Chapter 53: Iron Maiden is Overrated.
Blake IsleyFriday, February 18, 2011Type: Steel
The null day passed and I woke up with steel on my mind. Once again, my soul reflected the most defensive of aura types. Good, because that also mirrored my mindset. I was determined.
Today, the Protectorate planned to raid the Merchants, at least according to Lisa. If successful, this would put an end to organized crime in the city, at least, the ones with multiple capes. Yes, I was determined… to have absolutely fuck-all to do with that.
Truthfully, it all sounded like someone else’s problem. I saw what PHO was saying about me. Brockton Bay liked to make me out to be this savior-esque person, an unflinching bastion of gallantry and good deeds who wiped out all the gangs seemingly overnight.
Except, that wasn’t really me. It wasn’t how I wanted to live my life. Even in the pokemon world, Luca and I set out to prove our strength to ourselves. We only ended up fighting Cyrus and Team Galactic because he was a crazy son of a bitch hellbent on remaking all of reality. Or, more likely, pissing off Giratina enough until Centipede Satan decided to do it for him. That was a level of stupidity and hubris I couldn’t leave alone.
No, despite all the weird shit I’d witnessed, all the calamities that seemed to gravitate towards me, I didn’t see myself as a savior. Back then, I’d wanted adventure, worthy battles, and to know that my family and I were growing stronger. There wasn’t any specific goal in mind as to how we’d use that strength.
I was done. As far as I was concerned, the Merchants weren’t my problem. There was no reason for me to involve myself. Today, I was determined to go back to being a silly goofball.
X
Being Friday, I had a light day of math, history, and English that ended at lunch. I didn’t even have to put in hours at the Camacho Clinic so my day was mostly free.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford to be completely silly. There were at least five gangs eyeing Brockton Bay for territory. I wasn’t so irresponsible that I’d ignore a potential crisis without even thinking about it.
The Ambassadors and the Elite seemed likely mostly professional organizations, the kind that kept crime at a manageable level for local authorities, but Lisa hadn’t had anything nice to say about the Teeth or the Travelers. And the Adepts were largely unknowns because their migration here defied all previous patterns of behavior.
That meant I had to do a bit of scrying. After a brief exchange of text messages, I met up with Lisa in an abandoned parking garage, in full costume. Lisa herself was in her now mostly defunct Tattletale outfit, something about paying lip service to the fiction that Lisa Wilbourn at Atelier Alpaca wasn’t a cape.
“So, you said you wanted to know more about the gangs. Sorry to break it to you, but I can’t pull intel out of nowhere,” she said with a helpless shrug. “I gave you everything I knew yesterday.”
“I know. I want to ask future-Lisa and I need you to be here with me to act as a psychic anchor,” I said.
“Yeah, I figured it’d be something like that. Alright, fine. I know how this works.”
“Thanks, Lisa. You’re really helpful to have around.”
“Does that mean I get a raise?”
“I’m not your boss, Sabah is.”
“Are you sure? Can I get in on that berry empire you’re building?”
“Doubtful. Putting you and Amy in a room together sounds like a horrible idea.”
“Even if I promise to be on my best behavior?”
“Why do you even want in? I thought you'd have more than enough responsibility with Atelier Alpaca.”
“Besides the money? I figure you’ll be raking it in. Even with the NEPEA-5 cutting you out of the public market, government contracting’s big business.”
“I’m sure you’d know more about that sort of thing than me,” I said wryly. “But still, is the money worth giving Brandish a reason to bring you up? She isn’t exactly your biggest fan.”
“Oh, she loathes me with a blazing passion. Not like she’s going to shank me or anything, but she’s not a fan of redeemed villains; she’s just smart enough to not alienate you by trying to prosecute me,” she said with a vulpine grin. “Thanks for that, boss. You’re a great meat shield.”
“Glad to be of service,” I replied wryly.
“Anyway, I don’t care for her, either. So much for her ‘unshakeable morals,’ huh?”
“You really don’t like her, do you?”
