Ben appeared behind the box carrying Moser.
A long but thin string of darkness shot towards the standing Moser and wrapped around its legs.
“What the hell!” The Moser cried out.
The Moser struggled furiously trying to break the rope-like tendrils that were tightening around its legs. The more it struggled the stronger the strands seem to become as they bore into the rocky skin and crevices, causing the Moser to fall helplessly onto the ground.
“No no no! Not the box!”
The Moser let out a furious howl as the box fell out of its arms and smashed onto the ground.
“Dav! What the hell have you done?”
The other Mosers hadn't noticed Ben yet, but it would only be a matter of seconds before they took their eyes off the box and onto him. Just as he'd planned the Moser had been taken out almost instantly, it wouldn’t be able to move properly or break through the Shroud Uniform material for a few minutes. Now came the hard part. The Mosers had already seen the darkness wrapped around their companions legs and their eyes were coming up to where he was. Ben sprinted to the side and shot out two more streams of darkness, one from his left side of the Shroud Uniform and the other one from the right. The one from the left sprayed against the floor and over the Moser’s feet, they didn't hesitate to smash against the ground and fling themselves towards him. But the darkness held fast and they couldn’t force their feet off the ground to make the jump.
It would only last a few seconds. But a few seconds was all he needed.
He'd planned ahead for this mission. The first wave of darkness would keep the Mosers tied down, the second wave would turn incorporeal and quickly fill up his location with darkness. It was one of the things Shroud had taught him while he slept, Since he had collapsed because he was using too much of the Shroud Uniform's materials he would need to cut back. That would obviously leave him at a disadvantage when he was confronting people head on, but that's not what the uniform was meant to be used for. It was a battle suit designed for assassinations and espionage and the incorporeal darkness used up a lot less energy than the physical strings. It would also cover a large area quickly which was exactly what he needed. In a matter of seconds the entire warehouse was covered in darkness. It couldn't be touched or moved, and light couldn't penetrate it.
It was his own personal arena.
The Mosers broke through the darkness holding them down and slowly huddled back to back as they looked out cautiously in all directions. Only Drev was left outside the fighting formation as he stared dumbstruck around him at the sudden turn of events. Ben couldn't see around him, apparently his night vision didn't penetrate through the suits darkness. But just like when he had cleaned up the blood off the stone room's floor he could feel the darkness clinging to everything in the warehouse, providing him with the location of everyone and everything he needed to see.
“SU restrain legs.”
Ben smiled as the streams shot towards the Mosers legs and they cried out in panic. Four of them were taken out with a single stream, crashing to the ground and struggling against the increasing amount of bonds that linked them. The last Moser was the one furthest away from Ben. It had avoided the darkness because they were blocked by its companions.
“SU restrain legs.”
The Moser's head perked up as Ben spoke and it immediately smashed its fists against the ground, breaking the concrete and causing a wave of debris to fly into the air and block the strands. The darkness wrapped around the first things they touched instead of the Mosers legs and Ben took a step back to survey the situation.
“You're dead you little shit.”
The Moser grunted and jumped into the air. It landed next to Ben and he realized that since it couldn’t see it must have just jumped into the general direction that the streams had come from. The broken ground turned into shrapnel as it flew towards the air and hit him, pieces pattering onto the ground.
The Moser grinned “I hear you.”
It lifted it hand towards the sound of falling concrete and Ben gasped as his arm was gripped hard enough to feel it being crushed.
'Uh oh.' Ben thought.
“SU restrain.”
Even though the Mosers hand had grabbed onto his arm the strands of darkness came from all over his body. Ben didn't bother to ask it to restrain a specific place as he let the strands fire across the Moser entire body. The Moser shouted and let go of him, trying to use its hands to block to oncoming darkness, but it was no use. In a matter of seconds it crashed to the ground with its entire body covered in a thin layer of darkness.
“SU restrain legs.”
Ben turned away from the incapacitated Moser and instead turned to the first one he had taken out. If it was given enough time then it would be able to break through the thin layer he had shot at it.
Ben went through all of the Mosers again until he felt that they wouldn't be able to break out and breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't feel tired at all and he'd made sure that both their arms and legs were restrained after he'd gone around them twice. There was no reason to cover their whole bodies, it would just waste energy and cause him to collapse.
“You attacked them.”
Ben turned around, 'Shit.'
He'd forgotten about Drev.
“You're a hero?”
Drev the Moser was looking at him through the darkness, he had long ago pinpointed his general location from the sounds of the battle. But he hadn't moved away from the box he'd been sitting on. He had an expression of awe on his face, well, at least Ben thought it was awe.
It was hard to tell when his face was made out of rock.
“Yes. I didn't kill any of them.”
“Good.”
Ben tilted his head at Drev. The guy didn't seem particularly bright, even compared to the Mosers he'd seen.
“If I hadn't captured them they might have hurt people.”
Ben felt stupid for explaining himself. He didn't even know if heroes were meant to tell people why they did things. It made sense to him to explain though.
