Everyone reacts to the audience differently. Some people shrink under it, try to hide from the eyes, try to pretend like it's not there while also fidgeting, aiming to look pretty, to look nice. Sam's still at that stage, and he hunches his armored shoulders as the applause starts up. I give him a kick to the ankle, keeping a straight face through the sting of slamming my foot into stone armor, and he promptly throws his chest out, assuming a more confident posture, looking less like a teenager in armor and more like a gladiator. More like his dad.
I appraise him, then shrug and move on. He still seems fake to me, but from the stands it might look real. Good enough to convey the idea of a spine.
Some people ignore it, let the catcalls and cheers bounce off them. Lars is like that, keeping his jaw set and eyes forward, starting off the fight with a domination game. Brad was like that too, even if he was a little more into the performance part, working in the little smiles that made the fans holler and the panties drop. I roll my eyes. Fuckin' Brad.
Then you got the people who know how to put on a show.
"You know them, the wild, untamed monster trio that posted an undefeated record before the mess up in New York! Making their long-awaited return to the team circuit after spending some time in Brockton Bay, it's Cricket, Stormtiger, and their newest addition, Sidewinder! Give it up for Menagerie!" I grin as I hear the words, a hoarse laugh escaping my throat.
I like this guy.
The sound of the crowd hits me like a storm, going from two to two hundred in an instant, a cacophony of clapping, whooping, and shouting, bringing a vibrant energy I don't feel anywhere else. I drag myself forward, my missing fingers and scars on display, white on tan and practically shining under the flood lights. The crowd's roar redoubles, and I reward them by tossing my kamas up in the air, tracking their whisper-sing sounds, and catching them again, flourishing and spinning them, angling the blades to catch the light and send it back, turning them into crescents of light. I can feel the screams of approval as a physical thing, filling me up with energy, hot and sharp and ready to go.
"Fuckin' show off," Lars mutters behind me. I throw a smirk back his way, the nicks on my lips twisting it into something positively ghastly. He just rolls his eyes, stepping forward and throwing a few idle punches as air gathers around his hands and forms into claws. Sam rolls his shoulder and bends down, reaching into the sand on the ground of the pit and withdrawing a sword of stone, plain and unadorned. I sigh internally, show mask firmly in place. Going to have to break that habitual dullness and teach him how to show off.
"In the other corner, the reigning champions, coming all the way from Chicago to prove their worth, it's Snarl, Karma, and Scratch! Make. Some. Noise!"
The other three fighters walk in, all swagger, crazy grins, and matching costumes. The one in the middle is wearing a ragged wolf pelt, identity preserved by a half mask around his mouth and a warped look to his eyes that has to be a result of his power, all twisted flesh and grotesque mutation. On his right is some kid dressed up in a scrappy-looking knight outfit, lugging around a glowing sword that's gotta be tinkertech. The last one... the last one I can't see. A Stranger, then.
I take in the three of them, full of confidence and fresh off a string of victories. Meanwhile, Lars and I haven't been in a serious match for at least five years, and we haven't ever fought in a pit with Sam.
I spread my arms and jerk my chin at the wolfskin guy. He tilts his head. I flash some tooth. He curls his fingers into claws. My pulse jumps in just the right away.
This is gonna be a good night.
Brad didn't ask us to go to Endbringer fights with him. We couldn't take hits like he could, and what the fuck was I going to do? Stab one? Fuck that noise. I'd just be running around picking up idiots who started fighting without being able to tank a rocket to the side. Lars might've been able to do a little more, but he can't fly super well, and scattering some water around isn't worth his skin.
"You know," Lars says, words almost slurred by the seven beers he's had in the last hour, "It's kinda funny."
I tilt my head, rolling the empty scotch glass between my fingers. The world's gone all blurry, the humming not-hum that's always in my ears turned into something almost pleasant.
"Fuckin' Brad keeps tellin' us 'don't go, don't go, you can't take it' and which one of us dies? Him. It's fuckin' ironic," Lars mutters, popping the top off another bottle with a blast of air. I don't know if that's the right way to use that word, but I nod anyway and hold my empty glass up at him. He taps the rim with his beer, pouring a little into my glass. "Fuckin' ironic."
