by wildbow
“No way,” Reed said, smiling genuinely for what might have been the first time.
“Yes way,” Hero said, returning the smile. “But we’re not going to tell the higher-ups, are we? It’s a bit of a secret, and you don’t betray that secret by letting yourself slack on the training or the schoolwork, right?”
Reed’s smile dropped a little in intensity, but he nodded.
“Go on,” Hero said, still smiling, “And don’t get me in trouble.”
Reed hurried back to his chair, as if getting there sooner meant the party would end earlier, speeding up his access to the treasure trove Hero had hinted at.
Wordless, Chevalier managed the drinks and two plates as he carried them over to Hannah. He gave her a plate and a cup, and she smiled without thanking him.
“A toast,” Alexandria said, stepping forward. “To the first Wards team of America.”
“To second chances,” Hero said.
“A brighter future,” Eidolon added.
“And to making good memories,” Legend finished.
“Memories,” Hannah said, under her breath, nearly inaudible as the room clapped and cheered. She was looking down at the machete that she’d placed across her lap, the paper plate with the cake balanced on the flat of the blade.
Chevalier didn’t respond. His eyes were on the phantom images, barely visible.
* * *
The screen displayed the list. Chevalier scrolled down, his expression grim.
Marun Field, December 13th, 1992. Behemoth.
São Paulo, July 6th, 1993. Behemoth.
New York, March 26th, 1994. Behemoth.
Jakarta, November 1st, 1994. Behemoth.
Moscow, June 18th, 1995. Behemoth.
Johannesburg, January 3rd, 1996. Behemoth.
Oslo, June 9th, 1996. Leviathan.
Cologne, November 6th, 1996. Behemoth.
Busan, April 23rd, 1997. Leviathan.
Buenos Aires, September 30th, 1997. Behemoth.
Sydney, January 18th, 1998. Leviathan.
Jinzhou, July 3rd, 1998. Behemoth.
Madrid, December 25th, 1998. Leviathan.
Ankara, July 21st, 1999. Behemoth.
Kyushu, November 2nd, 1999. Leviathan.
Lyon, April 10th, 2000. Behemoth.
Naples, September 16th, 2000. Leviathan.
Vanderhoof, February 25th, 2001. Behemoth.
Hyderabad, July 6th, 2001. Leviathan.
Lagos, December 6th, 2001. Behemoth.
Shanghai, April 23rd, 2002. Leviathan.
Bogotá, August 20th, 2002. Behemoth.
Lausanne, December 30th, 2002. Simurgh.
Seattle, April 1st, 2003. Leviathan.
London, August 12th, 2003. Simurgh.
Lyon, October 3rd, 2003. Behemoth.
“Stop,” Chevalier ordered. The artificial intelligence halted the scrolling. The scroll bar wasn’t even at the halfway mark.
Brighter future indeed.
He rubbed at his eyes, suddenly feeling very weary. Nothing worked out like it was supposed to. The Wards were supposed to be a safe haven for teenaged capes, buying them time to prepare themselves, to train and figure out what they needed to figure out. Somewhere along the line, some Wards had joined the fight. Locals, defending their homes, naturally.
As the ranks of adult capes were whittled down, more had attended the fights, as if unconsciously acknowledging the need, or as if they were under a subtle pressure to do so. Just like that, the ideals and ideas that had helped form the original Wards team had eroded away.
He swept a hand in front of him, and the ship read the gesture, a new image appearing on the monitor. The two screens on either side showed Behemoth’s attack on the city. He hadn’t ventured far from where he’d emerged.
Chevalier only glanced at the screens from moment to moment, his focus more on the infrastructure, the resources at his disposal.
San Diego, absent. They’d lost too many members, abandoned by those who’d lost faith in the Protectorate, with the remnants cannibalized to support other teams in need. San Diego was more or less stable, so there’d been little pressure to resupply them with new members.
