C&C National News maintained its somber blue graphics as Anchor David Shaw adjusted his tie, the man nothing but dead-serious. "Experts are baffled, Maria. Unlike anything we've ever seen or heard from an Endbringer defense, made possible by one combatant."
Shaky footage played again in a wipe across the screen, shakier this time, audio crackling with interference as sixty feet of twisted metal burst to its feet, moving far too fluidly despite being cobbled together from ship hulks and debris.
"-al-time footage from independent blogger Andi Chen has seen skyrocketing view numbers across all platforms," Shaw continued, professional smile faltering slightly. "The video has been verified as authentic by multiple sources, including the PRT's own cape analysis division."
@ABCSusanNovak (Verified): BREAKING: Federal grant for Brockton Bay's reconstruction currently stands at roughly $2.3 billion. 'Leviathan Fund' established for future Endbringer defense preparation.
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- Topic: Official Leviathan AAR (Brockton Bay) Thread
- In: Main ? Events ? Endbringers
- Posted by: Tin_Mother (Moderator)
- Alright everyone, let's try to keep this civil and consolidated. We've had to delete a dozen duplicate threads already. This is the place for verified information, eyewitness accounts, and analysis of the Brockton Bay engagement.
- Rules:
- No glorifying casualties.
- Tag all graphic descriptions.
- Wild, unsubstantiated speculation will be infracted. (Yes, All-Seeing-Eye, that means you and your 'Leviathan is a government psyop' theories).
- Let's honor the capes who held the line.
- ?Bagrat (Veteran Member) (Verified Cape)
- Wasn't there, thank god. Was on standby for the Chicago rotation. Watched the feeds with the rest of you. Have to say, I've never seen anything like it. The initial engagement was a standard meat grinder. Looked like another pyrrhic victory at best. Then… the second half happened. My comms lit up with people just screaming 'what the hell is that thing?'
- Hats off to you, Brockton Bay. You guys are built different.
- ?Reave (The Guy in the Know)
- Bagrat
- I was there. On a rooftop with a telephoto lens until the water got too high. The shift was insane. One minute, White Knight is going toe-to-toe with Leviathan in that weird red-fire berserker mode (footage attached, timestamp 14:32:06), gets swatted into the ship graveyard, armband goes offline. We all thought he was dead. Five minutes later, a sixty-foot thing made of boats and cars stands up and starts singing a cartoon theme song.
- [Link: White_Knight_Dragon_Rage.mp4]
- [Link: MECHA_EMERGENCE_RAW.mp4]
- ?Vista (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
- He was… a lot. But he kept Leviathan focused. Gave the rest of us room to work.
- ?Xx_Void_Cowboy_xX
- HOLY SHIT VISTA POSTED.
- Also, that was my boy WK! Knew he had it in him! That giant robot was pretty much something I've been telling him to do forever. He totally went Super Saiyan first and then got his own Megazord. Best hero in the bay..
- ?Tin_Mother (Moderator)
- Xx_Void_Cowboy_xX
- One warning on the fanboying. Keep it analytical.
- ?QueenofCapes
- Analysis: The 'mech' wasn't tech. Look at the way it moved. Fluid. Organic. It repaired itself in real-time by pulling in more matter. A Shaker/Changer rating doesn't even begin to cover it. This is something new. He didn't just build a golem. He grew it.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
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Brockton Bay Local News Channel 12, "Voices of the City"
Eleanor Vance's weathered fingers gripped the microphone, the eighty-something year old woman's voice trembling through Channel 12's broadcast. "Oh, I thought that was it for me. There… there was so much… just water coming up the stairs, the power was out..." She paused, eyes distant. "I just... I prayed. And then the wall blew out. Not from the water. From him."
She nodded slowly, eyes still a bit dull. "This boy in all white and blue, he just... appeared. He carried me and three others out of there like we weighed nothing. He couldn't have been older than my great-grandson, but he… he saved my life."
The construction site downtown sprawled across what had been the territory of a minor gang, if any of them were still alive, crews working through concrete dust and twisted rebar. Frank Miller wiped sweat from his forehead, leaving streaks through the grime. "How I'm doing? Well, my back's killing me."
A second later, he shrugged toward the mixed crews. "But... it's good, you know? Look around over there. You got guys who a month ago would be trying to shank each other over a street corner, now they're passing rebar down a line." His voice dropped, rougher than before but a smile still on his face. "What else we gotta do?"
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
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- Topic: White Knight Power Classification Thread [THEORYCRAFTING MEGA]
- In: Main ? Powers
- Posted by: PowerSurge
- Okay, let's break this down logically. We've seen more from this one cape in the last few months than we have from some Protectorate members in their entire careers.
