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Rating:
Mature
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
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Gen
Fandoms:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow亜人 - 三浦追儺 & 桜井画門 | Ajin - Miura Tsuina & Sakurai Gamon (Anime & Manga)
Characters:
Taylor Hebert | Skitter | WeaverDanny HebertBrockton Bay WardsLisa Wilbourn | Tattletale
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Canon-Typical ViolenceCanon-Typical Body Horrorshard-altered psychologytags to be added as we go
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English
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Timballisto's Curated Works
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Published:2019-05-24Updated:2020-03-11Words:99,568Chapters:29/?Comments:226Kudos:730Bookmarks:266Hits:29,370
(Restricted) The Shadow Over Brockton Bay
Temeritous
Chapter 11: Lich 2.5
Chapter Text
I argued with myself through all of Saturday, through the patrol I ran with Gallant and the event in the PRT lobby where the civilians got to meet the heroes; not even that could distract me.
I wanted to be on the escort team for Rune's transport; I was going to be on it, one way or another. The question I debated was whether to ask for forgiveness or permission.
On one hand: they liked to keep a tight leash on the Wards, and they so far hadn't shown a willingness to admit that my safety wasn't an issue.
On the other: Armsmaster and Piggot both seemed reasonable. Piggot had taken care of Shadow Stalker after one report, and Armsmaster was pragmatic. I was literally the least at-risk person in any room; they had no reason to say no.
I could ask permission, but if denied the repercussions after would probably be worse.
I could not ask at all, and still have a guaranteed punishment even if everything went perfectly.
"Aegis," I called out across the gym.
He was in a corner, lifting some unholy amount of weight with a robotic arm spotting for him.
He grunted, handed the bar up to the robot, and sat up. "Sup? How'd you like the PR event, by the way?"
"Boring," was all I had to comment. I'd been too distracted to interact much. "If I asked to be on the escort team tomorrow night, do you think they'd let me?"
His head tipped from side to side as he considered it. "Maybe. I know Armsmaster already requested Vista and Clockblocker, Piggot's working over PR and the Guard to try to make it happen."
I waited for that flash of jealousy to pass. "Okay, I'll go see if she can put my name on the list."
It was only when I was standing outside her office that I realized normal people didn't work on weekends, and she probably wasn't in there. Then the intercom next to the door said, "Stop standing around, Lazarus."
I opened the door. "Sorry, Director. I wanted to ask if I could be on the escort tomorrow."
She sighed heavily and folded her hands on her desk, leaning back in her chair; her whole posture dared me to argue with her. "Why?"
Sudden, irrational anger burned in my chest, that she wanted me to beg for it before she said no, that she wanted proof that I could contribute but wouldn't give me the opportunity to show her. It was the same as always and I was a fool for thinking it might be different.
"I can fight and I don't die." I said shortly, trying not to let my boiling frustration show. I had had arguments when I walked in, but they were all up in smoke now. "So if you're letting the other two go, you have no reason to keep me behind."
"You don't die, true," she admitted with a small nod. "But you have pissed off the Empire, enough that they sent a sniper after you. In fact, you nearly got Clockblocker killed - or did you think he was the intended target? All they saw was a hero flying with your minion."
I didn't - couldn't - respond to that before she continued, "And because you've pissed them off, that makes you a target, someone to be an example. If they capture you, what would happen, Lazarus?"
They can't hold me. Nothing can hold me.
I couldn't say that, either. She'd demand to know why, where the certainty came from, and I couldn't explain it because I didn't know.
Her eyes narrowed. "Overconfidence kills, Lazarus. Faster than almost anything else. If you walk into a situation thinking you've got it figured out and you don't, you will not be walking out of it."
"But I will," I said. "Which is my point. I'm the only one who is guaranteed to walk out."
"Then your attitude is going to get other people killed," she snapped.
I took a deep breath and pushed my anger away; it had probably already ruined any chance I had, and it wasn't helping. It just felt good.
"Thanks for hearing me out," I said, shifting back on my heels. Looked like I'd be doing this without permission after all. "Have a good evening."
"One thousand words," Piggot said. I locked eyes with her again. "On my desk by tomorrow morning, I want one thousand words from you about the dangers you and your teammates still face beyond your own immortality. If I like it, you can go."
I thought about it; after a moment I began to smile because I understood.
"You'll have it," I promised.
I'm learning more and more that sometimes people will ask you to lie to them.
"I see them," I announced.
Immediately the quiet murmuring conversation in the truck was silenced. The radio in the front crackled and Dauntless reported, "I have eyes on our ambush."
Coryn, a little ahead of him, circled higher in the air. The sheer cliff the truck was passing limited half the field; the steep drop on the other side limited much of the other half. You couldn't go up, and you wouldn't want to go down.
