by Drew Hayes
“Hold!” Professor Cole hurried over, and Chad stepped back, ceasing his attack instantly. She still shot him an uncertain look as she came to Roy’s side. “You know that probably ended the match.”
“Roy asked me to fight him as best I could,” Chad replied. “While I was able to give him leeway in our hand-to-hand matches, the threat he posed with the weapon was significantly increased. Thus, I switched to a heavier offense, just as I would in a real fight.”
“Luckily, you probably just knocked—”
Professor Cole was cut off by Roy rising from the ground, a small trickle of blood smeared on his forehead and concrete dust matting his chestnut hair. That much was expected, though, as getting slammed headfirst into the ground would definitely leave a mark, but what neither Chad nor Professor Cole was anticipating was the expression on his face.
Roy Daniels had a wild, madman’s grin slicing across his face as he hefted the bat over his shoulder and turned to face Chad. It was not a facade meant to intimidate his opponent, nor misdirection to hide his injury. Chad doubted Roy even knew he was making the expression, which made it all the more disturbing.
“Finally.” Roy’s word fell from his lips like an avenging angel from the heavens. “Three years. Three goddamned years I’ve been waiting for that. All this time, you kept holding back, trying to make our fights into learning opportunities for me. All this time, you’ve never viewed me as a real opponent, a genuine threat. This is the first time you were even a little bit afraid of me, and you tried to end me for it.” Roy lifted the bat and pointed it toward Chad, like Babe Ruth calling his shot. “Finally.”
“Do you want to continue?” Professor Cole already knew what his answer would be. If Chad had torn Roy’s legs from his body, she still knew what the answer would be. Roy wasn’t especially skilled, or graceful, or precise; he was more like a giant boulder barreling down a hill. And just like a boulder, he wouldn’t stop unless he was completely obliterated. Roy Daniels had determination in spades.
“Damn right.” Roy tightened his grip on the bat. “And please, don’t stop the fight again unless it’s absolutely necessary. I have a feeling the two of us are going to get bloody, but we’ll want to see this all the way through. That okay with you, Chad?”
“Perfectly acceptable.” Chad felt something stirring in him besides his intuition. It was a familiar sensation, one he sought out constantly, but had never expected to find with Roy Daniels. This was the thrill of a true battle, where defeat was a genuine risk, where he could push himself to become better. Fights like these were the essence of what it was to be a warrior, and he would no more see it end early than Roy would.
“No more holding back. From either of us.”
“You sure? I can do a lot more damage with this thing than with just punches, and you were worried about those,” Roy pointed out.
“It’s only fair. You tested your unarmed skills at full power; you should test your weapon-wielding skills the same way. Besides, I’m curious to see just what you can do.” Chad readied himself, and saw Roy echo the body language.
“If I think someone is going to die, I’m stepping in.” Professor Cole retreated back to her corner of the cell, unwinding several of her bandages in case she needed to grab someone in a hurry. Otherwise, she intended to stay out of it. She’d been around enough Heroes to know that sometimes, they just had to beat the living hell out of each other.
But in a friendly way.
218.
Broken pavement crunched beneath Alice’s HCP uniform boots as she turned around slowly, taking in the scene before her. Graffiti littered the buildings (those that were still standing), and nary a sign of life could be found. She didn’t recognize the place; it could have been a block in any metropolitan area in the world, or one she’d visited a thousand times, but which the devastation had ravaged so thoroughly that whatever it had been was virtually unrecognizable.
In the center of the block, in what had once been a small park, was a sea of shoddily constructed wooden crosses. Some had flowers laid on them, while others had been smeared with painted slurs. In the distance, Alice heard someone scream, only for the sound to cut off without warning. A shiver ran down her spine, and she forced herself to remember that this was all just a dream. For now.
