The River King 4

The River King 4 Taylor Hebert I headed out again that night. From the moment I leapt down my window, I knew exactly where to go. My bugs ha

The River King 4

Taylor Hebert

I headed out again that night. From the moment I leapt down my window, I knew exactly where to go. My bugs had been mapping the outskirts of Empire territory for weeks now. At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that I could name more Empire fronts and safehouses than their average lieutenant.

I didn’t used to have a good head for maps and directions, but I learned fast. I learned that a white girl with a disposable coffee mug in hand wouldn’t be bothered so long as she looked like she knew where she was going. I learned that a red scarf and black jacket would give them just enough reason to wonder if I was a supporter, or maybe someone’s little sister.

Most of all, I learned that cockroaches absolutely deserved their reputation as the greatest survivalists in the animal kingdom. They really could persist through damn near anything. And, so long as the brainstem remained intact, my power registered them, even if I had other insects chew off their limbs. They didn’t really bleed, so they could be kept alive indefinitely so long as I returned once in a while to feed them a few flies.

Those were my markers, living beacons to my power. I didn’t have a smartphone to take notes on. Besides, it’d look suspicious as hell if I did that on the move. So, I left them webbed up in strategic locations to remind myself of where everything was.

I even had a code. Just one webbed up roach inside a building meant the building was just a hangout, popular with thugs, but otherwise a normal business. These tended to be biergartens and the like. The owners were usually Empire sympathizers, or tried very hard to act that way.

Two roaches meant they were a front, probably for money laundering purposes. Whatever their exterior, these businesses always had something else going on. Usually, it was drugs. The Merchants didn’t have a monopoly on recreational drugs and the “right sort” would rather die than buy from someone like Skidmark.

Then, there were the roaches’ limbs. The more they were missing, the more Empire thugs I could expect. All limbs gone meant it was too dangerous, or that there was at least one cape frequenting the place.

I had a whole system worked out, a series of beacons that only I could read. Which was why I knew exactly which Empire capes were active tonight.

Hookwolf was in the lower levels of a parking garage. There were several dozen ment here too. I checked to make sure it wasn’t a lynching, but no, they were just beating on one another.

A fight ring then. It was Hookwolf’s typical fare, I’d found. PHO said he had this whole Nordic berserker aesthetic going on and it seemed the keyboard analysts were right for once.

I gave the PRT a call anyway using a burner phone.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the operator asked.

“This is Monarch, an independent hero. Hookwolf and several dozen men are in the lower level of the parking garage on 5th and Ocean View Drive,” I said.

“Monarch? I’m not familiar with the name. Are you sure it’s Hookwolf?”

“Wolf head mask. Big, burly white man with tattoos and dirty-blonde hair. Yeah, I’m sure.”

“What is he doing?”

“Running a fight club by the looks of it.”

“Monarch, I recommend you withdraw. Please do not engage. If they’re not hurting anyone but themselves, then it’s best to leave them alone,” the operator said tiredly.

I growled in annoyance, but I wasn’t surprised. “Out of curiosity, would your answer have changed if I told you it was a lynching?”

“We do our best to serve and protect as many people as possible. Sometimes, we don’t always succee–”

“Of fucking course,” I spat as I hung up. I didn’t want to hear any of their PR bullshit tonight.

The PRT wasn’t being unreasonable; I understood that. A fight club between white supremacists sounded like the kind of stupidity that wasn’t anyone’s problem. Hell, beating up Nazis was a public service so they were even doing something helpful for a change.

But it still felt like a betrayal. It would have been nice if the heroes did answer. If the Protectorate was willing to act on the intel I gave them, perhaps I wouldn’t have minded working with them. Hell, we could jump Hookwolf right now, take out one of Kaiser’s main lieutenants.

They wouldn’t. I knew the heroes wouldn’t. They were too passive, too used to the status quo.

Like me.

I hated the comparison, but I couldn’t deny it either.

The bullying. The name-calling. The “pranks.” They all felt so routine now. I wasn’t sure how to break the status quo without punching Emma’s teeth in, and that wouldn’t help me.

I punched the wall with a frustrated sigh, then kept walking. Maybe that was the right thing to do: Move forward, one step at a time. If I couldn’t solve one problem, I ought to reach out to solve another. Tackle something else. Then maybe, I could come back with fresh eyes.

