Chapter 54: 4-7 Seal

Seal 4.7

2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria

We woke up at ten in the morning after a restless four or five hours of sleep, which meant about three back home. I didn't know if someone on the Syrian side was making a joke about us being Americans or if it really was what they had available, but breakfast was a few boxes of frozen waffles heated in the microwave for speed. At least there was some simple syrup from the bar to go with it.

We got dressed, ate, and rushed to relieve the night shift. I took a few extra minutes to track down the Canadian camp so I could give the Pledge Regalia back to Wieldmaiden. SAINT went along with her just to make sure she didn't try to pass it off to anyone, but she seemed like the trustworthy sort. Just the fact that she worked for the Guild as opposed to the Protectorate made her more trustworthy in my eyes.

Then, when I returned, I was greeted by one Luke Jameson of the PRT who was responsible for communications between different medical centers. It was clear that he didn't typically spend his time on humanitarian missions abroad. The man was rail-thin, pale, and looked like he was being carried by a metric fuck-ton of coffee.

I respected him more for being here.

"Creed of the… Creed?" He asked, stuttering a bit when he realized The GOAT and I technically never named ourselves.

"That's me. How can I help you, Agent Jameson?"

"Ah, we'd like you to move to medic station C-1. We usually like to keep people from the same cities nearby, but with your healing tech and Panacea already being here…"

I frowned in my helmet. Getting assigned elsewhere would kind of defeat the purpose of doing this alongside my best friend, but I could see their logic. If there were two effective healers, it was natural to spread us out so we could maximize the number of patients treated and decrease the distance they had to be ferried.

"I understand. Come on, I want to tell Panacea I'm gone," I ushered him towards the buzzing volunteers. "Tell me more about it. Where is C-1 and who's in charge there?"

He pulled out a map for me to look at. On it, a long gash had been painted cutting through Damascus, reaching east to the pipeline, and then cutting sharply northward. Three colors, labeled A, B, and C, marked the three different sectors.

"We're in B-3, here, and about smack-dab in the middle. C-1 is here, on the far outskirts of Damascus. It's directly adjacent to the largest refugee camp and is being overseen in a joint venture by the Syrian Republican Guard and the New York Protectorate. Arsalan and Ursa Aurora are the respective capes in charge," he began to fill me in. From what I could tell, C-1 was a solid twenty-four miles away in a straight line, if I didn't mind going through irradiated areas. "I guess the higher-ups figured one of you could handle the refugee camp and take a load off that end of the theater of operations. We heard you were mobile, yes?"

"I am. I'm not familiar with Arsalan though. And wouldn't the one in charge of the New York delegation be Legend?"

"Arsalan is the head of the Lionguard, one of several powered divisions of the Syrian Republican Guard. Their primary mission is to resist foreign influence, particularly from Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. If you think of them as a more militarized version of the Protectorate that handles internal investigations within the government of Syria, you wouldn't be incorrect. They've got a lot of power around here. At the moment though, they've all been called up as security.

"As for Arsalan himself, he's one of President al-Asad's most trusted field commanders and has a similar prestige as the Triumvirate in America. Or perhaps Myrddin or Armsmaster. As for Legend… He was injured during the battle with Behemoth and is recuperating in New York. I heard he's still busy helping streamline the logistics of all this."

"I see. Thank you. I'm going to have to circle around the irradiated areas, but I should be there in ten minutes. Please let them know."

I took off after telling everyone where I'd be. I also had someone from the Guild pass on my location to Wieldmaiden so she'd know where to return my gear.

I still had no idea how Germa fibers would deal with radiation so I instead skipped into the air. The quiet hum of Crown Chimera as it processed water vapor into a solid surface beneath my feet filled the air. However brief, the thought of racing through the sky again brought a smile to my face. It was a welcome distraction from what promised to be another nerve-wracking day.

With a hard kick that sent a plume of mist behind me, I climbed into the sky and headed westward so I could circle around the irradiated area altogether. When I was far enough away, I popped Agility, holding back just enough to stay within the sound barrier.

X

There was no way to be kind about it: The spontaneously sprouted tent city looked like a chaotic mess.

