War: 7. Water (Patreon)

Preface

This is for someone. He knows who he is.

Chapter 7: Water

Atreus, Aspect of War

“-have any idea how much damage you’ve caused? You boiled the city for three blocks! You know what gaseous asphalt is? Poison! It’s poison! Not everyone is a brute who doesn’t need to breathe like you! Firefighters couldn’t even get close because of the heat, never mind the roadwork piping, and-”

I tuned out the dignitary that had been yapping for the past half hour. She was a… Truthfully, I was unsure who she was. She had a similar jacket as the healers I’d assisted prior, but the insignia knitted onto her shoulder was different. She’d been yelling about damages, disturbances to the city, the lives I’d put at risk, and what it was I’d done by killing the false dragon.

It did not matter.

I reached out and tapped her nose gently, just as my spear instructor used to do when I was a child still figuring out how I ought to hold my weapon.

“Gah!” she yelped, flinching back.

“Enough, did anyone die?” I asked flatly.

“W-Well-”

“Then it is no problem.”

“We’re still searching the wreckage!”

“Your city has a ghost town within its borders because of the actions of the dockworkers. I did battle in the ghost town. What does it matter if a few abandoned buildings are lost?”

“That’s not the issue! With Lung gone, who do you think is going to keep Bakuda in check?”

“No one, as she will die by my spear.”

“You’re going to kill her?”

I nodded and began walking away. “Yes. If this past week is what you describe as ‘keeping in check,’ she needs to die.”

Just when my patience with the woman was wearing thin, Armsmaster arrived on his bike. His face was set in a grim mask that reflected my mood. I had sought a great warrior and found a rabid dog.

“Hail, Armsmaster,” I greeted.

“Atreus. You’ve caused a lot of damage.”

“I have. It was a decent enough battle. Lung will pose no trouble ever again.”

“You should not have killed him.”

“I will face my opponents with the same regard they show me. Should they come to kill me, I will kill them. To do otherwise would be disrespectful and I will not mock their convictions.”

“Lung fought to kill so you killed.”

I nodded. “I did not seek to kill him, but nor did I restrain myself to spare his life. He died because he was not strong enough.”

He frowned, debating with himself for one cause or another. I did not know what he personally thought of death in combat, but I felt that the local heroes did not mete it out enough. There was no shame or dishonor in taking a life for the right reasons.

Finally, he spoke stiffly. “Chief Director Costa-Brown signed kill orders for Lung and Bakuda, dated retroactively to the start of Bakuda’s bombing spree. She has been categorized as a domestic terrorist. Your actions are legal.”

“I am glad your leader has taken decisive action. Have you found Bakuda?”

“No. She has gone into hiding.”

“Then there is little to speak of.”

X

I grunted with irritation as I ate a light dinner of briam and keftedes, mixed roasted vegetables and meatballs made from pork and beef. They were called something else back in Targon, but I found this “Greek” food to be similar enough in taste to remind me of home. There was a bistro nearby that I’d taken to ordering from in lieu of my own lacking culinary skills.

That had been an awkward encounter. I was an “outed cape” now. Whispers of the “Dragonslayer” were already filling the city air and people gazed at me with abject awe as I passed.

I was proud of my prowess, the skills I had honed over a lifetime of combat. It was only right that I be respected for my efforts. And yet, though I had initially scoffed at the Protectorate’s insistence on maintaining a secret identity, I was starting to understand. There was a need to establish boundaries between their roles as heroic paragons and their lives apart from their duties.

Having no mask of my own, reporters hounded my doorstep from the moment I arrived back at my apartment. They were irritating nuisances, a cross between rumor-mongering fishwives, town criers, and rats that I was unfortunately unwilling to kill outright.

We didn’t have these busybodies in Targon, but I understood that I would only bring more annoyances upon myself if I killed one of them. Instead, I simply raised the temperature around me until approaching me became impossible. If one chose to roast themselves for the opportunity to ask me a question, perhaps I would honor that conviction.

