Editing Behemoth (section)

===Lightning===
One of Behemoth's most iconic and feared abilities is his ability to generate and guide lightning. If he has line of sight,<ref name="23.5e1">“We’ve already notified you if we believe you have the capacity to ''engage'' Behemoth.  Anyone else is operating as search, rescue, and support.  Maintain a distance of at ''least'' a hundred feet from Behemoth at the very minimum.  Get any closer, you probably won’t have a chance of escaping if he decides to close the gap.  Be mindful of line of sight, because he can and will tag you with a lightning bolt, and it’s not something you can dodge.  Assume every structure will fall down in a heartbeat, and know that there’s no good place to hide and wait for this to be over.  Keep moving and ''move smart''.” - [[Drone 23.5]]</ref> Behemoth can launch lightning, typically from the tip of his claws, to strike targets over long distances.<ref>One managed to escape, taking flight.  He got a full four city blocks away before Behemoth reached out.  He was struck out of the air by a visible arc of lightning that extended from a claw’s tip. - [[Drone 23.5]]</ref><ref>“Last stand!” a male cape I didn’t know hollered the words, his voice ragged with fear and emotion.<br><br>Behemoth, three or four hundred feet away, responded to the shout with a lightning strike.  Our capes were too slow to erect barriers, and the protection insufficient.  Capes died.  For the first time, I averted my eyes.  I didn’t want to know how bad the casualties were.  Our numbers were too thin. - [[Crushed 24.5]]</ref> He can also strike across a distance and set indiscriminate fires with his lightning.<ref>On the screen, Behemoth wasn’t even slowing down.  Another arc of lightning lanced across the cityscape, setting a dozen fires.  The houses looked shoddy, dirty, and were apparently very flammable.  The flames spread quickly, and plumes of smoke were streaming towards the overcast sky. - [[Drone 23.5]]</ref> By redirecting the natural course of electricity, he can cut a [[Dragonflight|Dragon-craft]] in half in only five hits despite the insulation.<ref>He struck the wheel-dragon with a bolt of lightning, flaying off a few plates of armor and destroying the wheel.  It opened its mouth and launched cannon-fire at him.  The shells exploded into blobs of containment foam, fireproof, sticky, virtually impossible to remove.<br><br>But not capable of holding back something like Behemoth.<br><br>More lightning was unleashed, each doing successively more damage to the craft.  By the fourth blast, it wasn’t operational.  The fifth split it down the middle.  Insulation was little use against a dynakinetic that could redirect the natural course of electricity. - [[Drone 23.5]]</ref> If Behemoth focuses, he can either concentrate on quantity<ref>“Listen,” I said.  I flinched as lightning touched nearby.  He was focusing more on a ''quantity'' of bolts than on the really heavy hits.  Cleaning up the remanants of our defenses. - [[Crushed 24.4]]</ref> such as a storm of lightning centered around himself,<ref>Golem’s hands absorbed some of the lightning that crackled around us.  Not one stream, but a ''storm'', with Behemoth at the eye of it. - [[Crushed 24.5]]</ref> or really heavy hits such as:
* A stream of lightning 20 feet across that can blow apart a [[Dragonflight|Dragon-craft]] in one hit.<ref>Behemoth brought both hands together, but it wasn’t to clap.  Instead, he directed a stream of lightning at the nearest craft, easily twenty feet across.  It was splintered in an instant.<br><br>A second craft perished a second later. - [[Drone 23.5]]</ref>
* A bolt with the diameter of an apartment building.<ref>In the distance, a column of lightning cut through the wall of smoke above the city, as big around as an apartment building.  Cody could feel the vibrations shudder through the building, as sturdy as it was, though the lightning was miles away. - [[Interlude 23]]</ref>
* Reddish bolts big enough to erase a small house.<ref>Another lightning strike made the ground shake.  Cuff shrieked, and I grit my teeth.  We barely had two seconds of reprieve between flashes of lightning.  They lanced down from the dark clouds of smoke overhead, more red than yellow, and the thunder seemed more intense than it should be.  That wasn’t the worrisome part.  Behemoth was periodically hitting us with something bigger.  Bolts of lightning big enough to erase a small house from the landscape. - [[Crushed 24.1]]</ref>

