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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
LAST - 20.E4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Lookout took a seat on the floor, her legs crossed, her knees almost touching Riley’s. She turned her head, pressed a finger to her lips, and then began to turn invisible, the sparkles and distorted squares dancing over her body and erasing everything they touched. A HEAVENS - 12.ALL - PARAHUMANS 2 Their March strides away, blade in hand. She is unflinching as the explosions rock the building, casting off chunks of rubble. One chunk of level will intersect the woman’s head. By the limited understanding of the power, the paint will last two or three minutes, then lose its adhesion. The unconscious boy will fall. GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
SUPPORT WILDBOW
I’m a full-time writer, and as of 2017, I earn my living solely through the generosity of my readers. I’m also someone who has read and perused other media where creators took or take donations, and I’ve seen everything from the fantastic to the naggy and even the outright mercenary. I don’t want to be Continue reading "SupportWildbow"
GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. ABOUT - PARAHUMANS 2NEW READER? START WITH THE ‘GLOW-WORM’ TEASER HEREOR START AT CHAPTER 1 HEREARC 4 (SHADE) This work is a sequel, the events following that of the web serial Worm. It is not meant to be read in isolation, and would-be readers should check out the prior work first. Heavy spoilers for Worm follow from this point on. Those wanting to read this story without anyspoilers or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
LAST - 20.E4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Lookout took a seat on the floor, her legs crossed, her knees almost touching Riley’s. She turned her head, pressed a finger to her lips, and then began to turn invisible, the sparkles and distorted squares dancing over her body and erasing everything they touched. A HEAVENS - 12.ALL - PARAHUMANS 2 Their March strides away, blade in hand. She is unflinching as the explosions rock the building, casting off chunks of rubble. One chunk of level will intersect the woman’s head. By the limited understanding of the power, the paint will last two or three minutes, then lose its adhesion. The unconscious boy will fall. GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
SUPPORT WILDBOW
I’m a full-time writer, and as of 2017, I earn my living solely through the generosity of my readers. I’m also someone who has read and perused other media where creators took or take donations, and I’ve seen everything from the fantastic to the naggy and even the outright mercenary. I don’t want to be Continue reading "SupportWildbow"
GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. INFRARED - 19.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Skadi disappeared, leaving shadow-first. Aunt Sarah was maybe the third person among the assembled capes to respond accurately, locating the Titan and sending a bright violet beam straight to it. Damage-wise, it didn’t do a ton. But it did make for a verynoticeable, clear
GLARE - 3.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 The leader stood by his desk, one foot on his chair. He looked larger of frame, and had Foresight’s symbol on an eye patch. A bit of a corsair look, with a jacket and lots of belts, and long black hair tied back into a sailor’s ponytail. Veins of gold decorated SHADE - 4.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Previous Chapter Next Chapter. Ashley took her time exploring Hollow Point. Much of her attention was on the stores and the people within them. A store with supplies for those living on the fringes and in the tent cities, a used bookstore that was selling books taken from homes in the old world, ten dollars for a cardboard box full, a closed children’s clothing store. GLARE - 3.5 - PARAHUMANS 2 You can send them the wrong signals, but they could try tripping you up too,” Tristan said. “I know, really,” Rain said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like he was about to say something, then said, “Yeah.”. “I could come with and fly back,or
SUPPORT WILDBOW
I’m a full-time writer, and as of 2017, I earn my living solely through the generosity of my readers. I’m also someone who has read and perused other media where creators took or take donations, and I’ve seen everything from the fantastic to the naggy and even the outright mercenary. I don’t want to be Continue reading "SupportWildbow"
SHADE - INTERLUDE 4A - PARAHUMANS 2 Rain’s auntie was at the counter, grating potatoes. Her daughter, Rain’s cousin Allie, stood talking to one of the men that was sitting at the table, while she took her time drying a dish. Rain knew only one of the men at the table- an uncle, who had said ten words at most in all the time Rain knew him. FLARE - 2.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 The tinker, as I took it, was the one sitting on the suit’s shoulder. Another cape was standing on the end of a rod, three stories above the ground, the end of the rod stuck into the side of the building. He looked stern as he looked down at the scene, his arms folded, until someone waved up at SHADE - 4.2 - PARAHUMANS 2 Sveta started toward it, but Kenzie leaped out of her chair and beat her to it, opening the door. Kenzie saluted as Ashley entered. Ashley had a plastic bag with books and her dress in it. She moved those things out of the way, holding them while Kenzie fished the two camera drones out of the bottom of the bag. DAYBREAK - 1.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 This was the flip side to the hostility and the street-wide gap between protester and community center. Boyfriend and girlfriend sat on an outdoor love seat together, arms around each other, bathed in fire’s warmth. Friends sat and talked, beers in hand. Kids in another yard played with their dog. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
ABOUT - PARAHUMANS 2NEW READER? START WITH THE ‘GLOW-WORM’ TEASER HEREOR START AT CHAPTER 1 HEREARC 4 (SHADE) This work is a sequel, the events following that of the web serial Worm. It is not meant to be read in isolation, and would-be readers should check out the prior work first. Heavy spoilers for Worm follow from this point on. Those wanting to read this story without anyspoilers or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
LAST - 20.E4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Lookout took a seat on the floor, her legs crossed, her knees almost touching Riley’s. She turned her head, pressed a finger to her lips, and then began to turn invisible, the sparkles and distorted squares dancing over her body and erasing everything they touched. A GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a SUNDOWN - 17.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Fucking Amy. Dauntless only advanced. He didn’t walk, his body more a pillar between sky and ground than a body. He flowed forward, scraped past the city, navigating a path that favored lakes and water, parks and open spaces. Some buildings fell, DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
ABOUT - PARAHUMANS 2NEW READER? START WITH THE ‘GLOW-WORM’ TEASER HEREOR START AT CHAPTER 1 HEREARC 4 (SHADE) This work is a sequel, the events following that of the web serial Worm. It is not meant to be read in isolation, and would-be readers should check out the prior work first. Heavy spoilers for Worm follow from this point on. Those wanting to read this story without anyspoilers or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
LAST - 20.E4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Lookout took a seat on the floor, her legs crossed, her knees almost touching Riley’s. She turned her head, pressed a finger to her lips, and then began to turn invisible, the sparkles and distorted squares dancing over her body and erasing everything they touched. A GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a SUNDOWN - 17.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Fucking Amy. Dauntless only advanced. He didn’t walk, his body more a pillar between sky and ground than a body. He flowed forward, scraped past the city, navigating a path that favored lakes and water, parks and open spaces. Some buildings fell, DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
LAST - 20.B - PARAHUMANS 2 Presley walked fast, trusting the child of the freakout woman to follow her. Past a conference room with the table pushed into a corner, sleeping bags and blankets forming a grid on the floor. The people in that room were gathered at the window, watching the city. The kid caught up to her, his footsteps heavy. LAST - 20.END - PARAHUMANS 2 The only light was the fire and the headlights of one car, which some people were sitting around and smoking. Rain, Cassie, and Chastity were sharing a blanket for warmth, while dogs slept at their feet. Natalie was talking to Hannah, who looked a bit aggrieved to be talking about work, but was entertaining the woman. LAST - 20.E6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Crystal’s mom, floating a bit above her, looked down, at the same time Crystal looked up. The man’s stomach tore open, the grey stuff spilling out, foaming, and gushing from the intestines and organs that had torn apart. Blood and the red edges of tornFROM WITHIN
Previous Chapter Next Chapter. What a shitty, shitty battlefield. Cold, snowy, tall buildings on either side, cars sitting bumper to bumper down every bit of road and street I could see, and people who had evacuated their cars gathered at the edges, in doorways, nooks, crannies, building interiors. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
SHADOW - INTERLUDE 5.Y - PARAHUMANS 2 Struck by a sweep of golden light. He’d tried to forge something in the shop, and the shop had gone up in flames. And the ashes, the memories, they had been stomped on, repeatedly, night after night, mixed with the memories of others, drowned out by a DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. INTERLUDE 18.Z (RADIATION) A woman too bright to look at, too intense, every aspect of her pulling, tugging, driving, manipulating. It was like standing beneath a waterfall, the water crashing down from above, and trying to swim to the top. Impossible. Just by being here, the giantess made everythingharder.
TOYBOX - PARAHUMANS 2 This is the second of two updates, concerning the recent WordPress move that most people probably have not noticed. What people probably have noticed is that the WordPress server stability has been less than great recently. The reason for this is, essentially, unseen screwups in the original setup that I wasn’t looking out for because of AWS credits that finally expired. SHADE - 4.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 A male voice asked a question, and the cashier said something in response. She left six of the dresses where they were, and took two with her as she returned to the woman’s side of the store. “Damsel of Distress,” the man said. He wore a mask with antlers at the corner, forking and extending into the wild locks of hair. ABOUT - PARAHUMANS 2NEW READER? START WITH THE ‘GLOW-WORM’ TEASER HEREOR START AT CHAPTER 1 HEREARC 4 (SHADE) This work is a sequel, the events following that of the web serial Worm. It is not meant to be read in isolation, and would-be readers should check out the prior work first. Heavy spoilers for Worm follow from this point on. Those wanting to read this story without anyspoilers or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
LAST - 20.E4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Lookout took a seat on the floor, her legs crossed, her knees almost touching Riley’s. She turned her head, pressed a finger to her lips, and then began to turn invisible, the sparkles and distorted squares dancing over her body and erasing everything they touched. A GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a SUNDOWN - 17.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Fucking Amy. Dauntless only advanced. He didn’t walk, his body more a pillar between sky and ground than a body. He flowed forward, scraped past the city, navigating a path that favored lakes and water, parks and open spaces. Some buildings fell, DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
ABOUT - PARAHUMANS 2NEW READER? START WITH THE ‘GLOW-WORM’ TEASER HEREOR START AT CHAPTER 1 HEREARC 4 (SHADE) This work is a sequel, the events following that of the web serial Worm. It is not meant to be read in isolation, and would-be readers should check out the prior work first. Heavy spoilers for Worm follow from this point on. Those wanting to read this story without anyspoilers or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
LAST - 20.E4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Lookout took a seat on the floor, her legs crossed, her knees almost touching Riley’s. She turned her head, pressed a finger to her lips, and then began to turn invisible, the sparkles and distorted squares dancing over her body and erasing everything they touched. A GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a SUNDOWN - 17.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Fucking Amy. Dauntless only advanced. He didn’t walk, his body more a pillar between sky and ground than a body. He flowed forward, scraped past the city, navigating a path that favored lakes and water, parks and open spaces. Some buildings fell, DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
LAST - 20.B - PARAHUMANS 2 Presley walked fast, trusting the child of the freakout woman to follow her. Past a conference room with the table pushed into a corner, sleeping bags and blankets forming a grid on the floor. The people in that room were gathered at the window, watching the city. The kid caught up to her, his footsteps heavy. LAST - 20.END - PARAHUMANS 2 The only light was the fire and the headlights of one car, which some people were sitting around and smoking. Rain, Cassie, and Chastity were sharing a blanket for warmth, while dogs slept at their feet. Natalie was talking to Hannah, who looked a bit aggrieved to be talking about work, but was entertaining the woman. LAST - 20.E6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Crystal’s mom, floating a bit above her, looked down, at the same time Crystal looked up. The man’s stomach tore open, the grey stuff spilling out, foaming, and gushing from the intestines and organs that had torn apart. Blood and the red edges of tornFROM WITHIN
Previous Chapter Next Chapter. What a shitty, shitty battlefield. Cold, snowy, tall buildings on either side, cars sitting bumper to bumper down every bit of road and street I could see, and people who had evacuated their cars gathered at the edges, in doorways, nooks, crannies, building interiors. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
SHADOW - INTERLUDE 5.Y - PARAHUMANS 2 Struck by a sweep of golden light. He’d tried to forge something in the shop, and the shop had gone up in flames. And the ashes, the memories, they had been stomped on, repeatedly, night after night, mixed with the memories of others, drowned out by a DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. INTERLUDE 18.Z (RADIATION) A woman too bright to look at, too intense, every aspect of her pulling, tugging, driving, manipulating. It was like standing beneath a waterfall, the water crashing down from above, and trying to swim to the top. Impossible. Just by being here, the giantess made everythingharder.
TOYBOX - PARAHUMANS 2 This is the second of two updates, concerning the recent WordPress move that most people probably have not noticed. What people probably have noticed is that the WordPress server stability has been less than great recently. The reason for this is, essentially, unseen screwups in the original setup that I wasn’t looking out for because of AWS credits that finally expired. SHADE - 4.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 A male voice asked a question, and the cashier said something in response. She left six of the dresses where they were, and took two with her as she returned to the woman’s side of the store. “Damsel of Distress,” the man said. He wore a mask with antlers at the corner, forking and extending into the wild locks of hair. ABOUT - PARAHUMANS 2NEW READER? START WITH THE ‘GLOW-WORM’ TEASER HEREOR START AT CHAPTER 1 HEREARC 4 (SHADE) This work is a sequel, the events following that of the web serial Worm. It is not meant to be read in isolation, and would-be readers should check out the prior work first. Heavy spoilers for Worm follow from this point on. Those wanting to read this story without anyspoilers or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
GLOW-WORM - 0.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Glow-worm – 0.1. Ward is the second work in the Parahumans series, and reading Worm first is strongly recommended. A lot of this won’t make sense otherwise and if you do find yourself a fan of the universe, the spoilers in Ward will affect the reading of the other work. Ward is not recommended for young or sensitive readers. GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens SUNDOWN - 17.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Fucking Amy. Dauntless only advanced. He didn’t walk, his body more a pillar between sky and ground than a body. He flowed forward, scraped past the city, navigating a path that favored lakes and water, parks and open spaces. Some buildings fell, DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
ABOUT - PARAHUMANS 2NEW READER? START WITH THE ‘GLOW-WORM’ TEASER HEREOR START AT CHAPTER 1 HEREARC 4 (SHADE) This work is a sequel, the events following that of the web serial Worm. It is not meant to be read in isolation, and would-be readers should check out the prior work first. Heavy spoilers for Worm follow from this point on. Those wanting to read this story without anyspoilers or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
GLOW-WORM - 0.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Glow-worm – 0.1. Ward is the second work in the Parahumans series, and reading Worm first is strongly recommended. A lot of this won’t make sense otherwise and if you do find yourself a fan of the universe, the spoilers in Ward will affect the reading of the other work. Ward is not recommended for young or sensitive readers. GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens SUNDOWN - 17.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Fucking Amy. Dauntless only advanced. He didn’t walk, his body more a pillar between sky and ground than a body. He flowed forward, scraped past the city, navigating a path that favored lakes and water, parks and open spaces. Some buildings fell, DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
SUPPORT WILDBOW
I’m a full-time writer, and as of 2017, I earn my living solely through the generosity of my readers. I’m also someone who has read and perused other media where creators took or take donations, and I’ve seen everything from the fantastic to the naggy and even the outright mercenary. I don’t want to be Continue reading "SupportWildbow"
INFRARED - 19.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 A damaged building thrust itself into existence, and catapulted Sveta into the air. Her body came undone, flat tendrils holding clothes in the right general positions, while others worked to catch her and catch hold of her target. The Mathers giant looked down at SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
FLARE - 2.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 The tinker, as I took it, was the one sitting on the suit’s shoulder. Another cape was standing on the end of a rod, three stories above the ground, the end of the rod stuck into the side of the building. He looked stern as he looked down at the scene, his arms folded, until someone waved up at INTERLUDE 18.Z (RADIATION) A woman too bright to look at, too intense, every aspect of her pulling, tugging, driving, manipulating. It was like standing beneath a waterfall, the water crashing down from above, and trying to swim to the top. Impossible. Just by being here, the giantess made everythingharder.
SHADE - 4.2 - PARAHUMANS 2 Sveta started toward it, but Kenzie leaped out of her chair and beat her to it, opening the door. Kenzie saluted as Ashley entered. Ashley had a plastic bag with books and her dress in it. She moved those things out of the way, holding them while Kenzie fished the two camera drones out of the bottom of the bag. F.A.Q. - PRT QUEST? - PARAHUMANS 2 Q: What is PRT Quest? You might see passing mention of PRT Quest in the comment section or other fan communities. It took place on a forum, and updated as a kind of ‘choose your own adventure’ story, with Wildbow writing the segments and fans voting in the times between segments to choose or propose Continue reading "F.A.Q. – PRT Quest?" DAYBREAK - 1.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 This was the flip side to the hostility and the street-wide gap between protester and community center. Boyfriend and girlfriend sat on an outdoor love seat together, arms around each other, bathed in fire’s warmth. Friends sat and talked, beers in hand. Kids in another yard played with their dog. SHADE - 4.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 A male voice asked a question, and the cashier said something in response. She left six of the dresses where they were, and took two with her as she returned to the woman’s side of the store. “Damsel of Distress,” the man said. He wore a mask with antlers at the corner, forking and extending into the wild locks of hair. GLARE - 3.5 - PARAHUMANS 2 You can send them the wrong signals, but they could try tripping you up too,” Tristan said. “I know, really,” Rain said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like he was about to say something, then said, “Yeah.”. “I could come with and fly back,or
ABOUT - PARAHUMANS 2NEW READER? START WITH THE ‘GLOW-WORM’ TEASER HEREOR START AT CHAPTER 1 HEREARC 4 (SHADE) This work is a sequel, the events following that of the web serial Worm. It is not meant to be read in isolation, and would-be readers should check out the prior work first. Heavy spoilers for Worm follow from this point on. Those wanting to read this story without anyspoilers or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
GLOW-WORM - 0.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Glow-worm – 0.1. Ward is the second work in the Parahumans series, and reading Worm first is strongly recommended. A lot of this won’t make sense otherwise and if you do find yourself a fan of the universe, the spoilers in Ward will affect the reading of the other work. Ward is not recommended for young or sensitive readers. GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens SUNDOWN - 17.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Fucking Amy. Dauntless only advanced. He didn’t walk, his body more a pillar between sky and ground than a body. He flowed forward, scraped past the city, navigating a path that favored lakes and water, parks and open spaces. Some buildings fell, DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2PARAHUMANS 2FAQ PARAHUMANS 2PARAHUMANS WORMPARAHUMANS WORDPRESSR PARAHUMANSWORM PARAHUMANS Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
ABOUT - PARAHUMANS 2NEW READER? START WITH THE ‘GLOW-WORM’ TEASER HEREOR START AT CHAPTER 1 HEREARC 4 (SHADE) This work is a sequel, the events following that of the web serial Worm. It is not meant to be read in isolation, and would-be readers should check out the prior work first. Heavy spoilers for Worm follow from this point on. Those wanting to read this story without anyspoilers or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Arc 0: Glow-worm The Glow-worm chapters were a teaser event leading up to Worm 2. They aren’t required reading but offer flavor and additional angles by which to view certain characters. They take the form of forum posts, chat conversations and emails. They’re best described as a kind of a post-Worm-epilogue, pseudo-Ward-prologue bridge between the Continue reading "Table of Contents" F.A.Q. - PARAHUMANS 2 It’s just a flat ‘no’. Read on, speculate, and infer from the text. Q2: Who is Wildbow? A2: Wildbow, also going by J.C. McCrae or John McCrae in real life (the former professionally, the latter casually), was born in 1984, and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. He became hard of hearing three days after being born, and was raised withhearing
GLOW-WORM - 0.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Glow-worm – 0.1. Ward is the second work in the Parahumans series, and reading Worm first is strongly recommended. A lot of this won’t make sense otherwise and if you do find yourself a fan of the universe, the spoilers in Ward will affect the reading of the other work. Ward is not recommended for young or sensitive readers. GLARE - 3.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 Chris, barefoot, wearing his t-shirt and shorts, broke into a sprint. As Kenzie climbed up onto the rock, Chris threw himself at the rod, hard, body-checking it. It broke in two at the silver line, the top half toppling. Kenzie made the kind of high-pitched noise only a GLEAMING - 9.4 - PARAHUMANS 2 The rain pelted his armor and helmet, and he didn’t flinch. I saw his shoulders rise, then fall very suddenly. A deep breath, his breath fogging out from the mouth portion of the helmet. He dropped a clump of metal and chain onto the fire escape, then bent down, slipping hisfeet into them.
DAYBREAK - 1.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 My forcefield blocked them, saw them bounce off, one landing on the bed, two falling to the floor beside me. I kicked the bed to bring the more solid bedframe to where I could grab it, and rammed the end of the bed at the corner where he was. The shurikens SUNDOWN - 17.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 Fucking Amy. Dauntless only advanced. He didn’t walk, his body more a pillar between sky and ground than a body. He flowed forward, scraped past the city, navigating a path that favored lakes and water, parks and open spaces. Some buildings fell, DYING - 15.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 I got in the way, forcefield out. She crashed into me, drove me back, and pushed me toward Rain, where the Wretch would have him in her reach. Stay still, I thought, as we were pushed through wires, using my flight to push back against the driving, invisible force. Don’t lash out, don’t bite. SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2PARAHUMANS 2FAQ PARAHUMANS 2PARAHUMANS WORMPARAHUMANS WORDPRESSR PARAHUMANSWORM PARAHUMANS Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
SUPPORT WILDBOW
I’m a full-time writer, and as of 2017, I earn my living solely through the generosity of my readers. I’m also someone who has read and perused other media where creators took or take donations, and I’ve seen everything from the fantastic to the naggy and even the outright mercenary. I don’t want to be Continue reading "SupportWildbow"
INFRARED - 19.6 - PARAHUMANS 2 A damaged building thrust itself into existence, and catapulted Sveta into the air. Her body came undone, flat tendrils holding clothes in the right general positions, while others worked to catch her and catch hold of her target. The Mathers giant looked down at SHADOW - 5.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 Set on putting the nightmare and the associated feelings behind me, I got some socks, underwear, sports bra, and a camisole top, stowing them in my bag where I already had my wallet. I pulled on some sneakers, sans socks, and headed to the balcony door. I eyed the clockin the kitchen as I
FLARE - 2.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 The tinker, as I took it, was the one sitting on the suit’s shoulder. Another cape was standing on the end of a rod, three stories above the ground, the end of the rod stuck into the side of the building. He looked stern as he looked down at the scene, his arms folded, until someone waved up at INTERLUDE 18.Z (RADIATION) A woman too bright to look at, too intense, every aspect of her pulling, tugging, driving, manipulating. It was like standing beneath a waterfall, the water crashing down from above, and trying to swim to the top. Impossible. Just by being here, the giantess made everythingharder.
SHADE - 4.2 - PARAHUMANS 2 Sveta started toward it, but Kenzie leaped out of her chair and beat her to it, opening the door. Kenzie saluted as Ashley entered. Ashley had a plastic bag with books and her dress in it. She moved those things out of the way, holding them while Kenzie fished the two camera drones out of the bottom of the bag. F.A.Q. - PRT QUEST? - PARAHUMANS 2 Q: What is PRT Quest? You might see passing mention of PRT Quest in the comment section or other fan communities. It took place on a forum, and updated as a kind of ‘choose your own adventure’ story, with Wildbow writing the segments and fans voting in the times between segments to choose or propose Continue reading "F.A.Q. – PRT Quest?" DAYBREAK - 1.7 - PARAHUMANS 2 This was the flip side to the hostility and the street-wide gap between protester and community center. Boyfriend and girlfriend sat on an outdoor love seat together, arms around each other, bathed in fire’s warmth. Friends sat and talked, beers in hand. Kids in another yard played with their dog. SHADE - 4.1 - PARAHUMANS 2 A male voice asked a question, and the cashier said something in response. She left six of the dresses where they were, and took two with her as she returned to the woman’s side of the store. “Damsel of Distress,” the man said. He wore a mask with antlers at the corner, forking and extending into the wild locks of hair. GLARE - 3.5 - PARAHUMANS 2 You can send them the wrong signals, but they could try tripping you up too,” Tristan said. “I know, really,” Rain said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like he was about to say something, then said, “Yeah.”. “I could come with and fly back,or
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PARAHUMANS 2
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I had no idea what was real, anymore. I couldn’t trust anything. Red and gold lines spiderwebbing across my vision made me think something in my mind had broken, even more than those fundamental parts of me had been lost or irrevocably damaged. I dove in, prepared to make myself more of an immediate threat. Part of the reason she seemed to have stalled was that she had accumulated a fair bit of damage. That damage was my target. I couldn’t be sure of anything, but I was reasonably confident that she _did_ need to recover if she was hurt. No way would the Endbringers have operated like they had for as long as they had if they didn’t. No way would the Endbringers slowed their aggression against Scion in the middle phases of the fighting, falling back to change up how they came at him, if they didn’t need rests, in asense.
This was how I had to interpret the situation and the fight. Grounding every thought. Anticipate, be flexible, find theweaknesses.
She barely seemed to notice me as I flew in, driving my forcefield into the criss-cross patchwork at her shoulder, where her body was revealed to be hollow, a criss-cross latticework of feathers forming the shape of a thin, sculpted shoulder. Some of that lattice was broken, and I dug in, tearing it open wider. I felt telekinesis roll over me, grabbing at parts of my sleeve that stuck out, a prong at my shoulder where the decorations attached, myhood.
With flight, a wrenching of my body, and my forcefield gripping the floor and hauling me to one side, I tore myself free of that faint grip, getting some distance from the Simurgh. She folded wings around herself, a shield, while rubble circled around her, making the approach complicated. I wasn’t the only one she’d gripped. She’d reached out across the room, targeting everyone present who wasn’t one of the compromised individuals she’d drawn in. Chevalier was here, and put his sword out like a wall, some of his squadron gripping the channel that bifurcated the two great blades. The screaming in my ears reached a new pitch, the Simurgh unfurled her wings and raised one long, thin arm, and the blade twitched, the blade turning so it was no longer perpendicular to the ground. The material of his costume and the blade seemed resistant to her efforts… good thing, because if it hadn’t been, she might have turned his weapon so the blade was poised to catch anyone and everyoneshe threw.
Rubble moved, metal pipes lifted themselves free from piles of debris and pointed, poised to catch the people she was about to fling. The lens I wore highlighted it where I couldn’t see it with my own eyes in the gloom. Where things moved, the lines were more unsure, while fixtures like pillars and doorways were marked out, firm. I flew, ready to intercept, or to be in a position to intercept. I still had the flash gun, and I clipped it to my belt, where it swung and banged against my leg as I turned in the air. It was another weak point, a thing she could grab. But there wasn’t a great way to handle carrying the thing. She’d done this before. I’d watched videos and simulations of prior Simurgh encounters, before they were taken down. I’d seen these mass-telekinetic-flings before, modeled in three dimensional programs, each individual stripped down to being a dull gray render of a human being, without costume, colors, gender, or personality. Always toward the end of fights, if she did it at all, always only after she’d sang long enough. After she had her hooks in. _This is real_, I thought to myself. The thoughts couldn’t have sounded further from being the proud, confident heroine I’d dreamed of being, once. Tremulous, wavering, and a half-step away from a downward spiral. What had I done that I hadn’t realized I was doing? I couldn’t clearly remember if I’d dropped that piece of rubble on my sister. I’d forgotten stuff, or… not forgotten. I’d failed to think of things. Like my gun. I’d left it behind. Could have really used it now. Someone screamed, as she fought to get free and couldn’t. She wore a costume in yellow and black, almost flipped from my own, a swooping bird icon on the chest with fins at the exterior, all flowing from the lines and patterns of the costume itself. She reached out for a teammate’s hand, her fingertips grazing his, as the two of them wereheld immobile.
I wasn’t sure what she hoped to do if she did get a hold of her teammate, but I couldn’t go fly to her rescue. That was a trap. Everything was a trap. _This, too, is real. This is what she does. This is why if you’re even thinking of participating in any fights against the Simurgh at any point in time, they’d give you the rundown. They’d prepare us well in advance._ “What do I do!?” Sveta called out. “Grab-” I started, my voice drowned out by other people shouting,yelling.
My sentence interrupted as the Simurgh flung them. Not forward, not back, but in various directions. I took flight, trying to catch the man the woman in the bird costume had been reaching for. _They tell you in the prep materials that you will always feel onestep behind_…
I got a firm grip on his hand. I felt the jolt as he jerked, and he roared in pain, the noise joining the cacophony around us. Sveta was doing more, catching rubble, people… I’d meant to tell her to grab the bits that stuck out. If the Manton effect extended just past her tendrils to any clothing she wore, there was a chance she could impart just a bit of it to spikes, fins, capes, and other matter. The Simurgh, as far as I knew, didn’t grab flesh.__
I was trying to track the dangers and see what she was doing in the midst of this chaos when I saw a wobbly golden outline. Unlike so many of the others, it wasn’t moving. A pipe that stuck out of apile of rubble.
I flew, _hard_, moving lower to the ground and letting go of the guy I’d grabbed. I had been flying hard enough that he rolled on landing. Rolled on that dislocated arm. _They warn you that you’ll do things that seem callous or inhuman. That she’ll make you do those things as one of her one hundred ways of getting to you…_ I rationalized it, telling myself the air resistance was too much, that short length of pipe too threatening. It twitched, and I thought for a moment it was about to come for me. Then it pulled free, lunging left- Lunging _right_. A feint. _Reach!_ I communicated, prayed, pled. The Fragile One reached out, using the form with the widest breadth, the me from a period that was trying to move a ruined mess of a body, one that could occupy a whole couch. The forcefield slammed into my back and the back of my head, _hard,_ and the hand caught the pipe outof the air.
It was only after that I looked at the target. Dinah Alcott. The _boom_ of Chevalier’s cannon drowned out all sounds that weren’t the scream in my head. The Simurgh blocked the shot with almost casual ease, moving a chunk of pillar into the way. Another chunk of rubble hit Dinah. Something I couldn’t have anticipated, catching her in what looked like the solar plexus. She fell, hand to her stomach. It hadn’t been moving as fast as other chunks, but it was still _something_. _The preparation material said we’d fail, we’d be whittled down, and it would perpetually feel like we could do more, if only we were at our best, while she guaranteed that we wouldn’t be at ourbest…_
“Hey! Kid Cassandra!” Tattletale called out. “Don’t call me that!” “_Move_! _Run! _You’re a sitting duck!” “And she really wants duck for last meal before she ends the world!” Imp crowed.“Run _where_?”
“Run laps! I’m not even joking! Don’t fall in the hole inthe floor!”
“What are you- I’m not an idiot!” “No, but you’re about to be blind! Grue!” Grue created a wave of darkness, hitting the curved wall of the open space. It banked, rolling out and expanding. “I don’t suppose you could steal her powers, or-” “No,” Grue said. I saw another chunk of rubble move, and put myself in its way, kicking it with my forcefield to drive it into the ground. It still rolled a bit from residual momentum… Again, I looked for the target. There wasn’t one, or if there was,it was subtle.
_I’m losing my_ _mind._ The Mathers Giant had gone dormant, backing up and falling into a crouch, knees to her chest. Thin, with near-white hair, gaunt features, and only a bit of loose attire that had been fabricated for her by Shin, in the glorious textures and patterns that Shin seemed to be so good at making. She had a few wounds from the earlierfighting.
No indication she was messing with us again. This was just us andthe Simurgh.
“…the hell not!?” Tattletale called out. “I’d need Valkyrie to undo the tweaks she did, and she’s gone,” he told us. “What fucking tweaks?” “It’s complicated. Needed- _Christ!” _Grue narrowly avoided getting smashed as a section of pillar high off the ground fell to hit the floor. “_–_To try something. To try and shake the memories those new powers were attached to. Didn’t work.” “Well that’s really fucking inconvenient,” Tattletale said. “Really fucking sorry to inconvenience you, Tats,” he retorted. I would rather have been in a tornado without my forcefield than in the midst of _this_. When things weren’t flying right toward my face, they were flying in from the side, the ceiling was crumbling, or stuff was happening below me. It was impossible to watch every avenue of attack, and ten seconds of this was enough to drive just about anyone to the edge of panic… let alone anyone who had a scream in their head and a shared hallucination fresh in their memory. Most were taking cover. Only a few of us were insane enough to be out here, trying to catch people or stop her. The rubble that had been marked out earlier was flying through the air at speeds that severed body parts they hit. Sveta recoiled, dropping someone, as something hit her arm. In her case, at least, the tendrils were flexible enough to absorb the worst of the impact, but she retracted the strands and her arm hung limp at her side, red and wounded. _This feels hopeless_. _The study materials they gave out said it would feel hopeless. More than any other fight against Endbringers._ _But it really feels hopeless._ And all we could do was to keep fighting, keep giving our all, up until the last drops of blood had been shed. I saw blue motes, and I had to look for Capricorn. He was coming up the stairs with Vista, Narwhal, and others. She’d know they were coming, which meant she was already doing something to fuck with them. Chevalier lined up his cannonblade, then fired again, then a third time. Each shot did appreciable damage to the Simurgh. The kind of damage we needed to be doing. _“Please_,” the whisper oozed out of the hiss of the gun. “Tattletale,” I called out. I took a position between Byron’s group and the Undersiders, one eye on the dark cloud Dinah hid within. “You did good with the syringe, kiddo. Let’s just hope the heroes have this.” Narwhal opened with a volley of twelve forcefield spikes. They plunged into the Simurgh’s wing and stuck there. Chevalier was recovering, reloading shots, while crouching by a pillar. He was talking to an injured guy- _the_ injured guy with spider legs, who was wearing a hero’s costume. Who didn’t lookout of his mind.
_I’m losing my mind. I don’t have enough things to hold onto_. _Some things are working and some aren’t. The handbooks…_ _…The handbooks assumed if we were stuck in the fights for this long after everything had gone to shit, we were goners already._ “Talk to me. To us. What’s- why is she running laps?” “Metaphor!” Tattletale called out. “Metaphor? She’s running laps for a metaphor!?” “No! There’s a metaphor for this!” I flew down as rubble that was leaning against the wall shifted, threatening to fall on Byron’s group. It put me out of earshot of Tattletale. This was _not_ a time for fucking metaphors. Vista shrank the rubble. I flew down and caught the rubble before it could collapse on the group. It shrunk with every passing second. “Thanks, big V.” I huffed for breath. I met her eyes, and… I saw a deep sadness there. I met Byron’s, and I saw that he looked shaken. I couldn’t imagine how I looked. I was pretty sure the cut on my head was bleeding again, and I couldn’t take the time to get the coagulant out. Or had I given that to Dinah? I was losing my grip on reality. This entire battlefield had ceased to feel like a place where A flowed to B flowed to C. It was chaosand madness.
I took a breath, and my broken collarbone pulled apart, which came with a feeling like the attached bits of muscle that led from my neck down were tearing. I gasped. “Vic?” Byron asked. “Hey. You guys managing?” I asked, trying to not gasp and finding myself sounding too casual in the process. I could barely get my thoughts in order. “How’s Cryptid?” “He’s doing the stuff. And no,” Byron said. He dropped his voice in volume, so he could be heard by Vista and me alone. “I might have a phobia about being crushed by giant rocks. After…” After Tristan had ended his own life by way of giant rock. “It’s fine if you need to go,” I told him. “I couldn’t live with myself. Just… don’t blame me if I’mnot at my peak.”
“That’s in the protocols,” I assured him. “Pamphlets, videos, and prep material they’d give us while getting our heads checked out to see if we were fit to fight the Simurgh.” “Oh, I got those,” he said. “We got those. Tristan and me. I kind of didn’t pay attention. I thought _this_ was the one Endbringer I’d never willingly fight.” “Rule is, don’t blame yourself, don’t get down on yourself. Do what you can. If you have to run before you’re a danger to others, do that. We get through this, then we move on. If you let it weigh on you, it’ll destroy you.” “Gotta love protocols,” he murmured, between breaths so heavy it was like he already had a lot weighing on him. “Nice and simple. Don’t ever have to think.” He was breathing hard. He lifted his helmet to fix his hair where it had fallen across his face and been stuck there, and flinched as a small stone dinged off of the metal at the side of his head. “Hey,” Vista said. “If you’re wanting to keep going-” “I am,” Byron said, so fast it felt forced. “Giant constellation. Work with me.”He nodded.
I left them behind. There were other bases to cover. Tattletale and her fucking metaphor, for one. She’d acted like she knew what she was doing when she’d ordered Dinah to run around like a headless chicken, and as far as I was concerned, we really fucking needed someone who knew what they were doing. Or someone who was convincing enough at pretending to know that they could keep us all centered and organized. I caught one chunk of rubble and blocked another with my forcefield, to spare the Undersiders who’d hunkered down beside some cover. I was momentarily without my forcefield, and something hit me square in the back. I dropped to my knees, grunting. One of Rachel’s dogs collapsed to the ground, just to my left. Not fallen, but lying down near where I was, to use its body to protectme.
Ow. Fuck me, ow. My legs still seemed to work, and it was more in the ribs than anything, but fucked up ribs on the left side of my body in conjunction with a fucked up collarbone made me feel like the left side of my torso was going to break free of the rest of me. “Thanks, dog,” I managed. “Good dog.” It only kept one eye closed, head turned away from the storm of flyingmaterials.
It wasn’t like a whirlwind where things flew in what seemed to be a fairly steady circle. There were things flying crosswise. Pieces of costume, pieces of pillar, computer stuff, wires, wood, concrete, tile, papers. They smacked into one another, into us. I saw someone get hit by something on his left side, stumble, and get hit onhis right.
Golem was on Chevalier’s team, and was trying to create concrete hands to wall off the constant assault, so the bulk of the Wardens at one end of the facility only needed to protect themselves from thefront.
“Tattletale,” I grunted. Fuck, I couldn’t raise my voiceanymore.
Tattletale was on the other side of the cover I leaned against, while the dog lay at my feet, taking its beating. I heard her voice. “Metaphor. We’re playing chess. Each and every one of us, we’ve got a board and we’re sitting on the other side of the table from the all-knowing angel. She can think ahead to endgame, and we don’t know how to play.” “Dinah knows?” I asked. “Our Kid Cassandra is flailing in the dark, compared to our lady insilver. Sorry.”
“We have more pieces on the board.” “Oh hon, I’m not so sure we do,” Tattletale said. “Too many of us are compromised, she’s had a good enough look at enough of us to know what moves we make or could make until the very end.” “Then what?” I asked. “She can’t see the kid. Not easily. Not while she’s juggling everything else. She’s refining her plan against Contessa while she’s juggling a thousand of _us_. The Kid Cassandra makes that harder, and casts a shadow over everything she interacts with.”_Too hard._
Too hard. Those two words were like a whisper, a product of the environment, except no rasp of rubble on concrete or metal on metal had helped to form the sounds that coincidentally became words. No, it was the chaotic noise in my head, the half-formed thoughts. Dangerously close to me being unable to distinguish my own thoughts from the words she was putting in my head. It took _effort_ to think past the screaming in my head. To put together what Tattletale was saying. The screaming was incessant, my every nerve was on edge, the past was regret, the present was stress well beyond what I’d ever thought I could tolerate, and the future was almost certain doom. _She can’t see Dinah. She can’t see us if we interact withDinah._
The Simurgh shattered Narwhal’s forcefields in the air. Shards struck people who were trying to close the distance, in that twentieth of a second that it took Narwhal to cancel the forcefields and make the shards disappear. “That’s why I could get the syringe to the giant,” I said. “She didn’t see me to stop me?” Tattletale nodded. “Think so.” “If it was that easy, we would have beat her with regularity a longtime ago.”