- Known Powers:
- Brute/Mover: High-end. Strength to stop a charging Leviathan, speed to match him. Seems to be a self-buff, he calls it 'Reinforcement.'
- Blaster: Pyrokinesis, Aerokinesis. Can be focused into beams or wide-area attacks.
- Thinker: Some kind of combat pre-cog.
- Shaker/Changer: The 'Scrap-Golem.' This is the big one. Manifests a massive body from local materials. Appears to be a direct extension of his own body, as he was seen inside its core.
- Trump? This is the big question. Does he have all these powers, or does he have one power that lets him have all these powers? The way he escalates in response to threats feels very Trump-like. He's like an Eidolon who's stuck on one emotional setting: Pissed Off.
- ?Point_Me_@_The_Sky
- PowerSurge
- I'm leaning toward a specific kind of Trump. A reactive one. A threat-response engine. The bigger the threat, the bigger the power he manifests to deal with it. Leviathan is an S-Class threat, so he manifests an S-Class power. It's the only thing that makes sense. The cost seems to be physical degradation. He was literally falling apart at the end. A true glass cannon, but the cannon is a nuke.
- ?White_Fairye
- Let's not forget the final blast. He had an anime beam cannon. That came from him. The mech's chest opened up. He was the power source. He is the power.
- ?Tt (Verified Cape)
- You're all close, but you're missing the big picture. It's simpler and much, much messier than you think. But keep guessing, it's cute.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
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Op-Ed Excerpt: The Boston Globe, by Dr. Alistair Finch
- The Knight and the Bay: A New Archetype of Heroism?
- For two decades, the image of a hero has been carefully curated by the Protectorate: professional, controlled, and ultimately, safe. They are our firefighters, our police, our soldiers, clad in spandex and armed with superpowers. They fight within established rules of engagement, they minimize collateral damage, and they present a united, reassuring front.
- Then came White Knight.
- What we witnessed in Brockton Bay was not a controlled engagement. It was a primal scream given form. It was a raw, unfiltered, and terrifyingly personal display of power. White Knight did not fight like a soldier; he fought like a cornered animal, with a fury that felt more mythological than modern. He did not minimize collateral damage; he became collateral damage, turning a square mile of the city into his personal armory.
- And he won.
- The public response has been telling.
- There is very little fear, and largely reverence.
- In White Knight, they see not an institution, but an individual. They see a hero who bled, who raged, who sacrificed his own body on the altar of victory. He has become a symbol of something many felt was lost: the idea that a single, determined person, pushed to their absolute limit, can stand against the apocalypse and hold it back. The Protectorate saved lives, but White Knight saved the city's soul. The question the powers-that-be must now ask themselves is: after seeing this, will the public ever be satisfied with 'safe' heroes again?
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
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Trending in United States: #BrocktonBayMiracle, #WhiteKnight, #ScrapGolem, #HeSings?
@BBay_Strong (Carla P. - Brockton Resident) My apartment is gone. My car is at the bottom of the harbor. But I'm alive. My kids are alive. I saw the giant knight fight that thing. I don't care what anyone says, he's a hero. Thank you, White Knight. #BrocktonBayMiracle
@CapeWatch_Daily (Parahuman News & Gossip) Source inside the Protectorate ENE says the mood is 'tense.' Official line is gratitude, but brass is scrambling. An unsanctioned cape single-handedly turning an Endbringer fight is a political nightmare for them. #WhiteKnight
@Acoustic_Scream (Indie Cape - Boston) Replying to @CapeWatch_Daily Nightmare? The kid saved a city. Maybe the Protectorate should be taking notes instead of worrying about their PR. Some of us are tired of the 'hold the line and die' strategy.
@RealTalk_Richards (Political Commentator) Let's be clear: the emergence of an S-Class threat like White Knight operating outside of any government oversight is a national security crisis in the making. Today he's a savior, tomorrow he could be a warlord. We need accountability. #Endbringer
@Xx_Void_Cowboy_xX Replying to @RealTalk_Richards ratio + L + ur bald. my boy WK saved the world and ur crying about paperwork. log off boomer
@GamerGrrl_98 Okay but can we talk about the most important part of the #ScrapGolem fight? The song. Someone on PHO isolated the audio. It's the theme from an old cartoon, Megas XLR. This man fought a kaiju while singing a giant robot theme song. I am literally in love. #HeSings?
@PhillyWards_Fan Is it just me or did anyone else see that footage of White Knight going full-on rage mode before the golem thing? Looked like he was on fire. That was way scarier than the robot tbh.
