12 pm, July 17th
Main Street, Hub City
Wilhelm stood silently at the street corner, watching the cars glide by with arms folded behind his back. He almost wondered why he had come back here, of all the places on Earth, he had chosen Hub City to come back to, he found himself amused by the oddly specific nature of his choice, but he knew why he had come back here.
That unfinished business that had prevented him from remaining in the country of his birth, that one over-riding thing that stopped him from continuing his attempts at restoring the country he loved to prominence. The girl, Hernandez, the one who had stopped him in his tracks at the very edge of victory. For those long months that he had spent healing and waiting, he had done nothing but plan her defeat, plan for what came next when America’s last defender fell before his strength.
Now, he was about to demonstrate how little power she truly had. He wasn't planning on a physical confrontation or a slugfest, he was planning to mentally break her with the fact that she was not and could never be the hero that she thought she was, and break the confidence of all those who thought they were safe simply because they had her to protect them. Only then would he once again take action against America, breaking the world's one superpower over his knee like a pathetic tree branch, and then moving to make a Reich that would truly last a thousand years.
Pulling his long coat off of his shoulders to reveal his new armor, bulkier than the last and crafted by brainwashed engineers from one of the top military technology companies in the world, Wilhelm prepared his psychic abilities and waited for the right moment.
---
12:24 PM
Old Town, The Wedge
Hub City was far from idyllic place to grow up in.
With the highest rate of violent crime - even surpassing Gotham - in the United States, it could in fact safely be said to be one of the worst. The local Mafia couldn’t even establish too great of a foothold over the city, as the innumerable thugs and gangbangers were too chaotic and violent for there to be any large scale criminal organizations. Hell’s Corner was the perfect example of this.
The part she was currently flying over - Old Town - wasn’t too bad, though. It was where she’d ran into “Demon” last week. The minor damage he’d done in his mock rampage had already been repaired, and things seemed to already be back to normal. She’d been keeping an eye out, though, just in case anybody else crawled up from the sewers looking to get her attention. She’d hate to think that anybody else would feel the need to cause a ruckus just to draw her eye to them, after all.
If she wasn’t still considered a wanted vigilante by the authorities, she’d set up a Twitter account or something.
”Pfft,” she shook her head. ”I’m pretty sure it would get blown up with gross questions about my boobs or something.”
Regardless, things had been quiet for the past several days, and she was thankful for that. After that whole thing in the Middle East, she really needed a little time to cool off. Who wouldn’t, if they’d been hit point blank with a nuke?
She had noticed that people down below were starting to occasionally glance up at the sky, as if trying to catch a glimpse of her. It wasn’t like she was being noisy or anything; they didn’t know she was above them. Even when she was just walking around as Karen, she’d catch them doing it...and if one should get lucky and see her, they’d point and the cellphones would come out. She’d seen countless photos of herself flying up on Metawatch by this point.
It was a little embarrassing.
”Welp, nothin’ wrong here I guess,” Lady Arcana muttered, veering to the right. She’d fly over the tracks towards East Haven next and then maybe take a little break, since it seemed like today would be pretty uneventful.
---
12:34 p.m., July 17th
Main Street, Hub City
If Tim had to guess how he was going to be spending the day, stuck in traffic on main street would’ve been the last thing he’d have picked. Sure, it was one of those rare days where both of his parents were off work and so was their driver, so at least he wasn’t stuck there alone with a family employee as usual, but still! He should be out in the world, with friends! Or at least trying to make some friends who weren’t complete jerkwads.
”Can you guys at least tell me where we’re going? It’d give me something to think about other than wishing you’d let me bring my phone and how many people get weird vanity plates on their cars.”
Tim’s mom laughed at his frustrated expression from the passenger side seat.
“Wondering about what we’re doing is the point of a surprise, Tim. We made you leave your phone so you’d pay attention when we get there. It’s one of those things you’re going to want to remember, really keep it in your mind for years, okay? Besides, it won’t kill you to spend some time unplugged with us for a while and appreciate the quality humor of car owners like...actually, the one on the car in front of us is pretty vulgar, but hey that’s real life! Sometimes you get cussed out by a vanity plate!”
