It left him suspicious, but it wasn’t a suspicion he could act on. In an ideal world, Chevalier hoped to replace Mr. Keene. In reality, the situation was too chaotic, and Morgan Keene too entrenched in things.
“You’re upset about the Yàngbǎn.”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“I sent you a number of emails, three voice messages.”
“Can we trust them?”
“No. But they’re still an asset. Alexandria wanted them on board. When you installed your new administration, they said to keep going.”
Chevalier sighed.
“Our thinkers are on board to advise with the concentrated defense. I’ve coordinated the foreign capes, Arbiter’s handling some of the translations.”
“Okay. And our… less legitimate thinkers?”
“Accord and Tattletale.”
“Yes.”
“Rime set them up with access to the PRT databases. Connection is slow but remains strong.”
Chevalier nodded. “I’ll talk to them.”
“Of course,” Mr. Keene answered.
Chevalier made his way to the downstairs room. He paused at the entrance.
Tattletale’s ‘shadow’ peered around with a dozen eyes all at once, each set different in design, in appearance and apparent function. A mosaic. Accord’s was a glimmer of an old computer, the edge of a desk that wasn’t there.
It wasn’t as meaningful as it had appeared to be at first. They were only figments of ideas that had been codified and collected in times of stress. Ideas imprinted on a malleable surface during trigger events, or moments when trigger events had been on the verge of occurring. As an individual’s power waxed and waned, the images grew more distinct, shifted between the images personal to the cape in question, and the stranger, dream-like aspects that seemed to relate to the powers.
“Accord. Tattletale. Do you have something constructive to offer?”
“Yep,” Tattletale said.
“Your defensive lines are a disaster waiting to happen,” Accord said.
“Straight to the point,” Tattletale commented.
“A disaster?” Chevalier asked.
“I’m wondering if you’ve done this on purpose,” Accord stated. His eye moved critically over Chevalier. “You’re going to fight the Endbringer in a melee.”
“Yes,” Chevalier said.
“And you’ve picked the new Protectorate team with the idea that they would support you. The core team is all ranged.”
“Yes,” Chevalier said.
“Ego?” Tattletale asked.
Chevalier shook his head, then thought for a moment. “Perhaps.”
“Well, ego’s a part of the job. Question is, can you live up to it?”
“I can try. But more than anything, I’m not going to put people on the front line if I’m not willing to go there myself.”
“Foolish,” Accord said. “Everyone has their place in the grand scheme of things. You do yourself and everyone else a disservice if you try to put yourself where you don’t belong.”
Chevalier shook his head, but he didn’t reply. There would be no convincing this one.
Accord continued, “There are only two ways you could make this plan work. The first would be using a sword long enough to reach past his Manton effect bypass, the second is to somehow within that range and survive.”
“Accounted for,” Chevalier said, a touch irritated. He didn’t need this. Not now.
“Usher,” Tattletale supplied.
“Ah. I see,” Accord said. “And if Usher were to be struck down by a chance lightning bolt?”
“We have fallback plans.”
Accord shook his head. “I’ll develop better.”
Chevalier grit his teeth.
“I’m watching him fight,” Tattletale said, “And something’s off. I’ve been watching old videos of the Endbringer fights, looking over maps, and it doesn’t fit together.”
“What doesn’t?”
Her finger tapped hard on the map she’d printed out. “Location, pacing. They’re toying with us. Acting.”
“You’re crediting them with more intelligence than they have.”
“Are you telling me that because you really think they’re dumb, or because you don’t want to-”
Chevalier could sense the attacker by the movement of the shadows. He whirled around, only to find himself face to face with a cloud of the ‘shadows’.
The Yàngbǎn, one of them.
An assassin?
He couldn’t even make out the figure, behind the layers of images. Glimpses of twenty, thirty, forty trigger events.
Defying the truce, here? Now?
He felt his anger stirring. He adjusted the balances of his blade, maintaining the reach, the appearance, but he altered its interaction with the rest of the world, maintaining its lightweight feel as far as he was concerned, changing it in other respects.
“You lunatic!”
He had his sword out in a flash, swung. A forcefield appeared, but the weapon breezed through it as if it weren’t even there.
It was, in all respects except appearance, and the ease with which he moved it, a weapon that weighed upwards of fifty tons, as durable as the heaviest weapon. The cutting edge of the ceramic blade.
His opponent slipped out of the way, and images flared with life as he drew on a power to fly.
Chevalier couldn’t make him out in the midst of the shadows. Did the Yàngbǎn know this would trip him up, slow him down?
It didn’t matter. The attacker didn’t have offensive strength. Two more attacks failed to penetrate Chevalier’s armor. He advanced, swung, thrusted, and his opponent stepped back, narrowly dodging.
Chevalier pulled the trigger, but a power flared and the shot jammed in the chamber.
Can’t afford to expend resources on this. Have to prepare for the fight.
He followed up with more swings. Each missed by a hair. His opponent was scared, frantic.