It was a pain in the ass finding a bar in Brockton Bay that wasn't trashed. Really fucking hard. But we kept moving, kept looking, and eventually we found some fancy hotel, went up twenty stories of trashed windows and mud on foot, and broke into the good shit.
Someone dies, you get drunk and laugh at them. That's what Brad and I did for Eddie before Lars, how it's going to be with whoever the hell comes after Lars, and how it's going to be when I finally take a hit I can't get back up from. You drink because it gets easier to laugh, laugh because it's easier than crying, and move on because if you get sad when someone dies you're not going to last long in the ring.
So when Max's brat shows up, we're both actually surprised.
"Wha?" Lars says, turning around in his stool and nearly missing the countertop with his arm. I fumble for my talking stick, try pressing the button a few times, then actually put my thumb in the right place as I shove it against my neck.
"The fuck're you doing here?" I rasp. I hate the sound of my voice through it. Too fake. It's the best of a lot of bad options, though. I'm not about to learn the wiggle finger shit. Not a cripple. Not yet.
"I want out," the brat says. "For Aster too." I blink slowly, registering the bundle against his chest.
Shit.
"Nah," Lars says, shaking his head and turning back to the bar. "Go w' Geoff. He's got it figured out. She's got powers for sure. They'll take care of her."
"I'm not sending my sister to Europe to get tortured into triggering," Theo says, adjusting the straps on the baby carrier. "I don't want her to grow up around people like Mom and Dad."
I laugh at that, and it comes out as a harsh static that causes me to wince. Fuckin' electronics. "You think we'd be better?" I ask, shaking my head. "The fuckin' twins aren't gonna gut a girl for the crowd."
"I'm not an idiot," the brat says, a tiredness seeping into his voice, and recognition clicks. Theo. Brad was mad at how Max was treating him. "Nessa and Jessica are going to continue the Empire. They don't think it's wrong. You two at least don't care. With you guys I can keep her out of it, keep her away from the gangs." I look at Lars. He shrugs.
"What's in it for us?" I ask, reaching for another bottle of beer. "We don't do shit for free."
"Mom kept a stash of supplies at home," he says, walking up to the bar. I drop my hand to a kama, but he doesn't reach for a weapon. "Just in case things went bad and we needed to run. She updated it every month. Food, ways to clean water, clothes, copies of important documents, and money." He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a billfold, and it takes me a moment to make out the numbers. The thousands. I blink.
Lotta money right there.
"This isn't all of it," he says as I look back to him. He flinches under my gaze, but he doesn't close his eyes. "The rest is somewhere hidden. We can pick it up on the way to Boston."
I look at him, silent. He doesn't look away.
Then I laugh. It's horrible, strangled, more of an enthusiastic wheeze than anything happy. Lars laughs with me, nearly doubling over, empty bottles crashing to the ground as he reaches across the the bar to steady himself.
"Fuckin' sold," I say, snatching the billfold from Theo's hand and tossing it to Lars. "Looks like we've got an employer already." I slide off the stool and punch the kid in the shoulder, sending him stumbling back, arms flying around his little sister. "Happy to be workin' with you, Mister Anders."
I roll back and let Lars toss some talons over my head. They impact the sand and explode, filling the air with grit and blinding everyone without eye protection. In other words, just me and the Stranger.
I don't need eyes to see.
I follow the humming not-humming to the wolf guy, who's currently rolling across the ground, trying to get to his feet. There's a wound across his chest that's filling up with teeth, not deep but long, a maw that reminds me of the shark-styled Changer that tried to eat Brad in Detroit. I shake my head even as I sneak up behind the cape. Sam needs to grow a pair and start trusting people to be able to take a fucking hit.
I leap, flipping my kamas around as I land on the Changer's back and slamming them down into his collar bones. He howls, shaking himself harder than anyone with two total feet of metal in them should be able to, and I twist around in mid air to land on my feet, taking in the new warping I've carved into him.
Two spikes of bone are jutting out of where the wounds should be, at least as long as my blades. He snarls again, spreading his arms wide as he charges across the sand towards me, hands tipped with claws and forearms covered with gnashing mouths.
