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Worm
Crusader (RWBY/Worm)
Thread starter MasterDuplicator Start date Apr 30, 2022 Tags rwby worm (parahumans)
Which story idea should I focus on next?
The eleventh hour(An AU where Beacon and Haven go differently, and humanity is dying off in Vacuo).
Votes: 77 4.3%
Punchclock(A chronicling of Lung's rise in Brockton Bay. Oni Lee will also become a person here).
Votes: 125 6.9%
Bark & Bite(The Hound and Arya Stark get comfortable in Thedas just as the Blight begins anew).
Votes: 182 10.1%
InFamous: An unofficial novelization(What it says on the tin).
Votes: 102 5.7%
Wanderlust(Artyom and Sam (From Metro/Metro Exodus) leave for America in the world of TLOU.)
Votes: 153 8.5%
Defender(Adam's continued adventures in Earth Bet.)
Votes: 1,162 64.6%
Total voters 1,800
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MasterDuplicator
Big Fan of a Mad Cow
Super Awesome Happy Funtime
Feb 8, 2025
#2,168
The next two chapters are where one of the biggest departures from canon so far happens. Guesses?
/
Glory Girl floated down to the ground with a stupefied look on her face as she took the room in. Adam didn't blame her.
Seeing some of the most dangerous men in the country standing around talking shop with one another would have given him pause as well.
"Come." Kaiser sighed. "Sit anywhere you like. I have a feeling this meeting shall be rather short."
Bastard Son nodded his assent, Hookwolf shrugged, Coil and His Undersiders didn't react outside of some muttering from the latter as Tattletale babbled to herself whilst still staring at him, while The Butcher just grunted.
Adam turned away from them all and found his place back in that corner, trying his best not to think about what he'd heard whilst propping up Wilt again so he could insert the once-chambered round into Blush and re-attach its magazine.
He saw Dallon shudder slightly out the corner of his eye as she eyed it. Her hair was shorter now, cut low enough to match the scar across her temple. Adam almost asked her aloud why her sister had only healed it so much for her. He hadn't meant it, and he could tell even from here it was rather nasty looking, a garish, thick, and upraised white line, thanks to the fact most of the tissue was keloid instead of regular, freshly healed skin, the very top sliver of her right ear now missing, subtle enough he wouldn't have noticed it if not for the fact he was the one to have blown it off and away in the first place.
Her expression cooled slightly as she took in Kaiser's presence, then The Butcher's, then Coil and the others, saving a final grimace for him.
Then she surprised them all by picking the devil she didn't know, quickly and hurriedly speed walking towards him, her back to the others. She leaned against the same pillar as him, close enough that an idle roll of his wrists would have caught her in the same place.
"Then there's no point in me getting comfortable." She hissed.
Adam felt his respect for her go up yet a few more notches, and for a moment, he idly wondered what Xiao-Long would have looked like with short hair.
Apparently content in his new role as lead speaker, Kaiser continued. "Well, I'm sure I don't need to summarize the situation for you all. So I guess we can start with what we're going to do about it. The National Guard-"
Bastard Son waved a hand. "-Won't be an issue."
There was a pause.
"The National Guard," Kaiser repeated, "Won't be an issue."
"Why should an army be an issue when I brought one of my own?"
There was another, longer pause as the room took that in.
Glory girl coughed. "When you say army-"
Bastard Son smiled. "Heh. I mean it. You can tell 'em all little girl, I don't particularly care. They sure as shit won't be fighting them head-on, but now that there's plenty of places a scruffy homeless-looking man or woman could hide..." He 'Heh'd again, trailing off for a moment. "I could wage a pretty irregular war here for a long, bloody time."
"Will, you mean." Adam drawled with a frown. "Considering you aren't leaving anytime soon?"
Bastard Son waved a hand across every face in the room. "Not until all of this is gone, no. It's gonna be fun. Still not sure how I'm gonna crack you yet." He said, jabbing a finger in Adam's direction. "But then again, I probably won't need to."
Kaiser ignored him and turned to Glory Girl. "What grace is your family, The PRT, or Army willing to give to us, if any?"
"We're fine helping, we've done it before." Glory Girl mumbled. "But The PRT, I'm not really sure. They've been kinda quiet with us ever since the bombings. I can't say they won't appreciate the help, but with the army here, if there's anyone here they catch wounded, tired, or alone, they'd snatch you in a heartbeat. They have too to save face. And I know that expectation can change depending on the situation-" She stressed, glaring at him out of the corner of her eye, and it took a moment for him to remember what she was talking about whilst she continued. -"But for the most part, no. You guys aren't getting any. There is no truce, and there isn't going to be, not unless something really drastic happens. They're shooting to kill out there."
The Undersiders looked between each other, whispering, and the reedy girl spoke back up. "Even after we announced the meeting?"
Noit-Coil clicked his tongue. "Through the appropriate back channels. Absolutely nothing about this is official, which is why I was disappointed but not surprised when The PRT refused to send an envoy."
"So it means we're on our own but for the Manson family." Hookwolf yawned.
Glory Girl looked at him, opened her mouth, and then thought the better of it. "Pretty much, yeah."
Kaiser coughed into his fist, drawing eyes again. "So avoid all contact with both PRT and National Guard for as long as you can." Adam caught the impression he was grimacing in disgust as he looked back at The Butcher. "Whilst our shields absorb their fire."
The Butcher's eyes narrowed a touch, but curiously, she didn't snap back.
"As for Lung and The ABB-"
"Bakuda's the problem." Adam Interjected.
"No shit." Hookwolf snapped. "But he's the only one other than you who's taken on an entire city's worth of capes at once, and just for the hell of it. We haven't seen him out once in weeks. That means he's had who even knows how much time to amp himself up. This is the kinda situation I'd dream about if I had his power. A giant tinderbox all around, with hundreds of invisible matches tucked away throughout the entire thing. Take out Bakuda, we've got her bombs, but Lung? He gets out, he gets going, it's gonna take more than death by a thousand cuts to bring him down."
"No," Adam said, tapping his finger against Wilt deliberately loudly. "It will only take one."
Kaiser inclined his head low. "Are you sure that's all you'll need?"
"He can do it." Tattletale and Glory Girl said at the same time.
"The right time, the right place, the right boost..." Adam trailed off, looking at everyone here. "The right partners, yes."
