by wildbow
“For my mom and dad,” she said.
I glanced at her, but she didn’t elaborate.
It took another minute to get the sled prepped and people mounted. Rachel enhanced the size of her dogs so they’d have the strength to pull not only the wounded, but the two teams as well. It meant they were slower, but it also meant moving nearly forty people with four dogs. I took off, flying, leading the way and giving directions with bugs as they followed.
A crash heavier than any we’d had yet made the dogs stumble, falling. It very nearly overturned the sleds. Bitch had fallen from where she sat on Bentley’s back. I stopped at her side to make sure she was alright, gave her a hand in getting back to her feet. She accepted it without complaint or incident, but when she met my eyes, her glower cut right through me.
Was that her resentment at work or my guilt, that made me feel that way under her gaze?
Once I’d verified that no damage had been done, I rose just high enough to peer over the top of a building.
The lightning rod had tilted, leaning against an adjacent building, the supports Golem had raised had crumbled. Behemoth, too, had fallen.
Eidolon and Legend hovered in the sky, flanked by four dragon-craft.
Another figure was there as well, hovering where Behemoth had been standing an instant ago. The Endbringer had been toppled with one massive blow.
I touched the button on my armband, lowering my head beneath cover.
“Send this message to Defiant,” I said. “You said she was dead. You said you verified.”
The reply crackled so badly it was almost inaudible. “Reply from Defiant. I saw the body myself, we checked her DNA, her … readings, we matched against the mountings for her prosthetic eye … carbon dated it to verify.”
He didn’t even need to ask who I meant.
I pressed the button, “Ask Defiant who the hell that’s supposed to be, if it’s not Alexandria.”
Crushed 24.2
If I’d had any doubt it was Alexandria, it was banished when she followed up the attack. Behemoth started to rise to his feet, and Alexandria struck. It wasn’t a punch with a great deal of wind-up, and she only crossed fifty or sixty feet before driving it home, but the impact was undeniable.
Behemoth absorbed the blow, and redirected it into the ground. He didn’t move, as though the blow had never struck home, but the ground around him shattered like the surface of a mirror. Fragments of rock and clouds of dust flew up around him, and a three-story building on its last legs tumbled over. The damage to the ground made him sink a fraction.
I could see the change in the Endbringer’s demeanor. Before, he’d been wading forward, as if Legend, Eidolon and the metal suits were little more than a strong headwind. He was moving with purpose now, with an opponent that was veering in and out of easy reach, one he could hit, without Legend’s speed or Eidolon’s personal shield.
She had told me that they knew how to fight each other, and I could see that at play, here. Part of the change in Behemoth’s approach might have been that interaction at play.
It was a fight involving four individuals who couldn’t hope to do substantial damage to their opponents. The dragon suits and other capes were a peripheral thing. Alexandria circled, just beyond the perimeter of Behemoth’s kill range, her teammates and their supporting cast bombarding him in the meantime. They destroying the ground beneath his feet, trying to get him when his focus was elsewhere and his ability to redirect the energies of a given attack was reduced.
He couldn’t keep her in mind at all times. She waited until he focused on a different combatant, heaving out lightning or creating flame to attack the ones in the air, and then she struck. Nine times, he simply deflected the strike into the ground, as a rumble and a series of spiderwebbing cracks in the streets, or into the air as a shockwave. Again and again, he came within a heartbeat of getting his hands on her in retaliation, not even flinching as she struck him, reacting with an unnatural quickness as he reached out, to try to pin her using his claws, to strike her into the ground or to time the collapses of buildings to briefly bury her, so he could close the distance.
The times her strikes did get past his defenses, her tiny form in the distance with the black cape trailing behind her lunging into his kill range to deliver a blow or a series of blows, Behemoth stumbled, caught briefly at the mercy of physics.
In a fashion, she was doing the same thing the lightning rod had been, buying all of the rest of us a small reprieve. There was no guarantee, and there wouldn’t be any until he was driven off or we moved a hundred miles away, but she was making the rest of this just a little easier, reducing the destruction just a fraction unless he specifically took the time to work around her.
Was she being more cautious than she needed to be? I saw her pass up on a handful of opportunities I might have taken in her shoes, when his back was turned, his attention sufficiently occupied. Was she aware of something I wasn’t? Was she a convincing fake? Or was she just a little more afraid, after what my bugs had done to her?
However effective the distractions, he was still Behemoth, still implacable, a living tank that could roll over any obstacle and virtually any individual, unleashing an endless barrage of artillery at range. He reached the lightning rod and shoved it to the ground.
I was reminded of my teammates, descended to the ground, where they were still getting sorted. The chains that led from the dogs to the harness had tangled.
“What the hell was that?” Tecton asked.
“Alexandria,” I said.
“You murdered Alexandria,” Regent commented. “Remember? You’re a horrible person, doing things like that.”
“You leave her alone!” Imp said, uncharacteristically. “She feels so bad she’s seeing things.”
“Can we try to stay serious?”
“Don’t be too hard on them,” Tecton said. “Some people use humor to deal with bad situations.”
“It’s true,” Regent said, affecting a knowing tone.
