Chapter 21
"Can I imagine that you're Nadezhda?" I whispered into Maria's ear, my body hovering inches above hers, her back laying against her bed.
Maria giggled. "Only if I can imagine that you're Lenin."
I ran my teeth over her ears. Then I spoke in Russian: "Prepare for a revolution, my marmalade."
000
"All I could make out was darkness," the sixteen-year-old boy whispered. "Darkness. Everything… so dark."
Armsmaster heard the child out in his family's living room. The mother arrived with a pot of coffee and set it on the table. Ronald Harrison's eyes were glassy and unfocused as he spoke.
Then, in a flash, they became desperate. "He said he'd return if I—oh god, I don't wanna hurt nobody! Please, you have to believe me. I don't want to hurt anyone."
"He told you he would return?" Armsmaster asked.
"I'm not gonna hurt anyone," he whimpered.
"Who said you were going to hurt someone?"
"He-he did! He said… if I still wanted to hurt someone, then he'd come back and put me in the dark again!"
…Still wanted to hurt someone?
Judgment Day himself claimed that the people he was kidnapping were imminent threats to the public's safety. Given the sheer volume of people he was kidnapping, that simply couldn't be the case.
"I swear I won't do it. I swear. Please. You have to believe me! I don't know if I can… take another two days!"
"It's fine, son," Armsmaster said quietly. "No one is going to hurt you. I simply need you to tell me everything that he told you. Everything you can remember. Alright?"
Ronald nodded slightly. He gulped and whimpered at the same time, but fought bravely for composure.
000
"I knew I was going to run into one of you people eventually, but having it actually happen is a lot different than expecting it to happen."
Leroy Sherwood stood frozen as he stared at me wide-eyed. His computer chair had rolled back from when he had abruptly stood up to note my arrival, and the computer was still on a Neo-Nazi subforum of some kind.
And Leroy over here was a brother.
Not mine, certainly. Not all skinfolk were kinfolk, and Leroy embodied that saying perfectly.
"Seriously," I said. "How're you gonna be racist and also a racism-victim? I mean seriously, indulge me: how do you justify your worldview?"
He frowned. "I don't agree that the civil rights movement was a positive step for us black people," he said. Even the way he said it made it seem like that sentence wasn't even real 'us black people', who the fuck is 'us'? I see my people, but I don't hear my people. "And you've got the wrong guy. I don't want to hurt anybody!"
I took off my mask and sighed. He took a step back in shock. "You seriously don't see how you're hurting people already? How your ideas incite people into killing frenzies? Worse than that, you're essentially luring people of color into becoming sitting ducks for these racists and you don't care. You pay for your seat on the round table in the blood of people that look like you, and the moment the big dogs have no need for you, they'll kill you anyway. So tell me: why shouldn't I just cut to the chase?"
"Please! I have—"
"A family, friends, people. Get it all out. I'll give you… twenty seconds."
He barely got halfway through the list of clichés before I lost my patience and inventoried him.
Normally, I would have let a ghost take care of this person, but I had to show up in person for this one. I wouldn't make it a habit, though. Six-hundred and seventy-five people so far, and only ten percent of them were even imminent threats. The positive consequences of the ninety percent of people I had taken wouldn't surface for years to come, and even then, no one would notice the glaring lack of right-wing extremism of the common American flavors here.
No one would ever thank me for this, but that was okay.
000
I summoned Kaiser out from my inventory inside a derelict apartment.
He fell heavily on the ground. I healed him using Othala's power as I also stripped him of his armor. He was emaciated, gaunt, on his last legs, but the healing returned light into his eyes. I gave him a bottle of water and he shakily took it.
"It's time," he wheezed as he drank the water.
"It's time," I echoed.
He drained the bottle, and I gave him a new one. Then I took his powers and experienced his trigger event for a fraction of a second. He was a second-gen cape so he had a second-gen trigger. Getting hurt while watching his favorite house get demolished on his father's orders. An emotional event for the thirteen-year-old Max Anders.
"My family," Max whispered.
I grinned at him, taking off my mask. "They're alive. Theo seems relieved to finally become his own man. Imagine that. You did such a shit job of being a father that he couldn't wait to be rid of you."
He gasped, a choked sound heavy with pain.
I laughed.
"If it makes you feel any better, hell isn't real, so don't worry."