The transport was a huge armored car, resembling a garbage truck at first glance; that was on purpose, urban camouflage for moving through the Bay without announcing that the PRT was moving a prisoner. In the back was Rune, bound and sullenly silent, Clockblocker, Battery, Triumph, four PRT troopers, and myself.
Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and Assault were on motorcycles ahead and behind the transport, Velocity on the ground running as a scout, and Dauntless in the air with Coryn above us. We expected a fight, and we weren't trying to hide it.
"Vista's gonna be soooo pissed she missed this," Clockblocker breathed, one knee bouncing nervously.
The radio fuzzed in with "Hookwolf!" and then the truck hit something.
I'd seen through Coryn as Hookwolf came barreling down the steep cliff, launching himself onto the front of the truck. He was followed by Crusader floating in the air, Fenja and Menja appearing and growing rapidly from the underbrush on the decline.
Battery and the PRT troopers were out of the back in a blink, Battery's costume lighting up. Triumph took a second to look back at Clockblocker and me. "Just remember the plan, alright? Don't do anything stupid."
"Stupid is my whole brand though," Clockblocker complained.
"I'll keep him in line," I promised.
Outside, the Empire's reinforcements were pulling up on off-road ATVs, rumbling engines and bright floodlights casting confusion through an already narrow battlefield. I knew one of them must be Kaiser when metal blades grew out of the bottom of the transport truck and lifted it off the ground.
Shouting; pressure-spray as the troopers shot confoam at Hookwolf, who ignored them as he slammed into Dauntless. Most of the foam wiped off on the underbrush as they crashed away, Dauntless wrestling to get his floating boots under him or his lance into a position to hit Hookwolf.
Miss Militia was ducked between the transport and the cliff face, shooting some sort of grenade at Alabaster as he shot back at her; her grenades were expanding into a tangling net at the end of their arc, so I assumed she was trying to hinder him.
Velocity and Battery were teaming up to take care of the unpowered thugs the Empire had brought along, Velocity disarming and dodging bullets. Assault and Triumph were just steps away, occupying both Krieg and Crusader: Triumph's roars doing something against Crusader's ghosts, and Assault's power clashing weirdly with Krieg's.
Armsmaster, I saw, was in trouble. It was just numbers, and they had more of them. He was facing Fenja and Menja almost alone, only the occasional shot from Miss Militia or Dauntless' lance to distract them. That was where I sent Coryn.
She bowled into the middle of Fenja's back in a flying tackle, immediately uncurling to latch on with her claws and talons. They sank in with a strange resistance, and didn't bleed much.
Coryn tore at her back, dodging Fenja's attempts to scrape her off with her spear, until Menja got one hand around her wing and tried to pull her off. I disintegrated and reformed the wing, losing the paint and causing Menja to jerk off-balance as her handhold suddenly vanished.
Physical damage wasn't working, not fast enough: Hookwolf was howling like an animal and Dauntless' lance hadn't glowed in a long time. I needed another avenue.
Coryn pulled off, leaving Fenja to cry out and hunch over, her back a mess of bleeding flesh. Her wings unfurled and she swung around, straight at Fenja's face - and down her throat.
One mississippi, two mississippi, I started counting. I know exactly how long it takes to pass out from lack of oxygen; I hoped that Fenja's size wouldn't make too much of a difference.
It only took about a quarter of Coryn's Dust to choke Fenja, another quarter flying as a formless swirling cloud to Menja. Coryn's costume was gone, the cloth discarded on the ground and the paint swirled through thousands of particles of Dust; to me the cloud was dense black with electric blue flashes, but to them it would be a thin blue haze.
The other half reformed into Coryn-but-smaller and went for Hookwolf, slamming him off his collision course with Armsmaster. I shed her arms' usual shape in favor of something more like a praying mantis, powerful forearms armed with the sharpest Dust blades I could make.
"Shit," Clockblocker said next to me, and reached out and tapped Rune with his power just as she began to shout. "C'mon, let's go."
I knew what he'd seen, because my few sensors had seen them coming: Victor and Othala were at the open back of the truck, Victor with a huge pistol raised and pointed at us. Othala also had a gun, smaller and only half-raised.
This was still part of the plan: Armsmaster knew that they'd try to flank and pull Rune out from under us. Clockblocker was here to delay them as long as possible and then get us out safe; I was here because my human body was useless anywhere else.
I didn't agree with Armsmaster's plan, and I didn't think he liked it much either; bureaucracy tied his hands, made him pull us out of danger faster than we really needed to.
"Just go," I told him, instead of following him to the front of the truck. I stood up. "I'll take care of this."
"Your minion is out there, all you can do is die," Clockblocker hissed.