"Well, I can't imagine these two would be all that far apart, right?" Bastard Son wondered. "I mean, the shit show they've gotten themselves into, all they can do is double down and lean into it. He's probably bodyguarding her wherever she's at while she makes more of those bombs, and though I'd like me one or two of those, I'd rather not have to get past a fuckin dragon first."
"They'll be close by each other, but not that close. Bakuda hates him, and vice-versa. We isolate and destroy one while keeping the other busy, and they're not gonna drop everything they have to intervene. A large group to take down Lung, a small one to take out Bakuda." Tattletale gestured to herself and her compatriots. "We just about did it before."
"Hmm." Kaiser hummed caustically. "There was once a large group capable of harrying and fending off Lung. A rather significant portion of our city cape population, in fact. " He looked around the room in mock confusion. "I wonder where they all went."
Adam smiled grimly. "You'll find out soon enough."
"Probably." Kaiser deadpanned, and a little bit of Adam's mirth slipped away at how little the man seemed to care about his threats or even presence.
"What's done is done." Not-Coil mediated. "All we can do now is work through it. Do we have any idea where the two are hiding?"
"I've had some of my boys looking since I got here last night." Bastard Son said. "A few got snatched around a bunch of warehouses near the docks and had bombs stuck in their neck. Shame she ain't running a catch-and-release program anymore."
Kaiser chuckled. "Of course he would still be hiding out there."
"I have a group under my sway capable of scouting the situation out." Not-Coil said. "But we will all have to act fast. Upon the morrow, if necessary."
"No problems with that," Hookwolf said, looking around the room accusingly. "Right?"
Adam and the others shook their head.
"So we have a plan then." Glory Girl noted. "The Undersiders take out Bakuda, The rest of us wail on Lung till Taurus can get a kill shot. What about the unpowered members or the conscripts?"
Kaiser's voice was as dead as Adam's had been on the train. "What about them?"
Adam clenched his fists. "Keep them alive, as alive as you can. That goes for everyone here."
The Butcher laughed, making her presence known again. "You're all weak. Weaker than you should be." She moved away from her spot on the wall and glanced out at the doorway. "The Docks." She said.
Then she disappeared in a flash.
There was a moment of silent panic, as everyone at once caught on.
"I think I know where she's going." Hookwwolf laughed in disbelief.
'We need to go, now." Tattletale said, and her crew was already starting to file out the door in a hurry. Adam heard a shrill whistle courtesy of Bitch, and then a few very big somethings began hoofing it towards their location from a fair distance away.
"Agreed," Not-Coil said, getting up out of his stool, heading towards the backdoor. Bastard Son followed him after a moment of hesitation as looked around the room.
"Might we speak before we depart?" Kaiser said, as his Germans began to march in lockstep out front, and it took Adam a moment to realize he was speaking to him as he began walking towards the shattered doorway.
Hookwolf merrily jogged out of the wreckage, and Dallon flew past them both as Adam paused.
"You and I have nothing to discuss." He all but spat the words, Bakuda already having his full focus.
Kaiser hummed. "I disagree."
Then he reached up towards his helmet, and Adam watched stunned as he lifted it free of his head and carelessly dropped it to the floor.
Blonde hair, a mocking smile, creases below his baby-blue eyes.
It was all he had in him not to lunge then and there.
"Won't you make it fair?" Max Anders demurred. "You already knew who I was before this. You had to have."
Adam stared at him. The eyes were right, but the hair was several shades too dark, and the face was fifteen or more years too young.
The smile on his face was a placid, limpid thing, empty and hollow, only pretended courtesy.
"Do I look like him?"
Adam startled.
"Or Her?" Max Anders continued. "Or whomever it was to infuriate you so, whomever you've projected onto me."
Adam scoffed. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know you're not from here. I know you're not the type to lay low. I know the killings became public back in March, so that's my best guess as to when you arrived here. Something had to have happened, or I or My Empire had to remind you of something, done something, to get you so worked up. I know you are nowhere near as detached about it all as you for some reason pretend to be. You enjoy it. Relish it. The destruction you've left behind is not the kind a focused and callous, professional individual leaves behind."
"You flatter yourself. Your institution is a disgusting and evil one. I decided to do the world a favor, that is all."
"The world? You mean my world. You're a tourist. A visitor. An illegal immigrant." Max Anders snorted out the last few words. "You're ridiculous. All the power you have at your command, and you dedicate it to wiping out a fucking street gang."
"As a start." Adam growled. "And I can end it with you here and now."
"You could end wars." Kaiser said. "Run a gang, run an organization, run a vigilante group, run a country, were you to go far enough. You could have gone anywhere and done anything at all in the world, anything. You had a new beginning after being spat out of the mouth of whatever hell created you. So why attack The Empire, a group of nostalgic, idiotic, feeble-minded fools desperate for a purpose, a master, and an in-group?"
Adam halted a moment, his words still not quite sinking in. "You can't be serious. You hurt people, innocent people-"
Max Anders snorted. "Is that your line? I employ fifteen thousand people in this state alone. Sixty-eight thousand nationally. My company has healed and saved tens of thousands more. I own and operate an enterprise that's made brought me into the top ten list of richest men in America."
"As your cover-"
Max Anders howled with laughter. "-As my day job, you fool. Do you think I personally sanction every unimaginable cruelty or charitable endeavor either of my organizations perpetuates? The Empire is a sideshow. It's ridiculous. it's a farce. It has been since the day my father founded it. What do I care about its success, its failures?"
Adam paused, fists clenching. "You don't even believe in any of it."
"How could I? I'm far too smart for that. It burned me every day to see myself play my role so well that no one even suspects me. Suspects!" He shouted. The smile on his face was larger, more animated, almost genuine looking, though his eyes were as empty as ever. "Can you imagine the exhaustion, just for a moment? Of playing that role so well, for so long?"
"Why do it all?" Adam seethed.
"Because I enjoy it." Kaiser said. "And that's really all there is to it."
His temple throbbed. The brand seared itself into his skin again, the grimace on Indigo's face purposeful, not satisfied.
"Because I know what I am, and what I am not." Kaiser continued. "I make no excuses, have no illusions. I know what I like, what I want, and how to get it, and make any action necessary to seize it or achieve it. I am at peace with myself, and I have absolutely no regrets." He inclined his chin. "You could shoot me right here and now, and I wouldn't lift a finger to stop you, and I'd die with the same smile I have on right now. There is only one person I haven't lied to in this world, and that is myself. So when I see the arbiter of my destruction, the death of all that I am and have gained, be unable to give me an honest answer as to why he even wants to kill me? I'll be honest, it pisses me off a little bit."
