Intermission 7.4
Colin Wallis
2002, March 2: Brockton Bay, NH
I'd never been the type to place my faith in a higher power. I believed parahumans could be explained by scientific progress, as outrageous as some powers seemed to be at times. I believed that this universe had an explanation for everything, no matter how seemingly impossible. The universe was an orderly place ruled by logic and predictable methodologies. If we could not understand, that was because we were lacking, not because there was anything truly and innately unknowable.
But Brockton Bay… this city made me wonder if there was such a thing as a higher power. If there was, this city would be shining proof of their disdain for humanity.
Two weeks ago, Cannonade, Brandish, Flashbang, and I scored a noteworthy victory against the criminal elements of this city. Dozens of Empire and Panther gang members were arrested, including Krieg, Brunhild, Rebellion, and the real prize, Asatru. For the first time in years, we had one of the lieutenants of Allfather's regime. We had his spymaster and potentially, access to his schemes.
It was a wonderful start to my career in the city. Unfortunately, it was also about the only progress we made.
Allfather divided his forces into three. While Asatru was captured, he cut a bloody swathe through Panther territory, killing nearly a hundred people, most of them unrelated to the gang war. He was only stopped by Paladin and the Pelham couple. Despite their best efforts, they were only able to capture two out of six capes from his raid, Huntsman and Garm.
On the Panther side, Witch Doctor killed six Empire gang members and mastered their corpses into killing more. It was not uncommon for capes to hide some of their capabilities, but that had been a particularly nasty reveal. In the past, he had relied on taxidermied animals or sometimes even roadkill. There was an assumption that he could not affect humans, a Manton limit.
The eight corpses turned on their former allies and fought viciously, with a tenacity that could not be found among the living. Though they were quickly put down, being forced to mutilate the corpses of their once-friends dealt a heavy blow to the morale of the EMpire rank and file. The unsettling surprise had been enough to secure the getaway of himself and most of his men. Unfortunately, he'd also painted a large target on his back; such an unsettling power would only feed into Allfather's rhetoric.
The last group of Empire capes were seen running a dedicated patrol along the border of their and Ryujin territory to ensure the yakuza did not attempt to capitalize on their distraction. This group was led by the Iron Prince, a man who was heavily suspected of being Allfather's son. Considering his ability to sprout metal on any surface, a relation seemed likely.
That was two weeks ago. After that, things fell steadily downhill.
Crosscut, enforcer of the Ryujin, turned up dead the very next day, literally impaled on a flagpole in front of Brockton Bay University. Though the university was generally accepted as neutral territory, such a public display made it clear that this was meant to provoke the Ryujin, not just remove a single cape.
They succeeded.
The six living members of Ryujin, including a cape called Rangda who was assimilated into their organization during their conquest of the docks, went on a rampage. With Doubletime dead, Rebellion arrested, and Witch Doctor barely holding the Panthers together as a solo cape, they logically eliminated the Panthers as being responsible for the murder, leaving only the Empire, Peach Blossom Company, or one of their own as potential culprits. I did not know precisely how their thought process worked, but Shirokumo, their "ane-san," decided that the Empire was the most likely culprit.
In the end, I suspected that the identity of the real culprit didn't matter as much as having a target to direct their vengeance. Shirokumo laid a trap with her wires as Stormfront flew by and allowed his own momentum to paint him all over the street like a Rorschach's test.
That was the catalyst for what journalists and pundits were calling stage two of this gang war. Initially, the various conflicts were more or less compartmentalized, with Ryujin trying to consolidate their hold over the docks and Boat Graveyard and the Empire trying to wipe out the Panthers. Crosscut's death shattered those imaginary lines and forced a conflict between the two most powerful gangs in the city, all while the Peach Blossom Company watched and waited.
This left the city in a precarious position. Our recent victory over the Empire left them with only six active capes: Allfather, Iron Prince, Purity, Pale Rider, Aryan, and Jarl Jotun. The Ryujin likewise had six capes with Shirokumo, Rangda, Yokai, Sengoku, Zanbato, and Hanya. This kind of numerical parity had never existed between the two factions. The Empire had always outnumbered all other gangs and it was only the threat of a unified alliance that kept them from sweeping the city completely.