"Monster," he growled.
"Victor stole the skills and abilities of hundreds. Hundreds of people of color that had dedicated their lives in pursuit of a craft. He may as well have killed them, too. And you call me a monster. Your ex-wife induced a trigger event in the Biermann twins, and you call me a monster. You employ murderers. Torturers. Psychopaths. And you don't even do this because you believe in the ideology. You do it to make a buck. And I'm the monster. Do you want to know how many innocent people I've killed in pursuit of my agenda, Max? One. And I live in regret for what I did. I've stumbled. I've made mistakes. But that's what happens when you try achieving something. When you actually try instead of sitting on your ass, judging people all day. Or when you sit there defeated, broken, judging me."
What right did he have?
"I'm… a monster," he said.
Oh. He hadn't meant me at all.
"Just. Get it over with," Max sighed. "Please. Don't make me wait any longer."
The one-hundred and twenty hours in the dark had broken him.
I raised a metal spear on the ground beneath him, spearing him through the heart.
Finally done with that business.
I called the cops afterwards. I saw the headline of Brockton Daily in the future: Missing pharma CEO Max Anders found dead in an abandoned apartment.
Theo would get his closure, and I would officially close the book on this chapter of mine.
And tomorrow? I would open another chapter.
A shorter one, of course. More of an interlude than anything.
000
Clockblocker, known to his friends as Dennis, clenched his jaws and tapped a discordant rhythm on the floor with his feet as he listened to Armsmaster lead yet another team meeting. The fourth one in recent memory. More of the same nothing, packaged in different flavors.
"He's a ghost. He leaves no traces. Between all the powers that he has stolen already, he clearly seems to be in possession of a potent precognitive ability that has allowed him to evade us all this time," Armsmaster delivered his report to the Protectorate and the Wards. The only people in attendance were heroes, and not the stuffy non-powered PRT personnel. "Your standing orders are to wait for instructions and keep him engaged in conversation if you are to meet him. The more we learn about him, the better."
Left unsaid was the fact that everything they learned about him was probably something that he wanted them to learn.
"But do not get in his way. Ostensibly, he needs physical contact to steal a power. This is according to a report from New York. There may be other limits besides."
Dennis heard Armsmaster's words, but he didn't listen.
He was busy thinking about Kenneth Georges.
Kenneth Georges. Quite Kenny. Resident classroom weirdo. Kenneth 'voted most likely to shoot up the school' Georges. Seventeen-years-old.
Dead.
Dennis had, in recent months, turned the kid into a project of a sort. He'd gotten to know him a little, trying to figure out what his deal was, and how he might better be able to fit in with the other kids.
Kenneth hadn't been shy in introducing to Dennis his own skewed view of the world. Inside Kenny's head was an honest-to-god war being fought against the white race and the hordes of impure monsters in human clothing.
The less said about his opinion on girls, the better.
Dennis had, in all honesty, been prepared for something like this. Before even approaching Kenny, he knew that there was something up with the kid that made people want to keep a distance. Something awkward and ill-fitting, if not exactly wrong.
Dennis had indulged him in a few spirited debates and arguments as well, trying his best to balance between a total condemnation in everything the kid believed was sacred, and to not antagonize him overmuch by going overboard and pushing him away.
And yet, there had been some moments between them. They had traded gaming handles and had played a sci-fi RTS together. Dennis balanced discussion on real issues with video games, trying honestly to become his friend.
And then Judgment Day had kidnapped him on Sunday. Stuffed him into a dark hole, his body squeezed tightly by walls as he went without food and water for days, suffering panic attack after panic attack.
All because the deranged cape had determined, unanimously, that he had been a potential danger to the public. A potential danger.
"Dismissed," Armsmaster called. The singular word was almost crystal clear in comparison to the rest of what he had said, sounding like speech muffled by walls stacked next to each other.
He roused awake and followed Carlos out of the conference room, not saying a word as the other Wards discussed amongst one another.
Dennis could only think about his… friend. Kenneth.
Mere hours after having given his statement to the police, he had taken his own life.
Just like that.
Kenneth could have become many things, but now he would never have a chance to. His story had ended. Some bastard had decided to put the final period to his book before throwing it in the trash before moving on to so many others, consigning them to torture.
The ones who didn't kill themselves were broken.
Those that did, left even more broken family members behind.