And suddenly his opponent was a distance away. The images, the movement of the clouds outside, telltale signs of being stopped in time.
He advanced, felt another attack fail to penetrate his defenses. Again, time stopped, his opponent used the window of opportunity to back away.
In between the following two pauses, he could see Accord and Tattletale change places, moving to the door, now barred with a forcefield.
They’d have to hold their own. Chevalier assessed his opponent, as best as he could, through the storm of hellish images. Each of them was fractured, broken. Nothing to be gleaned from them.
But the opponent was sloppy. Letting him get dangerously close between resets. It was a question of letting him make a mistake, occupying his attention, so the thinkers would be safe. A chess game, moving the knight to keep the king in checkmate. There was only so much space in the room, and he could position himself to force the Yàngbǎn member to move further, to have less time to act, leaving more room for a mistake.
“No,” he could hear Accord murmuring, the word barely above a whisper. He chanced a glance at the pair. Tattletale had a hand on her holster, and Accord had stopped her.
He didn’t get a chance to see anything further. He felt the strength go out of his lower body, a slow but incredible pain tearing through his midsection.
The laser. How?
He had only a moment to adjust the balances in his power, so the blade and armor wouldn’t crash through the floor and tear down half of the building.
■
I missed the fight, he realized, as he woke in a hospital bed.
The ground rumbled violently. He looked up to see Tattletale in the corner of the room, half of her attention on what was happening outside the window, the other half on a phone.
“He’s here?”
She turned to him, tapped her throat. He could see the tube in her throat.
He sighed.
She approached the bedside, attention on the phone. She held it out for him to read.<
br />
A notepad executable read:
hes here. defenses crumbled in a minute. rime dead. melted off more than half his outer body and he still fighting. last stand to protect hosp’l for evac and he cutting them down
Chevalier shut his eyes. We lost.
Tattletale was already typing again. Her expression was grim as she focused on the phone.
He tried to sit up, and found himself unable. It was a pain concentrated in one area, but it was so immense that made his entire body react. His ears buzzed, his vision wavered, and every muscle clenched, as he lay there, trying to ride it out.
She showed him the phone as he lay there, panting.
he still at full strength. shouldn’t be. he’s an onion, inner rings progressively tougher. next 15% way tougher than rest combined.
“I know this,” he gasped out the words. He moved the sheet to examine himself. His breastplate had been removed, and his stomach had fresh incisions on it, with sutures holding them closed.
How long had he been out?
She showed him her phone again.
they stapled your gut up. if outer body is like this then why does he have it? useless.
He reached up to swat the phone away, felt a pull on his stomach and winced instead. He knocked it out of the way with his other hand. Still painful, but easier.
She drew it out of his reach, started typing again.
He turned himself over in the bed, nearly retching at the intensity of the pain, but he found himself on his side. Even at the weight of aluminum, the armor on his legs and hands was heavy enough to help weigh him down, hold him in position.
She offered him a hand as he swung his legs down, trying to use the momentum to sit up. He nearly fell, but she caught him, dropping the phone onto the bed in her haste to help him stay sitting upright.
His chest heaved, and he growled out each breath. The growling helped, on a primal level, but that wasn’t saying much. Just sitting upright was bad enough that he thought he might pass out.
“My breastplate.”
She handed him the phone, then crossed the room to where a bundle of belongings were gathered on a chair. They’d cut off the layer of mesh that sat beneath the armor, and the cloth that sat against his skin. She discarded each of those and simply brought him the armor.
It had held its form. Good. He glanced at the phone.
outer body is cosmetc only. why? because he supposed to scare us. behemoth was fashioned. unnatural life.
She brought the front portion of the armor, resting it on the corner of the bed. She tapped the phone.
“I read it,” he growled. “Help me put it on.”
She tapped the phone again.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It won’t change the outcome of this fight.”
She nodded agreement, then lifted the armor, bringing it to his chest.
There was a crash outside, a chorus of screams. Chevalier grit his teeth.
“Back piece,” he said. She gave him a pointed look.
“Please,” he added, growling the word.
She turned on her heel, crossing the room to pick up the armor, slowly, almost leisurely, as she typed on the phone with one hand. She held the armor in the other as she made her way back, then took several damnable seconds typing out the message before putting the phone down.
“We don’t have time for your typing,” he said.
She only gave him a level, silent stare, as she moved the rear portion of the armor into place. He reached for the clasps, but moving his left arm was too painful, pulling on the muscles of his stomach. He used his right for what he could, then waited for her to finish.
Indian doctors rushed down the hall, pushing beds on wheels, four in a row.
He conceded to pick up the phone and read what she’d typed.
they regen slower as damage is further from center. simurgh core not in human body. decoy. prob in join of biggest wing instead. Is why body fragile n slow to heal.
His eyes widened. “We destroy the center, we destroy him?”
She gave him a look as if he’d just asked if the sky was green, incredulous. She shook her head.
