The River King 10

The River King 10

Taylor Hebert

As much as I wanted to, I didn’t go after the Empire or Hookwolf right away. As much as I hated him, as much as I wanted my life back, the thought of fighting him again sent a shiver of dread down my spine.

I had everything going for me there. I got to strike first. I just had to distract him long enough for the cops and animal shelter workers to leave. My swarm had been bigger than ever. And I still lost. No, saying “I lost” didn’t describe how royally fucked I’d been.

I’d died. I lost enough blood to supply a blood bank. There had been a fist-sized hole in my stomach where I had to physically push my intestines back inside. My ribs had been turned into kindling, lacerating my internal organs. Had it not been for Tahm’s power, death would have been a certainty.

Things were different now. I was so much stronger. Tahm had been right. There was something deeply significant about taking a life, even people I didn’t really know, even people who deserved it. His power, our contract, recognized the line I’d crossed, the choices I’d made, and responded accordingly.

I had to take regroup, get used to my power again. This wasn’t cowardice, I told myself. This was a stay of execution. Hookwolf would never run. As soon as I understood how I’d changed, I’d go after him.

That was how I ended up leaving my territory for the first time in months. It felt right in a way. Tahm always traveled. The River was always flowing, at least according to him. Maybe I’d been limiting myself, narrowing my focus too much on the Empire.

Following his example, I spent the next few days wandering the city. I stopped crimes as I saw them, but they weren’t enough to test me. Normal humans couldn’t do that anymore. The most strain I put myself under was when someone tried to run me over with his getaway vehicle. I flipped on its side before breaking his legs for the offense.

Then, as I neared the Hillside Mall, my bugs heard something that made me grin. Uber and Leet were up to their old tricks. They were definitely a downgrade from Hookwolf. Still, depending on which game they were trying to “advertise,” and how competent Leet was feeling today, they could be a good way to test my powers.

As I drew near, I found myself pleasantly surprised. I didn’t recognize the game, but it looked like a shooter of some sort, possibly a space opera of some sort. Uber was a commando in futuristic armor leading a group of mooks. Behind him was a mech, with who I assumed was Leet inside.

I zeroed in on the mech. It had white armor and a screen for a face. The screen was black, with a red number 8 made from glowing LEDs. More worryingly, it had no hands. Both arms ended in a pair of gun barrels.

Uber held out his hand and began making signs for his men to follow. They spread out, each going for a different store. At least they were doing this after the mall had closed.

I allowed my swarm to announce me. A cloud of bees, beetles, and flies descended on them, thick enough that it began to affect their vision. 

“Seeker swarm! Take cover!” Uber shouted. I had no idea what a “seeker” was, but I’d give it to him for staying in character.

The mall fell into a cacophony of noise. It was the usual, “It’s in my eyes!” and “They’re biting me!”s. I did feel a little bad, these guys weren’t literal Nazis, but in all fairness, this was what they signed up for.

I left the mooks to my bugs and dove into the River. The water came so much more easily now, almost intuitive with how familiar it felt. I momentarily lost control over my swarm but reasserted myself as I breached the surface again.

“The fuck? Is that Monarch?” I heard Leet’s whiny voice shout. It didn’t sound any more intimidating from inside a mecha.

“What are you doing out of your turf?” Uber demanded. To his credit, he was fast on the draw. He leapt away from where I’d emerged even as his rifle tracked me perfectly.

Several shots rang out, but they didn’t sound like bullets. I felt them hit my body and let out a hiss of pain. Each round glowed with an azure light, probably meant to represent plasma or some other equally futuristic weapon.

I didn’t reply; there was nothing to say to them. I caught the next salvo on my right arm. The water flattened out over my wrist, forming a large, flat shield that covered my entire body. The bullets entered the water but could not fully penetrate. As they slowed, I saw the “plasma” fizzle out, revealing hardened rubber capsules.

I used my arm as a battering ram and barreled into him. Uber swore and kept his gun between us, but couldn’t keep me from knocking him aside like a bowling pin.

That was the trouble with Uber: He was good at anything, perfect even, but only that thing. Being a great marksman meant he had to sacrifice being a great fighter, and vice versa.

Then, I felt a searing heat on my side. It felt like a grenade had gone off against my ribs, launching me much as I’d launched Uber.