Kenneth's death, however… it was different.
It shoved the ineffectuality of Dennis' best efforts in his face. Nothing he had done mattered, in the end.
"Who the fuck pissed in your corn flakes?"
Once they made it back to the Wards room, Sophia had spoken up. She wore her full costume sans cowl, and she seemed to be in a good mood. "What do you think?"
Sophia's eyes widened at that. "Whoa! I was just asking!"
What? No, seriously, what did she think? He had to stop himself from biting her head off. She had just asked, after all, and it wasn't usual to take the villain situation so personally. "It's Judgment Day."
Sophia snorted. "What about him?"
What about him? "He's kidnapped and likely killed hundreds of people!"
Sophia laughed at him. Laughed. What the fuck was the matter with this sociopathic b… Carlos and Dean stopped walking and turned to watch their conversation. Even Missy had returned upon hearing Dennis shout.
Sophia raised an eyebrow. "I remember your ass was partying alongside the rest of the city when the news broke that the Nazis bit it. I'm just surprised your tune suddenly changed. Seriously. What's up with you?"
"Someone I know died," Dennis explained. "My… friend. Kenneth Georges."
"You were friends with a Nazi?"
"He wasn't a Nazi!" Dennis shouted.
"So Judgment Day got the wrong person," Sophia said. "This Kenneth guy didn't deserve—"
"To get put inside a dark room for forty-eight hours straight? I don't know, Sophia. You tell me! I'm not saying that Kenneth was perfect, but he was… he fucking tried, alright? He was confused and he wanted to make sense of this fucked up planet filled with psychos and monsters and maybe he took a wrong turn, but that doesn't mean he deserved to get murdered!"
"I thought he didn't kill kids," Sophia said. "Didn't Armsmaster say that? Judgment Day killed this guy?"
Dean Stansfield, Gallant, approached the two and spoke. "He killed himself after he was put through mental and physical torture, Sophia."
"I knew y'all were taking this too lightly," Sophia smirked. "Back on Sunday after we had that big-ass meeting and y'all were whooping and hollering about a new dawn and a new day. No more Nazis. Like this shit wasn't bound to happen."
"What do you mean?" Missy asked.
"Please. I mean, who else was gonna solve this Nazi problem but another psycho who just swings hard the other way? The heroes weren't ever gonna take a stance like this on them, not when they had publicity to worry about. Not when the damn people they want to put in prison also decide their popularity. And if you think the Nazis didn't have 'normals', people in the center, that supported them for at least being 'community-minded' or some bullshit like that, then boy do I have a bridge to sell to your ginger ass."
"So we shouldn't have celebrated," Dennis growled. "Is that what you wanna tell me?"
They hadn't even done any actual celebration. The PRT and the Protectorate had told them straight up not to. All they'd done was go out for lunch, looking on the bright side of things. The Neo-Nazis being gone was an unequivocal benefit for the city. That hadn't meant that he had accepted Judgment Day's actions as 'justice'.
"I'm saying: I feel a helluva lot safer going to and from school nowadays," she said, batting her lashes. "I can breathe easier knowing the Neo fuckheads in school don't got any more weight to swing around. But I never expected nothin' different. When you hate Nazis enough to wanna get rid of them, you go after their audience once you run out of card-carriers. Anyone that might think to join them. Otherwise, what the fuck was the point? And don't lie to me, white people stay joining the Nazis—that's how we got to this fucking point. People like your boy Kenneth would have been meat in the front line if Judgment Day hadn't broken him. Probably saved you and your damn classmates from getting put on T-shirts."
It couldn't be that simple.
It wasn't. Dennis refused to be blindsided once more. Once bitten, twice shy.
If it hadn't stopped with the Nazis, then why the fuck would it stop with their audience?
"That's easy for you to say," Dennis growled. "Because he's not hunting you yet. Once he runs out of Nazis, their audience, all the people that he and you don't believe are worthy of living or improving themselves, who the fuck do you think he'd go after next, then? You think he's a fan of the government? No extremist is. And we are their enforcers. So tell me, Sophia. What are you gonna say when he comes knocking? What are you gonna do? No, scratch that, I don't give a shit. I'm tired."
"Dennis…" Dean sighed.
"First of all," Sophia said, "the fact that you think I automatically approve of Judgment Day is fuckin' ignorant, and don't tell me otherwise. I never said he was good. I was making a fucking point."