“I don’t hate her. I just think people who go on about ‘absolute justice’ are all hypocrites. You’d say the same if you knew what I knew.”
I nodded. She was probably right. Heroes were human at the end of the day. I wasn’t naive enough to believe longstanding groups like New Wave didn’t have at least a few skeletons in their closet. That had to be at least doubly true in a place like Brockton Bay.
In my experience, people who believed in an “absolute” anything tended to be nutcases. Lysandre came to mind with his “beautiful world” nonsense. To an extent, Maxie and Archie were also absolutists; they were the nutjobs that believed that expanding the land or sea to hilarious extrapolations would result in anything but an apocalypse.
Even so, I knew what she was doing. Parahumans were conflict-prone. That wasn’t prejudice; that was an observable, empirically proven fact. In the absence of conflict, it stood to reason that they’d fabricate their own.
She flinched as my hand shot out, but not quite fast enough to avoid the flick to her nose.
“Stop it,” I chided.
“Ow! Rude,” she whined. She jabbed an accusing finger in my direction. “You agree with me.”
“I do. I’m sure New Wave has a few secrets of their own, if not Brandish specifically. But let me ask you something, Lisa: Will me bringing it up make things better? Can I change anything? Or are these secrets best left in the past?”
“No, it wouldn’t. Actually, you’re doing a lot to heal old scars just by being your stupid, golden retriever self.”
“Golden retriever? Me? I prefer blue jackals, personally.”
“Che, whatever. Fine, I won’t join your drug empire just to tweak Brandish’s nose.”
“Good, now, sit still.” So saying, I reached out for a familiar pokemon, the only steel type that learned Future Sight naturally. “Shift, bronzong!”
Once more, my world became zen. I floated a few inches above the ground, a silent spectator to the passage of time.
I felt that I could hover here, in this dirty, abandoned parking garage, and while away the next millennium. Perhaps, as I watched the slow, silent decay of urban sprawl, I’d glean new insights about the great cycle that Arceus had wrought.
I felt Lisa’s hand on my face. Flesh and blood was so much warmer than metal. “I’ll never get used to your freaky transformations.”
“Drink deeply of the dharma. Live in serenity and joy,” I intoned solemnly. Wisdom echoed with every word. Truth flowed like a tranquil melody from the depths of my insight.
“No, I will not ‘cope,’ you oversized rust bucket.”
“Okay, fine. Are you ready?”
“Yeah, peer into the future, or whatever.”
“Good. Let us begin.”
I allowed myself to sink into a deep meditation. As before, I dove into the river of time, the Adamant Stream that was Dialga’s domain alone. This time, I felt the connection form more swiftly, as if Lisa was expecting me.
‘A bow to the Thousand Hands,’ I greeted my older friend. My voice echoed through our minds, each word straining our fragile connection.
‘Hello, Blake. Bronzong again, huh? You don’t have time so lay it on me.’
‘Empire and ABB are gone. The Protectorate’s supposed to be hitting the Merchants today. My Lisa says there will be five new gangs coming in from outside: Elite, Ambassadors, Adepts, Travelers, and Teeth. Where and when?’
‘Oh, wow, that’s a lot… Okay, from the top: Uppercrust and Accord almost certainly have agents in Brockton Bay already through shell companies. Uppercrust’s public front goes by Paramount Architecture. Accord’s is Object Oriented Consulting.’
‘Is it worth having Lisa look into them?’
‘Hah, no way in hell. They’re completely legit. Their respective local PRT directors already know they’re fronts, but it’s better to have a public face they can contact.’
‘Fair enough. What can you tell me about the other three?’
‘Nothing specific, I’m afraid. There are too many different factions coming in. It’s hard to tell who’s moving where.’
‘You were able to tell me when Heartbreaker’s kids arrived,’ I pointed out.
‘Did I? Wrong Lisa. I guess I’m more like one possible future?’ she mused. ‘You know, talking to you is going to send me on an existential spiral one of these days… another one.”
‘After you finish loredumping, please. I need you. Just tell me what you think is most important.’