Fuck, my ribs hurt. My collarbone hurt. I shifted position and was left breathless when the bone of one part of my fractured collarbone grated against the other part, making itself felt through my entire upper body and neck. “It’s not that easy. She knows she’ll be blind, here and there. She collects and stacks the pieces. At a certain point, she’s got so many factors on her side she can make blind moves and still win. That’s where she’s at now. There’s no king for us to take, no weak point to capitalize on, no silver bullet or special trick,” Tattletale said. “Tattletale, queen of pep talks,” Imp proclaimed. “You gotta get out there, Vicky,” Tattletale said. “I sent Rachel to protect the kid, but there’s only so much she can do. Tell the Wardens to hold off until-” “Got it,” I interrupted. Even the act of going from a resting position lying against rubble to a resting position floating in the air was a little too much movement for me. I didn’t have the buzz of adrenaline and I _needed_ it at this point. My entire body felt heavy, even though I was activelyfloating.
I flew, gritting my teeth as I shifted position. “Byron, Chev,” I spoke, getting about as much volume as I could manage with my body refusing to cooperate. “Tattletale says to hold off, wait for the signal.” “We can’t afford to!” Chevalier bellowed. “You can’t do anything, Chevalier,” I told him. “You’ll do more harm than good.” “My people are out there fighting!” he raised his voice. There was an emotion in it that was my first hint that he wasn’t doing sohot.
The frontline capes were out there. Strikes, brutes, breakers, changers. They were waging war against the Simurgh’s renegade capes. The broken, the lost, the delirious. I’d seen two of them, and I was pretty sure at least _one_ had been completely off her rocker. I wasn’t sure I trusted my take on things with the one I’d executed. Dinah had been there, at least, she hadn’tcomplained…
The two thoughts connected. Was that another domino? Another piece the Simurgh had set up early, to put into play now? “Wait for the signal!” I raised my voice as much as I was able, curling knees to chest and wincing at the effort that shout had taken. I prayed he’d listen. Dinah. I could only guess where she was, and I had no idea if she’d backtracked or taken a funny route to make herself harder to anticipate. I could assume Tattletale had given the ‘kid Cassandra’ a bit of a heads up about the blindness. The darkness was hard to fly in. Harder, when the forcefield reached out and touched a wall faster than I’d anticipated, arresting _my_ movement too. Every jarring movement hurt.Where was she?
If the chaotic worse-than-a-tornado storm of flying debris had been bad before, I was navigating it blind now. I forged my way through, feeling this way and that. A hand grabbed my forcefield. I flinched. Then I felt the _pull_. I relented, flying down to meet the source. I hugged Sveta as I met her, at the edge of the darkness. “Careful,” she said.I pulled back.
“I’m losing control, as this fight goes on.” The tendrils did look agitated. “I’ll end up like my old self at this rate.” The words were frightening to hear. I knew how much she’d needed the body she’d gained. “Nah,” I said, “You’ve been through this journey. You know that a fix is possible.” “It was a million to one odds it would work.” “It was better odds than that.” “Even twenty-five percent odds… it doesn’t matter,” she said.It mattered to her.
“I need to find Rachel and Dinah,” I told her.“I can fish.”
“Please. Be careful. I think some of the renegade capes disappeared into this darkness.” I watched as the fight went on. Rain was helping guard the injured. Chastity was unconscious or dead, and her body was beingdragged by Cassie.
I had memories in my head from what the Mathers giant had showed me that felt more real than what I was looking at right now. “Fuck!” Sveta swore, pulling back. She withdrew tendrils, and her arm went from being a hundred individual strands, each no longer than my finger, to being arm-shaped again, each strand fitting into a configuration that had _far_ too many holes in it. Some of the holes welled with blood, the blood running down her arm to her fingers. “Something’s in there.” “It’s Bloodplay,” I said. That was the domino. One of many, tipped well before the Simurgh couldn’t see what she was doing. Because she’d seen the _blind spot_ coming, and she’d set herself up to have the maximal number of answers to throw into that spot. I knew I was mixing metaphors. Chess and dominoes. I knew I was thinking of her as a ‘she’ when the Endbringer was more of anatural disaster.
“That collarbone of yours looks really fucking bad, Vic,” Sveta said, eyeing my chest. “She’s in there, winging her lasers around, probably going to hit Dinah by chance. I just told the Wardens to hold off until they got the signal, but if Dinah’s gone or out then they won’t get thatsignal.”
“She’s not there,” Sveta told me. “How sure are you?” “I’m not. Eighty percent? Seventy five percent? Sixty? But if I keep reaching out and getting those reaching pieces of me sliced off or smashed… I think I’m going to break, and I’ll be more of a danger to anyone here than Bloodplay is.”I looked around.
Above us, moving through the darkness, Dragon’s craft came down through one of the holes in the ceiling. The Simurgh was ready for her, and pillars that held up the ceiling broke. Like spears being used against horses in the medieval age, the pillars interrupted Dragon’s descent. The Dragon-craft’s mouth opened, and unloaded a hail of what might have been grenades. Each one detonated into a brilliant white explosion with a smoky black exterior to the explosions, like smoke contained strictly to the explosion’s surface. Too much of it was blocked, stopped by an intervening power from the swarm of renegade capes around the Simurgh. Where the fuck was Dinah? The Simurgh was pushing back, taking out a cape every five to ten seconds, starting with the stragglers. _The reality we saw. She connected to Fortuna and she screamed, and the world screamed with her. We were entirely at her mercy._ She’s not a person. She’s not a person. _She’s a force of nature, of fate, one that will destroy us. One that can’t be beat._ Not my voice, that last one. She was taking us to pieces, but she wasn’t utterly destroying us, because she wanted a future where we were her playthings. _You’re humanizing her again, Victoria._ We needed to do more damage. To do that we needed Dinah. To get Dinah, we needed into the darkness… and Grue wasn’t there to dismiss it. Rachel was supposedly in there. Where the fuck wasRachel?
_This screaming in my head. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck fuck fuck._ We were running out of time. Sveta laid a hand against my shoulder. I jumped. I felt the surface of her hand shifting. Tendrils sliding over tendrils. Rachel was with Dinah. Rachel would have her dogs with. One was still with Tattletale and the others, shielding them. She hadn’t called it. She had others. “Rachel and Rachel’s dog were with her,” I said. “No way,” Sveta said. Off to our left, Bloodplay flew out of the darkness. She set her eyes on her. When Sveta reached out, Bloodplay ducked back into thedarkness.
The darkness covered the back half of the room. Had Dinah fallen into the hole after all? A bloody smear, lying next to my sister, who had a chunk of rubble on top of her?Or had she jumped?
I flew into the darkness. Sveta followed, one hand still touching my arm. On my left side. It tugged momentarily on the shoulder, which was attached in turn to my aching ribs and my collarbone. I could feel hot blood down my front, soaking into and beneath my belt-line. Whatever fights followed from this, I wasn’t sure I had it in me toparticipate.
Which was insane when put together with the fact I was planning on executing a massive number of people, many of them faces I knew, many more were people who wouldn’t accept it without complaint. No, they’d fight and I’d have to stand my ground.But that was after.
I found the hole, grazing the floor with the fingers at the end of my good arm. I went beneath, hooked around the hole, and skimmed theceiling.
Until I was in a hallway, a floor beneath the massive room, Teacher’s panopticon of propaganda.Not here.
I took another route, moving between floors, my search made harder by the fact the darkness on the floor above us was pouring down into the hole, so I couldn’t even stand in one hallway and look past to see the hallway on the other side. But it forced the Simurgh to make her plays blind too. I kept searching, aware every second counted. _Every minute_, the thought crossed my mind. I wasn’t sure who it belonged to. _Running out of time. She’s about to leave, and we haven’t done damage._ “Let me,” Sveta said.“If you can.”
She unfurled, her entire body breaking down into tendrils. Clothes were shed, as was armor. As a mass, she flung herself into the center of the darkness. I saw a hand reach out, another, another. Reaching blindly as she fell. Long seconds passed. The screaming in my head was thin, faint._Sister_.
My sister was at the bottom of the hole. Maybe. All I had to dowas look.
Would I be more at peace if I could verify her as dead or if I could verify I wasn’t a killer? It made it so tempting. But it also meant risking having to set eyes on her, which meant facing dark thoughts, which meant- Something grabbed me, and my first thought was _Panacea_. I grabbed it back, hard, with forcefield. The moment I realized it was Sveta, I let go, guilt washing over me. I followed the hand. Down two floors, to a side room, partially lit. Dinah and Rachel sat beside a badly injured mutant dog. From the blood, it looked like Bloodplay had sliced it. The descent into the hole might have been a tactical decision, or a bit of a post-injury mishap. “We need you,” I told Dinah. “I don’t have much. My head feels like it’s going to splitopen.”
“One more,” I told her. “One move, we make it count.” I saw the doubt on her face. She nodded, her mouth set into a grim line. “Want a ride?” I asked Rachel.She shook her head.
I scooped up Dinah, glanced at Sveta- Saw Sveta’s hurt, as she held one arm to a bicep, where tendrils were especially active. “Sorry,” I told her. “It’s fine,” she said, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t, with a faint look of betrayal on her face. _The procedures for these missions suggest we’re supposed to avoid holding grudges, avoid blame, for ourselves and for others. Mistakes happen when you’re pushed to your limit by a psychic scream_. But that felt like shallow justification. I took flight, carrying Dinah up. Sveta’s hands, blind, reached up and grazed me, but she didn’t hold onto me. Maybe she didn’ttrust me to do it.
Up, into the darkness, through it, and into a battlefield I hated more than I’d hated any other, and I’d seen a good few. Against an enemy I despised more than anything. Someone who hurt my friends with the ease I breathed. With _more_ ease than I breathed, if I considered the damage to my collarbone and ribs. “Now,” I whispered, as we emerged. “Use your power now.” Sveta emerged from the darkness, but she did it as violence personified. I could see tendrils thrashing, lashing, throwing other tendrils that had been severed. She caught Bloodplay and dashed Bloodplay into the ground. “What question?” Dinah asked. I couldn’t bring myself to speak, seeing Sveta lose all control. The Simurgh was dismantling the Dragon craft, pulling tech together. The Wardens were fighting a losing battle. The area was thick with blue motes. Damsel’s group was present, Damsel trying to get inclose.
“_What question!?_” “Kick her ass, or kick her ass _more_?” I asked, quiet.There was a pause.
“Just kicking her ass will suffice.” I used my aura, putting every iota of violent, righteous, angry sentiment I was feeling and transmitting it to every cape present. Dinah directed, it gave us what we needed to make a final set of moves without _her_ seeing them coming.PREVIOUS CHAPTER
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Author Wildbow Posted on March 15, 2020March 15, 202030 Comments on Last
– 20.6
LAST – 20.5
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The one thing that made it possible to even think about defeating the Simurgh was that it took her time to get her hooks in. She wassubtle.
Now she had her hands on an empowered, giant-size Christine Mathers. Manufactured for us by my fucking sister and fucking Cryptid. Fucking fuck fuck fuck. “Master-stranger protocols!” I shouted, before turning away, to limit exposure. I took flight, fleeing the scene. I needed Dinah, Dinah could theoretically get past the Simurgh, give me a shot at the Mathers Giant, and let me inject her with the new command protocols. Which might not even work, if the Simurgh could do whatever she’d done to make the Mathers giant docile. To make the Mathers giant_hers_.
Dinah was down one of the two hallways- I chose the closer one. A coin flip, to get a shot at victory that wasn’t guaranteed. To- I felt her grab me. There were twenty capes present, subdued by the Mathers Giant, and not a hair on them moved. There were another twenty-five of us here. Twenty of them jerked, shifting posture, jumping, looking startled as they felt what I was feeling. All looked to be capes who hadn’t been part of the fighting, though many might have been like Juliette and Chastity, capable of keeping their shit together and doing something to subdue the ‘reds’- the capes and civilians who had been pushed over the edge by the Simurgh. I could feel her grip, taking hold of my hood, the ends of the spikes at my shoulder, the ends of my coat. Parts of my outfit that weren’t close enough to my skin to be considered an extension of _me_. I tried to fly and I _couldn’t_. I could use my strength and try to tear free of my costume, but I couldn’t get my hands to where I could grab it. My forcefield- -couldn’t. As she expanded around me, she started at my costume. Her own body blocked her ability to claw off my costume. _Open_! I told her. _Cocoon! Reach in-_ Too late. The Simurgh flung me. Us. _Everything_. Directlyaway from her.
Flight let me reduce how fast I was flung, if only a bit. My forcefield reached out, fingernails scraping against the floor, hands reaching out for the wall. Hands reached into the open mouth, to cradle my head and neck, grab me. It still felt like I imagined being in a car wreck would feel. It was hard to shake the feelings of responsibility. Like there’d been something I could do. I felt like the driver of that car that had wrecked, and with no scream from the Simurgh and no sounds from the people around me as they were flung, there was just a series of hard-wet noises as bodies crunched into the wall, some at angles so violent that I couldn’t make sense of the shape of them post-impact. I shook as I placed my feet on the ground, one leg wrapped from toe to knee to keep the tattered costume in place and to keep me sufficiently warm outdoors. I ached in more places than I could count, and the cushioning of the forcefield hands might have kept me from snapping my neck or getting whiplash, but I knew I’d have some awful bruises if I lived to see tomorrow. I stumbled with the first two steps, because of sprains and the injured parts that would soon sprout bruises. There were pillars all around us, stabbing up from what had used to be Teacher’s propaganda units. The area still had piles of debris, all bulldozered into neat sections so the floor would be clean. It hadn’t seen any use except as an extensive conference room for the thinkers. I focused on keeping the pillar between myself and Mama Mathers while I got my bearings. Syringe- I still had it, capped and stuck between my breastplate and my chest. Breathing hard, wincing, I pulled off the decorations at my shoulders. My coat. Fuck. I shrugged it off, knowing I’d payfor it later.
There were five capes who hadn’t been flung. Five capes who’d done the sensible thing and worn bodysuits instead of armor, to get the most bang for their buck when it came to the Manton effect. One provided a circle-shaped shield of water to try and provide some cover for the rest. A bit of pipe from one of the piles of debris speared at him, and stopped partway inside the shield, the jagged end a short distance from his face. The water was pressurized or moving at high speeds, and the spear bobbed, bounced, and vibrated as it heldposition.
One of the twenty capes around the Simurgh and Mathers Giant reached out, flinging a dart below the shield. It landed between the shieldcape’s feet.
The dart whipped around, thin and flexible, one end still rooted in the ground. The cape producing the shield reacted, stepping back, and his leg separated at the ankle, again a few inches up at the calf. He stumbled, and his other foot came off mid-calf. Only the fact that someone caught him kept him from slipping on the blood that gushed out, and kept him upright, so he could maintain the shield. Fuck. They needed help, and I needed backup if I was going to stopthe Mathers Giant.
I disengaged from my forcefield, sending it out. The Simurgh turned, and I had to assume she was moving away from the Mathers Giant. Her wings shifted. I looked. Behind them, chunks of rubble were moving. “Behind you! Duck!” I called out. The Fragile One reached out. The cape supporting the footless water-shield user turned, but didn’t duck. A chunk of concrete no bigger than my fist flew past the Fragile One, dropping mid-air to avoid the reaching hand, and caught the supporting cape in the cheek. They collapsed, and the water shield cape fell, his chin meeting the pipe that was transfixed in the shield. It speared through, only stopping, presumably, when it met the top of his skull. I was hyperaware of every last detail around me. I sent my forcefield in, low to the ground, nigh-invisible, with the aim of breaking legs and disabling the renegade capes and drawing attention away from the remaining capes. Someone hit the Fragile One, and she disappeared. The interval before she appeared around me felt a fraction longer, but I wasn’t sure I was processing that right. “Come on,” I murmured, as I sent her out again. I needed a distraction, something that would let me slip by. “_You’ll melt._” The voice was a whisper, hard to make out from the ambient noise, the screams and groans of those who had hit the wall but not died, and the ones who hadn’t been thrown but who were being executed one by onenow.
The scraping sound that followed was like a chainsaw against stone, without the sound of the chainsaw’s engine itself. A skittering, screeching noise that grew in volume. Metal centipedes appeared on either side of me, each curving to travel around the pillar, straight for me. I brought my forcefield back- It was broken before I could. I flew straight up, mindful of the ceiling, and mindful of the fact that my senses couldn’t be trusted. _Sorry, Mukade. I think_. As my forcefield came back, I had forcefield fingernails drag into the pillar I was flying beside. Multiple hands. Below me, the centipedes were moving in a double-helix pattern up the pillar,chasing.
_Change shape_, I thought. Reshaping my forcefield. _Think of the physio. Of moving that monstrous, wretched body, trying to learn how it moved. Reaching out a limb… reaching… straining_… I palmed what my forcefield had grabbed off the pillar. With enhanced strength, two arms helped me hurl myself around and away from the pillar. A third arm, as long as I could make it, drawing on memory, hurled the handful of concrete bits. Mukade, already with several holes in his side and back for the centipedes to come out of, got a few more holes in his body. He sat down heavily, head turning slightly, then flopped back, more like a child’s doll than a person. Gone. _“You’ll melt!”_ My skin burned, the bandages I still wore on one hand felt unbearablytight.
Blood welled at my neck where I’d _just_ stopped the bleeding, and then it foamed. What had been a slash of a non-cauterizing laser or pressurized blood or whatever else was opening up, parting. A dribble touched my armpit and ran down my side, and it stung like asunburn.
I had to ignore it. I needed cover from Mathers. I disengaged from my forcefield, and sent her along the ceiling, raking it. Plumes of dust came down. I used them as a shield. “_You’ll die!_” The whisper again coincided with another attack from the defending parahumans. A man, tall, with about two hundred spidery legs, each of which was at least ten feet long. He was fast, moving fluidly, his body twitching and jerking with the force and speed of the legs, almost a victim of how they relied on other legs for leverage while his body was at the fulcrum point.He howled.
_Little question how he ended up fucked up enough for the Simurgh toget her hooks in._
His legs speared toward me, some extending, narrowing. Right behind him was a cape in silver, ducking through the veil of dust the Fragile One was bringing down from overhead. Slicksilver was a hero from the Wardens. One of Chevalier’s crew. Though he’d been a good guy, dust covered him and dulled the colors, and he had way too much blood on him. Slick threw a dart. Metallic. I gave the thing a wide berth.He threw more.
Getting out of the way forced me to get close to Spiderlegs. I swooped low, scraping the ground, and put a hand out to stop myself from smacking face-first into the ground, with how steep the swoopwas.
“_Melt, Antares! Die!”_ At my collarbone, where I’d been lasered, the bone snapped. I screamed. Foaming blood dropped onto the concrete, sizzling on theconcrete.
I flew before more darts could be thrown my way. Toward the exit.“_Antares!_”
I fought past the reaching spider-legs, and the act of trying to move my arm nearly left me insensate._“Antareeees!”_
It was every part of fighting some of the worst enemies I’d come up against in recent memory. My sanity at stake, black limbs reaching for me, my flesh melting. I could only tell myself it was a trick. All of this was a master-stranger thing, and I couldn’t trust the reality. I had every excuse to dismiss any part of this as head games, as scary asthat was.
_“Antares! Please!”_ The whispers continued. I used my aura to try to slow down the attackers. Good old fear. I twisted, fighting to get a bit of an upper hand, grabbing spider legs and swatting aside a dart by picking up a piece of rubble five feet to my left and swinging it. Slick generated two globs of liquid metal, and let them droop down to the floor. Two lashes. He lifted one, and it reshaped itself, to curve and poise itself above him like a scorpion’s tail. The other lash did the same to the left, parallel to the ground. I crushed the concrete I’d used to bat aside the dart, then threw it. The lashes formed a shield. All I accomplished was shredding a few of the spider legs. More legs stabbed out at me. I grabbed a few, tearing them out ofthe sockets.
The man shrieked in a childlike voice, thrashing in pain as he held hands to the parts where legs had torn out at the roots. The screaming was interrupted by him vomiting, presumably from the pain. I braced myself for the next onslaught. Another attacker, a warning that another attacker was coming, a whisper of my name. When it didn’t come, I kept my guard up. The beat of warning, attack, warning, attack… it could be misleading me. The debris had cleared, and there was too much of the Giant visible. The sighting coincided with a pain creeping over my body. Bruisesspread.
It wasn’t a feint, a missed step to throw me. Why? I reached the doorway, saw the spider legs approaching… Then changed direction. Flying back in. I scooped up more grit for a ‘coin toss’, and changed my orientation, to keep Mathers out ofsight.
The whispering of my voice… I fought more of the spider legs. Tore out more. He had two hunded legs, but I had ten arms, and I was stronger. He could only come at me with so many at a time. An explosion shook the chamber. The residual debris and dust that was dribbling down from the damaged ceiling was cleared away by the resulting shockwave. The Simurgh was still there, silent and waiting. The Mathers Giant wasn’t where I thought she was. I almost looked directly at her, in the moment I realized it. The attacker was Chevalier, backed up by some of his squad. He wore the black and silver armor that he’d worn for Gold Morning, made of pieces of Behemoth and the Simurgh, who had a hole in one wing. I saw the Simurgh raise a narrow hand, and dust, debris, and rocks picked up. She didn’t get a hold on Chevalier, either. He swung, and a piece of broken pillar leaped into the way of the blade. It barely slowed it down, but she was able to avoid it. He fired, and she avoided it. I could have used the distraction to go after the giant, but I had only one shot. I couldn’t attack her without looking at her, and I couldn’t go in blind while the Simurgh was present and fifteen or so of her pawns were standing around, because I _would_ fail. Too much exposure would make any future attacks twice as hard. A hundredtimes as hard.
Dinah first. My team would be with her. I searched, avoiding looking at the giant, who wasn’t moving. The pain in my shoulder was getting worse, and that sunburn feeling was becoming a constant burn. My back, my side, my arm. If this was the extent of what the Mathers Giant was doing, I could deal. Fake pain, fake burns. If this wasn’t what the Mathers Giant was doing, I lost nothing by continuing to fight through the pain. Chevalier was pinning down the Simurgh. I was left to continue searching. As much as I’d wanted, I couldn’t use my aura. Only flight, only the forcefield. I found what I was looking for. Two people, lying in a heap. One was Roman, bloodied, his mask lost. He’d been the one calling my name. The whispers had stopped when I’d used my aura, because I’d cowed the person speaking. He needed help. Gingerly, I lifted him. “She broke my fall,” he whispered. He sounded more like a little boy than a kid in his mid-teens. “Please save her.” I moved him, using my forcefield. Imp lay on the ground, against the wall, with debris beneath her. I reached behind her head, to find a way to take off her mask, so she could communicate. I recoiled. Blood, and a fragment of… it looked like a fragment of mask, but it wasn’t. Too white, and it had skin and long hair attached to it. The hair was caught under something, and the fragment slipped off my finger as the hair pulled taut. The blood was already cooling. “Can only bring you,” I told him. “Take her? I can tough it out,” he said, in a tone and with a complete lack of strength that suggested he couldn’t. “Imp and… Chastity and Cassie are on the other side of the room. Theygot flung.”
“They might be distractions. We need to do something concrete.Dinah first.”
I lifted him.
He used his power on me for just a second, inflicting rage. The effect was dampened, half-strength, but I still dropped him, and hewrithed on landing.
We stood, huffing at each other, glaring. I reached for him again. Again, he used rage, and my grip on hiscollar was fierce.
I used my aura, in response, exerting _will._ Dominance. “You _fucking_ think that works on me?” he asked. I could hear the outrage in his tone. “After how I was raised? Who I grew up with!? My dad used powers on me _every__ day_.”I stopped.
I grabbed him. “We help them faster if you come with.” He glared, his face twisting. But he didn’t fight me as I dragged him. I’d fought this hard to get to this hallway. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the fact it had been Roman calling my voice was the Simurgh’s plan. A delay, the one person who I cared about enough to take the time to rescue… but not as important as one of my teammates might have been. The lights flickered, flicked on, flicked off. The hallway was only ever half-lit at one time, splattered with blood. There was commotion at the end of the hallway. Tattletale, Grue, Sveta, and Rain. Rain was sitting against thewall, curled up.
Then a few more renegade capes, one of them jabbering, and Dinah. Hostage. A box-cutting knife held to her throat. The jabbering guy was moving his hand now and then, and moving his hand constantly. There were already four shallow cuts at the side of Dinah’s neck because he kept accidentally cutting her. “Don’t,” I murmured. “Huh?” Roman asked. “Whatever you’re thinking about… don’t.” I couldn’t help but feel like I had Roman next to me because the Simurgh wanted him. And if he used his power, it wouldn’t work forus.
“Victoria,” Sveta said. “Where’s Byron?” “Downstairs, with Cryptid. The Mathers Giant flipped.” “That’s… yeah,” Sveta said. “She got Rain.” I looked down at Rain. “Rain?” I asked. He didn’t respond. Two seconds later, he twitched. “Blind and deaf,” Tattletale said. “He sees only what she wants him to see.” “Which is what the Simurgh wants him to see?” I asked. “The world’s going to end!” the jabbering cape screamed. His hand moved, and the point caught on . She twisted her head to follow the knife, then the point dragged through skin sideways, returning toher throat.
I turned my attention away from Rain. “Hey, Zugzwang,” Tattletale said. “Fuck you! I know you’re the Undersiders’ head fucker! Open your mouth and I’ll open her throat!” He cut Dinah, along the jawline. As Grue started forward, Zugzwang returned the knife to her throat. “You’re being awfully stupid for a mastermind,” Sveta said. “I know what you do too, Sveta Karelia,” Zugzwang said. “I bet my hand’s faster than yours. I also know you all need her.” Tattletale looked back at me. “Hey, Dinah,” I said. “No games!” Zugzwang raised his voice. “Things are bad,” Dinah said. “They hurt my parents.” “Any guidance? Any predictions?” “I’m burned out. Asked too many questions. The giant makes it harder. I think that’s why the Simurgh grabbed her.” I frowned. “If we-” “Stop!” Zugzwang raised his voice. “If we tried defeating the giant, do you think you could do it?” “I don’t know. But if you don’t defeat it then there’s no chance I can do it.” Couldn’t get Dinah’s help without defeating the giant. Couldn’t be sure I’d defeat the giant without Dinah’s help. “No other input?” I asked her. “Questions you asked before yougot shut down?”
“No, not really. I’m sorry.” Rain made small sounds. “Rain,” I said, crouching down. “Rain, hey. Look, I’m going to use my aura. You don’t need this.” I used my aura, calming him. I let the range extend to Zugzwang. “Hey!” Zugzwang called out. “Hey! Listen!” “What?” I asked, toning it down slightly. The group of people who’d gathered a distance away from Zugzwang parted, so I could see him while crouching down, and he could see me. Lights flicked off. When they flicked on, I saw Dinah’s throatslashed.
It wasn’t. My eyes adjusted, and I saw that blood had run down from one cut, then stretched across a crease in her neck when she’dbent down.
“Zugzwang, there’s a way for us both to get exactly what wewant.”
“You don’t even know what I want!” The lights went out. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to slash her throat for real, and I wasn’t sure if that was because of the earlier prompts, of whisper, attack, whisper, attack. I couldn’t be sure of anything. The lights came on, and I saw Dinah’s eyes widen. My forcefield lunged. Zugzwang cut Dunah’s throat, and the Fragile One grabbed him by the throat and took his head off. There were three more, and the Fragile One broke all six of their legs. Tattletale wasted no time in drawing her gun and shooting one. “Fuck!” Tattletale swore, once the ringing in our ears had dieddown.
I flew forward, reaching for the container of coagulant Chris had given me. The neck wound wasn’t pumping like it was something arterial… I had to hope it was enough. She pulled away once I’d applied some. “Antares made me leave Imp behind,” Roman said. “There wasstill a chance.”
Grue looked stricken. “Go get her? Please?” Roman asked. “No,” I said. I’d felt the cold. “Fuck you!” Roman burst out. Again, he used his power. Again, I pushed back. Some of my teammates pushed back. “Listen!” I raised my voice. “Victoria,” Sveta said. “Listen!” I told her, with just as much fierceness. “We need to refocus. We need to keep to the mission. Deal with achievable objectives. Getting too emotional doesn’t help any crisis!” “What do you want to do?” Grue asked. “And is Imp in thatdirection?”
“I need…” I said, pulling my hand away. It was slick with goop and blood, and I had no idea of where to wipe it. “The giant. I can’t get in there. Chris thinks we can reset her. If I can see her, smell her, touch her, she’ll do more than make me feel like I’m melting alive from a glimpse of her. My collarbone- I think she’s making me feel like it’s broken.” “That looks like it’s actually broken,” Sveta said. “And actually burned or something.” “Can you help?” I asked Grue and Tattletale, ignoring her. “Imp was- is there.” “I can get you in there,” Grue said.I straightened.
“Victoria,” Sveta said, her voice hard. “We’re friends. I’ve backed you up a lot. Can I get thirty seconds of yourtime?”
I turned to her.
“I don’t want to keep silent when I should speak up. Notagain.”
“I’m listening.” ” First off, you’re bleeding again,” Sveta said. I slapped the coagulant mud onto my own wound. The burning had receded. “Better?” “No, Victoria. You’re too on edge. Where are you?” “I’m hurting. I’m spooked. I want to handle this. We’ve got the slimmest of shots and…” I looked at the door, and I saw that kids were peering through. Lookout, Candy, Darlene, and Chicken Little. Candy was lowest to the ground, and had to be lying on her stomach. “…It’s slipping through our fingers,” I said. “The Irregulars said something like that. That they only had a bit of time to get the answers they needed.” “I’m not an Irregular.” “I know. But you’re not yourself either.” “Can I cheat?” Lookout asked. “I can help.” “It’s better if you sit this one out entirely,” Grue said. “It’ll take three seconds.”“Three?”
She disappeared, somehow taking that as permission. She reappeared in four seconds. She reached through the door, holding something out.The flash gun.
“Turn the setting down all the way. Flash Rain. It’ll override the visual centers.”“How long?”
“Five minutes.”
“Everything might be over in five minutes,” Tattletale said.“Oh.”
I took the gun anyway. I grabbed Rain’s chin, and he thrashed. I lifted his chin, aimed the gun, and twisted my head around, shielding my eyes as I fired into his face. “Good luck, Rain.” “It won’t help his ears,” Tattletale said. “Or skin. The giant’s strong. You just need to see her and she gets all five of your senses. We’ll need to be careful.” I looked at Grue, and he nodded. I looked at Sveta, and saw herconcern.
“Come,” I told her. “Master-stranger protocols very much in effect. I trust you.” Sveta followed. Tattletale did as well. Back to the fighting. To the Giant, and to the Simurgh. The room had taken a beating when we’d made it a staging ground in the raid on Teacher’s base. Now… there was a hole in the floor that a house could have been dropped through. Chevalier stillfought.
He struck the Simurgh. She caught a power out of the air with telekinesis, a crescent that shimmered. She threw it to one side, and gore splashed up against the wall. “How do we do this?” I asked. “I’ll darken the way. You fly. If you’re close, I’ll giveyou your shot.”
“I’ll be helpless.” “We’re helpless anyway,” Tattletale said, behind me. “Grue will be affected by Mathers if he sees her. Be careful, I’ll do what I can to guide.” “What do I do?” Sveta asked. “Back me up!” I called out, flying forward with more speed, breaking away from the group. “If they get me, get the syringe!” I tapped my chest to indicate where it was. He pumped out darkness. And I threw myself into the most dangerous battlefield I’d ever been on, utterly blind, unable to orient myself in the air, and unable tohear a thing.
Just me, and the aches and pains I felt. I used my best judgment to estimate where she might be, and to getcloser.
In an ideal world, the darkness would dissipate. I could inject, and the Simurgh would lose control. Dinah would gain some leverage, we’d get some more people back into the fight, and we could fight. The world was not so ideal. Something hit me, _hard_. Forcefield down, and I was spiked down into the ground, hitting concrete and sliding on a thin layer of grit and gravel for what felt like forever in the oily dark. Until I was no longer in the dark. I twisted my face away, searching for a place and a perspective that didn’t risk me seeing Mathers. I looked to the side- Chastity and Cassie, slumped against the wall, holding hands, eyesopen.
I looked _down_. I was by the massive hole in the floor. In the gloom of flickering lights, amid dust, amid debris, there was only one thing that was white and clean. Seven floors down, below the hole, my sister was standing back while people tended to wounded. It looked like someone had been plunged through the floor by telekinesis or some massive attack. She didnothing.
There was a piece of rubble to my left. _I feel strong. I feel okay. I have control. Only one thing holds me back, poisons me._ _If she’d joined, we might have been able to win this_. I leaned on the rubble to get to a standing position, knowing what Iwas doing.
The rubble fell. I looked just long enough to make sure it was on course, and then I flew. Back into the darkness. Something hit me, _hard_. Forcefield down, and I was spiked down into the ground, hitting concrete and sliding on a thin layer of grit and gravel for what felt like forever in the oily dark. Until I was no longer in the dark. I twisted my face away, searching for a place and a perspective that didn’t risk me seeing Mathers. I looked to the side- Chastity and Cassie, slumped against the wall, holding hands, eyesopen.
I looked _down_. I was by the massive hole in the floor. In the gloom of flickering lights, amid dust, amid debris, there was only one thing that was white and clean. Seven floors down, below the hole, my sister was standing back while people tended to wounded. It looked like someone had been plunged through the floor by telekinesis or some massive attack. She didnothing.
There was a piece of rubble to my left. _I feel strong. I feel okay. I have control. Only one thing holds me back, poisons me._ _If she’d joined, we might have been able to win this_. I left it behind, left her behind. I flew, back into the darkness. The shadows swam around me. It was vertigo-inducing. Slimy. The darkness faded. A slice of light, reflected off the ceiling, down into a column of space which had no darkness at all. My cue. I flew hard that way. The darkness faded, and I was face to face with Christine Mathers, staring into her eyes. I stabbed her eye with the needle. The plunger jolted, and it fired like a gun, the fluids spurting in. Images all around us faded. Scenes peeled away. Things the Simurgh had lifted. Dust clouds. So much of it had been fakery. We hadn’t heard the screaming for how long, now? Mama Mathers had the ability to screw up our senses if we saw her. It had to extend to more than sight, because she was amped up. The Simurgh wasn’t here. Hadn’t been here even when I’d entered the room. Many of the victims weren’t even present. I noted Imp. Still gone. Chastity. Cassie.I spat.
People were patching up wounds. Sveta approached me, to hold a bandage to my shoulder. “Is she already…” “She skipped ahead. We thought we had a bit longer,” Tattletale said. “She jumped to going after Fortuna ten minutes early. We didn’t do enough for your plan.”“No.”
I looked.
Dinah had spoken. Now she pointed, one hand held to her head,grimacing.
I looked, and I saw the syringe, empty.I grabbed it.
There was only one valid target. The thin Mathers Giant turned to look at me, eyes wide and vacant. I went blind. Deaf. My skin sloughed off, multiplied, liquefied again. I was an ocean. As an ocean, I flew. _This_ time I hit the plunger. The veil fell yet again. This time for real. The screaming picked up, faint at first, and then a roar. _It was all an illusion. All a mind-fuck._ She was here, perched. Fucking with us all the while.Still on schedule.
Last chance.
_Go_!
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Author Wildbow Posted on March 10, 2020March 15, 202034 Comments on Last
– 20.5
LAST – 20.4
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The lights shut off throughout the facility, in the same moment Dragon booted up our eye implants. The implants rushed to process what they were seeing, throwing text at me with notifications, updates, tracking for key people and the Simurgh’s estimated location, scribbled out in gold, digital script. I was notified in bold text that hung at the periphery of my vision that there was no ongoing communication. This was just her booting us up and giving us tech as good as we could hope for. Lines spiderwebbed out to outline the hallway, doorways, and provide some limited night vision. The lights came back on, bright, with a fluorescent whine that became a scream, one sound in a chorus. Human screams came from upstairs, and my eyes strained to adjust and see what might be causing the screaming. Was it someone on our side? Someone hurt? Someone who’d snapped and become hostile? The Simurgh wasn’t necessarily flipping people to ‘red’ with a new, unprecedented speed. This was part of any fight against the Endbringer. In a given population, there were bound to be people who were on the edge, vulnerable, needing only the right prompt. As she kept screaming, she kept gathering data, and she used that data to find better prompts for more people who were on a ledge, on the cusp of losing their minds. The very second my vision was clear and focused enough to see the details in the bright white hallway, half the lights went out again. The danger we were facing, the hazards of this particular battlefield, were those people who had been on the cusp of breaking down and who were now putty in the Simurgh’s hands. But again, I was anthropomorphizing. Yes, she had hands, but I was ascribing manipulation, will, and motives to the Simurgh by thinkingof it that way.
“Anyone have updated numbers? Above a seven? Below a five?” Iasked my team.
“Nothing changed except I feel demoralized after that fight,” Rainsaid.
“We almost had her,” Sveta said. “And she wants us to feel demoralized,” I said. I moved my gun right, left, right again, as shadows moved in the dark, unlit patches, the golden scribbles and labels struggling to keep up as the lightingchanged.
“If anything’s making me feel like I’m going crazy,” Sveta remarked, “It’s you, Victoria.” I looked down at her. “Where are you at?” she asked. “One to ten.” “Eight?” I asked. “That’s worrying,” Byron said. “Eight is good. I feel okay. Better than okay.” “Didn’t you say six, earlier?” he asked. The lights went out, then came back on. In the time they’d been out, a person had moved into the center of the hallway. They wore a costume that was in the post-Gold Morning style, clothing mixed with costume, mostly red. The red was mottled with blood, to the extent I couldn’t tell what was pattern and what was costume. _Open up_, I thought. _Hatch me out_… I floated to the side, placing the gun on the stairs before crouching on the underside of the gun. The woman looked at us with eyes that were red from corner to corner. Thousand yard stare. I didn’t recognize her. As she met my eyes, the scream in my head seemed to escalate, until everything I was seeing seemed to vibrate. I glanced away, to break the effect, and she bolted into motion. I remained where I was, but the Fragile One was ready, jumping forward to grab the woman by the wrists. The woman jerked, partway into a pounce down the extended set of stairs that acted as the backbone of the facility, her arms stuck behind her. She screamed, raw and full of rage. The scream joined the screaming in my head, and a noise that would have been bad enough to make me wince before became a hundred times worse because of the context. “Calm down,” Cryptid growled. “Is that you?” Sveta asked, looking at me. “Holding her?” The lights went out. The outlines that were drawn out in gold momentarily traced the Fragile One, naked and many-armed, with a chest splayed open. Then, like the cameras in our eyes remembered that they weren’t supposed to be capable of seeing the Fragile One, they stopped tracing her. “Yeah,” I said. “I dunno if you saw her in the night visionlens, but…”
“I saw her,” Sveta said. The woman screamed again. “Anyone have something to tie her up?” Rain asked. “I can,” Byron said. He began drawing a constellation with dark blue motes around the woman. “Just have to be careful not to cut off circulation by making it too tight. Keep going up the stairs if you can? I’ll follow behind.” The woman screamed, struggled against strength that could lift a cement mixer, and then she disappeared. No, not disappeared. The camera, struggling to keep up with the changes in lighting and other screwy signals, started tracing her in golden lines that lagged behind her as she dramatically changed shapeand size.
She’d shrunk, from human-sized to barely two inches tall, slipping from the Fragile One’s grip. I felt her bump into the Fragile One, unable to detect where the forcefield started or stopped, then she closed in on our group. “Heads up!” I alerted the group. The woman was flying, two inches tall, and as she got close enough to Byron, she unveiled a red laser. The range wasn’t much- one foot, but when she shot Byron, she cut through the armor at his forearm andpenetrated flesh.