"Then what is it?" Dennis asked.
"He did right by me. And people like me. He won sympathy from a massive amount of people, and thus far, he only seems to have lost the white folks, but anyone with half a brain would have seen what he was about from the jump."
"And what is that?"
"Like I said: he swings hard from the other side of the Nazis. Use your imagination. Think about what the Nazis want. Subtract the white supremacists. You'll get: everything that the government doesn't protect or care about."
Dammit. This is why I hate Humanities.
The room was silent. Sophia looked around, her eyes widened, and then she said, "he's a fucking communist. And not just your basic-bitch universal healthcare communist, either. Did you even fucking hear what Armsmaster was talking about? He background-checked every single victim. Even tabulated their internet traffic and mathematically figured out the guy's politics just from that. But I saw that shit coming from the start. And I think y'all should have seen this coming too if you had a damn clue about what the Neo-Nazis were about. What they wanted. Carlos. Back me up, here."
"I recall mentioning it on Sunday," Carlos said. "But I was never enthusiastic about the deaths of the Neo-Nazis. I was more worried than relieved. I never saw that as a victory, even for a second. I saw it as defeat. Because that was what it was. The PRT lost. The Protectorate lost. We lost."
"Because we didn't bring them to justice," Sophia said, gesturing towards him. "We lost credibility. And now this S-class bastard who probably hates the government is looking to kill all white folks before somebody stops him. Probably not you, Dennis—he'd take mercy on a guy with red hair. Shit, you barely count as white."
He stopped himself from barking at her, recognizing her twisted gesture as an attempt to be cordial. She had an awful sense of humor. Just like Kenneth.
"But it's only a matter of time," Sophia continued. "Until he comes out and explains himself or something. I mean, sure, I'll accept that he's probably doing this shit for satisfaction. He just really wants to kill some Nazis and racist white folks. But eventually, it's gonna come to a point where he actually shares an idea rather than doing what he has been doing, which is murdering anyone with a certain idea. I mean, that's kinda obvious, right?"
Dennis couldn't fucking wait for that day, so he'd have something more concrete to despise.
Judgment Day II
Not for the first time today, a chill rode up Kenta's spine.
It happened more often than he appreciated. And to his shame, his eyes had been glued to the newspaper more often than not as he read the reports coming in about people being kidnapped every other moment.
White people. Presumably, people with covert ties to the racists.
He didn't know. It galled him that he didn't know.
He was torn between believing that soon, it would be his time, and becoming complacent that he would get a pass because he was not this crazed cape, this Judgment Day's preferred target.
And a larger part of him would rail at the sheer indignity of being relieved by such a fact.
Who in this world should have the claim to be able to victimize Lung? No one should even presume to have that honor and continue breathing.
No one but the Triumvirate, and he made sure to not provoke their ire.
And the Slaughterhouse Nine had yet to make a reappearance in Brockton Bay, this time while he was its reigning cape.
Cowards. Scavengers hunting small game. The Slaughterhouse were nothing but idiots that saw the killing of weaklings in droves as the ultimate form of expression. The only aspect in which the Nine had earned Lung's respect was in the fact that they still operated with relative immunity for thirty long years. Jack Slash, at least. That was power.
As usual, he made his way into the Red Dragon Chinese Restaurant in the dead of morning, an hour before it was open for business, appearing in person in order to measure the increase in his net worth. He preferred to do this sort of business in person. Let know joint or arm of his organization forget his presence.
He viewed his active participation as a mercy. It let his workers understand and come to terms with the fact that he was always there, he was always watching, and if they even so much as counted wrong by mistake, or tried to purposefully shortchange him, someone would die.
And Lung didn't abide by obsequious Japanese-style apologies. It was one of the worst things about his erstwhile culture, that, and he had no desire to incorporate it into his organization. If you fucked up, you either died, or you were forgiven after a simple explanation of where things went wrong.
He had experienced enough old people bowing down in a dogeza to realize that soothing hurt feelings was a waste of time, and thus money.
He walked ahead of his procession of bodyguards, an honor guard really as he didn't need protection to begin with, and proceeded down the stairs of the restaurant, towards the basement. Accountant Lo would be down there, having prepared for him an exhaustive breakdown of the accounts. He was a good worker, one of the few people in the organization that Lung wholeheartedly respected.