Wilt rasped free. Kaiser stared at it.
"Just say it." he whispered. "Be honest with me. With yourself. You'll feel so much better, I promise. Everything makes just a bit more sense."
Adam imagined Jaques Schnee sitting at his desk, on the phone answering a call, bored in a meeting with his head in his hands, Jaques young like the man before him.
Do you think I personally sanction every unimaginable cruelty or charitable endeavor either of my organizations perpetuates?
Days and nights spent dreaming, practicing, wondering. Darts and bullets shot through papers and righteous fury propelling him through the ranks.
Of course Jacques didn't do any of it himself. The man had no idea what had happened to him, or likely almost all the Faunus his company tortured and enslaved. He was so far above the ground level he likely couldn't even see it all through the clouds, could probably count the amount of Faunus he'd met in person on one hand.
He mentally replaced Kaiser with Jacques, at that head table. Would he be just as apathetic? Would he scream, cry, beg, rage, and rail, try and fight?
Adam couldn't decide, and he knew it was because, at the end of the day, he would never, ever know.
This was the best he could do. The closest he could ever get to his life's dream. Whatever satisfaction he still got from it had to be squeezed through a sieve to still be felt.
Here he was, about to win his war. Crash a company, snuff out a living evil.
It was the best he could do.
Something unwound in his chest. A deep breath in, the weight of his years pushed out.
It was the best he was gonna get.
Adam told the man as such.
Max Anders relaxed in his chair, smile widening, all teeth.
Blush barked and punched straight through them.
The smell of cordite stung his nose, iron, copper, and burnt hair.
Adam waited a moment, staring at the corpse. He frowned in consternation.
There was nothing special about it. It was just one more amongst the pile.
He turned on his heel and walked out the front door, stomach fluttering strangely, like he was high up on a cliff, peeking down at a long, long drop.
It was over now. Just like that. The ABB was all that was left.
He stepped out into the street, all the civilians who were once there vanished, and Glory Girl, who he hadn't even noticed was waiting out front, waiting for him, squatting against a curb, looked at him.
"I figured something like that was gonna happen."
Adam didn't reply.
"Mom's talking about switching cities, when all this dies down." She began unprompted, after he didn't say anything for a few seconds, just stared off at her and through her into the distance.
"I'm sorry to hear that." He replied automatically, brows furrowed, Blush still smoking.
"No, you're not." She said. "But whatever. It's not going to die down anytime soon. Maybe not ever."
She hauled herself up to her feet, then rose up a few inches in the air. She opened her mouth, like she wanted to say something, then stopped herself short, glancing at the building behind him, the two dead men inside.
Then she soared off, high up into the air, then off into the distance.
Adam was alone again.
He wasn't sure if he liked it that way.
Last edited: Feb 8, 2025
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MasterDuplicator
Feb 8, 2025
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MasterDuplicator
Big Fan of a Mad Cow
Super Awesome Happy Funtime
Feb 10, 2025
#2,217
The next one is the big one. I'm talking 10K plus words type shit via me merging most of the chapters I was going to post in one big climax. The culmination of everything that's happened so far, as Lung and Bakuda finish what Adam started as Brockton Bay burns down around everyone inside of it.
/
Adam walked along the shattered sidewalk.
He didn't run, just...walked. One foot before the other, before the other, before the other, hands swaying at his sides, empty, clutching at nothing and maybe everything.
Wilt & Blush hung at his waist. The fingers of his left hand brushed against them in yearning with each pass as they swayed. He denied himself the indulgence, perhaps for the first time.
Indulgence. Indulgences.
Give him a sword, give him an axe, give him a pick, give him a gun, give him a job, give him a task and a purpose and a wrong to set right, a pat on the head and a shake of the hand.
Not this. Not this quiet.
Adam walked.
Not because he didn't want to run, but because he couldn't.
Not from this.
To his left was a cavernous sinkhole that expelled smoke and a slow moving fog that had legs and hands and arms and fingers swimming around inside of it, floating in Zero Gravity, bound in place by Bakuda, all that remained of an entire interchange. To his right, empty storefronts, decaying flowers, mosses and lichens already spreading out from cracks in the pavement, a burst pipe, slowly sputtering out its contents in protest of the position it had been warped into by the explosions.
A poster advertising a movie, peppered with glass shards, a woman and child hand-in-hand admiring it, the sun reflected a thousand times in their diamond eyes, like sculptures in one of Brockton Bay's many parks.
An explosion, in the distance, muted, a few miles away, nothing out of the ordinary these days.
Ordinary.
The word didn't mean anything to him.
Maybe that was the problem.
He'd lived a life so far away from it, a life so strange and sad and bizarre maybe he didn't even know what that was.
Ordinary. Normal.
He thought of Jacques again. His ivory towers and steak dinners and billions of Lien.
Was that ordinary to him? Expected? Could he imagine himself in a world without it? If he suddenly lost it all one day and was cast out somewhere else, a world that didn't even know his name, would he be able to live without his luxuries, those indulgences? The caviar and the cars, the champagne and the celebrations?
If he had spent a day inside Lagertod, lighting a fire, fixing a seventy-year-old heater, crying outside a vortex spawned by some lit-off gravity dust, felt a boot imprint itself into his back, watched a man lose four fingers down to the knuckle after a fire dust crystal shattered, slept outside in freezing tundra, watched a peace officer beat down a Faunus with a baton until their skull was visible and their breathing had stopped, felt that awful, hellish searing heat, the pain, for just a moment, not even a second, a moment, would he have understood? Would he have changed things?
If he had to choose between starting again or starting new, which would he?
A car drove past him in the opposite direction of another, louder explosion. Gunfire staccatoed in the distance, following sirens. People peeked out of nearby windows, shattered apartment complexes, businesses turned refugee centers and homeless encampments, drum fires and clotheslines covered in oil lamps strung along balcony to balcony and alleyway to alleyway, lighting up areas without power.
People saw him. People whispered. Someone threw a rock from above and a curse to go with it, and both broke apart against his horns.
Adam kept walking.
It isn't my fault, he wanted to tell them. None of this is. Bakuda, Lung, they are the ones deserving of your wrath, but he then remembered.
Bakuda's a big fan of your style. She wouldn't mind.
Death and destruction without rhyme or reason. Whismy with half-hearted justifications, the idea that because one could, they should.
Krieg's death, the ravine he'd created. The emptied vet hospitals. The murders in the flop house and the warehouse swallowed up by the night.
