Collateral Damage Pt 2 (Patreon)

Part Two: Backlash

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Legend emerged from the portal in midair, and pulled a tight turning spiral to get an idea of where he was over Brockton Bay. The second reason for his quick survey was to make sure there still was a Brockton Bay, which seemed to be the case. At least, there were no obvious craters, no fires, and no mushroom clouds over the city.

For the moment, anyway. He had zero doubt that this state of affairs could change in a matter of seconds. Every time—every time—Ragnarok cut loose with his weaponry, he rendered the word ‘overkill’ laughably inadequate.

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To Legend’s knowledge, the weapons Tinker had never built anything that didn’t cause mass destruction. The harness Ragnarok wore took incoming attacks—even relatively harmless ones—and sent them back to their starting point, multiplied by tenfold or more. His teleports destroyed the local area on either the starting point or the landing point. And his offensive weaponry simply ignored all defenses and obliterated the target, plus anything near it and everything behind it, out to the horizon. He was constitutionally incapable of building anything that could perform a pinpoint strike.

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Once Legend had orientated himself, he turned and hurtled toward a particular house. Since Behemoth, the PRT had declared Ragnarok a ‘hands-off’ cape. Despite Eidolon’s frothing fury at the destruction of Houston, the Protectorate and Cauldron both had gone along with that assessment. Too hard to kill and impossible to exile or imprison; the only real option was appeasement. Leave him alone and hope that he didn’t decide to go Endbringer on the population. Eidolon had initially ignored this decision and confronted Ragnarok personally. Legend hadn’t been present for the event, but it had culminated with Ragnarok blowing Eidolon’s arm off, the one and only known incidence when the cape had shown even minor restraint. It said something about Ragnarok that the loss of a limb counted as ‘restraint’.

Of course, even after this, the policy hadn’t been foolproof. As far as Legend knew, two separate attempts had been made to snipe Ragnarok; once after Houston, and the other after he obliterated the CUI. The second attempt had been with a Tinkertech rifle from six miles away, and the shooter had teleported away as soon as the trigger was pulled. Despite Ragnarok being out of his protective harness, on both occasions an energy bolt had travelled back up the path of the shot. The first shooter hadn’t had a chance to get away; the bolt had taken the top floor off the building he was sniping from, and blown the shooter himself into a fine mist. No such explosion had taken place on the second shot, but Legend knew for a fact that an entire city block had detonated for no known reason in downtown Johannesburg at the precise second the retaliatory blast from Ragnarok had fizzled out in Brockton Bay. Legend supposed that the extra damage was Ragnarok’s tech saying in effect, “If I’ve got to come find you, I’ll make it hurt more.”

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Hebert’s car was in the driveway, which was not a good sign. It meant that the man was at home, almost certainly after visiting his daughter. The girl was alive, which was the only ray of hope here; Legend had absolutely no doubt that if she’d died, Brockton Bay would’ve gone the same way as Houston and Beijing. The man held no particular respect for human life, which was perhaps the most terrifying thing about him. Apart from his ability to casually decimate a city in a few minutes, that is.

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He recalled the last moments of Houston. This was no great feat of memory; every detail was seared into his mind. Behemoth raging across the city, destroying buildings like childrens’ toys. The defenders trying to pen him in, throwing up barriers of all types. Ragnarok stepping up, striding toward the oncoming monster as if out for a Sunday stroll. Some had shouted for him to get back, but he’d ignored them.

He’d taken aim with that goddamned shotgun he carried, but he’d stumbled on a bit of rubble just before he fired. Instead of obliterating the thing in one shot, he’d merely blown off Behemoth’s right arm, searing it to the shoulder. Behind Behemoth, the top half of a skyscraper crashed to the ground. That got the thing’s attention, and it unleashed a burst of lightning that skipped across the ground and impacted Ragnarok full in the chest … or at least, tried to. Ragnarok’s retaliation field took the lightning and threw it back, a raging wall of energy that smashed into Behemoth and drove him backward.

Behemoth had roared and redoubled his attack; as a final fuck-you, he leaped forward to bring Ragnarok within his kill-field. Energies unsurviveable by all but a select few crashed and battered at the cape’s protective field, and were thrown back in such quantities that everything electronic within ten miles shorted out and fused into an unsalvageable lump. In the meantime Ragnarok ignored the goings-on, ejecting the used-up power cartridge for his shotgun and methodically reloading.

