Leaf
Chapter Three
Lift always liked sharing food. Every bite she took was shared, even if the people sharing it didn't know it. When they didn't know it, it was exciting, and when they did know it, it was ... nice.
"So," Lisa said. "What can you tell us about yourself?"
Lisa was one of Skullface's friends. Only Skullface had taken off his helmet and leather coat and wanted to be called Brian now. She had freckles, and Lift wondered if they would glow in the dark if Lisa held her breath, but she was afraid to ask.
"Mmh mmfhmm," Lift said, chewing. The pizza was good, still hot and everything. It was one of the basic pizzas with slices of spiced meat on the cheese. Lift preferred the kind with bits of fruit on it, but she wouldn't know what her favorite was until she had one of each, and there were millions of kinds of pizza out there.
She swallowed. "I'm Lift. I wandered into town a few weeks ago, and I've been pretty much everywhere else. Um, and that's about it." She took another bite. She was also a member of an ancient order of mystic knights from another world, but that didn't seem important.
"Uh huh," Lisa said, sounding amused. "What did you get arrested for?"
Lift hesitated. "What makes you think I got arrested?"
"You're still wearing half of the prison uniform."
Oh right. That. Lift narrowed her eyes. "You know, how about instead of me telling you about me, why don't you tell me about me?"
"Oh boy," the other boy in the group, Alec, said.
"Lisa," Brian said, "be nice."
She flashed him a smile. "I'm always nice."
Alec made a cough that sounded suspiciously like, "Liar."
She turned to Lift, and her smile seemed like she was about to start munching on souls. "Let's start at the beginning, shall we? You're parents died at a young age, and after that you spent your time in orphanages and foster care when you weren't living on the streets. You were a chronic runaway, never staying in one place long enough to make many friends, and certainly never depending on anyone.
"And then you triggered. Suddenly you had powers, and all your problems went away. But problems were all you ever had, so you started looking for more problems before you were left with nothing. You used to steal just to get by, but now you steal for the challenge, the thrill, and the fact that if you ever stop running away, you'll have time to think, and you've been trying to avoid that since your mom died."
"Lisa!" Brian said. "You're done."
"I'm just getting started."
"No," he said. "You're done."
Lift looked down at her pizza, and realized that she didn't feel hungry anymore. She took another bite anyway and chewed spitefully. Storm 'em all.
Lisa hesitated and glanced at Lift. "Sorry. I got carried away. Talking is basically my superpower, and I like to show off whenever I get the chance. But can I tell you a secret? Everyone here is running away from something, so it's nothing to be ashamed of."
"We are?" Alec said. "Since when? I just thought that crime was something you do when you're too lazy to get a real job."
"Everyone," Lisa said again. "Some of us are just more deeply in denial than others."
Alec laughed. "Go screw yourself."
"So that's just one of the reasons why we think you would fit right in on the team," Lisa continued.
Lift looked up. "Eh?"
"Sorry, she's getting ahead of herself," Brian said. "But crime is a cutthroat business in Brockton Bay. Shadow Stalker didn't hesitate to kill us both, and she's one of the heroes. Some of the villains are even worse. Anyone in Kaiser's gang would attack you on sight for not being white. Lung's gang would attack you for not being Asian. Plenty of others would attack you just to cut down on the competition or to prove that they can beat another cape. Not a lot of people would have done what you did when you healed me, and even if you walk away right now, I want you to know that we'll remember that.
"But if you don't want to walk away, there's room on the team for you. We have a flawless record on jobs pulled, and we're the best in the city at getting out of trouble. And ... and this isn't a good place to work alone, especially if you're new."
Lift considered that. "What kind of jobs do you do?"
"So far just robberies."
She nodded. There were loads of kinds of crime to do. Blackmail, money laundering, extortion, smuggling, killing folk. Thievin' was crime, but it was clean.
"You leave bodies around?"
Brian glanced at the fourth member of the group, a girl named Rachel who was standing apart from them, before answering. "No. Like I said, we're good at getting out of trouble, and it's not worth the heat."
Lift nodded again. It didn't take any skill to rob a place full of dead people. He might have been lying, but he hadn't killed Shadow Stalker when he had the chance. He even put her in that nice, warm dumpster instead of leaving her out in the cold, dark alley. She could see herself working with thieves like these for a job or two.
But could she see herself joining their group? Could she join a group at all?
She had helped loads of folks, sure. Mostly other theives who had needed a bit of her personal Awesomeness to get them in or out of trouble. More recently, she had started helping emperors, warlords, and other Radiants to keep the world from ending.
But she had never been a part of a group. She'd never had people who could tell her what to do, and had never been able to tell others what to do. She was free, but ... but sometimes being free got real lonesome.
She got up, walked over to the edge of the roof, and sat down.