A worthy cause. An easy decision.
The same kind of madman.
Adam stopped a moment, blinked coming back to himself, and recognized he was at an intersection, the sun having moderately dimmed, nearby a light permanently fixed red, the street buckling upward from a below-ground explosion, a Humvee missing a tire, being worked on by technicians to his right, trying to turn in. The men working saw him and yelled out in terror, swearing. The doors opened and men filed out, training rifles on him, trigger fingers shaking.
Adam turned his head towards them, and those rifles snapped up an inch higher, sweat beading off their brows, caught by their helmets.
He couldn't muster the hate, and even the apathy felt half-hearted. There was something here, but he couldn't name it or describe it.
Adam kept walking.
A helicopter swirled past his head, bearing the insignia of some news agency. It slowed a moment, whirled around even as more pops and cracks joined the stuttering orchestra ahead of them both. More explosions, flashes of white, eye-searing light, the scent of ozone, and rising flames, their cores a swirling blue.
It floated above him now, angling itself so whatever crew were inside could film him, rotors beading loudly against the wind, even them straining to be heard over the sounds of the rising chaos.
Adam kept walking. It followed him, his own personal procession as the Humvee a short distance behind roared to life and joined it in shadowing him. Another few miles, another hour or so.
A roar in the distance, inhuman. The flames he could distantly see flashing and curling, licking through the air, lingering in the air, were now tinged fully blue.
Instinct, a hand on Blush's magazine, counting one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten shots left.
Not enough, never enough, but he was used to that. Always outnumbered, never outmatched.
A flash of white to his left, Glory Girl, again, trailing left above him, expression stony, high up enough in the air to make a shot impractical, flanked by someone else still too far away for him to recognize.
Engines roaring, close enough he could smell the diesel. More explosions, one after another after another, a domino effect, likely some more poor meat shields. A small singularity burst to life above one of them, and Adam saw a few dozen soldiers and PRT troopers alongside someone feminine that looked like they could either be Faultline or Vista get sucked up into it before the singularity collapsed and sent gore and spaghettified bodies whirling around in all directions.
Tanks roared ahead a few hundred feet in front of him, followed by semi trucks that turned to cordon that side and the one across from it off, swinging left out of a four-way intersection, headed right for the heart of the mayhem. More white light, Purity flying high, joined by Dauntless and Shielder, a wave of curling blue flame following them shaped like the grasping fingers of an outstretched and clawed hand, bright enough to dye the clouds above the same color. Lung was headed this way, towards him, big. Bigger than Adam would have liked.
Adam came upon the four-way stop, and saw two semis to his left and right, flanked by soldiers, PRT troopers in armor that looked as more expensive than the tanks that had preceded them, foam guns and grenade launchers and tasers ready to deploy, Kid Win with them on the left, inside a turret atop it that could fit upon an Atlas Battleship. Assault and Battery, to the right, joined by Manpower and Laserdream, The Dallon Matriach and Aegis. alongside someone unfamiliar to him, wearing a form-fitting bodysuit that looked as though it were perpetually on fire, their mask fierce and snarling, flames burning atop it as well as they stepped out the trailer.
Adam stopped for the final time as another semi he heard coming long ago pulled ahead from another street, blocking the way forward. A man and woman covered in bones and spikes in front of him atop it, some of The Teeth, Vex and Hemmorhagia likely pulled away from the fighting, joined by Cricket of all people. Soldiers too, spilled out the back ramp of its trailer, alongside a man in a top-hat black and another in padded body armor. Adam noted something else was headed his way as well, very loud and very big, engines snarling out loud enough to be heard from far off the coast. Something from Dragon, no doubt.
Soldiers in the buildings around him, at the ground floor, spilling out into the street, in the windows, and a flash, a scope glint, atop a skyscraper ahead. Adam had a feeling it wasn't a normal rifle being aimed at his head.
An ambush prepared ahead of time, prepared long in advance by hero and villain alike. The news helicopter was still above, listening to every word.
"So this is how we're doing it," Adam noted aloud, voice a whisper so low he doubted anyone in the world but he was going to catch it. "Here, now, of all places?" He wondered, this time a little louder.
Powers flared and guns were aimed, but no one attacked, not yet.
Another revving engine, one he was imminently familiar with.
Adam turned around and saw Armsmaster pulling forward, upon his motorcycle.
His armor was different, much bulkier, thicker, and Adam heard the whirring of servos and actuators as it moved. It made him taller than Adam by a whole head, his helmet covered in all sorts of antennae and sensors, the faceplate a dark, blank, featureless thing, Adam's own reflection staring back accusingly.
His armor was covered in seams and frills Adam knew likely contained nasty surprise after nasty surprise, his halberd strapped to his back, slightly smaller, different. blade sharper, with more notches along its side and body.
Adam couldn't even begin to imagine what it was now capable of.
"Taurus." The man greeted him flatly, voice modulated, stepping off of his motorcycle. The ground shook where his feet touched.
"Adam." He replied tiredly. His name.
Armsmaster inclined his head and retrieved a pair of handcuffs from the motorcycle that leaned upright on its own, that began motoring around them in circles under its own power, engine revving like the hiss of a stalking predator. "Adam, then." He said. "I'm only going to offer it once. Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head."
Adam didn't reply, just looked around, taking the scene in. Surrounded. Encircled.
He saw Glory Girl nodding at him like he should take such a generous offer.
And generous it was.
"I don't kneel. Not to anyone, not again."
"Then turn around." Armsmaster countered. More explosions compounded his words.
"You could let me go." Adam bargained instead, nodding in the direction Lung was. Many of the fires had gone out, and it seemed to Adam he was beginning to lose steam. "I could help. I was going to."
"I could do that." Armsmater agreed. "But I won't. Lung's on borrowed time and he knows it too. This is his last hurrah, and Bakuda's already in custody. The Undersiders surrendered her to us, but not before she activated a switch that set every bomb she's planted off in delayed sequence. We're interrogating her now to figure out how to stop it."
"You're running out of time, fast."
"You already have." Armsmaster growled. "Quit stalling. Make your choice."
Adam stepped back slightly, and he heard everyone there collectively inhale as scanned for the weakest link in the encirclement.
Armsmaster was it.
"I could leave the city." He tried one last time. "I was planning to. There's nothing for me here, nothing at all. No ties binding, no work unfinished, no friends, no family, nothing. You would never see me again. Neither would anyone else. I could disappear-"
"No." Armsmaster sighed. "That would never happen. And I think you already know why yourself."
