by Drew Hayes
His next demand or threat would forever remain a mystery. The entire room filled with a thunderous roaring that shook the very desks. It sounded like a wolf the size of a bus had broken in to demand a tribute of flesh. The criminal, Tori still clutched firmly in his hands, leapt up from his hiding spot on pure instinct. Meta or not, humans were hardwired to react in certain ways when a predator was nearby, and the first course of action was to locate the threat.
Unfortunately for the large man, Donald had somehow kept his cool in the face of the noise. No sooner had the crook crested the top of the cubicles than a bright blue beam struck him in the chest. His grip on Tori loosened and she wriggled free, dropping to the ground and rolling away from her opponent. Springing back to her feet, she quickly surveyed the room for the source of the noise, only to find Chloe opening and closing her mouth in sync with the terrible barks. Strangely, the blonde woman had bruises forming around her jaw and a trickle of blood seeping out of her mouth, but her eyes were full of fire.
When she finally halted the wall-shaking distraction, Tori asked the obvious question. “What in the nine hells was that?”
“My bark is worse than my bite.” Chloe winced with every word she spoke, her eyes watering from what Tori assumed was pain. The halfhearted explanation left Tori with many questions, but she wouldn’t get to ask them quite yet.
“I haven’t felt that kind of cold since I was kid and my dad locked me out of the house in January.” Moving slowly, but still very much moving, the large man reached up and slapped his chest three times. He turned his helmet to face Donald. “Guess I’ve gotten tougher since then.”
“Fuck us all, he’s resilient,” Tori whispered softly. It was just what she’d been afraid of: the bastard was a meta that could withstand the effects of certain attacks, freeze-guns evidently included. A strong enough strike could still overcome his defenses, but Donald had shown them the best his blaster could do and all Tori’s tech was half-built and stashed under Ivan’s house. Unless Chloe had a super powerful phrase up her sleeve, they were out of options for stopping this guy. Even if she blasted him with heat, he could probably endure it. The only one of them who could easily stop this son of a bitch was down in the break room, pretending to be shot.
Stealth, it seemed, was no longer deemed necessary by the wide-shouldered criminal. Without turning his head from Donald, he barreled forward, taking two more shots from the freeze-gun as he tore through the desks like they weren’t even there. While each blast did seem to slow him, he kept right on coming, reaching back and throwing a punch that would easily tear Donald’s head from his slender body.
Just before impact, the glowing sphere reappeared from Donald’s buckler, valiantly putting itself between his too-frail skull and the meta’s fist. This didn’t deter Donald’s attacker in the slightest; he kept right on slamming his fists down on the shield over and over. That alone would have been worrisome enough, but after the first few attacks, Tori noticed that the sphere seemed to be flickering on impact. Not even video game shields had infinite energy, after all.
Donald had a minute before he would be no more than powdered bone and organs, if that. Tori had to work fast. She could only think of one way that might stop this jerk, or at least draw his focus, and she’d need to work quickly to make it happen.
Rushing over to Chloe, Tori grabbed her fellow hostage by the shoulder and shook, pulling her attention away from Donald’s predicament.
“Chloe! That thing you did with Donald, the ‘what doesn’t kill you’ thing: does that work the way it looks? The more you get hurt, the stronger you get?”
Chloe blinked a few times then slurred out a response. “It’s proportional, from what I’ve seen. I don’t think you could get hurt enough to stop him, though.” Her eyes flicked back to the man pummeling Donald’s shield, a shield that was beginning to flash violently on every punch.
“Do it to me. Now. Please.”
With a curious, sidelong glance, Chloe muttered, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“Thanks.” Tori lifted the gun in her right hand, pressed it to her own left arm, and fired. Those lessons from Ivan were paying big dividends: she forced her body to resist its instinct to turn to fire and accepted the wound as it tore apart her flesh.