‘Simurgh. Sometime in late February. In my timeline, she hit Canberra, Australia on the twenty-fourth.’
‘Oh, shit…’ that was less than a week away.
‘Don’t tell anyone. Your power is a blindspot. You are not. The moment you talk about it, write it down, or otherwise act, she’ll be able to see this and act accordingly.’
‘What if I do it while transformed?’
‘Does that somehow keep her from scrying the world around you?’
‘I… Yeah, fair enough. What can I do to prepare?’
‘You’d know that better than me, wouldn’t you?’
‘Shit… Five gangs, an endbringer, it’s like the world hates me,’ I grumbled.
‘Six, maybe seven, actually. Lost Garden and Blastgerm will care about the berries whenever you get around to making them. Those won’t stay secret forever.’
‘Fuck. It’s not like I’m going to stop making berries, though. Actionable intel, Lisa. What can I do?’
‘The Travelers have a secret member named Noelle. She is a Case-53, with a bloated lower body that’s more like a cancerous blob than a girl’s leggy bits. It acts independently of her and will eat anything, people included. She can make distorted clones of people she eats, powers included. These clones destroy everything the original valued. They’ll arrive in the next few days. They arrive at about the same time as the Teeth.’
I groaned. Lisa said they’d be willing to take Amy hostage before, and now I knew why. ‘Is there anything I can do to help Noelle? I assume that’ll get them to cool it.’
‘I don’t know. I have to assume no. You turned into Victini and used something called Blue Flare. There’s a nuclear shadow etched behind the wall where she last stood.’
‘Oh… I guess I couldn’t fix her.’
‘Yeah. Hey, look on the bright side.’
‘There’s a bright side?’
‘You’re immune to the Butcher.’
‘I killed her, too?’
‘You did. She was losing this big battle royale and tried to throw herself into Noelle’s mouth. You, Victini, cut off her head before that. The new Butcher is Animos, a Teeth cape and the last parahuman the Butcher fought.’
‘Her power jumps to parahumans.’
‘It does.’
‘Shit…’
‘Want my recommendation?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Use Victini and really cut loose. Telekinetically rip them out of their cars as they come into the city.’
‘I can't. Victini is–’
‘Her own person,’ she finished for me. ‘And you have no idea how weird that is. You're like a character from a portal fantasy.’
‘Then you know why I can't do that.’
‘It's worth mentioning anyway. In that case, stall for time. Joining an endbringer battle right in the middle of a gang war is insanity. Deal with the Simurgh first. She's the obvious priority here.’
‘How? It's not like the gang war is a light switch I can flip on or off.’
‘No, but you can encourage inaction from the gangs. Have you ever heard of Somer's Rock?’
‘Rings a bell, yes.’
‘It’s a shitty dive bar near the docks. More importantly, it’s got a deaf waitress.’
That jogged my memory. ‘Is it one of those speakeasies in mafia movies where rival gang bosses can go to hash things out before things get too violent?’
‘Got it in one. Announce a meeting at Somer’s Rock to be held next Sunday. That’s the twenty-seventh, right? You’ll have a few days’ grace period for the Simurgh.’
‘One problem, I’m not a villain,’ I said bluntly.
‘No, you’re just the guy who obliterated the last two would-be kingpins, one of whom was famous for forcing a draw against Leviathan. Trust me, you have clout aplenty.’
‘So the plan is to announce a summit, then what? Will the gangs police themselves until then just because they’re waiting for me to lay down the law?’
‘To a degree, yes. Some will probably be uncontrollable no matter what, like the Teeth. Others might take a wait-and-see approach, like the Ambassadors. More importantly, it’ll set expectations and give you an excuse to crack down hard on violent crime until that day without the gang war starting in earnest.’
The more I thought about it, the more I liked this plan. Future-Lisa was right. I occupied a unique position in the city’s geopolitics as the current king of the hill. If I didn’t have the right to set the stage, then who did?
It probably helped that I was a completely neutral party. I worked with Amy often enough, but no one considered me a part of New Wave. If anything, as far as it appeared to outsiders, they were the ones under my sphere of influence, not the other way around.