Drev the Moser nodded his head.
“You didn't attack me.” He stated.
“You didn't look like you liked what they're doing. Besides...” Ben thought of what Shroud had taught him. “I heard before that you're less than two months old. So that means this is probably your first job. You haven't committed any crimes yet, so you're not a criminal.”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit,” Ben almost jumped out of his skin as Shroud's spoke, “You need to get to that Moser straight away. Restrain his whole body if you need to.”
'What?'
“This is wrong, this is all wrong Ben! These Mosers wouldn't just let whoever hired them shoot or kill one of their own. I should have realized it before.”
'What's wrong? What's going on Shroud?' But Ben had already started running towards Drev and the Moser was startled as his body was suddenly covered in black strands and he suddenly found himself glued to the box he'd been sitting on.
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“What are you doing!” Drev bellowed.
“These Mosers are all working because if they don't they die.”
“Every single one has a bomb implanted in them set to explode at any moment!”
Ben reached the incapacitated Drev within seconds, 'Okay, what do I do? Shroud?'
“Tell the SU to find the bomb and take it out without killing the Moser. It can do the work. You just have to think about it hard enough.”
“Drev listen to me, I know you have a bomb inside you. I'm going to take it out, trust me. But it's going to hurt like hell.”
The Moser whimpered in acknowledgment.
“SU find and take out the bomb without killing Drev.”
“Tell it to cover the bomb as well. It'll absorb the explosion if it goes off.”
Ben instantly did as he was told.
The Shroud Uniform writhed and tendrils of darkness shot out and pierced through Drev's skin, causing the huge Moser to scream out in pain. Ben looked away from the twitching figure and grimaced, he could feel every tendril digging through the rock-like body of Moser and hurting him while it looked for the bomb.
'How do you know there's a bomb Shroud?'
“I was thinking about what we'd seen. All the Mosers looked perfectly healthy, so clearly someone had paid good money for them. But these aren't just industrial Mosers you hire for small business, like those drug peddlers you saw before. These guys are all at least two meters tall and clearly built for battle. They may be clones but that doesn't mean they'll just obey anyone. Usually Mosers get paid by their creators, its part of the reason they're so expensive to make, part of it is also a life salary they're given to spend as they want. Think about it, free job and living space. Nobody complains with those kinds of things just given to them. But that doesn't mean they'll just let somebody kill them on the spot and not retaliate at all. They're still alive, they still want to survive. There has to be an even greater and more definite threat keeping them in line. But its not easy to kill a Moser whenever you want. Especially when they wont even be around you most of the time since you need them to do other things.”
'So they planted bombs in them?'
“Yeah. Remote controlled to detonate at the push of a button. If one of the Moser's tried to escape or retaliate against whoever hired them they'd blow up. Instant death.”
'What kind of a sick bastard would do that. Forcing people to work with their lives at stake... I don't mind trying to take that kind of guy out.'
“I'll let you know if I figure out who's pulling the strings around here. A new villain crops up every week to replace any that are arrested nowadays. I don't even kill around here, first rule of killing villains is that you don't hunt in your own area.”
'I do not need the exact details right now Shroud. How long until Drev's bomb is out?'
“With the amount of burrowing these tendrils are doing it should only be a few seconds. You're going to need to release him almost straight away though. Mosers don't heal like we do, they need to consume similar materials to construct new body parts.”
Drev's face was a mask of pain. Ben winced as he suddenly felt one of the tendrils cave in, it had found a small hole inside the Moser's body.
'Found it.'
The tendril immediately wrapped around the bomb, dragging it through the hole it had carved through Drev's body and retracting outside. Ben could feel the bomb and grimaced. The tendril tightened and immediately destroyed it, Ben didn't even know if it had exploded or had simply been crushed like a bug.
“Splendid.”
Ben paused for a moment and retracted the tendrils from Drevs body and dissipated the darkness restraining him. Drev immediately stood up with a roar of pain and Ben jumped back warily. Instead of attacking Ben the Moser immediately smashed against the concrete floor and started to consume the broken chunks with a voracity that rivaled a hungry lion's dinnertime.
“Don't forget about the other ones.”
Ben turned around to face the remaining Mosers still restrained on the ground.
“Wait, they look strange. Don't go near them.”
Ben looked down at them and realized that even through his darkness they were glowing, 'What-'
Ben had barely thought out the word before the six Mosers in front of him exploded from the inside out. They screamed out in pain for a single second before their bodies melted and the outer layer of their rock skin flew out into the air, showering his horrified face with pieces of disintegrated rock and ash. The tendrils of darkness holding them down disappeared as they died and Ben fell to his knees from the force and the shock.
He was hit with the sudden realization that he couldn't save them.
“Well... forget that then, clearly we couldn't get to them in time.”
'What the hell are you saying.'
“It's called being tough Ben. We couldn't save them. It happened. And it'll probably happen again.”