“Why the hell not?”
She just shook her head.
“I don’t know why the hell not. Where’s his center?”
She pointed with two fingers, at her collarbone. The base of the throat, between the shoulders. Quite possibly the deepest set part of his body.
“Help me stand.”
The entire building rumbled. For a moment, he thought the entire point would be rendered moot as the structure collapsed.
It took three tries to get him to his feet, with him holding a shelf on the wall with his right hand, her leveraging her entire body’s strength with her shoulder under his armpit. He stumbled forward, catching himself on the shelf, and heaved for breath, feeling the strength threaten to leave his legs with every deep inhalation and exhalation.
But he couldn’t. Couldn’t allow himself to.
Tattletale was pulling on a blue latex glove. He watched her as she reached out and placed a hand on the space beside the incisions, where the burn had been patched up.
“What are you doing?”
She reached for the phone.
no tear inside u.
“I could’ve told you that.”
She shrugged, her eyes on the screen, thumbs typing on the onscreen keyboard. She raised the phone.
can try. prob wont work. dense enough 2 fuck wit time n space there.
“Right,” he said. “My Cannonblade?”
She sighed, making her way to the end of the room. She collected his Cannonblade from the floor by the chair. He’d made it as light as it could go in every respect, before he’d passed out. Even so, moving his left arm to try to hold it made him seize up in agony.
For now, he was a one-armed fighter. He gripped the handle in his right hand, then exerted his power. He could see it grow heavier, even as the weight remained effectively the same in his hand.
He rested it against one shoulder, then managed a limping step forward. He very nearly fell.
Another step.
He focused on his power, as a way to distract himself, planting one foot in front of the other, the armor squeaking in one point where a knee joint had bent as he’d fallen after fighting the Yàngbǎn assassin. It was easier to keep moving than to stop and start again, so he moved forward with an almost machinelike rhythm, limping.
He’d never forgive himself if they lost this fight and he didn’t even fight.
Stairs. He had to make his way down. One mistake, a faltering step, and he’d collapse. He’d probably be unable to stand, if it didn’t tear his stomach apart.
He made his way down, the stitches pulling against the fresh incisions with every step.
The building shuddered. His mind a fog of pain, he reached out for the railing for stability, only to remember he was holding his sword. It plowed through railing as if it were a meticulous sandcastle, raining pieces on the ground below.
He swayed, and for the briefest moment, he considered that it might be easier to fall. Easier than making it down the next ten steps. If there was a ten percent chance his stomach stayed intact, a twenty percent chance someone could help him stand…
But he took another step down, and somewhere in the midst of planting his foot, he found his balance.
Everywhere, doctors were struggling to evacuate. Some capes were working to help, even injured ones trying to pull things together. Still fifty or sixty capes to evacuate.
And the bodies… people who had died because he’d failed them. Because he hadn’t been able to defeat the assassin, to take his role at the front of the battle lines, where he could bait Behemoth into the various traps they’d laid.
He had to suppress the guilt. There would be time for blame, self-directed or otherwise, later. He’d bury the mental pain like he was with the physical.
This is how Behemoth fights. Indomitable. Never slowing. Alwa
ys progressing forward, Chevalier thought.
He could remember who he’d once been. So long ago. Well before he’d had his first of twenty fights against the Endbringers. Before meeting Hannah and the rest of the original Wards.
They’d been in a car crash, in the middle of a vacation. Strangers had stepped in, crowding the car to help his little brother out, while his parents were reeling, moaning in pain. They’d tried to get him out too, but he’d been pinned, the car handle had been scraped away in the collision, the interior handle protected by the child locks. They’d left, and for hours, as the emergency services arrived and the rescue continued, he’d wondered why. He’d triggered, caught in the wreckage, but had been too insensate to do anything about it, to even realize the full gravity of what had happened in the midst of the chaos.
It was only later that he found out they were serial kidnappers. The crash that had broken his mother’s leg in three places had been orchestrated. So had the collection of his little brother.
Three years later, when he heard about the group again, he put together a makeshift club and armor and set about hunting them down. He appeared in the news in the midst of tracking down the individual members, and again and again, they had described him as relentless, to the point that it had very nearly became his codename. Revenge had been all he had left.
Then, just as he was now, he’d been fueled by anger, by pain. He could barely see, as black spots blotted his vision. Revenge, again, was his only option, only it was the end point, rather than the beginning.
I told myself I’d never let myself be afraid again, he thought.
His left hand was nearly useless, so he hit the double doors at the front of the temple with his sword instead. Wood splintered as the doors parted. He trudged forward, ignoring the doors as they swung shut, bouncing off his armor.
Record numbers show up, and this is all that’s left?
Barely fifty heroes still stood their ground. The back lines were sheltered by giant hands of stone, Hellhound’s mutant dogs collecting the wounded, carrying them around the side of the building. Eidolon and Alexandria wrestled with the Endbringer, fighting in close quarters against the monster.
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