Rhys Reyes drummed his fingers on the leg of his pants absentmindedly while he watched the buildings slip by. Ruby sat in front of him, chatting with their driver.
A dull part of his unconscious mind chided him for not calling her “Nora” in his head while she was out of costume, but his mind couldn’t even focus on that right now. He was dimly aware that Guardian was watching him from the other side of the backseat but he couldn’t even muster up any emotional reaction to that right now.
They hadn’t even had time to suit up this morning before the nursing home had given them a call. Leland had another episode last night and had needed to be sedated. The staff wanted Rhys there as soon as possible and they’d called a taxi immediately. Ordinarily that would be a quick flight, but that was because villains in this town knew that it was better for their sakes to avoid tailing the New Aurora Champions into hospitals, nursing homes, and other “sacred” places.1 With the League in town, they couldn’t take that risk.
That meant a five minute trip was now taking almost half an hour and Rhys was trying not to come apart at the seams. He couldn’t tell how close they were, this part of the city feeling unfamiliar to him these days at ground level.
I need to patrol around here more, he thought to himself.
It wasn’t really fair to blame himself for the streets feeling unfamiliar these days and he knew it. The city had organized a massive rebuilding effort in almost a dozen districts around this area, leading to a lot of new shops opening up. Meanwhile some of the older ones had taken the city’s reconstruction offer to help get a face lift.2 He finally recognized an old pizza shop he used to hang out at after school by the signage but realized it was almost eight times the size of the old hole in the wall it had once been. It was too early for the outdoor seating to be full, but a part of him still saw the emptiness as a sign that the civilians were beginning to notice the increased villain activity as of late.
This is going to get worse with the League here, he grit his teeth.
A hand on his shoulder woke him from his troubled thoughts and he looked over to see Guar- Blake trying his best to reassure him with a smile. It almost worked, but traveling along these roads where the two had grown up together and seeing it empty in the morning light and unfamiliar as they were making their way to go see Leland at Bright Heights? Rhys couldn’t help but feel the gap between the boys they’d been in their youth and who they were now.
Still he gave his own smile back, trying to appear strong. It seemed to satisfy his friend for now and he turned to stare out his own window at the passing view. Rhys overheard the cab driver telling Nora about how the street up ahead had finally been fixed after months of work from the city. While the rest of the block had been a speedy affair, apparently that particular stretch of road sat over a leyline tap which Victory’s arcane surveyors had needed to restabilize after the rest of the project had finished. Unfortunately, almost every district also required that and they’d been booked solid for almost a full year.
He remembered the old tap they’d marked with a cast iron lamppost. Blake had dared him to lick it once in the winter. He still felt like grapes tasted funny to this day. That meant they were close though. A few more minutes of driving – with the cabbie being a little aggressive on the timing of that last intersection – and they were sitting in front of Bright Heights Assisted Living. Ruby shooed them forward while she settled the fare, which Rhys was thankful for.
He barely restrained himself from running to the front door and rushing to the front desk, noticing Blake seemed to also be walking with the same brisk pace. Nora would probably just skip the formality and sprint to the door when she was done. Still, the staff had chewed them out already about running on the premise the last time they’d needed to show up in an emergency, and they’d taken it to heart.
The lobby was decently populated this morning as residents milled around. Breakfast was probably still going on and a few people here were waiting for family to pick them up to go out for a bit. One of the receptionists at the front desk recognized the pair as they stepped through and waved them over. They’d only gotten halfway across the room when they heard the door open again as an out of breath Nora barely managed to not slam the door open, earning her a stink eye from the woman at the front.
That didn’t stop her from almost skipping over to them, her strides slowing the further into the building she got, as though the weight of their visit dragged her down, even as her face remained sporting a grin. She was of the mindset that Leland deserved to see them all living their best lives when they came to visit rather than acting like they were preparing for his funeral. She had a point, but sometimes Rhys still felt her chipperness here of all places was a tad inappropriate.
The receptionist pulled them all to the side once she joined them, “Good news is that Mr. Lochstein woke up in a much better mood this morning. I’m sorry for the scare but it’s still good you’re here. He could use another friendly face this morning after last night.”
“Another?” Rhys raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, another member of your team’s with him now,” the woman confirmed.
Rhys’ eyes flicked to his teammates and noticed all of them had let their hands drift to the Spectrum Gems hidden on their person upon hearing that, but not a single one of them let their face show the shock or concern.