Chloe yelped in shock, but neither Donald nor the man trying to kill him seemed to notice the gunshot. Nor did they notice the next one Tori used to shoot lower down her arm, nor the next, nor the next. After the pain from gunshot number four nearly caused her to pass out, it was time to roll the dice. She wouldn’t do much good if she gave in to shock, now would she?
Racing forward, trying dearly to ignore the throbbing pain in her ruined left arm, Tori ran up behind the man trying to murder her friend and punched the back of his motorcycle helmet with everything she had. The helmet exploded into fragments. He hurtled forward, tumbling through the air until he slammed violently into a wall. Face exposed for the first time since arriving, the man turned and stared at Tori with a combination of confusion and annoyance.
Donald, on the other hand, was panting on the ground, seconds away from a panic attack as far as she could tell. The buckler on his arm was flashing with a red light, which, by video game logic, probably meant it was about to run out of juice. She’d been just in time.
“How did you—”
“Same way you broke the zip ties, I just didn’t have time for Chloe to kick me in the ass,” Tori snapped. “Now, up and at it. Big Papa isn’t out of this fight yet.”
“No, he isn’t,” rumbled the large man as he hauled himself up. He carefully rubbed the back of his head, wincing visibly at the touch of his own fingertips. “But you three are turning out to be quite the annoyance. I don’t even give a shit about the job anymore; I just want to pay you back for causing this much of a headache.”
“Hey, Donald, this is just me talking here, but I’m betting that your gun is like every other gun out there: it works a lot better when you shoot people in the head. Especially now that it’s exposed.” Tori didn’t bother whispering; they were all too close together for the target not to hear. Besides, he wasn’t that stupid. With the helmet gone, he knew where the next shot would be aimed. He’d probably dodge it, too, which was why Tori didn’t plan on giving him the chance.
She barreled forward, charging the big man before he could do the same to them. With Tori starting from as far away as she had and telegraphing the move so clearly, he had ample time to dodge out of the way. Just as she’d hoped, he went for a counter instead, grabbing her around the chest and locking her in place. For a guy with his strength, it was probably pure reaction to render someone nearly helpless and then pound them into submission. What he hadn’t had time to adjust to yet, however, was the fact that Tori had some extra strength of her own. Rearing up her right hand, she punched him in the calf as hard as she could, savoring the slight popping sound she heard from the bone.
It was less satisfying a moment later when he buried his fist in her stomach. Despite the fact that she jumped with the punch to disperse the momentum, Tori nearly lost control right then and there. Her instincts screamed at her to go into fire-form. She’d probably need to spend the rest of the day in flames to regenerate—her ribs felt like shrapnel more than bones and her arm was gushing blood in a streaming torrent. But that would come later. For the moment, he’d done a great job of hurting her worse than a gunshot, and with the added benefit of not killing her.
Tori grabbed the arm holding her and squeezed, finding his flesh more pliable with the extra addition of strength. A slight yelp of pain and surprise escaped his lips and he released his hold; no doubt he was trying to regroup and understand what just happened. Tori was having none of that shit, though. She would end this, right here and now.
His arm firmly in her grasp, she yanked it around to his back, half-wrenching his giant shoulder out of its socket. This time she didn’t need to give Donald his cue. Flashes of blue light lit up the large man’s pain-
stricken face one after the other until the arm clutched tightly in her hand went limp. She held on through a few more shots before releasing her iron grip and letting him slump to the floor.
“If one of you would be so kind as to dial emergency services, I think my assistant and I are in need of medical attention.” Standing in the door-less doorway of the break room was Ivan, still pale and seemingly covered in blood, but smiling in a way Tori had only caught glimpses of. The old bastard was beaming with pride, and as her consciousness finally gave way to the pain and shock flooding her system, Tori realized that he wasn’t the only one.
She was pretty damn proud of herself, too.