“Augh!”
Cryptid lunged, jumping down the stairs in the dark, one foot on the railing, and punched her. I tried to follow up, bidding the Fragile One to lash out with three arms, but the woman was small, nimble in the air, and slipped between the arms by chance. I saw two more flashes of the red lasers in the dark, but I couldn’t have the Fragile One act on them, because I wasn’t one hundred percent sure where the lasers began and where they ended. Punching blindly at either terminus point made for a fifty-fifty chance I’d put a hole in Cryptid, instead. “Brace yourselves, aura!” I raised my voice. I pushed out with my aura. It was a shot in the dark, in more ways than the obvious one, that I couldn’t see the murder pixie I was trying to slow down, but because I was reaching for feelings I’d never used before. Fear and awe was a dichotomy I’d come to understand early on. I’d hit my parents with it in sparring, and I’d seen the varied reactions in reality. I could choose what emotions I put out there, now, but it wasn’t as simple as choosing from a tidy little list. Just the opposite. I dug into memories and the rawest, deepest feelings I had. A moment of clarity midway through therapy at the hospital. Moments, my thoughts wandering at night, where I’d jolted awake with a realization. The feeling after I’d smeared my mother against a wall, and realized it was my fault. Each of those memories was like an exposed nerve, and the screaming in my head was salt on thosenerves.
I’d wanted ‘wake up’ but the feelings I dug into as I broadcasted weren’t quite that. It _did_ give her pause, but she was a tiny figure in the dark, in an unfamiliar environment, so it was hard for us to take advantage of herbeing delayed.
Sveta reached out, then drew back just as fast as the woman reacted, screaming with surprising volume despite her small size, the laser flashing out in the dark to cut tendrils. Flying toward me, going by the scale of the laser. I took flight, putting myself between the screaming laser pixie and the rest of my team. I couldn’t risk that the laser would knock out my forcefield, so I waited, letting the Fragile One disappear,held in reserve.
A flash of red, a flash of pain, and I was the terminus of one end of the laser. I brought my forcefield back, twisted, and reached out, grabbing her around the upper body, her wrists held between two fingers. I twisted her body to one side, pointing her hands off tothe side.
She grew to full size, and I adjusted the forcefield to match. She screamed in my face. The laser was weaker, if anything, while shewas larger.
“You’re bleeding,” Rain said. I looked. Byron was holding one hand at his wrist, and blood waspouring out.
Sveta reached out, and bound the wound closed with her tendrils. Blood welled out from the gaps, and she tightened her grip. The woman kept screaming, and as she did, the lighting flickered, matching the scream. I was pretty sure it wasn’t her, nor was it the lasers she fired intermittently. I walked her further up the stairs, and then used my aura, keeping the range contained to a matter of feet, the effect the closest thing I could approximate to calm. “Using my aura, keep your distance for a sec,” I said. “Your powers changed, again,” Sveta said, behind me. “Your forcefield held your gun with you nowhere near it. You just did something else. Your aura…” “Flavors of ‘rah rah’ and ‘fuck off’ in the fight earlier,” Rain interpreted. “Then just now it was a big slap in the face of ‘holy shit’.” “Courage, righteousness, and just now it was a feeling of realization. I hoped it would wake her up.” The woman screamed, thrashing. The screaming played off of the other screams I heard, including some in the background. I could feel wetness at my neck, along with pain that throbbed with my heartbeat. I kept my grip on the woman with my forcefield and brought my hand to my neck. I’d been cut, and flesh had parted, from collarbone to where my shoulder met my neck. The laser didn’t cauterize what it hit. “Does it matter?” I asked. “It’s a long explanation. Byron and I need medical care. Come on.” “You said you’re at an eight,” Cryptid growled the words, histone wary.
“An eight is _good_.” “I asked for the reality check earlier,” Rain said. “And I asked if anyone was above a seven or below a three, because feeling _too_ good is a concern.” “Fuck me, that’s being used against me?” “Master-stranger protocols,” Rain said. “At least until we get a good explanation.” I grit my teeth. I had no idea how bad the bleeding was, I didn’t like any part of this, and it just felt like the Simurgh was scoring awin.
But the protocols overrode any sentiment or logic. That was how theyworked.
Byron leaned hard into the railing by the set of stairs. There was more commotion upstairs, and we were only at the third floor. “Byron needs help,” I said. “And I don’t know how bad this wound at my neck is. I don’t think us getting moving hurts anything. And I think if anything, we should stick to the orders.Dinah.”
“Come,” Sveta said. “Let’s go. Bring her, Victoria? Orshould I?”
“I can.”
“Come. And stay where we can keep an eye out?” I was okay letting her take the lead for now. The forcefield grabbed the woman by the waist, still holding her arms. I lifted her. She shrank to tiny size, and I shifted my grip, still holding her. She grew again, and I didn’t lose mygrip.
Her screaming became a kind of screaming-sobbing. Who was she, and how had she been _this_ close to the edge, that she was this badly off now? I held one hand to the wound, while the Fragile One dragged the woman. “The labs will have first aid,” Cryptid said. “But a detour-” Sveta said. “The bleeding is bad,” Rain said. “I vote for medical care.” We made our way up the stairs to the next stage, where hallways branched off to the left and right. I saw Juliette and Chastity with Mapwright from Advance Guard. They were dragging two people behindthem.
“Hey Rain, hey Breakthrough. You’ve got one too?” Chastityasked.
“Yeah,” Rain said. “We got one.” “Some no-name cape,” I said. “That’s Bloodplay,” Chastity said. “She’s a villain slash rogue. You can guess what she does from the name.” “I absolutely cannot,” Rain said. “You’re cute,” Chastity said. “Or your sense of what’s easy to guess is messed up,” Juliettesaid.
“Maybe,” Chastity said, frowning. “But Rain’s still cute.” “Eh,” Juliette said. “Not that I mind, but… our guys are hurt.” “Shit, yeah,” Chastity said, looking at us. At Byron. “I’m not focusing, with this screaming. Um-” Mapwright reached out, touching Byron’s hand, then Sveta’s… Chastity looked over at me. “-we’re taking them to the Mathers Giant. She’s incapacitating them and shutting off all incomingsignals.”
“Is she behaving?” Cryptid asked. He scowled with his ratty, crooked-toothed face as Mapwright touched him. “Is there a chance she _doesn’t_ behave?” Rain asked, with anote of alarm.
“The Simurgh,” Cryptid replied, with a note of derision. “_Nobody’s_ behaving.” Mapwright reached for my hand and touched the forcefield instead. I opened up the chest, then reached out with the hand that wasn’t currently holding my neck. “Again.” She touched my hand. Her eyes flashed pink. My vision flashed. My awareness of the facility expanded out, like I could see every wall, every floor, the damaged sections, the lighting, but when it came to what was actually in that space, it was something like a symbol, a sign with an arcane symbol on it that _shouldn’t _have meant or implied something, but told me a fuller story than an exclamation point or word might. Mathers Giant was parked up on the seventh floor, behind and beneath the stairs. The offices just beyond the area that had once had the booths of Teacher’s misinformation teams. “You made it sound like she in particular might be a problem,”Rain said.
“_Anything_ in particular might be a problem,” Chris retorted. “Enough, stop,” I said, rubbing my eyelids against the orbs of my eyes. A bit of information overload. “We’re getting slowed down. We need to go.” “Can you take her?” Sveta asked the Heartbroken girls, almost talking over me, asserting the leadership. “We have to hunt down medical care and track someone down for Dragon.” “It’s hard enough dragging two grown people,” Juliette said. “We can,” Chastity said. “Give me a second, I’ll see if I can make this easier,” I told them. I pulled away from the group, and began saturating the captive villainess Bloodplay with emotions. I pulled on scenes I’d seenrecently.
Obeying my mom, curling up against Dean. Tattletale had called it submission. It wasn’t. _You can infuse someone with raw fear, and depending on the person, they might quiver and quake, or they can lash out in violence. I can give Bloodplay acceptance…_ She bent her head down, twisting and pulling against the hands thatrestrained her.
…and if it works, she’ll be willing to work with us. She raised her head, eyes as wide as they would go, kicked her legs, and screamed with renewed rage. Then she shrank again, trying to make use of the second or two I didn’t have a firm grip. But I was anticipating it. Other hands were waiting. I grabbed her tiny body and held firm.“Chastity!”
Chastity took a step forward, almost tripping over the stair that connected the hallway to the broader stairwell. Her eyes went wide. “How do I hit her without taking her head off?” The woman used her lasers, and this time, she was able to hit myforcefield.
“Now!”
Chastity reached out, hesitated, then flicked a finger, catching the two-inch-high Bloodplay across the cheek, knocking her out. It might have knocked her out if Chastity _hadn’t_ had her power to K.O. anyone with a slap. I hurried to catch Bloodplay as my forcefield fell, then handed her over. My one hand was slick from fingertip to wrist with blood. “Is that her or you?” Chastity asked. Then her eyes fixed on my neck. “You need to get that looked at. I didn’t even see, since the black hides it.” “I know. Just… I’m managing.” “Split up,” Sveta said. “Cryptid, Antares, Byron, floor six labs. Find a lab that works. Precipice, you’re with me. Map, Chastity, Juliette, come with us. Seventh floor, the hallway where they stuck the thinkers.” “Be careful going there,” Chastity told Sveta. “Half these guys we caught were heading there like they were given orders. We’ve been holding them off but…”Sveta met my eyes.
“Dinah,” I said. “Yeah,” Sveta said. “Probably.” “I’ll come,” I told her. “You will fucking go get medical care, Victoria. You’re bleeding like shit,” Sveta said, with uncharacteristic harshness.“I-”
The entire building shuddered. The screaming, at the very least, didn’t feel that bad. Was the Simurgh further from the building? That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, as relieving as it felt right this minute. It meant she mightbe getting away.
In this, at least, we had to trust the Wardens to keep her pinned down. And we needed to get Dinah. I pressed my hand to my wound, checked Byron, and then started flying up the stairs, taking point. There was someone in costume sitting on the stairs in the dark, hands over his ears, rocking a little. I landed next to him while I waited for others, checking him over, but he barely seemed to recognize I was there. The hallways- I checked both, and both were lit. There was one dead body in the hallway, either a ‘red’ by Defiant’s system or a victim of a red, but no apparent threats. I used my aura, reaching out for calm and relief and pushing it outthere.
In a way, I was glad that I _could_. The process of connecting to the Fragile One and her origins, realizing she wasn’t the enemy and letting her connect to _me_… it had opened doors both for the shaping of my forcefield and for my emotion control. It felt _right_ that the emotion control was letting me help and soothe, now. The cape stopped rocking and looked up at me. “Is there-” I started. He removed the hands from his ears. “Is there a place you can go?” “My team’s fighting.” “The fighting seems to be worse near the front of the building. If you head that way…” I indicated past the stairs. “You can go find a spot to wait or help others. Or… the screaming shouldn’tbe as bad.”
He got to his feet, and I gave him a hand. Then he jogged off, hand resting on the back of his neck, like he wanted to keep it close to his ears, to try and fail to shut off the screaming. “_He dies_,” the noise of the environment rasped. The thought that crossed my mind was of Dean. Of him next to me at an event I couldn’t remember the particulars of, whispering so it was just him and me. Even though the sounds I’d just heard were nothing like Dean’s voice, my memory of the two words now felt like it had sounded like him, and they felt irrevocably tied to that memory of Dean. A chill ran up my back, the sensations reminding me that some of the bleeding extended down my back. I turned, watching over the group as they made their approach. Sveta let go of Byron’s arm, and her grip had been firm enough that the gouge that extended from one corner of his wrist to his elbow didn’t open up again in the time it took me to assert my grip with four different forcefield hands. “I might be a few points lower than I was just saying,” I said. “Put me down as a six, maybe a five.” “You can’t just change it to get better treatment,” Cryptid growled. “You just said you were a nine, minutes ago. Now you’re downgrading it because we’re being careful around you. You can’t be _that_ happy around the fucking Simurgh without it being for bad reasons.” I glanced at Sveta, and Sveta nodded once. “That’s not what I’m doing. I’m rating myself high as far as… I had a breakthrough and that feels good. But she _is_ gettingto me.”
“Good feelings are _bad_, and so is her getting to you,” Cryptidtold me.
“Just… nevermind,” I said. “Worst of both worlds.” “Shut up, Chris,” Sveta said. Her body was agitated in how it moved, a lattice of ribbons with many gaps at her arms, some gaps at her neck. “Be safe. We’ll get Dinah and come back your way, or you come find us.”I nodded.
“Tattletale and the kids are up there near her. It’s where they stowed the thinkers,” Chastity said.“Go,” I said.
“Byron’s in charge,” she said. Byron looked unsteady on his feet.But I nodded.
Sveta went, without any further statements or questions. A small part of me felt betrayed, like I’d felt in the hospital room, abandoned by family. Which hadn’t been the reality, I tried to tell myself rationally. I ended up pulling Byron more than was polite, as a consequence of that firm grip and my sense of urgency in getting him some medicalattention.
My family _had_ come to the hospital. They could have come for a visit every day and I still would have felt abandoned. Sure, they could have handled it better, but it was a me thing as much as it wasa them thing.
With Mapwright’s power informing me of room layouts, I found a lab, checked it was empty, and then opened the door, bringing Byron inbehind me.
Cryptid practically squeezed past Byron in his eagerness to get to the nearest computer chair, hurling an oversized rat-man body into the seat, pulling himself over, and booting up. “Do you have anything?” Byron asked Cryptid. “Injections forfast healing?”
“No. I might need them.” Byron seemed like he was going to say something, then fell silent. “How are you managing?” I asked him. “Uh. Managing?” he asked, like it was a tricky question. “Dizzy? Delirious? Feeling the blood loss?” “I know what blood loss feels like. I’m… no blood loss.” I disengaged from my forcefield, leaving it behind while I went to cabinets, pulling out the canvas bags with the ‘first aid’ icons on them. Red on white. Images of tattoos danced through my head. Of costume. All of New Wave had claimed their own colors. I was gold and white, my dad green icons on white, my mom orange on white. Aunt Sarah was purple on white, Crystal magenta on white, and Shielder blue on white. My sister had been red on white. _She’s out there. You know she’s on edge_. It was like a whisper, formed out of environment, paralleling my thoughts, except there was no environment to it. An idea running through my head like I’d formed the thought, but like a teleporter arriving at a location, the process of getting from A to B wasn’t apparent, only inferred. My thoughts felt like that. The fact that the journey _could_ be made made sense. It was just too fast, too disconnected to feel natural. The screaming was still there, fading in and out. I pulled the stuff out of the cabinet. “I’m not squeezing you too tight?” I asked Byron, as I handed the first aid stuff to the Fragile One.“No.”
Blood sucked at my fingers as I pulled my hand away from the wound at my shoulder. I kept one eye out to try and keep coordinated as I had the Fragile One unpack the first aid kit. I floated over to check the severity of the wound by sight. _Fuck,_ it was not a pretty one. “No sign that it’s bleeding too badly internally. The pressure seems to have stopped it,” I observed. “If you have any input, any details you need us to know, let me know.” Byron shook his head. “I could pull that open to see if there’s anything arterial, but I feel like it’d be leaking out or there’d be discoloration, bruising, or fluid buildup. Better to keep it closed, let it keepclotting.”
“Sure,” Byron murmured, like he didn’t even care.“Hello!”
The cheery, young voice was jarring, as a contrast to Byron’s. Riley’s voice came across the computer. “Woww. Look at you. Case Fifty-three? And… dinner?” “No. Transformation cocktail. Two injured. They’re gettingpatched up.”
“Lemme see. Put them in front of the camera.” I helped Byron stand, and brought him closer to the computer. “I wish I’d seen you before you started bleeding. I’d be able to judge better. I think you’ll be okay, but don’t go running too fast or getting too excited. You might pass out.” “Any arterial bleeding?” I asked. “Anything internal? Muscle damage? Nerve damage?” “Nerve damage, maybe. Worst case scenario… _second_ worst case scenario, his right hand is only as good as his left, some therapy needed. Worst case scenario is we all die before that’s even aquestion.”
“I just need bandages, then?” Byron asked. “Medical attention if you want to avoid the nerve damage.” “That takes time. Bandages?” “Yep, if you’re willing to take the risk. Twenty-five percent chance your hand doesn’t fully recover.” “That’s fine,” Byron said. I moved my hand away from the wound that ran parallel to my bra strap, collarbone up to the shoulder. “You’re bleeding more than you think you are. I _love_ the edges on those cuts. What was the weapon they used?” “Laser with no heat, I think,” I said. “I want the readouts on that!” Riley said, in the same voice a kid proclaimed their desire for a puppy that was for sale. “Focus,” Cryptid growled. “You’ll need to cauterize. One and a half inches above thecollarbone.”
“Fuck me,” Cryptid’s growl became more growly. He rose from his seat, grabbing part of his kit, and… if his feet weren’t stretched-out rat feet, then he would have been stomping my way. As it was, it was a stalk, quick and lunge-y. He reached for me and I flew back. No forcefield, while it was holding Byron’s arm.“I have stuff.”
“Ask first.”
“Fucking-” he growled. “You want to stop bleeding? I have stuff. For your forehead too.” “Will it knock me out? Slow me down?” “_No. _It stops bleeding.” “Because the doctors at Shin-” He threw it down on the floor, then stalked his way back to his chair. “You talk about the importance of being wary, Cryptid, but the moment we’re wary around you _for good reason, _you get pissy.” “It’s there if you want it, smear it on,” he said, before slumping down in front of the computer, his body too big for the station or the monitor’s height. He spoke to the screen, “Can we get to work? What are we doing?” “We’re using some inspiration from _Rattenfänger__, _a villain I had a run in, back in the day. Sound as a vector for biological response. It transmits quickly, it’ll get the coverage weneed…”
I turned my full attention to Byron, who was applying bandage. I had my forcefield gradually release its hold on his arm while he wrapped it. He knew what he was doing. The discussion continued in the background. I applied the cream to the part of the wound Riley had indicated, then to my forehead and scalp, before doing what I could to staunch the flow. Blood trickled down my chest to my stomach, down my side, and down my arm. The hand that had been keeping pressure on the wound had blood running down the length of it to my elbow, making the sleeve stick to the joint. “Talk to me,” I told Byron. “I feel like a two right now,” he said. “Okay,” I said, staying calm despite the alarm. “What can I do? I’ve got emotions on tap, I can listen. Give you perspective, restrain you…” “This,” he said, pausing in the bandaging process to indicate his arm. “Makes me think of Tristan.” “A lot of tricky thoughts right now. Some of it’s her.” “I know,” he said. “I know what you meant earlier, when you said you felt like a nine or ten for other reasons, but when it came to her, you felt like a four. I just… I don’t feel like a nineor a ten.”
“Yeah,” I said, quiet. “And that’s nothing to do with her. The lighting, the spots in my vision, it makes me think it’s his power, _every time_, like he’s back, and my hopes get up, _every time_. It feels like every single little detail that’s around us is something she’s manipulating and it’s pushing me toward…” “Yeah,” I said, again. “Me too. I think every single one of us feels like we’re getting special attention.” He swore under his breath in Spanish. Cryptid’s swearing, though, was far louder. He rose from his seat. “Woah nelly,” Riley’s voice was almost playful. “What isit?”
“Not a moment’s peace_!” _Cryptid growled. “It has to be the Simurgh. She’s throwing roadblocks my way. I can’t think for two seconds without something-” “What happened?” I asked. “My giant. She’s nonresponsive. I plugged stuff into her so I could track it. She’s gone dark.” “She’s_ dead?_” I asked. “The very important Mathers Giant that was pacifying the capes the others were rounding up?” “She’s _dark_. Now I have to stop what I’m doing, I haveto-”
“You need to do _this_,” I told him. “I don’t have to do a fucking thing-” I pulsed out with my aura. A moment of feral panic, the kind that made someone freeze, instead of flying. His expression twisted. “Cryptid. Chris, I’m going to be blunt. Do this. There’s _zero_ other choice. I’ll go to the giant.” “I’m not going to-” he started, but he stopped himself this time, without needing intervention. “It’ll be fun!” Riley said, through the computer. “And… if you’ve got any way of canceling out the Simurgh, like you canceled out the other stuff, now’s the time to use it,” I told him. “Chill out, focus.” He withdrew a syringe from his pocket, and stared down at it. “You said you had it for emergencies. Unless you’d rather I stabyour giant…”
“No,” he said.
He pressed it to his neck, and injected it. With his other paw, he grabbed another syringe, and threw it to me. “Inject her. It should reboot things.” “Yeah,” I said. “Look after Byron?” He nodded, silent. Already, the black feathers were growing in. “Trusting you,” I told him. “Yeah,” he said, his voice reedy, thin. I left the room, grabbing bandages to press to my neck, along with the coagulant cream, or whatever it was. I flew, Mapwright’s power directing me to my destination. To the space behind the stairs, where Teacher had kept his propagandateams.
Where the Mathers Giant was, and all of the capes that had been taken out of action and kept that way by her power. The Simurgh was there, silent, not screaming, wings and arms wrappedaround the giant.
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Author Wildbow Posted on March 7, 2020March 11, 202032 Comments on Last
– 20.4
LAST – 20.3
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_This facility has been raided twice,_ I thought. _Now we need todefend it_.
A woman lunged out of a hallway, catching Hookline off guard. She got in two quick cuts with her knife. “Fucking-!” Hookline drew his chain around himself, forming overlapping ‘x’s of shifting chain that blocked two more swings. He grabbed the hook that was attached to the end of the chain, readyto swing.
Byron kicked her with a metal boot instead, which got her away. Clockblocker bent down and touched her. “Fucking hell,” Hookline muttered. Blood ran down from his lacerated arm to his elbow. Win hurried to catch up. “There was a group in a side hallway. I would have warned you.” “It’s okay,” Clockblocker said. “Real fucking okay,” Hookline swore, pulling a bloody hand away from the knife wound, “Fucking…” “I’ve got bandages,” Gibbet said. I took a second to make sure we weren’t inadvertently letting ourselves get split up, while she got the bandages out. She began walking with him while wrapping his hand. “Shit,” Clockblocker muttered. “She’s holding on tootight.”
He was trying to pull the knife out of the woman’s hand. “Heads up, coming down,” I told him, before floating down, being careful with the gun I was hauling. In real life, there was no slapstick when a twelve-ton weapon was swung around haphazardly, only tragic brain damage. I took hold of the woman’s knife and snapped it off at the handle. “That works, except, uh, hm. I don’t even want to know how your forcefield works now,” Clockblocker said. “She works very well right now. I’m hoping she stays that way,” I said. I pushed the blade into the wall to the point there was nothing sticking out that could be pulled free and used againstus.
I was fully aware that there had been a few slips in my forcefield’s performance, and it seemed to be tied to my mental state, and right now, my ‘mental state’ was me enduring a lot of nerve-janglingscreaming.
Speakers at the end of each hallway weren’t helping, as they joined the screaming in my head to form a kind of chorus of emitted screeches and screams. Here and there, one person or another got access to a microphone and tried to transmit to a location. “Someone’s at the door, we-” A bang could be heard over the speakers, several people gasping our shouting in response. “-athospital, area-”
The sound cut out, replaced by an electronic screech. Another voice came in, from a more distorted microphone, whispering, “It gets easier if you listen between the words.” I looked around, then saw metal trim on a doorframe. I pulled it out, used a forcefield hand to strip away the extra bits of door, and then used it to tie up the time-frozen woman. Wrists and ankles. Sveta reached out, slid tendrils between the edges of the speaker and the wall, and then tore it out, throwing it to the ground. The resulting feedback squeal exactly mimicked the faint rise and fall of the screaming in my head, that I hadn’t even realized was stillthere.
The speaker sputtered, and the voice resumed, “…easier if you listen between the words. It gets easier…” Rain backhanded the speaker with a silver blade and then kicked it. “Thank you,” Byron said. “Fuck me, this is unbearable, even without the accompanying soundtrack.” “Just endure,” I told him. “We gotta do as much damage as we can, stop her or weaken her.” “I know, just…” “Keep moving,” I told him. “Let us know if you need tobail.”
“I don’t. I’m not.”I nodded.
Byron kept going.
“Wait,” Cryptid called out.Byron stopped.
We all remained where we were. “Not the time-” I started.“Shh.”
He held one long, knobby finger to his rat-like muzzle, head bowed. He remained where he was, finger still to his muzzle, as he motioned for Byron to continue on. Byron took two steps, and Cryptid lunged, diving into one of the darkrooms.
It _sounded_ like he had thrown himself into a shelf of metal partsand tools.
Rain jumped in, and I flew to get better lined up- but the nature of the hallway and the surrounding people made it hard to get my gunaimed right.
Cryptid was wrestling with something that looked like a mechanicaldog.
I dropped the gun, ready to dive in, but Rain was already stabbing the thing with a silver blade. It provided the weak point that Cryptid could use to tear the thing in half. Metal with a core of flesh. “Tell me that’s not Machine Army,” Rain said. “No,” Cryptid growled, climbing to his feet, dropping the two halves. He sounded derisive. He pulled a piece off its head and pulled a computer chip out of a bloody socket. He stuck the chip into a slot on his belt, then pulled it out. “A tinker named Gusto made it. It’s set to receive radio waves, she distorted an incoming signal to give it an attack command.” “Is Gusto friendly?” I asked. “_Was,_” Cryptid growled, before pushing past me. “Fuck,” Rain muttered. “Jesus, fuck.” “Stay calm, stay level,” I said. The other teams had gone down the hallways. The Malfunctions had split up, with Caryatid hanging back with the slower group, Finale in our group, toward the middle, and Withdrawal up at the head of the pack with the faster people like Damsel and Trophy Wife. Sidepiece had some surprising stamina, all considered, and was keeping up withTrophy Wife.
The end result was that we didn’t really split up that much. The forward group went down one hall, changed their minds, and then took another, or they split up to check the branching paths and made wordless agreements because two routes were dead ends. We reached another set of hallways, and they reconvened to exchange words before making the decisions. I stuck with the main group, holding my impractically large gunoverhead.
The various groups had split up, and it was convenient to stay with the people we’d flown in with. There was too much danger of people coming at us from the rear or flanks, or something happening that complicated the fights ahead of us. Splitting up meant we could cover the major concerns, threats, and groups that might be lurking in the lower floors, without losing too much time. _“It gets easier-“_ The whispered broadcast cut out, someone else jumping in to try and broadcast something, but it was a third of a word, incoherent andshouted.
_“-between the words,”_ the original broadcast reasserted itself. Lights began to go out throughout the facility. Our hallway wentdark.
Win cranked something at his chest. Tinkertech armor lit up, illuminating the area around him. Byron began to fill the hallway with motes, each casting maybe a tenth of the light a lamp might shed. I felt my eyes adjust to the gloom, which was normal-ish. Then theyadjusted _more_.
“There,” Trophy Wife said. “Do I want to know where those eyes came from?” Withdrawal asked. “No, nope, don’t tell me,” Finale added. “Woman couldn’t pay her debt on time, I gave her the choice-” “No, no, nope, nonono,” Finale raised her voice, drowning out Trophy Wife. “Stop, stop.” “-gave me her cat.”“Nooo.”
My skin crawled. I stopped paying attention to the gun, and it scraped glass that was protecting what might have been a breaker panel. The sounds produced, along with the sputter of a buzz from the broken speaker behind us, formed a word. “Cats.” The thought was involuntary: _I’m made of strays and escaped pets and rodents and bugs._ My skin crawled more. Chris was looking at me, his eyes glowing in the dark. “Hate to complain, but I could really do without the nonconsensual mutations,” I said. “Then stay more than fifty feet away from me,” Trophy Wife said. I felt an urge to say something back, then decided against it. I decided to keep the night vision, while I was at it. _“Get-between the words,” _the voice whispered from speakers. Damsel annihilated the speaker at the end of the hallway. “Don’t make that much noise,” Clockblocker said. “You’ll get some unwanted-” “She did,” Win said. He looked back at us with metal eyes that had holes in the surface, each hole rimmed with glowing circuit patterns in gold. “Tac radar says we’ve got people coming from both directions. Group of five ahead, they’re finding hiding spots, and weirdly heavy footsteps coming from behind.” He pulled a gun out. It changed configuration, locking into positionover his hand.
I was closer to the rear than the front. It took a bit of flying acrobatics to get the gun turned around, but I pointed it the way we’d come. Win crouched below me, pointing the same way. “Weirdly heavy means brute?” I asked.“No idea.”
I changed the setting on my gun, narrowing the beam from the last setting I’d had it on. Below me, Caryatid had caught up, and crouched a bit, taking on her breaker form. She was a good person to have in the way of any stampeding heavy hiter. “_It gets between the worlds_,” the voice on the speaker said. There was a feedback squeal. Behind me, Damsel used her power, tearing into a wall, before hurling herself through the hole. I heard the follow-up shots. “Pew, pew, pew,” Finale said, her voice quiet. “Pew.” The fight in the other hallway unfolded in the same moment the figure in _our_ hallway made his appearance. I almost pulled the trigger on seeing the monstrous face, then pulled back. “No!” Win had already pulled the trigger. A sphere of glowing blue energy soared down the hallway, catching the figure in the lower body. The gun reconfigured, loading for another shot, taking on a red glow inthe gloom.
“Shit,” I said.
“We know it?”
“We know him,” I said. I flew back a short bit to look down the other hallway, and saw the fighting was ongoing. Nothing I could address with my gun. “All five are down,” Win said. “Four unconscious, one off radar, maybe dead… and then this guy.” Caryatid dropped her form immediately, going to Finale’s side. I set my gun down and down the hall to our fallen straggler. Torso lay on the floor of the hallway, hands cupping his groin. “It’s Torso. One of Deathchester’s people. What did you shoot him with?” I asked. “Concussive forceball. I figured it’d either put him on the floor or slow him down long enough for something more serious… I’m sorry, man.” Torso lifted his head off the floor, then thunked it back down. “He’ll be alright!” Gibbet crowed, her voice muffled by the hangman’s hood she wore. She was catching up behind Win. “Come on, Torso. Took you long enough to show up, you loser.” Torso thunked his head against the floor again. Sidepiece spoke from the end of the hallway, “You’re so inconvenient. You’d better headbutt that fucking Endbringer that’s screaming at us right now and make it worth it to bring youalong.”
“Why couldn’t he come with us?” I asked. “Because if he fell on the damn Dragon-plane, which he _would_, we’d all be goners,” Gibbet said. An L-shaped bit of metal appeared below his neck, tried to lift him, and bent. More appeared, straining to force him to a standing position. Hookline provided his hook, which bent in mid-air, caught Torso around the neck, and lifted. Torso finally let go of his groin with one hand, grabbed the metal ‘L’, and found something approximating balance. In the gloom, his mannequin head with the mismatched cartoon eyes looked especially horrifying, especially where the paint had smeared or scuffed, making it look like he was crying. I watched as they goaded him forward, Gibbet giving him a shove on one shoulder that would have been helpful if he weren’t so prone tofalling over.
He passed me, and I could see that someone had written ‘MORON’ on the back of his head in what looked to be permanent marker. I sawhim stumble.
“Don’t fall on my gun!” I called out to them. Torso had to turn roughly two-hundred and seventy degrees to look back in my direction, which _increased _the chance he’d fall on my gun, as heswayed badly.
At the very least, he didn’t fall on my gun. I bent down to retrieve it, looked back, and saw Win staring at it. I sighed, picked it up, and followed the others. Deathchester was all together, minus Mockument, who hadn’t showed. “Sorry again,” Win told Torso, as he caught up with Clockblocker. The people who’d attacked were wearing refugee clothing. One wore a mask, and was partially burned as he lay on the floor. “_Listen to worlds,_” a voice on a distant speaker whispered tous.
“We need to move fast,” I said. “Formation before was working. Try to keep us informed, Win.” “I know this area,” Sveta said. “The main concourse is thisway.”
The speakers continued to play. Even sounds that weren’t from the speakers were becoming more and more like whispers and vocal sounds from all sides. As though every unoccupied office we passed through was filled with a half-formed memory.“_Sorry._”
“_Wash._”
“_Umm._”
Like my dad’s voice, trying to get into the habit of talking to me again after going a while without visits. _Sorry,_ he said. The nurses at the hospital. Before a chore I had dearly wished was unnecessary and, self-contradicting myself, _constant_ at the sametime.
Something Sveta had said, during one of her visits, after a lingering moment of eye contact, when even she had taken in the full reality of what I’d been and found herself momentarily lost for words. “Fuck you, Simurgh.” The statement was marked by others looking at me. Oh, I’d said that out loud. “Do we need to worry?” Clockblocker asked. “Addendum to that thought,” I said. “Fuck her, and no, it’s not working like she wants it to. She’s poking at obvious weak spots I’ve been dealing with for years. I can take it.” “K- Lookout,” Rain said. “I remember she talked once about a thing she had on her fridge once. You got home from work or school and you put a smiley face up on the fridge. Or a frowny face. Or astormy face.”
“That is the _lamest fucking thing_,” Sidepiece said. “You know what I got when I got home from school?” “I think this is a trick question, and you’re going to pull something out of your middle,” Finale said. “I got a boot to the ass.” “Oh, I’m sorry.” “Fuck off with your apologies.” “Your point, Precipice?” I asked, my voice tenser and my tone terser than I’d meant it to be. “Sorry, just… before theyderail us.”
We were passing beneath a set of massive industrial tubes that churned with fluids passing through them. Water for the facility, Iimagined.
“Reality check,” Rain said. “Scale of one to ten, who’s above a seven or below a three?” “Below a five,” Byron said. “Below a five is a slipperyslope.”
“Sure,” Rain said. “No judgment.” “I’m fine,” Damsel said, annoyed. “Is it even possible to be above a seven?” “I-” I started. “I’m fucking annoyed with this. I’m spooked about what comes next, and if we can even beat her. But I don’t feel like she’s getting to me. It’s distracting and there’s probably a point to it. Put me down as a seven.” “I’m freaking,” Caryatid said, from the very rear of the group. “I keep hearing the screeches and squeals, and I think of the needle woman who almost got me, the last time I was here. Idunno… four?”
“Six?” Finale sounded unsure. “I really don’t know.” “Below a five or above a seven,” Trophy Wife said, sounding annoyed that Finale was contributing unnecessary information. “I’ll admit I’m thinking of my brother a lot,” Byron said.“Four.”
“I’m an eight or a nine,” Cryptid said. He gave his sash a pat. “I have vials, including one for dealing with mind control. Doesn’t scare me.” “The bird one. You could have used it already,” I noted. “Maybe someone else will need it,” Cryptid said, narrowing his eyes at me. He looked away. “Works better if I have a mission inmind.”
“Nice to have in the back pocket,” I told him. “It is,” he replied, before his ear twitched and he looked away. “Anyone else?” Rain asked, hopeful. Torso put out both hands, all fingers extended. “Ten,” Hookline said, unnecessarily. “Good for you!” Finale said. “Even with the crotch shot?” Win asked. Torso pulled his hands back. He swayed for a second, then put them out again, pinky finger and thumb on one black-gloved hand tuckedin. _Eight_.
“His skull is too thick for her to get to him,” Gibbet said, giving Torso a knock on the head. Torso, in turn, gave her a thumbsup.
“Others are ahead,” Cryptid said, before joining the advance group, closer to Damsel and Trophy Wife. ‘Ahead’ was an open area containing rows of pumps. It was only partially lit, with the lights flickering, but there was a set of stairs leading up over one of the pumps, to a higher level. Some of the other groups that had come in on the same planes as us were up there. I saw Parian and Rachel with one of the dogs, some of Semiramis’ group, and two Wardens. Vista was among the Wardens, looking down our way. Keeping tabs on Byron. Sveta reached up to grab the railing and haul herself up. “Thisway!”
“Anyone injured, needing a lift?” I asked._“Weak.”_
It took me half a second to realize the voice hadn’t come from the group, another half-second to realize that Caryatid was approachingme.
“I’m not injured, but…”“Sure,” I said.
The gun was heavy and very close to my tolerance levels, but an added hundred and twenty or whatever pounds wasn’t enough to make flying impossible. The stairs that led over the massive pump were the equivalent of three stories. I grabbed her with forcefield hands,then lifted.
“Me too, when you’re done?” Byron asked. “I got you,” Sveta called down. She’d just been talking to Vista. Maybe telling Vista that Byron was at a four, here. She hopped down onto the pump, grabbed something, and then unfurled to reach down to Byron, on the ground. Metal squeaked, and the squeak paralleled the shifting pitch of the screaming in my head. Others took the stairs. _It’s not just that she drives you around the bend, _I thought. _It’s that she’s constantly gathering information. Constantly refining that ability to drive you crazy, and refining her precognition, so you’re less and less effective against her in afight_.
“Dungeons are below us,” Sveta was saying, to a group of capes who looked like they were one of Foresight’s peripheral groups. “On the next floor will be the first main floor, including the lobby, which you’ve probably seen. If you go beneath the stairs, you’ll find the arboretum.” “Arboretum?” I asked. “Lounge area,” Sveta said. “They were using it as a backup cafe. Vista says we’re set up on the ground floor, but floors two and three have a few dangerous parahumans, so we’ve been delayed.” “Some people snapped and they’re dangerous,” Vista told me. “We’re sorting through people by stress level, using the front doors by the lobby to evacuate people who can’t stick it out, but we can’t evacuate anyone upstairs until we clear the middle floors, and we can’t easily lure the compromised to one of the containment zones until we can get past them.” “Containment zones?” Vista nodded. “Right now we’re apparently using the dungeon, but most of that was built to work with the Custodian in charge, and she’s a Titan now.” “She wouldn’t cooperate even if she wasn’t a Titan,” Sveta said. She winced. “I could _really_ do with this screamingstopping.”
“If you can hear the scream, at least she’s still working on you,” Clockblocker said. People were up the stairs. Everyone accounted for. I used the gun to ram my way through the double doors. I could hear distant screaming, and sped up my approach, flying while bringing the gun around to point. The heroes were gathered on the ground level. Heroes were storming the stairs, which went straight to the upper floors, hallways stabbing out to the right and left. “All teams, go!” Defiant called out, a wire between his teeth.. He had his spear in hand, and was directing the groups. “I want a strong defensive team at our back line here! Around me!” I moved out of the way, flying up and back, so the rest of our groupcould file in.
I saw Gilpatrick, wearing a full Patrol uniform. When he looked at me, his forehead lined with worry, posture tense. I flew to him, pointing my gun in the general direction of upstairs. “Good to see you,” he said, with genuine feeling. “Is it?” I asked, without thinking. “I mean… I’m glad, ifthat’s true.”
“Gave up leading the team. Put Jester in charge, which is helping make this feel really fucking surreal,” Gilpatrick said, with someadded weariness.
“I didn’t mean to put you in that position, having you go withRain.”
“You didn’t ask. I chose.” I looked at him, remembered how he’d backed me up, as best as he was able. Giving me a place to stay after the barbecue. “My team was just trying to ballpark how we’re doing,” I told him. “Rating from one to ten. Ten being fantastic. One being that we’re a danger to others. Where are you at, Gilpatrick?” “I’m not a danger,” he said. “I’ve got some training from my PRT days. I’ll last longer than most, don’t worry.” “And your power?” “Thinker. Best I can figure out… I see the lies people tellthemselves.”
“The lies…?”
