"The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or
night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest
loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have
lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times
more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every
joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or
great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same
succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight
between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal
hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and
you with it, speck of dust!"
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse
the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to
become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more
fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and
seal?"
-Frederick Nietzsche
How did it come to this...
Did the details really matter? Hell, that was the thing. None of it mattered. Sheena had done her best to just keep her head down, do her job, go through life without being noticed. They'd even picked her for this job for those qualities...
And none of it mattered. She'd been chosen by random fate and chance to be thrown into a system of massive, grinding gears, where anything that was straightforward was hostile and everything that wasn't ended up being hostile too. All her efforts to just avoid it, move away...all for nothing. One last betrayal, a cold declaration that her death would serve a greater purpose she had no say in and no desire to have a say in...if she hadn't broken the rules, she wouldn't even have had this time.
Maybe that was the final cruelty. She couldn't move; her legs were too badly damaged. She was bleeding out, her body slowly going cold. A vague memory of an ancient philosopher condemned to death came to mind, drinking a poison that slowly claimed his body from the legs up, allowing him to walk around and talk and then lie there and talk before it finally claimed his life. He had willingly accepted this. For her, the choice had been thrust on her.
She'd thought herself so smart.
The Immutable, they called it. An ironic name. Immutable meant nothing changing, ever. The essence within this...was the exact opposite. An impossible crystallization of the end of all things. A shard of a dead universe, something beyond void and gravity and all that should have been when the clock of existence finally ran out...
Another universe. There WERE other universes.
Forget a small fish in a big pond, she was an atom in a stellar cluster.
The war between the two sides...what were even their actual names, they'd been called the Psychopomps and the Cornfeds for so long that she couldn't even remember their actual name. It was the Psychopomps who had set this up, or...someone behind them. She had the vaguest inkling that as big as the war was, it might have been a proxy for even bigger forces. Forget being stepped on, she was having a mountain dropped on her.
...except...
She still had it.
---
"How long before our forces arrive?"
"Three minutes. The closest interception is five minutes away. We'll have the Immutable retrieved and gone by then!"
---
A shard of a dead universe.
She'd thought it was antimatter...and it was, in the same way a campfire and a star going supernova were related. The Psychopomps had a plan for their enemies. Not defeat, not destruction...the closest way Sine could think to describe it was 'potential castration'. Not in the sense of risk of castration, but a weapon that would literally take their enemy's future and murder it, long and slow. Invoke decline that would let them consume their enemy at their leisure. Steal the possibilities of countless beings to insure their own dominance. Forget genocide, this was...a life that was dead from the moment of birth to the moment of actual bodily ceasing. To warp reality so that it would slowly grind your enemies to dust without any input from you...
What kind of people could look at this miracle, at this amazing knowledge, and decide the best use was to just inflict more misery when all the tools of the universe to do so were already so nigh-infinite in number?
She wouldn't even be any kind of significant loss. Another drop of blood in an ocean of it. The universe would keep on going forward, and when there was so much more, people would turn inward and chew their own guts out. Even those who aspired to more were not immune to such corruption...
...it wasn't fair.
It wasn't worth it.
If this was the bent the universe had...
...maybe it was better off straightened out. A perfect line.
Perfect void.
---
"...that is impossible."
"Sir, we just double checked the readings!"
"She CAN'T open the Focus! The very NATURE of it means she would want to die before she opened the Focus!"
"Sir, that was based around her not being aware of certain things that that damn woman made her aware of!"
"...what happens if she opens it?" The form said, turning to their superior.
"...Without the proper shielding...it'll infect and undo all the kinetic energy in the immediate area and spread from there. A cancer on the most basic energy of...everything. Everything will grind to a halt on an atomic level. The universe will cease to exist."
There was quiet amongst the beings, as the reality that even they were fallible, that they could make mistakes, and when they did, the rarity just increased the severity.
Perhaps some would rejoice that such beings could panic, even if it was just the sole one who did.
But that was enough.
---
The Oblique Focus. Designed to work on her subconscious, to make her desire anything but to NOT open the container that held the Immutable. Even if it meant her death.
But...things had changed. The person who had been given the package and the one that was lying here were two different women.
What kind of life could I have had if I had made one step different? What kind of life could I have had elsewhere?
None of it mattered. She didn't matter. She had no power, no hand in how things turned. No understanding until it was far too late, and no tools to make use of that understanding even if she did.
...screw it.
Screw the universe that let itself come to this. Screw the gods or higher beings or whatever that decided this was how they wanted to run it. Screw the Psychopomps and the Cornfeds for always wanting more, and everything in between that didn't do what was needed to stop them.
If the universe was, in the end, going to hand someone like her something like this at a time like this...
...It was better off gone.
The Oblique Focus could keep her out if she was driven by curiosity, or greed, or desperation, or anything that she might have sought to save or improve her life. But against the urge to just end it all, and to go first, on her terms...
It might as well have not been there.
The Focus cracked open.
And the universe broke.
And then all there was was the fires of creation and unmaking as they danced and raged and burned.
----
"...some will find it crass that we executed him."
"He acted on his own. That is treason."
"He likely saved this universal sphere from complete annihilation. Including us."
"Except we can't come out and say why. All the systems know is he turned a whole fleet of ships into bombs and their antimatter cores rendered one of the more fertile mineral regions a dead mess of black holes. If we tell them the alternative was everything ceasing to exist...questions would be asked. We cannot have them asked, so he had to die."
What was left unsaid was the double-layered nature of the scapegoating. They had everything figured out, they knew Sheena Traverse was just another pawn to push around, and discard if needed, but circumstances had led to her costing them their great weapon and nearly destroying the universe in one last angry temper tantrum. They couldn't even villify her after her death, or perhaps seek out her remains beyond the physical, because...
Their fellow had played the only real card they had. Just like one way to stop a forest fire was to blow up the woodlands that the fire was advancing towards and deny it fuel, their fellow had used the chain reaction of matter meeting its opposite to concentrate the kinetic cancer inward before it could spread and crush it into itself. Unable to proceed outward with its destruction, it had gone inward and annihilated itself.
But not without consequence.
The memory had been erased. All traces of remains, on every aspect, had been erased. Only their grand nature prevented them from having forgotten like all the lower-borns that the woman had existed. He should be content by this punishment, this utter negation...
...except, as one man across many strings had said, there are more things in heaven and in earth that were ever dreamt of in your philosophy.
But...this was beyond even him.
So their fellow was blamed. Others would be blamed. The universe would keep going, here and so many other places, and nothing would change.
...that was the most likely outcome.
But then again...their arrangement had also been that.
And instead...this.
Whatever this was.
-----
The basis of the eternal recurrence was the idea that your existence would be your life, repeated for eternity, and whether you would find this a blessing or a curse.
The concept of multiverse theory was that unknown events created new timelines, new universes, eventually creating their own wholly separate concepts of existence that split off their own universes. The idea was that one life was a nigh-infinite fractal, a thousand thousand thousand possibilities spinning out from each other, going off in other directions, merely the domain of ponderance...
But what if such a life ever so briefly touched the very idea of possibility ending? The likely end point would be all possibilities ending...unless something intervened.
What was shattered may not be able to be rebuilt. If the very deepest nature of a life, a mind, a heart, a soul amongst the unfathomable planes of existence could be so shattered...
Perhaps the simplest thing, the nature of all trends, was to reassemble it not as the infinite division, but the infinite straight line.
Instead of so many lives rendered in theory, a life of life after life after life after life rendered in reality.
The eternal recurrence.
---
Sine woke up with a jerk.
The sedative gas had finally worn off. Carol, it seemed, had thought she would sleep longer and had put her to bed.
She'd had...a dream. She couldn't remember the details, they were already fading. Something about a delivery. Which fit. This was her life.
Her life now, anyway. She'd been around this bend a good nine-ten times already. All the best of times, all the worst of times.
For whatever reason that was.
For what greater punishment could be inflicted on an angry, selfish woman then forcing her to live, not with the regrets of one lifetime, but more than one? On and on...maybe forever.
Existence worked in strange ways.
Sine got up and sat at her office table, adjusting a picture of Zephyrus and another with Carol and other Kobbers, and a third with her and Hypotenuse. She'd do some paperwork.
Another grain of sand in an infinite hourglass.
Sheena was dead.
Long live Sheena.
Monday, 17 August 2015
Sunday, 14 June 2015
Fool's Gold, Finale
It had started when the Americans had stolen from him.
Not him directly, of course. But his father had worked all his life on the fabled Fusion Reactor, had devoted almost all of his waking days in cracking the code, working in tandem with his partner from overseas. And he had been there, been present to witness the birth of a new age of clean, effortless energy. So when his father died, and the American had copied the blueprints and unveiled their joint creation as his own, it may as well have been plucked right from that child's hands like candy taken by the school bully. But unlike most children, who would have crawled off to weep in a playground corner, Ivan simply grew bitter and hateful at a world that seemed to thrive on parasitism, lies and backstabbing.
How he smuggled himself aboard the ship bound for America, he could only remember faintly. But building the harness, with it's energy whips that would cut the lying businessman down like wheat... He could still remember every intricate piece and screw and wire. And dressed for war, he strode upon the shores of the enemy and cut them down as he headed for the lair of his hated foe. Even when the police surrounded him, guns pointed for his head and screaming orders, he felt himself untouchable.
Then his powers awoke. And his world became crushing, breathless pain.
When he awoke, the stranger in blue was standing over his body, washed upon the shoreline of some foreign land. The metal would never come off, he was told, for his powers had come too strongly, and that was all there was. And the chance for vengeance might never come again. But, said Rapture, there was a far better target for his anger - the world which had seen fit to allow a man like that to come into existence and poison good people with their greed and lies. Better to attack the root then waste time on individual leaves.
Thus did Ivan accept the mantle of Mr. Silver of the Magpies.
But even in their employ, Ivan lived the life of a hired gun. It had been his life long before that fateful trip to America, how he had built up the simmering anger that had motivated him. And he had no real respect for Godfather, who cackled like a kid playing with action figures and seemed detached from literally everything. So when the contract came - from an incensed former warlord named Spinal, no less - to kill off the Destined Hero, the symbol of all that was wrong and pestilential with the world... The hunt had been the best part - following eyewitness accounts and news reports, faking passports and hiding being false identities all in the name of chasing his prey down.
A shame his current location had to be built upon a Rift.
Because then he'd met the one called Ash, and things had gone to hell.
Up until then, Ivan had been like a tank. Unstoppable, impregnable, crushing everything that came his way. And now, here was a thing that, no matter what he did, continued to stand tall and punch back with just as great a force as he could muster. The unstoppable force had met the immovable object, and it was with frustration and not a little fear that Mr. Silver had retreated that day. Godfather shrieking at him for dropping his duties for the sake of a contract had been the least of his worries.
And then, whilst awaiting fresh orders, the call came that he had to be responsible for an important prisoner, taken during the invasion of the new world. And who should it be but Ash? Ivan knew, then, that his chance to break this pompous idiot had come, to prove that he was indeed the superior man and to destroy the foundation on which his beliefs were built. Godfather said he had to be alive, never intact, and the Russian was nothing if not capable of exploiting loopholes.
He'd forgotten how long it had taken for triumph and scorn to turn into simmering rage as the man refused to break.
Torture did nothing. Sending Hannah to pummel him did nothing. His beliefs remained unshaken and undeterred, no matter what was thrown at him. It had been Ivan who had crumbled, growing more and more angry with every instance his victim refused to give way or snap, and the anger seeped out of him and made even his own subordinates afraid. Who or what was this blonde idiot, who seemed made of Divinium itself? What kept him going through all of this?
But Ivan knew one thing. Even as Rubble turned against him for slipping the pill into her drink, even as his own scientists questioned his motives, he would find it. That chink in the armour of the man known as Ash Brynn-Marsello, that supported everything he believed and thought and said. The crack that held together a man who was the opposite of him in every way possible.
And then he, Ivan Vanko, would tear him in two.
It seemed inevitable.
Ash's hands made a dull thwapping sound as he smacked them against Ivan's chest in repeatedly strikes. Hwump-hwump-hwump-hwump. Each blow as ineffective as the last; all they were doing was pushing Ivan back a few steps.
"Ha, now you see idiot, you cannot-!"
Ash zipped in, sliding a leg behind Ivan's and shoving with his shoulder. Normally, it would have just knocked Ivan to the ground, except Ash had made him fall down at a precise angle, the Ironsides leader smashing his head against the edge of one of the portal's computer banks. Nowhere near a knockout blow, but it enraged the Russian-esque superhuman again, Ivan roaring as he swung a leg at Ash, the prisoner dodging out of the way.
"HOW? You have NO POWERS!"
"True. Can't blast you or up my strength to rip your armor apart with my bare hands. But you couldn't take away the residual powers in my body. Still can't."
Ivan snarled, remembering the chains...
And something else. His rage became a dark chuckle, and then a segment of metal ripped off the wall and flew into him.
"Balls." Ash said, and then he was flying into another wall.
"Ivan!" The voice of another Magpie - thickly Spanish, and throaty like a corpse - cut into Ivan's reverie at that moment. "Quit screwing around, tonto, and neutralise the prisoner!" The Russian growled, but otherwise made no sign he'd acknowledged the other man as he pulled himself upright.
The spanish voice was about to say something else when the door he was standing nearby abruptly closed in his face. Ash had recovered and run for the lever-esque door switch, flipping it to seal himself and Ivan in the room.
For two seconds. Then the switch flipped itself, courtesy of Ivan's powers. He chuckled again, Ash looking dismayed as the door opened back up to show all the Magpies (which now included one of Ivan's peers) still there.
"Well, you have to admit, was worth a shot."
Ivan picked up a trash can, crushed it into a ball, and hurled it at Ash. Ash dodged, only for the metal can to bounce off the wall and smash him in the back, sending him sprawling on the floor.
"WATCH THE SWITCH, IDIOT! You break that and the damn door will be stuck closed until the whole system's rebooted."
"Suka, suka, suka..." Ivan said, and as Ash tried to get up he tore another panel off the wall and flattened him again, moving to stomp on his ankle...
Ash got out of the way, grabbing the sheet of twisted metal, spinning up to his feet, and hammering Ivan with it as a makeshift bludgeon. Whack. Whack. Wha-
Metal wall. Suddenly it was flying back and smacking Ash in the face. Blood flew.
"Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!" Ivan said.
"What are you, ten?" Ash said.
Ivan's response was to hammer Ash with a mighty punch. He thought he saw a tooth fly out.
He also saw, rather than heard, the portal opening back up. Ivan was nothing if not impatient. The override code opened the door and shut down the portal system, but without follow up programs, for something as complicated as the portal machinery it was more like a sleep mode than a shut off. Something must have 'woken' the network back up. For a moment, Ivan debated crushing it, leaving the fool wholly at his mercy.
It was then the stranger who had spoken before stepped in. Through blurred vision, Ash caught a glimpse of blood-red armour and night-black cape, of a gurning skull mask framing mad, narrow eyes. Obviously another of the Magpie leaders - he vaguely recalled seeing that face somewhere before...
"Ivan, you idióta! Don't touch that! If the computer systems are damaged...!"
"Stay back, Harold. He's mine!"
"Whatever." said Harold. Ivan turned back to his target...
Who was gone.
Not through the portal. Instead he'd snuck behind him.
Leaping. Driving a knee into his back, sending the top heavy semi-Russian falling onto his face. Ash seized onto the Russian's helmet and began slamming his face into the floor. Again. Again.
No Hannah this time, but also not an equal amount of surprise. Roaring, Ivan seized his own armor and threw himself upwards, all the way to the ceiling, smashing Ash between him and it. Ivan landed on his feet when he came back down. All Ash could say was he didn't land on his face.
Ivan did that for him, pouncing and hammering down with another punch. Wham. Wham. Blood splattered on his knuckles, even as his own blood roared in his ears and his heart thrilled.
"IVAN! GODFATHER WILL BE PISSED ENOUGH OVER THE PERSONEL LOSS! DO NOT KILL HIM!"
Harold again. Funny how someone so obsessed with death wanted to keep him alive. Then again, who knew what went on inside his head. But Ivan's...Ash knew that very well, a fog of murk and pain floating over his vision.
"I know not what you did," he heard the man growl behind ringing ears. "Or even how. But when I find them, I will not be as kind to them as I was to you. If I cannot break you, then I can at least scar you!"
The fist, briefly, stopped.
"You think you know regret? How it works? Stupid man. I will introduce you myself!"
Ivan pulled Ash up, pointing him at the portal, his lone escape. One way. No one was coming back through it to save him.
"So close. Watch it slip away."
Ivan threw Ash down before it, turning him over and clamping his hands down on Ash's throat once more.
"YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE MADE AN ENEMY OF ME."
Ash garbled something.
"...what?"
A low whisper, beyond Ivan's hearing.
"...WHAT?" Ivan said, bending his head down.
Ash's hand clamped on his face.
"I said, fucking magnets, how do they work?"
But you couldn't take away the residual powers in my body...
Including the powers of a Center. You just had to pick the right time. How do magnets work?
Opposites attract...flesh and steel. Good and evil. Right and wrong.
Likes repel.
Ivan didn't bellow this time. Ivan SCREAMED, the feeling not like when he was remade, except instead of the metal flying to him, it was flying WITH him, his own powers turned on him as Ash shoved him backwards and sent him flying into the doorway and the hallway beyond, Harold barely able to react before he was flattened and the Magpies behind him were smashed aside like bowling pins, Ivan's lament and rage getting farther away as Ash staggered to his feet.
To the door. He helped himself to some of the fallen Magpies' strength, and then grabbed the door lever and flipped it again, Harold looking up dazed and angry as it closed in his face again.
Ash ripped the lever clean off. An explosion of sparks seared his skin, and the door whined and emitted an odd grinding noise. Ash blearily looked back at the portal. Still open.
"Right back at you, Mr. Silver."
Ash limped over, as he tried to recall Tracy's ways. Just make sure the portal was stable...
The door bent inwards. It wasn't a striking noise so much as an OVERWHELMING noise. Ash glanced back at it. Metal. Ivan surely could have just pushed through it like paper...unless?
"Must be one of those non-ferro metals. Smart woman, that Godfather." Ash muttered, as he repeated Tracy's steps on the keypad. Ivan's bellows echoed in his ears, but the door was holding.
Somewhat. Ivan had gotten a hand in and was starting to crush the door to his side. Was he now so mad that he would wreck the portal? Wouldn't he have done so already?
Well...nothing ventured, nothing gained. It was why Ash was here to begin with, as he stumbled towards the portal.
"I WILL USE THE BOMBS!"
Those words cut through to Ash. He stopped, despite himself, he looked.
"IN THEM! THE SWITCH IS RIGHT HERE!" Ivan snarled, the door having been halfway bent out of place, allowing him to reach his upper body through. "IT HAS A RANGE OF A HUNDRED MILES!"
"Think they're a bit...outside that." Ash said.
"You think you are smart? That you've WON? Then tell me, fool! How are you going to CLOSE THE PORTAL WHEN YOU GO THROUGH IT?"
"You want to come say hello? I'm sure some people will be glad to see you..."
"Idiot! You think I will let the portal remain one way? I will simply have it adjusted to go both ways! So run! Run to them! You can tell them how you doomed them all, before I step through, press the switch, and step right back! How considerate of you to place them on another world! It will ensure I don't kill any of my LOYAL troops!"
"...You're bluffing."
"Heh." Ivan rasped, continuing to crush the door so he could fully enter. "No. I just know you, prostak. So good, so kind! You will NEVER allow harm to come to them! You won't even take the chance! So the only chance they have is if you destroy those machines, trapping yourself here and giving them time to scatter away from my wrath. Or will you finally give in? Trade your life for theirs? I think not. You will stay, and you will bear the brunt of their failures, and Godfather's failures, LIKE THE FAILURE YOU ARE."
Ash could say nothing. He looked at the portal, then at Ivan. His shoulders slumped, as his eyes fell downward. He was suddenly...very very tired.
Good man...
"Hah. Even when good knight wins, his blade breaks. Any last words, little knight?"
"...................they were sometimes known as the Twelve Peers."
"...what?"
