Sublimation 4.16
-=≡SƧ≡=-
Victoria was already swinging her gladius as the Butcher's words echoed across the park. The arc of incapacitating energy flared a scintillating white as it was unleashed through the open air toward the villain, only to shatter and dissipate as it struck the inner curve of a glowing blue wall of force. She whipped her head around to see Eric standing next to his injured sister, his hand thrust in the air to protect the crowd gathered by the tent.
Thoughts clashed in Victoria's head; frustration with herself chief among them— a tenth of her energy well wasted to impetuosity. But pride in her cousin pushed back on despair—inspired by his drive to protect everyone. She tried to organize her thoughts and work out how she could help. There were seven heroes inside Eric's blue enclave, one vulnerability in the injured Laserdream, plus Tails, then the ten PRT officers. Outside the bubble were all the other officers, and Lady Photon high in the sky. Where would her efforts best help?
Fleur's voice cut through her hesitation. "Box up on the injured, Manpower screens. Glory, reinforce Guile and Wonder."
Manpower frowned, looking briefly at his bloody daughter on the gurney—afraid to leave her, but he knew the best way to keep her safe was to draw the Butcher away. As he strode out away from the group towards the edge of the forcefield, he raised his fists in a boxer's pose. Challenger and Miss Militia followed him, enough distance between each of them to avoid spillover. Fleur and Lightstar stood shoulder to shoulder summoning their energy constructs, silver flowers and sunlit orbs tinged to green by Guile's blue dome.
Victoria reached out her hands and pushed five minutes of her light into each of her cousins, the rough and broken shape of Crystal's abdomen turning her stomach as she felt her power spread. One hundred and seventy-three minutes left, her instinctive inner voice told her. Victoria bit her lower lip and topped them up with a few minutes more apiece, while the PRT took up firing positions, the tall officer crouching next to the two paramedics working on binding Laserdream's injuries.
A familiar wave of explosive pressure cracked against Victoria's echo of light, as the blast of the Butcher's teleport slammed against the top of her helmet. She was above them, inside the shield, and metal screamed in laughter as the assembled heroes were sent tumbling by the force.
"No, no, no, no, no. Boooring."
Victoria felt her muscles flinch, and her ears shook in disquiet at that terrible voice as her power converted the attack into a spill of light. Laserdream shone with the same brilliant echo as the gurney was knocked out from under her and her body dropped to the grass. Guile jumped above his sister, forearms crossed upwards as the Butcher dropped down, scythe-like metal claws extended.
The wider blue glow vanished, and a dome of curdled aquamarine appeared under the plummeting villain, just big enough to cover Eric, Crystal, and the three PRT members. The Butcher's talons gripped but could find no purchase, like a fork stabbing at a block of frozen butter, and the villain kicked off in a somersault. The screaming chorus sang with metallic giggles.
"Oh ho ho."
Victoria swung her blade, aiming for where the Butcher was going to be. Guile's smallest shield was strong, incredibly so, but it was opaque. He would hold out until he ran out of stamina; they had to drive the villain off in the meantime. Some of the PRT started firing too, and a flaring missile from Miss Militia joined Victoria's arc of energy. With another laugh as the bullets plinked off her steel extrusions, the Butcher disappeared.
Victoria thought furiously, is she dodging me or Miss Militia? Was it a feint entirely?
A thump of explosive teleportation came from behind one of the PRT vans, and Victoria's ears buzzed once more in pain. The moment of respite from the Butcher's disorientating aura ended as quickly as it began. With a creaking shudder, the massive van shot forward like a hard-passed basketball, a rolling wall of multi-ton death bounding towards the heroes.
Whump.
Manpower crashed into the side of the vehicle face-first, his arms outstretched as if to hug the metal frame; his electromagnetic shield sparked and crackled with the impact. It would have been comical in any other situation, but the forward motion was met and arrested. Victoria's memory supplied a scene of Uncle Neil talking about the problems of Brutes; the risks of going through things rather than stopping them if you didn't spread your impact. Lines of purple light flashed down from the sky as Lady Photon distracted the Butcher from her momentarily stunned husband.
Victoria ran with a bounding gait to flank the situation, not wanting to waste energy on full flight. Meanwhile a long chainsaw-toothed tentacle of metal tore the van apart to get at the meaty morsel inside. Manpower grunted as he pushed back against the frame, their combined efforts conspiring to rend the vehicle into two smoking chunks. Victoria's uncle glared at the Butcher, the villain standing casually in a rain of purple bolts. Her scales and spines of metal were melting and boiling in the downpour, but more formed underneath like rows of shark's teeth regenerating in fast forward. Lady Photon's full attention wasn't enough to overwhelm the regenerator's defenses; they'd need a more potent blaster to knock her back.