Tim wasn’t sure what the problem was with being allowed to share and document his memories like everyone else, but he had to admit part of him was glad to be finally spending some time with his parents. Some days it seemed like he hardly saw them anymore, and he definitely felt like there were days when he didn’t know them very well considering even when they were home they were still working half the time. At least they seemed to be taking it easy right now, even though Tim couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his father drive his own car. He seemed pretty focused on the road but not nervous. Some people could never relax out in Hub City proper, but Tim’s parents had always stressed how important it was to not lock yourself away from the realities of life there or...something like that.
Tim just wished those realities hadn’t stuck him in a boring metal box.
Wilhelm continued watching the cars fly by, waiting for that one vehicle that he needed to get the girl’s attention, it was a rarity to see this type of vehicle more than once a day, so he had to pay attention.
Finally he saw one, a tanker truck, not so much speeding down the road as puttering down it. A single match floated out of Wilhelm’s pocket, allowing him to grab it out of the air. The matchbox followed suit, and he struck the match in one smooth motion before turning his gaze back to the truck. With one blast of telekinetic energy, he toppled the beast, watching it slide across the road, knocking cars aside like they weighed nothing.
Finally the beast of a vehicle settled, crossing the road and preventing any other vehicles from passing. The metal tank on the back had been punctured during the crash, and gasoline leaked down the road, coating it and darkening the aged white asphalt. Dropping the match, Wilhelm’s eyes tracked it as it flew through the air, and came to rest in the center of the gas spill, igniting a small flame that grew larger and larger, leaping through the air as the reactive gasoline exploded to life like a singular, massive star. Wilhelm turned his eyes from the carnage to the sky, waiting for the girl to arrive, his heart beating faster and faster as he thought of how utterly he was about to defeat her.
There were certain things Lady Arcana had learned to recognize by sound alone over these past nine months of heroing. The Intellect of Mnemosyne naturally aided with this, allowing her to recall previous occurrences of it with perfect clarity. In this case, what she heard was an exploding gas tank...maybe a septic tank? No, the flash had clearly been either on Main Street or close to it. Traffic accidents happened fairly often in Hub City, though, and this would be the second time she’d seen tanker truck overturned on the road, with very explosive results.
Wasting no time in surrendering her plans for a nap, she altered her course and with the crack of a sonic boom found herself looking down upon a crowded street imperiled by a raging inferno. Pursing her lips at the sight, her mind quickly went to work on a way to neutralize the fire quickly.
”...Right, the ol’ twistaroo should do.”
There was probably like a spell for water or something, but damned if she knew it. For now, wind would have to suffice. Setting herself down in the middle of the raging, oil-fueled inferno, Lady Arcana began to rotate in place. In nary a second she had accelerated to the point of becoming a blur of white and orchid, her arms pointed to the sky as she worked to draw the oil on the ground and the flames they enabled into her miniature whirlwind. She found that oil fires were most easily dealt with by going after the source, rather than by trying to blow it out, which could potentially spread the disaster.
Lifting into the sky as the oil and flame continued to encircle her, she only stopped when she reached the clouds above, where she quickly ceased her rotation and brought her hands together in a monstrous thunderclap. The force of this simultaneously ignited the oil and scattered it to the winds, the flames dying long before they came anywhere close to the ground.
Descending back down to the street, she quickly began scanning for people potentially trapped in their vehicles due to the wreck and subsequent fire.
The girl hadn’t disappointed, a fact that gave Wilhelm quite a bit of happiness. He floated down towards the crash, watching intently as Arcana glided back down from her admittedly impressive display, seemingly continuing to look for people trapped in their vehicles and the such. Bless her bleeding heart, it would do little to save her when he executed her before millions. He landed not far from her, his front facing her back, far enough that she couldn’t have heard his light landing, but close enough that he could speak to her without yelling too much.
He chuckled uncontrollably as he thought of what he was about to do. He’d show her that she couldn’t save everyone, and that he was the one in control. These people lived and died depending on his say so, and that was not negotiable. He strode towards her, popping his knuckles, wrist, and neck as he did. Fighting got harder and harder with age, but he barely needed to with his powers. Finally coming to a stop not far from her, he turned up his chin.