"Now, historically, they were the foremost members of Charlemagne's court. Although many of their most famous exploits are largely fictitious. Propaganda, to demonstrate Christian martial superiority over the Saracen hordes."
"WHAT ARE YOU BABBLING ABOUT?"
"Well my friend..." Ash said, bending down.
Picking up Blindspot's grenade harness. Yanking the wire that pulled every pin on the numerous flashbangs and normal grenades he had on the vest, the action also releasing them to clatter and roll across the floor.
Even with the mask, Ash could see Ivan's expression.
"THAT'S a paladin."
KABOOM.
Not him directly, of course. But his father had worked all his life on the fabled Fusion Reactor, had devoted almost all of his waking days in cracking the code, working in tandem with his partner from overseas. And he had been there, been present to witness the birth of a new age of clean, effortless energy. So when his father died, and the American had copied the blueprints and unveiled their joint creation as his own, it may as well have been plucked right from that child's hands like candy taken by the school bully. But unlike most children, who would have crawled off to weep in a playground corner, Ivan simply grew bitter and hateful at a world that seemed to thrive on parasitism, lies and backstabbing.
How he smuggled himself aboard the ship bound for America, he could only remember faintly. But building the harness, with it's energy whips that would cut the lying businessman down like wheat... He could still remember every intricate piece and screw and wire. And dressed for war, he strode upon the shores of the enemy and cut them down as he headed for the lair of his hated foe. Even when the police surrounded him, guns pointed for his head and screaming orders, he felt himself untouchable.
Then his powers awoke. And his world became crushing, breathless pain.
When he awoke, the stranger in blue was standing over his body, washed upon the shoreline of some foreign land. The metal would never come off, he was told, for his powers had come too strongly, and that was all there was. And the chance for vengeance might never come again. But, said Rapture, there was a far better target for his anger - the world which had seen fit to allow a man like that to come into existence and poison good people with their greed and lies. Better to attack the root then waste time on individual leaves.
Thus did Ivan accept the mantle of Mr. Silver of the Magpies.
But even in their employ, Ivan lived the life of a hired gun. It had been his life long before that fateful trip to America, how he had built up the simmering anger that had motivated him. And he had no real respect for Godfather, who cackled like a kid playing with action figures and seemed detached from literally everything. So when the contract came - from an incensed former warlord named Spinal, no less - to kill off the Destined Hero, the symbol of all that was wrong and pestilential with the world... The hunt had been the best part - following eyewitness accounts and news reports, faking passports and hiding being false identities all in the name of chasing his prey down.
A shame his current location had to be built upon a Rift.
Because then he'd met the one called Ash, and things had gone to hell.
Up until then, Ivan had been like a tank. Unstoppable, impregnable, crushing everything that came his way. And now, here was a thing that, no matter what he did, continued to stand tall and punch back with just as great a force as he could muster. The unstoppable force had met the immovable object, and it was with frustration and not a little fear that Mr. Silver had retreated that day. Godfather shrieking at him for dropping his duties for the sake of a contract had been the least of his worries.
And then, whilst awaiting fresh orders, the call came that he had to be responsible for an important prisoner, taken during the invasion of the new world. And who should it be but Ash? Ivan knew, then, that his chance to break this pompous idiot had come, to prove that he was indeed the superior man and to destroy the foundation on which his beliefs were built. Godfather said he had to be alive, never intact, and the Russian was nothing if not capable of exploiting loopholes.
He'd forgotten how long it had taken for triumph and scorn to turn into simmering rage as the man refused to break.
Torture did nothing. Sending Hannah to pummel him did nothing. His beliefs remained unshaken and undeterred, no matter what was thrown at him. It had been Ivan who had crumbled, growing more and more angry with every instance his victim refused to give way or snap, and the anger seeped out of him and made even his own subordinates afraid. Who or what was this blonde idiot, who seemed made of Divinium itself? What kept him going through all of this?
But Ivan knew one thing. Even as Rubble turned against him for slipping the pill into her drink, even as his own scientists questioned his motives, he would find it. That chink in the armour of the man known as Ash Brynn-Marsello, that supported everything he believed and thought and said. The crack that held together a man who was the opposite of him in every way possible.
And then he, Ivan Vanko, would tear him in two.
It seemed inevitable.
Ash's hands made a dull thwapping sound as he smacked them against Ivan's chest in repeatedly strikes. Hwump-hwump-hwump-hwump. Each blow as ineffective as the last; all they were doing was pushing Ivan back a few steps.
"Ha, now you see idiot, you cannot-!"
Ash zipped in, sliding a leg behind Ivan's and shoving with his shoulder. Normally, it would have just knocked Ivan to the ground, except Ash had made him fall down at a precise angle, the Ironsides leader smashing his head against the edge of one of the portal's computer banks. Nowhere near a knockout blow, but it enraged the Russian-esque superhuman again, Ivan roaring as he swung a leg at Ash, the prisoner dodging out of the way.
"HOW? You have NO POWERS!"
"True. Can't blast you or up my strength to rip your armor apart with my bare hands. But you couldn't take away the residual powers in my body. Still can't."
Ivan snarled, remembering the chains...
And something else. His rage became a dark chuckle, and then a segment of metal ripped off the wall and flew into him.
"Balls." Ash said, and then he was flying into another wall.
"Ivan!" The voice of another Magpie - thickly Spanish, and throaty like a corpse - cut into Ivan's reverie at that moment. "Quit screwing around, tonto, and neutralise the prisoner!" The Russian growled, but otherwise made no sign he'd acknowledged the other man as he pulled himself upright.
The spanish voice was about to say something else when the door he was standing nearby abruptly closed in his face. Ash had recovered and run for the lever-esque door switch, flipping it to seal himself and Ivan in the room.
For two seconds. Then the switch flipped itself, courtesy of Ivan's powers. He chuckled again, Ash looking dismayed as the door opened back up to show all the Magpies (which now included one of Ivan's peers) still there.
"Well, you have to admit, was worth a shot."
Ivan picked up a trash can, crushed it into a ball, and hurled it at Ash. Ash dodged, only for the metal can to bounce off the wall and smash him in the back, sending him sprawling on the floor.
"WATCH THE SWITCH, IDIOT! You break that and the damn door will be stuck closed until the whole system's rebooted."
"Suka, suka, suka..." Ivan said, and as Ash tried to get up he tore another panel off the wall and flattened him again, moving to stomp on his ankle...
Ash got out of the way, grabbing the sheet of twisted metal, spinning up to his feet, and hammering Ivan with it as a makeshift bludgeon. Whack. Whack. Wha-
Metal wall. Suddenly it was flying back and smacking Ash in the face. Blood flew.
"Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!" Ivan said.
"What are you, ten?" Ash said.
Ivan's response was to hammer Ash with a mighty punch. He thought he saw a tooth fly out.
He also saw, rather than heard, the portal opening back up. Ivan was nothing if not impatient. The override code opened the door and shut down the portal system, but without follow up programs, for something as complicated as the portal machinery it was more like a sleep mode than a shut off. Something must have 'woken' the network back up. For a moment, Ivan debated crushing it, leaving the fool wholly at his mercy.
It was then the stranger who had spoken before stepped in. Through blurred vision, Ash caught a glimpse of blood-red armour and night-black cape, of a gurning skull mask framing mad, narrow eyes. Obviously another of the Magpie leaders - he vaguely recalled seeing that face somewhere before...
"Ivan, you idióta! Don't touch that! If the computer systems are damaged...!"
"Stay back, Harold. He's mine!"
"Whatever." said Harold. Ivan turned back to his target...
Who was gone.
Not through the portal. Instead he'd snuck behind him.
Leaping. Driving a knee into his back, sending the top heavy semi-Russian falling onto his face. Ash seized onto the Russian's helmet and began slamming his face into the floor. Again. Again.
No Hannah this time, but also not an equal amount of surprise. Roaring, Ivan seized his own armor and threw himself upwards, all the way to the ceiling, smashing Ash between him and it. Ivan landed on his feet when he came back down. All Ash could say was he didn't land on his face.
Ivan did that for him, pouncing and hammering down with another punch. Wham. Wham. Blood splattered on his knuckles, even as his own blood roared in his ears and his heart thrilled.
"IVAN! GODFATHER WILL BE PISSED ENOUGH OVER THE PERSONEL LOSS! DO NOT KILL HIM!"
Harold again. Funny how someone so obsessed with death wanted to keep him alive. Then again, who knew what went on inside his head. But Ivan's...Ash knew that very well, a fog of murk and pain floating over his vision.
"I know not what you did," he heard the man growl behind ringing ears. "Or even how. But when I find them, I will not be as kind to them as I was to you. If I cannot break you, then I can at least scar you!"
The fist, briefly, stopped.
"You think you know regret? How it works? Stupid man. I will introduce you myself!"
Ivan pulled Ash up, pointing him at the portal, his lone escape. One way. No one was coming back through it to save him.
"So close. Watch it slip away."
Ivan threw Ash down before it, turning him over and clamping his hands down on Ash's throat once more.
"YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE MADE AN ENEMY OF ME."
Ash garbled something.
"...what?"
A low whisper, beyond Ivan's hearing.
"...WHAT?" Ivan said, bending his head down.
Ash's hand clamped on his face.
"I said, fucking magnets, how do they work?"
But you couldn't take away the residual powers in my body...
Including the powers of a Center. You just had to pick the right time. How do magnets work?
Opposites attract...flesh and steel. Good and evil. Right and wrong.
Likes repel.
Ivan didn't bellow this time. Ivan SCREAMED, the feeling not like when he was remade, except instead of the metal flying to him, it was flying WITH him, his own powers turned on him as Ash shoved him backwards and sent him flying into the doorway and the hallway beyond, Harold barely able to react before he was flattened and the Magpies behind him were smashed aside like bowling pins, Ivan's lament and rage getting farther away as Ash staggered to his feet.
To the door. He helped himself to some of the fallen Magpies' strength, and then grabbed the door lever and flipped it again, Harold looking up dazed and angry as it closed in his face again.
Ash ripped the lever clean off. An explosion of sparks seared his skin, and the door whined and emitted an odd grinding noise. Ash blearily looked back at the portal. Still open.
"Right back at you, Mr. Silver."
Ash limped over, as he tried to recall Tracy's ways. Just make sure the portal was stable...
The door bent inwards. It wasn't a striking noise so much as an OVERWHELMING noise. Ash glanced back at it. Metal. Ivan surely could have just pushed through it like paper...unless?
"Must be one of those non-ferro metals. Smart woman, that Godfather." Ash muttered, as he repeated Tracy's steps on the keypad. Ivan's bellows echoed in his ears, but the door was holding.
Somewhat. Ivan had gotten a hand in and was starting to crush the door to his side. Was he now so mad that he would wreck the portal? Wouldn't he have done so already?
Well...nothing ventured, nothing gained. It was why Ash was here to begin with, as he stumbled towards the portal.
"I WILL USE THE BOMBS!"
Those words cut through to Ash. He stopped, despite himself, he looked.
"IN THEM! THE SWITCH IS RIGHT HERE!" Ivan snarled, the door having been halfway bent out of place, allowing him to reach his upper body through. "IT HAS A RANGE OF A HUNDRED MILES!"
"Think they're a bit...outside that." Ash said.
"You think you are smart? That you've WON? Then tell me, fool! How are you going to CLOSE THE PORTAL WHEN YOU GO THROUGH IT?"
"You want to come say hello? I'm sure some people will be glad to see you..."
"Idiot! You think I will let the portal remain one way? I will simply have it adjusted to go both ways! So run! Run to them! You can tell them how you doomed them all, before I step through, press the switch, and step right back! How considerate of you to place them on another world! It will ensure I don't kill any of my LOYAL troops!"
"...You're bluffing."
"Heh." Ivan rasped, continuing to crush the door so he could fully enter. "No. I just know you, prostak. So good, so kind! You will NEVER allow harm to come to them! You won't even take the chance! So the only chance they have is if you destroy those machines, trapping yourself here and giving them time to scatter away from my wrath. Or will you finally give in? Trade your life for theirs? I think not. You will stay, and you will bear the brunt of their failures, and Godfather's failures, LIKE THE FAILURE YOU ARE."
Ash could say nothing. He looked at the portal, then at Ivan. His shoulders slumped, as his eyes fell downward. He was suddenly...very very tired.
Good man...
"Hah. Even when good knight wins, his blade breaks. Any last words, little knight?"
"...................they were sometimes known as the Twelve Peers."
"...what?"
"Now, historically, they were the foremost members of Charlemagne's court. Although many of their most famous exploits are largely fictitious. Propaganda, to demonstrate Christian martial superiority over the Saracen hordes."
"WHAT ARE YOU BABBLING ABOUT?"
"Well my friend..." Ash said, bending down.
Picking up Blindspot's grenade harness. Yanking the wire that pulled every pin on the numerous flashbangs and normal grenades he had on the vest, the action also releasing them to clatter and roll across the floor.
Even with the mask, Ash could see Ivan's expression.
"THAT'S a paladin."
KABOOM.
Saturday, 13 June 2015
Fool's Gold, Part 5
Then.
"Ficken!" shrieked Godfather as she staggered back into her control room. "It's all going to Schieße!"
It really was. Between the sudden attack on the facility, her troops getting slaughtered and those blonde-haired poofs breaking several ribs... And the worst thing about it was that it had started so well, too - collecting all those wonderful materials, something that would really elevate the Magpies into a force to be reckoned with. What the hell had gone wrong, to send things spiralling down the shitter in such a short time?!
Okay, rhetorical question. She was so going to dock Ivan's pay when they got out of this mess. And Rapture would be delivering his usual spiel - like she cared about that blue-suited spaz.
There was only one thing for it. Pushing aside a startled techie, she snatched up the microphone he'd had on his desk.
"RETREAT!" she practically screamed for all to hear. "ALL UNITS, RETREAT TO THE PORTAL!"
When in doubt, cut your losses and try somewhere else. It was a policy that had served her well so far, and she wasn't going to drop it now.
----
Now.
"Tracy, can you hurry it up?" Willis said.
"This isn't my area of expertise!" Tracy snapped back. The portal room, very much like the Stargate TV series Ash was vaguely aware of, but didn't actually watch, was crammed full of Magpies, most whispering nervously to each other or just sort of staying out of the way, though a few were guarding the door.
Good thing, as it meant the soldiers that came in were swiftly cut down with clubs of ice (frozen milk actually) and a normal crowbar. One managed to draw his gun...
"STOP." Willis ordered.
And Whisper's voice controlling talent quickly took care of that.
"SHOOT YOURSELF."
The guard put the gun to his head. It fired...into the ceiling, Ash having grabbed the man's arm and yanking it up, knocking the guard senseless with a punch instead.
"No." Ash said. "I know you're scared, but no killing. Not unless you can't do anything else. Please."
"He wouldn't hesitate with us! Do you really want to risk that?"
"Yes." Ash said, gathering the beaten soldiers and indicating they should be thrown out into the hallway leading to the portal room. "Can we lock this door?"
"Yeah, but all the guys in charge have an override code. We don't have any technopaths with us...we could throw the switch to close the door and then wreck it, but this whole area's wiring is wired together...it could disrupt the portal." Tracy said.
"How long until we have a portal?"
"Can't say!"
"How long before they notice their guards got knocked flat?"
"Probably not as long."
"...All right, close and lock the door. And let's hope the left hand can't figure out what the right hand is doing."
---
Then.
"...you mean. this is all?" asked Godfather, voice low.
The man known as Muerto nodded, solemnly. "Si, ma'am."
Godfather stared across the hangar. She needn't have bothered - a mere glance was enough to tell that what they'd salvaged wasn't nearly enough. The vast majority of it had been destroyed in the attack, and the few crates and boxes they pulled through, some dented and others blackened, were far below the number she'd been hoping for. There was no way she could run a war machine on this meagre supply, as radically powerful as it all was.
Godfather groaned, and rubbed her temples. In front of her, the Magpies awaited her command with tense anticipation. Behind, Rapture's steely gaze bore into the back of her skull. Fuck the rock and the hard place, this was more like being between a spiked wall and a pit full of rabid spiders. Keep it together, keep it together...
"Alright," she managed, "new plan. We give everyone two months to recover and recuperate after this fucking train-wreck. Then we gather what we've got and try again somewhere else. Those co-ordinates Dallas copied before she left sound promising - from what I gather, it's another place like ours, except they don't have fucking superheroes crawling out of the woodwork. Lightning doesn't strike twice, after all."
It took her a few moments to realise they were still staring. Shit, they were doubting her. Any show of weakness, especially in a moment like this, was tantamount to baring your throat and asking for it to be quick and painless. You had to show you knew what you were doing, get them back on track before any of them started asking questions...
"Dismissed," she snapped. "And somebody turn off that alarm!"
But she knew, from the mutterings and slumping of shoulders as they left, that the senior Magpies weren't so sure about this caper anymore. Except for the clown, who giggled and cartwheeled away as though he was at a theme park.
Fucking weirdo.
----
Now.
The alarm was still going. Whether it was due to the events that had led Ash and co here, or what they were doing, no one knew. Thankfully, most everyone had cleared out of the portal room, mainly because they wanted to get away from Godfather and she was among the very last to leave, making taking it over not that difficulty.
"I think I've almost got it...damn." Tracy said. "Well I have good news and bad news. The good news is we'll soon have a portal. The bad news is, it'll be one way only. I can't figure out a duo-directional portal."
"Anything else?" Ash said.
"Yeah...it's not going to be all that stable. We'll have to pace who goes through."
"Unstable portals have their own issues. Everyone, you need to take off everything you have on you that has any kind of moving part or electronics. Phones, entertainment devices, weapons, everything. I hung around with a woman who did stuff with portals: she told me that if one of those goes off while you're traveling, you might not exit so well. Or at all. Or in one piece. Clothing should be fine, everything else, ditch it."
"...I've been waiting for an excuse to do this, then!"
A clunking noise, followed by a crunch, revealed the end of the helmet Hannah had been wearing when she'd brought the others round. This was followed by a series of similar noises as everyone else began to destroy their own gear, heeding Ash's warning as they eliminated the things that might screw them over.
Tracy nodded at this. "Better safe than sorry. Knew a woman who took her phone through a portal. Very messy."
"Who's going through first?"
"Whoa, careful careful!" Declan, nee Blindspot said, as a female Ironsides Magpie tried to help him take off the vest he had all his trademark weapons attached to. "I have a wire that pulls all the pins at once, if you don't know where it is you could pull it by accident."
"...You put a wire on your clothing that can set off all your grenades?"
"Yes?"
"WHY?"
"...I don't know. I was...drunk."
"Get it off safely then. I repeat my question." Ash said.
"I will." Willis stepped forward, face set. "This was partly my idea. I should be the one responsible for making sure everyone gets through."
"Take this."
Willis found the Magnificence being tossed to him.
"DON'T draw it. I can't use it in here with you guys. Throw it through first if you're worried about carrying it. When you get there, yell for sanctuary, surrender. Use that as proof you're with me, it's one of a kind. Tracy, let me see how that works when you open it. I'm going through last."
Tracy nodded, then turned back to the console and punched a button.
The portal opened. It's a short sentence, but it contains a lot of incident. Imagine a flower blooming in fast motion, mixed with a Rubicks Cube solving itself and that was what it was like. Stare at it too long and you'd get a mild contact high from the afterimages.
"I've set the co-ordinates," Tracy cut in after a moment, rubbing her steamed-up glasses. "And it's on auto-transmit as well. All that's needed is to walk right in."
"Then get going. We've gone too long without getting got."
--
Then.
"Ma'am?"
She wheeled around, dark clouds building about her. "What?!"
She regretted saying that, because it turned out to be the cute secretary who she'd hired the year before. Valerie, was it? Very good with numbers, sterling eye candy and had the pestilence of a saint when it came to her moods. The latter was demonstrated when she flinched, but kept her level tone of voice as she continued onwards with her query.
"What about our prisoner, ma'am?"
Godfather paused. That was a good question, actually. She'd had the vaguest inkling that maybe Ivan hadn't been the best person to put in charge of somebody as important as that particular prisoner. Especially when it came to keeping him intact as per her demands. After all, he was the sort of person who tended to follow the spirit of an order rather than the letter - a mad, ocelot-headed spirit that only he could see. But still...
