"Swan keep singing, use your calming song, we need to get everyone inside now."

"On it Loophole," she said, belting out her Song of the Peaceful Mind as she soared overhead of a growing group of civilians that had stupidly stepped outside the moment a giant moth appeared on the horizon.

I had thought that maybe the need to be near danger was just some weird quirk of being from New York but nope, as we darted to get ahead of Moth-Moth's path, I found myself almost annoyed by the fact that they were putting themselves right in harm's way. Swan's song was echoing outward, though since no one was panicking, no one seemed to be in a rush to get back inside. They simply stood there, looking almost like a group of birds staring at the sun as Swansong and I came to a stop hovering ahead of them.

"Everyone, I know you're scared and want to know what's going on, I really do. But it would really make our jobs a whole hell of a lot easier if you got inside, NOW!" I said, raising my voice as loud as I could over Swansong's song.

Unfortunately the crowd only seemed to cheer at my appearance, with random shouts of "Go Loophole!" and "Wildcards!!!" coming from the din of noise. There was another screech that filled the air as Moth-Moth's brood continued to move closer. Several of the smaller moths had run into the spores, their entire bodies shifting in color to match that of the spores they encountered, instantly speeding up the moment they had shifted in color. I grit my teeth together, my mind racing as I tried to figure out how to get these guys to actually listen. Briefly, I realized I still had a bit of knowledge I had still left untapped even after absorbing the book on Reverberation.

"New Ability! Loud Speaker! You want people to hear you? Well how about we turn your entire local area into a speaker. Amplify your voice up to 100 times your usual volume for the low low cost of 10 stamina per second of amplification. Please Note: While this ability does not come with any associated damage or effects, screaming that loud at the top of your lungs can disorient people, though it will affect everyone based on proximity to your local area. This ability has no cooldown."

"LISTEN!" I yelled, activating the ability and amping up the volume by just 15 times. I didn't necessarily want to make people go deaf after all. It seemed to be loud enough as a wave of silence passed over the crowd. I lowered the volume just a bit before continuing. "I know for some reason literally everybody besides me seems to think a giant moth is a cool thing. But can you guys please cut us a damn break and get inside!?! We are here to protect you, but you have got to let us do it!"

"Holy crap Loophole you don't have to shout about it," Pinky laughed in our internal comms.

"Gotta make them listen somehow," I shot back. "We need to know what happens with those moths, they are starting to change color. Can you take care of that while we keep trying to get these guys inside?"

"No problem," Pinky shot back. "Codex, set a timer."

I looked over my shoulder just in time to see the random bits of pink sparks as she launched off the ground nearly a few blocks up the road from us. She flew through the air and smashed her way through the smaller, still black moths that got close to her. As she descended along her launched path, she hit a few more of the ones that were still fully black before she smashed into a red moth. The moth burst into a cloud of red and Pinky went tumbling down toward the ground, smashing into a car and causing its alarm to go off.

The crowd, which had partially listened to me, started murmuring again. She was far enough away that it wasn't exactly an easy thing to see, though that didn't stop other people from popping their heads out of buildings closer down to her. I cursed under my breath as I looked down at the crowd that refused to listen.

"Pinky, are you okay?" I asked, needing confirmation on what had happened. She didn't respond, though a sudden burst of pink sparks down the road preceded a car getting launched into the air. While I couldn't quite make out exactly what she was saying, she began screaming and shouting, darting from side to side, causing destruction to the vehicles unlucky enough to be near her. "Pinky?! Codex what's the time?"

"7 seconds," he said and I backed things up.

"Codex, set a time-"

"The moths affected by spores will explode when you kill them and give you the same debuffs as the spores," I said.

"Hmm, I wonder if the same thing would happen if they were just knocked out. It's possible their like the droids and are self destructing when they hit 0 HP," Jon murmured. Without Pinky immediately taking to the air, the civilians I had shouted at seemed to actually be responding to Swan's song and were slowly making their way back toward the various buildings they had poured out of.

"You want me to try knocking out a moth instead of going for killing blows?" Pinky asked and I could hear the disbelief in her voice.

"Yeah, think you can do it?"

"Sheesh please, I'm not a killing machine… I didn't think I was going for the kill before but I guess I'll intend to knock them out," she said. Before Jon could respond, she launched herself into the air.

Once again she burst through the black moths, using her tusks to tear through the first few before pulling a fist back and punching into one of them. The moth, unlike those that she hit with her tusks, didn't burst into a cloud of dust, instead taking the blow before falling toward the ground. Unfortunately even just a bit over two stories in the air was enough of a fall for the weak moth to cause it to explode on impact with the ground. Pinky hit several more of the moths as she made her descent, each one following the same pattern as they took the blows before tumbling to the ground.