The Butcher didn't toy with Laserdream, Victoria realized, someone whose blasts could hurt her. She went for the kill. She's more lucid, more together than she acts.
The Butcher swung the chainsaw tentacle of her arm again, but this time Manpower caught it with both hands and yanked, the sharp blades trilling as they scrambled to penetrate his shield. Victoria took the opportunity offered and swung a tall uprising strike from knee to shoulder. The arc of energy produced sizzling noises as it sped over the dry grass. Her incapacitating strike passed harmlessly through Manpower but hit the Butcher full in the face.
As Victoria felt the feedback of her energy attack dance on the Butcher's nerves and knotted muscles, she carried forward into a follow-up downward slash to send a second wave. The pressure in her ears abated for a moment, the Butcher's ultrasonic scream disrupted again.
But the Butcher still stood, shadowless, as ardent energy rippled in her eye sockets and twitched her fingers. The spasms slowly transmuted to guffaws as that terrible weight to the air returned. Lady Photon had never let up her assault, and droplets of metal spilled from the Butcher's barbed crown as she shook her head like a dog in the rain.
"Disaaaaappointing."
Never heard of a distraction, you raging bitch? Victoria thought as Challenger's grappling chains wound around the monster's torso. The red-costumed hero didn't stop her headlong charge past the Butcher, and the smaller figure of the villain was pulled off her feet, suspended between Manpower and Challenger.
The moment of balance only lasted a second as the metal tentacle Manpower gripped broke off at the Butcher's wrist. The jagged length curled around him like a spiky python as the Butcher was pulled backward by Challenger's bounding run, away from the PRT Vans and towards the line of trees at the east of the park. A sunlit orb chased and struck her as she moved, and the rain of purple bolts still fell from the sky.
"Glory, let's keep the pressure on." The gruff voice of Lightstar barked from behind Victoria, as her uncle ran up with three globes of light trailing after him like boisterous sheepdogs. The Butcher has turned in the air to face Challenger, a new bladed tentacle growing rapidly from the broken limb.
"Won't she 'port back?" Victoria asked, worrying about the injured. She still broke into a sprint next to him, before slowing a little to match his pace.
"She wants a cape fight." He answered grimly as they ran together. "Hookwolf didn't have unlimited reserves and she doesn't either, she'll take a five-on-one over everyone-on-one."
One hundred and thirty-nine minutes, her inner counter told her. She slapped Uncle Mike on his shoulder, sending ten minutes across. Enough to blunt a swing of that blade. She didn't know if she should give more— if staying personally in the fray was arrogant.
"The everloving fuck?" Lightstar swore. "Someone picked the wrong day to perform Macbeth."
Victoria looked past Butcher and Challenger, who were bouncing and bounding around on the open grass, using their respective hooks and tentacles to close with each other and strike dynamic blows. The trees at the edge of the park were moving? Upright figures of greenery charged out of the darker shadows, man-sized with barky skin and mossy growths.
"Blasto's minions." Victoria guessed as scores of the humanoids galloped onto the grass of the park.
"I got a feeling this isn't good news," Lightstar said, gesturing one of his orbs to race forward to strike the Butcher in the side a hundred yards away. Victoria swallowed her apprehension and followed suit with a wide swath of energy. Her blast flashed across the whole space of Challenger and the Butcher's duel, catching everyone involved but only biting at the supervillain. Pumping in enough volume to be sure the attack hit took a lot of her energy well, but the spasm of the Butcher's limbs and the sympathetic satisfaction at the blow Challenger landed with the flat of her ax on the villain's torso was worth it.
Something tickled at the back of Victoria's mind, and she realized that none of the plant creatures had been affected by her sweeping blast, positively or negatively, as indifferent to its scintillating charge as normal plants would be.
The minions weren't indestructible though. An uppercut from the Butcher sent Challenger barrelling through a trio of them, leaving a sappy smear of green viscera in a long trail on the floor. They're distractions or screens for the real villain's attack.
Challenger rolled to her feet, righting herself with the shaft of her gigantic axe. Victoria had been in enough fights to recognize the little shake of someone who'd taken a concussion blow. The Butcher leaped into the air, chainsaw tentacle retracting as giant scythe claws burst from her hands again.
"Cover her," Victoria shouted. No time for even a swing, she unleashed a wastefully omnidirectional explosion of light, filling their quarter of the park like a supernova. Sixty-eight minutes left. Lightstar, immune to the dazzle, grunted and sent the last two of his orbs to bracket the villain in an attack. But it was a purple outlined figure dropping from the sky that saved the Protectorate hero, the force of the Butcher's blow deflected by Lady Photon's shields.