"He goes with us," she finalized, at last. "Get Ivan to fetch him."
Valerie nodded, and walked off. Godfather tried to comfort herself by watching the blonde's swaying hips as she left, but it didn't do anything for her this time. Verdammt. It was going to be vodka and cable TV night again...
---
Now.
"Willis is through." Tracy said.
"Okay, everyone! One at a time, ten-fifteen seconds between each person if-"
THUD.
Someone was trying to break open the door.
"...Make that five seconds. GO!" Ash said.
---
Then...
Ivan had been pretty grumpy to begin with. It had been a poor week overall, what with one thing and another - Hannah fighting back, some of Godfather's more cutting remarks, and now this retaliatory strike on the invasion force. Not that Ivan cared about what happened to the limp-wristed idiots in Kou's division, but the loss of so many goods and manpower disheartened him a lot. The entire thing had been a bust, and now they were having to move shop before things really went south.
So when Valerie had delivered Godfather's orders to relocate the prisoner, it had not been a welcome appearance. He'd bit back his tongue, of course, but he honestly didn't believe she'd be fazed by any kind of retort he could have come up with. In all honesty, her stoic patience probably made his mood worse - she almost seemed to revel in his growl of annoyance as he'd picked himself up from his seat and trudged off. Why Godfather had even hired her, if not for her body, the Russian had no idea.
Still, he mused as he trudged down the corridor, it probably wouldn't be all that bad. They'd lost far fewer men than they could have done, and brought a whole load of new resources with them, which would help them get a better footing in the new location. Perhaps the Ironsides would be chosen to take the first steps, instead of the science-obsessed Atoms who took far too long to do anything. He reckoned it would be at least a month before he could get something decent coming in, by comparison, and then... Well, they would have to wait and see.
There was a strange lack of personnel in the cell blocks today. He ignored this, and continued onward to where he knew Ash's cell was. How to transport him...? Perhaps just knock him out, and then claim he'd been resisting? It would certainly bypass the part where he went mad from all the prattling, and make him a lot easier to stuff into a box to be loaded onto a van.
Yes. That would be the most efficient way.
Which is when Ivan encountered the open door. And the empty prison cell.
"...Dah, Godfather has the rats trained good. They already took the shit to face her wrath...without telling me...and leaving his chains behind...while I am unable to raise my troops that should be stationed in this wing..."
Tick tock tick tock...
"OH CHERT POBERI...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
---
"Ow, my ears."
"Yeah, careful, the portal sends out flickers of electricity." Tracy said, as the ear-singed Ironsides Magpie headed through the portal. Only a dozen left...
"Um, ma'am?" One said. "I have a question that I don't really want to ask, but I should know."
"What?"
"Is it true they put bombs in us?"
"...what?"
"A friend of a friend says that after...the last person we lost, they started putting little bombs in our food that stay in our gut, and if we go rogue...someone presses a switch and boom."
"...No. No that's nonsensical. They'd never..." Tracy said.
"Put a bunch of psychopaths in one place and you get concentrated psychopathy, as my dad liked to say." Ash said. "Well, if they can, they either can't do it through the door or they haven't judged it necessary yet..."
WHAM! WHAM!
"Then again that could disrupt the delicate wiring. Hmmm hmmm hmmm." Ash said.
"So, uh..." Hannah shifted both feet, side-eying Ash. "What happens when... I mean, after we're all through?"
"We close it. Anyone comes through before that, we punch it. Get settled. Then...I was thinking take you all to my world. Someplace far away from their entry point. Give you some resources, identification, etc etc...and you can settle down as per your desire. Plus I'll listen to ideas."
"...the idea has merit, I suppose," ventured Tracy, after a pause. There was a general murmur of agreement from the remaining Magpies.
"Keep going. We're almost there. The voice could barely be heard through the metal barrier.
WHAM! WHAM!
",,,you build good doors." Ash commented, his tone blithe.
It took some time for everyone to twig.
"Shi-" Hannah began to say.
"No." Tracy's voice was iron and authoritive. "Nobody is panicking, understand? If anybody does, we leave them behind. Now, stay calm and keep going, one at a time."
"Yeah. Go." Ash said, going into a crouch, feeling his knees pop. He didn't really feel all that good, but considering his recent ordeals, he could definitely feel worse. There were seven people left, not including him. Six.
Five.
Silence. No more banging.
"Tracy, might be time to throw caution to the wind." Ash said. He had a feeling he knew what that sound was.
"Okay! Hannah, go through with Douglas, same time! Renny, with Moe five seconds afterwards! Hurry!"
Hannah gave Ash one last look, and then ran for it. The portal wobbled as she entered with the other Ironsides.
"....They're through! Go, go!"
Moe and Renny went.
"Okay. Come on Ash..."
"No. Go ahead."
Ash stood up, cracking his neck.
"I'll be right behind you."
Ash didn't know the woman very well, but even he could have told that, from the brief look he gave her, it was the look of someone trying to keep herself from falling to pieces. And the only way to do that, to ensure everything went according to plan, was to stick with it, no matter what.
She may have doubted Ash. She knew she stood no chance against Mr. Silver.
Eventually, Ash heard the portal whine, and knew he was alone.
As if on cue, the portal shut down four seconds later. If he'd been heading for it, he probably would have been cut in half. Sometimes, you just knew. Override code. Shut portal.
Open door.
Ash didn't say anything as he came in. Behind him, the hallway was filled with Magpies. Ivan, it seemed, had been the lucky first one there with the skeleton key.
"Lucky break, little idiot," snarled Ivan, cracking his knuckles. "But your luck just ran out."
"Kind of funny, considering they ended up in Vegas I'm pretty sure."
The punch flew.
Ash juked backwards and slipped in, getting the leverage and shoving himself around Ivan, throwing him to the ground. The head stomp would have been a lot more effective if Ivan didn't wear thick armor and Ash had been wearing shoes, but Ash bet it rattled his cage and dredged up some old memories he probably didn't want to recall.
"Kinda different when your target isn't chained up or half dead, isn't it?"
"I WILL MURDER YOU!"
"You and what army?"
"THAT ON-!"
Ash dashed in as Ivan began to point out his backup, his palm slamming into Ivan's facial mask.
"That was a rhetorical question."
"Ficken!" shrieked Godfather as she staggered back into her control room. "It's all going to Schieße!"
It really was. Between the sudden attack on the facility, her troops getting slaughtered and those blonde-haired poofs breaking several ribs... And the worst thing about it was that it had started so well, too - collecting all those wonderful materials, something that would really elevate the Magpies into a force to be reckoned with. What the hell had gone wrong, to send things spiralling down the shitter in such a short time?!
Okay, rhetorical question. She was so going to dock Ivan's pay when they got out of this mess. And Rapture would be delivering his usual spiel - like she cared about that blue-suited spaz.
There was only one thing for it. Pushing aside a startled techie, she snatched up the microphone he'd had on his desk.
"RETREAT!" she practically screamed for all to hear. "ALL UNITS, RETREAT TO THE PORTAL!"
When in doubt, cut your losses and try somewhere else. It was a policy that had served her well so far, and she wasn't going to drop it now.
----
Now.
"Tracy, can you hurry it up?" Willis said.
"This isn't my area of expertise!" Tracy snapped back. The portal room, very much like the Stargate TV series Ash was vaguely aware of, but didn't actually watch, was crammed full of Magpies, most whispering nervously to each other or just sort of staying out of the way, though a few were guarding the door.
Good thing, as it meant the soldiers that came in were swiftly cut down with clubs of ice (frozen milk actually) and a normal crowbar. One managed to draw his gun...
"STOP." Willis ordered.
And Whisper's voice controlling talent quickly took care of that.
"SHOOT YOURSELF."
The guard put the gun to his head. It fired...into the ceiling, Ash having grabbed the man's arm and yanking it up, knocking the guard senseless with a punch instead.
"No." Ash said. "I know you're scared, but no killing. Not unless you can't do anything else. Please."
"He wouldn't hesitate with us! Do you really want to risk that?"
"Yes." Ash said, gathering the beaten soldiers and indicating they should be thrown out into the hallway leading to the portal room. "Can we lock this door?"
"Yeah, but all the guys in charge have an override code. We don't have any technopaths with us...we could throw the switch to close the door and then wreck it, but this whole area's wiring is wired together...it could disrupt the portal." Tracy said.
"How long until we have a portal?"
"Can't say!"
"How long before they notice their guards got knocked flat?"
"Probably not as long."
"...All right, close and lock the door. And let's hope the left hand can't figure out what the right hand is doing."
---
Then.
"...you mean. this is all?" asked Godfather, voice low.
The man known as Muerto nodded, solemnly. "Si, ma'am."
Godfather stared across the hangar. She needn't have bothered - a mere glance was enough to tell that what they'd salvaged wasn't nearly enough. The vast majority of it had been destroyed in the attack, and the few crates and boxes they pulled through, some dented and others blackened, were far below the number she'd been hoping for. There was no way she could run a war machine on this meagre supply, as radically powerful as it all was.
Godfather groaned, and rubbed her temples. In front of her, the Magpies awaited her command with tense anticipation. Behind, Rapture's steely gaze bore into the back of her skull. Fuck the rock and the hard place, this was more like being between a spiked wall and a pit full of rabid spiders. Keep it together, keep it together...
"Alright," she managed, "new plan. We give everyone two months to recover and recuperate after this fucking train-wreck. Then we gather what we've got and try again somewhere else. Those co-ordinates Dallas copied before she left sound promising - from what I gather, it's another place like ours, except they don't have fucking superheroes crawling out of the woodwork. Lightning doesn't strike twice, after all."
It took her a few moments to realise they were still staring. Shit, they were doubting her. Any show of weakness, especially in a moment like this, was tantamount to baring your throat and asking for it to be quick and painless. You had to show you knew what you were doing, get them back on track before any of them started asking questions...
"Dismissed," she snapped. "And somebody turn off that alarm!"
But she knew, from the mutterings and slumping of shoulders as they left, that the senior Magpies weren't so sure about this caper anymore. Except for the clown, who giggled and cartwheeled away as though he was at a theme park.
Fucking weirdo.
----
Now.
The alarm was still going. Whether it was due to the events that had led Ash and co here, or what they were doing, no one knew. Thankfully, most everyone had cleared out of the portal room, mainly because they wanted to get away from Godfather and she was among the very last to leave, making taking it over not that difficulty.
"I think I've almost got it...damn." Tracy said. "Well I have good news and bad news. The good news is we'll soon have a portal. The bad news is, it'll be one way only. I can't figure out a duo-directional portal."
"Anything else?" Ash said.
"Yeah...it's not going to be all that stable. We'll have to pace who goes through."
"Unstable portals have their own issues. Everyone, you need to take off everything you have on you that has any kind of moving part or electronics. Phones, entertainment devices, weapons, everything. I hung around with a woman who did stuff with portals: she told me that if one of those goes off while you're traveling, you might not exit so well. Or at all. Or in one piece. Clothing should be fine, everything else, ditch it."
"...I've been waiting for an excuse to do this, then!"
A clunking noise, followed by a crunch, revealed the end of the helmet Hannah had been wearing when she'd brought the others round. This was followed by a series of similar noises as everyone else began to destroy their own gear, heeding Ash's warning as they eliminated the things that might screw them over.
Tracy nodded at this. "Better safe than sorry. Knew a woman who took her phone through a portal. Very messy."
"Who's going through first?"
"Whoa, careful careful!" Declan, nee Blindspot said, as a female Ironsides Magpie tried to help him take off the vest he had all his trademark weapons attached to. "I have a wire that pulls all the pins at once, if you don't know where it is you could pull it by accident."
"...You put a wire on your clothing that can set off all your grenades?"
"Yes?"
"WHY?"
"...I don't know. I was...drunk."
"Get it off safely then. I repeat my question." Ash said.
"I will." Willis stepped forward, face set. "This was partly my idea. I should be the one responsible for making sure everyone gets through."
"Take this."
Willis found the Magnificence being tossed to him.
"DON'T draw it. I can't use it in here with you guys. Throw it through first if you're worried about carrying it. When you get there, yell for sanctuary, surrender. Use that as proof you're with me, it's one of a kind. Tracy, let me see how that works when you open it. I'm going through last."
Tracy nodded, then turned back to the console and punched a button.
The portal opened. It's a short sentence, but it contains a lot of incident. Imagine a flower blooming in fast motion, mixed with a Rubicks Cube solving itself and that was what it was like. Stare at it too long and you'd get a mild contact high from the afterimages.
"I've set the co-ordinates," Tracy cut in after a moment, rubbing her steamed-up glasses. "And it's on auto-transmit as well. All that's needed is to walk right in."
"Then get going. We've gone too long without getting got."
--
Then.
"Ma'am?"
She wheeled around, dark clouds building about her. "What?!"
She regretted saying that, because it turned out to be the cute secretary who she'd hired the year before. Valerie, was it? Very good with numbers, sterling eye candy and had the pestilence of a saint when it came to her moods. The latter was demonstrated when she flinched, but kept her level tone of voice as she continued onwards with her query.
"What about our prisoner, ma'am?"
Godfather paused. That was a good question, actually. She'd had the vaguest inkling that maybe Ivan hadn't been the best person to put in charge of somebody as important as that particular prisoner. Especially when it came to keeping him intact as per her demands. After all, he was the sort of person who tended to follow the spirit of an order rather than the letter - a mad, ocelot-headed spirit that only he could see. But still...
"He goes with us," she finalized, at last. "Get Ivan to fetch him."
Valerie nodded, and walked off. Godfather tried to comfort herself by watching the blonde's swaying hips as she left, but it didn't do anything for her this time. Verdammt. It was going to be vodka and cable TV night again...
---
Now.
"Willis is through." Tracy said.
"Okay, everyone! One at a time, ten-fifteen seconds between each person if-"
THUD.
Someone was trying to break open the door.
"...Make that five seconds. GO!" Ash said.
---
Then...
Ivan had been pretty grumpy to begin with. It had been a poor week overall, what with one thing and another - Hannah fighting back, some of Godfather's more cutting remarks, and now this retaliatory strike on the invasion force. Not that Ivan cared about what happened to the limp-wristed idiots in Kou's division, but the loss of so many goods and manpower disheartened him a lot. The entire thing had been a bust, and now they were having to move shop before things really went south.
So when Valerie had delivered Godfather's orders to relocate the prisoner, it had not been a welcome appearance. He'd bit back his tongue, of course, but he honestly didn't believe she'd be fazed by any kind of retort he could have come up with. In all honesty, her stoic patience probably made his mood worse - she almost seemed to revel in his growl of annoyance as he'd picked himself up from his seat and trudged off. Why Godfather had even hired her, if not for her body, the Russian had no idea.
Still, he mused as he trudged down the corridor, it probably wouldn't be all that bad. They'd lost far fewer men than they could have done, and brought a whole load of new resources with them, which would help them get a better footing in the new location. Perhaps the Ironsides would be chosen to take the first steps, instead of the science-obsessed Atoms who took far too long to do anything. He reckoned it would be at least a month before he could get something decent coming in, by comparison, and then... Well, they would have to wait and see.
There was a strange lack of personnel in the cell blocks today. He ignored this, and continued onward to where he knew Ash's cell was. How to transport him...? Perhaps just knock him out, and then claim he'd been resisting? It would certainly bypass the part where he went mad from all the prattling, and make him a lot easier to stuff into a box to be loaded onto a van.
Yes. That would be the most efficient way.
Which is when Ivan encountered the open door. And the empty prison cell.
"...Dah, Godfather has the rats trained good. They already took the shit to face her wrath...without telling me...and leaving his chains behind...while I am unable to raise my troops that should be stationed in this wing..."
Tick tock tick tock...
"OH CHERT POBERI...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
---
"Ow, my ears."
"Yeah, careful, the portal sends out flickers of electricity." Tracy said, as the ear-singed Ironsides Magpie headed through the portal. Only a dozen left...
"Um, ma'am?" One said. "I have a question that I don't really want to ask, but I should know."
"What?"
"Is it true they put bombs in us?"
"...what?"
"A friend of a friend says that after...the last person we lost, they started putting little bombs in our food that stay in our gut, and if we go rogue...someone presses a switch and boom."
"...No. No that's nonsensical. They'd never..." Tracy said.
"Put a bunch of psychopaths in one place and you get concentrated psychopathy, as my dad liked to say." Ash said. "Well, if they can, they either can't do it through the door or they haven't judged it necessary yet..."
WHAM! WHAM!
"Then again that could disrupt the delicate wiring. Hmmm hmmm hmmm." Ash said.
"So, uh..." Hannah shifted both feet, side-eying Ash. "What happens when... I mean, after we're all through?"
"We close it. Anyone comes through before that, we punch it. Get settled. Then...I was thinking take you all to my world. Someplace far away from their entry point. Give you some resources, identification, etc etc...and you can settle down as per your desire. Plus I'll listen to ideas."
"...the idea has merit, I suppose," ventured Tracy, after a pause. There was a general murmur of agreement from the remaining Magpies.
"Keep going. We're almost there. The voice could barely be heard through the metal barrier.
WHAM! WHAM!
",,,you build good doors." Ash commented, his tone blithe.
It took some time for everyone to twig.
"Shi-" Hannah began to say.
"No." Tracy's voice was iron and authoritive. "Nobody is panicking, understand? If anybody does, we leave them behind. Now, stay calm and keep going, one at a time."
"Yeah. Go." Ash said, going into a crouch, feeling his knees pop. He didn't really feel all that good, but considering his recent ordeals, he could definitely feel worse. There were seven people left, not including him. Six.
Five.
Silence. No more banging.
"Tracy, might be time to throw caution to the wind." Ash said. He had a feeling he knew what that sound was.
"Okay! Hannah, go through with Douglas, same time! Renny, with Moe five seconds afterwards! Hurry!"
Hannah gave Ash one last look, and then ran for it. The portal wobbled as she entered with the other Ironsides.
"....They're through! Go, go!"
Moe and Renny went.
"Okay. Come on Ash..."
"No. Go ahead."
Ash stood up, cracking his neck.
"I'll be right behind you."
Ash didn't know the woman very well, but even he could have told that, from the brief look he gave her, it was the look of someone trying to keep herself from falling to pieces. And the only way to do that, to ensure everything went according to plan, was to stick with it, no matter what.
She may have doubted Ash. She knew she stood no chance against Mr. Silver.
Eventually, Ash heard the portal whine, and knew he was alone.
As if on cue, the portal shut down four seconds later. If he'd been heading for it, he probably would have been cut in half. Sometimes, you just knew. Override code. Shut portal.
Open door.
Ash didn't say anything as he came in. Behind him, the hallway was filled with Magpies. Ivan, it seemed, had been the lucky first one there with the skeleton key.
"Lucky break, little idiot," snarled Ivan, cracking his knuckles. "But your luck just ran out."
"Kind of funny, considering they ended up in Vegas I'm pretty sure."
The punch flew.
Ash juked backwards and slipped in, getting the leverage and shoving himself around Ivan, throwing him to the ground. The head stomp would have been a lot more effective if Ivan didn't wear thick armor and Ash had been wearing shoes, but Ash bet it rattled his cage and dredged up some old memories he probably didn't want to recall.
"Kinda different when your target isn't chained up or half dead, isn't it?"
"I WILL MURDER YOU!"
"You and what army?"
"THAT ON-!"
Ash dashed in as Ivan began to point out his backup, his palm slamming into Ivan's facial mask.
"That was a rhetorical question."
Friday, 12 June 2015
Fool's Gold, Part 4
There are some things no one should ever have to find out, yet do.
That their bodies are breaking down, heading exorably to an end whose route would only vary in how much pain you suffered for so long. That a loved one had died out of nowhere, due to the actions of others, intentional or accidental, or perhaps worse, just random capricious chance.
Discovering that no matter how hard you fought, someone was just bigger and stronger and that meant you did what they wanted.
Even die.
Hands around her neck. Mind afire. No more hurt.
----
("You scared, Leigh?)
Debera Chaud.
It's hard to describe what she was for me. Mentor, mother, friend, ally, maker...all my great deeds spring from her.
