Interlude - Zero
The scene shifted, but he'd seen enough.
Nothing had changed. Despite the vagueness of the details, the predictions were bizarrely accurate short term. Could Zero predict trigger events? He hadn't made it to do that, but the prediction was eerily close. It knew something would happen and guessed that the PRT and Protectorate would cease to exist within the next three years. No longer capable of controlling capes within one year.
There wasn't much time.
Raising his hands, he pulled the headset off and set it on the table.
"Surely you don't think the PRT can just ignore these accusations forever," the voice behind him said.
Sherrel lay on her side, cheek pressed to her palm as the interview played out.
The overweight man looked absolutely calm, despite how nervous he was. "We can't exactly give in to every wild accusation a villain makes. We'd be under investigation twenty-four seven, Maggie."
The elderly interviewer didn't seem convinced.
"Who is he?"
"Chamber something," Sherrel answered. "Bigwig at the PRT."
Chambers, Glenn. The guy who ran the entire PR wing of the PRT. If he was actually out on TV and doing damage control himself, they were desperate. Zero's more short-term predictions might be more likely.
"Ain't you worried about this?" Sherrel asked. "This is bad news, Leet."
Well…She wasn't wrong. "That's not my name."
"You got a new one yet?"
"You know I don't."
"Well, I'm not calling you 'guy' so deal with it."
"You can just call me—"
"The Villain Formerly Known as Leet. There. We'll Prince this shit. Did you hear me? This Teacher crap is bad mojo."
Turning to Zero, The Villain Formerly Known as Leet adjusted some of the inputs. The new core design fit into a smaller space, but constantly rerouting things was tiring. He'd need to push a little deeper. Press for a more advanced design that could internally rearrange itself without compromising function. He could do that, probably.
Things didn't seem to blow up so much anymore.
What a twisted way for things to work. Shards desired conflict. It sustained them. When he tried to avoid setting anything off, his power made them go off more. Playing it safe pissed it off so it made his life harder. Now, it hardly seemed to care. He could even access old trees he thought he'd exhausted and rebuild some of the things there. The things that broke still broke, but not in a way that was particularly disastrous.
The damn thing lightened up to get what it wanted.
"I heard you," he admitted.
"And? What are we going to do about it?"
He'd stopped wondering why everything was a 'we' with her.
"The Wards are going to come under assault," he revealed. Behind him, Sherrel pouted. "It might have already started, but the PRT wants to switch focus and David knows." It was actually fairly obvious when he thought about it. "They're going to hammer the Wards to break them."
Rising from the workbench, he took a pair of tools in hand and got back to work on the new core assembly.
"That's not what I asked and you know it, The Villain Formerly Known as Leet."
"You're not going to like the answer to what you asked."
"We can't trust this prick! Look at this shit! You don't think it's a bit fishy this Simurgh plot worked out exactly in his favor?"
Zero already told him that weeks ago. It was all the more reason to be careful. "Then it's a good thing I don't trust him."
Honestly. He tried to murder Newtype because she started the chain of events that got Mitch killed. What did Teacher really think his fate would be, when he was even more responsible than she was? Newtype just left them with no gear. Teacher threw them to the wolves.
"For now, it's bigger than whether or not we can trust him."
No PRT or Protectorate, and order would start slipping. More capes would go villain out of necessity. Blue Cosmos would swing into political power as people became more afraid, or the villains would block them. Either way, a war was the only end result of an unequal and unsustainable power structure.
With that, the chances of averting the dimensional fissures dropped considerably. The battles would spiral out of control. More triggers, broken and otherwise. More damage to space-time.
The world would end.
"We're going to get to work as soon as I finish Tetra."
The unpainted machine loomed over him, taller and thinner than the Zaku he'd built it from. The new PSYUSE could be used without sticking himself full of needles. The thrusters would enable bursts of flight. He could carry more weapons for fights.
Best of all, the expanded torso would have room for Zero.
There'd be a lot of fights ahead, and a lot of needles to thread. He'd need it to avoid screwing anything up and dooming everyone. For now, playing along was the best course.
David wasn't entirely wrong anyway. The world was bent backwards, and people were suffering for no good reason. They couldn't just blow it all up, that was insane. They could shake the chains enough, though. They'd need to follow Zero's guidance precisely, or the whole thing would go south.
"We?" Sherrel snapped. "What's this we?"
He turned around and gawked. "You're always saying we! We this. We that! We! We! We!"
Sherrel rose up and pointed at him, "It's we when we're being smart about shit! Race wars and destroying the PRT sound pretty damn dumb to me!"