Behemoth can guide his bolts to hit pinpoint targets<ref>He pointed his claw once more, and she braced herself, gritting her teeth. Time to see how invincible I am.<br><br>But it wasn’t fire. A lightning bolt flashed from the tip of Behemoth’s claw, arcing around her and striking one of her subordinates in a single heartbeat, before leaving only the smell of ozone. - [[Interlude 15.z]]</ref> or a group of targets.<ref>They started to clear the way for retreat, and Behemoth punished them with a series of lightning strikes.<br>[...]<br>Until the Endbringer struck out, targeting one group of capes with a series of lightning strikes so intense that I was momentarily left breathless. - [[Crushed 24.2]]</ref> His lightning can defy the normal laws of conduction and arc out of metal objects when normally they'd ground out.<ref>Lightning ripped across the landscape, following its own path, independent, breaking every rule that electricity was supposed to follow.  It danced over the outside surfaces of houses, running across concrete and leaving glassy scorch marks in its wake.  It touched objects that should have grounded it, channeling it into the earth, but leaped for another target instead. - [[Interlude 23]]</ref> Although Behemoth's lightning does not appear to follow regular channels,<ref>“I don’t think you’re any safer or worse off than anyone else,” I said, trying to inject a note of confidence into the discussion.  I raised myself a step off the ground to get a better view of what lay ahead.  The ground was shaking, a steady, perpetual tremor.  “His lightning doesn’t follow regular channels.  We’re ''all'' lightning rods to him.” - [[Crushed 24.1]]</ref> it is possible to redirect his lightning by creating a path of least resistance and/or ionizing the air.<ref>Before he could turn his attention to a third, the stream of lightning shifted, curving off to one side.  Drones, the annoying little bastard spheres that had electorcuted me on multiple occasions, the same ones that had been built into the ceilings of the cells and prison hallways in the PRT headquarters, were in flight, deployed by a drone-ship like the one I’d fought in Brockton Bay, and they were channeling the lightning along a different path.<br><br>Behemoth wasn’t one to roar, but I could see the effort at work as he began to draw the lightning away from the remote drones, forcing it to take another path, beyond the route of ionized air or the electromagnetic charge that they were using to catch it and harmlessly redirect it into an area that was already rubble.  He was taking abuse from the airborne craft, unable to move without giving ground.  More containment foam and more ice built around him, tearing and melting, respectively, in response to his lesser movements.<br><br>They moved closer together, strengthening the bond, and the lightning was caught once more. - [[Drone 23.5]]</ref><ref>“Good.  And we were talking about lightning rods,” I said.<br><br>“You said they don’t matter.”<br><br>“The drones Dragon used redirected his lightning.  Golem?  How big can you go?  Optimal conditions?”<br>[...]<br>A lightning bolt lanced out from the midst of the cloud of smoke, striking the hand.<br><br>There were whoops and cheers from the Chicago Wards.  I managed a smile.<br><br>Another lightning strike, curving in the air, hit the hand.  Residual electricity danced between the two extended fingers.<br><br>It was working, and as much as it was a success in helping against the lightning, it was working to help morale.  To contribute something, ''anything'', it mattered.<br><br>“Air’s ionized now,” Tecton said, as if that was a sufficient explanation for everyone present.  I got the gist of what he meant.  The lightning would be more likely to strike there again.  Lightning ''did'' strike the same place twice. - [[Crushed 24.1]]</ref><ref>“I wish,” I said.  “More lightning rods, maybe, if we get the opportunity.”<br><br>The smoke was clearing towards the battle’s epicenter.  Legend and Eidolon were a part of that, as were the craft that supported them.  The fires were dying out, extinguished or stamped out.<br><br>Behemoth wasn’t ''that'' tall, hard to make out above the buildings that still stood.  I chanced a look, and flinched as another bolt of electricity made its way to the lightning rod.<br><br>''The path of least resistance.'' - [[Crushed 24.1]]</ref>