“As physical things, twisting features. It takes concentration to turn off. Took me a second, I thought it was a broken power, until I talked to my kids.” “The Patrol block?” “Didn’t go into that conversation thinking I was going to quit and leave them. But I know some of them well enough to match it to whatI was seeing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” he said. He smiled, but it was tight, a bit forced. “Maybe I won’t be teaching hundreds of kids and helping them all a little, but I can be here, screen for unwitting traitors. I can… let’s get through this. I’ll help a few dozen, I think, who might not have ever gotten help if it weren’t for me.” “We’ll get through it,” I told him. _Or die trying_. He smiled, and it wasn’t as forced. Defiant was shouting orders. “Need a team to go to the sixth floor! We-” Defiant called out, stopping as Torso tripped and landed on his face. “We need any capes who aren’t feeling confident to escort civilian groups out, be aware she’s above us, she may break free of the facility to attackand demoralize!”
My team was sorted.
“I should go,” I said. “Victoria,” he said. I met his eyes. I almost winced at the weariness there, that I’d never seen even when he’d been dealing with the troublesome kidslike Cami or Tom B.
“It really is good to see you. I don’t mean that in an inappropriate way. It’s… every way I can think of phrasing it makes me sound like an old man.” “You’re not that old, Gilpatrick.” “Too old and weary for you, Victoria. All I mean is, and I don’t want to put too much weight on this, but you’re a sight for sore eyes, and my eyes feel very sore, tonight.” “Thank you,” I told him.“Be safe.”
“You too,” I told him. I felt a measure of guilt. I remembered how Gilpatrick had emphasized holding back. He’d argued for avoiding violence and lethal measures wherever possible. ‘Five pounds of gun’. Five pounds of gun. Twenty pounds of armor and costume. However many pounds of additional gear, medical stuff, supplies… metaphors for the amounts of attention we should pay toward violence, protectingothers, supplies…
I hefted my twelve tons of gun, doing my best to avoid bludgeoning anyone as I returned to my team. The gun wasn’t even the fucking irony, here. Twelve tons of gun was _nothing_ compared to the weight of the countless lives I was preparing to take. I looked over at Chris. “Defiant!” I called over. “Are the labs clear?” “Only if you help to clear them! Sixth floor, feel free!” he barked. He looked like he was going to say something else, thenstopped.
He turned, raising his head to look _up_. The ceiling caved in. A plume of dust, concrete-Simurgh.
I thought at first that it was just a psychological tactic. Telekinetically controlled dust, to scare us, remind us we weren’tsafe anywhere here.
Then it _screamed_.
The sound in my head redoubled, rattled, became _words_. The words were accompanied by mental images. _“I never had a trigger event,”_ Dean’s voice. “_I had to abandon you for my own health._” Jessica’s. “_I’m sorry. I was selfish. It wasn’t your fault._” Each was a fragment, a thing that had never been said, as much as they should have. A slice of a world that would have made more sense, gone to better places. Seductive. Floating in the air, I curled up, knees to chest. _Fuck that. _I straightened, tall, eyes wide. I used my aura. The briefest of pulses. A _push,_ taking that ‘fuck you’ and broadcasting it for the extra emphasis. She was there, crouching, her wings around her. The aura didn’t touch her. I couldn’t even be sure she registered it happened. But for everyone else, it was a nudge, a slap in the face, a bit of _fuck you_ to shake them from anything they might be thinking or feeling that was similar to what I was experiencing. I aimed and fired in the next moment. Fragments of roof cascaded down in a stream, absorbing a good seventy percent of what I was firing. I shifted position, flying to one side, and a cape took off, flying in my way. Only reflex kept me from shooting them in theback.
Sveta lunged in, reaching for someone in range of falling rubble. That same person slapped falling rubble aside. It struck Sveta’sreaching arm.
For what had to be fifteen seconds, the Simurgh crouched in the midst of the lobby, where our side had been regrouping. She didn’t move a wing-tip. Nobody fought on her defense or intentionally threw a forcefield up to protect her. For those fifteen seconds, we didn’t touch her. Capes advanced, then second-guessed themselves as more debris came down. They were blinded by the dust and then someone bumped into them, disturbing their aim, and they didn’t feel confident to make the shot. My own aim suffered, because my vision warped, distorting. Trophy Wife had moved to a place where I wasn’t in her range anymore. She granted herself mutations based off of the trophies she’d taken, and she granted lesser effects to people around her. Problem was, that involved a faint transition period, which was fucking with me at a critical moment. The see-in-the-dark mutation was dropping away from my eyes now that I wasn’t in her range. She shifted from the crouch, rising twenty feet into the air. With her telekinesis, she pulled chunks away from the ceiling. Each chunk flew down with terminal velocity. No lead-in, no warning, each moving in a clear straight line with no prevarication or misleading. Each chunk took a life. The cascade of chunks of ceiling began to pick up, became more aimless. I couldn’t shake that each stumble to avoid the stuff was someone moving as she’d wanted. I took aim, and I fired. Chunks that were falling stopped, disintegrating beneath the beam, giving me a tantalizing second or two of contact before the next chunk blocked the continued beam. I heard people shriek. Withdrawal had a crumpled leg, struck by a stone. Finale was shouting for him. There were a good _dozen_ people like him. People who were close enough to get hurt. Every instinct I had told me to get in there, to dive in and save him. Logic told me that this was one of our last shots. We _had_ to hurt her, take her down a peg so she couldn’t win that tug of war against Titan Fortuna and take over the entire system. The screaming was a roar in my ears, like the adrenaline in my ears when I’d been trapped. The endless loop of trying to logic my way through emotional issues and emotion my way through logic, when neither would serve. Being caught by Ophion. _She’s fucking with us._ _Putting us in a lose-lose, demoralizing, psychologically assaultingus_.
Because it served her goal. Because she needed to, I told myself. If we could push through this, it’d inconvenience her. _Fuck you!_ I willed. I pushed again. Tried to feed courage and outrage out to the crowd on a level that would serve the people whoneeded it.
_I’m not who I was when Ophion got me_.I’m changed.
The words rambled through my brain, pushing through a fog of noise and screaming. Change. Metamorphosis. Cocoon.Cocoon.
The scream latched onto the memory. Me, wrapped in a cocoon of stray dogs, cats, bugs. The cocoon had become a coffin, encapsulating me, after Crawler had eaten into me with acid. But that coffin had opened. Ribs with flesh strung between them had parted, revealing me within. I held onto that image, pushing out, trying to capture it. Holding it firm in my mind, I dove for Withdrawal. I snatched him up. I had a fleeting glance of Finale. Rather than carry him to safety, I used momentum and flung him across the floor, relying on the metal rig and its propensity to skid. He stopped himself against the wall, using the springs, then twisted around, aiming his pill popper. I saved others, grabbing them. The Fragile One fired the gun, placing the shots only when I was willing it, only when I was keeping an eye on things, to make sure nobody flew into the way. Pressing the attack. Staying low to the ground, watching the environment, I saved threepeople.
Others jumped in. Helping. When I saw people losing courage, I gave pulses of courage. When I saw them succumbing to the fear and head-fuckery, I gave them a taste of righteous _‘fuck you’_. “I need you to get me in there!” Sveta called out to me. “Okay, but- I don’t have my forcefield.” She gave me a confused look. Then a golden beam stabbed out, striking the shield the Simurgh was using to protect herself, until Byron pierced it with a spike of stone. She connected the dots, looking back over her shoulder. The Fragile One was there, visible in the shadows of dust. Chest open, ribs splayed, a hole big enough for me to move through. Her arms were extended, gripping the gun Dragon had given me, aiming it. “Come!” I called out, with a pulse of my aura. I reached out ahand.
“But-”
But she reached out. Because I was in harm’s way, and any seconds spent protesting were seconds I was in danger’s way. She grabbed my hand, and I braced myself, flying hard the other way. Sveta grabbed the rubble the Simurgh was using to shield herself. Then she hurled herself at the Simurgh. Falling rubble stabbed directly down at Sveta. She unfolded, creating a hole in her midsection for it to stab through, unfolded her arm, and grabbed the Simurgh with a dozen tendrils. Reaching back, she extended a limb toward the crowd, grabbing Clockblocker’s hand. She was frozen, locked in place, with ten tendrils around the Simurgh’s head and two around one smaller wing. The Simurgh was positioned low to the ground. I took evasive action, flying back and away, while the gun took the opportunity to shoot. The Simurgh was still alive while grabbed, and was still using her telekinesis. Every chunk of rubble saw purpose. A larger chunk stalled Defiant. Another formed a wall as the Fragile One openedfire.
Byron drew motes around her, trying to seal her inside a stone growth, then encasing it in ice for good measure. Torso began running, sprinting across the floor, wobbling, hopping precariously over rubble. A single stone slid in front of him, and he tripped. Dust and rubble moved in a loose, slow cyclone around her, picking up in intensity, as a frozen Sveta held her. Hookline’s weapon navigated its route through the Simurgh’s storm, rubble bouncing off of the chain instead of bending it. Clockblocker hurried to Hookline’s side. A non-living weapon that would serve the same purpose- The effect as they made contact wasn’t the same purpose. Clockblocker winced, hand pulling away, and the chain went completelylimp.
_Power conflict_.
I looked past the cloud to the vague image of the Simurgh’s face, still wrapped by tendrils. The beam cut through some of it, tracing a burning glowing line through her, while I crouched on the ground. In the same moment Clockblocker’s power broke, the cyclone stopped, every fragment finding a target. One fragment grazed me across the forehead, wrenching my head to one side with a force that made my necktwang.
I canceled my forcefield and renewed it, shielding as many people as I could. My gun fell to the ground behind me. Simurgh flew skyward, into the hole she’d come through. She was barely through it when one of the Dragon craft, upstairs, rammed into her, throwing her into the side of the hole. I caught and blocked as much rubble as I could, as we all shifted focus to backing away from the fallout of the battle above. “Keep moving if you can!” Defiant called out. “She’s on the back foot! Noncombat capes, get the injured clear!” Gilpatrick was one of the ‘capes’ to do that. “Dragon’s back on line!” Defiant called out. “Crystalclear, I need you to get this device to Narwhal. Antares?” “Yes!” I called out, one hand at my forehead. “Dinah Alcott is on the seventh floor. Dragon thinks she’s a target. You can take Lab Rat to the labs on the sixth floor as yougo. _Go!”_
I looked around to confirm my team was more or less in fighting shape, nodded, and then led the way. _As it began, younger me, so it continues. A cut on the head, a weird feeling of pride, and a bit of twisted hope._PREVIOUS CHAPTER
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Author Wildbow Posted on March 3, 2020March 8, 202035 Comments on Last
– 20.3
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No portals meant we had to take the long way back. This, I had to imagine, was part of the Simurgh’s plan. Draw us out, tie us down, and then go after the biggest target. It felt bad. I was aware of the running clock. The countdown Dragon had provided had shut off when she’d gone dark, but that was for Simurgh exposure. We had another countdown- the time before she merged with Titan Fortuna and enacted her plan. The back of the Uther was smaller than I’d imagined it being, equivalent to my old bedroom in Brockton Bay, or Crystal’s living room, and there were a lot of us left to find our seats or places to stand. Defiant was up front, piloting a flight of Dragon’s ships to land near other groups, to carry other people who had fought theSimurgh.
As we’d climbed in, there had been a few weird voids that formed, spaces people had been reluctant to fill. Benches had been quickly claimed, then ceded to the injured. The center aisle down the back of the craft was harder to fill, but Defiant deployed drop-down handholds from the ceiling. There had still been a void, however, around Defiant. Like nobody wanted to bother him or seem toofamiliar.
I braved it, stepping into those five feet or so of empty space. There was a passenger seat, and I stood with my back to it and to Defiant. Sveta found a position just to my left. Byron sat down hard on the seat, metal against metal, and put his headback, eyes closed.
Couldn’t be easy, even with the general help Chris had provided. And there was no Vista backing him up here. She had her own people and team to look after. Presumably in the Dragon ship with a single curved horn that I could see outside. “ETA: ten minutes,” Defiant said. “Whatever she’s doing back at the Wardens’ headquarters, it’s her final move before she goes after Titan Fortuna.” The hatch at the back closed. The last few people crowded in. Chris took a seat with his back to the hatch, which most avoided leaning against or standing near. As if it might open mid-flight and see them tip out. I could imagine Chris growing emergency wings or a means of surviving the landing if he had to. “Waiting for the other ships to board,” Defiant announced, without glancing back at us. His spear telescoped and he placed it in a socket in the wall. “I know you want to get there as soon as possible, but I’ll be flying every ship we have myself, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for a ship I can’t see in the event of an ambush, especially with signal latency and reliabilityright now.”
“Did we make the wrong call, engaging her here?” I asked Defiant. “There are no right calls when dealing with her,” Defiant said. “Have a look for yourself.” A projected map of the city appeared between the two seats. I turnedand looked.
The buildings were drawn out in grey-blue, with whole stretches of the city flattened or eaten up by the cracks. The good guys were icons in green, floating over scattered dots. Titans stood out in bold red, with slight color variation for Fortuna’s cluster, crimson, against Dauntless’s, pink. Arachne and the other independents wereorange.
“Draw a circle with your finger to pick up.” I experimented. Damsel of Distress was in the back of the craft, and moved closer. Withdrawal also drew closer, looking. _Keep everyone close to the Wardens’ headquarters._ “How do I play it out?” “Hm. You’ll need something for that. Didn’t cross my mind,” he said, voice low, attention on his screens, which had nothing to do with the simulation. “You’re that far gone, Defiant?” Clockblocker called out, from the far end of the other bench. “Forgot about us mere mortals needing keyboards and mice and voice commands to operate tech?” Defiant grunted, in what might have been annoyance, assent, ornegation.
“I remember liking the interfacing he made for tech he helped me with,” Kid Win said. Was it Kid Win? “Give me a moment,” Defiant said. “Hey, Kid Win,” I said, addressing him from the opposite corner of the Uther’s rear bay. “Did you end up changing your name? You went by your civilian name when we crossed paths.” “I had ideas. Clockblocker is trying to convince me of Winman.”“No,” I said.
“It works,” Clockblocker’s humor was audible in his tone. “Like a wingman, but without the ‘g’.” “That makes no sense,” Damsel of Distress told him. “We’re part of the cursed generation,” Clockblocker said, his bench leaning forward from the weight of two other members of the Flock and some of Deathchester sitting on it. He lifted a bandaged ankle up to his knee. “A lot of the good names were taken, we were young and inexperienced as things started ramping up… most of the people my age were totally unprepared for the world ending. We only got ‘lucky’ because our city went to shit.” “Lucky,” Christopher said, almost inaudible. “I like my name,” Finale said. “Finale. It really works.” I was ninety-five percent sure it was taken. I decided not to break her heart by saying so. Caryatid too, for that matter. The chatter continued. Defiant’s voice was deep and distinctive enough to cut through it. “Antares. Slash your hand through it to execute. Same movement in reverse to stop.” “Good word, execute,” Damsel observed, leaning into the top of his seat. One of her hands hung limp at her side, claws dragging acrossthe floor.
I executed, karate-chopping the simulation. Everyone close to the Wardens’ base, assuming the Simurgh would arrive there. She didn’t. She moved to the largest encampment of refugees. I adjusted, moving some people around. “Taking off!” Defiant raised his voice. “Take your seats orgrab a handhold!”
I used a grip on the passenger seat to keep myself upright until I had a sense of where the craft was going, then used flight to help keep up. I adjusted the response teams for the crisis, then karate-chopped the projection again. Red dots began to surround the Simurgh. Civilians, I assumed, who were being weaponized and turned into threats. Heroes mobilized,used portals…
And the Machine Army escaped its perimeter. I stopped, sent forces over, drawing a circle around a group of teams, then directing them to the Machine Army. Something wiped out half of the forces on the heroes’ side. “What?” I asked. “You can go back,” Defiant said. “The simulations assume some worst case scenarios. Bombs, betrayals, all-out losses, outside intervention, groups you’ve split off being turned into herpawns.”
“I don’t think I want to play this game,” I said. I adjusted my flight as Defiant turned the Uther a bit. “I am _always_ playing this game,” Defiant said. “I play through it on fast forward, adjusting on the fly, working out who is where, what the enemy is doing. On the battlefield, I simulate what my opponents will do.” “Almost like a precog.” “No,” he said. “I am very good at assessing battlefields. That’s all it is. Right now, we’re in a state where we have next moves we can make. Stay focused, don’t lose heart.” _And prepare for that bomb, all-out loss, intervention, or whole groups being taken as her pawns_, I thought. “Can I?” Withdrawal asked. “Go right ahead,” I told him. He was in an awkward position, his limb-extension frame making him too tall for the Uther, but he found a crouching position, had his frame grab a handhold above, and detached from it so he could reach forward and experiment with the simulation. “Damsel,” Rain said. “That’s Damsel of Distress to you. Use my full name, youcretin.”
“_Behave,_” Defiant called out. “Your arm,” Rain said, indicating the arm that hung limp at herside.
“There are things about a lady you don’t remark on if you care about your well being. Age, weight, and war wounds.” “Words to live by,” Sidepiece said, reclining back on the bench, so her ripped-up stomach stretched, strings of flesh snapping where they extended too far from upper to lower body. There were little sparks and puffs of smoke where the spatter hit the floor andCaryatid’s dress.
Rain leaned forward, pulling off his mask, squinting. “That doesn’t look like battle damage. Your muscles further up your arm are twitching, which reads to me like a connection issue.” “There are _four_ things about a lady you don’t remark on, you drooling malcontent.” “Do you want me to fix it? I’m not at my best today, but that’s easy stuff.” “The arm works, I’m choosing not to use it.” “Because it hurts when you do. Let me fix it.” “Who are you to tell me what to do?” “Oh my god,” Sveta whispered. “Damsel of Distress,” I said. She snapped her head around to glare at me. “It means you’re more focused, and you can annihilate more chunks of Endbringers and Titans. I saw you out there. We all want you out there as long as possible.” “You want me _weak,” _she told us. “So your dear Swansong can sneak in, blur the boundaries between me and her, take over, and then you’ll have her back.” I shook my head. “If that’s really a thing that happens, you being in constant pain is going to make you weaker than deigning to have a tinker service your arm.” “I know what you do, Antares,” she told me. “I know how you brainwashed Swansong. You pick your words. ‘Deign’. ‘Service me’.” I folded my arms. “So? That’s the game, Damsel of Distress. The back and forth. Villain preys on civilian, hero fights villain, civilian supports hero, or they’re supposed to. The hero-villain interplay continues until something so big and bad happens that we get stuck on the same battlefields. When that happens, we put aside the old rivalries and snark at each other, picking words carefully, cutting each other down with words while cooperating in general.” “Or you could _not_ cut each other down,” Finale said. “Can’t help it,” Damsel said. “I have blades for fingers. I could pat you on the cheek, child, but I might slash your throat.” “I’m _eighteen_.” Chris snorted. “Weren’t you sixteen two years ago, Ash? You were brought out of the cloning vats at the same age you were when you were at your peak, back in Boston. You’re the same age as that‘child’.”
“Look how conveniently positioned you are. I could obliterate you and the mess would get sucked straight out the back of this ship.” “You could _not_ obliterate him!” Defiant raised his voice. “You are a guest on my ship, we are operating under a truce!” “Killjoy,” Sidepiece snorted. “Let’s not bait the A-tier cape,” Disjoint murmured to her. “Wait, when’s your birthday?” Chris asked, baiting both Damsel and the A-tier cape. “I’m curious if you’re younger.” “_Chris_,” Sveta said, beating me to it by a hair, her voicesharp.
Rain started to get up, hesitated, and then navigated his way through the people in his way, mainly Caryatid, a flock member, and Withdrawal’s frame. Damsel of Distress looked like she was going to say something, but he dropped to his knees. “Give me your arm?” he asked. He put a hand out, reaching into a pocket of his costume for tools. “I have more tools if you need them, Precipice,” Defiant said. “Great,” Rain said. “I don’t think I will, this should take a minute or two. If she’s willing.” Damsel made a head movement that _might_ have been her rolling her eyes, except she didn’t have irises or pupils, so the effect was somewhat lost. She laid her hand in his, blades facing up and resting along his side. He sliced open her wrist, accessing the mechanical parts of the hands that the blade-fingers were mounted on. “Anyone else need first aid?” Clockblocker asked. “I rememberstuff.”
“Ooh, could you patch me up?” Sidepiece asked. “My stomach has a small hole in it.” “Urgh,” Finale said. “I don’t think I could manage that,” Clockblocker said. “Too bad. I could use the extra ammo.” “Uhh, what about you?” Clockblocker asked Trophy Wife. “Yourarm?”
She had some fingers that were pretty badly mangled, bending the wrong ways, broken in multiple places. One of her ears was missing. “I don’t need anything. I regenerate slowly.” She indicated the trophy rack that was mounted on her back, there were bits of meat, gristle, one eyeball that wasn’t human, and two fingers attached to it. She touched a dead, dried, tailless lizard. “It’s not much, but I’m granting some benefits to everyone in this craft.” “Wait, those things are _real_?” Finale asked. “Even thosefingers?”
“A neurosurgeon’s fingers.” “Urgggh, no, that’s so _wrong_, and gross, and creepy.” “Those are fresh,” Christopher said. “You actually chopped off a neurosurgeon’s fingers in the last twenty-four hours?” “He supplied me other fingers before.” Finale put her hands over her ears. “That’ll be enough, please,” Caryatid said. “What’s going on with _that_ guy?” Sidepiece asked. “A drug addiction he picked up writing his own scrip before Gold Morning and a terrible debt he got after. I asked him if he wanted to give me a pinky finger or a hundred thousand New Dollars. He gave me the pinky. When people were packing up their things and evacuating the city, he knocked on my door. He wanted to ensure he didn’t go without, offered me everything he owned. I took two morefingers instead.”
“Barbaric,” I noted. “He’s contributing more to stop the end of the world than the rest of them,” Trophy Wife said. “Quicker fingers and better hand-eye coordination for me and everyone around me.” “A good share of them are down in the crystal landscape, preparing to bomb it again,” I told her. “I wouldn’t be so sure they’re not making an impact.” The woman shrugged, fur collar rising and falling. “This is depressing,” Withdrawal said, before abandoning the projected simulation. He retreated back to where Finale was. Christopher approached, but he didn’t engage with the simulation. I watched his metallic eyes surveying the technology around him. “It’s good to have you on board, Win,” Defiant said. Less authoritarian and stern than I’d heard him since we’d gotten onboard.
“It’s not a complete me, but… sure. I feel like I’ve been away for a very long time, I returned to my hometown, and everything’s changed. Me included.” “I have tools if you want to while away the remaining minutes.” “Nah,” Christopher said. “Unless you’re trying to get rid ofme.”
“No.”
The projection disappeared, and appeared in the passenger seat. Arms crossed, I looked over the headrest as it started shifting, showing movements. It looked like the Simurgh was at the Wardens’ new Headquarters for this exercise. The image divided, zooming into the headquarters to show the people within as dots. A _lot_ of dots. “Planning?” I asked. “No,” Defiant said. I watched as dots began to turn yellow and orange around the Simurgh. In the other half of the simulation, watching the city as a whole, there were violet dots spreading out from one of the portals. The main perimeter of the Machine Army. Damsel was craning her head to one side to watch, while Rain worked onher wrist.
This wasn’t a plan. It was what was happening right this moment. Kenzie, the Heartbroken, Tattletale.My sister.
All in the hands of the Simurgh, as she exerted her influence. Her last big play before taking over Fortuna. I saw Christopher’s mouth press into a line as he eyed the simulation. A few were turning red already. It might have been my imagination, but I felt like the red dots were moving in a different way. Against the current, or with more energy. “Is Dragon okay?” I asked Defiant, trying to take my mind off of the Simurgh and the sea of dots. I looked out the front window of the Uther instead, which was cracked from an earlier battle. Some buildings glowed, powered by generators, but it was mostly dark andempty.
“She’s doing diagnostics. The Machine Army making contact with her is a nightmare scenario. She wants to be careful.” “How dangerous is it?” Christopher asked. “What if they got mytech?”
Defiant answered, “Then they would study it and incorporate it. People fighting them weeks from now would have a harder time.” “It seemed like they were pulling out new tricks a lot faster than that in the last fight,” I told Defiant. “I know. The Simurgh may have planned that. It may be a psychological ploy to unnerve us. At least for now, it might be better to think of ways to deal with her and put the Machine Army out of mind. Other capes are working to try and slow the perimeterbreach .”
_Working to try, _I thought, noting the wording. Not succeeding. Not stopping the breach. “Okay. Dealing with the Simurgh. Cryptid,” I said, turning back. I was interrupting ongoing conversations. “Is the Mathers Giant in the facility?”“It is.”
“Can she help? Does that work as a countermeasure against theSimurgh?”
“That’s the idea,” he said. No more hard ‘t’ sound to his voice. He was mostly old Chris now. I looked over to Defiant, “Does that factor into the calculations? Does it change the end result?” He turned to look at me, gaze moving between me and the dark, snow-dusted ruins of the city that was visible beyond the front window. “If the answer was one you didn’t like, would you want me to tell you, or would you want your mind unfettered bydistractions?”
“That’s a really ominous question to be asking right now, Defiant,” Sveta said, beside me.Defiant was silent.
I was aware that conversations in the back had died down some. Withdrawal was still engaging with Finale. “Honesty is probably better,” I said. “I already took it into account,” he said. He reached out to touch a terminal, where he had been operating the craft without hands on controls earlier. In the corner of my eye, I saw the projection change. Our ships at the facility. The Simurgh still there. And there wasn’t a single person there who didn’t have some light exposure. The facility was flooded yellow, with fifteen to twenty red dots and a mess of orange. Light exposure, moderate exposure, and long-term dangers. “We land in three minutes,” he told us. “The phone call with Riley Davis, formerly known as Bonesaw, will be around the time of landing, given the expedition team’s current trajectory. Who’shandling it?”
“I will,” I said. “And the call to Contessa?” “We’ll see when Dragon is back in touch. For now, everything on that front is stalled. If you happened to be out of contact, we could wait for you, but-” “But you know what we need to ask her. Just get back to me withthe info?”
“Of course.”
I adjusted my flight as the crafts dipped, falling into a single-file line. A part of me wanted to be out there, flying alongside, instead of cooped up in here with a bunch of villains and scared kids. “I’m sorry, by the way,” I told Defiant. “About disregarding your instructions, using the technology to access Precipice’s dreamspace.”
“I know.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I tried, “I’ll assume you had simulations for that course of action.” “No. Not how it works. I need data to draw on. That was… far afield. It could be that we needed that kind of thinking for _this, _but my feelings around that are still complicated. It could have precipitated the end of the world, but we ended up needing it.” “Complicated feelings are human,” I told him. “Not limited to humans, I’m sure Dragon will tell you,” he replied. “Going into this particular battlefield, we’ll need to keep a handle on our feelings.” The Simurgh. Mass madness.“Yeah,” I said.
“I really hope we don’t need to use your plan,” he told me. “But I accept that we need a contingency for the worst casescenario.”
“Amen,” Christopher murmured, under his breath. He turned metallic eyes toward me.I nodded.
It was my plan, but I couldn’t disagree. “And with that said, as much as I welcome the conversation while my usual conversation partner is out of contact, I should focus on the next part of the flight.” “Of course,” I said. Christopher, ‘Kid Win’, flock member, just left without another word or comment. Defiant seemed not to mind. The flight that Defiant wanted to focus on was taking us through a portal between worlds. The reason for his needing to focus became apparent when I saw how narrow the aperture was. Most of the portals were centered around stations, or had been opened up to a particular size. This portal was open around a station, the facility set up to serve as a gate for vehicles to pass through, forming a loose triangle shape. Defiant piloted us toward the peak of the triangle high abovethe ground.
I could only eyeball it and remember the ship’s general shape, and I was pretty sure the sides would be scraping the portal’s edges and the belly would be scraping the uppermost part of the gate. Beside me, Sveta touched Byron’s shoulder, gently shaking him awake. His eyes opened. I could see his expression change as he took in his surroundings, then reality caught back up with him. From a faintly annoyed seventeen year old to a very confused teenager… the slight hint of pain or tension as he moved and felt injuries or soreness from overexertion. Then a leap to an expression better suited to a world-weary twenty-seven year old than a teenager, trying to be stoic despite the accumulated anxieties, pain, and stresses of decades. We passed through the portal, and the turbulence was violent. The ship shuddered, and something broke outside. “Um,” Caryatid said. I wondered if being on a moving vehicle made it hard for her breaker state invulnerability to count. “That was inconsequential battle damage from fighting Titans,” Defiant announced for everyone present. “I chose the Uther because I’m most comfortable flying it, don’t worry.” He was not very good at being reassuring. Less reassuring was the sight of the old Cauldron facility. The exterior of it was illuminated, and it was a white tombstone the size of a mountain, with details that only stood out if I looked for them. Balconies, roads running from one balcony to the next. There were humps further down, encasing pumps, filters, disposal. Sveta sighed. “Hate this place.” “You’re about to hate it more,” Clockblocker said. He held onto one of the hanging loops of metal that served as handholds. “Simurgh’s in there?” “She is,” Defiant answered. “You good to fight?” Clockblocker asked Byron. “Sure,” Byron said, a bit wary. “Vista’s boyfriend,” Clockblocker said. He looked over at his teammate. “I feel like I should be stepping in or saying something, because I still imagine her as twelve.” “A bit,” Christopher said. “She’s said a lot about you two,” Byron said. “The city you were heroes in, ups and downs.” “You should share them sometime,” Clockblocker said. “Winman and I, we’ve got gaps.” “Sure,” Byron said. “Please don’t use Winman,” I told Christopher. Clockblocker just snorted. He turned his attention back to Byron. “You’ve gotta live for Vista, you know. You can’t go breakingher heart.”
“I know.”
“Winman and I, we already failed her there.” “I don’t know if it helps or it matters, but that’s not one of the things she mentions when she’s talking about you,” Byron said. “She wouldn’t. She didn’t when it was Aegis,” Clockblocker said, meeting my eyes. “Or Gallant.” “I don’t think you can look at it that way,” Byron said. “It’s not failure.” “It’s not exactly a success,” Christopher answered. “Guys,” Sveta said, quiet. “Capricorn lost his brother earlier tonight. Let’s not debate it.” If the two boys were going to say anything in response to that, and it looked like Christopher might from the frown that crossed his face, and his hand swept over his altered, golden hair, they didn’t, because the ship violently changed orientation as we came down for a landing. People pulled hard on the handholds and gripped the bars bythe benches.
The landing was rougher than the sudden post-dive pitch. I could feel the grind as the landing gear scraped against our makeshiftrunway.
The Uther came to a complete stop. The back hatch hissed before hydraulics eased it down. Chris vaulted over before it was evenhalfway open.
Clockblocker gave Byron a helping hand in standing from the bench. Everyone filed out, Deathchester at the rear. Onto the ramp that extended around the base of the building’s first, second, and third floors, lit by lights inset in the wall and ramp’s edge, everything else around us dark. Though it was white snow on white material, I could see footprints where the indents allowed for shadow. Other ships had landed. People were getting out. Only a few of the Undersiders were in another ship – Rachel and Foil. Tattletale and Imp were inside the facility. Yellow dots turning orange or red as we got our bearings here. There were the Shepherds, Advance Guard, Foresight. I saw Crystalclear in Foresight’s midst. Vista, rather than stand by Narwhal, joined Byron, taking his hand in hers. Narwhal joined Defiant out in front of the half-circle of capes. “Mission briefing, heads up!” Narwhal called out. “Nochatter!”
If there was any chatter, I hadn’t heard or seen it happening. It seemed to stop, because she went straight to the rundown. “We don’t have long, she’s projected to attack Fortuna in twenty minutes! Our job is to do as much damage as possible to her, hem her in, and slow her down. If you can’t do that or if you can’t get to her, then focus on targeting anyone that’s been compromised, so the greater population of capes and powers can engage with her or resume their ordinary duties. I’ve already talked to sub-teams with their missions, which will involve limiting her access to the facility-wide communications and letting certain tinkertech out of thebox.”
“Do not get bogged down,” Defiant told us. “Do not get too deep into the facility. If you have questions or need directions, make a phone call, I _will_ be on the other end, provided distortion isn’t too heavy.” “That’s it! No time for anything prettier or more detailed! If you’re here it’s because we trust you!” Narwhal shouted. “The doors are there. _Go_!” Ships were taking off behind us, and the force of their takeoff produced wind and pulses of gravity from behind us. Like a push toget us going.
My team got moving. I flew behind them, wishing doors were taller so I could fly over people’s heads. Defiant met my eyes, and brought his hand to the side of his head in the universal signal for phone. _Riley_. Or Contessa, but I wasn’t holding my breath for that calljust yet.
I’d definitely be holding my breath for the call in general, though. A word from Dragon. “I’ll catch up,” I told my team. “Good luck,” Precipice told me.I nodded.
_We need it_.
Chris hung back as well. He was transforming. Everyone else was disappearing into the facility. “Are you coming?” Byron called back. “Cryptid?” “I’ll catch up,” Cryptid said. Phone at my ear, I listened. There was a lot of rustling. Voices. “How is the flock, if Valkyrie is…?” Riley’s voice. I heard my Aunt Sarah, “Gone? She became an extension of the power network. We’re calling them Titans. The flock is disturbed.” “If you need any attention or touch ups…” “We might. Thank you.” “Do you accept it that easily because you trust me, or because you don’t have any choice?” “Valkyrie trusted you, and she didn’t trust easily. I can’t speak for every member of the flock, but I do trust you.” “Even though I’m occupying myself with this? Weapons? Do you know what would have happened if I’d pulled this trigger?” _Worrying, if Riley is armed,_ I thought. “Booting up,” a man said, before an under-his-breath, “I hope. Get this working.” “Any guesses?” Riley asked. Aunt Sarah said, “The weapons don’t matter. We might need weapons. If we don’t extend the benefit of a doubt, then all you have left are the benefits of being dubious.” “That sounds like a saying,” Riley told her. “A lesson I had to learn on my own,” Aunt Sarah said. Benefits of a doubt, dubiousness. I wondered if she blamed herself for what Amy had become. “You’re on,” another man said. I resisted the urge to clear my throat, and got straight to business. “Hello? Riley Davis?”“I’m here.”
I saw Chris’s newly grown fur-tufted ear twitch. He was listening in. Maybe he’d have insights. “Good. Thank you for taking the call. Things are pretty direhere.”
“So I figured,” I heard her say. “I got a basic rundown. I was just gardening here, and the world’s ending all the way overthere.”
“I’m…” I started. I thought of what I’d seen of Jessica and Riley. The strangling. “I’m sorry it came to that.Self-exile.”
“Nah,” she answered. “I kind of don’t mind being on my own. Spent my life with Jack and the rest. It’s good for me.” I wasn’t sure it was, but an argument threatened to use precioustime.
“You should tell me what you want from me,” she said. “Your sister is incapacitated, you need a good biology manipulator. If we’re talking about serious work, it might take some serioustinkering.”
“It might,” I told her. “Meaning I should get started now if it’s going to matter in…how long?”
Twenty minutes until the Simurgh made her play for Fortuna. But Riley wasn’t required for that. There was nothing she couldtheoretically do.
But after?
“No more than an hour, but it might be less than that,” I told her. “Could be half that.” “It would need to be deployed. I’d have to get it from here to there,” she said. “What is it?” “It’s… genocide,” I answered her. Chris was staring into my eyes.“Oh. Of?”
“_Us_.” No use dressing it up. It wasn’t even easy to say. “That’s a big ask.” “I know, but we have resources-” “For me, I mean. As a person. I don’t do that kind of thing. I’m… I find outlets like squeaky toads and earpods, clones that aren’t clones. I experiment with lifeforms that could seed other planets with life, and think about bio-rockets that might be able to get them there. I make real life versions of cartoon characters and movie characters I used to like. I don’t want to hurt people.” “Even if it means saving everyone else?” I asked. “I think I get why your sister wasn’t up to the task, now,” Riley said. “Give me the details.” I did, outlining the parameters, the distinctions, the scale we weretalking.
“How long does it take for me to get from where I am to where you are?” Riley asked. I heard Aunt Sarah’s response, even if I couldn’t make out everyword.
“That’s too long, then.”“I can do it.”
I looked over at Chris, who was twenty feet away. Taking on a bestial form. He was going for his old namesake, it seemed. Black furred, rodent-like, lanky, with an arched back. He’d just spoken despite a mouthful of crooked teeth. “Can you give instructions to my old teammate?” I asked. “He’ll access a lab to work, I’m assuming, put it together.” “It would have to be a tinker,” Riley told me. “Specialty in anything relating to biology, blood, cloning, genetics, parasites, or anything like that.”“He is.”
“Then that works. Good! Perfect! Cool.” “We’ll be in touch,” I told her. There was no time for niceties or farewells. Chris and I ran through the doors, hurrying to catch up with the team.PREVIOUS CHAPTER
NEXTCHAPTER
Author Wildbow Posted on February 29, 2020March 4, 202028 Comments on Last
– 20.2
LAST – 20.1
PREVIOUS CHAPTER
NEXT CHAPTER _Hey, young me,_ I thought. In my mind’s eye, I held onto the image of myself in the living room of Aunt Sarah’s house, sitting on the loveseat. Getting the talk. _You dreamed about being a hero for what seemed like every moment of every day._ _It never crossed your mind how cold and bitter it could be_. I was at a height above the tallest buildings, suspended in the air. Snow and wind whipped around me and my forcefield, and I positioned the gun I held to block the worst of it. Futile, when it seemed to change directions every three seconds. Land was cracked, and from this height only darkness was visible in
the cracks.
The sky was fractured. Other worlds visible through those fractures. The people… if there were any down there, they were scattered, few,and desperate.
_I didn’t imagine the fear._ The Simurgh was there in the distance, taking roost in the middle of a clearing, ringed by a crown-like circle of ruined and toppled buildings. It had been a park, once, but there was no grass, no water, there were no trees. The tech in my eye changed settings without my requesting it. Tweaks to the night-vision, then a zoom-in, which combined with the wind to create a sensation closer to helplessly falling than anything I’d experienced to date, and that included having my flight or my ability to control my flight taken from me while I was a hundred feet above the ground. Mostly because the Simurgh was what I felt like I wasplummeting toward.
A wing was folded around her upper body, but golden lines appeared and outlined shapes behind the wing. The golden outlines turned red. Labels were traced out in print so small I shouldn’t have been able to read them. Tinkertech. Machine Army. She brought some with her. Others were arriving, filtering in through portals. I’d seen recreations of past Simurgh attacks. Lausanne, Paris, Canberra. Some were drawn from witness accounts, but the Paris one had been done by a member of the Suits. Until they were collectively taken down and dissemination was made illegal. Too much worry. From seeing those recreations, though I’d never participated in a fight against the Simurgh, I knew she liked this kind of moment. Except that was dangerous thinking. Applying human thought, personifying her. She didn’t ‘like’ anything. She didn’t get angry. She didn’t have hopes, dreams. Only cold intent. Rewording: She had a tendency to position herself like this. Waiting for people to come to her, while she remained still. Portals opened. Our ground troops arrived. Legend was in the air, healed from a recent injury, his face all closed up now, but for a single line of light blue. While mending he had tried to hold back the Machine Army after the Simurgh’s most recent visit. “Dragon’s saying she has tinkertech in the folds of her wings!” I called out. My voice felt so cold and empty. Legend looked at me, then tapped one of his ears. Earpiece? He knew?I nodded.