“This is where one of the first confrontations goes from verbal to physical.” Abridail’s voice carried through the broken landscape, rebounding off the battered buildings and shattered streets. “There are many, many more places like this in the world . . .” The area around them shifted, showing another destroyed block, then another, and another, until they were bouncing through wreckage so fast Alice thought she would be sick. Then, as quickly as it started, it came to end, and they were back in the initial block. “But this was the first. Here was where Supers, Powereds, and humans officially drew lines in the sand against each other.”
“I don’t understand.” Alice stepped into the park and noticed for the first time that some of the crosses had names etched in them. None were familiar, and she prayed it would stay that way. “How did we . . . our existence, cause all of this?”
“Powereds are second class citizens, on a good day,” Mary said. “I’m sure that when some of them gain control of their abilities, there will be people they want to pay back for how they were treated. Supers are prideful; I doubt they would take discovering that Powereds were actually the stronger species very well. And humans . . . they aren’t stomaching being in second place as it is. Bumping them to third is going to piss a lot of people off.”
“Mary has it quite right,” Abridail agreed. “Alone, none of those components are enough to ignite this powder keg, but with all of them mixed together, and a few radicals claiming to speak for the masses, it can happen. Not many people actually want to start this conflict, but once it begins, all that anger and vitriol finds an outlet. Things snowball, and, well . . . this happens.”
“All because we’re a little more powerful than Supers?” Alice couldn’t wrap her head around so much destruction stemming from something so stupid.
“Humans have hated us for a long time.” Mary joined Alice in the park-turned-graveyard, though she refused to try and read the names on the crosses. Mary knew far too well the dangers of knowing things she’d rather not. “You can’t show a regular person that there are others who can defy gravity, or lift cars, or shrug off bullets, and not expect them to be angry about the unfairness of it. For a lot of them, more than you’d want to believe, all they need is an excuse.”
“And Supers are, at their core, human as well. They have similar feelings to discovering that they are lesser beings compared to the converted Powereds,” Abridail said. “It doesn’t help matters that Powereds have both been looked down on by, and outnumber, Supers.”
“I guess I thought we were better than this.” Alice paused at a row of the crosses and knelt down. The flowers set before one of them were fresh. She’d brought enough roses to her mother’s headstone to recognize ones that had been recently cut. Even in a hellscape like this one, there was a person bringing fresh flowers to honor someone they’d lost.
“And perhaps we are,” Abridail said. “I believe I told you, there is a crossroads coming, a point at which most probable futures resemble this, or another. Now that we’ve seen this one, I think it’s time for the second.”
Mary placed a hand on Alice’s shoulder, and the taller woman slowly rose from the ground. “Let’s go,” Alice said. “Show me a better future.”
* * *
Concrete flew upward as Roy was slammed into the wall. The back of his head throbbed and for a moment, the world seemed to spin, but Roy bit the inside of his lip and forced his mind to focus. If he lost consciousness now, the fight would be over. He couldn’t let that happen. Not now. Not when he was so close to something. He didn’t know what, but something.
Across the room, Chad rubbed his wrist as he finished healing the damage Roy had done by clipping it. The bones had held—they
were the toughest part of Chad, and could likely stand up to anything short of a direct hit—but the flesh and muscles around them had been pulped by the blow. Not that there was any sign of the injury now; Chad’s wrist looked as pristine as it had before Roy’s bat made contact with it. But it had still happened, and they both knew it.
Roy rushed forward, since he knew Chad would expect him to take a moment and recover. It wouldn’t buy him much, maybe a half of a half of a second if he was lucky. Still, it was an edge, and as Roy felt his own injuries accumulating, he knew he had to reach for every advantage he could get. His heavy, pounding steps left small cracks in the concrete that escaped his notice. Every second mattered. Every half of a half of an inch. Every heartbeat, he was closer to getting stronger.
