Chapter 8 — Interlude (Armsmaster)
"I should thank you, monster!" Armsmaster spoke as his halberd slashed Leviathan across the lower belly, the nanothorns carving a deep gouge.
Soon, he would earn back his position. He would prove himself worthy of being a leader. He would show them all.
The combat prediction software told him exactly what the creature would try next: lunging forward and dropping to all four, to swamp him in its afterimage's water.
He used his grappling hook to pull himself out of the way, swinging his halberd into Leviathan's neck as he did, before reeling the hook back in.
As Leviathan turned to run, Armsmaster used the grappling hook's chain to heave himself onto the Endbringer's back, slashing again at the side of his neck, then across the monster's face as he leaped down.
Leviathan collapsed, and Armsmaster smiled at his imminent victory.
His halberd caught Leviathan's forearms as the creature tried to climb to its feet, but it managed to rise anyway.
The armband voiced a warning as Armsmaster pressed the attack.
"This will be over before then."
The beast didn't understand, of course, but it jumped back with difficulty, staggering on unsteady legs and catching itself with a hand.
The grappling hook brought Armsmaster closer. As he was about to carve the creature's neck again, the ground rumbled.
That couldn't be good.
Another swing of the grappling hook brought him outside of Leviathan's reach, on the other side of the road.
The ground rumbled again.
A subsonic pulse informed him of the cause. The storm sewers. He could have kicked himself for choosing this street of all streets, and not thinking to check in his hurry to set things up.
He gripped his halberd tighter as a crack appeared down the center of the street. Leviathan raised his claw, and the road split, pavement peeling upward, pushed by the concrete pipe.
Then came the water, rushing from the pipes.
He hesitated a second, then activated the temporal stasis on his regular halberd and threw it forward. The gush of water froze in time, allowing him to step on it as he leaped toward Leviathan, halberd raised and nanothorns at the ready.
The beast moved faster than he anticipated, catching the blade in his claws.
The combat prediction software was no help as he struggled to free his blade, and Leviathan caught his hand with his clawtips.
"How?" Armsmaster roared.
Was its apparent weakness a feint?
He didn't have time to analyze where things had gone wrong. The creature pushed him with one claw, the other holding onto his arm until it was ripped out of its socket.
Searing pain tore a scream from his throat, and he fell, tossed aside like a broken toy.
He thought for a moment that this was it, that the Endbringer would finish him off, but it ran away instead.
Black dots swam in his vision — no, not dots. Bugs. Skitter was crouching by his side. How was she there?
"You," he groaned, his voice raw from pain. "You're dead."
"Hey, you're not making any sense," she answered.
"He killed you."
"I'm alive. Listen, I'm going to try and find your arm, my armband got broken, maybe something got dislodged when Leviathan broke my arm."
He groaned. Her words didn't make sense. Or maybe it was him who couldn't parse their meaning.
"Armsmaster down! CC-7! Leviathan heading West… Cancel that! He's going West-North-West from my location!"
He'd failed. He'd failed, and he might die for it.
Darkness crept at the edges of his vision, rapidly growing. It claimed him as a villain he'd set up to die pressed on his wounds to staunch the blood loss.
It was somewhat customary, in the aftermath of Endbringer battles, to try and recruit some of the villains who had volunteered to the Wards or Protectorate.
When Skitter's name was raised as a possibility, in conjunction with words like "heroic display to draw Leviathan away from civilians at that shelter," Armsmaster couldn't help but feel a stab of jealousy. That she was being praised for wielding his weapon, his hard work, with none of the merit, stung. It stung even more that his own attempt to kill the Endbringer with said weapon was left unmentioned.
Then he remembered her actions as he laid defeated in the flooded street, and the jealousy melted into something uncomfortably close to guilt.
When Legend asked for his assessment of the villain, he swallowed his pride and spoke the truth, that she had said she wanted to be a hero in their first meeting, and that she later took it upon herself to become an undercover agent in order to gather information on the Undersiders and their boss.
Legend seemed satisfied with that.
He was debating with Miss Militia to decide which of them should coax Vista away from Gallant's body when a severe-looking nurse called for his attention.
"Sir?"
"Yes?"
"Shadow Stalker, one of your Wards, threatened one of the student nurses that she would leave and get her in trouble for it if she doesn't get discharged soon."
"I assume there's a reason why she can't be discharged yet?"
"She still needs oxygen and IV fluids to compensate for her blood loss."
"I'll handle it. Unless you want to?" He asked Miss Militia.
She hesitated, and for a moment he wondered whether his tone came off as bitter, given their conversation right before the Endbringer arrived.
"I'll come along," she compromised.
They followed the nurse to a curtained enclosure, ready to placate their most troublesome recruit.
The bed was empty.
