I touched ground and extended the wings, activating the vents for the antigrav at the wing’s tips. It made for a sudden, lurching adjustment, nearly flipping me over to the ground.
Not wanting to waste too much time, I made a beeline for the Undersiders, experimenting as I went. Rather than fly, I used short bursts of the antigrav with kicks of my feet to get some air, landing on the noses and limbs of various Dragon-crafts, so I didn’t have to walk around.
“There she is,” Tattletale said, “And she’s flying.”
I settled on top of a head, swaying for a second as I touched ground and found my center of balance. “Floating, until I get more practice.”
“Close enough,” she said. She flashed a grin. “Fancy.”
They were all present, Parian included. Accord, Citrine and the woman with the water powers were all present. I couldn’t recall her name. Ligeia? She had a costume, now. Or an evening dress, rather, with a conch brooch and mask.
More than Parian, I was surprised that Accord had come.
Flechette, now Foil, stood off to one side. She’d donned a black costume, which I was pretty sure was made of one of my failed attempts at a Tattletale costume, using asymmetrical belts, boots, armor and gloves to cover the areas where I’d tried to embellish. Her mask was an opaque pane, like Clockblocker’s, but black, with silver trim at the edges.
“You’re wearing your old costume,” Grue said, finally.
“Haven’t had a chance to make a new one,” I said.
“No kidding,” Regent said, his tone dry, “Too busy making license plates, dropping the soap…”
“I can’t believe you went and became a hero,” Imp said. “What the fuck? How the fuck do you off a major cape and get invited to the Wards?”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“Are you getting by?” Grue asked.
“Not as well as I’d like,” I said. “But surviving. Are you guys okay, leaving your territory like this?”
“Hey now,” Regent cut in. He stabbed a finger at me. “Aren’t you supposed to read us our rights before questioning us?”
Imp snorted. Grue smacked Regent across the back of the head, a little harder than necessary.
“It’s all good,” Tattletale said. She grinned, “Booby traps, some misdirection, I figure we can afford to be gone for a day. We can look forward to going back home to see some bruised egos. Regent’s dad among them.”
“You’re being safe?” I asked. “I mean, we’ve taken on some monsters, but this is Heartbreaker, and the repercussions of a lost fight are kind of, well, permanent. There’s no undoing his power.”
“Like I said, it’s all good.” Tattletale shrugged.
“You with a team?” Grue asked, “Or with us?”
“No idea. As far as I know, I’m independent,” I said. “I’m not sure what that means, yet, but way I figure it, I’m going to do whatever works best in the moment.”
“Isn’t that how you wound up with us in the first place?” Tattletale asked.
I didn’t have an answer to that, so I shrugged. My eyes followed Foil as she walked over to talk to Jouster. He handed her an arbalest, and a quiver of needle-like bolts.
When she took the quiver, he gripped her wrist, speaking something in a low volume. She nodded as she replied, saying something I couldn’t make out, and he let her go.
Wordless, they parted, him rejoining his team, Foil moving to Parian’s side.
I wanted to say something about that, but what? I didn’t get the vibe she was a double agent, but I imagined there was something more to that.
I turned my attention back to the Undersiders, and my eyes moved to Rachel. She was sitting on the ramp at the back of a craft, her dogs clustered around her. She was stroking Bastard, using her fingernails to get in deeper than the base layer of fur.
Finally a chance to talk, and nothing to say. The silence hurt me more than any accusations or insults.
“I don’t know how to say this gracefully,” I said. I paused, noting the presence of a hero nearby who’d raised a camera towards me. Whatever, I’d say it anyways. “But you guys mean a lot to me. I’m sorry I didn’t say it before, but I couldn’t without letting on that something was going on. You’re my family, in a way. As lame as it might be, I love you guys.”
My head turned from Grue to Rachel to Tattletale as I said it.
“Gaaaaaaayyyyyyy,” Imp drew out the word. Parian and Foil gave her an annoyed look.
I smiled a little, despite myself. “Fuck off.”