At the flaring yellow light, the plantmen went crazy, swarming in a frenzied attack on the three capes clustered near the trees. Their crude bark claws reached eagerly to rend and tear. Challenger scrambled to stand back to back with Lady Photon, still protected by the royal purple shields, while the Butcher laughed again and skewered the creatures on her metal spikes like cheap kebabs, their flesh melting with black rot as soon as she pierced them.
With a thunder of heavy footsteps Manpower bounded up to stand with Victoria and Lightstar, his face still covered in scratches and claw marks from where he'd torn the Butcher's tentacle out of his flesh. In Victoria's peripheral vision she could see PRT officers moving to loosely outflank the fight on the north side, portable containment foam launchers clutched to their chests.
"She's using the rot power," Lightstar said to Manpower, his voice bitter. "Evac?"
"Eric's shield is still up, we can't move Crystal." Manpower answered, his hand at his helmet to carry his voice over the comms. "Everyone fall back. I'll be her punching bag."
"Neil, she can puncture your shield." Lightstar's voice was worried.
"I'll have to manage then." He replied simply, and squared his massive shoulders.
Victoria raised her hand, ready to give all the charge she had remaining to her Uncle when a soft-spoken word tickled in her ear.
"Glory."
It was Swallowtail's voice. Where had she been all this fight? Invisible, duh.
"Can you distract her? Draw her over to within five yards of the purple-leaved tree?" The mercenary's voice was steady, calm. Victoria could see the tree she meant, standing out against all the others somehow. "We can stop her."
Victoria could gamble on the word of a supervillain, or let the chance of Uncle Neil repeating Dad's sacrifice come to pass. It wasn't a matter to hesitate on.
"I'm staying." She said loudly. Her two uncles turned sharply to look at each other, and she put all the determination she could into her voice. "I have range, can't miss, can fly, and can tank the Butcher's hits. You need support; me and Aunt Sarah can give it while we can."
"The kids don't do these plays." Lightstar sounded angry, his mouth thin-lipped amidst his red-blond beard. Mike wasn't as big as Uncle Neil, but he was tall enough to look down on her. Victoria stared up at him stubbornly, he didn't have the power suitable to make her leave.
"You've got enough charge left?" Manpower asked, an unreadable expression on his face.
"Lots." She lied brazenly. Sixty-seven minutes, under a third of her full capacity. She reached out to push her light into him, but Manpower stepped back, rolling his shoulder out of the way.
"You need it all Vicky." He murmured.
"You better hope the Butcher kills you before Carol does, Neil," Lightstar said, his voice serious. He turned and retreated, new glowing orbs starting to form in his hands. Lady Photon took off, clutching Challenger in her arms as the Butcher finished popping the last of the plantmen that surrounded the villain.
Manpower drove a fist into his palm with a tremendous smack, the noise echoing across the park as he walked forward. With the ease of long practice, Victoria slipped into place a few steps behind him, keeping his body as a shield, ready to release an all-encompassing blast if the Butcher teleported behind them. The PRT continued to encircle, throwing themselves prone in a loose perimeter, a pair of women officers even making it to the trees and setting up behind a stump. The strain of focusing intently on the Butcher left crawling distortions in the corners of Victoria's peripheral vision.
The Butcher didn't seem to notice any of them, and instead surveyed the piles of rotting vegetation around her. The rest of the plantmen had drawn up into a tight scrum back by the road to the south of the park, wooden heads turning this way and that as if they were deciding what to do next. Had the biotinker made his expendable minions intelligent? The Butcher blew them a kiss, then turned back to the heroes.
Manpower walked steadily, approaching the Butcher step by step until they were only a dozen yards away.
"Oh Manpower," she yawned. "We did you already today."
Pain ignited for a moment along Victoria's every nerve, before her light echo protectively flooded cool protection through her system. She could see it ripple and shine along the outline of her hands, spilling out into the afternoon air in a shining tangle. Sixty-six minutes, sixty-five minutes…
Uncle Neil fared much worse under the onslaught, dropping to his knees and groaning as he clutched at his chest. Victoria could see the muscles in his back tighten as if to leap off his shoulders at the pain.
"Oh ho ho. They bet it'd be both or neither."
The Butcher's voice was level, conversational, and much closer than Victoria wanted it to be. The villain's boot came down on Uncle Neil's head just as a metal-covered arm deflected Victoria's sword swing. He was smashed down, the dirt deforming around his body from the force, but his shield still crackled with electric energy. Still alive. The pain field cut off, and the draining of Victoria's well stopped. Fifty-three minutes.
"Pretty girl like you, let's make this a fair fight."
Victoria tightened her grip on her gladius, a thousand hours of practice keeping it steady, and forced bravado into her voice as she replied,
"You're fronting, there's no tactical advantage to stopping unless you can't keep it up."
In a dire situation, sometimes you just have to keep the villain talking.
"Smart and a looker? The other schoolgirls must hate you."