Except that Spire, San Diego’s team leader, hadn’t felt confident walking into the fight. There’d been the human element, the fears, the concerns. He’d had cold feet at the last second, decided not to come. An integral part of their defense, gone, forcing them to adapt.
There were so many elements like that. Little things. He’d heard so many complain about how the Protectorate handled the attacks. How they were disorganized, inefficient.
Maybe he’d shared in that sentiment, to a degree. That had changed when he’d participated in his first fight, when he’d seen just what it meant to be in the fray, against an enemy that couldn’t truly be stopped. But still, he’d harbored doubts.
Then he’d taken command of a team, and he’d seen the process of trial and error, as they learned their opponents’ capabilities, saw how Leviathan or the Simurgh could keep tricks up their sleeves for years, before using them at a critical moment. Even now, they didn’t fully understand the Simurgh’s power, how long it might take someone to recover, if recovery was even possible.
And now he led the attack.
He drew in a deep breath, then exhaled.
Focus on the present. He’d lose it if he dwelled on the pressures, on the fact that every attack to date was another added pressure, a set of losses to avenge, a step towards mankind’s fall.
Vegas was absent too. They’d turned traitor, walked away. Satyrical had turned down the offer for a ride to the battle, claiming they’d make their own way. It was disconcerting, to think they had access to transportation in that vein. Teleporters? A craft that could and would carry people halfway around the world fast enough? Disconcerting to think they had access to resources like that so soon after defecting.
But not surprising.
Brockton Bay, in large part, was sitting this one out. Hannah wasn’t a true asset against Behemoth. Besides, the truce was in worse shape than it had been even in the beginning, and the portal too important.
He allowed himself a moment to think of Hannah. They’d dated briefly, then separated. It had been a high school romance, and they’d both been too busy to really pursue things. What had been one or two dates a week became maybes, then had ceased to happen at all. He’d graduated to the Protectorate, changed cities, and they hadn’t said a word on the subject.
Chevalier had seen her grow, though. That was what he kept in mind to assuage his disappointment over the way things had gone. She’d come into her own, confident, intelligent.
In a way, he was glad she wasn’t coming.
He turned around to face Rime and Exalt. He could see the shadows, as he now thought of them. Rime’s younger self accompanied her, sitting on the bench beside her, arms folded around her knees, face hidden. The real Rime was sitting on the bench, a fold-out table in front of her, a laptop open.
And Exalt? His ‘shadow’ was barely visible, impossible to make out. When it came to the fore, though, Chevalier knew it would look much as Hannah’s power did in its transitions. Phantom images.
He’d raised the subject of the images with others. When his proximity to Eidolon had started to give him migraines, he’d confessed about the images. He’d feared a kind of schizophrenia, but Eidolon had reassured him otherwise.
It was a piece of the puzzle, but that puzzle was still far from complete. Until they had more to work with, it was merely data. Glimmers of memories and dreams, the conclusion had been, after long discussions with Eidolon and the parahuman researchers. An effect of the thinker power required to manage his own ability, tied to trigger events in some fashion.
Except now he was wondering if he’d been misled. Eidolon was a traitor, one working for a group that clearly had some deeper understanding of powers. Maybe it had been in Cauldron’s interests for Eidolon to lie about this.
“Record numbers. Lots
of capes are coming,” he said. Rime and Exalt both looked up.
“But…” Exalt said. He seemed to reconsider before finishing his sentence.
“But we’re disorganized,” Chevalier finished it for him. “People we should be able to count on are gone. Plans we had are falling apart because those people aren’t there.
Exalt nodded.
“PRT wants us to play this up,” Chevalier said. “I’m supposed to involve you guys in leadership aspect of things. If you’re willing, I’m not going to dwell on it.”
Exalt arched an eyebrow.
“You’re team leaders. You’ve got the experience, at least to a degree. But I don’t want to dwell on peripheral stuff. We’re focused on the fight? All right?”
Rime and Exalt nodded.
“I’ll lob a few of you some softball questions, then we get right to it.”
“Right,” Rime said.
The ship altered course, Chevalier felt his heart drop. Silkroad’s power wasn’t giving them any forward momentum anymore. They were close. Landing in a minute.
“You ready for this? Being leader for the first time?” Exalt asked.
“No. Not for one this important. Everyone who’s paying attention knows this is a crucial one. Maybe even the point of no return. We lose this, we lose New Delhi, and there’s no going back. We’ll never get to the point where we can consistently beat those motherfuckers, never recoup what we’ve lost. I screw up here, and the world will know.”
“They can’t blame you,” Rime said.
“They damn well can,” Chevalier retorted.
She frowned.
The ship descended, four legs absorbing the impact of the landing almost flawlessly.
He turned to the swords, set into the floor of the craft. There were two.
In truth, there were three. The largest was thirty feet long, running from the ramp at the back to the cabin at the front, almost entirely set into the floor. There was no decoration on it. Only mass, sturdy craftsmanship, and the mechanisms necessary for the cannon that was set inside the handle and blade.
It would have been too heavy for the ship to carry, except he’d already used his power, drawing it together with a second blade, an aluminum blade a mere four feet long. Lightweight.
His ability to see the ‘shadows’ about people was an extension of this power. He could see the general makeup of the two weapons, the phantom images, the underlying physics, in lines and shapes and patterns.
It was about perspectives. Relationships. He’d drawn them into one blade, with the appearance of the larger, the properties of the smaller.
The third blade was decorative, with a ceramic blade, gold and silver embellishments and inlays in the blade. The thing was ten feet long from end to end, and again, it had the cannon set within. Combining the first blade with this one proved more difficult. He granted the weapon the appearance of this blade, gave it the cutting edge, but retained the lightweight mass and the durability of the largest weapon.
Fine balances. He adjusted it, tuning its size for convenience’s sake. The heft remained the same, as did the effective weight as it extended to the rest of the world.
His armor was the same, only it was too large to bring on the craft. A veritable mountain of construction grade steel, as light as aluminum, with the decoration of a third set. It had required some concentration, to maintain the balances he’d set, but he was confident he could fight outside of the kill aura’s range.
He glanced at Rime and Exalt, then nodded.
The ramp opened, and the three of them emerged. There were heavy thuds and the sound of metal striking metal as the other ships landed, forming a ring, with the doors and ramps pointing inward. A fortification to guard the arriving heroes.
The Protectorate and Wards teams were gathering, with a degree of organization. His new Protectorate had gathered into the general positions they held at the conference table. Rime to his left, Exalt to his right, their teams behind them.
And he couldn’t help but notice the gaps. San Diego, Vegas, Brockton Bay. Three of the more prominent teams in the United States.
Defiant, Dragon and Weaver were among the last to arrive. They joined the unofficial capes who’d filled the void that should have been occupied by the San Diego capes.
“The ships have all arrived,” Chevalier said, breaking the silence, starting his speech.
* * *
It was only after the Yàngbǎn were out of sight that Chevalier could breathe a sigh of relief.
“You know your roles,” he said, to the capes who remained. He searched the rooftop, and found who he was looking for. “Mr. Keene, walk with me.”
The dark-skinned man nodded assent, falling in stride. He wore a neat suit with a PRT pin, official identification on a lanyard around his neck. Morgan Keene was the PRT’s liaison and ambassador to unofficial teams across the world. Chevalier could see the glimmer of a power there, suppressed but there.
The fact that the man was a parahuman employee of the PRT wasn’t so unusual. The fact that it was a well-kept secret was. The power was out of sync, however, which was stranger still. Since Chevalier had chanced to make Morgan Keene’s acquaintance, years ago, the man’s shadow had changed. The core elements were the same, but the appearance of it had changed enough that he’d wondered if the man had managed a second trigger event. He would have assumed so, except there was no intensity to corroborate the idea.