That was how I found Cricket. I hadn’t been looking for her. Truthfully, I would have thought she would have been with Hookwolf. People said she was part of Hookwolf’s crew, but it wasn’t like the gang was a military. There was no strict squad or regiment or whatever, just people who backed each other up relatively frequently.

She was hanging out with three other gangsters behind a convenience store. Maybe she was supposed to buy snacks for the fight club. Or it was her turn to babysit the new blood while they did a patrol of their own.

Either way, she was there, and she wasn’t one of the capes I knew was out of my league.

I checked over my kit. I’d had a grand total of fifty bucks when I started out. After mugging a few muggers, I had a modest two hundred. That had been enough for a thicker leather jacket, knee and elbow pads, and some other protective gear.

I didn’t need them thanks to Tahm’s power, but bloodstains were a bitch to clean. Besides, I thought that if people thought I needed protective gear, they’d underestimate me.

I considered getting myself blunt weapons as well. Alabaster showed me that I was a lot tougher than I was strong; my strikes were stronger, but my inexperience and lack of weight put me at a disadvantage in a street fight. I was getting better, but not fast enough.

Then, I had an idea. Once, I saw someone at school carry home a cabinet he made in his wood shop class. It was one of the few viable electives Winslow had that wasn’t complete shit.

So, one night, I snuck back to school and stole a pair of the longest wood clamps, about three feet long each. They were made of metal and had blunt pincers that were used to press two pieces of wood together while the glue dried. 

I figured that if I moved the two halves of the pincers to one end, and left just enough space for my hands, I could grip them like batons or escrima sticks with built-in handguards. A layer of duct tape and athletic tape made sure my hands wouldn’t slip off. They were a tad on the weighty side, but that was what a brute rating was for.

Tahm had laughed when he saw them. He said they looked crude and “undignified for a gentlelady such as yourself.” He… wasn’t wrong… But they were also sturdy, strong, and could be adjusted easily. Hell, if I ever needed to hit something really hard, I figured I could turn them around and use the pincers as hammerheads.

Kit checked, I rushed out.

Four people, one cape. I could do this.

I took stock quickly. I knew that fights were nothing like in the movies; they usually lasted seconds, a minute at most, and that only if I stalled and soaked hits on purpose. No, fights were over in a flash, a blur of violence that broke bones and ripped a person’s will to continue fighting.

While taking Cricket out right away would have been nice, I knew better than to go for her. She was a known combat thinker who did this weird echolocation-thing. I needed to fight her without distractions.

While I engaged, I had my bugs begin to gather. Spiders weren’t the fastest, but beetles and cockroaches could carry their slower brethren. Working together, ants could haul a surprising amount of thread.

I tried not to rely on bug control of all things, for a number of reasons, but Cricket was pretty strong. I might not get a choice.

My makeshift batons lashed out, clipping one person on the side of the knee. He collapsed with a squeal of pain, hands clenched over his leg. Either that’d fracture his kneecap or knock the joint out of alignment. 

Cricket reacted faster than expected. She was turning and stepping away from me even before my baton connected with the other guy’s knee. At the same time, her hands went to a set of sickles looped to her belt.

“Guard up,” she rasped. Her voice came out as a strangled croak, barely audible amidst the first mook’s screaming.

The two men were slower. One had a bat already in his hand and managed to stop my baton, but the other guy reached into his belt for something and fumbled it. A pistol clattered to the floor but didn’t go off. Apparently, that was mostly a movie thing.

Still, I stepped forward and planted my foot on it so he couldn’t pick it up. With the same motion, I jabbed one metal baton into his stomach and brought the second into a backswing.

I was sloppy though and the pistol slipped beneath my shoe. The backswing clipped his shoulder, enough to give him a nasty bruise, but not do any real damage through his leather jacket.

Then, Cricket pounced.

She was absolutely silent. With her fucked up throat, it wasn’t like she could cuss me out anyway, but I would have preferred being called a Jew again. Then I might have had more time to react.

One of her hand-scythes swung for my face. I instinctively leaned back, just enough that I felt the wind against the silk.

I couldn’t dodge the second though. The one in her offhand came in a downward diagonal, cutting through my jacket’s sleeve but catching on the way out. It jerked me forward again and she used the chance to plant her knee into my solar plexus.

I took the hit to try and get in one of my own. My baton came up in a rising swing towards her floating rib, but she skipped out of the way with preternatural dexterity.