"She can't be far. Check the other enclosures," he addressed the nurse. "We'll search the main room."
The nurse nodded and went to the neighboring enclosure while they searched, careful to avoid tripping up the doctors and nurses running around.
"In here," the nurse screamed above the chaos of the room. "She's armed!"
He ran, Miss Militia on his heels.
As he kicked the curtain open, the nurse fell against him, and he came to a screeching halt to avoid bowling her over.
A shadow loomed over the bed-ridden cape.
Armsmaster straightened the nurse, ready to grab his emergency halberd from the back of his armor.
The shadow flickered for a fraction of a second, and a spray of blood doused the pillow and covers in sync with the heart monitor. Arterial spray. Shadow Stalker then fled through the curtain.
His remaining hand found the cape's neck, and he pressed down hard on the wound, blood spurting between the fingers of his gauntlet.
Miss Militia was giving pursuit to the gliding shadow, so he addressed the nurse instead.
"Get Panacea."
"Panacea has a waiting list."
"Clockblocker, then. Fast."
The nurse disappeared behind the curtain, and Armsmaster drew his attention to the cape. She was unmasked, no costume visible, which complicated things. The clipboard next to the heart monitor read "Skitter," and his first thought was that of course it would be Skitter, of all capes. Of course it couldn't be simple.
The side curtain shifted, and Miss Militia came back, alone.
"She went through a window," she explained, a taser by her side. "I sent a squad after her. Have you told Legend?"
"Not yet," he answered.
"I'll do it."
She fiddled with her earpiece as the nurse came back with Clockblocker. The boy took one look at the scene and reached for the cape's hand, using his power.
"Keep her on pause," Armsmaster told him, letting go of the cape's neck since keeping pressure was no longer necessary. "This takes priority over your other patients."
Clockblocker nodded, keeping his hand over the cape's, ready to freeze her again as soon as his power ran out.
The curtain parted again and Legend entered, flying a few inches above the ground. His eyes widened at the scene.
"Dear God, what happened here? Miss Militia said that the truce was broken? By whom?"
"Shadow Stalker, one of our Wards," answered Armsmaster with gritted teeth. Another black mark on his record. "And this is Skitter."
"The same Skitter we were talking about recruiting earlier? The one you said wanted to be a hero?"
He nodded.
"Shadow Stalker did that?" Asked Clockblocker. "Why?"
"Revenge?" He suggested. "I don't think she would go this far without a good reason."
"I'm guessing they know each others as civilians, since her costume is off," said Miss Militia.
"I'm afraid we won't know until either Shadow Stalker is caught, or her victim wakes up," said Legend. "Let's refrain from making assumptions until we can get the full story."
"Shouldn't we cover her face or something?" Asked Clockblocker, pointedly looking away.
"Bit late for that, I'm afraid," answered Legend. "It would be a breach of trust to pretend that we haven't seen her unmasked."
"What are we going to do?" Asked Miss Militia.
"We cannot afford for news of a hero breaking the Endbringer truce to spread, and containing the information is our number one priority. The ideal scenario would be to convince Skitter to join the Wards, and from what Armsmaster said, it should be easy enough."
He had his doubts, but didn't voice them.
"Do you understand how catastrophically bad things could have gone if Legend hadn't been there to pacify her and make a deal?" Asked an exasperated Miss Militia, pacing around.
It was easy for her to say so after the fact.
"I took a calculated risk," he defended himself. "She was being stubborn, refusing the obvious solution. I thought if we backed her into a corner, she would fold. I had no way to know something else was at play."
"And your prior experiences with her had nothing to do with it? The thing with Lung?"
He exhaled loudly at the reminder. Miss Militia continued without waiting for an answer.
"We need as many capes as possible to rise back from the Endbringer attack, so there is talk of postponing your transfer until things are more stable. But for that, I need to know whether you can let go of your grudge against Skitter and reach out to her. The girl has issues with authorities, that much is obvious, and we don't want her experience with you to negatively impact her dynamic with the other authority figures in the organization."
He nodded mutely, and she handed him a ziploc bag.
"Shadow Stalker's phones, both civilian and PRT-issued. She discarded them on her way out. See if you can find anything useful in there."
She left, and he set to work.
Armsmaster hated to be late, but in this particular case, he didn't mind.
He entered the interrogation room and sat down across from a redheaded girl and her father, who had insisted to be present.
"We have intel that you might be in contact with Shadow Stalker," he began without ceremony. "Is that the case?"
The girl exchanged a look with her father, who shook his head, and she remained silent.
"Have you heard from her today?"
Silence.
"Officers mentioned that you were absent when they arrived at your home, despite the rest of your family being there. Where were you?"
Silence.
"As of this morning, Shadow Stalker is considered a wanted fugitive."
She gave him a shocked face that looked a little too rehearsed. It confirmed his suspicion.
