A Waken 19.7
The man watched me.
And I watched him.
David had adopted a costume mostly like his original one. A simple padded body suit with room to move in and a cloak with wide open sleeves. Only his mask had changed. One that was open, leaving his mouth and brow clear to see. It was friendly and more open than the faceless mask he'd once worn a decade ago.
While we had encountered one another thrice before now, we'd never been alone—by human standards—and we'd never spoken back and forth directly. The first time he talked at me. The second and third we hadn't said a word to one another. I don't think he even realized until after our second encounter that I wasn't one of Count's pawns. Everything I'd done I did of my own volition.
That had somehow never crossed his mind until then. He was too self-absorbed in 'his' story. Now, he wasn't actually sure what to think.
"And people say I'm good with words," I prompted. "I'd have thought two blunt threats in one night would actually get more of a response, but I suppose consulting your tiny body of remaining Pets takes time."
If not for quantum brainwaves, I'd not have noticed the wave of discomfort he felt. Fortunately, David had no mind-reading power and my face was hidden behind the faceplate of Eirene's helmet.
It was hard to keep a straight face with his Shard 'screaming' at me. Literally screaming. No words. No thoughts. Absolutely nothing coherent about it.
It was, for all intents and purposes, dead. A sort of living death of unending suffering.
Administrator closed herself off slightly, more to silence the noise for herself than for me. It was ugly to her. Worse than she'd ever thought of the Case-53s. With them, she'd wanted to look away in disgust. For Priest, she wanted to put it out of its misery as a form of mercy.
Unpleasant as it was though, it told me things. The connection to David was still there and through it I could watch and listen.
The passing and flowing of memories was murky. I couldn't read them. Maybe with time and practice, but in the moment it was like seeing a conversation between five men each speaking English, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, and Russian. No two brains were alike, but somehow, they all understood one another. To me, it sounded like gibberish and I caught maybe every fourth word.
Only a second or two had passed since I'd last spoken but I didn't feel like wasting time. It was a precious commodity after all.
"I'll save you the trouble," I told him. "There is not, and never will be, an accord between you and I. I can't overlook the things you've done and you are unwilling to share the pedestal with anyone but yourself."
Mentally, his denials were quick but that meant little.
"We're going to fight, David," I assured him. "Fighting is all that is left between us. No need to worry your head off."
His brow rose. "That's not—"
"We're far enough along I don't think either of us needs to lie to the other."
His expression hardened in, admittedly understandable, annoyance. "As if you've never told a lie?"
"Oh, I've lied plenty," I agreed. "I've lied. I've cheated. I've stolen. I've thrown people's lives into the fire and I've killed." And I accepted it, because that was my responsibility. "And even given all of that, you and I are not the same."
Slowly my voice began to harden.
"I don't delude myself about it with high talk about necessary sacrifices. I made my choices. I've accepted their consequences. I will move forward and keep going, because we're not there yet." I looked the man in the eye and smiled solemnly, even though he couldn't see it. "So look back, David. I've made my peace. Make yours."
"That's it then?" he asked. "No negotiation. No search for compromise. The cycle continues."
"Don't talk like you're not the one continuing it," I dismissed.
"It takes two to waltz," he quipped.
"Spare me the platitude. It's not that clever. Tell me what I've ever done that has so egregiously wronged you. Was it when I headed off Blue Cosmos' war on human decency at the pass? When I stopped the broken triggers and the massacre of Madison from letting you paint yourself a bloody hero? Or maybe it was when I started killing your pet monsters one by one."
"You can't change the world without getting your hands bloody."
"You didn't get your hands bloody," I hissed.
I'd been trying to be less angry. Angry and indignant was part of who I made Newtype to be, but it wasn't what I wanted anymore. It wasn't what I'd wanted for a long time.
Still though.
Some things you simply can't take calmly.
"You hid from the world and you used a master power to make other people bloody their hands for you. It might be my sword that took her life, but you killed Noelle, and hundreds if not thousands of others."