Then a brown thunderbolt comes out of the sky and pins the Changer to the ground, the brown blur and monster both scraping across it as tooth and claw clashes against stone and blade. Something whines behind me and I duck in time to avoid the invisible wave of pressure that passes through where my head would've been. I turn around and catch sight of the knight figure re-chambering his sword for another swing.
Enough of that shit.
I whistle, high and loud, blasting him with nausea. The knight stutters for a moment, sword going wide, and I grin as I keep up the pressure, closing the distance.
Amateur.
This time Lars doesn't fuck around. The winds pick up, whirling faster and faster and faster until it's a fucking sandstorm. Knight takes a few drunken, angry swings, trying to tag me, but by the time he figures out I'm not the one responsible the sand is so thick in the air that you can't see two feet in front of your face. Knight keeps flailing around, but his sword and armor are loud enough that staying clear of the cuts isn't hard. I smile.
Like shit through a goose.
I run through the storm, slip behind the Tinker, and put one blade into the back his knee, just avoiding the artery. He goes down, sword falling to his side as one hand scrabbles at a dagger on his waist, but that stops when I rest a kama on his neck.
"Shows. Over." It fuckin' hurts talking without my stick, but the slight shudder I feel from the Tinker almost makes it worth it.
Slowly, Lars lets up. The sand stops whirling, slowly dropping to the ground, finally giving the crowd the show they want.
Sam's got the Changer ten feet up in the air, wriggling like a fish with a hook through his guts. His armor is at least part bone now, a pretty big drop in quality from stone and metal, but he seems to be managing. Lars has his hands raised, half a dozen talons ready to fire at a moment's notice.
"Last one in the ring better surrender," Lars shouts, voice boosted loud enough to make me wince. "If you don't, I'm just gonna start blowing shit up until they call it."
I hear the flutter of fabric in the wind and snap my head to the source. Halfway across the arena there's a scrap of white resting on the sand, stained red with fresh blood. Air horns go off, loud and triumphant, and I pull my kama out of the Tinker's leg as I kick him away, smiling as the applause falls down like rain, washing away the ache in my muscles, the sting of the scrape on my leg, and the taste of copper in my mouth.
"Would you look at that folks? A flawless victory on their return debut! Mark my words, Menagerie's going to be a team to watch!" Sam drops the Changer to the floor, slowly floating down and pointedly not looking at the growling man beside him who's cuts are closing up as I watch. A girl in a bunch of white rags walks across the arena to tend to the Tinker, who's stretching out his stabbed leg and peeling away armor. I roll my eyes as I stalk away from them. Babies.
"So, is this it?" Sam asks, fingers drumming nervously against his thigh as he scans the crowd over my head. I smirk and Lars laughs.
"Nah," Lars says, slapping Sam on the back, hand impacting stone and metal armor with the heavy sound of meat on pavement. "Now we fuckin' party."
Say what you will about raising your kid to be a bitch, it makes them easy to live with. Problem is it also makes them a fucking coward.
It didn't take long for us to get work in Boston. Strictly contract stuff, temp work, one-off things. Blasto needed some guards for something, the Teeth wanted to run their rank and file through a gauntlet, that sort of shit. Even got put on the short list for Accord, but we had to turn that one down because he wanted me to pretty up.
Thing was though, after a long night of staying awake looking at nothing, or dodging bullets from teenagers who think they know how to shoot, or beating the hell out of idiots who try to grab a few extra bucks from the public kitty, is that when you get back you really, really don't want to have to think about shit. That means you don't clean, you don't cook, and that can make living conditions really goddamn awful.
Once his money ran out, Theo made a new deal: he'd keep the place tidy and in return, he and Aster stayed rent-free. Honestly, we probably would've been fine letting him stick around without the deal. It's a pain in the ass getting groceries without a civvie ID, and Theo lost enough weight in that first month that he ended up basically unrecognizable.
That, and Lars figured he'd trigger soon enough. We needed a third to get back into the real money tournament scenes, and neither of us could find anyone in Boston worth trying to pick up. That's the reason we ran into a problem, actually.
