by wildbow
“Oh my god,” the cashier spoke, hands over her mouth, oblivious to his words.
“He—” Lisa began to speak, then grunted and choked as she was heaved up to her feet by the back of her shirt. The not-enforcer twisted the fabric of her shirt until his hand was knotted up in it, the collar tight against her throat. “He’s not…”
She gave up before going any further with her protests. It didn’t matter. Nobody would believe her. A ratty young teenager from the poor part of town, being paranoid about the cops? Nobody would step in for her, here.
“I’ll talk to her,” he spoke. “Let’s see.” He patted her down with his free hand, brusque, not giving a second’s thought to the fact that she was a girl and a minor. He reached his hand into her back pocket and when he pulled it out, he had a small knife clasped in it. Not hers. He placed it on the counter.
The cashier stared at the knife, eyes widening, then she turned her attention to the merchandise. Ignoring him. What the enforcers did wasn’t something that few bystanders were willing to dwell on. But these people wouldn’t step in. Not for a potentially dangerous teenager that had been carrying a concealed weapon.
Had he been a real enforcer, Lisa would be scared enough. There were stories. People having their fingers broken for shoplifting, being beaten insensate, and there were even tales of the rare girl or boy getting raped by the really twisted fucks. When the enforcer was done making sure the offender in question wouldn’t come back to the Boardwalk, they left the bloodied person in the back of an alley, worked with another to stick them in a dumpster, or if it was late enough that nobody would see, they would toss them off the side of the boardwalk. A fifteen to twenty foot drop, depending on the tides and the location of the drop, onto sand or into water that was freezing cold for half the year.
He marched her out of the store, heaving her to the right to keep her from bumping into the doorframe.
He wasn’t an enforcer though. And he had a gun. The looming punishment was a little more final than what the enforcers tended to pull.
Has gun; has killed before.
He might kill her. It wasn’t like she hadn’t done something worth killing over. She’d drained people’s bank accounts, pocketed the funds. Thousands of dollars, sometimes.
A spot of light hung in the center of her vision. She’d pushed too hard with her power. She’d have to conserve the use of her power, now, or the migraine would knock her out cold when it arrived in force.
There were people all over the Boardwalk. The tourists watched with idle curiosity while the locals averted their eyes. Such a contrast there—the locals knew what was up. It was just inconvenient to pay attention to it.
He forced her into a side street, then rounded a corner so they were behind the row of stores. He shoved her against a wall, held her there.
She spoke, “Tell me what they’re paying you, I’ll double it. I won’t have the money right away, but—”
“Not negotiating,” the enforcer spoke.
A few long seconds passed. She pushed the welling nervousness down, did her best to offer him a smile with her face smushed against the brick. She asked him, “What’s next?”
“For now, we wait.”
Waiting she could live with. Waiting wasn’t getting shot and left for some store employee to find as they took out the trash.
It took a minute before the boyfriend and girlfriend rounded the corner.
“Marcus, you know that’s no way to handle a lady,” the ‘girlfriend’ spoke. She had a posh English accent. When she spoke again, the accent remained, but the upper class lilt was gone, her voice serious. “Turn her around.”
Marcus, the ‘enforcer’, hauled on Lisa’s shoulder, flipping her around, before planting his palm on her collarbone and pushing her back against the wall.
The ‘boyfriend’ was holding a phone to his ear. He handed it to the English woman.
“You have a phone call. We advise you take it,” the woman smiled at Lisa.
Lisa accepted the phone and held it to one ear.
“‘Sup?” she injected playfulness and good humor she definitely didn’t feel into her voice, grinned for the benefit of the three adults with guns.
“I apologize for the manner of our meeting, I hope my soldiers were not too rough on you, Lisa Wilbourn,” the voice on the other end was smooth, calm, unruffled, “Or is it Sarah Livsey?”
“Either or,” she replied, “Lisa these days.”