Any bitch could pick up and shoot a gun, but it took a real brain to interpret all the various different income streams of the organization and turn them into something legible, something understandable for even Kenta to follow along with. Kenta had never viewed himself as dim, but he could see a difference between professionals being difficult by using too much advanced terminology, and team players communicating effectively.
And accountant Lo was a good communicator. He was valuable.
The basement was choked with smoke. Accountant Lo stood up from his chair and immediately rounded his desk to bow at Kenta, proffering a notebook with the accounts.
Kenta held two fingers out, and one of the people in the office immediately shoved a cigarette between them. He brought the cigarette to his lips and held his index finger in front of the tip, lighting it with his power.
Then, he opened up the book, and started reading.
The numbers were bigger than last month. Good.
It made sense, however. With the empire now effectively gone, his numbers would eventually see a sharp rise in increase.
"How much bigger can we expect to grow?" Lung rumbled.
Accountant Lo rattled off a quick figure. "We can see a potential doubling of numbers."
A doubling. Lo, as a rule, did not overpromise. That was death in this line of work. To promise something as great as a doubling of numbers clearly meant that he—
BOOOOOOOOM.
000
I cupped Maria's face as she pouted. "Tonight, Maria. We need to do this tonight."
"Okay," she murmured.
I didn't like her reluctance. It almost felt like a curse. Like she knew that it somehow wouldn't end well. I had done my damndest to help give her pointers on her work. She had been grateful, gobbling up my feedback and producing even greater analyses than before. Like she was coming closer and closer to shattering the very fabric of society itself.
Her work was immaculate.
Why, then, shouldn't she have the time to go out with me on a real dinner date, all expenses paid by me? I knew that she didn't care about the money aspect. I had already told her how little I cared about my vast riches, given that I had taken them from Nazis. She knew that I would never try to put on airs or act superior on the grounds if money of all things. I despised the concept itself!
I pulled away from her and stood up, turning away from her. I headed towards the kitchen, to the fridge, to get a beer.
Maria was going to break up with me.
I made sure not to ask my power. To not so much as even think about the question. But I knew, already.
At least, I could take solace in the fact that she didn't hate me. That was unlikely. Probably.
Chances that Maria hates me?
1.25%
One in eighty.
Somehow, the man in me still found those odds as unacceptable.
But the intellectual in me saw those numbers as reassuring. It wouldn't take much to make her hate me. Ergo, she knew what she loved, and what she hated.
She was strong, mentally.
Too strong for someone as inept as I to have somehow tricked her into liking me.
What is love, power?
Baby don't hurt me? Don't hurt me? No more?
What is love in a percentage form?
Still nothing. I sighed.
What are the odds that I will learn what love is in life?
^$#%^$%&$^
Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.
The reset hit and the owies stopped. One of the first things I had discovered while power-testing Alabaster's ability was precisely this: what it meant to ask questions of Dinah's power.
Precognition. Not postcognition. I couldn't ask it what the odds were of a past event having occurred. I could only ask about the future.
And I couldn't ask such boneheaded, idiotically subjective questions that demanded so much philosophical woolgathering as the nature of love, or fuck, beauty.
Ambiguity was a poison to Dinah's power.
…And I really should stop calling it 'Dinah's power'.
I took the beer from the fridge, pulled the tab with one hand, and took a long gulp from it, all the while as I made it back to the couch, in which Maria was working away on her laptop, pursuing glory and beauty in her own way.
She would be so ready to live without me, given her sheer breadth of genius.
"You asked me, once," I said to her, "if I was real. I find myself having to ask you the same question, Maria. Are you real?"
She looked up at me and grinned. "Why do you ask that?"
"You've yet to aggravate me. In even the slightest." But maybe that should change, soon.
Maybe I should try to see the ways in which Maria did not shine so radiantly that they caused sunspots in my eyes?
"I somehow don't believe that at all," she snorted.
"That's racist."
"Why?"
"A black man can't just be happy with his partner? Can't a woman ever be enough to stop our voracious appetite? Clearly, you're—"
"That's sexist."
"Why?"
"Women are infinite in potential. We should be enough."
I took a moment to consider those words, then laughed. I could never just be the sole troll. She just had to say some shit that brought my head to a spin. I sat next to her, turned on the TV, and sighed. "Maria."
