringer can regenerate damage, even in the middle of a battle.[111] After losing around 80% of his body, Behemoth's flesh was seen expanding, swelling, and regenerating.[152] According to Tattletale's power, Endbringer flesh mends from the inside out, with inner layers expanding to fill in wounds and integrate into surrounding structures.[97]

However, their regeneration noticeably slows down the further away the damage is from the core,[105] such as when Behemoth had around 30% of his body left.[153] According to Tattletale's power, Leviathan would need two to three years to make a full recovery from a point-blank detonation of a small nuclear bomb.[154] Regenerating Endbringer flesh also needs time to be properly dense and is thus more fragile.[155]

Vulnerabilities[]

An Endbringer can fight at peak capacity as long as their core remains intact;[111][156][157][158] that said, the accumulation of damage to their bodies forces them to spend power to regenerate and recover.[159][160] Sustaining heavy body injuries can hamper their mobility[161][162][163] and reduce their combat effectiveness, especially against opponents such as Scion[164][165] and the Titans.[166][167]

Although the durability of an Endbringer is incredible, attacks where some space, time, or reality warping is in play disproportionately damage their bodies.[168] After Tecton created an opening in Behemoth's chest by launching an object charged by Foil,[169][170] Chevalier inserted his cannonblade into the wound and made his sword grow larger.[171] This active use of space warping let Chevalier part Endbringer flesh with his cannonblade until it touched Behemoth's core; the sword then broke because of the core's space warping.[123][121][122] Phir Sē's blast of light, capable of destroying India,[172] could tear away around 80% of Behemoth's body.[67] He charged up this "time bomb" for three days[173] and maybe infused something temporal into this stored energy.[168] Eidolon tore into the Simurgh with a reality warping power of some kind to drive her off during her attack on Flight BA178.[174][175]

Shadow Stalker can phase her shots inside Leviathan's body.[176][177] However, she must get close to an Endbringer and has other weaknesses, which limits her effectiveness.[178][179]

Several possible ways to kill an Endbringer exist. Scion's Stilling blasts can disintegrate molecular bonds[180] and eventually destroy an Endbringer, as seen when his sustained attacks disintegrated Behemoth[181] and Leviathan.[127] An attack with enough force to destroy all life on the surface of a planet can kill an Endbringer;[182][183] while such an attack would not entirely destroy a typical Endbringer body, enough force would transmit to the core to kill it.[184] Similarly, a proper hit from a String Theory Driver weapon with the kind of power to push the Moon out of orbit could kill an Endbringer.[185] As a result, in such a scenario, Endbringers would cooperate and carefully plan their appearances to avoid any setup of a proper hit.[186] However, in the Simurgh's final flight, Defiant was able to fire G-Driver blasts at her.[187]

Endbringers are also vulnerable to several other powers that do not fall into the All-or-Nothing category. A Poundtown (Sunder x Muscle) Brute[188] can theoretically kill an Endbringer if they could survive long enough in close quarters to pressure it with repeated attacks.[189] When the Simurgh was flung into Sleeper's storm,[120] which is not All-or-Nothing,[190] she was taken out of the picture entirely.[191][192] She was still dealt with even after he retreated from the area.[193] Although Rain O'Fire Frazier's power to render a target fragile[194] is not All-or-Nothing,[195] even when his power was at its weakest,[196] his blades can affect an Endbringer. With the help of Victoria Dallon and other capes to close the distance, Rain hit the Simurgh and carved out a silver line from shoulder to back, to hip.[197] When Victoria made the call to kick this line,[198] the damaged Endbringer split along the line; the Simurgh lost more than half of her body.[199] Other members of the Mall Cluster, such as Cradle, can presumably do the same with their version of Rain's power.[200][201]

Armsmaster's nano-thorn Halberd can sever molecular bonds[202] and cut deep into Endbringer flesh (i.e., 70 to 80% of the layers) until the nano-thorns reached material too dense to penetrate.[203][204][130] However, the Simurgh's nano-thorn gladius derived from a nearby Defiant could hit Leviathan's core[126] because she attuned it to the right frequency or setting.[205] Indeed, Wildbow speculates that Armsmaster could theoretically breach Leviathan's core, though it would take him an unreasonably long time to figure it out while also being in close quarters with the Endbringer.[206]

As Endbringers lack perfect defense, All-or-Nothing attacks can penetrate their defenses and are thus capable of theoretically killing an Endbringer.[207][208] Attacks that ignore the laws of physics can penetrate the core of an Endbringer.[209] Flechette's charged shots can pierce right through an Endbringer,[210] as demonstrated against Leviathan[178][211] and Behemoth.[212][169] She can kill one with a direct hit to their core:[213] other members of the Subway Cluster, such as March, can presumably do the same with their version of Flechette's power.[214][215] After discovering the full ramifications of Flechette's power during the Battle against Behemoth, the Endbringers changed their methodology to better avoid situations where Flechette could set up a killing blow.[216]

Scrub's All-or-Nothing explosions can ignore the defenses of the Endbringers.[217] Similarly, Victoria Dallon notes that Damsel of Distress III is a heavy hitter against the Simurgh;[218] her blasts can pop the Siberian (i.e., the highest level of invulnerability[208]), tear right through a Titan, and are presumably effective against Sleeper's storm.[219][220] Indeed, the Simurgh specifically prevented Victoria from setting up a situation where Damsel could deal a killing blow.[221] She preyed on Damsel's fears of being overtaken by Swansong,[222] making Damsel uncooperative with Victoria.[223][224]

Powers which rely on temporal manipulation are effective at slowing or stopping Endbringers. By touching an Endbringer, Clockblocker can temporarily freeze it in time.[225] Although freezing an Endbringer does not damage it, freezing other objects such as wires and then forcing an Endbringer through can pierce their defenses.[226][227] When Leviathan charged at Armsmaster, Armsmaster fired out a grappling hook that he then froze in time.[228] Leviathan ran himself through this frozen object: it speared deep into the neck and out the back of his torso.[157] Gray Boy can effectively neutralize an Endbringer should he trap one within multiple time loops.[74]

Known Endbringers[]

Behemoth[]

Main article: Behemoth
Behemoth by sandara

Illustration by sandara on DeviantArt

Behemoth — also known as "Hadhayosh" and "Prathama" — was the first Endbringer to appear. He made his first appearance in the Marun Field of Iran on December 13, 1992.[229] He is a dynakinetic capable of manipulating energy in all of its forms; he can also bypass the Manton effect within a radius of around 30 feet.[230] Because of this, he gained a reputation as the 'herokiller', possessing a high body count at short range.[230] The Protectorate recommended that capes should maintain a distance of at least 100 feet from him, as any closer would mean little chance of escape should he wish to close the gap and vaporize, electrocute, or otherwise kill them; even super-speed capes could be out-sped and killed by his lightning. That said, Behemoth seems to lack complete control over his energy manipulation, as demonstrated in the New Delhi fight, when Weaver and several Wards with her were able to create a large metal structure which acted as a lighting rod and re-directed some of his lighting bolts.

Leviathan[]

Worm endbringer leviathan by sandara-d9yuupd

Illustration by sandara on DeviantArt

Main article: Leviathan

Leviathan — also known as "Jormungand" or "Jörmungandr" — first appeared in Oslo, Norway on June 9, 1996.[231] His abilities include macro-scale hydrokinesis, extreme speed and agility, and a water "afterimage" that follows behind him and moves as fast as Leviathan himself. He is known for causing immense environmental damage, devastating areas such as Newfoundland and Kyushu to the point of becoming uninhabitable.

The Simurgh[]

Main article: The Simurgh
The Simurgh by sandara

Illustration by sandara on DeviantArt

The Simurgh, also known as "Ziz",[231] first appeared in Lausanne, Switzerland on December 30, 2002.[229] She has psionic abilities (most infamously manifesting as a "song") and the ability to draw on Tinker powers around her in order to build her own devices. She also has near-perfect precognition, which not only makes her extremely effective in combat, but also enables her to target key locations or individuals. When she attacks a location, she is known to use her telepathic and precognitive abilities in order to set up chains of events that will cause future strife and devastation, manipulating individuals so that they will unknowingly bring tragedy upon themselves or others. Any region she attacks is subsequently quarantined to try and mitigate these effects, such as in the case of Madison, Wisconsin.

Khonsu[]

Khonsu by Holocene

Illustration by Holocene on Spacebattles

Main article: Khonsu

After the death of Behemoth, the existing Endbringers changed their tactics.[175] New Endbringers appeared, apparently with a different purpose.[41] The first of these was Khonsu, which appeared in Japan on January 20, 2012. He can create up to three cylindrical fields of accelerated time that can trap people inside. Outside observers see the field speed up time for anything inside; however, for anyone trapped within the field, time appears to flow normally. Khonsu can also teleport on a global scale, allowing him to attack key locations and installations worldwide.

Tohu and Bohu[]

Main article: The Twins
Tohu by Reaar

Illustration by Reaar on Reddit

Bohu by DerTodesbote

Illustration by DerTodesbote on DeviantArt

Tohu and Bohu appeared in Bucharest, Romania on October 10, 2012. Bohu manipulates the battlefield, setting up traps for defending parahumans and manipulating the area in a set pattern. The full extent of these traps is not fully detailed, but it is heavily implied that, should Bohu successfully alter a city, it would be rendered unsuitable for habitation.  This has not stopped large groups of parahumans from fighting in altered cities, however, as demonstrated by Jack Slash. Tohu chooses three capes and then copies their powers to defend its "sister" Bohu.  For obvious reasons, it tends to copy stronger powers. 

Timeline of Attacks[]

Date Endbringer Location
1992-12-13[229] Behemoth Marun Field, Iran
1993-07-06[229] Behemoth São Paulo, Brazil
1994-03-26[229] Behemoth New York, USA
1994-11-01[229] Behemoth Jakarta, Indonesia
1995-06-18[229] Behemoth Moscow, Russia
1996-01-03[229] Behemoth Johannesburg, South Africa
1996-06-09[229] Leviathan Oslo, Norway
1996-11-06[229] Behemoth Cologne, Germany
1997-04-23[229] Leviathan Busan, South Korea
1997-09-30[229] Behemoth Buenos Aires, Argentina
1998-01-18[229] Leviathan Sydney, Australia
1998-07-03[229] Behemoth Jinzhou, China
1998-12-25[229] Leviathan Madrid, Spain
1999-07-21[229] Behemoth Ankara, Turkey
1999-11-02[229] Leviathan Kyushu, Japan
2000-04-10[229] Behemoth Lyon, France
2000-09-16[229] Leviathan Naples, Italy
2001-02-25[229] Behemoth Vanderhoof, Canada
2001-07-06[229] Leviathan Hyderabad, India
2001-12-06[229] Behemoth Lagos, Nigeria
2002-04-23[229] Leviathan Shanghai, China
2002-08-20[229] Behemoth Bogotá, Colombia
2002-12-30[229] Simurgh Lausanne, Switzerland
2003-04-01[229] Leviathan Seattle, USA
2003-08-12[229] Simurgh London, UK
2003-10-03[229] Behemoth Lyon, France
data unavailable
2005-05-09[232] Leviathan[233] Newfoundland, Canada
data unavailable
2009-12-23[234][235] Simurgh Madison, USA
data unavailable
Nov 2010 [236] Behemoth ???
2011-02-24[237] Simurgh Canberra, Australia
2011-05-15[237] Leviathan Brockton Bay, USA
2011-07-26[237] Behemoth New Delhi, India
2011-11-25[237] Simurgh Flight BA178, International waters North Atlantic
2012-01-20[237] Khonsu Indiscriminate
2012-04-02[237] Leviathan Lüderitz, Namibia
2012-06-05[237] Simurgh Manchester, UK
2012-08-15[237] Leviathan Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2012-10-10[237] Tohu/Bohu Bucharest, Romania
2012-12-19[237] Simurgh Paris, France
2013-02-05[237] Khonsu Indiscriminate
2013-05-17[237] Tohu/Bohu Los Angeles, USA
Unknown [238] Leviathan Oakland, USA

The Endbringers all attack at at set times, with the time between attacks decreases as the number of Endbringers increases. When Behemoth showed up, attack occurred 1 per 8 months; when Leviathan joined, the attacks became 1 per 5 months; when the Simurgh joined, the attacks became 1 per 3.5 months[239]; when Behemoth died but Khonsu and The Twins replaced him, the attacks became 1 per 2 months.[240] The Endbringers do not have any particular order at to which specific Endbringer attacks next. The only rules they have are that they don't attack the same location twice in a row, and that the same Endbringer does not attack twice in a row. For one example, Behemoth could attack one time, then Leviathan the next, the Behemoth could go again after him.[241]

The Endbringers did not attack events such as the Olympics because they considered it a non-optimal target.[242]

History[]

Background[]

The first Endbringer, Behemoth, appeared in 1992 in the Marun oil field of Iran, beginning a series of attacks at various locations worldwide, roughly once a year. The appearance of Behemoth was a major factor towards the creation of the PRT, which labelled the Endbringer as Case 2 in their case files.[243] For the Triumvirate, the presence of Behemoth, as well as the potential for future capes of his caliber, was also a major motivating factor for the formation of their team and the continued work of Cauldron.[244]

Over the next several years, the Endbringer attacks continued to escalate. Once Behemoth began to be "too predictable," the second Endbringer, Leviathan, appeared in 1996, in Oslo, Norway.[33] Attacks started occurring roughly every five months.[240] Worldwide defense efforts began to coordinate forces against Endbringer attacks; apparently in response to these efforts, in 2002, the third Endbringer, the Simurgh, made her first appearance, appearing docile at first before attacking and revealing herself to be an Endbringer.[245][33]

The three Endbringers continued their worldwide attacks over the next decade, creating immense destruction. An attack from Leviathan on Newfoundland sunk the entire island, killing the tinker Andrew Richter, whose creation Dragon later joined the Guild[246]; a separate attack from Leviathan sunk the island of Kyushu, despite resistance from Lung.[247] The benevolent tinker Sphere was turned into future Slaughterhouse Nine member Mannequin by an attack from the Simurgh; another Simurgh attack on Madison, Wisconsin brought the Travelers to Earth Bet, later bringing about the Echidna.[248]

Leviathan Attack on Brockton Bay, 2011[]

Main article: Battle against Leviathan

On May 15, 2011, Brockton Bay was the target of an attack by Leviathan; Miss Militia believed the attack to be in response to the recent gang conflicts plaguing the city[249], while the Travelers suspected Noelle Meinhardt to be the target of the attack, a theory which Tattletale later agreed with.[250][57] Early-warning programs operated by Armsmaster and Dragon were able to foresee the attack and give local and foreign capes a chance to organize against it.[249] Leviathan still devastated the parahuman resistance, only retreating with the appearance of Scion, and destroyed a large part of the city. The number of casualties was the lowest for an Endbringer attack in years, however, leading Taylor Hebert to later reflect on the attack as a "good day" compared to other attacks.[251]

The Leviathan attack nevertheless had significant and long-lasting consequences for the city; large swaths of it were left without power and resources, while others were destroyed entirely. The local Protectorate team was weakened by the death of Velocity and Dauntless, and the retirement of Armsmaster, while the deaths of Aegis and Gallant severely hurt morale among the local Wards and required the arrival of Weld and Flechette to bolster their ranks.[252] New Wave was also hit hard by the deaths of Shielder and Manpower, and the injury of Flashbang. Meanwhile, with the city's major gangs removed from power and the heroes still recovering, the Undersiders and the Travelers were able to claim territory, furthering their employer Coil's plans to take over the city.[253]

Despite these issues, the city was able to recover to a reasonable position within several months.[251] However, its poor state soon after the attack ultimately attracted the attention of the Slaughterhouse Nine, whose presence in the city eventually set the stage for the end of the world.[254]

Behemoth Attack on New Delhi, 2011[]

Main article: Battle against Behemoth

The next Endbringer attack occurred on July 26, 2011, when Behemoth attacked New Delhi. The battle was attended by both the local cape groups of the Garama and Thanda, as well as capes from the Protectorate and the Yàngbǎn, as well as the Undersiders and Ambassadors. The Endbringer's goal was likely a "time bomb" operated by local 'cold' cape Phir Sē, composed of light looped repeatedly through portals, accumulating power.[57][255] Phir Sē eventually deployed this energy weapon, dealing the most damage to an Endbringer ever done, but it only succeeded in removing the Endbringer's outer layers, leaving his 'skeleton' intact.[256] After further fighting, Scion arrived, and having been instructed by Kevin Norton to slay the Endbringers, he killed Behemoth.[257][181]

In addition to the deaths of numerous civilians, the attack saw the deaths of noted capes such as Regent, Rime, and Accord. Alexandria's body, possessed by Pretender, notably made an appearance at the attack. In addition, the Chicago Wards, after cooperating with Weaver, made the decision to let her onto their team.[258] The largest consequence of the attack on New Delhi, however, was the death of Behemoth. The Endbringers, long seen as a fact of life, were shown in this battle to be killable, prompting questions about the next steps forward regarding the other Endbringers, as well as what they would do to escalate next.[259] As information about the attack spread to the public, it was similarly met with both celebration and skepticism about the defeat, with some expressing concerns that Behemoth was not actually dead, or that the defeat would provoke the remaining Endbringers.[260]

Post-Behemoth Defeat[]

Main article: Battle against Khonsu

The first Endbringer attack following the death of Behemoth was an attack from the Simurgh on November 25, 2011, on Flight BA178; unlike prior attacks, the fight lasted only forty minutes, with little lead-up and no casualties besides the passengers of the plane.[174] This attack marked a change in strategy for Leviathan and the Simurgh, both of them beginning to use guerrilla tactics.[175]

The most notable development regarding the Endbringers occurred with the appearance of the fourth Endbringer, Khonsu, on January 20, 2012. In contrast to prior Endbringer attacks, Khonsu teleported to attack multiple locations worldwide for a period of three days, requiring intense negotiations and coordination from Cauldron to drive off.[261] In addition, the proximity of Khonsu's attack to the Simurgh's only two months before suggested not only an altered schedule, but given the precedent, the appearance of a fifth Endbringer.[240] On October 10 later that year, this fear was confirmed with the appearance of the Endbringers Tohu and Bohu, collectively The Twins.