“As you wish. I have been watching you for some time, Lisa Wilbourn, I have become aware that you are something special, and I would like to buy your services.”
Word choice, buy vs. hire: large amounts of money involved.
Word choice, buy vs. make an offer: not really a negotiation.
She glanced at the weapons the three hired guns had in hand.
“I’m listening.”
* * *
Leviathan whipped his tail around, slamming it through the ranks of capes. Immediately after, a lash of water followed in the wake of his movement, cutting down yet another line of gathered heroes and villains. The armbands announced the losses to the defending side with every attack Leviathan made. Tattletale hung back, further than even the ranged attackers, and watched.
Steady blood flow from small wounds, asynchronous movement; has blood but no comprehensive cardiac system
No cardiac system, no mouth, no nose, no apparent ears: nonstandard nervous system.
“Educated guess says your power doesn’t work so hot on him,” she told Regent, as the two of them backed away.
“Fuck, no. If I can do something, my power’s probably gonna backfire like crazy, and I think that bastard’s quick enough that he’s not about to fall flat on his face.”
Tattletale glanced at where Skitter was hurrying to assist one of the wounded. Even knowing Taylor was out of earshot, she was careful to lower her voice, “And I guess your secret weapon isn’t going to work either?”
“Take two or three times as long, probably, if it worked at all,” Regent grumbled. “Fuck, I’m useless.”
“Then use that first aid training Grue made us get, help out, and keep an eye out in case your power’s needed.”
Alexandria flew toward Leviathan like a black arrow.
Leviathan charged forward as if to meet the heroine in a head on collision, then stopped abruptly. His ‘echo’, like a model of himself shaped out of water, continued forward with the same momentum he’d had while sprinting forward. The heroine used her hands to break the surface tension of the water with a deafening crash, plunged through the water and out the other end, toward Leviathan. She caught him around the neck and slammed him down against the road hard enough that even Tattletale, at the rear lines of the battlefield, had to adjust her footing as the impact rocked the ground.
Whatever advantage Alexandria had gained, it didn’t last long. Leviathan’s tail snaked up and around the heroine’s neck, catching her. He whipped her into the ground, beside him, up into a wall, then back down. This time, he held her beneath the water, using one claw to help pin her.
Dragon, racing forward through the air with an earsplitting roar, launched the full complement of missiles she had on her suit. Before the munitions even struck Leviathan, Dragon was shedding the jet engine atop her, the missile launchers, and other extraneous devices, much as a space shuttle cast off pieces of itself as it launched. The suit collided with Leviathan a half second after the missiles exploded against his torso and shoulders, and steel claws gripped his limbs.
The ‘face’ of her armored suit opened up and began discharging a blue-white flame into his face. The ‘flames’ didn’t move like flames should, spilling off him and down into the water, where they pooled on the road and continued to burn—after a fashion—beneath the water. Leviathan, for his part, began tearing into Dragon, clawing away layers of armor with each swipe of his claws, almost uncaring as to the liquid fire that was spilling over him.
Between the smoke from the missil
es and the steam that arose where the liquid fire touched water, Tattletale was having trouble seeing the battle.
Tattletale pressed the two buttons on her armband, “Give me a flier to get me to a better vantage point. Moderate priority.”
It took only ten seconds before one of the Silicon Valley capes arrived. The man with the jetpack gripped her wrists and carried her up a dizzying height to the roof of the nearest building, five stories tall. She moved to the edge, being careful to stay out of the way of the other capes that were already set up, raining bullets, flames, lasers and other projectiles down on Leviathan at every opportunity. The Endbringer was still battling Dragon, had dug deep enough through metal and armor to reach the center of her suit.
Dragon ejected, skidded to a stop eighty feet away, a smaller suit of armor with thin arms and legs, each tapering down to points. The suit Dragon had left behind glowed red, orange, white, then exploded violently around Leviathan, as though every crevice had been packed with high explosives. Leviathan reeled, lashed his tail, and then lunged back toward the gathered capes. He was intercepted by three flying capes this time, who harried him with superstrength and the case of one hero, an oversized battle axe.