Silvery flesh literally being shredded away by the backlash of his own powers like a mad giant throwing glitter in the air, Behemoth roared once more and brought his surviving arm around to strike the impudent attacker down. The resultant explosion deprived him of that arm as well. Ragnarok’s gun hummed its rising note, then the cape raised the gun and aimed it at the Endbringer’s centre mass. He pulled the trigger. This time, he didn’t miss.

Legend had woken up fifty miles away, sprawled on the roof of a truck stop. His costume was half-gone, and his hearing didn’t come back for two days. To the south, he saw a tremendous mushroom cloud climbing over the horizon. It took him two tries to get airborne, and then he flew back toward the scene of destruction.

It had been a catastrophe. Three-quarters of the defending capes were dead or dying. The only one untouched by it all was Ragnarok himself, who strode out of the centre of the radioactive crater that Houston had become, his shield flaring and spitting as it repelled the rock-melting heat and dangerous gamma rays still emanating from the debris. With his shotgun over his shoulder, he told the surviving capes that Behemoth was dead and he was going home now. The explosion when he triggered his teleporter destroyed one of the few surviving buildings.

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Landing just in front of the doorstep, Legend stepped up and knocked on the door. There was no answer. He knocked again, harder. After what seemed to be an eternity of waiting, the door opened. He stared up at Danny Hebert; the man was unshaven and had a can of beer in his hand.

“May I come in, please?” asked Legend. Most times he said ‘please’, he was being polite. With Ragnarok, he was trying to avert the end of the world. Or at least, a large chunk of the eastern seaboard.

Hebert grunted and turned away, but he left the door open. Legend took that as assent and he entered, carefully closing the door behind him. He had no doubt that the PRT covert surveillance teams in the surrounding houses, all working in civilian guise, had noted his arrival. These people were akin to the tornado chasers or hurricane hunters that he’d seen on the weather channel; normal people putting themselves in harm’s way to provide the first line of defence against a natural disaster of unmitigated proportions. If something went wrong, they’d never know until it was far too late.

These were all volunteers from the Washington office or farther abroad, he knew. Each and every one had been personally vetted and recruited by Alexandria in her Costa-Brown identity. The local office hadn’t even been notified of the op, for reasons of security and deniability. Legend had made that decision himself, after seeing the confidential report on the PRT ENE information security rating. At least two of the gangs in the city had moles inside the building, and that didn’t even include Coil, who was a mole unto himself. Legend’s nightmares about Taylor Hebert being kidnapped by any of the above were only surpassed by the ones where Ragnarok decided to take over the Empire Eighty-Eight and show them where they’d been going wrong.

“Mr Hebert, we know what happened to your daughter,” he said. “Right now, we’re working very hard to find out who did it and bring them to justice.”

Danny Hebert glowered at him over his beer. “You were watching me. Still are.” He gestured at the walls of the house. “Think I’m so stupid I don’t notice when my neighbours move out and young, fit, professional couples with no kids move in? People who spend more time mowing the lawn than cooking dinner? If you were watching me, why the goddamn hell weren’t you watching to make sure nothing happened to Taylor?”

Legend took a deep breath. “Because we knew we were treading a fine line even keeping you under surveillance. If anyone watching Taylor had overstepped the mark by even an inch, and you’d taken offence, it would’ve been on us. As it is, there was a vigilante enrolled in the school from the same day she was. When the vigilante joined the Wards, I made sure she stayed in Winslow, to help keep things more orderly. Safer for Taylor.”

“Shadow Stalker,” Hebert muttered. Well, Legend couldn’t fault the man’s cognitive faculties. “So why the fuck did she fall down on the job? How did this shit happen on her watch?”

“The decision was made to not inform her of Taylor’s situation,” Legend said carefully. It had been an unavoidable part of the whole ‘don’t tell the locals anything’ plan. “We figured that Shadow Stalker, as someone with crimefighting experience, would make sure that bullying as a general thing would not happen to anyone in her year.”

“Well, that fuckin’ turned out just fine, didn’t it?” snarled Hebert, stomping over to glare at Legend from close range. “So, is your ‘find out who did it’ going to be any more effective than your ‘stop it before it happens’?”