The Butcher chuckled liquidly at her own joke, the metal spines of her head-cage clanking against each other. This close, Victoria was less impressed with the aesthetic; too much pale skin was exposed and a darker metal would have complemented the look better. Horns or antlers would pull off the 'mad demon' better than a cage that blocks the wearer's sightlines. That or tattoos under the metal. Hadn't Cricket had tattoos and barely been able to talk with her throat? Victoria blinked, this isn't a useful line of thinking right now, but the Butcher was twisting her head from side to side as if looking for something rather than taking advantage of her distraction.
"I know what you're doing, little butterfly; I hear the holes you dig, the schemes you're trying to pull."
"Uh, I'm sorry?" Victoria replied, genuinely puzzled.
"Not everything is about you, barbie."
"The fan sites devoted to my fashion choices beg to differ." Victoria reflexively quipped.
The Butcher threw her head back and laughed. The sound was high and clear, devoid of the usual theatrics, and all the more unsettling for it. One of the spines projecting from her palm swelled and lengthened, taking on a gently curving edge as long as an arm, a sibling to Victoria's own sword.
"Time to dance, Blondie."
The villain's advance was quick, her footwork and alignment better than any of Victoria's instructors. It was everything Victoria could do to fend off the hail of lunges, the sheer force of the blows enough for her echo to flare protectively. Forty-nine minutes. In seconds Victoria knew this wasn't a match she could win by out-skilling her opponent, and the Butcher's rictus grin agreed.
If you can't win the game, change it. Her mother's advice in her ears, Victoria rolled the Butcher's next slash into a ceding parry with a simultaneous detonation of blinding light from both her weapon and her off-hand. Forty-seven minutes. Victoria fluidly slid round her opponent, flight letting her perform a limbo move closer to the ground than any human swordsman could. She was to the Butcher's side now, her own back towards the trees, and she thrust with all her might at the villain's unprotected thigh. Forty-five minutes.
The Butcher stopped playing for a moment, and a heavy fist met the sword dead on, a percussive force like the swing of a wrecking ball knocking Victoria back. Flight rescued her again, as she spun the tumble into an upright air slide, drawing her baton and crossing it defiantly with her sword as she faced the Butcher. Thirty-one minutes.
The Butcher held her spine-sword low, and its iron length quivered in anticipation. Her eyes shone liquidly behind the metal cage, wetly reflecting Victoria's light as they drank her stance in. Words came to Victoria again, not any pearls of wisdom from Carol or Mark, but a memory of a filthy boy lying stricken on a highway.
She knew what was in his head.
A short sword wasn't Cricket's preferred weapon, but her skill was effortless and absolute.
Victoria made the connection, Victor the Skill Thief is in there somewhere, and a half-remembered dossier popped up with everything the team knew on the nazi. But information is useless without an idea of what to do with it.
Analyze the psychology, she thought frantically, the Butcher has fifteen—sixteen voices in their head. What do they want? Quiet maybe, but they can't have that. Distractions, fights, hunts, debauchery—
Novelty.
She had to show them skills they haven't seen before. Keep it interesting but not a true threat.
Victoria's fingers rippled on the hilt of the gladius as she adjusted her grip, and threw her baton to the side to hold the short sword two-handed. Her sword held diagonally downwards across her body, she pulled her legs up and turned her hip into a defensive stance impossible for someone who didn't treat gravity as a suggestion. The Butcher's eyes were rapt, the blade in her hand lengthening and thinning into a long needle of sharp death.
Victoria summoned her biggest devil-may-care smirk, eying the Butcher like they were sharing some private joke, an entertaining match between rough and tumble friends. "Allez."
The sound of the Butcher's foot hitting the dirt was a soft thump that filled Victoria's world, the monster rocketing forward like a ball shot from a cannon. She held her blade like a cavalry saber running down a feeling peasant, a wide side slash as she lunged. It was contemptuous, showing off, but it was a move shaped by human limitations, angled for human movements and human physics, not the physicality the Butcher had demonstrated earlier in the fight. It was someone else's memory.
Victoria's sword met the cruel piece of metal, her whole body rotating in the air behind it, white light erupting from the tip of her gladius itself to force its movement back and down. A move impossible, inconceivable for someone who hadn't thought and practiced with Glory's power every day. She flared half of everything she left into the luminal detonation, every muscle in her body straining as the Butcher stumbled and tripped down onto the long grass as Victoria shot up into the air. Nine minutes left.
"Backwards. Three more yards." Swallowtail sounded close enough to be standing next to Victoria. She half expected to feel the girl's breath on her ear. In a moment of crisis, should you go all in on the word of someone you don't even know? The answer was easy, because Victoria believed in people.