Adam didn't say anything.
"You're a uniquely dangerous individual. Not just in regards to your obvious training, or lethality, powers. You're dangerous in mindset."
Adam-
He couldn't say anything now. He could only listen.
"You confuse even our best thinkers in different ways and each and every one of them had different ideas for where you were from, how you were possible, how we could fight you, kill you, detain you, but there's only one thing they collectively agreed on. That you will never stop being a threat. That you will never stop killing. Not for anyone, not for anything."
"Why?" Adam whispered.
"Because you're a Crusader," Armsmaster said. "A moral one. A man who believes he's fighting a righteous cause, a man who believes he's doing the right thing, doing the world a favor. A man who has decided that he and he alone understands how things are and believes that because he has the capability, he has a moral duty to set things 'right', to how he believes they should be. No revelation can shake them of their course, no moral event horizon can be reached, because they already crossed it so, so long ago, and the only thing in the world left for them is to push on. You can't convince them, you can't change them, because they live in a storybook world where there are clear and easy-to-see dividing lines between right and wrong, a world where the rules can be bent, broken, or subverted if it means a 'good' outcome is reached. A world where they can do whatever they want, like the child they still are. You decided The Empire-88 had to go, that they were in the wrong, and you were in the right, and maybe that was true, once, but it stopped being that way when you decided because that you were better than them, you could do what you wanted to them. That any act of cruelty or violence or torture, no matter how reprehensible, was not only justifiable but reasonable, maybe even mandated, based on who they were and what they did and what they believed, just like how I'm sure Victor or Kreig or any other member of theirs you've slaughtered felt. Just. The. Same. And I won't shed a tear for any one of them, not one, but I will lament the fact that the man who finally took them to task was just like them, really. Motivated by hate and by spite and by purpose. I wouldn't ever let you leave this city. I'd sooner die. And maybe I will. But I'd die stopping you, and so would every other man and woman here, because they know that you've only just gotten started, even if you don't even know that yourself yet. If I did let you go, could you look me in my eyes and tell me for certain you'd never pick up that sword again? That you'd never kill another man out of hate? That you'd live a normal, quiet, happy life? Could you do that?"
Adam was in Argus again, overlooking a cliff, a precipice. He watched himself sink beneath the waves, blood still dribbling from his lips, hands still outstretched, trying in vain to reach for Blush as it sank.
"No." He said, and just like with Kaiser, the words lifted something inside of him up and away, freed him. He stumbled and halted over his words, speaking without thinking. "I don't think I could. I don't think I know how. All that's ever driven me was hate. I don't think I'm anything without it. Hate for The Empire, Hate for Atlas, hate for the SDC, hate for myself. Without hate, there's nothing keeping me moving. Breathing. I've only ever loved once, and I didn't even love right. I don't think I'd even know where to start again, if I could. If I could go back and do it all again, from my first breaths to my final gasps, I think I'd make the same mistakes again in different places at different times. It's like trying to imagine a new color, a world without hate. There's nothing in me that lends itself to being a bystander, to a simple life. I could never see an injustice and let it slide, no matter how slight. Even dying didn't cure me of it. That hatred. And something else brought me here to watch myself make a mess of things again. I don't know what or who it is, but I hate it too. And it's much, much too late now to try learning anything else."
He stopped to breathe, eyes clenched tightly shut behind his mask.
There was something approaching pity in Armsmaster's voice. "It is." He held out the cuffs. "But we could teach you. Some of it. What there is to life, a limited life it would be."
Adam stared at them, the ethereal glow hidden behind the cracks in the strangely varnished steel. There was something strangely attractive about them, seductive.
Someone else making all the decisions for him again. When to eat. When to sleep. When to work. When to play. What to do.
But...
He reached out, and Armsmaster took a step forward, then he paused with a sigh as Adam's hand came to rest atop Wilt instead.
"I'd rather die free. Aware of the mistakes I've made."
"And so you could escape the consequences of them." He shook his head. "So you wouldn't have to look yourself in the eye again and confront them."
"Maybe." Adam conceded, and he spread his legs out wide into a proper stance, leaning forward, banner fluttering at his side. "But did you expect anything less?"
"No." Armsmaster said sadly. He unholstered his Halberd, and without any visible motion on his part, it shrunk down to a size that could comfortably fit in one hand, blade shifting and folding to match an axehead. He waved a hand at the others, and seemed so certain of his ability to fight him by himself Adam almost believed him capable of it. "I didn't."
Wilt, bathed in red, bared her teeth.
A light brighter than one thousand suns lit up the world behind them, its whipcrack shockwave their starting gun.
Last edited: Mar 30, 2025
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MasterDuplicator
Feb 10, 2025
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MasterDuplicator
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Apr 6, 2025 Awarded 1
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By god.
I don't know how many times I rewrote just this portion.
This short little snippet.
I reached 10k total words five separate times for the whole chapter.
I read it.
I re-read it.
I delete it all and start from scratch, because it just doesn't feel right.
I start again.
I feel sick with it, and get up, walk away.
The next day it's the only thing in the world I'm thinking about. I get back on it.
I write it out.
I read it.
I re-read it.
I delete it all and start from scratch, because it just doesn't feel right.
I wasn't lying when I said, forever ago, that I had just about all of this pre-written.
I just re-write and re-write and re-write and re-write. I change and change and change because it's just, frankly, never good enough for me. Almost every chapter of this fic, once it started clearing more than a thousand or two thousand words.
I have a really hard time with this fic these days. I love it to death. I'm proud of it.
And part of me hates it.
It's my firstborn. the one with all the kludge, the mistakes, the first-timer errors.
And worst of all, it's almost over.
Theres this fight.
A dream.
A wake-up call.
Leviathan.
The end.
If I made each chapter 10k words or more, it would be over in four chapters.
It's like I have this mental block.
I can't let myself finish it.
Because then this thing, this project, the distraction, this achievement(?) that's kept me out of so many dark places and pulled me out of more than I can count, with everything I've been through over the years since I started it...
It's over.
It's really hard. I know it's stupid, but it is.
So I'm piecemealing it again.
Sorry.
I won't woe is me anymore.
Rapid fire, rapid fire.
However I gotta do it.
/
The shockwave knocked him forward, pitching him down towards the ground.
Armsmaster didn't move, didn't hesitate, and probably hadn't even blinked in the face of the blindingly bright light a few blocks ahead of him. Adam could see a small mushroom cloud in the reflection of his visor.
