Golem rose to his feet, backing away as swiftly as he could. He was out of reach of the smoke, but these things, they were a distraction, a speed bump.
He waited, dropping into a fighting stance as they approached. They broke into runs, charging him blindly, two figures so thin they didn’t look real, their fingers and feet twisted into claws as long as his forearm.
They plummeted into a pit in the middle of the road.
Golem rose from the fighting stance, then hurried on. His footsteps continued to mark the surfaces around him, making it clear where there were more of Nyx’s illusions, more traps left over from the Tohu-Bohu attack.
His other enemies wouldn’t be so gullible.
“Left or right?” he asked. He had a mental map of the surroundings.
“Left. Somewhere around a ninety percent chance Jack’s in that direction.”
Each question narrowed down the possibilities. From fifty percent of the area to twenty-five percent, then twelve and a half percent… now six percent. It was a small enough slice that he didn’t need to wonder as much. If he kept on this course, he could find his target.
“Right route,” Dinah said. “It’s… it’s really fuzzy, but I still feel like the bloody, ugly ends aren’t so close.“
“A good feeling,” Theo said.
“In a numbery way.“
A numbery way.
“Status,” he said. “Not a question. Just… I need to know what’s going on.”
“The others are… okay,” Dinah replied. “Defiant just arrived in Houston with a giant robot that only has one arm and one leg, and we’ve got…”
Dinah’s voice continued, but he didn’t hear it.
Golem slowed to a walk as he saw his new surroundings. The tombstones of Bohu’s area were still here, but they were scarred.
A thousand times a thousand cuts.
“Theodore,” Jack said.
Jack emerged, and he wasn’t holding a knife. He held a sword, nearly four feet long. A claymore. His shirt was unbuttoned, showing a body without a trace of fat. His beard had been meticulously trimmed, but that had easily been a day ago. His neck had scruff on it. Strands of dark hair fell across eyes with lines in the corner as he stared at Golem.
Golem had gotten this far.
Now what?
Jack let the blade’s point swing idly at calf-level, pointed off to one side. Cuts gouged the road’s surface. Theo let his fingers trace the panels on his armor. Steel, iron, aluminum, woods, stone…
His second sense marked various items in the surrounding area that were made of the same substance, even marked the trap off to his left, but it didn’t touch any part of the sword.
“All on your lonesome,” Jack said.
“Yes,” Theo answered, sounding braver than he felt.
His finger touched other panels. Brick, asphalt, concrete, porcelain…
The sword remained out of his power’s reach. He’d put so much stock in being able to disarm Jack.
With each contact, he felt the accompanying flashes, tried to put together a mental picture of his surroundings.
Two false building faces, just a little ahead of him. They had to be Nyx-made. If he advanced, she’d break the illusion, and he’d be surrounded in the noxious smoke. At best, he’d pass out. At worst, he’d pass out and wake up to permanent brain damage and organ failure. Or being in the clutches of the Nine.
Jack let the sword swing, and Golem tensed. The blade didn’t come anywhere close to pointing at him, but Jack’s power cut shallow gouges into the surrounding brick, stone and pavement.
“Alone,” Jack said, again.
Because of you, Golem thought.
He clenched his fist.
Tears were forming in his eyes. Ridiculous. Wasn’t supposed to be what happened in this kind of situation.
Jack, in turn, smiled slowly. “Quiet. I was thinking that after all this time, we could have some witty banter. You can scream your fury at me, curse me for killing your loved ones. Then you do your best to tear me apart.”
“No.”
“Oh!” Jack smiled wider. “Show mercy, then? Walk away from the fight and show you’re the better man, rather than descending to my level? I’ve been waiting for someone to pull that ever since I saw it happen in a movie.”
“This isn’t a movie.”
“No. It’s very, very real, Theodore,” Jack said. He paced a little, letting the sword drag on the ground. The blade was white, Golem noted. White, exceptionally sharp.
