by wildbow
He’d always told himself that he wouldn’t be a victim, that when the time came and he was indoctrinated into a cult, he’d recognize the targeted isolation, the practice of tiring him out so he’d be more amenable to suggestion, more likely to conform. He’d told himself that he would rebel and maintain his individuality.
So stupid, to pretend he had that degree of willpower, in the face of crushing social pressure and exhaustion. It had taken him nearly five days after he left the basic training and joined the official team before he realized what was going on. The saddest part of it was that he was fully aware they were brainwashing him, indoctrinating him, and there was nothing he could do about it. Despite himself, despite the pride he’d once had as a person, he wanted acceptance.
They were a poor surrogate, a surrogate he hated, in a way, but he had nothing else. His family was a universe away, his friends had turned on him, gone mad.
There was a crash, and a shockwave ripped through the area, momentarily clearing the smoke. Cody instinctively raised his forcefield.
Behemoth was there, standing amid leveled buildings, fighting some flying capes who strafed around him. He had built up some steam, and lightning coursed over his gray flesh, illuminating him. Only one or two of the metal ships were still fighting. Other craft, airborne, seemed focused on evacuating, but it was a gamble at best, as shockwaves and lightning struck them down.
The smoke filled the sky once more, obscuring Cody’s vision too much for him to see any further.
Behemoth clapped again, then again, each collision of claw against claw serving to extend the damage one step further, clearing obstructions out of the way for the next.
The Yàngbǎn backed away, spreading out inadvertently. Cody could feel the benefit of the second path fading, the enhanced powers the others granted slipping from his grasp.
“Tā shì fúshè kuòsàn,” Three said. He said something else that Cody couldn’t make out. Something about leaving.
The group moved out, flying low to the ground, and Cody was a fraction of a second behind, pushed himself to make sure he was in formation.
“Radiation,” Thirty-two said, her English perfect, unaccented. It was for Cody’s benefit, and the benefit of the other two English-speaking members of the group, who might not understand the more complicated words. She got glances from the other members of their squad, but continued speaking. “He’s using the shockwaves to spread irradiated material across the city. We’re retreating, okay?”
Cody nodded, but couldn’t bring himself to speak as the group took flight. It was unnecessary, wasn’t worth it when he accounted for how the others would react and respond if he used English. Thirty-two would be shunned for doing so, there was no need for him to join her.
An explosion of smoke bloomed out in front of them.
Not smoke. Darkness.
The Yàngbǎn collectively dropped into fighting stances, ready to use any power the instant it was called for.
Villains stepped out of the smoke, and it was only then that the benefits of the twenty-third path belatedly granted the Yàngbǎn their ability to sense these people. The power had been blocked by someone or something in the group.
They were Westerners, by the looks of them. Cody’s eyes narrowed as he studied them. A guy with a demon mask, surrounded by the same eerie darkness that formed a wall between the group and Behemoth, a young girl with a horned mask, a stocky guy or girl with a thick fur ruff on their hood, and a girl in black with an opaque pane over her face and a crossbow in her hands.
The other group was also mounted, but clearly distinct in style, even if they’d shuffled together with the other group. The boy in medieval clothes with a silver crown, the girl in a frock, two grown women in evening gowns.
They were all mounted on mutants. He had to reach for the name. The guy from Boston, Blasty? Blasto. He was supposed to make horrific mutants. Maybe he was here.
The Yàngbǎn edged around the group, wary.
“Jesus,” the man with darkness shrouding him said. His power was billowing out around him, more darkness. “What the hell are you doing?”
He’s getting the benefit of the power boost, Cody thought, but he didn’t speak.
The others were shifting uncomfortably, but the one with the white mask and silver crown, and the two in the evening gowns… they seemed to take it more in stride.
Something about them, it tugged at a memory. Not a strong memory, but a brief encounter at some point… it gave him an ugly, twisting feeling in his gut.
He blinked, and the girl with the gray, horned mask was right in front of him. He resisted the urge to react. His teammates, he knew, were raising their hands in anticipation of a fight. They were distrustful. They’d been taught that foreign heroes were dangerous, unpredictable.
Thing was, they were right. As a rule, capes were fucked up. People were fucked up. The Yàngbǎn, Cody mused, resolved the situation by stripping capes of their humanity.
She turned around, as if she hadn’t just appeared in front of him. “Shit, you weren’t kidding. It gets stronger as you get closer to more of them. I can do practically anything, and they don’t react.”
“No idea,” the man in black said.
“They’re Chinese capes,” a woman in a yellow evening gown said. “They probably don’t speak enough English to answer.”
Something nagged at him. Cody searched his memories. Between the crossbow and the boy in the renaissance era clothes, he couldn’t help but think of the game he’d played with his friends before everything went horribly wrong. But the evening gowns, those masks…
Accord. The bastard who had taken him, who had traded him to the Yàngbǎn for money.
The anger was refreshing, startling, and unexpected. A splash of scalding water to the face, as if waking him from a dream.
“Thirty-six!” It was Thirty-two calling.
“Thirty-six?” the girl with the horns asked. “What?”
