My waves of swords were doing something. Heather was still standing in her armor, but she looked like one of those dogs that got quilled by a porcupine. Swords were sticking out of every part of her armor. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get those swords to push in deeper than they already were. With her mobility hampered, it was obviously harder for her to fight back, and with my ankle in much better condition than it had been minutes before, I was in a much better spot than I could have been.
The fight became harder for Heather, but not impossible.
We traded blows, neither of us ready to put everything in one attack to leave ourselves open to a counterattack or too winded to continue on fighting. Despite the swords sticking out of her armor, most of my weapons were shattered by her active defense the moment they got close, becoming bright dust in the wind. Her rocks would crack my armor if they hit just right, though they couldn’t manage to break through my defenses completely. After she used her vines to sprain my ankles the first time, I was prepared for their subsequent attempts to try and grab me.
The ground would crack open under me, and I’d then jump up on a platform to avoid being swallowed by the earth beneath my feet. Heather sealed the openings she created right back up if she needed to push forward. Rocks of all sizes and sharpness flew around the otherwise silent street. The metal on cars buckled like tin foil and store windows shattered to pieces. She shot vine tendrils at me from her rock-covered hands, trapping my left wrist and yanking me forward, throwing off my balance.
She pulled the earth up to both block some of the swords I sent speeding toward her and to attack me. From all the running, armor repairs, and swords being destroyed, I could feel the fatigue start to settle in. If I had been fighting someone like Val or Alex, I would have been on the ropes from their relentless physical offense. Heather and I were trying to fight each other from a distance, which kept us both in better condition than if we were up close duking it out in more of a brawl.
That gave me another idea, and since my first plan to use my enemies’ unfamiliarity with each other worked out so well, I figured why not try pushing my luck even further? She was already sluggish, and going off how sickly she always looked, I had my doubts that she was anywhere near the physical condition I was in. If she was losing the fight overall due to being in worse shape than I was, but we were still battling to a stalemate to that point, I was just wasting time and energy. I needed to press my foot to her throat and end the whole thing for good.
Throwing caution to the wind, I charged at her in a sprint. A look of surprise flashed in her eyes for a moment, right before a huge root burst free from the ground. I barely managed to jump over it—not wanting to touch the thing and risk being put in a vulnerable position—hitting the ground with my feet running and my balance intact. She tried to send small rock daggers at me, but they all just bounced off my armor. The most they did was leave a few small cracks in it.
When I got to her, I created a hammer and placed it in my hands. I pulled it back for a second and slammed it right in the center of her chest. I used a mix of my own physical strength while propelling the hammer forward with my mental control over my Anomaly. Heather yelped the moment the hammer made contact with her chest before getting knocked backward. The explosion of rocks sent tiny pieces of stone toward me, all of which harmlessly bounced off my armor. The sound of the impact echoed strangely off the buildings and cars in the empty city surrounding us. Heather tumbled backward about ten feet before landing on her back, prone and unmoving.
The state of Heather had me hesitating. She looked straight up at the sky, wheezing and gasping for breath. Each breath she managed to take looked agonizing and labored. My hammer blow didn’t just shatter the armor she had on her chest. It went through the entire thing, caving it and part of her sternum. The front of her shirt was completely shredded. In most other scenarios, I’d have been embarrassed to see a woman like that, but the visible indentation in her chest made me feel more sick and disgusted than embarrassed for being prudish.
Knowing she wasn’t in any condition to fight back in a meaningful way, I walked over to her and knelt on the ground beside her. Blood trickled out of her mouth. I knew she wasn’t going to make it without a healer. A healer we didn’t have with us and I was sure McLeod wouldn’t consider for his battles. I knew she was a vile person. I knew she had this one-sided hatred for me, one that wasn’t entirely undeserved. But looking at what I’d done still made tears sting my eyes. She wouldn’t have stopped no matter what, and I knew that, but that didn’t make it any easier.
“Why wouldn’t you just stop?” I sat down next to her head. Madness still filled her eyes, though the hatred she held for me was largely replaced by exhaustion and pain.