Mannequin-made?
Or was this Jack an illusion? Nyx could imitate voices. She could create the gouges in the walls by way of the illusory smoke.
Golem paced a little too, mirroring Jack’s movements.
“Well, I’m not sure what you expect, then, Theodore. The fat little boy promised me he’d become the kind of hero that would put down monsters like me. I gave you two years, and you’ve made it at least partway. Did you change your mind on the killing part?”
“No. I will kill you.”
“So tough! So brave! All of this from the-”
“Stop talking, Jack. You’re not that clever, not as sharp as you like to think. You talked to me about keystones? Bullshit. You’re a sad, pathetic killer with delusions of grandeur.”
Jack’s smile dropped from his face. He held the Claymore with one hand, the blade’s point touching the ground, and spread his arms. His unbuttoned shirt parted, showing the whole of his bare shirt and stomach. Showing himself to be vulnerable, exposed.
“Then do your worst, Theodore. Because if you don’t, I will.”
“Dinah,” he whispered.
“With you. Gray boy isn’t near. Nyx and Hookwolf are. Fifteen questions. I had to use one to help the others.“
He nodded slowly.
I don’t like the illusory building faces. Too much poisonous smoke was needed to make that sort of thing, it had to be multiple Nyxes working in concert. They’d be close, probably.
Which said nothing of the other threats that loomed behind the fog. Psychosoma’s creations?
Golem reached up to his gloves, then tore off the protectors on his knuckles. They fell to the ground. Beneath were spikes.
“Nice touch,” Jack said.
Golem spread his arms. “What do you-”
“Red.”
Mid-sentence, still talking, he let his arms fall, driving them into panels at his side.
Jack hopped back out of reach of the hands, seizing his sword. He drew it back.
“Blue.”
Golem created another hand. Not to catch Jack, but to catch the blade.
It had backfired, if anything. The hand caught the tip of the blade, but the sword slid free of the grip and flew around with more force. Golem leaped back, letting himself fall, and let his feet slide into the pavement. Two boots rose from the ground, shielding him as the slash caught the surface.
Weaver’s lessons. Catching the enemy off guard by any means necessary, rolling with the punches, or rolling with the effects of the enemy’s attack.
Had to use Dinah’s ability, divide everything into two equally viable actions, so he wasn’t caught off guard.
Still prone, still shielded and out of sight, he reached into the ground with both hands.
Two hands, flattened, jabbed for Jack’s leg, stabbing at ankle and calf. Jack backed away again before they made contact, slashed again.
This time, the slash caught a section of Golem’s armor that was sticking out of cover. The cut made a mark nearly a foot deep in the ground, but it served only to split the pauldron in half. A section of metal fell to the ground.
He created two connected hands of pavement, then whipped them to throw the section of pauldron at Jack. The trajectory suggested it would fly a little to Jack’s left.
Golem jabbed one hand into the ground, and a flattened hand stabbed out from the spinning piece of metal, extending as the projectile flew.
Jack ducked, but Golem was already thrusting
his other hand into the earth. It jutted from the hand he’d created, doubling the length in short order. More of a crude boomerang in shape than a chunk of metal.
It only clipped Jack, just barely.
“Clever boy,” Jack said. “You-”
“Stop talking, Jack,” Golem responded.
For Aster, for Kayden, even for the others…
He thrust his hands into the ground, repeatedly, and they stabbed at the underside of Jack’s feet. He leaped back out of reach and swung his sword the instant he touched ground.
The action cut through the remainder of the shield Golem had raised, but it also kept Jack in one place. He caught the underside of Jack’s foot. Jack stumbled as he pulled himself free of Golem’s grip.
He reached out to stab out with two interconnected hands, the same technique he used to launch himself.
But Jack evaded it, slid out of the way, almost as if he knew the strike was coming.
Golem moved to get into a position to strike again, and realized in the moment that it would take too long.
