2103:12:09:20:10:44

  As Peakstar had said before, the hero-vigilante meetup was on a Sunday at Rennie Island, at the West Coast Wardens’ headquarters. It was in the evening, which had caused me some worry that I would have to make up an excuse for Mom in order to attend, but I got lucky; the date and time overlapped with Mom’s shift.

  Why we weren’t at the Guardians’ HQ in Aberdeen, I didn’t know. If anyone was going to lead the cooperation between all of Charm’s heroes, it would be the Guardians.

  On the other hand, the Guardians had less influence in Charm than most places. If you didn’t count the New Seattle Sentinels – and about half of Charm didn’t; they were vigilantes after all – the West Coast Wardens was the first proper hero team to set up in Charm, and with that title came added respect from the city’s inhabitants.

  In fact, Charm-centric online communities – Chitterchat, masked or Charm-based forums, city influencers and especially MaskiPedia’s discussion pages – often devolved in a sometimes fun, sometimes not-so-fun argument about which of the two was better.

  I didn’t really care about the topic itself, but the discussions were annoying. The ridiculous stuff people came up with and spat all over the internet more often than not only served to confuse anyone researching the topic. Powers were exaggerated to Triumphant-tier or dismissed with a ‘they should’ve become professionals’ far too often, and in doing so made it that much more difficult to discover the truth.

  But I’m forgetting myself.

  Getting to the WCW headquarters was both easy and an exercise in frustration. Reaching the island itself was simple – I showed up in costume, got spotted by WCW personnel and put on a boat. They brought me to something of a back entrance a ways away from the building itself, and we entered through a tunnel leading underground. All easy and quick.

  And for a moment, I’d thought that would be it.

  But no. The moment I stepped inside, the real security measures began. I was searched, my utility belt and phone confiscated, and then guided to a private room – though not an interrogation room this time. I was asked a series of – often the same – questions, which were then confirmed by, funnily enough, Millie.

  It took fifteen minutes until I was done and guided in properly, though without my belt or my phone. Made one feel real welcome here.

  But once I was inside and guided through the building to wherever it was the meeting was held, I understood. There was something more going on than just a meeting of a few vigilantes and representatives of the Guardians and Wardens.

  The conference room I was led to – if that was the right word; the room was massive enough it deserved to be called a ballroom – was packed with masked. I did a quick headcount and discovered that almost every single fighting hero was gathered here. Including the juniors.

  Of the Guardians, there was Looming Thread, Sandelabra, Pangolin Imperiale, Needle Knight, Rostam, Tahminah, Strikemight, and Parisian Flair. Accompanying their mentors were the sidekicks, the Acolytes Darion, Greendance, Tin Knightus, Bizz-Buzz, and Erinye.

  Of the West Coast Wardens, there was Lady Mercy, Peakstar, Malachite, Orsini, Pia Pietra, Neverender, Highjump, Adaptavian, Autophaser, Levy, and Hecaterion. All the Prospectus bar LieSpy – Fisher, Deamonarm, Ringfing, Distal, Quarteller – were clumped around Peakstar, their manager/mentor.

  That was practically their full roster, missing eight of their direct combat heroes. Of course, their augurs – who were for the most part centralized on a continental and national level – non-combat masters, and a few makers weren’t here as well. They were masked by technicality, but their way of doing things coincided far more with professionals – or maybe purely-heroic rogues – than regular masked. They stayed behind the lines, providing support in either information or technology.

  But these weren’t all masked currently present; the solos had shown up in force as well, both official heroes as well as vigilantes. Rhennish, Marching Orders, Flotsam, Tuneless, Guerillion, Homerian, Hamelin, Blade Eater, Aetherna, Bruce Spruce, the duos Heartseeker and Megaton, and Modi and Magni, Phyr-EX, Leo-9; everyone I’d ever heard of was here, and even a few I hadn’t.

  Fifty-three heroes total; a city’s worth of them.

  And suddenly, I felt very small. A feeling similar to the first night I went masking, the night I got my nose broken. How it had broken my delusions, had reshaped my goals from forming the greatest hero team the world had ever seen into something more reasonable. How it had made me realize I had a lot to learn.

  These were fifty-three heroes from all walks of life, all fighting to keep Charm safe from villains. And they’d been doing a good job of it too. Before the Jannacht, Charm was one of the safest cities in North America, and even including the Jannacht Wars it was still on the better side.