“Are you trying to get someone killed?” Regent asked. “That’s totally a death sentence, telling someone you love them, tying up loose ends.”
“She’d be getting herself killed, going by the rules,” Tattletale said.
“Don’t say that,” Grue said, his voice quiet.
With a touch more seriousness, Tattletale said, “No dying, okay, Skitter?”
“Weaver,” I corrected.
“Skitter,” she said. “Here, today, you’re Skitter. Consider it a good luck charm. And no dying. I’ll say it as many times as it takes, until it gets through to you.”
I shook my head a little. “No dying. That goes both ways.”
“Way I see it,” Imp said, “She’s gone soft. Real quick, too, getting affectionate, lovey-dovey.”
“Alternate costume, too,” Regent said, “White, light gray, baby blue…”
“Electric blue,” I said. I was smiling now. I used the flight-pack to slow my descent as I hopped down from the head of the craft. I pitched my voice lower so I wouldn’t be overheard, and poked Regent in the chest. “Fuck you guys. I’m as badass as ever. Recommending drugs to kids, strangling a ten year old, forcing bugs down my allies’ throats…”
“Killing Alexandria,” Regent said.
“Mm,” I said, and I could feel my heart plummet into my stomach. All at once, I was left wondering just how many capes here were secretly blaming me.
“Asshole,” Tattletale told Regent.
I folded my arms, feeling a chill, the summer warmth notwithstanding. “We may pay for that today.”
“I think we’re fucked in general,” Tattletale said. “But no sweat. We’ll-”
She snapped her head around. There was an uncharacteristic emotion as she swore under her breath. “Fuck. He’s up.”
A second later, the ships each spoke in their identical voices, out of sync not because of any flaw in Dragon’s program, but due to their positions across the field, and the delay of sound traveling, a chorus, “Behemoth has surfaced. Return to your craft as soon as possible. Supplies will be provided while we are en route. Individuals on the ground may or may not be left behind.“
“See you on the battlefield,” Grue said.
“See you,” I answered. I felt a tug of worry. I had almost hoped he’d sit this one out. He didn’t tend to do well when it came to facing down the real monsters.
I bit my tongue and started up the flight pack.
“Don’t hold back now,” Regent said. I could see that he was watching the guy who was still training his camera phone on me. Regent turned back to me and extended his arms, injecting fake emotion into his voice, “You know we love you too!”
I kicked off, just barely floating out of reach as he tried to fold me into a hug. “Jackass.”
He was back to his casual, detached attitude in an instant, showing just a touch of swagger as he stepped back to rejoin the others. He gave me a sloppy mock salute. I shifted my ascent and set foot on the head of the craft that had been behind me.
“Just remember,” Tattletale called out, “You’re officially Skitter today. Don’t be a hero. No point to all this shit if you do something brave and get yourself killed.”
“Not sure about that,” I said. “About being Skitter, not the getting killed bit.”
Heroes were rapidly retreating to the craft. I didn’t have long. There was so much I wanted to say, but… shit.
“Rachel,” I said.
She glanced up at me, her eyes almost hidden behind her hair. I could see the hurt in her expression, a raw feeling.
“The letter, it helped. All of the letters meant a lot to me, except Imp’s. But yours especially.”
She grunted in acknowledgement, setting Bastard on the ground, then stood.
“And I’m probably going to get crucified for saying this, but I still consider you a friend. Someday, after all of this has settled down, when you don’t need to be a villain anymore to take care of your dogs, and I’m okay where I’m at, I want to hang out again. Throw the balls for the dogs, clean up dog shit, go for walks. Whatever works.”
“Saying shit like that, you’re signing death warrants!” Regent said, his hands to the side of his head. “Stop it, you lunatic!”
I shook my head, then turned and took flight.
All around me, doors were shutting. If it weren’t for my bug sense, I might have lost track of where Defiant was. So many Dragon-ships, no two quite the same.