After dinner, I pulled out the study cards that Master Frank made for me. I was Ra’Horak. I was a baker’s apprentice. Both these things were true and I would not be found lacking in either.

I spent an hour looking over those notes, then pulled out a bag of bread flour, two eggs, and water to practice making dough. There was no reason I couldn’t bake bread in my own home after all. Buns ‘n’ Roses would be back and I would be ready.

I waited for my dough to prove and turned on the TV. Every channel seemed to be about me. It was a foreign feeling. As War, I was well-known across Runeterra, but this constant stream of information disseminated by the town criers, coupled with scrying magic that recorded the battle over the bay, was a new experience.

I was about to retire for the night when my phone began to ring. The device was a good reminder as to the boundless wealth of this world. Such a miraculous device would have been unthinkable even among the merchant clans of Piltover, but the PRT gave one to me without a second thought. That event children often had one still seemed outrageous to me.

It was also testament to the fact that I was a technological cripple. Armsmaster tried to teach me about the features in this “phone,” only to give up in sheer frustration. Miss Militia had been more patient, but she’d ultimately had no better luck than he. Every time someone tried to talk about the many benefits of understanding technology, I found my eyes glazing over, not unlike when Iula tried to teach me the finer points of farming.

I missed carrier pigeons. Or the sparkleflies used by the Star Child. Those were so much easier to understand, cuter too.

I held it to my face and spoke, “Atreus.”

The voice that came through was that of a young woman. “You know, for an outed cape, you’re a hard man to reach.”

“Perhaps I do not wish to be disturbed.”

“Well you shou-Wait, why do you sound like that? Do you have your phone upside down?”

I pulled the phone from my face and quickly flipped it around. “No.”

“You did. You’re kidding me.”

“It’s a black, featureless square. If there is a correct orientation, they should have written it on the phone.”

“Right… You could have answered the texts at leas-No, you have no idea how to do that,” I heard her mutter some uncharitable things under her breath. “Fine, whatever. This is Tattletale of the Undersiders, Atreus. You saved two of my teammates today and I owe you one.”

X

Lisa Wilbourn, Tattletale

I leaned back on the sofa in our hideout. I had a bottle of the strongest headache medication money could buy and a hand towel soaking in an ice bath next to me, just in case. I had the sneaking suspicion that I’d be needing them in the near future.

Everyone was here except Taylor, who had to leave to reassure her dad that she was alright. Across from me, Alec had booted up a video game, some sci-fi shooter. Brian was jumping rope in the corner, earphones plugged in and jiving to the music. Rachel occupied the other corner, her three dogs in her lap as she checked them for any injuries that her power didn’t solve.

We all had our own ways of winding down after a job. Mine happened to be taking a hot bath in my own apartment, drinking a glass of wine, and lying in bed with earplugs and a sleep mask to emulate the closest thing to sensory deprivation I could readily make at home, but I couldn’t afford to indulge in some blessed silence right now.

The boss asked me to look into Atreus, so look into him I would.

I learned precious little from the dossier provided. He was a Case-22. He hailed from an honorable, martial culture with an emphasis on spear combat that could best be described as “fantasy Spartans.” He was a veteran who wanted to put down his spear in favor of learning a craft. He took his master-disciple relationship seriously and deeply respected Rose Frank, the baker that the PRT arranged. Nothing we hadn’t known before.

Having learned what I could, I had two options: Meet him in person, or call him. Contacting him in any fashion was a risk, but I chose the one less likely to put me in spear-range.

Of course, this wasn’t strictly for Coil. Atreus was an opportunity I never thought I’d have. He was freedom, protection, because Coil was afraid of him. Not that I blamed him, but if I could shift Atreus’ gaze towards Coil…

“Fine, whatever. This is Tattletale of the Undersiders, Atreus. You saved two of my teammates today and I owe you one,” I said loudly, loud enough to be heard clearly over Alec’s game and Brian’s music.