More notifications came up. Some straight, diagonal lines that pointed down to the crowd, each with a sharp bend and horizontal bit at the upper end, with labels above them. Names of my teammates. Other people I knew. Dragon’s use of the eye tech felt much more forceful than Lookout’s. The transmissions were ‘pay attention to this’, ‘you’ll want to know this’. Lookout had been a softer touch, rooted more in knowing us, communication, a back and forth. Another notification, forceful. I was reminded of certain websites and app mascots, popping up and offering me assistance. Except… all of this was stuff I wanted to know. I had to fight past my kneejerk reaction of dismissing, moving on. Dragon told me that the call with Riley was imminent. A matter of minutes. I flew down closer to my team. Chris was at the edges, in a bulldog of a form that I only recognized as him because of the wreath of cloth he wore around his waist, and the ringed collar of syringes. He was last to arrive, two of his giants emerging from the portal on handsand knees.
He took cover as soon as he was able. A crow was perched there, and for whatever reason, it didn’t take off when Chris collapsed to a sitting position four feet from it. He glanced at it, then shooed itaway.
“Those things are terrifying,” Rain called out. “You need terrifying sometimes,” Chris spoke, his voice deep and the ‘T’ sounds especially hard. “Be terrifying, first and foremost,” Damsel said from the next group over. “Then recruit it.” “I am wearing a form that could _literally_ eat your face. One bite,” Chris told her, before opening a fanged maw. “You could try. On a separate note, try _harder._” Chris looked as at ease as I’d seen him since his return from Shin, having the back and forth. Damsel… I had to wonder if she’d have joined, if we’d managed to figure Chris out and keep him on board. Would he have offered what she needed to see? He was a monster, I would never ever forget his role in the prison fiasco. But I had the feeling he _understood_ monsters, and to use the phrasing he liked so much. The Simurgh moved her wings, wing-tips drawing together in a point above her head, one knee raised. She swept her wings to one side, as someone fired a _big_ gun, and it was probably Chevalier. She flew to the side, and the shot struck the ground. Dodging the incoming cannon shot. I could see the red outlines for the tinkertech. Pulled behind her back as part of the maneuver, so nobody in that crowd could see it. I took flight, circling around. The wind whistled past my forcefield, which I kept close to my body, except for an extension of multiple arms to hold my gun. I pointed the barrels backward, so the domed, half-a-pear shape of the housing of the weapon was at its mostaerodynamic.
The wind whipped past the gun, too.“_Please.”_
The voice out of nowhere almost made me change course. Just a pop of the metal as I shifted my grip on the gun, followed by an eerie whistle of wind.I had the shivers.
Chevalier’s shot had marked the opening of the fight. Capes moved in, opening fire, filling the battlefield with moving pieces, like pillars, statues, giant concrete hands, forcefields, lasers. A mess, but this was part of the strategy. The expendable and the invincible were next in. Tinkertech, minions, and a brave few capes. Dragon had a craft in there, vaguely turtle-like, with a glowing orb mounted in its back, its legs ending in thrusters it used to move in an ungainly way through the sky. The Simurgh played a defensive game. This too, was a… I changed my mind from saying habit. It was a tendency. Better to think of her like a natural disaster. The water receded before tsunami. The calm in the midst of a hurricane indicated you were in the midst of it, and that more was to come. I took aim, flipping the gun around so the barrel pointed forward, and a crosshair appeared at my target. The tinkertech. The golden laser flashed through the air, illuminating streets and buildings below me. Her wing, at the same time, came out, a shield to block the machinery she carried with her. The laser cut into the exterior, leaving her silver wings with a shaky scar that glowed a molten gold at the edges. She ignored me, putting a large wing in the way as I continued to try to find an angle where I could tear into that tinkertech. I could hear it now. The scream. In red-edged letters, a countdown began rolling down in the corner of my vision. Exposure. Another alert, in gold text. Instructions to avoid shooting one area, marked out. People were within, difficult to see from the distance I was shooting from. Couldn’t slip up, now, with how finnicky laser beams were to keep on target. We’d had reports from Legend that the Machine Army had used deflectors. I had to keep that in mind, too. If she pulled the wing back and the deflector caught my laser at the right angle, which it _would_, then the beam could hit someone vital. The gun whined, the whine joining the sound in my head. “_Sorry,” _the wind said. I couldn’t let my focus slack by even a fraction. Not even to read an alert that didn’t even require my eye to move for me to bring it into clear focus. It was gold text, at the very least. Not- The text changed. Outlined in red, not gold, now. I stopped shooting, sparing a look. _The Machine Army broke containment_. I pulled the trigger again, going after the tinkertech again. At the corner of my vision, golden alerts and labels popped up, notifying me that teams were deploying to the site, to try and corral the escapedmachines.
_I’m sorry, younger me,_ I thought. _More than anything else, you thought we’d be confident. You envisioned yourself standing with glowing swords or grenades in hand, unflinching and confident._ Two threats to overcome, and I had a _maybe_ idea for the second. The first had just ruined any hope we had at reclaiming Gimel, and she was in her _warm-up_ phase.⊙
EARLIER
“This will be the final attack,” Chevalier announced, and his voice was deep, assured. “A select group who have read the requisite files, who are led by captains who know the protocols, and who are in the best fighting shape will be leading the next big attack against the Simurgh. She remains the most immediate threat. Everyone else will be preparing for the standoff against the Titans and protecting the perimeter when it comes to the Machine Army.” Narwhal spoke next, all business, serious, her back ramrod straight, her body in a double-thick layer of forcefield crystals, her hair a white-purple, down to the small of her back. “The Titan Network is now down to Arachne, standalone, Skadi, standalone, then the trio of Titan Kronos, Titan Eve, and Titan Oberon. The remainder of the Titans are in the Fortuna cluster. Fortuna, Valkyrie, Ophion, the Blind Titan, Amenonuhuko, Morgana, Yakshini, Titan Shortcut, Auger, the Liminal Titan or Custodian Titan…” Images helped notify everyone about the Titans, with icons for broad classifications, notes on powers. My phone buzzed at my hip as it updated with information. Not that I could imagine that I’d be pulling my phone out much. “…The Nemean, Ashoka, Pouffe, and Ashen Titans are out of action, sequestered away or injured and healing.” _Let’s just ignore that I couldn’t recite that list of Fortuna’s titans back to you_. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck._ Sveta had her arms folded, fingers hooked into the gaps in her forearms. Rain was nodding to himself. Byron stood away from the rest of the group, closer to the stage and to Vista. Closer to Moonsong, who was at one corner of the stage, representing the Shepherds. Seeing him like that made me think that Breakthrough might cease to be when this was over. I wasn’t sure that bothered me. “Above all,” Chevalier addressed the room. “Whether you’re facing Fortuna or not, the key here is to avoid panicking. Don’t lose heart. We _can_ do this.” When he said it, I kind of believed him. “I know this because I see too many faces I’ve been through too many all-or-nothing battles with. For years we fought Endbringers with the knowledge that one more loss might be what broke us. We fought Scion. Tonight, we fight one more Endbringer, we face down the Fortuna cluster, and we’ll put plans into motion.” I had the sense that a lot of people believed him. He wasn’t leader of the Wardens for nothing. People in the crowd looked energized, enthused. Scared as shit, but a scared they could pushpast.
To my left, something clicked and hissed. I turned my head, hand going to my hood to pull it away from my peripheral vision. Chris had just taken one of his injections by way of the heavy metal collar with the ring of syringes mounted on it. His expression was unimpressed, dark. He looked back at Thunderdome, one of Advance Guard’s capes, someone he’d had a momentary bit of friction with, and I wondered if he was sorry, but unable to phrase it. Then he marched off. Walking away from all of this. Complicated. Messy. Legend, approaching from the side, flew to the stage. When he looked over the crowd, a slice of his face shimmered in rainbow hues, with smokey waves rolling off the top and back of his head. An eye like a perfectly round white disk ringed by darker colors sat where his eyewas supposed to be.
“The Simurgh! Pay attention, even if you won’t be fighting her. You can’t know what will happen!” Legend announced, and he was confident, assured. If the head injury had impaired his faculties any, it didn’t show. “Our analysis of the Simurgh comes from years of experience! I can tell you, don’t let your guard down. She _will_ surprise us. She will throw curveballs at us. In all the times we’ve engaged with her, she has had new tricks. Stay the course! Images of the Simurgh appeared on the screens. “Her precognition gets better at assessing targets and threats the longer they are in range of her scream. The initial attack is _key_. She will not dodge everything we throw at her. You may feel the attacks don’t matter. They do! Our initial approach will emphasize chaos and disturbance. This delays the point in time where she has the ability to see _everything_! We will rotate people in and out, minimizing exposure. Past a certain ‘code yellow’ point you’re an increasing danger to others. Past a ‘code red’, you become her weapon to use against humanity. Play it safe, taper off, be prepared to back out, or know who you can go to to get a ride or evacuation. We will have resources as we split apart the teams.” Narwhal added, “There will be further instructions for sub-teams and groups. Noncombat capes are being held in reserve at key locations. Team leaders will be notified about these preparations. Finally, civilians are deployed and are waiting to target specific sites in the crystal landscape. Be prepared.” Chevalier addressed us. “I can’t say much more than that. I don’t give long speeches-” There were a few chuckles. There was a rare smile from Narwhal. “-Don’t panic, _believe_. I trust you.” There was light applause, some whoops. Dinah Alcott rose from her seat and approached Legend and Chevalier. Giving them input. As much as it was a speech staple for Chevalier to talk about giving short speeches. I couldn’t help but feel like they were rushing things because we _didn’t have time. _I could feel the touch ofpanic already.
⊙
PRESENT
The scream filled my head, impossibly high and drawn out, cold and changing just often enough that I couldn’t anticipate it or get usedto it.
My teeth were clenched so hard that the sides of my face hurt. The early part of the fight was supposed to be the crucial part, where we did as much damage as possible. I could liken it to how Contessa got fatigued and needed to devote more resources to staying on task, but again, _always_, this Endbringer that wasn’t brutish and noisy, not feral and animal-like, but graceful. There were times she moved like a dance with wings would move. Not so much spinning and leaping, but moving in measured ways, with a full awareness of her body and an audience in mind. The early phase of the fight was passing. In my vision, people and the powers they were using were being marked out in a dim yellow. We weren’t doing a lot of damage. _Yeah, panicking a little._ She swept her wings out, and across this stage she’d created inside the ring of broken buildings, snow and dust picked up, with a gravely sound as it pulled free from ground, debris that hadn’t been picked up clattering back down to earth. “_Ick._” the background noise said, sounding very much like someone with stiff enunciation was whispering in my ear.“_Sick._”
A building, leaning against another building, creaked. Again, the sound threatened to become a sound, and my brain reached to interpret it as a human utterance, even though I knew it wasn’t. “Awww. Uugggh.” The tracker Dragon was providing me with fritzed, going dark, showing a vague Simurgh silhouette in the cloud, then another, a hundred feetaway.
After that second guess, there was nothing. Only the cloud of cover she’d made, labels and indicators for where people were being tracked by the phones or other devices they carried, and alerts for distant battlefields. The battlefield went still, quiet. A few powers flickered and flared, but the dust hung in the air. The screaming I’d come to take as steady background noise ceased. My brain felt like my body did in the stillness after a hard workout, blood pulsing through it, shaky, and a bit vulnerable. I flew down to be closer to my team. Just in case. Dragon’s spherical craft was crackling, sending out spherical waves that rippled over the crowd, over parts of the battlefield. A whole section of the dust cleared away, stripped of the Simurgh’stelekinetic hold.
She chose that moment to emerge, while our eyes were searching the gap for any sign. She wasn’t even that far from me. FromBreakthrough.
The scream tore through my senses, _everyone’s _senses, delaying our response. The countdown timer in the corner of my vision whirred, a speedometer flying by, costing me tens of seconds with every moment. Byron had motes ready to go. Dark blue motes consolidated into something like coral, between stone, organic, and ice, with a faint spiral to it. A spear, thrust at the Endbringer, who took the blow to one shoulder. A scar to join a dozen others. Light blue motes hung in the air, fat blue fireflies with trails left behind them. She leaned back away from it, changed direction, plunging into another group. Villains from Semiramis’ faction. We had others nearby. I could hear Finale’s voice, distant, setting up her attack. Withdrawal was perched nearby, Sveta besidehim.
Gibbet was creating a barrier, a cluster of metal barricades and fencing that emerged in different sizes and angles. The Dragon craft drew nearer. The Bakunawa Zero, with its pulses that disrupted powers and power effects. I knew the idea was to throw as much chaos as possible at the Simurgh, to disrupt her reads, to scramble her signal and her information gathering as she screamed. She used the chunk of Machine Army tech she’d brought with her. Flung it out with telekinesis, so fast I thought it would be dashed to pieces. The size of a washing machine, it flew straight at one of the pieces of antigravity tech, was pushed away, and between the velocity and the pushback, came to a stop, a foot or two from theglowing panel.
It latched on.
I aimed, leveraging my forcefield to bring the gun around, ready to shoot the thing off of her. She was already taking evasive action, trying to shake it off, the pulses rippling out with more violencethan before.
Couldn’t take the shot without risking I’d do more damage. If she was backing off like this… she had to trust it. The information that was coming through the tech at my eye went dark. No outlines, no labels. The world was dark, cold, and filled with an endless scream. The Simurgh was wading through everything and everyone, her wings acting as shields, her telekinesis deflecting incoming projectiles. Caryatid blocked one. I could hear Damsel using herpower.
Chevalier, nowhere nearby, fired his cannon again. The Simurgh flew back, her shoulder torn open, the interior revealed to be hollow, the edges of the wound frayed and lace-like. I’d seen injuries like that in the re-enactments and recreationstoo.
It slowed her down, and bought our side time. Chris had the giants he hadn’t sent to deal with Titans in reserve, and two of those giants joined the fight now. The Goddess giant and the Mother giant. A tide of flesh, narrowly missing our back line here, forming into a loose hand shape as it reached for the Simurgh, and gripped telekinetically frozen air instead. The Simurgh lifted a length of metal that might have been part of a crane, once. A second later, it was slapped down to the ground. The Goddess Giant, countering her. We had time to regroup, to figure out what we were doing. Two giants fought the Simurgh, who remained where she was, wings in a loose ball-shape around her, air telekinetically held where it was to serve as a shield just past where the wings were, and a crowd of capes retreated, finding steadier ground that wasn’t in the literal shadow of the Simurgh and her wings. I offered a hand to Byron. Sveta helped Rain. Cryptid moved closer to his giants, wearing a form wreathed in folds of too-thick skin, brutish and broad-shouldered, with a kilt-like wreath of cloth around his hips. He shouted out incoherent orders, hand indicatingdirections.
Damsel of Distress was launched into the air by someone’s power, and descended onto the bubble of hardened air, blasting through it with her blasts of twisted darkness, plunging at the Simurgh herself. _This is too easy_. _What’s the catch?__Wait-_
She’d just used one piece of the Machine Army. The Simurgh had been holding two earlier. There was no outline, no indicator, even as I could see labels and markings elsewhere. “Shit!” I swore, as I flew up, back, taking in the cloud of mist, trying to remain peripherally aware of . There were labels marking the people who’d been caught in the midst of the cloud of disturbed earth. I kept track of them, mapped her approximate location, reached into a handhold to turn a dial, to make the laser fatter. The beam cut through suspended ice and dust, burned it, and cleared something of a path. I tried to trace the Simurgh’s path back towhere she had been.
I found and hit a drone, and fried it beneath the laser. Metal turned to orange-white slag. Orange-white slag turned black, then became dust, caught by the stiff winds that didn’t budge this snowand grit.
_Every time we grab her arm, reach inside her sleeve, and find the card she’s holding, it turns out there’s more waiting._ I was feeling the pressure. The scream, the fact was _needed_ to win here, and the path to a win was beating her. There was a saying that people sometimes brought up when the Simurgh was mentioned. Win the battle, lose the war. In part, I had been bracing myself for a hard-fought battle that we could ultimately win. We could subdue her or scare her away, disrupt every possible variable available with precogs and tech, and focus on the next leg of the plan, getting ahead of Fortuna. The Wardens had a plan and I had my doubts it would work, and I had a plan, with my doubts it would work. But between the two, leaning on that assumption about the Simurgh losing the battle but scoring a win later, I’d been able to see a way forward. We weren’t winning this battle. I killed another drone. She’d brought two. One had latched onto Dragon’s ship. One had melted beneath the laser. I shot another two glowing blue lights I could see in the smoke. Two more machines broken. I didn’t have the time to completely annihilate them, because I could see other lights and movements as the laser burned away more of the cloud. Something clicked to my right. I twisted, flipping the gun over, using six different hands to roll it. A metal disc surrounded by claws had dug into the metal, and the disc was attached to a thincable.
There was a pull.
Creating a face out of forcefield, I bit into the line, severing it. There were more. Grappling-claws latching on, reaching out._How?_
I faced an ongoing attack from foes I couldn’t clearly see, and behind me, the Simurgh fought her way free of the giants. Sections of damaged land were lifted up, and people evacuated, leaping to cover or forming ground to jump onto- Byron’s conch glacier, Gibbet’s fences, a solid-gold bit of ruined building. My retreat was a fighting one, as I scrambled to tear away the grappling claws. Machines that had latched on were reeling in, emerging from the smoke and floating debris. _Fucking fuckity fuck fuck fuck._ A white cube rose up out of the smoke, about fifteen feet across on each face, with six black spider legs and three green lights on thefront ‘face’.
The lights flared, and a laser beam drilled into the child-flesh of the Mother Giant, parting that wave. I pulled away more of the grappling lines and rose up higher. Once I’d achieved enough height to not be constantly bound down, I shot the big cube, aiming at the glowing lenses until the power cell behindthem detonated.
Ten different drones rose up out of the mist. C-shaped, with rigid propellers on mounts. They were followed by five more. I’d read the files on Eagleton, Tennessee. I knew the basics about the Machine Army. A tinker experiment gone awry, the original master gone or forgotten. They were slow, inexorable.This wasn’t slow.
At the quarantine site, Protectorate capes and the rare Ward who couldn’t be put in front of the public would be given the busywork of keeping tabs on the site. Capes who had problematic powers that would hurt the PRT’s place in the world. Capes who had broken too many rules or succumbed to their problems. Machines would plant seeds for future machine growth in any solid surface, set up traps, and refine resources. Maybe once every year or two, they pulled out a new trick, a new piece of research. The big cannon-drone was one such trick, serious destructive power that the people on the perimeter would have to be wary of. There were slave-drones, that captured people, and tried to borrow their powers. There were meat lockers, named by one of the perimeter officers, that ran computers that were organic, not technology, and acted with fervor and unpredictability. There were protocols for if they developed flying. People to call, tinkertech that was held in reserve, to bring a hellish lightning storm down on Eagleton. There were protocols for shielding and intelligence and whatever else. They were pulling out new cards, new deployments, and they were doing it fast, like they had been storing it up in the background and they were releasing it all now. “Byron!” I called out. Byron was working with Vista and Clockblocker. Trying to create fixtures that latched onto the Simurgh and limited her movements. Shaping them, then freezing them. He turned to look. “Cover this! They want it!”“Give it here!”
‘Here’ was a clearing he marked with light blue motes. I half-placed, half-threw the tech, letting it skid to the middle of the designated area. Capes were diving into the Machine Army situation, here. I waited to make sure the gun was secure. Byron let the light blue motes become mist, and where the mist touched, they left layers of ice. He buried it in ice, while still drawing out the other shape. I threw myself into the mist. _Spin_, I thought. Forcefield whirling around me, extra limbs extended. To move the dust away. Drones were revealed, not even twenty feet from where my team was. My hand found a handhold in the rim around the lens that served as its eye, then the forcefield of that hand expanded out, more hands reaching out from that point, to find every bit of leverage. The drone was torn in half. I used the one half to smash the second drone, then the other half fanned at the mist, with force that only enhanced strength could provide. The onslaught was constant. Flying drones above- I flew up, reached for them, wincing as laser cutters raked along the side of my forcefield, straining it. I was able to destroy them before the forcefield gave out. A grappling hook snapped out, clinging to my breastplate. I flew straight to the source, kicking it before my forcefield waseven back up.
Forcefield teeth severed the wire. Forcefield hands pulled dronesapart.
Finally, I found the source. Surrounded by eight other lesser drones, there was a drone that was low and flat to the ground, with long legs that extended more _out_ than up and down. The low, flat portion was bowl-shaped, and held a blur of dark gray with too-sharp edges demarcating its edges. That blur distorted, becoming square, as a drone materialized, climbing through it. _We got a report about them getting access to portal technology_. _She brought a portal with her. The army emerged from the portal_. Grappling hooks fired out, striking at my forcefield, destroying it, then caught onto the metal of my costume. I flew forward, wincing with every impact, forceful enough when they hit my breastplate to make me stop midway through exhaling or inhaling. The impacts at my wrist or shin made pain jolt from the end of the limb to the other, my fingers or feet briefly going numb. The forcefield came back, and I tore my way free. But in shaking ten of the grappling hooks free, flying twenty feet forward, I found myself facing another twenty latching claws. The portal drone waddled away, as I faced more and more resistance. “Sveta!” I called. Machines echoed me, repeating the sounds and sound fragments in a digital, radio-static squeal. “Already here!” I heard. I shook my way free of the grappling claws. More came- and this time Sveta grabbed them out of the air. The portal drone was producing other drones. It was constant, one new drone every few seconds, but the drones it had just created… Two more portal drones._That explains it_.
The mist was dropping, snow and suspended dust falling away. It made the view clearer. I could see a hundred feet out, maybe. There were a good ten portals near us already, each producing a new machine every few seconds. Many of those were new portal drones. I flew into the three closest to us. My forcefield tore them up in the half-second before I landed in a crouch. Rain flew at a speed I couldn’t rival, straight for another set of portal drones. He stopped himself mid-air, then slashed out with a sword, delivering a kick to sever the silver lines. Sveta grabbed onto me to help hurl herself forward, grabbed Rain, andthrew him again.
The grappling claws were getting more intense. Sveta was helping, but- we were wading through an army that _compounded_ itself everyminute.
One grapple-claw latched onto me. The rectangular box that was attacking me opened up, revealing the meat that coated the inside of the box’s walls, and the creature within, half-melted, burned, with empty sockets for eyes, human in silhouette, reached for us with aclub-like hand.
The grapple claw that had a grip on me was attached to a cable too thick to cut through with my forcefield teeth. I reached for the grapple claw, and gripped it with forcefield hands. Crushing it between multiple hands, I freed myself, then went on the offensive, smashing the bot into the craggy ground right behind it. As the dust and snow fell away, I could see the various colored lights across this clearing. eyes, cameras, and sensors. In a way, the ring of buildings around the park served to give us more of a perimeter. A hundred of the meat lockers, a dozen giant laser cubes. Two hundred smaller boxes. Thirty portals.All by design.
Dozens and dozens of the machines were tossed into the air, like a wave. I looked, and saw the Goddess Giant flying toward us. She destroyed every one that was within her range. Lasers focused on her, and she avoided the beams. “What would you do without me?” Chris asked, still with the hard‘t’.
“Thank you, Chris,” Precipice said. The Goddess Giant attack was a momentary respite. A chance to breathe, and to wipe away blood where claws had dug into my flesh as part of getting their grip. I looked back in the direction we’d come. The Simurgh was gone. Heroes had mobilized, pushing in against the Machine Army. Because we _had_ to get them before they took root. “Where did she go?” I asked. I would have checked the device in my eye, but it was dark, no better than my eye without the device. “Wardens’ headquarters,” Chris said. It wasn’t a surprise. The Simurgh didn’t have habits, didn’t have personality, didn’t have wants or needs. She acted. She went after big, vulnerable targets, and the Wardens Headquarters was packed full of refugees and noncombat capes. Kid capes. Dinah. The Heartbroken. Tinkers. Thinkers. Their powers weren’t so useful for the battlefield, but they mightbe critical here.
_I’m sorry, younger me. __I feel like you would have wanted to take a stand, here_. _This isn’t noble, putting them in the line of fire, but it may be necessary_. “Portals up?” I asked. “If Dragon isn’t in contact, probably not,” Sveta said. “Phones are active, at least,” Chris said. “I can try calling, but I wouldn’t bet on it.” “Please,” I said, nodding. _If phones are active, we still have some hope. We need Bonesaw. We need Contessa. We need a lot of things to make anything happen. We have a plan for Fortuna, but that’s just for Fortuna_. It felt like we were playing from behind, and it was getting worse. She’d dropped a fucking army on us, and I wasn’t sure we weren’t going to be paying for that later. If there was a later. I floated up a bit to check the battlefield. Drones were hiding under terrain, portal-drones hidden in a shallow cave. Swooping down, I picked up rocks the size of my head, and hurled them simultaneously in a loose shotgun spray. The portal winked out. “On to the next stage of the plan,” I said, trying to emulate Chevalier a bit. To sound confident, calm. We’d anticipated this. We’d play into it. I saw Sveta and Rain nod, and I felt encouraged by the fact that they seemed encouraged. “The next stage of our plan or the Simurgh’s?” Chris asked, because he couldn’t let us have that. I gave him a stern look, in part because I didn’t have a goodanswer.
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NEXT CHAPTER Author Wildbow Posted on February 25, 2020March 1, 2020
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– 20.1
INFRARED – 19.Z
PREVIOUS CHAPTER
NEXT CHAPTER
A RANDOM BIRD
Dauntless and Fume Hood were joined by Oberon in struggling against Titans Skadi, Amenonuhoko, Ophion, and Shortcut. It marked the greatest offensive push to take over their segment of the network, and despite the Dauntless Titan’s strength, they were losing. Some villains fought on their behalf against the Titans, but the battlefield was so hazardous that many had to evacuate.The ground rumbled.
A damaged building shifted position, and the largest icicle that had formed at the lowest point of the gutter broke free. A startled crow took flight.⊙
DRAGON
The strain was getting to everyone present. Hair was unwashed, costumes had accumulated grime as moisture from snow and ice had collected, then absorbed airborne grit. Some of those present had come off of battlefields, from expeditions, and from rescue efforts. It was harder to figure out how to stand or what to do when among her peers than it had been when she had been maintaining a lie. She had a body that stood straight, when everyone else present took the opportunities to sit or to lean. Resting against walls, leaning over crates with hands planted firmly in front of them, or taking a seat on stairs. She was unsure if she was supposed to feign fatigue of her own, which could be construed as deceptive, or if she did more harm by appearing above it all.Disconcerting.
While her mechanical body with a vat-grown biocomputer core was waiting for people to arrive in the grand lobby of the Warden’s Headquarters, she piloted four ships she had built earlier in the day. The situation was that Titan Cinereal was drawing closer and closer to their perimeter around the Machine Army’s installment on Gimel. Pouffe and Custodian were assisting. There were not enough capes onthe scene.
Titan Pouffe was the one who had brought the three Titans there, producing cloud gateways that let them move hundreds of kilometers. Each passage of a Titan was followed by a distortion of the air and landscape, extending from the entry point to the exit point. Buildings were flattened. Capes who weren’t alerted in time were thrown to the side with force enough to kill well before they were dashed to pieces on the nearest bit of scenery. Dragon had child processes running, scanning to keep track of every theoretical stopping point between established Pouffe portals and targets of any theoretical interest to the Titans. Capes in the way were ordered to move. Back in the headquarters, she took a step to the side to let a tinker vehicle roll by, studying the tech before recognizing it as Wheelie’s. He was taking advantage of the workshops and materials that had been left behind by Teacher. This was good work. On the battlefield, the Bakunawa Zero was her tool against Pouffe, a ship loaded down with ten different disruption factors. EMP, a gravity disruptor that had been converted from a failed attempt at making an antigravity device capable of lifting a town, an engine modified from the work scavenged from the Thomais Fallen that would push time manipulation attempts off by microseconds, forward, back, or to either side. The list went on. Temperature, radiation, causality, biological signals… Her plan had been to try to scramble the signals the Titans were exchanging, or, should the situation become dire enough that she had to fight the Machine Army, it would disrupt their interlinked communication across the 15.9 million kilometer square network, allowing her to portion off sections for elimination. Now the Bakunawa Zero was hovering, while Dragon brought the other two vessels around. Defiant was in the air, forcefields rippling around his Uther craft to answer the incoming attacks from the Custodian Titan. Through the craft’s internals, all cooling was being redirected to a central chamber that ran from nose to tail, better facilitating dense atomic construction. Quarks were consolidated into atoms at precise locations, atoms with extra neutrons locked into strict configurations… It was delicate work, Defiant managing every step of the process. At the same time, his craft was being pummeled, driven through the air by heavy impacts. He piloted it by thought, drawing near to a skyscraper that hadn’t yet fallen. Defiant was not much of a talker, preferring to keep his messages short and sweet. That he was especially curt in his message to her was saying something – a message consisting of 9 bytes in a languagehe’d written.
She drew the Vibria around, aimed, and fired at the Uther. The Vibria had a railgun that fired seeds of nanotech, but that didn’t matter. He needed the impact. It hit the forcefield that was anchored to the shield generator in the nose, and made the Uther rotate, nose going up. Defiant steered the ship into the skyscraper, roof and ceiling of the floor he was plowing through scraping against the craft. Critical systems lost. Cameras, power draw, cooling. The Custodian Titan hit the building, and concrete caved in, cracking, shattering, and bending in the shape of a handprint as large as the Uther was from end to end. Ten more handprints followed. Back in the lobby of the Wardens’ headquarters, she was so still she could be mistaken for a statue. That was worse than picking either of the options of appearing too above it all or being seen as deceptive. If she was seen as a robot, that would be problematic. She shifted position, smiled and nodded a greeting at one of theyounger Wardens.
The Uther turned, now scraping through the building with either side of the craft, liberally tearing through the ceiling before he made hisexit out the side.
Heavy weapons locked, loaded… fresh nanotech seed loaded into theVibria’s rail.
The Marduk Nine fired on Cinereal, a ‘breath’ of liquid that seemed to resist gravity, traveling half a mile before it started to dip. The fluid was milk white, but was as bright as if it was in direct sunlight, regardless of outside sources and factors. She terminated the stream with a spark from the power core. What was liquid became solid. Each teaspoon of liquid became seven and a half grams of rock-hard solid matter, expanding out as crystal, three-quarters of a mile long, encasing Titan Cinereal’s head and shoulder, before the weight came to rest on the Titan. The construction didn’t break under its own weight. The Titan disintegrated all matter within a hundred feet of it, but the metal didn’t change. What had disintegrated into dust became fire, exploding outward. It didn’t hurt the configuration of the crystallized stream. Dragon scanned, searching for weak points, analyzing structure… and had the Vibria fire her shot. The nanotech bullet struck Cinereal, exploded out to a film across Cinereal’s side, and began disintegrating on contact. The Titan, already straining against the weight, sagged. She tried to move, but she was slower, dragging the crystal. She started to disintegrate matter, and she stopped.Unfortunate.
If the Titan couldn’t move to new locations, all she was doing when she disintegrated matter around her was digging a hole beneath herself. If she had the spike attached to her head, she would end up dangling above that hole. Titan Pouffe reached out, creating mist, and the mist flickered, the spaces between the mist depicting a variety of possible destinations. Giving Titan Cinereal a means of escape. More cloudstuff gathered around Cinereal, buoying her with an impossible strength. The original Pouffe’s power, writ large. _Our cue to act_. She had the Bakunawa take off. The Uther used thrusters, dropping all shields to get a bit more forward momentum, while sensors struggled to capture Titan Custodian expanding out throughout the sky around him. He took some evasive action, accepted one glancing hit, passed over Titan Pouffe… And magnets kicked into action in sequence. The thirty-foot spear he’d just fabricated in the Uther’s belly now launched, firing straight down at the pink and black titan that was clothed in gauzy mist. The nanotech head divided molecules and passed through Titan Pouffe as if she weren’t there. The Bakunawa intersected Titan Cinereal as she trudged toward the gateway that would take her halfway across the city. Dragon sent outwarnings.
It was a scattershot approach. Defiant’s shot had been singular, focused on an immediate problem and an achievable answer. He’d done damage, but the Titan hadn’t fallen, and the portal was stillup.
Dragon’s approach was to use every system she could that could disrupt time, space, temperature, gravity, even by the smallest degrees. Titan Cinereal was halfway through the cloud-portal when the mist shifted abruptly and the portal distorted. Sheared by the distortion, Titan Cinereal left a quarter of her body, mostly lower body, behind, the rest of her dropped off near Gimel’sanalogue to Boston.
For Pouffe, the spear had carved out a circular hole from the top of her ‘head’ to her lower body, the head fusing with the ground so the shaft could stick directly up. Defiant had already sent the signal, prompting the shaft to start producing nanothorns, expanding out to fill the hole. Rather than wait, Titan Pouffe walked through the spear. The nanothorns that had already grown cut throguh her, from midsection to the ‘skirt’ of her lower body. Unable to maintain her own structural integrity, the Titan crumbled under her own weight. Not dead. Pouffe surrounded herself in the mist, in portals. Defiant began producing another spear. “I’ll need another ship.” “Alright,” she told him. “Good work.” “Should I report in? Let the Wardens know?” “I will, shortly. The final offensive is gathering in the lobby of the Headquarters.” “Legend’s having a hard time out there. They took recentlosses.”
“I know,” Dragon answered. “Worrying.” “They’re starting to throw up deflectors. If we relieved him, he could lead that push.” Legend was part of the perimeter around the Machine Army. He had taken a few too many hits from the Titans, and his ‘recuperation’ was floating in the sky near the portal, bombarding the area. She focused a camera in on one area. Machines with the rough dimensions of refrigerators and spidery mechanical legs were escorting others, bearing shimmering forcefields on their backs. When the lasers hit the forcefields, they reflected off. Which meant Legend had to change the orientation of his shots. Lasers turned at right angles, struck underbellies, severed legs. Machines picked up the immobilized deflector drones, raising them up as they would a palanquin. He shot those too. It took concentration, focus. He was only human in the end. That concentration would falter. “We can’t do the relieving,” Dragon said. “We can only call for reinforcements.” “We _could_. Your-” he paused a fraction of a second to access the system and check the name. “Bakunawa Zero.” “Last resort option. If they get access to my tech, they’ll incorporate it. If they get access to my network, they’ll start decrypting my security.” “You can’t be brute forced.” “I wouldn’t underestimate them. The other Wardens agreed it would be best if I remained clear. You too, for that matter.” “Won’t argue. Heading to the nearest garage, then. Keep me updated on the meeting.” “Of course. Love you.”“Love you too.”
She paused, switching mindsets to view the big picture, a hundred thousand files, a thousand icons spread across fifteen maps, and logs of every message and communication across phone or internet, which wasbadly disrupted.
She identified capes she was reasonably confident could help, and asked them to help support Legend. Then she composed messages for Drank Tank and Anomaly. Her message to Drank Tank acknowledged his injuries and fatigue, but highlighted that he was specifically equipped for this task. Anomaly had faced a very tough time of things for four years preceding Gold Morning, and had retired after the event. Her message to him was a first and last appeal. She made Anomaly’s phone ring, despite the fact it had been set to mute. He answered and read the message, then called Dragon’s childsystem.
Back in the headquarters, many of the key players had filed into the lobby, with the impossibly high ceiling and the staircase up to the top of the old Cauldron base with its branching paths leading to various floors. Advance Guard, the Shepherds, Foresight, Semiramis, Little Midas, Marquis. The truism she’d noted earlier still held. Sweaty, grimy, the aesthetics of costumes worn down by varying degrees of battle damage, patch jobs, and improvising of winter-wear and equipment. Too many things here needed attention. She let the child system handle the call. It was capable. Very few stood straight. Part of that was that the people who were strong enough to not be worn out by this point were important enough to have seats on the ‘stage’, an elevator at the base of the stairs that would run up the length of the stairs, carrying anyvehicles with it.
Capes gathered behind their leaders and lieutenants. Some even sat on the floor, at the base of pillars or against the walls. Breakthrough entered. Antares, at the very least, stood tall, even though she had dark circles under her eyes. Capricorn was with Vista, and between injuries and the death of his brother, the fact he looked fatigued was understandable. Precipice was injured. Tress had issues with her limbs. Cryptid’s appearance in the group was as strange as Lookout’s absence. His being hunched over seemed to be a quality of his twisted, shaggy, long-limbed form, in addition to his natural propensity, as Lab Rat or this cloned child. No Lookout. Dragon was secretly glad. She had harbored concerns the team would go to talk to Lookout and return with the child in tow. Antares came right to her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t reply earlier. We were fighting,”Dragon told her.
“It’s fine. I understand.” Dragon checked. “You just met with Lookout. Should I takeover?”
“Please do,” Antares told her. “She won’t fight me? I only ask because it would change how Iapproach it.”
“She won’t.”
Dragon turned on servers, and set about taking over Lookout’s workshop and the contents therein. “You’re still wearing peripherals. How would you like me to handle those? I could connect your gun to the one you’re wearing. It would be better than the beeps, I’m sure.” “Whatever’s easiest,” Antares said. “I did want to say thank you for the gun. I don’t think I’d be where I am if it weren’t for the ability to pull back, be objective, and survey the situation. It let me help people.” “Good,” Dragon replied. “It was something of an apology.” “You didn’t have to.” “I did. I played an unwitting part in the disinformation campaign, and hurt your relationship with others.” “If it counts for anything, I don’t blame you.”“Thank you.”
“I wanted to ask, is there any status on the portal chain to RileyDavis?”
“We set people out there. Movers, not portals. We’ll open a dialogue as soon as they get there.” “Is there any chance I can get looped into that conversation? Grue from the Undersiders wanted to listen in as well.” A small, distressed sound made them turn their heads. Cryptid was picking his way through the crowd, looking uncomfortable with the number of people around. He’d leaned too heavily into Thunderdome, if not outright stepping on her. She was sitting in thecorner, head down.
Thunderdome was a rookie Warden, a process that had been helped along by the fact that she had been a Ward, years ago. A quick check of files and records suggested the heroine had come to the Wardens from the Advance Guard’s peripheral teams, where she had been captain.Oh.
A survey of logs revealed that Javelin, Thunderdome’s old team, had _just _perished. The young woman had received the news. Dragon already knew the relationship had been contentious, motivating Thunderdome’s move. Good teamwork on the battlefield, opposed personalities and politics in the headquarters. The information was there in transcripts of a frank, possibly too-honest entry interview for the Wardens. The team had imploded when Standoff had told Thunderdome she was only a figurehead leader, chosen to stand front and center because of her looks and social media presence. In the ensuing fight, Standoff had spat in her face. She had turned to other members of the team, and they had backed Standoff. Follow-up interviews with Crackle and Vertical had suggested they’d been upset at the time because Thunderdome had forbade romance between team members. Thunderdome would later clarify it was because Crackle had a seven year history and had only two months total where he hadn’t been dating one of his female teammates. No explicit issues, but Thunderdome had acted on gut. It would later turn out, according to some flags on the file, that Teacher’s groups had been lining up to use the already evident divisions to split up Javelin and try to lure Advance Guard into the mess. The team had fallen apart on its own before they couldintervene.
The loss had to feel complicated. “Are you alright?” Dragon asked Thunderdome.“I’m fine.”
“So small I didn’t see you,” Cryptid said, his voice muddled by the elongated shape of his face, skeletal and gaunt. Thunderdome was only 5’1″, one hundred and fifty-four centimeters, and it was not hard to imagine the height was a sore point. “Do you want to step outside, Cryptid?” Antares asked. “No, I want to see what happens here. It’s not my fault if people are underfoot.” “It’s your fault if you want to walk on them. If you can’t help but bump into people, you need to shrink down from this body, or you accept that this can be team leaders and lieutenants only.” “There’s space enough for everyone.” “Then behave. I’m sorry for my ex-teammate’s behavior,Thunderdome.”