It was Cody’s name. His new name, rather, but he’d never quite identified by it. He turned and realized he’d dropped out of formation.
“Let’s go,” she said.
He glanced back at the woman in yellow.
“I can guess what you’re thinking, but it’s not worth it,” she said.
Every step of the way, I got fucked. Fucked by Krouse, fucked by the Simurgh, fucked by Noelle, fucked by Accord, fucked by the fucking Yàngbǎn.
The woman in yellow spoke. “Whether it’s answers, or revenge, or something else entirely, you won’t find any of it here.”
Others in her group were looking at her in surprise, or as much as one could, when wearing masks.
“Do you know how easy it would be to kill you?” Cody asked.
Three gave an order in Chinese. Incomprehensible, but Cody could guess.
“If you killed me,” the woman in yellow said, “He’d barely care, and you’d spend the rest of your life in a hole that Ziggurat made, if they didn’t just paralyze you from the neck down and leave you alive to borrow your power.”
Ziggurat? Oh. Tōng Líng Tǎ, the earth mover.
She’d said she didn’t have answers, but this—
The ground shook violently. Behemoth was still active. Lightning was arcing through and around the dark clouds of smoke that were rising at the edges of the city.
“If it’s alright, we should go,” the darkness man said. “Things get much worse, I’m not sure how much we can help, and I’m losing my mind waiting like this.”
There was a whistle from someone in the group, and they were gone, the mutant quadrupeds breaking into a run.
And Cody was left standing there, staring.
Three snapped something, and Thirty-two translated, “He’s saying we can send you back, if—”
“No. It’s fine,” Cody said. He turned and fell into formation. The disapproval was like a weight on him from all sides. He withered a little. How many weeks, months or years would it be before he was allowed to hold a conversation with his co
mrades?
More heroes were running by, now. A group of young heroes, a cluster of religious capes with halos and crosses worked into their costumes, and a fresh wave of mechanical ships. The reinforcements had arrived.
Eight said something, but the accent was too thick for Cody to make it out.
He’d been stirred from a delirium, a state where the days had blended into one another, where the sole defining moment of his week might be if he were acknowledged by the other members or rebuked. It wasn’t Behemoth who’d shaken him from that point. It was the woman in yellow.
Anger twisted in his gut, and it wasn’t going away. He found himself holding onto it, embracing it.
As if it reflected the violence within Cody, the city was burning, shattered and gripped in chaos. Thousands were in the streets, running between flimsy looking buildings crusted with signage, or lying dead, struck down by shockwaves created by a monster half a mile away. Women, children.
They passed injured, and didn’t spare a second glance. A family of five were caught in a ring of burning structures, and the Yàngbǎn didn’t even spare a second glance.
We’re military, not heroes.
The goal was to fight the monster, to support the Yàngbǎn and support the C.U.I. in any way possible.
Three changed course, and the rest flew after him, setting down. Their destination was a flattened building, with a group of dead, maimed and dying Indian capes lying in the debris.
Cody exercised the twenty-third path to find out what Three surely knew already. There was nobody nearby.
Three reached down, and others around him joined in, making contact with one of the dying.
It took nearly a minute, to attune everything the right way. But the effect took hold, and the injured hero disappeared.
Five looked to Cody and pointed at the next one.
Lowest rung on the totem pole. If I didn’t think Null would rescind my powers, I’d kill you here and now.
Reluctantly, still stewing with anger, he obeyed, kneeling by the body.
The forty-second path. Teleportation. He could see the destination in his mind’s eye, like an annoying spot of light in the center of his vision, gradually getting more detailed and focused. Each person that joined his side to assist sped the process along.
The wounded hero flickered and disappeared.
By the time they were done, all three bodies had been removed.
“Qiān chū.” Three ordered.
They moved out.
As they traveled, he could see the streets choked with evacuees, a virtual tide of people, rickshaws, bicycles and cars. They’d reached bottlenecks, points where they couldn’t advance, and the evacuation wasn’t proceeding.
Was this an extension of Behemoth’s strategy? The major streets were unused, either because the Endbringer could see them, unleashing waves of electricity and shockwaves to strike down anyone who tried those routes, or because buildings had been felled and they were impassable.
The heroes who weren’t helping with the evacuation were establishing perimeters, staggered lines of defense. Here, Indian capes were setting up turrets on high ground, guns the size of cars, drilling them into the roads and rooftops. Another block over, there were civilians who weren’t running. They’d gathered, and were talking in low voices. They radiated a different degree of power, on par with the capes on the rooftops.
The Yàngbǎn squadron slowed down as the cluster of capes grew denser, the buildings more solid and further apart. There were trees here, but the heroes were cutting them down. Each squad seemed to be executing a different plan, a different setup. What appeared to be force-field fences were being erected in between each group and Behemoth’s estimated point of approach.
There was one group with heavy ranged weapons. An area was being cleared, set up with devices. Another area had been marked off with chalk, but it wasn’t clear what they intended to do. Tinkers everywhere were setting up. A kid with red armor and lenses had two odd-looking cannons set up on one rooftop, each the size of a city bus.