“As we speak, the Chief Director is having very strong words with Director Piggot of the local office,” Legend said steadily, trying to ignore his increased heart-rate. “She will no doubt be sending the local Protectorate head to the school to meet with the principal, and with Shadow Stalker if she’s available.”

“Better off sending the second in command,” Hebert said flatly. “Fire the people in charge because they quite obviously fucked up, and their next in line will try all that harder to avoid going on the chopping block as well.”

This was a course of action that Legend hadn’t quite considered, though it was brutally effective in its methodology. The philosophy of pour encourager les autres had been around for centuries, after all. Normally he would’ve taken his time to think about it, but given Ragnarok’s quite obvious unhappiness with the situation, he decided that a grand gesture was probably not a bad idea.

“I can do that,” he said, and pulled out his phone. Alexandria was almost certainly on the phone to Piggot, but she was capable of multitasking, so he sent a text message. Fire Piggot and demote head of ENE Protectorate. Let 2i/C handle matters. Sends a message to everyone else not to fuck up. He hit SEND, then waited.

A few seconds later, an answer came back. Done.

“Piggot’s been fired, and the Protectorate head demoted,” he announced, showing Hebert the phone with the messages. “We are going to make sure this gets sorted, and never happens again.”

Hebert lifted his chin. “I meant everyone in charge. You and the fucking Chief Directer as well. Step down. Let your second in commands take over. You fucked up, just as much as they did, or even more. Wear it.”

“Wait … I … what?” Legend stumbled over his words. “But … we have to fix this. We can’t just … I mean …” He’d never thought that when Danny Hebert said ‘fire everyone in charge’ he meant ‘everyone’.

“Fuckin’ thought so.” Hebert turned his back on Legend and headed out of the dining room.

“Wait!” Legend went after him. “We can talk about this! My deputy isn’t ready to step into my position yet!” Not to mention, it’ll pull Cauldron totally out of the loop.

“And whose fuckin’ fault is that?” Hebert stopped in the kitchen and prodded Legend in the chest with a hard forefinger. The kinetic backlash sent Legend stumbling backward four or five paces. “If your deputy isn’t ready to take over at a moment’s notice, then you’re doing it wrong.” He opened the door he was standing next to, and went downstairs into what was apparently a basement.

Legend rubbed the bruise that was even now forming on his chest, and hurried after him again. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, Hebert was at the bottom. The man stumped across the basement to where a bunch of tools were leaning against the wall in a patch of shadow. Reaching into the mess, he pulled out something that initially looked like a short-handled sledgehammer with an oversized head. Then Legend recognised the mechanisms built on to it, and his eyes widened.

Oh, fuck. He didn’t just build guns and shields.

Danny Hebert drained the last of the beer and tossed the can aside. “You know why I was drinking when you came in?” With little in the way of obvious effort, he hefted the hammer on to his shoulder.

“Uh … no?” Halfway down the steps, Legend froze, unsure of his next move.

“It was Annette,” the most dangerous man in the world replied. “She always told me to drink a beer before I made any decisions I can’t go back on. I’ve had my beer. Now I’ve made my decision.” He lifted the sledgehammer over his head, holding it in both hands.

It struck Legend that the floor of the basement was composed of smooth concrete. Very new looking concrete. Which Hebert was about to attack with the hammer. “Wait—”

“I’m done waiting.” Hebert’s muscles bunched and he swung the hammer down. Legend had barely enough presence of mind to go into his energy form just before the weapon struck its target.

The explosion was … considerable.

Tumbling through the air, his ears ringing with the concussion, Legend finally managed to bring his ballistic arc under control. When he turned around, it wasn’t hard to tell where the Hebert residence was; or rather, where it had once been. An honest to goodness mushroom cloud was roiling into being above the crater, and all the houses surrounding it were either collapsed or on the way there. Legend flew back down toward the epicentre of the destruction.

As he arrived, Ragnarok finished fitting the helmet on to his head. The harness had already been strapped on, and the indigo vortex glowed brightly, as if eager to commence the task of destruction. Attaching the hammer to his belt somehow, Ragnarok picked up the shotgun that he’d used to destroy Behemoth and Beijing. Taking a power cartridge from his bandoleer, he fed it into the breech of the gun. The k-chak as he closed the weapon sounded louder than a thunderclap.

“Now we do things my way.”

 Interlude 1: Taylor