Over the course of the Timeskip, the now-five Endbringers continued their attacks, making use of hit-and-run tactics and other strategies to counter and avoid Scion.

Gold Morning[]

Following the death of Eidolon, the Endbringers began behaving strangely. The Simurgh and Bohu appeared at the same time on Earth Bet, something never before seen, but both remained motionless.[42][43] Reviewing footage from Eidolon's last minutes before death, Tattletale concluded that Eidolon's death had caused their unusual behavior and attempted to communicate with the Simurgh, asking her to organize the Endbringers against Scion.[29][262] After several attempts, Tattletale appeared to have successfully convinced the Endbringer, managing to get the Simurgh, as well as Leviathan, to follow the group and attack on command; in addition to having the Simurgh 'imprint' on Tattletale, soon later Khonsu imprinted on an individual in Teacher's group, whose services were sold to Cauldron.[263][264] The Simurgh modified Leviathan, incorporating nano-thorn technology into his body.[265]

The Endbringers, sans Khonsu, later held off Scion during the rise of Khepri.[266] The four Endbringers were able to distract Scion as Khepri made her moves, but eventually were incapacitated, with Leviathan killed and the others severely damaged.[160] Following Scion's defeat, the remaining four Endbringers were largely dormant.[267][48] The Simurgh appeared to be active, however, apparently having used Tinker technology to grow a baby with an unusual resemblance to Eidolon.[52][51]

Impact[]

The Endbringers have killed countless people in their attacks; having caused demographic and political shifts and environmental degradation on a scale not seen outside natural disasters. For example, attacks on port cities by Leviathan (and to a lesser extent the other Endbringers) hurt the shipping industry, though it did not extinguish it,[268] alone he has precipitated a water crisis.[37][269] In addition to the physical damage and loss of civilian lives, their attacks have had the effect of killing or otherwise removing parahumans who served as luminaries and leaders willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, perhaps contributing to more prevalent cynicism and hopelessness in the general population.[37]

Conversely, without the Endbringers there would be fewer parahumans organizations than there would otherwise be, and much of the coordination in the Cape community is because of the need to repel Endbringer attacks.[270][271][272] 

Original Plan[]

If Cauldron desolved after killing Eden, the Endbringers would not exist.[18] Eden is not the creator of the Endbringers: she would not give her superweapons a drive to go to war against her.[10][17] Indeed, the Simurgh uses male pronouns when referring to her creator and explicitly intends to recreate him;[10] she guesses another entity will arrive in an estimated three or four billion years.[40]

Had Eden lived, she would order the shard network to produce "Endbringer Lites" that she would then direct at her targets (e.g., alliances of people too bothersome for her to sabotage).[17] Her simulation of an ideal future included 'superweapons' implied to be these "Endbringer Lites". In the simulation, she attributed them to The Shepherds, pretending to The Wardens that she would help defend against them, but in reality she was their source.[273] There were twenty such superweapons in total[274], including:

  • A fifteen-foot tall lion-headed figure surrounded by crystal, who turned whatever the crystal touched into more crystal.
  • A woman with a reptilian lower body, surrounded by clouds of steam which took the form of faces, claws, and other forms.
  • A naked man, perched on top of a seemingly frozen ocean wave, with a 'too flexible' body that swayed with the wind.[275]
  • Four superweapons at the 'Divide,' one to the north of the Wardens, and four others spread out around the world.[274]

For the most part, these superweapons remained inactive, acting only when they sensed vulnerability.[273]. The Wardens knew them to be projections, but otherwise information about their nature was unclear.[276] In feigning ignorance about her involvement with the superweapons and promising to help the Wardens with a potential war against the Shepherds, Eden likely intended the Endbringers to be used to incite conflict to further the goals of the Cycle.

Trivia[]

  • Echidna was thought at first to potentially be a nascent Endbringer.[277]
  • A popular theory among some of the Worm fandom is that the Endbringers were once parahumans, who either snapped or couldn’t handle their powers, gotten out of control, transformed into gigantic monstrosities. With the full reveal of their origins this theory has been disconfirmed.
  • It is speculated in-universe that some tinkers (Bonesaw, Rattenfänger, Jamestowner, Mosaic, Monstrum) and other non-tinker capes like Chrysalis or Nilbog may have the potential to create Endbringers,[278] (or, given what we now know about their origins, beings of comparable power) if they could find some outside means for cooperation or a power boost/second trigger.[279]

Fanart Gallery[]

References[]

  1. The Endbringers – According to Tattletale’s power, they were never human. Rather, they are monsters (in every sense of the word) who take turns attacking locations around the globe, aiming to cause as much damage as possible. Apparently unkillable, they retreat to their respective domains when they have sustained sufficient damage and heal, only to attack again months later. Their arrival is almost always followed by devastation, including dead capes, massive civilian losses (sometimes ranging into the millions), catastrophic damage to cities and/or large scale damage to landscapes. - Cast (In Depth)
  2. On the other side of the coin, he had to wonder: could he afford to hold back? They were engaged in a battle of attrition against the Nine. In the grand scheme of things, there were also the Endbringers to consider. He’d gone too far in Brockton Bay, but the fundamental principle was right. They had to be stopped, if it was even possible, and he wouldn’t complain if it was him who did the deed. If it was a question of going all out, holding nothing back, showing no compunctions and finally stopping the abominations, well, he’d do it all over again. He wouldn’t trust the nano-thorns to the same extent; they apparently couldn’t cut through the entirety of an Endbringer, but he’d do the same thing again. - Interlude 16.y
  3. “My reputation isn’t so different from yours, Taylor Hebert. It’s a reputation that was forged. There have been fifty-six Endbringer attacks in the last nineteen years. I have personally participated in forty-nine of them, and in each fight I’ve attended, I’ve been in the thick of the fighting, personally trading blows with the abominations. The creatures know me. They know how to fight me, and I know how to fight them. Yet I’m still here. Strength, invulnerability, flight. Those are my core powers, but my other power is greater.” - Cell 22.4
  4. No. No, I don’t think I’ll accept. My word is too vital to me, and you seem to want me to war with the abominations. I don’t fear my own death, but I would rather be together with the others than be separated until the grand celebration. I won’t fight. I would only grant my advice, some power here and there.

    Doctor Mother sat back in her seat. The ominous silence suggested she was still considering it.

    A hundred thousand lives, being mulled over so readily.

    “That’s a shame,” Doctor Mother said, in the end. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.5
  5. “You would have me risk good help on fruitless fights against immortal killing machines,” Accord said.

    “That too,” Skitter replied. “I don’t expect the Fallen will accept the terms, with the restriction about fighting Endbringers, but I doubt they’re long for this city anyways.” - Interlude 20.y
  6. “Yeah,” I said, lamely. “Why does she care?”

    “Why does she have feathers and wings? For all intents and purposes, she could be a crystal that floats here and there. The end result is pretty much the same. A few less weapons. Behemoth? I mean, you saw what he was, when we reduced him to a bare skeleton. All the extra flesh, it’s decorative. He doesn’t really need any particular parts, except legs to move around.”

    “It’s there to dress them up so they make better terror weapons,” I said.

    “Basically,” Tattletale said. - Venom 29.1
  7. HighSlayerRalton: Taylor is Eidolon's 'reflection'. Or rather, the Queen Administrator is the High Priest's reflection.

    Taylor gets to administrate bugs, because Scion damaged and limited his Queen Administrator shard before distributing it.

    Eidolon gets to administrate the pool of shards Eden was reorganising when she crashed (including the power-drawing ability), because Eden was still using her Queen Administrator counterpart to do that at the time.

    The kid who controls bugs and the world's most powerful superhero are two sides of the same coin.

    Wildbow: Yeah, pretty sure I already confirmed this elsewhere, but this is a great summary of it. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  8. If it was something he knew/had grokked already, it wouldn’t have hit him like it did. - Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 27.y, archived on Spacebattles
  9. 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Her creator was an administrator of the highest order, and she had been selected out of a pool of emergency resources. All of her kind had. Behemoth had been created to break stasis, Leviathan to take away resources in space and land, forcing communities into conflict as they were made to relocate. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.z
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 She had other drives. To go to war against her creator. To these ends, she created a nemesis. She made him better. He freed people, upset the system, disrupted the process, and in that, he created the chaos that would keep her simulation from being too sterile. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.z
  11. “Eidolon’s power… he chooses what powers he gets?”

    “He gets the powers he needs,” Dispatch said. “He can be receptive to new ones, hold tighter to ones he wants to keep, but that’s it.”

    I nodded. He was at the mercy of his passenger, it seemed. - Crushed 24.4
  12. Eidolon – Third member of the Protectorate’s ‘Triumvirate’. Eidolon has the ability to use any power he needs at a given point in time, maintaining a set of two to four powers at a time. Adopting a new power is not immediate, but after minutes, his abilities with that power grow to the point they rival or surpass veteran users of the same abilities. - Cast (In Depth)
  13. Eidolon – Member of the Triumvirate and head of the Houston branch of the Protectorate. Viewed by many as one of the most powerful capes in the world, can manifest a handful of powers at a time, with virtually no restrictions, automatically gaining whatever abilities he needs to face a given crisis. Wears a green-white costume with a hood, and a glow emanating from both hood and sleeves. - Cast (spoiler-free)
  14. Some people don't believe it's the case, saying that Scion only said it because it was a way to blow Eidolon's mind. Some say it was truth.

    But Eidolon's power gives him what he needs. Scion says Eidolon needed worthy opponents. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  15. You needed worthy opponents.” - The entirety of Interlude 27.y
  16. 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Medium-term consequence: the shard network begins producing Endbringers that Superman can't stop that Eidolon could. [...] Eidolon gets to be more of a hero with worthy opponents (but the power drain starts accelerating). - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  17. 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 If people start forming alliances/peace and Eden sees it as too much trouble to sabotage, then she sics an Endbringer Lite on them, and then works with the remains. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  18. 18.0 18.1 18.2 Assuming that Cauldron's operatives maybe killed Eden but then just sat on their hands/died, the Endbringers don't exist, the cauldron vials aren't spread out, and there's less of the really powerful parahumans here and there who're capable of acting decisively. - Wildbow on Spacebattles
  19. 19.0 19.1 The rain starts to let up, and the static grows stronger, every computer system, even the radio, now reacting.
    The source of the static becomes clear. Past the harbor, in the water, a figure or figures stand. Asymmetrical, carved from stone, joined at the shoulder, they're actively being built, with waves of energy and matter flowing out from a central point. As tall as a building.
    You know, deep in your gut, that it's different from the bull. Not tinkering, not a simple mutation. You have a name for this sort of creature.
    Endbringer. - PRT Squad Mission 1: Rift
  20. 20.0 20.1 “Japan,” Wanton said.

    The camera was shaking, and the view on the screen reacted in kind.

    Dust rose in clouds, billowing, until they obscured the camera’s view.

    The audience was reacting. Moans, cries of alarm and despair. They knew what was going on.
    [...]
    The timing, the fact that it was happening so soon after Behemoth had died… it was all wrong.
    [...]
    The fourth, it seemed, was appearing in plain sight.

    The dust took forever to clear. But for a few mutters here and there, small animal sounds of despair from the audience and studio employees who were watching, the studio had plunged into quiet horror.

    It stood somewhere between Leviathan and Behemoth in height, if I ballparked by the number of stories in the adjacent buildings. I waited patiently for the view to clear, revealing more details. Clues, as if there was a solution to what we faced here. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.4
  21. “They run on different patterns. Fair bit of anger, room for some vengeance. Cleverness, sure. More in her than in Behemoth. Some killer instinct, maybe… a blend of fear and caution. Not so they’re afraid, but so they can temper their actions. This? Right here? It’s the closest we’re about to get to communicating directly with a passenger.”
    [...]
    “They’re passengers?” I asked.

    “The shell? No. The outer shell, the concept, the execution, they’re tapping into religious metaphors. The devil, the serpent, the angel, buddha, mother earth, the maiden, each connected in turn to fundamental forces. Flame, water, fate, time, earth, the self. Things deep-seated and fundamental to their creator’s belief system, because that’s how the passengers interpret our world. Through us. But deep down? Beyond that surface, beyond the basic programming that drives them to do what they’ve been doing for thirty years? It’s the passenger’s brush strokes. And I’m getting to her.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4
  22. “I wanted to talk to you,” Eidolon said, sounding very normal, “because there are few I can trust to listen. I might have found a priest, but it’s late, and there are so few good ones out there. I’ve used psychometry to view the past few days of your life. You’ll do what I need you to do.” - Interlude 18.z
  23. “If you were a priest,” he said, “I would have you say a prayer and bless my endeavor tonight. I will settle for having you wish me luck.” - Interlude 18.z
  24. He frowned behind his mask. His voice was just a touch harder than it had been. “This ‘High Priest’ you speak of doesn’t sound like any priest I know.”

    “I have little love for gods or the godly, High Priest. I may have to apologize for choosing such an unflattering title to describe you, but it fit as described, fit on other levels.” - Interlude 27.x
  25. He prayed.

    God, let me see. The agent never listens, but please, for all that is right and just in the world, let it give me the ability to see. - Interlude 27.x
  26. To dig so deep for something mental, it was scary.

    Something he’d explored, but not like this.

    He took a deep breath, murmured an indistinct prayer, and tried to empty his mind of all of the other needs and wishes and fears. - Interlude 27.x
  27. Running an Endbringer fight

    Wildbow: As Wrandm suggests, I'd treat this as a mass combat - except against one foe. The objective as GM isn't to drop a huge unkillable monster on the board and expect them to kill it, but to have a list of objectives and scenarios.
    [...]
    Hit them with a briefing, and outline the rules for what's going on. Win conditions: get through to the end. There's no guarantee the major players (like Scion) are going to show up, but after X segments there's a d20 die roll: on a 20+ Scion shows. On a 18-19 Eidolon shows.

    Rule for Eidolon - Survive through 3 objectives from the time he arrives to win. If an objective is completely failed, doesn't count for progression. Continue to roll for Scion.

    Rule for Scion - survive for two more 'rounds', no more objectives except for surviving. - Wildbow on Reddit
  28. 28.0 28.1 “Against the Endbringers, there are really only two individuals who can stop them, drive them away. Scion is one. I’m another. Each of us is worth a hundred other capes, if not more. I’m not boasting when I say this. But my powers are getting weaker every day, little by little. Whatever vast, improbably deep well parahumans tap into to use abilities, I suspect mine is running dry.”
    [...]
    “When I fight, Mrs. Yamada, I feel as though my lost power is somehow within reach. Reserves I have not yet touched, maybe. Or a fresh well. It is something, but it is there. The problem is that I rarely get to truly fight. Do you understand?” - Interlude 18.z
  29. 29.0 29.1 29.2 "Let's face the facts, Simurgh. Ziz. Israfel. Ulama. Whatever you want to go by. You started acting funny pretty much right away, after Eidolon bit it. Maybe that's mourning. Maybe you respected him as an enemy, 'cause he was one of only two individuals who could really give you guys a run for your money. Or maybe you had a different relationship."

    Tattletale let the words hang in the air.