He was crouched, still, his hands remained buried, and Jack was already drawing his sword back. He couldn’t mount a defense in time.
He braced himself. With luck, his armor could take it.
The attack didn’t come.
No. Jack laughed, instead. His icy blue eyes were fixed at a point beyond Golem.
Golem chanced a look over his shoulder.
He saw a figure dropping out of the sky, trailed by what looked like a comet’s trail of black shapes. Weaver. Her course changed as she flew away, using the Bohu-warped buildings for cover.
And where she’d been, just moments ago, a dull gray light hung in the sky.
Scion. Trapped in Gray Boy’s time-well.
Jack’s laugh rang through the area.
The figure inside moved, but only barely. The well trapped powers within. Kayden’s lasers wouldn’t exit the area. Crusader’s duplicates wouldn’t be able to wander beyond the well’s limits.
And Scion didn’t appear to be any different.
“I’m sorry, my boy,” Jack said.
Golem whipped his head around. Jack had backed up a short distance.
Jack chuckled, as if he still found something funny about the situation. “Ah well. I’m disappointed. I’m not sensing it, your killer instinct.”
“I’m prepared to finish you,” Golem said.
“You’re prepared? Maybe. But not practiced. No. I don’t see this going anywhere interesting. It’s about the ripples. You remember our conversation?”
Theo nodded slowly. The ripples from a butterfly’s wing. The effects that extend out from any event.
“You? This? It’s nothing. What ripples extend from this? You’re weak. That?” Jack pointed at Scion, trapped in the sky.
Golem chanced another look. Nothing had changed. Scion remained fixed in place.
“That interests me.”
He climbed to his feet, eyes on Jack’s weapon.
Jack reached into his belt, then drew a knife.
Golem tensed. Faster than the sword, if not quite so capable of chewing through his armor.
But Jack didn’t attack him. He struck at the building faces.
The surfaces dissolved into rolling clouds of smoke. Golem vaulted himself back twice in quick succession to escape it, then continued to back away for good measure.
“You’ve failed to amuse me. A shame your sister’s been shot, and there’s nothing interesting to do with the hostages,” Jack called out, his voice ringing along the length of the street. With no details or features on the outsides of the buildings Bohu had altered, the voice carried in an odd way.
A shadow emerged. Jack, riding atop a massive six-legged beast.
As Jack approached, he became more visible, and the nature of the beast became clear. He stood on Hookwolf’s back, between the creature’s shoulders.
Other shadows appeared in the mist, and they, in turn, clarified as they approached. Crawlers. Mannequins. Crimsons. Others.
Done in by my dad’s lieutenant, Golem thought. No way he was walking away from this.
“I suppose we’ll kill you,” Jack said. “And you’ll just have to take me on my word when I say I’ll find something suitably horrific to do as punishment for your failing our little game.”
Theo raised a hand as a shield even before Jack used his power in conjunction with Hookwolf’s. A hand of pavement, struck by a thousand slashes in a matter of a second, whittled to nothing. Then he had only armor, and that, too, started to come apart.
The cuts that followed parted flesh.
26.b (Interlude B, Golem part 2)
The house was bustling with activity, even this early in the morning. Ten children, aged four to seventeen, were doing their utmost to get ready for their morning activities. It was a rule, that everyone had to keep busy. A way, really, for the Gails to have a chance to breathe.
“You all set?” Mr. Gail asked, looking at him.
“Yeah.”
“Need a ride to your co-op?”
“No. Takes about as long to take the bus.”
Mrs. Gail smiled. “Thank you, Theo.”
He shrugged, feeling awkward. It had only been a few nights ago that she’d brought him an ice cream sandwich, something she hadn’t done for the other foster kids the Gails were looking after. She’d thanked him ‘for being one of the easy ones’.
He hadn’t eaten the ice cream sandwich. Getting fit was too important, and it was already an uphill battle.
Still, it had been nice.