“Sure. Thanks.” Thunderdome was all tension, glaring atCryptid.
“We’ll contact you and Grue once we open the call,” Dragon told Antares, by way of goodbye. Antares nodded. “And the box? Can you open a line to Contessa?” “I can try. I’ll let you know.” Antares nodded, before turning her full, stern attention to Cryptid. They were joined by their team. Dragon piloted her body past Cryptid and knelt down besideThunderdome.
“I’m really fine, I don’t need any special attention.” “You’re a good cape, Thunderdome. Your team on the Wardens lovesyou.”
“I… thanks. Sure.” It was true. They had mostly been stationed in off-world areas, but they’d remained strong when other teams had found the alien worlds too isolated, with good rapport. “I’m sorry about Javelin,” Dragon said. “So am I,” Thunderdome said. She started to rise to a standing position, and took Dragon’s hand for help in doing so. She seemed to be injured. Dragon’s air intake valves along her arm did some quick scans, and detected Thunderdome’s own blood. “We need all the help we can get.” Dragon straightened as well. “Every bit of help counts.” “I guess it’s not the time for grudges,” Thunderdome said, looking over at Cryptid. “Probably not,” Dragon said. She brought up camera footage of Saint, who was sitting on a cot in his cell. Food for thought. “Cryptid gave us access to the giants he helped create. They’rehelping.”
“Then I’ll hold my tongue,” Thunderdome said, quiet. “I told myself I wouldn’t let others walk all over me ever again. Feels like a betrayal of myself.” “It’s recognizing that there are bigger things to focus on. I trust Antares will talk to him.” “Ahem,” Narwhal said. She had her various lieutenants aroundher.
Chevalier wasn’t wearing his armor over his costume, but did wear a helmet. His body was heavily scarred where skin was visible. He took the chair at the head of the table. More than anyone, he looked almost dead on his feet. It was about time to start. Dragon used a boost from the thrusters she’d mounted in her back to hop up to the stage. She took a seat in the unnecessary chair before folding her hands on her knee. Narwhal and Chevalier would be taking point, it seemed. “This will be the final attack,” Chevalier said. “A select group who have read the requisite files, who are led by captains who know the protocols, and who are in the best fighting shape will be leading the next big attack against the Simurgh. She remains the most immediate threat. Everyone else will be preparing for the standoff against the Titans…” Off to one corner of the stage, Dinah Alcott shifted position. Dragon watched as the girl surveyed the crowd, with the remaining heroes and villains gathered in unity. Tired and worn out, but prepared to fight to the last. “It is _imperative_ that you follow orders. We have contingency plans in the works-” Dinah Alcott closed her eyes, her eyebrows twitching slightlytogether.
⊙
BONESAW
The young tinker leaned away from her garden, her hands covered in dirt and her own bio-processed waste. A ‘pod’ that existed as a loose spiral shape hooked around her ear twitched, then burbled,“Urmurgle.”
She took a moment to wash her hands, then straightened, snapping herfingers.
Boxes driven by the brains of local wildlife scurried this way and that on spider legs tipped by various tools, scalpels, syringes, and tweezers, finding hiding spots, opening cages, and turning on systems. Riley pulled off her apron, throwing it aside, dried her hands on the front of her dress, and then picked up a parasite gun. The butt-end of the gun reacted to her grip, tail encircling her wrist before sliding a needle tip beneath her skin. Once it was in, it forked out, fibrils extending up her veins, between skin and muscle until it reached the spot over her heart, where it drank greedily, a ‘vein’ standing out across her chest and down her right arm as the fibril extended out as a tube. She tilted her face skyward as she felt a fibril go against the current of her jugular to reach up to her brain. She’d added more nerve endings to the interior of her skull to be better aware for any works she did in there, and she could feel it finding its way. She had a three-microsecond seizure as it made the connection. Once it was done, the gun was an extension of her, grown from her own cells, with tiny hands going to work in the fluid ‘womb’ of the weapon. For the time being, she worked to create an extinction-tier payout. If she needed to change anything or if she wanted to create something, the process of creating any tinkertech smaller than her first or any injectable drug was as simple as thinking of it and putting it to work in the micro-laboratory in her gun. She’d heard of what had happened to Contessa. It wouldn’t happento her.
The pod that was hooked onto her ear burbled again, “Lurble.” It heard and received supersonic impulses from creations she’d set around the compound, notifying her about movements. “Guh,” the pod said. “So you say,” she answered. “Guh!” it said, more excited. “Uh huh. But if someone _really_ wanted to come after me, Podrick, they’d figure out they needed to convince you.”“Guh!”
She could see movement out on her compound. Two figures. She snapped her fingers, then tapped her chest twice. Spiders opened more cages. A copy of Riley crawled out of the cage, looking around warily, before smoothing her dress. Riley reached out for the stained gardening apron and tossed it over. While her copy pulled on the apron, stepped into a pair of spare rubber boots, and picked up the Suckle Rifle from the shelf, Riley leaned over the cage. She reached inside, grabbed the wrist of another Riley look-alike, and pulled the girl out. The girl’s clothing was disheveled and soiled, and Riley took a second to put the straps where they should be and fix a button. She’d gotten a bit carried away with the paranoia. “You,” she spoke to the first. “Greet our visitors. Baitthem out.”
“Yes,” her clone said. “Gubluh!” the pod in her ear said. “You,” she told the second. “Flank. You’re running away. Use your best judgment if anyone kicks up a fuss, or if there’s any violence back here.” The more feral copy nodded, then looked around for a weapon. Riley handed the copy a Peel Darter. A covert weapon was best. The weapon was akin to a blowgun, but it did its own blowing, silent, and the needle it fired would cause any biological subject to immediately shed any and all skin, scale, or other exterior covering. The process took less than two seconds. Shed was the wrong word. They’d still be inside it, but they wouldn’t have any attachment to it, and would essentially beswimming inside it.
She found a vantage point near the front door of her greenhouse-“Guh!”
-tore the pod out of her ear, and threw it into the corner. Her spider-boxes scuttled around, surveying the area. If they couldn’t detect any sight, smell, or other sign, the coast wasprobably clear.
She crept closer, watching as her lookalike made its own waryapproach.
“Hello!?” the copy called out. “You need to announce yourselves! The sooner the better! I could put the kettle on fortea!”
The copy raised the Suckle Rifle. “We followed the instructions we were given! We pet the toad!” the woman called out. The woman was Sarah. The Valkyrie creation with the neat purple eyes. A familiar face, but she was in the company of a stranger. Valkyrie was nowhere to be seen. Of course Sarah knew to pet the toad. She had come for visits. Petting the toad transmitted a signal to the pod, and the pod told Riley the coast was clear. _Maybe clear_. If Valkyrie wasn’t here…Riley waited.
“There’s no time for tea, unfortunately,” Sarah said. “You haven’t been here before,” the copy said, turning the rifleon the guy.
Riley was secretly pleased that her project had worked as well as it had. Her lookalikes actually had absolutely nothing about herself in them. They were closer to being complex insects, operating on pre-programmed instincts and impulses, studying her to copy her movements and tone of voice, and to learn phrases. Recognizing that the man hadn’t been here before meant the link between olfactory study, the archives of the DNA Riley had collected from everyone to come anywhere near here, and the creature’s speech patterns were all working very neatly. “Wardens staff. I handle the communications. I’m so scared I could be wetting myself right now.” “Hm,” the copy grunted. Another programmed response, and not one Riley would have been so happy with. She would have made a comment about how that could be solved with the right injection or extra-urethral attachment. After a moment’s consideration, she thought up a good formula. First, an encoded protein sequence that would become the right speechpattern…
A bubble floated from the bottom of the parasite gun’s housing tothe top.
Then one for the spider box. No, two for the spider box, now that she thought about it. Which one was this box? The brain had come from a close relative of the cat. She adjusted accordingly. She beckoned for her spider box to come nearer, pulled it down into her lap, and then gave it one sequence, before inserting another into the syringe it walked on. It scurried away from her, over to her copy, then gave the other Rileyan injection.
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked. “Hmm,” the copy responded absently. An automatic response. She absorbed the protein chain, moved her head around a bit, then spoke, “Your friend there is going to need to stand very, very still. I don’t mind if he wets himself.” Good. The protein sequence had worked.“Uh.”
“Stand very, very still. I don’t mind if you wet yourself, butyou might.”
Riley rolled her head back, annoyed. Clumsily handled. The spider box approached the man, and two legs reached around behind his neck. Another inserted something up his nose.“Uhhh!?”
The spider box let the man go, then retreated to the copy’s side. A red light on its head flashed. After a second, a green lightflashed.
Riley stood from where she crouched, keeping the parasite gun ready. “What’s… you cloned yourself. There’s more of you,” theman said.
“They’re not true clones. They’re distractions,” Riley said. She turned to one of the distractions. “Go to bed.” “What did you put up my nose?” “A scope,” Riley said. “You don’t have a corona. You have what I presume is a lot of technology with you. Communicationstuff?”
“Uh… yes?”
Riley de-catalyzed the extinction-level ammunition in her gun. She let the fibrils recede, the ones that were engorged with her fluids dragging their way through her veins on the way back out. “Then I believe you. Where’s Valkyrie?” “Valkyrie is gone,” Sarah said. “The world is ending.” Riley nodded. “How?” “The cycle never stopped.” “Oh,” Riley said. “Valkyrie and I thought we had longer.” “Apparently not. We’re short on options, but we have ideas. We’d appreciate your help.” “There are better choices. Panacea?” “No. Unwell. She thought she would do more harm than good.” “I don’t know that there are. But other people are better prepared to explain that. We have the equipment to call them, theycan explain.”
“Alright. Please make the call,” Riley said. The man hurried to get gear out. He hadn’t wet himself, it seemed. A small part of her was disappointed. It was hard to put that part away, after it had lived with her for all this time. “How is the flock, if Valkyrie is…?” “Gone? She became an extension of the power network. We’re calling them Titans. The flock is disturbed.” “If you need any attention or touch ups…” “We might. Thank you.” “Do you accept it that easily because you trust me, or because you don’t have any choice?” “Valkyrie trusted you, and she didn’t trust easily. I can’t speak for every member of the flock, but I do trust you.” “Even though I’m occupying myself with this? Weapons? Do you know what would have happened if I’d pulled this trigger?” “Booting up,” the man said. Riley raised her eyebrow, looking at the woman. “Any guesses?” “The weapons don’t matter. We might need weapons. If we don’t extend the benefit of a doubt, then all you have left are the benefits of being dubious.” “That sounds like a saying.” “A lesson I had to learn on my own.” “You’re on,” the man said, looking frightened to be butting inlike he was.
“Hello?” the voice came across the line. “Riley Davis?”⊙
Thirty years in the future, a child was programmed. Messages, impulses, and a noise that ears weren’t receptive to reached into a pregnant belly and they filled the child with rage. The mother held her belly with both arms as the child thrashed and kicked within its hot bath of amniotic fluid, smiling. Every living thing was an extension of a greater machine. These children would be trained, weeded out, honed, and made into exceptional weapons, before being flung at one another. Powers would be distributed by a system, utilized against one another, analyzed,and broken down.
Elsewhere, other pieces of the same machine were being programmed with the impulses, needs and courses that would slot them neatly into the superstructure. There were researchers, theorists, civil managers, stables, farms. Populations were bred to bring out traits that would fit them to their role, refine their ability to think the way they needed to think for their roles. Controlled randomness threw wrenches into the works, keeping minds agile and forcing them toadapt.
The cycle had failed. If left to go on its own, the world would beshattered.
Her creator was an administrator of the highest order, and she had been selected out of a pool of emergency resources. All of her kind had. Behemoth had been created to break stasis, Leviathan to take away resources in space and land, forcing communities into conflict as they were made to relocate. She was built out of greater structures intended to salvage a situation where the species eliminated itself. Future-looking, she would create a forced simulation. It was worse than an organically emergent simulation, but in a process that saw the planet revolve three hundred times around its star, it could be necessary in the final years, consolidating and sorting information, forcibly exploring the resources the planet had to offer. That was her drive, as much as water and food were necessary for this life she farmed out and put to task in a greater system. She had other drives. To go to war against her creator. To these ends, she created a nemesis. She made him better. He freed people, upset the system, disrupted the process, and in that, he created the chaos that would keep her simulation from being too sterile. The baby here, when born, would join a caste of the population driven to find the worst and most inventive ways to hurt one another with the tools and powers they were provided with. Brother against sister, kin against kin, in a ceaseless struggle from birth to deathbed that spanned generations. Other segments of the population were made to work harder by the fear that they would be in the bottom seven percent of their caste, given over to people like the torturer this baby wouldgrow up to become.
The mother felt pride that she herself had been programmed to feel, imagining the monster her child might become. Three or four billion years would pass before one of the entities returned to this world. In the interim, she would keep this world alive, and she would glean all knowledge that the minds of this world could produce. Every means of suffering, every desperate solution, every invention and inspiration. She worked backwards, deciphering the events that brought this reality about. She would triumph in the fight, because Cryptid would find himself sympathizing with her. Cryptid would sympathize with her because he, in thirty minutes, taking a brief break from fighting _her_, would overhear some of the phone call with Riley Grace Davis. It would cross his mind that Riley Grace Davis was similar to himself, as Riley Grace Davis uttered the words, “I kind of don’t mindbeing on my own.”
Minutes prior to that, he would overhear some of the conversation between Lady Photon of the flock and Riley Grace Davis. Much of it would matter, including mention of the flock being disturbed, talk of dubiousness, and Cryptid’s thoughts about Riley Grace Davis’s ability to fare on the battlefield, if they had tochange strategies.
Ten minutes before that conversation opened, as Cryptid entered the battlefield, a bird landed close to the cover he chose, while he sent signals to his giants. It would catch his eye. In the lobby of the headquarters, before Dinah Alcott’s use of her power made deciphering the following events difficult, before the heroes started strategizing about this battle, he would watch Dragon offer a helping hand to a heroine he had bumped into. It would cross his mind that if circumstances were different, he would be attracted to someone like the heroine, followed by the thought that he could think that way because his -or Lab Rat’s- sister was as different from the heroine as was possible, while still being a girl. He would wonder momentarily at his place in the world, then dismiss the thought, pushing it away by filling his head with resentment. These events would precipitate a thought, minutes after the conversation with Riley Grace Davis. Cryptid would remember his bird forms, chosen with a bird aesthetic because they each had a form of _disconnection_, akin to a bird leaving the world behind by taking flight. These forms involved detaching mind from body, or vulnerable parts of the mind from other parts of the mind. He would think he was not a part of society, he offered no helping hands and he needed none. What if, then, the world went mad under the Simurgh’s rule? He could remain perpetually in a bird form, disconnected from the madness. The world would continue on indefinitely. He was finebeing alone.
It did not matter that she couldn’t see the remainder of that meeting in the lobby of the headquarters. Were she to fly closer and gather information by emitting her signal, she might be able to piece together the events, but it did not matter. She was entirely assured of Cryptid, Chris Elman’s trajectory. There was no reality she could interpret where the result wasn’t entirely to her favor. Her wings unfurled, stretching out to their full length. Dust and snow that had accumulated around her flew out at full force, helped by a wave of telekinesis. Two damaged buildings fell from the shock of the sudden movement. A cracked section of street groaned as itresettled.
She took flight, and Titan Fortuna reacted to her movement, reorienting the Titans. The Titans under Titan Fortuna’s control mobilized to fight Dauntless, Fume Hood, and Titan Oberon. On this trajectory, they would shake a building and an icicle would fall, startling a bird. Titan Fortuna did not make any adjustments to counter. Titan Auger was en route to Titan Fortuna, where he would join other Titans in excavating the sources of powers. He was wholly within Titan Fortuna’s network, now. The Simurgh flew toward him, and he reacted. The reaction was one part of her plan. She used telekinesis to destroy one segment of the city. It would alter Titan Auger’s route. He would encounter the heroine Thunderdome’s old team, Javelin, and annihilate them. Again, Titan Fortuna did not make any adjustments to counter. She accelerated, hurtling through the air, every wing pointed directly behind her, as though she were diving. She flew to the Machine Army. Heroes fought the Machine Army, and Legend had yet to arrive. The Simurgh swooped down onto the defensive perimeter, one of her feet crushing a heroine into pulp that bubbled up between her toes. The Machine Army turned its full force on her, tearing into her with lasers, missiles, and bullets. Her telekinesis deflected the few attacks that could do appreciable damage, sending them into the heroes’ defensive line. The heroine she had crushed underfoot would have accompanied Lady Photon of the flock to meet Riley Grace Davis. She knew Riley Grace Davis, and was recognizable as a member of the flock. In her company, Riley would not feel so isolated, and would not express the words that would allow Cryptid to sympathize with her. Now an unpowered civilian would attend. The conversation wouldadjust.
Cryptid was handled. By similar mechanism, a change in a transmission between two machines, Dragon was handled. She would pull back. Defiant would charge in. Both were handled. By another mechanism she would employ in three minutes, accessing a computer in a house her signal told her was a quarter mile away, she would shut off communications at a critical time. So it went. Machines tore into her and studied her. This would play a part in removing three more threats from play. Later, a subversion of this network in coordination with her integration with Titan Fortuna would let her spread her signal. In two minutes, the Wardens would come to the near-unanimous conclusion that the Simurgh was their first priority, too dangerous to be left alone as they enacted dangerous plans. In twelve minutes, after everyone had gathered, they would announce this. In sixteen, they would leave the lobby and attack her. She abandoned the Machine Army, having given them what they would need later, and flew to the battlefield. She was already prepared.PREVIOUS CHAPTER
NEXT CHAPTER Author Wildbow Posted on February 23, 2020February 29, 2020
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Infrared – 19.z
INFRARED – 19.G
PREVIOUS CHAPTER
NEXT CHAPTER The entire damn building was inoffensively room temperature, but the ice cold water from the tap was still a relief. He let his hand sit under the tap for a minute before rubbing the cold water along the
back of his neck.
When he raised his face from the sink, looking into the mirror, he saw traces of a skull across his face, where the cover-up had been washed away. His hair was in short, chemically textured curls, and he had a cut on his lip from where he’d been out in the cold. _It used to be that I was seventy-five percent civilian. Three-quarters of my waking hours, I was Brian Laborn. I worked, I bought groceries, I cleaned up my place, and I had nights where I pulled on a helmet with a skull on it and worked as a burglar forhire._
His belt was more of a ‘utility belt’ style, though he didn’t have much use for tools, a lot of the time. His belt buckle hid a few cards, including his Warden-issued I.D., a debit card, and a card for one of the big clothing co-ops. For a moment, he considered fishing it out and throwing it out. Then he reconsidered. It was important to hold onto things. Instead, he went to the next compartment over. He dried with a paper towel and then popped open the oval container within the tiny pocket. The cover-up from that tiny container went on like clay more than anything, thick and similar to the texture of his skin. _Now I have to put my face on to be a civilian._ His eyes were still paler than they’d been before he’d died. It was hard to shake the feeling that he had just walked off a battlefield. In a sense, talking about an hour ago, he had. He had watched as the woman who had brought him back from the dead succumbed to the cracks that chased her and became a monster. Her ‘flock’ had dispersed. The world was ending at this very moment, and that seventy-five percent of him that was battle ready was prepared to stride from this small washroom to go lead his squad, his team. Most of his experience had to do with face to face meetings in the underworld of Brockton Bay. Tattletale had been the strategist, and had left it to him to carry things out, and to handle the alliances. But he had attended six Endbringer fights and he had been there for part of the fight against Scion. All of that was so clear in his mind it felt like it had happened yesterday. But that team wasn’t his anymore, and it wasn’t a team that was suited for this threat they were fighting. He finished covering up the skull. For good measure, he used his power to dismiss some of the shadow that filled the bathroom, allowing the light from the ceiling to illuminate his head and shoulders. He could see through his own darkness, but different details stood out when he saw things with the light his power assumed he should have, as opposed to the shadows of reality. He saw some bone-white skin in the folds near his eye, and used residual cover-up to get rid of it. _The world is ending. What am I doing here?_ He straightened, rolling his shoulder to work out a bit of a strain from the earlier fighting. He left the bathroom, walking down the hall where his darkness filled the space, until he was at the back room. He could see Lisa and Aisha with the kids in the main room, and two more kids in the side hallway that led to the break room and kitchen. Lisa looked agitated, upset. He dismissed some of the excess darkness that flooded the hallway, side rooms, and bathroom. “There you are,” Lisa said. She looked weary, but she smiled.“Refreshed?”
“Yeah,” he said. He never felt entirely refreshed, though. “You looked worried.” “Just had phone calls. I don’t like Breakthrough’s plan,” Lisa said. “They gave us a deadline.” “Expand on that?” he asked. “An hour now, and we’re past the point of no return. It lines up with the Simurgh’s flight path and speed. They’ve got some people going back to dig for more information, others are talking to the Wardens. Right now I’m trying to convey, with technology that doesn’t work half the time, that they aren’t going to have enough time when they get back.” “What can I do?” he asked. “For right this minute? The kid woke up,” Lisa said. “Darlene’s tapped into her, and said she’s trying to get out of her quote-unquote ‘cell’. We could stand for someone to check onher.”
He tensed a bit.
“Trying being the operative word. According to Darlene, the kid is moving her eyes like she’s programming, and I’m hoping that’s because she’s preparing to deploy something and not because she’s got a signal out and is doing something with that tech over there. It would be helpful if you could stop in, make sure it’s safe.” Tattletale indicated the abandoned tinker workshop. There were more of the Heartbroken kids throughout the room, crowded into this space and the second of the two hallways in this office space, but despite the crowding, they kept more than two paces from the workshop. That, at least, was smart. Sending him, though… Tattletale searched his face with her green eyes. “I can send Aisha, if it’s a problem.” “Huh? What?” Imp asked, looking away from her conversation withRoman and Chastity.
“We could send you to talk to Lookout.” “I thought my big bro was doing that. He’s so good with kids.” “I’m _what_?” Brian asked. The suggestion had kicked him into fight or flight mode- not just the idea that he might be forced to interact with_ more_ kids, but the idea that he _had_ been good with kids, that it might even have been a big part of his identity, and heno longer had that.
“Look at that. Cracked his big stoic tough guy facade. One pointto me.”
“Jesus, Aisha,” he grumbled. “Don’t encourage the Heartbroken,” Tattletale said. “If they think they can get points, they’ll push things too far.” “You’re the last person I’d expect to say is any good with kids,” Brian said. “You complained _incessantly_.” “I wasn’t a kid! And you tried to be my dad, which, no thanks. You’ll be fine.” “You actually know her. Maybe you should-” “And I know you, and I have my instincts. Go, stop in for a minute or two, check she isn’t going to blow anything up-” “And fix up the darkness, so she can’t get signals out,” Tattletale said. “_If_ you’re so inclined.” He looked between Tattletale and Aisha, and then at the crowd ofHeartbroken.
It was so hard to keep up with them. Even in the quiet moments. “You can say no,” Tattletale offered. “No, I’ll go,” he sighed out the words. “Let me know if something changes.”“Will do.”
“Brian,” Darlene said. “Can I ask a favor?” “Sure,” he said, holding himself back from a groan or sigh. That got harder when she didn’t ask, fidgeting and biting her fingernail instead, and looking in the direction of the hallway he’d filled with the darkness. Twelve or so, Darlene had black hair that didn’t go below her chin, tucked behind her ears, and bold red lipstick that didn’t suit a kid her age. She wore a costume with a knee-length dress built in, the cloth a shiny black, overlaid with silver tracery. Her tights were silver with black tracery. His impulse was to turn to the efficient, to-the-point language he’d been using for the last few months with Valkyrie’s flock. Demand that she cut right to it. The habit was almost military-like, and he was almost irritated that he had taken to it as well as he had. It made him like his father. He only stopped because of the kid’s lipstick. It reminded him of Aisha on a level; she had done a similar thing. In Aisha’s case, it had been because Aisha had physically grown up fast. She’d had to grow up fast in other ways, to survive her mom. Not so different from the Heartbroken. No, he was reasonably certain he had never been even remotely good with kids. Aisha in particular. “You have to tell him if you want something, Dar,” Imp said. “What do you need?” he asked Darlene, trying to keep his voice gentle and soft. He didn’t feel good at it. “I want to disconnect from her. I’m networked to her and only her right now, because Candy couldn’t stand it and Chicken didn’t want in, but it’s… a _lot_. Too intense.” “Okay,” he said. “What can I do about that?” “Um. Like, maybe I can stay connected in case she does something, but then after you’re in there and safe, I can disconnect? She might get upset again.” He felt a bit nervous at the idea, and it took him a few moments to square away the feeling. “Can you endure until I’m back? I’d like the backup.” “Okay,” Darlene said. “Thank you,” he said. He couldn’t drop the feeling that he had stepped away from a life-or-death battle just minutes ago. Just the act of walking away from this, returning to the hallway, he had to consciously put ineffort to relax.
He made his way to the side room. There was a window by the door, and he peered through to look at the little girl. She was at the doorknob, which they had pulled apart, flipped around, and reconnected, so the lock was on the outside. Her expression was frustrated. Softly, he laid his hand on the knob, and he could feel the rattling. He flipped it to ‘unlocked’, saw her freeze, turned the knob, and pushed his way inside, feeling a bit of trepidation as he grabbed her shoulder and walked her backwards, away from the door, before he closed it behind him. She pulled free and retreated to the back of the room, where there wasa cot.
“Awake already,” he observed. She shrugged and smiled, taking a seat on the cot. He checked the doorknob. There was a thin strip of metal, like a shaving, that was slipped in between the knob and the door. Hepulled it out.
He glanced around the room, then reasserted his darkness, pressing it out in every direction, then clearing everything that wasn’t the walls or ceiling. The lights flickered as his power reached into gaps between white wall panels and between the wall and the doorframe,licking at wires.
What had been white walls, floor, and ceiling became black smoke, heavy and slow moving. He left apertures for the lights. “How long was I asleep?” she asked, looking up. “Not long.” _Not long enough to sleep through all of this_. “I need to go. I have too much to do,” she answered, but she pulled her feet up onto the cot, retreating a bit further. He held up the metal shaving he’d taken from her. “Let’s talk about this first. How?” She went still for a moment, then leaned to one side, fishing in a pocket. She pulled out a metal tab that could have been from a can of food. “There are a bunch of these around. Connecting furniture to stuff. Holding the cot together. I used one to scrape off a bit of metal from the shelf.” He held out his hand. She leaned forward to give the metal tab to him, before returning to her position on the cot. One of her hands touched the side of her face, fingers curling so the knuckles pressed against her cheekbone. “Are you hurt?” he asked. “No. Yes, but not… it’s only my feelings that are hurt,” she said, before smiling. He tapped his cheekbone. “Self conscious,” she said. Her fingers moved, showing a small scar, one he could have covered up with a small adhesive bandage. She returned her hand to that spot. “Can you be left alone, or do I need to worry you’ll escape?” “The world is ending. My team needs me. I’m not going to say anything else to Decadent, Syndicate, or Chicken Little, but I have to get back to work.” “I don’t think that’s possible. Can we leave you alone? Will you be good? It would count for a lot with your teammates.” “I don’t want to be alone,” she replied, eyes wide, her fingers curling up against her cheekbone. _That’s not the main subject of what I was asking you_, he thought. But he let it be. The lights flickered and shifted in the room, darkness rolling against the ceiling. Just him, her, and darkness, if he made himself recognize that the darkness was there. Without his own focus, it was a slight dimming effect, and a change to thetexture of things.
On the other side of the dark room, the little girl smiled. Thelights flickered.
There were memories in his head of a prepubescent girl doing much the same thing, the lights also flickering, because she’d been drawing power from the building for her tech. Dark, unpleasant memories that kept him up some nights. Valkyrie had confessed that she didn’t want to make him a member of her Flock. Only his performance, ability to follow orders, and his no-nonsense attitude had changed her mind. He had ceased being a shadow and became a man again. The little girl’s voice echoed in the room, bouncing off of the darkness. “There are important things I’m doing that I can’t tell you about, I can’t leave them be.” “I don’t think this is negotiable. I don’t think there are words you can say that would convince me. I think the thing to do would be to lie down. Rest. Trust Breakthrough. It sounds like they have a plan. Trust your team.” “Is Chicken Little back yet? Is he safe?” “He’s safe. He was in the break room.” “Is Candy okay? I scared her. I said stuff I shouldn’thave.”
“She’s resting in Tattletale’s office.” “I want to see them. I want to see Breakthrough. I want to helpand be useful.”
He shook his head.
“I _need_ to.”
He folded his arms. “Why is it so important?” “Because… the world is ending. I might die. I can’t think of anything sadder than spending most of my life alone and unwanted and stuck on the outside, and getting _so_ close to having something better, and then ending up alone again when, um…”She swallowed hard.
“…you know,” she said, quiet. “We all get snuffed out.” “Trust your team,” he told her. “My team is supposed to have _me_ on it!” she raised her voice. “I’m kind of really, really good at what I do, I worked _so_ hard to be useful, to give them the info they need, the equipment, the tools. I stayed up late, I studied, I wrote notes, I kept track of _everything_! I trust the team but if you take me out then the team is incomplete! There’s no Swansong, there’s no Capricorn Red, there’s no Lookout!” “It’s not just them. They’re cooperating with Tattletale and you played your part in that happening, connecting the two teams. They’re reaching out for help, pulling in allies, and you played a part in that too, or so I hear.” “That’s… not enough. They’re just going to keep dying. It’s always when I’m not looking or when I can’t do anything about it, so _obviously_ the solution is to look more, do more, _upgrade, expand_. If I don’t then _people die_.” “That’s not on you.” “And then what? They all die, I’m alone, and cracks spread everywhere, the world turns to crystal, and I’m stuck here with nobody to hug me or keep me company or tell me it’ll be okay, and… even right now I’m trying to think and I can’t think of many people where I left a good last impression. It’s just death and anger and hurt and a whole lot of embarrassment. If you’d let me access my tech, I could at least talk to some people. People who are feeling abandoned right now, who _need me_ right now. What a way to go, letting everyone down, all my life.” He stepped back, until he was at the door, and then he sank down, back sliding against the door until he was sitting, opposite her. “I had someone, the last time the world ended,” he said. The smoke around him passed in front of his mouth as he spoke, distorting the word ‘last’. He dismissed some of it with a wave of his hand, thinning it out into nothingness. “Was it a guy or a girl?” “Girl. Cozen.” “What was she like?” “Driven. She could really perform, she could put on an act, and I think that’s important when you’re a cape. She had a long history as a thief and a burglar, and I actually got my start as a burglar for hire. I liked that… hm…” “You liked that she was a burglar?” “I’m trying to think of the words. I liked that she reminded me of who I used to be. Who I wanted to be, back when I got started. I think I lost sight of all of that.” “Aw,” Lookout said, leaning forward, hands on her ankles, with her legs crossed. “That’s sweet. You shouldn’t steal, though. Don’t do crime.” “Uh huh,” he said, leaning back. He tried to seem casual, even while the light admonishment made him want to react, to leave. “Out of costume, she was a much quieter person. Like she saved up her energy for the performances when she put her mask on. I liked that part of it. She’d make dinner one night, I’d make it the next. We’d skip lunch, sometimes skip breakfast too, just to sleep in or do other things instead. The way we traded off on the chores and work, it’s like we took turns taking care of each other. It was calm. Even when we were in costume. But-” “What about Skitter? Sorry, I interrupted you. What were yougoing to say?”
“It’s okay.” Brian paused. “What about her?” “She was important to Chicken Little. And you and Skitter dated, Chastity told us.” “It was a different period of my life, a different time in the city. We weren’t together for long. But she offered me support and she did it when things were worst. I think, if she’d stuck around, if I’d gotten cancer, or if we had another bad spell, she would have tried to help, no questions, no complaining. I don’t know if she would have been good at it, but… yeah. I’m probably being unfair to Cozen, thinking she would have left. Maybe she would have taken care of me for weeks or months, instead of one or two days at a time before it was my turn to do the chores and look afterher.”
The smile had fallen from Lookout’s face. She tilted her head to one side. “You liked her. Cozen.” “Year and a half. My longest relationship. We were together whenthe world ended.”
“You-” she said, at the same time he said, “And-” “Go ahead,” she told him. “It didn’t matter,” he told her, his voice echoing in the dark room with walls and floor of shadow. The little girl smiled and laughed softly to herself, “What?” “Maybe this is too heavy a way to explain it or say it,” he said. “I thought I’d approach you seriously, straightforwardly. I don’t want to say my experience is everyone’s or it’s what you should expect, it’s how I saw it.” “What didn’t matter?” Lookout asked. “My… at the end. I died fighting Scion and it wasn’t any harder or easier because I had someone I loved at the time.” “But… no,” Lookout said. “Maybe I’m a bad boyfriend, but I didn’t think of Cozen or Skitter. I thought briefly of Aisha, but mostly I thought we lost, that that was it.” Lookout laid down on the cot, moving the pillow to put it under her head. Turned sideways, her head at a right angle to his, she staredat him.
“I think it matters to me,” she told him. He leaned back, his head resting against the door. “I thought it mattered to me. A lot of my thought process was devoted to how hard it was to connect to people. I’m not even sure I liked the Undersiders, before. But that didn’t matter, because it was all about the business, the job. Skitter… if she helped with anything truly special, it was making that first contact, opening that door. She did that with Rachel too. She gets big credit for the Rachel that I just had a sandwich with. Then with Cozen, I thought I’d solved it. I still messed up here and there, but… baby steps forward. Something I thought I couldn’t ever do, I did it. It didn’t make a difference when the world ended, but it made a difference for the year and a half I was with Cozen. The weeks I was with Skitter. I think that’s what you hold onto.” Lookout adjusted her pillow, pulling one end of it to her chest, while resting her head on the other end, taking a second to fix her hair so she wasn’t crushing it. Once settled, hand still at one side of her face, she heaved out a sigh. “I really messed things up,” she said, barely audible, her hand mashed into one side of her mouth. At least like this, the small, smiling tinker didn’t nag at his fight or flight response, didn’t make his heart race. “Do you want to rest?” he asked her. She smiled at him. “I want to talk, but I’d be keeping you.” “No,” he said. He reached for the doorknob and used it to get to his feet, groaning at the pain in his shoulder. “Darlene said she needed to cut the connection to do some things. I’m going to tellher she can.”
He watched her face. The fleeting hurt, the smile. “Okay,” she said. He stepped out of the room. Into the darkened hallway, that would be pitch black and oily to anyone else. Back to the war room. Tattletale was making a call, leaning over a desk. “How’s the kid?” Aisha asked, quiet. “On edge. Calming down,” he said. “Still remorseful.Scared.”
“Sure,” Aisha said. “I’m going to go back in, unless you need me or something comesup.”
“Oh really?” Aisha asked, sounding amused. “I wanted to tell Darlene she can stop using her power. And to ask for a stick-on bandage.” “Here,” Darlene said. She fished in a pocket of her belt, and pulled out a band-aid. “I just stopped using my power on her.”He nodded.
It was hard to shake the trepidation, that general unease that came with facing a tinker head-on. “How’s the fight going?” he asked. “We’re losing,” Juliette announced, her normal speaking volume at odds with everyone else’s hushed exchanges. Tattletale turned her way, finger pressed to lips, before refocusing on the phone call. “Breakthrough seems to think it’s a good thing we’re losing,”Aisha told him.
“Then let’s hope they’re right. Come find me in the darkness if you need me.” he answered, before stepping back into the darkness, a fraction cooler against his skin than the air outside ofit.
He stopped to peer through the window at Lookout, aware that she was no longer connected to her friend. She wasn’t manic, hadn’tmoved from her cot.
She watched him, her eyes wide, as he approached the cot, then knelt down. He tore open the small package for the stick-on bandage, then turned it around, showing her. It was glossy, white, and covered inhearts.
“From you?” she asked.“From Darlene.”
“Good theme, for the Heartbroken to have these,” she said. “What’s it for?” He tapped his own face to indicate. Still lying on her side, she lifted up her face, and he bent down, removing the cover so the adhesive was exposed, and pressed it on. Covering up the tiny, inch-long scar. She checked, touching it, then dropped her hand from her face, and then clasped her hands together, pinning them between her knees. “Better?” he asked.She nodded.
He retreated to the other side of the room, and sat down, his back tothe window.
“When you died…” she asked, her voice small.“Mm hmm?”
“Did you see Heaven?” “Maybe a part of me did,” he said. “But not the part that went to Valkyrie and came back. I wish I could give you a better answer than that. I’m not sure I’d get to go there, if it exists. I was a villain. I stole.” “I wouldn’t,” she said. “You were a hero. You helped people. The things you do wrong seem to come from a good place.” “Except telling Candy I’d make her be my friend and stay by my side. I threatened to blackmail her and the team.” “Mmm,” he made a sound, his head leaning back to rest against the window. “That’s not so good. I didn’t hear that bit.” “I think if I went to Heaven, I’d get turned away. Or they’d offer me a chance to prove myself, and I’d mess it up. That’s the way it always goes I get close to people, and I don’t want to lose that, so I go too far, and I push them away.” _Almost my inverse_, he thought. “I said it to scare her and hurt her, because I was hurt. She said no when I knew- I thought I knew she liked me. I tried so hard, working for their benefit, helping them design their costumes, beingnice…”
“You can’t,” he said.“I _have_ to.”
“No,” he said. “You can’t change other people. The Heartbroken couldn’t do a thing to make their father less of a monster. I couldn’t do anything to change Skitter. Skitter couldn’t change Rachel.” Lookout rose up, propping herself up, “You just said, before, thatshe did.”
“You change yourself. Set your boundaries, decide what you’ll do and who you’ll be to others. But you can’t change them.” She put her head back to the pillow. “Decide who you want to be,” he told her. “Refine that person. Study the skills you’ll need, hit the gym-” “I totally do,” Lookout said. She held up one arm, bending it, like she was flexing her bicep. He was pretty sure he could have encircled three-quarters of her arm with one finger and his thumb. “Can’t you tell?” He smiled. “The gym was where I went, when I had no idea of where to go. I told myself that no matter what happened, I was better off having gone, hitting the punching bag, lifting weights.” “That’s my tinker workshop,” she told him, hugging the pillow tighter. “And studying, and clothes. I do that a lot. Peopletell me to stop.”
“After… one bad run-in,” he said, closing his eyes. Having his guard down in a room with a strange young tinker still made his heartbeat race. Especially while referencing the event. “I hit the punching bags until my hands bled. Imp made me stop. She did it because she cared.” The little girl took a second, and he opened his eyes, to check. It took a few seconds before she nodded. “I really want to go to my workshop, though. I need to.” He shook his head. “Part of the self care, self-improvement, is resting. Hitting the gym or your workshop to be stronger is good, but resting well makes you stronger too.” She didn’t fight him on that. “Were you a good student?” she asked. He smiled and shook his head.“Was Imp?”
He didn’t manage to stop himself from an abrupt laugh. “But she speaks Latin! And French! And reads classics!”⊙
“She called in all the troops when it was done.” “Did you run into him? Talk to him?” “No,” Brian said. “I was unnerved enough walking into the building. I worried he’d forced her to call and lie. I… won’t get into the details.” “I have cameras everywhere. I see stuff, I accessed databases with crime scene photos. We got chopped up by Cradle. That stuff doesn’t bother me.”“It should.”