She deserved better. Better than me. Better than what the world gave her. She was so strong. I think, even without me, she would have found her way back...I am honored to think I had some small part of it...and sometimes horrified to think my part led to her death. The guilt has faded, but it will never go away. All I can do is balance it with the life she would have wanted me to have. What I would have given her if I could have.
I remember...
Hannah wasn't sure where her life had gone wrong.
It might have been when the Magpies first picked her up. She'd been no more than the average homeless street tough at first, kicking and biting and stealing in order to keep herself afloat. It was only when her powers had developed, of course, that she started attracting the wrong kind of attention - people are, strangely unsympathetic when they catch you next to a boy with a cracked skull. She didn't know if it had been the fifth or sixth time in the cells when the tall man in blue had approached her, but saying "no" hadn't seemed like an option at the time. With hindsight, maybe she ought to have said so.
Trapped. The Tomb of Mysar. An ancient burial ground built into a canyon. One way in and the Raze at our heels. Outnumbered twenty, thirty to one, and that was if we counted everyone in our retinue: if we just counted soldiers, it was more like seventy to one. We'd wanted to flee by the sea, but that had been cut off to us. Foul unnatural beasts consumed any boats that entered the waters. Redsin's creations, I would find out later. We couldn't escape Mason. We couldn't outrun Mason. All we could do was make a stand, and the Tomb was the best makeshift fortress and bottleneck we could get. It would be our Helm's Deep, our Battle of Metropolis, our 300 Spartans at whatever that place was called.
No one else ever called me Leigh. My full name is Ashleigh, an error on the birth cirtificate...I always preferred Ash. Deb started using it as a note of derision, but in time it changed. It was the same way I called her Deb, when she'd insisted on 'Ma'am' for just about anyone else.
It might have been choosing to side with Ivan. Boredom had set in during her first term, when she was no more than a low-level grunt sorting the goods when the trucks rolled in. The lure of the Ironsides, of action and weapons smuggling, called to her like the sirens of myth, and she was all too eager to respond to it. But it had taken more than a few weeks for her to realise what sort of a man Ivan was - injured, self-righteous, lashing out at imagined problems that nobody was even inflicting on him. The bottom line was, she saw too much of herself in him, and that scared her.
("Terrified."
"Good. If you weren't I'd be worried you'd turned to drink or drugs. Too many of the soldiers here are, and I can't really tell them not to."
"...No. Not even now."
"Yeah, I know.")
The invading of the strange new world didn't really inflict that much on her. It wasn't even her department, anyway - it was the Atoms, not the Ironsides, who were conducting it, and in any case she had no desire to get herself ripped apart by alien monsters. She mostly kept her head down and carried on with whatever she was doing, except what she was doing occasionally involved materials from this strange new world - and a lot of heavy-duty machinery. She didn't envy the people who had to collect it.
We had sort of a mad hope, this rumor that another army marched at the heels of the Raze, and that if we could provide a suitable distraction they could catch up and catch them in a pincer movement. But deep down, virtually all of us thought for sure we were dead. This was our last stand, our attempt to take as many as the bastards with us as we could. Including King Bastard himself, Mason Farrell. If I did anything, I would see him dead, at his ex-wife's hands. For all he'd done to her, and to others.
In retrospect...sometimes I think...by then...she could have gone without revenge. That she'd moved on past it. To the life she deserved...
Then came the prisoner. Some blond fucker who had tried to interfere, and had gotten swarmed for it. Hannah herself had no cares about it, at first, but then she soon heard he was being transferred to the Ironside detention centres owing the the need for power-dampening facilities. She'd shrugged, but privately wondered what sort of drugs Godfather had been taking. Then again, the new world had supposedly provided a new kind of just that...
("Hey Leigh...come here."
Ash was familiar with the older woman's touch; she was constantly smacking him on the head, for one reason or another. This time though, she just settled her calloused grip into the back of his head, leaning forward to touch her forehead to his. There was no romance in the gesture, Ash had never felt that sort of spark between them, but it was still shockingly intimate to him.
"Whatever happens...you've done me proud. I want you to keep doing it. Tomorrow, the next day, etc etc. Okay?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Hmmmm." Debera said, closing her eyes. Ash had always been a little unsure of how she saw him. The platonic friend version of a May/December relationship? A surrogate son? Or maybe just a reason to keep going, that the only way the world would get better was if she devoted effort to nurturing his like in whatever way she could.
"I have a vial for you. To help you sleep." Debera said, as she bumped her forehead against Ash's and then drew away. "And...another. If...things go bad.")
Then Ivan had ordered her to beat the shit out of him.
That had been fun, at first. But the more he talked, and the more unhinged Ivan got, the more frightened she became. It was obvious there were other reasons for doing this, beyond torture and beyond getting information. She should have said something, should have put up a hand and said she didn't want in on this, it was too much and too personal for her, but Ivan's glare and growling voice always intimidated her into silence.
(The words hung heavy in the air. Debera was a master of drugs and poisons. The second offer's intent was clear.
"...No. I don't want the second."
"...Good boy." Debera said. "...No. Good man. Good man...")
Good man...
And now, here she was, trapped in a cell with the very man she'd been torturing, her powers not working.
Maybe not saying no had been where things had gone wrong.
---
"You've done me proud..."
Her flailing was weakening.
"If things go bad..."
Blood had bloomed in one eye.
"You scared, Leigh?"
There was all sorts of fear. Some fears were impossible to grasp for some. Phobias. Superstitions.
Isms.
"MEN. DON'T. TREAT. WOMEN. LIKE. THAT!"
Pain. Hurt.
Burn it out. Turn it within. And so in the grip of madness Ash released his choking grip and turned to the wall, slamming his head into it. Again. Again. Again.
"Good man..."
At long last, a darkness that took away the pain.
Perhaps permanently.
---
Ash surged up with a gasp, his movements coming to a stop unexpectedly. He was restrained, his arms and his forehead tied down. Hannah must have re-appropiated his sheets.
"...this is probably smart." Ash said, his voice thick with sleep.
"To be honest," grumbled Hannah, "I dunno who I'm protecting. Myself from you, or you from your sudden bouts of batshit insanity. What's next, cartwheels?"
"Probably not." Ash said, going quiet as he tried to get his facilities together. "...I'm sorry."
A sharp, barking laugh. "That don't cut it, fuckface. You try to strangle me, then brain yourself on a wall. You think 'sorry' is enough to explain that?"
"No...I'm just sorry. I shouldn't have done that. And thank you. You could have killed me while I was unconscious, and didn't. You had more control than I did. You're strong."
"The boss wants you alive. That's all there is to it." The response was dull and listless, as if Hannah was... tired.
"And I'd just tried to murder you. I've seen your temper. When it mattered most...you kept control." Ash said. "...I'm sorry I failed you."
A pause.
And then Hannah shuffled around, boots scraping on the surface, until she was facing Ash. In the dim lighting, her face seemed more drawn and haggard than he remembered.
"Alright." She held out her hands. "Where's this going?"
"....It's a very long story...but we have time. In theory. Can I have some water? And...can you undo the restraint around my forehead, at least? I'm good now. No more attacking. I swear it on my mentor's legacy."
Another pause.
And then a huge sigh, as Hannah got up and walked over to the table on the far end of the room. A plastic bottle full of water sat on it - obviously brought in for just such an emergency. Picking it up, she walked back over to where Ash lay, knelt down and held out the bottle with one hand whilst untying the restraint around his head.
"Too soft," she grumbled. "That's my trouble."
"Well, might as well start at the beginning..."
And so Hannah heard a tale. A normal world. A god sealed in it. His awakening. His incomprehensible motivation to turn the world into a incomprehensible patchwork forged by a billion desires granted, twisted, and denied. Ash's old life. His new one. And his mentor, a great woman, and the horrific man she'd had to share her life with. Who'd murdered her.
"...Men don't hurt women. They DON'T. So...yes. I beat my head on the wall. To stop myself, and remind myself. Pain is weakness leaving the body."
"...I get your point, but that's fucked up. That'd be like if I broke my arm every time I drank a beer because my dad was an alcoholic."
"Well to be fair your boss did sort of sleep deprive me." Ash said. At some point, Ash forget when, Hannah had undone his other restraints.
"Touche." Hannah said. "...my powers don't work."
"I noticed."
"I... I don't get it. I thought he wanted me to beat you up some more, but... why block my powers? What good would that do?"
Ash could only look at her. Waiting for the pieces to fall into place.
"Like, he should have known that you'd go for me, after all the shit he pulled on you and all the times I broke something. So why would-?"
Realization hit her like a piano dropping on Goofy's head.
"...son of a BITCH!"
"Maybe." Ash said, taking the sentence literally. And as if that was a siren call, the sound of the door being worked
Ash wasn't really surprised who was there. Hannah, however, was.
And where she'd held her temper with Ash, she did not hold it here, as she lunged at him.
"You shit! You turned off my powers so he could kill me! Who even does a thing like-?!"
Ivan didn't so much stop her as he used his bulk and armor to just sort of shoulder PAST her, the current situation quite pointedly indicated. Having walked past her, he approached Ash. There was no anger on his face, or anything that would indicate violence on his mind.
Just confusion.
"...why?"
Ash just stared, bleary-eyed. Once again, he did not understand the question.
"You had the chance. The opportunity for revenge against the one who hurt you. Yet you did not take it. Why?"
"...there are...two people...in a room."
"I do not understand."
"There are two...people in a room. One has a pained tooth, and on a level...of pain marked from 1 to 10, we shall say that he is suffering pain...with a numerical value of 3. The other person has just been shot...in the leg. We will say he has a ‘pain value’ of 6. Ergo, is anybody in that room suffering from a combined ratio of 9? Do we say that both are...suffering from a pain value of 4.5?”
"...what?"
"Not clicking? Okay, try this...if you leave for your destination now...you will arrive on Thursday. You are leaving now. Therefore...you will arrive on Thursday."
Ivan merely stares.
Then he turns to Hannah.
"Clearly delusional, no? Headbutting a wall scrambled his mind more than I thought."
Hannah, however, is still pissed. "We're not leaving until you explain why you turned my powers off, asshole."
Ivan doesn't reply, at first. He just looks from one to the other.
"Ivan. Mr. Silver."
His eyes, ever masked, turned back to Ash.
"Why do YOU think I did it?"
"You think yourself some knight in shining armor, no?"
"Actually, I like to...think of myself...more as a paladin."
"...What's a paladin?"
"Why do YOU think I did what I did?" Ash repeated, not answering.
"Because you are weak. But not in way I assumed."
Ivan lowered himself down in a crouch to glare at Ash behind his mask.
"You could have taken revenge. Paid Hannah and me back for pain I caused you. But you would not take it, refusing to even score despite all the wrongs I have done. Yet you have no problem with attacking me for punishing insolent subordinates, over morals you build around yourself, like child building sandcastle. You claim to be hero, but will not do what is necessary."
"...so you turned off my powers and threw me in here," Hannah slowly chokes out, "just to prove a point?!"
Ivan ignored her, though his mask did snap back up over his face and head, so perhaps he did pay SOME attention.
"You are no better than me, little man. At least I am honest. You are hypocrite and coward."
"...Ah....ha. There it is....deep down...I am just like you. And you're right..." Ash said. "...Well...save for one thing. Do you know what a diamond is, Mr. Silver?"
"Yes."
"How is it made?"
"By exposing carbon-bearing material to high pressure and temperature. What has this to do with anything?"
"And can I punch this bastard yet?" growls Hannah. Ivan continues to ignore her.
"To get me...to even try and do...what you want to do...what you always do...you had to...subject me...to so much...pressure, hmmm? So much work to resemble you...which makes me a diamond and you a piece of coal. After all, they're both carbon, right? So we're the same, RIGHT? One doesn't have...more strength...and more value...over the other? One didn't have to be...subjected to so much...to get...something of worth, right?"
"...what are you saying?" Ivan's voice comes as a low, threatening growl that rattles behind his mask.
"Ha...ha..." Ash said, finally standing as best he could. "...My brain's a bit scrambled, so forgive me for appropriating...you think me...hypocritical...as all decent men must be, if you assume that decency can't exist. Heh."
Ash cocked his head, meeting his gaze.
"Blind you are, Mr. Silver, and blind shall ever be, seeing only the dark. You know not what rules the hearts of men, and if you knew you could not give it."
The silence that filled the room afterwards was made of iron. A whole minute of iron silence, leaving the air cold and empty with tension.
Hannah, feeling the need to break it, opened her mouth-
"RAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
-and shrieked as Mr. Silver swung a massive, unstoppable fist at Ash's head.
Blood sprayed. Teeth flew. Hannah screamed, a sound that seemed very far away.
"You think you are clever?!" Ivan said, as he both punched Ash again and drove his head into the wall. "With all this bullshit you spout?! NO! You are insolent, idiotic child! You speak nonsense and call it wisdom, you brain yourself on walls and call it heroism! You are IDIOT!"
Blows rained down. Ash fell onto the bed, only for Ivan to pick him up and throw him against the opposite wall. More blood splattered.
"I never claimed to be anything else! I am killer, criminal and much more! But I do not dress myself with idiotic codes of honour and give it a stupid name! You are like a character in a pantomine - all costume but no substance! You parrot idiotic phrases you have memorized because you have no real answers!"
Ivan's boot came down, again and again. Stomp. Crunch. Squash.
"But I have won, little man! I have worn you down and broken the costume and shown the pathetic idiot inside! You thought you could beat me with words? You were beaten long before I even began the torture! I have found what you are, and I find it wanting! I win!"
No more kicking. Because in a mirror of events gone by, his hands had closed around Ash's throat.
"YOU LOSE!"
Squeeze.
Good man...
Suddenly, Ash felt the world lurch, and Mr. Silver's grip was yanked off of him. As he lay on the floor, barely able to see, he got a good view of three other subordinates dragging the writhing, snarling Russian away from him. It took one each for the arms and another with a clutch to his midsection as though he were clinking to a charging horse - either Ivan had worn himself out with all the punching and kicking, or these guys hit the gym on a regular basis.
"LET ME GO!" roared Ivan, kicking like a spoilt child. "HE MUST-"
And then Hannah's body blocked his vision. Not his ears, though, which picked up every word that she spat out at her boss like acid.
"Two and two equals four, fuckwit. So do the math here - Important Prisoner gets killed by Psychopath in a Tin Can. How do you think Godfather is going to react when she finds her major source of info on this world is a bloody pulp? And whilst I'm at it, shall we add 'using soldiers as guinea pigs' to the long list of shit you've been pulling?"
Ivan stopped, and stared. A range of emotions flickered across his eyes behind the mask - outrage, bewilderment, exhaustion... it was hard to catch everything on there. For a horrible moment, Ash though the brutish Magpie was going to charge again.
Then he wrenched himself free of the other three soldiers and, with a last hateful glance at the prone Ash, stalked out of the room. The trio followed close behind, shadowing the bigger man with deliberate purposefulness, but Hannah didn't move until their footsteps were no longer audible.
Then she turned to Ash and knelt down, concern on her face.
"You still alive?"
Ash emitted a faint cough. Even that sent waves of pain through him.
"I'll take that as a yes."
Then the next thing Ash knew, the Geokinetic had taken a strange bottle from her pocket, along with a cotton pad, and was pouring stuff from the bottle onto the pad before daubing his wounds with it. It stung, predictably, but over time the pain started to dull into mere throbs.
"...I hate him," he finally realized Hannah was saying. "Thinks he can do whatever the fuck he wants just because he's been dicked over. And blocking my powers like that... should have shattered his nose before he even walked into the fucking room."
A bitter laugh. And then Hannah sighs, and it's full of sadness and regret.
"Things aren't the same anymore. Godfather wants to start something, and she's clearing out anyone who won't be a part of it. And I don't think I want to."
"...I'm...sorry...if I could...do...anything...it's...my...dutyyyyyyyyyyyyyy..."
And then Ash slipped away into the darkness.
---
"Is he okay, Bacta?"
"I dunno, Babel... I managed to fix him up as best as I could, but he needs to stabilize on his own."
Those are the words that come filtering in on the edge of Ash's hearing, as he slowly rises from unconsciousness.
The first thing he saw was Willis.
"Welcome back," smiled the man, although without much happiness. "We thought you'd really caught it."
"Lots of broken bones," came in Tracy's too-fast voice as she appeared from the edge of his vision. "Massive internal injury, possible hemorrhaging. Luckily, we have dedicated medical teams and healer battalions stationed at these locations. Very efficient."
"Geneva convention still stands," babbled Tracy. "Prisoners need to be kept healthy. Couldn't have you bleeding out on us, not while-"
It was obvious from the beginning that Tracy's babbling was more out of nervousness than her usual method of speech. And it became even more obvious when Willis lifted one of his hands and she quickly stammered to a stop, opting to twiddle her fingers and stare at the floor instead.
"Sorry," came an echoing voice in Ash's head. Tracy's.
"Someone might want to remind your boss of those conventions...if he cares. Which I doubt."
A small giggle from Tracy. "You sound just like Eeyore."
"Look," cut in Willis' actual voice, interrupting the silence. "Rubble told us what happened. And... well, me and Tracy, we've talked about it and... we've had enough. It's one thing when you have to smuggle, steal and defraud for a woman who doesn't even care for you, but when your boss decides she wants to rip apart time and space for the sake of profit and petty revenge..."
"It's too much," Tracy finishes, speaking aloud.
"...But no one leaves the Magpies." Ash said.
"We're going to."
Tracy's face was firm, her eyes hard. Enough, it seemed to say. I've had enough, and I'm going to let you know I've had enough until you get it.
"We're going to do it by means of a trick. And this trick has to do three things. One, it has to ensure that we get as far away from the Magpies as possible - another dimension, if that's what it takes. Two, it has to ensure that we can't be followed. Three, it has to expose Ivan's rule-breaking to Godfather. Imagine snatching away his sandwich and then kicking him in the balls, and that's what we're going to do."
Willis cast a sheepish look at Ash at this. "She's... been thinking about this a lot."
"...What do you need?"
Willis, surprisingly, was the one to speak first.
"First, somewhere to jump to," he started. "We can't just run to your dimension, because Godfather will know about it and we'll be hunted up and down without pause. So somewhere the Magpies won't expect us to go to. And because we listen in a lot, we figure that one dimension Dallas got sent to would be good - nobody's really figured out how to get back there."
"Second," added Tracy, "someone to vouch for us. From what reports we managed to dig up, that dimension is heavily protected, and it's guardians don't take kindly to people in our line of work. I don't know about you, but I like my rib bones intact, so a more diplomatic approach would be required in this instance."
"And third, a way to stop Ivan from pursuing us once we've gotten through," finished Willis.
"....You need to find the machine used to get to my world. See if you can figure out...how to get to where Dallas went. Even if you can just...send signals or probes or something...there's a girl there whose business is dimensional transfer, she'll hopefully pick something up. Once we get that...we can proceed from there."
Willis nodded. "We'll get right on that. Don't worry, we have clearance, so if we pretend we're running a maintenance check, they'll let us in no problem."
"I trained to use transmitters before I was transferred here," put in Tracy. "With any luck, I ought to get a good signal out to this friend of yours."
---
Ash wasn't sure how long had passed since then. He was healed up, he slept, he ate the nutrient paste they provided him, he pondered.
The alarms going off was a rude awakening. Standing up, he blinked a few times, then fell into a crouch.
When the door opened, the fact that Tracy was panicked was a bad sign.
"We have a problem!"
"What sort of problem?"
"Our invasion force was completely neutralized! Your world...a whole bunch of people showed up and kicked everyone's ass so hard Godfather's put the whole building on lockdown! And that's with the door closed behind them!"
The implication sunk in. The portal to his world was closed off. And from the sound of things, someone had rallied the troops. And Godfather had discovered her reach exceeded her grasp.
For someone as unstable as her, the likely consequences were not pretty.
Willis arrived, looking equally scared.
"Everything's in chaos. If we're gonna go, we need to go NOW."
"You got an entry point?"
"Yes! Somehow! It's as stable as we're going to get!"
"Guys?"
Hannah, fists of rock flecked with blood, also stepped into the room, with the man with the flashbangs whose name Ash couldn't remember. With a familar sword.