"The game is the game," he replied calmly, feeling like my anger meant he'd won something. Child.
"People's lives aren't a game to me. I could have easily fought my battles from the safety of my lab. You think I can't make this suit operate on remote? That I couldn't have let Veda do all the work? Thank god I made that choice. It's easy to sit in some chair far away and shrug off the price of your actions when you don't have to see the corpses with your own eyes and smell death."
"I was at Manhattan," he countered. "I've seen more than corpses. I've seen the cost of failure."
"And you failed to understand it," I retorted. "Contessa was one step away from finding the answer. She could have ended the war with the Shards there but you lashed out at her and you—you—spun the world into the mess it is now."
He blinked, confusion overcoming his features before he glanced back.
Administrator glared at him from a mile away, hands clenched into fists.
I hadn't been there.
She had.
They all had, and through them I finally understood how Count was killed, why Lalah Sune hung around in the Network, and I saw the essence of how David screwed it all up.
"You're a coward, David. All that power. All that power and you could have been a great hero… Instead, you're just delusional and lost. Everyone's lost but most of us aren't so far up our own asses we've deluded ourselves into thinking we're the only ones who see."
He turned back to face me and I calmed myself down because anger might be fair, but it wasn't going to make a difference. It didn't matter anymore. What was done was done. Count was dead. Noelle was dead. Scion was dead.
At one point or another… Someone had to just let it all go.
"You want to be a hero?" I asked him.
I knew what his answer would be. It was obvious long before now. But no one would say I didn't try.
"Stand down. I won't sit idly by while so-called heroes overthrow countries and put lives at risk to parade in front of cameras. You're not heroes. You're warlords with PR and I reject it."
"You don't get to make that choice," he charged.
"Watch me." I repeated myself, "You're not the only one in the world with power and you can't take it all for yourself without pushback. This is us pushing back. Stand down or be put down."
"A very compassionate threat."
"The inevitability of a failure to understand."
He narrowed his eyes. He'd been content to listen more than speak up to a point. He thought he had my measure though. Let him think. I just needed him to think a little bit more.
"And the alternative is to let children run wild with their fantasies?" he asked.
"The future is always a fantasy," I mused. "It's not real unless someone makes it real."
With derision he said, "Peace for all time."
I watched him, waiting for him to work it out of his system.
"Every conqueror in history claimed to be acting in the name of peace," he said, clearly having only a superficial understanding of history. "Their lives all ended the same way. The cycle of violence continues, abated for a time at best. You can't end violence. All you can do is focus it."
"A very noble observation from the man who thinks he can fix it," I teased.
"You're not untouchable, Newtype. You can't go around doing as you please. Someone will challenge you and your machine. No amount of noble ambition will ever convince everyone that you are right. There will always be those seeking their own security or power and they won't be convinced by words."
"Who's trying to convince who with words?" I inquired. "I'm not threatening to talk at you. I'm threatening to bring to bear more force than even you can stop and hit until something breaks."
"You're as addicted to violence as anyone," he accused.
"I'm addicted to progress. Violence is the unfortunate resort people like you corner the rest of us into when we'd much rather be doing something else."
"Everyone can make that claim."
"Everyone can. You should listen to what I say more often. No one is blameless. Everyone is justified. I don't say it as a soundbite."
"Tell that to single mothers—"
"I am a single mother," I jested, "and believe me when I say that line means nothing coming from you. How many single mothers have you made David? Never mind the single fathers but gender equality just isn't your thing I get it."
That got a rise out of him. And one he didn't hide so well. "And you think unleashing your machine on the world won't end in violence?"
"Of course, it will. Someday. Someday, when the violence has passed the world will continue on with one more problem solved, even if solving it came with tragedy. That's what you don't get David. You think the death of Manhattan was an unforgivable failure, but the alternative was Scion annihilating us all."
That got an even stronger rise.