“Get the real shit, commander, that’s a battlemaster,” Leet said, his voice blaring from the mech. The barrel on its left hand was smoking, and I could hear the whir of mechanics that worked to load another shell.

I had no idea what a “battlemaster” was. They probably meant to say “brute” in nerdspeak. I didn’t have time to think about it. The right hand of his mech rose and began to shoot something rapid-fire. I grunted, more in annoyance than pain. I deemed that I could tank these and lashed out with my arm.

My arm switched from a thick tentacle into an indistinct torrent. From where the watery limb connected to my bicep, it quickly widened until it was as large as a minivan. Claws of murky water lashed out against Leet’s mech, only to run into a blue force field that seemed to slow my attack, blunting the impact. Still, a minivan-sized limb of water had significant weight, enough to send Leet stumbling back in surprise.

I hadn’t expected that. That had been a halfhearted jab, meant just to see how far I could stretch my arm now. The range of my hydrokinesis had increased and controlling my hand at a distance felt no different than when it was right next to me.

Grinning beneath my mask, I willed my hand to change. Each brackish claw became as long as scythe blades and I pierced clear into Leet’s mecha. With the sound of screeching metal, I ripped its left arm out of its socket.

Uber tossed a flashbang that temporarily blinded me. He closed in with a different gun that had a wide but short barrel. I thought it was a grenade launcher at first, but that made no sense if he was rushing in like this. He ducked beneath a punch and placed the barrel against my chest before pulling the trigger.

He underestimated my ability to track him though, both through his blood and the bugs I’d placed on his body. I knew what he was going for and responded by calling up more water. This time, the River did not manifest in my right arm, but directly beneath my feet. A shell of water formed around me like armor, cocooning me from the worst of the blast.

It was a good thing I’d shielded myself. He had a shotgun, the fantasy sci-fi kind that was only useful ten feet in front of the player. I knew by now that real-life slugs could easily cross a hundred yards. Whatever. It wasn’t my problem if the duo wanted to follow sci-fi rules.

The detonation was more akin to a mortar than a gun. It was more of that “plasma” stuff, but this time with enough force to core out a person’s chest. Some of my water armor boiled instantly, while more of it remained, distributing the shockwave throughout my entire body, not just my chest. That would have been awful for a normal person, but being a durable brute, I was able to shrug off the impact.

At the same time, I grabbed Leet by his left arm, the one with the big rocket launcher in his hand, and yanked him towards us. He must have weighed as much as a truck but I pulled him with no trouble at all.

He shouted a warning to his partner but I’d already grabbed Uber with my other hand. I kicked him in the shin and ripped the shotgun from his hands.

Once they got in range, my right arm turned into a barbed chain that wrapped around both capes. With Uber so close, I didn’t think Leet would try to fire another rocket, but I ripped off the mecha’s left arm too, just in case.

That was that. Uber and Leet, secured in about two minutes of fighting. My swarm swiftly captured the mooks and were done by the time I finished ripping Leet out of his mecha.

I tied them up using a set of bike chains I found in a sporting goods store and left them behind. Maybe it would have been good to wait for the cops, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. This was Uber and Leet. I had far bigger fish to fry.

X

I kept that up for a few more days before looking for revenge. Finding the Empire and reestablishing my network was easy. I didn’t so much as find them as they declared themselves from the rooftops.

And why wouldn’t they? Even brutes had limits. As far as they knew, they’d won. Hookwolf had beaten me so badly that even though I escaped, I either bled out or was crippled for life. It’d be a small miracle if I returned in the next six months.

In just the week  that I’d been gone, my territory had been overrun by Nazis. They were making an example of not just me, but everything I’d ever done. The uneasy peace I’d won for my sliver of the city? Gone, invaded by Nazis to prove that my “reign of terror” was over. It was practically a block party, with bands of gangbangers roaming the streets, simply for the sake of being seen.

A baseball-sized orb of water formed in my hand. I took aim at a sedan driving sedately down the street. The car was full of gangsters who’d just arranged for “rent.” Confronting them mid-negotiation was one way, but if they wanted to remove themselves from potential hostages, who was I to deny them?