Magnificence. The blade of Debera, gifted to him. Ash expected someone else to bring in Erdrick, and when no one did, the realization that he hadn't seen his partner-weapon ever since he'd been captured sunk in. What the hell...?
Questions to answer later.
"Someone started asking questions...I had to punch them out, I couldn't think of anything else to do! We have to go, now!"
"Okay, okay..." Ash said, taking the sword and throwing the harness that held the sheath over his shoulder, looping it around and clicking it on his bare chest. No armor, pants and paper shoes, but he felt better, even though by all logic he couldn't use the weapon at all. Magnificence made one exception for its constant virulent emissions: him. And he'd have to rub his blood on the weapon a whole bunch of times to get that guarantee. If he drew it in these confined spaces, the poisons and gasses would not discriminate between friend and foe. Well, worst came to worst...he had a club.
"Okay. All right. We can do this. This sort of crap..." Ash said, stepping out of the door.
And stopping dead.
The hallway was filled with Magpies. Not Magpies come to stop him. Magpies who looked at scared as the rest, even as the alarms kept blaring.
"...the hell?"
"We want to go."
Hannah suddenly looked much younger, her eyes pleading.
"If we just run...Ivan will hurt our friends. We...we can't take it any more. Most of them, us, are with Ivan because Godfather made the assignments...we can't leave them behind."
Ash swallowed. So now instead of an escape this had become a rescue mission with several dozen scared more-or-less-kids, a time crunch, right in the heart of enemy territory with the enemy utterly furious and on the defensive because of a literally-might-have-just-happened defeat.
"You scared, Leigh?"
"Yeah." Ash said, turning to Tracy. "Lead the way."
Time to do proud.
That their bodies are breaking down, heading exorably to an end whose route would only vary in how much pain you suffered for so long. That a loved one had died out of nowhere, due to the actions of others, intentional or accidental, or perhaps worse, just random capricious chance.
Discovering that no matter how hard you fought, someone was just bigger and stronger and that meant you did what they wanted.
Even die.
Hands around her neck. Mind afire. No more hurt.
----
("You scared, Leigh?)
Debera Chaud.
It's hard to describe what she was for me. Mentor, mother, friend, ally, maker...all my great deeds spring from her.
She deserved better. Better than me. Better than what the world gave her. She was so strong. I think, even without me, she would have found her way back...I am honored to think I had some small part of it...and sometimes horrified to think my part led to her death. The guilt has faded, but it will never go away. All I can do is balance it with the life she would have wanted me to have. What I would have given her if I could have.
I remember...
Hannah wasn't sure where her life had gone wrong.
It might have been when the Magpies first picked her up. She'd been no more than the average homeless street tough at first, kicking and biting and stealing in order to keep herself afloat. It was only when her powers had developed, of course, that she started attracting the wrong kind of attention - people are, strangely unsympathetic when they catch you next to a boy with a cracked skull. She didn't know if it had been the fifth or sixth time in the cells when the tall man in blue had approached her, but saying "no" hadn't seemed like an option at the time. With hindsight, maybe she ought to have said so.
Trapped. The Tomb of Mysar. An ancient burial ground built into a canyon. One way in and the Raze at our heels. Outnumbered twenty, thirty to one, and that was if we counted everyone in our retinue: if we just counted soldiers, it was more like seventy to one. We'd wanted to flee by the sea, but that had been cut off to us. Foul unnatural beasts consumed any boats that entered the waters. Redsin's creations, I would find out later. We couldn't escape Mason. We couldn't outrun Mason. All we could do was make a stand, and the Tomb was the best makeshift fortress and bottleneck we could get. It would be our Helm's Deep, our Battle of Metropolis, our 300 Spartans at whatever that place was called.
No one else ever called me Leigh. My full name is Ashleigh, an error on the birth cirtificate...I always preferred Ash. Deb started using it as a note of derision, but in time it changed. It was the same way I called her Deb, when she'd insisted on 'Ma'am' for just about anyone else.
It might have been choosing to side with Ivan. Boredom had set in during her first term, when she was no more than a low-level grunt sorting the goods when the trucks rolled in. The lure of the Ironsides, of action and weapons smuggling, called to her like the sirens of myth, and she was all too eager to respond to it. But it had taken more than a few weeks for her to realise what sort of a man Ivan was - injured, self-righteous, lashing out at imagined problems that nobody was even inflicting on him. The bottom line was, she saw too much of herself in him, and that scared her.
("Terrified."
"Good. If you weren't I'd be worried you'd turned to drink or drugs. Too many of the soldiers here are, and I can't really tell them not to."
"...No. Not even now."
"Yeah, I know.")
The invading of the strange new world didn't really inflict that much on her. It wasn't even her department, anyway - it was the Atoms, not the Ironsides, who were conducting it, and in any case she had no desire to get herself ripped apart by alien monsters. She mostly kept her head down and carried on with whatever she was doing, except what she was doing occasionally involved materials from this strange new world - and a lot of heavy-duty machinery. She didn't envy the people who had to collect it.
We had sort of a mad hope, this rumor that another army marched at the heels of the Raze, and that if we could provide a suitable distraction they could catch up and catch them in a pincer movement. But deep down, virtually all of us thought for sure we were dead. This was our last stand, our attempt to take as many as the bastards with us as we could. Including King Bastard himself, Mason Farrell. If I did anything, I would see him dead, at his ex-wife's hands. For all he'd done to her, and to others.
In retrospect...sometimes I think...by then...she could have gone without revenge. That she'd moved on past it. To the life she deserved...
Then came the prisoner. Some blond fucker who had tried to interfere, and had gotten swarmed for it. Hannah herself had no cares about it, at first, but then she soon heard he was being transferred to the Ironside detention centres owing the the need for power-dampening facilities. She'd shrugged, but privately wondered what sort of drugs Godfather had been taking. Then again, the new world had supposedly provided a new kind of just that...
("Hey Leigh...come here."
Ash was familiar with the older woman's touch; she was constantly smacking him on the head, for one reason or another. This time though, she just settled her calloused grip into the back of his head, leaning forward to touch her forehead to his. There was no romance in the gesture, Ash had never felt that sort of spark between them, but it was still shockingly intimate to him.
"Whatever happens...you've done me proud. I want you to keep doing it. Tomorrow, the next day, etc etc. Okay?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Hmmmm." Debera said, closing her eyes. Ash had always been a little unsure of how she saw him. The platonic friend version of a May/December relationship? A surrogate son? Or maybe just a reason to keep going, that the only way the world would get better was if she devoted effort to nurturing his like in whatever way she could.
"I have a vial for you. To help you sleep." Debera said, as she bumped her forehead against Ash's and then drew away. "And...another. If...things go bad.")
Then Ivan had ordered her to beat the shit out of him.
That had been fun, at first. But the more he talked, and the more unhinged Ivan got, the more frightened she became. It was obvious there were other reasons for doing this, beyond torture and beyond getting information. She should have said something, should have put up a hand and said she didn't want in on this, it was too much and too personal for her, but Ivan's glare and growling voice always intimidated her into silence.
(The words hung heavy in the air. Debera was a master of drugs and poisons. The second offer's intent was clear.
"...No. I don't want the second."
"...Good boy." Debera said. "...No. Good man. Good man...")
Good man...
And now, here she was, trapped in a cell with the very man she'd been torturing, her powers not working.
Maybe not saying no had been where things had gone wrong.
---
"You've done me proud..."
Her flailing was weakening.
"If things go bad..."
Blood had bloomed in one eye.
"You scared, Leigh?"
There was all sorts of fear. Some fears were impossible to grasp for some. Phobias. Superstitions.
Isms.
"MEN. DON'T. TREAT. WOMEN. LIKE. THAT!"
Burn it out. Turn it within. And so in the grip of madness Ash released his choking grip and turned to the wall, slamming his head into it. Again. Again. Again.
"Good man..."
At long last, a darkness that took away the pain.
Perhaps permanently.
---
Ash surged up with a gasp, his movements coming to a stop unexpectedly. He was restrained, his arms and his forehead tied down. Hannah must have re-appropiated his sheets.
"...this is probably smart." Ash said, his voice thick with sleep.
"To be honest," grumbled Hannah, "I dunno who I'm protecting. Myself from you, or you from your sudden bouts of batshit insanity. What's next, cartwheels?"
"Probably not." Ash said, going quiet as he tried to get his facilities together. "...I'm sorry."
A sharp, barking laugh. "That don't cut it, fuckface. You try to strangle me, then brain yourself on a wall. You think 'sorry' is enough to explain that?"
"No...I'm just sorry. I shouldn't have done that. And thank you. You could have killed me while I was unconscious, and didn't. You had more control than I did. You're strong."
"The boss wants you alive. That's all there is to it." The response was dull and listless, as if Hannah was... tired.
"And I'd just tried to murder you. I've seen your temper. When it mattered most...you kept control." Ash said. "...I'm sorry I failed you."
A pause.
And then Hannah shuffled around, boots scraping on the surface, until she was facing Ash. In the dim lighting, her face seemed more drawn and haggard than he remembered.
"Alright." She held out her hands. "Where's this going?"
"....It's a very long story...but we have time. In theory. Can I have some water? And...can you undo the restraint around my forehead, at least? I'm good now. No more attacking. I swear it on my mentor's legacy."
Another pause.
And then a huge sigh, as Hannah got up and walked over to the table on the far end of the room. A plastic bottle full of water sat on it - obviously brought in for just such an emergency. Picking it up, she walked back over to where Ash lay, knelt down and held out the bottle with one hand whilst untying the restraint around his head.
"Too soft," she grumbled. "That's my trouble."
"Well, might as well start at the beginning..."
And so Hannah heard a tale. A normal world. A god sealed in it. His awakening. His incomprehensible motivation to turn the world into a incomprehensible patchwork forged by a billion desires granted, twisted, and denied. Ash's old life. His new one. And his mentor, a great woman, and the horrific man she'd had to share her life with. Who'd murdered her.
"...Men don't hurt women. They DON'T. So...yes. I beat my head on the wall. To stop myself, and remind myself. Pain is weakness leaving the body."
"...I get your point, but that's fucked up. That'd be like if I broke my arm every time I drank a beer because my dad was an alcoholic."
"Well to be fair your boss did sort of sleep deprive me." Ash said. At some point, Ash forget when, Hannah had undone his other restraints.
"Touche." Hannah said. "...my powers don't work."
"I noticed."
"I... I don't get it. I thought he wanted me to beat you up some more, but... why block my powers? What good would that do?"
Ash could only look at her. Waiting for the pieces to fall into place.
"Like, he should have known that you'd go for me, after all the shit he pulled on you and all the times I broke something. So why would-?"
Realization hit her like a piano dropping on Goofy's head.
"...son of a BITCH!"
"Maybe." Ash said, taking the sentence literally. And as if that was a siren call, the sound of the door being worked
Ash wasn't really surprised who was there. Hannah, however, was.
And where she'd held her temper with Ash, she did not hold it here, as she lunged at him.
"You shit! You turned off my powers so he could kill me! Who even does a thing like-?!"
Ivan didn't so much stop her as he used his bulk and armor to just sort of shoulder PAST her, the current situation quite pointedly indicated. Having walked past her, he approached Ash. There was no anger on his face, or anything that would indicate violence on his mind.
Just confusion.
"...why?"
Ash just stared, bleary-eyed. Once again, he did not understand the question.
"You had the chance. The opportunity for revenge against the one who hurt you. Yet you did not take it. Why?"
"...there are...two people...in a room."
"I do not understand."
"There are two...people in a room. One has a pained tooth, and on a level...of pain marked from 1 to 10, we shall say that he is suffering pain...with a numerical value of 3. The other person has just been shot...in the leg. We will say he has a ‘pain value’ of 6. Ergo, is anybody in that room suffering from a combined ratio of 9? Do we say that both are...suffering from a pain value of 4.5?”
"...what?"
"Not clicking? Okay, try this...if you leave for your destination now...you will arrive on Thursday. You are leaving now. Therefore...you will arrive on Thursday."
Ivan merely stares.
Then he turns to Hannah.
"Clearly delusional, no? Headbutting a wall scrambled his mind more than I thought."
Hannah, however, is still pissed. "We're not leaving until you explain why you turned my powers off, asshole."
Ivan doesn't reply, at first. He just looks from one to the other.
"Ivan. Mr. Silver."
His eyes, ever masked, turned back to Ash.
"Why do YOU think I did it?"
"You think yourself some knight in shining armor, no?"
"Actually, I like to...think of myself...more as a paladin."
"...What's a paladin?"
"Why do YOU think I did what I did?" Ash repeated, not answering.
"Because you are weak. But not in way I assumed."
Ivan lowered himself down in a crouch to glare at Ash behind his mask.
"You could have taken revenge. Paid Hannah and me back for pain I caused you. But you would not take it, refusing to even score despite all the wrongs I have done. Yet you have no problem with attacking me for punishing insolent subordinates, over morals you build around yourself, like child building sandcastle. You claim to be hero, but will not do what is necessary."
"...so you turned off my powers and threw me in here," Hannah slowly chokes out, "just to prove a point?!"
Ivan ignored her, though his mask did snap back up over his face and head, so perhaps he did pay SOME attention.
"You are no better than me, little man. At least I am honest. You are hypocrite and coward."
"...Ah....ha. There it is....deep down...I am just like you. And you're right..." Ash said. "...Well...save for one thing. Do you know what a diamond is, Mr. Silver?"
"Yes."
"How is it made?"
"By exposing carbon-bearing material to high pressure and temperature. What has this to do with anything?"
"And can I punch this bastard yet?" growls Hannah. Ivan continues to ignore her.
"To get me...to even try and do...what you want to do...what you always do...you had to...subject me...to so much...pressure, hmmm? So much work to resemble you...which makes me a diamond and you a piece of coal. After all, they're both carbon, right? So we're the same, RIGHT? One doesn't have...more strength...and more value...over the other? One didn't have to be...subjected to so much...to get...something of worth, right?"
"...what are you saying?" Ivan's voice comes as a low, threatening growl that rattles behind his mask.
"Ha...ha..." Ash said, finally standing as best he could. "...My brain's a bit scrambled, so forgive me for appropriating...you think me...hypocritical...as all decent men must be, if you assume that decency can't exist. Heh."
Ash cocked his head, meeting his gaze.
"Blind you are, Mr. Silver, and blind shall ever be, seeing only the dark. You know not what rules the hearts of men, and if you knew you could not give it."
The silence that filled the room afterwards was made of iron. A whole minute of iron silence, leaving the air cold and empty with tension.
Hannah, feeling the need to break it, opened her mouth-
"RAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
-and shrieked as Mr. Silver swung a massive, unstoppable fist at Ash's head.
Blood sprayed. Teeth flew. Hannah screamed, a sound that seemed very far away.
"You think you are clever?!" Ivan said, as he both punched Ash again and drove his head into the wall. "With all this bullshit you spout?! NO! You are insolent, idiotic child! You speak nonsense and call it wisdom, you brain yourself on walls and call it heroism! You are IDIOT!"
Blows rained down. Ash fell onto the bed, only for Ivan to pick him up and throw him against the opposite wall. More blood splattered.
"I never claimed to be anything else! I am killer, criminal and much more! But I do not dress myself with idiotic codes of honour and give it a stupid name! You are like a character in a pantomine - all costume but no substance! You parrot idiotic phrases you have memorized because you have no real answers!"
Ivan's boot came down, again and again. Stomp. Crunch. Squash.
"But I have won, little man! I have worn you down and broken the costume and shown the pathetic idiot inside! You thought you could beat me with words? You were beaten long before I even began the torture! I have found what you are, and I find it wanting! I win!"
No more kicking. Because in a mirror of events gone by, his hands had closed around Ash's throat.
"YOU LOSE!"
Squeeze.
Good man...
Suddenly, Ash felt the world lurch, and Mr. Silver's grip was yanked off of him. As he lay on the floor, barely able to see, he got a good view of three other subordinates dragging the writhing, snarling Russian away from him. It took one each for the arms and another with a clutch to his midsection as though he were clinking to a charging horse - either Ivan had worn himself out with all the punching and kicking, or these guys hit the gym on a regular basis.
"LET ME GO!" roared Ivan, kicking like a spoilt child. "HE MUST-"
And then Hannah's body blocked his vision. Not his ears, though, which picked up every word that she spat out at her boss like acid.
"Two and two equals four, fuckwit. So do the math here - Important Prisoner gets killed by Psychopath in a Tin Can. How do you think Godfather is going to react when she finds her major source of info on this world is a bloody pulp? And whilst I'm at it, shall we add 'using soldiers as guinea pigs' to the long list of shit you've been pulling?"
Ivan stopped, and stared. A range of emotions flickered across his eyes behind the mask - outrage, bewilderment, exhaustion... it was hard to catch everything on there. For a horrible moment, Ash though the brutish Magpie was going to charge again.
Then he wrenched himself free of the other three soldiers and, with a last hateful glance at the prone Ash, stalked out of the room. The trio followed close behind, shadowing the bigger man with deliberate purposefulness, but Hannah didn't move until their footsteps were no longer audible.
Then she turned to Ash and knelt down, concern on her face.
"You still alive?"
Ash emitted a faint cough. Even that sent waves of pain through him.
"I'll take that as a yes."
Then the next thing Ash knew, the Geokinetic had taken a strange bottle from her pocket, along with a cotton pad, and was pouring stuff from the bottle onto the pad before daubing his wounds with it. It stung, predictably, but over time the pain started to dull into mere throbs.
"...I hate him," he finally realized Hannah was saying. "Thinks he can do whatever the fuck he wants just because he's been dicked over. And blocking my powers like that... should have shattered his nose before he even walked into the fucking room."
A bitter laugh. And then Hannah sighs, and it's full of sadness and regret.
"Things aren't the same anymore. Godfather wants to start something, and she's clearing out anyone who won't be a part of it. And I don't think I want to."
"...I'm...sorry...if I could...do...anything...it's...my...dutyyyyyyyyyyyyyy..."
And then Ash slipped away into the darkness.
---
"Is he okay, Bacta?"
"I dunno, Babel... I managed to fix him up as best as I could, but he needs to stabilize on his own."
Those are the words that come filtering in on the edge of Ash's hearing, as he slowly rises from unconsciousness.
The first thing he saw was Willis.
"Welcome back," smiled the man, although without much happiness. "We thought you'd really caught it."
"Lots of broken bones," came in Tracy's too-fast voice as she appeared from the edge of his vision. "Massive internal injury, possible hemorrhaging. Luckily, we have dedicated medical teams and healer battalions stationed at these locations. Very efficient."
"Geneva convention still stands," babbled Tracy. "Prisoners need to be kept healthy. Couldn't have you bleeding out on us, not while-"
It was obvious from the beginning that Tracy's babbling was more out of nervousness than her usual method of speech. And it became even more obvious when Willis lifted one of his hands and she quickly stammered to a stop, opting to twiddle her fingers and stare at the floor instead.
"Sorry," came an echoing voice in Ash's head. Tracy's.
"Someone might want to remind your boss of those conventions...if he cares. Which I doubt."
A small giggle from Tracy. "You sound just like Eeyore."
"Look," cut in Willis' actual voice, interrupting the silence. "Rubble told us what happened. And... well, me and Tracy, we've talked about it and... we've had enough. It's one thing when you have to smuggle, steal and defraud for a woman who doesn't even care for you, but when your boss decides she wants to rip apart time and space for the sake of profit and petty revenge..."
"It's too much," Tracy finishes, speaking aloud.
"...But no one leaves the Magpies." Ash said.
"We're going to."
Tracy's face was firm, her eyes hard. Enough, it seemed to say. I've had enough, and I'm going to let you know I've had enough until you get it.
"We're going to do it by means of a trick. And this trick has to do three things. One, it has to ensure that we get as far away from the Magpies as possible - another dimension, if that's what it takes. Two, it has to ensure that we can't be followed. Three, it has to expose Ivan's rule-breaking to Godfather. Imagine snatching away his sandwich and then kicking him in the balls, and that's what we're going to do."
Willis cast a sheepish look at Ash at this. "She's... been thinking about this a lot."
"...What do you need?"