    "Maybe a parent-child relationship? Maybe he created you.
    [...]
    “They say loneliness breeds the best masters, and it’s awfully lonely at the top,” Tattletale said. "Nobody that can really put up a fight, no excuse to flex his abilities to their fullest, nothing that can really give the man any real stature, next to Legend, who had all the face time with the media. No real role to play, compared to Alexandria, who was managing the PRT. Odd man out." - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4
  30. 30.0 30.1 Standard superman could probably drive Leviathan into submission. Maybe not kill, and hurling Leviathan is harder than one might imagine with the water echo materializing matter between the grip and the giant, variably hyperdense scaled beast, but for all intents and purposes the end result is the same: the fight might go worse initially, especially if Superman tries frost breath, but Leviathan is down and out, Brockton Bay doesn't take a fraction of the damage it did in-story. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  31. “Helpful,” Tattletale commented. “Enough with the bullshit and posturing. We were brought here for one reason. Well, a lot of reasons, but the main one that ties us all together is that we’ve got that monster rampaging around and we’re not making headway. We whittle him down, he heals. Scion attacks, he teleports, and the golden fool doesn’t follow. So let’s be honest, let’s talk about this and introduce ourselves before we say anything so we’re not completely in the dark-” - Excerpt from Scarab 25.5
  32. Indiscriminate, February 5th, 2013 // Khonsu
    Notes: Victory by Eidolon/The Guild. List of the twenty-nine targets here. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.6
  33. 33.0 33.1 33.2 33.3 “It’s okay to worry,” Tecton said. He gestured towards Weaver. “Weaver said as much. They’ve got a nasty habit of escalating, in the fights themselves and in the grand scheme of things. Behemoth got too predictable, so Leviathan started to show up. We started to coordinate defenses, get the world on board to deal with them, Simurgh comes.” - Excerpt from Interlude 24.y
  34. 34.0 34.1 I'd argue he's stronger than Behemoth. In a fight, and in terms of the damage he can do, and against humans, he's stronger. People tend to underestimate the value of enhanced speed. He can use skitter tactics. He doesn't have to, but he can. But honestly, imagine fighting Skitter, right? Except he's nigh invincible, he has super speed, and he has tidal waves instead of bug swarms. He only fights the fights he wants to. Give them a little hope, then crush it. Then, when all is said and done, just keep his distance from anyone and everyone and let the tidal waves finish them off. That fight against Lung, he destroyed Japan. In his damn /introduction/ the heroes warn not to underestimate him. I'll just add that he's sort of a response to the fact that the heroes have banded together, ready to organize to defeat this monster Behemoth. So he's there alternately as a coward and a duellist, to bait out fights and crush morale. - Comment by Wildbow on IRC, archived on Spacebattles
  35. 35.0 35.1 This may lean to Eidolon being forced to tap into the real power source and start draining capes. Cue some back and forth on morality and whether it's right, even when Eidolon limits himself to taking the lives and power reserves of capes who are already dying (maybe at first when they've given consent in advance, but throw in edge cases and Superman believing he can rescue people, and ramping pressure from the new Endbringers...), cue a few Eidolon vs. Superman conflicts. Eidolon's powers give him the strength he needs to match and even beat Superman - a worthy opponent without needing an Endbringer. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  36. Asmora: Just thought I’d point this out, since no one else has mentioned it: Lyon was attacked twice. Is this an editing error on Wildbow’s part, attributable to the fact that he was rushed in writing this monstrously huge (and yet it felt like one of the shorter reads to me) chapter? I sincerely doubt it, given that Lyon is the last entry. Thus, we require WMG as to what the deal is there. Was there something in Lyon that interested Behemoth, but he was driven off before he got it on the first trip, so he came back for it? Did he decimate the city the first time, then get upset because they rebuilt it too quickly and thoroughly?

    wildbow: Lyon is an area with a great many nuclear plants in the vicinity. - Wildbow in Interlude 24.x
  37. 37.0 37.1 37.2 Fantastic question, and one I’m not sure I can give a fantastic answer to.

    Why is that? Well, primarily, there’s the issue of trying to quantify ‘damage’. As stated in Legend’s pre-battle speech (early in arc 8) there’s almost always grievous losses but they aren’t always the same sort of losses.

    You have the events that left the world reeling: Lausanne, Hawaii, Kyushu, Newfoundland, Moscow, Sydney. The attacks that left major areas uninhabitable or unrecoverable, with wide-reaching effects on the rest of the country/region/world. In this setting, for example, Japan isn’t a world power and it’s still dependent on international assistance 12 years after Leviathan’s visit to Kyushu.

    But even there, where do you say, “Ok, that’s the sum total of the damage done”? The disaster at Kyushu, the number of refugees seeking living space/work and the pressures on the rest of Asia’s pacific border might have led to some more unrest and tension. Some friction, some ‘small’ wars, infighting and intermingling. Refugees and immigrants. Many settle in major cities across America because President Bradley’s Preservation Act gives them a hand in getting on their feet.

    Do you factor that last point into the damage as well? Lung comes to Brockton Bay in part because of the booming population of Asian immigrants (which hasn’t yet set down roots). Bakuda was born to a Westerner mother and Immigrant father. Do you count the damage they’ve done? Ditto for Mannequin and the Simurgh.

    But that’s only the major hits, the broad strokes of the brush and all the repercussions/spatter that follows from that. Attacks end in other ways, for example. Legend mentions mass loss of life. There’s economic damage that follows from that, disease and explosions in the population of vermin when a quarter million people die in a concentrated area.

    There’s the deaths of countless heroes, and how that biases things further towards the general villain population. If the selfless throw their lives away for the greater good and it’s primarily the selfish (or the very powerful) who are left, how does that skew things?

    And I should stress that weak points aren’t necessarily just areas which are geographically vulnerable. There’s places where there’s ongoing conflict (like we might point to the middle east over the past decade), places where it takes little effort on the part of the Endbringer to deal maximum devastation (ie. a nuclear power plant, military bases) and spots where a great many resources are invested (be they great minds collected in one place or major projects like Dr. Gramme’s major projects in trying to save the world). Did anyone else catch the mention of the water crisis? Leviathan isn’t always attacking cities, and the world has only so much accessible freshwater.

    I digress.

    To answer your question in the general sense? Relatively few places have been hit as hard as the major examples listed above. But figure this has been going on for 20ish years. Behemoth shows up in the early 90’s, attacking once a year, roughly (twice in 1994), Leviathan shows up in the mid 90’s (now we’re up to 2-3 Endbringer attacks a year), and Simurgh comes in just after the turn of the century (now 3-4).

    I mentioned in a comment during the Endbringer arc, but I said something like ‘Behemoth is the cape-killer and Leviathan levels cities’. Figure each Endbringer has attacked 16 to 20 times so far, account for the bias towards killing capes (Behemoth) vs. wiping out landscapes (Leviathan) and that Brockton Bay is pretty middle-of-the-road for the kind of aftermath you see, and maybe you can make an estimate.

    Ballparking it? 8 or 9 Endbringer attacks in America over 20 years. - Comment by Wildbow on Colony 15.5
  38. 38.0 38.1 She was built out of greater structures intended to salvage a situation where the species eliminated itself. Future-looking, she would create a forced simulation. It was worse than an organically emergent simulation, but in a process that saw the planet revolve three hundred times around its star, it could be necessary in the final years, consolidating and sorting information, forcibly exploring the resources the planet had to offer.

    That was her drive, as much as water and food were necessary for this life she farmed out and put to task in a greater system. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.z
  39. This whole plan, the idea was to give them exactly what they wanted. The Simurgh wanted a fight, wanted conflict, everyone on the planet pushing themselves to the limit, testing a system she’d set in motion.

    Well, she’d got that. Contained to this one facility. With her as our primary enemy, more than each other.

    Now Fortuna wanted to end the world. We needed to help her do that. If we balked, if we stopped… we lost. Hesitation when parrying an incoming strike was death. My early sparring with Manpower had taught me that much. It was especially true when your opponent was a hundred times stronger than you, if not stronger. - Last 20.8
  40. 40.0 40.1 Three or four billion years would pass before one of the entities returned to this world. In the interim, she would keep this world alive, and she would glean all knowledge that the minds of this world could produce. Every means of suffering, every desperate solution, every invention and inspiration. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.z
  41. 41.0 41.1 The remaining three Endbringers are more distraction than anything else. They were created for a different paradigm and purpose. - Wildbow on Reddit
  42. 42.0 42.1 Defiant scrolled through the images of the Simurgh, floating in the air above the ocean in the middle of the day. The last one was from just an hour ago, showing her in early evening, utterly still. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.2
  43. 43.0 43.1 It was hard to think of the terms that applied to Bohu alone. Tohu and Bohu were usually referred to as the Twins.

    But Tohu was nowhere to be seen.

    And Bohu had situated herself in the middle of a field. The ground was only beginning to reshape beneath her, twisting into structures, walls, a maze of stone, soil and grass, of arches and pillars without anything to support.

    She simply loomed, her impossibly long arms hanging at her side, head slightly bowed, her eyes shut.

    The other images showed the same thing from different angles. One from the other side, then another from directly above, showing the alterations to her surroundings as concentric circles.

    It was daylight. Going by the times of the photos, she was on the opposite side of the planet, roughly, from the Simurgh.

    “Holy fuck,” Canary murmured. “Two at once?” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.2
  44. “…Do it for the psychological impact, leave a mark. Or do it because Scion killed Behemoth, your brother, and some part of you is programmed with a sense of kinship or whatever. But above all else, I’m hoping you’ll help us murder that golden alien motherfucker because he killed Eidolon, and he stripped you of your purpose.”

    Sixty percent sure, I thought. Tattletale had revised her number. How confident was she now?

    The speech had no meat to it if Eidolon hadn’t made the Endbringers.

    Very little if he had. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4
  45. "He's really their creator?" Defiant asked. "Eidolon?"

    "…Sixty percent sure. Eidolon's some kind of exception, on a lot of levels. His power works by different vectors, the innate limits aren't there… something broke, and I'm betting the Endbringers are tied to it. Like, this entity is fissioning off into countless fragments that impregnate hosts and somehow a little extra gets tacked on. Or Cauldron's method of replicating the fragments gets that little extra." - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4
  46. “Seventy,” Tattletale said.

    “Hm?” I asked.

    “I said I was sixty-five percent sure before. I’m revising it to seventy.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4
  47. “You’re seventy percent sure.”

    “Seventy percent, yes. If I’m wrong, then I’ll be approaching this entire conversation from the wrong angle, and we might wind up siccing an otherwise passive Endbringer on humanity.”

    “Let’s hope you’re right, then,” I said.

    She nodded. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4
  48. 48.0 48.1 Video footage showed a replay of Lung’s fighting retreat from an area in downtown New York B. There was footage of the PRT base, Valkyrie standing off to the side, trying to look far less interested than she was as a young man tried on a white bodysuit. One window showed the various Endbringers, all of them motionless, but for the Simurgh, who was airborne. The last of the original three. - Excerpt from Interlude: End
  49. There were other things. News. Status of Class-S threats…
    Sleeper; active
    Machine Army; 4.83% growth since last check, active
    Endbringers; one dormant, one active, others dead or unknown locations.
    Active Endbringer. She zeroed in on that. A few mouse clicks brought her to a site that tracked the Simurgh.

    The activity was only a renewed cluster of sightings. Not an attack. The Simurgh was somewhere near Bet’s Indonesia. Not flying as she’d once done, either. Floating around. Facilities and factories in the area had been repurposed into accommodations. People in the area were hunkered down, enduring life on new Bet instead of moving on to new places, leaning on some risky non-tinker tech advances. Going the sci-fi route in tackling what Bet was going through. Those same people were responsible for the flurry of reports about the Simurgh, which had led to her being flagged ‘active’. - Interlude 10.x II
  50. “Actually, no. I had suspicions, but the Endbringer making a baby wasn’t one of them.” - Excerpt from Teneral e.5
  51. 51.0 51.1 Over and over, the Simurgh had protected the weapon. He’d seen it, had checked the footage, had seen her go out of her way to shield it with her wings. She’d done it subtly, most of the time, events contriving to make it look more accidental than anything.
    [...]
    One or two years old? Accelerated aging? Where had the Simurgh been in contact with a tinker with that particular knowledge? Bonesaw? - Excerpt from Teneral e.5
  52. 52.0 52.1 The light caught the glass, at first, obscuring the contents.

    A baby. Male. With large ears and a large round nose. Not attractive, as babies went.
    [...]
    Lung touched a burning hand to the glass, melting it. Water steamed on contact with his claw.
    [...]
    The water was crimson and boiling by the time Lung withdrew his claw. - Excerpt from Teneral e.5
  53. A great, long-fingered hand of silver with bone-white nails reached out. The shadow of Eidolon stepped down onto the fingertip.

    Titans appeared from clouds of darkness, arranging themselves in a formation around their new center and commander.

    Other things stepped out of clouds of darkness.

    Not Titans, but scary enough in their own way. Especially considering what all of this meant.

    Endbringers. One tall and narrow, of a size to rival any Titan. One small, a knot of formlessness, with faces periodically flashing out. One with a great chrome orb for a midsection, a black, whiskered head, arms, and feet mounted at different positions around that orb. There were other shapes that stood in the dark clouds, but they didn’t emerge or seem consistent. Still taking shape. - Infrared 19.9
  54. “Let’s assume they have clear goals. The Simurgh wants… that. Whatever that was. Humanity under her sway, her with Titans, Endbringers, and an army of capes brought back from the dead to protect her. Titan Fortuna wants to bring about the end of our world so their species can try their hand at replicating. Both have similar endpoints. But those are just that. Endpoints. What happens after the end?”

    “The world is enslaved, or the world blows up,” Byron said.

    “Immediately?”

    “The slavery, it seems like. The world blowing up… don’t know.” - Infrared 19.10
  55. 55.0 55.1 55.2 55.3 Keep in mind, also, that the Endbringers (in jobbing mode) tend to wait until the enemy has an advantage before stepping it up a notch. This allows them to conserve their inner reserves of power (which are vast, but they're playing a constantly escalating game, and they're aiming to maintain it over 300 years.)

    Throw them into the sun and they'll have no reason to hold back at all - they'll just spend all their reserved power at once. Saving it is useless, since they're stuck in the middle of a superdense star. - Wildbow on Reddit
  56. She only grinned. She reached over to the bedside table and retrieved a pen and notepad. Her grin fell from her face as she wrote something, then tore the page free, handing it to me.
    he’s going easy on us. all Endbringers are. but Behemoth holding back, even from moment he arrive. taking more hits than he should.
    “We already knew that they’re holding back for some reason,” I said. “The way they space out attacks, they could accelerate the timetable or coordinate their strikes if they wanted to fuck us over.” - Excerpt from Crushed 24.3
  57. 57.0 57.1 57.2 Another note:
    they want to lose I think. set themselves up to fail. but not fail so bad they risk dying. levi was after something, noelle I think. but why didn’t he show up closer to downtown?
    “I don’t know,” I said. I felt a little chilled at the idea that this was the Endbringers pulling their punches.
    big b wants something. not at india gate. somewhere past it. why not come up right underneath it?
    “I don’t know,” I repeated myself. “It doesn’t matter.
    matters. looked at past attacks. pattern. small pattern. behe attacks nuclear reactor, appears some distance away. attacks birdcage, appears in rockies, no sign he was close or beneath cage. pattern says he wouldn’t emerge this close if he just wanted to attack india gate. He attacking something north of it. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.3
  58. “Essalated,” I managed. “Esc-”

    “Escalated,” Sveta said.

    “It did. Like an Endbringer.” - From Within 16.9
  59. That was what I was waiting for. My limited experience with Endbringers had taught me one thing. When someone actually found a way to respond, to cancel out the attacks or to deliver a measure of real damage, they changed tactics.

    Some capes were already responding. Captains and leaders were giving orders, and various barriers were being reinforced or thrown back up. Some were trying to give the warning, but their voices disappeared in the midst of the chaos around us.

    “Take cover!” I hollered, and my swarm carried my voice.

    It was only two or three seconds later, as the second wave of spheres drifted to Behemoth and began to cut into his torso and groin area, that he responded. His ‘mouth’ opened, the craggy spikes of obsidian ‘teeth’ parting.

    And he roared. A sound that was slow at first, growing steadily more powerful. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.3
  60. 60.0 60.1 I didn’t deny it. “There’s one more reason we should go, though. He’s going to-”

    Retaliate.

    Behemoth rose from beneath the ground a distance away. In a heartbeat, things shifted from a near-quiet to chaos. He was still glowing, and his claws crackled with electricity as he struck quickly, violently, and indiscriminately.