I wound back and let loose as the car turned the corner. My right arm lengthened, becoming a fingers-tipped tentacle, until it was twice my height before cracking like a whip. I experimented with throwing daggers, but I quickly learned that I lacked the finesse for that kind of weapon so baseballs it was.

The ball of water, condensed with my power to be far denser than physically possible, slammed into the hood of the sedan. The car didn’t explode but I knew I’d hit the engine block when something ignited.

The men inside streamed out. Six of them, enough to intimidate a shopkeeper, carrying small arms or melee weapons. One, the leader, quickly barked into his phone for reinforcements. The rest looked around in a panic, trying to figure out where the attack had come from.

That was a big plus I noticed. Hydrokinesis meant there was fuck-all in terms of evidence left behind. Who the hell would question a puddle in a coastal city?

I jumped down from the roof, followed by a comet tail made of angry hornets. I could have played the horror movie trope, hunted them from the shadows and kept right on with my previous schtick, but I didn’t want that.

No, I wanted the Empire to know: Monarch was back. Intimidating a shopkeeper wasn’t the same as lynching a man. It wasn’t worthy of death, I could admit that. I had no plans to feed these men to Tahm.

But whoever came to reinforce them would be capes. They’d be the officers, the ones who permitted the worst of the Empire’s crimes. I would clean up the streets and use their foul lives to become stronger until I met Hookwolf again. Until I got my life back again.

“It’s Monarch!” the leader shouted into his phone.

That was as far as I let him get before a surge of water punched him into his sedan. There was the dull, snapping feeling of broken ribs. The sensation was muted now, coming from my prosthetic, but I paid it no mind. I’d long grown past the cringing stage.

I wasn’t nearly as gentle with them as I’d been with Uber and Leet. Maybe the gaming duo weren't exactly harmless, but they were a damn sight better than Nazis in my mind. And if that made me biased, so be it.

I made short work of them. I’d left the bulk of my swarm around, forming a perimeter that warned civilians away while simultaneously announcing my presence. Even so, my newly enhanced brute and hydrokinetic powers compensated for the lack of a swarm. I even felt one of them trying to flank me from behind, his very blood betraying his intentions.

I heaped their broken bodies inside a nearby dumpster, exactly where they belonged. Just in time, I felt three people cross the insect perimeter. Judging by the way they flew, one was Rune, their best estimation of a fast response unit.

They probably thought I’d vanish into the River again, but no. I had no intention of running. I was done with that.

I allowed them to arrive unmolested. Rune floated in on the bed of a pickup truck, Stormtiger and Cricket with her. She also carried a second truck behind her.

I grunted in annoyance. Cricket was out again, even after I’d directly handed her off to Shadow Stalker. Fucking predictable. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from the heroes, but the low opinion I had of them sank like a stone.

What was the point of catching them when they got out in a few weeks? I’d done a number on her, but clearly Othala had fixed her up with ease. If they were in lockup, surely the cops knew their identities by now. Were the authorities so afraid of the Empire that they didn’t bother arresting her out of costume?

It only firmed my resolve. Cricket needed to die. Stormtiger, too. Prison clearly wasn’t the answer in this fucked up city.

Rune… I was a little hesitant.

“Ah, fuck, it’s Monarch,” Rune muttered. She’d been sent after me a few times in the beginning, not that she ever caught me. Teleportation trumped flight every day of the week.

“Who cares? Are you done running, coward?” Stormtiger sneered. He stepped off the pickup truck and hovered in the air. A shroud of hurricane-force began to pick up around him, probably why he left Rune’s side.

As we squared off, Cricket hopped to the ground and brandished her kamas. She’d learned since our encounter, at least enough to cover her face fully. I supposed I’d have to try a little harder to strangle her with bugs.

“You should have stayed in jail, Cricket,” I called out dryly.

Beneath my feet, the River answered like an eager friend. The water curled up around me, forming an ablative armor. It was almost as if I could feel Tahm’s presence here, urging me along. 

Most importantly, it coated my head, ready to drown out her incessant chirping. That bullshit wouldn’t work on me again. 

“You can’t beat us all,” she replied in that rasping voice that made her sound like a chainsmoker.

“I was hoping for Hookwolf, to be honest. We have unfinished business.”