Dragon enters battle with suit packed with explosives, risky, current suit has insufficient room for arms and legs: suit unmanned.
Remotely controlled? Tattletale raised an eyebrow. She hunkered down to to watch the fight, mentally opening those doors that let more information flow.
Leviathan, nonstandard cardiac, nervous systems: irregular biology. No standard organs or weak points. No brain, heart or center of operations for rest of his body.
Irregular biology, no vulnerable organs: body divided into layers, extending down to hyperdurable core body, each layer down is slightly more than twice as durable as previous. Exterior skin is hard as aluminum alloy, but flexible, lets him move. 3% deeper in toward core of arms, legs, claws, tail, or .5% in toward core of head, trunk, neck, tissues are hard as steel. 6% in toward core of extremities or 1% toward core of main body/head, tissues strong as tungsten. 9% toward core of extremities, 1.5% toward core of main body, head, tissues strong as boron. 12%—
She had to stop, start again. Her power did that, if she didn’t focus, kept giving her a steady flow of information but not information she could use.
Leviathan had dispatched the three flying heroes and was dueling with Narwhal. Ballistic from the Travellers was providing supporting fire, sending trash, dumpsters, rubble and pieces of the street careening into Leviathan.
Another try.
Durable layers to body, no conventional organs, irregular biology: tissues mend from the inside out, layers expanding to fill wounds and integrating into surrounding structures. Not human.
Knew that much.
Not human: never was human.
That gave her pause. But she could imagine Grue shouting at her, “Something we can use!” and that was nudge enough to get her to focus her efforts. “Weak points.”
No vulnerable organs, hyperdurable tissues: simple organs exist at core of torso, where there is highest amount of surrounding tissues. Optimal thickness of layer and narrowness of body part at upper arms, just before shoulder joint, and upper thighs, just below hip joint.
Something she—everyone—could use. She pressed the button for the communicator on her armband, “He’s got weak points, sort of. He’ll take the most damage at the arm—”
She was cut off by a blared warning from the armband, and a shuddering rumble of the roof she and the squad of ranged combatants had gathered on. The rumbling only intensified with each passing second.
“Wave!” someone screamed.
Forcefields went up, and being as high as they were, they were out of reach of the worst of it. She could see it, a tide of water several stories high. The impact was reduced to a manageable level only by the shattered Boardwalk and fallen buildings at the end of the road, the uphill slope.
The crash when when the wave rolled against the side of the building was enough to knock over nearly everyone on the roof.
Structure, building age, strength of wave; building will hold.
Hope the people on the ground are as fortunate.
Except another problem became immediately clear. Without the interference of the most durable front line combatants, Leviathan was able to move freely.
The building shuddered, one wall of the building began to crumble, and Leviathan climbed fast enough that his momentum carried him twenty feet above the rooftop. He landed in the midst of them, and the roof crumbled beneath his mass. Two people closest to him were swallowed up as the roof disintegrated underfoot, tumbling towards Leviathan. He adjusted the position of his feet and one hand, to place them at the still-intact portions of the roof’s edge, where the structure was strongest.
Only a second after he’d landed, the water that followed in his wake crashed down on the roof, splashing out to push everyone present ten or fifteen feet away from Leviathan, tearing the gaping hole in the roof open even further. Tattletale gripped the edge of the roof to keep from being pushed over, choked as water forced itself into her nose and mouth. A less fortunate cape screamed as she fell.
This would be a good fucking time to act, Regent.
Wave; Regent briefly incapacitated.
“Fuck,” she muttered.
Hadn’t Taylor been in a situation like this when they’d met? With Lung? How had she coped?
Right, she hadn’t. We stepped in. Great.