    Three capes taken down, struck out of the sky by the bolts of electricity. Even if they’d survived that much, the kill aura and the radiation would end them.
    [...]
    It’s the Endbringer’s pattern. We hurt them or stall them enough, they change tactics, hit us back. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.5
  61. Then he’d taken command of a team, and he’d seen the process of trial and error, as they learned their opponents’ capabilities, saw how Leviathan or the Simurgh could keep tricks up their sleeves for years, before using them at a critical moment. Even now, they didn’t fully understand the Simurgh’s power, how long it might take someone to recover, if recovery was even possible. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  62. “Way I understand it, she needs to have a tinker in her sphere of influence to borrow their schematics, or a specific device, if she wants to copy it. Thinkers, too, I think she borrows their perception powers as long as she’s tapped into them. Might be why she’s attached to me. Either way, she didn’t have schematics or anything she’d need to modify the guns.”

    “Or she can modify them, and it’s a card she’s been keeping up her sleeve for the last while. I mean, it was only three years ago or whatever that she really showed off her ability to copy a tinker’s work wholesale.”

    Tattletale nodded. She frowned. “I don’t like being in the dark. But that’s the gist of it. She made cosmetic changes because she couldn’t make concrete ones.” - Excerpt from Venom 29.1
  63. “The Simurgh! Pay attention, even if you won’t be fighting her. You can’t know what will happen!” Legend announced, and he was confident, assured. If the head injury had impaired his faculties any, it didn’t show. “Our analysis of the Simurgh comes from years of experience! I can tell you, don’t let your guard down. She will surprise us. She will throw curveballs at us. In all the times we’ve engaged with her, she has had new tricks. Stay the course! - Last 20.1
  64. AutobotYoung1: He [Behemoth] is literally a walking nuke, everything he touches is radioactive and yet the city [New York] is mentioned constantly as if it’s not a fallout wasteland. What the hell is going on?

    Wildbow: Keep timeline and the gradual unveiling of powers in mind. Endbringers keep tricks up their sleeves to reveal later. There's no guarantee he was even demonstrating his ability to use radiation back then. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit
  65. 65.0 65.1 I think part of the reason Anzer'Ke isn't necessarily getting it is that he's imagining some scenario where Leviathan throws himself at the enemy.

    Quite frankly, if Leviathan wants to win (and if he's not in Earth Bet and he's not dormant, he will) he's going to do it smart, which is something he is capable of (see his actions during the timeskip, hitting multiple cities). He's not going to surface, and he's just going to call tidal waves and rainstorms down on the enemy until they stop moving (see his literal first appearance in story - he interrupts the strategy meeting by hitting them with a wave before he shows himself. Now remove the 'show himself' element). If they're on boats (they're often on boats) he may well gut the boats from beneath. The only ones standing are going to be the ones who have special ships and/or powerful devil's fruit abilities.

    What happens after that? Well, maybe they can block the waves or simply weather them, but can they resupply? Or does he simply occupy them and prolong the fight until the fruit users get tired or exhausted, make a mistake, or start to falter for lack of sleep and/or food? There are a lot of advantages to being nonhuman in nature.

    I stopped watching shortly after Ace's execution arc, so I can't speak to the individuals who appear after (or the fishmen) but I suspect Anzer'Ke is simply making the classic mistake of underestimating Leviathan. - Wildbow on Spacebattles
  66. 66.0 66.1 The reason the Endbringers haven't destroyed the Wormverse, in large part, is that they're jobbing every fight. The post that follows will assume that Leviathan and Behemoth are going full-strength and Simurgh is using her powers as detailed in the story (where she's jobbing, in large part).

    As I see it, the Endbringers have the attacker's advantage. Assuming the two sides don't have prior knowledge of one another, the Simurgh can use the same tactic she used in Lausanne. Be benign.
    [...]
    Lay groundwork for maximum amount of time allowed, psychic scream not audible, read the future, turn a city of people into individual rube goldberg devices. More time = more people and more complex machinations.
    [...]
    The Simurgh sees how long she can scan/sing, Leviathan and Behemoth just stay where they are, in Gotham bay or beneath the city.

    If the Endbringers reach the point where they can set the above scenario in motion, they're basically forcing the Justice League to devote time and effort to saving lives, and they change the paradigm of the fight. The heroes have to save the city from itself, rescuing people who may turn around and try to kill them, slow them down, or attack other civilians. Picture a city of B-list Jokers. Or the worst possible people finding a cache of Bane venom. Kill squads going after Batman's associates. - Wildbow on Reddit
  67. 67.0 67.1 67.2 Phir Sē’s light faded, and the barrier collapsed.

    Dust continued to fill the area, plumes of it.

    Behemoth lurched forward.

    Not quite Behemoth, but a skeleton, something like a skeleton. Emaciated, a black-red frame dripping with ichor, it had all of the key features, the basic underlying structure with the horns and the gaping mouth, the claws and the way the shoulders were broad enough to host his bulky frame, but a good eighty percent of him had been torn away, shredded. A skeleton covered in a veneer of meat. - Crushed 24.4
  68. “He went underground,” Eidolon informed us.

    “He ran? It’s over?”

    “No,” Eidolon said. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.5
  69. The sound of the fighting stopped with a crash. Where was the motherfucker? I rose higher to check, but saw neither Behemoth nor the cape who’d been binding him. He’d burrowed.

    It was quiet, all of a sudden, if not quite silent. The defending capes were spreading out, and were hovering in place or holding positions, rather than bombarding the landscape. The lightning and fire had stopped, and no shockwaves ripped through the city. The rumbling was intermittent, mild when it wasn’t almost imperceptible. The ringing in my ears was louder than the ambient noise.

    This was his new tactic, burrowing, surfacing. But where was the retaliation? Their whole damn pattern centered around repaying us twice over for any abuse we inflicted on them.

    The armband crackled, and I jumped, despite myself. The first message didn’t come through the static, but the second was clearer. “Be advised, seismic activity suggests the Endbringer is still local. Regroup and form defensive lines.” - Excerpt from Crushed 24.5
  70. Where the hell was the bastard? I was a little caught off guard by how quiet things had gone. He was giving us a chance to regroup? Or was he letting us gather, so he could take us all out at once? - Excerpt from Crushed 24.5
  71. As if reminding us of the culprit, there was a distant rumble. It grew steadily in intensity, then stopped abruptly. As far as I could tell, with bugs spread out over the area within two thousand feet or so, the Endbringer wasn’t moving any closer to us.
    [...]
    There was a rumble, with a shaking that affected the whole structure. Something distant, beyond my power’s range. A heavy crash. Somewhere in a northwesterly direction. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.5
  72. “Probably,” I agreed. “But my guys are moving out anyways. We’ve never done this much damage to him, and yet he’s sticking around. What I’m wondering is, why?”

    Defiant glanced at Dragon, then spoke. “He’s-”

    The ground shuddered. Again, as before, the rumbling intensified.

    This time, it didn’t stop. It got worse with every passing second.
    [...]
    The rumbling reached the point where capes were unable to keep their balance. I raised off the ground, but the movement of the air in response to the shuddering was enough to make me sway. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.5
  73. Behemoth emerged with a plume of gray-brown smoke, and the landscape shattered. It was Tecton’s natural power, taken to an extreme. Fissures lanced out in every direction and disappeared into each horizon. Secondary fissures crossed between each of the major ones, like the threads of a spider’s web.

    As far as the eye could see in every direction, terrain shifted. Hillsides abruptly tilted, standing structures fell like collapsing houses of cards.

    A full quarter of the temple collapsed. The bugs I’d kept to the edges of the room could sense it as a small share of the capes who were in the entry hall were caught beneath the falling rubble. The ones furthest towards the back. Eidolon’s protective effect kept the remainder intact.

    Behemoth emerged from the smoke. He was more robust than he had been, but that wasn’t saying much. Seventy percent burned away, perhaps. The regeneration had slowed, but it was still functioning to a degree. He’d recuperated, built his strength, and he’d used the time to, what? Burrow through strategic areas? Had the distant rumbles been controlled detonations or collapses at key areas?

    The temple was the one building that stood. Everywhere else, there was devastation. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.5
  74. 74.0 74.1 8:46 PM <•Wildbow> Chances are good Gray Boy's power would bind one of the Endbringer's limbs, it would pull free, doing massive damage to itself.
    8:46 PM <soulpelt|> Huh, okay
    8:46 PM <•Wildbow> And it would likely stop holding back up until Gray Boy was dead
    [...]
    8:47 PM <•Wildbow> If you have multiple effects in place and you trap the whole Endbringer, it'll count as dead.
    [...]
    8:48 PM <Alathon> by rights.. he should be able to solo leviathan with that
    8:48 PM <•Wildbow> No. - Answer by Wildbow on IRC, archived on Spacebattles
  75. I felt him arrive, a small few bugs still inside him, though most of the rest had been washed away in his swim. There were so few I’d missed his approach.

    Leviathan.

    People ran back inside the shelter, screamed and pushed, trampled one another. I was forced into the corner by the door as they ran into the shelter, tried to make some distance between themselves and the Endbringer.
    [...]
    And he was there, climbing through the vaultlike door, so large he barely fit. One claw on either side, he pushed his way through. Stood as tall as he could inside the front door, looking over the crowd. Hundreds of people were within, captive, helpless.
    [...]
    Leviathan took a step forward, putting me behind him and just to his right. He lashed his tail again. Another dozen or two dozen civilians slain.
    [...]
    One hand on my shoulder to steady my throbbing broken arm, I slipped behind Leviathan, hugging the wall, slipping around the corner and moving up the vault door with padded feet. - Extermination 8.5
  76. Scion raised one hand, and a ball of yellow-gold light slammed into Leviathan from behind, sent the Endbringer skidding across the length of the street, past Bitch and I.

    Leviathan leaped to his feet, reared around, swung his claws at the air ferociously. Water around him rose, rushed towards Scion, a wave three times as high as Bitch was tall. Three times as tall as I might be if I could stand.
    [...]
    Leviathan lunged up to the side of a half-ruined building, leaped down to a point three-quarters of the way between himself and Scion. His afterimage slammed into the hero.
    [...]
    Leviathan grabbed a car, twisted his entire upper body to toss it in the style of an olympic hammer-throw. The car hurtled through the air, and Scion batted it aside with the back of one hand. The vehicle virtually detonated with the impact, falling into a thousand pieces, each piece glowing with golden-yellow light, disintegrating as they splashed into the water. - Extermination 8.5
  77. Leviathan heaved himself out of the rubble, turned to run, only for water to rise and freeze solid in one smooth movement, forming a wall as tall as Leviathan was, a hundred feet long. He paused for a fraction of a second, to gauge which way he might go, poise himself to leap over. Scion caught him with another golden-yellow blast before he could follow through. - Extermination 8.5
  78. Eidolon froze the water around Leviathan’s four claws, giving Scion the opportunity to land another blast. Leviathan turned, raised a spraying wall of water to cover his retreat. Scion sent out one blast of his golden light to strike the wave, following up with a second blast before the first even made contact with the water.

    Seeing the second blast coming, Leviathan leaped to one side. No use – the blast of light curved in the air to head unerringly for him, struck him down.
    [...]
    A tidal wave appeared in the distance, at the furthest end of the street, near the horizon.
    [...]
    Another blast of golden light, and one side was stopped, stalled. A third blast was spared for Leviathan, who was getting his hands and feet firmly on the ground, crouching in preparation to run. The Endbringer was knocked squarely to the ground.
    [...]
    When the flow of water was past us, I could see a fifth blast of light following Leviathan, who had used the cresting water to swim away. He was making his way to the coast. Scion rose, flew after his target with a streak of golden light tracing his movement. Eidolon followed soon after. - Extermination 8.5
  79. We began this fight when you broke, child, the Titan Fortuna thought, trying to communicate to the battered kernel of human consciousness within herself.

    She began this two years ago, when Gold Morning occurred. It doesn’t matter that we have a hundred times her strength. She’s within paces of the finish line, and she’s no stupid rabbit racing a tortise. Nearly every action she could take brings her closer to a checkmate. - Radiation 18.z
  80. It did not matter that she couldn’t see the remainder of that meeting in the lobby of the headquarters. Were she to fly closer and gather information by emitting her signal, she might be able to piece together the events, but it did not matter. She was entirely assured of Cryptid, Chris Elman’s trajectory. There was no reality she could interpret where the result wasn’t entirely to her favor.
    [...]
    So it went. Machines tore into her and studied her. This would play a part in removing three more threats from play. Later, a subversion of this network in coordination with her integration with Titan Fortuna would let her spread her signal.

    In two minutes, the Wardens would come to the near-unanimous conclusion that the Simurgh was their first priority, too dangerous to be left alone as they enacted dangerous plans. In twelve minutes, after everyone had gathered, they would announce this. In sixteen, they would leave the lobby and attack her.

    She abandoned the Machine Army, having given them what they would need later, and flew to the battlefield. She was already prepared. - Excerpt from Infrared 19.z
  81. It’s not just that she drives you around the bend, I thought. It’s that she’s constantly gathering information. Constantly refining that ability to drive you crazy, and refining her precognition, so you’re less and less effective against her in a fight. - Last 20.3
  82. The Simurgh wasn’t necessarily flipping people to ‘red’ with a new, unprecedented speed. This was part of any fight against the Endbringer. In a given population, there were bound to be people who were on the edge, vulnerable, needing only the right prompt. As she kept screaming, she kept gathering data, and she used that data to find better prompts for more people who were on a ledge, on the cusp of losing their minds. - Last 20.4
  83. The one thing that made it possible to even think about defeating the Simurgh was that it took her time to get her hooks in. She was subtle. - Last 20.5
  84. Lay groundwork for maximum amount of time allowed, psychic scream not audible, read the future, turn a city of people into individual rube goldberg devices. More time = more people and more complex machinations. - Wildbow on Reddit
  85. “These were errors, grave mistakes from defending heroes. We had but one strategy at the time – to hem him in, minimizing the effects of growing waves and casualties until Leviathan was beaten into a retreat or Scion arrived. These areas, however, were too vulnerable. Waiting let Leviathan build up the strength of his attacks, and we lost.”

    He paused. “We have since classified the locations the Endbringers target as either hard targets or soft targets. The hard battlefields are where we stand our ground, buy time, wear him down. The soft ones are locations where we cannot afford to do this.” - Excerpt from Extermination 8.2
  86. 86.0 86.1 Either way, it was a delaying tactic. Holding off the damage, in the hopes that we could end this or get reinforcements before Brockton Bay became another Newfoundland.

    We were hoping for Scion. The first cape, the golden skinned man. The guy that could go toe to toe with an Endbringer and win, if things hadn’t already gone too far south. If Behemoth hadn’t already turned the area into a radioactive, magma-ridden wasteland. If Leviathan hadn’t built up enough momentum with his waves. If the Simurgh… Ok, the Simurgh was different, I had to admit. The issue with her wasn’t so much winning the battle. It was what came after. Win every battle against her, lose the war, more or less. - Extermination 8.4
  87. moridinamael: If he just sucked all the water out of rock in the subsurface below Newfoundland, the island would sink. The briney water that permeates all earthly rocks below sea level always helps support some of the overburden pressure of the rock above it. If you suck some of the water out of an aquifer or an oil field, the ground above it will sink. Only a few meters at most, in the worst known scenarios, but Leviathan can move a lot more water than humans with a few wells with limited operating conditions.

    Wildbow: Yeah. My mental picture of the scene & understanding of how things could theoretically work was that Newfoundland has historically been prone to erosion, and there's a lot of stuff going on with plates and separation from the crust/mantle. Water within the rocks creates a kind of erosion from within, concentrated, high-pressure movement of water erodes the layers most prone to damage while scooping out water while creating a kind of power-augmented hydroplane/sediment layer, and... over the course of hours, it slides beneath.

    Of course, the entire thing goes hand in hand with calamity, waves taller than many boats, people trying to use powers to mitigate the damage and give people a better chance to evacuate, yadda yadda. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  88. “Radiation,” Thirty-two said, her English perfect, unaccented. It was for Cody’s benefit, and the benefit of the other two English-speaking members of the group, who might not understand the more complicated words. She got glances from the other members of their squad, but continued speaking. “He’s using the shockwaves to spread irradiated material across the city. We’re retreating, okay?” - Interlude 23
  89. A faint glowing line appeared on the ground, a perfect circle. The light gradually intensified, reaching higher, and the space within the circle seemed to darken in equal measure.