It painted a picture, formed a script of sorts, for the story that had yet to take place. The idea that Behemoth would change direction from where he’d initially started off wasn’t even a consideration. They weren’t consolidating forces, gathering together for one good strike, but were arranging it so one would follow after the other. The capes he’d already seen were the ones that had gone forward to support, to find the injured, trusting to mobility or evasion to slip away.
And here, this far in, a dozen countermeasures were being set up, if not two dozen. This would be the staging ground, without the crush of flammable buildings all around them. Each countermeasure would occupy Behemoth for just long enough that the heroes could manage a barrage of attacks.
The Yàngbǎn reached the center of the network, landing on the rooftop with the most capes. The makeshift command center.
He only had to take one look, and he knew. Something vital was missing. They had any number of ways to stall, and each one would cost them a little. But for all of that, he couldn’t make out anything that looked like it would end the fight.
Cody could see the heroes react as the Yàngbǎn landed, and he could see the way others looked to one small set of people for cues. The top-level guys, the leadership of the Protectorate.
A a man in gleaming armor extended a hand to Three, who’d stepped away from the group. “We didn’t expect the Yàngbǎn.”
Three looked over his shoulder, and Thirty-two stepped forward. Three murmured something, and she translated. “Your PRT was very persuasive, Chevalier.”
“I suppose we can count that as a good thing. You read the briefings and plans we sent out?”
Thirty-two continued to translate, “We did. With your permission, we’ll return to the fight with Behemoth shortly. But we’d like to make a proposal.”
“I know what you’re going to propose,” Chevalier said. “I’m sorry, it—”
“It’s somewhat counter to our usual offer,” Thirty-two spoke quickly to match Three’s attempted interruption.
Chevalier fell silent.
“Your heroes here are scared. They want to help, they are good people. We’re offering another way. They can help without risking their lives.”
“I think I understand. You have to understand why I’m saying no,” Chevalier said.
“Our group shares powers. Time and time again, the West has refused them. We would rehabilitate your criminals, and share their powers among us. They are divided in strength, but we have the ability to magnify powers. You can feel it now, being close.”
“Yes,” Chevalier said.
In the distance, a column of lightning cut through the wall of smoke above the city, as big around as an apartment building. Cody could feel the vibrations shudder through the building, as sturdy as it was, though the lightning was miles away.
“We might each have only a share of a power, reduced effect, range or duration, but we regain as much as a third of that power back with this magnification, depending on how many are together. A full third of forty powers at once. If any would volunteer, we would teleport them to a safe place, where we would borrow their power for this fight only. We would send them home when the fight was over.”
Cody could see the reactions of the capes on the rooftop. People were exchanging glances. Considering it.
A part of him wanted to scream, to warn them, whatever the cost to him might be.
“I see,” Chevalier said.
“For years, we have boasted of the strength the Yàngbǎn offers the world. But we are small, and too many citizens with powers flee or fight rather than cooperate. Today, we hope to show our strength. We have extended our support, and we ask for trust in exchange.”
“Your support is welcome, and that’s why we couldn’t ever ask you to make this leap of faith,” Chevalier said. “I understand your motives are pure, but if some accident transpired, and a good cape didn’t make it back, it would mean war.”
Cody hadn’t missed the way the hero had stressed the words. A warning for his people, more than a statement for Three.
“We would be exceedingly careful,” Thirty-two translated for Three. “Rest assured.”
Cody was watching the negotiations continue, Chevalier looking more and more uncomfortable, when he saw him.
Accord. He was accompanied by a girl in a lavender and black costume, and a dark-skinned man in a suit.
Cody had to hold himself back to keep from striking the man. It would be suicide, and no matter which power he used, Cody couldn’t be sure he could guarantee a kill.
He could see the moment where Accord saw the Yàngbǎn. Cody could see the reaction, as if the man had been slapped in the face. Accord’s shifting mask gave away his reaction, and then his expression set, his body language neutral, as if nothing had happened and nothing was wrong.
The girl beside him smiled, and brilliant green eyes settled on Cody, stark contrasts to her pale purple costume.
He hated not knowing anything, being cut off by language barriers and the rules of the Yàngbǎn. Who was the girl in lavender? Where were Alexandria, Eidolon and Legend?
Every question left him more uneasy, increasingly angry, and Accord was the person who had put him in this situation.
I’m a slave, and he’s the one who put me in chains.
“May I interrupt?” Accord asked.
“If the Yàngbǎn will excuse me?” Chevalier asked Three.
Three nodded. “As you will. We can wait.”
Cody suspected Chevalier had been hoping to end the conversation, rather than postpone it. He stared at Accord. Do they know what you do? What you are?
There was a crash, a clap of thunder, and a rush of hot wind. The cloud of smoke around Behemoth’s battlefield was growing, and it wasn’t just a matter of perspective, of Behemoth getting closer.
Capes flew off, joining the fray. The Yàngbǎn remained.
“What can you tell us? Do you have a plan?” Chevalier asked Accord.
I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him. Somehow. I just need a chance.
It was too much, like being asleep for months and finally waking up, only to discover that the only thing inside him was rage.