Upon hearing the sound of laughter, the cracking of bone, Lady Arcana quickly turned to see a figure she was all too familiar with, even without Mnemosyne. That unique, Nazi-flavored armor and helmet marked him as Wilhelm Silber, the “Iron Eagle”. The man who set fire to her home, her very first “superpowered” opponent. Her eyes narrowed and her lips were instantly set into a frown as he approached.
”I knew you’d come,” Wilhelm said with a tilt of his head. ”I’ve seen how you think, I know how to predict you Karen. You remember me, no? I like to think myself memorable.”
Wilhelm’s speech was calm and yet tipped with venomous distaste, he hadn’t been pleased by the defeat he’d suffered earlier, but there was also a hint of joy in his voice as he fantasized about finally toppling the world’s governments and instating the only government that he could recognize. This girl was the last obstacle, and he swore that today she would be toppled.
”You did this, didn’t you?” Lady Arcana muttered, not really needing his confirmation to know the answer.
Wilhelm tittered at this, with a simple read of her mind, he knew that she had realized that he had been behind the crash, so he simply continued without a need to confirm such.
”You should have seen the crash, it was incredible, though I’m sure it wouldn’t have happened had you been there to see it,” he said, his words friendly but his tone reeking of danger.
Tim was lost in the sudden rush of emotions as things exploded into motion in front of him. At first he couldn’t hear anything but screams and the shriek and crack of fire and metal, along with more fear than he’d ever felt in his life. As the tanker truck a ways in front of them flipped and exploded he wasn’t sure who was screaming at first, though he started to realize that one of the voices was definitely his. His own terror swerved abruptly into overawed joy when a miracle kind of just fell from the sky and vacuumed the flames away instead of letting him die the fiery death he expected.
Tim had adored superheroes from afar, as distant ideal, but this was his first time seeing one in person, no more, his first time actually being saved by one. He swore right then that he’d never badmouth Lady Arcana to friends or chatrooms ever again if he lived through this. But the scale of it, stopping a disaster like that in seconds by creating a big tornado, that was awesome! Way better than whatever his parents had planned and- there was Iron Eagle standing there now, saying something. His battle armor looked a lot more impressive than it had in videos on Metawatch, in fact it was hard to believe that a ninety-something old German dude was in there, he was WAY scarier in person.
“Mom, Dad are you seeing this!? Isn’t it crazy?! Tell me one of you is filming this!”
“Keep your head down son!”
”C’mon it’ll be fine! She’s way stronger than Iron Eagle, she’ll save the day no problem! Besides how often do you get to see-”
“I said get down!” One of his parents was reaching back in the car to push him further back in his seat even as he tried to get a better look.
Lady Arcana’s eyes never left Wilhelm for a second. She didn’t know what his purpose was in calling her out here, but it definitely wasn’t anything good. But it was fine. She had already come up with a plan for dealing with him. He probably really wanted to know that plan, too. Probably was trying to pluck it from her mind. Unfortunately, her mind was currently moving at several hundreds, if not thousands of times faster than a normal person’s was capable of.
In fact, the image he was staring out was just that - an image. It had just started to fade when her hand grasped the back of his helmet and forcefully shoved him down onto the pavement below, making sure his eyes were aimed away from her.
After he had escaped from prison, she had read up on him, on what they’d learned about him while he was still confined there. Apparently, his powers were inhibited if he didn’t have a direct line of sight with his target. So just in case he came back here, she came up with that strategy. To move quicker than he could think, and stay out of his sight.
”I’ve been fighting all sorts of creeps these past eight months, bruh,” Lady Arcana muttered, though her voice was still certainly loud enough for him to hear. ”I’m not that girl who barely even knew how to fly anymore.”
Tim watched exhilarated from past his father’s arm as Lady Arcana made some kind of afterimage and pinned Iron Eagle down into the street before anyone could blink. ”See? This is gonna be a piece of cake. Last time Iron Eagle got into a fight with Lady Arcana he pretty much broke his own hands without even scratching her!”
Wilhelm yelled as he was driven into the ground, his hearty scream turning into a muffled growl as his face was driven into the asphalt. Immediately after his head hit the ground, his mental link with Karen dissipated, and a pistol that he was pulling towards himself dropped to the ground. He sighed, unable to move his head, but thankfully his helmet had protected him somewhat, if not for it he doubted he would still be conscious.