It wasn't just the people who'd been in Behemoth's path who had to be evacuated. Such a large swathe of destruction also caused significant damage to the city's infrastructure such as roads, power lines, and water and sewage mains. That led to widespread rioting, both powered and unpowered crime, and a host of other issues exacerbated by human factors. Despite the capital city not being the primary objective of Behemoth's attack, it nonetheless had an outsized effect on the population.

The north end of the camp, nearest to Behemoth's trail, had been converted into station C-1. As one of the largest refugee camps, it made sense then that there was a lot more going on than just medics trying to treat people fished up from the ongoing search and rescue efforts.

One area, a sprawling dirt lot, was clearly set aside as a supply depot to distribute necessities like blankets, water, food, and vital medications. A series of giant bulletin boards had been set up in another and a man was shouting over the crowd with a megaphone in Arabic, probably about pertinent news or a list of missing persons who had been recovered. A third area that looked to be a bit more put together was guarded by armed soldiers bearing the Syrian flag, presumably where the console and command center were. All told, I arrived at a picture of barely contained bedlam.

I chose to drop down near the medical tents. Unlike B-3, there were no readily available buildings to use on the outskirts of the city so hastily constructed tents would have to suffice. My arrival wasn't exactly subtle; a column of mist swirled around me as I alighted softly onto the dirt road.

Immediately, I heard people shouting in Arabic. Half a dozen soldiers pointed their guns at me, though none of them violated the truce by firing. Still, I kept the hem of my cape close and my aura ready to flare into a Protect.

I held up my hands, palms out to show I wasn't armed. I then pointed at myself and introduced myself. "I am Creed, a tinker with healing tech. Is there anyone who speaks English here?"

After a bit, a familiar face came running. Patrick Wilshire, the medic I'd worked with yesterday, had likewise been reassigned, probably so I wouldn't have to get used to anyone else. He and an interpreter said something to the soldiers that got them to relax.

"You really know how to make an entrance, Creed," he said. "I heard you were assigned here too and figured you'd be coming on a jeep or something."

"Sorry about that. I skate faster. So, how are things here?"

"I don't know much either. I actually arrived five minutes ago, but I can take you to the coordinator in charge."

I was about to follow Wilshire when I heard several sets of heavy, grinding footsteps. I turned to find a tall, tan man in armor made of grayish-brown sandstone. In full regalia, he stood about seven feet tall and the sandstone around him was shaped into a lion so the jaws opened to encircle his face. He also had a mane of dark-brown hair and beard that fit his motif. In one hand, he carried an oversized scimitar with a large emerald embedded into the pommel. His other hand was clad in an oversized sandstone gauntlet that ended in claws reminiscent of Wolverine.

Behind him were a series of sandstone statues, all shaped like lion-men of course. They had a similar build as him and marched in lockstep. Then, as one, they stomped the ground and arrayed themselves into neat columns. I counted twenty-four. Though they held no weapons, they were an impressive sight.

"What's going on here?" the lead lion-man asked in thickly accented English. He had a bit of a husky growl to his words, though one I was fairly sure was affected rather than natural. It made him sound like a teenager trying to emulate a smoker.

"I'm Creed, a tinker with healing tech. I just arrived to get sorted," I told him.

"I am Arsalan, captain of the Lionguard. I am in charge here."

"Hello, captain. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Yes. You are healer, yes?"

"I am. You should have received notice from the PRT over in B-3."

He shouted something back in Arabic. Someone said something else and he nodded. "Yes. Boy in gray and orange wearing silly cape. That is you."

I nodded agreeably. I wasn't the one in a fursuit made of sand, but that was no reason to make an enemy today. I had to remind myself that I was a hero now… sorta… "That is indeed me. Where is my station, captain?"

"Go with the medic. We will send you patients."

His piece said, he stomped the ground and did an about-face. His stone soldiers copied him with perfect synchronicity. It looked like something out of a military parade.

I turned back to Wilshire. "So that's why they're called the Lionguard, eh?"

"So I'm told," he said with a wry smile. "There are other members, but I guess the captain got to name the unit. I saw a few more but I think they left to patrol the camp. Come on, I'll show you where we're set up. Same deal as yesterday?"

"That's right. He seemed kind of stiff though."

"Yeah, though we can't blame him too much. He did just see his city get razed to the ground."

