Chapter Text
5.2b -Taylor
"No, no, there’s no devil bound to it. Don't you see? The golem follows a series of decisions to respond to you, as if it were alive! If I had a larger set of data, I could surely make it just as clever."
-Rattakan, the Golem Sculptor, presenting one of his creations to an assembly of Bellerophon. Executed for acting Against The Will Of The People and the Creation Of Foreign Labor. Accessory charges, levied post-mortem, included the Use Of Means Of Foreign Tyrants and Creating False Idols In The Image Of Citizenry.
Three days of rest. Three days was how long I had to reconnect with my old friends, for whatever value of old meant since it had been about a year. Three days to introduce new ones. Rex was a friend, at least. I still had reservations about the Praesi mage, but he had been nothing but friendly and helpful so far. The awkwardness with Grue still hadn’t settled. I hadn’t figured out the right words to approach him. I’d barely had time to check on our territory, see the people who needed it, and some that didn’t.
Three days of respite, until I woke up one morning, about to go out for my jog, and sensed the Fallen enter my radius. The bugs I had on the periphery of my range converging as a group of capes came down the street in full costume. I couldn’t be exactly sure, but given there were only two, it seemed a safe enough bet to make.
Why the fuck were they bothering us now? After everything that had happened so far, they were still concerned with posturing and carving up the remains of a city that had been trashed thrice over, like rats over a rotting corpse?
My swarm clone coalesced before them. I recognized the two. One was a large man with tattoos and a beer-belly, a flayed horse-head as a mask and chains on his arms. Seir. The other was dressed like Behemoth itself, sweeping obsidian shards of armor. Eligos. I knew from Tattletale’s info that Valefor would be around somewhere as well, likely setting up a sneak attack. My bugs would find him.
“What do you want?” My swarm buzzed out, the insects around the street echoing the clone to project my voice.
The Fallen paused. Eligos glanced around. Uneasy? Waiting for orders? It was Seir that stepped up to answer. “This is our territory now. Leave and we’ll look the other way.”
Their territory. They really were here to pick fights over petty shit like this when the city was on the verge of collapse and we had a world depending on us to get ourselves together? My swarm buzzed and churned, growing more active with each passing second.
Was there any point in even telling them to leave? They were no different than Winslow, than the PRT, than the so-called Heroes. Bullies, just wearing the skin that suited their tastes. Authority and power from the end of a metaphorical gun. The only difference with the Fallen was they didn’t try to pretend they were better than anyone else. How was I supposed to be a hero when it felt like everything on Bet worked against that?
I distantly recognized that Seir was monologuing at my swarm clone. Filling the void my silence had left.
Wait.
Was that it?
Perhaps…perhaps Bet wasn’t that different from Calernia. We had roles, cycles, actions repeating over and over. It wasn’t quite a physical law, but powers led to the same conclusions across different times and peoples. I could feel something in my brain shift, like I was on the verge of understanding.
Eligos threw out blades of wind, dispersing my clone effortlessly. They’d picked this fight, not me.
I would end this quickly. There was no need to risk anyone else out there. Not this early in the morning. As I made my way to the roof, my swarm dove at the pair, a wave of black specks.
Eligos took a step back, flicking his hands, sending up blades that scythed through the whole swarm, out the other side. Too narrow. You couldn’t fight a wave with swords, no matter how sharp. The gaps he’d left were swiftly filled in.
I wasn’t familiar with Seir’s powers; he was throwing shadowy lines across the street that were forming into shadows of himself. Within a second he switched with one, avoiding my insects as they swarmed over where he had been. That was easy enough.
I just had to swarm all of them at once. I had more than enough bugs here for that. Brockton Bay’s destruction, if it had a silver lining, was that it had been excellent for the insect population.
The real question was where Valefor was hiding.
I knew by exposing myself on the roof, I would lure him out. Before my trip to Calernia I couldn’t have imagined myself taking a risk like this. I would’ve tried to ferret him out with my bugs. But now…
There was a tingle down my spine, as if I knew, and I ducked into my swarm as a gunshot rang out. Name bullshit. I grinned. This time the bullshit was on my side.
A cloud of mosquitoes quickly located the source. A group of police officers, who were oddly disinterested in the cape fight a block over. Mastered by Valefor? It was a surprising move. The Fallen were depraved maniacs, but I hadn’t heard of him going around killing people. It wasn’t like he would’ve known I could avoid that.
A second shot rang out and I cursed silently. This was definitely going to wake the Undersiders. What I wouldn’t give for a couple sappers to flank around them right about now, or- There was a distant pang in my chest at the thought.
A shadow creeped up over the edge of the roof and then Seir was in front of me, swinging the long chains he had wrapped around his forearms. I ducked, whipping my baton out to catch one, but the chain wrapped around it, coiling like a snake. His arm reared back to lash out with the other, but my swarm was already descending on him, biting at the mask and his exposed flesh.
He disappeared, his shadow still trying to attack me even as the swarm descended on it. It was like a hole had suddenly been left in the middle of my swarm. So he didn’t take the bugs with him.
A shame, that.
Shadows shot out from my left and I split my swarm, not holding back as they tore into his clones. I dodged as one swung for me, my baton shooting out, striking the side of its head. The shadow flickered and vanished, more forming around me as Seir shot out another series of shadowy tendrils before disappearing.
I could see through my beetles that he was behind me, already winding up for another swing. I disappeared into my insects, closing the distance to kick out his legs, using them as a shield as I charged in. Even as my foot connected to his shin, I could tell it wasn’t going to be enough. Seir was simply too heavy for me to bring down so easily. The chain came down and I caught it with a grunt, my arm stinging from the heavy metal scrapping against my carapace armor.