Willis, surprisingly, was the one to speak first.
"First, somewhere to jump to," he started. "We can't just run to your dimension, because Godfather will know about it and we'll be hunted up and down without pause. So somewhere the Magpies won't expect us to go to. And because we listen in a lot, we figure that one dimension Dallas got sent to would be good - nobody's really figured out how to get back there."
"Second," added Tracy, "someone to vouch for us. From what reports we managed to dig up, that dimension is heavily protected, and it's guardians don't take kindly to people in our line of work. I don't know about you, but I like my rib bones intact, so a more diplomatic approach would be required in this instance."
"And third, a way to stop Ivan from pursuing us once we've gotten through," finished Willis.
"....You need to find the machine used to get to my world. See if you can figure out...how to get to where Dallas went. Even if you can just...send signals or probes or something...there's a girl there whose business is dimensional transfer, she'll hopefully pick something up. Once we get that...we can proceed from there."
Willis nodded. "We'll get right on that. Don't worry, we have clearance, so if we pretend we're running a maintenance check, they'll let us in no problem."
"I trained to use transmitters before I was transferred here," put in Tracy. "With any luck, I ought to get a good signal out to this friend of yours."
---
Ash wasn't sure how long had passed since then. He was healed up, he slept, he ate the nutrient paste they provided him, he pondered.
The alarms going off was a rude awakening. Standing up, he blinked a few times, then fell into a crouch.
When the door opened, the fact that Tracy was panicked was a bad sign.
"We have a problem!"
"What sort of problem?"
"Our invasion force was completely neutralized! Your world...a whole bunch of people showed up and kicked everyone's ass so hard Godfather's put the whole building on lockdown! And that's with the door closed behind them!"
The implication sunk in. The portal to his world was closed off. And from the sound of things, someone had rallied the troops. And Godfather had discovered her reach exceeded her grasp.
For someone as unstable as her, the likely consequences were not pretty.
Willis arrived, looking equally scared.
"Everything's in chaos. If we're gonna go, we need to go NOW."
"You got an entry point?"
"Yes! Somehow! It's as stable as we're going to get!"
"Guys?"
Hannah, fists of rock flecked with blood, also stepped into the room, with the man with the flashbangs whose name Ash couldn't remember. With a familar sword.
Magnificence. The blade of Debera, gifted to him. Ash expected someone else to bring in Erdrick, and when no one did, the realization that he hadn't seen his partner-weapon ever since he'd been captured sunk in. What the hell...?
Questions to answer later.
"Someone started asking questions...I had to punch them out, I couldn't think of anything else to do! We have to go, now!"
"Okay, okay..." Ash said, taking the sword and throwing the harness that held the sheath over his shoulder, looping it around and clicking it on his bare chest. No armor, pants and paper shoes, but he felt better, even though by all logic he couldn't use the weapon at all. Magnificence made one exception for its constant virulent emissions: him. And he'd have to rub his blood on the weapon a whole bunch of times to get that guarantee. If he drew it in these confined spaces, the poisons and gasses would not discriminate between friend and foe. Well, worst came to worst...he had a club.
"Okay. All right. We can do this. This sort of crap..." Ash said, stepping out of the door.
And stopping dead.
The hallway was filled with Magpies. Not Magpies come to stop him. Magpies who looked at scared as the rest, even as the alarms kept blaring.
"...the hell?"
"We want to go."
Hannah suddenly looked much younger, her eyes pleading.
"If we just run...Ivan will hurt our friends. We...we can't take it any more. Most of them, us, are with Ivan because Godfather made the assignments...we can't leave them behind."
Ash swallowed. So now instead of an escape this had become a rescue mission with several dozen scared more-or-less-kids, a time crunch, right in the heart of enemy territory with the enemy utterly furious and on the defensive because of a literally-might-have-just-happened defeat.
"You scared, Leigh?"
"Yeah." Ash said, turning to Tracy. "Lead the way."
Time to do proud.
Friday, 15 May 2015
All That Glitters, Part 2B
"I'm telling you Ash, this is foolproof. All we have to do is get in and dresses will drop for us before the night is out. Weddings are full of desperate pu-"
"Don't use that word. I hate that word." Ash said. In a time before marriage, Kobbers, godslaying, and a lot of other things, Ash didn't have a lot going for him, but he had Paul. Friends bound in rejection and dorkdom, and both overcompensating now that the Change had allowed them to jump about eighty steps in the self-improvement que. Where Ash wanted respect and admiration, Paul wanted accomplishment in the feminine sphere. Ie, he wanted to get laid, and a lot. Neither at the time realized that both had been cursed so that their greatest desires would cause them as much grief as possible.
The wedding crashing went poorly. Paul was mistaken for an assassin and beaten with clubs, while Ash attempted a rescue and ended up falling in a koi pond that was part of the wedding party and getting stuck there due to his over-heavy armor. The supposed assassin victim, Laura Maser, had called off her guards and given Paul a lecture, and when a rather pride-battered Paul had not exactly been polite in his response, she'd used mechanized gauntlets to literally toss him out on his ear. The language Paul had used afterwards had actually worried Ash a fair bit; no one liked being humiliated, but you could truly tell someone's character when they got angry. Christine, for example, stopped being nice and started being 100 percent honest, which was sometimes worse than the rampages some of his other teammates could, and did, go on when they lost their tempers. Himself included.
So of course, circumstances would constantly throw Paul and Laura together, again and again, always with Laura with the advantage. Ash sometimes wondered, just as he was unsure how he had survived so many terrible things where others had not, how Paul had never crossed over a line that there would be no going back from. Ash suspected it mostly had to do with Yumi, and maybe Debera too. Paul had been a rock after her death and Ash's overwhelming, crushing guilt. Maybe seeing how much it hurt to lose someone you respected made the whole idea of chasing after the poisonous kind of respect getting 'revenge' on Laura would bring unpalatable. Between that, how Yumi (or rather, Treasure) had probably also 'helped', in the end Paul preferred to be successful at things rather than shoot himself in the foot working at cross-purposes.
Love was a funny thing. In sweet talk Ash would have told his wife that he loved her from the moment he saw her, but in truth it had taken his feelings a long time and several wringers before they actually became unselfish enough to count as love. Having to work with a female whose pants he desperately didn't want to get into, as it turned out, was a lot better in teaching you how to get women to like you. Especially when said woman was always dealing with the nonsense of people who wanted to take advantage of her birthright for their own sakes. Amazing what some honesty and some swallowed pride could do. Amusingly, there hadn't been any obvious sexual tension; in the lead up to the Twilight Wars Ash had just noticed the two together outside of battle plans and hadn't figured it out until Laura had given him a brief kiss in their presence. Erdrick had gotten material out of his flabbergasted state for weeks.
Curses were meant to cause the most bitter of ironies. Ash's had probably been to drive him towards malevolence, Christine's to make her part with the heart that made her so prized for so many. Paul's was to ensure that the talents granted him would never be tapped and refined, that he would destroy himself and realize how badly he had failed at the end. But...he hadn't.
Ash had loved the idea of the knight in shining armor, the hero on horseback saving the land from evil. Paul had preferred the cool professional, the best in a dangerous field whose name became synonymous with accomplishment and danger.
In the end...it was almost surprisingly easy to get that. All you had to do was survive great danger.
This world was full of danger.
The world was not enough.
----
"...Mr. Rapanga, what are you DOIN-?"
"Shhhhh." Laura said, as the camera view showed Paul stepping out of cover without being noticed and walking to a cluster of men and women on the outskirts of the bazaar. "He's hiding in plain sight."
Joffre's expression soured, though that was a personal belief that such a risk wasn't worth it. Then again, Paul had very limited time and was not an expert in stealth-sneaking like Brigh. Maybe pretending to just be another thug who was window-shopping would work best.
"It is very unlikely they could hear our radio." Joffre said, though he kept his voice very low despite what he'd said.
"I always prefer no chance to a low chance, and no chance means no talking." Laura said, typing at the computer in front of her. Joffre briefly held his gaze on her; that was a control and guiding panel. It wouldn't do anything for the Accuser, so what was she doing...
No time to puzzle it out. The people in Paul's vision were looming close...
---
And they'd noticed Paul.
"Hey. Got a light?" Paul said, producing a herb cigarette. The key, he figured, wouldn't be people recognizing his face, but his clothing, in that his outfit was considerably fancier than what the average criminal should be wearing. Between his ragged cloak and the dust he'd covered himself with, he could only hope it'd be enough.
Most of the criminals ignored Paul, though one opened up a lighter with a grunt and lit Paul's cigarette. Another was giving him a cold look; Paul figured it was best to play ignorant.
"Thanks." Paul said, taking a puff and walking on. He severely doubted he could just pick up the Pea Soup containers and walk out, but if he could actually GET to them without a fight, it would be a start. He even had something resembling an exit plan, based on something he'd spotted when he was walking around doing general assessmen-
"Hey! Hey you!"
Paul stopped. Yeah, it figured.
"Yeah?" Paul said, turning and looking in the direction of the yell. It was from the people he'd just left; one apparently had gotten a whiff of her (actual, real) cigarette, or 'joint' as the old term had been.
"You got any more of that shit?"
"...Think so." Paul said, walking back over. Calm. Be calm. Forget being in enemy territory. Forget the tight time limit. Panic made you sloppy, and even if you kept it under control, he wasn't like Valse, or that nutcase Ash insisted on keeping on their team as their nuclear option. He couldn't just plow through masses of enemy forces on a whim and come out smelling like a rose. Act like you belonged, and things just worked out better. Heck, he'd gotten so good at acting like he'd belonged that Laura fell in love with him. Surely compared to that this would be simple.
"I don't have any more papers though, I guess I could just give you what I have left and you could find some yourself if you don't..." Paul said, reaching under his coat.
Then he saw lots of dancing colors without the aid of any drugs, as one of the cluster slipped behind him and slammed him in the back of the head with his shotgun. Paul tumbled to the ground, even as he heard Laura utter a low curse in his ear. He didn't hear Joffre, but he pictured the older man face-palming. Look what the 44 member did in his brilliant attempted trick.
Guns were drawn, cocked and aimed at him. Still dazed on the ground, Paul slowly withdrew the small baggie he had actually been reaching for.
"It wasn't a damn gun, assholes..." Paul said, trying to play the put upon victim.
"Not the problem. Rapanga."
The woman who'd stepped around some of the others wasn't someone Paul recognized, save for one thing; she hadn't been with the original group. But she'd been close enough to make him, and smart enough to get him to walk into an ambush instead of just sounding the general alarm. Fuck.
"I don't..."
"Would you at least respect my intelligence, Rapanga?" The woman said, and Paul found himself being stood up, his guns stripped from him, even as the woman thrust her hand into his coat, withdrawing the metallic pendant cast in the shape of a flickering tongue of fire. "Your 44 medallion lit up our sensors like you were holding a sign."
"...These things are cloaked."
"Not well enough any more, I'm afraid." The woman said, smiling, a look that spoke of broken knees and knives through necks.The wonders of ever advancing technology and spellcraft. Lucky him.
"We going to shoot him?" One of the men said.
"I don't know, I'm tore between blowing his brains out or ransoming him back to Oriam for even more toys."
"We could do both." Another woman said, aiming at Paul's knee.
"Technically, that's not where my brain is." Paul said,
"Yes, we have to aim higher." The woman said, drawing her own firearm and doing so. Eeek.
"Also technically, those dots all of you have sprouted might disagree with you."
A half second of staring from the woman, and then a check.
No dots on them. No snipers here. Paul was alone...and he'd needed to break their focus.
In the moment they'd given him, he whirled around behind the man with the shotgun, grabbing him and his weapon. Paul couldn't actually access the trigger, but he didn't need to: the symbol on the inside of his gloved hand lit up as he yanked the weapon up and the gun fired. Misfire on command. Sometimes a useful trick. The woman who had I.D'd him never had a chance to realize how things had turned around before her face was turned inside out.
Alas, only one shot in the gun, as he'd had no choice but to fire both barrels. Fortunately, his puppet also had a handgun at his side. And UNfortunately, for him, his peers didn't bother with any attempt of hostage rescue and immediately shot him repeatedly trying to get to Paul.
Don't panic...that just makes you shoot, you need to AIM-
Four swift gunshots. Two to center of mass, one neckshot, one headshot. Enough in all four cases...except Paul knew without even looking that now the entire bazaar was either looking at him, freaking out, or otherwise noticing that several people were now suddenly dead. By his hand. Which had one gun with a partially expended clip. Even IF some just thought it was a disagreement, he knew others would assume the worst immediately and try and ventilate him. And the corpse he was now holding would not hold up to a barrage like that.
Paul dropped his human shield and dove behind some thankfully metal crates, bullets slamming into them less than two seconds before he was under cover. Paul rolled onto his rear, briefly looking at the blood all over his front. The bullets had been stopped between the corpse and his armor, but so much blood...
Blood...death...
---
"Look at us." Ash mused. "The great heroes of the Twilight War, the Godslayer and the God of Guns...trying to not puke our guts out because some people just wouldn't get a clue."
"You fool." Paul said, in that unique way he did, making it a silly little jibe instead of an actual insult. "That's what you get for eating such a big breakfast."
"Says the one with the greenish tint."
"I'm just commiserating with you." Paul said, looking at the dead men who had forced their hand. Just a brief, normal journey, interrupted by brigands, whom Ash and him had swiftly stomped into the ground. That hadn't been enough, as it turned out: they'd played defeated until the pair of them had dragged them into the nearest town to get them properly arrested, at which point said brigands broke free and tried to burn the whole place down as a distraction. Buildings were bad enough, but when they went after the fleeing people with said fire attacks, the gloves came off. Ten seconds later, there was one less band of murderous scumfucks in the world.
And despite all that, Ash still felt queasy. He could tell Paul did too. Life was funny. Once upon a time, both would have thought the complete and utter destruction in such a short period of time of such men would be a point of pride, a showing of their talents and skill and how far they'd come, how strong and tough and powerful they were. Great warriors...except, as both had found out, in the words of another fictional character Paul was fond of, wars did not make one great.
You should always feel this way.
"Maybe so, Erdrick, but I could do with feeling it with less intensity." Ash said. "How do you feel, Paul?"
"I'm all right..." Paul said. "I'm...learning how to handle this."
"Maybe I should join your class."
"I dunno if it would help you, Ash...it's really just...well. To paraphrase him, I don't like to kill. But I take pride in doing it well."
"...I suppose in this world, that's the best way you could look at it." Ash said, looking at the drifting smoke in the air. "It's not the license that matters. It's the check your heart and soul cut every time."
"Better us then people who don't."
"...as better as such things can be."
----
Time to be that better.
They were trying to kill him. They were dead anyway, with the Accuser blast inbound. They would not extend him the same courtesy, even if Paul could somehow sit them down and give them lessons on the benefit of it. It was time for Paul Rapanga to go in the box. It was time for the gunslinger, the super-soldier, the one man army, the 44 member. The great warrior, because sometimes war came for you whether you wanted it or not.
"You have less than five minutes, Mr. Rapanga." Joffre said in his ear.
"Yes, thank you for that! If you're going to tell me the odds next, FORGET IT!" Paul yelled, cringing down as firepower was poured into his position. This was no good. Even if the boxes held up, it would be a very short time before the killers and criminals rubbed their two brain cells together and flanked him.
"How much ammo do you have?"
"NOT ENOUGH!" Paul yelled, though he did draw the clip. Eight bullets. Well, could be worse.
"Fortunately for you, sweetie, I can rectify one of those problems." Laura said.
"What?" Paul and Joffre said in near-sync. It was around then that Joffre, whose attention had been focused on Paul's issues, noticed the incoming signal that was showing on the radar scans of the bazaar. "Miss Maser, I did request you inform me of all your pre-preperations."
"So one slipped my mind. Sue me." Laura said.
"I take it that's not a missile."
"Yes and no." Laura said. "Paul, incoming."
"From where?"
"Uh..." Laura said, as she rapidly checked her last coordinates. "North and in your general downward directio-"
"OH SHIT!" Paul yelled, his voice echoing through the room. Laura pressed a button.
In the sky above the rocky mountain flat, the fired projectile appeared in the sky and descended for two seconds before it broke apart, as the bazaar-goers suddenly found themselves under attack and ran for it, pieces of metal raining down and crashing through the bazaar. There was a brief moment of quiet as the criminal forces regrouped and tried to figure out what had just happened. Missiles were supposed to explode, this one had just sort of...fallen apart and onto them, for minimal damage.
That wasn't the point of the missile. That was just a bonus. The paycheck was what was in it.
"Orbis non sufficit." Paul said.
"You've got four minutes, Paul." Laura said.
"I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them." Paul said, as he centered himself, even as the weapon that had fallen into his hands had the last pieces slot and arm into it. "I shall use my time."
"Flatline, online. Armed. Licensed."
"Don't use that word. I hate that word." Ash said. In a time before marriage, Kobbers, godslaying, and a lot of other things, Ash didn't have a lot going for him, but he had Paul. Friends bound in rejection and dorkdom, and both overcompensating now that the Change had allowed them to jump about eighty steps in the self-improvement que. Where Ash wanted respect and admiration, Paul wanted accomplishment in the feminine sphere. Ie, he wanted to get laid, and a lot. Neither at the time realized that both had been cursed so that their greatest desires would cause them as much grief as possible.
The wedding crashing went poorly. Paul was mistaken for an assassin and beaten with clubs, while Ash attempted a rescue and ended up falling in a koi pond that was part of the wedding party and getting stuck there due to his over-heavy armor. The supposed assassin victim, Laura Maser, had called off her guards and given Paul a lecture, and when a rather pride-battered Paul had not exactly been polite in his response, she'd used mechanized gauntlets to literally toss him out on his ear. The language Paul had used afterwards had actually worried Ash a fair bit; no one liked being humiliated, but you could truly tell someone's character when they got angry. Christine, for example, stopped being nice and started being 100 percent honest, which was sometimes worse than the rampages some of his other teammates could, and did, go on when they lost their tempers. Himself included.
So of course, circumstances would constantly throw Paul and Laura together, again and again, always with Laura with the advantage. Ash sometimes wondered, just as he was unsure how he had survived so many terrible things where others had not, how Paul had never crossed over a line that there would be no going back from. Ash suspected it mostly had to do with Yumi, and maybe Debera too. Paul had been a rock after her death and Ash's overwhelming, crushing guilt. Maybe seeing how much it hurt to lose someone you respected made the whole idea of chasing after the poisonous kind of respect getting 'revenge' on Laura would bring unpalatable. Between that, how Yumi (or rather, Treasure) had probably also 'helped', in the end Paul preferred to be successful at things rather than shoot himself in the foot working at cross-purposes.
Love was a funny thing. In sweet talk Ash would have told his wife that he loved her from the moment he saw her, but in truth it had taken his feelings a long time and several wringers before they actually became unselfish enough to count as love. Having to work with a female whose pants he desperately didn't want to get into, as it turned out, was a lot better in teaching you how to get women to like you. Especially when said woman was always dealing with the nonsense of people who wanted to take advantage of her birthright for their own sakes. Amazing what some honesty and some swallowed pride could do. Amusingly, there hadn't been any obvious sexual tension; in the lead up to the Twilight Wars Ash had just noticed the two together outside of battle plans and hadn't figured it out until Laura had given him a brief kiss in their presence. Erdrick had gotten material out of his flabbergasted state for weeks.
Curses were meant to cause the most bitter of ironies. Ash's had probably been to drive him towards malevolence, Christine's to make her part with the heart that made her so prized for so many. Paul's was to ensure that the talents granted him would never be tapped and refined, that he would destroy himself and realize how badly he had failed at the end. But...he hadn't.
Ash had loved the idea of the knight in shining armor, the hero on horseback saving the land from evil. Paul had preferred the cool professional, the best in a dangerous field whose name became synonymous with accomplishment and danger.
In the end...it was almost surprisingly easy to get that. All you had to do was survive great danger.
This world was full of danger.
The world was not enough.
----
"...Mr. Rapanga, what are you DOIN-?"
"Shhhhh." Laura said, as the camera view showed Paul stepping out of cover without being noticed and walking to a cluster of men and women on the outskirts of the bazaar. "He's hiding in plain sight."
