by wildbow
“We’ll go down in history as the villains,” Doctor Mother said. There wasn’t a trace of doubt or hesitation in her voice. “But it’s worth it if it means saving everyone.”
“You sound so sure,” Gregor the Snail spoke, from behind Faultline. He had a heavy accent. European-ish, in the same vein as Moord Nag.
“Do morals matter, if our alternative is a grim and hopeless end?”
“I would never question your morals,” Gregor said. “I know you have none. I merely wonder why you are so confident you will succeed in all of this, that you will save the world and you will achieve your new world order and your parahuman leadership.”
“We have a parahuman that sees the path to victory. The alternative to traveling this path, to walking it as it grows cloudier and narrower every day, is to stand by while each and every person on this planet dies a grisly and violent death.”
“You know how the world ends,” I said, my eyes widening behind the lenses of my mask.
“Of course,” she answered, standing from her chair. She collected papers and a tablet computer from the table in front of her. She collected it into a neat bundle, and the man with the glasses took it from her, holding it under one arm. Only then did she add, “We already saved it once.”
There were no responses to that. Confusion and disbelief warred with each other as I stared at her silhouette. The others seemed to be in similar straits.
“You had better hurry if you want transportation to the battlefield,” she said. Then, with the man with the glasses and Contessa following, she strode from the dark chamber.
Scarab 25.6
Khonsu allowed himself to be struck by Alexandria, using the impact to float back at a higher speed. The act gave him the positioning he needed to draw his spheres closer to the Jaguars’ contingent.
A lack of coordination, a simple error, and ten capes were caught, to be killed in moments. Moments they experienced as weeks, months and years. Some had brought food and water. I almost pitied those capes.
Moord Nag appeared, riding her shadow’s skull like a surfer might ride a wave, except there wasn’t any joy in the act. Her arms remained still at her sides, her head not fully erect, eyes almost looking down, as if she watched the skull with one eye and Khonsu only merited her peripheral vision.
She didn’t wear armor. Her top was a simple t-shirt with the sleeves removed and bottom half cut off. There was a faded image of a rock band on the front, her bra straps showing through the gaping armholes. Her dress was ankle length, frayed a little at the edges. Her feet were bare, her hair in braids and tied back behind her neck.
The skull dipped close to the ground, and the warlord stepped off as though she was getting off an escalator. The shadow’s head had taken on the appearance of a serpent’s skull, complete with fangs, and the body was a column behind it, stirring around Moord Nag without touching her.
It lunged, and fragments flew off Khonsu’s shoulder as the shadow made contact, rubbed against him. It was as though the shadow’s body were a series of circular saws, a rasp.
Khonsu’s field made contact with the shadow’s body, catching the middle of its body. Moord Nag didn’t even flinch as her serpent was trisected, the middle section dragged away.
The serpent was winding around Khonsu now, maximizing the surface area that was making contact. Khonsu elected to ignore it, floating forward to put himself in reach of more of the defending capes.
Califa de Perro used his massive spear to sweep a squadron out of the way before striking the ground, using the impact to throw himself back out of the way. He landed and straightened. He was shirtless, and had no doubt oiled his skin, though dust had collected on it, turning him a gray-bronze. He had bracers with fur tufts near the elbows, and a dog mask that covered the upper half of his face, extending a distance forward. The only other affectation he wore that made his outfit resemble a costume was the mount at his waist, too large to be a belt buckle, with a molded dog’s face jutting a rather generous handspan in front of him. He smiled, his teeth white and perfect, as the capes he’d batted aside climbed to their feet.
Apparently deeming that the circles weren’t working in this situation, Khonsu banished all three. Moord Nag’s shadow was freed, and rejoined the remainder of the mass. Khonsu’s forward advance was momentarily paused by the impact. He created the circles anew, placing them in spots where people at the epicenter couldn’t move fast enough to escape.
That was the moment I advanced.
