章 13: Chapter 13: 2-4-5 Heather Suzuki

Interlude 2.4.5: Heather Suzuki

2000, June 13: Phoenix, AZ, USA

I allowed myself a tired sigh. Even with the eldest Wards' assistance, trying to keep a lid on a gang war while simultaneously eyeing a third major gang was not easy. People dismissed the Westside Crips. Hell, even Royalle, that overpowered arrogant jackass, tended to brush them off as a bunch of has-beens who got beaten senseless by Alexandria.

Admittedly, they were.

But people conveniently forgot that at one point, the Crips genuinely, unironically looked at a woman who could wrestle Behemoth and thought, "Yeah, we can win this." They weren't insane, most of them at any rate. They were just that dangerous once upon a time. Alexandria strangled Mortician, but Cryptkeeper, Headsman, and La Torcha were still around.

'Thank God only La Torcha moved to Phoenix,' I thought as I walked through the Phoenix headquarters after yet another late night of patrols and stamping out fires. Somewhere along the way, I headed to the canteen and grabbed myself a vaguely coffee-flavored cup of swill and sat in the corner.

'But… what if La Torcha calls them in? She's got a crew of six capes, but that doesn't mean she can't bring in reinforcements. She wasn't just Mortician's squeeze; she was their tactician. Is she quiet because she's afraid Alexandria will fly east and finish her? Or is she waiting for something? She's got the most mooks after all-'

I was startled out of my thoughts by a hand on my shoulder. My hand immediately moved to my sword as the storm within threatened to make itself known.

"Woah, easy, Bushi-babe," Janet, my longtime friend from college and head of PR said as she backed away rapidly. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. You were off in your own head again."

"I told you not to call me that," I growled without any real heat. Janet would do as Janet does, always pushing buttons to see how people ticked.

"Still mad you didn't let me name you Bushi Dame," the mousy blonde teased as she sat across from me.

"Shut up. I know you only included that stupid name so I'd accept Oathkeeper. I barely even speak Japanese for fuck's sake."

"Maybe not, but no one else needs to know that. And, you understand plenty so you can always make your answers short. You'll look very serious and professional then, which works for you. The understanding is the important part, not the speaking."

"You're impossible."

"Besides," she shrugged, "the samurai look totally suits you. Much more dignified than my other mockups. They love you, you know. Your team, the Wards, even the field agents. Almost a decade of service and not one death on your watch. They say it's your personal oath."

"Well they're full of shit," I rolled my eyes. "You know there is no oath. I'm just lucky."

"Maybe, but again, the optics matter."

I nodded. Optics mattered, but having a rock to stand on mattered more. I was that rock for so many; Janet was mine.

I could still remember it like it was yesterday. When I… got my powers out in San Francisco, the director there gave me a choice: remain or get assigned elsewhere. I heard my college friend was out here so I moved too. Janet was the island of familiarity I needed to settle, both from my move and… more. I banished the thought in favor of continuing our old spat.

"One mockup was an Ultraman gimmick. Another was a sailor uniform," I growled. "You know, for the head of PR, you're horribly uncreative."

She gasped as a hand flew to her chest. "Blasphemy! You're the one who showed me old Ultraman shows! You used to pretend you were the 'Warrior of Light' or something. In college!"

I slumped, resigned but involuntarily amused nonetheless. There was no winning with this one. "What do you want, Jan?"

"Nothing. I just thought I'd check in on my best friend."

"Well I'm fine."

"You're never fine when you say that. When you're fine, you watch your Ultraman collection while eating whatever insult to food you cooked up."

"Hey! My cooking's great," I defended.

"Roast beef, French dip style sandwich. With miso soup instead of au jus." She stared at me flatly.

"It's way better than it sounds," I said mulishly.

"Lovely, so your palate is still disgusting. Good to know."

I suppressed the urge to slap the mousy midget. She'd die and it'd be awfully inconvenient finding a new bestie. "Are you here just to make fun of me?"

Her mocking smirk softened. "I told you, I'm here to check up on you. What's up?"

"Nothing. Patrols are fine. Agent Johnson got shot a few days back but Rubedo's healing potion patched him right up again. Agent Steinhart had a run-in with Stampede, but another potion was able to stabilize him long enough to drag him to the surgeons."