Now, the Ryujin smelled blood in the water. Shirokumo ordered her men to fight aggressively and with a brutality born of knowing that such a chance will likely never come again. Just about the only bright side in all this was that Witch Doctor and the remnants of the Black Panthers were all but forgotten. They'd become problems in the future, but they were content to lick their wounds and hold what meager territory they could cling on to.
Two weeks. For two weeks, the Protectorate, New Wave, and a handful of solo independents fought a losing war to try to contain the carnage. By the end of it, hundreds were dead and the mayor had petitioned the state governor for deployment of the national guard. When Bonfire got hospitalized by a stray bullet, Director Cooper was forced to deputize some of the older Wards to patrol safer districts and shore up manpower.
It all culminated in the single largest battle I'd ever been in outside of the endbringer fight. Shirokumo called out Allfather to the Trainyard by carving the challenge directly onto the corpses of his unpowered men and hanging them from her wires like laundry. The macabre display dared Allfather and his Empire to come take her head. With a challenge like that, he had no choice but to move in force.
Which naturally meant the Protectorate had to respond in kind.
Director Cooper, ever the pragmatist, had us form a discrete perimeter around the Trainyard in an attempt to contain the fighting. If they wiped each other out, all the better. The plan fell to pieces at first contact. Even with New Wave, we simply lacked the numbers to enforce a perimeter over such a large number of cape.
Bonfire was hospitalized. Akitsu was our information specialist and had no business in the field. Luminous was deemed too young to participate and was given guard detail over the PRT building and the captured capes alongside the senior Wards. That left myself, Cannonade, Hammerhead, and our illustrious leader, Paladin.
New Wave had agreed to watch Witch Doctor, sending Lightstar and Fleur. With the Dallons and Pelhams joining us in the Trainyard, that left eight heroes and two dozen PRT troopers to contain twelve villains and over a hundred gang members, a tall order by any measure.
I dodged out of the way of Purity's blasts as she drummed a staccato of beats into the side of the train car behind me. She remained one of the biggest threats on the Empire side and though I had done well in a spar against Hero, I was not confident in my ability to deflect serious attacks from the blaster-eight. I was saved from having to think of a way to retaliate by a salvo from Cannonade. A single marble turned into twelve and expanded to the size of soccer balls. The Empire glass cannon yelped and dodged out of the way, screaming obscenities all the while.
She was forced further into the sky when Lady Photon and Hammerhead chased her away from the fight on the ground. Hammerhead was in his full "sky-shark" changer form, with a head that was reminiscent of his namesake and feathered "fins." It made him popular with young boys despite his generally gruff personality.
Those three joined the dogfight between the Empire's Pale Rider and the Ryujin's Rangda and Hanya. They soon escaped the range of my sonar and I forced myself to bring my focus back to earth. The battle on the ground was somehow more structured than the one in the sky despite the larger number of participants.
The three sides formed something vaguely in the shape of a triangle. These clear power blocs were enforced by each sides' ability to easily take down stragglers, usually lethally.
The Iron Prince had joined Allfather, forming a palisade of metal spikes. At the center, he made a large standing platform from which Allfather could command his troops. Jarl Jotun led the Empire gang members on the ground, swinging his large, double-sided ax made of ice. Aryan, the only non-flight-capable speedster in the city, corralled the men and conducted surgical strikes on any enemies who were caught out.
It was a frustratingly effective strategy that made the best use of Allfather's artillery and Iron Prince's defensive capabilities. Paladin eventually settled on a similar formation.
Paladin could grant nearly invulnerable golden shields to anyone in a radius, so he took up position alongside a squad of elite troopers atop what used to be a cargo train. They were relying on Paladin's shields while Cannonade, Flashbang, and the troopers rained fire on both gangs.
That unfortunately left Manpower, Brandish, and myself on the ground to adapt to the best of our abilities. Our opponents were decided for us, myself to the Empire and New Wave to the Ryujin.
The Ryujin 893 took on a far more proactive formation. Yokai could turn one person invisible alongside himself, so he turned his leader, Shirokumo, invisible. She ran along the perimeter of the Trainyard, stringing deadly traps between any surface she could reach. I knew that those wires would cut all but the strongest alloys and had even carved into Metalmaru's work before. My halberd still had a notch to prove her lethality.
I couldn't go after her even though the sonar made marking them easy because of Sengoku. Sengoku was a brute who styled himself as a samurai with a unique shaker effect: Nothing more technologically advanced than a bow and arrow worked. Even bullets that entered his field stopped flying as the kinetic energy imparted by gunpowder became inert. That of course went for tinkertech as well. Should I enter the field, the weight of my own armor would make combat nearly impossible.