“You killed my brother,” she managed. It felt like I’d heard it from her a thousand times at that point. I was aware I killed her brother. I felt so terrible about it that I spent nearly a month in my own depressed, miserable state where the most productive thing I could manage was showering.
“Your brother was going to kill me.” My voice was as soft as it could get when talking to a person like her. “I didn’t have control over my power. I really am sorry I killed him and took him from you, but if I would do it again to keep everyone safe.”
“Living under a boot...” Heather muttered, turning her face back toward the sky.
“Do you have any last words?” I asked, trying not to make it sound condescending. I had no idea what compelled me to throw that out there. Maybe it was because I felt partially responsible for everything. I didn’t kill her brother by choice, but I made the decision to end the fight with her by any means necessary. I had control over my hammer and the swing I did. “If you have anything you’d like to tell someone, I’ll make it happen. I promise.”
She turned her gaze back toward me, eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“I know you hate me more than you hate anyone or anything else. If you reversed our positions, I wouldn’t trust a word out of your mouth. Still, you have my word. I will listen to your last words and relay any messages you have.” I was pretty sure part of it was because I knew I was robbing a child of her mother. A child who, as far as I knew, was completely innocent. I had my doubts that someone Ryan’s age was as dangerous as Heather.
“My daughter...Ophelia...make sure she’s...taken care of.” The words struggled to leave her mouth. The light in her eyes was starting to dim and fade.
“Ophelia is a beautiful name.” A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed it down and hid it with an awkward cough.
The corners of Heather’s mouth turned up. A genuine smile, however small, and it made me wish things had been different between us. “Put her...in...foster care. Didn’t want...this for her. Didn’t want her...to be like me.”
I was so frustrated by everything. Heather knew that something was wrong with her. Even though McLeod had genuine points about people with Anomalies not having to hide themselves, some part of Heather knew that his way wasn’t truly the right way to go about making the world an equal and fair home for everyone. Val was tricked into her life but could pull away from her vengeance to do good in the world. If a few different things went right for Heather, maybe we wouldn’t have fought at all.
“Do you know the family who has her now?” I couldn’t imagine bringing another child into my home. Once things settled down, I had no idea how to take care of the one already living there. Not that I wouldn’t take an innocent child who needed a stable home in to make sure she would be properly taken care of.
“Candices...in Bismarck...North Dakota.” There was love in her eyes when she spoke of her daughter. Another damn lump formed in my throat. She knew she didn’t want her daughter to be like her to the point she put her in foster care. I was separating this mother from her child and her child’s future. I hated that it had to be this way. I hated that I chose to swing that hammer, even if she never would have talked to me unless it was to give me her last wish.
“I swear on my parents’ graves, Ophelia will be taken care of.” I had to live with the consequences of my actions and face them like a man.
That seemed to put her at ease. We shared one more look. Peace filled the dying woman’s eyes. In those eyes, I saw a universe where things played out differently. She was on our side. She helped me discover my powers. She would come to birthday parties at my house. She played with Megan. Heather was a force for good.
For the briefest of moments, we were allies, and maybe even friends.
But that universe wasn’t our reality. One final breath left her body before she went completely still.
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I allowed myself two minutes to compose myself. Killing someone was never something I could come to grips with. Even the Sentinels, who I didn’t directly kill, or the moggodrackin on Clamor. I was just so sick of it all. If I was stronger and had better control, maybe I wouldn’t have ended so many lives. I really wasn’t cut out for a superhero’s line of work.
But sadly, there was still work to be done, and I couldn’t waste time moping around when my friends were in danger.
I ran back to the family that was still waiting in the alley where I left them. They flinched when they saw a figure approach them, but when they realized it was me, they relaxed a little. I seriously had no idea what the safest option for them would be. Having them run away put them at risk of running into the bad guys, but that fighting should have been contained to a small area.
“Why do you look so sad?” the little girl asked. She reached for my face and her mother tensed again, fearing my reaction.
“I...uh...that’s...” I trailed off. I had no clue how to tell her why I was upset. It didn’t feel appropriate to tell a child that the woman I just killed hated my guts because I also killed her brother, but that she was a mother and had a final request for me. I just flat out couldn’t tell her about the Sentinels or anything that happened on Clamor. Even if I could, it wasn’t a kid’s problem to hear about my burdens.
