บท 80: Wake-up Call – Chapter 77 – Fight
[Vista – Early Warning]
Being able to manipulate something means being able to perceive it.
So, when the surface of the water of the Yang Tse river boils, I [know it].
"Now!" I yell, prompting Dennis to try and jump up before he remembers he's kneeling by my side [for a reason], even if it's not one we'll [ever] talk about.
[Ever].
"Acknowledged!" the infuriating Thinker in my ear says.
And then, ignoring Dennis' arm wrapped around my shoulders, I do my part.
Behemoth rushes up, in the middle of the river bed, at one of the spots Lisa predicted he could emerge from, his height barely able to crest the waters where elsewhere he would be drowned beneath them.
If he needed to breathe, that is.
So it's very tempting to ignore the Thinker and widen the river, deepen it, and have the water violently pour against him, to carry him downstream violently smashing against every rock I care to put in his way.
But, apparently, that would not only not be enough to do actual damage to him, but would play right into his plans and have him poison the whole reservoir with radioactivity that would spread through half the country in clouds of poison that would make Chernobyl green with envy.
And, you know, not with radioactivity.
… Is radioactivity green? Have The Simpsons lied to me?
Doesn't matter. Focus.
…
I'll ask Colin later.
For now, I will just resist my urge to do my own thing and play according to the plan. So, right as the riverbed cracks open and a whirlpool forms around the emerging giant, I smash my power through the last few feet I need to work over, the ground buckling under my distortion, lowering and curving.
And, suddenly, below me, the already open gates of the dam widen, the water in the artificial lake dropping abruptly as I rush it down a deeper river just as, right above Behemoth, a meander stretches and crosses the stream, the water suddenly falling as if across a new waterfall to the side of it, diverted into the new riverbed I just crafted, white, raging walls of thunder racing down the path I made for them, smashing rocks and uprooting trees, tearing the ground into exploding mud.
My temples throb as I sustain all of it, all the geographical distortions a Thinker helped me come up with as I allow the force of nature to help me rather than fight me, the sudden and violent erosion making this side channel more permanent with every second I can hold onto the reigns of my power.
But that is not enough. That would just create a flood as violent as if Behemoth himself had torn apart the dam like he still intends to. So, downstream, I keep opening up new subsidiaries, flooding the lands around the river, yes, but in the controlled way the Thinker came up with, causing economic and environmental damage rather than wasting human lives.
Dennis is saying something, but I can only think about the water level not falling fast enough, the riverbed not drying up fast enough, and the forest I just destroyed with the very start of our battle plan.
My head pounds in sheer agony, and I can no longer open my eyes, only my power telling me what the world is like around me.
Still…
Through gritted teeth, with eyes clenched shut, I smile savagely.
"How does it feel to have someone else rearrange the map for once, you Godzilla knockoff?"
I know the roar that shakes the very dam I'm kneeling on is not directed at me, but I want to think it is. I want him to be enraged at my stealing his thunder.
And so, as the pain grows, as a new river curves around a city to my right, my smile widens.
When I almost fall back despite already being on my knees, Dennis holds me steady, my back on his chest as he shields me with his free arm.
We will also not talk about this.
***
[Legend – Early Response]
"Incoming!" the Thinker yells from my earpiece.
As if I needed the warning.
Below me, Vista is already remodeling China's map, diverting one of the largest rivers in the world and rushing to empty the biggest artificial water reservoir ever made, the white water rushing and roaring as the countryside vanishes under it, trees and rocks flying out at the passage of what soon ceases to be mere water and becomes a mud avalanche.
And still, what remains of the original Yang Tse boils as it steadily lowers, the incandescent patch of bare rock reaching both sides of the riverbank as Behemoth climbs out of the wound on the world's surface, steam roiling around his monstrous body as he glares up at us with his single eye, the red light that never dims with distance something that always offended my power to witness.
"Ready?" I ask.
"Overqualified," Eidolon answers.
And I have to grin at it. At the offended, almost bored tone of my teammate stating that, yes, standing right behind me with a noise-suppressing power is so far below him it doesn't even rate as risking his life against one of the very few things he cannot crush on this planet.
"Only you can do this part of the plan," I remind him.
"I'm certain that's untrue. Just as it is that only you can do yours."