They kept their lights on all night long in the city, to make up for how you couldn't see no stars. To the east, Lift could see the world's one, lonely moon reflected in the sea.
She was nobody, a street urchin from Rall Elorim, the afterthought of the Highstorm before it reached the Endless Ocean. But she had traveled the world—traveled between worlds, stolen from kings, warlords, even a mad demigod. But whether she snuck into their homes and palaces alone or in a group, she always went back out by herself.
"Hey, Wyndle?" she said, softly enough so the others wouldn't hear.
"Yes Mistress?"
"What's 'chronic' mean?"
"Lasting a long time. A chronic illness, for example, isn't terminal—it doesn't kill you—but it makes life worse until you manage to get rid of it."
"Is it just illnesses?" she asked. "Ain't there chronic good things, like chronic cinnamon rolls and chronic sugar highs?"
"Um, the term is seldom used in a positive manner."
She nodded, expecting as much. She sat for a while longer, swinging her feet into the wall beneath her before she got up. "Alright," she said, returning to the group—her group, now. "I'm in."
WWW
Ow.
That was the first thing Shadow Stalker thought when she woke up. The second thing wasn't much better.
Dear God, what is that smell?
She felt like someone had hit her with a truck and thrown her in a dumpster. Getting up, gingerly to appease her bruises, she found out that she was only half right.
What the hell?
The night's events slowly drifted back to her. I killed Grue. Totally worth it. Then ... then I let myself get distracted. Not the best idea I had. Then ... then ...
Looking around, she decided that she was probably in the same ally. Grue's body wasn't there, but she spotted a few crossbow bolts in the still dark night.
Someone moved the body. Bodies. And knocked me out. Who?
The Undersiders? Maybe, but if they caught her with Grue's corpse, Shadow Stalker suspected that she'd be dog food by now instead of leaving her with a bruise the size of her torso and breaking her wrist. The ABB? This was their territory, and maybe not killing her was the gang's twisted way of saying thank you for taking out a rival villain. Possible, but less likely than them also taking meticulous photographic evidence of her unauthorized kill to blackmail her with.
Ugh. Still, worth it. She had to tell herself that.
She began picking up her scattered bolts, not wanting to leave too much proof that she had been there, because the one thing that she was sure of was that whoever knocked her out last night, it hadn't been the PRT. They only threw her in the garbage figuratively.
She couldn't find the crossbow that the mini-villain Leaf had stolen from her, or her backup crossbow. That sucked. She'd need to come up with an excuse, like she had accidently stepped on it or something. Would they buy it? No, not likely. Probably best to just fess up. To the solo patrol, not the murder. They expected her to break the rules a little. It was like going five miles over the speed limit or jaywalking. Piggot would punish her by making her read to first graders on account of the Director being a demon from hell, but Shadow Stalker would have the enduring warmth of the knowledge that Grue was dead to get her through it.
One of the bolts she picked up had something stuck on it. When she held it up to the dim light shining from the street, it looked like ... an eyeball?
Gross!
Seriously, couldn't bad guys just fade away after they died like they did in video games? No, of course not, they had to leave disgusting body parts all over the place, as though they were trying to get back at her for killing them. Most of the eye ... juice had leaked out, and what was left was the worst combination of squishy and crunchy. Nasty.
Still ... the bolt had gone right through the pupil, and she hadn't even been aiming for it. Total bull's eye.
She slid the eye off the shaft and tossed it in the trash, smiling to herself. Everything hurt and there were things smeared over her costume that she'd rather not think about, but Grue was dead, and that was all that mattered.
WWW
Lift spent most of then next day learning how to be a super villain. She had always been a thief, but super villains weren't just thieves that were extra awesome. They had dress codes.
"So I'm not allowed to steal nothin' unless I'm wearing this," she said, looking at a mirror.
"Until we get you a costume that's more than just a cut up shirt with eye holes," Lisa said. "On the bright side, it makes you look like Inigo Montoya."
"Who?"
"You know," Lisa said, striking a pose. "'You killed my father! Prepare to die?'"
"What?"
"Have you never seen Princess Bride? What are you, from another planet?"
"Oh! Right, that. Yeah, I know what you're talking about." Going to another world was the same as going to another country. You just had to pretend to know everything they expected you to, and you were fine. "Don't masks stand out? I mean, if folks spot me runnin' around in a princess Montoya mask, they'll know I ain't up to no good, right?"
A smile spread across Lisa's face. "Oh. Okay, have a seat. So. Common criminals wear masks to hide their faces, but we aren't just criminals. Honestly, committing actual crimes is near the bottom of what we do. We are, first and foremost, entertainers. Performers. As long as we put on a good show, the city will put up with a lot of what we do. If you look at the classical Greek plays—I'm guessing you haven't, but bear with me—they would wear incredibly ornate masks with exaggerated expressions so that the audience could see their faces from the back row. Not the actor's faces. No one cares about the actors. No one cares about Lisa or Lift or Brian or Alec or Rachel. They only care about the characters. So when we go out in costume, you need to be a character so big, no one can notice little Lift hiding beneath it."