The moths on the descending edge of Pinky's jump didn't fall quite far enough to actually explode on impact, with it seeming to be about a single story building that they could fall without turning to spore dust.

"Okay, stupid game rules aside I guess that works," Pinky said, not missing a beat as she rolled along the ground and skidded to a stop.

There was another round of cheers, though it did seem to be muffled as the crowd finally seemed to be listening. Unfortunately not all of them listened and while Moth-Moth wasn't the fastest creature in the universe, she had continued her travel over the city. In the short period of time we had been there, she had moved close enough that, with the assistance of the prevailing wind off of her wings, her spores were drifting and falling right toward us.

I briefly activated Area Sense while I moved, shouting for the remaining civilians to get back inside. These ones however, were of course the most stubborn of the onlookers and more than a few had their cameras out trying to catch the action on camera. I activated Center of the Universe as I dropped Area Sense, though I was careful about how strong I made the pull. If I ramped it up too high, the only thing I'd accomplish would be getting the spores to barrel directly into me.

"OH WHAT THE HELL?!" I heard Swansong yell, the Spore Enragement debuff appearing on her bar as I inadvertently pulled one of the red spores right into her. I cursed myself under my breath before rewinding just a few seconds. Area Sense was still active and I isolated Swansong at the far edge of my area. Although I knew I could have just shouted at her to move, but that wouldn't solve the issue I had with the pull from Center of the Universe.

"New Ability! Orbit Me! Wow Loophole, two new abilities being made outside of random practice in a single day? Feels like we're back in the tutorial all over again. This ability is more of a cousin to Center of The Universe rather than a direct augmentation of it which I think is why the system created this. For an initial cost of 5 stamina per second, create a gravitational orbit 10 feet from your body that catches inanimate objects of your choice. Objects will orbit your body for as long as you maintain this ability at a speed of 1 meter per second. Increase the speed by an additional 1 meter per second for each additional 2.5 stamina per second you add to this ability. This ability has no cooldown. Please Note: This ability and Center of the Universe cannot be activated at the same time."

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I immediately activated the ability and went flying up and past Swansong as she continued to sing. The closest of the spores were caught in the field and began circling me clockwise around my body and I continued to collect them as I aimed to make as direct of a path through the falling spores as possible.

"Holy moly that is one giant moth," BrainCraft's voice appeared out of nowhere.

"That's gotta be as big as Perry was… I'm uh… I'm gonna go get Freak, he's complaining that it's boring over there and I think we are definitely gonna need his help," Duskbreaker said.

"Thanks Dusk, I was just about to fill Loophole in on that," Jon said. "Freak said he did see a few random falcons flying around, but he couldn't confirm they were droids from where he was at. How long's that trip gonna take you now?"

"I think I can have us back in 25 minutes or so," Duskbreaker said. "I'll head out now, should I come back right here?"

"I'll give you a location once before you start the transport," Jon said and I was glad to have him coordinating since I wasn't even sure where Duskbreaker and BrainCraft had appeared at.

"Everything's set up at the other hills?" I asked, choosing to move forward as I got up close to the first of the moths that had absorbed the colored spores. I punched it as hard as I could, though I kept nonlethal intent at the forefront of my mind the whole time.

Pinky hadn't been joking about how easily they went down, with each moth only taking one or two of my standard punches to make them start dropping toward the ground. It was entirely possible that the passive version of Sting Like a Bee was pulling a good deal of the weight here though given just how high my Luck had reached and I wasn't about to sit around questioning it for too long.

"Drones deployed and surveilling. Between the aroma I've been able to synthesize and attach to them and the visual camouflage I've been working on, we should have a good idea of the entire structures of the other ant hills within the next few days. I did set them to have a heavy amount of precaution though. While I'm sure they should fool the other bugs in there, I can't guarantee that the Augments with the Colony won't be able to find them," BrainCraft explained.

"Any information we can get is a good thing, thanks Brain. Pinky, Swan, how are things looking on your end?" I said, turning in the air once I had cleared the area around me of the baby moths. Moth-Moth didn't even seem to care that we were taking out her brood, though that was probably because they seemed to be spawning faster than we were able to clear them out.

"I think most of the civilians in this area are inside, I'm going to fly ahead and keep singing. Hopefully I can keep everyone inside while this thing passes," Swansong said and I looked toward the ground, confirming that the streets were indeed clear.

"Someone needs to spay this moth, it's not unmanageable but I swear every time I take out a moth I see two more come out of nowhere," Pinky added. "What's the plan? We need a way to stop the big one otherwise these things are going to just keep spawning."