"Point. Needing to look professional is probably his way of coping. I also heard something about New York here?"

"Ursa Aurora, Prism, and three Wards led by Jouster."

I frowned. "They're a bit young, no?"

"And you're not?"

"I could just be a really short adult."

"Not a chance. It's in how you act around Panacea and that orange, lizard-boy."

"Fair enough. Let's get to it then."

X

Lily Tondo

2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria

"This blows," Jouster, Ethan, muttered darkly as we hung out on the roof of the distribution center.

The distribution center was one of three set up in the makeshift tent city so aid workers could pass out food, water, medication, blankets, and the like without getting too overwhelmed by people. It occupied one of the few buildings that were available. If what I saw now was supposed to be just a third of the people who needed help, I didn't want to think about how many were already crammed in this camp.

This one where my teammates and I found ourselves was the closest to the command and medical centers. The other two were watched over by members of the Lionguard and Ursa Aurora and Prism respectively.

"It does," I hummed in assent. It was better to let our captain talk his frustrations out than the alternative.

Jouster was a great leader, but a tad too gung-ho. As his power suggested, really. He was a lancer, a charging knight who really only knew how to handle his problems one way: by lunging at them until they stopped being his problems. He wasn't stupid or anything, just very straightforward. I thought that was both his best and worst trait.

Unfortunately, this under-the-breath griping was the result whenever he encountered a problem he couldn't skewer on his lance. Such as our current marching orders.

I didn't hold it against him though; I got it. We were all stuck here beneath the Syrian sun after all, and it was lost on none of us that we'd been given the "safe" depot once again, the one closest to reinforcements. Jouster thought he was being coddled even so far from home, but I didn't mind as much.

"It's hot."

"It is."

"And dusty."

"Yup."

"Why are we up here?"

"We volunteered for this."

"You two can come down anytime you like," Andrew, Shelter, grumbled back. "Seriously, Joust, I made us a shaded dugout to keep watch from. You're the one who decided to go up on the roof."

"I came out for a smoke," our grumpy leader muttered.

"You shouldn't be smoking anyway. And I'm here for the view. The skyline's really quite pretty. I've never been in the Middle East before," I added.

The city had a lot of mosques, which meant stone towers, domes, and other architectural features that weren't exactly common in New York. Or maybe they weren't mosques? Was it racist to assume all domes and towers here were from minarets? Either way, they were interesting to look at, especially with the rising sun framing the skyline, and I wished I'd come at a better time to tour the place.

Besides, it helped for us to be seen. Parahumans in Syria weren't really "superheroes," at least not as I was used to seeing in the states. Most of them were part of the Syrian Republican Guard. A few were criminals. Others were social dissidents? Revolutionaries? Something of a nature I didn't feel qualified to comment on. All I knew was that there was some tension and that our presence was expected to smooth things over, at least for a time.

After a moment of silence, Shelter spoke up, mostly to pass the time. "So, I've been thinking; after we're through here, I want to try working with Kid Win again."

"Who?" Jouster asked. "Sounds familiar."

"Brockton Wards. He's that guy with a hoverboard. We met him briefly during the joint training exercise over the summer."

"Ohh… Hey, isn't he that kid that was super into Hero-themed stuff? Paints all his stuff gold?"

"Heh, yeah. He was new to the hero thing then."

"Why him?"

"He's been messaging practically every tinker in New England saying how he found his specialization and wants to try collaborating again. We tried that for a bit, but he didn't really know what he was good at so it kinda fell apart then. Now though, I'm thinking about giving it another shot. Think the bossman will go for it?"

"Definitely," I added, "you know how big they are on cooperation. What's his specialization?"

"Modularity. It's a good one."

"That's… Sorry if I'm wrong, but isn't that like replaceable parts?"

"At its most basic, sure. Rather than replaceable, 'interchangeable' is the better word, I think. Parts he makes for one thing can be rearranged or slotted into another thing to fit the situation. I messaged him a few days ago and he was working on a teleporter that automatically warps his tech to him from his lab in prearranged configurations. It's fascinating stuff."