  But even so, the city wasn’t clean of them. There were still a lot of villains running around, villains they hadn’t been able to catch even before the Jannacht added to their number. Even when they had been in the majority, villains still existed – and that’s to say nothing of the rogues doing their own thing, always one step away from becoming a villain.

  I had declared to Blazin that I would sweep the world clean of villains, and he’d laughed straight in my face. Now I could see why. It had never clicked before in spite of my inviolable memory, in spite of me knowing the names of nearly all the masked involved in Charm’s masquerade. But seeing all the heroes gathered into one room…

  Yet I still felt that desire, somewhere deep inside me. A desire, an ambition that I just couldn’t seem to shake, no matter how unachievable it was.

  It made me wonder why. It didn’t burn; it was nothing like Blazin had made it out to be. Instead, it felt cold like ice, hard as a rock, and distant like the moon. It was an imperative, an ordainment from someplace higher. Yet simultaneously, it was a core part of me, so much so I could not distinguish myself from it.

  My Heroic Impulse.

  My creator had failed in many things, but that was not one of them. I didn’t know how to feel about that.

  “Jester?” A voice broke me from my thoughts and I turned toward its source.

  A trio had approached me. Marching Orders, Rhennish, and an unknown masked in a deep blue uniform, a cape on his back and a hood up that supernaturally cloaked his face in shadow.

  It was March that had spoken.

  “Hello-” But before I could finish my greetings, March launched herself at me and enveloped me in a hug.

  “Oh God, I was so worried!” she said. “When I heard that- that- And so close after Jagar a-and Elegast…” She started sobbing, so I started patting her on the back.

  I had not expected this level of emotion from March. Had I made that much of an impact? Or was it some form of bleed-over or heightened sensitivity from her own ordeal? Although Millie had also been upset when she thought Crowsong dead, and after we revealed she wasn’t…

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  I hoped that when the time comes, March would understand as well.

  But for now, I said, “It’s…” alright, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. Not only for the sake of maintaining the illusion, but also because it really wasn’t alright.

  March tightened her hug at my halted words.

  “Now now, March,” Rhennish said, putting a hand on March’s shoulder. “Let the girl breathe.”

  After a final squeeze, she obeyed.

  “Jester,” Rhennish said as a belated greeting. “How’ve you been holding up?”

  Personal feelings aside, things had been going well. Nth-Sight had two minor missions – both times scouting places in Aberdeen – for me these past couple days. The city itself was in an ‘eye of the storm’ situation after the Weekend Massacre and the response after, with zero high-profile masked fights. I’d also been keeping up a nightly patrol around Crowsong and I’s usual areas to give the illusion I was out for blood, with one time even fighting a few Motorgang henchies about to engage their Jannacht countertparts.

  Of course, I’d also been keeping in with Amber herself about how the investigation was going so far.

  In short, not well. Nth-Sight proved an elusive figure even with me providing her all the places I scouted. It didn’t help that her masked identity being publicly ‘burned’ limited her options. But now, as it became more and more likely that Nth-Sight, another augur or someone entirely random would figure out she wasn’t dead, she was starting to get bolder. Tonight, she’d be reaching out to some non-augur rogues she knew had been in contact with Nth-Sight before, like Ceryneian, and press them for information.

  “Keeping myself busy,” I said instead. “Trying not to think about it. Not yet- not now, anyway.”

  Rhennish nodded in response. “Cannot say if that’s healthy… but we’ve been doing much the same, so I’ve no leg to stand on on that front.” He smiled darkly as he said it. Why did he- oh, right. He’d lost his legs before.

  Rather than linger on it, I shifted my attention to the man behind March and Rhennish. “I’m sorry, but…”

  The man stepped forward and held out his hand. “Oh how quick my legacy fades,” he said as we shook. His voice was old – very old, in fact. “I’m Mantellan. I used to be a Sentinel before I retired, but considering what has happened, I’ve decided to come back. Help my comrades get their bearings, at least.”

  I nodded in understanding and switched topics.

  “Do any of you know what’s going on here?” I asked. “I hadn’t expected… well, this.” I said, gesturing towards the room.

  Mantellan laughed. “That’s good, you shouldn’t have. Not after all the effort they’ve gone through to try and hide their heroic assembly.”

