Wordsworth [Worm, Alt Power, Smugbug] (2024)

Wordsworth – Chapter 37 – Tenebrism 4 [3.7k Words]

There should be a round table.

There, instead, is a disordered, fanned array of folding chairs placed in a hurry to face the part of the parking lot nearest to the angry ocean, where Alexandria, Legend, and Eidolon stand under the rain, explaining to all of us the sparse protocols we're meant to follow as Lisa keeps angrily muttering in my ear about the inadequacy of it all.

I try not to smile. It's much easier than suppressing the fit of nervous giggles that she constantly tries to drag out of me.

"Oh, sure, press two buttons to get an emergency override. That's going to work. As everybody who's ever worked in customer service can attest to, people are perfectly restrained and never prone to overestimating their own issues. Yup. This is going to be perfectly all right. Nobody will go past a McDonald's and press two f*cking buttons to ask if anybody else is feeling peckish or it's just him. Yeah. Sure. And I'm positive that, in a battlefield filled with teleporters, nobody will keep asking to be ported out of the way of their impending death."

"That does sound like something an emergency override should be used for," I mutter into my headset before smiling sheepishly at an armored girl in front of me turning to see why I'm speaking to myself.

"Oh, yeah, it definitely is, so long as that's what's actually happening. Wanna bet just how many 'false alarms' there will be just in the first ten minutes of this band of lemmings marching to their death under the brilliant tactical command of tall, dark, and broody over there?"

"That's Alexandria—"

"That's somebody who needs their Thinker rating revoked yesterday! How the—Tay, you know that I'm on board with your noble tendencies and drive to carve your very identity into the pages of parahuman history, but, really, I would feel much more confident about this whole thing if you swore you're going to ignore all that drivel coming out from three people who I'm dearly hoping are no longer your idols. Seriously, who the Hell thinks it's a good idea to keep repeating just how likely to die you all are and how useless it all will be in the grand scheme of things? Is Legend trying to psyche you up for battle or to get you to join his nihilistic fight club—"

"I do have that book," I can't help but interrupt with a shy spark of enthusiasm that gets quickly smothered by the armored girl narrowing her eyes at me and shushing me like I'm taking a phone call in a cinema.

"The movie's much better," Lisa dismisses.

I…

Blink.

And, for some reason, my teeth are grinding.

"Touched a nerve?" my girlfriend, who's most definitely not a Clever Fox, says with an evil tone.

"You just wait until I'm back—"

"That's the plan, yes," she says, wistful enough that I barely notice her voice cracking near the end.

The rain's getting stronger. The waves reach higher. The clouds are black.

My knee is bouncing up and down as I half follow Legend's admittedly lacking speech and half try to lose myself in the words of my anxious lover. I can recognize the same nervous energy in those gathered in this hurriedly vacated parking lot and how many of them exchange hushed words with one another that could be goodbyes or promises of a shared tomorrow.

They could be both things.

"Are you safe?" I ask her for the third time. Because that's when the answer will change to reveal a hidden truth or an enigma that—

"As safe as I can be inside one of these damn shelters, Tay. You've never felt claustrophobia until tons of concrete and earth are all that stand between you and death by drowning."

It's the same answer in different words.

I can no longer hear her agile fingers clacking on her wireless keyboard. She's told me that's not because she isn't working, but because she's had to enable some kind of noise-filtering algorithm to stop the people trapped with her in the crowded shelter from interfering with whatever it is that she's doing under… tons of gray concrete and dark earth.

Whatever she's doing other than nag at me, I mean.

I smile wryly at the thought of Lisa's priorities, but, really, what else can be done while we wait—

"Wordsworth," a tall man says from behind me.

I turn around to see Armsmaster wearing a thicker armor than the set I saw him in when I delivered the captive Nazi princess to him.

Then, behind him, there's another tall man, one wearing stained overalls—

"You should listen to them," Lisa whispers as gently as she can.

I'm already standing.

"You should not be here," I tell my father.

"Funny thing, I was about to—" the infuriating man starts to say, but I'm already in front of him, my finger stabbing at his chest hard enough that the neoprene glove does very little to numb the impact.

"You can—support! Haven't you copied a healing cape already? Don't you realize how precious that could be—"

"If you could keep it down, I'm sure the people who don't understand enough English to appreciate family drama would be ever so grateful," a woman says from behind the rows of folding chairs at my back.