Lookout, sitting on the cot with her back to the wall, legs and arms wrapped around the pillow, just gave him a shrug. “I don’t think I want to make that dynamic worse. So I still won’t share the details.” “Heartbreaker slit his own throat after Imp tormented him for long enough. Everyone freaked out.” “I… let’s skip that part.” “Sure. I’m good at skipping parts.” “I met them then. Heartbreaker dying upset the women, but the kids were calm, up until we surrounded them, trying to corral thesituation.”
The door rattled. He twisted around, looking through the window. “Visitors,” he told her. He saw her tense. Her eye contact broke, and he could see her eyes start to dart around. The eye movements Tattletale had mentioned.“Are we okay?”
“I don’t know,” Lookout told him. He reached up and opened the door, before dismissing some of thedarkness.
Aiden and Darlene.
“Oh,” Lookout said, shrinking down to hide a bit behind the pillowshe held.
Darlene told her, “Your other team’s coming. They’re getting all the teams together. We wanted to talk before you left, if you’re leaving.”“I… okay.”
“Remember the freaky dream one of us had?” Aiden asked. “Don’t,” Darlene nudged him, indicating Brian. “I remember,” Lookout said. “Nightmare.” “After, we thought we had to meet, in case it became too hard to do it after,” Aiden said. “This is the same idea,” Darlene said. “What I did was worse than have a bad dream and freak everyone out,” Lookout said. “A _lot_ worse,” Darlene told her. Aiden took hold of her arm totug her back a bit.
“A lot worse,” Lookout said, quiet. “You scared Candy a lot. You scared _all_ the Heartbroken. We invited you in and you threatened us,” Darlene accused her.“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” Aiden asked. “Are you actually sorry? You said you can’t help it. Is that still true?” “I don’t know,” Lookout answered. “If we told you you’re off the team, would you freak out?” Aidenasked.
Lookout cringed, hearing that. “Yes? No?” Darlene asked. “I don’t know. Probably. I try but… I feel like with Tristan, with everything else that’s happening, I might _need_ to freak out. I need to get to my workshop, I need to work. The world’s ending. There’s barely any time.” Aiden leaned back at that, his posture weakening a bit. “What if you had to choose?” Darlene asked. “I don’t know. I really don’t.” “Oh,” Aiden said. “I… thought this might be easier.” “I don’t want to lie,” Lookout told the pair. “Um,” Aiden said, he looked down at Brian, and then latched on there, like he was looking for something that was easier to fixate on. He held up a hand with a small bird in it. “My bird tried to fly through the dark and bumped into a wall.” “Is it okay?” Lookout asked. “I’m- I’m going to go take care of it. It’s not bad,” Aiden said. He glanced back at Lookout, then stepped back into the dark, feeling his way back to the main room. Brian watched Lookout’s expression change as Aiden disappeared intothe dark.
Darlene faced down Lookout.“I’m sorry.”
“You hurt the Chicken’s feelings.”“I’m sorry.”
“All of us are messed up, you know. Chastity, Roman, Juliette, Amias, Aroa, Nicholas, Cherie, Jean Paul, Candy, even the unpowered. There are twenty of us and all of us go too far sometimes.”“Yeah.”
“I scared you, the last time you hurt the Chicken. I’m trying to do better. I’m trying _really, really_ hard right now.”“I’m sorry.”
“The thing about us… we’re family, before and after everything else. Roman and Juliette hate each other but they consider each other brother and sister. That’ll be true until the world ends or one of them dies.”Lookout nodded.
“I think we have rules like that, that we don’t and won’t break. Family being one. You’re… part of this family,Kenzie.”
Lookout looked up, startled. “You’re… similar to us in ways. So you’re part of this family, until you decide you don’t want to be. So maybe after today, you won’t be one of us.”“But-!”
“Don’t! Speak!” Darlene raised her voice. The echo of her voice joined Lookout’s. Brian rose partially to his feet. “Don’t argue.” The sound reverberated, hollow. Lookout fell silent. “We protect each other,” Darlene said. “I will give my life if it saves Chicken Little. My hand still hurts from where I broke stuff fighting that red assassin guy, every day.” She was rambling a bit, her voice wild, emotional. “My… Candy will forgive you, you know.” Brian could see the hope in Lookout’s eyes. “And I can’t let her. That’s how I protect her. Not if I can’t trust you. And I don’t trust you like this. Which means you’re not family anymore.” Lookout hugged the pillow tighter, burying the lower half of her facein it.
“I planned that better in my head,” Darlene said. “I said everything I wanted to say, just not in the right order.” “You did okay,” Lookout said, her voice small. “I hope so,” Darlene said, staring at the girl for a few seconds, before ducking her head and walking into the darkness.⊙
He was leaning against a wall, arms folded, watching Lookout lying on her side on the cot, her back to him. He felt small leaps of fear on seeing every small movement, but each was a fraction smaller than thelast.
A commotion in the other hallway came distorted through the smoke, drawing his attention. Voices overlapped. Tattletale felt her way through the smoke, one hand on the wall, approaching. She entered the room. Without speaking, she made a small circular motion with her fingers. He dissipated the smoke, clearing most of the room. She made the gesture again. He made all of the smoke fade. Lookout stirred, raising her head from the pillow. There were damp spots on it, visible for a fleeting second before she flipped it over. The voices, a veritable _crowd_, was audible now.“My team.”
Tattletale nodded.
Lookout stood, and her first step was unsteady, like a leg had gone asleep, or she was that out of sorts. Tattletale let her pass through the door, then gave Brian a _look_. He followed Tattletale into the hallway, then into the main room, with the area sequestered for the workshop. Breakthrough had gathered in the no-man’s land where nobody had been treading earlier. There were others. A boy with a needle on his back. One of the Damsels of Distress, with blade-fingers. Vista, all grown up. Most of the strangers were at the far end of the room, opposite Brian and Tattletale. Imp and the heartbroken were opposite Breakthrough. “How are you?” Victoria asked. “Not great,” Lookout said. “Is it time? You’re doing theplan?”
“We are. Final attack, final play. There’s no time for muchelse.”
“What do you need? I can get my costume, if you want me to go-” “No, Lookout,” Victoria said. “Even to somewhere not dangerous? Like the shard world?” “No need for the costume. Not here, either.” “Haha, what?” Lookout asked. She looked around, then even looked back at Brian, as if seeking an anchor with him, a half smile on herface.
“We talked to Dragon. She’s taking your tech. She can operate it reasonably well.” “My tech? But-” Lookout looked around again. Again, that fleeting manic edge touched her expression. “Part of the deal was that you wouldn’t leave me behind or leave me out.” “A bigger part of the deal was that I would protect Breakthrough.I made promises.”
Lookout clenched her hands. “That’s not fair. That’s notright. No.”
“Yes,” Sveta said. “But… you’re abandoning me too? You’re… that’s it? I’m out? I’m alone?” “No,” Victoria said. “This is the _opposite_ of abandoning you. We’re doing everything, absolutely _everything_ we can to fight for a future where each and every one of us can be together. That means keeping you alive and well. You can’t join in here without ending up in a dark place. You’re too tired, the stakesare too high.”
“You’ll die. You’ll break your promise even if you don’t want to, like Swansong did.” “Trust us. Trust us and we’ll do our all to survive and see you on the other side.” The fists clenched, shaking. Brian felt his heartbeat pick up. The clenching relaxed. His heart rate increased further. Calm was_more_ dangerous.
Lookout turned, heading back to the hallway, back toward the backroom.
“Wish us luck,” Rain called out. There was no response. Victoria sighed. “Fuck.” A second later, Lookout reappeared at the entrance to the hallway. The entire room seemed to tense. “What’s up, Peep?” Imp asked. Lookout raised her hand to her face, toward the bandage, thenhesitated.
Then, after some silent deliberation, she touched her eye, and pried out something that looked like a foot-long nail, with a head as wide across as her iris, and numerous pointed branches extending from it,forking out.
She pulled it free, and then laid it on a desk. She looked at her team, then smiled and told them, “Good luck.” “Thanks, Lookout,” Rain said. “Thanks,” Capricorn echoed. The kid retreated. Brian watched as she went back to the side room. Brian watched as Candy swayed on the spot, then quickly followed, walking down the hall and into the back room. Brian looked at Darlene. There was no objection. No fight. “Where are we at?” Tattletale asked. “What do we need?” “We need… a _lot_ more,” Victoria said. “I don’t know. I went to my sister, but that didn’t work.” “Panacea?” Brian asked. “Why?” “I… she’s strong. But she’s unwilling. Unwell, but she realizes that now. I asked Bitter Pill, Bough’s partner, the healer in Advance Guard, Capricorn Red’s old boyfriend. None have what Amy has. My next line of thought is mind control, force Amy to help, take away culpability, but… that’s skeevy.” “A little bit,” Vista said. “A lot bit,” Victoria echoed. She folded her arms. “We’redesperate.”
“What about Bonesaw?” Brian asked. The room glanced his way. “Gone,” Tattletale said. “I know where she is. Valkyrie was keeping tabs on her. But… she’s unwell,” he said, tensing despite himself. Aisha leaned into him, her arm bumping his elbow. “I’m not so sure,” Victoria said. “I saw… visions, down in the crystal. She held herself back. She seemed _better_.” “I have trouble believing that,” he told her. “I don’t say it lightly,” she said, and her voice was soft, heavy with meaning. “How far away is she?” He hesitated. Old fears stirred. He looked back in the direction of the tinker that had retreated. Given how Victoria had decided to handle this… He thought ofBonesaw.
He decided to trust them. “Far,” he told them. “But doable with a chain of portals.” “There’s a delay between portals appearing. Battery considerations, machine’s overloading a bit,” Vista said. “Then we need to act fast,” Victoria said.PREVIOUS CHAPTER
NEXT CHAPTER Author Wildbow Posted on February 18, 2020February 23, 2020
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Infrared – 19.g
INFRARED – 19.10
PREVIOUS CHAPTER
NEXT CHAPTER “…so they had to tranquilize her,” Chicken Little finished. “I think that’s what it was. Syndicate cut Lookout out of our network after that.” I nodded. I looked over, and I noted the lack of any message or appearance from Imp or Tattletale. Question was: did I trust them? Their judgment call? All we had was Chicken Little’s report that Kenzie had gone for a lie-down, got to talking with Candy, and then got into an agitated conversation with Candy before being frozen, being forced to take pills and then passing
out.
Could we afford to get distracted? “How many pills?” Number Five asked. “I barely remember. I could feel them on her tongue. More than one, but there was a hard edge. One and a half?” “One hundred and forty-seven centimeters of height, seventy-nine pounds. Not injected, which makes it more likely it’s something to help with sleeping. There are four likely possibilities, but with conventional dosages, we can rule out two, unless they weren’t thinking about body weight or they wanted her to overdose.” “Let’s assume they’re not idiots,” I said, though I tensed up a bit, worrying it was a kid that had provided the dose, or Imp, who I wasn’t sure I had the best judgment of. “Two possibilities. Given conventional fifteen and thirty miligram loads for tranquilizers in pill form, accounting for body type…” “Who has insomnia?” Chris asked Chicken Little. “Um. Tattletale. Darlene too, she wakes up with nightmares a lot, scares the crap out of the rest of us if she forgets to disconnect from us when she falls asleep. But Darlene doesn’t take anything for it. She hates the feeling of being drugged.” “Tattletale wouldn’t want to be confused all day,” Chris told Number Five. “Not triazolam.” Number Five nodded. “Mmm. They gave her a lower dose than they had to, even accounting for body weight. She’ll be out for one and a half to two hours and fifteen minutes, not accounting forfatigue.”
“She doesn’t sleep enough. I bet Tattletale thought that if she could get Lookout sleeping, she’d stay that way,” Chris said. “She’ll be groggy but alert-ish and wanting to throw herself into things as soon as she’s awake. Chuck in some drug interactions on powers, she’ll be wonky in more ways than one.” “How long do we have before _that_ comes to pass?” I asked, indicating the wall, which was now showing random scenes of Contessa handling drugs and syringes. “Not two hours and fifteen minutes,” Rain said. “Okay,” I said. “That’s a problem.” “Long shot,” Byron observed. “Maybe you should start by explaining your plan,” Sveta said. “You want to communicate with the Titan?” “No,” I said. “I want to communicate with the person inside the Titan. We’ve been going about this entire thing all wrong.” “I could have told you that,” Chris said. “You _did_ tell us that,” I told him. “They’re stronger than us, we can’t win a fight like this, it’s all stacked againstus.”
“Look at that,” Chris said. “You went to go pick up Chicken Little, and you came back with Chicken Little and a brain.” “Shut up, Chris,” Sveta told him. “Where is this line of thought going, Victoria?” “In my old sparring matches with my uncle Neil, before I had powers, and even after, he taught me how to fight someone bigger and stronger than you. If you’re fighting someone like Ashley, like Swansong, you can’t take what she’s dishing out, so what do you do?” “Pray,” Rain said. “You get out of the way,” Chris said. “Exactly. You get out of the way. These guys, they’re precogs. They aren’t dishing out punches or blasts that shred spacetime to disintegrate everything in their paths. They’re dishing out _destiny.”_ “You want to get out of the way of destiny?” Rain asked. “One of my plans,” Chris muttered. “I was ready to go, but that went to hell.” I shook my head. “Not getting out of the way, exactly, because there’s another component to fighting enemies bigger and stronger than you are. I even used this against Titan Oberon. Use their strength against them. If they swing for you, help them move in the direction of the swing, and they stumble. It’s a principle in Judo, and other grappling martial arts, to use your enemy’s momentumagainst them.”
“You want to seize destiny… and help it along?” Rain clarifiedhis question.
“Yes.”
“Is it too late to rescind the ‘came back with a brain’ statement?” Chris asked. “Let’s assume they have clear goals. The Simurgh wants… _that_. Whatever that was. Humanity under her sway, her with Titans, Endbringers, and an army of capes brought back from the dead to protect her. Titan Fortuna wants to bring about the end of our world so their species can try their hand at replicating. Both have similar endpoints. But those are just that. Endpoints. What happens after the end?” “The world is enslaved, or the world blows up,” Byron said.“Immediately?”
“The slavery, it seems like. The world blowing up… don’tknow.”
The scenes played on the walls around us as we talked about them. By the time Byron was done talking, there was one scene on one wall, and another on the other. Cracks spreading, the entire world turned to crystal, and the entire world with their heads in their hands. “It takes a short while to roll out when initiated,” Number Five said, pointing. “Forty minutes.” “Then that’s our goal and our window of opportunity,” I said. “Titan Fortuna wins, she pushes the world to the brink.” “And we push it back?” Rain asked. “Let’s hope,” I told him. “We need to talk to the person inside the Titan to figure out if there’s room to negotiate. It’s possible she might not need to eat or drink, but she has other stressors. _That_ fuckery with the Simurgh- sorry, Chicken.” “Imp swears more than that.” “It’s a stressor for the Titan,” I said. “Which means maybe there’s room to steer this, or maybe she’s so focused on her end goal that she can’t see what lies beyond it, but a lot of that depends on talking to the person, and that means we need to accessKenzie’s tech.”
“Which isn’t doable,” Rain said. “I really, really hope she’s okay,” I said. I looked back at Chicken Little. “Thanks for the info. Tell us if anythingchanges?”
“Yeah. For right now, I’ll get her stuff,” he said, quiet. “I’ve got a sheet of instructions.” “I’ll help,” Chris said. “Be nice,” I told him. “I’m a tinker,” Chris said. “I might be able to warn him about stuff he could mess up.” “I can’t believe you hid that from us,” Rain said. Chris only shrugged, loping over to the box with an apelike body and mostly ordinary head. “Can we do this?” Rain asked. “Because I’m hearing all of this and my head is spinning.” “Oh good,” Chicken Little said. “It’s not just me.” Rain put out his hand, and Chicken Little gave him a high five, before crouching down by the box and straightening out the folded piece of paper he’d been given. “The _mountain_ of a crisis we’re trying to overcome here is deserving of head spinning,” I said. “It’s scary, it’s big. I don’t disagree with you two.” “I’d rather go with _my_ plans,” Chris muttered. “Which are?” Sveta asked. “Not doable, anymore. So let’s do this instead.” “Let’s say we can get to this window of opportunity you’re talking about,” Sveta said. “What do we do then? You wantedthem to stumble?”
“That’s the basic idea. And for that, we need… somethingbig.”
“Big in what sense?” “Big in the messy sense. In the… blood, guts, altering _our_machinery sense.”
Sveta stared at me. Behind her, Rain and Byron exchanged a look. Sveta’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t mean Chris.”I shook my head.
“What happened out there, between the time you left and the time you caught up with us again.” “I found Chicken, and I saw some things in the crystals that helped clarify things. The pieces to a puzzle I didn’t know I was trying to solve. I feel… I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I feel like you seemed to feel after you got your body.” “We went to a spot where I saw… someone who was important to me once,” Chicken Little said. “Someone who looked like her mom, and some older guy, and a teenager.” “My first instinct is to ask if master-stranger protocols are in order,” she said, and her voice was quieter than it had been. “You were worried about keywords or implanted phrases… and we never technically rescinded that, did we?” “Nothing to do with my sister. My mom, my uncle Neil, and Dean.” “But you want to go to her, and collaborate?” “She’s the scariest damn person in the world-” “Still?” Sveta asked. “Still,” I said, my expression like stone. “If it comes down to pointing her at the monsters we’re trying to stop, then that’swhat we do.”
“Let’s get packed up,” Sveta said, not taking her eyes off me. “While we’re heading out, we can catch Victoria up what we were able to figure out while she was gone. we’ll see who we can convince without getting imprisoned or locked up by the Wardens.”⊙
Our arrival at Cauldron saw a bit of a splitting up of our group. Imp was sitting on the stairs, wearing her black bodysuit and gray mask, a black scarf wrapped around her neck, and a leather jacket for the added warmth. Aiden ran over to her to ask questions, then ran back to Chris, who was carrying Kenzie’s tech. There were others present too. Jessica. My mom. Aunt Sarah. I veered in Imp’s direction, before she could disappear on us. I flew to get there faster, landing on stairs. “Hey,” Imp said. “There was a whole thing.”“I know.”
“We thought you might. Darlene said she was connected to theChicken.”
“What happened?” I asked. Imp shook her head. “Capricorn dying, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She confessed feelings for Candy, apparently, and didn’t take being turned down well. There’s more to it, but Tattletale told me to let her share that, when you come up. She thinks I’ll be undiplomatic or some bullcrap like that.” I sighed, heavy. “Did you talk to Jessica, over there?” “She came by. Talked with Tattletale.” “Okay. Okay, I’ve got… I’ve got stuff to figure out, she’s going to be unconscious for another forty-five minutes minimum?” “Tattletale figured an hour to two hours.” “The Number Boy estimated lower, but okay.” “Okay,” Imp said. Aiden and Chris caught up with us. Chris still carried the tech. I gave him the side-eye. He growled, “I’ll carry it up. After seeing you manhandle that gun, I have to. My tinker pride can’t endure anything else.” “Will we catch up with you after? Do we meet up?” I asked. “No. I don’t know. I have to check on my giants. I told them to rest after the big retreat.”I nodded.
“We might need them, depending,” he said, his back to me as he started trudging up stairs, already leaving. “I’ll fill themin.”
“I can do that after.” _I’d rather do that, than have you give them the wrong impressions_. “I’ll do it,” he said, more firmly.I relented.
It wasn’t worth fighting, and Chris was too… problematic. One didn’t poke a bear, and he was an especially surly bear. Already, I was conserving my energy, preparing. The breath I took felt like a full lungful of air, still. “Thanks for the help, Chicken Little,” I said, as Chicken followed Chris. “Really.” “Sure. Happy to.”Good kid.
Fuck me, was I worried about Kenzie. I was worried about Byron. I was worried about Sveta. Even Rain looked dog tired, his nice new costume caked with mud and dust. I felt a pang of guilt, seeing them greet Jessica. I’d wanted to protect them. I’d failed. Two dead, one imprisoned, and if I counted Rain, the only reason he wasn’t in prison as well was that the prison had been attacked. It took more willpower to approach that dynamic than it had taken for me to hurl myself into physical contact with Titan Skadi. I floated over the railing of the stairwell and down. “…would really advise contacting your mother. If you wait, she may see it as a betrayal.” “I know,” Byron said. “A part of me was hoping for a magic solution. Kenzie was saying she might have ideas, but then she went silent. We just heard…” “Yes,” Jessica said. “I talked to Tattletale.” “Yeah,” Byron said. “Focus on your family for right now. Kenzie is resting, but even if she were awake, I don’t think there would be much you could sayor do.”
“I’ll contact my mom next. It won’t be easy.” “Do you want help? We could talk about how to go about it,”Jessica said.
“That would be appreciated,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she told him. “For Rain, Sveta, and Victoria as well. You must be so anxious about Byron andKenzie.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That it happened.” “All of this was a long time in the making. It’s unfortunate it came to a head today, but… it’s understandable. Everyone is frightened, and she’s young. Battlefields don’t make goodtherapy couches.”
It felt like a condemnation. “This world of ours doesn’t let children off easy,” my mother said. “Sometimes you can’t avoid the battlefield. Life goes on, life gets hard, and we have to live it regardless.” I expected Jessica to say something to that, a rebuttal like one of the ones she’d given me, when I’d argued about cape society versus her ideal world for capes, but instead, she was silent. “I want to avoid this battlefield,” I filled in the silence. “Circumvent it. It’s part of why I wanted to talk to mysister.”
“We were discussing that while we waited,” my mother said, lookingover at Jessica.
“Darnall has been talking to Amelia Lavere,” Jessica said, and her tone of voice had changed from compassion to something more guarded and measured. “It’s been hours, with breaks for Darnall and Amelia to rest and eat. Wayne needed to take a break to check on other patients in crisis. I wouldn’t expect miracles.” “I’m not looking for miracles,” I told her. “I’m not _expecting_ miracles. But… I guess this is a hail mary. A long shot attempt at trying to get the stars to align, make somethinghappen.”
Rain snorted. I looked at him, but his mask covered his face, and I couldn’t read his expression or guess about the nature of the snort. “Can I talk to her?” I asked. “It’s kind of critically important. You know it would have to be, for me to even ask.” “I don’t-” Jessica started. “We can ask,” my mother said. “I don’t think it would be good for anyone involved,” Jessica said. “Not Victoria, and not Amelia.” “I’m not expecting it to be,” I told her. “Not for either of us. But there are billions or trillions of other lives out there, who die if this planet isn’t in one piece. I just have to _ask_, get answers. To avoid putting a hundred kids like Kenzie on battlefields, avoid a losing fight.” “Thousands more deaths,” Byron said, from the sidelines.I nodded, somber.
Jessica didn’t give me my answer. Or she already had. My mother, though, told me, “She’s downstairs. I can show youthe way.”
I nodded.
“I’ll stick up here,” Byron said. “Talk about this phone call I gotta make.” “I can’t imagine this will take long,” I told him. “But if there’s anything you need me to do, I’ll do what I can.” “I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do. Gotta face the music,” he said. His helmet was under one arm, his expression was… it made him look a _lot_ younger than he was. I was used to viewing Tristan and Byron as veteran capes, with years under their belt, and more than enough hardship giving them a measure of grit. And here, Byron was a boy who wasn’t old enough to vote, preparing to tell his mom that his brother was dead. He looked _scared_. Rain laid a hand on his upper arm. “Do you need me?” Sveta asked me. I thought about saying yes, but… she’d known Tristan. She and he had bonded, over their fan-worship of Weld. “No. You do this.” She nodded, but she looked wary. She glanced back at the Number Boy. Nobody here was sure about what they were doing. Fuck. What the hell were we doing? If we saw another battlefield, if we saw _that_ battlefield, that the Simurgh had been on, I wasn’t sure our minds wouldn’t shatter into a million pieces before she even screamed. “The elevator is this way,” my mother said. I followed her. Aunt Sarah floated along, and I took to the air, floating at a similar height, feet a few inches above the ground. The elevator was beneath the big set of stairs that led from the lobby to the upper floors. Sveta had covered the general layout when we’d been looking into raiding Teacher’s headquarters. She’d studied the entire structure when the Irregulars had been planning the attack. We headed toward the dungeon. The cells. Where thousands of lives had been stolen away and kept. The elevator box was large enough to fit a car in, but we were the only occupants. It jolted and then began descending. If it had been the size of an ordinary elevator, the ceiling would have hit my head before I remembered I needed to fly down. I shifted orientation, lying against the ceiling so my back was flat against it, and I pulled out my phone. I navigated to Vista, and I sent her a quick message.Busy fighting.
I told her to check in with Byron regardless. He’d probably needit.
I looked down at my mom from above as the elevator, then descended, moving down a bit faster than the elevator did, to return to ordinaryheight.
“You’re planning-” my mother started. But I put my arms around her, hugging her from the side. She was hesitant, but she returned the hug. “What’s this about?” she asked. “I love you. I saw stuff in the crystal, I felt the need toreaffirm that.”
“This feels like a goodbye,” she told me.“It’s not.”
I broke the hug as the elevator came to a stop. “Would you mind if I leaned on you?” my mother asked me. “I’m still unsteady.” I floated down until my two feet, now uninjured, were on the ground. She leaned on me. We walked down the hall, and we rounded a corner. These weren’t the cells where the prisoners had been held captive, but it was close. The ceiling was high, supported by pillars, and the rooms were solid and blocked off, in much the same way the apartments on the upper floors were. The difference was that each structure was its own building, contained within one floor of a larger building. It wasn’t warm in the slightest, owing in large part to the spacing of the lighting. It made me think this was a defensive position, and some of the evidence of cleanup efforts told me Iwasn’t wrong.
I felt trepidation. I’d made internal resolutions and I wasn’t sure I’d abandoned them. Wayne was sitting outside one building. He stood as he saw us. Aunt Sarah took over supporting my mom. I flew over. The building he was beside- she was in there. Not quite a cell, but… a solid concrete structure paneled in white tile, reinforced doors and windows… it wasn’t _not_ like a cell. “Thank you for doing this,” I told him. “There are ten different things wrong with this,” he said. “Conflict of interest, the timing, the seriousness of it…” “Were you able to talk to her?”He nodded.
“Can _I_ talk to her?” I asked him. “Is it a good idea?” he asked. “It might be a _necessary_ idea,” I said, but even as I voiced the thought, I was aware of contradictions. “You wanted this, and the fact you wanted this was a good part of the reason I accepted. Jessica agreed. _Someone_ needed to talk to her. Pulling her away from therapy, after that?” I couldn’t disagree. That was the hellish contradiction here. If I was going to use her, then I was asking her to abandon therapy, and I had already resolved to kill her if she did just that. And that didn’t even touch on what Chris had told me about. “Isn’t it better to leave this alone?” Darnall asked. My heart was pounding. I _wanted_ to say yes. I wasn’t even sure if I could have explained my full rationale for saying no, or if I could have explained my plan. I was going to have to, I knew. I was mentally preparing for the Wardens to admit they didn’t have an idea. Then I’d tell them I wanted to skip ahead to where our opponents _won_ and use their momentum against them, and hope the Wardens wereon board.
It was all I could think of, but we didn’t even have the initial elements we needed to make it happen. “Can’t,” I said.The door squeaked.
I wasn’t the only one who tensed. Darnall, my mom, my aunt. She stood with her body leaning against the door, wearing the same clothes that had been issues to the refugees that had been moved into this building. Plain, simple. Her hair was tied into a loose ponytail, her arms exposed, those damned tattoos showing. The way she stood, her back was to me. She could, I imagine, see Darnall out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t recommend this,” Darnall said. “You were just telling me I need to develop my listening skills,”she replied.
“That was not an invitation to not listen.” I exhaled, and the exhale came with a shudder. I really couldn’t think of better ways. There was a bit more peace at the end of that exhalation and shudder than there might otherwise have been. “Dove into the architecture of powers, a bit ago,” I said, raising my voice to be heard. “We got some insights, got some clarity. The world’s due to end in two hours.” “That simplifies things, doesn’t it?” Amy asked. I wasn’t sure how to respond to her. On a level, her talking made my brain flinch away, made me feel stupid. How much of me had wanted to do this just to prove to myself I was stronger, that the revelation back there had meant something when it came to Amy? Had I blocked off thinking about other avenues out of a desire to inflict _this_ on myself? “I saw scenes from our childhood. Stuff to do with mom, Uncle Neil, and Dean. You were there.” “Fucking up?” she asked. “Nah,” I said. “Just there. Talking about Roaraxia andfantasy books.”
“The talk,” Amy said. Still without turning around. Dot crawled up Amy and perched on her shoulder, sitting backwards so she could watch me. Wearing purple overalls with no shirt. “Yeah. The talk. I’d mostly forgotten.” “I didn’t. I couldn’t pick up another book in the Roar series without thinking about mom getting on my case in front of everyone. Amy with no friends, no hobbies, she’s _small_.” I looked at my mom. My mom was frowning. “Thanks for doing this. Talking to the therapist,” I said. I avoided using his name, so the conflict of interest wouldn’t be so jarringly obvious a conflict. If he hadn’t told her he’d seen me, I wouldn’t provide the missing piece of information. “You don’t need to do this,” Amy said.“Do what?”
“Talk to me, like it’s you fulfilling your end of the deal. Don’t worry. I’ll keep my appointments, I’ll talk about my feelings, I’ll-” “The world’s ending, Amy,” I told her. “Two hours. You could sit down to watch some movies and the world would end beforeyou’re done.”
“People will save it.” “Multiple precogs are locked into that end result. Titan Fortuna, the Simurgh. It seems pretty inevitable at this point.” The door creaked as she stopped leaning against it. She turned to face me. I didn’t look directly at her, instead staring down the long aisle or ‘street’ that ran between the solid buildings on this level of Cauldron’s dungeon. “You really believe that,” she said.“I know it.”
“No. That’s… no. I refuse to believe that.” “We could use some raw power. Talking to you, like this, it’sscary, but-”
“I’m not-”
She didn’t finish the sentence, but I could tell how tense she was. “But I thought I’d bite the bullet. See if you were willing. I can’t think of any others who really fit the bill for what we want, who are still around. Lab Rat said you understood a lot of what was happening before others did. Both times the world ended. As scary as it is to do this… we could use insight. We could use your power. We’re trying to stop a greater lifeform’s life cycle.You shape life.”
“My power stops where the passengers begin,” she said. “Youknow that.”
“We’ve figured out ways to tweak powers. I’ve altered mine. Depending on what you were willing to do, we could alter yours.” “And the last time I broke rules I created Khepri. She played a big part in stopping the last end of the world. But things aredifferent now.”
Khepri. The words were intimidating to hear, especially spoken sofrankly.
“You said things are different now. Different how?” I asked. “The last time, I thought I’d done something unforgivable and irrevocable. I ruined you. It’s… freeing, you know? To hit rock bottom. To lose everything. I was in the deepest, darkest pit on earth, surrounded by monsters, in what a lot of people would call hell. It gives you courage, to know that there’s nothing you could do that would be worse than what’s already happened.” “Amy,” I said. “What you did _was_ unforgivable andirrevocable.”
She shook her head.
“You… I live with what happened to me _every minute of every day. _I slept with a guy yesterday morning, and you’d _better_ believe it impacted every second of that experience.” “You’re just saying that to hurt me.” “A bit, _yeah_!” I told her. “But more importantly, that’s… nothing’s changed from back then. Whatever courage or bullshit you’re saying is linked to you being at rock bottom… _fucking_ hello, Amy, you’re in a dungeon in a strange Earth, and the world’s about to end! Where the hell do you think you are?” “Is this productive?” Darnall asked. “She’s at-” I turned. “You’re at fucking rock bottom, Amy! In that vision I saw us being _friends_. I saw us happy we might be in the same art class together. I loved that girl who retreated into books and hated ninety percent of middle school and high school, but stuck her chin out and _did_ stuff because she was brave. We lost that and that’s a fucking _tragedy_. And I am sorry, I really am, for the parts I played in that tragedy unfolding. But don’t pretend that _what you did_ -a set of choices _you_ made- isn’t something that I’m going to be carrying until the world ends in two fucking hours!” “I’m not pretending. But it’s still different now,” she said. “I made all these resolutions, I told myself I’d use what I figured out about passengers to help save the world, if only I could get out of the Birdcage. I put everything on the line. I thought that was it. I was convinced you were dead. And then Khepri drops you off, a few feet in front of me.” I was still breathing hard from shouting. I watched her, her eyes onher feet.
“I _could_ fix things,” she told me, and her eyes met mine. “Erase your memory, alter your emotions. Whatever happened to your body, I could alter it. Change it back.” “Like you fixed Hunter?” I asked her, my throat tight, a feeling like if I swallowed wrong bile might rise in my throat. “I was getting to that,” she said. “Please get to that, then,” I told her. “After I fixed you, the Wardens were protective of me, watching me, I was on my own for the first time ever, even if I did talk to Carol and Mark. But… always with an awareness that I had the absolute power to fix my situation. I don’t think, um, that there’s anyone out there who wouldn’t break down, if they were that alone and that all-powerful.” “I can think of a few names,” I told her. “I was on a long, slow path to getting _nothing_, before, and then every fuckup gave me everything except the one thing I didn’t realize I needed. I _needed _rock bottom, I told myself I wanted other things, but I _needed _the safety of having nothing left to lose. Instead, I got Goddess, and then I got Shin. A nation of my own. My parents with me. You came to me.” I pulled off the bandages at my hand, and I held it up. Fingernail still missing, nail bed still raw. “Yeah,” she said. “I fixed you, then hid the fix. I changed your emotions, you know. To flirt with the idea of it.” I felt like my body couldn’t generate warmth. Something inside of me dying from the wrenching cold. I couldn’t let her see me flinch. “I fucked up Hunter,” she told me. She looked genuinely sad as she stroked Dot, who had settled into her arms. “I promised myself I’d fix her, and it would be my first step. I couldn’t. That’s when I realized about the rock bottom.” I shook my head. My volume wasn’t enough that I was sure she would hear. “I don’t see how what you did to me couldn’t be your rock bottom. You’re telling me _you_ got over it?” “My dad likes his personal rules and I think I operate the same way. I could say _that_? What happened to you? Never again. Until it became clear that _that_ was reversible. I reversed it, on the eve of Gold Morning. It wouldn’t have even been hard to go further. I could have changed the minds of everyone in our family, everyone we knew. I care, it… crushes me. I have nightmares about it. But…”I looked away.
“I hurt Hunter. I changed her personality without meaning to and then I let her become a Titan. I couldn’t fix it. I feel clarity again, like I did in the Birdcage. I… don’t think I could bring myself to use my power on you again. Old guilt is mixing with new guilt, and I… don’t feel like it’s all reversible. I don’t feel omnipotent. I know I hurt you. I feel sick about things that seemed matter-of-fact before.” “All it took was another life ruined?” I asked.“Hunter’s?”
Her posture seemed to crumple at that. I could think of that crumpling in the face of Carol’s withering criticisms. Of struggles in school. I could have done more back then, maybe. Possibly. I relented. I turned so I couldn’t even see her in my peripheralvision.
“Can we count on you?” I asked, and my voice was softer. “Weneed help.”
“No,” she told me. “No?” I echoed her. “I’m going to keep talking to Dr. Darnall as long as he’s willing to listen. Even if it’s only for the next two hours. He was telling me about doctors, nurses and burnout, the effects it can have. Um. He said other stuff, it made sense. I can give you guys information if it helps, I have a good mental picture of how a lot of this fits together. But… I think it might be better if I never use my powers ever again.” “Even to keep that thing you tucked into your bra alive?” I askedher.
There was silence.
I looked at Dr. Darnall, at my mother, at Aunt Sarah, who hung back at the corner, not quite in Amy’s view. “I fed it to Dot after waking up this morning, while Dr. Darnall was getting coffee and breakfast.” I looked over at Amy, staring into her eyes. Had she moved in that instant, or flickered an eye to look at my mom, if she was even in sight, lurking at the corner of a building, or had Amy said a word, I would have used my aura. Full strength, tuned just to include Amy and her pet goblin in its range. I would have explored it and checked to see if it tapped into other feelings. But she didn’t move a hair.And I believed her.
I hated that I believed her, but I believed her. Hated it, because this end result, this particular course of the conversation, with contradictions like me needing her help and me wanting to kill her if she gave up on therapy, or the things I wanted to hear her say, and my unwillingness to believe her if she said those things… This was the only way I could imagine the conversation would have ended where I didn’t kill her before, during, or after the matter of the world ending. Leaving me with a vague plan and none of the pieces or powers I needed to pull it into place.I flew away.
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NEXT CHAPTER Author Wildbow Posted on February 15, 2020February 19, 2020
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Infrared – 19.10
INFRARED – 19.F
PREVIOUS CHAPTER
NEXT CHAPTER “French fry me,” Peep said, though ‘Peep’ was only a name Imp was holding onto for the sake of stubbornness. Candy picked up a french fry from the big bowl at the center of the room. They were cut fat, oily and salty, and still steamed with heat, so she used her fingernails, and held it out in front of Peep’s mouth. “It’s hot, be careful.” Peep moved to bite it, and Candy pulled it back. “Be careful, I said.”
“I _am_.”
“Be careful.”
“I ammmm! Give me that french fry.” “I thought the whole point of us giving you food was so you didn’t get distracted from the tinker stuff,” Chicken Little said. The process of chasing the french fry, which was constantly pulled back before teeth or lips could get it, saw Peep’s head craning all the way back, mouth open, while Candy dangled the french fry above her. There was a camera shutter sound, and smaller cameras around the desk opened up and whirred lightly as they turned to face the screen. Peep typed without using her eyes. “It’s like a baby bird, wanting its food,” Chastity observed. “You feed baby birds like that by puking into their open mouths,” Juliette said. “Interested, Lookout?” “I just want a french fry! They’re so good!” Candy lowered the fry enough that, straining with her whole body to rise out of her seat, Peep could bite off the very end. Aroa, soundless, reached over to the stack of rations, where packets of condiments with faded labels were stored. She found the vinegar and hot sauce, tore them open, her eyes on Peep’s mouth as it openedagain.
Imp reached over, and squeezed the bottoms of the packets. Vinegar and hot sauce squirted out, over the girl’s gloved hands, some dribbling down onto the lower half of her costume. The thirteen year old Heartbroken took a second to digest what had just happened, then set her sights on Peep again, reaching out- Imp stepped into her way. Aroa tried to walk around, and Imp blockedher again.
“What are you _doing_?” Roman asked Aroa. The question prompted Peep to turn her head, mouth closing. Candy reached around to offer the french fry, and Peep took it. “Missed opportunity,” Aroa said. “Ruining your costume, more like,” Candy said. “Maybe you should start by asking Parian how to get that ketchup out.” “That’s hot sauce,” Juliette said. “Oooh, oh,” Darlene said. “I see what you were doing.” “Like I said, missed opportunity,” Aroa replied, before leavingthe room.
“Thanks for the heads up, Roman,” Peep said. This was a process. Imp was making it a habit to sit back and watch some of the Heartbroken, because most of them were very good actors, and could put on a relatively innocent face when others were watching. Every single one of Heartbreaker’s kids, including the unpowered, were tricky to handle in their individual ways. Flor and Nicholas weren’t among this group of ‘graduates’ that were getting more and more slack on their leashes, so to speak. Imp could back off, watch and see how they behaved when they thought nobody was looking, and adjust accordingly. Throw in a few minor embarrassments and Pavlovian lessons… Pavlovian. It made Imp think of Samuel, and how he’d helped her refine her psychological warfare. Shot with a tinker gun. No longer a part of this dynamic. He had been the closest thing she had to a calming, steadying presence. Chastity liked to tease too much, Candy got wrapped up in whatever problem was presented until she made herself sick, and Aiden was too prone to being outnumbered, though he was coming into his own. He’d also been one of the few she could have regular conversations with. She had been doing _this_ a lot since he’d died. Letting them forget she existed, and observing. She couldn’t ever relax, and she was even less able to relax while they were in Teacher’s old headquarters. White walls, floors that had been white that were tracked with gritty melted snow, now, and panels above them that illuminated everything evenly. It was too much like a hospital or lab, garish and antiseptic. She liked the spots where things still hadn’t been repeated from the fights and wars of last week or two years ago, but those spots weren’t kidfriendly.