I entered, and I could see Defiant standing in front of the monitors, his arms around Dragon’s shoulders. One of them must have acknowledged my presence, because the doors of the craft began shutting behind me as I made my way inside.
Odd as it was, I hadn’t fully parsed that they were together before now.
I approached, quiet, and watched as the drama on the monitors unfolded. The bugs from the field followed me inside, clustering around me.
Behemoth, nearly fifty feet tall, was still standing in the midst of a collapsed building. The structure had no doubt fallen on top of him as he emerged, and the debris was ablaze, casting his gray skin in hues of red and orange. He didn’t seem to care about the building.
Dragon’s A.I. were already attacking him, each from the greatest distance possible. The camera shook, out of sync with the timing of the strikes, as the vibrations took time to travel to the distant cameraman.
Heroes were fighting, contributing pitifully little to the assault. They were too distant to make out.
“Locals?” I asked.
Defiant turned, reacting as if he were surprised I was present. “Yes. Don’t ask me to pronounce their names.”
“Sāhasī Pān̄ca,” Dragon said.
I glanced at her in surprise. “You can talk, all of a sudden?”
There was a pause. “…Little.”
“She felt she needed to be able to communicate,” Defiant said. To her, he said, “And this is the last time we make a last-minute fix.”
“I’m sort of in the dark here,” I said.
Defiant declined to fill me in, staring at the screen. His voice was almost pained as he muttered, “They’re too close.”
One Dragon suit was unleashing what looked like a freeze ray at the Endbringer, while another of the Dragon suits was turning a laser on the ground beneath Behemoth’s broad feet. It wasn’t enough to take away his footing. He set one ‘claw’ -a growth of obsidian-like black shards- onto solid earth, then half-loped, half-hopped forward. With his claws and feet now on firm ground, he leaped. The shockwave of his departure toppled the slipshod buildings around him in his wake.
The landing as he arrived flattened another set of buildings. The heroes started to run. They were too slow, when compared to the length of Behemoth’s legs, the sheer power he was capable of putting into the simple act of walking. One by one, they fell within his kill range. Two were scorched from the inside, a brawny-looking cape seized up with smoke billowing from his corpse as he struck ground, his arms and limbs still twitching in death.
One managed to escape, taking flight. He got a full four city blocks away before Behemoth reached out. He was struck out of the air by a visible arc of lightning that extended from a claw’s tip.
Four A.I. were continually bombarding him now, three using what looked to be freeze-rays. The fourth alternated between destroying his footing and blasting burning buildings flat with some sort of concussive laser-drill, stifling the spread of the fires. Heroes here and there contributed some inaccurate ranged fire, but seemed preoccupied with fleeing.
Behemoth hardly seemed to care about any of it.
Our ship lifted off. Outside, the surroundings were taking on a rosy tint. I could hear the cumulative thrum of the twenty-seven Dragon-craft’s propulsion systems operating in unison. My bugs could track them all, the late arrivals included.
There was a shudder, and the rosy tint of our surroundings intensified, filling the cabin. We started to move, and it wasn’t the ship moving us. Dragon stepped out of Defiant’s embrace to approach the ship controls.
An instant later, the propulsion system kicked into motion, and we were moving far faster than before. The shuddering of the cabin was so intense I had to sit down.
“India’s capes fall into two categories,” Defiant said, not taking his eyes off the screen. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the movement of the craft. “They term their capes ‘hot’ and ‘cold’, with very strict rules on who falls into a category. Walk between the two groups, you get the worst of both. Hot, it’s about flash, color, appeal, and engaging the public. Villain or hero, they’re cape celebrities. Cold, it’s… bloodshed, violence, assassination and secrecy. Capes of the underworld. The public doesn’t see or hear about the cold capes. The media does not speak of them.”
On the screen, Behemoth wasn’t even slowing down. Another arc of lightning lanced across the cityscape, setting a dozen fires. The houses looked shoddy, dirty, and were apparently very flammable. The flames spread quickly, and plumes of smoke were streaming towards the overcast sky.