It was amazing how a single name made the entire room freeze. It might have been funny had not my stomach been doing flips the whole time. Alec paused the game. Brian ripped the earphones off his head.

“What the fuck, Tats?” he mouthed.

I muted the phone. “He’s a warrior. We owe him a debt. It’s best to stay on top of things instead of having him come pay us a visit,” I lied. Atreus didn’t expect shit from us. Still, this call was necessary for my freedom.

Grue looked awfully constipated. He wanted to speak, felt like he should as team leader, but he also knew I was better here. Eventually, he motioned for me to put him on speaker; he’d listen in but leave the talking to me.

“Ah, the one who raises hounds and the one who controls insects,” Atreus said. His voice was not warm, but not hostile either.

[Does not see the Undersiders as enemies. Does not see the Undersiders as worth his time.] That was good. That was safe. I knew what “worth his time” would get me. That also meant I had a chance to influence him.

“Yup, that’s us. Skitter, bug girl, is out of the base at the moment, but the rest of us are here.”

“The hounds were well-trained and the one called Skitter was brave. I give my regards, though there is a fine line between courage and folly.”

“Thanks, Bitch appreciates it. That’s what she wants to be called, by the way. Would you believe me if I said Skitter and Bitch already took out Lung once before?”

“Oh? A worthy feat. Perhaps I will hear of it another day.”

[Atreus is impressed. He has encountered dragons before. His world has dragons.] I stamped down on my power. As fascinating as a high fantasy world was, that wasn’t what I needed right now.

“Yup, there were too many capes in the warehouse though. It let him ramp up much higher than he did last time. Then you showed up and threw him out of the city. Thanks for that.”

“You are welcome, child. It is good to recognize a debt, but there is nothing I seek that you have.”

[Atreus wants to become a baker. Atreus is tired of being a warrior. Atreus is annoyed at Bakuda for destroying Buns ‘n’ Roses. He had no intention of interfering until a suicide bomber targeted the bakery.]

That got an incredulous laugh out of me. Everything he did implied he held deep respect for the master-disciple relationship; it was good to have confirmation. “Hah! Holy shit. You, you really killed Lung because Bakuda destroyed the bakery you were working at.”

“I did. As Master Frank’s disciple, I consider it a personal dishonor and am obligated to respond.”

It wasn’t lost on me that the protection I so desired, this random woman had obtained, purely by accident, because she knew how to make a brioche. I stamped down on my irritation. “I just think it’s funny that Bakuda stabbed herself in the foot. You’re really retired then.”

“I will participate in what the PRT calls S-class incidents. Otherwise, aye, I seek a peaceful life learning the baker’s craft under Master Frank,” he said, with absolute honesty. This was the benefit of being beneath his notice; he wouldn’t care enough to lie. No, Atreus himself was not a man who lied without reason. Deceit didn’t come naturally to him. It was refreshing.

Next to me, Brian nodded his head in understanding. I’d hesitate to call Brian a “warrior,” people like that didn’t exist in the modern day, but as an inner city black kid who grew up in the Nazi capital of the United States, he was about as close as could be. Learning boxing under his deadbeat dad gave him a sense of honor that wasn’t too dissimilar to Atreus’, the idea that things could be resolved with a man-to-man duel in the ring.

The idea of a debt incurred and repaid, especially in defense of something he cared about, resonated with my team leader.

“Look, I know you think there isn’t much we can do for you, but you’d be wrong there. You’ve painted a big target on your back. Before, a Case-22 was a curiosity. Now, you’re not just a big fish in a small pond, you’re as strong as one of the Triumvirate, maybe even stronger. Factions from all over are going to try to use you or get rid of you.”

I heard him snort dismissively. “It is the nature of things: Power attracts power. I intend to fight the endbringers. Notoriety is a natural consequence.”

[Atreus is telling the truth. He is accustomed to fame. He was famous in his old world. He wants to retire but still intends to kill the endbringers. He was asked to kill the endbringers by someone else. The PRT does not have the influence to convince him.]