“No,” Grue responded. “They’re just idiots. You two keep your mouths shut. The adults are talking.”
Imp raised her middle fingers at him.
He turned to me, “It’s Alexandria? You’re sure?”
“Can you ever be sure of anything? Clones, alternate realities, healing abilities… there’s any number of possibilities.”
In the distance, a glowing orange sphere flew into the sky. It reached a peak, then descended, crashing into the distant skyline.
I reoriented myself and flew up to the edge of the roof to peek at the battle. Behemoth had melted down part of the metal arm and fashioned the melted metal into a superheated lump. A second lump, cooler and not yet fabricated into an aerodynamic shape, was sitting beside him. Alexandria tried to strike it away, but he caught it with one claw. He superheated it, shielding it from Legend and Eidolon’s fire with his body, then heaved it into the air. The projectile flared intensely as it left his kill range, following nearly the same path as before.
Lasers from capes in the distance sliced the second sphere into shreds before it could strike its intended target.
Grue tugged the chain. He looked at Rachel, who only nodded.
And we were moving again.
I returned to my recon position, scouting to ensure the way was clear, keeping an eye on the fight and ensuring that there weren’t any attacks coming our way.
Behemoth was glowing, his gray skin tending more towards white, a stark contrast to his obsidian horns and claws. The heroes were backing off a measure, and Behemoth was taking advantage of the situation to stampede forward, tearing past buildings and barricades.
“Grue!” I shouted. The noise in the distance was getting worse. If Behemoth was continuing the path I’d seen him traveling, he was wading through a series of buildings. Grue didn’t hear me. I raised my voice, waited until the noise died down, “Radiation! Use darkness!”
He did, and we were cloaked in it. I continued navigating, using my
bugs this time. Only a small handful ventured forward at a time, checking for fires. I was flying blind, scouting without the ability to see.
It delayed me when a fire did present itself, and I was delayed even further when I faced the issue of trying to communicate it to the team.
“Fire!” I shouted. I knew he could hear me through the darkness, but he couldn’t hear me over the sounds of toppled buildings. I was no doubt drowned out by the sound of the sled scraping against the road, the crashes in the background and the rushing of the wind.
I changed direction, aiming for the sleds, and flew forward. A little off target. Didn’t want to knock someone off the sled. I made a slight adjustment with the antigrav, and landed on the front edge of the sled, between Grue and Rachel. Grue very nearly let go in his surprise, and I caught the back of his neck to keep him from falling off the sled.
He left the darkness to either side of us intact and created a corridor.
“Fire!” I said, the instant I was able. “Just over that hill! Go left!”
He cleared more darkness, and we turned sharply enough that the sleds swung out wide. I held on to the lip of the sled, but I let myself slide back, using the antigrav pack to keep myself from falling to the road.
The sudden movement had shifted the occupants. The design of the sled made it difficult for anyone to fall out, but they’d slumped against one side, and one man was hanging halfway out. With only one usable arm, he wasn’t able to maintain a grip.
The sled went over a series of bumps, and I reached him just in time to give him the support he needed, one hand and both feet on the lip of the sled, the other hand holding him.
Once they were on course, I helped ease him down to a better position.
He said something that I couldn’t understand, his words breathless.
I took off.
A shockwave ripped past us, harsher, briefer and more intense than a strong wind, not quite the organ-pulverizing impact it might be if Behemoth were closer, or if there were less buildings in the way. I ventured up to a rooftop where I might be able to see beyond the darkness.
The shockwave had parted the clouds of smoke, but they began to close together once again. I could make out a form, maybe one of the Indian capes, swiftly growing. Ethereal, translucent, his features vague, the light he emitted only barely cutting through the smoke cover. He slammed hands into Behemoth’s face and chest.
Behemoth parted his hands, then swung them together. I didn’t wait for them to make contact. I ducked behind cover before the shockwave could hit me directly. All around me, the smoke was dashed out of the sky by the impact’s reach. With the front of my body hugging the building, I could feel not only the shockwave, but the vibrations that followed it, as buildings fell and debris settled in new locations.
He delivered shockwave after shockwave, and I was forced to abandon the cover of the building for something a little more distant.
He wasn’t irradiated any more. Or, at least, the glow wasn’t there. He’d been buying himself a reprieve from the assault of the heroes, a chance to cover more ground. Now they had resumed the counter-offensive. The noises of the fight followed me as I got ahead of the Undersiders.
Another obstacle. A crowd, this time.
I landed on the sled once more and ordered a stop. It took a second for the dogs to slow down enough.
Locals stood in our way. Some had guns. They ranged the gamut from people a step above homelessness to businessmen.
“Leader?” one asked, his voice badly accented. He was younger, very working class, which surprised me. I’d anticipated that someone older and more respectable would be taking charge.
“Me,” I said, using a small boost from the flight pack to get ahead of the group.
“Stealing?” he asked me, his voice hard.
“No. Injured.”
He gestured towards the sled, taking a half-step forward. I nodded.
I didn’t like wasting time, but I was hoping he’d give the A-okay and the group would get out of our way. I watched as he studied the people lying in the sled.