A loud bang interrupted us and I felt a bullet lodge itself in my arm. Right. Three people. One was nursing a bum knee, but there were two more. The other had a bat. The third must have grabbed the gun he fumbled. I had to take them out first. I couldn’t focus on Cricket otherwise.

I let Cricket skip back and took the chance to rush the guy with the pistol. Two more shots rang out but I knew they’d heal. They hurt, but I was more annoyed about having to get a new jacket.

I rammed into him with my batons forward as if they were swords. They sank into his stomach, driving the air from his lungs. While were were close, I kneed him in the crotch and punched him to the ground with the clamps.

Then, I felt the cold sting of metal sink into my shoulder blade. Cricket was back. Her other sickle buried itself in my forearm, making my left hand spasm involuntarily. I lost one of my batons.

I staggered as a sudden sense of vertigo hit me. Some of my bugs that had been gathering freaked out as a high-pitched noise hit them. The insects had it worse than me; they were a lot more sensitive to this kind of noise.

Cricket. It had to be her doing. Apparently, her name was a reference to her powers. I wondered if she had a sonar too; that’d explain why she was called a combat thinker.

She kicked me, a front snap kick that tossed me on my ass. The vertigo disappeared as she stalked forward, sickles twisting in elaborate flourishes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the third mook, the one with the bat, catch himself. That meant everyone in the area got the same treatment, not just me. She wasn’t a thinker; she didn’t know about my bugs. And, if she wanted her mook to stay in the fight, she couldn’t keep chirping.

I tried to rise, but Cricket released another pulse, making me flinch back. She kicked my leg out from under me and straddled me. She used the hilt of her sickle to deck me on the chin, making my brain rattle.

There was no fighting her off. She did those weird flourishes with her sickles, and the sickles themselves were probably really impractical weapons, but she was a trained fighter. She kept herself mounted and used the back of her weapons to rain down blunt blows.

I heard her laugh in that rasping voice. She was laughing at me, mocking me with each blow. She even spread out her arms, as if drinking in praise from an imaginary audience.

My bugs descended. I didn’t have as many as I’d like, only twelve thousand, but that was still a substantial swarm. The buzzing of wings filled the air. Though the vast majority of them were just flies and roaches, I had select members of a wasp hive intermingled among them as well.

By the time they noticed, it was too late. The bugs descended in a stinging mass, so tightly clumped together that they were essentially one superorganism. 

The mook was done. I had several wasps land on him and they began to sting. I had to keep track. I looked it up; even a dozen wasp stings wouldn’t kill a healthy man. It took more like thirty or forty to do the job so I could afford to be a little aggressive. Just in case, I had epipens in my pocket anyway.

Cricket was a tricker target. She didn’t react like anyone else I’d ever met. Instead of leaping out of the way or flailing about in a panic, she chirped. Her high-pitched sound was unnoticeable to my ears but left me feeling dizzy anyway.

My bugs were worse off. They spun around in a disoriented haze and couldn’t carry out my orders. A few stings landed, but she was able to throw herself out of the cloud in short order. She quickly patted herself down, swiping away the insects that managed to cling to her clothes.

This time, the vertigo didn’t stop. If anything, it was so much worse this time. I had twelve thousand insects. So close to her, it was like hearing nails on chalkboard from twelve thousand pairs of ears.

My vision swam as I tried to rise. I barely managed to pull my mask above my nose before emptying my stomach onto the convenience store parking lot. The smell of vomit left me retching involuntarily.

I felt Cricket’s boot harshly against my jaw. The taste of blood mixed with acidic bile. I managed to avoid landing in the pool I’d just made, but only just.

But I wasn’t done. I could adapt. I could endure. This wouldn’t last. Slowly, I was getting used to the noise. I reached out to other bugs in the area, the ones that were too slow to come help me, and pushed.

Cricket stabbed me in the shoulder again. Both my arms were wonky now but I ignored the pain and continued to push. It was like a wave of fresh water washing over my mind, wiping away the disorientation and vertigo. My swarm was still fucked up, but I could probably give them a few basic commands.

I lashed out and managed to make her take a step back. I scrambled to my feet and managed to land a lone hornet on her collarbone. A single sting. Then two. It managed three pulses of venom before she crushed it in a panic.

It wasn’t enough. My arms were regenerating, but not fast enough. There were no other options. I had to withdraw. I hated myself for even thinking it, but as I was now, Cricket would kill me long before I healed fully. She was a much harder target than I’d expected.