That was… troubling. Someone else got to Atreus first, enough that he was willing to come out of retirement. I couldn’t assume that this person was heroic just because they wanted him to fight endbringers. Was it Rose Frank? He respected her, but I doubted she could point him like a missile at something else.

“You’re right, you were bound to get famous, but that doesn’t mean everyone is going to fight you head-on like Lung. Most will fight like Bakuda. They’ll hide in the shadows or set up hostage situations where you can’t act freely,” I pointed out, “and that’s where I come in.”

“If you are referring to those with bombs in their heads, I don’t see what I can do about them,” he said. “The best I can do is to kill Bakuda quickly so that no one else has to suffer.”

“No, I’m not. You can’t kill her right now.”

“I can, I need only wait until the PRT finds her.”

“You… You don’t read PHO do you? No, of course you don’t. Chief Director Costa-Brown signed kill orders for them shortly after you killed Lung, dated retroactively.”

“I am aware.”

“Yeah, well, that made Bakuda desperate. She posted a video in front of a bomb on PHO, a bomb as big as a small trailer. It’s an EMP with a destructive range as wide as a nuke.”

“... And?”

I was confused, then my hand met my face in an audible slap as I let out an exasperated sigh. “You don’t know what those words mean.”

“No.”

Alec sniggered across from me, listening in as he played something on a handheld console. He shot me a thumbs up so I chucked a couch cushion at his head. “EMP stands for electromagnetic pulse, a type of bomb that destroys electronics like your phone. A nuke is a nuclear bomb, something that can destroy cities and cause widespread damage to the entire New England area.”

“She is bargaining for her life with this EMP then?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“And it only targets electronics?”

“Yes.”

“Why would she make the bomb nonlethal?”

I realized then that because Atreus did not come from a world with advanced technology, the notion of an EMP didn’t seem threatening. “It’s a huge deal. An EMP would affect phones, TVs, car navigation systems, and more.”

The silence was telling. [He does not care. He thinks people are soft and sees this as a potentially good thing to harden them. He wonders if it’ll make people skinnier.]

“God damn it,” I groaned. I wracked my brain to frame this in a way he’d understand. “Food! An EMP that strong would knock out the entire electrical grid, including refrigerators for food storage. We’d face a major shortage, not just in Brockton Bay, but all the way in Boston and New York too. That’s more than fifteen million people, people with dwindling food supplies and nothing to do.”

“They will riot,” he said grimly, the situation settling in.

“Exactly. It’s also hospitals and other things that we need, not just luxuries. Bakuda is not bargaining for her life with electronics, she’s bargaining for her life with an excess of human suffering.”

“I see. Thank you for the information, child. I realize I have been shallow in my understanding of the situation.”

“We need to defuse the EMP before we can kill Bakuda. And trust me, at this point, us villains don’t want Bakuda around either. The heroes won’t call you until the bomb is defused, if they do at all. I can help you by giving you the locations of their safehouses you can hit in the meantime. Bakuda won’t be able to detonate the EMP because it takes away her only bargaining chip and you’ll draw out Oni Lee so you can take him out.”

“I have no interest in anyone except Bakuda.”

I frowned but pivoted. Atreus had a one-track mind. Or maybe he didn’t like the thought of being someone else’s weapon. Didn’t matter, that was Coil’s plan, not mine. I’d just have to be careful about directing him Coil’s way when the time came. Still, I felt I had a good estimation of his personality, which was my real goal in this. “Fine, but can you keep this number? I’ll call you to give you Bakuda’s location after the heroes defuse the EMP.”

“Very well, I will consider it the fulfillment of your debt,” he said firmly.

“You got it, big guy.”

X

Atreus, Aspect of War

“What the fu-” the not-Ionian woman exclaimed as I crashed through the ceiling. She’d been hiding in an abandoned apartment building, two stories tall and not a one able to slow me as I melted through the layers like a hot stone through butter.