"That's good, right? So what's the problem? Wonderboy's stuff really works."

"The problem," I sighed, "is that they're too quiet. A few days to plan? Sure, we expected that. Civil war among the Peckerwoods? Predictable. But weeks? Villains aren't this easygoing. It's not just the Crips. Both the SSM and Peckerwood capes have stuck to small-scale fights, most of them without powers."

"And… that's bad?"

"It just makes me nervous. We've had a lot more street fights, driveby shootings, arsons, even a few homicides here and there, but almost nothing from the capes themselves. Jan, the Peckerwoods' gang leader died. They're supposed to show how macho they are and how they're not to be fucked with by escalating, not keeping their heads down."

"Hey," she said, placing a hand on mine from across the table. "Don't think too hard. You know you have a habit of worrying too much. Maybe we should just accept the gift horse without taking it to the dentist."

'I can't do that, not when there are lives riding on my judgment,' I thought glumly. The storm within pressed against me, a dull rumble reminding me that it's always on the horizon. Still, I did my best to give her a comforting squeeze back. "Thanks, Jan."

2000, June 14: Phoenix, AZ, USA

'I should have called a dentist,' I thought sardonically, thinking back to the conversation yesterday.

Calavera and four Southside Mesa grunts had been in the process of setting fire to Sunshine Auto Wash, a suspected Peckerwood front. Already, the building was on fire from an ignited propane tank and Bull Rush, a Peckerwood cape, lay strewn about the lot like a macabre postmodern art piece. Bits of him were charred black and the smell of offal made me want to gag but I held it in.

Gyroscope and I had responded with six PRT agents, though only myself and three agents had Elixirs of Iron in our pockets. Seeing the high-ranked blaster, we immediately drank our elixirs while the others fell back a ways and took up flanking positions. Despite their usefulness, not everyone had access to the potions yet. Rubedo's production rate couldn't keep up with demand and there was a not unreasonable fear that some might go "missing" if we were careless.

Gyroscope backed off even further, taking to the air on his hoverpack and alighting on a stoplight. He pushed something on his wrist and the capsules attached to his costume whirred to life, taking to the air like a swarm of hornets. He was a reliable partner, a tinker who specialized in his namesake. With incredibly advanced gyroscopes that "balanced things in multiple higher dimensions," he made drones that could be deployed with any number of cumbersome gadgets stored in folded space. The rest of his tech was comparatively mundane, but when a drone smaller than a baseball could carry a shield of reinforced metal more commonly found on armored vehicles, "mundane" served just fine.

I dashed towards her as I saw a dozen skulls the size of basketballs merge into one the size of a dumpster. "Surrender, Cal-"

I didn't even get to finish the obligatory greeting before she chucked her blazing skull at me. I wasn't upset. If anything, this was cathartic. The capes had been dancing around each other for weeks now and there was a sense of liberation at finally letting the storm out.

Oathkeeper, Janet called me, the stalwart warrior in the eye of the storm. Come what may, I would stand tall, a sword to protect. I would face the storm in the name of duty and justice.

All utter bullshit. The public saw the miniature hurricane that surrounded me and liked to imagine that it was my tightly controlled wrath, righteous anger at all the wrongs in this city. Me? It was every moment of anxiety and stress, every thought of paranoia and fear that I couldn't put to words finally roaring out into the world. This, this was how I de-stressed.

The winds that had built up for weeks now sought freedom and they could not be denied. The storm became my shroud, launching me forward with all the fury of a tornado. It surrounded my nodachi, and holy shit was learning kendo just for the costume a pain in the ass. Even years later, I was an adept, but not a master by any stretch, not that I usually needed to be.

My sword met Calavera's attack. Practically anyone else would have been consumed in an explosion that could blow entire houses to rubble. Me? The storm roared and met the challenge, a chorus of four winds blasting the explosion aside in a textbook parry as though condensed fire and force was no more threatening than a bamboo shinai.

I charged on through, my projected arc set to meet the arsonist's face with the pommel of my nodachi. Bullets from the four SSM soldiers ricocheted off of my wind armor, doing jack all. I saw one go down and the rest scatter after my own men returned fire. Live rounds, keeping perps alive wasn't worth risking my own men, not when they started lethal.

She danced behind a tree. It turned to so much kindling before my sword fully touched it, the raging winds more than enough to rip it apart.