Opal, Amythest, and Sable were all out on patrol right now. They would be stopping by this afternoon, but everyone had agreed that half the team needed to be out there during this mess. No one else should be here.
“Great!” Rhys said with enough enthusiasm to hide his dread. “We know the way. Do you mind checking us in?”
The woman smiled and nodded. There were probably some rules being broken by doing this but she was all too eager to overlook that to aid heroes. This also kept her busy and let the team race down the hall without anyone noticing the moment she turned her back.
Azure summoned the power from his gem to coat his hands. He wasn’t about to transform in the middle of this nursing home but he was getting ready for a fight. He felt Ruby and Guardian do the same as they kept pace with him while they shot down the hallway, keeping an eye out for any civilians along the way. He glanced up at the cameras in the hallway, hoping that whoever was in the room with Leland didn’t have someone monitoring security. Regardless, they’d need to act fast.
It took them less than a minute to arrive at door number 1276, Leland Lochstein’s room. The trio skid to a stop on the almost threadbare carpet and looked at one another.
“Guardian, shield Leland once we enter,” Azure began calling out commands. “Ruby, prepare to breach. I’ll-”
The door clicked open and gently swung inwards. All three of them assumed a fighting stance but nothing emerged. Ruby began to slip forward towards the wall at the side before Leland’s ragged voice called out to them as loud as he could be without erupting into coughs.
“Come on already! I’m not getting any younger!”
He was relaxed and didn’t sound to be in danger. Ruby looked at Azure who nodded. She moved towards the half-open door, her fingers still glowing red and pushed the door inwards.
All three of their powers evaporated as they saw the visitor floating at the man's bedside.
“It is nice to see you all again,” Secret Keeper said with their multiple voices, the bandaged face under a veil seeming to quirk into the suggestion of a smile.
Blake and Nora pushed through the door in an instant to practically grapple onto the amalgamated monk who let out a surprised laugh when the woman almost a foot shorter than them tried to tackle them from midair in a hug. Rhys stood there in shock, unable to believe his eyes.
“Get in here, kid,” Leland barked at him, causing his feet to start moving before he realized it. His eyes flicked between his bedridden mentor and the pluriform whose life he ruined.
Leland’s bed had been pulled into the main room of the apartment. The various machines hooked up to the bed would’ve made it impossible to fit anyone else into the smaller bedroom adjoining the former living room otherwise. He’d stubbornly insisted on having almost all his worldly possessions that weren't in some storage facility who-knows-where crammed in this room on account of being practically stuck here. The shelves were bursting with photos and trinkets that told his life’s story. The empty bedroom yawned ominously out the corner of the eye, a hollow darkness that seemed to creep inwards on this incredibly hectic living area.
“Sorry to drag you all in here over a nightmare,” Leland muttered and looked away, his wrinkled face twisted in embarrassment.
Ordinarily, Rhys would let the man keep his pride. He’d helped raise the him as a boy after all when Rhys’ dad had up and vanished. The whole of the Aurora Champions had. The photos of the other two littered this relatively cramped room, snapshots of a once happy life that Rhys had no desire to further hammer home was gone now. But…
“They said you had to be sedated,” he pointed out. “It was a bad one, wasn’t it?”
Nora glared at him for his bluntness, but Blake seemed to share his stony gaze as he shifted his attention from the reunion with their friend to the older hero on the bed.
“Yeah…” admitted the former Prism Paladin. “It was. But that’s why I’m here, with people that can help me with that.”
He gave them a tired smile and adjusted his posture, “But it does my heart good to hear that you’ve made some real progress, champ!”
Leland couldn’t have picked a more awkward subject if he tried. Rhys didn’t bother to look over to his teammates to know they were staring at him. Meanwhile, he tried to find the right words to say but everything on his mind just felt like it would hurt someone here somehow.
He was saved by the most unexpected source: a laugh from Secret Keeper.
“Indeed, from what we’ve heard, Reyes has a new voice added to his proposal,” they said, earning surprised looks from every member of the New Aurora Champions in the room. “Sun Light apparently has already reached out to the handlers of the Young Guardians to discuss more cross training exercises with established teams and proposals for incentive programs to be offered, as well as testing a new reporting system.”