”Unexpected…” he muttered, his eyes shifting downwards to the section of the eyehole that was visible to his eye, and with a mental push, he pulled his helmet up, disconnecting the straps with his hand and watching as it shot off. As Karen’s hand was on it, this freed his head, and allowed him to leap away towards the closest car. He caught the pistol and aimed it towards the windshield.
”...But altogether pointless. If I see even a twitch, then I shoot.”
Wilhelm knew that the girl would try something, and he was unlikely to be unable to stop her, but this pause was giving him room to think. She’d gotten much faster, and less likely to play around. This stopped his original plan cold. Oh well, he supposed he would have to improvise. Spotting another car, with a great amount of effort, he lifted them both, and sent them careening towards each-other, aiming to have the cabs of the two vehicles crush each-other, and whatever person sat within.
He was clever, she couldn’t deny this. She hadn’t expected him to unlatch his helmet on her like that, and was so surprised by the maneuver that she ever-so-slightly pulverized it. Oops. Good thing his skull wasn’t still in there. Still, now he was threatening a woman with his pistol and that couldn’t be ignored. Once again accelerating to the point where she left an afterimage in her wake, she physically interposed herself between the vehicle and gun.
Lashing out with her hand, she crushed the barrel until the gun was doubtlessly inoperable. Unfortunately, Wilhelm had also locked his eyes on a pair of cars and sent them hurtling towards one another. Pursing her lips in frustration, her fist lanced out to deliver a hard right hook to the side of his head. The Intellect of Mnemosyne allowed her to recall how much force was required to injure him without killing him, and assuming nothing had changed that should keep him dazed long enough for her to take care of those cars.
She didn’t have much time due to that maneuver, however, and only just managed to sandwich herself in between the two vehicles before they collided, her hands landing flat against the oncoming roofs before quickly digging her nails into the metal. Setting them both down with an audible squeak from their wheels, she swiftly seized the front bumper of one and wrenched it free, the man inside staring at her like a deer caught in oncoming headlights. ”Sorry.”
That last exchange happened too fast for Tim to really follow except that he’d seen Iron Eagle get free, a pistol get raised and fly off and then two cars narrowly avoid being sandwiched in mid-air by some kind of telekinetic trick. Aside from that Tim was distracted by his dad’s arm again, this time trying to work awkwardly at Tim’s seatbelt. “Time to go kiddo, this maniac's aiming to get people killed!”
Tim kept pushing his dad’s hand off and shook his head, his fear more intense now even though he still refused to recognize the real amount of danger they were in. ”No way! I’ve seen how this goes! Once she shows up you’re way safer with her there! If we run we could just get hit by debris or something, but if we stay here she’ll keep us safe!”
Turning back to Wilhelm, who - if she hadn’t downed him with that - was probably shaking off her hit right about now, she hurled the metal bumper at his legs with enough speed to both cap him and hopefully cause him to conk his head on the pavement.
Wilhelm let out a soft “oh” as Karen crushed his gun, and nearly collapsed from the blow, his hands touching the ground as he tried to stop from stumbling into the ground, he wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked up only to spot a car bumper heading towards him. Shooting up his hand, he stopped it mid-air, barely, taking a deep breath.
He tossed the bumper away and looked once again at Karen. That didn’t work, he needed a distraction. Charging at Karen with a roar, he held her in place so that she wouldn’t move, and then fired a spinning elbow at her chin, ending with his back facing her, what looked like a mistake, but was actually a bait, if she grabbed him now, which she was likely to do, he would get his chance to cause some destruction that she would be unable to stop.
Karen remembered this feeling from before. He was using his mental powers to try and hold her in place so he could attack her. Even if she didn’t have her photographic recall, it would be difficult to forget such a weird sensation. She had been unprepared for it back then, but not now. Still, she allowed him to charge in with his spinning elbow...only to jerk her chin down to meet his elbow at the last moment with an audible crack.
By this point some people had decided to get out of their vehicles and flee from the battle taking place on the streets, even as others were too stunned or even captivated to leave their cars. This offered her an opportunity and she quickly drove her palm into his back with enough force to hopefully slam him part-way through the back end of an abandoned Chrysler.