Victoria's paired boots impacted the back of the Butcher's skull, the last dregs of her well powering her kick with the force of a speeding car. Empty. She had nothing left to halt the jagged embellishments of the Butcher's metal crown from driving themselves into the soles of her feet with an eruption of burning pain.
The Butcher stumbled forward, then tossed their head back to throw Victoria away. Bereft of energy, she could only float helplessly, as blood poured from her savaged feet. As shock punched at her head, she could smell cinnamon on the breeze.
"Found you."
The Butcher wasn't looking at Victoria as she chuckled, throwing up an arm that morphed into a bladed tentacle in milliseconds, a long whip of death that pierced a tree a dozen yards away. A woman flickered into visibility like Victoria was having a stroke, had she always been there? A PRT officer in full riot gear, the Butcher's elongated whip of a limb tearing a ragged hole through her stomach.
"Eh?"
The Butcher sounded puzzled, turning to face the stampede of plantmen that were charging at them again. Victoria could only bob like a balloon, skin already cold and sweaty from shock.
The Butcher turned, the weakly struggling officer still impaled on her tentacle like a caterpillar on a thorn. She took one step towards the creatures before she paused, one foot in the air, and trembled like a leaf in the wind, eyes staring dead ahead.
Victoria blinked, not understanding what she was seeing. She blinked a second time and saw Swallowtail crouched in the grass by the purple-leaved tree, the space around her looking wrong like a funhouse mirror, piled and twisted fragments of the background image like wings or extra limbs of distortion. Within her lanky clutches kneeled Amy, both of them smeared with dirt and grass, Amy's hand outstretched towards the Butcher, eyes clenched shut as tears streamed down her face smearing her dark makeup. A second hand reached out to freeze the plant men.
Had they won?
Victoria felt her vision dimming from the blood loss, and the scene dimmed and went away.
Voices sounded frantically in the distance; arguing, sobbing, hissing like the static of an ill-tuned radio.
"She's regenerating!"
"I know! I don't have the fucking material—"
"—can't cure a gut shot, you can make it mean something."
"—can't—"
"—let her wake, with your cousin and dad here? I can hide us, but we only have minutes—"
Everything went quiet, and Victoria's consciousness spluttered out.
-=≡SƧ≡=-
It felt like a cat was licking Victoria's left foot, a wet and slimy and rough tongue digging deep into her flesh. She considered the odd sensation for a moment before a bonfire of pain in her right foot made itself known. She jerked awake with a yelp, flailing as she found herself still floating a few yards off the ground.
"Sorry." A quiet male voice said from under her, causing a moment of befuddlement before she recognized it as Eric, "Tails only had the one remaining, and your left foot looked worse off."
"The paramedics will be here soon Victoria." Another, far more familiar voice interrupted.
"Mom?" Victoria said anxiously, as she looked around to take in the scene.
Eric stood directly beneath her, a tiny globe of blue light between his outstretched hands holding a blood-red mass against her wound. Beside him, a man in a PRT medic's uniform held a first aid kit and rolls of gauze. Off to the side Uncle Neil sat cross-legged, Amy curled up in his massive hug, gently sobbing and weeping. His nose was broken and his head and left eye were covered in bandages, but Amy looked unharmed beyond her costume being covered in dirt and what looked like green slime. Carol knelt next to them, her hand on Amy's shoulder as if to reassure her, looking up at Victoria with a happy smile. Dozens of other PRT personnel milled around, hastily assembling a chain link fence and churning up the grass as they brought crates of equipment through to establish a perimeter around—
"Maybe stay up there till this thing is done?" Eric hazarded. Victoria could only murmur an affirmative as she stared at the thing in the center of all the activity.
The purple-leaved tree— an errant corner of her mind prompted 'beech' as the type— was changed. Its thick trunk was now swollen, almost gravid with a spherical mass at ground level, a twisting ridged walnut of tesselating human-shaped limbs thrice the height of a man. No, not human limbs, as she looked closer Victoria realized the skin of the growth was made up of the barky limbs of Blasto's plantmen, remixed into a singular amalgam of unquiet flesh.
It stank of sap and bile, a scent thick enough to drive a spike of nausea up Victoria's nostril, adding to the faint twisting of her stomach from the Butcher's constant hum.
"Where's the Butcher?" Victoria shouted in a panic.
As one, everyone else looked at the canker mass, then looked away.
"Asleep," Amy said, voice hoarse, "she's not going to be waking up. I tried, but— the tone, Cricket's power I couldn't shut off."
"You did an amazing job, Amy," Carol said, her voice sincere but tense. "We're all proud of you."
"I had— I had to use the minions. Uh, a bridge between the wood and her human flesh, feeding her… intrusion in her brain to keep her asleep." Amy speaks quickly, nervously.