I left Sengoku and the bulk of the Ryujin to Manpower and turned to the Empire. I was mildly surprised to note that I was joined by their remaining cape, Zanbato. He carried his namesake, a massive, curved blade five feet in length. If he had any esoteric powers beyond super strength, Akitsu was unable to discover them, the benefit of being new.
"Come on, race traitor!" Jarl Jotun roared as he barreled towards me. He was a large brute of a man with a long, red beard that was braided and garnished with a dagger at the end. His skin had an unhealthy pallor that hinted at tinges of blue towards his extremities. As a brute-eight, he'd yet to encounter an opponent whose attacks he couldn't shrug off.
He swung his double-sided ax with the ferocity of a berserker. I drew my halberd and braced myself, sinking into a textbook block that caught the blade on my haft. The blow made my arms tremble with its force even though I'd upgraded my armor.
I grit my teeth. If he could do this much with one strike, I was not his match in a contest of brute force. He was looking for a shoving contest but I refused to oblige him. With a subtle shift of my foreleg, I turned the haft of my halberd and allowed the blade to slide off before planting my rear foot into his sternum.
I kicked off with everything I had, jumping away into a performative back flip and staggering him. I made a note of that backstep: he could be disoriented even if kinetic force alone likely wouldn't cause enough damage to hurt.
"All strength, no skill," I taunted. Wordplay was not my strong suit, but even a brute like him could not mistake the derision in my voice.
"Die, tin man!" he roared as his feet hammered towards me.
I slid into a different stance, better suited for swift parries and shifts in direction.
The ax swung towards my neck and I followed my combat algorithm, ducking under the blow that would have decapitated me with only a millimeter of space to spare. I retaliated with a thrust towards his bicep. In his arrogance, he did not dodge, trusting his power to see him through.
At the very last moment, I switched on my plasma module. It bit deep and I frowned at the nonsensical nature of his power. His brute power was tied to temperature… for some reason…
"Aaagghh!" he roared, reeling back in pain. "You'll pay!"
"Unlikely," I snorted.
The attack only seemed to make him angrier. He fought with reckless abandon, swinging his ax with seemingly no regard for his safety or those of his compatriots. At the very least, his men seemed to expect it because they gave our duel a wide berth.
I could not find the space to retaliate, such was the ferocity of his strikes. All strength, zero skill. He had never been taught to wield such a heavy weapon but made up for his inexperience by swinging the ax with ever greater enthusiasm.
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It disgusted me.
I worked for this strength. I drowned myself in sweat, blood, and vomit until I could compete with monsters like him. I spent sleepless hours designing and redesigning my armor just so I could stand on the same stage as men like him. He was given vitality men could only dream of, awe-inspiring strength, and even cryokinesis on top of that and he squandered it on worthless prejudice to stroke his own ego.
I found everything about him revolting.
With grim determination, I slid my halberd parallel to his ax and twisted, locking it in place. I triggered the extension module, giving my halberd an extra three feet to stab him in the shoulder. I then turned the stab into a sweeping parry before dancing out of range.
As we wove and clashed against one another, I couldn't help but compare Jarl Jotun to another cryokinetic I knew.
Hyunmu once called combat a dance, and for him, it was true. He wove and danced with Isolde in hand and a grace that was all but supernatural. He claimed his martial art was a cobbled together mess, a Frankenstein's Monster of techniques stitched together by an amateur.
It remained the single most elegant and effective combat art I'd ever seen. Knowing that he considered himself an amateur scared me. It scared me because I couldn't imagine the heights he could have reached. It scared me because his words forced me to look myself in the mirror and find the reflection woefully lacking.
I was not Hyunmu. I could not run through the sky on gathering clouds. I could not adjust my body to fight with a dagger one moment and a zweihander the size of houses the next. I did not become a living legend before the age of ten. Battle was not an elegant dance, a language whose fluency came naturally to me.
But I could cheat.
"Combat Protocol Four: Hyunmu," I spoke. My voice came as a whisper but the mic heard me. I could almost imagine the shift.
Battle was not a dance to me. Instead, it was but one more application of the scientific method. Observation. Hypothesis. Experimentation. Conclusion. Repeat until success.