    It moved, the circle roaming, the glowing lines adjusting to scale obstacles and account for higher ground and dips in the terrain. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.4
  90. 90.0 90.1 They'd figured out how to fight Tohu and Bohu during the Los Angeles attack. The trick was responding quickly, stopping them before Tohu had her masks and Bohu managed her influence. They'd won, for lack of a better term, managing the fight without the casualties they'd seen in the prior attack, but they'd still lost a chunk of the city in the time it took them to beat and batter the towering Bohu into submission. Now Santa Fe Springs and all of the neighboring districts were uninhabitable, due to the traps that riddled it, the way the infrastructure had been completely and totally compromised. - Interlude 26a
  91. Bohu is a macro scale space warper with an eye for design and the ability to control more space as she remains stationary. - Wildbow on Reddit
  92. She wasn’t an Endbringer, in the end. It would be impossible to trap any of them like this, to get an advantage. They had other tools, ways to exert pressure that were entirely independent of their own abilities. Behemoth generated storms and background radiation, Leviathan had the waves, the Simurgh had her scream. - Scourge 19.7
  93. My growing sense of dread was confirmed as the image on the monitors changed.

    Even with those circles being as devastating as they are, it wasn’t enough. There wasn’t the same broad scale, the promise of lingering devastation.

    No. There was something more to Khonsu.

    The monitors showed him in a different city. A caption on the bottom of the screen showed the words ‘Cape Verde’.

    He’d teleported halfway around the planet.

    All of the problems with getting to Endbringer fights on time, with mobilizing and dealing with the fact that half of our best teleporters and movers had been slain in past battles… he was capitalizing on that weakness. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.4
  94. “Could it be an Endbringer?” Rain asked.

    “Jesus,” Byron said. “Don’t even joke. They’ve been dormant.”

    “They can’t be predicted easily with danger sense either,” I said. - Gleaming 9.12
  95. It wasn’t Jeanne who answered. Cinereal gave me my reply. “Thinkers say no. They’re either drawing blanks or they don’t like what they see.”

    “Nothing specific? No details?”

    “No,” Cinereal said. “But if you look at some of the other major thinker blind spots, you’re going to find yourself running into topics like Eidolon, Sleeper, the Endbringers, Valkyrie, the Island-state, the Pastor incident…”

    “Concentrations of power,” I said.

    Jeanne shook her head. “Complexity of power, most often. Whatever thinker powers come into play, with these cases, there’s often too many variables to fully consider, thinkers report that their powers are fuzzy, inconsistent, or blacked out.” - Blinding 11.4
  96. “Right, that wasn’t my second question. What I want to know is why the hell you haven’t used a power like yours to figure out how to beat the Endbringers.”

    “My power is a form of precognition,” she said. “Unlike most such powers, other precognitive abilities do not confuse it. That said, there are certain individuals it does not work against, the Endbringers included.”

    “Why?” Tecton asked.

    “No way to know for sure,” she said, “But we have theories. The first is that they have a built-in immunity, something their origins granted them.” - Crushed 24.2
  97. 97.0 97.1 Another try.
    Durable layers to body, no conventional organs, irregular biology: Tissues mend from the inside out, layers expanding to fill wounds and integrating into surrounding structures. Not human.
    Knew that much.
    Not human: Never was human.
    That gave her pause. - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y
  98. 98.0 98.1 He can’t be teleported. Too dense for most people who teleport living things. - Comment by Wildbow on Extermination 8.5
  99. Re: Panacea, the problem with that is that Panacea couldn’t affect Leviathan while he’s under the effect of Clockblocker’s powers; nothing can. So she’d have to wait until Leviathan moved, and when you consider that knitting bones together and such took her a few minutes back in Interlude 2, and that Leviathan doesn’t have any major weaknesses or organs, there’s a limit to the amount of damage she could do. - Comment by Wildbow on Extermination 8.4
  100. She barely seemed to notice me as I flew in, driving my forcefield into the criss-cross patchwork at her shoulder, where her body was revealed to be hollow, a criss-cross latticework of feathers forming the shape of a thin, sculpted shoulder. Some of that lattice was broken, and I dug in, tearing it open wider. - Last 20.6
  101. She was already healing. Missing wings were growing back, and her lower body existed as a series of feathers, touching end to end, or end to middle. Like she was the thinnest of lace, formed of feathers harder than steel. It gave her legs, and suggested she was hollow, where Behemoth had had a skeleton and a core. - Last 20.a
  102. Chevalier, nowhere nearby, fired his cannon again. The Simurgh flew back, her shoulder torn open, the interior revealed to be hollow, the edges of the wound frayed and lace-like.

    I’d seen injuries like that in the re-enactments and recreations too. - Last 20.1
  103. 103.0 103.1 Solarstare’s power gushed into the open lattice and filled the hollow of the Simurgh’s body, right on target, until Chevalier’s second shot hit and jolted her, sending her flying back a good fifteen feet. - Last 20.7
  104. The feathers were surprisingly tough and dense, the edges capable of scoring steel.

    Not that she really fought in close quarters, where she could help it. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4
  105. 105.0 105.1 105.2 He conceded to pick up the phone and read what she’d typed.
    they regen slower as damage is further from center. simurgh core not in human body. decoy. prob in join of biggest wing instead. Is why body fragile n slow to heal.
    His eyes widened. “We destroy the center, we destroy him?” - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  106. She showed him the phone as he lay there, panting.
    he still at full strength. shouldn’t be. he’s an onion, inner rings progressively tougher. next 15% way tougher than rest combined.
    “I know this,” he gasped out the words. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  107. Now he stood still, weathering attacks with the same durability the other Endbringers had. Damage to his flesh exposed silver, and damage to the belly or other silver parts showed ebon black. The onionlike layers Tattletale had described, plain to see. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.4
  108. 108.0 108.1 108.2 She hunkered down to to watch the fight, mentally opening those doors that let more information flow.
    Leviathan, nonstandard cardiac, nervous systems: irregular biology. No standard organs or weak points. No brain, heart or center of operations for rest of his body.
    Irregular biology, no vulnerable organs: body divided into layers, extending down to hyperdurable core body, each layer down is slightly more than twice as durable as previous. Exterior skin is hard as aluminum alloy, but flexible, lets him move. 3% deeper in toward core of arms, legs, claws, tail, or .5% in toward core of head, trunk, neck, tissues are hard as steel. 6% in toward core of extremities or 1% toward core of main body/head, tissues strong as tungsten. 9% toward core of extremities, 1.5% toward core of main body, head, tissues strong as boron. 12%-
    She had to stop, start again. - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y
  109. If one threw an Endbringer into the sun, though, given what the core is, both in immensity and that it's essentially a doorway into multiple realities, a lens to make the Endbringer projections manfest as reality , they might risk putting out the sun, or at least disturbing it to the point that Earth was gravely affected. - Wildbow on Reddit
  110. She's small, but has the same overall toughness as the others. She defends Bohu.
    [...]
    She's largely immobile, forming a massive tower-like body from the surrounding terrain, slowly granting it the Endbringer qualities noted below. - Wildbow on Reddit
  111. 111.0 111.1 111.2 Endbringers regenerate (and regenerate faster as you get closer to the middle of their bodies) and fight at peak capacity so long as their core remains intact (keep in mind that you're effectively having to dig through a spiral galaxy's equivalent of matter to reach the core in the first place). - Wildbow on Reddit
  112. Only one set of Alexandria/Scion/Endbringers. - Comment by Wildbow on Migration 17.3
  113. “Then go get Ingenue. Let’s get this started.”

    As Legend departed, Chevalier’s eyes didn’t leave the objects.

    One of the Simurgh’s severed wings. The largest wing, since regrown.

    Behemoth’s severed leg.

    They warped space for optimal density, were unbreakable with conventional means. Scion had taken seconds to obliterate Behemoth.

    Hopefully he could assign the same properties to his sword and armor. - Interlude 28
  114. If we're in world 1 and she [Labyrinth] taps into world 2 to bring a fountain into being, then what she's doing is positioning the fountain at 1.5 (or 1.25 or 1.75).

    Said fountain may be more fragile as a consequence of not being wholly here.

    If her power's working really well, then she can reach out, touch you, and pull/push you a little bit away from where the fountain is in the interspace, and now as far as you're concerned it's only 10% there, or .0025% there.

    Now, in reality it's a little more complicated and coordinates vary on a whole two other axes, as she pulls stuff from multiple worlds and sets them at different positions. Depending on where she's at in the wax/wane of her power, she's not always deciding what gets pulled in or where stuff gets positioned, but the analogy should serve to help wrap your head around it. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  115. Sutherbear: WOG says they weigh an absurd amount, and throwing them into the sun would put out the sun before it puts down an endbringer. So why don't they cause massive gravitational fields around themselves? Like earth-rending gravitational fields...

    Wildbow: WoG isn't that they weigh an absurd amount but that they have an absurd amount of equivalent mass to have to get through to reach their core.

    But they don't exist wholly in our reality any more than scion does. You're seeing the tip of the iceberg, and only that tip is in our world and dealing with our rules. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  116. Getting hit by something [Leviathan] that weighed nearly nine tons sent men, women, boys and girls in costume flying, if it didn't kill them outright. - Extermination 8.3
  117. Leviathan is the middle child. He's fast enough that he can run on the surface of water, despite weighing something like 9 tons, and beneath the water's surface he's so fast as to essentially be a teleporter (assume faster than Superman, slower than the Flash on level terrain). - Wildbow on Reddit
  118. The timing proved to be lucky for me. As strong as Triumph was, a strike at the right moment could still knock him off-balance. I’d seen Alexandria do something like that to Leviathan, knocking something as big and horribly strong as the Endbringer to the ground. - Colony 15.9
  119. In the hands of someone more clever, equipped, or practiced, Skidmark's power could have repeatedly knocked Levi/Behemoth on their asses.

    There's a lot you can do with a general 'I create treadmill fields, can stack effect to increase the push/drag' - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  120. 120.0 120.1 Dauntless’s spear moved again, and this time, Defiant simply held the button down. When the spear’s disruption overrode the Simurgh’s signal, the signal got through.

    Simurgh, Titan Skadi, Custodian, and Dauntless were all flung back. The Marduk ripped in half from the strain of firing- - Last 20.a
  121. 121.0 121.1 Superlative_ish: There's a common assumption that Endbringer cores cancel powers. There are exceptions, like Foil's Sting or Scion's everything, but powers in general. It comes up a lot in Siberian vs. Endbringer speculation, for instance, and a lot of fanfics. (I've used it myself. Awkward.)
    [...]
    What I'm saying is that it cancels only Chevalier's power, or a relatively narrow category including his.
    [...]
    It's not a defensive trump power, just an inconvenient interaction with the space-warping Chevalier uses.
    [...]
    So anyway, I say there is no power nullification. Just time and space wibbly-wobbliness that overwhelms powers relying on that kind of thing. And of course most powers just aren't destructive enough to do much. But there's no grounds to say that the core no-sells everything short of Sting like it did to Chevalier.

    Wildbow: Yep - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit
  122. 122.0 122.1 natsugo: Hell, she [Foil] could have used her power on the blade of Chevaliers sword, then he could go 1v1 against an Endbringer.

    Wildbow: Using her power on Chevalier's sword would have broken it, like the space warping around the Endbringer core did. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  123. 123.0 123.1 Space and time distortion were supposed to protect it? He’d fight fire with fire.

    Flesh parted as the blade grew inside the wound. He put his finger on the trigger, ready to fire.

    Before he could, the sword’s tip touched the core, and everything went wrong.

    His power abruptly ceased to take effect, and the blades came apart, in its three individual pieces. They slid from the wound, falling down around him. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  124. 124.0 124.1 But she could imagine Grue shouting at her, “Something we can use!” and that was nudge enough to get her to focus her efforts. “Weak points.”
    No vulnerable organs, hyperdurable tissues: simple organs exist at core of torso, where there is highest amount of surrounding tissues. Optimal thickness of layer and narrowness of body part at upper arms, just before shoulder joint, and upper thighs, just below hip joint.
    Something she – everyone – could use. - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y
  125. “I don’t know why the hell not. Where’s his center?”

    She pointed with two fingers, at her collarbone. The base of the throat, between the shoulders. Quite possibly the deepest set part of his body. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  126. 126.0 126.1 The Simurgh had both feet pressed against Leviathan’s stomach, one hand reaching up to grip his face, the other hand holding the gladius she’d made, buried so deep in Leviathan’s sternum that only a little bit of the handle stuck out.

    She’d hit his core. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.5
  127. 127.0 127.1 Scion was killing the serpent-Endbringer… Leviathan. Pummeling his chest, shattering it. Cracks radiated from the wound, glowing gold. Scion’s face was twisted in fury, his fury was that of a berserker. The blows were heavy enough that they drove Leviathan into the shattered earth below. Water was flowing in around them, Leviathan’s element, but the attack continued, the glowing wounds creating mountains of steam around them.
    [...]
    Scion merely shifted his orientation in the air. Not even shaking himself, not pausing to find his balance. He was roaring, screaming, and in his thrashing movements, his blind fury, I nearly missed it. In the moment he returned to an upright position, he flung out a sphere of golden light.

    The light curved in the air, and punched into Leviathan’s open chest cavity.

    The Endbringer fell. The color went out of Leviathan, his flesh breaking up, like clay overbaked in a kiln. The fins were the first thing to crumble, the rest of his body following suit. - Excerpt from Speck 30.6
  128. “Hit the wing!” Narwhal called out. “You know the weak points!” - Last 20.7
  129. And at the center of it all, quite literally, there was a perfect sphere of that same material, a marble or a crystal ball, his body perched on the upper half and his legs attached to the lower half. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.4
  130. 130.0 130.1 “She’s as strong as Leviathan, physically,” Tattletale said, “She’s not as tough, based on what I’ve seen. Have you read the notes on what I told Alexandria after Leviathan’s attack? About the density of Leviathan’s body?”

    Miss Militia nodded. “Higher density as you penetrate deeper to the core, to the point that it bends the rules of how molecules and atoms should work. It makes sense. Armsmaster had a molecule-severing weapon that couldn’t cut through all of Leviathan’s hand, and it explains why nearly all the damage we do is so superficial.” - Queen 18.3
  131. 131.0 131.1 He lurched, and dropped several feet, the ground shaking. The light show marked the geyser spraying up around his leg, apparently having sunken into a portal.

    Close it, I thought. Sever it.

    But she didn’t. Not an option, it seemed. - Crushed 24.4
  132. Earth Tav, barely two million people spread out across the globe, with this being the largest population center, based around the portal that Faultline, Labyrinth and Scrub had erected.
    [...]
    The Simurgh followed behind the Dragonfly, moving each wing until it was pointed straight behind her as she sailed through the narrow, oddly-shaped portal. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4
  133. 133.0 133.1 The Simurgh reached the portal. I was reminded of Leviathan breaking into the shelter beneath the library as I saw her put one hand on each side of the portal. She wasn’t quite as large as he was, until you added up the wings and wingspan. Put all the wings together, and her mass was probably equivalent to her older brother’s.

    She passed through with little effort, dropping almost to her knees to get her head through. The wings followed, each wing stretched all the way behind her. The feathers rasped against the boundaries of the portal as she floated forward.

    The outer edges wavered a fraction, as if the stress threatened to bring the portal down entirely.

    Then she was through. She flexed her wings, then folded them around herself. The halo came through in pieces.

    “That answers that,” Tattletale said. She added a very unenthusiastic, “Yay.” - Excerpt from Venom 29.1
  134. The Machine Army was entering the trench, scurrying into the trench, into the dust, where his sensors struggled to read things with the ten kinds of background radiation and-

    And strange signals not unlike those he had picked up from Chevalier, when Chevalier had waded into battle.

    “They’re going after the pieces of the Simurgh! She gave them pieces of herself!” - Last 20.a
  135. Sixty-two miles above the surface of the Earth, the Simurgh changed the course of her flight.

    Following protocol for when Dragon was deployed on a mission, the system routed the message to one of Dragon’s satellite systems. The resulting message was scrambled by the dense signature of the Endbringer en route to Dragon.

    Receiving the garbled transmission from the satellite, a subsystem of the Dragon A.I. proceeded to sort it. A scan of the message by a further subroutine saw it classified as non-pertinent, and a snarl in the code from Defiant’s improvised adjustments to her programming saw the message skip past several additional safeties and subroutines. The message was compartmentalized alongside other notes and data that included flares of atmospheric radiation and stray signals from the planet below; background noise at best. - Interlude 16.z
  136. He returned to the computer and started working with the Simurgh’s tissue. It was hard to cut, and harder still to slice to the point that he could look at it under a microscope.

    “Crystalline,” he murmured, as he focused on it. - Interlude 19.x
  137. Leviathan’s blood was the same as the feather. Crystals, dense and so opaque that light wouldn’t pass through them.