"Listen to your friend, Lazarus," Victor said. "I can't imagine dying is very fun, and you can't do anything to me."
"Freeze your costume or go, Clockblocker!" I ordered, raising my voice. I didn't take my eyes off of Victor's trigger finger.
He chose to leave, shooting one last glance at Victor before he ducked through the narrow passage to the front of the truck and slammed the door behind him. The Dust I'd had over him like a protective shell came off and swirled into my hand. It probably wouldn't have stopped a bullet, but it had made me feel better.
"You already almost killed him once," I said. "Our costumes look nothing alike. Did you really think that was me flying with my minion, or did you just not care?"
"Bad scope," he shrugged, like it was no big deal. "Night vision, you know how it is… but you don't." He laughed. "There's really nothing special about you, is there? You don't even have any skills worth stealing, unless I want to acquire a talent for self-delusion."
I didn't smile, although I wanted to; he'd be able to see it since my mask only covered the top half of my face. My ability to push thoughts and emotions into my Dust was coming in handy every day.
I was done talking, and letting them stall out Clockblocker's timer on Rune. I took a step forward, and he shot me.
Chest shot, missed the heart at first until he emptied the clip into me. It hurt like being stabbed and crushed at the same time, and I could feel some latent mortal instinct panicking that my heart wasn't beating; it didn't matter. I moved the Dust in my blood and kept it pumping oxygen from my lungs to my brain, while more Dust reformed the destroyed veins and stopped the bleeding.
I took another step forward.
Victor's eyes widened behind his mask, surprised, and the confident smile dropped right off his face. Othala touched his back, bringing him out of his shock and apparently giving him pyrokinesis at the same time: he threw a handful of fire at me, then held out his palms in front of himself and loosed a stream of fire like a flamethrower.
The heat washing over me was incredible, bringing back memories of one of my least-favorite deaths and the smell of gasoline. My fire-resistant costume shrugged off the worst of the spray, but I felt my face blistering and my hair burning.
I ran the last two paces between us, throwing myself at him sword-first. The fire cut out, and my sword only sank into his gut an inch before he became completely invulnerable.
"How, the fuck," he grunted, kicking me off of him.
"I live and learn," I gasped, pushing my blood faster - have to remember to account for when the heartbeat should have increased . Darkness had gathered at the edge of my vision, black spots as my brain starved of oxygen, his fire had burned the air before I could breathe it. I muscled through. "Got no other choice."
I let go of my sword and tackled him again, latching on like a limpet: not terribly effective at causing damage, but plenty of a distraction while my Dust finished choking Othala out.
"Thala!" he shouted, beating down with both fists on my back. He grabbed me by the hair to pull me off, his invulnerability letting him ignore the pointed spikes of Dust I had woven into it.
I closed my eyes and blocked out information coming from my body, focusing on the Dust. I felt the moment Othala fell as a stutter in her pulse, and my body smiled.
Then Cricket hopped into the truck. "Let's go!" she shouted.
Outside, things were not going well for the Empire anymore. Armsmaster had tagged Fenja and Menja when they collapsed and shrank, with tranquilizers and then portable cages. Coryn had stuck her diminished self entirely down Hookwolf's throat and shredded him from the inside out, where apparently there were some non-metal pieces of him stored; he was human again, unconscious and missing the lower half of his body.
Clockblocker had joined the fight - against his orders, which had been to stay behind the troopers once we ceded the transport truck. He'd tagged Hookwolf with his power, pausing his blood loss, and somehow talked Assault into punting him at Alabaster while the villain was busy with Miss Militia. Alabaster was frozen in a comical expression of surprise, but Clockblocker was right next to him having frozen his suit in defense before Stormtiger could tear him apart.
We weren't without casualties; Crusader had put a spear through Battery's thigh between her recharges, while Coryn was busy with Hookwolf. Kaiser had turned the mountainside into a minefield, iron blades speared up in clusters everywhere. I think he had been trying to control the battlefield in his people's favor, but Assault kept smashing down every wall he could find and then throwing the metal at Kaiser.
Dauntless was down, hit hard by Hookwolf and Krieg, then pinned through the gut by Kaiser; I wasn't sure whether he was still breathing, and I didn't have the Dust to spare to clot his wounds. Miss Militia had Alabaster covered in confoam from the waist down, but she was bleeding from a head wound she'd taken from Crusader in the process. Krieg was still up and fighting to hold Armsmaster and Triumph back from the Empire's position: they were grouped up to retreat.
Only Kaiser, Stormtiger, Krieg, and Crusader left outside, versus Armsmaster, Triumph, Assault, Velocity, and Coryn. In the transport, Rune, Victor, and Cricket. And me.