In the end, I felt people made much ado about nothing. Armsmaster proved to be a capable investigator. He traced the unique signal provided by Bakuda during her PHO announcement to locate her bomb. There were nuances that I was oblivious to, something about the triangulation of viable hideout locations, but the end result was the same: The bomb was found and dismantled by two Wards, a pair of children named Clockblocker and Vista, leaving me free to follow Tattletale’s directions towards Bakuda’s hiding place.

I had not been subtle. I descended shield-first and spear poised to strike. Astrea fluttered behind me, a river of constellations marking my passage. Aegis shone with condensed starlight, ready to impose War onto the world, to overwhelm every defense Bakuda could have made. Skyfall gleamed in the light, celestial steel sharpened to a razor point.

None of it was necessary. The woman I found could barely be called human. She was filthy, with limp, unwashed hair covering what was once a fetching face. Madness danced in her eyes as she scrambled back in terror. A gas mask was on the table, along with more, half-assembled bombs. She was barely dressed and half a dozen empty containers of food littered the floor.

I had expected fierce resistance. Soldiers. Bombs. Transmutation spells. Explosions. Perhaps even ones that could twist time. Instead, I found a broken woman who had given in to madness.

The ABB soldiers took aim. Loud cracks filled the room but the bullets melted before they could reach my person. They then started to flee, only for Bakuda to press something, melting them from the inside out.

A wave of disgust washed over me. This was what the city had been struggling against? A madwoman and her slave soldiers?

I swept my spear to the side in a contemptuous swing. The desk, chair, and even the wall were sliced in twain. This was beneath me. And yet, I had promised her death, and so I would deliver.

I stepped forward, my feet making the concrete floor bubble.

“S-Stay back! You kill me and they all die! You get me?” she yelled. “You know how many have bombs in their fucking heads? My heart stops and they all fucking explode! You get me?”

I did not pause. Why would I? Casualties were a natural consequence in war. No, if I left her be, she would implant more bombs, take more people hostage. Perhaps she was lying, perhaps not. It mattered not in the end. I had declared that she would die by my spear, and I was a man of my word.

There was no fanfare. I had nothing to say to her. I plunged Skyfall into her chest. If people died because her heart stopped beating, so be it.

“N-Not fair…” she groaned. Her eyes flickered rapidly side to side, as if looking for some deliverance that would never come.

“How dull. I hoped your last words would be more interesting,” I said with a dismissive snort.

I tore Skyfall from her chest and watched as the light left her eyes. Her heartbeat slowed. When it stopped, something erupted from beneath the floorboards, an explosion of white-hot fire that would have turned anyone else to ash.

I had expected her to try and stop time, or perhaps warp the space around her into some macabre display, but the explosion was far more mundane. Whether this was because she had no resources to manufacture an esoteric bomb, or because she did not want the moment of her death to be immortalized in a time bubble, I could not say.

Either way, the column of fire incinerated the very building. When the fire died down, only ashes were left of what had been a two-story apartment building.

My promise fulfilled, I headed back for my own apartment as the sirens filled the air. I’d have to answer to the local heroes about this eventually, but I just didn’t care enough to remain. I left bread in the oven when Tattletale called; it wouldn’t do to let it burn.

X

Thomas Calvert, Coil

“God damn it!” I roared. I swept my arm across the desk, backhanding the computer monitor. It crashed to the floor with the loud crack of splintering plastic, but I wasn’t satisfied. I picked up my chair and hurled it across the room, making Pitter flinch as it sailed past him.

Coward. I killed his wife after a messy divorce and swept his malpractices under the rug, but if he had a spine, it wouldn’t have ever gotten to that point. The spineless worm was easy to control, but right now, the look of uncertainty on his unassuming face pissed me off.

I had my gun trained on him within a second. Two shots, both center mass. I was slower now than back in my squad days, but I made a point to keep my skills respectable.

I looked him in the eyes as he tried to mouth something. I’d heard it all before. It was always “Why?” or “How could you?” as if the questions would magically stop his lungs from flooding with blood.