I don't look away from the monster rising to his feet, standing up amid steadily dwindling waters that only reach up to his waist, but I still bend a channel of light to look at David and send him my face as if we were conversing through a mirror.
Or a very complicated setup of mirrors. Same difference.
"Maybe. But it will still be refreshing to give him a bad day for once," I say.
And then I shift into my power.
My body becomes light, everything around me turning into waves of the spectrum, into the purest form of energy I can imagine, I can conceive of.
And the world slows down.
Behemoth rears back, his maw opening wide as the atmosphere distorts around him in radial waves, and David raises an imperious hand that stifles them, that mutes the deafening roar into something that still rumbles in the distance but does so harmlessly.
The most powerful parahuman to ever exist still swears, still tries to act more confident than he is despite his power not completely nullifying the battle cry of the monster.
I'd reassure him. Tell him it works well enough. That it doesn't matter. That it only matters that we fight and we, at last, [finally], win.
But I know him and his wounded pride. I know a quick line here will do nothing other than rankle him.
And I am busy.
Because the monster looks at us hatefully, yes, but he then looks at the dam downstream from where Vista is orchestrating all this, being the centerpiece of a plan that will deprive Behemoth of his devastating target. That will take away his chance to poison and flood half a country, to kill so many more than he's already killed.
So many.
And I…
Light shifts around me, the blasts of destructive force ready to be unleashed at a mere thought, to let out all of my rage and hatred for the [Hero Killer].
Because that's what he is.
A killer of heroes.
Of [friends].
I have survived. So have David and Rebecca. But I am the face of the Protectorate; I lead my own team; I train the next generation. And that generation has been culled by Behemoth and his brethren before they ever had the chance to improve the world they so badly wanted to defend.
So. I have David and Rebecca fighting here with me, by my side.
But I also have Laura, Martin, Anne, Ivan, Marie, Joseph, Helen, Peter, Jessica, Scott, Barbara…
I have [so many…] who are only in my heart.
And so, when I see the monster pointing a gleaming obsidian claw that cuts across the churning steam around him, when I see him point it [at children], my power surges.
The world slows down further still, my perception of the spectrum broadening until I see the barest hint of a spark of lighting gathering on the sharp rock before it becomes visible, just eddies and currents in the field always surrounding the creature.
He shoots.
And the instructions of a frantic Thinker guide me to turn all of my gathered blasts, all the power I would usually unleash to futilely crash against a walking mountain, into myriad lasers that I throw at once.
Straight down.
Into the river below me.
They are not a wall, not really. I can't sustain my power for that long.
But, what I just learned I can do, is to [ionize] the very air below me.
So the spear of lightning rushing toward Vista and Clockblocker forks into infinitesimally thin branches, every single one of them guided down one of the atom-wide channels of charged air acting as lightning rods and directing the attack into the river below.
The thunder of Behemoth's attack reaches me, muted by Eidolon's own power, almost at the same time as the wave of infrared radiation wafting off from the boiling waters that would surely smell like ozone if I could perceive that in my current state.
And I…
I don't blink incredulously. Because I can't, not like this.
But what I can do is to pulse a cluster of heating beams around my mouth and have them follow the motion of my transformed lips and tongue as I slow down enough for the words shaped by my power to be intelligible.
"You have killed so many, Behemoth… But no more. Not a single one more. Let's see which of us can wield lightning better, [monster]."
Behemoth, already running down the riverbed, roars.
So do I.
***
[Eidolon – Hurry up and Wait]
Legend is being too dramatic.
But that's his thing: being the emotional one. The one who can afford to be, to project a personable façade that allows the world to think we are different from the monsters we fight.
I envy him.
Because I? I don't have that luxury. I am Eidolon, our best chance, the one who comes nearest to facing the ultimate threat on the horizon.
And I am not enough.
I am not powerful enough, I am not experienced enough, I am not [man enough].
I may as well be still a cripple unfit for duty for all the good I can do that [actually matters].
And this… this [passive] use of what power I still have, what remains of my ever-dwindling reserves? This is insulting.
I wonder if the Thinker knows. If she's assigned me this role because she doesn't want my image to suffer when I inevitably fail to put up the kind of fight I could have years ago. If she's saving me for one last final battle that I may not reach if I fought here today.