Tim was still fighting off attempts from his parents to pull him from his place in the car, though by now they couldn’t help but pause in fascination at the battle unfolding too. “See? Now she’s winning! We can’t leave now, not when it’s about to end anyways! Let’s just stay and watch it end!”
Wilhelm let out a yell of pain as his lower arm broke against Karen’s jaw, he grabbed onto it in pain as she smashed her hand into his back, sending him flying into the nearest car. He groaned in both pain and frustration. This was going poorly, any longer and he was probably going to pass out.
Wilhelm pulled himself up from the destroyed vehicle and stumbled towards Karen. He coughed and fell to a knee, looking up at Karen. He was furious, nothing had gone to plan, for a second time! He had to have one last chance, somehow, but he doubted it, she was too powerful.
”Damn you, you bitch!” he roared as he pushed himself back to his feet, holding his broken right arm. He stomped towards her, trying to retain his dignity despite knowing that he was probably done here.
Lady Arcana exhaled, but still didn’t want to underestimate him. He was super-duper old, after all. There was no telling what tricks he’d learned in all that time. Rather than standing there facing him, she once again used her speed to move behind him and this time simply clasped her hands over his eyes as if she were playing “guess who” with him. Guess who with an iron grip, mind you.
”Alright, dude...that’s enough. You lost...again, Lady Arcana spoke firmly into his ear, still trying to figure out what she even wanted to say to this guy who - for the second time - attacked her city. ”Though I don’t even know why we were fighting in the first place, or why you keep coming back to Hub City. What do you even want?”
Wilhelm stumbled forwards slightly as Karen grabbed him by the head, sighing as she firmly instructed him that he had lost. She was probably right, there wasn’t very much he could do at this point, though he had one last option, he was a soldier of course, he never went into battle without a full loadout.
”I want to bring back the Reich, fulfil my Fuhrer’s dream, and you are my one obstacle, I came here to defeat you once and for all, without you the world would fall beneath my boot, and the Aryan people would once again be the greatest on the world’s surface.”
As he spoke, he slowly moved his left hand to his belt, grabbing a grenade, and deftly removing the pin with his thumb. As he finished speaking, he smirked slightly, and tossed the grenade forwards.
”Go ahead, stop it,” he smiled, knowing she couldn’t resist saving these inferior peoples. ”Stop it and let me go, you know you have to.”
Tim made a little whoop of joy and punched the air as he saw that Lady Arcana had managed to get behind Iron Eagle and blind him so he couldn’t use his powers. A real superhero had just forced a villain to surrender right in front of him and he’d seen almost the whole thing! Maybe his parents would finally get why he was so into this stuff, and Elliot would totally want to hear about this! This was the greatest day of his life and-
Lady Arcana’s eyes widened when she saw the grenade bounce along the ground and underneath a nearby vehicle...one with another kid inside of it. He looked about her age, and this caused her heart to grow tight. She didn’t want to let go of Wilhelm, that would just prolong this and endanger who-knows-how many other people. But obviously allowing the grenade to detonate was also unacceptable.
”Damn it!” Lady Arcana swore, slamming her forehead into the back of Wilhelm’s skull before releasing the near-centenarian Nazi and dashing after the grenade. It was under the car, did she dive under to get it or lift the car? Lift, right, lift it!
Grasping the edge of the car - the edge nearest to the boy - and hoisting it up, she saw that it was right beneath where his parents were. Crouching to reach for it, she felt for just an instant that she was going to make it.
The blinding flash instantly dispelled that notion, a ball of fire erupting from the small sphere. She hadn’t been able to stop it. He had held the grenade almost until it was ready to explode, and she’d only noticed it as it rolled under the car. Now she was forced to watch in slow motion as the fireball expanded. It was beneath where the kid’s parents were, and they were on opposite sides of the vehicle. The kid himself was in the back seat, but the gas tank was there as well.
She couldn’t lift the car out of the way, not now, not at this speed. It would be ripped apart along with its passengers. For that very reason she couldn’t just pull them all to safety in time. She was out of time, and out of options. No, there was only one choice left.
Reaching out to rip the back door off, the hinges glowed red and became molten with the sheer speed with which they were ripped apart. She then used her thumbnail to slice the seat belt around him before throwing her arms around him. The fire was almost upon them now, and she was terrified to even chance a look at his parents and their condition.