* * *
Nexus vanished from his hiding spot and reappeared across the street, watching as guild members pretending to be police and EMTs rushed into the building. Normally they’d be bagging a body before anything else, but today it seemed that only some spot-healing and basic cover-up work would be needed.
In truth, he wasn’t that surprised to see everyone make it through alive. This universe was always unpredictable; it had been from the moment it created Quorum instead of a hole in the ground like literally every other iteration had. It surprised him, intrigued him, always kept him guessing. In a way this was Nexus’s favorite piece of the multiverse, though it was also the one he hated the most, for the same reasons.
At least things would remain entertaining now. A world where one dodged the computer, one’s shield held out, and one jumped just enough to not be killed by the punch to the stomach... that was a world where many fascinating things would certainly occur.
All for Nexus to watch, and—perhaps on occasion—influence. Interactive entertainment was his absolute favorite.
Chapter 35
Tori awoke to find herself in a room full of white light, the pain in her arm and stomach greatly reduced, but not entirely gone. She started to sit up only to feel the white room spin underneath her.
“Go slowly. You’re going to be dizzy for a while.” Ivan was seated on a small stool in the corner of the room, the tablet in his hand occupying most of his attention. “The genetic regeneration and reconstitution rooms are handy for getting people back on their feet, but all that healing in such a short time tends to leave people with a bad case of the spins.”
For once, Tori didn’t argue and eased herself slowly into a sitting position. Bit by bit, the room stabilized until she was able to admire the tech surrounding her. Fixed to the ceiling at various points were large, strangely-wired lamps that were dousing her in that curious white light. Obviously, it wasn’t just light; they must have been pumping out some sort of beams or radiation designed to promote inhumanly-accelerated healing.
“You know, if every hospital in the world had one of these rooms, a lot fewer people would die,” Tori pointed out.
“Unfortunately, the R&R rooms only work on meta-humans, and not even all of them, at that. If you think they should come standard in hospitals, talk to Professor Quantum; he’s the one who invented the technology.” Ivan rose from his seat and walked slowly over to Tori, tablet still firmly clutched in his hand.
“How nice of him to share his breakthroughs with a bunch of criminals,” Tori replied.
“Did you think you were the first scientist to realize that sometimes stealing tech is easier than recreating it? We are a guild of villains, after all.”
“Hopefully that means you didn’t kill off everyone in the office to cover our tracks.” Tori was mostly joking, but in her time with Ivan she’d learned not to underestimate the people she’d been thrown in with. Fun as they might be, it was her folly if she forgot the lengths they would go to, should the need arise. It was just like Ivan said: they were a guild of villains, after all.
“Now, why would we need to go and do a thing like that?” Ivan held the tablet out in front of her and pressed the play button on an archived video feed from a press conference. Standing in front of the office building where they’d been taken prisoner, surrounded by a sea of reporters, was Donald, looking far more scared than he had while taking on the men with guns. Next to him was the familiar face of Apollo, arm wrapped around Donald and white smile catching the flashes of all the cameras.
“As the story is being reported, Donald Moss, a recently altered meta, used his powers to defeat a gang of thieves out to steal restricted data from a programming company. He did so without losing so much as a single life, though some members of the staff were injured in the chaos. Those sustaining injuries were rushed to a top-tier medical facility staffed with metas with healing abilities at the expense of their employer. Donald was the lone meta on the scene, though he made sure to mention that without the help of his coworkers, this victory would not have been possible. The Alliance of Heroic Champions has already offered him membership; they’re not the kind to let a golden PR opportunity like this slip away.”
“But Donald wasn’t the only one, not even just besides us,” Tori protested. “Chloe—”
“Chloe is a very brave young woman who doubtlessly helped save lives today, but she is also happier living outside the limelight, at least for now. It was at her request that Donald took all the credit. She convinced him that he would be protecting her secret. This life, his or ours, isn’t for everyone.”
“You’re not going to try and recruit her either?” Tori found herself skeptical, though she had to admit Ivan wasn’t one to make false claims. Usually he just told her how things would be, whether she liked it or not.