    There were more tissues. Flesh. More blood. Hair. Damaged tissues and intact ones. He went through each.

    All of it, the same. Crystals. No individual cells. Even the crystals barely differentiated from one another. - Interlude 19.x
  138. Truth was, there was more difference in crystals collected from deeper inside the Endbringer than there was in crystals that had come from different parts of the Endbringer’s body; hair as opposed to blood. - Interlude 19.x
  139. A dumpster hit Leviathan in the upper body with the speed of a bullet, and he folded backward, his shoulders hitting the ground while his legs and feet were still held against the ground by a mess of razor blade forcefields. Narwhal sent another forcefield flying into his neck, and it cut as deep as any attack had yet. Blood spilled down from the opened wound, thick, more like ichor than anything I was used to seeing. - Extermination 8.3
  140. afifakhan2001: ps leviathian is an organism without a brain so can Taylor possibly control it ? remember the crab and what was said about her not only being able to control bugs but also things with simple brain..

    wildbow: He doesn’t have a conventional brain, but his system isn’t so simple that Taylor can take it over. If she could have, her power would have detected & sensed him the way it usually does bugs. - Conversation with Wildbow on Sentinel 9.1
  141. “Educated guess says your power doesn’t work so hot on him,” she told Regent, as the two of them backed away.

    “Fuck, no. If I can do something, my power’s probably gonna backfire like crazy, and I think that bastard’s quick enough that he’s not about to fall flat on his face.”

    Tattletale glanced at where Skitter was hurrying to assist one of the wounded. Even knowing Taylor was out of earshot, she was careful to lower her voice, “And I guess your secret weapon isn’t going to work either?”

    “Take two or three times as long, probably, if it worked at all,” Regent grumbled. “Fuck, I’m useless.” - Excerpt from Interlude 8.y
  142. I passed beside the Simurgh as I flew. Checking.

    No control. - Speck 30.2
  143. And with Scanner, she could read them. Draw conclusions as to their thoughts, their brain patterns.

    “Notepad,” she said. Contessa would be nearby. Need to take notes. The Simurgh… I could read her. Better than I should be able to. She’s trying something. - Interlude 28
  144. “The way you described that thing in the room. Sounded familiar.”

    “Yeah,” she said. “Fair warning: it’s all educated guessing at this point. Very educated, but no guarantees.”

    “Sure,” I said. I looked at the constantly replaying image of the thing emerging from the shadows. “Is it an Endbringer?”

    “Nah,” she said. “Smaller in stature, more limited in scope.”

    I realized I was holding my breath, and I didn’t release it. I felt like there was a ‘but’ coming.

    “It’s the same scaffolding. Same construction material. Similar principles,” Tattletale elaborated. - From Within 16.8
  145. 145.0 145.1 “This landscape added up once upon a time,” she said. “Everything interconnected, it fed more easily. Now it’s… a hundred hard drives crammed into one computer’s housing. Each agent lays some claim to real estate, builds their houses. But when information isn’t flowing freely, and some houses get built on broken or missing ground…”

    “Broken triggers,” I said.

    “And Titans, when there’s enough support from the system to keep them propped up. Okay. I can fill in the gaps. The first place you didn’t know what it was? You and your parent, Precipice and Mathers?” - Infrared 19.7
  146. Love Lost stood on a ledge, looking out over the side. One of the agents from within the system had felt what we’d done, much as the Titans had.

    We’d hit them where it hurt all of them.

    And in the doing, we’d thrown our own powers for a loop. - Infrared 19.2
  147. The big golden asshole died, individual areas with individual focuses all got broken apart. Or… when he was around there was something more active, bridging things here on a permission basis. Dunno.” - From Within 16.12
  148. 148.0 148.1 You could also argue he [Eidolon] was hooked up to three (later five) pretty massive energy drains. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  149. “Why isn’t it working?” He asked.

    “I…” she had to stop for breath, “I don’t care. Whatever it is.”

    “I was supposed to get stronger, and there’s nothing. Nothing at all to reach for.” - Interlude 18
  150. It’s mine. Ours. But you’re stronger than I am. I can see it. The issue, High Priest, is that you need to open your eyes.”

    “My issue is that the well has run dry. I can’t tap it for power anymore. My best abilities are gone, and I’m spending the remainder with every minute I fight.”

    “Refill the well, then,” she said. - Interlude 27.x
  151. The Simurgh was currently directly three hundred and fifteen kilometers above Spain, in the Earth’s thermosphere. It was the Simurgh that offered the most clues about what the Endbringers did in their periods of dormancy. The Endbringer winged a lazy orbit around Earth, beyond the limits of conventional weapons, and the highest resolution camera images showed she barely moved. Her eyes were wide open, but they did not move to track any cloud formations. She was, despite appearances, asleep. Dragon surmised it was a form of hibernation, the Simurgh’s broad ‘wings’ absorbing light and ambient radiation as a form of nourishment while she recovered. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.5
  152. As much as he was wounded [after losing around 80% of his body], he was healing. Even from where we stood, I could see him healing, flesh expanding, swelling, regenerating. - Crushed 24.4
  153. Behemoth emerged from the smoke. He was more robust than he had been, but that wasn’t saying much. Seventy percent burned away, perhaps. The regeneration had slowed, but it was still functioning to a degree. He’d recuperated, built his strength, and he’d used the time to, what? - Excerpt from Crushed 24.5
  154. “The way the Endbringer’s physiology works? You could detonate a small atom bomb in his face, he’d probably survive. Take him two or three years to recover, but he’d survive.” - Extermination 8.7
  155. He’d dealt damage, but it was precious little. Flesh had torn at the leg, not quite as dense as it should be, by all reports. Had the regeneration not finished rebuilding the complete structures? - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  156. Behemoth wasn’t any weaker than he had been. Not in terms of what he could dish out. - Crushed 24.4
  157. 157.0 157.1 Leviathan ran himself through on the chain, the thing spearing deep into his neck and out the back of his torso. Uncaring, the Endbringer continued to charge at Armsmaster. - Extermination 8.4
  158. The Endbringer stood, showing none of the frailty or pain it had been displaying seconds ago. The injuries were there, to be sure, his head hung at an angle because of the way the weight of his head hung on the intact portions of his neck, but he wasn’t suffering, had no trouble putting his full weight on his more injured leg. Had it been an act? - Extermination 8.4
  159. I dove in, prepared to make myself more of an immediate threat. Part of the reason she seemed to have stalled was that she had accumulated a fair bit of damage. That damage was my target.

    I couldn’t be sure of anything, but I was reasonably confident that she did need to recover if she was hurt. No way would the Endbringers have operated like they had for as long as they had if they didn’t. No way would the Endbringers slowed their aggression against Scion in the middle phases of the fighting, falling back to change up how they came at him, if they didn’t need rests, in a sense. - Last 20.6
  160. 160.0 160.1 The Endbringer fell. The color went out of Leviathan, his flesh breaking up, like clay overbaked in a kiln. The fins were the first thing to crumble, the rest of his body following suit.

    We’d taunted him. Teased him with the one thing he wanted most in the world, then we’d taken it away.

    He turned his attention to the winged Endbringer and her smaller companion. The towering Endbringer was already so damaged that she could only pull herself together. The fat Endbringer was gone.

    No, he was alive. He’d created a time field around himself, and was healing in a more distant location. - Excerpt from Speck 30.6
  161. Dust billowed and Leviathan reacted instantly, swiped with one claw, fell onto his side when the damage to his buttocks and the hampered mobility of his tail screwed with his ability to control the movement of his lower body. His claw swipe went high. - Extermination 8.5
  162. With the effects of my slash of the Halberd combined with the damage Armsmaster had already done, Leviathan didn’t have the mobility with his tail he otherwise would. - Extermination 8.5
  163. Rendered effectively one-legged again, Behemoth crawled forward on three limbs. Alexandria struck him from above, driving him face first into the ground. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  164. STH: Scion stomps Endbringers like it’s the easiest thing in the world (though Smurfy here does seem to be giving him a lot more trouble than Leviathan, by virtue of dodging).

    wildbow: Keep in mind that Leviathan was fairly battered by the time Scion showed up. - Conversation with Wildbow on Migration 17.2
  165. The others [Khonsu, Bohu, and Tohu] were too broken to fight. - Excerpt from Speck 30.6
  166. I had to hope the damage we were doing was enough. That we could put her down or keep her down for long enough she wouldn’t be up for a fight with Titan Fortuna. - Last 20.7
  167. Titan Skadi was there too, her blade-hand at the Simurgh’s back. Digital readouts read that the Custodian Titan was active in the area.

    All dogpiling the Simurgh, who struggled to make contact with Titan Fortuna. - Last 20.a
  168. 168.0 168.1 Keep in mind that in virtually every case where a Endbringer suffers a deep and grievous wound, some space/time/reality warping is in full sway. Even for Phir Se, you could suggest there is something temporal infused into the stored energy, giving it more oomph. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  169. 169.0 169.1 Something flew past him, shearing straight through Behemoth’s chest. A wheel of metal, thin, with two bars sticking out of the center. It cut through the Endbringer like he wasn’t even there. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  170. RazorSmile: Skitter’s idea, Annex to merge the metal bits together, Foil to grant it penetrative powers and Alexandria to throw?

    wildbow: Tecton piledrivers set into the bars at the side, to launch. - Conversation with Wildbow on Interlude 24.x
  171. He made it grow.

    He made the sword grow, from ten to twenty feet in length. It was more by the growth than by any action on Chevalier’s part that it extended into the wound. The weapon penetrated into the scar Weaver’s crew had created, as close to the core as Chevalier could get it.

    He made it grow to its greatest possible length, a full thirty feet, his head turned skyward to the monster that glowed silver and black. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  172. “Indiscriminate,” Phir Sē echoed me. “India gone. You die, even down here.” - Excerpt from Crushed 24.3
  173. “How long has it been since you slept?” I asked.

    “Three days. We thought an Endbringer would attack soon, so I prepared, to be ready when the time came. Too early, I had to stop, restart. This time, he came, but I am weary. The talking, is good. Distracting without being dangerous. Continue, please.”

    What happens if he nods off? I wondered, looking at the ‘time bomb’. The same thing he’d stated would happen if he were killed or knocked out? - Crushed 24.4
  174. 174.0 174.1 A fire started on the body of the ship as Eidolon tore into the Simurgh with a reality warping power of some kind, complete with lightning, fire, distorted light, and ice. The Simurgh cast the craft aside in the following instant, letting it flip, burn and tumble before hitting the water and virtually disintegrating.

    That done, the Simurgh ascended, rising into the clouds. A few capes tried to follow, but Scion wasn’t among them.

    “How long was the fight?” I asked.

    “Not long enough for Scion to show,” was all Wanton said.

    “Forty minutes?” Tecton asked. “About forty minutes.” - Excerpt from Scarab 25.2
  175. 175.0 175.1 175.2 Flight BA178, November 25th, 2011 // Simurgh
    Notes: Loss? Plane destroyed, Eidolon/Pretender drive off Endbringer. Marks start of guerilla tactics from Simurgh and Leviathan.

    [...]

    Lüderitz, April 2nd, 2012 // Leviathan
    Notes: Loss? Driven away by Eidolon. Secondary targets Swakopmund, Gamba, Port-Gentil and Sulima.
    Target/Consquence: Moord Nag. Guerilla tactics continue, losses in notable but not devastating numbers, but his target survives. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.6
  176. Shadow Stalker ran within twenty feet of the Endbringer, firing her twin crossbows. The shots penetrated this time, disappearing into Leviathan’s chest, presumably fading back in while inside him. - Extermination 8.5
  177. Her [Foil's] power wasn’t Shadow Stalker’s, from back in Brockton Bay. It went through everything, yes. Shadow Stalker could do something similar. But it left a hole, where Shadow Stalker’s hadn’t. One shot, then two- it created an aperture with the same diameter as the bullet. - Heavens 12.8
  178. 178.0 178.1 One of crossbow-girl's shots, like a needle several feet in length, speared under the side of Leviathan's neck, out the top. Shadow Stalker's shots, at the same time, failed to penetrate Leviathan's hard exterior.

    “Flechette! I’m getting closer!” Shadow Stalker called out, looking back at her new partner.

    “Careful!” the crossbow-girl – Flechette, I took it – replied, loading another shot. - Extermination 8.5
  179. Shadow Stalker - She wasn't kept around because she's useful against Endbringers. She isn't. Look at that scene again. She's forced to get too close and she gets creamed. She's super vulnerable to energy in her shadow state (nix Behemoth), can't really close in vs. a fast or mobile target (nix Leviathan for the most part, Simurgh), is emotionally imbalanced (nix Simurgh) and doesn't do any meaningful damage.​ - Wildbow on Spacebattles
  180. Scion equipped himself to be able to fight pretty much any threat. His big weapon is a very versatile 'stilling' ability, which lets him cancel out wavelengths, which can be applied in a variety of ways, defensive or offensive - it lets him counteract, manipulate, and cancel virtually any parahuman or human generated effect. He can cancel out heat, eliminate sound, break Grey Boy's ability, disintegrate molecular bonds, etc. He can do so with beams, thrown orbs/bullets, a light he emanates, and a personal forcefield, among a variety of other mechanisms. - Wildbow on Spacebattles
  181. 181.0 181.1 Behemoth’s silhouette thrashed as he tried to move out from beneath the shaft of light, but Scion only reoriented the beam, keeping it fixed on his target.

    …sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one…

    The light ceased. Behemoth was gone. A plume of dust rose from the earth, at the very limits of their vision.

    Scion plunged beneath the ground, heedless of the intervening terrain.
    [...]
    Again, he held Behemoth in his hands. Thinner than a skeleton, the Endbringer was little more than a stick figure from Chevalier’s vantage point.

    Only this time, with a flare of golden light to accompany the movement, he tore the Endbringer in two. The legs came free of the pelvis as two individual pieces, and Scion obliterated them with a pulse of the golden light.
    [...]
    Scion fired one more beam, and the darkness was obliterated, swept away.

    The silhouette of the Endbringer flickered, then disintegrated. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  182. The whole "planet-busting beam" was a translation error. All it really meant was that it would destroy all life on the surface.
    Punch that counters said beam & strikes like that one did is still good enough. - Referenced Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  183. GreatWyrmGold: I suppose it depends on if you tackle the question from a Watsonian or a Doylist point of view. Doyle would agree with your logic and conclusion; Watson would point out that Saitama's demonstrated feats fall short of those required to defeat Behemoth (assuming his analysis coincides with mine); and then both would ask who the hell you were and where you took them.

    Wildbow: Nope.
    [...]
    viking_: That doesn't jive at all with what you've said about their durability in the past.

    Wildbow: Sure it does. Think about it. - Referenced Replies by Wildbow on Reddit
  184. Put all of that aside and look at his fighting ability, the highest end of what he's done (punch the planet buster [surface wiping] beam, nullify/exceed that energy and have the force of the punch still affect the landscape halfway across the world) puts him on a level equal to or surpassing String Theory's Drive weapons. Could a hit from that heavy a punch conduct enough force through Behemoth to get to the Endbringer's core? I think it's likely/possible and would have to, barring extraordinary evidence to the contrary popping up in OPM, say 'definite kill'. - Wildbow on Reddit
  185. Dauntless, too, was in the path of the beam. He had his shield, and he was rooted into the ground in a way that resisted being thrust away with the kind of power that could push a moon out of orbit, but the grazing hit still demolished one of his arms, tore out a chunk of the Titan’s side.
    [...]
    But he had to stay out of the Simurgh’s range. She was weakened, he was relatively clear of her scream, and that weakened her predictive power. It meant his shots landed, and she was forced to choose between destruction and a grazing hit, instead of destruction and a miss. - Last 20.a
  186. Not going to happen in any incarnation of the Wormverse, or Behemoth would be built stronger to counteract (Or, as in the case of String Theory, Endbringer cooperation/timing would keep her from ever being able to set up a proper hit). - Wildbow on Reddit
  187. The benefit of using this weapon was that it didn’t require exceptionally good aim.

    An area of the city a fifth of a mile wide and a mile long was pulverized. Buildings were driven into ground, and broke into chunks no larger than a human head. The wavelength of the beam let those chunks lift up for a fraction of a second before the next wave of the beam thrust them down again with the same force as before.

    The Simurgh was almost, almost out of the path of the beam. He clipped her, and she reoriented, pulling out of the way even as she was hurled back and down.

    Much of the lower body she had been building broke away from the force of the impact. A wing shattered. The remainder was lost in the plume of smoke that rose from the tract of land he had blasted. - Last 20.a
  188. chandra381: You mean Sunder x Muscle Brute right? I would suspect it is short for "Poundtown". What would such a brute look like? Raw mass and offensive tools (the Muscle aspect) + aggressive defensive measures that weaken foes (the Sunder aspect).