"You didn't fail David," I pressed. "You saved the world, and you paid the price for victory. Then you decided that a million dead meant killing a million more didn't matter. That that blood justified all the blood that followed. You ran away. When the world needed you to actually step up and tell the truth about what happened, you didn't. You hid and you denied us the chance to make our own decision to try and long con us all. Just so you could be the hero. That's when you failed as a hero."
"And what is a hero?" he asked with veiled anger and disgust. "Someone who does what they want, or someone who does what is needed?"
He was thinking about something else though. Something off to the side that wasn't at the forefront of his mind… Ah.
So that's how Leet was sourcing support for his machine. Clever, I'd give him that. Even if David did beat me, he'd still have to contend with Veda. If Leet were smart—and I knew he was—he could pass off what he was really building as something else. Something David wanted.
A weapon to use against Veda.
"Those people didn't deserve to die," he insisted, in an odd moment of bitter clarity undiluted by his delusions. "They were innocent. So are a lot of people. They die anyway because abuses of power and cycles of hate and destruction are what they're born into."
"People like the Heartbroken?" I asked. "Children who had the misfortune of being born to Heartbreaker of all people, who you were prepared to sacrifice because innocence doesn't matter?"
That bait he didn't take, verbally at least. He pushed it aside so easily, like many things he'd pushed aside because he felt he was justified.
"Humanity has to change at its most fundamental level," he argued, "because it can't escape. It won't do that on its own. You can't just leave it up to the world to do whatever it wants. I didn't create Cauldron. I didn't create Blue Cosmos. I didn't make people believe in the PRT or the Protectorate."
"And yet so much of the support for the Titans hinges on the idea that you are the 'good one.' The one who didn't abide. Who didn't go along with his peers and started working against them. You promoted that idea, David."
"And you're not promoting yourself as the good one?" he asked back.
"What I do has no bearing on what you do. You say humanity has to change, but you're just perpetuating that cycle yourself… Taking it all on yourself." Oh. "That's your grand plan's conclusion in the end, isn't it? Take all the sins of the world onto yourself as if the world will never hold it against anyone when you're gone."
He narrowed his gaze and firmly said, "We make our sacrifices."
I had to give it to Count. She'd pegged him. A true honest to god Messiah complex.
"How childish," I commented. "When faced with the question of evil, your answer is to declare all evil equal and place yourself above it, as if there won't be any fallout to spin new cycles when you're gone."
"Not if humanity evolves enough to surpass its limitations and break the cycle."
Lalah Sune. "You're not her, David. You never will be."
Not to toot my own horn, but I was probably closer to whatever Lalah Sune was than anyone else on Earth and I didn't get there being anything like David.
He really was pursuing a fantasy.
And there was his tragedy.
A man with so much power, so desperate to do good with it. A man who realized the limits of his power but couldn't see himself as anything else. A man who dedicated himself to becoming a vessel for power to the point he simply couldn't step away.
In an odd way, he was the least villainous villain I'd ever dealt with. Nothing like Lung, Kaiser, the Simurgh or even Calvert. David was selfless. He was simply too wrapped up in a narrow view of what he could do to act on it.
And in that, "We are different. Unlike you, I'm prepared to walk away."
I wasn't just talking about my pending departure. He didn't know about that, and it wasn't the point.
I realized more than a year ago a time would come for me to take a step back. I was too brazen. Too aggressive. If I just kept going and going and never stopped, I would be no different from David. Just because everyone was justified, didn't mean every action was justified.
My time to step aside was already coming. To move over and let the world start making the choices it had been too desperate and too afraid to make for itself. Maybe that's the real meaning of being a hero. Someone with all the power to do whatever they want, but who steps aside because they know its too much power.
It was too much power.
And I was not a tyrant.
"And your amnesty"—he glanced back toward Administrator—"applies to them too?"
"Justice for all," I replied, sadder than I thought I'd be despite knowing the outcome. "Justice for some is justice for none."