A wave of blue and green energy raced out from it. What electronics it passed over shorted out instantaneously. Lights died, the helicopter above them stalled, then began to drift, the Humvees froze, radios and phones died, and the lights inside Kid Win's turret flickered a moment.
The wave raced outward, faster than even he could track.
Adam caught a glimmer of it racing out past the city's boundaries.
It showed no signs of slowing down.
Capes and soldiers hit the ground around him, blown away and tossed around like leaves caught in a gale.
Everyone was stumbling, catching their breath, panicking.
This would have been the time.
Expect that Armsmaster hadn't stumbled. Hadn't slowed even a moment as he closed the distance step by thundering step, fast. Neither had his motorcycle, which was still circling them.
Nor had Dragon's aircraft in the distance.
Adam caught himself, landing hard on one knee, and in the time it took for him to adjust his grip on Wilt and look up, Armsmaster was there, ground splintering before his every step-
He raised Wilt and held it out, left glove sinking into its edge to brace with both hands as he brought the flat of the blade up just in time to catch Armaster's hammer blow.
And it was a hammer blow all right.
If Adam wasn't on his knees already, he would have been driven to them, he mused in surprise. A strangled grunt of surprised exertion seeped out through his clenched teeth as Wilt bent so far back in his grip the tip nearly tapped his shoulder before he adjusted, barely.
The ground below him began to crack and spiderweb, even as Wilt greedily devoured all the power the axehead had to offer.
Adam braced harder, pushing forward with effort he deemed considerable, aiming to shove Armsmaster back.
The man's arms didn't even flex, servos and gears flexing and and whirring, grinding, not even seemingly pressed.
Adam winced internally, waiting to be overpowered, waiting for Armsmaster to simply use his step forward and use his bulk to knock him over, for the foot or knee that should have been racing towards his gut, all things Adam would have been doing already.
Instead, he just kept pushing harder with both hands, inexorably.
Adam's wrists kept bending backward, millimeter by millimeter, then inch by inch.
He's stronger than me. Adam realized with a start, without any extra Aura in his arms. By a considerable margin. And he wants me to know it.
That was the only reason he engaged in this farce of a bind.
Adam laced his right arm with aura, let his land hand give, and Armsmaster pushed forward, leveraging his bulk and momentum to the left, attempting to drive him into the ground.
Then, Adam pushed again, rolling to the side just after, and Armsmaster fell forward, Axehead biting deep into the ground that exploded from the force. Armsmaster bent low with it, almost bowing, like that Polearm-turned-Axe was ten or eleven times heavier than it looked.
It probably was, Adam reflected.
He lashed out with an ankle sweep and a deliberate swing of Wilt across Armsmaster's back, the blade glowing brighter than the explosion had.
His foot stopped dead and rebounded off of something an inch or so past Armsmaster's armor.
Wilt scraped off of that self same thing in a shower of blue sparks and crimson lightning without even leaving a rent, only a distorted shimmer, a rotating, electrical force that clashed with Moonslice's destructive power.
A force that was matching it, at least for the moment.
Adam could have laughed out loud.
Armsmaster had manufactured his own 'Aura'. Maybe even a superior one, cause Armsmaster showed no signs of even feeling the impacts.
The faceless helmet turned his way. Armsmaster's right foot twitched.
A panel opened atop it, and a small engine popped out from inside the dense armor plates.
A brilliant scarlet flame burst to life, and Armsmaster's foot raced backward towards Adam's face faster than a rocket.
His vision went red, then black, then white as feeling came back to him, nerves buzzing, face numb for a moment before the burning agony set in.
He didn't feel the concrete shudder and break apart as he carved a furrow into it ten feet or more long whilst his nervous system reset itself, but he sure as hell heard it.
Adam blinked slowly, seeing the world in triplicate as he unsteadily raised himself up off the ground, temple throbbing from the concussion he'd for sure been gifted. Floaters and spots danced in his line of sight, the sun brighter than it should have been in his right peripheral as he spat out a blood-stained tooth.
When he looked down to see shattered porcelain on the ground, he lifted a gloved hand upward to touch his mask.
The half of it that was still there.
Adam felt himself paleing.
Yang Xiao-Long couldn't have hit him that hard on a good day.
Armsmaster had paused mid-stride, His halberd now fully extended and frozen mid-lunge, the man no doubt focussed on what could now be seen.
That note of pity Adam had heard before was back in the man's voice, his frown audible. "How old are you?"
Adam sheathed Wilt, fingers tapping on its hilt, his bad eye flicking left, then right, scanning the crowd. With his concentration shattered, the aura wrapped around his head warped, reeling; his vision in it was rapidly fading away. The men and women watching became twisted shadows in his peripheral as half the world in his line of sight began darkening around him, those silhouettes twitching and shaking and swaying like mocking spirits.
This would have been the time. Adam thought again. The moment.
"Twenty-three," Adam mumbled. His lips twitched upwards unbidden at a sudden realization.
He'd always been a man of extremes.
But Adam had never thought about the fact he quite literally only saw the world naturally half-blind.
In black and white.
Adam snorted.
Then he closed both eyes and sucked in a breath, drawing deep inside himself.
The clouds rained ink and the street bled ichor.
The sun vanished for a moment, suddenly eclipsed by the moon, rimmed red at its edges.
Adam imagined Armsmaster scattered into petals.
His will, his power, transmogrified imagination into reality, falsehood into truth.
Wilt slid back into its sheath.
Adam raised a brow as color was slowly painted back into the world. The impossibility of what he saw before him stayed his blade before he could draw it again.
Armsmaster was still standing.
Blue lightning clashed with red. Thorny vines of energy wrapped and twisted and coiled around each other like writhing snakes, hissing and spitting. The maelstrom of energy was spaced off maybe a foot away from his body, farther than it had been before, the sound one long continuous roar, like the distinctive scream his semblance let out as he gathered up energy had yet to go silent.
The crimson light swirled and twirled around him in a spherical shape, flashes of blue momentarily overtaking the red as Moonslice devoured the energy, and the energy devoured Moonslice.
Adam narrowed his eyes, concentrating on the energy further, the aura around his head resettling itself. The last of what he'd drawn in from their bind left him as his vision returned to what passed for normal.
In an instant, the shield popped and burst, sparks flying, and the slivers of energy from their bind in the air burnt themselves out even as he tried willing them back to life, only a couple dozen petals drifting slowly to the ground showcasing a power that should have been awesome, destructive.