Something itched at the back of Rhys’s skull as they spoke. Something he couldn’t quite place but which seemed off. No one else seemed to have noticed it however.
Leland’s smile broadened and he slapped a knee, “Damnation, champ! Winning over the next generation! You’ll have this in the bag!”
Like that, the awkwardness hovering over Blake and Nora faded and they immediately began grinning themselves. Rhys opened his mouth only for Secret Keeper to speak up.
“Pardon me, Sir Lochstein, we would like a moment with Reyes in private,” their face turned towards the other two and nodded reassuringly. “You don’t mind if we catch up more in a moment?”
Nora and Blake exchanged a look before shuffling aside to let the monk float past them. Rhys didn’t know if he was glad to be alone for what came next or terrified and wished for his family to still be there. Nevertheless, he turned and opened the door for the Librarian and followed them out into the hall while Blake and Nora began to engage Leland in conversation. Nora might not have grown up with him but the team was still pretty sure she was his favorite.
Rhys watched the three of them in there, beginning to chat about what had happened since they’d last seen one another as the door gradually shut. He continued to stare at the door for a moment or two afterwards before turning around to face his fate.
Secret Keeper had drifted down the beige hall while he’d lingered but hadn’t gone far. They beckoned him towards a nearby turn in the corridor, just far enough away that words wouldn’t carry to the room, no doubt. In solemn silence, Azure paced himself towards that ninety degree angle in the corridor, watching the white clad figure disappear around it. As he himself rounded the corner, he saw them coming to a stop in front of a small seating area, devoid of any residents’ doors for a few yards. Soft light bounced off their white robes, slightly brightening the area around them.
He took a deep breath and tried to say something but words wouldn’t come out.
They spoke up instead, “It’s good to see you.”
Their words triggered that uncanny feeling from earlier. It took him a moment, but Azure finally realized what was off. There were only three voices.
The older and raspier masculine voice was missing. Immediately, Azure realized the truth. Secret Keeper must have read his face as they nodded.
“The damage was too much and that volume has been subsumed to the unconscious,” they confirmed.
The team had once asked about the monk’s amalgamation and what it was like for them. Like all Librarians, Secret Keeper was a singular body hosting multiple minds and souls in synchronization with one another but apparently only had a few of those “on the surface” so to speak.
They’d laughingly referred to themselves as a grand library, hinting that their centuries in the Library meant they had almost a hundred constituent members of the gestalt mind, but that only a couple dozen “volumes” were in the same room at one time. Of those, only the four voices they spoke with were actually active, like books left open on lecterns to be read from, and yet also still the ones doing the reading. The rest they described as tomes whose stories they’d once lived out but had long ago closed the pages and put on a shelf. They could read the spine and remember those days, but it wasn’t as though that person ever took the wheel again.
The metaphor was incredibly flowery, broke down almost immediately, and honestly didn’t help clear up much until Ruby had cut to the chase and asked if they had multiple personalities. Secret Keeper clarified it was more akin to “zones of thought”, sub minds with their own lingering traces of the acolyte that had opted to join their communal form. Over time, the sub mind would eventually be unable to handle the vast amount of information stored inside them while also being actively used, and would need to become more akin to memories. It wasn’t quite death but it sounded a lot like it.
Still, despite it not being a true mind, for Azure’s choice to have condemned one of those to-
“You blame yourself for this,” Secret Keeper’s words interrupted him.
It was a statement, an observation, not a question. Despite that, he nodded. They tilted their head, expression unreadable behind all the cloth concealing it. They drifted closer.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“That volume was experiencing degradation and would’ve needed to be subsumed within the next decade,” they explained. “We will not say your actions had no effect, but they were predicated off an offer we made to the New Aurora Champions when we first met. We should’ve expected that such an offer might include the potential for misuse.”
Their words were… colder than before. They were more detached and distant. They previous referred to the Champions with more familiar terms like “your friends” or “your team.” It was subtle, but Azure could feel the distance it implied.
“They blame you, don’t they? You blame yourself?” the Librarian’s face pressed closer, leaving less than a hand’s length between the two of them. “Your decision to ask us to forget has torn a rift in the New Aurora Champions, hasn’t it?”
Azure swallowed, unable to respond to the onslaught of questions. Keeper’s tone lacked an edge. It was clinical, precise, and direct. If they were angry in the slightest, they didn’t show it. Still, it was all Azure could do not to look away in disgrace. His mouth finally twitched with words on his lips.