He scowled. "What was that about platitudes?"
"Mine's less twisted than yours."
"You can't control them," he warned, "and they will never forgive what was done."
"They'll just have to change, like everyone else. And then we'll have to change some more. But you're not going to do any of that," I acknowledged. "For all your talk of change, you can't. You're still living in that day. You have been for ten long years and you're prepared to wait ten more if that's what it takes."
"It has to change."
"And you have to be the one to change it, because you're the only one who can."
"And you're not?" he asked rhetorically.
"The world has the right to make its own fate. We all made our sins. We all looked away when it suited us. We bayed for blood when it suited us. We let fools and monsters represent us and we buried heroes and innocents under our own failings. Amnesty for all applies to me as well, and you."
"I'm not that gullible. I've been in this game longer than you have, Newtype."
"And look at how much you've accomplished."
"That'll never work," he retorted without a second thought. He saw the unspoken insult but was a bit too experienced and weathered to react to it. "People do not forgive or forget so easily. They'll simply stew and the violence will continue."
"And it occurs to me that there's only one person left who created that swirling world of pain and suffering who hasn't paid for his role in it. Alexandria has. So did Fortuna and Scion. Even Lalah Sune paid some penance. Scion and the Simurgh are dead, and I know you didn't control her directly."
His emotions on that were complicated.
He'd always planned to deal with her himself, he just wasn't sure how. He'd realized somewhere along the line that the Endbringers were making attacks that made his efforts to destabilize the world easier. Eidolon had been integral to the formation of that world, the emergence of heroes throughout the US and Europe that became the backbone of keeping the world economy and human civilization from plummeting into the abyss. He knew how to take it apart and he saw the Endbringers going along with it.
But he'd never willingly intended for it to happen. Something about his Shard, the other Entity's equivalent of Administrator. Some kind of system error or a failsafe built into it activated the engines that we came to call the Endbringers.
It was never a conscious choice on David's part.
"Amnesty for all," I offered one last time. "A look into the mirror for the entire world, to accept how close we were to the edge and accept that we all did what we had to do to survive. Humans. Capes. Radicals. Shards. We can spend the next thousand years pointing fingers at who did what and why and nothing would ever change. It's time to let go."
I tried. I knew the outcome and I still tried. He had saved the world long ago. I wouldn't be alive to judge his actions if Scion had destroyed us all. Administrator wouldn't be free. Veda wouldn't exist. That cycle would have continued onward.
It was sad how blind he was to how he'd already done what he wanted to do, but simply couldn't live with the results.
"So make up your mind, David. What does it mean to you to be a hero? Is it just power and action, or is it making the choice that is right for the world rather than yourself?"
I knew his answer long before he gave it. In most ways, this wasn't any different from my brawl with Leet. For two people who saw things so differently, talk just went past them. We couldn't agree and we'd never convince the other we were right. We stood too far apart and there was nothing either of us wanted or needed the other could provide.
He'd made his choice long ago.
"Then we fight," I declared. "Go rally your troops, David. Three days is all you get before I put an end to this long war of yours."
"You think you can?"
"I think I have no intention of leaving you to brood for more years, forcing those who come after me to solve the problem that you are. When I step back, it'll be because I achieved everything I could. And before you ask, no. Administrator won't be getting involved. This is a human fight. It's humanity's future that is being decided. She's running the show on her side now, and she's going to sit back and let us fight this out until it's done."
That… That confused him.
He didn't believe me at first. He dismissed the claim entirely. Of course Administrator would fight. We were allies.
Except I just let the statement hang and Administrator flew away.
As she left, it dawned on him how serious I was, denials be damned. He went from assuming it was a trick, to figuring Administrator would step in if I was about to lose, to wondering if I was crazy. Maybe I was but if I was, my crazy had reason.
"This world will forge its own future," I reminded. "One way or another. Come what may. Scion is dead. That cycle is over. Administrator ended it when she seized control of Scion's Shards."