Not...impotent.
Adam could hear Armsmaster's breathing beneath the helmet.
Barely.
Harsh. It came out in short, rushed puffs.
The remnants of panic.
He wasn't sure it was going to work.
But it had.
For the moment.
"I know your tricks." Armsmaster blustered, stepping forward again. His Halberd was raised into a guard position Adam didn't recognize. "And I can take as many hits like that as I need to."
Can you? Adam almost asked. He took a single step to the right, then another, so that the sun was at his back, one leg crossing over the other, fingers tapping on Wilt's hilt. The motorcycle moved a few inches closer, still silently looping around them both.
That shield, it had taken two good hits from him already. He hadn't even been able to impart force on the man behind it. He could seemingly move it as he wished, concentrating it further out to intercept attacks, or draw it closer to his armor.
Had he truly shattered it, or had Armsmaster merely let it recede?
Moonslice could penetrate most weaker Auras, especially concentrated along his blade. It was never a sure thing, but one good strike was often enough to debilitate a superior foe enough to even things up skill-wise.
A blow like that, even Xiao-Long or Branwen would have been worse off.
Armsmaster rolled his shoulders. Adam saw Assault jogging in place, rubbing a hand on Battery's back as she did the same.
Both sets of feet were moving too fast for his eyes to track.
If Armsmaster hadn't survived the blast...
If.
Adam snorted again.
"If, if, if." He mumbled. If things had only gone his way...
Armsmaster cocked his head.
Adan shook his minutely.
What did if matter?
"Either I win, and I'm right." He drawled out loud, for his Armsmaster's benefit and his own. "Or I'm dead, and it doesn't matter if I'm wrong."
That was really all there was to it.
And who knows if I'll even stay dead?
What Hell came after the first?
He turned his head, looking past Armsmaster, past the flames, past both Dragons in the distance, still closing the distance, to look at Glory Girl.
She was tapping her feet on air, fretful. Anxious. Her eyes widened just like hers had when they landed on his scar.
The grief, the hesitation, it all melted away under the heat of her gaze.
And then he finally understood.
The joke. The reason.
Maybe this wasn't hell.
Maybe it was something else.
Adam smiled at her. He imagined it must have looked peaceful. Wistful. Maybe even serene.
"I want you to do it."
Victoria Dallon Yang Xiao Long recoiled mid-air.
Before she could even say 'what?', Adam had shot towards Armsmaster faster than a bullet, faster than the human eye could track.
Armsmaster's arms moved before anything else. The Halberd shot upward to intercept in a movement so sudden and abrupt that Adam would have torn almost every muscle he had in his arms trying to replicate it as Wilt crashed into his blade, forced to a dead stop.
Adam let out a soft, relieved exhale.
Armsmaster would make a fight of it.
Last edited: Apr 7, 2025
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Apr 6, 2025
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MasterDuplicator
Big Fan of a Mad Cow
Super Awesome Happy Funtime
Apr 7, 2025
#2,267
There was so much useless flavor text in this one. Trimmed it down by a whole hell of a fucking lot.
/
Justin was shouting, shouting.
"God damn it kid, quit fucking squirming. Brad-"
Hookwolf pursed his lips, hesitating a moment as he heaved for breath, sweat beading down his brow from the sheer fucking heat, coughing and choking on the smoke and smog before as he ran back towards Justin.
He had a squirming little bug in his arms, keening and gasping. Half her face was dripping down like melting wax, splattering on the rooftop pavement, and the other was contorned in absolute breathless agony.
Justin lifted her up a moment, trying to adjust his grip, bridal style.
Lung roared, and Hookwolf glanced at him in the distance out the corner of his eye.
Twenty feet tall. Maybe a little taller. Silver skin over silver muscle, denser and tougher than most steels. Blue flames swelled around him and then exploded outwards like he was living a Molotov cocktail someone had smashed to the ground.
There was so much smoke in the air displaced by the blast that it was starting to look like night, even with the sunset still trying to shine through.
Justin grimaced, concentrating as his little sheet ghosts carried everyone who couldn't fly or move under their own power anymore out of the blast radius.
Skitter moaned pitifully.
Hookwolf clicked his tongue. Well, I don't want you dead yet.
There was still a chance it was possible, however unlikely.
He jogged over to her, shucking away the useless, molten lumps of corrguated iron that had once been his arms, face, and ribcage, wincing internally when his core chugged and stuttered a second before finally spitting out the material he needed.
It hadn't come cheap, so far.
But it was working. Steadily.
They were already on Butcher XVI.
Hookwolf grinned with pointed teeth down at the girl in Justin's arms, when her one intact eye rolled in his direction. Do you wanna be XVII, kiddo? We can make that happen.
"Brad!"
"Jesus, alright."
Hookwolf knelt down towards the girl's face, fingers five parallel scythes.
He eyeballed the damage on the left side of her face, the small patches of burnt skin and missing eyebrow, a few small burns on the left side of her scalp. She'd be fine there even without any extra medical treatment.
The right side, though...
He winced again, this time visibly.
That's fucking nasty.
It was dead. Just about all of it, down to the bone. He could see right through her cheek, muscles visible, charred, flexing and smoking. Hookwolf feasted his eyes on her missing chompers, soot stained gums, and he craned his neck so he could look all the way down her throat. Infection would get her fast even with the dead flesh gone, but if they just left her like this, let her keep it, even just for a little bit...
Justin looked to him, desperate behind his helmet. He always had a soft spot for young'ins. Especiually fuckin idiot ones like Skitter, who decided putting on a Halloween costume was a smarter use of their time than going to school.
Hookwolf sighed.
"Good news and bad news, kiddo. Good news is you don't got any major arteries in the face, so we don't gotta worry about the blood loss getting you, just the shock and pain. Bad news is, I'm gonna have to scrape most of what's left off your face if you want a shot at not dying before Dallon gets to you. You gonna let me?"
That eye, the one that was still somehow fukcing lucid, shed a single tear. Her head lolled slightly.
"I'm taking that as a yes." Hookwolf snorted.
He fanned out his fingers and gently brushed them across her destroyed face, snipping and feathering away the mangled flesh till all that was left was clean muscle and a few isolated spots of ridged bone near her chin and brow.
Skitter hummed the whole time, but Brad figured that was because of the wounds she had that she could actually feel.
Cause there is no way a single nerve is still firing through this shit.