Disengaging was trickier than expected. I turned to run, using what little command I had over my swarm to obscure my exit, but Cricket’s eyes tracked me flawlessly. She was letting out low clicks that I could barely hear over the noise even as she cautiously stalked around the swarm cloud.

Echolocation, I realized. She knew exactly where I was. This was another facet of her power, one that never got reported on PHO. “Combat thinker” was such an insufficient description for what she could really do. 

I had no choice. I could see her weighing her options. If I let her close the gap, she’d kill me.

Before she could decide to give chase, I hurled my last baton at the downed mook, the one with the bat that I’d been stinging with wasps. It clipped his shins and he howled with pain again.

I drew an epipen, made sure she saw it, and hurled it his way. She could follow, right into my nearest cluster of widows, or she could make sure her subordinate didn’t die.

X

Cricket hadn’t followed. 

My clothes were tattered and stained again. I’d lost both my makeshift batons. But that was the extent of it. My mask could be washed. My arms healed even before I made it to the hideout.

“Fuck!” I screamed as I punched the warehouse wall.

I let out a fierce, shuddering sigh. I felt like a loser.

I lost to Cricket today. I couldn’t even blame the three mooks. The gunshot wound? Healed halfway through the fight. The guy with a bat? Went down and probably needed that epipen I left him. The first guy? I took him down clean even before the fight started.

Cricket beat me, plain and simple. She beat me with her powers and stupid hand-scythes. Weren’t those Japanese or something?

I picked a fight. Then, I lost. I thought I could get another villain on my own, but I’d been wrong. She was too skilled. She cut my tendons until I couldn’t move my arms right, chirped until I couldn’t even stand properly, and would have killed me if I hadn’t made her go back to her minion.

I was a loser.

What was the point of getting pissed at the Protectorate when I wasn’t any better? I wanted to call them out on their passiveness, but it wasn’t like I had anything to show for my actions either. Results were the only things that mattered, and I had nothing.

“How are you feeling, Taylor?” Tahm’s dulcet voice filled the warehouse. I felt myself calm down; he had such a soothing presence despite his appearance.

“I lost, Tahm,” I admitted tiredly. The words tasted bitter in my mouth. “I almost died, and not even to a major villain, just some glorified pit fighter.”

“I can see that. But did you lose anything of worth?”

“I… I don’t understand. Cricket’s still free.”

“You can get a new jacket. You can get new weapons. You are healthy and whole. And hopefully, you have learned. Now, Taylor, allow me to ask again: Did you lose anything of worth?”

“Only my pride,” I grumbled. But Tahm was right, as usual.

“Then nothing of worth at all,” he said with a toothy grin. “See here, pride is like whiskey for the soul. It is ever so sweet, but it burns in your throat and will intoxicate you.”

“Pride is what keeps me going. It’s… It’s what kept me going for so long.”

“And yet, my dear, pride alone will not suffice.”

“Then what will?”

He smiled, his ivory teeth gleaming in the dim light. His thick, catfish-like whiskers swam in a nonexistent current. “Why, ambition will. It is the desire for more that drives us. You wish to be a hero, Taylor?”

“More than anything.”

“Then reach out and take it. It is ambition that makes a man strong. It is ambition that motivates a man to act, to grow.”

“Yes, but I don’t know what to do,” I said with a frustrated groan. “I mean, I guess I know more about her powers…”

“Do you? Tell me more then.”

“Her name is pretty on the nose. She’s a sound manipulator who can create high-frequency vibrations that cause vertigo. My insects are especially vulnerable to it. I think that if I concentrate, I can move in it. It’s also omnidirectional and her own allies are hit with the same thing.”

“What else?”

“She has echolocation. She was able to find me even though I was hiding behind my swarm.”

He nodded slowly. “Good, good, that’s the way, Taylor. Now, how will you beat her?”

“That’s the part I’m still working on. I think she can only do one or the other, vertigo or sonar, but not both at the same time. I… I need a way to take her out quickly, but she’s too agile.”

“You could find yourself a gun. Surely a normal woman, no matter how well-trained, can’t dodge a bullet.”

“No,” I stopped him. “No guns. It’s… It’s just not done. A hero doesn’t kill.”

“Really? I’m led to believe heroes do plenty of killing.”

“Well, maybe… but it’s never the first response. I guess I wouldn’t mind a gun as a backup weapon, but just shooting her doesn’t seem right… but I don’t know what else I can do. Cricket’s not even the toughest cape around either; she’s small fry.”