Gang leaders could never meet with Protectorate heroes without looking weak. But, they might be able to sell a summit amongst themselves and a neutral powerhouse. As usual, it was about saving face.
‘I’m not even sure what we should talk about at this summit,’ I told her. ‘I get that I should set the stage, but what does that really mean?’
I felt her mentally shrug. ‘That’s up to you, hotshot. You’re the hegemon, the big kahuna. Does it really matter? Your main goal is to postpone the Brockton Games for a week so you can clip the bird bitch’s wings when she comes knocking.’
‘You’re right. Just holding the summit will mean I’ll have succeeded. Thanks, Lisa. Really, you make my life easier.’
‘Always a pleasure, boss.’
The connection cut out and I opened my eyes to see Lisa, my Lisa. She leaned against my side and was browsing videos of old fashion shows. Something must have cottoned her onto my return.
“Hey, boss. You get everything you wanted?” she asked.
“In a way,” I said as I switched back. I was sorely tempted to tell Lisa about the Simurgh, but remembered what her future self had said. “Not as much as I’d like, but it was helpful.”
“Good enough for me. What’s next for you?”
“I don’t know, probably some aura manipulation practice. Why? Did you want something?”
She shuffled in place, a surprising bit of timidity from the normally confident girl. “Uh… Don’t judge me.”
“Don’t judge you? Really?”
“Swear,” she insisted.
“Okay, I swear,” I said placatingly.
“A dino ride,” she mumbled, barely audibly. I snorted, only for her to jab a finger into my chest. “You swore!”
“I’m not judging… but it’s a little funny.”
“It’s not!”
“It is.”
She whirled to stomp off in a huff. “Oh, forget it.”
I reached out and wrapped her in a hug. She struggled for a bit but realized she couldn't even budge me in my armor. “Sorry, sorry. Of course you can have a dino ride.”
“Stop laughing at me.”
“I would if you’d stop being embarrassed. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”
“Whatever. I need to change out of this costume, anyway. Meet me outside my apartment, then deliver me to the college.”
I let go so she could wiggle away. “Okay, deal. I’ll see you then, Lisa.”
X
I waited outside the address Lisa gave me. I lounged around next to a bus stop, body draped comfortably around my shell.
I was well over two tons, a true behemoth of steel. My shell was formed from an organic metal, far more durable than anything humans could make, even in the pokemon world. Truthfully, I was quite sure that the metal should weigh more than it did.
A pokemon this durable had no business being as light on its feet as it was. Historical accounts said that when startled, these things could launch themselves like rubber balls, ripping through trees or even boring straight into mountainsides. Hell, there were actual caves made in this fashion, with circular groves of stone rubbed smooth by their passage.
“That’s not a dinosaur,” Lisa huffed. I turned to find the reformed villain in a pair of skinny jeans and a lavender fleece jacket, half open to reveal a mint-green top. “Menagerie, that’s a snail.”
“I’m a goodra, of the Hisuian variety,” I said smugly. Stretching, I stood on my hind legs, towering over her by several feet. “Do I look more like a dinosaur now?”
“You do,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Lovely. Hop on, Lisa.”
“No, I like this jacket.”
“The slime comes off… probably.”
“Sabah made me this jacket. You can tell her that.”
I shifted back. Annoying my armorer sounded like a bad idea. “Spoilsport.”
“It’s not like that form comes with a saddle.”
“I would have let you use my horns as reins while you sat on my shell. It’d look so derpy.”
“Still no. Now, something a bit more dignified, if you don’t mind.”
I let out a dramatic sigh, counting down the seconds. “Has anyone ever told you that you have no sense of humor?”
“Yes, Alec. Think about that. You and Alec agree on something. You don’t think that might be the first sign of a problem?” she snarked back.
“You’re such a grump. Fine, one, scary-ass metal dinosaur, coming right up. Shift, aggron!”