I allowed my armor to guide my body into a style I'd seen mirrored before me hundreds of times. If I could not learn the language of combat to my desired fluency on my own, it stood to reason that I should develop an aid. The data my friend freely gave, I'd put it to good use, not just to predict, but to mimic.
"Die!" Jarl Jotun roared his battle cry as he swung horizontally at my stomach.
I allowed my suit to guide me, leaping into the air with a hair's space to spare. Before he could compensate for his wild swing, I was on him. My halberd shrank to the length of a bastard sword as I drew scorching lines on his barrel chest.
He tried to tackle me but my power armor forcibly contorted my body to act as Hyunmu would. I felt a wrenching force behind my knees, folding me and allowing me to narrowly dodge my opponent's swing. It hurt and it was all I could do to curb the instinctive tensing of my muscles. I had to allow my body to bonelessly fall limp and let the suit take control, lest it tear me apart.
Externally, I showed none of that focused strain. I slid on my knees and as Jarl Jotun tried to adjust, my halberd extended just in time to rip through his Achilles tendon, leaving him stumbling by.
"Aaagghhh!" he roared in pain.
I didn't even let him finish before a blazing thrust took him on the shoulder. I immediately injected my tranquilizer solution into the wound, bypassing his durability.
"You're strong, Jarl Jotun," I admitted. "A pity that's all you are."
I paid him no more mind as I took stock of the ongoing battle.
The dogfight in the sky had dropped in altitude to be just within my sensory range. It was not going in our favor. The heaviest hitter was without question Purity, and Pale Rider happily sacrificed his flying cavalry projections to keep her safe. In comparison, the Ryujin nor the heroic contingent were working nearly as well together. Despite being on the same side, the Protectorate seldom conducted joint training exercises with New Wave or local independents, something that was clearly hurting their coordination now. It was all Lady Photon and Hammerhead could do to keep the four villainous capes from assisting their respective gangs on the ground.
The scene was better on the ground, though not by much. Manpower and Brandish had taken down Yokai, but Manpower was clearly losing a lot of blood. He'd fallen to one knee as he tried to stem the bleeding on a gash over his torso. Brandish stood over her brother-in-law, ready to defend him. Occupied as she was, she likely wouldn't be good for more than taking down the occasional grunt who strayed too close. Shirokumo was nowhere to be found, which meant Yokai's invisibility would likely last several more minutes even without him.
Zanbato, the other Ryujin cape who went after the Empire, was dead. He had been distracted by Aryan, the Empire speedster, before someone threw an incendiary at him. Whatever brute rating he had, he wasn't fireproof and his inexperience got him killed.
I put it out of mind.
"Manpower and Brandish require assistance," I barked into the comms. It was all I could do for him. "I cannot fight Sengoku due to his anti-tech field. Engaging Aryan."
"Roger, we see him, Armsmaster," Paladin's voice rang back.
Before I could chase down Aryan, I saw him rush off towards the Ryujin contingent. Without Zanbato to distract the cape, he was tearing through the unpowered members with ease.
Then it happened. He held a knife, blade poised to tear out some young woman's throat, when his legs flew out from beneath him, severed at the knees. Like with Stormfront, his speed kept him from seeing Shirokumo's wires in time. The wires ripped into him as momentum carried him through her trap.
The young woman stood paralyzed as Aryan's lifeblood bathed her a vibrant crimson. The handgun she held in her hand clattered to the ground and her knees gave out a moment later.
Shirokumo was still nowhere to be seen.
Having no other targets, I withdrew to Manpower's side and withdrew a potion before pressing it to his lips. I saw gashes on his body close as color returned to his cheeks. He got up with a determined growl and pounded his fist into his hand.
"Right, thanks, Armsmaster."
"Is your field back up?" Brandish asked. Her hardlight weapons turned into a shield and spear as she prepared herself to reengage.
"Yeah. I'm going to hold off on burst uses though."
"Good. Empire or Ryujin?"
I considered the question. "Approaching the Ryujin contingent is too difficult with Shirokumo's wires. Empire."
Just then, I winced as I saw Rangda use Hammerhead as a shield, skewering him against Pale Rider's lances meant for her. A swift blast from Purity sent him spiraling to the earth and I knew he was lost.
"Hammerhead's down. Lady Photon is going to be forced to withdraw," I told her sister.
Brandish pursed her lips. "We need to end the fighting. Taking down Allfather will force the Empire to back off and he's only got Iron Prince with him."