Pitter was my pet-sitter, and, increasingly often, my unwitting stress relief.

Everything was going wrong. Carefully laid plans I’d woven for years, all gone up in literal flames. It wasn’t just that my plans were crumbling that enraged me; it was the how.

A worthy hero? Armsmaster finally showing some measure of political cunning? Piggot putting together clues faster than I’d anticipated? Kaiser doing something unexpectedly clever? Some variable I’d overlooked?

I could understand those. Accidents happened. Mistakes happened. I had twice the opportunities to make them after all. Tattletale was wrong about me. I was not arrogant. I didn’t believe I couldn’t make mistakes, far from it. I was a man built on mistakes. I was capable of learning, of growth. I believed that I could overcome any challenge, so long as I had the opportunity to try again, and again, and again.

Except, my plans didn’t fail because of human error or a worthy opponent. My plans failed because a demigod from another world decided to pay my city a visit!

All of Haywire’s tech was accounted for. I knew; I’d checked. When I heard this primitive was a Case-22, I burned a million dollars to bribe officials in Madison and DC, just to get them to take inventory again. It should have been impossible. Dimension travel was the sort of thing reserved for the most powerful of tinkers.

And her.

Yet it wasn’t her. I’d checked that front as well. They had no reason to avoid responsibility. Cauldron promised to leave Brockton Bay alone and they were keeping that promise, even with Atreus’ arrival.

So my plans were up in smoke. Not because my opponents were cunning, or because I made a mistake, but because a barbarian from another world decided my city was now his playground. The worst part of it all was that he didn’t even know I existed.

No, he wanted to be a baker.

Timelines were wasted on every means of assassination possible over the past week. And yet, nothing worked.

Sniper? Not strong enough, they flattened on his skin like the special effects of a bad movie.

Laser? Hahahaha, no. It wasn’t even worth trying after he set the sky on fire.

Sundancer? She was terrified and wouldn’t even consider approaching him, not even when I had Genesis killed in front of her. I doubted fire was the way to go anyway so I had her drowned slowly before collapsing the timeline.

Noelle? She managed to touch him in one timeline, but all that did was create some interesting splash patterns around the city block as he turned himself into a star and blasted his way out.

Time bombs stolen from one of Bakuda’s stashes? Those didn’t work either. I thought I’d found my solution; he’d been trapped in a bubble of gray, but that didn’t last. His equipment began to take on color. They grew brighter and brighter until the cosmic fire returned. Constellations filled the bubble like a snow globe, and when the power became too much, the globe erupted outward, scooping out a neat, four-mile crater in the city center.

He was fine. And annoyed.

I collapsed the timeline before he could find me. That was an encounter I didn’t need to test.

I tried everything I could think of to kill him. I even had the line cooks at his local Greek restaurant replaced with my men. They laced him with enough poison to kill a bull elephant, but of course that didn’t work either. I didn’t think he even noticed.

Out of ideas, I then tried to get him out of the city. He couldn’t remain here if I was to salvage my plans. No, I wasn’t delusional. No matter what he wanted, he would get sucked into the parahuman affairs of this city. It was the natural order of things; power attracted power.

And the more he interfered with the city, the less useful my pet became.

I first noticed it when I asked her the likelihood of success for my sniper. She replied, “Stars and blood. The stars shine on a river of blood.”

Every other question received the same response. Not numbers, never numbers, not with him. There was no indication of success or failure until I made the attempt, only whispers of stars and blood. Other questions directed at other people gave me more understandable responses.

I kicked Pitter’s corpse a few times. When that didn’t make me feel any better, I collapsed the timeline, leaving me sitting alone in my office.

After some work, I’d gotten my hands on Atreus’ self-testimony. He referred to himself as the Aspect of War. He claimed, and was verified, to have brought a star with him. But nothing explained the results given by my pet. Was Atreus so conflict-prone that no matter the outcome, bloodshed was inevitable?