Once again, I gained several feet in height. This time, there was no goop or blubber; I was a towering beast of steel and muscle, the undisputed lord of Hoenn’s Rusturf Mountains. Other than salamence, there were precious few creatures that could hope to contest an aggron in a physical confrontation in Hoenn.
My faceplate extended far past my snout and eyebrow ridge. It was an adaptation that protected aggron from debris and acted as a natural sunshield for when they emerged from their cavernous domains. It also had the additional benefit of making their crystal-blue eyes shine against their shaded faces. Coupled with the distinctly predatory set of their jaws and massive, blade-like teeth, it made for an intimidating visage.
When natural disasters or pokemon battles ruined an aggron’s territory, they were known to travel many miles to haul topsoil and plant trees, nursing their territory until it became a healthy ecosystem once more. It was no wonder then that Hoenn’s kings and chiefs often used aggron as their heraldry. They symbolized both conquest and dominance, and the responsibility of stewardship that followed.
“Well?” I asked, voice rumbling with the sound of a landslide. “Is this dignified enough for you, my dear?”
She took a second to pick her jaw off the floor. Then, grinning ear-to-ear, she scrambled up the base of my tail until she sat on my shoulderplate. “Hell yeah. Now this is what I’m talking about. Forward, dino!”
I snorted in amusement. I wondered what she’d say if I told her that the goodra was, by all accounts, just as strong as an aggron. If anything, pound for pound, the goodra was more likely to walk away the victor in a fight.
As gently as I could, I stepped into the street and merged into traffic. I didn’t want to dislodge Lisa. Aggron weren’t exactly made for riding, their necks were covered by thick, overlapping plates that pointed down, but she managed by leaning on my shoulder spike. It probably helped that she was so used to riding Bitch’s dogs.
Then, the light turned red and I paused in front of the crosswalk.
“You’re kidding. You’re obeying traffic laws?” she grouched. “Do I need a license to ride you?”
“Hey, I’m a responsible dinosaur. Traffic safety is serious business. Alert today, alive tomorrow, Lisa.”
“I’m pretty sure a car that hits you would crumple around you.”
“Exactly. Besides, you’re not wearing a belt. If we get ticketed, I’m totally making you pay the fine.”
“You don’t have a belt.”
“No belt, no excuse, Lisa,” I drawled, shaking my head like a disappointed father. “You’re such an irresponsible driver.”
“Just shut up. Light’s green.”
“Is it?”
“Wait… Are you colorblind?”
“Kinda? Reds and yellows appear muted to me. I still see them, but they’re less in-your-face, if that makes any sense.”
“Huh… Nocturnal?”
“No, cave-dwelling. Very good guess, though.”
“Obviously. I’m brilliant,” she preened.
“Of course,” I replied indulgently. If I bounced my step a little to bruise her butt, she couldn’t prove it.
Author’s Note
For fun, I rolled a d20 for the Future Sight, and got a two. I decided it should be reasonably productive, but perhaps less so. As I continue to write, I do want to lean away from Future Sight though, because I think it became a bit too much of a cheat during the quest.
The dex says hisuian goodra is 5’ 7”. I say bullshit. Legends Arceus screenshots show hisuian goodra towering over Akari, who is canonically fifteen years old. She should be 5’ 3” or so on average, making the goodra at least eight feet tall according to my napkin math.
I eyeballed the weight based on its size and added in a bit extra for the metal shell. I’m sure I’m wrong. I’m also sure it’s as equally right as the pokedex.
Animal Fact: Aggron aren’t necessarily colorblind in canon. However, many nocturnal animals are. This is because there are two categories of cells that help us see, rods and cones. Extremely simplified, but rods perceive motion while cones perceive color.
Many nocturnal predators trade daytime color sensitivity in favor of becoming more sensitive to motion in low-light conditions. Owls are like this. Other predators who are exceptional nocturnal hunters can still see color. However, they tend to be somewhat muted.
For example, cats only have two types of cones and are sensitive to blue and green light. Reds and yellows appear muted to them. Meanwhile, humans have three cones that see red, blue, and green light. I figured that an aggron, living most of its life in caverns as aron and lairon, would be similar to a cat.