“I’m sorry.”
Secret Keeper’s gloved hand collided with his cheek with the force of a missile, almost bowling him over. His breath left his lungs, even as the energy of the gem at his waist kept the force of the blow from actually damaging him. In truth, it didn’t feel as though there had actually been that much strength put into the slap as he thought he felt, but rather the significance of it was what echoed through his bones. Tears began to well up and he turned once more to face the pluriform.
“There. You have received the punishment you feel you have earned,” they said, matter-of-factly.
Without another word, they surged forward and embraced him. Rhys’ mind went blank as the hug enveloped him.
“We made our choices, as you made yours,” they said, a warmer tone washing their words. “We will not have a sacrifice we chose to be made in order to pay a debt – a debt we chose to take on in the first place – bring ruin in this way.”
Azure’s arm’s lifted but he realized he was unable to return the embrace. His arms slackened once more.
“Do you remember?” he asked.
“We pieced together enough details by studying what was missing,” they slipped away from him. “We no longer know enough about the individual we bartered with, but the gaps provided us with enough clues. We introduced this person to you and should’ve known better about the payments they would demand.”
“Still-”
“No. Hear us out,” Secret Keeper interrupted. “Besides what we have said by this point, it is important that you know another detail. We have reconstructed what we could of that moment and we are not here to absolve you of blame. But we learned much from the hole that was left behind by our decision to forget this individual, more than we’d originally thought was there. When we pieced together what details seemed to be missing about an individual we could no longer recall, it led us to search through what memories we did possess. We ask you not to tell us more at the moment, for our memories are still mending, but we need you to know our suspicions. We feel that more occurred that day than it seemed.”
Azure tensed, “What do you mean?”
“Our memories may have been altered, but emotions leave traces even our magics struggle to interfere with. Rather than attempting to grasp at shadows of excised knowledge, we instead chose to trace the path of our emotions. That led us to realize that at the time, we…” Secret Keeper looked away, “acted on our desires. It is the same reason we’re here after we got the call.”
Azure raised an eyebrow and they shook their head, “We are still listed as one of Sir Lochstein’s emergency contacts. When we heard the news we felt the need to be here. For him… and for our family.”
It took a few moments for him to process what they’d just admitted. He was fairly sure from what they’d told them about what it meant to be a Librarian that what they just admitted to was forbidden.3 Beyond the emotional vulnerability of admitting it, he was fairly sure they could get into a lot of trouble if anyone found out.
“That day… when you called upon that debt, it wasn’t the compulsion of oaths that drove us to erase the record. Or at least we believe this to be the case. The exact moment is fragmentary, but we remember… an emotion,” they paused. “We wished… We knew what you desired and we wished to help. We couldn’t make the exchange ourselves but needed an excuse.”
Azure’s eyes widened, “We were manipulated?”
“We… cannot be sure,” they said. “We remember bits of what led us to that moment and know we believed in your cause and reasoning. Our time together- Our time with your team, we mean, made us see the value in your proposal, especially having met with Sir Lochstein ourselves and knowing the tragedies you seek to stop.”
Azure swallowed. The reminder about Leland’s own tragedy, about Color Guard and Light Weaver, hit a little too close to home after coming here even for such a casual mention. He pushed past it to try and remember more of that day, that moment.
He remembered the jar of magical traces and how much he’d needed it to secure the win Maniacal’s death had cost him. He needed it to prevent another Dark Star… and another Frieda Fotann and Luke Lochstein. He needed this whole thing to come together for Leland to finally stop screaming in the middle of the night over his lost family. It had been enough to make Rhys risk his own family.
That wasn’t abnormal and as he’d run the decision over in his mind as he agonized over it for the past three weeks, he felt he’d have done it again, even knowing what he knew now.
“I don’t… feel like I was magically manipulated,” he admitted, disappointed in himself even with this lifeline Secret Keeper had provided him.
“Nor do we,” they nodded. “Ordinarily, the act of seizing control of one’s thoughts leaves too much of a trace of a foreign hand. And yet, we can’t help but feel our actions were encouraged subtly. We truly do desire to help you… as well as your team and Sir Lochstein. But we feel as though we prioritized our bonds over our own safety or our duties as a Librarian in a way that doesn’t feel right. Do you not feel as though your desires were…”
“Intensified?” Azure shook his head. “No… I mean, that’s not the word. It was more like…”
“Stoking an ember?”