"Given the circumstances, I think our local supervillain might let the use of his resources for charitable work go unquestioned." A languidly smooth voice interrupted. Second Chance ambled over from talking with a PRT officer, wearing the same uniform except for the blue and white all-in-one head mask instead of a mirrored helmet. "Even if he does bear a grudge, I doubt anyone will be quick to tangle with the girl who put down the Butcher single-handed."
Victoria felt puzzled by his phrasing but didn't say anything. Ironically, she didn't need the glory.
"She nearly killed Dad, was going to kill Victoria, I had—"
Chance held up his hand in a shushing motion, "Ah-buh-buh, no need for that. I think we'll be giving you some time to get yourself together before the media get their teeth into this."
"Second Chance is right." A new voice spoke as Armsmaster strode up in his gleaming armor, holding out some sort of wand-like scanning device towards the pregnant beech. "You've done the city a great service Wonder, you should rest now. It might take some weeks but the Protectorate can handle getting this construct to the Icebox."
A tiny light on the wand flashed once, and Armsmaster's uncovered jaw displayed a satisfied smile. "A slow wave profile confirmed, she's in deep sleep. There are some confounding signals, but then again, the Butcher's is hardly a normal brain."
Amy shuddered, then looked away guiltily, and Victoria felt for her cousin. No matter how much of a monster someone was, taking away so much of them must make you feel dirty, like a violator. But that sympathy was offset by a warmer glow, a sense of triumph and purpose fulfilled.
"The rest of the Teeth? Did we win?" Victoria asked, smiling through the pain of her foot.
"Carnal and Vex did not escape, and we have seventeen gang members in custody." Armsmaster briskly supplied. "More of the gang members were intercepted by whoever was under Grue's power, and we have an eyewitness account of Reaver being captured by Faultline's crew. Only Hemorrhagia and Stormtiger's whereabouts are unknown."
"Carnal is a new arrival to Brockton." Second Chance cautioned. "It's possible they have other new recruits as well."
"Regardless," Armsmaster spoke over him. "This is a good day for the heroes."
"Indeed. The balance shifted in our favor, New Wave's star rising once again."
The two Protectorate heroes walked away discussing something, leaving Victoria with her family.
"How's your pain, Victoria?" Her mother asked.
"Left foot is okay, right is uh, pretty bad," Victoria answered, even though the sweetness of victory was pushing the hurt out of her mind.
"We'll get you along to Brockton General as soon as the next ambulances arrive." The PRT medic said. "Are you okay to land now?"
Victoria obligingly floated down to land on their outlaid stretcher, both feet still held in the air. Eric brought his bubble of blue force down with her.
"How long do you have to do that?" Victoria asked.
"I— don't know, it took ten minutes to properly clot up Crystal—"
Victoria's eyes went wide, "Oh fuck, is Crystal okay!"
"She's stable, Mom went with her to Hospital with the first ambulance." He explained. "Nothing came through my anchor shield that whole fight."
"Eric never cracks under pressure." Uncle Neil said proudly.
"New Wave's final redoubt." Victoria agreed mock-seriously, while Eric flushed red at the praise.
He tried to change the subject, "Tails didn't say how long this clot thing takes to set before she cleared off."
"Oh, she's gone?" Victoria asked in surprise. "I'll have to thank her later."
"All the other villains have fled. I can understand her haste." Her mother interjected. "On that note, young lady, when were you planning on telling us your known villain acquaintance could turn herself and others invisible? Anything could have been compromised because we didn't know."
Victoria winced. That she asked me not to probably isn't going to fly. That I didn't know she could do it for others is going to be even worse.
"Look Mom, I can explain—"
"Maybe this team matter can wait until Victoria's recovered and we're all calm." Uncle Neil said jovially, as he held his own daughter tight. In Aunt Sarah's absence, who was in charge of non-crisis situations was often ill-defined, so waiting for the full team made sense. Victoria would be able to talk to Dean about this and work out the best way to present things.
Mercifully, the tension was cut by the return of Second Chance, running at a slight jog. He spoke faux-mirthfully as if sharing a joke. "A fly in the proverbial ointment has occurred to me. If Butcher Sixteen were to expire in this state, whom would be selected as the inheritor?"
The family followed his gaze to look at Amy, who wilted under the attention, utter panic in her eyes.
"Victor inherited." Victoria said slowly, as everyone turned to look at her, "The Butcher showed his power, but he just set the explosive…"
"Quite the pickle." Chance responded drily. "If perhaps we could have a quick debrief before you head to Hospital, Glory? Confirmation of the Butcher's powers would be exceedingly useful, even at this point. After you speak to your prince in shining tinkertech, of course."
Dean? The people around her stretcher blocked the view, but she could hear the thrum of his flight harness descending even over the subsonic hum of the Butcher's dreams.