  “Heroic assembly?”

  “Well, what else would you call this?” Mantellan said. “Too grand to be a get-together, and certainly not that ‘meeting for further cooperation’-thing they’d used as an excuse.”

  “They do this often?” I asked. He said it like they’d done this thing before.

  “Not at all,” Mantellan said. “But I’ve witnessed something like it a number of times – though that was always about a Treaty break. Then again, it is also the first time Charm has had to deal with something like the Jannacht trying their hand at conquest.”

  “Conquest?” I asked.

  “What else could this be called?” he returned. “It’s something they’ve done before – enter a city, absorb who they can and eliminate who they must. They might not be doing a good job of it currently, but it is still an attempt at conquest, no?”

  “And that’s the reason why this meeting has been called, I think,” Rhennish interjected. “It’s not just that they’ve been doing bad, they’re doing supernaturally bad. A lot of fighting and very little negotiating from the very start; the opposite of how it usually goes. And as far as I’ve heard, the heroes have had little to nothing to do with it.”

  Soliloquy had said something similar, about how their efforts had been hamstrung in some way. Did Nth-Sight and his conspiracy of augurs – if there even was anyone beyond the man himself – have that much of an impact? It seemed ridiculous that such a small part of the masquerade could determine outcomes so broadly.

  Then again, information is a big lever when properly utilized…

  “I see,” I replied. “Do you know…?”

  Both Mantellan and Rhennish shook their heads.

  “Our own augur contact has promised to look into it,” Rhennish said. “But as of yet, nothing.”

  Little doubt as to why.

  “And the heroes-”

  A loud, artificially-boosted voice interrupted me. “Good evening, everyone,” Lady Mercy said, speaking through a microphone at the podium on the far end of the room. Beside her stood Peakstar, Strikemight and Looming Thread – the heroes’ four heads, if you will. “If I may have your undivided attention, we can start our meeting in earnest.”

  The room listened.

  “As most of you are aware, our struggles with the Jannacht Syndicate have entered a new phase,” Lady Mercy said. “Where before their fights were limited in scope and focused on other villains, this is no longer the case. The fights have grown more deadly and brutal with a clear aim toward total annihilation of their masked beyond the resurrection threshold – as we’ve seen with the Sentinels.”

  Murmurs of agreement and angered whispering came from the ground. A strangled noise came from beside me, and I squeezed March’s shoulder comfortingly.

  “Furthermore,” Lady Mercy continued. “Their escalation has had side effects on the other gangs. Some have grown, some shrunk, and one is outright destroyed and absorbed. Charm’s balance has been disrupted, and in this instability, the gangs’ previously expected behaviors have grown unpredictable. Erratic. Dangerous. Targeted strikes and lethal force against previously unconscionable targets are now, if not the norm, then at least deemed acceptable.”

  She was referring to Crowsong, I believed, and perhaps Drake Blackflame as well. Another moment for murmurings as masked parsed Lady Mercy’s words. Here it was March’s turn to comfort me.

  “We must prevent it from becoming the norm,” Lady Mercy said after a moment. “And here we come to the core of our meeting. As all of you know or at least suspect on some part, the Guardians and Wardens have increased their cooperation. This week especially, our cooperation has borne fruit. Villains like Irkalla and Reddemarke have been captured, villain-held assets and contraband seized, attacks prevented and collateral damage limited.

  “We want to take this cooperation to the next level. A level that includes all of you. We want to return this city, if not to its previous normalcy, then at least to a more acceptable level of violence. Less deaths, less damage, less panic and less disruption for Charm’s citizens. And for that, we need your help.

  “We have been planning something.” She looked to her left and right, to her fellow Warden and the two Guardians with her on stage. “We’ve been combining our resources and gathering intelligence high and low in order to enact a more definitive strike against the Jannacht. One that will hopefully lead to either a great diminishment of their forces, or exiling them from Charm completely.”

  The room was silent for a second, stunned. Then, the moment passed and the room erupted with talk, at a higher volume than the previous breaks in Lady Mercy’s speech.

  And I could understand why. A definitive strike against the Jannacht was very different from wanting the closer cooperation they’d lured us in with, and even beyond the idea of an ‘assembly’ that Mantellan proposed.

  The idea was more than just bold. The Syndicate had been here openly for a month, and had hidden themselves for maybe thrice that. Yet now they claim to have all the information needed to all but destroy their presence here? That was shocking.