“We don’t ‘recruit’ like that. We take in those who are likely to run afoul of us by breaking the code, if we can get them early enough, or those whose powers are too dangerous to run rampant without training. As you might recall, you were only dragged in here because you broke into a secure facility.”
“Does that mean the big dude we stopped is going to be joining the other rookies?”
Ivan’s face darkened, only for a moment, but Tori knew what she saw. “No. He doesn’t quite possess the self-control we look for in our recruits. Had he taken the chance to run when you offered it, perhaps an exception might have been made. But he chose violence over prudence, and that is not our way. Besides, your crime was managed and performed in private, while his was broadcasted across the news. We have to set a standard of expectations for what happens to those who try and break into our companies.”
“I get the feeling I don’t want to know any more about this, so I won’t ask,” Tori said.
“Smart call.”
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t have other questions. Like: how are you going to explain away your little message in the carpet? So far as everyone else in the office knows, there was another meta on the scene who killed the first guy.”
“Ah, you must mean when I struggled with the man who had a gun on me, knocking him against the edge of the desk and accidently breaking his neck after he shot me. True, he did have some acid that spilled and corroded the carpet, but calling it a message is a bit of a stretch.” Ivan reached up and tapped one of the suspended lamps blaring light on Tori. “We’ve got more than just physical aftermath covered; several of our guild members have either the magic or the abilities to cloud the mind. Obscuring whole memories would be tricky and temporary; however, nudging the details a bit is so subtle only the most self-aware of people notice it.”
“Well, that’s peachy for you. If I’d known we had memory changers I might have come up with a solution besides shooting myself in the arm four times.” Tori tested her left arm, finding it stiff and painful but once again functional. Good as the lights no doubt were, she’d feel a lot better once she went into fire-form and fixed herself up.
“As I said, small changes are easy. There’s a reason I had to play dead, after all. But I think, even with the restrictions placed upon you, you did very well, my apprentice. You protected your friends, you took down the intruders, and you managed it all without using your powers in an overt manner. The caution and prudence you showed today will go a long way towar
d your membership in this guild.”
“Oh man, please tell me you didn’t set this whole thing up just as a way to test me,” Tori said.
Ivan laughed softly under his breath, yet somehow it still managed to fill the room. “Sadly, even my level of conniving has limits, and this is one of them. Fate is often a far better teacher than we could ever hope to be.”
“Thank goodness.” Tori leaned back in her bed, shutting her eyes to diminish the waves of dizziness that accompanied all movement. “When we get home, the first thing I’m going to do is start working on some portable tech to keep in the office. Next I’m putting a prototype of my suit together. If today has taught me anything, it’s that I do not like being caught unarmed.”
“With strong powers and a good mind, we are never truly unarmed,” Ivan replied. “But I’m afraid you won’t be going home tonight. Since there is apprentice training tomorrow, it was decided that you would stay the night here to fully recover. After all, we neither have the lights nor a fireproof room at the house.”
“Wait, is this bed fireproof?” Tori looked down at the sheets and firm mattress under her; so far as she could tell, they seemed completely normal.
“Fire-resistant is a better way to put it; nothing is really fire-proof. So long as you don’t actively try to burn it, you should be fine. A few sets of sheets were commissioned the first week you were recruited, well before you became my apprentice. The softest of these are in your room here, by the way.”
“Oh geez, that fucking cot back at the training facility? Thanks, but no thanks.” Tori had slept on worse during the darker times in her life, but not by much.
“No, that was a cheap measure while the fireproof ones were being made. I‘m talking about your room here, at the guild,” Ivan replied. “Every member has one, even apprentices, and you are no exception. They aren’t extravagant, but sometimes we just need a place to hole up; this allows us to do so. When your apprenticeship under me comes to an end, presuming it’s a good one, you’ll be allowed to move in here, if you so choose.”