"Not good enough, huh?" Scattershot shouts, bouncing a rock in one hand, a manic look in her eyes. "The fuck does that mean? Am I not dangerous enough for a crippled bitch and a guy whose power is blowing air really hard?" She whips her arm forward and I jump to the side even as Lars claps his hands in front of him, the air distortion canceling out the boom of her power and deflecting the rock fragments. I grit my teeth as something tears into my fingers but I end up in cover behind a car and Lars starts gaining distance, lifting into the air up and away from the crazy bitch. A glance at my hand confirms that my ring and pinky finger are fucked. Damn. Cutting this bitch's throat then, and no one's gonna fuckin' blame us. Leave work at work, right? Don't follow people back to their homes to bitch, moan, and try to kill them.
Another boom, and this time a building gets a few new holes in it. I shake my head, even as I triangulate where the cape is and tie some string around my fingers in a makeshift tourniquet. This is how you get the white hats mad and make them take off the kid gloves in public. Sure, Bastion isn't going to hold back when he sees Lars throwing a car at Ouroboros, but he isn't going to have Bravo shoot my knees out or give Dreamweaver permission to mindfuck us. Make it a show, don't hurt too many people too bad, and they'll keep things soft.
Another boom, another collapsing wall. I wince. That was the loft we were sleeping in. Hope Theo didn't get perforated. Gonna have to move after this fight at any rate. I refocus on Scattershot. She's facing away from me, screaming her head off at Lars as he dances between her shots, letting her projectiles arc into empty sky or get knocked just out of the way by bursts of air.
"Really aren't ready for the big leagues, are you?" Lars taunts, firing a talon down at Scattershot, who just screams in response, shattering the street beneath her and jumping out of the way.
Right next to my hiding place.
I gather all the humming not-humming and jam it into Scattershot, sending her stumbling, hands flying to her head as I stand up and flip a kama in my good hand.
I'm gonna enjoy this.
The blade flashes and a sheet of blood washes over Scattershot's right eye, and she tries to cover both her ears and rub her face clean at the same time. I shake my head, taking two lazy steps to get out of her line of sight, then cut her arm. It's not deep, but she hisses in pain all the same, and I skip to the side to avoid the spray of gravel from her kick at the ground.
"Fucked. Up," I force out, cutting her again. The side, just shallow enough to avoid organs. "Bad."
A few more cuts and some broken scenery later and I finish her off, stepping away from the spray of blood from her neck, shaking my head. Blasters are shit teammates. Most of them can take out baseline humans with a thought, and they think that makes them hot shit. They keep their distance from anyone and everything, and if you try to get them to change their habits they'll ignore you until the blade's at their throat and it's too fucking late.
I snort.
Adapt or die.
"Need a lift?" Lars asks, floating down beside me, eyes focused on my hand. I wave it at him and shake my head.
"Grab shit. Run," I rasp, trying to recall the location of the fallback safehouse. It was supposed to be a temp thing, somewhere in the warehouse district, I think? We could always shack up with a gang for a few days too, maybe call in some favors and-
"Hey," Lars nudges me out of my thoughts, pointing up behind me. "Lookee there," he says, smiling wide. I turn around, reaching out with my ears.
A figure floats in the air in front of the building covered in stone armor, rough and jagged. I can feel it as a layer over normal human flesh, but I can also feel a thickness to it that isn't like stone. In the figure's arms are a smaller lump of stone and a backpack. The panic-pack Theo made in case he needed to bug out fast.
I take in the sight for a moment.
Huh.
Wonder what set him off?
Slowly Theo comes down, landing with a click of stone-on-stone in front of the two of us. Lars promptly slaps him on the arm, then shakes his hand, grinning like mad.
"Fuck, if I'd known that getting attacked by a cape would've made you trigger, I'd've done it weeks ago!"
"Ready," Sam says, standing stock still in the center of the locker room. I nod.
Then I slam a pick into his chest.
Stone fractures, cracks spider-webbing across the breastplate. Another swing and the cracks go deeper, little chips of stone falling off where I work the tip of the pick in. I switch locations, focusing on a shoulder joint. This one starts chipping immediately.