'You don't have to be so mean about it... so blunt. People just died in front of our eyes. Lives, even if they weren't humans.'
“Look long and hard Ben. Life's a bitch, that's why the world needs heroes. But you can't save everyone, nobody can. I learnt that the hard way a long time ago.”
“Uh god- no, just- just give me a second.”
It was a few minutes before Ben finally got up, slipping out of the warehouse and chucking all over the floor. He could hear the oncoming sirens hitting his ears like a Sunday morning church bell. Shroud had told him to teleport straight out of there after cleaning up the vomit he’d emptied onto the ground but he ignored him and turned back to face the warehouse. The darkness was already disappearing, the Shroud Uniform could remotely control any of its material and it would be long gone before the police arrived. They would probably arrive at an empty warehouse, the boxes were still there, and the trucks. But there was nothing living in there. Ben leant against one of its walls and thought about how sudden theirs deaths had been. He was new to all this but even he could recognize death when he saw it. He wondered if it would have been worse if they had been humans instead. Probably. A noise caught his attention and he spotted a lumbering figure walking out of the storage warehouse. He gathered his thoughts and stepped out to greet the figure. Just as he did the figure turned towards him as well.
“You saved me.”
Ben cringed. Drev the Moser was looking at him with something akin to respect in his eyes that Ben didn't feel he deserved. He'd caused the Moser so much pain, and then hadn't even managed to save the other people of his race. Sure, they clearly hadn't shared much love for each other but Drev had worked with them, and they were under as much duress as him. That Ben had found out the hard way.
“Don't look so sad.” Ben looked up and Drev spoke to him, “Rejoice. You saved one. The others... you tried. I saw.”
“No.” Ben pulled away from Drev and started to walk away, “I just... need some time. You're free now. No threats of bombs. I don't know if you want to stay for the police but it would probably be a good idea. I'm sure they'd understand.” Shroud had told him they would.
“You'll be back.”
Drev stated it simply, but surely. Ben could tell that even though the big man had just walked out of a warehouse filled with the dead body parts of his people the Moser was almost unaffected by the whole ordeal. Maybe that was just the type of world this was. Or maybe Moser's thoughts were different in their thinking of life and death, with them being clones and having ten year life spans.
Ben didn't know. And he didn't really care.
“Let's go back to the house.”
Ben couldn't muster a response as he felt the veil of breathlessness fall over him. He was back in the stone room. He sighed and sat down on the stone slab, arching his back and staring at the roof.
“Do you know what it means to be a hero Ben.”
Shroud appeared in front of Ben, a worried look replacing the scowl that usually occupied his face.
'Tell me then. That's what you were going to do anyway wasn't it.'
“Heroes are big men. Bigger than most people, bigger than me, bigger than you. They're so big that they're intimidating, not all day, not everyday, but when they need to be they are the scariest mother fuckers on the planet. Not because they're strong, and not because they have heaven-defying powers. It's because they don't give a damn about what other people have to say. When it comes to their jobs, their duties, they will move mountains, depose dictators and hone their skills all their lives. And every single one of them knows that it wont mean jack shit most of the time. But every one of them that I've met has lived this kind of life for one reason and one reason only. A moment. That single moment where they need to act, where they need to be the symbols of peace the people look up to. It's not really something that can be described in words, because every single person has their own moment and their own reasons. Needless to say, its a moment where even the nicest man in the world becomes unstoppable, every pore of their body defying all odds to fight against impossible enemies, the moment even the most cowardly person pushes on regardless of the risk to their life. Because at that moment they know that if they don't act, people will die.”
Shroud put a transparent hand on Ben's shoulder.
“Nobody is born a hero Ben. They're made into heroes through blood, sweat and tears. A hero works so hard to prevent death because they're the people that have been most affected by it. A relative, a friend... and innocent bystander, nobody is safe in this world. But where others see a wall, heroes see a way around it. They try every second of every day to cross over an insurmountable obstacle, to bring about a peace that the world has never seen before. They know they can't stop death, they know they can't save everyone. But they fight against it all the same. And it works. Out there in the world there are millions of people who look up at night and thanks heroes in their hearts. That one man that was saved from a car crash, that one daughter that was abused by her father. They can't fight against criminals and villains, they're not strong enough, but that's why heroes exist. So that when all the hope is gone, and when people find themselves experiencing the cold reality of life... they jump in. A beacon of hope, a person that shows that even in this cold merciless world there's somebody out there keeping them safe, fighting against impossible odds with everything they have. You can't win every battle Ben, hell, you can't even win most of them. But a hero doesn't do it for the losses, they do it because they know that for every hundred times they lose somebody, there will be somebody they saved. They do it to let others know that somebody out there is trying their hardest to keep them safe in a world of death. Well... you get the idea.”
Shroud disappeared, “I didn't mean to talk so much... Just don't let this get you down too hard.”
Ben continued to stare at the wall, a small light shining in his eyes.
'Yeah... thanks Shroud.'