“It’s because doing the right thing can still be hard,” her mother offered. She gave me a sympathetic smile. “Being a hero isn’t easy.”
I flushed a little, managing an uncomfortable nod. I needed to get everything back on track. “There are other bad guys here, but to be honest with you, I don’t know if it’s safer to wait here or try to run.”
“Will you win?”
“That’s the plan, but the guy they’re fighting is a lot scarier than these two.”
“We’ll...we’ll wait here,” the mother decided. She didn’t seem confident, and I couldn’t blame her for feeling that way. As it was, there wasn’t more danger for them in the alleyway, so I nodded again.
“I’ll come back for you when it’s over.”
The daughter yelled something about good luck. I waved over my shoulder as best I could since I was already taking off toward the sounds of battle. The sounds of fighting had to be a good thing. That meant my friends hadn’t been completely wiped out. I nearly spared a glance at the bodies I was leaving behind before forcing myself not to. I didn’t need to get in my own head even more.
Thankfully, because of those sounds of battle, it was easy enough to find my way back through the massive maze of a city. Even with that, I still found myself getting dizzy and disoriented from all the tall buildings around. I legitimately could not fathom how people were able to live in a place so colossal. Maybe I was just a hick meant to forever live in a small town at heart.
I rounded a final corner and was right back in the action. At first, my heart was pounding and there was a knot in my stomach. I was terrified I’d come back to some of my friends dead on the ground. I almost didn’t want to look and instead just jump right into the action, hoping for the best, as foolish as it might have been.
But to my very happy shock, our team was doing phenomenally well. It looked like just about everyone had some cuts and bruises, which was to be expected. Still, they were just dispatching the final two goons McLeod brought with him. McLeod was still fighting Val—she being the only one without visible damage—with his glowing sword.
Ordinally, it would have destroyed everything it touched, but Val’s gear seemed up to the task of handling direct combat against it. All the armor was made by a top enchanter and Val’s sword was given the same treatment. I appreciated the enchanter’s exhaustive effort to make Val capable of fighting something that was as hot as the Sun.
With the enchantments to her sword and armor, Val was the only one who could actually fight McLeod. Everyone else would be reduced to ash by the sword. Everyone might have been reduced to ash just by getting too close to it.
Not being able to join the fighting made it a little awkward to ignore everything and jog over to the rest of the team. They looked just as frustrated by not being able to jump in, but it did afford them valuable time to rest and catch their breath. More importantly, it gave everyone a chance to look for an opening in McLeod’s defenses.
I got over to Lori and Lizzy who had both seen better days. Lori had a wicked black eye starting to form and Lizzy had some drying blood on the left side of her face. Despite their injuries, both seemed to be in good spirits. Both ladies were missing chunks of their clothes, and like Heather, both were missing parts in the front, leaving more exposed than they probably cared for. When they greeted me, I was looking up toward the sky, probably making it more awkward than it would have been if I just looked them in the eye. That time, I was absolutely more prudish than sick.
I disengaged my armor, took off my hoodie, and tossed it to Lizzy. Since my long-sleeve shirt was a bit smaller, that went to Lori. It left me a little chilly in just a regular T-shirt, but I could at least look at my friends without embarrassment.
“He’s such a sweetheart,” Lizzy said. The hoodie was big on her, nearly swallowing her whole. “Now when this is over, recorded history won’t know what our bras looked like. I don’t want posters of our victory to feature my boobs being out.”
“He really is a good guy,” Lori added. My shirt just about swallowed her too. I was just glad it kept her covered. I was a little worried that the bigger clothes would get in their way in a fight. Then I remembered that if we were in a sport where Lori had to fight McLeod, we were probably toast anyway.
“It looks like things went well here.” I gave both girls a quick hug, silently thrilled that they were both standing and in relatively good shape.
“About as well as they could,” Lori agreed. She rolled up parts of my shirt to make it a bit more accommodating for her smaller body. “One of the guys could control knives and he tried to turn the fight into an impromptu strip club, as you sadly had to see, but no one has any serious injuries.”