I massaged the bridge of my nose and tried to stave off the mounting migraine.

There was only one way I could think of to get him out of the city: I had to play on his neuroses. He was a “baker.” He respected his master, some worthless woman named Rose Frank who owned a family bakery. I considered just killing her off or holding her hostage, but those attempts inevitably ended in disaster.

My next option was to appeal to her, to set her up with a store elsewhere and hope Atreus would follow his master. If I built her a state of the art bakery in Boston, then perhaps she’d be willing to resettle. Perhaps Atreus would follow her and he’d become Accord’s problem. It might have worked; I didn’t know because I received a note from Cauldron to stop interfering with her.

I’d never loathed them more. Whatever their reasons, they didn’t want Atreus leaving Brockton.

I slumped in my seat. That was it; that was everything. I had no other options, no strings to pull that would deal with the heaviest hitter the Bay’s ever seen. I wracked my brain for the best way to salvage my plans. If I couldn’t move the mountain, I would just have to dig around it, even if it meant cutting assets loose.

After a while, I settled on a modified version of the original plan. It was unfortunate, but I was on a time-crunch more severe than before.

Lisa, Tattletale, would betray me. That was a given; I’d always known it would happen and had prepared to tighten the noose before she could, but Atreus changed things. Though I had no choice but to use her if I wanted to gather information, I also knew that would give her the chance to approach him, maybe build inroads so she could eventually point him my  way. It was the obvious move, the path I would take.

Taking over the Bay was no longer a possibility. It was time to cut my losses, but my resources were scattered. My assets were locked in the other gangs or with the PRT. Many could be thrown away, but others represented potential, both in terms of resources and information, that I was loath to part with.

I needed to consolidate, and for that, I needed time. Time to reallocate investments, arrange transportation for the Travelers, and ensure no word of my pet’s presence got out. A week, no, even a few days would be fine. I could recover the rest while I settled elsewhere. Which meant I needed a distraction.

On a rainy May ninth, I put my plans into motion. I had my team release the civilian identities of the Empire Eighty-Eight, all of them, from Max Anders to Tammi Herren. I also made sure that my Empire plants knew to point their fingers at Tattletale.

Just in case that wasn’t enough to get them to riot, I grabbed the two most corrupt men among my mercenaries and directed them to the Towers. Their target was Aster Anders, daughter of Max Anders and Kayden Russel.

By noon, the post with their names had been uploaded to PHO sixteen separate times, each from separate accounts. Each time, the moderators took them down in minutes, but the damage was done. Everyone had a copy: local and national news, radios, papers, and conspiracy theorists. Everyone with a communication medium found themselves with the scoop of a lifetime.

Then, when I could be sure that Kayden Russel had received word of her outing, I had my men send her a pair of pictures. Of young Theo’s severed head. Of baby Aster, and a man in black holding a gun over her.

I smiled. If I looked outside, I could just imagine the entire city being consumed by flames, a conflagration stoked by rumors and outrage and a mother’s primal terror.

The Empire would rampage, whether out of self-interest or Purity’s righteous wrath, the cause mattered little. My spies would point their fingers and dear old Max would take care of Tattletale for me while I tied up other loose ends.

I could resettle. It would be difficult, but with my pet to smooth the way and the Travelers to act as muscle, I saw no reason I couldn’t replicate my influence here. Yes, this was power, the power to end lives with the press of a button.

I let out a deep breath of satisfaction as I leaned back into my office chair. Let Atreus have this city; I for one had greener pastures to look forward to.

Then, for the second time this week, the endbringer sirens rang.

Author’s Note

Oh, the plans of mice and men…

Did Rebecca sign off on kill orders to legitimize Atreus so she could keep him on side? Yes.

I didn’t intend for this chapter to be taken up by Tattletale and Coil, but I’m not unhappy with it either. Originally, water was supposed to be the Leviathan chapter, but the start works too, I think. All things considered, being off one chapter is pretty good for what started as a basic outline.