“We take,” he said. “We have doctor, hiding place. You go fight, help. Is your duty.”
I could sense a group approaching from Behemoth’s general direction. Two women in evening gowns, a girl in a frock, another girl in costume.
No time to dwell on decisions. I asked the man, “You sure?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Cuff, Annex, kill the chains. Leave sleds behind. Wards, stay with me. Grue, I’ll direct you guys to the Ambassadors. Take the dogs. Leave us some darkness for cover so we’re safe from any more radiation.”
It took only a few seconds to get organized. By the time the Undersiders had departed, we had a team of people pulling the sleds.
“Message from Defiant,” my armband declared. “Alexandria confirmed gone from PRT custody.”
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“Message from Defiant. Stay out of her way until we know more. Behemoth’s approaching the first perimeter. I will keep you posted.”
“Tell him thank you.”
“It’s a good thing,” Grace said. “Maybe not in the long run, but for now—”
“For now it’s an unknown factor,” I said. “And there’s one really big known factor that’s tearing through this city, and we should be devoting all our attention to it. To Behemoth.”
“We can focus on both,” Tecton said.
“That’s how you get blindsided,” I told him. I hauled on the chain, and the sled moved. Cuff seemed to be doing the lion’s share of the work, standing between the sleds and ushering them forward. Though it screwed up the direction the sleds were facing, making them veer left or right, it gave us enough momentum that we only needed to work on keeping it going.
We reached a squat building with signs featuring unintelligible writing and cars. Some hurried forward and opened a garage door, and we kept the sleds on course to lead them inside.
Their ‘hiding place’ was an underground corridor, leading beneath and between two hoists for the cars. Annex had to reshape the sled to fit, and we found ourselves on a general downward incline. People shifted position to the sides of the sled to keep it from getting away from us and running over the people in front.
I saw the man who’d done the talking glance down at the wounded. His eyes caught the light in a way that reminded me of a dog, or a cat.
Capes. At least some of these guys are capes, I thought. The ‘cold’ capes, the underworld’s locals.
It was an ominous realization, as we descended, to know that we were outnumbered by parahumans I knew nothing about, with unknown motives.
The armband’s crackling was getting steadily worse. “Message from Grue. Rendezvous is fine. On way to your location.”
“Message received,” I replied.
“Message from Grue…”
The voice devolved into crackling.
Too much ambient electromagnetic radiation, and the amount of ground that was between us and Grue probably didn’t help.
It was hard to gauge how deep we were getting. We reached a point where a fissure made moving the sleds more difficult, but Annex, Tecton and Golem shored it up in moments.
We descended deep enough that I wasn’t able to access the surface with my bugs, then deeper still.
The more isolated we were, the more ominous the uncostumed capes around us seemed to become. My bugs followed us down the corridor, just far enough back that the ‘cold’ parahumans couldn’t see them, close enough to help.
“This tunnel was made by a cape,” Tecton said.
Don’t bring it up, I thought, suppressing the urge to react.
“No,” the man with the eyes said. He didn’t turn our way.
I reached out and touched Tecton’s arm. He, naturally, didn’t feel the contact through his heavy armor. Tecton continued, “I’m pretty s—”
My nudge became a shove as I moved his arm enough to get his attention. He looked at me
, and I shook my head. Tecton didn’t finish the sentence.
“Oh so pretty,” Wanton offered.
“Don’t you start,” Tecton said. “The Undersiders are bad enough.”
I could see the Wards change in demeanor as we descended well beneath the city. Tecton’s head was turning now, scanning the people around us. Wanton hunched over, as if the surroundings were weighing on him, a pressure from above. Cuff had her arms folded, hugging her body, a defensive wall, however meager, against an attacker from above, and both Annex and Grace had gravitated closer to other team members, as if unconsciously adopting a loose formation.
Golem, odd as it was, seemed to fall more in line with Tecton and I, watching the surroundings, eyeing the strangers who accompanied us. It wasn’t that he wasn’t afraid; everything else about him suggested he was. It was more that he was wary in a natural, practiced way.
How had he picked that up? He was supposed to be a rookie.
I held my tongue and used my bugs to scan the surroundings.
The area opened up into an underground living space, crowded with weary and scared people. It was dim, with lights alternating between floor and ceiling positions, tight corridors with what seemed to be tiny apartments carved out of the rock. My prison cell had more space than these quarters. At least there was room to stand straight up in the jail. These rooms were stacked on top of one another, two high.
But it was space nonetheless.
“Is it stable?” I asked Tecton.
“I can’t see enough to tell,” he said. “Maybe? Probably?”
“I don’t know if I can leave people here if it’s a deathtrap,” I said, as I eyed the people emerging from the rooms.
“Pretty risky up there,” Wanton said.
Up there there’s a chance. I was counting hundreds or thousands down here. My bugs could sense corridors, and I was left wondering if this was only one area of many.
Some of the residents stepped forward to help, hands on weapons or simply watching us, undecided on whether we were threats or not.
The leader, who I was mentally labeling ‘Cat’s Eyes’, said something, and they relaxed a fraction. He said something else, and they started helping the wounded. None used or displayed any overt powers.