"Hmm?"
"I appreciate every moment I've spent alongside of you. I really do."
"Me too—most of 'em."
She stopped typing, turned to me, and kissed me on my lips. "You're great."
And yet… she was likely thinking of ending things.
"Are you thinking of ending things?"
76.56%
Oh god.
Oh my god.
"No," she shook her head. "Not really. I'm always just… considering us. Trying to make sure we're right for one another. But I want us to work, Judge."
I felt a bitter taste in my mouth at her words. I felt my stomach clench, my chest feel uncomfortable.
I took a moment to snap out of it, and return to my can of beer.
It is what it is.
Plus, I had a 23% chance. I hadn't tried to look at those timelines but if I only—
Ugh.
I'm… fucked. She's gonna dump me because I'm fucking insane and—
"Breaking news!" The TV broke out.
An explosion had happened at Lung's Chinese restaurant. Twenty dead. I had zero doubts that some of them had been civilians.
I stood up and walked towards the kitchen as I summoned my phone and sent harsh texts to Bakuda.
'WHAT THE FUCK?!'
'Those people were not innocent. Maybe one or two, but isn't that a good price to pay for Lung?"
Chances that Lung died?
12.53%.
'And by the way, I tried hard to make this work, but Lung doesn't hang out anywhere that there won't be collaterals.'
Collaterals? These were living beings!
Dammit.
'Fine. Of course. Just collaterals. We'll have a talk about this when we next meet, Bakuda. Until then, are you safe?'
'Yeah.'
I returned to the living room, to Maria, and sat besides her. Then, I kissed her on the cheek. "Duty's calling. But we'll still be on for tonight, alright?"
"Of course."
I grinned at her. "Your partner is about to slay a dragon."
"Niiice. Go get 'em, tiger!"
I kissed her on her lips, in spite of her mockery.
What the FUCK DID I DO WRONG?!
SERIOUSLY?!
With that heartbreaking mindset, I dressed up for battle, wearing my costume, and sending a Crusader ghost out towards the scene of the Bakuda explosion. The stupid, dumb, fucking bitch—
Was bitch the right word? Maybe that was too gendered.
I fucking hated her, though. Oh god, did I hate her for what she just pulled.
Holy shit, Bakuda, you are fucked when I find you.
000
Sophia couldn't believe that this shit had all gone down in the span of twenty minutes.
Twenty fucking minutes.
Velocity had been first to arrive on the scene, confirming Lung's presence, and that he was still alive. Right before he tried to sedate the man, Lung had grabbed him by his wrist and tossed him away like so much trash, injuring him severely.
Armsmaster had arrived three minutes later, to an already eight-foot-tall Lung, who spent much of the early game in their fight running away and forcing his power into overdrive.
The Protectorate had arrived in force ten minutes after Velocity.
Lung was now fifteen feet tall and busy scaling a burning apartment building as the beginnings of wings seemed to grow on his back. The Wards had been tasked to secure the perimeter, watch out for Oni Lee, and evacuate the buildings—though the people in the neighborhood were honestly doing a fine job just running the fuck away as quickly as they possibly could.
Lung stayed around the burning building, hurling fireballs at Assault and Battery, who were busy hopping around and trying to attract his attention while Dauntless and Miss Militia launched projectile after projectile on the draconic cape.
They were holding back. Trying not to destroy the building that Lung was burning. In doing so, they were letting him grow.
They lacked killer instinct.
"This is pathetic."
The voice of an older man appeared from right behind her where she stood, on top of a building, watching the ground and the fight. Shadow Stalker hopped away and unholstered her twin crossbows, pointing them at the new arrival.
He wore black leather shoes, fitted suit pants, a blue and white striped button-up, and over his shoulders, he wore a white coat as though it was a cape.
And on his face was art mask that seemed to block out the bright white shine that exuded from his exposed skin.
He floated, looking unreal as he stared on impassively at the destruction.
"I wouldn't expect anything else from them."
"Did you do this?" Sophia asked, still aiming her weapons at him.
"A disobedient agent of mine." He held out his hand, and suddenly, he was holding a person. A person dressed in black, with a demon mask. He dropped him, and he fell on the ground bonelessly. Oni Lee.
Dead.
"Though I suppose it is my fault in the end. I sought to test her, forgetting that tests were how she ended up in her position to begin with. It was cruel of me, expecting her to obey just like that."