I hummed with interest. I wasn't particularly tech-savvy, despite the Asian stereotype, but I did have some interest in the subject. The arbalest resting against my thigh was tinkertech after all. It wasn't great tinkertech, nothing like Armsmaster's halberd or Dragon's million-odd mechs, but it was made for me. Besides, with my power being what it was, some basic understanding of physics went a long way to increasing my effectiveness as a heroine.

"That sounds neat. I'm glad he found his specialization, but what does that mean for you?"

"You know how I make hardlight generators? What if I made a bunch of little generators and teleported them onto the battlefield? Instant castle. Or dugout. Or bridge. Whatever we need, and done in a way that lets me change the environment on the fly. Right now, I'm stuck carrying around a battery and only a few generators so I can keep them all charged."

"That'd be really useful, actually," Jouster said, our chat bringing him out of his griping. "It'd synergize well with me and Flechette. Funnel people so they can't escape me. Or just give her a camera on a drone and let her shoot through walls."

"Exactly! I mean, I can't carry that many and my armor's bulky enough as it is. But if I can get a teleporter set up from HQ? It'd be game-changing for me. And I think I can give Kid Win a few tips on how to funnel energy into shaped-"

Whatever else he was about to say was interrupted by the sound of raised voices. Soldiers and aid workers were always shouting at the crowd to do one thing or another, but this was different.

Jouster and I looked at each other and nodded as one. We quickly headed down from the warehouse roof. I stepped over the edge and charged my boots and gloves. They made contact with the wall and left noticeable divots into the stonework as if the wall was made of clay. Gently, I loosed my hold on my power and allowed myself to slide down the wall. Doing this always reminded me of Mufasa dying, as morbid as that was.

For his part, Jouster simply leapt down, the point of his lance angled towards the ground and glowing softly. There was a reason he was the captain of the Lancers, New York's rapid response team. He could imbue the point of his lance with a seemingly unending variety of effects. Elements like fire, ice, and lightning were fair game, as were explosive kinetic force, disintegration, and even suction or repulsion. He even had a mover power that gave him short-lived bursts of speed.

His lance met the earth and bent slightly, the metal and plexiglass body absorbing the force. His power discharged as he turned his skewering maneuver into a swing and bounced forward like a pole vaulter.

I hopped down the last few feet and kicked off before completely removing the friction on my shoes, sliding forward to catch up. Jouster was faster than me in short bursts but I could keep up over longer distances because I didn't exhaust my own stamina sprinting after him.

We followed the noise until it led us to the partially unloaded truck at the far end of the makeshift parking lot. There, four aid workers had set up stations to pass out things like thermal blankets; people had been forced to evacuate with nothing but the clothes on their backs and Damascus could get surprisingly chilly at night.

These workers were guarded by six armed men carrying assault weapons and bearing flag patches I didn't recognize. They looked angry and were loudly shouting at the people, though their weapons stayed firmly pointed at the ground thankfully.

A middle-aged man with a full beard and a receding hairline came forward. He shouted something in Arabic that had the workers hand him a vacuum-sealed blanket. He held out his arms in a clear demand for more. None of us spoke a lick of Arabic, but the urgency in his eyes was unmistakable.

Jouster reported back to console while I stepped over to see if I could help.

"What's going on?" I asked them.

"He needs eight more blankets," an aid worker yelled back. "He has six children and two nephews. He's refusing to leave without them."

The man yelled something and tried to snatch a sealed blanket from the box. The aid worker slapped the hand away and yelled back in Arabic, gesturing to the angry murmurings of people behind him.

Before this could continue, a soldier stepped forward. He held his rifle horizontally and used it as a bar to shove the man back into the crowd. The other soldiers followed his lead and took up the same posture, standing shoulder to shoulder to create a human barricade against the desperate.

This sucked. Shelter would have been better to deal with things like this, but his dugout was deployed next to the pharmaceuticals and water, the supplies we thought we needed to guard carefully. Things like blankets had been taken to a separate area to make another line so the crowd would be easier to manage.

The soldiers stood firm but that only riled up the people behind them more. I wasn't sure what was said, but there was additional shouting.

"What do we do?" I asked the worker. He at least seemed like he understood what was being said.

"I don't know! We're going to run out in an hour if we just give them out in batches like that!"

"Shelter, can you make something to separate them?" I yelled back into my mic.

"Not off the cuff!" he yelled back. "Why do you think I want Kid Win's teleporter? Give me five minutes. I can relocate."