Tahm sat down next to me with a heavy sigh. “You’ve done a lot for me. I wish I could help you, Taylor.”

“Your gift is the only reason I’m alive. You’ve done plenty, Tahm.”

“Still… There is one thing…”

“What?”

“Well, you see, I’ve been thinking. What would you say if I told you I could give you more power?”

“You can? More than the brute power? Why didn’t you?” I demanded.

He looked sheepish at that, an unsettling expression that could be mistaken for a predatory frown due to his unfortunate appearance. “Everything has a price, child. While I would love to assist you on your heroic ventures, I am simply unable to.”

“The contract. I said I’d feed you your body weight in insects each week. That was when you gave me your power.”

“That’s right. I am starting to understand the full extent of my abilities. I can give you more, for a greater price of course.”

“I can do that. Millions of bugs. There’s no end to them. Hell, I’d be doing the city a favor.”

He shook his head slowly. “No, that won’t do. Quantity is a quality all its own, but this kind of bargain requires quality of a different sort.”

I hesitated. There was a deep gleam in his yellow eyes, like the brackish water of a stagnant aquarium. “W-What would this bargain entail?”

“Oh, relax, my friend. I do fancy myself a businessman, and my gifts do come with a price, but I would not charge you overmuch. I value our friendship, Taylor. I hope you feel the same way.”

“Of course I do, Tahm. You’re… You’re my only friend… I trust you. Just tell me what you need to fuel your power.”

This time, it was his turn to hesitate. “Are you sure, child? Perhaps we should step back while we can. Power comes at a price, and perhaps not one we ought to pay. Bug control isn’t so awful, you know. You have silk. And venom. And numbers, always the numbers. You can become great without this bargain.”

“I don’t know. Bugs are… weak. They’re great for reconnaissance, but not much more than that. A glorified whistle made my entire swarm practically worthless,” I replied bitterly. For a moment, I wondered if I was making a mistake. If even Tahm was unsure, then… No, I hadn’t even heard the details yet. Dad always said I should pay attention to contracts. “At least tell me the price.”

“Very well, Taylor. Far be it for me to deny a woman her right to choose. I’ll tell you,” he said. His southern drawl had an almost sorrowful note to it. “But only if you promise to keep being a hero. Keep fighting the good fight. Stay the course and never give up, no matter what anyone else says. Can you do that?”

Armsmaster. Alexandria. Literally every hero I’d ever looked up to said that being a hero was about making sacrifices. Maybe this wasn’t the kind of sacrifice they had in mind, but if I could save lives and change this city for the better, wasn’t any price worth it?

I nodded resolutely. “I swear, Tahm. I have to keep moving forward. This is the only way. Okay. I’m sure, Tahm. Let’s make a bargain.”

Author’s Note

You know, it’s been so long since I’ve read Worm that I genuinely can’t remember if Taylor knew Purity “went straight” before Coil outed them all. It’s not like Purity could target anyone in the Empire for her heroics, what with Kaiser holding their daughter hostage.

Cricket is described as someone who does a lot of flourishes, as if she’s used to fighting for an audience. She does flips, waits for the opponent, and has other, little habits that imply that she learned to fight somewhere showboating was encouraged.

Tahm Kench is an old demon. He was around since the dawn of civilization. He saw the Rune Wars and the fall of Icathia. He remains one of the most mysterious figures in Runeterra, and arguably among the more powerful.

There’s no way his blessing would just be durability and regeneration, right? Tahm’s gotta be holding something back. A lot of somethings.

Animal Fact: I know I’ve talked about animals that will intentionally get themselves intoxicated before. Dolphins will molest pufferfish. Elephants look for fermented fruits. You get the idea. But I bet you’ve never heard of the bird that’s its own brewery.

Allow me to introduce the kereru. It’s also called the New Zealand pigeon, wood pigeon, or kukupa if you happen to be Maori.

They figured out that the ripest, mushiest fruits also taste the sweetest. They will gorge themselves on so much ripe fruit that some of it begins to ferment inside their stomachs before they can be digested, effectively brewing their own wine. They will then pass out, sometimes falling from trees and lying in the middle of the road for anyone to pick up at will.

Of course, a behavioral adaptation like this is only possible because New Zealand has relatively few predators. Stupidity doesn’t get punished. In fact, it’s illegal to hunt these things, no matter how easy they make it sometimes, but more on that next time.