He bit his lip. Secret Keeper’s words felt right, but Azure couldn’t tell if that was some human desire to not be in the wrong and to want to blame someone else for his own actions. The Scarlet Sorcerer definitely gave him the vibe that they would love to twist anyone to their whims to get what they want, but if they had pulled a trick then it was so subtle as to be impossible to prove.
“Do you have any proof?”
“We… did not think to look for such things,” the pluriform turned away. “By now, it would be impossible to find any traces. Both of us have no doubt used too much magic in the interim. All we know is that traces of our missing memories indicate a spellcaster of immense talent and guile who was adept at utilizing the situation to their advantage. We also want to believe…”
They shook their head and turned around, “We have lingered too long. We should return to Sir Lochstein and the others. Ruby and Guardian will most likely wish to converse with us at length and we are eager to hear of what has transpired since our absence. We believe that tale would be better told in company.”
Azure wanted to say more but the monk simply rushed past him down the hall. A silence lingered in the empty space after they passed, like a wound in the air. In the quiet, he felt the lingering sting on his cheek, the first true mark of penance on him for his actions, and he wondered if it was enough or just the start.
---------------------------------
Arex inhaled the smoke from his cigar, letting the toxins run through his airways and feeling the hateful biting of the beasts running under his skin. He exhaled and let the sensation of relief flow through his muscles, letting the raptors he’d stirred settle and the pterosaurs feel the air rushing through him.
The larger beasts still looked disdainfully down at the scene at ground level, ignoring his attempts to relax. It was an absolute shitshow.
Three villains and a dozen henchmen were botching an easy smash and grab by showboating, giving more than enough time for the battered pair of heroes to rally. Not to mention the reinforcements that might be on the way. This shit would’ve already been over if this was Orion, but apparently Break Neck, Zeal, and Prime Ape figured they could push their luck all because he was here.
The duo of heroes were nothing special, just the first unlucky bastards to arrive on the scene expecting only one villain to be toppling the armored car, the remains of which were scattered all over the street. Arex didn’t even recognize them, just knew within ten seconds of them leaping into action that this fight would’ve been too much for them even if one of the villains had held back and the henchmen decided to keep looting rather than taking potshots.
This trio and their lackeys were trying to impress him, and unfortunately for them, they were doing a terrible job at it.
To be honest, it wasn’t actually that bad. Arex was just in a terrible mood that this little dance was doing nothing to help with.
This morning he’d gotten a peek at his old self. He’d seen replicas of his old plots and the stupid toys he’d had some scientist or another cook up in Overlab for him. He remembered Manny bitching at him whenever he stole away a researcher to help him out with something, like a bunch of robot dinosaurs that could survive the ocean depths so he could go wage war on the Atlantheans or a serum that let him mutate common lizards and birds into their old ancestors.
He missed it so godsdamn much.
Arex wasn’t an idiot. He knew that Draven had shackled him years ago. Hell, there was a good chance that even back in the day, that mundane fucker had probably been sabotaging everything Overlab shuffled his way. But it had been preferable to what life at the top had been for the past dozen years.
He’d heard the whispers. They all had. “The League doesn’t even try to take over the world anymore.”
That’s cause they already had.
Barring some upstarts and villains that were a little too annoying to handle directly, they owned the entire super community that didn’t lick hero boots. And that was enough for Draven. Okay, actually, he’d love to have Mr. Wonder’s head on a platter, but Arex was pretty sure he’d given up on that dream long ago and contented himself to seething over his old nemesis.
After all, he ruled from the shadows, just like he always wanted.
Oh sure, they’d make some token gestures at trying to steal the reins from the actual governments, but for the most part the League seemed to exist just to make everyone step in line, and while there were a few cities like this one that didn’t have everyone bending the knee to join up, Draven was playing the long game there and there was no stopping his plans.
Heroes would always try to seek control themselves. Create perfect systems of order. And it would get too stifling and anyone who wanted to cut loose would find themselves running directly to the League. Decades of propaganda to tap into the ennui and discontentment of the masses would stir the pot to make sure there were enough people out there to make new villains and their supporters... then they'd just let the heroes pressure them into seeking out the people with the power to keep them safe.
In Arex’s mind, there was just one big problem: this was all so boring.