    So you basically hit someone - and keep on hitting them till it's game over since they become weaker or hurt themselves if they try to fight back, I would imagine.

    Wildbow: 100% right. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit
  189. Brute form that is especially equipped to deliver debilitating injuries and status conditions.
    [...]
    One of the following options applies on hit (chosen once at character creation & locked in):
    • The first Brawn-based melee attack or attack made with the mutated weapon (if any) in a given round inflicts a special bleeding status, while reducing the higher of the target's Brawn or Dexterity scores by 1 for 3 rounds. Each subsequent hit resets the duration while compounding the effect (adding further bleeding). Hits against targets that can't bleed do the ability score damage twice. If the ability scores are both 1 when they should be lowered, annihilate the target instead. Those who were bleeding have all remaining blood evacuate their body with the final blow.
    • As above, except as follows: tears muscle, lowering max # of attacks per turn (to minimum of 1) and maximum movement distance by 5'. Ability score damage is to Brawn and Athletics. Hits against targets without any means of muscle-based locomotion do double the ability score damage instead. Annihilated targets with muscles collapse like ragdolls, their hearts as the final muscle to be torn from position.
    • As above, except as follows: each hit rattles the senses, inducing blinding pain, with 1d4-2 rolled on the minor shock table (no effect on a 1-2, -2 to Wits checks on a 3, confuse on a 4). Also includes pain status that is focus-relevant and induces minor wounds on skill use. Ability score damage is to Dex and Wits. Hits against targets immune to shocks do two instances of ability score damage instead. Annihilated subjects with brains are rendered vegetative with no hope of recovery.
    • As above, but delivers damage to internal structures such as bones and brain. Induces pain (trigger: taking further damage) and overall loss of functionality: every N actions the target takes, they lose half an action, ending their turn or having reduced capacity on their next turn, with N being 2+ the target's Guts, -1 per hit after the first. Pausing for rest or healing resets the countdown to a missed action. Ability score damage is done to Brawn, Know, and Guts. No target is immune to the loss of functionality, but some may be immune to minor wounds from pain. Annihilated targets are caved in.
    The status and ability score damage is delivered by special mechanisms. Ability score damage is always dealt, provided the subject has some. Even something like an Endbringer could be brought to 0, theoretically, if the Brute could survive in melee and press the attack for long enough.

    Ability score damage is recovered at the rate of 1 per round, recovering the stat of the target's choice (they choose if they want to regain focus or try to stand up straighter, for example). When not stated, duration for status effects is the 3 rounds from most recent hit or until they're patched up (for bleeding, as an example). - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit
  190. Naphtha was striding down the hallway, coming in our direction. He stopped us. “Changers?”

    “No changers in our team,” Tristan said. “Why?”

    Naphtha getting close enough meant I felt the oil touch my skin, as it touched everything in a certain radius of Naphtha. He pulled it away from me as it touched me, but my skin crawled with the memory of the feel of it.

    “Another crisis. Similar to the others. Going to announce it to the dining hall,” Naphtha explained. “I don’t suppose any of you feel brave enough to go up against Sleeper? Absolute invulnerability better than Alexandria’s, special brains, absolute annihilation powers?” - From Within 16.2
  191. The Simurgh lay prone within the storm that was the Sleeper. Unmoving. That hadn’t been him. That had been Dauntless, acting with the benefit of Titan Fortuna’s sight, guiding the direction of the blast.

    The storm crackled, boiled, popped, the colors taking on a rainbow sheen that somehow felt it shouldn’t make sense with the way the colors unfolded.

    That would be enough to take her out of the picture. - Last 20.a
  192. The Simurgh was out of action. Sleeper had her. - Last 20.10
  193. “First of all, the Sleeper is retreating. He is not an immediate danger, and we will let you know as soon as we can, if that changes.”
    [...]
    “The Sleeper was lured to the city specifically to slow down the Titans and was used to trap the Simurgh. Some of our best minds and strategists are confident the Simurgh is dealt with.”
    [...]
    “Didn’t you want to be a lawyer?” Presley asked, leaning onto the snow-dusted railing. In the distance, Sleeper’s cloud was receding. - Last 20.b
  194. “Uh. Mine is a blaster power,” Rain said. “It’s pretty mediocre. I shoot things or people and they’re vulnerable to being broken for a short while after. To put it simply.” - Flare 2.6
  195. A silver blade cut through the air. Precipice’s answer to Love Lost’s scream. It hit the chains that Hookline had made, but it drew no silver lines.

    They’re protected by Hookline’s power, I thought. - Blinding 11.11
  196. Rain was over there, I saw. Awake, coherent, trying to help out. But Rain’s power was at its weakest right now. He could create the blades, but he couldn’t throw them. - Last 20.7
  197. Someone shot one chunk. Others warped, veering out of the way.

    A pillar of black-blue Capricorn stone speared out below us, more a barrier than the chunks it shoved out of the way, then dissipated into motes of light a second later.

    We closed the distance, and the blade met the Simurgh’s silver flesh, carving out a shimmering silver line, so close in color that it looked like there was no line at all. From shoulder to back, to hip. - Last 20.7
  198. There was a dull rumble as more of our surroundings tore away, ready to smash us, and I decided to make the call. To break away, to say this is enough.

    I couldn’t drop Rain, or risk losing him, which meant I had to use me. I kicked out, hard, my foot meeting the silver line. It flared, bright, and the Simurgh’s wings spread out around us, until they were ninety percent of what I could see. The pain of the jolt reaching my ribs and collarbone made my vision split. I couldn’t see straight. - Last 20.7
  199. There was a crash far below us.

    I managed to focus my vision on a distant point, feeling like a baby trying to focus her eyes for the first time.

    Below us, more than half of the Simurgh’s body, including one arm, some smaller wings, and both legs, lay on the basement level of the facility. The accumulated damage from the Wardens, Rain, the beams, and the temperature shifts had added up enough for it to break away entirely. It lay there, limp and still.

    The rest of her had slipped away. - Last 20.7
  200. It wasn’t a bullet I had to worry about. I was flying, thinking I was safe, when lines began to appear. Silvery, but crisp, like slices in reality, reaching well over the building.

    Not meant for me, but dangerous all the same. I flew past one, and the Wretch had a limb extended. I felt the Wretch get sliced, felt the dim sensation that was the Wretch’s extended being part. The forcefield didn’t collapse. It cut.

    A gaping hole in my forcefield, now, where there had been a bit of torso and shoulder. - Heavens 12.7
  201. I took flight, aiming to go over, and saw Cradle move in the same instant he turned his head my way. I made myself stop, twisting, as the lines appeared.

    Sudden appearance, each one sharper than any blade, and capable of cutting through powered defenses. - Heavens 12.8
  202. “This cloud around my blade? Nanotechnology. Nano-structures engineered to slide between atoms, sever molecular bonds. Cuts through anything. Everything. Like a sharp knife through air.” - Extermination 8.4
  203. I’d seen him fight Endbringers in that suit, seen how he could move as fast as anyone who wasn’t a speedster, turning his spinning weapon and those shield-like extensions on his armor into a whirling flurry of nano-thorns, cutting through seventy to eighty percent of the Endbringer’s flesh before they reached material too dense to penetrate. - Sting 26.2
  204. Dust rose from the claw as the blade sank deep, blood poured out, but the blade remained fixed in place. Armsmaster tugged, failed to dislodge it. He tried to pull away, but I could see Leviathan had caught onto his hand and wrist with his clawtips, while the Halberd sat embedded in his ‘palm’.

    “How!?” Armsmaster roared. - Extermination 8.4
  205. Lung was the next one to speak. “What did she do?”

    “Upgraded Leviathan,” Tattletale said. “Attuned some device to the right frequency or setting, then tapped into his core without doing too much harm to Leviathan. Fed things into there. Knowledge, data, nanotechnology.”

    Defiant’s head turned, as if Tattletale had said something.

    “Yeah,” Tattletale said. “Nanotech. Why do you think the fins were turning water to mist?”

    My tech?” Defiant asked.

    “Among one or two other advancements. If the density rules are in effect, I’d bet those fins are just as hard to cut through as Leviathan’s arm or torso. Disintegration effect, maybe something else.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.5
  206. Embrionoclast: say hes a giant cockroach like taylor and gets to fight leviathan like 5 times could he get enough info to ever beat leviathan

    manic™: He has no way to breach the core
    So no

    Wildbow: He could breach the core. But it would take an unreasonably long time and all the while he's dealing with Leviathan being in arm's reach. - Conversation with Wildbow on Parahumans Discord
  207. Siberian, Damsel, Scrub, Flechette, and Grey Boy are Worm capes at the 'if anything can penetrate that defense, these guys penetrate that defense' level of attack. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  208. 208.0 208.1 Can't cite anything, but there's a line that sorta appears in the story, where you run into the perfects (perfect defense, perfect offense) and stuff gets fucky - and the rule of thumb is that 'unless your ability beats -everything-, it doesn't beat this'. For processing power Contessa's ability would be on this level (as with Flechette's Sting, Clockblocker's inviolability, Siberian's invulnerability). - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  209. As a rule, the only things that are actually going to penetrate the center of their bodies are things that ignore the laws of physics. - Wildbow on Reddit
  210. Flechette, Lily – [...] Her power allows her to imbue nonliving material with the ability to ignore select laws of physics, to the point that they can pass through virtually anything, including Endbringers and forcefields, among other defensive powers. - Cast (In Depth)
  211. Flechette fired a needle through Leviathan’s knee, and the Endbringer’s leg buckled. He collapsed into a kneeling position, the knee striking the ground. - Extermination 8.5
  212. He clapped, and a shockwave tore through the area. Rachel was already directing the dogs; they moved so there was cover, buildings between them and Behemoth. The chain, imbued by Foil’s ability to shear through anything, cut through the buildings as though there was nothing there.

    And just like that, they made it. The dogs passed Behemoth, a hundred and twenty feet of chain maintained between them, and the chain cut through him as easily as Foil’s arbalest bolts had. - Crushed 24.4
  213. Nekron-akaMrSkeletal: I guess that works. I was actually wondering about sting. If Foil had been at the behemoth fight could she have finished behemoth when his core was exposed?

    Wildbow: Yep. - Reply by Wildbow on Reddit
  214. “I’m invulnerable,” Caryatid growls.

    “I blow up invulnerable people,” their March answers.

    “She does,” Vista says. “Go. Run. Make sure everyone’s on the same page.” - Heavens 12.all
  215. The likes of Scrub, Damsel, Foil, or March would be able to damage Alexandria. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  216. The issue was that after they discovered the full ramifications of her powers, the Endbringers changed their methodology. Leviathan made hit and run attacks that meant he was gone and attacking another city before Scion/Foil/anyone else reached a location, Simurgh attacked abstract targets, Khonsu teleported, and Tohu/Bohu were difficult to pin down or find easy answers to. - Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  217. “Scrub,” I said.

    “He’s working under Ballistic,” Tattletale said. “I’ll get him on board by any means. He’s one of the few people, short of Flechette, who can deal guaranteed damage to an Endbringer or Endbringer-Lite, and I have ideas about him and how I could use him.” - Queen 18.5
  218. For our offensive tricks, our heavy hitters were out. [...] Damsel was injured and uncooperative. - Last 20.7
  219. Wildbow:
    i really doubt ashley can pop sibby
    Ashley could pop Siberian
    It's why she came up as a possible thing in relation to Sleeper
    Ashley was named in a WoG a while back talking about the 'anything but' powers and stuff like Alexandria Invulnerability. - Comment by Wildbow on Discord, archived on Spacebattles
  220. There were capes with the sort of power where it didn’t matter what the fuck they were shooting, they’d put a hole in that something. Damsel’s power was like that. So was Foil’s.
    [...]
    Oberon pushed over the building, and in the process, collided with Damsel. She’d been within the upper floor of the building, using her power to hold and contain a large sphere of the annihilation energy.

    Sveta evacuated her as the building came to pieces, and Oberon fell over, a large hole in his upper chest.

    It didn’t stop him, but one of his arms hung at his side. - Radiation 18.6
  221. “There’s a truce,” I told her. “The whole idea is we work together. Let me help you kick ass.”

    “What’s the point of stopping her if it costs me everything?” she asked. - Last 20.7
  222. “Damsel of Distress,” I said. She snapped her head around to glare at me. “It means you’re more focused, and you can annihilate more chunks of Endbringers and Titans. I saw you out there. We all want you out there as long as possible.”

    “You want me weak,” she told us. “So your dear Swansong can sneak in, blur the boundaries between me and her, take over, and then you’ll have her back.” - Last 20.2
  223. “Doing this? Not giving an inch? It makes you weaker, not stronger. It’s fragile, being inflexible.”

    “Fuck you,” she said. Uncharacteristically vulgar, blunt, with a minimum of pride or herself in the line.

    I didn’t really have a response to it, either.

    “You just want me to cave, so she comes out.” - Last 20.7
  224. She wasn’t talking about the Simurgh. She was talking about Ashley. Our Ashley. Breakthrough’s.
    [...]
    “That’s the vector the Simurgh chose to attack you through?” I asked. “Swansong?”

    “None of your business.”
    [...]
    “Will you let me help you? Please?”

    She scowled, and shook her head. - Last 20.7
  225. It took me a second to realize what had happened. Leviathan hung frozen mid-pounce, and his emerging afterimage similarly stood there, frozen in time. In the midst of the afterimage was Clockblocker, half-immersed in water. - Extermination 8.3
  226. “The upside is that whoever he touches is also untouchable. Can’t be hurt, can’t be moved. Period. He uses that defensively, and he can do stuff like throw paper or cloth in the air and freeze it in time, making an unbreakable shield. You don’t want to run into something that’s frozen. A car that drove into the side of a piece of paper that Clockblocker had touched would be cut in two before it budged the paper.” - Agitation 3.3
  227. On the monitors, a successful hit on Eidolon’s part struck Behemoth into the grid of wires. It had taken time for the Endbringer to approach the wires, set safely outside of his kill range, and some were already coming free of Clockblocker’s power. Still, they sank deep, cutting a diamond-shaped pattern into his hide, shoulder to heel. Alexandria charged, trying to drive it home, and Behemoth struck out with one claw, a swipe. - Crushed 24.4
  228. “For the record, that last trick was a temporal stasis trigger, with thanks owed to the cooperation of a subordinate of mine. Drains my battery reserves, but you don’t understand that, do you?”

    Leviathan lunged, and Armsmaster fired out the grappling hook, stopped it in mid air by freezing it in time. - Extermination 8.4
  229. 229.00 229.01 229.02 229.03 229.04 229.05 229.06 229.07 229.08 229.09 229.10 229.11 229.12 229.13 229.14 229.15 229.16 229.17 229.18 229.19 229.20 229.21 229.22 229.23 229.24 229.25 229.26 229.27 Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  230. 230.0 230.1 Behemoth is the first, he's a dynakinetic, capable of absorbing and producing energy in its various forms. Fire, electricity, sound, kinetic energy and radiation, as well as more alien forms of energy. This compounds his natural toughness as he can simply absorb and redirect the energy from a given attack, and can do it for all forms of energy, though he prefers to focus more on offense and leave gaps to draw people in closer/feint. He's a walking, lumbering piece of artillery and he's gotten up from a blast that would have wiped India off the map. If anyone gets within 30 feet of him he can blow past standard defenses and simply manifest energy within them, burning them to a crisp from the inside out (best interpreted as disintegration). Behemoth is also known as 'herokiller' as he's removed several notable heroes using this radius of death. - Wildbow on Reddit
  231. 231.0 231.1 Cast (spoiler-free)
  232. Excerpt from Extermination 8.2
  233. "To Armsmaster, the Guild and the rest of the PRT, Dragon was a woman from Newfoundland who had moved to Vancouver after Leviathan had attacked.", Excerpt from Interlude 10.5
  234. Migration 17.1
  235. It was the day before Christmas Eve, Krouse remembered. - Migration 17.7
  236. His last attack had been in November. He wouldn’t appear for another five weeks at a minimum, unless he deviated from the Endbringer patterns. - Excerpt from Interlude 10.5
  237. 237.00 237.01 237.02 237.03 237.04 237.05 237.06 237.07 237.08 237.09 237.10 237.11 Excerpt from Scarab 25.6
  238. [1] from WD_Oakland
  239. Confirmation by Wildbow.
  240. 240.0 240.1 240.2 She took my cue. “New costumes, a new group. Behemoth is defeated and it looks like the Endbringers might have reverted to the schedule they had pre-2002. An attack every four to five months.”
    [...]
    Two attacks, two months apart. Had their schedule changed? Would the next attack come in a mere two months, or would it be more unpredictable than that?