"It's not exactly attacking the city… even the babies are just flying around spreading the spores… Shouldn't it be, I don't know, more destructive? Wasn't that the whole point behind Axio having them wait five days between events?" Swansong asked as I started moving again. I was still maintaining both my flight and Orbit Me, even if some of the spore had been cleared out by the baby moths.

"Who knows what the point is, though my guess is that something bad is going to happen if we let it get to the actual city it's supposed to be heading for, that was kinda what the mission I got implied," I said, starting to put on the speed as I made a wide arc up and toward Moth-Moth. "You know what? We know what the spores do, we know what the babies do. I think the best thing we can do is see if the big one is gonna respond if we try to hit it directly."

Once I was sure I wasn't over any of my team, I deactivated Orbit Me, letting the spores go drifting back toward the ground as I put on the speed and went flying right toward the giant moth. I didn't exactly have a plan, it was more just the only thing I could think to try. I closed the distance in a matter of seconds, coming up on the underside of its massive thorax before I threw a 50% Gravity Punch. My fist struck Moth-Moth's body and while my stamina dipped from the ability, nothing actually seemed to happen.

I rewound by just a few seconds, this time throwing a Mass Driver using even more of my Stamina, though even that was fruitless. Keeping up with it, I threw a few more unpowered strikes, wondering if it had some sort of resistance that I wasn't finding my way past even with my Defy the Odds passive. I swore under my breath before rewinding things, finding myself back floating with my orbit of moth spores.

"Physical attacks aren't doing a damn thing to it, even when I power it up with one of my heavy hitters," I reported.

"Wait, does Brain know about the uh… err…" Pinky said, trying to find a way to say it without saying it before BrainCraft cut in.

"That he can manipulate time on some level? I'm aware yes."

"Wait, you knew?" I asked, coming up just a bit short as I realized my mistake too late, not that it seemed to matter.

"I thought it was a bit obvious given some of the ways you've interacted with people, especially in that interview you did after the squad took down Perry. I tend not to vocalize a theory until I've had it confirmed but this more or less does that for me," Brain replied. "I'm assuming you attacked the moth and once you knew, you brought yourself back here? Did you get hurt in some way and that made you need to rewind?"

"I uh… no actually," I said, a bit sheepishly.

"Do you have an unlimited bank of time to work with?"

"I uh.."

"I'll take that as a no… That's not very bright if it's a limited resource."

"He's working on getting better about being smarter about when he uses it, but since none of us remember it happening, it's kinda at his discretion," Jon said and I let out a groan.

"I'm doing my best damnit," I said just before Moth-Moth let out another screech. "Now do we have any thoughts on how we can take this thing down before it gets to San Francisco? I'm assuming that's the closest big city to here, right?"

"It is," Pinky confirmed.

"Hmmm, have any of the others shown a weakness we've been able to exploit?" BrainCraft mused aloud.

"The babies are going down super easily and I've never had a problem with any of the ants or beetles I've had to fight," Pinky said.

"Saint Mantid didn't exactly like it when Loophole hit her with electricity, but that moth is… well it's a kaiju, I'd have to imagine it would take one hell of a shock to stun it the same way," Jon said.

"And that doesn't really guarantee that it would do enough damage to her that it would actually take her down either. If I have to drain my entire Stamina pool just to stun her, I might be able to still get enough stamina back that I could take her down between my other abilities, but that's if she doesn't have some ungodly amount of health," I said, musing aloud as I thought through our options. Instead of dropping Orbit Me or going to attack, I instead started to fly toward the continuing rain of spores dropping, intent on collecting as many of them as I could to prevent them from hitting any stray civilians. "Freakenstein is on the way, between him and Pinky they can definitely do the damage we would need, though again, that's if I can hit it with a big enough charge."

"Hmmm… I think I have an idea actually," BrainCraft said. "In fact, I think Pinky alone will be enough to do the damage if I use a few of my new tools. Though we will still need both Freakenstein and yourself to accomplish it. Pinky, I think it's time that you show our squad what Relentless does."

"Wait, you got the hamster wheel finished!?" Pinky squealed before I could even bother to ask what they were talking about.

"I wish you wouldn't call it that, but yes, with the printers that were brought back, I was able to fabricate the last of the parts I needed. If we get out far enough ahead, perhaps just before the bay that Moth-Moth is clearly heading toward, I bet we could take her down and drop her right into the water," BrainCraft said.

"Ummm, what's Relentless?" Swansong asked as Pinky began squealing with unintelligible excitement. I was glad she asked, though I was ready to trust my squad members even without fully knowing. Luckily, BrainCraft was happy to answer even when Pinky didn't.

"It's Pinky's Hidden Power, and with my new invention, we can harness the hell out of it."

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