Then they were within range of each other, and all of Roy’s other thoughts fell away. He forgot about the decision he was trying to make, about how many times Chad had wounded his pride, even about why he’d called the match in the first place. All that existed in Roy’s mind was Chad, and he swung his bat around with every ounce of power he could muster. Chad slid to the side, but Roy had seen that coming, and pivoted so that he could keep the blow moving. With escape impossible, Chad went for a counter. His hand stretched out, on a course to take Roy’s shoulder. Only in the last instant did Chad realize that he was going to be too slow. Not by much at all, a mere half a second at most. But it was enough.
The crack of his forearm filled the air, even as Chad leapt in the direction of the blow and got clear of Roy. He came down and quickly put distance between himself and his adversary as Roy spun around and planned his next charge.
“Good hit.” Chad didn’t let himself feel the pain as his cracked bones knit themselves back together, but he knew the damage had been extensive.
“I was due.” The world spun a bit once more, though this time, Roy didn’t have to hurt himself to keep from passing out. The adrenaline and excitement pounding through his veins was doing the job just fine.
“Perhaps you were; I barely avoided those last few attacks. It was folly for me to assume I’d be able to dodge all of your blows.” A new cracking sound filled the air, and a familiar armor breached Chad’s skin, weaving itself around his body.
Roy nodded; he’d been waiting for this to come into play. “Why not go with the bone armor when we started? You had to know my bat could hurt.”
“It slows me down,” Chad replied. “I gain defense at the expense of maneuverability. When I was able to dodge, that made more sense, but you’ve clearly shown that I need a different strategy to win this match.”
“Guess you do.” Roy swung the bat around once and prepared to charge. He’d done more in this bout than he had in any of the previous ones. Chad had not only been forced to take him seriously, he’d had to change tactics to deal with Roy’s assault. It was a pair of firsts for Roy, and he knew the bat in his hand was responsible for the difference. Which major he’d pursue was no longer in question, but he still intended to see this fight through to the end.
After all, he’d gotten two firsts in this fight with Chad, why not go for the hat trick? Roy was going to try and win.
219.
It was the same place as they had been, geographically, but that was about the only resemblance the two spots bore. This one wasn’t deserted; crowds of people went about their day, ignoring Abridail, Mary, and Alice as though they weren’t even present. Some were stopping to sit and eat lunch in the park that was no longer a makeshift graveyard. They basked in the warm glow of the sun, which was also reflecting off the statue of a cloaked Hero in the center of the park square.
“Is this supposed to be some sort of utopia?” Mary asked.
“Far from it. This place still has crime, and hatred, and all of the dirty little bits that make humans so very human. But it’s not a war zone. So, in that regard, yes, it’s a utopia compared to what lies on the other side of the crossroads.” Abridail seemed to be watching both of them closely as he spoke, as if he were waiting for some clue or reaction.
“In this world, that big fight you talked about never happened, right? The one where lines were drawn in the sand?” Alice asked.
“It started to, but this time, cooler heads prevailed. The people who were able to see our similarities, rather than our differences, gained more power than the extremists, and slowly, the three different species found a way to live with one another,” Abridail explained.
“Who’s the guy in the statue?” Alice walked across the now well-maintained grounds, marveling at what a difference it was from the place she’d been only moments prior.
“An incredibly strong, former Powered who stopped that first fight, opening the chance for discussion to win out over violence. He is one piece of what makes this world different, but only a part of it. I’ve seen futures without him where violence still doesn’t win out, but far fewer. Guiding humanity to this path is more than one person can do.”
“So, then, what is it you need from us?” Alice turned away from the park and met Abridail’s watchful stare. “I assume you went to the trouble of showing us all of this because we need to do something to fix it, right? Some important thing we have to stop or make sure happens so that Supers and Powereds and humans don’t go to war with each other?”
“I deeply, dearly, wish that were the case.” Abridail’s shoulders fell slightly, and for the first time, Alice could see the man behind the dream-conjured projection of confidence and knowledge. “Your mother’s power is imprecise, at best. She keeps seeing variations of these futures, but never what causes each of them to come to fruition. The truth is, I don’t know how to prevent one or cause the other. I only know that these two paths are what most likely lie before us.”