"We can't stop that now! Cauldron screwed its own horse years ago! David's doing nothing that won't happen to them anyway! Even if he weren't around Zero plots them out in three years!"
"Well then I guess he doesn't need us on his side!"
"We're not on his side, we're on everyone else's side!"
"Fuck everyone else!"
"Five seconds ago you were all"—The Villain Formerly Known as Leet raised his hands sarcastically—"'we can't do this!'"
"Because if I'm gonna fuck myself, I'm going to do it for me! Not for some creepy creep so far up his own ass he thinks it smells like roses!"
"What does that even mean?"
"What the fuck does 'ambition resentment and hate' even mean? It's like he lives his life in a Japanese cartoon show!"
"All you watch is the news and anime!"
"Yeah, and I'm a nerd! What's his excuse?!"
This wasn't going anywhere.
The Villain Formerly Known as Leet turned back to his work and continued sonic welding the new PSYUSE frame into the suit.
"We can't stop him either," he explained. "His plans are too far along. Even without him, Blue Cosmos will still start a war, and if the attack in Korea went as bad as Zero says then the CUI is screwed. Russia and India are already messes. Without China, the Middle East and Southeast Asia go completely tits up."
"Leave the tits talk to the pros," Sherrel quipped. "We actually have a set."
And he thought gamers could be rude. "The point is, Blue Cosmos bending the US and Europe over will be the end."
"That just sounds like we should be fighting them instead of him."
"We don't have to fight them," The Villain Formerly Known as Leet revealed. "Someone is already on it, and her odds are better if we're on the inside keeping things on track."
The biggest risk at the moment was fragmentation. The world hardly needed to fall into more camps with the problems facing it. If Blue Cosmos splintered into a bunch of smaller hate groups, it wouldn't be a war as bad as that might be. It would be random and indiscriminate terrorism. Keeping the group in one piece resulted in nearly a quarter fewer casualties. That was thousands of lives.
It was the best way for now, until whatever counter-force arose to kick Blue Cosmos out in one go.
Decisive battles tend to be decisive that way.
Sherrel stared. "That's stupid. You're being stupid. Stop it!"
"I'm thinking 'how do we come out of this ahead and without reality unraveling.' If you don't want to help, don't. I get it."
Setting his tools aside, he stepped back and reached for the controls. A quick tap pulled the armor panel along its rollers and back into place. He still needed better armor. The current formula wouldn't stand up to the worst that could be thrown at him by a mile. He needed to solve the speed and mobility problems inherent to the Zaku's design first.
David's war would involve everyone on the damn planet one way or another.
Leet wouldn't get anything done if he died in the opening salvos.
Sherrel grunted and fell back onto the couch. "Someone has to protect you from yourself. You'd probably starve if I didn't remind you to eat."
The Villain Formerly Known as Leet stopped.
…
"You haven't eaten today, have you?"
He sighed and set his tools aside. A ten minute break wouldn't keep things from getting done.
"Maybe you should program Zero to remind you to make a sandwich."
Maybe he would. Then he wouldn't get nagged so much and could get more work done.
The fighting was inevitable. Powers changed the world overnight, and now the world needed to undergo a period of instability to find a new equilibrium. It wasn't much different than tossing a rock into a tiny pond really. It would be very bad at first, explosive. Then the water would slosh back and forth before settling.
The rock was already falling, and arguably they faced the explosion in the Gold War. It was all aftermath now. They merely needed to weather the storm and things would settle.
If all went according to plan, that's exactly how everyone would see it.
Let David, Cauldron, and whoever fight the little war. It's human nature, so whatever. The real danger hadn't changed and if none of them could do anything about it, The Villain Formerly Known as Leet would. Let the war distract everyone else. By the time it was done he'd solve the problem.
It's funny really.
When Teacher asked him what he thought was wrong with the world, he gave an honest answer. Apparently, neither Teacher nor Sherrel seemed to understand. Sherrel was worried the creep was a creep, and she wasn't wrong. It just wasn't the point. Teacher's head was firmly up his own ass. Zero had a theory for that, and it wasn't flattering. It also didn't matter.
They didn't realize how twisted they were because of their powers. Sherrel's pushed her addictive behaviors. Teacher's ego. Alexandria's need for control. Newtype's arrogance. Their powers pushed all of them in all the worst ways. Kept them too off balance to find their footing and realize what was happening.
The Endbringers accelerated that system. That's the real cycle. A cycle of perpetual violence and destruction that parasitically fed off suffering to make them stronger.
Admittedly, maybe he didn't make himself clear.
He said power singular when Teacher asked what was wrong with the world.
What he really meant was Powers were what was wrong with the world.