I let the wind around my sword uncoil. It ruptured the very air around us as it did everything else, arcing out in a horizontal strike that could cleave train cars in half. She dropped to the ground and rolled, letting the attack fly harmlessly above her, but she wasn't immune to the sonic boom like I was. She let out a shriek of pain she couldn't hear even as she retaliated.

My storm gone for the moment, I had to block Calavera's retaliatory fireball with my scabbard. It exploded into wooden shrapnel, the impact throwing the two of us apart.

I skid along the ground as I willed the storm anew. It built up slowly, the wind picking up around me and lightening my footsteps but providing less defense than it had before.

My opponent didn't let that go to waste, launching dozens of skulls after me. The explosion that destroyed my scabbard also marked me in their sights. Every skull homed in on me, becoming a guided missile to anything that had been struck by them before. I ducked one and cut apart a second, letting myself be carried away by wind and force.

I didn't have to defend myself for long. Gyroscope's drones did a flyover, nine of them carrying oversized metal plates that wouldn't be out of place on an M1 Abrams. His specialization allowed them to balance and orient perfectly, each forming a shield wall in front of me like my own portable Roman legion.

I took the moment to flip through the air, landing behind a large delivery truck, right between two SSM gangbangers.

"¡Qué mierda!" they yelled. I rolled my eyes and flexed, allowing the gale to pick them up and bodily throw them from cover.

A flaming skull that had been following me struck one, diverting all other skulls in the near vicinity. A series of smaller explosions and screams followed. I felt a pang of guilt at that; he definitely wouldn't survive his boss' attention.

'Later, Heather,' I scolded myself. 'You're Oathkeeper. Act like it.'

With that, the storm howled full force and I encircled it around my sword once more. Calavera hadn't been idle. She called up every fireball she had, combining each skull like before. But before we could clash, a barrage of gunfire finished off the second SSM soldier I'd thrown out of cover. The three elixir-fed agents turned on a dime to defend their unpowered comrades, but one was too slow and a flanking agent took a bullet. Another unpowered agent rushed to drag him off the lot and behind our armored van.

We both turned to a group of eight men and two women marching towards us, two capes at their helm. The Peckerwoods had apparently decided to stop hiding, showing up in force. This wasn't all of them, but it was half their capes and probably a quarter of their grunts.

'Lockjaw and Stampede,' I thought. I recognized them from an earlier briefing. Halloween's death had resulted in quite a bit of internal chaos from what little the PRT could glean. It surprised me to see the two willing to work with one another.

"Boss?" Gyroscope's voice came over the comms. "What's our plan?"

"Get the injured out of there," I shouted. I landed between the capes and my men, a whirlwind shoving them apart. I grunted into the mic. "SSM inbound?"

"None I can find."

Lockjaw was already transformed; he was a changer who turned into a rock monster with an excessively large jaw. Two protruding tusks extended from his lower jaw, pointing upwards and outwards like wicked daggers. He knelt and took a large bite of the asphalt. It audibly crunched and molded into a cannonball.

Stampede, a cocksure man with blonde hair and blue eyes, dipped into a mocking bow. "Oathkeeper! Gyroscope! I'm glad the heroes were so quick to defend the right sort," he said, "but I'm quite sure me and the boys have got things handled. Do you mind?" I hated how handsome he looked in his pressed, wine-red shirt with bull horns encircling his shoulders. Despite having a straightforward power, he made it work through raw eloquence and charisma. Hell, even Janet thought he'd make a good hero, if he wasn't a fucking scumbag.

"You're insane if you think we're leaving without Calavera," I bit back.

"We could let them fight it out," James Leeson, the PRT agent on console, spoke up. He'd remained silent during combat, but chose to chime in now. "If we withdraw, they'd just wipe themselves out. Calavera's strong, but I don't think she can beat both at the same time."

"Absolutely not," I answered them both. "Leaving is permission, telling the gangs that we're letting them escalate their little war without government involvement. That's not how things work, agent."

Leaving would mean condoning whatever happened here. It would mean a return to the Protectorate capes sitting on our asses as gang leaders did whatever the fuck they wanted with my city. It'd mean bottling the storm again, always at the ready but with no outlet to vent. I couldn't stand the stifling pressure again. I wouldn't.