Joffre's expression soured, though that was a personal belief that such a risk wasn't worth it. Then again, Paul had very limited time and was not an expert in stealth-sneaking like Brigh. Maybe pretending to just be another thug who was window-shopping would work best.
"It is very unlikely they could hear our radio." Joffre said, though he kept his voice very low despite what he'd said.
"I always prefer no chance to a low chance, and no chance means no talking." Laura said, typing at the computer in front of her. Joffre briefly held his gaze on her; that was a control and guiding panel. It wouldn't do anything for the Accuser, so what was she doing...
No time to puzzle it out. The people in Paul's vision were looming close...
---
And they'd noticed Paul.
"Hey. Got a light?" Paul said, producing a herb cigarette. The key, he figured, wouldn't be people recognizing his face, but his clothing, in that his outfit was considerably fancier than what the average criminal should be wearing. Between his ragged cloak and the dust he'd covered himself with, he could only hope it'd be enough.
Most of the criminals ignored Paul, though one opened up a lighter with a grunt and lit Paul's cigarette. Another was giving him a cold look; Paul figured it was best to play ignorant.
"Thanks." Paul said, taking a puff and walking on. He severely doubted he could just pick up the Pea Soup containers and walk out, but if he could actually GET to them without a fight, it would be a start. He even had something resembling an exit plan, based on something he'd spotted when he was walking around doing general assessmen-
"Hey! Hey you!"
Paul stopped. Yeah, it figured.
"Yeah?" Paul said, turning and looking in the direction of the yell. It was from the people he'd just left; one apparently had gotten a whiff of her (actual, real) cigarette, or 'joint' as the old term had been.
"You got any more of that shit?"
"...Think so." Paul said, walking back over. Calm. Be calm. Forget being in enemy territory. Forget the tight time limit. Panic made you sloppy, and even if you kept it under control, he wasn't like Valse, or that nutcase Ash insisted on keeping on their team as their nuclear option. He couldn't just plow through masses of enemy forces on a whim and come out smelling like a rose. Act like you belonged, and things just worked out better. Heck, he'd gotten so good at acting like he'd belonged that Laura fell in love with him. Surely compared to that this would be simple.
"I don't have any more papers though, I guess I could just give you what I have left and you could find some yourself if you don't..." Paul said, reaching under his coat.
Then he saw lots of dancing colors without the aid of any drugs, as one of the cluster slipped behind him and slammed him in the back of the head with his shotgun. Paul tumbled to the ground, even as he heard Laura utter a low curse in his ear. He didn't hear Joffre, but he pictured the older man face-palming. Look what the 44 member did in his brilliant attempted trick.
Guns were drawn, cocked and aimed at him. Still dazed on the ground, Paul slowly withdrew the small baggie he had actually been reaching for.
"It wasn't a damn gun, assholes..." Paul said, trying to play the put upon victim.
"Not the problem. Rapanga."
The woman who'd stepped around some of the others wasn't someone Paul recognized, save for one thing; she hadn't been with the original group. But she'd been close enough to make him, and smart enough to get him to walk into an ambush instead of just sounding the general alarm. Fuck.
"I don't..."
"Would you at least respect my intelligence, Rapanga?" The woman said, and Paul found himself being stood up, his guns stripped from him, even as the woman thrust her hand into his coat, withdrawing the metallic pendant cast in the shape of a flickering tongue of fire. "Your 44 medallion lit up our sensors like you were holding a sign."
"...These things are cloaked."
"Not well enough any more, I'm afraid." The woman said, smiling, a look that spoke of broken knees and knives through necks.The wonders of ever advancing technology and spellcraft. Lucky him.
"We going to shoot him?" One of the men said.
"I don't know, I'm tore between blowing his brains out or ransoming him back to Oriam for even more toys."
"We could do both." Another woman said, aiming at Paul's knee.
"Technically, that's not where my brain is." Paul said,
"Yes, we have to aim higher." The woman said, drawing her own firearm and doing so. Eeek.
"Also technically, those dots all of you have sprouted might disagree with you."
A half second of staring from the woman, and then a check.
No dots on them. No snipers here. Paul was alone...and he'd needed to break their focus.
In the moment they'd given him, he whirled around behind the man with the shotgun, grabbing him and his weapon. Paul couldn't actually access the trigger, but he didn't need to: the symbol on the inside of his gloved hand lit up as he yanked the weapon up and the gun fired. Misfire on command. Sometimes a useful trick. The woman who had I.D'd him never had a chance to realize how things had turned around before her face was turned inside out.
Alas, only one shot in the gun, as he'd had no choice but to fire both barrels. Fortunately, his puppet also had a handgun at his side. And UNfortunately, for him, his peers didn't bother with any attempt of hostage rescue and immediately shot him repeatedly trying to get to Paul.
Don't panic...that just makes you shoot, you need to AIM-
Four swift gunshots. Two to center of mass, one neckshot, one headshot. Enough in all four cases...except Paul knew without even looking that now the entire bazaar was either looking at him, freaking out, or otherwise noticing that several people were now suddenly dead. By his hand. Which had one gun with a partially expended clip. Even IF some just thought it was a disagreement, he knew others would assume the worst immediately and try and ventilate him. And the corpse he was now holding would not hold up to a barrage like that.
Paul dropped his human shield and dove behind some thankfully metal crates, bullets slamming into them less than two seconds before he was under cover. Paul rolled onto his rear, briefly looking at the blood all over his front. The bullets had been stopped between the corpse and his armor, but so much blood...
Blood...death...
---
"Look at us." Ash mused. "The great heroes of the Twilight War, the Godslayer and the God of Guns...trying to not puke our guts out because some people just wouldn't get a clue."
"You fool." Paul said, in that unique way he did, making it a silly little jibe instead of an actual insult. "That's what you get for eating such a big breakfast."
"Says the one with the greenish tint."
"I'm just commiserating with you." Paul said, looking at the dead men who had forced their hand. Just a brief, normal journey, interrupted by brigands, whom Ash and him had swiftly stomped into the ground. That hadn't been enough, as it turned out: they'd played defeated until the pair of them had dragged them into the nearest town to get them properly arrested, at which point said brigands broke free and tried to burn the whole place down as a distraction. Buildings were bad enough, but when they went after the fleeing people with said fire attacks, the gloves came off. Ten seconds later, there was one less band of murderous scumfucks in the world.
And despite all that, Ash still felt queasy. He could tell Paul did too. Life was funny. Once upon a time, both would have thought the complete and utter destruction in such a short period of time of such men would be a point of pride, a showing of their talents and skill and how far they'd come, how strong and tough and powerful they were. Great warriors...except, as both had found out, in the words of another fictional character Paul was fond of, wars did not make one great.
You should always feel this way.
"Maybe so, Erdrick, but I could do with feeling it with less intensity." Ash said. "How do you feel, Paul?"
"I'm all right..." Paul said. "I'm...learning how to handle this."
"Maybe I should join your class."
"I dunno if it would help you, Ash...it's really just...well. To paraphrase him, I don't like to kill. But I take pride in doing it well."
"...I suppose in this world, that's the best way you could look at it." Ash said, looking at the drifting smoke in the air. "It's not the license that matters. It's the check your heart and soul cut every time."
"Better us then people who don't."
"...as better as such things can be."
----
Time to be that better.
They were trying to kill him. They were dead anyway, with the Accuser blast inbound. They would not extend him the same courtesy, even if Paul could somehow sit them down and give them lessons on the benefit of it. It was time for Paul Rapanga to go in the box. It was time for the gunslinger, the super-soldier, the one man army, the 44 member. The great warrior, because sometimes war came for you whether you wanted it or not.
"You have less than five minutes, Mr. Rapanga." Joffre said in his ear.
"Yes, thank you for that! If you're going to tell me the odds next, FORGET IT!" Paul yelled, cringing down as firepower was poured into his position. This was no good. Even if the boxes held up, it would be a very short time before the killers and criminals rubbed their two brain cells together and flanked him.
"How much ammo do you have?"
"NOT ENOUGH!" Paul yelled, though he did draw the clip. Eight bullets. Well, could be worse.
"Fortunately for you, sweetie, I can rectify one of those problems." Laura said.
"What?" Paul and Joffre said in near-sync. It was around then that Joffre, whose attention had been focused on Paul's issues, noticed the incoming signal that was showing on the radar scans of the bazaar. "Miss Maser, I did request you inform me of all your pre-preperations."
"So one slipped my mind. Sue me." Laura said.
"I take it that's not a missile."
"Yes and no." Laura said. "Paul, incoming."
"From where?"
"Uh..." Laura said, as she rapidly checked her last coordinates. "North and in your general downward directio-"
"OH SHIT!" Paul yelled, his voice echoing through the room. Laura pressed a button.
In the sky above the rocky mountain flat, the fired projectile appeared in the sky and descended for two seconds before it broke apart, as the bazaar-goers suddenly found themselves under attack and ran for it, pieces of metal raining down and crashing through the bazaar. There was a brief moment of quiet as the criminal forces regrouped and tried to figure out what had just happened. Missiles were supposed to explode, this one had just sort of...fallen apart and onto them, for minimal damage.
That wasn't the point of the missile. That was just a bonus. The paycheck was what was in it.
"Orbis non sufficit." Paul said.
"You've got four minutes, Paul." Laura said.
"I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them." Paul said, as he centered himself, even as the weapon that had fallen into his hands had the last pieces slot and arm into it. "I shall use my time."
"Flatline, online. Armed. Licensed."
"Sorry, gentlemen. But I'm afraid you've had your six."
Saturday, 2 May 2015
The Doom That Came To Vegas
-Porphyrion-
Peace had finally come.
Two chaotic years of disaster after disaster had finally passed. Whatever did not kill you made you stronger, as the saying went...
But sometimes...death was not the end at all.
The haruspex known as Hadeon had passed on, but her legacy lingered in two ways. One a weapon for her slayers, and the other the remains of her powers over destruction and oblivion, focused in manifested form due to the circumstances of her demise. Their unwilling host's defeat left only that manifestation: the Black Doomstone. The power to end things, to stop them, to bring them to a halt. If shattered, the power would simply find a new host. No one could bear such a burden willingly...
So it had to be buried. Buried like Hadeon once was, except deeper. So deep no one would ever find it. Such had been the plan of Lyall Curr, and in the end he had taken the extra step of taking it out of his hands.
The Order of the Eleven Stars had not gotten involved in Porphyrion's battles because they did not fight. They were scholars and guardians of knowledge, not warriors. In the end, even Lyall had not trusted himself with the Doomstone, and in his efforts to dispose of it and all knowledge of it, had ultimately turned it over to the Order. All had sworn oaths of death that they would not take it up, reinforced by powerful magic spells that no one of them could unravel alone. They had purged Lyall of certain memories at his request, and selected a long abandoned mine that dug deep into the earth. For a month they dug all the more, and prepared, a tomb that would be sealed behind them. No one would know what lay here. No one could possibly stumble over it.
....the best laid plans.
If Zoax Noureth had more of a creative mind, he might have seen this coming. But Zoax was a researcher who saw little value in stories, a viewpoint his peers shared. Which is why when the form emerged in the final moments, just when they were ready to seal away the Doomstone forever, down in the depths, they had never considered such a possibility could occur.
"What...?" Zoax said, and then his senses brought him recognition. "YOU?"
"I."
"...Why would..." Zoax said, and then he understood in what he could see. "...No...NO!"
His peers tried, knowing as he what was coming...but they were scholars, not warriors, and even if they had been hardened battle-mages, it would not have been enough. The darn form took their attacks and stopped them in their tracks, and then returned the blows twice as fierce. They crumbled like wheat under a scythe, not dead, not even really all that hurt, but down. It was all that was needed. Expert precision.
Zoax made a stand. The form just negated everything he did. Even with basic knowledge, it was enough. Empowered construct armor. By itself, merely dangerous.
But also perfect to wield it. And as Zoax was knocked aside, he realized that he could not stop it from happening.
"...please..." Zoax said. "I don't know why...but this world has already suffered so..."
"I have no interest in this world."
A slash from deadly weapons, and the Doomstone was free. Zoax understood.
"...what have you become?"
"...I am the Air. And the Darkness."
"...The star people...They will stop you."
"Can even they stop...the end of all things? Can even they stop...death?"
Peace had finally come.
Two chaotic years of disaster after disaster had finally passed. Whatever did not kill you made you stronger, as the saying went...
The haruspex known as Hadeon had passed on, but her legacy lingered in two ways. One a weapon for her slayers, and the other the remains of her powers over destruction and oblivion, focused in manifested form due to the circumstances of her demise. Their unwilling host's defeat left only that manifestation: the Black Doomstone. The power to end things, to stop them, to bring them to a halt. If shattered, the power would simply find a new host. No one could bear such a burden willingly...
So it had to be buried. Buried like Hadeon once was, except deeper. So deep no one would ever find it. Such had been the plan of Lyall Curr, and in the end he had taken the extra step of taking it out of his hands.
The Order of the Eleven Stars had not gotten involved in Porphyrion's battles because they did not fight. They were scholars and guardians of knowledge, not warriors. In the end, even Lyall had not trusted himself with the Doomstone, and in his efforts to dispose of it and all knowledge of it, had ultimately turned it over to the Order. All had sworn oaths of death that they would not take it up, reinforced by powerful magic spells that no one of them could unravel alone. They had purged Lyall of certain memories at his request, and selected a long abandoned mine that dug deep into the earth. For a month they dug all the more, and prepared, a tomb that would be sealed behind them. No one would know what lay here. No one could possibly stumble over it.
....the best laid plans.
If Zoax Noureth had more of a creative mind, he might have seen this coming. But Zoax was a researcher who saw little value in stories, a viewpoint his peers shared. Which is why when the form emerged in the final moments, just when they were ready to seal away the Doomstone forever, down in the depths, they had never considered such a possibility could occur.
"What...?" Zoax said, and then his senses brought him recognition. "YOU?"
"...Why would..." Zoax said, and then he understood in what he could see. "...No...NO!"
His peers tried, knowing as he what was coming...but they were scholars, not warriors, and even if they had been hardened battle-mages, it would not have been enough. The darn form took their attacks and stopped them in their tracks, and then returned the blows twice as fierce. They crumbled like wheat under a scythe, not dead, not even really all that hurt, but down. It was all that was needed. Expert precision.
Zoax made a stand. The form just negated everything he did. Even with basic knowledge, it was enough. Empowered construct armor. By itself, merely dangerous.
But also perfect to wield it. And as Zoax was knocked aside, he realized that he could not stop it from happening.
"...please..." Zoax said. "I don't know why...but this world has already suffered so..."
"I have no interest in this world."
A slash from deadly weapons, and the Doomstone was free. Zoax understood.
"...what have you become?"
"...I am the Air. And the Darkness."
"...The star people...They will stop you."
"Can even they stop...the end of all things? Can even they stop...death?"
Sunday, 26 April 2015
All That Glitters, Part 2A
Oriam.
The sole CIGEN 6 city open to the public: the shining jewel of human, aarde, and hemel cooperation. Population: 600,000. Home of five members of the 44. One of the two main blades of the Twilight Wars. Respected, feared, and in more than a few places, cursed behind closed doors and called the 'City of Dread Dreamers'. Current Chieftan: Kyrillos Maser.
March came in like a rattlesnake...
Perhaps it was fate that Ash and the man known as Philander would come to blows, as Ash had had interactions with a man that could very well have been his brother, at least in terms of appearance. General Ephraim Joffre had the same build, same type of mustache, and the same general posture; Unlike Philander, he had considerably less snooty arrogance, though it was there. That, and Joffre had earned everything that had been rewarded him. A skilled soldier and leader of men, he was one of the seven men and women in charge of Oriam's greater military and police forces for a reason...
Not that this helped him at the moment.
Technically, he outranked her; the woman had an honorary rank of 'Errant-Major', which was basically a made-up rank that allowed her to work with the military of Oriam without any red tape getting in the way. On the other hand, she was the daughter of Chieftan Maser, whose actions then and now were why there was an Oriam military then AND now, especially after the Twilight Wars. If he got into a pissing contest with her, at best it would probably end up a waste of time. On the other OTHER hand, this WAS technically his mission.
On the other other OTHER hand, she'd presented her case so that her desires had butted in. Joffre had wanted to sent his Runners, the special squadron he'd personally trained and equipped. There was no real nepotism: Joffre honestly felt they were the best choice for this mission. They were, per their name (their codename, their official name was Special Offensive Operations Squad 11) quick and more importantly, quiet. She, on the other hand, had felt that a squad would be too easily detected, especially with how isolated the mission grounds were, and that it was better to send in a single person. His peers had sided with her; Joffre honestly couldn't tell if they agreed, if it was politics, or both. At least he knew she wasn't trying anything; in her mind, her way would work best.
Laura Maser. If anything was going to force him to finally start on any sort of medication, it would be her. Her and her damned boyfriend the 44 member.
Joffre, for the most part, respected the 44, but in the same way he respected a good firearm. Intent meant everything, and too many of the 44 had intentions that rubbed him the wrong way. Lone wolf, step in and damn the consequences heroic nonsense, that was what drove too damn many of them, going around trying to direct wars and social issues and all sorts of things a lot of them didn't have the experience, understanding, or patience to really handle. Great when dealing with obvious dangers like that Incael fellow, not so great when dealing with more complicated matters.
Like this. What the viewing crystals of Oriam were viewing were events not happening in Oriam, but technically over the border to Oriam's immediate eastern neighbor, Pansoe. Whose relationship with Oriam could be said to be chilly at best; some (more like nearly all of the people in charge) felt that Oriam had grabbed all the glory during the Twilight Wars and left out other countries like Pansoe's efforts. Which was nonsense; the reason Oriam had glory was the sheer amount of work they'd put into saving the world, not to mention the ridiculous danger their city had managed to pull through. Other cities that had directly opposed Xaxargas were not as fortunate as they had been, and not for lack of trying, and they'd taken that immense risk willingly, Chieftan Maser willing to sacrifice every life under his command if it ensured the world's survival, a will that had thankfully not become necessary. They had not seized any credit that wasn't due to them, let alone from a jealous semi-backwater like Pansoe. Chieftan Maser had no time or patience for bullshit, and he'd told them to their faces.
Joffre really hoped that what they said was true and Pansoe really had no idea what was happening on their territory. It was hard to keep an eye on everything after all, and surely there was a line between bitter realpolitik and outright attempted proxy-harm out of envy and resentment. But as far as he was concerned, Pansoe's nonsense was enough that he didn't trust them at face value, and if that meant he had to do some technical violation of their sovereignty to keep his city and people safe, he would.
Which is why he'd wanted to send the Runners. Instead, we had...him. The thoughts on the murk surrounding the issue made Joffre wonder if that was part of the reason Laura had sent in her boyfriend. To many, save a couple of exceptionally bad apples and nutcases, the 44 were not just a force for good, but of optimism and simplicity. The idea that a complicated problem could be solved by the most rudimentary solution: apply force to it until the problem went away, was very much a 44 statement and general intent. The Godslayer was certainly fond of it, though at least he had the brains to have enough connections and allies to compensate where he was lacking. To Joffre, such a mindset was not philosophy, but poetry. Nice when it worked, but not worth the risk.
Oriam wasn't called the City of Dread Dreamers for nothing. For all the good it had done, and all the amazing things the legions of brilliant minds had invented, there was always the bad seeds, the malignant intellects who were bent towards profit or worse, proving something that only made sense in their malfunctioning synapses. And of course, the worst, those who just wanted to see things burn. The ugly nature of war blurred a lot of lines, and one of Joffre's biggest regrets was how the Twilight Wars had forced them to legitimize far too many of those bad seeds. It was a war of annihilation; no weapon, no tactic was off the table. Except when the war ended in victory, there were a lot of genies that were not going back into their bottles.
Hence, their current issue. It was the equivalent of an illegal weapons bazaar, whose primary products would be Oriam's dark shames. Tatterdemalions. Rocksalt. Vehemence. Tinkertoys. Who knew what else, along with the smaller things like Pop Rocks and Sunsets, and whatever some nutcase Blackbirds had dreamed up, along with the more benevolent-save-for-intent items like Intricacies, Vassals, Millstones...