Behemoth roars yet again, and I bind the air around him, making each molecule resistant to part from those around them, limiting the width and speed of the wave of sound crashing against my power and trying to pass through it.
Too much energy slips through. Much more than it would have the first time I found this ability, and I used it to completely paralyze flying brutes and falling buildings.
But it's still enough. Enough that what could have been a disabling attack for non-Brutes is now merely a defiant answer to Legend's boast.
A futile answer if I have anything to say about it.
Because I envy Legend. Keith.
I envy his humanity. His barely there mask. His outbursts of emotion.
But he's my friend to envy and mock, and no monster shall be allowed to contradict him.
No more. Not a single one more.
***
[Brian – Security Detail]
I hate this.
I hate this [with a passion].
"Relax, dork. We're getting paid to sit around and do nothing," Alec says while he does precisely that, sitting on one of the folding camping chairs from the healer's area behind us.
I don't fail to notice that he [didn't bring one for me].
"How can you be so… [all right] with this?" I tell the boy sharing the bubble inside my power lit by a camping lantern also procured from the healer's area.
He first arches an eyebrow, then points to the stone stairs to his left.
Trying not to grumble, I finally take his invitation and sit on the cold stone steps right by the entrance to the courtyard where healers, doctors and nurses keep trying to make stilted conversation that keeps dropping whenever they look at the black wall of swirling mist that will hopefully act as the barrier against energy attacks that Lisa thinks it will be.
Alec looks at me with a triumphant grin that makes me want to punch him.
[Again].
"Well?" I prod him to answer, just to have something to take my mind off Behemoth climbing out of the river bed and into the city where the heroes have, according to Lisa, been preparing to fight him.
"It's just a quirk of my charming personality. I am the strong, silent type, you know?"
I look at him.
Then I take my helmet off and [look at him].
He manages not to even smirk.
"You cry like a little girl if I so much as try to teach you an armbar," I tell him in a carefully even tone.
"I assumed you would be into it. You like to play rough, after all."
This time, grateful that the helmet isn't in the way, I allow myself the immense pleasure of slowly rubbing my temples in soothing, incredibly insufficient circles.
"Stop that. Really, what are you even—"
"I, Brian, o fearless leader, am trying to break the tension. Because it's quite possible that we will die today, and I'd rather you didn't do so with your anus clenched tight enough to shatter that stick you have shoved inside of it. I hear internal bleeding in that area is about as unfun as it sounds."
I, yet again, try not to punch him.
It's an uphill battle.
"Maybe I'd be more receptive to your attempts to lighten up the mood if you stopped insulting me."
Alec throws me a very unimpressed eyebrow.
"Okay, maybe not…" I mutter.
And he sighs before shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning back until his shoulders rest against cool, gray stone.
"I could have left, you know?" he says.
"Lisa gave us a chance to—"
"No. Not today. Before. When things started getting messy. When Coil, surprise, surprise, turned out not to be an upright employer with our best interests in mind. When Taylor and Lisa had the loudest sexual awakening I've been privy to. I could've left as things started getting complicated, became something more than what I'd bargained for. I could've left."
I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
"Why didn't you?" I ask without opening them.
"Because of you." [Now] I open them and turn to my right to shoot him my own unimpressed eyebrow. "Okay, not because of [you] you, but because of… everyone. Lisa… You know how she's been since Taylor rubbed off her cynical façade with what I presume to be far too little lube, and Rachel… She's worse off than me in some ways. Then there's [you] you, who would have likely fallen for another Ponzi scheme as soon as I went through the door, and…"
He drifts off, staring into the distance at Behemoth marching straight through some of the low houses Lisa told me are centuries old.
Staring through my power.
Because of course he likes to be this dramatic about things.
"And?" I finally ask him as he so clearly wants me to.
He still pauses. Still looks as Behemoth tears a chunk of wall and throws it in a straight line over the city and toward the rapidly dwindling lake, where it's intercepted by a familiar white bolt I try not to think about.
Still closes his own eyes and hesitates for a single moment.
"And I don't want to be alone again," he finally says with a low, vulnerable voice I've never heard from him before.
I look at him. At Alec being… what Lisa told me he was. Small. Weak. So thin it's almost unhealthy and possibly is.
I clench my teeth.
And punch his shoulder.