"Plans?"
"Manpower, throw me?"
He looked alarmed. He eyed the metal palisades that Iron Prince and Allfather hid behind. "You can't go in there alone."
"I can take them," she insisted.
'Suicidal,' I thought, but… perhaps necessary. Between trying to locate Shirokumo and taking down Allfather, the latter was likely the better choice.
Flashbang was focused on the Ryujin. Without defensive capes, they were forced to hunker down behind abandoned rail cars. Cannonade had switched to using his revolvers and were firing bullets the size of baseballs at Iron Prince's palisade. Despite that, they held, healing what damage they sustained with newly generated iron.
Allfather rained down blades on all sides, but Paladin's power and positioning kept them from sustaining any permanent losses.
"I can accompany her," I volunteered myself. Someone had to break this stalemate and Allfather was a prime target who was far less intimidating in close quarters. Just as important, it'd keep me from accidentally straying into Sengoku's field.
"Can you climb that wall?" Manpower gestured.
"I can. How will Brandish pass Iron Prince's defenses?"
The blonde heroine smirked. "Like this."
She shrank down and became a ball of hardlight that Manpower palmed in one hand. "She's invincible like this," he explained. "I can throw her over. You sure you'll be alright in there?"
"Positive. I will begin the charge. Give me time to get there."
"Yeah, I can do that."
I switched my communicator on. "Armsmaster here. Brandish and I are going to break through Iron Prince's defense to try to take down Allfather directly. Can you provide covering fire?"
The concern was evident in my leader's voice. "Are you sure?"
I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. Why did everyone ask me that? Of course, I was sure. "I am. I can cut my way through. Brandish will enter her defensive sphere and Manpower will throw her over."
"You don't have to do this."
"I see no faster way to end the fighting than to remove Allfather."
Silence, then, "Fine. You have green light. Be careful, Armsmaster."
"Thank you, Paladin."
"Please don't make me regret this."
"I won't."
With that, I was ready. I timed my dash with Cannonade's salvo, running behind the wave of destruction for maximum coverage. The baseball-sized bullets ripped through the Iron Prince's outer defense, revealing several more layers before losing momentum. The walls of the palisade began to weave shut before my eyes.
I allowed my armor's combat algorithm to guide me through the shrapnel. My halberd deflected one iron fragment and I bent at a near impossible angle to evade another. A larger fragment struck my halberd and I used the flat of my halberd like a paddle to turn its momentum into a full rotation, twisting out of the way of another two without losing forward momentum.
This was Hyunmu's personal style, his final gift to me. Relentless aggression paired with an elusiveness that defied logic. I'd seen what he could do with it; I'd be a fool not to make it my own.
I slid beneath Allfather's retaliatory barrage and fired my grappling hook at the palisade before reeling myself in. I grit my teeth as the suit contracted around me, contorting my muscles to make the normally impossible motions possible. Behind me, I saw Manpower winding up to lob his sister-in-law over with me.
Allfather and Iron Prince stood side by side on an elevated platform inside their makeshift castle. They were as imperious as ever, standing tall as though they were above it all. The Iron Prince raised his hand and grasping claws of metal sprouted from the ground between us to skewer me upon landing.
A blade of superheated plasma cleaved through the blades like butter. I promised to pay Pyrotechnical respects; his old notes went a long way to improving the temperature of my blade without sacrificing its durability or cutting power.
Caltrops rose to pierce my feet but they scraped harmlessly against my grieves.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brandish land and bounce like a basketball. She unfurled with a hardlight shield already in hand, deflecting a metal beam aside. I made a note that she could in fact choose the stance in which she entered and exited her breaker state. She took two steps and yelped in pain as iron needles pierced her feet.
"Iron Prince!" she yelled. She swung an impressive zweihander made of condensed plasma to clear the area around her. "Armsmaster! Throw me!"
She withdrew back into her ball. Allfather and Iron Prince struck with everything they had, but the layered forcefield remained as unblemished as ever, glowing an orange-yellow like a miniature sun.
I saw no reason to deny her plan.
I ran up to her and swung my halberd like a baseball bat, launching her at the raised dais where my enemies stood. I made sure to knock her towards the Iron Prince. Truthfully, she was a poor match for either as she'd struggle to deflect multiple missiles and lacked the armor to withstand the Iron Prince simply growing blades from beneath her feet. Even so, Allfather was by all accounts a more brutal fighter than his son and I feared that had I targeted his son, she would have been unable to keep him from launching swords into my back.