He got it done pretty quickly, only accidentally nicking a single tendon inside her mouth, one that made her jaw fall about an inch slacker on the right side. Hot ashfall started raining down, lodging in their costumes and hair and the inside of her mouth. Justin made him pause, and he tilted her head so it would fall out and she wouldn't choke.
"Well, you'll never be prom queen if Panacea doesn't get to you," Hookwolf announced to her when he was all finished, taking another minute or two cause of the odd angle. "But you'll live for now, once we get you to one of the refugee camps."
She gurgled hatefully.
Hookwolf narrowed his eyes. 'What?"
Justin turned to him, tugging a matted lock of hair out of her mouth, covered in clotted blood and sinew. "They pulled out of the camps while we've been keeping Lung busy. There's nowhere to take her."
Hookwolf said, "Well shit."
A massive explosion compounded that statement.
(X)
It had been something special.
Even he could admit that.
Everyone had been working together in a way he'd never seen before, outside of how he'd heard people describe an Endbringer fight.
Miss Militia, popping off with machine guns, rocket launchers, conventional explosives. Fucking anti-aircfract gun emplacements, turrets, cannons, everything, moved from position to position by Justin as needed.
Velocity, running around fast, too fast, really. Hookwolf couldn't track him.
He understood the man's power. He ran really fast but couldn't impart much force. Kinda useless but for scouting.
At least, Hookwolf had thought that till he saw the gravel start cutting into Lung like shrapnel, travelling at Mach fucking Two.
Velocity couldn't pick things up in his breaker state, yeah.
But what if he was already holding something when he was running?
What if he let go of that something?
There was lots of starting, stopping, awkward dipping in and out of the battlefield for it to work.
But he'd been doing some damage.
Rune had been making herself useful, darting around, carried by Justin, lugging around two-and-a-half-ton chunks of rubble, darting around to move them around and shield people from the flames. Dauntless zapping with his lance, Shielder throwing out a few blasts now an then, hemming the fucker in for Kayden, who was palling around with Sundancer, constantly being recharged by the latter. They had to distract Lung pretty good for her powers to still work, but when it did...
Kayden brought down the hammer. Made Lung stop, made him run.
Shielder would block the way. Justin's ghosts would start tugging on mouthparts and trying to gouge out eyes.
It could have been possible, maybe.
If everyone had been working together.
But that wasn't how the Butcher rolled without the Teeth.
And she'd done nothing but get in the way of everyone's line of fire. Miss Milita's, Shielder's, Dauntless's.
More importantly, she was constantly giving Lung room to maneuver and redirect his attacks.
The Butcher gave them a few small lulls by getting in Lung's face, but the rat bastard had, rather correctly, surmised that she couldn't do much to hurt him anymore.
So he just started ignoring the fucker.
Full stop.
Even then.
There'd been a chance. Even though Lung was still growing, still healing in the face of everything they'd thrown at him, despite the Capes he'd already killed, he could tell the others had hope.
And that was just what Hookwolf needed, really.
Because it meant they would keep fighting.
It was easy to forget who was with you in the heat of the moment.
Easy for him to sneak off.
Sneak around.
And make some 'accidents happen'.
Friendly fire, as the saying said, wasn't.
Except in Larson's case, maybe. He'd played his part perfectly.
Hookwolf would thank the man for it pretty soon, he hoped.
And so, with his help, they were at Butcher XVI.
Lung roared again. Farther off, chased by Purity. Hookwolf could barely see them in the distance through the smog.
"Pull them out." He grunted.
"Who?" Justin asked, sweat beading on his brow. He looked stressed, put upon. He'd made more ghosts in the past half hour than he'd ever seen the man make in his whole career.
"The Butcher. Get em the fuck out of the way. Maybe we can drive Lung into the Army." Maybe. Hookwolf doubted it, privately.
"What are they gonna do?" Justin mumbled hatefully. "Cities fucked no matter what."
Hookwolf nodded.
Even with the bomb Bakuda had set off, maybe.
But with the firestorm raging now?
A third of the city was gone.
A third of the entire fucking thing.
Ash.
"Got 'em." Justin muttered. He sounded tired, languid. Hookwolf could see in the distance the shape of XVI thrashing in a sheet ghost's grip.
Hookwolf waited till they were pretty high up in the air.
Then he put a hand on Justin's head, ruffled his hair.
Justin said, "T'fuck, Br-"
And that was all he got out before Hookwolf pulled his head back and slammed it into the rooftop as hard as he could.
There was a loud crack, the sound of splintering bone. Skitter let out a wheeze of discomfort as she slid out of Justin's arms and felt the back of her head rub against concrete.
Justin wasn't moving. His chest was still rising and falling, and blood pooled out from the back of his head.
His ghosts were gone.
Everyone who was in their arms, now at the mercy of gravity and Lung.
Both were pretty cruel bitches.
Hookwolf inhaled a clump of ash. "Not Brad right now, Bud."
Maybe not even 'Hookwolf' much longer.
Skitter was eyeballing him, hyperventilating.
"Relax." Hookwolf grunted. "You don't matter much to me right now. And trust me, that's a good thing."
He sighed, then sat down indian style, dragging the girl forward so her head was resting on his knee, her twisted, broken limbs twitching with effort.
Trying to crawl away?
"And go where?" He asked sardonically. Hookwolf looked around.
Fire, fire, fires. Everywhere the eye could see.
The occasional glimmer of crimson light, lengthening shadows.
Gunshots, far off in the distance.
Hookwolf gave Skitter's ruined face a friendly pat. "Look at that. He's still fucking going." He laughed, tilting his head to look her in the eye. "Maybe I'll be the hero of the day, stopping him. Wouldn't that be funny?"
Skitter slurred, trying to speak.
Hookwolf sighed forlornly. "I wanted more. To do it with." He said, glancing at Justin.
Had it worked?
He couldn't tell yet.
Skitter's lone eye widened. Then it narrowed defiantly.
"Chhk." She managed to choke out.
"Work?" Hookwolf guessed. "It won't work?"
Skitter glared.
Hookwolf turned his head back to Justin, unconscious, breathing slowing, agonal.
His hands became claws again. He pressed one against the throat of who he hoped was now Butcher XVII.
I wanted so many more. He thought. This'll have to do.
He pulled Skitter closer to him. "It's a shot in the dark, I know."
He pressed the claw down.
But let's see what happens.
/
Poor Crusader. Brad had this in mind for him from the start.
Last edited: Apr 7, 2025
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