In the end, Jason decides to just let his power do its thing. Could he stop it? Sure, but he's already juggling enough as it is without going toe to toe with his power of all things. If it 'wanted' this then so be it, whatever it was… it was probably fine.
Of course, he has cause to reconsider that choice within minutes, especially when Alexandria makes a curious noise in the back of her throat.
"What… what is happening to the Simurgh?"
Pulling back from all of his other senses, Jason looks at the Simurgh with his proper eyes… and immediately covers his face with his palm as he beholds what his power has turned the Endbringer into. A groan leaves his lips even while he refuses to look at the Simurgh, as though that will somehow change things back.
… It doesn't. When he finally deigns to look again, the Simurgh is still in her new form… that of a busty blonde blue-eyed human woman, albeit with big white symmetrical wings coming off of her back and a white toga barely containing her ludicrous curves.
Many people liked to say that the Simurgh's form was designed to mock their religious beliefs, that she appeared like she did to make them all lose hope and faith in higher powers all the quicker. Well, this new form was somewhat the opposite, almost seeming like it was designed to in turn mock the Simurgh's original form, reversing it back on itself.
Of course, Alexandria and Eidolon are both giving him distinct looks now. And they don't even know yet that every other Endbringer looks much like this. Checking on them through the new connections, Jason finds that Leviathan looks like a mermaid, albeit with long legs rather than a fishtail, and Behemoth has become something of a dragon woman, except her 'scales' are all sediment and rock coating her arms and legs and back.
Sighing, Jason shakes his head and shrugs helplessly.
"My power is fucking with me, apparently."
He's not entirely sure if they believe him on that front or not… but neither actually makes a scene over it at least. Eidolon still looks defeated in a way that seems strange for the man commonly considered to be the most powerful member of the Triumvirate, while Alexandria just gives the Simurgh one last assessing look before looking back to him.
"Can you repeat this with the other Endbringers?"
Jason blinks, confused for a moment but slowly nodding.
"Yes."
He doesn't say his power already has or anything like that. Even the seventeen dormant Endbringers have been… transformed.
Alexandria just nods sharply.
"Please do so. And if we can get the Simurgh out of here without anyone else seeing her transformation, we should. The less people know about her new form, the easier it will be to use her and her fellow Endbringers to help protect the world."
Oh, that was a good point. That was a really good point. Was that why his power had done it? To help him hide them from the general public so people didn't freak the fuck out? Either way, he nods and waves the Staff of Magnus, releasing the Seal on the Simurgh at the same time that he turns her invisible.
The buxom blonde 'angel' floats over to his side while Alexandria and Eidolon both look around for a moment before seemingly giving up on finding her. Eidolon does look to Alexandria after a moment though, duty seeming to push through his despair even if he sounds downright morose all the same.
"Dragon will likely have seen everything. Which means…"
Alexandria's eyes narrow at that.
"Yes. I'll handle it. For now… go get Legend. Let him know the evacuation is no longer necessary."
Eidolon lets out a bit of a laugh at that, though there's absolutely no mirth or positive emotion whatsoever in his voice.
"… What's our cover story supposed to even be here, exactly?"
Alexandria's eyes flick down to Brockton Bay and then back to Jason.
"That relies on Portent here. Enough people saw the Simurgh floating down over the city and likely saw her stopped in her tracks. We could say that we did something experimentally to scare her off for the time being and have Dragon report she's back in orbit, but that's a temporary measure at best. Alternatively, we can admit most of the truth… that Portent dealt with the Simurgh. Permanently."
Even if she's talking to Eidolon, Jason can tell Alexandria is talking to him as well right now. She's asking what he wants to do, giving him the choice. Does he hide behind the Triumvirate, using them as cover for what he's done… or does he accept credit and all the danger that comes with it?
Without Chaos Magic, Jason would have probably felt forced to go with the first option. If this were only accomplished through his Sealing Magic, he wouldn't have been confident enough in his ability to protect himself from all of the attention that soloing an Endbringer would have brought him.
But he hasn't just soloed an Endbringer today. He's ended the Endbringer Threat permanently. At this point, Jason… Jason isn't afraid anymore. And frankly, given what he's learned about the source of parahuman powers, he's not sure the world can afford for him to be afraid regardless.
"Tell them she's gone, permanently. Tell them it was me. People need hope. They need to know things can get better. The rest of it… well, we can tell them about the other Endbringers being gone later when they don't show up on schedule. Gives us time to… figure out the rest."
What Jason doesn't say is that he's not even sure where he's going to be three-four months from now. All of this power, everything he's gained… it's come to him in less than a month. The end of Vicky's tutoring and the test she was supposed to take to try and get into BBU was still weeks away.
If this is where he's at in this short of an amount of time, where will he be months from now? He's already taken control of the Endbringers. How far off is he from dealing with Scion himself?
All of this, Jason very deliberately doesn't say. He's told Alexandria and Eidolon a lot and showed them even more of what he's capable of, but there's still some distrust there, all things considered. And so he stays quiet and watches as they both nod, Alexandria with decisiveness and Eidolon with a deep, deep shame.
Hopefully the man can fake it once he's in front of other people, because Eidolon acting like a sad sack of shit was disturbing on so many levels.
Regardless, they leave to do whatever they're going to do and Jason… Jason just looks at the invisible Simurgh as she looks back at him, smiling. She's… very artificial. Completely so. More like a robot than a living being. But that doesn't mean she's not intelligent. It's just that now her intelligence is geared more towards his bidding than Eidolon's subconscious thoughts.