“An annoying occupational hazard. Alex got his shirt torn, so we can’t think it wouldn’t happen to us.” Lizzy crossed her arms and frowned. She tilted her head over toward one of the alleys. “The others are trying to get some info out of the henchmen.”
“Are they okay?”
“Worse than you.” Lori eyed me up and down, raising an eyebrow. “They ended up like we did. Cuts and bruises, mostly. Nothing too bad or serious. Alex might have a sprained wrist. You went against two and don’t have a scratch on you.”
“Armor held up well. I have an ankle sprain, but the healing power Lizzy’s makeup gave me helped with that.” Speaking about my ankle seemed to make it ache a bit, so I took some pressure off it.
Lori kept looking at me from the corner of her eye. One day I would learn it was no use trying to hide anything from her.
“They’re both dead,” I said flatly. “I got them into an alleyway to try and throw them off their game in a tight space. It worked. Heather snapped and killed the other guy in an instant. Then I killed Heather.”
Despite the fighting going on in front of us, Lori looked down and I could see her tense up underneath my shirt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to kill anyone else.”
“I didn’t either. Heather and I had...something of a heart-to-heart before she died. Or as close as we could get to one.” I frowned, surprised our last conversation had been so...peaceful.
“Oh?” That seemed to perk Lori up a bit.
“I told her I’d listen to her last words, and she told me about her daughter, Ophelia. She’s in foster care. She asked if I could make sure she was taken care of. Heather didn’t want her to end up like she was.”
“I guess Val was right about her kid.” Lori ran her hands through her hair. “And what do you want to do about her?”
“I’d take her in to keep my promise. I don’t know how she would feel about the guy who killed her mother doing it. Then again, I’m not even sure if she knows who Heather is.” How sad was that? A girl who was given up by her mother for her own safety and protection, possibly not knowing about one of the only kindnesses Heather could have given.
“I only ask because Alex and I have been discussing kids.” When Lizzy and I whipped our heads toward her, Lori shyly twirled a finger in her hair. “What? We talk about life and things. And, you know, something permanent together. We want to make sure our goals and visions for the future line up together.”
“That’s wonderful.” I put an arm around her small shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “Does that mean you’d be looking at taking Ophelia in?”
Grunts of exertion and the sounds of metal clashing rang through the area, adding an odd punctuation to our conversation. It was strange, and even a little anxiety-inducing, to not be able to step in. If one of my weapons could even make it there without being reduced to ash, I had to be sure I wouldn’t interfere with Val, and that just wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. Everyone else seemed to have the same frustrated reaction of being forced to sit on our hands.
“I didn’t like her mother, but that doesn’t mean an innocent girl should be burdened by her lineage. When we’re home, give me the info you got from Heather, and we’ll see where it goes.” Lori shifted a little nervously. “I want kids, but I won’t lie, the idea of being pregnant kind of terrifies me. Can you imagine me giving birth to his kid? He’s huge! It’d rip me in half!”
“You’d have access to some of the best care and support around if you do get pregnant,” Lizzy reminded her.
“Yeah, but look at me.” Lori gestured to her body. “Can you see all five feet of me pushing out a baby? I’m barely a hundred pounds!”
I started to say something to offer my support, but I was cut off by a strange sound. It sounded like groaning and warping metal. I looked back to the fighting to see Val flying back toward us. I created two hands to help ease her landing, and when I got a good look at her, it looked like the left half of her helmet was melting on the outside.
“I’m fine,” she grunted out before any of us could ask. With some difficulty, she took off the misshapen helmet and threw it to the ground. She shook her head and wiped a large amount of sweat off her forehead. “Got tired and that helmet is done for, but I’m not the only one.”
She huffed and pointed over to McLeod. The light on his sword flickered before slowly reverting back to blue flame. He tried to hide it, but using that power took a lot of out of him. Not enough, since the blue flames still roared around him, but that made it possible for someone like me to hit him.
“Thank you,” I said, kneeling next to Val. “Rest up, we’ll take it from here.”
She nodded, but a look of concern flashed across her face. “He won’t be able to use that again. Still, be careful. He’s still incredibly powerful.”
I didn’t need to be told twice.