Sore, but not broken.
I think I like bullshit.
Seir hesitated as I held the chain taut. A half-second check through my swarm that Eligos was still occupied keeping himself safe from the ever encroaching cloud of biting insects below. Dropping silk lines over his outstretched arm, I bound Seir’s hand to one of the AC units on the roof. He tried to pull back, only to find he couldn’t move while I held the chain. A limit on his ability to teleport, then?
He swung the other, but I stepped forward, grabbing his wrist before he could get momentum up. More silk wrapped around him, his legs, his arms, even around his pelvis as I held our contest of strength.
It was moot after a few seconds. I let go and he was stuck in place. Tied up and seemingly unable to produce more of his shadows.
I turned around-
Valefor stared back at me.
“Don’t move.”
My thoughts started to melt away. I struggled to focus. That was why Seir hadn’t fought harder. He was buying time. Once they had located me, they simply needed to wait for Valefor
A shadow was cast out, next to Valefor, and Seir appeared next to him. The bindings left around one of his shadows. He had never been bound. Fuck. How had I gotten so complacent? A taste of power and I let my guard down. I needed to stop them, and I needed to do it now.
“Don’t attack. Do nothing. We have plans for you,” Valefor spoke as he kept me locked with eye contact.
I could feel my swarm growing more and more agitated as I was frozen in place. It was hard to keep my concentration, everything felt like it was… Slipping away. I needed just a second. Just a slip. Something to get my powers working so I could take him out. There was no guarantee killing him would stop his orders, but the chances he’d revoke them voluntarily…
“Kill everyone inside this building and then yourself when you’re done-”
The power I felt inside me, the one I had come upon in my climb of the Tower, wavered. There was a sharpness, an edge to it. I drew deep, trying to grasp it.
A sharp whistle. A spear bloomed from Valefor’s chest. Red soaked into the white of his Simurgh-esque costume. He gurgled, gasping, as he went down. Seir threw out shadows out and darkness blanketed the rooftop.
Grue.
Seir had disappeared into the blanket of darkness. There was a pocket left around me and I saw Rex walk out of the darkness, pulling his spear from Valefor’s torso, flicking the bulk of the blood off it.
I could move again after a moment. I had a dark suspicion it was when Valefor finished bleeding out.
“Are you well?” Rex asked, his forehead creased in worry.
Straightening up, I nodded. The feeling of losing control, of being so close to doing something terrible…I tried not to focus on it. There was still a threat out there.
Rex placed a hand on my shoulder, as if sensing how tense I was. “Breathe. The others will take care of the one remaining-”
“Eligos-” I started.
“The one in the street is subdued.” Ah, so they were already aware, and they’d dealt with it. God, I liked having competent allies.
If it hadn’t been for Grue’s power, we might’ve heard the fight between Seir and the rest of the Undersiders, but surrounded by the roiling darkness, no sound made it in.
“You do not have to fight alone. We’re your friends,” he said, lips thin.
Fuck. How did I explain to him it wasn’t that simple? That I needed to do this-
I was an idiot. It was like I had forgotten my promise to him. That I wanted to be a hero. That I wanted to do better. I came home and I just fell back into old patterns. Pushing myself, going out alone, escalating harder and harder until I won. I had made a promise and already, I was failing.
A hug interrupted my thoughts, catching me by surprise. A moment of pressure and warmth, before he let go. “I’m happy you’re safe. I was worried when Tattletale grabbed me.”
I lingered for a second in his arms. “I…thank you. I made a mistake.”
“We all do. I told you before, it’s not about being perfect, it’s about learning. It takes time, a fawn never stands on its first try.”
Right. I’d been stupid for thinking a single promise was enough to change everything. I had to put my money where my mouth was. Live up to it. If not for myself, then for the people around me.
A polite cough broke the silence as Tattletale emerged from the dissipating darkness. I stepped back from Rex. She had only thrown on her mask, still in a loose fitting shirt and pajama bottoms.
“Feeling okay? No lingering commands? I can probably put some Master-Stranger protocol stuff-”
I shook my head. “No, everything stopped once…”
I gestured to Valefor’s body a little distance aways, surrounded by a pool of his blood.
“Shame,” she said, with venom laced sarcasm dripping from the words. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. They were planning to grab whoever they could and use them to kill the rest of us. Fair’s fair I say.”
“Come on, let’s get you inside. Grue, Imp, and Regent just about have Seir cornered. Eligos was already down, with a lot of bug bites, when we got to him.”
—
Later, as I sat in one of the mismatched chairs of our base, I turned the thoughts over in my head. In the background I could hear Alec taunting Rex as the two played Mario Kart. I had almost fallen into the same patterns I had been in before. The others had saved me, but there was no guarantee I’d be as lucky if it happened again.
It almost felt like the pull in Calernia. A groove. It was so easy to push back, to fight. But where had that gotten us? Decades since capes had appeared and the world was closer to the brink of destruction than ever. Endbringers destroyed our cities. Villains and the Protectorate fought, with neither giving ground. It was a pattern of destruction, each act reinforcing the next.
We were no better than they were, were we? It was a cycle of conflict, of escalation. Heroes, villains, pushing and pushing while everyone suffered. I was no exception. But I had promised to be, or at least to try.
The question was simple: how?
To do better, we had to learn from our mistakes.
We needed to cooperate.
Actually work together. And not the temporary, desperate truces around Endbringers or other S-class threats. Actually, genuinely, work together. Trust one another.
I just needed a way to rally others. A cause…
A/N: Thanks to Lunas for his great feedback in betaing.
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