I groaned. "Don't do that. Stay where you are."

We really weren't cut out for this. Jouster handled rapid response. Shelter was too slow. Me… My power had no business being pointed in a civilian's direction. It wasn't like we could be the first to swing either. Faced with a problem we couldn't fight through, we were reminded that at the end of the day, we were just a bunch of kids.

Jouster got off the phone and looked at me. I knew that look. It was the "I know this is stupid but I'm going to do it anyway because I don't know what else might help in this situation," look.

My captain could be annoyingly expressive sometimes.

He channeled his power until his lance glowed with a blue light. Ice, which… might help here…? Then, with a shout, he leapt into the air. People hurried to make room for the descending cape. When he came down, it was on the other side of the human barricade, point-first as he was wont to do. Seeing no better options, I took an armful of those sealed thermal blanket packets and ran out to join him.

A wreath of icicles sprouted from the ground in a small circle around him as people backed up in alarm. His power took hold and froze the ground further out, creating an impromptu ice rink. It made a few people stumble but the density of the crowd meant they just leaned against each other rather than take a bad fall.

I quickly shoved a packet into each person's hand and began to push them outward, forming a ring. "Get the crowd under control!" I yelled back to the aid workers. I didn't know what I wanted them to do, but anything was better than nothing.

Then the man who'd been up front was there. He grabbed me by the arm and snatched as much as he could from me. That ended the brief reprieve Jouster had managed for us. Suddenly, everyone was swarming and pushing and pawing at me. I heard words I was fairly sure weren't nice to say to young girls. My world became a confusing mess of bodies and hands.

Someone grabbed me by the hair and yanked painfully. I panicked. Instinct took over. I lashed out, a practiced elbow behind me at what should be nose-height for most people. I felt the crack of cartilage breaking and took momentary satisfaction in it as the fingers entwined in my hair loosened. Then I immediately felt like crap because I remembered they were civilians just trying to keep their families warm.

My head whirled on a swivel. I saw one of the soldiers slap someone back with the stock of his rifle. He was a boy, about our age, maybe younger, but he collapsed to the ground with a broken nose. That only seemed to enrage the others. The press of bodies was stifling.

Before I knew it, someone tried to snatch the blanket from another person's hands and the whole crowd erupted into a brawl with me and Jouster in the middle. It was like being in a mosh pit at a concert, only with more sand and no one willing to look after the injured.

"Flechette!" I heard Jouster yell desperately.

Before I could say anything in response, I heard a man shout in pain. He was the boy I'd seen take a rifle stock to the face. He'd scampered to his feet and was now stuck between the soldiers, Jouster's ice, and the press of hundreds of bodies.

Shadows began to encroach on my vision. I saw my captain go down out of the corner of my eye, then the darkness claimed me.

I dreamt of a sea of dazzling stars and some great creature that swam through the sky like the ocean depths. It spun and swirled into an impossibly elegant spiral. With every spin, it spawned countless stars that glittered in the night. I saw the stars fall to the earth like a meteor shower, each descending to hear the plea of a desperate soul. It was the most hauntingly beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

And when I awoke, I remembered nothing.

X

Andrew Carr

2010, November 27: Damascus, Syria

"Fuck! Jouster! Flechette! Come in!" I swore. I was far enough away that I hadn't been caught up in whatever that was, but that left me too far to help. Then my training kicked in and I barked into the mic as fast as I could. "Console, Jouster and Flechette are down. Cape activity likely. Some kind of master effect."

This was the worst. The depot was too spread out. There were only so many hardlight generators I could keep on my person, they were slow to deploy and dismantle, and they stopped working when they were fifty feet away from me. I was the exact opposite of Jouster: Terrible at offense or mobility, great at holding a position.

Jouster had me build a dugout near the food depot because that was where he thought we'd be needed most. It was also the place where over the counter medications like insulin were being passed out, the kind that people couldn't do without for even a few days.

Turned out, Damascus got colder than we really knew and those thermal blankets were in heavy demand. Sure, insulin was critical, but only to a few, while blankets? Everyone wanted those.