"Hey! I told you I'm not into that!" he says, meeting my eyes as he turns to look at me in sheer outrage and wounded pride.
"You're going to get through this. I'm going to do what nobody has done before and stop an Endbringer's attacks, and you're going to live long enough to get looked at by a good doctor who will tell you that you can't survive on pizza rolls eaten at irregular hours and caffeinated soda. And you're going to get [a haircut], you goddamn hippie."
Alec blinks at me.
"Is that a joke?" he asks, slightly disoriented.
"And [then], we'll have a talk about your taste in music and how much time you're allowed to play games."
"It [is] a joke. It definitely is a joke. Please, let it be a joke."
"And you're going to prep for your GED, or my name isn't—"
"Fuck off. No. You can't do this to me. I am a supervillain. I can stay up late and watch pirated cartoons if I want to."
"Oh, don't even get me started on that Chinese crap you and Lisa keep yammering about—"
"Japanese! They're Japanese cartoons, you goddamn racist!"
I cock my head and shoot him another unimpressed eyebrow.
"… Fuck off. Black people can also be racist."
"I mean, you're French."
"[Canadian]."
"French Canadian. I guess that's like a quadroon—"
"I am going to punch you. I am going to punch you in your perfect, straight, white teeth, and I'll hurt my tiny, girlish knuckles more than I'll hurt you, but it will be so damn [worth it]—"
To my left, inside the courtyard, somebody rushes to the gate and shouts into the black mist of my power.
"Shut up. Time to do your job," I translate.
Alec narrows his eyes at me while I beatifically blink innocently up at him in a way only people with bratty younger siblings can do.
And while he still silently promises me retribution that will likely be disproportionate and force me to escalate to, at the very least, noogying him, one of the houses in front of Behemoth explodes open, and tendrils of metal thick enough for the reflected light bouncing off them to reach me all the way over here strike at the unaware monster.
So, as Alec fights using the Undersiders' last trump card and possibly throwing Hookwolf's life away in the process, I lean back, rest my back on the solid temple wall behind me, and do the only thing I can do:
Wait.
… I guess I could use the time to come up with something more creative than a noogie. I may have to get Aisha's input, though.
As long as they never meet, it should be fine.
***
[Armsmaster – Ready for Duty]
"It isn't ready. I [know] it isn't ready. Dragon knows it isn't ready," Lisa says over the comm in my ear as Hannah seats herself behind me, the clamps on the side of my bike automatically latching on her ankles to stabilize her.
She still wraps an arm around my waist.
My smile is, in part, due to that.
"That's not what Dragon said. She said it hadn't been tested outside of laboratory conditions," I say to the girl freaking out in Brockton Bay.
"That's precisely what not being ready means!" she answers with a panic she can't afford, given everyone else she should be closely monitoring.
So, really, what I am about to do is just a service to my fellow heroes and not me being unnecessarily flippant at a crucial juncture.
"No. It just means that it needs further testing," I say as I accelerate my bike down one of the wide streets going to the river and toward the colossal monster made out of living rock that Lisa claims was never truly alive to begin with.
It won't stop me from killing it.
"Again, I repeat: experimental, [dangerous] technology that hasn't been tested [is not ready]!"
"And that's precisely why I am going to field test it," I say with a grin I can't hold back as I flip a switch guard open on the right handlebar of my bike and push a red button that makes the world around me thrum before the sounds of shrieking metal torn apart by Behemoth lower in pitch and everything around my bike slows down.
"Wha—what the Hell did you just do?!" Hannah asks, leaning over my shoulder.
"Make Velocity feel inadequate," I answer, my smile turning into a smirk as I keep a close eye on the readings displayed on my HUD.
"He's using Bakuda's tech. Modified time-stopping grenades," Dragon helpfully explains—wait a second.
"How are you—"
"I am transforming your sentences into readable text in real-time and using my own enhanced cognition and mind-machine interface to send a signal that your comms decode into speech," she says with an almost bored tone.
"That is [impossible]. Time inside my bubble should be ten times faster than outside of it."
"Well, impossible for you, maybe, [Tinker six,]" she says.
I blink.
Then I realize I am missing some of my HUD's readings.
I swear.
And, finally, I focus on what's really important:
"Please tell me you aren't sending this conversation to Lisa," I say while Hannah starts giggling for reasons that are surely impossible to understand or even sympathize with.