“Weaver, how the fuck did you get to South America?” It was Tecton. “The Director is flipping out.”
“Someone gave me a ride. Chevalier will explain later.”
“You completely dropped off the radar for half an hour. We were convinced someone had come after you to take revenge for the work we’ve been doing cleaning up.”
“Not revenge. It doesn’t matter. I—” I stopped short as a fresh circle appeared. The placement, the timing… Legend had been caught.
“Weaver?”
Legend became a blur within the field. Then, in a matter of two or three seconds, the entire space filled with a red light. It slowly became white. Khonsu’s power apparently affected all of the space above the bubble, reaching into the stratosphere. It was like a pillar of light.
Eidolon created a forcefield, much like the one he’d fashioned to contain Phir Sē’s time bomb, only this one was open on one side, a ‘u’ shape with the opening facing Khonsu.
Khonsu seemed to notice, because he moved the column. It intersected Eidolon’s forcefield, and Khonsu’s power won out. The forcefield collapsed. This wouldn’t be an effect Eidolon could contain.
“I’m in the middle of something, Tecton. I’m wearing the same camera I had at the last fight, so ask for access to the feed, or get over here. We think we’ve got a way to pin him in place.”
“Right.”
Eidolon was shouting something I couldn’t make out. Alexandria joined the fray, fighting to keep Khonsu in place, pummeling the Endbringer, dodging the columns that closed in on her.
It was impossible to say exactly how he did it, but Eidolon managed to catch the light before it could turn the battlefield into a smoking ruin. It condensed into a ball, swinging around past Eidolon as if he were a planet and it was in orbit, and then flew into Khonsu and Alexandria with a slingshot turn.
It wasn’t a long, steady stream like the one in New Delhi had been. It was a white bullet sliding out in a heartbeat, cutting past Khonsu, Alexandria and a good mile of landscape, before driving into the ocean at the horizon’s edge. Steam billowed out explosively.
Eidolon crossed the battlefield in a flash, weaving to the left of one of the two remaining columns of altered time, the right of the next, and erected a wall to keep the steam from frying the flesh from our bones.
It couldn’t have been precognition that let him move that fast. Enhanced reflexes? Something else entirely?
And he’d been saying his power had been getting weaker.
Alexandria had been stripped of much of her costume, but she fought on without a trace of modesty. Legend, too, seemed unfazed, unaffected by however many years he’d spent in Khonsu’s trap.
And Khonsu, for his part, hadn’t suffered nearly as much as Behemoth had. Five or six layers had been stripped away, and what was left was glimmering with a light that danced around the outside of his body.
The hue and intensity of it matched the light at the edges of his time fields. It slowly faded.
I reached the battlefield proper, but lingered near the back, beyond the reach of the time fields. This wasn’t a scenario where I’d be on the offensive. At best, I was a helping hand. My bugs spread out over the area, and I was able to track the movements of the time fields, the combatants. I started drawing out the spools of silk I had on my costume, extending them between me and the various combatants, using the arms on my flight suit to manipulate them and ensure that neither I nor my threads got tangled up.
Spider sil
k extended between me and the various capes around me. These guys were South American. Three out of four would be in league with the various criminal factions and cartels. One in four were ‘heroes’. I couldn’t tell the difference between them. The cues and details in their costumes weren’t ones I was familiar with. The choices in color, style, attitude and more were too similar. A cultural gap I couldn’t wrap my head around, in any event.
Things were confused further by the fact that, by many accounts, the villains running or serving within the cartels were the ones sponsored by the government. The ‘heroes’, in turn, were rogue agents.
Califa de Perro, King of Dogs, howled and joined the fight, ready to capitalize on the success. In the same instant, I sensed my bugs being eliminated. Not dying, per se, but being eradicated from existence. The ones who’d been following after the column had been caught inside.
It hadn’t changed direction. It had stopped, in preparation for a change in direction. I didn’t even have to look to see Khonsu’s target. I caught an earring of the King of Dogs with my silk, tugged.