The armband was still rattling off the casualties from the wave. As Tattletale coughed, tried to clear her mouth enough to breathe, Leviathan lashed out with the one claw that wasn’t planted against the walls of the building, easily striking two heroes down. From the damage done, it was painfully obvious that they weren’t invincible or anywhere close to it. A third person was gravely injured by the crushing flow of water that followed in the wake of his claw, momentum and a lack of attachment to Leviathan’s own body letting it extend well beyond his reach.
Some cape wearing armor studded with stone imagery retaliated, some sort of power that let him generate matter, like chunks of rock or metal pouring out in a stream, spraying into Leviathan’s face, making the creature pull back.
Leviathan retaliated with a whiplike lash of his tail, bisecting the man. Of the twelve or so that had been on the roof a minute ago, only three remained.
Not even looking her way, Leviathan raised one claw in Tattletale’s general direction. The water on the roof shifted, surged toward Tattletale in an isolated wave as tall as she was, lifting her, pushing at her.
The sting of the spray and the salt of the water blinded her. There was a brief dizzying moment where she realized she couldn’t tell which way was up. She realized she was falling.
Stupid, the thought was an accusation, biting, directed wholly at herself.
* * *
She was the last to arrive. She grinned as she joined the group that had gathered by the entrance to the Trainyards. So these are the people Coil found.
“You aren’t wearing a costume, and you’re late,” spoke the tallest of the three present, his voice echoing as if from someplace more distant than he was. He was covered in darkness that smouldered like a low flame, obscuring him, drifting off in faint wisps. At times, she could see the image of a skull in the midst of it. Intriguing.
Darkness generation; muffles sound.
Muffles sound, light: inhibits radiation, microwaves, radio frequencies, miniscule effects on the transfer of kinetic energy—
“Don’t have one,” Lisa replied, before she could get lost in the flow of information and took too long to respond.
“You’ll have to get one.”
Orders, demands, statements, condemnations, use of skull in costume: solo operator, organized, careful to divorce emotion from action & agenda. Falls back on order, rules, self discipline in times of stress.
“I was sort of thinking I’d take a backseat role, serve as your contact, the
gal on the other end of the phone, keeping you guys on track, feeding you info.”
“Fuck that,” the only other girl in the group spoke, jabbing a finger at her, “If you’re taking an equal share, you’re gonna get your hands dirty too.” One of the dogs that accompanied the girl growled, as if to punctuate the statement.
Word choice, ‘too’: haunted by demons.
Swearing: antisocial.
Unhappy with status quo: seeking to change things, seeking money, power, prestige.
Antisocial, swearing, clothes prioritizing function and comfort over style: not seeking human connections, prefers company of dogs. Powers relate to dogs.
Powers relating to dogs, not seeking human connections, antisocial, inner demons: powers side effects disconnected standard human empathy and understanding, no longer grasps full extent of human relations, signals, signs, cues—
Tattletale shrugged, admitted, “My power isn’t so good in a direct confrontation.”
“Figure it out,” the darkness generator told her.
“Alright, can do,” she assured him. As much to test his patience and see his limits, she grinned and offered the words, “Should be fun.”
The darkness generator folded his arms.
Folded arms: irritation, doubt.
She glanced at the one person who hadn’t spoken yet. Hard ceramic mask with a blank expression frozen on it, a coronet set atop black hair, renaissance era clothing. Only his eyes were visible.
“Barrels of fun,” the boy spoke, in a tone that might have been sarcastic, or might have been disinterested. His eyes met hers.
Disinterest or affected disinterest, lack of engagement, lack of pupil dilation or contraction coinciding with eye contact: limited emotional depth, deeply repressed emotions and/or depression. Sociopath.
Odd as it was, she felt better, knowing these things. She liked to think that everyone had roughly the same measure of fucked-up-ness in them, some weird or offensive element. Knowing that it was so close to the surface, or relatively close in the darkness manipulator’s case, it was almost reassuring. It meant that she didn’t find out something ugly days, weeks or months down the line.