Getting Sam out of his armor's a pain in the ass, but it's worth it. Flight, armor, strength, and weapons? Fucking jackpot for a pit fighter. Not as durable as Brad, not by half, but Sam tanks guns, and that's the bar to break into the big leagues. He's started learning how to hurt people too, and if we can get some style into him he'd be tearing up the singles tournaments like nobody's business.
"Think I can get myself out of the rest," Sam says, reaching up to the broken chest plate and working his fingers under a hunk of stone, pulling it away to reveal slabs of muscle and light scars from the first time we tried this. He used to get worried about shit like this, worried about showing off his body to anyone. Familiarity burned that out of him though, and now he's almost like a member of the team.
"Still not going to get in on the party?" Lars asks, scrubbing at his head with a towel as he walks over to his hanger. "Gonna be free booze, free food, and free ladies." He throws in some eyebrow wiggling and I hack out a laugh, pulling my bra off and tossing it into a bin.
"One girl. His life," I say, shucking off the last of my clothing and heading for the showers. Lars tosses me the towel and I sling it over a hook as I step into the spray of hot water.
"Gotta get back to Ashley," Sam says quietly, shaking his head. "It's her first night without a sitter." Took a while for him to get used to the name changes, but his sister took to it like a duck to water. Probably helps she was a baby when it started. Now she's in school and Sam's doing his damndest to keep her in pencils and clothes.
"All work and no play makes Sammy a dull boy," Lars says, resettling his mask on his face. "You're young, strong, and just won ten grand. Fuckin' live a little."
"Leave it," I rasp, closing my eyes and enjoying the spray of the water. "His loss." Lars is a good fighter, but he gives shit life advice. "Want. Do."
Lars snorts dismissively but drops it, heading out to join the festivities. Sam steps into the stall next to me, cranking up the cold water and soaping up. I size him up with the hum as I slowly rotate, hitting every part of my body with the near-boiling water.
He's getting handsome. Hard, but handsome. All that baby fat is gone now, and when he shaves he could pass for twenty. Built like a fighter and he's slowly getting some confidence. Smart, too, with a head for people and strategy.
I shake my head and step out of the shower. It's all wasted on him. The guy's so focused on Ashley, a girl could lay down naked on his bed with her legs spread over a sign that says 'fuck me' and he'd find something his sister needed to get done instead. It ain't healthy, but it's his choice.
I pull on some clothes, slip on my cage, and toss a pair of keys into his bin. "Bike if you want it," I say, using my talking stick this time. "Tell Ash hi."
"Will do," he says, rinsing off. I nod, turning around to head out.
"Also..."
I pause with my hand on the doorknob, not looking back.
"If you bring back a beer, maybe we could talk shop?" he asks. He's open. Cautious, but open. "We had the element of surprise this time. The initiative. Next time they're going to come to us. I want to be prepared for that."
I crack a smile he can't see. "Will do," I answer before stepping through, leaving the door to slam shut behind me.
Brad made it look so easy. A word here, a meaningful look there, and he'd get everyone to fall in line like that. Kept Lars and I from each other's throats, kept us from starting anything with the Heren clan and the limeys, kept the regular thugs from stabbing one another over stupid shit.
Now that's all on me. I fucked up a lot at the beginning. I tried to press Lars father than he could go, let Sam pretend like he could step away from caping for way too long, got the three of us into such deep shit I'm still not sure how we got out of it.
Now though?
Now I think I've got a pretty good handle on things.
I step into the throbbing music, the scent of tobacco and booze washing over me like a warm blanket, and zero in on Lars. He's laughing in the middle of a pack of groupies, a girl on his arm already. I shake my head and stalk over towards him, eyeing up his male companions until I settle on a slimmer brunette with a tattoo of some sort crawling up his neck.
"Sup," I say, slipping into the booth next to Lars. "Lying?"
"Only when it's true," Lars says, drawing a round of drunken laughter from the crowd with his nonsense. I smirk and grab the drink out of Tattoo's hand, swallowing it down as I maintain eye contact. He looks away first. I smile against the glass as the last of his rum and coke slips past my lips.
"What're you saying this time?" I ask, sinking into the party, letting the issue with Sam rest. He'll come around, and until then?
I'm going to enjoy myself.
It's what Brad would've wanted.
A/N: Accidentally uploaded this early. Rot 3 is now up.