"Jesus fuck kid, just lay down and die," Cricket said, and swung her kama to cut off my head.
No bluffing my way through that; I died. The Dust began to seep into the world, forming its ribbons.
I hoped that this wouldn't kill me, but I didn't have any other choice. I took control of the sudden influx of Dust and formed Nyroc.
Outside, Coryn tore apart Crusader's ghosts as fast as he made them, dove in front of one of Stormtiger's explosive blasts for Triumph. Kaiser speared through her wing with one of his blades, and she reformed around it. Armsmaster lined up a shot along his halberd; with a tiny, unheard noise, the tranq dart stuck into Stormtiger's neck.
"The little bitch'll be coming back, Hook said it only took about thirty seconds last time." Victor said. "Get Rune, I've got Othala." He picked her up and jumped out of the transport, ducking immediately around the side.
Rune was still frozen, but with the worst timing: as Cricket approached, she burst into motion shouting, " - time!" She looked around, confused. "Ah, shit. That's a lot of blood. Someone get this shit off me." She was holding up her restraints, special boxing-glove-like cuffs that covered her hands entirely and kept them closed into fists. They were complicated and skin-tight, not easily removed.
"No time," Cricket said. "Let's go." Her kama cut through the metal chains as easily as they had my neck.
I watched their interplay dispassionately, the words meaningless as if heard from underwater. There was no point in listening; nothing they had to say that I had to hear. Options presented themselves to me, none so attractive as the chance to take off their heads like they'd taken mine.
But I knew I had to hold back, had to remind myself that cutting off their heads would kill them and I didn't want that. Death is permanent for everyone else, not a decision to be made lightly in the heat of the moment.
I struck out with one of Nyroc's arms, reformed into a cutting edge. I was aiming to slice off Cricket's hand at the wrist, but she sensed something and dodged at the last second, leaving Nyroc's arm to plunge into the textured metal floor. I pulled back up, facing Cricket fully.
She halfway turned her head and said something to Rune, who backed up to get behind her; I was still blocking their escape, since Clockblocker had closed off the front of the truck. I wasn't sure how she was seeing me until I realized the noise and the pressure must be some kind of echolocation - Cricket, aptly named.
She struck out with her kama, and I let them phase straight through Nyroc. She couldn't damage my Dust in any way that mattered, but could I land a hit on her? Nyroc was only half the size of Coryn's usual shape, and Coryn herself was still outside with the others.
She still needed to breath, though.
Cricket looked confused for a moment when Nyroc dispersed, and then terror widened her eyes when she felt the Dust trickling down her throat. Her mouth clamped shut, but she couldn't seal off her nose and my Dust was too small to be kept out.
I released control of all but the little amount I was using on her, hoping that it would return to resurrecting me.
Cricket made a strange noise with her mouth and leaped over my body, sprinting out of the truck and straight down the mountainside. I'm not sure what made her decide that was the way to go, or if panic made the decision for her. She stumbled on something in the dark and went careening uncontrolled down the slope.
My Dust reformed into ribbons the moment I let it, and resumed its work wrapping me up. The last few pieces of it connected to my head and dragged it over to my neck. After a moment to get adjusted, I stood up.
Rune was watching me warily, her fists up in front of her face like a boxer. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" she asked, sneering angrily.
I tilted my newly-attached head to one side. "What do you mean?"
Outside, Armsmaster held up his hand to call off Assault when he would have pursued the remnants of the Empire. I started to collect Coryn's painted Dust and put it back into something resembling a costume, so that the others could see her.
"You were fucking dead!" she shouted. "And why the fuck are you all fighting to keep me? What do you think is gonna happen, huh? Think they're just gonna let this slide? You know Kaiser will keep coming, he won't let this stand. You should have just let me go."
I shrugged. "He can do what he wants, and I'll do what I need to."
Armsmaster limped around the corner of the truck, coming into view of the interior. He saw me standing in front of Rune, very bloody and little singed but both alive.
After a pause, he asked, "Everything go alright in here?"
"Cricket ran off the side of the road," I told him. "Don't know if you saw."
"Uh huh," he said. "Any injuries?"
"No lasting ones."
Another pause. I wondered what he was using the time for. "Good work, Lazarus."
Clockblocker dashed around the corner, coming to a skidding halt when he saw us. He glanced around, and then his head moved in a way I recognized; he was using his rewind power.
"Clock, get to freezing anyone who isn't stable. Our backup transport is still ten minutes out. Dauntless first, then Hookwolf." Armsmaster turned and started toward Fenja and Menja's cages.
Clockblocker shook himself out of it and chirped, "Yes sir." On his way out, he turned and shot finger-guns at me. "Hey, way to keep your head in that fight, Laz."
I had Coryn shove him out the door.
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