The puzzle piece clicked in his head. The realization fit into place, answering some of his unanswered questions. My powers were Scion's powers. That's why I could reproduce his light.
"Now we come to the end of our cycle, David, and finish writing our story."
Abruptly, I turned and Eirene exploded through the sound barrier and flew away.
Behind me, David lingered and thought. He lingered and thought a lot, but quickly as he set off back the way he'd come to check on his people.
As David and I flew apart, I caught one last glimpse of his mind.
The Pets were gone.
He'd dropped the power.
I smiled grimly and closed my eyes.
He really just wasn't a smart man.
"Checkmate."
The power was useless against me.
Now that a fight was coming and clearly unavoidable, he dropped it.
And it was the nail in his coffin.
Because David couldn't comprehend a fight in any terms other than a race to see who was the most powerful.
"Veda," I called as Administrator flew in alongside me.
"I will point Kinue Crossroad where to look."
The last of the skeletons in his closet.
The Pets. The ones who did what they did at his beckoning, who denied and pleaded innocence because they couldn't point the finger at him while he lived in their heads. Because he'd deluded himself to think his power didn't involve mastering anyone.
This was it.
The final moves.
"Door please, factory."
The portal opened ahead. Administrator and I flew through and came out before the factory in Brockton Bay. Our arrival drew attention from those who were out and about. I crouched as Administrator's feet set down.
"Done?" she asked.
I climbed out of my suit and dropped beside her. "Almost. Get everything ready." I turned toward the factory. "I'll be there soon."
She gave a small indistinct nod and just stood there because she'd yet to grasp things like how standing in the middle of a lot and not moving was kind of weird. She never bothered to learn. I suppose it didn't matter since she'd leave when I left.
NT: It's time.
BG: no shit?
NT: no shit
BG: fuck
BG: finally
BG: you coming?
I took a deep breath and beat down that basic instinct.
It was time to step back.
NT: no
NT: get your team
NT: Veda will coordinate
NT: go be heroes
BG: who needs a hero when you have a villain?
NT: call yourself whatever you want
I don't think she really believed in heroes or villains. At this point, Alice just liked messing with people.
I sent a message to Administrator, letting her know it was time.
Outside she flew straight up and then streaked through the air toward the north. It would be faster for her to get to Tibet that way.
"You are alright with this?" Veda asked in my ear.
"Yeah." I crossed the factory floor and went toward a familiar door hidden in an electrical room. It wasn't much of a secret now but it still had some nostalgia to me. "I'm not going to be around much longer. I don't want anyone to look at Londo Bell and ask what it is without me."
I knocked at the door.
"I want them to know exactly what Londo Bell is after I'm gone."
The door unlocked and I let myself in.
A voice called as I reached the bottom of the stairs, music quieting as Trevor dialed down the volume.
"Hey," he greeted without looking. "One sec. Just finishing something."
"Take your time," I replied.
I walked through the workshop. It had changed a lot since it was mine. Trevor's tech was all function over form. Industrial and a bit grungy in look. That was just appearances though. He'd managed to convert the entire space into a more proper lab rather than an assembly line for building and arming Gundams. Half finished projects and design ideas were all over the place.
Only the back wall near the lift to the basement was dedicated to the suits standing in two of my old alcoves.
Kimaris, repaired from the battle with the Simurgh and Barbatos, upgraded bit-by-bit over the past year.
Trevor was behind Barbatos, fiddling with the cockpit.
Mikazuki sat on a table, snacking on sunflower seeds instead of his usual sweets.
"Hey," I greeted.
"Hey," he greeted back. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah," I lied.
He caught on of course. For someone who wasn't a cape, Mikazuki had shockingly sharp instincts. Years of living between life and death will do that to a person.
"Hey, Taylor." Trevor stepped back and wiped his hands. "Sorry. In the middle of a refit."
"You can finish," I told him. "I just wanted to tell you it's time."