“I don’t understand.” Mary had been in the park, watching two sets of parents play with their children. She rose from her perch slowly and turned back to their guide. “If you don’t know how to stop the war from happening, then what’s the point of bringing us here at all? To torture us? To make us doubt and question every choice we make for the rest of our lives, never knowing if we’ll cause that awful destruction decades down the line?”
“No.” It was Alice who spoke, her mind whirring as she began putting the last piece of Abridail’s puzzle into the pile he’d provided. A shape began to quickly form, and at last, Alice understood this strange man’s agenda. “No. He’s bringing us here because he doesn’t know what to do. He needs help. And while this sort of information is incredibly dangerous in the hands of anyone who wants to see that conflict happen, he’s trusting us to try and work toward the side of peace.”
Abridail nodded slowly, and Alice thought she caught the slightest glimpse of shame in his eyes. “I have spent years combing through the dreams your mother sees, and I have only gained the barest of hints as to what creates this world. But I have seen so very much of you, Alice Adair. Your mother has so little control of what she sees, and every ounce of power she has goes toward looking for you, making sure her daughter’s future is safe. I have witnessed, from her visions, how powerful you can become, and what kind of woman you might turn out to be. I’ve realized that it is beyond me to choose which future comes to pass on my own, so I decided to put my trust in you. Perhaps you can do what I’ve been unable to. Or, at the very least, you’ll be forewarned.”
He paused and glanced at Mary. This time, Alice was certain she caught shame in his eyes. “And Mary, this is not decades after your lifetime. The exact timeframe fluctuates, but in most of them, that first great battle occurs thirty years from now.”
Mary’s eyes widened, and Alice felt a stone form in her gut. So soon. So quickly society could spiral down into chaos and blood. For a moment, she couldn’t believe it, but Alice was a smart girl. She’d read her history books when given the assignments. Mankind had been down that road before. It could certainly go there again.
“I want to bring us to this better future,” Abridail continued. “I don’t know if it’s perfect, but
it’s better than the alternative. As your mother herself once told me: ‘This world has hope. It has a chance.’ For me, that’s enough to make it worth working toward.”
* * *
Chips of concrete and bone littered their feet, with smears of blood dropped in at irregular intervals. Roy’s bat had several new dents, as well as a sizable gash in the side. He looked far worse—bruises stretched across much of his visible skin, and he winced with every breath. Still, his eyes never wavered; they stayed locked on Chad as the pale-white bone armor moved, getting into position.
Chad, unlike Roy, looked almost fresh in the fight. It was only if one had keen eyes that they could spot the subtle breaks in his armor, the weariness in his steps. Though he could heal his injuries and patch his armor, doing so still required energy. To keep his healing to the speed Roy dished out damage had taken a toll on him, and it was starting to show.
Professor Cole watched the battle patiently, marveling at the determination in these two young men. It was hard to remember back to her HCP days, before lives had been at stake and she had donned her mask. Had she fought this hard for the simple matter of pride? Possibly so, but her ego was not so great that she took it for granted. Moments like this reminded her why she’d taken up a professorship after her Hero career had come to a close. Every now and then, she got to see beyond the children in her care, catching a glimpse of the Heroes they would become. As Professor Cole saw Roy and Chad charge at each other one last time, she could picture their futures, and she felt a pang of pity in her heart for the poor sons of bitches that would go up against these monsters.
The exchange was brief and brutal. Roy swung hard, but the injury in his shoulder weakened the attack, allowing Chad to dodge rather than use his armor. He closed the gap between them, catching a punch to the armor around his chest for the trouble, but pushing on and snagging Roy around the neck. Rearing back, Chad slammed the cone-shaped spiked bones on the end of his fist into Roy’s back. Once. Twice. On the third blow, Roy buckled, his body failing to keep up with his willpower.