The two leaders of the Empire swore and dodged out of the way, though not nearly as swiftly as they should have. She landed near the Iron Prince and released her form with a blazing quarterstaff in hand. I doubted she could hear or see in that field, so it was fascinating to note that she somehow remained aware enough to immediately lock on target upon shifting back.
She was relentless, transitioning between quarterstaff, hammer, sword, and spear with impressive dexterity. She had clearly decided that the best way to keep him from skewering her from below was to give him no time to use his power at all. I didn't know how long she could keep up that routine with her feet bleeding, but for now, she kept him on the retreat.
I left her to it and made a beeline for Allfather. He tried to target Brandish from behind but I was already there, my extended halberd just long enough to nudge his missile off course.
He swerved to face me and said something, but I wasn't listening. I had no time. Brandish would not last so I had to beat Allfather and collapse on Iron Prince before he could make his retreat. For that matter, my own stamina was beginning to flag; the new algorithm was exhausting to execute.
Allfather fired on me with lethal intent. Normally, he at least paid lip service to the unwritten rules and avoided immediately fatal targets like the head or heart, at least when pitted against heroes. He was mindful of the retaliation he would invite should he kill Protectorate heroes without reservation. He abandoned the façade entirely as I drew near, proof of his mounting panic.
My neck twitched almost involuntarily, allowing a dagger to glide past my left ear. At the same time, my forward pace changed for just the slightest moment, long enough for another blade to pass by beneath my raised foot. I spun my halberd and leapt up into the air, cleaving through yet another blade that would have gone on to strike Brandish behind me.
I was on the raised stage now.
Allfather roared a wordless battle cry before four blades turned into a dozen. They were half-formed now, smaller, but also more of them. He normally liked to make full bastard swords as yet another way to demonstrate his superiority.
Again and again I swung my plasma blade. Allfather made me fight for every step, but he had to aim his blades too. He couldn't retreat while firing if he wanted to retain his accuracy so I was slowly but surely gaining on him.
I mirrored steps I'd seen performed against me hundreds of times. I flowed from stance to stance, my halberd extending and contracting to weave a ribbon of flame that cut through every single projectile. I promised Simmons his justice and I refused to be denied.
I pushed onward through a seemingly unending river of blades until finally, I had him. He stumbled back as he hurriedly retreated, but he wasn't fast enough. My blade extended out and caught him at the thigh, searing straight through the armor Iron Prince had woven for him.
"Aaaggh!" he screamed as his leg flew in the another direction entirely. The superheated plasma cauterized his wound so swiftly that not a drop of blood could be seen on the ground.
With a practiced twist, I opened the tranquilizer module at the other end of my halberd and stung him in the throat.
It was finally over.
Author's Note
Guys, not everything is Cauldron's fault… I mean, accusing Cauldron is kind of reflex when it comes to Worm fics, but remember that this is a scenario in which Brockton Bay was not singled out for the Terminus Project. Elisburg never happened. Coil hasn't received his vial yet. There is no unified pan-Asian gang, though the Ryujin 893 is going for it. There is no one balancing the criminal elements of this city and with a gang like the Empire headed by a man like Allfather, it'd really end one way.
Stormfront isn't from The Boys. Stormfront was the first major internet forum dedicated to hate speech and catered to white supremacists. Had to study it in grad school for examples of radicalization vectors leading to domestic terrorism. The character Stormfront is named after the website. If I remember right, it was taken down for good in 2017.
Random fact of the day: Dr. Curt Richter conducted a study on rats in the 1950s titled "On the Phenomenon of Sudden Death in Animals and Man." He took a few dozen rats, some wild and some domesticated, and put them in a jar to record how long they lasted before drowning. Surprisingly, domesticated rats did better while wild rats, after fighting for a short while, simply gave up.
He defined this trait in domesticated rats as hope. The domesticated rats had the familiarity with human masters to expect salvation, and so some swam for days.
To prove this point further, he briefly rescued and held the rats in his hands before they were about to drown, then set them in the water again. That brief interlude to their suffering made a huge difference in the length of their survival.
Moral of the story? Sometimes, we all just need a reason to keep our heads above water... Or you know, don't be a dick to rats.
Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.