I adjusted the storm-clad sword in my hands. "Gyroscope, contain the Peckerwoods for a bit. I'm going to take out Calavera."

"Yes, boss," came the reply. The three powered agents made ready, my answer to Stampede obvious.

The man shrugged as if he had no care in the world. "Pity. I thought Japs were smarter than spics."

Lockjaw took that as the signal to fire on one of my agents, the ball of asphalt launching with the force of a cannonball. The agent, an Agent Tyson if I remembered right, grunted in pain as the makeshift cannonball punched straight through the bulletproof riot shield and dented his steel-like arm. The tough son of a bitch swallowed the pain and rushed forward anyway with his police baton. On the enlarged agent, it looked more like a toy cricket bat, but the Peckerwoods scattered anyway, well-accustomed to the dangers of an irate brute.

The rest of my men provided support as Gyroscope's drones descended to corral the new arrivals.

Calavera, with her one remaining unpowered soldier, had been backing off, mayhem caused, mission accomplished. I couldn't let her get away so I leapt like a bat out of hell and let the storm carry me towards her. She'd been combining skulls by the second while we talked and the biggest fireball of the evening launched towards my face.

I had no choice but to focus the storm into my sword, uncoiling in a violent display of destruction. The air cracked and ruptured in a furious spiral. It wasn't enough. She was a blaster-seven, someone with enough power to mimic tactical missiles given enough time. We'd stupidly given her that time.

The explosion ripped through my lamellar armor, shattering plates and punching me with the force of a warhead. I made a note to thank Rubedo even as I was launched backwards. My sword dispersed much of the blast, but even the residual was enough to leave massive scorch marks on concrete and liquefy the asphalt.

Her final SSM soldier fared no better. She'd shoved him out of the way in a token attempt to protect him, but that was too little too late. Being closer to Calavera than me, he took the explosion as it was, a torrential downpour of fire and force.

Calavera herself was launched in a beautiful arc, her costume smoking. She rolled and I saw her arm bent the wrong way. She shrieked something in Spanish, probably not for polite company. I mourned the Manton Limit; that arbitrary bullshit had allowed her to survive her own explosion, only injuring her arm as she collided with the ground.

My own downward strike had been deflected by Calavera's flaming skull, tearing a massive gouge through the parking lot but missing her with the direct edge.

With the storm building again, I was forced to dodge her explosions even as she made a fighting retreat. Gyroscope's drones fell around me into a defensive formation, giving me time to take stock of the situation.

I saw two blooming clouds of tear gas, probably fired by the last remaining unpowered agent. Four men were disabled, left retching on the ground. Lockjaw was immune to gas-based attacks while in his rock-monster form and Stampede had simply run out of the gas with ease.

Stampede charged, that cocky smirk still on his face, and ran over one of the agents. The elixir was not enough. Steel skin sounds great, but against a brute known for running through vault doors, it meant little. The villain had enough sense of mind to not rip his opponent in half and for that, I promised to not shove a tornado up his ass. Even so, the agent whose name I couldn't remember was blasted back with a sickening snap. Steel skin did not mean bones couldn't break.

Agent Tyson, that crazy bastard, had made his way into the cloud of tear gas and was hammering away at the men, utterly ignoring the snot running down his own face. That'd probably get him a disciplinary hearing in the future, but I had bigger concerns at the moment.

"Gyroscope, take out the rest," I barked into my comms.

"Yes, boss," he said. His drones rammed into the six remaining Peckerwood soldiers, bowling them over even as they tried to take potshots on the steel-skinned agents.

I turned to check on my last powered agent and swore. Lockjaw had given up on ranged combat and leapt straight at the seven feet tall man. The villain's jaws unhinged with an ominous crack and pointed tusks closed on the agent's right shoulder. His jaws were so large that they covered a good portion of the upper torso. I heard the whine of tortured metal and the scream of the dying man.

I'd never had a man die under my command. I knew I wasn't some miracle-worker, just very lucky. Still, I saw red and Calavera became a distant afterthought. The winds surged around me in response. Street signs and lights tore themselves from rest. Trees were uprooted and flung about. I screamed and the storm screamed with me.

"LOCKJAW!"