"If Shadow Stalker happened to share sensitive information about another cape's identity, you can be assured that acting on that information or sharing it would only result in the full force of the PRT and Protectorate coming after you. Do you understand?"
She glanced at her father, who was still shaking his head. She didn't respond.
"Should we learn that you know where Shadow Stalker is and are deliberately withholding that information from law enforcement, you could be accused of obstruction of justice and complicity in her crimes."
Another glance at her father, who was frowning.
"Additionally, analysis of Shadow Stalker's phones, both personal and professional, showed text messages incriminating you and one Madison Clements in an ongoing and extensive harassment campaign, and most notably, in the incident of January third at Winslow High."
"Has the alleged victim pressed charges?" Asked the father snootily.
"As a lawyer, I'm sure you understand that the incident in question constitutes a criminal offense. It can and will be prosecuted whether or not the victim decided to press charges, especially given the abundance of evidence recovered from Shadow Stalker's phones."
The man frowned, while his daughter's eyes went wide.
Armsmaster slid a piece of paper across the table.
"A warrant to search your phone. I have to apologize for the wait; it was hard enough finding a judge today of all days.
The father took the paper to read it, then nodded at his daughter, and Emma Barnes hesitantly deposited her phone in Armsmaster's waiting hand.
"Thank you for your cooperation," he said dryly.
He rose from his seat, nodding at the two way mirror, and the two police officers entered the room.
"Emma Barnes?" One of them called out, handcuffs in hand.
The girl looked like it was the very first time in her life that she was confronted to the consequences of her actions.
"You are under arrest for criminal conspiracy, false imprisonment, harassment, defamation, death threats, several counts of assault, obstruction of justice, and complicity to a variety of crimes."
Some of the charges probably wouldn't stick, but he'd combed through Shadow Stalker's text messages with Dragon's help, looking to pile as many charges on the girl to pressure her to take a plea deal, so she would tell them where Shadow Stalker was hiding. The text messages made it clear that she was aware of Shadow Stalker's double life as well as of her breaking her probation behind their backs, and that Shadow Stalker had called her for help on several occasions after going too far.
"You have the right to remain silent," said the police officer. "Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to…"
As he'd hoped, the girl's phone had a GPS running in the background to track her steps, and track her steps he did.
They led him to an abandoned building in the Docks, and while Shadow Stalker was absent, traces of her passage remained, concentrated in one apartment. Food wrappers. Bloody rags. Discarded medical supplies. A bare, stained mattress in one of the rooms. Broken arrows.
He set out to install hidden, motion-activated cameras in case she came back.
He was nearly done when his phone rang, an unknown number displayed on his HUD.
"Armsmaster," he answered after accepting the call.
"Armsmaster," came a man's dulcet voice. "Future former leader of the Protectorate ENE."
He bristled. How could they possibly know that?
"Who is this?" He demanded to know.
"A concerned citizen."
"Why are you calling me?"
Already, he was tracking the call.
"Just an honest conversation between two men. Congratulation on making it out of the fight. I heard it was a close call. A shame the same cannot be said of Fenja and Kaiser. At least Skitter made it out okay."
Armsmaster froze, recognizing the names.
"I know what you did," stated the man.
"I didn't do anything," answered Armsmaster. They couldn't prove anything. "I just fought to the best of my abilities. The Endbringer is the one to blame for those deaths."
"I've come to be in possession of a specific armband used during the Leviathan fight, belonging to Skitter. They removed it at the hospital, and it was easy enough for one of my associates to grab it."
Armsmaster remained silent.
"Imagine my surprise when I learned that the armband had been tampered with. You wanted to guarantee yourself a one-on-one fight with Leviathan, so you took advantage of the break afforded by Clockblocker to set up the battlefield the way you wanted, using Kaiser as bait and placing more villains in Leviathan's way."
"This is nonsense."
His HUD displayed the location of the caller. At the other end of town, near the Towers. The target was moving, no doubt in a car. He left the abandoned building and went back to his motorcycle.
"Worry not about tracking me. I will be long gone by the time you arrive at my current location, and this cellphone will be disposed of in a way that cannot be traced back to me."
"The armband proves nothing."
"You used an EMP blast on Skitter's armband so she couldn't report Leviathan's position and call in reinforcements, buying you time to take on Leviathan one on one. Any thinker worth their while would be able to trace it back to your signature halberd. If the truth were to come out, your career would never recover. You might even go to the Birdcage for breaking the Endbringer truce. Are you really willing to gamble your future and what's left of your career like that?"
He was silent a long moment before asking: "What do you want?"
"Glad you asked. I'm not asking for much. Just an e-mail with the data from your upcoming scan of the latest Ward's power, and I'll keep your secret. Do we have a deal?"
He hesitated, then gave his answer.