Act Two, Scene Six
Unfortunately for Captain Crush he wasn’t too injured to attend Pyre’s court, despite all that had happened to him. Counts were supposed to Give Justice. It was a thing they did; run courts, listen to cases. Pyre did as little of what a count had to do as he could get away with, but he Gave Injustice anyway (”To make himself feel big,” Crush had said to the Thunderer, and gotten “Cause his sister did” back) and he wanted his knights there when he did it to show off that he still had some.
And so Nicator was there in his imposing powered armor, probably listening to music or something. His giant imposing powered armor could have an iPod built in and no one would ever know. The Thunderer was there, being flattering and showing off how smart he was which they both knew was really stupid of him, and Captain Crush kept on glancing at the door. Two superheroes had beaten him up, and he didn’t know what they were going to do, or what they ought to do.
Pyre was droning on about how the frightened prisoner in front of him was guilty of tax evasion, then set the frightened prisoner on fire, and Captain Crush looked away and tried not to think about just who he was working for, and tried not to smell anything, and hoped that no superheroes would burst through the door, or possibly that they would.
Pyre held court; meanwhile, Victoria watched war footage. Listening to what he said and did would have been a waste of time, and she needed to avoid putting weight on her leg if it was going to recover. She casually listened to Pyre through the sensors in Nicator’s armor, and paid attention to what really mattered. Victoria had hired people to put together a camera network as soon as she made it to Novapest, planting them by the dozen around the city, but she didn’t have a programming tinker to build a better face recognition system than what she could get with off the shelf parts and so she had little choice but to watch them herself.
Still, that feed was minimized. Instead of showing Victoria’s enemies, the feed she watched showed Ilderia.
Cameras hadn’t lasted that long in the battlefields of Novapest. A cramped space was no place to use explosives, which might have been one of the reasons the Tyrant had done so relentlessly, using artillery and missiles to make the battle uninhabitable for human beings so that only those of Ilderia’s men who could survive fire and shrapnel and shockwaves could fight, while the Tyrant’s robot armies (hardened against both explosions and shrapnel) advanced ever onwards. Long before the war started he’d decreed that every tower complex in the city needed a bomb shelter basement loaded with stores of rice, water and fuel, and he was praised as merciful. Then the war had begun and he ordered the entire population into them and shed no tears about those who didn’t or couldn’t listen. As his troops passed through the cities he sealed every entrance shut and stationed guards over them so any of Ilderia’s troops hiding there would need to get past them to escape, checking them out one by one as he could spare the forces - robots armed with stun rays for civilians who moved wrong and lasers for anyone with a gun.
For the civilians there was somewhere to run, where they could hide and shelter and hope to be spared. For Ilderia and those who swore their swords to her there was no option but war. When the first strike failed and the desperate rush to seize the palace had been broken, victory was impossible. The knights had been faced with the choice of fleeing and dying and fighting and dying, and Ilderia had chosen to fight.
The best of her knights were dead in the first day and Century was dead a hundred and a half times, and the soldiers would have routed - but Ilderia was there, Ilderia was everywhere, and when Ilderia flashed from battle to battle in the Arondight her power didn’t matter and her exhaustion didn’t matter and only her heart mattered and the lines gave ground grudgingly if at all. Victoria saw her, saw the lightning strike in long flashes (without the camera slowed it was hard to see that the blade of lightning flickered from one target to another and on to the next in a single swooping motion) and Ilderia met one enemy, then the next, killing or disarming or disabling and keeping going. What mistakes was she making? What could Victoria learn from watching her? Ilderia in the Arondight had no match; Redfang met her in hand to hand, claws and fangs extended and Ilderia deflected his hand with the blade under one hand and put the other blade through his chest, and as she did the lightning arced from robot to robot to tear them to pieces and her eye-beams dropped first Pirrane’s Steward and then Last Call. It seemed for a glorious moment that the war might be won -
- And then Bloody Lizzy Balog was there, and Ilderia in powered armor had one match, and mere moments after the missiles began to fall and the blood-red armor charged to meet the blue and silver the explosions took out the last camera, sending debris and metal flying across the room. Victoria knew that there was no scar on her new face, but her cheek still itched.
When Nicator returned from the trials, he did so accompanied by both of Pyre’s knights - Melissa recognized both voices as they came up the stairs, though not quite what they were saying. The first coherent sentence she heard was Nicator’s she found my sister, which Melissa tagged as a lie.
Then they swept into the command room. Melissa had the brief pleasure of watching Crush’s jaw drop.
“Melissa, meet my other knights,” said Nicator. “Other knights, Melissa.”
“Ch-charmed,” said Melissa.
Nicator watched the brief introductions, waved the two arrivals to chairs.
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“Melissa is a contractor working with me to help me locate our two enemies.” Not-Lie.
“The superheroes?” said the Thunderer.
“I prefer the term ‘terrorist revolutionaries’,” said Nicator. “We should recall that they are enemies of the Crown.” Lie. Not-Lie.
“So are you,” growled the Captain. Not-Lie.
“I am not in active opposition to the crown,” said Nicator. “I consider this to be a working retirement.” Not-Lie. Lie.
The Thunderer laughed.
“She possesses superhuman senses,” continued Nicator, “and as I have a considerable camera network we should consider this to be equivalent to having Just as one of our allies. When she locates them for us, the three of us - four of us, with luck - should converge on our enemies. If you would care to explore the upper floors of the building, you will note that it is fully stocked; the top floor is reserved for my and my sister’s personal apartments, but the remainder of the building is available for your use.” Not-lie. Not-lie. Not-lie. Not-lie. Lie.