The League didn’t really have power struggles. Not really. Outside of Overlab and the spy network, there weren’t really seats at the top you had to fight for. If you were ambitious enough to be a problem, Draven would just let you have something to keep you busy. A seat on the council, a special assignment, maybe even a device that lets you rearrange the landmasses of the world.
And everyone else? Well they got to look like those dipshits down there, content to kick at heroes on the ground because all they cared about was reveling in the power that the League promised them.
There was no clash of wills, no seeking to wrangle a world that sought to defy you. No, the moment things go bad, you just whine to someone who can come save you, just like those below were expecting Arex to pull them from a fire they wanted to leap directly into.
It lacked ambition. It lacked drive. It was power for the sake of kicking down rather than ripping your way to the top and tearing out the throats of gods. There was a whole galaxy out there to plunder and control! Fucking alien warlords would come to this miserable clod of dirt to plant their flags and get their asses kicked and yet not one of Arex’s fellow villains wanted to do the same except for Gormash, who was one of those alien warlords in the first place.
He grumbled to himself as he watched one of those two no name heroes below actually step back up and deliver a fantastic uppercut straight in the jaw of Break Neck as the speedster came zipping by to get in another cheap shot. The spindly little bastard went sprawling to the ground but that looked like almost everything the do-gooder had left in him as he sunk back to one knee. Zeal and Prime Ape closed in and Arex couldn’t help thinking of the independent villains that were practically extinct these days.
Sure, the Seven Beasts had been sealed away rather than calling it quits? and the Ant Hive was just licking its wounds even if the world’s heroes had delivered a counterstrike powerful enough to basically disband their minion network entirely.? But they didn’t make people like King Phoenix anymore, guys who pop up out of nowhere on their own with their own army and then don’t feel the need to join up with the League once their resume looks good enough.
No one ever really quit to do their own spin-off. Volcanomaster tried but he could never get an organization off the ground. Arex truly regretted taking part in those sabotage efforts these days, but Draven had been damn convincing at the time. Outside of that, quitting the council usually went how Lighting Lord and Death Siren did it, just calling it quits on villainy entirely to enjoy retirement.
The League was a trap and it was one you didn’t walk away from. Well, not unless someone killed Draven and honestly, as annoying as he could be with his perfectly ordered little system, Arex didn’t want to lose to the heroes during the infighting that would follow. This might not be the world domination he’d envisioned, but it was still better than the endless series of losses that would follow if the League imploded.
He glanced back down and saw the other hero manage to pull herself up from the ground, her tattered cape waving in the soft breeze as she managed to place herself between the encroaching villains and her partner. A grin tugged at Arex’s lips as his hand ached once more.
Perhaps it was time to play the long game himself. That villainess from last night had impressed him, not to mention she was part of a team that had actually managed to punch upwards, even if they did so by outnumbering their opponents. Terrorantula’s little team had a fire in their bellies, one he was eager to foster.
Perhaps I should look for promising talent myself… he thought, sneering down at Zeal and Prime Ape as they leapt towards the helpless heroine. It would be nice to give these fools someone proper to look up to.
Prime Ape flew sideways as a manhole cover slammed into him from the side, and Arex almost barked a laugh. Looks like backup had arrived. Rows of teeth gnashed below the surface as he imagined what new threat might’ve shown up and the pools of blood about to be spilled. He watched as the pack of identically dressed goons turned and leveled their weapons at the direction of the projectile and saw the wave of hesitation ripple out as they took in who it was.
Admittedly, Arex also had not been expecting a single woman to be striding forward, not an ounce of fear in her stride. Well, from what he’d been told, Stormdaughter was here so he’d sort of thought he’d be running into her soon enough. But that would’ve been a massive woman in leather armors arriving with the sound of thunder and shattering the ground beneath her feet, not this.
Instead the woman advancing to rescue the two helpless heroes in over their head was dressed in a bright pink nurse outfit, one of those old ones with puffy short sleeves and a plush looking hat. Armor-like chitinous skin gleamed in the midday sun as she raised her fists. Arex couldn’t help but laugh and finally stood up on his vantage point as he watched Zeal immediately charge her way, getting directly in the line of fire of his own minions as they unloaded.