Her boyfriend clapped a hand on Eric's shoulder and leaned past. His handsome face and aquiline nose were grayish with worry, and his eyes widened with relief at seeing her unharmed from the ankles up.
"Vic! Are you okay? I flew straight here from Hampton Beach." His voice was frantic, "when I saw your light snuff out in front of the Butcher I— I mean I thought—"
"It's okay Dean, this is what heroes do," Victoria said, trying to summon her trademark dazzling smile. Whatever she managed, it was enough to make Dean breathe out in relief and smile back at her.
"I was worried you'd try and do— I mean, have you seen the headlines?" He asked.
"The Media should still be on blackout about the Butcher?" Second Chance added, with a tiny note of confusion in his otherwise composed voice. "It's only been twenty minutes."
Dean fished his phone out of one of his uniform pouches, an expensive smartphone with a wide screen.
It displayed a newspaper site, with a picture of Carol and Neil talking in a cafe beneath a bright red headline. Confusion filled Victoria as she read the blocky words, they didn't make any sense.
-=≡SƧ≡=-
The manhole cover creaks loudly as I leverage it open with the aid of my crowbar, unleashing the stench of stale water and organic waste. Thankfully, entire blocks around the park have been evacuated, so no one is present to see or hear. I'd kept a careful watch, but the mutant teleporter hadn't returned after throwing the canister of pheromones that had drawn the plantmen to the Butcher that final time.
The timing of his intervention had been odd, it felt like the purposefully obscure move of a Thinker mastermind, only explained in the final denouement. I'd obscured it only to keep the Butcher focused on Glory. But the teleporter and all the other villain forces had drawn back, leaving the heroes to their moment of victory in the park.
Well, not all the villains. I'm still here after all. With one more dirty job to do.
I gather up the bundle of thick clothes under my left arm and balance the mirrored helmet and armored chest plate on top. I descend the ladder one-handed, my grip steady. Contrary to what Hollywood would show you, most sewer mains aren't echoing tunnels, but pipes a child would have trouble crawling through. But I'd traced that the barrel-shaped access chamber had what I needed; a loose wall stone with a gap behind it big enough to hide a PRT uniform in.
Once again my senses have revealed a secret I lack the physical power to act upon, and I break my nails and scrape my skin trying to shift the slab of carved granite. Internally I scream in frustration and leave bloody handprints as I ascend the ladder to retrieve my trusty crowbar.
The slab moves this time, though I have to stand on the trough of half-dry sewage to get the right angle. I stuff the armor in first, avoiding looking at the circular rent, and the helmet follows. The uniform goes last, to fit between the other items, and my eye catches on the sewn-in name tag on the chest.
M. TINGLEY
Seeing the name succeeds where the smell of human waste failed, and vomit fills my mouth with its stinging taste. I add my shame to the outflow pipe and crouch for a moment to get back in control. The temptation to prune my thoughts is almost overwhelming, but this isn't a secret just for me, I can't let myself forget— let the crew be blindsided by the consequences if Wonder can't handle her guilt.
Does Officer Tingley have a family?
I submerge that question. People join the PRT to stop villains. She—They knew the risks. Knew them when they joined an organisation with so many secrets.
I distract myself by checking up on the park; the crowd of heroes and officers around the terrible result of Wonder's work. I'm glad to see Glory stable and healing, but curse when I remember I didn't say Skeeter's blood clot doesn't fix broken bones. In embarrassment, I don't linger to trace the frantic conversation the family is having, as my attention is inevitably drawn to the work of nauseatingly elegant artistry bulging from the trunk of the old beech tree.
I examine each layer in turn, trying to find a divergence from before, some sign of the Butcher's return to activity. The layer of the tree; barely changed from normal wood beyond the diversion of its sugars. The thick strata of Blasto's reworked creations, vascular organs spooled out into long ribbons encircling the core, the connections to hook them to animals already present in the base design. The third layer—I skip the interface of human tissue and inspect the fourth layer, the amniotic sac containing the Butcher herself, neural tendrils grown into her brain from the third layer still suppressing thought and regeneration.
It is all stable.
A dark miracle beyond anything I had intended when I'd hidden Wonder in that chaos from the Butcher's first strike and whispered a plan in her ear.
I wipe the vomit from my lips with the back of my hand.
It had to be this way, but people wouldn't understand. Better it go unseen and unheard in New Wave's victory.
I shove the granite slab back into place with my shoulder and climb out of the sewerage chamber. I start walking away from the park and fetch my phone from my mud-covered pocket. My scraped fingers leave little specks of blood on the keys as I type a message to Mel.
Wonder contained the Butcher. I think it'll be permanent unless someone disrupts it. Heavy PRT concentration in the park still. I've extracted, heading NW. No injuries.
