Act One, Scene Seven
Captain Crush tried not to think about his bruises, causing him to think about his bruises, causing his bruises to hurt. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten into this loop, which would have explained just how angry he was even if his Count hadn’t been ranting.
“TWO HUNDRED POUNDS OF PURE GOLD? HE EXPECTS ME TO PAY TWO HUNDRED POUNDS, OF GOLD, TO HIM, FOR BURNING A HOLE IN MY OWN STREET?”
“And,” the Captain pointed out sourly, “for starting a fire that destroyed government property. And killed seven people. He itemized it.”
“THEY’RE MY SERFS!” Count Pyre looked around at his two remaining junior supervillains. “He can’t just take my money for killing my people! They’re mine!”
“A keen understanding of property rights,” said the Thunderer. “However, might I suggest that rights are not, sir, the issue under question?” The Thunderer had been partners with Crush for six years - long before Pyre inherited - but he always had to push his luck, and if he hadn’t maybe they would have found a boss who wasn’t the worst in the city.
Pyre glowered at the Thunderer, and the Thunderer was almost smirking back.
“Specifically, sir, that he has a very large army and you have three people, counting yourself.”
It was four yesterday, thought the Captain, and six when your sister’s treason left you with the job. Then there was that little case of lese majeste, or lese countese, or whatever you call it, where you lost the best man she left you, and Starson decided not to bother sticking around to be next. Instead Gunner Jack was next, poor bastard. Every super’s nightmare was going up against someone you’d never heard of with powers that could beat yours in half, and Jack hadn’t survived his nightmare.
“Are you saying I can’t take him?”
Stunned silence. The Captain tried not to think about the suicidalness of that statement, failed, and was thereby distracted from his bruises until he realized he was distracted from them. It ended when there was a knocking on the door. The Captain and the Thunderer shot each other worried looks; the drones outside were supposed to shoot anyone who approached except for the King or one of his own men...
Stolen novel; please report.
Pyre pressed the door-open button on his garnet-studded throne and called out, “Enter!” His hands were already changing color...
The doors swept open, and a knight entered the room. He was six feet tall, not counting the helmet’s crest of silver hair, and wore modern armor, gleaming composites and rounded surfaces. Unlike Jack’s armor, which had had to follow the laws of physics, this was sleek, maneuverable and agile, more like a movie prop than a man-shaped tank, and both the Captain and the Thunderer stared at him with ill-concealed envy. The Thunderer looked to be trying to calculate the price tag on the suit, and the Captain was wishing that he could move the way the stranger did. In his right hand was a letter, and despite his armored strength he was holding it without damaging it.
“Count Pyre.” The knight’s voice was a mechanically distorted baritone rumble as he strode the length of the hall and then went with a flourish to one knee in front of Pyre’s throne. “Your sister told me you were having superhero problems.” He lifted up the letter in one hand, and Pyre snatched it from him and read it, the smell of scorched killbot drifting in from the hall as the letter smoldered in his grip.
Finally he crumpled up the note and shook the ashes off his hands. “They attacked me. Me! Stole from me, set me back in wealth and damages, injured my name. Some fool child and Luminosa.”
“The last hero of Novapest,” said the man in armor, voice calm and confident. “I’ll test myself against her. If you’ll have me as your Knight, Count, I will bring you your enemies, alive or dead.”
Count Pyre grinned a nasty little grin. “And your name, knight?”
“Constantine Ward. They call me Nicator.”
Pyre shrugged. “One of my clerks can have you registered. Just bring them to me. Alive or dead - alive!” His voice rose. “I want to kill them myself!”
Nobody flinched. Crush was too tired to flinch, Thunderer too used to him, and Nicator was not a flincher.
“... Take care of it,” he concluded lamely.
Captain Crush hurried to escort Nicator down to the office, the Thunderer following after, and Nicator went with them without bothering with unnecessary motions. Only once they were well outside the audience chamber, halfway down an old hallway whose decaying plaster revealed old metal, did Thunderer nod and Crush turn and point at Nicator with one black-glowing finger. One thing they were doing, they’d need to do first.
“Don’t think that just because you’re a continental you’re in charge, boiler. The Thunderer and I have seniority.”
Nicator’s visor was impassive. “Boiler?”
Captain Crush gave him a strange look. “Shellhead, tanker, powered-armor-jockey. The point is, you’re not the boss of -”
Before he could finish the last syllable he was on the ground, convulsing, too busy choking to scream, and the electrified coil was sliding back into Nicator’s right gauntlet. The Thunderer tried to get a hold on him and then his head was bouncing off a wall. The armored knight stared down at both of them moaning on the ground.
“Believe what you like,” he said softly. “But if you can’t be useful to me, don’t get in my way.”
By the time Crush had climbed to his feet, Nicator was gone.