What the hell is he talking about?
"I really must ask, Sophia," he said, and she felt a chill run up her spine. Oh god. Oh fuck. He knows my name. "Out of all the ways in which you could spend what little time you have left in school before being thrust into an unforgiving society that would rather see you broken and defeated than happy—you chose to spend it beating on some girl that never even did shit to you." He sighed. "Far be it from me to preach respectability and being the bigger person, but don't you think it's a waste of your time? Or are you so institutionalized that you can't even see beyond the petty pleasure of paying your pain forward? Answer the question."
"Uh-I-I don't know! What are you talking about?"
"If you want to hurt someone, then hurt someone that has it coming," he said. "Do something good for society. Or hell, if you hate society, then at least break the right pillars. If they won't let you, I can give you a shot."
What the fuck?
"Alternatively, you can continue being their dog, and you can keep deluding yourself into thinking that anything you do matters. That even that girl you keep tormenting won't show you up one day and render you into less than a footnote in history. It's up to you."
He spoke clearly and evenly, as though the carnage up ahead didn't affect him at all. As she looked around, she saw dozens upon dozens of those ghostly copies of his floating around, evacuating buildings and clearing the streets.
"I see the allure in staying in school," he continued. "Hanging out with friends. Feeling in control. But it's a far cry from the real thing. And school is not a place that will ever fulfill you."
"I'm not interested."
He snorted. "A white girl cannot be that important to you. Either of them."
"I'm not interested," she growled.
"And if I asked you to stop bullying Taylor, or else?"
Why the fuck did he care?
You know what? Fuck it. Why do I care?
"Fine! Just…" she hissed. "Shut up. Please."
He chuckled.
"Finally got that squared away," he muttered.
000
I was more disappointed about the failed recruitment pitch than relieved that I could finally do Hebert a solid. Having read of her story, I had honestly expected to care more about her plight than not.
Then again, I had read worm as a teenager, and adulthood had somewhat eroded my empathy.
Sophia had serious potential. She was young, not afraid to kill, and certainly not a good fit for regular society. She was a warrior. A petty idiot as well, but that could have been drilled out of her.
Then again, I didn't relish the idea of looking after yet another hellion. Bakuda was already a handful enough as it was.
It was finally time.
I floated up in the air and grew.
Five meters. Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Fifty.
Sixty-five.
The fighting stopped as I slowly floated towards the burning building, taller than the colossal titan itself.
I grabbed Lung with one hand and put him inside my inventory.
Then, I engaged Stormtiger's power.
One thing I had discovered with Fenja and Menja's power was that it didn't just multiply my own physical dimensions, but the dimensions of everything I held. Including every power I had.
Stormtiger's aerokinesis usually wouldn't have been powerful enough to choke the oxygen out of an entire city block.
Mine was.
I spawned over a dozen ghosts, sending them flying towards the Protectorate while I erased the oxygen in a fifty-by-fifty meter circle, spreading my arms widely.
The Protectorate tried to fight off my ghosts, but as the air thinned out, their struggles stopped and they collapsed. My ghosts picked them up and flew them away.
Lung burned his way out from my inventory seconds later.
Though its structural integrity reset constantly, Lung had figured out a way just by sheer overwhelming firepower. Not even Kaiser had figured this out.
Lung tried to flap his rapidly developing wings as he flew down towards the dead-zone of air.
He summoned fire that sputtered away weakly. The building's flames died out.
I raised my hand over it, and summoned a scoop of ocean water from my hand, dunking it over the building.
Then another.
And then another.
The flames had died. The heat had died.
And Lung was fighting to stay on his feet as he stumbled over the streets like a drunken dragon.
I shrunk down to a human size. The air returned to the dead zone, but the fire had been well and truly killed by now.
And Lung took a deep breath as he stood there, in the middle of the road, a city block away from me. He was cresting fifteen meters. Eren-tier.
I ran towards him.
He turned around the instant that I did. I summoned my sword.
He tried to gather his flames.
I coated Sting across the blade in a thin, inviolate strip, giving the sword a conceptual level of sharpness.
But sharpness was sharpness. The power of my cut would depend on my edge alignment.
Coordination. Reflexes. Victor's weapon skills, and the skills I had robbed from Fenja and Menja.
All of it combined.