@Dragon_Fan_Official Unpopular opinion: Dragon's drones did most of the heavy lifting with evac and support. White Knight was the flashy finisher, but let's not forget the real, consistent hero here. The logistics of this 'miracle' were all her.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
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The intro music faded out, jazzy and surprisingly fast-paced, as the screen wiped with a deep green gradient, the show's title stamped on the screen — Firing Line with Ezra Klein — with a black aiming reticle behind it.
Even slower, the host's measured voice faded in as the music faded out, worthy of NPR but with too much of a New England edge to make it. "Welcome back. With me tonight, we've got Dr. Aris Thorne, Georgetown professor of Parahuman Studies, with his new book, Facing the Facts; A Freaky Future', a study on the potential path of humanity as parahumanity grows. Not to be forgotten, we also have Jennifer Santos, former senior strategist for the New York Protectorate. Jennifer—front facing question here. The PRT is publicly calling this a victory of cooperation. But behind the scenes, can this be seen as anything other than a catastrophic failure of the established system?"
"Ezra, I wouldn't call it a failure." Jennifer didn't miss a beat, years of experience dealing with capes. "The Protectorate and Wards performed admirably under impossible conditions, and the result... the lowest casualty rate in history... well, it speaks for itself. And yes… yes, White Knight was the unexpected factor, sure. But the system worked because it created the conditions where that factor could even attempt to tip the scales here. That's the point. These are Endbringers. End. Bringers." She pushed the last two syllables out through her teeth. "You think for a single second that cape would have been anything but dead if the system wasn't working?"
Dr. Thorne cut in before she even finished, the man spluttering out loud. "No, no, c'mon, Jennifer. That's fantasy. The system didn't hold, it was breaking. Shield lines were minutes from folding. We saw it, you did, I did, every person with a curious streak and an internet connection saw it over the last couple weeks. The casualty slope was tracking exactly like it always does until—" his hand jabbed the air, impatient and clearly full of some sort of spite; possibly decades of academic frustration, "—an independent unregistered teenager dropped in with enough raw output to rival a single member of the Triumvirate. He did it by tearing up the goddamn playbook. And thank God he did, because the playbook is, frankly, timid. It's the logic of acceptable losses."
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Title: [MEGATHREAD] The White Knight "Scrap Golem" is literally just a Stand and you can't convince me otherwise. (self.capegeeks)
submitted 3 days ago by Dio_Brand_O
Okay hear me out. Everyone on PHO is talking about Shaker/Changer/Trump ratings and it's all so boring and clinical. You're all missing the obvious.
White Knight isn't a Tinker. He isn't a Golem-maker. He's a Stand User.
The "mech" is his Stand. It's a physical manifestation of his fighting spirit.
- It appears spontaneously.
- It's directly linked to his own body/life force (he was the core).
- It has a ridiculous, over-the-top ability (the giant energy cannon).
- He was literally screaming and singing while using it.
This is not Protectorate science. This is pure, uncut, Jojo-level bullshit and I am 100% here for it. His Stand name is obviously [IRON SAVIOR]. Discuss.
- Ghiaccio_Best_Boy (1.2k upvotes) Holy shit, it makes so much sense. The berserker fire-mode was him activating his Hamon breathing.
- Dio_Brand_O (OP) (788 upvotes) See? You get it. The "Reinforcement" he yells is just him channeling his life energy.
- TinkerTinkerTinker (450 upvotes) This is the dumbest thing I've ever read. It's clearly a high-spec matter-manipulation Shaker power with a biological feedback component. The singing was probably a psychological coping mechanism for the immense physical strain. Stop trying to make everything an anime.
- Not_A_Weeb (512 upvotes) Found the guy who thinks Eidolon's power is "well-documented." Let us have fun.
- L33t_G4m3r_H4x (200 upvotes) My buddy and I were there. Can confirm, the physics were optional. Definitely felt like a special move from a fighting game. 10/10, would watch again.
- Alexandria_Is_My_Mom (320 upvotes) If it's a Stand, what's its cry? Is it just him screaming the theme song? ORA ORA ORA is way better.
- Dio_Brand_O (OP) (415 upvotes) Its cry is "CHICKS! DIG! GI-ANT! RO-BOTS!" and it's perfect.
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- Topic: Official Leviathan AAR (Brockton Bay) Thread
- In: Main ? Events ? Endbringers
- Posted by: Just_a_fan
- So… it's been two weeks. The city is rebuilding. The villains are still playing nice. Everything is… weirdly quiet.
- But where is he?
- There hasn't been a single confirmed sighting of White Knight since the fight. No interviews, no fly-bys, nothing. The PRT is giving the standard 'receiving medical attention' line, but that doesn't feel right.
- I just hope he's okay. After all that… he deserves to be okay.