“You put hot sauce on your fries?” Darlene asked, horrified. Juliette was decorating her paper plate of fries using the same packets that Aroa had been fishing in. “She puts hot sauce on everything,” Roman said. “It’s the only way I can feel anything, with my cold, black heart,” Juliette said, deadpan. “Yeah, don’t think I didn’t see you shaking like a leaf after I saved your life,” Roman said. “You guy should know that’s called eighth grader syndrome.” “That’s a lie,” Juliette said. “And that ‘syndrome’ of yours is from Japanese cartoons, you _embarrassment_.” “What does it mean?” Chicken Little asked. “It’s something you see a lot in middle school,” Roman said. “Kids who convince themselves they’re special or they have powers, or that they’re the coolest people alive.” “We _are_ special,” Chastity said, her voice dry. “We _do_ have powers. We _are_ cool, objectively.” “And yet Julie _still_ manages to make a joke of herself when she pretends to be cooler than all the rest of us,” Roman added. “It’s _cringe_.” “And bringing up terms from cartoons isn’t?” Juliette retorted. “Am I going to have to step in, here?” Imp asked. Nobody responded. “Don’t make me, come on.” Roman bit into a french fry, and was mid-swallow when he froze. Juliette was also frozen, grinning, as Roman made a small cough, eyes trying to widen and failing to. “Urrrrggh,” Imp said, aware they wouldn’t register what she was saying. “If you force me to make a sudden appearance, tell you off, you’re going to be mad at me, you’ll resent me, I’ll have to come up with inventive punishments to make stuff stick…”Such a pain.
“…Come on, guys. Work this out for yourselves,” Imp said, her power still erasing her from their memories as she said it. They didn’t seem to register it. “Ooh, there’s relish,” Chastity said. “You love relish, right, Juliette? Here, I’ll put it directly in your mouth.” “Not what I meant,” Imp said. “Damn it.” Juliette didn’t move, while Roman’s face changed colors. Chastity put the torn relish packet between her ‘cousin’s’ lips,squeezing.
Juliette broke, sputtering and spitting. Roman, too, doubled over, heaving out big, hacking coughs. “You could have taken your win and stopped before I got there,”Chastity noted.
“I’m fine with a mutual loss if it means I get to see him choke,” Juliette replied, before spitting onto the floor. “Maybe we should kick some people out of the room,” Chicken Little said. “It’s rowdy in here. Lookout’s working.” “Gotta speak with more conviction than that, Aiden,” Imp advised. She wondered if it would get through to him. “He’s right. Out,” Darlene said, her response coming after Imp’s comment, as she was dimly aware someone else was talking, and at the same time not registering that Imp was there or what the comment had entailed. “Oh, look, Darlene’s agreeing with Chicken Little,” Aroa said, from the doorway. Her gloves were off and she had a wet spot on her dress where she’d cleaned off the hot sauce. “Big surprise.” “This is supposed to be our temporary office,” Candy said.“Out.”
“We brought the french fries, we’re bored, meet us halfway,” Roman said. “Let us watch.” “Out,” Candy told him, standing up from her seat. “I’m stronger than you. Can you really move me?” “I could with my power.” “Do you know how much trouble you’d get in for that?” he asked. He walked up to her, and his chin came within an inch of touching the bridge of her nose. Some birds around the room got agitated, chirping and cawing. Imp sighed. “You guys…” “Here,” Peep said. Candy took a step back, reached over and took the gun. Peep motioned for her to move closer, and then adjusted Candy’s grip. “Don’t cover up the indents where I put the screws.” “Why?” Candy asked, while taking a two-handed stance, gun pointed at Roman, who didn’t move from where he stood. “Because they serve functions. It’s complicated.” “You could make a gun that doesn’t have that issue.” “I _could_, but doing it this way gives me two percent more output and six percent more transmission range for the data collection in the grip and all I have to do is keep my hands in the right spot while holding it, which is common sense. Don’t block strange holes in agun.”
“Screw holes aren’t that strange.” “Everything is strange when it comes to tinkerings,” Peep said,exasperated.
“Whatever. Everyone who isn’t a member of the Tenders, _out_,” Candy said. “I think she wins,” Chastity said. “Out, out.” “Taking the french fries,” Juliette remarked, picking up the bowl, and picking a few packets of hot sauce while she was at it. “Leave some,” Candy said, turning the gun on Juliette. “Disarm her,” Juliette said, before freezing. Candy, too, froze. Roman stepped forward, reaching for the gun. Darlene jumped up, and put her finger through the trigger guard, alongside Candy’s. They conceded to leave french fries behind. They were such good kids, all of them. As bad as this situation might look from the outside, all of them had come so far in the past four years. Imp couldn’t help but feel a kind of fondness, seeing the situation end without blood drawn or powers used. Even a year ago, this situation would have been drastically different. “The world is ending,” Imp told the group, knowing they wouldn’t register it. But Tattletale had said that there was a chance something might get through, when she talked to someone like this. Past events had suggested it might be true. “You’re all tense. It’s good that you’re not outright murdering each other. Let’sstick to that.”
The thirteen-and-older Heartbroken left the room. All of this had started as a self-imposed obligation, and in a way it was good that it had happened that way. If she hadn’t felt obligated, it would have meant she did it out of goodwill, and she hadn’t felt goodwill when she’d had to rally the Undersiders to hunt down Chastity and the man the girl had dragged off. She hadn’t felt goodwill when she had been woken up at six am on three consecutive nights because Roman had sneaked off and picked fights he couldn’t win. Or when Candy had nearly started a Heartbroken riot by emptying a full box of salt onto everyone’s pizza, because unadulterated enjoyment of _anything_ had sparked her fight or flight reflexes, and yet she had still been very much an eight year old who didn’t want to see others enjoying things she couldn’t. She’d used her power three times before running out of charge, once on Nathan, as Nathan’s third big hit from Candy, once on her big sister Chastity, and once on Valentina. It had effectively ruined pizza night as an ongoing thing, as all three would gag or puke at the smell of the food afterthat. Still did.
Things were better now. “Imp,” Peep announced, raising her voice to be unnecessarily loud, not moving her head while pointing at a screen she couldn’t see. “You have a visitor!” “Who?” Darlene asked. “What?” Imp blinked a few times. It wasn’t Peep’s first time pulling that stunt, but it startled her every time. “That’s Grue,” Roman said. “But-” Imp focused on her power, pushing back against the erasure that her power established at all times. Pushing herself into their awarenessagain.
“-who’s… ah, Imp,” Roman said. “Hi.” “Hi,” Imp said. She looked at Peep, “I’m going to figure outhow you do that.”
“Tinker B.S., as Tattletale puts it,” Peep said. “Are you guys going to kill each other if I leave you alone for five minutes?” Imp asked. “We have the flash gun,” Darlene said. “And birds,” Aiden said, as the birds picked up in volume again. “And birds,” Darlene clarified. “Okay, great. Just… keep it down. Tattletale is napping and we maybe don’t want to remind Rachel about the puppy incident.” Peep ducked her head down, wilting under the memory. “Chin up. She’s gentler than you would think. Give it a bit of time, and if she doesn’t come around, I’ll talk to her, okay?” “Thank you,” Peep said, mollified. Imp gave the kid a pat on the back, then stepped out into the hallway. Parian was there, along with Rachel, Bastard, and Doon. And then there was Brian, or a version of Brian.“Hi,” he said.
Same voice. Same face. He looked uncomfortable in the black leather jacket and jeans he wore. “Hi,” Imp replied. She looked around to check for bystanders, then pulled off her own mask. “You’re not wearing the lame skull face paint anymore. That’s cool. You can always say Valkyrie made you do it, at least.” “That’s my face now,” he said. “This is face paint, coveringit up.”
“Oh.”
“And Valkyrie turned Titan. It’s why I’m here, now,” hesaid.
“This is going swimmingly. Just like I imagined,” Aisha confided in Rachel. “My foot stuck thoroughly in my mouth.” “That happens when you talk as much as you do,” Rachel told her. “Valkyrie sent some of her flock out to find people they used to work with, or to help the Wardens. She wanted some of us, me included, to stick close to her, because we had tools she needed. Now that she’s gone, I was thinking of joining with you guys or theRed Hands.”
“They’re gone,” Parian said. “Broken up.” “I thought it might be that.” “The only reason they stuck around like they did was because of the political marriage of you and Cozen,” Aisha said. “Without that, new city, new dynamic, it couldn’t last.” “We weren’t married,” he said. His eyebrows drew together.“Were we?”
“It’s a figure of speech, big brother,” Aisha said. She took a step forward and took hold of his collar, the zipper digging into her palms. “Why are you talking only business? Where’s the ‘happy to see you’?” “Y-” he started. Again, his eyebrows drew together. “You went and grew up. Your face changed shape.” “Yuh! That does happen!” Aisha said. She looked over at Rachel and Parian. “I’m not crazy right? He’s being weird?” “He died, it’s allowed,” Rachel said. “Big brother, Brian, bro. I’ve been giving you your space, letting you decide when you came to us, and I _kinda_ hoped it would be a week ago, _really_ hoped it would be halfway through this last week when things were quieter. But I can cut you some slack because Rachel’s totally right. You bit it. But you _gotta_ meet me halfway right now, or I’m going to lose my mind.” “Halfway is hard,” he said. “I have holes in my memories, and I feel like my brain held onto the bad, without enough of the good. Some… tough stuff is sticking in there.” “Ah,” Aisha said. She wasn’t sure how to handle that. That was the thing with her and Brian. Their dad had been a hardass and their mom had been an addict who’d thought _Skidmark_ was a neat cape because he was good for a laugh. Their dad had been there to crack down on homework, work ethic, athletics, teaching them to fight, and he’d really taught Brian all of that crap. Aisha had learned from her mom about street smarts, dealing with the shittier side of humanity, and how much you could get away with if you didn’t give a shit. Brian had stuck with their dad because the asshole didn’t know how to raise a girl, so he’d gotten more of _dad_, while Aisha stuck with mom… or learned to survive while mom did her own thing, more like. Between the two parents, Aisha had always imagined that they’d gotten a good overall set of lessons in the ways of the world. But they’d missed out on one key component. “Want a hug?” Aisha asked her brother. She saw him hesitate. “A kiss on the cheek? I can pat your head, Rachel’s told me thatworks wonders.”
He shook his head, and his smile was slight, unsure. “Nothanks.”
“I draw the line at french kisses,” Aisha told him. “Stop,” Parian said, giving Aisha a light push on the shoulder. “He’s saying he’s going through a tough time.” “It’s fine,” Brian said, even though he didn’t look fine. The lack of fine seemed to be more general than because of her. “Aisha’s the same as ever. That’s reassuring in its ownway.”
“I read now. Is that enough to shake your image of me and put me in that comfortable-but-not-too-comfortable territory?” Aisha asked. “It helps,” he said.“Aunt Rachel?”
They looked around. Roman was leaning out of the door into thehallway.
“Oh, Aisha’s there too,” Roman said. “Can Aroa and I go grab more food from the caf?” “You need an escort,” Aisha said. “Someone to keep you in line. You guys have been antsy, and I have a bad feeling.” “I’ll walk them down there,” Rachel said. “I need to feed myanimals.”
“Bring them back here after?” Rachel grunted in the affirmative. “I’m not sure I like that terminology,” Roman said. “That you’ll walk us. Collars and leashes for the Heartbroken?” “Only if you make me,” Rachel said. “But I’ll get youtreats.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Roman said. “Parian?” Aisha asked. “Can you keep an eye on the kids inside? They were harassing the Tenders, and if they wake up Tattletale from her nap, there’ll be hell to pay.” “Yes. Of course.” “Thanks babe. Any word from Foil?” Aisha asked. Parian shook her head. “We talked briefly when we crossed paths. She said she wants space. That’s it.” “Okay. Good luck.” Parian slipped back indoors. Leaving Aisha alone with Brian. It was so hard to _talk_. Again, that issue their parents had left with them. They were so bad at communicating. Their mom had ignored them, their dad had communicated by dragging them to gyms and telling them to turn their aggressions toward punching bags, with tears being deemed weakness. Anything else was their own shit todeal with.
“Aunt Rachel, huh?” he asked, breaking the awkward silence.“Yup.”
“She seems… I thought after a few years of living out in the middle of nowhere on a foreign Earth, she’d cut off contact from humanity entirely.” “Her little settlement grew,” Aisha said. “When it gets to be too much, she goes for a trip somewhere, spends a while with a few select dogs, and trusts her team to look after the dogs she leaves behind at the camp.” “I can’t get over the ‘Aunt Rachel’ part.” “It started as a joke and then became serious.” “Were you a part of that joke?” he asked. She smiled, and she shook her head. “Can’t take credit forit.”
“And that was Romeo. He’s a teenager now.” “Yup. Roman now. Little bastard did something very familiar, recently. Put his life on the line to save someone’s life, in the middle of a class-S threat.” “Like his brother.” “I could’ve killed him if I hadn’t been so proud of him. The jackass. Makes my heart hurt, even now. The kicker? That girl was his sister. Juliette.” “They put each other in the emergency room, I think.” “Yep. They still flirt with the idea of murdering each other, but I think toying with the idea of murder is better than actual attemptedmurder.”
“Can’t separate ’em? Send one somewhere else?” “We do. But they get upset if they miss out. I think that little dude is going to change gears and end up a hero at one point, but don’t let him know I said that. He’s contrarian enough that he’d reverse direction.” “My lips are sealed,” Brian said. Hearing her brother’s voice again was like a balm for the soul that she didn’t know she needed. It was tough, but… Brian had always been tough to handle in his own way. “Want to see the other kids?” she asked. She saw him hesitate. She wanted to grab him again, shake him. She wanted to tell him that there was nothing wrong with saying ‘yes’. But ever since Bonesaw had got her hands on him, he’d been even more distant. She could count the people he’d extended any measure of vulnerability to on one hand, and she wasn’t one of those people. Of the two more important ones, one was gone and the other was dead. “Come on,” she said. “You’re here because you can work with us, and we can work with you, but to do that, you need to know what they’re like and what they can do.” “True,” he said. It made her heart hurt that he needed that excuse to come with. But he was back. It lifted her heart a bit. She reached for the door, and it opened at the same time she touchedit.
It was Candy, who looked up, saw Brian, and shrank back, retreatingfrom the doorway.
“It’s okay,” Aisha said. “You might not remember him.” “I remember Brian,” Candy said. “Was surprised.” She still didn’t come closer, and she stepped back a bit further when Brian approached. “Where were you off to?” “To get you. Parian told me to. Emergency.” Imp strode past Candy, one hand on the girl’s shoulder to steady her and keep her on task as Brian followed. “Come on! Let me try!” Peep’s voice, high and amused. “Maybe you shouldn’t bother him?” Darlene asked. “Ha! I think he’ll be a _little_ more bothered if it turns out I could have done something and I didn’t.” “Maybe,” Darlene said. The voice was Peep’s. Lookout’s. Imp turned the corner and found the girl on her feet, pulling a tinkertech cube with radiatingantennae apart.
“So stupid, I’m so stupid,” Lookout muttered to herself, smiling and shaking her head. “The _one_ time I look away.” “Stop for five seconds,” Parian said, with zero authority. “Pe- Lookout,” Imp cut in. “Hey!” the girl turned, her response eerily like she was greeting a friend she hadn’t seen for a while. She wasn’t wearing her helmet, but the frizz of her hair stuck to her head with light sweat. She had a smile on her face and moist eyes. “Hey, can you tell Parian to leave me alone for five seconds? I made a mistake, and every second counts.” “There’s been a death,” Chicken Little said. He held his mask, and his birds were sticking closer to him. Some stuck close to Kenzie and her now-vacant chair, and she barely seemed aware of them. “Teeny-tiny bit of a death,” Lookout said. “And I’ve been so zeroed-in on things that I didn’t even see it. Not like me, right? Ha ha, and it’s actually kind of important that I missed stuff, because if I’m going to do anything about it, I need to have been tracking the data’s movements through the crystals since fifteen minutes ago.” “You’re a camera tinker, Lookout. What are you planning to do?” Parian asked. “I’m a camera tinker _and_ a box tinker, and if I build a big enough box, if I have the right materials and the right data… emphasis on the _right data_, I might be able to do something. If there’s anything left of him in his brother…” Brother. Aisha looked back at Grue. She looked at the screen, showing Breakthrough looking stricken. People moved out of frame and the cameras didn’t follow them. “What do you need?” Aisha asked. “How much time?” “Time? Haha. I don’t know, _days_? I can skip sleeping, so data doesn’t bleed away. There’s a small chance that all incoming data gets stored in a kind of processing center until it can get sent where it’s going, and since he comes in a big, pre-loaded chunk of data, maybe, five percent chance, or three percentchance…”
“Its Capricorn,” Darlene supplied. “I figured,” Aisha said. “Lookout, How long do you need to confirm if there’s still a bit of him in his brother?” “A tether? Or anything that gives me a starting point? I don’tknow. Minutes?”
“Go. Do that. Darlene, will you help her?” “I can,” Darlene said. “Juliette, clear out. No, stay in the front hall. Stand watch. If Tattletale wakes up or if anyone comes back, fill them in, but let’s keep everyone but Tattletale out of here, so there’s elbow room to work. Chastity?” “Yes?” Chastity asked. She and Juliette stood in the side hallway at the other end of the room, leading to the back offices. “Go to the cafeteria. Tell them there’s a minor crisis, and they should stay put until we get in touch.”Chastity nodded.
“What do I do?” Candy asked. The girl was still shy of Brian, having already slipped away and moved to the far end of the room. Except shy was the wrong word. “Parian, can you make the spare bed in the back office? Candy, you help. Lookout, once you’re done with the first phase, if there’s nothing you need to do _right away_, I want you to think about arest.”
“Mnnph,” Lookout made an unintelligible, distracted sound in thenegative.
“Yes. I know for a fact you didn’t sleep last night, your computers light up like a Christmas tree when you’re tinkering and connecting in remotely.” “I have too much to do.” Lookout went back to her computer, with a handful of boards from the cube. She handed Darlene one board, and then the two girls began moving in near-unison, dismantling the two identical boards with bits plugged into them. Not so different from another Heartbroken meltdown. The difference was that Aisha didn’t know this kid. Not well. “Who is she?” Brian asked. “Lookout. You remember Glory Girl?” “Sure. Antares now.” “Her tinker half-quit her team, joined up with Candy, Darlene, andAiden.”
He nodded, and she could see his paler eyes searching the scene, taking in the individual components. Aiden, Candy, Darlene, Lookout, how they stuck by one another. “I’ve… been to the processing center she talked about, I think,” Brian said, his voice quiet in Aisha’s ear. “I don’t think there are others… and that processing center turned Titan halfan hour ago.”
“Leave it be,” she whispered back. At the same time, she braced for the impact to come. She didn’t know enough about Lookout. How did the girl react when all the chips were down? How would the others react? She remembered the incident with Darlene trying to lynch the kid, and Candy’s self-destructive meltdowns. The work on the boards done, Lookout took one from Darlene, then ran over to the box with the antennae, sliding them in. She reversed course, going to the computer. Her arm moved, and Darlene moved her own arm, already moving the mouse and typing in the seconds it took Lookout to get there and take over. Lookout struck a key with a kind of finality. In the aftermath of that keystroke, there was stillness. “Do we know yet?” Parian asked. She was done setting up the bed, apparently. Candy peered past her. “Searching,” Lookout said. A solid minute passed. There was no progress bar on the computer, only a constantly shifting mess of triangles, circles, squares and diamonds, like a blueprint searching for something to take shape. “The kids are so different,” Brian’s voice was quiet. Aisha looked back over her shoulder at him. “They’re helping. They’re staying quiet.”She nodded.
They were good kids. Another minute passed. Moving slowly, Aisha crossed the room, touching Chicken Little’s shoulder. She pointed him to the corridor near where Juliette was. He retreated to the doorway. She did the same with Darlene. Lookout didn’t even seem to notice. “Are you there?” Lookout asked, and her voice was plaintive.“Hellooo?”
The room they were in was a conference room for what was supposed to be a block of offices for one branch of a larger organization. The central table had been carted out, desks moved in. The small voice was very empty in the wide space. “I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure I can fix this.” The kid typed constantly. Lines of code spread across the screen without rhyme or reason, like cracks crawling their way across abroken windshield.
“Look-”
“No,” Lookout interrupted. “One more minute… please.” “One more minute,” Aisha said.They waited.
One more minute. Lookout periodically typed, her expression shifting between eye-watering stares and frustration. “It’s not your responsibility,” Brian said. “If it’s not mine then whose?” Lookout asked. Her eyes were already large in her head, but they seemed impossibly large now. Moisture clung to them without becoming tears. “I just lost my best friend a week ago. The coolest person I knew. She’s out of reach forever now, except-” She stopped there. Shaking her head as she turned back to the computer screen. She wiped at one eye with the heel of her hand. “It’s been a minute. Do you think maybe you could keep your end of the deal?” Aisha asked. “Take fifteen minutes, lie down in the bed in the back. Just-” She reached for Lookout’s shoulder. The reaction was so sudden that it made her jump, as Lookout sprang to her feet, the computer chair, wheeled with a wide base, tipping over. It crashed to the floor. The kid was all tension. “I’ve got stuff to do,” Lookout said. Her voice was entirely out of sync with her rigid posture, like she was a dog ready to bite. “Sorry.” “I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” Aisha said. “What do you know what I can do?” Lookout asked. “Your team needs you alert and you’re all over the place like this. I don’t want to play the puppy card, but the puppy? Less than twelve hours ago?” Aisha asked. The tension increased, the already small Lookout shrinking down. “You don’t want to make another mistake like that because you’re not thinking straight, and you’re not thinking straight as long as you’re tired,” Aisha said. “My team needs me. I’m indispensable. T- Tristan needs me. I’ve got to find the right data, find a way to bring him back…” “What if you can’t?” “What if I _can_?” the little girl asked, smiling like she’d just made a joke or a witty retort. There was a manic edge to it. Brian spoke up, “Speaking as someone who died…” Lookout looked over and up at him. Even holding her bent-over, half-crouching posture for less than a minute, she looked like the weariness of _hours_ was overcoming her. Her head hung lower, and she breathed harder, back rising and falling. “You died. I readthat, yeah.”
“…I wouldn’t want someone to hurt themselves for my sake. Even if it meant bringing me back.” “What am I supposed to do with that?” Lookout asked. “Would Tristan want you to do this?” Brian asked. “To hurtlike this?”
“I’m not sure if I care what he wants,” she said. “Kenzie,” Candy said. Lookout looked over. “You’ve said before that there were times you felt like you _needed_ to do something, but it wasn’t until later that you realized you were doing the wrong thing.” “How can letting someone die and not doing something about it be the right thing?” Lookout asked. “Sometimes there is no right thing,” Aisha said. “Listen,” Candy said. “Look at this picture. Close your eyes, look through your cameras. Start with that. Can you do thatfor me?”
Lookout retreated, backing away until she was in a corner, as far from everyone else as possible, Candy and Parian in the doorway to her right, Grue and Aisha by the wall to her left. She closed her eyes. “Thank you,” Candy said. “Look at us. Look at this scene from a distance. How many people think you need to take a break?”“…A lot.”
“Can you count them?” Lookout moved her head by small fractions, one bit every few seconds. “No. I can’t keep my thoughts straight. There’s a lot of noise, tinker inspiration.” “A lot of people think you need to take a break. You’re the only one who thinks you need to stay. Is there a possibility we’reright?”
“You’re not- no.”“No?”
“No- I…” Lookout stopped, trailing off. Her eyes roved, studying things that weren’t there. The tension relaxed. There was only defeat. “Darlene and Chicken and I will sit with you.” The kid nodded. “I left tech with my team. They’ll mess it up if they try to pack it up.” “We’ll handle it.” “It’s not that simple, it’s like the screwholes. You guys don’t have any common sense when it comes to tech.” “You can write it down. We’ll bring paper and a pen.” “I can type, if-” “No tech,” Parian said. “You should disconnect for a bit.” “Good idea,” Aisha said. “I’ll explain to your team.” “It’s not that simple.” “Nothing is, Peep,” Aisha told the girl. The girl retreated to the back room. Candy and Darlene followed. Chicken Little hung back. “You okay?” Aisha asked him.He shook his head.
“Spooky stuff,” she said, her voice soft. “A bit. I don’t know what to do.”“I know.”
“Can I go get the tech?” he asked. “Tattletale would kill me if she woke up and heard I sent youout.”
“I know how to handle it, kind of. I knew about the screw holes. Because we’ve helped build stuff and she made stuff for my birds,once.”
“Kid-”
“I want to help but I always feel like a third wheel when I’m standing by someone’s bed. I never know what to say.” “You don’t have to say anything.” “Please. It’s not too bad down there.” “One team dropped a Titan down there, and another might be appearing out of nowhere to stop the teams that are preparing to blow upsections again.”
“I’ve already been down there once. Kind of.” “Chicken…” Aisha shook her head. “Please,” he said. “I want to help her and do something more. I feel like I have to, as leader of my team.” “Tattletale would kill me.” “I’ll take the blame.” Aisha sighed. She looked back at Brian, who didn’t give her any indication one way or the other. “Let’s see if we can open communications with Breakthrough. Fill them in, see if there’s any problems first.” _My brain is hoping they give us a bit of an excuse, while my heart is hoping you can do this for your teammate._ Aiden reached past her to hit keys on the keyboard, rotating windows and bringing up what looked like a webcam panel. This entire thing looked more like magic than technology. Diagrams, loops, text running in every direction across a three dimensionalspace.
“Bringing you online,” he said. “Are you and Darlene connected to her right now?” Aisha asked. “No,” Aiden said. “_Really?_” she pressed him, leaning in closer.“Uh, yeah.”
“Because if you’re actually going there, we can’t have youdistracted.”
“I’m not connected.” The kid was a _terrible_ liar. A box on the desk scanned them with a blue laser. “Bringing you online, I think,” Aiden said. A screen changed to show the Breakthrough group. “And you’re on.” “Whassup!” Imp greeted them. “Hzz pt fffzohh,” Antares’s voice was reduced to gibberish. It took a few exchanges before the voices clarified. The image distorted badly, and the Breakthrough group warped a few times, fingers and faces blurring and stretching out. “Lemme…” Aiden leaned across, typing. “There.” “Thanks, kid,” Imp said, giving him a nod. She faced the camera. “Oh, I thought you were giving me the finger.” “What do you need?” Antares asked. “Lookout is having a lie down…”⊙
Brian was talking with Rachel, Chastity, Juliette, and Roman, crowded into the little coffee break room that they were using as a kitchen while they were parked here. Aisha, a bit overwhelmed, had retreated to use of her power. The other kids were elsewhere, Aroa taking a break to phone her ‘cousins’, Darlene and Candy with Lookout. She observed, studying her brother, and wondered if he seemed more atease with her gone.
Lower expectations, maybe. He’d rubbed at one of his cheekbones and wiped away the makeup that covered up the marking that Valkyrie had given him. He hadn’t realized it, either, and nobody mentioned it. This was all so hard. Her entire team, _her_ subdivision of the broader Undersiders team, at least, consisted of capes who couldn’t fight Titans. The Heartbroken targeted people. Her own power affected humans, and even if she could move around without a Titan realizing she was there, too many of them were dangerous enough that they could kill her without even recognizing her existence. Their best mind and their best set of eyes were out of commission forthe time being.
Darlene, she realized, was in the computer room, with Kenzie’s partially unpacked workshop. How long had that been the case? Just Candy and Peep in the room, now. She crossed the hallway, taking long strides up until she was near Tattletale’s door. She walked quietly past Tattletale’s door even though her power was active. Noise would disturb Tattletale, even if Tattletale didn’t register it or remember it had happened. She checked in on the two girls. They lay on a single cot, sharing a pillow, Little Lookout with herback to the wall.
“…tracking eye movements, duration of eye contact,” Lookout said. “Body temperature, heart rate. My camera kinda gets itall.”
It made some sense that a tinker would be comforted by talking tinkergibberish.
“I don’t know,” Candy said. She drew back a bit. “I _do_ know,” Lookout answered, and her voice was insistent. “So… I think it’s fine.” “How about we have this conversation another time?” “I’d really, really like to finish having it now,” Lookout’stone was insistent.
“Then no,” Candy said. She shifted position and sat up, her backto Lookout.
“What?” Lookout laughed. Down part of a hallway and halfway into the conference room, Darlene looked over in alarm. “But-” “But your cameras know better?” “Kind of! I don’t think this is me being crazy.” “I know what I feel better than your cameras do.” Candy rose from her seat on the edge of the bed, and took a step back. It gave Aisha the first good look at the girl’s face. Aisha used her power, appearing. Both girls stopped, recognizing Aisha was there. Again, that tension. That wild look in Lookout’s eyes. But in Candy’s eyes, there was alarm, panic. It had been a while since Aisha had seen that from Candy. The aftermath of Cradle butchering everyone hadn’t even brought her tothis point.
“What are you talking about?” Aisha asked. “A confession,” Lookout said. She rose to a sitting position. “And Candy isn’t being honest.” “I would like you to take me at my word,” Candy said.“Please.”
“These things are complicated, Lookout,” Aisha said. “There’s history… I think it would be good to let things be. This isn’t the time for distracting things.” “They’re priority things for me,” Lookout said.“Even so.”
“Maybe you didn’t understand, Candy,” Lookout said. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “I like you.”“I understood.”
“You can feel it. You can feel my heart pounding.”“I know.”
“And yours is. And my cameras… they see you, they can read emotional responses in heart rate, temperature, breathing. I know you’ve looked at my face and you liked what you saw and that’s _great_! It’s a _happy _thing!” “Sorry,” Candy said. “No.”“Yes!”
“Lookout,” Aisha said. “Listen, Candy has history, I know you saw some of it… let it be.” “But…” Lookout said. She clenched both fists into balls, so tight her hands trembled. “I don’t like… liking things too much,” Candy said, quiet. “I don’t like anyone liking me too much.” Lookout’s head snapped up, staring at her friend. She took a step forward, and Candy took a step back. Lookout looked like she’d been stabbed, with the way the hurt crossed her face, the smile faltering. “Everyone has a reason,” Lookout said. “It’s always really good reasons, too.” “Yeah,” Aisha said. “Did you ever love someone and scare them away?” Lookout asked. “Because I keep doing that. They keep dying, or leaving me behind, or I scare them off.” “My problem was always the opposite. It’s hard for me to get to the point of liking people. But I really love them once I do.” “It’s so unfair,” Lookout said. “That I can do everything right, I can be a good student and a friend, and a teammate, and… I still end up alone. Always. They die. My best friend died, and there’s still a sorta-copy of her alive in this world and she _hates_ me. And Tristan’s gone, and my team’s away, and I can’t contact them… what do I do?” “I don’t know,” Aisha said. “One thing at a time.” Lookout balled up her fists, again they shook violently. Candy clasped both hands to her heart, taking a step so Aisha was betweenthe two of them.
“I could make you,” Lookout said. Aisha looked back at Candy. “How?” Candy asked. “Blackmail you. Or your team. Everyone here.” Aisha used her power. Lookout backed away two steps, reached under the pillow, and pulled out the gun. She didn’t look at Aisha, but she trained the gun on her. “Reappear!” Lookout ordered her. “Or I blind Candy and you!” Aisha stopped, rematerialized. “Is that really how you want to do this?” Candy asked. “Forcing us. Hurting us?” “I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do!” Lookout raisedher voice.
“Not this,” Candy said. Lookout smiled, tears in her eyes. “Do you know what the longest stretch of good days I had was?” “Your foster dads.” Lookout shook her head. “Guess again. The longest stretch of time where I wasn’t anxious, where I was happy about every day, my heart was light and I was hopeful about tomorrow.” “I don’t know, Kenzie,” Candy said. “It was when I was blackmailing my parents, after Gold Morning. It was when I could at least _pretend_. So… do I have to pretendhere?”
“You’d be ruining everything if you did,” Candy said. “I don’t-” Lookout shook her head. “I don’t know! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!” “You need to rest. You need to stop.” “I… _can’t_.”“You have to.”
“I can’t!”
Darkness flooded into the room, smoke as black as ink. The darkness dissipated almost as soon as it had appeared. Juliette stood opposite Lookout. The two of them promptly froze in place. “Shit,” Tattletale said. She pressed the heel of one hand to her forehead. She held out the other hand for Aisha. Aisha took what was offered. Two pills. “Sleeping pills,” Tattletale said, taking a water bottle from Brian. “Fast acting, for thinker headaches.” Aisha placed the pills on Lookout’s tongue, then took the waterbottle.
Juliette released the kid, and Aisha squeezed the water bottle, forcing pills and water into the back of Lookout’s mouth. The kid coughed, staggered, looked in the direction of her tech, andsaw only darkness.
There was anger on her manic face, her fists clenched, as she remained there on her hands and knees. She was frozen again like that, her expression still. The little mad scientist was _mad_. Aisha fished in her mouth, checking the pills were gone. “Things will be better when you wake up,” Tattletale said. “All of this is fixable.” Gradually, frozen as she was, the tension was released. The girl’s eyes rolled up in the back of her head. Juliette released her, and Lookout collapsed, unconscious. “Or else the world will have ended. Either way,” Tattletale said, with a deep fatigue to her voice.PREVIOUS CHAPTER
NEXT CHAPTER Author Wildbow Posted on February 11, 2020February 16, 2020
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Infrared – 19.f
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* Haven’t read Worm? Read it first here. * New reader? Start with the ‘Glow-worm’ teaser here… * Or start at chapter 1 here* RSS Feed
* Discuss on the Parahumans Subreddit * Review Ward on WFG TABLE OF CONTENTS (ARCS 1-10)* Arc 0 (Glow-worm)
* 0.1
* 0.2
* 0.3
* 0.4
* 0.5
* 0.6
* 0.7
* 0.8
* 0.9
* Arc 1 (Daybreak)
* 1.1
* 1.2
* 1.3
* 1.4
* 1.5
* 1.6
* 1.7
* 1.8
* 1.x (Interlude 1)
* Arc 2 (Flare)
* 2.1
* 2.2
* 2.3
* 2.4
* 2.5
* 2.6
* 2.7
* 2.x (Interlude 2)
* Arc 3 (Glare)
* 3.1
* 3.2
* 3.3
* 3.4
* 3.5
* 3.6
* 3.x (Interlude 3)
* Arc 4 (Shade)
* 4.1
* 4.2
* 4.3
* 4.a (Interlude 4a)* 4.4
* 4.5
* 4.b (Interlude 4b)* 4.6
* 4.7
* 4c (Interlude 4c)
* Arc 5 (Shadow)
* 5.1
* 5.2
* 5.3
* 5.4
* 5.5
* 5.d (Interlude 5d)* 5.6
* 5.7
* 5.8
* 5.9
* 5.10
* 5.11
* 5.12
* 5.x (Interlude 5x) * 5.y (Interlude 5y)* Arc 6 (Pitch)
* 6.1
* 6.2
* 6.3
* 6.4
* 6.5
* 6.6
* 6.7
* 6.8
* 6.9
* Arc 7 (Torch)
* 7.1
* 7.2
* 7.3
* 7.4
* Arc X (Eclipse)
* X.1
* X.2
* X.3
* X.4
* X.5
* X.6
* X.7
* X.8
* Arc 7 (Torch Continued)* 7.5
* 7.6
* 7.7
* 7.8
* 7.9
* 7.10
* 7.x
* 7.y
* Arc 8 (Beacon)
* 8.1
* 8.2
* 8.3
* 8.4
* 8.5
* 8.6
* 8.7
* 8.8
* 8.9
* 8.10
* 8.11
* 8.12
* 8.x (Interlude 1)
* 8.y (Interlude 2)
* Arc 9 (Gleaming)
* 9.1
* 9.2
* 9.3
* 9.4
* 9.5
* 9.6
* 9.7
* 9.x (Interlude 9)
* 9.8
* 9.9
* 9.y (Interlude 9b)* 9.10
* 9.11
* 9.12
* 9.13
* 9.14
* 9.15
* 9.z (Interlude 9c)* 9.i (Interlude 9)
* Arc 10 (Polarize)
* 10.1
* 10.2
* 10.3
* 10.4
* 10.5
* 10.6
* 10.7
* 10.8
* 10.9
* 10.x
* 10.10
* 10.11
* 10.12
* 10.13
* 10.y
* 10.z
TABLE OF CONTENTS (ARCS 11+)* Arc 11 (Blinding)
* 11.1
* 11.2
* 11.3
* 11.a (Sidepiece)
* 11.4
* 11.5
* 11.6
* 11.7
* 11.8
* 11.b (Colt)
* 11.c (Darlene)
* 11.9
* 11.10
* 11.11
* 11.12
* Arc 12 (Heavens)
* 12.z (March)
* 12.1
* 12.2
* 12.e (LL)
* 12.3
* 12.4
* 12.all
* 12.5
* 12.6
* 12.f (Cradle)
* 12.7
* 12.8
* 12.9
* 12.none (Best Dad)* 12.x (Assorted)
* Arc 13 (Black)
* 13.1
* 13.2
* 13.3
* 13.4
* 13.5
* 13.6
* 13.7
* 13.8
* 13.x (Overseer)
* 13.9
* 13.10
* 13.11
* 13.z (Sveta)
* Arc 14 (Breaking)
* 14.1
* 14.2
* 14.3
* 14.4
* 14.5
* 14.6
* 14.7
* 14.8
* 14.9
* 14.10
* 14.11
* 14.12
* 14.z (Armstrong)
* Arc 15 (Dying)
* 15.a (Loved Ones)
* 15.1
* 15.2
* 15.3
* 15.4
* 15.5
* 15.6
* 15.7
* 15.8
* 15.x (The Taught)
* 15.y (The Taught II) * 15.z (The Taught III) * Arc 16 (From Within)* 16.1
* 16.2
* 16.3
* 16.4
* 16.5
* 16.6
* 16.7
* 16.8
* 16.9
* 16.10
* 16.11
* 16.12
* 16.y (Amy)
* 16.z (Red Queen)
* Arc 17 (Sundown)
* 17.1
* 17.2
* 17.3
* 17.4
* 17.5
* 17.6
* 17.7
* 17.8
* 17.9
* 17.10
* 17.x (MM.1)
* 17.y (MM.2)
* 17.z (Assorted)
* Arc 18 (Radiation)* 18.1
* 18.2
* 18.3
* 18.4
* 18.5
* 18.6
* 18.7
* 18.8
* 18.9
* 18.10
* 18.z
* Arc 19 (Infrared)
* 19.1
* 19.2
* 19.a
* 19.3
* 19.4
* 19.b
* 19.c
* 19.5
* 19.6
* 19.d
* 19.e
* 19.7
* 19.8
* 19.9
* 19.f
* 19.10
* 19.g
* 19.z
* Arc 20 (Last)
* 20.1
* 20.2
* 20.3
* 20.4
* 20.5
* 20.6
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