… What would she do if Jason let her entirely off the leash? What would any of them do? Honestly, he doesn't want to find out. He can feel that they were, all twenty of them, designed to be weapons. Let them continue to serve as weapons… just with the caveat that they were now defending humanity, rather than culling it.
As he floats back down to Brockton Bay with the invisible angelic Endbringer at his side, Jason honestly isn't sure what to do next. In the end, he's a little lost right up until his phone suddenly begins to ring. Blinking, he pulls it out of the compartment he'd stored it in and upon seeing it's a call from Lisa, he brings it up to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Portent, where are you? Eidolon just showed up and talked to Legend and then they announced to everyone that the evacuation was called off and the Simurgh was dealt with. By you."
"Uh, yeah… is everyone else with you?"
"Taylor is and everyone else is close enough that she can get in contact with them as need be."
"Good. Great even. Let's… meet up at the Lavere Clinic? All of us, please. So I can explain."
To be fair, Jason HAD told Lisa he was going to deal with her. In fact, his exact words were 'By the end of today, there will be one less Endbringer, I swear it'. One could argue he hadn't quite kept his promise, but one could also argue he'd over-delivered massively so Jason figured it was fine.
"Understood, I'll get them together ASAP and we'll meet you there. Just so you know… I knew you could do it. Even without my power, I believed in you."
That brings a smile to Jason's face.
"Thanks Lisa."
They end the call and Jason makes his way over to the Lavere Clinic. The city is… eerily quiet on account of the evacuation that had been happening the entire time Jason was finding out the truth behind the Endbringers and neutralizing them as a threat. To be fair, stopping the Simurgh in her tracks HAD provided everyone with an unprecedented opportunity to get the fuck out of dodge while she was frozen in place.
Regardless, the rest of Covenant arrives outside of the Lavere Clinic in short order and Jason finds himself receiving hugs from just about everyone, ending with Taylor. The bug controller clings to him for a long time, wordlessly conveying her distress over not being able to be there with him.
Eventually, they all make it inside. Which of course, is when Vicky breaks the silence and asks the big question.
"You seriously killed an Endbringer?"
Lisa smirks while everyone else leans forward at least a little bit, each of them incredulous but also too intrigued not to be waiting on tenterhooks for his answer. Looking around at all of them… Jason half-smiles, half-grimaces.
"I did not kill an Endbringer."
Lisa's smirk drops as she joins the rest of them in confusion for a moment. Then, her eyes widen as she uses her power on him.
"Holy shit."
Jason looks at the extremely powerful Thinker that he'd made even more powerful just this morning and slowly nods.
"Holy shit is right. To give you all an idea of what Lisa just found out… I didn't kill the Simurgh, but I did neutralize her. And not just her either… I neutralized all of the Endbringers. They will never attack another city again."
Eyes widen and jaws drop open. But Lisa… Lisa can't help herself. She's just too nosy for her own good.
"She's in the room with us RIGHT NOW?!"
Jason sighs and rubs his forehead. Then, he holds up his hands.
"Before anyone freaks out, please wait for a second."
Then he removes the invisibility from the Simurgh, who had indeed been standing off to the side near him this entire time. The blonde, blue-eyed angel woman looks at all of them and they look back at her in abject disbelief. Jason smiles weakly.
"Okay… now you can all freak out."
Funnily enough, revealing the Simurgh's new form actually derails a lot of the proper panic attacks that had been budding. Instead, the other members of Covenant have more pointed questions about why she looks like she does now.
Jason just sighs, smiles ruefully, and weathers the storm of teasing that follows. They'd get back on track eventually, he figured. Probably.
-x-X-x-
Everyone is already at the table when a doorway opens in midair and Contessa steps through, a metal box with fresh blood droplets in her hands. She sets it at the table and takes her seat, speaking emotionlessly.
"The Dragonslayers are no more. Dragon's failsafes are now under our control."
Alexandria doesn't quite breathe a sigh of relief at the news, but she does feel it. Dragon watching as the Simurgh was transformed into a blonde bimbo of an angel was one thing… she could be trusted to stay quiet so long as Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown ordered her to do so.
But the Dragonslayers on the other hand, who were constantly spying through Dragon's 'eyes', were not quite so trustworthy or controllable. They'd been allowed to harry and harass Dragon all these years because it kept the AI in check, but at this point they had outlived their usefulness entirely.
After all… today changed things. Everything had been turned on its head.
Doctor Mother clears her throat and gives Alexandria a look.
"I question whether it was the wisest of choices to leave Portent in control of the Endbringers. Not just that… but to encourage him to take control."
Straightening up, Alexandria frowns.
"It was the only option at the time. We couldn't afford to lose the potential firepower the Endbringers bring to the table… and David was in no mental state to accept conscious control just after finding out what he'd done with subconscious control for so long."
All eyes turn towards the empty chair at the table. David hadn't been up for attending this meeting and frankly, none of them could exactly force him. She was still afraid that he might be a suicide risk… but he had assured her that he just needed time and at this point there was nobody who could stop him from taking his own life if he wanted to.
In the end, all they could do was give him space.
"Even still… what are we supposed to do now? Everything we've done, all the preparations we've made… our stockpile doesn't hold a candle to the power that Portent can now call upon. How are we supposed to control him?"
Tilting her head to the side, Alexandria considers that question for a long moment… before opening her mouth to answer.
-x-X-x-
The Vote:
[ ] They can't control him, all they can do is bring him completely onboard and let him do what needs to be done - 29%
[X] Well there have been signs that he's a horndog so maybe Alexandria and Contessa can seduce him... - 71%
-x-X-x-