Lift blinked. "Huh?"
Wyndle grew across the floor looking up at them, frowning thoughtfully. "She speaks like a Lightweaver. Be careful, Lift. Lightweavers should be trusted only sometimes, and rarely believed."
"It will make more sense after you get used to it," Lisa said. "Until then, think about costume designs and cape names. It's one of the few chances you ever get to choose who you are instead of being who everyone else says you are."
Lift glanced at Wyndle. Lightweaver philosophy? She didn't have a head for neither philosophy nor Lightweavers, but she'd heard that they had a special kind of crazy that got them out of nearly as much trouble as it got 'em into.
She took off her mask and twirled it around her finger. "You got a costume?"
"Of course. It's not much, just purple spandex with eye designs. I picked the name Tattletale because it gives just enough of a hint about my powers to be misleading, which is a devil of a balance to pull off. Regent's costume is way better than mine, to be honest." Alec gave them a lazy wave without looking away from the game fabrial he was playing with. "It looks completely ridiculous. I'm serious. No one can see him in that thing and take him seriously, and that's really all you can ask for."
Alec nodded. "I almost put work into that," he admitted.
"Of course," Lisa continued, "the bare minimum is that it's recognizable as a costume. Body armor and a utility belt come second to brand-name recognition. You never want someone to mistake you for, like, a henchman or something, because that's just embarrassing."
Lift hesitated. "It is?"
"Absolutely. Capes are worth talking to if only to taunt them, but some villains we meet kill henchmen to make those taunts. Fortunately, any sufficiently ridiculous outfit can be taken for a costume, so you don't need to worry too much. A good name is harder to come up with. You need to make it yours, which takes at least one good public event, and you need it to be memorable. It may not seem like a big thing, but if you're not careful, you could end up like the Anonymous Anemone."
"Who?"
"The Anonymous Anemone. He was a villain down in Florida with a minor Stranger power. He ended up teaming up with a low tier Master named Inmity's Enemy, and these were really bad villains. Not bad like Lung and Kaiser, they were Uber and Leet kind of bad. It got to the point where they nearly got sent to the Birdcage because no one wanted to spend the ten minutes necessary to say Anonymous Anemone and Inmity's Enemy without tripping over their own tongues."
Lift felt like she ought to contribute to this conversation. "Huh."
"So," she continued, setting one of the world's more common fabrial's and setting it on her lap. "I hacked the PRT database, and apparently they've been calling you Leaf. Now, I'm just guessing here, but I'm gonna say that someone asked you your name, you said 'Lift,' and they just heard it wrong."
Lift considered that. "Sure. Could be." Not that a whole lot of people used either name, to be honest. Mostly, folks called her things like scamp and cretin, as in, "Come back her with my bagel, you little scamp!" and "You cretin! When I get my hands on you, I'll blah, blah, blah, angry threatening noises!"
"Okay. Well, if you want to change your name, the best time to come up with a new one is right now. You can heal, so you could take a name like Elixir or Grail, but those sound, you know, heroic. Do you have any other powers?"
"Yup. I'm slick." To demonstrate, she reached out with her foot and touched the couch Alec was sitting on, infusing it with Awesomeness until it began to glow. Then she kicked it, and it started sliding across the floor. It was slow, but without friction or air resistance getting in the way, it kept on moving unit it hit the wall.
"For the record," Alec said, craning his head to keep watching the entertainment fabrial he was looking at, "I did not volunteer for this." He tried to kick off the floor to put the couch back where it was, but by then its Awesomeness had run out and it wasn't slick anymore. "Just great. If I get a crick in my neck from holding this position for the next four hours, I will demand healing."
"Friction negation," Lisa said. "That's probably the one we'll show our enemies the most, and you might not want to advertise the whole healing thing unless you want people to take you down first. So Slick, Greaser, Slider, Oil, Wax ... Socks. Stop me if you hear one you like."
"I will."
"Smooth Criminal if you want to make a Michael Jackson reference. Slipper, Tripper, Skates ... I don't know. Any other powers I should know about?"
Lift considered that. Abrasion, Regrowth ... "Oh! I can make bubbles with my spit." She licked her lips and demonstrated her oldest super power.
"Uh, yeah, everyone can do that."
Lift narrowed her eyes. "Can you do it?"
"Like I said, everyone."
"Prove it."
Caught in the obvious lie, Lisa changed the subject. "So another thing I noticed while on the PRT database was that when you were arrested, you managed to conjure up a sword that could cut through anything. You, uh, wanna talk about that?"