The fight was quick and one-sided. Arex didn’t even bother to watch as he shifted a pair of wings to carry himself down to the street below, his sharp teeth locked into a hungry grin as he made his way over. Gingerly setting down just out of sight, he let his body flow into a stealthier form, a hunched creature that wasn’t quite a raptor nor any dinosaur scientist had a name for. It was ideal for slipping between the debris of the previous battle, its scales attracting the dust hovering in the air to camouflage its approach. It crept over bodies of the fallen henchmen in the aftermath as the newcomer dismantled them from afar and it took all of Arex’s self control to not cackle to himself as he watched her work.
Finally, when he was about twenty feet from her, he leapt upwards and allowed his humanoid form to untangle itself in the air while she distracted herself with checking on the injured heroes.
“Behind you!” one of them called out, and the woman spun around with practiced ease.
“Well, well, well,” Arex grinned. “Look what we have here.”
AnomaloCarrie glared at him, recognition in her eyes, “Of course… you’re here.”
Almost 40 chapters in and I'm only now revealing Azure's real name. If Carrie lives then maybe we'll learn if that's her real name too.
By the way, two big pieces of news here.
Firstly, Chapter 1 has received an overhaul to bring it more into line with the rest of the story. Mostly this is just touching up the prose and adding a few details. Future chapters might have a little heavier rewrites which I'll draw attention to.
Secondly, my patreon is currently deciding the next cape fic that I really should've read by now and forcing me to get on it already. This is free to vote in and I'd like to not have to do too much math to try and tally up the total votes from a RR poll and that one, so if it's not too much effort, could you go , then come back and yell at me in the comments about how I really should've read ______ already? Vote for your favorite or the one that you think would be the funniest to see me go through.
1. It’s unknown how some “unspoken rules” emerge in the fight between heroes and villains, and usually these kinds of things emerge in their own local areas. For example, the “sacred grounds” idea seems to have first been introduced in Victory not by hero retaliation for a villain assault, but as a sort of “internal policing” the villains themselves introduced. In 2079, Glorywing’s wife passed away and the hero was attacked at her funeral by Cold Burn, a relatively new villain on the scene who saw it as an easy opportunity. However, in attendance at the funeral was Graceless, a villainess of Glory’s who was incensed by the action. The retaliation she organized ended up setting a new standard of behavior for villains in the city which they’ve adhered to since.
2. One of Cinderoak’s earliest accomplishments in office was finally pushing through several delayed construction projects by directly contacting city council members and various super-assisted constructed agencies with a concrete plan – no pun intended. Cinderoak apparently called in several personal favors to facilitate this plan and put it significantly under the estimated budget in a serious gamble that paid off by the end of his first term. The domino effect of this project has been traced to City Hall having clawed back much of the power it historically has granted to Amberheart and other private interest groups.
3. The internal regulation of Librarians is not public knowledge, but it is known that the act of becoming a postulant for joining an established Librarian involves the severing of previous interpersonal relationships. The binding process involved apparently will not take hold if one has linger attachments outside the Library and specifically those hopefuls all attempting to add themselves to the same binding. Interpersonal relationships among novitiates are apparently encouraged on a case by case basis, usually only between individuals who both are seen to be assured admission to the amalgamation. Nothing is known about Librarians themselves being discouraged from forming stronger interpersonal relationships, but all evidence with their conduct seems to suggest that it is frowned upon heavily at best.
4. The Seven Beasts rose at the end of the century, fulfilling a millennia long prophecy of their return. Four of their number reincarnated into new vessels while three rose from the depths to terrorize the lands. It was only thanks to infighting among their ranks and the combined knowledge of the Sanctum of the Arcane and the Multiversal Library Of True Knowledge And Enlightenment For The Betterment Of All that the Protectors of the Globe, the Watch, and the rest of the global hero organizations were able to put a stop to them.
5. Ant Hive remains one of the few organizations to have truly threatened the monopoly the League has on global villainy. Unlike the League, it more monolithic, with villains and henchmen all assuming a rigid hierarchy amongst its ranks. Queen Formic’s desperate gambit to seize control of the world with a lightning fast assault around the globe in the wake of the ReOriginator fiasco almost succeeded, but the eventual defeat led to much of the organization disbanding and the lower echelons being fractured and absorbed by various other villain factions. While Queen Formic and most of her generals were never captured, it is considered that most of their assets were seized by either the governments of the world or villains and it is considered unlikely that the organization will ever reform at the same strength again.