Lung threw a fireball the size of a sedan at me. I hopped away easily.
And he was in range.
I sliced his leg off at the thigh.
As he lost balance, I sliced his other leg off.
Then I jumped onto his chest and sliced off his arm.
I kicked off his chest, backflipping away from him and landing softly, having engaged Purity's power for a moment.
I switched my sword for my spear and walked up to him. He tried to drag himself away with his wings and one arm, roaring unintelligibly as he did.
Hmmm. What about the sun?
No. Didn't want to burn my coat again. It was brand new.
"There's nowhere for you to hide, Lung," I said. "Kenta. Embrace your end. Embrace your judgment."
He roared again.
I had to jog a little to catch up to him.
Once I did, I stabbed him in his heart.
Then, the three other hearts that he had somehow grown during his rampage. The timelines made it clear that even his heart was redundant at this point.
On the fourth and final stab, he stopped moving.
And began to shrink, excess flesh sloughing off from him and bathing the streets in blood and gore as it all seemed to lose cohesion. I floated above the mess.
And the Protectorate arrived in force, penning me in on both sides.
"Judgment Day!" Armsmaster roared, holding his halberd towards me. "You're under arrest!"
I disappeared my spear and gave him a nod. "There is nothing I could possibly say to you that would lead us to come to a mutual understanding. To any of you. Instead, I will advise gratitude. You're safe from me. You're welcome."
I summoned a ghost next to me and had him grab me.
"Stop—!"
Inventory.
Then, a warehouse. A warehouse in which Bakuda was standing in a corner, penned in by three ghosts. I stomped over to her. "What. The fuck. Was that. I told you. No random violence. Restaurant workers died. Residents. Civilians!"
"Maybe you shouldn't have ordered me around with minimal help!"
"You could have asked for it!" I roared. "At any point!" I ripped the mask off my face and disappeared it.
She snorted. "So this is how you are, then? You don't have the guts to break a few eggs? What kind of revolution are you really looking to—"
I grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her close, squeezing her forehead hard against mine. "You should be fucking grateful that I'm not out there breaking all the eggs that I want. You should be thankful that I'm holding back. That's what this restraint of mine is: for your benefit. Not fucking mine."
"You—"
"Why the ever-loving fuck would I ever want to help these colonizers out anyway? You have any idea how rotten this fucking planet is? Do you even have a concept of how unfair it is, how things are? If I wanted to play the mindless terrorist, I wouldn't be going after Nazis in the first fucking place. But you wanna goad me into embracing chaos, do you? You've no idea what it means."
I let go of her and walked away, pacing around. "This is just—this is just a fucking illusion. The restraint, the soft hand I've taken on this planet. It's an illusion. A trick. And you want to break it. You want to make it undeniable that really, what I should be doing is destroying the rot, and not playing the fucking janitor!" I roared. "Cleaning up the shit and muck of this rotten fucking society! Goddammit, Kimberly!"
"You don't want to destroy society," Bakuda growled. "Not while you're still living in it. Still enjoying the benefits. Don't lie."
I stopped pacing, looked at her, and giggled. "And how far do you think I am from doing something that might hurt me? You don't know me at all, Bakuda. I might not want to murder every single human on this version of Earth and every other, but I sure as hell cannot stomach the world as it is. And one day, I'll finally accept that. But until then," I murmured, looking down on the ground.
Thinking of Maria.
"I'll try to find reasons to stop being bitter." Because this trajectory of mine… it was wrong.
I looked up at her and smiled. "I'm sorry for testing you. I know you're shit at exams."
"Fuck you!" she shouted. Poked her right in her sensitive spot, but it had to happen.
"That being said, and I'm really sorry that I have to do this, but you do need a timeout."
"W-what?"
"Six hours," I said. "Don't worry. It'll be over in no-time."
I walked up to her. "Wait, wait! Give me another chance!"
I tilted my head. "This is your other chance. I won't lie and say that there won't be another," I snorted. "I am, after all, quite fond of you. But I'm hoping this will be enough to dissuade you from ever pulling the same shit again."
"Please—"
"You'll thank me, Bakuda. Seriously," I smiled. "Then we can put this behind us, alright? I promise. I won't be mad anymore."
I took her by the arm. She cried, trying to pry my ironclad grip off. "No, no, please—!"
"See you."
I put her in the dark.