“He doesn’t need to be here to take out the trash.”

“We’ll see.”

Pre-fight banter finished, Rune kicked us off. She hurled her spare car like a wrecking ball. It probably could have done some damage even with my new durability, but it was too big. I had more than enough time to leapfrog over it.

I immediately zeroed in on her. I knew how important mobility could be and I had no intention of letting her go get more reinforcements or escape with an ally. Besides, she was probably the weakest link, anyway.

Only, I ran straight into Stormtiger’s drill-claw. He launched them like knives, but with considerably more penetrating power. Like Cricket, he’d been in the business long enough to have a grasp of basic tactics. He’d hidden a big one right behind the truck with the assumption that I’d dodge the initial attack.

I grunted in pain as I was knocked off-course. It felt like a fist-sized power drill digging into my chest. Worse, because of this drilling motion, my watery armor didn’t do as much to protect me.

Gritting through the pain, I ducked out of the way of Cricket’s followup. In the same motion, I chucked a ball of water at Rune. She rose higher, but the ball collided with the bed of the truck, resounding like a gunshot. It was almost enough to shake her loose.

There was a large, half-inch deep gash on my torso. It wept blood into the water armor, darkening the already brackish water. Even so, I could feel myself healing, that mildly itchy feeling of flesh knitting back together.

I didn’t let that distract me. I telepathically sent my hornets in a flanking arc. They’d circle around to hit Rune since Stormtiger’s tornado would keep them from landing on him. While I ordered my swarm, I thrust out my arm towards a street lamp. 

They braced for me to use the lap as a springboard and jump towards them. They were wrong. From where my tentacled hand touched the street lamp, the River began to pool. Within the second it took for me to pull myself there, the portal had solidified and I dove right in.

And why wouldn’t I be able to? The River was what made my prosthetic arm. It was always with me, as Tahm said it would be. It took any shape at all and didn’t care about silly things like physics or vertical surfaces. It was, after all, the great waterway that connected everything, everywhere.

It was only now that I’d replaced a piece of myself with it that I truly understood what Tahm meant. All I needed was a surface, a place for the water to pool and flow, and that could be just about anything.

“Fuck, where did she go?” Stormtiger shouted. He looked around frantically and swore. “Shit, Hook’s going to give us shit for letting her get away.”

“Gah! Help me with these fucking bees!” Rune yelled back.

She flailed helplessly, beating at the air with her hands. What else could she do? She had a spare car to throw around, but she’d end up squishing herself before she got my hornets.

She lost control of her pickup truck. I felt the lurch because I’d emerged directly inside the cabin. She looked so young, maybe even younger than me.

For the briefest moment, I wondered what kind of person she was beneath the mask. Did she pretend to like the Jews when she wasn't Sabrina the Teenage Nazi? Did she join up because she got rejected by a dark-skinned boy she liked? Or had she simply followed her family? Had she even had a choice?

Then, the moment passed. I wrote her off my kill-list, but that was all the grace I’d afford her. Whatever made her who she was, she was here, trying to flatten me with a car. Circumstances be damned, she made her choice, just as I had.

She tried to land the car without hurting herself. Her power obviously didn't come with multitasking skills and the hornets took up all her attention.

I saw the opening and struck.

I kicked off the dashboard and through the rear window. Like an alligator bursting through the water, I clamped down on my prey. My hand had shifted to match the triangular, teeth-filled maw of the apex predator, enveloping her entire torso.

She didn’t scream. She didn’t have the time. I gripped her in my right hand as I arced over the truck and towards the ground. Then, spinning much like a gator, I encased her in a cocoon of water before slamming her onto the asphalt.

The impact shattered the street and left a sizable crater. It sent a shockwave through my arm and into my stump. Though I’d protected Rune from the worst of it, it was still enough to rattle her entire body.

I yanked her to me and glared at her into submission. It felt a bit like I was staring down a tube of toothpaste. I slammed the cocoon into a wall, again and again until she gasped and swallowed water.

The moment she did, I felt a connection form between us. It was as though I could feel the River inside her, taking her measure. I couldn’t spend much time figuring it out though; Cricket and Stormtiger had already locked onto me.