    No, I thought, with a dawning horror. No, it was worse than that. The Endbringer’s schedule of attack had always depended on the number of Endbringers in the rotation.

    If they were keeping to their usual rules, it promised a fifth, waiting in the wings. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.4
  241. Comment by Wildbow: - No turns, per se.
    The same Endbringer doesn’t attack twice in a row, and the Endbringers don’t strike the same location twice in a row, but beyond that, it’s fairly up in the air.
    It could go B L B S B S B L B, for example.
  242. AacornSoup: On one hand, stuff like the Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine would make the Olympics too risky to continue (as the commenters on the thread mentioned). On the other hand, I could easily see Cauldron running a Path To Keep The Olympics Going to preserve Earth Bet morale and uphold the illusion that the world isn't ending.

    Wildbow: The olympics carried on. They weren't targeted. There were periodic minor scandals re: powers or suspicions of powers, required MRIs, yadda yadda, but it wasn't impacted/wasn't a big deal.

    In the real world, terrorist attacks and natural disasters are a concern, but the Olympics go on regardless. Coronavirus is a concern but the Olympics are going ahead with just a few extra measures. Similar mentality.

    Endbringers tend to target vulnerable targets, and a location with lots of prepared capes on the ground keeping things copacetic, evacuation instructions, and whatever else... just isn't really an optimal target. There might've been a great deal of hemming and hawing in that middle phase where Endbringers were largely an unknown and their patterns recognized but not fully understood. However, in the end, if one country declines to host the games, another will jump at the chance. It's too much money/prestige. - Conversation with Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles
  243. Case two was Behemoth, his rise had incited the creation of the PRT.
    [...]
    The first cases had inspired things, major functions and interests. Committees had been formed and those committees had become something. Even though a whole chunk of the early ones were minor or fabrications in the end, the virus theory included, they’d led to things like a dedicated parahuman science department. - Excerpt from Shadow 5.10
  244. “The point we’re getting around to,” Alexandria spoke, “Is that even if the Doctor can get better results with time and effort, the explosion in the natural parahuman population is inevitably going to produce an individual with powers that outstrip our own.” - Excerpt from Interlude 15
  245. "It’s what happened in… what was that place called? Lausanne? Switzerland. She showed up, and nobody wanted to pick a fight with her, and they were curious, so they studied her, and tried to communicate with her. Tons of people gathered. Then she… sang? Screamed? Whatever this is. There was chaos, people didn’t know what was happening, so they weren’t able to evacuate that well. Roads clogged. And then they started flipping out...." - Excerpt from Migration 17.3
  246. Interlude 10.5
  247. Interlude 22.y
  248. Migration
  249. 249.0 249.1 “Nothing’s truly random,” Colin explained, his voice tight, “Any data shows a pattern eventually, if you dig deep enough. Dragon started work on an early warning system for the Endbringers, to see if we can’t anticipate where they’ll strike next, prepare to some degree. We know there’s some rules they follow, though we don’t know why. They come one at a time, months apart, rarely hitting the same area twice in a short span of time. We know they’re drawn to areas where they perceive vulnerability, where they think they can cause the most damage. Nuclear reactors, the Birdcage, places recently hit by natural disasters…”

    He clicked the mouse, and the image zoomed in on a section of the coastline.

    “…Or ongoing conflict,” Hannah finished for him, her eyes widening. “The ABB, Empire Eighty-Eight, the fighting here? It’s coming here? Now?”

    Colin didn’t have a reply for her. “Dragon? Brockton Bay falls within the predicted zone, and the city is on the list of locations that rate high enough on the sensitivity or negative media scale. Add my data, the correlations between abrupt microshifts in temperature, air pressure and-”

    “The data is good.” Dragon’s voice, synthesized to mask the most telling details about her identity, held no trace of doubt. - Excerpt from Interlude 7
  250. Coil shook his head, “One thing at a time. If he is here because he’s seeking someone who could harm him, the only individuals on site who would be capable are Sundancer and your Noelle.”

    [...]

    Shit,” Trickster swore. “That’s why he’s here. Just like Leviathan, Crawler’s coming after her?” - Excerpt from Interlude 11f
  251. 251.0 251.1 The fight with Leviathan in Brockton Bay had been a good day. We’d lost people, we’d lost good capes, but we’d more or less bounced back, made it three-quarters of the way back to where we needed to be, in a matter of months. There had been ugliness, infighting, a hell of a lot of doubt, but we’d started to make our way back to where we should be. It had been the lowest number of casualties we’d had in an Endbringer attack in years, not counting a few of the Simurgh attacks. A good day.

    This? This isn’t a good day. - Excerpt from Crushed 24.5
  252. “...This young man has been observed in the south end, moving at over a hundred miles an hour with the assistance of a mechanical suit. His inclusion on a local team would help fill gaps left by the death of Velocity, a local Protectorate member, and Armsmaster’s retirement.”

    Weld nodded.

    “Others may make themselves known, and we will approach each of them in turn. To help fill the gap in the meantime, Flechette is arriving from New York.” - Excerpt from Sentinel 9.1
  253. “In the meantime, we move on to the next phase of my plan,” Coil spoke. “You may be wondering about this location, how it is similar to the new headquarters I provided you. I have outfitted these areas to be your stations, points from which you will operate, work to seize and keep territory. I have several more. If you’re amenable, I would have each of you take one of these stations for yourself. Grue, this would be your station, shared with Imp, which I assume is alright?” - Excerpt from Parasite 10.6
  254. “Priority number one, I want the data on the Slaughterhouse Nine.”

    I felt a chill, but didn’t say anything. Was he intending to hire them? It would be a huge mistake in my book, if he was.

    Regent asked the question for me, “The Slaughterhouse Nine?”

    “At least some of their members have been seen in town, preying on the locals, disrupting recovery efforts. The recent chaos makes the city a playground for them,” Coil spoke. “One of my teams is bound to run up against them soon.” - Excerpt from Parasite 10.6
  255. “A weapon,” he said. “A… how do you Americans say it? Time bomb? Only this is joke.”

    “He makes portals,” Kismet said. “Using them, he can send things back in time. Something goes in portal B, comes out of portal A a few minutes earlier. Or the other way around.”

    “Or, as I discover, I make loop,” Phir Sē said. “Weaponize. Simple light, captured in one moment, redoubled many times over. I move gate, and that light will pour forth and clean.” - Excerpt from Crushed 24.3
  256. But Behemoth… the Endbringer was little more than a skeleton with extensive padding. He’d never seen this much damage delivered. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.x
  257. “Those Endbringer motherfuckers. I told you that you need to stop them, that you need to fight and protect people. And you have been.”

    He clenched his hands, stared down at the ground, “And god help me, maybe I wasn’t specific enough. Maybe I didn’t realize you’d interpret me literally. We need you to kill the things. Destroy every last trace of them, throw them into space. Don’t know. But fight to kill, don’t just… God, I hope I’m wrong, that I’m remembering the words I chose all wrong, and that you didn’t hear my suggestion and take it to mean you should fight for fighting’s sake, or fight to stop them, but not to stop them for good. You understand? Don’t just stop them from doing what they were doing. Stop them permanently.” - Excerpt from Interlude 18.x
  258. Interlude 24.y
  259. Tecton ventured a reply instead. “I think I understand what Cuff means. It’s hard to believe he’s gone. It’s like, you’re five years old, and Leviathan appears for the first time, and your parents have to explain that a bunch of people died, and it’s because of these monsters and yet nobody has figured out why.”

    “Yeah,” Cuff said. “What happens next? Leviathan or the Simurgh? We kill them? Stop them from blowing up or doing their version of blowing up? I can’t really imagine that we’d beat them, give our all and hope that Scion shows up and fights like that again, kill them, and then have everything be okay.”
    [...]
    “And now we killed one, so how do they escalate from there?” Grace asked.

    “It’s a concern,” Tecton said, “And it’s one that people all around the world are going to be discussing. Rely on them. Don’t take the full weight of the world onto your shoulders. We fought, you guys made a good show of it,” Tecton said. - Excerpt from Interlude 24.y
  260. “All around the world, people seem to be celebrating, but it’s a markedly cautious celebration. Early polls on the UKCC web site suggest that a full eighteen percent of people who voted are waiting for more information or verification before celebrating the heroes’ victory, and ten percent of people don’t intend to celebrate at all.”

    “Not at all?”

    “No, Lizbeth. In the comments thread of the poll, a common trend seems to be the feeling that he isn’t or can’t be dead, that the heroes were mistaken, or that this might even provoke a response from the remaining Endbringers.” - Excerpt from Interlude 24.y
  261. Three days.

    Nearly three days and we hadn’t managed to kill him.

    A new target every thirty minutes, give or take. Ten to twenty minutes for the defending forces to get their shit together. The remainder of that time was our capes trying to hurt him. Chipping away at him. - Excerpt from Scarab 25.5
  262. Tattletale continued without pause, not responding or reacting to this information. “All I’m saying, all I’m proposing, is that Scion’s a better bet than we are. You want to give someone a fucking hard time? Make that someone Scion. You want to terrorize people? Terrorize Scion. Bigger challenge, and you’ll probably have the rest of us fucking scared out of our minds if you pull it off. You want to fucking end the world? Get in line, chickadee, because Scion’s going to beat you to the punch if you don’t stop him.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.4
  263. Well, we knew who she was following.

    “Fuck me,” I could hear Tattletale muttering with the bugs I’d planted on her. The Simurgh came to a stop directly above her. She repeated herself, as if for emphasis. “Fuck me. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.6
  264. “The place Khonsu or Tohu were supposed to appear,” Tattletale said.

    “Quite. It was Khonsu. The Endbringer has imprinted on Teacher’s group, and he has offered to sell that squad, along with the Endbringer, to a sufficiently wealthy buyer. We agreed, if only to keep this from becoming a monopoly on Endbringers.” - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.5
  265. Fins. Leviathan had fins.

    They were like blades, points sweeping backwards. A fin rooted in the side of his arm, from wrist to elbow, the point scything back. Had it not been limp enough to trail on the ground, it might have reached his shoulder. More at the sides of his neck and along the length of his spine, forming an almost serrated pattern where multiple fins overlapped. Perhaps some at his legs. The fins ran down the length of his tail, and ended in a cluster at the end, like the tuft of fur at the end of a lion’s tail, exaggerated many times over in size.

    He flexed a claw, and I could see webbing between each finger, mottled in black and an iridescent green that matched his eyes. It made me think of the bioluminescence of a jellyfish in the deep ocean.

    In synchronous motions, the Simurgh unfurled her wings, stretching them to their full length, and Leviathan flexed his fins, letting them unfold in kind. Each fin was the same as the webbing, mottled black and a eerie green, and the echo-image of water that accompanied his movement produced mist as it washed over the fins. It obscured him almost completely, and as much as the pouring rain served to drive it away, the rainwater produced more mist as it touched the fins. - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.5
  266. Which was the moment the Endbringers made their move.

    The Simurgh plunged from the clouds, hitting Scion.

    Leviathan, healed a touch, emerged from the water.

    Bohu rose from the earth, going from a human sized head and shoulders at eye level to a tower.

    Tohu, for her part, had Glaistig Uaine, Eidolon and Myrddin’s faces.

    The Endbringers, come to the rescue. I wished I could have felt relieved. It was a reprieve, a chance to get our footing. But there was an ominousness to it. - Excerpt from Speck 30.5
  267. “I’ve never been one to couch my words. I’m direct, like my lasers,” Legend said. “It’s beautiful and it’s frankly terrifying. The Endbringers are, we’re praying, dormant. The major players are busy recovering and rebuilding, giving us six straight months of peace for the first time in twenty years. If you count non-parahuman conflict on a global scale, well, I don’t know how long it’s been. It’s been a hell of a while, if ever.” - Excerpt from Teneral e.1
  268. Shipping wasn't hurt because of boats - Leviathan tended to have periods of activity where he'd attack a city, then retreat to deep water. Boats weren't really hurt, except incidentally.

    Shipping was hurt because ports in target cities and port cities near the targets were left devastated. (Also port cities visited by Simurgh/Behemoth/Tohu Bohu/Khonsu) Shipping still is a thing in the Wormverse. - Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles
  269. Way I see it, having a local team of superheroes is like having a sports team. Everyone's rooting for them, they make for great media that isn't about wars or the water crisis or whatever - Agitation 3.6
  270. Pandemonious Ivy [...] 9) Are there any internationally known capes of the beneficent variety, besides Scion, that aren’t affiliated with a group?

    Wildbow: [...] 9) Not really, unless you count, say, a European cape in a geographical region with lots of individual, smaller countries as being ‘internationally known’. It’s a result of the Endbringers, related but not directly linked to the Protectorate. It’s not feasible/economical/efficient to contact a bunch of big-name solo operatives in a time of crisis and arrange to bring them to a specific location, so they either band together/gather others under them and fall in line with the basic preparations that have been set in place, or they fall by the wayside. - Comment by Wildbow on Imago 21.1
  271. Shadow 5.10
  272. Heavens 12.x
  273. 273.0 273.1 “Stationed around the world, at the borders of the stronger nations,” the entity informed the Wardens. “Like yours, they’re remaining more or less stationary, only attacking when they see weakness.”

    “And you believe it is the Shepherds who are responsible?”

    The entity shook its head. “I can’t know. You’ve seen for yourself, the powerful blocks they’ve put in place against powers. But enough clues point to the Shepherds.” - Excerpt from Interlude 29
  274. 274.0 274.1 “They’ve released three more of the superweapons,” Partisan said. “But of course, you know this.”

    “I do,” the entity responds.

    “This makes nine. Four are at the Divide. We’ve got one to the far north, poised to flank us. Four more spread out over the world.”

    “Maybe more we don’t know about,” Arsenal speaks.

    [...]

    The entity responded, feigning emotion, “…There are eleven more.”

    It could see the reaction among the gathered heroes of the Wardens. Fear, alarm, a kind of dawning horror. - Excerpt from Interlude 29
  275. A figure, fifteen feet tall, pale, with a lion’s head, a mane of crystal. Muscular, brutish, it was perched on a massive floating crystal, with more crystals floating about it. Here and there, the crystals touched ground. They turned what they touched into more crystal, which soon uprooted themselves to join the storm around it.

    A woman, even more brutish in appearance, had a reptilian lower body. Steam rolled off her in billowing clouds, taking uncanny forms as it coiled and expanded through the area. Faces, reaching claws and more.

    And on the third monitor, flecked by static, was a naked man, beautiful and long-haired, his face touched with a macabre grin. He perched on top of an ocean wave that was frozen in place, his body too flexible, moving with the wind as though he were light enough to be carried away. - Excerpt from Interlude 29
  276. “We know they’re projections,” Arsenal said, his eyes on the monitors. “Someone or something is projecting them. We cut off the head, the superweapons fall.”

    “Yes,” the entity agreed. It didn’t miss the curious glance Arsenal gave it. - Excerpt from Interlude 29
  277. “She’s a nascent Endbringer,” I said.

    “Bullshit!” Triumph shouted, not a half second after I’d said it.

    “Fuck me,” one of the Wards said. It was only after he opened his mouth again that I saw it was Weld. “Please tell me this is another one of Tattletale’s mind-games.”

    “Explain.” Miss Militia demanded.

    “She’s maybe a nascent Endbringer,” Tattletale said. “It’s one theory. Her powers are transforming her, and she’s getting less human, getting tougher and more desperate every day. Coil was keeping her contained, with heavy vault doors and promises of a fix. Now she’s free and she’s pissed.”
  278. “Someone’s doing their level best to make their own Endbringer.”
    [...]
    “Yes. There’s also any number of megalomaniac tinkers out there who might have tried something. Bonesaw, Rattenfänger, Jamestowner, Blasto, Mosaic, Monstrum, some non-tinkers like Chrysalis and Nilbog, bunch of others.” - Excerpt from Queen 18.1
  279. They're explicitly stated as not being strong enough, but the theory goes that they could find some outside means for cooperation or a power boost/second trigger. - Wildbow on RPG.net

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Endbringers
Behemoth Leviathan The SimurghKhonsu *Tohu *Bohu *
S-Class Threats
Endbringers Behemoth Leviathan The SimurghKhonsu *Tohu *Bohu *
Titans The Kronos Titan Titan Eve Titan Fortuna The Nemean Titan Titan Arachne Titan Oberon The Ashen Titan Titan Skadi The Ophion Titan The Strange Titan Auger Titaness Amenonuhoko The Flowing Titan Drillbit The Liminal Titan Pouffe Valkyrie  • Morgana  • Yakshini  • Ashoka  • Ghast 
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