Good work. I'll inform the major players. We don't want anyone kicking that hornet's nest. Newter & I staying put, we have Reaver and there is a bidding war for him. With the road closures don't expect us back for two hours. Can you get home?
Left the small van on Lords Street. I'm not up to driving, so I will walk home.
Stay safe. Sounds like you did good today. Unintended consequences happen, it's about how you ride them out.
I wind the menu of the phone closed and keep walking. It's Melanie's way; she'd pick you up from a mistake, dust you off, give you pointers, but she'd never let you forget a lesson learned.
The streets are pleasant in this part of the city and made pleasanter by their emptiness. The residential bit of Downtown between the skyscrapers and the river is densely built but the houses are well constructed and well cared for. They may not be as fancy as the mansions on the far side of Downtown by University Hill, but they were good places to live, honest places with people who worked for a living rather than parasitic landlords.
A yell rends the air, an African-American woman on the sidewalk shouting at the top of her lungs. "Joseph, where are you, baby? Momma needs you to come home."
It had been a very long day, and I am tired of seeing bad things happen. I come up behind her without her noticing, my footsteps silent. "He's in the crawl space under the stoop."
The woman spins around and looks up at me. She's short, at least six inches shorter than me, and seems shocked at my appearance. I feel her gaze on my coat and boots— so caked with mud and sewage as to be brown rather than black, my hat and face and hair smeared with so much green slime it's almost a mask.
"Aaaah! I mean, thank you." She sounds terrified.
I try to calm her. "He's under a blanket. It's a good hiding place, he'd have been very safe if the fighting had come up here. Smart kid."
She takes a step away from me, her heart pounding in anxiety, then spins and dashes to get her son. I think the thickness of the blanket is why he didn't hear her yells before. Guilt prickles me at her stress, had what Victoria and I had done been the root cause of this? Had a lie caused another pitched battle in the city? Was I as bad as the person who had lied to my Dad about Lung?
I trace a dark mass of thoughts in my mind trying to rise to the surface; an iceberg of suppressed memories reaching for the light. I duck into an alley near the bridge and crouch behind a dumpster, breathing fast to recenter myself.
A decision I'd made had begat violence across the city. An active measure, not a reactive one to prevent existing violence. That's what makes me a bad person, a villain. I hadn't even the moral fig leaf of doing it for the money or other tangible reward.
I'd wanted to see change by any means. I hadn't even bothered to think through what sort of change I wanted to see, just kicked the anthill in frustration at my powerlessness. A bully had struck me, and I'd harmed others in response.
Guilt roils my mind, old currents cycling and sustaining themselves. But it bounces off of one diamond-hard memory of pure satisfaction; the look in the Butcher's eye when Wonder's power dug into her brain. The look when she'd realized I'd been moving false voids to her senses through the prepared volume of the park, that the Swallowtail-shaped hole in actuality contained Officer Tingley, that Wonder and I had been crawling through the grass this whole time.
The look when I'd done something that mattered.
I smile slightly at the thought that the city's most dangerous villain hadn't even considered I had been keeping her attention on Glory.
I get up from my trash alcove and start walking again. I don't submerge my guilt, but I raise up those nuggets of positivity, of victory, and let their light shine through the connections of my mind. My gait becomes steady, eating up the yards between me and home as I cross into Midtown. That tilt to the city's space is still there, constant throughout the battle in the park, and I can feel it deepen as I walk north. The bridge is choked in cars, everyone looking to get home after fleeing the news of the Downtown cape fight. No one sitting in the queuing traffic bothered to look at me, the prosaic invisibility of a dirty homeless person proof against their surveillance.
I cast my scan across my domain, turning from introspection to checking on my crewmates.
Melanie and Newter sit in the back of the big van somewhere in the skyscraper district, Julian and two more of Melanie's minions in the driver's seat. The bound and unconscious body of Reaver lies between them.
Skeeter lies unconscious on a street amid broken glass, his red skin crisped and burnt.
Elle is crouching in the attic of the Palanquin as flames lick around the building and dance along the walls. Tears are dripping down her face, and white flowers attempt to move in from elsewhere only to catch alight when exposed to the heat.
Philosophizing forgotten, I break into a run.
-=≡SƧ≡=-
Authors Notes:
- Slightly odd proportions on this chapter split, but the next (and final) chapter for this arc is mostly Taylor's PoV so it balances out. Had to give Victoria her dynamic fight scene in full!
- Much like the Butcher, New Wave focused too much on one opponent, and lost a game they didn't realize they were playing.
- The Minotaur (Amy) clowns on Ultra Enemies, the problem is getting them in position!
- I wonder if Amy will internalize the events of this fight differently from Taylor?
- Thanks to Abyss, GreenTrash, and Red Wolf for the beta read.
- Next update Friday 7th - delay can be blamed on the Queen's funeral for turning a writing day into a childcare day!
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