He didn't react at first. "Time fo—" His voice hitched and he looked at me again. His face dropped, paling slightly as I smiled at him.
"It's time, Trevor."
Mikazuki looked between us, confused but on guard.
Without a word, Trevor dropped the rag in his hands and came toward me.
He hugged me and held me close.
I hugged him back. "Thanks for believing, no matter how rough it got."
He pulled back, shaking his head. "The Docs and Armsmaster finished it all a few days ago. Don't think they've realized what you're really going to do with them."
"That's fine."
"Door please," he called, "Site X."
The portal opened and he stepped through.
I paused, looking at Mikazuki. "Going to Shino's?"
He blinked, uncertain. "Yeah."
"Good."
With that, I looked away and stepped through the portal after Trevor.
I came out into a large dark warehouse, looking over the effort of months of production, and weeks of finalization.
"All ready?" I asked.
"Yeah," he answered solemnly, hands in his pocket. "Veda's been finishing the last checks."
"I am almost finished," she confirmed from an unseen speaker somewhere.
I nodded and swept my eyes over everything and what it meant to me.
"Sure this is how you want to do it?" Trevor asked. "It's a bit…"
"I know," I assured him. "But it's not just about beating David or Leet anymore. It's about more than that. Building a foundation that can grow, and warning people what can come to pass if they aren't careful." I glanced to him from the corner of my eye, recalling, "You and I know what we've unleashed because we unleashed it, but the rest of the world?"
"It's novel," he considered. "New. Cool. Lafter's first class is almost fully trained and as soon as they are they'll train others. There will be mobile suits all over the world in a few years."
"And only a matter of time before more than law enforcement starts using them."
Problems would probably show up before then. The Protectorate had more than its share of power junkies. Honestly, Londo Bell had a few too. The police had been the same before, during, and would be the same after, the age of the cape.
Power invites abuse. There's no changing that.
"We have to send a message, Trevor." I allowed myself an earnest grimace. "We have to warn people what they're walking into with what we've made."
He closed his eyes and nodded. "Yeah. I get that, but alone?"
"It's the only way I can pull it off right."
"One moment," Veda interrupted. "It's starting. Bakuda's team has engaged Behemoth."
I did my best to contain my anxiety. They had a plan. Bakuda had the tech and thirty capes backing it up to make sure it worked. Riley and Amy should have already been called in and set on standby and Administrator was there to shield people from harm even if we needed Bakuda to deal the death blow.
It would work.
Confirmation.
Yeah. It would work.
"Last one," Trevor counted.
"Last one," I agreed. "And when it's done, it won't just be about Newtype, the girl who slays Endbringers."
"You're sure the other seventeen won't wake up?"
"Administrator locked them down, but who knows. We're going to have to fiddle with things once I'm there. Clean house. And David never intended to unleash the first three. There's some kind of hitch there connected to his Shard. Either a failsafe or something unintentional. But the Endbringers are the first, or last, monsters in the world."
"They're pretty big monsters."
"It'll work out," I promised. "The world doesn't need me that badly. There are others to take up the banner and fight the fights that can't be avoided."
We turned our attention back to the warehouse's contents.
"Not that I'm exactly looking for it," he cautioned, "but wouldn't the whole 'send a message' thing work better if—"
"No one deserves to die," I interrupted, firmly. Decisively. No compromise to be brokered. "There's one last battle left to fight and I can make it brutal enough to send the message. Give the world a preview of what it's walking into the moment it tries to use mobile suits as weapons of war… And they'll do it anyway, eventually."
"No one really understands anything until they've experienced it," Trevor lamented.
"Yeah… But we can warn them. Make them think twice. Think harder. Maybe that'll make a difference when the mistake is made. I can do that without killing anyone, but only if Veda and I can control the situation. That means it has to be us. Just us… One last fight."
I looked over the room once again.
Nine hundred and ninety-three Tierens and three hundred forty-four FLAGs looked back.
"And no one dies."