I sprinted forward and swung at the beast made of stone. It was crude, a heavy baseball swing rather than the refined and precise cut of kendo. In the moment, I wouldn't have had it any other way. The gale that blew from my sword was a wild, untamed thing. It would have cleaved him in half, had Stampede not dashed out between us.

I knew Stampede's power to be one that ignored kinetic force while he was running. It was a deceptively simple power that made him all but unstoppable while in motion, one that made him insufferably arrogant.

"Now, I admit my partner is a tad crude, but there's no need for raised voices, Oathkeeper," he drawled.

The storm had died down but I was in no mood to hear him and rushed forward anyway. I heard Gyroscope and Agent Leeson say something, but I was beyond listening. He ran towards me and aimed a backhand at my helmet, but I stamped the ground and a rush of wind carried me out of reach. I cut downward, but he managed to lunge forward, removing most of my momentum and letting his power counter the rest. My sword skidded off his shoulder as though there was some barrier even as he ran by me.

We traded blows until I was too slow on the dodge and he bowled me over. It was only the cloak of wind that pushed me out of the way of his descending foot. The gale carried me backwards, skidding along the ground until I could roll to my knees, using my sword to balance me.

"Where are you going, Oathkeeper? A Jap belongs beneath my feet," he taunted.

"Breathe, Oathkeeper," Agent Leeson spoke, finally piercing my red haze. "Don't let him get to you."

I slowly got to my feet as the six Peckerwood grunts flanked their powered officers. I breathed in deeply and let it out in a controlled exhale, feeling the storm breathe with me. It did not quell. Instead, it gained momentum with every breath like a bellow feeding the fire. I had no sheath, but held my sword in a textbook iado stance. Not a master; with my power, I didn't need to be.

"Enough. Surrender, Stampede. I won't ask again." Below hearing range, I whispered into my comms. "Targeting Lockjaw. Handle Stampede."

He grinned and began to charge. The world fell away and only Lockjaw and Stampede remained. The shroud flared behind me and I felt like an angel was at my back. "Cut once. Cut clean," my sensei had told me. A nodachi had no business being this fast, but neither did I.

My sword came up in a horizontal draw, parrying Stampede's run with the pommel. I felt the storm disperse a little, but it was enough to redirect his momentum into Gyroscope's drones. The look of realization when he figured out that he wasn't the target would be one I'd cherish.

In the next blink, I was in front of Lockjaw. A stone body was great for defense, not so for quick reaction. In the same stroke I used to parry Stampede, I cut Lockjaw across the chest. The sonic boom from my storm's release shattered his stone body, sending him flying. He crashed into the burning auto wash and did not emerge again.

Agent Tyson had turned to the mooks. Even six on one, the elixir was an overwhelming advantage in the hands of a trained combatant. With no cape support of their own, they went down in short order.

I drew my sword and aimed it cleanly at Stampede. "Now, I believe this is the part where I accept your surrender."

Before I could do anything else to make good on my threat, I screamed as I felt jagged teeth close on my legs. Screams from my men confirmed the same, leaving only Gyroscope. Looking down, I saw steel jaws, with curved teeth that went straight through my armor.

I turned and faced the new arrivals. "Beartrap," I bit out.

"Sorry to cut in like this, chica," the lanky black man said with a carefree shrug. He was leaning next to a car that had pulled up. "If I had my way, I'd let you castrate the fucking cracker, but eh, boss-lady's rules. Her words, my command."

Next to him, Lawless, Bone Maiden, and Parade stepped out. La Torcha's Crips.

"What's Torcha's game?" I tried. I didn't expect a real answer, but was surprised to see truly clueless shrugs from them all.

Bone Maiden spoke. "Who knows? Seriously? She just told us to come bail out the trailer trash. They're gone now by the way, so our job's done. Show up, make sure the capes live to fight another day, then get out. Easy money."

I glanced around and sure enough, the grunts were still on the ground but both SSM and Peckerwood capes had made themselves scarce. "Shit," I swore.

"Ta-ta~" she waved as they got back into their car and left.

That was when the cops and news crew arrived. Minutes later, the area was cordoned off and Gyroscope and I stood pretty for the cameras. He lent me his hand while I used my nodachi to balance subtly. Best not to draw attention to my mangled ankles. I tried not to wince too obviously as I recited some bullshit fed to me through my comms. All the while, only one thought ran through my mind:

'Just what the hell was La Torcha's game?'