Which meant I was left scrambling to rejoin my team. I had a few drones for force projection and surveillance to complement my bread and butter, but I didn't want to be the tinker who fired on civilians. What few confoam grenades I had attached to my drones could only grab a few people at a time and they only seemed to make things worse by riling up most everyone else.

I finished disengaging my hardlight shields and began to sprint over. Flechette told me to stay back, but I couldn't afford to. I had to go help my friends; they were my priority.

I heard Ursa Aurora come online. "ETA four minutes. Powers? What took down Jouster and Flechette?"

"I don't know. They were fine one moment and collapsed like puppets the next. Some kind of master effect?"

"Stay in position."

"I'm already halfway there," I told her.

"Shit. Do not engage. Prioritize keeping your teammates safe."

"Yes, ma'am." It was only a minute later that I saw them begin to stir. The guards had dragged them to safety, leaning them against the truck tires. "They're up! Flechette! Jouster! Come in!"

"Fuck, what hit me?" I heard Flechette mumble. "Oww… Shit… That was…"

"New tigger," Jouster came to the same conclusion she did. He was pointing back to the crowd, where a man skated along the ground. It didn't matter whether the ground was Jouster's ice or gravel; he seemed to treat friction as a suggestion. "Prism, Ursa, we've got a new trigger on the loose."

Even as we watched, he clawed at the air. From his fingertips, ribbons sprouted like razor wire, leaving bloody lacerations on anyone nearby. The striker effect lingered, forming ribbons of blades even after the new cape had passed. He wasn't the only one. I saw a brute who made gauntlets of ice, a shaker who seemed to rob things of momentum, and a striker who conjured a whip that looked like he'd braided those ribbons. They all looked like they were sliding on the ground, though Ribbons was the fastest.

"Cluster trigger," Flechette whispered in horror. She had experience with those.

People were shouting in terror now. The ones around Ribbons scrambled away as best they could, only to run into walls of flesh around them. Other parts of the crowd hadn't noticed what happened and were behaving as they'd been before: surging forward, brawling, arguing amongst themselves as people died not ten feet from them.

It made me want to throw up but I had to act. I laid down a series of walls with my hardlight generators and called the soldiers and aid workers to us. Then Jouster, Flechette, and I started to lob our arsenal of confoam grenades at the capes.

"Clear them out," Jouster shouted. "Get me a shot at the new capes. I can take them down."

Then everything was obscured by a localized sandstorm that tore through the area. The winds weren't strong enough to pick anyone up, but the sand stung like a bitch. The sudden wind paused the fighting. For a moment, I thought the Lionguard had arrived ahead of Ursa and Prism.

Just as quickly as it came, the wind died, revealing a group of armed men and women. At least one was a cape obviously, but every last one wore a dirt-brown shroud over their faces so we couldn't tell. They weren't in any uniform I recognized.

A loud crack rang out, striking the first soldier to raise his weapon. I saw one of ours slump to the ground, a hole in his throat.

"Hostiles! Sandstorm shaker," Jouster shouted as he reached for his lance.

"Fuck."

Flechette laughed in that delirious way that desperate people did when they had nothing else. "Yeah, we're so fucked."

Author's Note

This is 2010. Social unrest began in March (though underlying causes trace back longer). In 2011, a series of civil rights movements would explode throughout North Africa and the Middle East known as the Arab Spring. The Syrian Republic cracked down hard on those, starting what would become the Syrian Civil War.

Arsalan means "lion." The character is referencing Amir Arsalan, or "Prince Lion," a Persian hero akin to Arthur, Le Loi, Jumong, or other mythical kings. He had a sword called Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar, the "Emerald Encrusted Sword." Yes, Syria is Arabic and that's ethnically different from Persian. Yes, I'm doing it anyway.

Lily has no last name so I made one. Shelter and Jouster don't have civilian names at all as far as I can find. They are the only members of the NY Wards we know, even though NY is confirmed to have multiple Wards teams.

Damascus in November can get as low as 38-40 F at night. A lot of westerners think of the Middle East as desert, and that's true in some portions, but deserts can get really cold at night. In fact, Damascus sees roughly 11 snow days per year.

So, riot. I don't think I did the chaos of a riot justice, especially not one orchestrated by someone else. The new trigger was obviously an accident, but the distraction was not.

No animal facts. The entire A/N is basically one big political fact anyway.