  I sincerely hoped that this wasn’t part of Nth-Sight’s game, or based upon his intel. Not only did I not trust him enough to have the good of the city in mind, his capabilities keep diminishing the longer this war goes on.

  “I see you are all wondering how,” Lady Mercy said, eyes returning to her. “The truth is quite plain. We’ve discovered eight buildings we’ve determined to be Jannacht operational bases and safehouses for their masked. Our goal is to strike all eight at the same time with the full power of Charm’s heroic forces.” Approval swept across the room, but Lady Mercy was not done. “And we’ll do it today.”

  Dead silence.

  “Today?” One voice shouted across the silence. “Tonight?” another followed.

  “Yes. Right now.”

  Immediately people started to yell. “Bullsh-!” “The hell-!” “Who-!” “Why-!” Which was surprising considering that most of the masked here were Wardens or Guardians. Hadn’t they informed their own people of what was happening?

  “I have plans later tonight!” March added to the choir, sounding a bit too enthusiastic.

  “Did you?” Mantellan asked, voice carrying despite the clamor.

  March startled. “Well, no, not really,” she said sheepishly, then grew angry again. “But that doesn’t mean-!”

  “Quiet!” Strikemight interjected, shouting straight into the microphone. The speakers peaked and everybody clutched their ears with a cry of pain.

  Strikemight didn’t care. “Y’all are heroes, aren’t you?! We – the Wardens, the Guardians, our augur departments – we all worked hard to give each and every single one of you a chance to strike back against the enemies within, and what do you do?! Cry about bedtime! What are you, heroes or children?!”

  Far be it from me to point out, but there are, to my count, exactly fourteen children here. And of those I could see – including March and myself – no one liked the comparison.

  To be fair, neither did anyone else. Lady Mercy – whom he’d all but shoved aside to get to the microphone – Peakstar, and even his co-leader Looming Thread shot him annoyed looks.

  Everyone was.

  But even so, the room had grown quiet and while everyone was annoyed, no one outright disagreed.

  “Yes, thank you for the… motivational speech, Strikemight,” Lady Mercy said, reclaiming the microphone. Strikemight nodded and stepped back, arms crossed and looking stern. “I understand that most of you – especially those directly affiliated with our organizations – might feel frustrated by us withholding such information. And if you want to, you are of course free to leave, no hard feelings. But I beg of you: trust us. We would not do this without good reason.”

  Lady Mercy stopped talking, allowing people to talk it over amongst themselves.

  I shot the Sentinels a look, but they didn’t seem to need discussion. “You’re all staying?” I asked.

  Mantellan shrugged. “Despite the melodrama – which is just part and parcel for the masquerade, really – the outcome is still good.”

  “Kind of expected, truthfully,” Rhennish added. “The setup was very Treaty-like, except without the villain representation and without the- well, no, the big egos are all here. Although I hadn’t expected it to be this immediate.”

  I nodded and looked to March.

  “What? You’d think I’d just leave? After what they done to us?” she asked, crossing her arms in indignation.

  “I wasn’t accusing,” I said, apologetic. “Just wondering.”

  She stared for a second, then nodded. “What about you?” March asked.

  I shrugged. “I see no reason to leave.”

  And that seemed to be the general consensus. While the crowd sounded annoyed, no one left, with the room’s atmosphere turning into a weird mix of both reluctant agreement and eagerness for what was to come.

  Slowly, everyone stopped talking and stared to Lady Mercy again.

  “Thank you for your trust,” she said. It sounded genuine. “We’ve planned individual strike plans per location, and so you will all be divided into teams. We’ve made certain that, wherever possible, you’d be part of a group you are either familiar with or, depending on the expected target, provide an easily understood good synergy for the selected operation.”

  “These are the plans for each team,” Looming Thread stepped forward next to the microphone and held up a piece of paper – an oddity, and an indication that they wouldn’t be returning our cellphones just yet, or else they would’ve sent it there. “I will announce all your teams and your Warden or Guardian-affiliated team coordinator. After which, you will be guided by WCW personnel to your helicopter and flown your designated location. All other details are on the sheet. Any questions?”

  There were none, and Lady Mercy didn’t linger long enough for people to start forming them.

  “Then let’s begin. Alpha Team-”