“The capes that are getting killed, they’re-”
“Garama,” Dragon said. “…Hot.”
“We need the ones with killer instinct,” Defiant said. “The ones who fight for real, not for play. The cold capes.”
“Thanda,” Dragon supplied the translation.
“Question is whether the Thanda think it’s worth breaking the rules and emerging from the shadows,” Defiant said.
“Did last… time,” Dragon said, her words bearing an odd cadence. She approached me, holding an armband and a silver packet.
I accepted them, turning both over in my hands. “Radiation pills?”
She nodded, holding up one finger.
“Take one?”
“Yes,” she said. “Still.”
“Still?” I asked.
But she just touched one side of my face. One finger was under my chin, and I raised it, looking up at her, confused.
She let me go, leaving me momentarily confused. I touched my face where she’d laid her hand and felt two bumps.
A camera?
“Dragon,” Defiant said, before I could ask any questions. “Look.”
She approached his side, her arms wrapping around his armored left arm, metal scraping against metal.
“They’re not supposed to be here,” he commented, his voice low.
I turned my attention to the monitor. “Who aren’t?”
“The Yàngbǎn.”
The focus was on a formation of capes. They were lined up like musketeers, rank and file, each a set distance apart from the others. The ones in front were kneeling, the ones behind standing. Each wore a mask that covered their faces, flowing costumes with loose sleeves and pants, somewhere between a martial arts uniform and a military uniform, each crimson with a black design of horizontal and vertical lines at edges of the sleeves and pants. There were nearly thirty of them.
All together, they directed lasers at him, aiming for his one red eye. He blocked the concentrated laser-fire with one claw, and the flesh at the base of the obsidian claw began peeling away.
“Who are they?”
“The C.U.I.’s military parahumans.”
“Isn’t the C.U.I. xenophobic?”
“Yes,” Dragon said. Her voice sounded funny. It wasn’t emotion, but something was somehow off about it.
“Excepting diplomatic functions, this is the first time in over a decade that a
ny of the Yàngbǎn have set foot outside of China,” Defiant said. “We’ve tried to arrange for their aid in the past, but relations between our side and theirs are sour. For years, they’ve alleged that the PRT and the Protectorate are fundamentally corrupt, the source of the problems currently plaguing the world.”
“They were right,” I said.
“Yes,” Defiant said. He didn’t sound happy about the admission.
Behemoth slammed his claws together. The Yàngbǎn responded by creating forcefields en-masse, one for every person, overlapping with those to either side of them. The shockwave of the clap ripped through them, shattering the first two rows of forcefields and virtually liquefying the unfortunate capes who no longer had protection.
The Yàngbǎn in the back rows were already dropping their forcefields, extending their hands forward, open palms aimed at their comrades.
The shockwave’s effects reversed in an instant, and the injured were whole, holding the positions they’d been in an instant before. Here and there, the reaction had been a fraction too slow, and the Yàngbǎn members were only reversed to the instant the shockwave made contact. They were thrown back and caught by the ones in the back row, blood streaming from their eyes, noses and ears. One was saved much too late, and the process of being liquefied was only repeated, splattering the Yàngbǎn soldier who’d failed to react in time to rescue him.
Behemoth unleashed a rolling tide of flame, and the remaining twenty-eight Yàngbǎn fled, using a combination of enhanced speed and flight. The remains of the dead member were left behind.
“I can’t tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing,” I commented.
“With luck, they’ve changed their minds and we have much-needed allies,” Defiant said.
“And if they haven’t?”
He didn’t reply.
More of Dragon’s craft were arriving, adding their attacks to those of the others. I could recognize the wheel-dragon, using some sort of tuned electromagnetic pull to draw away the loose rubble from beneath Behemoth. He sank nearly ten feet as the ground shifted around him.
He struck the wheel-dragon with a bolt of lightning, flaying off a few plates of armor and destroying the wheel. It opened its mouth and launched cannon-fire at him. The shells exploded into blobs of containment foam, fireproof, sticky, virtually impossible to remove.
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