Stormtiger let loose six air drills, each all but invisible against the night sky. I didn’t use Rune as a shield even though I was momentarily tempted. Instead, I dove behind a parked minivan, only for it to blow up after four of those drills. I had to move from car to car as Rune slowly drowned in the River.

Cricket followed, ready to capitalize on any mistakes I made. She couldn’t approach with Stormtiger laying down artillery fire, but she occasionally tried to carve out my throat with a thrown sickle.

I launched my water arm at Cricket, but one of his drills tore clean through it, forcing me to hide behind the truck Rune threw earlier. Cricket took the chance to vault over the car with one hand, the other poised to stick her sickle into my skull from above.

I adjusted but let it land knowing it’d heal. It sank deep into my collar like the beak of some great raptor. The pain made me scream but it also sharpened my focus.

She tried to tear her sickle out of me. I didn’t let her. My fluid armor wrapped around her wrist, squeezing like the coils of a serpent. The two bones in her forearm, I forgot what they were called, creaked and cracked as they were forced to touch. I could feel them grind into each other.

Cricket shrieked in pain and her hand lost its grip on the sickle. She let out a long chirp at point blank range that pierced the muffling effect of my armor. Even then, I simply continued to wring her forearm like a wet towel. 

I noticed that Rune had stopped struggling so I threw her aside. She was unconscious, and I’d see about picking her up later if I had the chance. For now, I wanted my arm back.

I punched Cricket with my left hand, directly into her artificial voicebox. It shattered and staggered her, finally cutting off that incessant ringing. At the same time, a tentacle gripped her throat and yanked, producing a loud, sharp crack. She slumped bonelessly to the ground.

“Y-You killed her,” Stormtiger muttered, horrified. “You fucking killed her.”

I shrugged as I approached him. “I don’t see why this surprises you. You’re both wanted for murder. Besides, she’s not dead. A broken neck isn’t death.”

“You’re supposed to be a hero, you fucking psychopath.”

“And heroes improve this city by any means necessary. I’ve just decided you don’t belong in my city.”

With that, I lunged for him. He’d been acting as aerial artillery support. It was fucking annoying, especially since his “claws” were damn near invisible. But without Cricket to act as his frontline, I found that he didn’t have true flight, not like New Wave.

He dropped to the ground and rolled himself away, boosted by a gust of wind. He sprang to his feet and threw more claws at me, but these were weaker, hasty. They did drill into my water armor, but couldn’t do more than leave abrasions against my skin that healed in seconds.

Comparatively, condensed water made for better armor than condensed wind. My strikes were too fast and had too much mass for him to defend himself properly. He was the better fighter between us, not unlike Cricket, but I soon had him backing away from bladed tentacles as I methodically carved into him.

The battle was over not five minutes since the capes arrived. I picked up the two unconscious, older capes and dragged them into the River. I left Rune behind, as promised. Hopefully, she’d make better choices in the future.

Author’s Note

Though Tahm’s status in terms of Runeterran cosmology is left intentionally ambiguous by Riot, I decided that for the sake of this story, he is one of the Ten Demons. For context, Nilah is a canonical mortal who has the assistance of one of the Ten. She dueled Volibear and walked away. 

We’re getting pretty grim here, huh? That’s kind of Taylor’s thing. Once she crosses the threshold for something, she goes balls-deep. There isn’t really such a thing as a one-time exception in her mind (Aster excluded for obvious reasons). 

I think that I’ll end The River King alongside Taylor’s story as a stand-alone volume. Will I pick it up again? Who knows, but much like Let There Be War, I think it’s nice to have a good stopping place.

Animal Fact: I mentioned this before, but some animals have a concept of medicine. Among them are monkeys and primates, as you’d expect, but you can also include elephants. Take this with a grain of salt because it’s not well-studied, but female African elephants apparently self-medicate to induce labor.

WWF scientist Holly Dublin was following a herd when she noticed that one, heavily pregnant female had wandered off. The elephant traveled for over seventeen miles, far more than her three miles average. When Dublin found her, she was chomping down on a tree from the boraginaceae family. Four days later, the elephant gave birth.

Curious, Dublin asked around and learned from Kenyan women that leaves from the borage tree are traditionally brewed into tea for the same purpose. So yeah, while a singular observed instance, it’s very possible that elephants know how to self-induce labor.