"Oh. That. That's not really my power, that's Wyndle's power."
"Technically," Wyndle said, "all of your powers come through me, though I do appreciate being credited for functioning as a Shardblade."
"Wyndle?" Lisa asked.
Lift nodded. "He's my ... well, I used to think he was a Voidbringer, but it turns out he was just pretending the whole time and was really just a cultivationspren, which is loads less interesting."
"I never pretended to be a voidspren!" Wyndle said. "I repeatedly denied the accusation, and you constantly ignored me."
Lift ignored him. "He can turn into stuff, as long as it's only one piece and made of metal. Hey Wyndle! Show her the fancy chair you like."
He sighed, but Lift could tell he was in a good mood. He was always a lot more cheerful when people were talking about chairs, which was why he was so miserable all the time. Lift extended her hand, and Wyndle filled it, taking the form of an ornate metal throne twice as tall as she was. It should have been real heavy, but Wyndle didn't eat much so neither did the Shardchair. Everyone in Roshar was starvin' loony about Shardblades, but Lift spent more time sitting down than chopping people's heads off.
"Wow!" Lisa said, getting up and peering closer. "The craftsmanship is exquisite."
See? Wyndle said, straight into her head. She appreciates me.
Lift didn't respond. All she knew about art she learned from ol' Whitehair, and Wyndle's Shardchair didn't have no naked bits. It had lots of plants, though, a whole garden of Roshar ones, and even a few earth ones Wyndle liked. At the top were all ten Heralds under what looked like the Highstorm and the Everstorm crashing into each other.
"Real uncomfortable, though," Lift said. "He can't do nothin' but metal, so you gotta have a real fat butt or your own pillow to sit on him." She grabbed a cushion from the couch, put it on the Shardchair, and plopped down.
"I like the style," Lisa said, still studying it. "The bottom part looks oriental, but this relief up here looks early Renaissance. Who are these people? They look like saints."
For what it's worth, Wyndle said, I was imitating the seventh century Talicanti movement, but I would enjoy the chance to compare styles.
Lift shrugged. "Bunch o' crazy people." She had only met Darkness or, as he called himself, Nale, Herald of Justice, and he had been crazy enough for ten.
"Well, anyway, you can make metal objects at will, manipulate friction, and heal. I'm ... not seeing a common theme here, but if you come up with a name you like, let us know and we'll introduce you during the next heist. Until then, I think we'll just keep calling you Leaf when we're in costume."
That seemed good to her. "Kay. Welp, Imma go get some lunch."
"Steal some lunch, you mean," Lisa said, raising an eyebrow. "Despite the full fridge, pantry, and wallet, you're going to go steal something instead."
Lift considered that. "Yup."
Lisa shrugged. "Fine, fine. No matter who you rob, there's no way you're going to cause as much trouble as Rachel can get into just by walking her dogs."
WWW
Lift came back a few hours later will a hat full of lunch. That was the nice thing about hats. You never knew when you might need an emergency bowl, and until then you could keep them on your head so they didn't get in the way.
Lisa was gone, but Alec was right where she had left him, playing with his fabrial. Like most games Lift didn't know how to play, it looked starvin' boring, but Alec looked up when she came in.
"Chinese food?" he asked, sniffing the air.
Lift looked down into her hat. It was earth food, and China was a part of earth, so ... "Might be."
"Did you get any fortune cookies?"
Lift checked her hat again. "Don't think so."
"Crud. Rob a better restaurant next time. It's not Chinese food without a fortune cookie. Heck, Thai and Korean places usually have them these days. Also, would you mind moving the couch back to where it was? I would, but then I'd have to get up."
WWW
Lung looked down at his empty plate. He scanned the room for signs of forced entry, but found nothing. While there were many in Brockton bay who could break into his home and steal from him, he had assumed that no one was foolish enough to try.
Clearly, he had underestimated them.
Examples would have to be made. He did not normally have time for such things, but his recent recruitment efforts have borne fruit and Bakuda was settled within the ranks of his organization.
"Oni Lee," he said after calling his lieutenant. "Prepare your men. We will make an example this night."
There was a brief pause. "An example," Oni Lee repeated. "The gruesome and public kind?"
"The final kind."
Another sound that might have been a cough, a laugh, or just static. "I will look forward to it. Who are we ... exemplaring?"
Finding out who had stolen his midday meal was unimportant; when lightning struck, all walked lower. He could have Oni Lee go on a murder spree through a daycare and it would send the correct message, but there was a minor gang in his territory that he had been meaning to deal with. The Underdogs or something. No, that wasn't right.
It didn't matter. He'd look up what the rabble of arrogant children called himself later. But first, he'd get himself something to eat.
WWW
A/n So, I was totally not expecting this, but Raven610 has set up a tv tropes page for this story. Check it out and be impressed.