As he’d started habitually doing, he took time in front of the mirror to check his appearance before making his way out the door.
It was all too surreal. Endbringer attacks every two months, punctuated by periods of mundane life and intense, focused training. Life continued as normal, with just a little more fear. It wasn’t the reaction he might have expected, but it was a reaction. Everyone was a little different, animated, as though they sensed the encroaching danger, the ominous, inevitable end. Just like one person might react to a near-death experience with a new gusto for life, society as a whole reacted to each Endbringer attack.
Not celebrating, not with the inevitable death tolls, but perhaps breathing a collective sigh of relief.
In a way, Theo mused, people seemed to sense that there was a dark cloud on the horizon. Beyond even the Endbringers, there seemed to be an unspoken acknowledgement that things were well beyond their control. That this thing with capes and parahumans wasn’t going to turn out alright.
The illusion built up around the whole ‘cape’ thing had broken, but people weren’t talking about it.
Surreal, as though everyone was spending more time pretending than they were spending focused on reality.
Odder still, that he’d been one of them. He’d grown up with the reality of what happened when powers came in contact with the people who shouldn’t have them, but he’d pretended. He’d wrapped himself in delusions and false assurances.
Getting off the bus, he arrived at the PRT building before many of the employees. It was easier that way, because it meant he didn’t need to go through all of the usual precautions.
Taylor was awake when he arrived, her hair damp from a recent shower.
“Want to run?” she asked. She was already stretching her arms. She had little enough body fat that the muscles stood out in her arms and shoulders. Her long black curls were tied back into a loose ponytail, with some strands already slipping free to frame her face.
Muscles or no, she was still narrow, still tall. If he didn’t know her, and if the situation called for it, he might think he could take her in a fight. Building muscle came easily to him. Building fat did too, unfortunately, but the end result was that he was physically imposing, even at sixteen.
Yet if they scrapped, he suspected he’d be left crumpled in a heap on the ground. It was the way she fought. The way she thought.
“If it’s okay with you,” he
said, “I was kind of thinking I wanted to do some sparring first.”
She didn’t give any indication that it bothered her. “Sparring’s fine. You’ll be sore for the run, though.”
He shrugged.
“Well, maybe that’s good, learning to exert yourself when you’re hurting and tired. Stretch well, though. We don’t want you to lose more time to any injuries.”
He winced. Few things set him back in his fitness regimen like a twisted ankle or stubbed fingers.
“Yeah. I’ll stretch after I’ve got my stuff on. Meet you in the gym?”
“Sure,” she said.
He was about to leave and do just that, but Taylor spoke up. “Theo?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you still getting anything out of this sparring? We’ve come up with techniques, you’re stringing them together, but there’s only so much you’re going to learn from me. You might be better off working with the others.”
“I’m… no. I’d like to keep sparring with you. I’ll let you know if I don’t think I’m getting anything out of it.”
She nodded.
All business. Hard. So focused she was almost cruel, at times.
He left, heading to his quarters to collect his gear.
Spider silk bodysuit on. Heavier weave fabric over that, followed by the armor, which went on in layers.
The weight of it was a comfort. It was familiar, just a touch musty.
There was a knock on the door. “Theo?”
Theo turned, then opened the door before returning to his armor. He tested where the panels at his hip were placed, then adjusted the position on the belt before locking it in place. “What’s up? You’re here early.”
“Had a thought on the suit last night, knew I had to come in early to implement it or I’d be distracted all day, trying not to forget about it.”
Theo smiled. “Tinker life is hard.”
Tecton chuckled.
“So you just wanted to say hi?”
“No. There’s something else,” Tecton said.
Theo strapped on his pauldrons. They consisted of more panels, and in a pinch they could be strapped to a point on his side or at his hip. Backup, in case others were removed.
“I guess it’s kind of like the armor tweak thing. I’ve got to bring this up now or I’ll never be able to find the right time, or I’ll forget, or whatever.”
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