It left him suspicious, but it wasn’t a suspicion he could act on. In an ideal world, Chevalier hoped to replace Mr. Keene. In reality, the situation was too chaotic, and Morgan Keene too entrenched in things.
“You’re upset about the Yàngbǎn.”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“I sent you a number of emails, three voice messages.”
“Can we trust them?”
“No. But they’re still an asset. Alexandria wanted them on board. When you installed your new administration, they said to keep going.”
Chevalier sighed.
“Our thinkers are on board to advise with the concentrated defense. I’ve coordinated the foreign capes, Arbiter’s handling some of the translations.”
“Okay. And our… less legitimate thinkers?”
“Accord and Tattletale.”
“Yes.”
“Rime set them up with access to the PRT databases. Connection is slow but remains strong.”
Chevalier nodded. “I’ll talk to them.”
“Of course,” Mr. Keene answered.
Chevalier made his way to the downstairs room. He paused at the entrance.
Tattletale’s ‘shadow’ peered around with a dozen eyes all at once, each set different in design, in appearance and apparent function. A mosaic. Accord’s was a glimmer of an old computer, the edge of a desk that wasn’t there.
It wasn’t as meaningful as it had appeared to be at first. They were only figments of ideas that had been codified and collected in times of stress. Ideas imprinted on a malleable surface during trigger events, or moments when trigger events had been on the verge of occurring. As an individual’s power waxed and waned, the images grew more distinct, shifted between the images personal to the cape in question, and the stranger, dream-like aspects that seemed to relate to the powers.
“Accord. Tattletale. Do you have something constructive to offer?”
“Yep,” Tattletale said.
“Your defensive lines are a disaster waiting to happen,” Accord said.
“Straight to the point,” Tattletale commented.
“A disaster?” Chevalier asked.
“I’m wondering if you’ve done this on purpose,” Accord stated. His eye moved critically over Chevalier. “You’re going to fight the Endbringer in a melee.”
“Yes,” Chevalier said.
“And you’ve picked the new Protectorate team with the idea that they would support you. The core team is all ranged.”
“Yes,” Chevalier said.
“Ego?” Tattlet
ale asked.
Chevalier shook his head, then thought for a moment. “Perhaps.”
“Well, ego’s a part of the job. Question is, can you live up to it?”
“I can try. But more than anything, I’m not going to put people on the front line if I’m not willing to go there myself.”
“Foolish,” Accord said. “Everyone has their place in the grand scheme of things. You do yourself and everyone else a disservice if you try to put yourself where you don’t belong.”
Chevalier shook his head, but he didn’t reply. There would be no convincing this one.
Accord continued, “There are only two ways you could make this plan work. The first would be using a sword long enough to reach past his Manton effect bypass, the second is to somehow get within that range and survive.”
“Accounted for,” Chevalier said, a touch irritated. He didn’t need this. Not now.
“Usher,” Tattletale supplied.
“Ah. I see,” Accord said. “And if Usher were to be struck down by a chance lightning bolt?”
“We have fallback plans.”
Accord shook his head. “I’ll develop better.”
Chevalier grit his teeth.
“I’m watching him fight,” Tattletale said, “and something’s off. I’ve been watching old videos of the Endbringer fights, looking over maps, and it doesn’t fit together.”
“What doesn’t?”
Her finger tapped hard on the map she’d printed out. “Location, pacing. They’re toying with us. Acting.”
“You’re crediting them with more intelligence than they have.”
“Are you telling me that because you really think they’re dumb, or because you don’t want to—”
Chevalier could sense the attacker by the movement of the shadows. He whirled around, only to find himself face to face with a cloud of the ‘shadows’.
The Yàngbǎn, one of them.
An assassin?
He couldn’t even make out the figure, behind the layers of images. Glimpses of twenty, thirty, forty trigger events.
Defying the truce, here? Now?
He felt his anger stirring. He adjusted the balances of his blade, maintaining the reach, the appearance, but he altered its interaction with the rest of the world, maintaining its lightweight feel as far as he was concerned, changing it in other respects.