Millstones. That was going to be the problem. That rocky mountain corner was covered in them; no Stream-user was going to be able to summon any kind of strength or power without a Yoke counter, and Yokes were not something you could just swipe off some random stooge. They were activated by blood, and switching their user once activated (via further blood) could take hours. Anyone who went in was going to be doing so with one, if not both hands tied behind their backs. Something his Runners were trained in...
But his Runners were not there. He was. Joffre tried to be professional. No plan survived contact with the enemy; Oriam had endured and thrived because men like him had adapted to that fact better.
Not that covered other irritations. Like when the picture of said bazaar, viewed at a distance from a hidden position, distorted. Joffre cursed low under his breath. This wasn't the fault of his picture provider; Joffre couldn't get any sort of autonomous viewing equipment or process out there in the mountains (The Ienken Heights, they were called, though the locals just called them Grumble Peaks due to the constant mild volcanic activity that had only recently been sealed up), so he was stuck with one lone view, which came out of the patch that covered his (more like her) operative's eye. THAT was working fine and he was using it fine...but the weather was clear where the bazaar was happening. Oriam on the other hand was in the grip of a full-on thunderstorm, and they couldn't wait for it to clear up lest one of the criminals at the bazaar made a purchase and went off to kill people with Oriam's weapons. Or worse, kill Oriam's people with Oriam's weapons. So he'd put up with the image and communication snarls the storm was causing, if it meant a prompt resolution.
"All right agent...how long since the last new arrivals?" Laura said.
A gloved hand slipped into view. Four fingers, then a zero. Forty or so minutes.
"I'd say that probably means any more stragglers we get aren't worth waiting for." Laura said, addressing Joffre.
"Agreed. Close in, agent, but do NOT engage. Let's confirm the products." Joffre said. The picture distorted a few more times as their agent snuck in, and when Joffre tried to get one of the other divisions on the line to inquire about when the weather was going to clear up, he found that communique cutting in and out as well. When it rained, it poured. Literally.
"Bootlaces." Laura said.
"And I'm pretty sure I see Bottle Rockets too, sir." One of the soldiers manning the controls said. "Breadbaskets too. It's a literal B-show."
"Small time material." Joffre said.
"That one's selling blocks of Fire Clay." Another controller said.
"And that one's selling Wyrmblood, I suspect." Laura said. "A few vehicles too...there's a Bludgeon."
"The BLG-E10 is highly specialized, would be nearly useless to the average terrorist." Joffre said.
"And if there's a non-average terrorist?"
"A fair point. Especially considering that." Joffre said, pointing. "Reignmakers." Ultra-precise lengths of metal, glorified bullets, save you could fire them from twenty miles away and provided the target didn't have a few feet of hardened metal between them and the projectile, it would find them, ignoring all laws of acceleration and energy to do it save the fact that even it could come to a complete stop with enough mass. What happened when a Blackbird and a Dread Dreamer came up with a shared idea. Magitek, as Laura called it. Joffre hated it.
"Sir? Those too." The first controller said, having to fiddle with the picture as it again distorted. "Agent, look more to the left and up...there. Weeping Willows. And Locusts."
Joffre inhaled through his nose. Worse than he thought. Weeping Willows were tiny little balls that, if they hit anything organic, induced rapid, fatal dehydration (to the point where another name for them was 'Wringers', like a wet cloth being wrung out). Dangerous enough, but with the microbots known as Locusts, a suitably angry or insane person could literally wipe out all life in a five-ten square mile area, and reduce the ground to dry, lifeless dust.
"That's enough, then." Joffre said.
"Sir?"
"Agent, withdraw. Lieutenant Harper, get me Sergeant Brooks." Joffre said, causing Laura's head to swivel towards him.
"Yes sir."
"Forgive me if I..." Laura said.
"Yes, ma'am. I do not care about plausible deniability or tensions any more. They're selling high end death and the ability to deliver it at long range. I'm utilizing the Accurser. Get your agent out of there."
"Sir, while I understand your concerns..."
"I don't have time for games, Miss Maser. As good a shot as your lover is, he's not THAT good. Scorched earth will solve the issue."
"I have Brooks on the line, sir."
"Sergeant? Prepare the Accuser. Harper, give him the coordinates."
Within the depths of Oriam, a building began to open, revealing a dull grey dagger-like structure of metal and wires. So named because it had been said to look like an accusing finger, the Long-Range Pinpoint Leveling-Based Blaster gathered kinetic and pyroclastic energies before firing them in an arc that reduced anything within five hundred feet of its impact zone to atoms.
"...Miss Maser, I told your boyfriend, your agent, to get clear."
"Yes General. I have conveyed the order. He received it." Laura said. Yet the pictures still showed the bazaar.
"...Mr. Rapanga, I am not joking around. If you do not vacate the area swiftly, I cannot guarantee your safety."
Still the bazaar.
"Paul?" Laura said. "What are you doing?"
A waving hand. Just wait.
"Mr. Rapanga I assure you..."
Then the Bludgeon, its wheels being tested, was driven away. Revealing what the man on the ground had seen that he wanted to show. A small table. A stasis field. And inside it, two scaled green orbs, the size of basketballs.
"...Is that...?" Harper said, and as Paul used his eyepiece to scan in, Joffre suddenly felt an even deeper chill.
"...Scans confirm. That's Peabody's Expanding Effluvium."
"Pea Soup." Laura said.
"....Will the Accuser blast destroy it?" One of the other controller said.
"I...I don't..." Joffre said. In the nearly forgotten past world, one of its greatest wars' greatest weapon sin was the use of gas-based attacks, clouds of death that so horrified the countries that had used it they had signed laws to outlaw them, said weapons not even making a return in the next great war, despite it being ten times as bitter. That was how deep the scars went...but in a war of annihilation, nothing was off the table. But in a world where people could summon winds and fire, gas was of limited use...unless the gas was magically designed to expand and convert whatever gases it touched into more of it. You didn't use Pea Soup unless you had thaumaturges with enough skill to neutralize it, or it would just keep expanding until it covered countries, continents, in theory the whole world. It would kill both you and your enemy, and who knew what else. Worse, its expansive rate was exponential. Without any magicians there...
"Sergeant Brooks, belay that order!" Joffre said. He'd almost made a terrible mi...
Static.
"Sergeant, respond! Can you hear me?"
Thunder boomed, incredibly loud. The picture, Joffre realized, was distorting so much that it resembled abstract art. Their communication network was completely scrambled.
"GET BROOKS ON THE LINE! ABORT THE FIRING PROCEDURE!" Joffre yelled, finding a lot of his soldiers were ahead of him. Good men, skilled men...
But no plan survives contact with the enemy.
"Sir?" Brooks' voice came through.
"SERGEANT, THE ORDER IS RETRACTED! DO NOT FIRE!"
"...fire...sir?"
"NO! STOP!"
"You are...confirming the order....fire?"
"YES! NO! Sergeant cease all acti-"
The echoing hum rippled through the air, and everyone in the room tensed up. They knew what that meant.
"...Sir?" Brooks' crackling voice said.
"...Sergeant, please tell me you received my orders to not fire."
"Sir, I believed you were confirming the order to..."
"STOP THE BLAST!"
"What? Sir, that is impossible..."
"DAMNATION!" Joffre cursed. "Rapanga, get out of there! You have six minutes before you either burn or choke to death on your own blood!"
There was a brief pause, and then the hand crept into the frame.
Thumbs down.
Then the bazaar started getting closer.
"...Miss Maser, what is he doing?"
"His job." Laura said.
The sole CIGEN 6 city open to the public: the shining jewel of human, aarde, and hemel cooperation. Population: 600,000. Home of five members of the 44. One of the two main blades of the Twilight Wars. Respected, feared, and in more than a few places, cursed behind closed doors and called the 'City of Dread Dreamers'. Current Chieftan: Kyrillos Maser.
March came in like a rattlesnake...
Perhaps it was fate that Ash and the man known as Philander would come to blows, as Ash had had interactions with a man that could very well have been his brother, at least in terms of appearance. General Ephraim Joffre had the same build, same type of mustache, and the same general posture; Unlike Philander, he had considerably less snooty arrogance, though it was there. That, and Joffre had earned everything that had been rewarded him. A skilled soldier and leader of men, he was one of the seven men and women in charge of Oriam's greater military and police forces for a reason...
Not that this helped him at the moment.
Technically, he outranked her; the woman had an honorary rank of 'Errant-Major', which was basically a made-up rank that allowed her to work with the military of Oriam without any red tape getting in the way. On the other hand, she was the daughter of Chieftan Maser, whose actions then and now were why there was an Oriam military then AND now, especially after the Twilight Wars. If he got into a pissing contest with her, at best it would probably end up a waste of time. On the other OTHER hand, this WAS technically his mission.
On the other other OTHER hand, she'd presented her case so that her desires had butted in. Joffre had wanted to sent his Runners, the special squadron he'd personally trained and equipped. There was no real nepotism: Joffre honestly felt they were the best choice for this mission. They were, per their name (their codename, their official name was Special Offensive Operations Squad 11) quick and more importantly, quiet. She, on the other hand, had felt that a squad would be too easily detected, especially with how isolated the mission grounds were, and that it was better to send in a single person. His peers had sided with her; Joffre honestly couldn't tell if they agreed, if it was politics, or both. At least he knew she wasn't trying anything; in her mind, her way would work best.
Laura Maser. If anything was going to force him to finally start on any sort of medication, it would be her. Her and her damned boyfriend the 44 member.
Joffre, for the most part, respected the 44, but in the same way he respected a good firearm. Intent meant everything, and too many of the 44 had intentions that rubbed him the wrong way. Lone wolf, step in and damn the consequences heroic nonsense, that was what drove too damn many of them, going around trying to direct wars and social issues and all sorts of things a lot of them didn't have the experience, understanding, or patience to really handle. Great when dealing with obvious dangers like that Incael fellow, not so great when dealing with more complicated matters.
Like this. What the viewing crystals of Oriam were viewing were events not happening in Oriam, but technically over the border to Oriam's immediate eastern neighbor, Pansoe. Whose relationship with Oriam could be said to be chilly at best; some (more like nearly all of the people in charge) felt that Oriam had grabbed all the glory during the Twilight Wars and left out other countries like Pansoe's efforts. Which was nonsense; the reason Oriam had glory was the sheer amount of work they'd put into saving the world, not to mention the ridiculous danger their city had managed to pull through. Other cities that had directly opposed Xaxargas were not as fortunate as they had been, and not for lack of trying, and they'd taken that immense risk willingly, Chieftan Maser willing to sacrifice every life under his command if it ensured the world's survival, a will that had thankfully not become necessary. They had not seized any credit that wasn't due to them, let alone from a jealous semi-backwater like Pansoe. Chieftan Maser had no time or patience for bullshit, and he'd told them to their faces.
Joffre really hoped that what they said was true and Pansoe really had no idea what was happening on their territory. It was hard to keep an eye on everything after all, and surely there was a line between bitter realpolitik and outright attempted proxy-harm out of envy and resentment. But as far as he was concerned, Pansoe's nonsense was enough that he didn't trust them at face value, and if that meant he had to do some technical violation of their sovereignty to keep his city and people safe, he would.
Which is why he'd wanted to send the Runners. Instead, we had...him. The thoughts on the murk surrounding the issue made Joffre wonder if that was part of the reason Laura had sent in her boyfriend. To many, save a couple of exceptionally bad apples and nutcases, the 44 were not just a force for good, but of optimism and simplicity. The idea that a complicated problem could be solved by the most rudimentary solution: apply force to it until the problem went away, was very much a 44 statement and general intent. The Godslayer was certainly fond of it, though at least he had the brains to have enough connections and allies to compensate where he was lacking. To Joffre, such a mindset was not philosophy, but poetry. Nice when it worked, but not worth the risk.
Oriam wasn't called the City of Dread Dreamers for nothing. For all the good it had done, and all the amazing things the legions of brilliant minds had invented, there was always the bad seeds, the malignant intellects who were bent towards profit or worse, proving something that only made sense in their malfunctioning synapses. And of course, the worst, those who just wanted to see things burn. The ugly nature of war blurred a lot of lines, and one of Joffre's biggest regrets was how the Twilight Wars had forced them to legitimize far too many of those bad seeds. It was a war of annihilation; no weapon, no tactic was off the table. Except when the war ended in victory, there were a lot of genies that were not going back into their bottles.
Hence, their current issue. It was the equivalent of an illegal weapons bazaar, whose primary products would be Oriam's dark shames. Tatterdemalions. Rocksalt. Vehemence. Tinkertoys. Who knew what else, along with the smaller things like Pop Rocks and Sunsets, and whatever some nutcase Blackbirds had dreamed up, along with the more benevolent-save-for-intent items like Intricacies, Vassals, Millstones...
Millstones. That was going to be the problem. That rocky mountain corner was covered in them; no Stream-user was going to be able to summon any kind of strength or power without a Yoke counter, and Yokes were not something you could just swipe off some random stooge. They were activated by blood, and switching their user once activated (via further blood) could take hours. Anyone who went in was going to be doing so with one, if not both hands tied behind their backs. Something his Runners were trained in...
But his Runners were not there. He was. Joffre tried to be professional. No plan survived contact with the enemy; Oriam had endured and thrived because men like him had adapted to that fact better.
Not that covered other irritations. Like when the picture of said bazaar, viewed at a distance from a hidden position, distorted. Joffre cursed low under his breath. This wasn't the fault of his picture provider; Joffre couldn't get any sort of autonomous viewing equipment or process out there in the mountains (The Ienken Heights, they were called, though the locals just called them Grumble Peaks due to the constant mild volcanic activity that had only recently been sealed up), so he was stuck with one lone view, which came out of the patch that covered his (more like her) operative's eye. THAT was working fine and he was using it fine...but the weather was clear where the bazaar was happening. Oriam on the other hand was in the grip of a full-on thunderstorm, and they couldn't wait for it to clear up lest one of the criminals at the bazaar made a purchase and went off to kill people with Oriam's weapons. Or worse, kill Oriam's people with Oriam's weapons. So he'd put up with the image and communication snarls the storm was causing, if it meant a prompt resolution.
"All right agent...how long since the last new arrivals?" Laura said.
A gloved hand slipped into view. Four fingers, then a zero. Forty or so minutes.
"I'd say that probably means any more stragglers we get aren't worth waiting for." Laura said, addressing Joffre.
"Agreed. Close in, agent, but do NOT engage. Let's confirm the products." Joffre said. The picture distorted a few more times as their agent snuck in, and when Joffre tried to get one of the other divisions on the line to inquire about when the weather was going to clear up, he found that communique cutting in and out as well. When it rained, it poured. Literally.
"Bootlaces." Laura said.
"And I'm pretty sure I see Bottle Rockets too, sir." One of the soldiers manning the controls said. "Breadbaskets too. It's a literal B-show."
"Small time material." Joffre said.
"That one's selling blocks of Fire Clay." Another controller said.
"And that one's selling Wyrmblood, I suspect." Laura said. "A few vehicles too...there's a Bludgeon."
"The BLG-E10 is highly specialized, would be nearly useless to the average terrorist." Joffre said.
"And if there's a non-average terrorist?"
"A fair point. Especially considering that." Joffre said, pointing. "Reignmakers." Ultra-precise lengths of metal, glorified bullets, save you could fire them from twenty miles away and provided the target didn't have a few feet of hardened metal between them and the projectile, it would find them, ignoring all laws of acceleration and energy to do it save the fact that even it could come to a complete stop with enough mass. What happened when a Blackbird and a Dread Dreamer came up with a shared idea. Magitek, as Laura called it. Joffre hated it.
"Sir? Those too." The first controller said, having to fiddle with the picture as it again distorted. "Agent, look more to the left and up...there. Weeping Willows. And Locusts."
Joffre inhaled through his nose. Worse than he thought. Weeping Willows were tiny little balls that, if they hit anything organic, induced rapid, fatal dehydration (to the point where another name for them was 'Wringers', like a wet cloth being wrung out). Dangerous enough, but with the microbots known as Locusts, a suitably angry or insane person could literally wipe out all life in a five-ten square mile area, and reduce the ground to dry, lifeless dust.
"That's enough, then." Joffre said.
"Sir?"
"Agent, withdraw. Lieutenant Harper, get me Sergeant Brooks." Joffre said, causing Laura's head to swivel towards him.
"Yes sir."
"Forgive me if I..." Laura said.
"Yes, ma'am. I do not care about plausible deniability or tensions any more. They're selling high end death and the ability to deliver it at long range. I'm utilizing the Accurser. Get your agent out of there."
"Sir, while I understand your concerns..."
"I don't have time for games, Miss Maser. As good a shot as your lover is, he's not THAT good. Scorched earth will solve the issue."
"I have Brooks on the line, sir."
"Sergeant? Prepare the Accuser. Harper, give him the coordinates."
Within the depths of Oriam, a building began to open, revealing a dull grey dagger-like structure of metal and wires. So named because it had been said to look like an accusing finger, the Long-Range Pinpoint Leveling-Based Blaster gathered kinetic and pyroclastic energies before firing them in an arc that reduced anything within five hundred feet of its impact zone to atoms.
"...Miss Maser, I told your boyfriend, your agent, to get clear."
"Yes General. I have conveyed the order. He received it." Laura said. Yet the pictures still showed the bazaar.
"...Mr. Rapanga, I am not joking around. If you do not vacate the area swiftly, I cannot guarantee your safety."
Still the bazaar.
"Paul?" Laura said. "What are you doing?"
A waving hand. Just wait.
"Mr. Rapanga I assure you..."
Then the Bludgeon, its wheels being tested, was driven away. Revealing what the man on the ground had seen that he wanted to show. A small table. A stasis field. And inside it, two scaled green orbs, the size of basketballs.
"...Is that...?" Harper said, and as Paul used his eyepiece to scan in, Joffre suddenly felt an even deeper chill.
"...Scans confirm. That's Peabody's Expanding Effluvium."
"Pea Soup." Laura said.
"....Will the Accuser blast destroy it?" One of the other controller said.
"I...I don't..." Joffre said. In the nearly forgotten past world, one of its greatest wars' greatest weapon sin was the use of gas-based attacks, clouds of death that so horrified the countries that had used it they had signed laws to outlaw them, said weapons not even making a return in the next great war, despite it being ten times as bitter. That was how deep the scars went...but in a war of annihilation, nothing was off the table. But in a world where people could summon winds and fire, gas was of limited use...unless the gas was magically designed to expand and convert whatever gases it touched into more of it. You didn't use Pea Soup unless you had thaumaturges with enough skill to neutralize it, or it would just keep expanding until it covered countries, continents, in theory the whole world. It would kill both you and your enemy, and who knew what else. Worse, its expansive rate was exponential. Without any magicians there...
"Sergeant Brooks, belay that order!" Joffre said. He'd almost made a terrible mi...
Static.
"Sergeant, respond! Can you hear me?"
Thunder boomed, incredibly loud. The picture, Joffre realized, was distorting so much that it resembled abstract art. Their communication network was completely scrambled.
"GET BROOKS ON THE LINE! ABORT THE FIRING PROCEDURE!" Joffre yelled, finding a lot of his soldiers were ahead of him. Good men, skilled men...
But no plan survives contact with the enemy.
"Sir?" Brooks' voice came through.
"SERGEANT, THE ORDER IS RETRACTED! DO NOT FIRE!"
"...fire...sir?"
"NO! STOP!"
"You are...confirming the order....fire?"
"YES! NO! Sergeant cease all acti-"
The echoing hum rippled through the air, and everyone in the room tensed up. They knew what that meant.
"...Sir?" Brooks' crackling voice said.
"...Sergeant, please tell me you received my orders to not fire."
"Sir, I believed you were confirming the order to..."
"STOP THE BLAST!"
"What? Sir, that is impossible..."
"DAMNATION!" Joffre cursed. "Rapanga, get out of there! You have six minutes before you either burn or choke to death on your own blood!"
There was a brief pause, and then the hand crept into the frame.
Thumbs down.
Then the bazaar started getting closer.
"...Miss Maser, what is he doing?"
"His job." Laura said.
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