That was when it finally reached the gas tank. That was when the second ball of fire surged forth and sent both her and her fragile passenger tumbling onto the street several meters away. Knocked from her super reflexive state of mind, the car erupted with a violent roar that echoed throughout the street.
”Nn…” She groaned from the shock of being thrown back by the unexpected force of the second explosion, her eyes peeling open to see…
”No…”
He…
The boy…
Parts of him, his face...his body...charred black. Clothing melted into skin…
”No...y-y-you’re not dead,” she whimpered down at him. ”You’re not dead!”
The second time was more akin to a demand, one full of desperation. She hadn’t been able to save his parents, and now she had even failed to save their son. This…this who was no older than herself. She had seen his face earlier, watching her fight in amazement. Why didn’t he run?
Why didn’t he just run?
...Was it because she was there? Was it because he had trusted her to not let anything happen to him? To his parents?
T-that was it, wasn’t it?
He had believed in her and she...she had let him down. Let him die.
Wilhelm once more stumbled to his feet, watching as the explosion rang out, sending the car spinning through the air and dropping out two figures. Karen Hernandez, and a small child. Wilhelm would have almost felt bad if not for the overwhelming glee that he felt at his plan coming together. He slowly limped towards them, barely standing.
”Gorgeous,” he said in a voice hushed by wonder. ”I love the smell of burning flesh mixed with rubber.”
He began putting mental strain into Karen’s mind, screaming nothings inside her head and placing images of her failure over… and over… and over.
”I’d apologize, but that really wasn’t my fault now was it Karen?” he said snidely, aiming to drive her into a fury. The myth of her infallibility had been shattered, and now she was about to beat a poor old man to near-death, he wouldn’t need to raise a finger to beat her.
That voice.
That voice!
”You…” Lady Arcana slowly craned her head towards the man who...who….”Why?”
Laying the boy’s head down gently on the ground, she stood. For a moment everything was silence, a rustle of wind causing her cloak to flutter as she turned to fully face the Nazi. Her eyes were consumed by tears, but there was something else there as well. A fire that could not be extinguished by sorrow.
”WHY?!”
Slamming into the old soldier with a sickening crack, her fists began to rain down upon him indiscriminately. Face, head, torso...none were spared as she waged a desperate war within her mind, a war between reason and rage.
She just had to let go once, and he would be smeared across the pavement. Just once...just once…
At first Wilhelm found himself smiling as Arcana gave into her rage, the results of a plan well executed, and he began to cackle as she asked him why at first.
Then the blow came, far harder than any hit he’d ever taken in his life, the breath flew from his lungs and the pain that came from his chest was overpowering. Then another hit, just as strong as the first, his body screamed in agony as the blows kept coming, blood flew from his mouth as another blow hit true, sending a tooth arcing through the air and lodging a second in his nostril.
He hadn’t thought this through. He wanted her to hurt him, but at this rate she was going to kill him! Wilhelm attempted to link with her mind, but another blow to the head prevented that from happening. Finally in the short time between blows he managed it.
What he saw in her head, it scared him. Pure, white-hot rage, reason buried beneath the red fury that completely consumed her every thought. She was going to kill him, he realized. His plan had gone horribly right, and now he was going to pay for it with his life.
”No-” he gurgled out before another blow slammed into his face, smashing his nose into a smear against his face. His tongue dangled loose in his mouth, a sign that his jaw had been broken, not that that was ever in doubt. ”Please sto-” he pleaded again before yet another blow slammed his head into the pavement below, smearing it with the same blood that covered his face like a macabre piece of modern art. He barely remained conscious, his mind fluttering between consciousness and unconsciousness, and for the first time in his life, he prayed to a god of any kind.
From where he lay on the pavement Tim tried his best to scream in agony as he suddenly regained a horrible excuse for consciousness. He remembered Lady Arcana suddenly right by his window and looking into her eyes, seeing determination and...fear? No that wasn’t right, superheroes weren’t afraid. They were beautiful eyes though. Then there was a sudden burst of fire and sound and just, pain everywhere. But now he wasn’t sure what was worse, the parts of him that hurt more than he’d ever felt or the parts that didn’t feel anything at all. Most of him had both at once going on, and that was weird. There was a smell that made him want to throw up, but nothing happened. He was pretty sure the smell was cooked Tim, and that was almost funny. Cannibals were stupid, he smelled horrible not tasty. He couldn’t really hear much, but he was sure that his screaming was coming out more as a mangled moaning instead. Where were his parents? Couldn’t they hear him? Someone had to hear him, right?