He stopped, yelping as he looked in my direction.
“Run!” my voice was no doubt lost in the cacophony. I tugged again.
He used his spear to move. A second later, the time field veered into the space he’d just occupied.
It was moving faster. A third circle appeared, and the movement had accelerated.
Sensing that Khonsu was about to beat a retreat, the Thanda made their move. A piece of rubble descended from the heavens, striking Khonsu with a force that knocked half of the defending capes off their feet, myself included.
Another of the Thanda used their power to anchor themselves to the rotating circles. They floated through the air, equidistant to the circle, effectively untouchable, waiting, watching.
When they reached a certain point in the rotation, they caught a small hill so it could join them, anchored to them as they were anchored to the circle. It swung into Khonsu like a wrecking ball.
The falling star, such as it was, had broken through more of the exterior. Not a lot, but some. As the dust cleared, I could see glimmers of light, dancing through the space beneath the injury.
It was the moment I realized that the motherfucker was reinforced. He had forcefields set between layers, so he couldn’t be wiped out in a matter of good hits like Behemoth had been. It was eerily reminiscent of Glory Girl.
Still, he was feeling the hurt. Moord Nag’s shadow ripped into the site of the injury, widening it, danced back as Khonsu swung one arm at the skull, clipping and shattering one antler, and then lunged again, driving itself into another injured area.
It caught Khonsu off-balance, and he landed on his back on the ground. The shadow flowed over him, the skull butting him in the face to knock him down once again as he tried to rise. It simultaneously extended out, reaching across the battlefield to push Moord Nag back out of the way of a swiftly approaching Khonsu-field. She stumbled a little as she was deposited a hundred feet back, but she didn’t really react. The shadow had more personality than she did, here.
Khonsu had apparently had enough, because he extended his hands out to either side, lying with his back to the ground.
The Thanda member who was rotating around the Endbringer reached out, and each and every one of the defending capes was swept up in his power, drifting counter-clockwise around the Endbringer. My feet lifted off the ground as he rose, and all of us rose with him.
The Endbringer teleported, and thanks to the Thanda, we were collectively teleported with it. My bugs, Moord Nag’s shadow, and several tinker-made mechanical soldiers were left behind, as we found ourselves on a beach riddled with stones the size of my fist. Silos bigger than most apartment buildings loomed just over the hill.
The fight resumed in heartbeats, capes closing the distance to fight the instant the Thanda deposited them on the ground.
* * *
My phone rang. I felt only alarm for a brief second, my blood running cold.
I sighed and struck a key on the keyboard. The window with the video footage of the Khonsu fight closed down.
I let the phone ring twice more before I made myself check the screen. Tecton.
I wouldn’t pick up for most others, I thought. Hell, I’d have left the phone off if I didn’t fear that there’d be a critical call. I’d seen most of it anyways. I answered the phone.
“Weaver, where the fuck did you go?”
I smiled a little to myself. It was an eerie, amusing parallel to what he had said in the video, except he was a little more frayed, a little more weary with me.
“You know where I’m going,” I said. “So do the bosses.”
“We haven’t even—you’re going to screw this up for yourself. Why now?”
“It’s fine, Tecton,” I said.
“It’s not fine, it’s…”
“They don’t have to like it. I don’t think it matters if they don’t.”
He seemed to be lost for words at that.
I didn’t push the offensive. I’d been working on that in the therapy sessions, not treating social interactions like fights. Calm, patient, I dragged my finger down the side of the screen. The text scrolled down.
Canberra, Feb 24th, 2011 // Simurgh
Notes: Scion no-show. Legend/Eidolon victory.
Target/Consequence: See file Polisher Treatise. See file Lord Walston and file King’s Men.
Brockton Bay, May 15th, 2011 // Leviathan
Notes: Scion victory.
Target/Consequence: Noelle? See file Echidna. No contact made.
New Delhi, July 26th, 2011 // Behemoth
Notes: Scion Victory, ENDBRINGER KILL.
Target/consequence: See file Phir Sē.
Flight BA178, November 25th, 2011 // Simurgh
Notes: Loss? Plane destroyed, Eidolon/Pretender drive off Endbringer. Marks start of guerilla tactics from Simurgh and Leviathan.
Target/Consequence: Incognito Chinese Union-Imperial heir. See files:
America/CUI conflict 2012 A
UK/CUI Conflict 2012 A
America/CUI conflict 2012 B
Yàngbǎn
Indiscriminate, January 20th, 2012 // Khonsu
Notes: First appearance. Scion/Moord Nag victory. List of all one hundred and sixty three targets and casualty numbers here.
Lüderitz, April 2nd, 2012 // Leviathan
Notes: Loss? Driven away by Eidolon. Secondary targets Swakopmund, Gamba, Port-Gentil and Sulima.
Target/Consquence: Moord Nag. Guerilla tactics continue, losses in notable but not devastating numbers, but his target survives.
Manchester, June 5th, 2012 // Simurgh
Notes: Defeat, no kill.
Target/consequence: still unknown. Tie to Lord Walston?
Tecton interrupted my scrolling, finally speaking. “I kind of hoped we’d gotten to the point where we were okay, that you’d trust me.”
“I trust you,” I said. “But—”
“But,” he said, echoing me as he cut me off. “Take a second and think about what you say next. Grace asked me to call because, I’d like to think, I’m a pretty calm, laid back guy. All things considered, anyways. But I’m on the verge of being pissed at you, and saying the wrong thing now will push this from me being angry in terms of something professional to me being pissed because of something personal.”
“I—”
“Think for a second before you talk, Taylor. You start talking right away and you’ll find your way to a really good argument, and I’ll concede this argument, this discussion, but it won’t get us any closer to a resolution.”
“Right,” I said. “Thinking.”
“I’ll be on the line.”
I mulled over his words. I was anxious on a number of levels. Terrified might be the better word. I stood on a precipice, and the meeting I was running the risk of missing was only part of it. I continued scrolling down as I thought, as if the individual entries could give structure to my thoughts.
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Rio de Janeiro, August 15th, 2012 // Leviathan
Notes: Guerilla strike, mind games. Travels from site to strike Cape Town and Perth after faking retreats.
Target/Consequence: no target apparent.
I stopped at the entry that followed. I clicked it. The one for Bucharest.
The video box opened up, but it was dark, the camera covered by my hair at the outset. There was only audio.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” It was Grace.
“Are you hurt?” Tecton’s voice.
“Golem is. Shit.”
The image wobbled as the camera mounted on my mask did, and the me on the camera moved the hair aside, allowing the camera to record the video. The streets were empty, old stately buildings loomed close on all sides, my bugs crawling along the face of each of them.
There was a beep. The camera was mounted on the right side of my face, the armband on my left wrist, so the glimpse was fleeting. A yellow screen.
“Heads up!” the me behind the camera called out.
“For what!?” it was Annex responding, breathless. “Oh! Oh shit!”
It was only a second later that it became clear just why Annex was swearing. The city shifted. Roads narrowed, doors splintered and were virtually spat out of the frames as the door frames themselves narrowed.
The image on the camera veered. I’d seen the shift coming, and the bugs on the faces of the buildings let me know that the attack was coming a fraction of a second in advance. As buildings on either side of me lunged closer together by a scale of five or six feet each, spikes sprung from the elaborate architecture, from gargoyle’s mouths at either side of a short flight of stairs, from the sign that bore a store’s name, a blade rising from a manhole cover… ten or twelve spikes, for me alone, each fifteen or twenty feet long. They criss-crossed, came from every direction.
The camera had gone very still. Then, slowly, it moved again, examining the surroundings. Blades and prongs surrounded me, poised ready to prick and gouge like the thorns of a rosebush, all around me. My fingers rose to the camera’s view, wet with blood.