There was a knock on the door, interrupting Nicator.
“That should be our final member,” he said, and departed. Not-lie.
The supervillains gave Melissa Looks.
“You have super-senses?”
“A little,” said Melissa.
“Then why are you acting like a norm?” Captain Crush asked.
“It’s not a very useful power,” she said quietly.
“I’d murder a few people for that ability,” said the Thunderer. “Superhuman speed is a party trick. Superhuman senses make fortunes.” Truth. Melissa looked up at him, suddenly appalled again. What am I doing here?
“Nick!”
The joyful cry came from downstairs, and the Thunderer smirked. Captain Crush gave him a funny look.
Up the stairs came Nicator, followed by a muscular man, his face dominated by a square jaw and a broken nose. He wore a black T-shirt with “My Other Shirt Is Kevlar” on it, and had one hand on Nicator’s shoulder. “- The plane was delayed on flight because they found my - “This your new crew?”
Nicator nodded.
“Skullcracker, meet Captain Crush, the Thunderer, and Melissa. Captain, Thunderer, Melissa, meet Skullcracker.”
“Jim Skullcracker,” he corrected. “It’s Jim. So, Nick, what’s the job?”
Nicator stepped back, waved Skullcracker to a seat. He took it, the Novapest natives watching Nicator and sparing only a glance for the continental.
“A new cape began causing trouble for various Counts a few weeks ago. He recently struck against my ‘liege-lord’, Count Pyre, who, on the recommendation of his sister, my former employer, agreed to give me the job of hunting him down.” Not-lie, Lie. Worrying. Lots of worrying.
Nicator moved to a whiteboard and gracefully picked up a marker in armored fingers, making notes. “He has either magnetic or ferrokinetic primary powers, very strong, and no known secondary powers. There are no good pictures of him; he used to wear a hooded sweatshirt, a ski mask, and gloves, and now wears a full masked black and grey superhero costume. Until yesterday, he was operating purely on a small scale. He targeted food warehouses in the less secure districts, levy drones, and similar low-priority targets. I believe he was testing his powers.” True. True. True, True, True.
“Yesterday he attacked one of Count Steelstorm’s warehouses, where he stores his pocket-factory weapons. He made off with several dozen weapons designed for anti-tank or cape-killer purposes, including personal railguns, ‘monomolecular’ blades, plasma cannons, and the other weaponry any C-ranked tinker engineer can make and Steelstorm can mass produce.” True, true.
Nicator put down the marker and clasped his hands, looking at his crew.
“Melissa is monitoring my feeds, which, with luck, will give us his location. This base dates back to the war - one of the needles the Tyrant never found in his haystack - and is fully stocked with everything you’ll need to eat, drink, or keep yourselves from going insane from boredom. Pyre won’t need his knights for at least another week. By that time, I expect to have the man in the hood and his arsenal. We will take a small share of the loot and give the rest of it to our count, and he will take a large share and return the remainder to Steelstorm.” True, true, true, true, true...
“If he is spotted on the move unprotected, the four members of the combat-power team will move to intercept immediately, while Melissa will monitor camera feeds and alert us to any emergencies.”
All truth. He looked at the four of them. Captain Crush raised a hand first.
“So, you want us sitting here 24/7 watching a screen? That’s the job?”
“Human beings need to sleep, Crush,” said Nicator. “But your mission is to remain at work, be easy for your allies to contact and avoid any commitments other than this mission. I doubt it will take us long to complete. He does not have the sense to stay quiet.” Truth. Truth. Truth. Truth.
“What if Pyre has orders for us?” the Thunderer asked.
“We are currently obeying his orders. We cannot be held responsible if this makes it difficult for him to issue us new orders.” True. False.
He paused.
“One more thing. While we are working here together, you are not to use your normal names on any public frequencies. Supervillains -” he looked at Captain Crush - “almost always choose a name that reveals information about their powers. On all public frequencies, we are identified by numbers. I am Number One. Skullcracker is Number Two. Melissa is Number Three. Captain Crush is Number Four. Thunderer is Number Five. Is this understood?”
Silence and nods.
“Dismissed.”
Nicator departed moments later, up to his supervillain lair at the top of the building. Melissa pulled on her headphones and went back to listening, and Jim looked back and forth between the other two.
“Nick,” said the Thunderer. “You call our distinguished superior Nick.”
“Your distinguished superior,” said Jim Skullcracker. He had picked one of the couches and was lying on it, flat on his back, hands behind his head. Semi-visible shadows of his hands were juggling knives above him. “My star pupil.”
The Thunderer raised an eyebrow. “You taught him everything he knows?”
“Hell no. You think I know how to - look, I taught him how to rob banks,” said Jim Skullcracker. “I add some Novapest runaway boiler to the team, I expect him to last a week before he pawns his armor. In a month I’m learning more than he was. Bit of a martinet, bit of a monster, but damn me if it wasn’t the best haul I ever had.”
The Thunderer eyed the knives. “How much did you make?”
“After fees for henching and fencing, after laundry, after the five-way split? Six hundred thousand in Switzerland and the Caymans.”
Captain Crush choked. “What?”
“Pyre’s not paying much, is he?”
The Captain tried to convert from American to Novapest currency in his head. “No.”
“He said there was fifty times that in Novapest for only five times the risk,” said Jim Skullcracker. “You see why I’m here.”
“Fifty times that? We aren’t paid half so much!”
“Yeah, well.” He raised an eyebrow. “Nick wanted someone who trusted him. I’m reckoning none of you count?”