Karen’s vision was practically a field of white at this point. She couldn’t really see anything anymore, all she knew was that if she stopped punching, she would have to confront a reality she desperately wanted to forget. Despite knowing that, however, something was still holding her back. Something in the back of her mind preventing her from really cutting loose like she so very, very much wanted to right now. If only it was gone, it felt like everything would be better. If she just stopped caring, thing everything-
A sound.
A weak, but clearly audible moan emerging from charred throat. Despite its mangled nature, she could tell it belonged to a child.
That child.
“...!” Lady Arcana gasped, her vision clearing as she now stared down at the broken - very likely unconscious - body of Wilhelm. Blood now covered him and the street beneath him...as well as her still clenched fists. It wasn’t the first time there had been blood on her knuckles, but never before had it practically coated them.
It was horrid. Disgusting.
She had nearly killed him. She had already beaten him so badly that he was virtually unrecognizable, and still she wasn’t going to stop until she had heard…
”Y-you...” Lady Arcana turned to stare at the boy, laying there and moaning in what had to be incomprehensible amounts of pain. But if he was moaning… ”You’re alive!
Moving over to his horrifically burned form, she quickly knelt down beside him, tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. He wasn’t dead. Not yet...but no, she could tell he didn’t have long. What should she do? What could she do? She had no medical knowledge.
Take him to a hospital?
To Zoey?
Maybe even to Mr. Luneberg?
No, he...his condition was beyond horrible. He wasn’t even recognizable as the same child anymore. She had to stop him from getting any worse, and she had to do it now.
There was only one place she knew of where that was possible.
Reaching down to gently scoop what remained of him up in her arms, she closed her eyes. When she parted them, she was standing within the throne room of the Rock of Eternity. That place where the old Wizard had first given her these powers. That place where he had claimed her worthy to inherit them.
That place where she now stood, feeling anything but that.
Sitting down upon the throne without a moment’s pause, she called out in a frantic voice: “Historama!”
Focusing her thoughts, she desperately, pleadingly asked for a way to keep him from dying. The Historama responded instantly with an image of a chamber with a row of stone mattresses. They didn’t look very comfortable or welcoming at all. More like something you laid a corpse on for study. But she didn’t have time to doubt herself, not right now.
Focusing hard on the image in front of her, while simultaneously thinking of the boy in her arms, she was relieved when she felt his meager weight vanish. One of the “beds” was now occupied, with a faint orange hue surrounding the body.
Focusing again, this time for herself, Lady Arcana now stood before the body of this child whose name she didn’t even know. Feeling her still bloodsoaked fists ball tightly enough to crush coal into diamond, she lowered her head. ”I’m sorry...I...couldn’t save them. I couldn’t save you. I’m...I’m sorry…”
Her shoulders trembled, her knees growing too weak to support her as she fell to the black marble-like surface of the Rock of Eternity. Wrapping her arms around herself, she finally collapsed onto her side as she simply lay there in the gentle hum of the rock, tears pouring freely from her eyes.
---
Lady Arcana had vanished from the scene, along with the body of a child. Paramedics had arrived on scene and - somewhat reluctantly - taken Wilhelm to Westridge General Hospital, where he was placed in the emergency ward, requiring near twenty four hour care and life support to remain stable in his current condition.
Compared to the War Criminal’s first attack on Hub City, the casualties were light...just four deaths. The truck driver of the gas tanker Wilhelm had initially destroyed, a wife and husband, and their young son. The latter’s body had still yet to be recovered, with many speculating on where Lady Arcana had taken him. Many expressed confusion and outrage at her actions, while most were simply thankful that the notorious “Iron Eagle” who had set fire to their city last December had once again been detained.
Lady Arcana herself would not be seen for over a week following this attack.
Animal
Snowdrops
Sky Blue
Silent Showers
Festive
Carlyle
Tim