"Of course I am not," she says, making me sigh with relief; "I am saving this for her birthday."
For even more incomprehensible reasons, Hannah's giggles turn into guffaws at more or less the same time that I get the urge to massage the bridge of my nose.
And then a proximity alarm triggers, and I take a hard right that has my knee millimeters from the pavement as I take off down a street that runs parallel to where Behemoth is currently entangled with Hookwolf's shrieking, twisted body, the vines of sharp metal slithering up trunk-like legs, grinding and powdering the stone beneath before being turned into incandescent slag that keeps being replenished by the body of a supervillain that is dead in all the ways that matter.
I'll need to have another talk with Lisa about this. About the monstrosity she's so willing to tolerate in the pursuit of her goals.
Because, no matter how justified, no matter how noble the pursuit, some lines should not be crossed.
But right now, I'll be a hypocrite, and I'll take advantage of it. I'll allow her to weaponize this aberrant act while we fight to destroy a monster.
Because, right now, I want to live.
And Behemoth to die.
"Hannah? Have you adjusted to the temporal distortion?" I ask.
"Since the very start," she answers without laughter nor any inflection as she focuses fully on the task at hand.
"Then, as you will," I say.
And she fires.
The modified rocket grenade that Lisa guided Dragon and me into making during our last-minute rush to come up with something that would work. Something that would be different from everything else we've already tried against Behemoth.
Something [smart].
I can see in the slowed time how the projectile travels toward Behemoth and how the monster turns immediately toward it, lifting a claw with sparkling lightning on it.
Legend once more parries it, diverting the bolt into a nearby home that explodes into shards of grey slate and red brick, but the projectile still doesn't reach the beast, as it just tears off one of Hookwolf's superfluous limbs and throws it through the grenade, turning it into shrapnel.
It doesn't matter.
We prepared more than one.
And we plan on shooting every single one of them.
***
[Lisa – Armchair General]
This is going well.
I don't like it.
[Lisa Wilbourn's superstitious belief in 'raising flags'—]
Not right now. I need both of us focused on…
On everything.
[Vista performing according to projections. Clockblocker attachment to Vista keeping him alert and ready. Behemoth advance toward dam intercepted at predicted spot. Hookwolf's resistance to radiation working as—]
Yes, fine, the Nazi will live for at least a few more minutes before being cooked alive. We still don't know if he can regenerate from that while in his Changer state, but that's not really the issue—
[Miss Militia's proficiency with projectile weapons combined with Colin Wallis' temporal distortion field—]
Yes. I really, [really] hope so.
"Liz?" Taylor asks without looking away from her spread of monitors.
"Yes?" I ask without urgency, because she isn't worried, and I shouldn't do anything to change that.
"It's working," she says, the simple words tinged with a hope and optimism that would have made me check for any Changer-slash-Strangers just a few weeks ago.
So I allow myself to look away from my own monitors, from the bird's eye view of the battlefield that Dragon's semi-autonomous drones are offering me so that I can keep an eye on every single one of the key players in the strategy Dinah and I came up with mere minutes ago.
And I look at her, at the girl I love and who loves me.
The one reason everything changed.
The one person that allowed me to be here, doing this rather than being…
[Tattletale].
I bite back my first answer, and then I smile as openly as I can while taking in her profile, the motion of her lips under her mask, the soft breathing pulling black silk in and out.
"I think so," I finally say, my voice too burdened with hope not to strain.
Then Kid Win drops something only Tinkers know the name of on his toe and starts swearing up a storm, and I allow myself to laugh despite the tension wracking my shoulders.
==================
This work is a repost of my most popular fic on QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/wake-up-call-worm.15638/), where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true)—as an added perk, both those sites have italicized and bolded text. I'll be posting the chapters here twice weekly, on Wednesday and Friday, until we're caught up. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 93 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).
Speaking of Italics, this story's original format relied on conveying Power's intrusions into Lisa's inner monologue through the use of italics. I'm using square brackets ([]) to portray that same effect, but the work is more than 300k words at the moment, so I have to resort to the use of macros to make that light edit and the process may not be perfect. My apologies in advance
Also, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Xalgeon, and aj0413. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and helping me keep writing snarky, useless lesbians, consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง