After watching him a moment, perhaps to be sure he wouldn’t retaliate, Shadow Stalker glanced at Flechette. “Your man there is getting loose.”
Flechette had been caught up in the spectacle of watching Shadow Stalker fight. A kind of horrified fascination. She saw the thug she’d shot in the crotch, on his back in the water, his pants still fixed to the wall. He was struggling to work his legs out of the jeans. She loaded a shot and fired a bolt just beneath his armpit, nailing his sweatshirt to the ground. Another just above his opposite shoulder and behind his neck secured him.
Shadow Stalker was chasing one of the stragglers. Going shadow-light, she closed the distance in two long paces, leaving ripples and small disturbances in the foot-deep water, rather than splashes. As she reached the man’s side, she dropped the shadow state, gripped his ear and used one leg to trip him. With the grip his ear afforded her, she thrust him face first into the ground with enough force that he couldn’t absorb the impact with his arms. Water sprayed around them in the wake of the hit.
Flechette reached into her belt and withdrew a handful of darts, each nine inches long. She channeled her power into each, and then flung them at the feet of the two remaining thugs, catching the edges of their shoes. Their shoes fixed firmly to the ground and they fell awkwardly. Two tranquilizer bolts appeared in the rear end of one and the upper thigh of the other. Shadow Stalker.
Which finished the fight. None of the men were left in any state to run.
Flechette palmed one of her throwing darts, glanced at it. She’d been with the Wards a year before she had been given the arbalest and the chain reel. Her darts had been her weapon of choice for a long time, alongside a rapier she’d eventually retired after too many fights using it had turned out badly. She hadn’t had the heart to change her codename, even if it didn’t quite apply anymore. Maybe when she graduated to the Protectorate.
“Hey,” Shadow Stalker called out, disturbing her from her thoughts. “Here!”
Tired, she thought, mind’s wandering.
Flechette caught the device Shadow Stalker threw to her. Investigation revealed it to be a small, thin, round device with a single button on top. “Haven’t seen one of these since training.”
“Times like this call for ‘em. City wants us on patrol, not sitting around with our thumbs up our asses, waiting for the cops to cart these fuckers off,” Shadow Stalker kicked one man in the side, so he flopped over onto his back, no longer face down in the water. He grunted.
Flechette winced. That girl is a little too comfortable with violence for my tastes.
While Shadow Stalker ensured that the man with the cuts on his neck wasn’t bleeding out, Flechette loaded another bolt into her arbalest and fired it into a spot on the wall, two floors up.
She walked briskly to the two men that had just been darted. She bent down and used her left hand to wind the coil of the restraint device around his left foot, then did the same for the next man’s right foot.
She tossed the restraint device over the bolt she’d embedded in the wall, a metal thread trailing behind it. She caught it as it fell, then connected it back to the cord, forming a loose loop that encircled the bolt in the wall. She pressed the button, and the cord retracted, pulled tight around the pole, then continued retracting. The two thugs were pulled off the ground, so that each hung from the wall by one ankle.
The device would signal nearby police and PRT officers and direct them here. They’d use their own equipment to make the restraint device lower the men so the thugs could be brought into custody. The cord was difficult to cut with conventional knives and saws, and those caught wouldn’t want to cut it either, given how they faced a long drop face first onto pavement. Any buddies of theirs would have a hell of a time getting to them and cutting them free, as well.
She walked over to the man she’d clotheslined, who still hadn’t finished gasping, nor had he collected himself enough to run. She grabbed his wrist and forced it behind his back.
As she hauled him to his feet, a collision made her stagger back. It hadn’t been directed at her. No, it was the man she held that slumped, almost insensate. He hung his head, a trail of blood dribbling from his lip.
Seeing a movement just outside her blind spot, opposite the man, Flechette pushed her captive down and away. She had to evade the weapon as it swung towards her head.
It was the middle-aged woman that the men had been attacking. She held a metal trash can lid in two hands. Oblivious to Flechette, she swung the lid down at the man’s head.
“Hey!” Flechette shouted, “Stop!”
She reached out to grab for the lid, but a hand on her wrist stopped her.
“Let her,” Shadow Stalker spoke.
The woman kicked the man in the ribs, hard, then struck him with the flat of the metal lid.
“You fuckers!” the woman screamed.
Stunned, Flechette spoke to Shadow Stalker, “The hell? He’s not in a position to defend himself!”
“Doesn’t deserve to.”
“She’s going to kill him!”
“Better that we give her another few swings than render her powerless for the second time tonight,” Shadow Stalker spoke. “Or she won’t get over it for a long time. We’ll stop her before she goes too far.”
“No, this isn’t right.” Flechette pulled her arm free of Shadow Stalker’s grasp, then grabbed the woman’s wrist, stopping her as the lid was brought back behind her head. Not entirely to the woman, she spoke, “You’re better than this. You have to be.”
The woman resisted, tried to pull free to make another swing. When Flechette maintained her grip, the woman used her free hand to throw the lid down on top of the man.
“Stop,” Flechette spoke. As the woman struggled, she turned to bark a command to Shadow Stalker, “Help!”
“I’m on her side, to be honest,” Shadow Stalker didn’t move.
“So am I,” Flechette grunted as the woman shifted her weight towards her, knocking her off balance. “Which means stopping her from doing anything she’ll regret!”
“Let me go!” the woman shouted at her, “Fuckers like this hurt my daughter!”
“Is she here? Your daughter?” Flechette asked.
“She’s home, it- it happened last week! Let me at him! Fuckers!”
“Stop attacking him and I will!”
The woman didn’t have a response, beyond continued struggles. Though Flechette kept to an exercise regimen, spent four nights a week in the gym, she was still only seventeen, and the woman had a good fifty or more pounds of weight advantage. The woman pulled free and staggered back, gave her an angry look.
When the lady stepped forward, toward the fallen, bloodied man, Flechette stepped in her way. The woman didn’t back off, so Flechette raised her arbalest a fraction.
That was apparently enough. The woman scowled further, then turned and fled the scene, half-running, half-limping.
“Thanks for the backup,” Flechette spat the words to Shadow Stalker.
“Told you, I don’t do the backup thing,” Shadow Stalker bent over the unconscious man, turning his head to investigate his injuries. “He’ll live. Him and his buddies deserve what they got.”
“That’s not your call to make.”
“Sure it is,” Shadow Stalker retrieved another restraint device and quickly strung the man up beneath a metal frame meant for an air conditioning unit. “Times like this, we’re cop, judge, jury and if it really comes down to it, executioner. We’re the ones with the power.”
“No. That’s wrong.”
“Suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree,” Shadow Stalker turned her back, preparing another restraint device.
Flechette huffed, angry. She didn’t want to get into a shouting match, wasn’t sure what to say to convince the girl. “You can finish your patrol alone.”
“Whatever,” Shadow Stalker replied without looking back, “If you want to be like that. I’m only on the team because I have to be, so you’re doing
me a favor. Prefer to fly solo.”
Three strikes, Flechette thought, as she strode away. Nearly being shot for saying hello, the way Shadow Stalker had delayed helping the woman, and now this.
She’d give the other girl the benefit of a doubt. Maybe Shadow Stalker had some unresolved issues, maybe it had been a rough week. But for now, she needed to calm down and wait long enough to think more objectively about what had happened. Then she’d decide whether to deal or to tell her new team leader.
Fuck. She felt profoundly disappointed. She wanted to like the other heroine, but this was too much.
She had one other thing she had wanted to do tonight, before she finished her patrol, went back, showered, ate and unpacked.
She squeezed the bud in her ear twice, “Console?”
A brief pause, then a voice in her ear, “Kid Win on the console. Hi, Flechette. Deal with those guys okay?”
“Guys are dealt with but… I’m going to do the rest of my night’s patrol alone.”
“Sorry. I should’ve warned you. Tends to be easier to work around her.”
So she’s always like that.
“This is unfamiliar territory for me. I might need you to brief me if I run into a cape, so I know what I’m potentially running into.”
“Of course, I’m not going anywhere.”
“And on that subject, I remember meeting someone when I was in town for the attack. What can you tell me about the cape with the stuffed animals? Pariah, par-”
“Parian,” Kid Win replied. “A parian doll was a kind of doll about a hundred and fifty years ago. Though Parian’s costume is actually closer to a more classical Victorian style porcelain doll, from the same era.”
“Oh.” That was random. What kind of guy knew that much about dolls?
He went on, “She’s a rogue. Fashion student with the costume and stuffed animals as a gimmick to help her build for a professional reputation and stand out. Tentative rating of Master-6, but we haven’t really seen her fight, outside of the Leviathan encounter.”
“Student. So she’ll be near a college?”
“College is gone. Kaput. Um, let me see. Last we heard, she was situated between the spot where the college was and the lake downtown. If I remember right, there’s going to be a fairly thin strip of places there that are intact enough to live in. Vista ran into her the other night, but she’s asleep right now and we’re behind on paperwork so…”
“So you don’t know exactly what happened, and I’d be going in blind. She’s harmless though? This Parian?”
“Nobody’s harmless at a time like this, Flechette,” Kid Win replied.
“Right.” Flechette thought of the middle-aged woman beating her attacker bloody.
“Listen, easiest way to get to that area, you’ll find the lake to the northwest, walk the perimeter of it to reach the north end. The area she could be staying at should only be a block or two wide. If she’s even awake. I’ve got Clockblocker buzzing in, probably to check in for the night and give me the cliff notes on his nightly patrol, so I’m going silent until you need me, k?”
“Sure.”
Flechette gauged the direction of the ocean, deemed that east, and then headed northwest as Kid Win had suggested. She traveled at ground level, wading through the water, to make faster progress. Nothing to prove, now that she had stopped patrolling with Shadow Stalker.
It didn’t take long to find the ‘lake’ Leviathan had made in the downtown area. Given that the streets were flooded with water anyways, the crater itself was distinguishable only by the barrier around it, and a dark shadow beneath the water where there was nothing beneath to reflect light. Hulks of fallen buildings sat in the center of the water. The orange light of a fire on the top floor of one of the buildings suggested that someone had swum to one of the buildings and was staying there. Maybe one of the safer places to be.
The crater was surrounded by orange striped barriers with flashing lights and portable chain link fences that were chained together. The fencing formed a solid barrier around the hole. She walked with the fence to her left, which roughly halved the area she had to keep an eye on, in case of approaching trouble. Her right index finger was just below the trigger of her arbalest, and her left hand clutched a handful of darts.
The massive sinkhole Leviathan had made was roughly circular, but it was large enough that she couldn’t say for sure when she had turned and started moving more west than north.
Fresh graffiti stained buildings, some warning people to stay away, others were the crude pictographs of hobo signs. One neighborhood had used the debris of fallen buildings to form makeshift barricades in alleys and in front of doorways. There wasn’t much intact housing here – the sinkhole sat to her left, and two blocks to her right, from what she could make out in the moonlight, the buildings were too damaged to serve as living accommodations.
At one intersection there were two parallel, vertical lines spray painted in yellow on opposite walls. Traffic cones, some broken, an orange striped barrier and the remains of one yellow raincoat sat in the water, much of it weighed down by rubble. Together, the organized debris formed a brightly colored line joining the marks that had been spray painted on the wall.
She stepped over the line, and immediately felt a resistance. It took her a second to figure out what it was – a thread caught the moonlight.
There was a muffled splashing sound, and a twelve-foot tall gorilla leaped from the nearest rooftop to land directly in front of her. It swung its arms wildly in front of it, missing her, then slammed both knuckles down in the water, crushing one side of the orange striped barrier. Flechette raised her arbalest to shoot, then stopped.
It wasn’t real. Damp cloth, stitched together. And it was blind. It wasn’t acting as though it could see her.
She dropped the arbalest, backed over the line, and then waited.
Parian arrived at a run, feet splashing in the water. She spotted Flechette, and the gorilla moved to place itself between the two of them.
Her creations can only see what she sees. They’re puppets.
“Stay back,” Parian warned. She peeked out from behind the gorilla. Her mask, a doll’s face, was smudged, and a crack ran from the corner of one eye to the ear. She wore a frock, different than the one she had worn for the Leviathan fight, but it was wet, dirty, and some of the lace had torn. There was a wood chip in the damp golden curls that were otherwise too perfectly coiled to be real hair
“I’m staying back,” Flechette assured the girl. “Remember me?”
“Yes. You talked to me before the fight, pulled me away from that horrible little girl.”
“Yeah,” Flechette smiled, shrugging. She stepped forward.
“Back!” Parian called out. The Gorilla slammed its knuckles against the ground again, then lurched forward, one fist raising as if to deliver a massive punch.
Flechette obeyed, backing up another two steps, hands raised. The gorilla’s fist stayed where it was.
“I’m a hero. Member of the Wards. I’m in town for a little while.”
“Doesn’t matter. I made a deal. Me, my friends and my family get a place to stay here, a fair share of the food and water. In exchange, I keep people from entering.”
“I’m a hero,” Flechette stressed the word. “I’m not going to cause trouble.”
“I don’t know you’re telling the truth. Nothing saying you couldn’t be lying.”
“I have ID.”
Parian shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anyways.”
The frocked rogue climbed up to stand on top of the gorilla’s shoulders. She added, “I made a deal. I’m keeping to it. One hundred percent neutrality. You trespass, I fight you.”
And I’d almost definitely win, Flechette thought. You may even know that, but you’d fight me anyways.
“Okay,” Flechette replied, trying to sound reassuring, “I won’t step over the line. I heard you were around here, you’re one of the only recognizable faces for me here, I th
ought I’d stop by, see how you were doing.”
“Coping,” Parian answered.
“Good, good,” Flechette sheathed her arbalest, hoping the rogue would feel safer. “Look, I’m here if you need anything. If people make trouble and you’re not strong enough to protect that neighborhood there, or if you need resources that you couldn’t get otherwise, like names or medical services, call me. Can I give you my card?”
The gorilla lowered his raised fist, reached forward with palm upturned, and Flechette fished in her belt for her cards. Slightly damp, but readable. She placed it in the center of a sopping wet hand crafted out of black denim. The gorilla’s palm was surprisingly firm. Hard. Its shape was a little too humanlike, in comparison to a real gorilla, maybe. Not that it mattered.
“Okay,” Parian spoke, as the gorilla handed her the card. Her voice was a little softer. “Phone lines are down, but cell phones work around here.”
“You guys need anything here? I don’t know what the situation is with supplies, just got into the city a few hours ago. Don’t know how that stuff is being distributed, but I could see about making sure you guys have something.”
Parian sat down cross-legged on the gorilla’s shoulders. “Yeah. We’re low on fresh water. This stuff we’re wading in has too much salt content, and you couldn’t even boil it clean if you wanted to, I don’t think.”
“Okay. Fresh water.”
The doll girl shifted her weight to put the card in the front pocket of her lacy apron, fumbled with it. Flechette spotted a tremor as the girl put the card away and moved to clasp her hands in her lap.
She’s shaking.
“Hey?” Flechette asked.
“What?”
“Seriously, are you okay? You holding up?”
Parian turned, looked behind her, as if checking anyone was listening.
“I hate fighting. Hate confrontation. Even this, being here, having just thought I might have to fight you, fight anyone, it makes me feel edgy. My teeth are chattering and I’m not even cold.”
“You faced down Leviathan. You did better than a lot of people.”
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