I would usually feel a cold shudder at the realization of precisely who it is that is very vocally reprimanding me in front of an international coalition of superheroes.

But, at this very moment, I'm too angry to care about Alexandria's puerile sniping.

"Dad, get out."

"You told me to join the Protectorate."

"I didn't tell you to fight an Endbringer!"

"And what do you think I would do when my daughter marched right to—"

"You could very well—"

"Tay! Don't!" she says in my ear.

And that's the only thing that stops me from telling him to maybe go drink another beer. To ignore me as I starve. To drive me to seek charity at the hands of Emma's mother.

Pale, green eyes look down at me with restrained hurt and fury.

My finger trembles against his chest.

Then…

Then he hugs me, and it's… suddenly…

I remember the stench of stale beer, the touch of a threadbare couch.

His arms.

And two tired, weary hobbits staring at the beauty of the Sun setting behind a waterfall.

"Promise me," I say as I return the hug with all my strength, not stopping even at his pained grunt.

"I will. I promise," he says, still holding me. Not letting go.

Not this time.

***

Emma

She just ignored Alexandria.

Of course she did.

I can't help the smile tugging at my lips from the other side of the parking lot as I watch her and her father hurriedly talking with Arms… with Colin.

There's…

Gold thrums inside my forearm, shining just a tad brighter even as the sky steadily darkens.

"Not gonna say hello to her?" Sophia asks from where she's leaning against a flickering streetlamp with her arms and ankles crossed.

"I don't have the right," I say.

My… the one friend I deserve glares at me through her mask, her head tilted in that way she has of pondering things before lining a shot.

"The right," she doesn't quite ask.

I answer her with a wry smile and suppress the surge of Green.

"You are here," I say, changing the subject.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I remember her talking to me while I was… weak. Almost delirious from all that I had given. From the flesh and blood that were no longer part of my body and had gone to restore Tattletale's.

I remember answering her with my eyes closed, trying to be for her what Taylor had once been for me.

Opening my eyes, seeing her no longer there.

Failing.

But…

"Leviathan is stronger than Lung," I say.

Again, she looks at me.

But, this time, the tilt of her head turns up and away, toward the clouds raining down on us with steadily thicker droplets that splash on her mask, thud against the armored shoulder pads of my suit, and make my wet hair stick to my face and back.

"He is," she says.

I… for the first time in… since…

I close my eyes.

I remember carrying Sophia's limp body in my arms, looking for Amy. I didn't feel the same hurry or pressure as I did when I did the same thing for Tattletale. I knew Sophia would survive her own bolt being stuck through her eye. I knew that Taylor wasn't a murderer. A monster.

It's…

So many things. So many things that happened, and so many that changed. And I've carried two injured women away and toward Amy since… since the start. Since the true start of it all.

I hope there won't be a third.

"I wasn't," I say, my eyes still closed as droplets on my forehead turn to rivulets crossing my lids.

"What?"

"A rat. I wasn't calling you a rat," I explain, answering a senseless question she threw at me as I tried to explain.

Another silence.

"God, I could punch you," she says.

And I, despite the Red pulsing on my temples, despite the Yellow constantly churning in my belly and even the ephemeral sparks of Amber floating around me…

Smile at Sophia. The one friend I deserve. The one I would've killed without any remorse.

And laugh.

***

Taylor

A third button.

I can feel Lisa cackling.

Because of course she would, while constantly chattering at me, orchestrate things so that I would get my very own extra-special bracelet, one crafted through the combined efforts of Kid Win, Armsmaster, and the second Armsmaster that my father can now conjure.

Of course she would hide it all from me until I'm suddenly—

"To deceive your enemy, you must first deceive your friend," she says with an all but audible, barely suppressed cackle.

I strive not to glare at her, seeing as she's not in front of me, and, instead, take a deep breath and look at the bracelet that's been entrusted to me and closed around the loose sleeve of my borrowed dry suit.

"This is highly—" Legend starts.

"Yes. I suspect it is," Alexandria tells him.

Eidolon remains silent and aloof as he's been since they arrived, floating with his arms crossed and his feet pointed down in a way that I think Glory Girl is apt to emulate.

The three of them surround me.

And, in front of me, there's a gathering of heroes.

I could… say a lot of things. Do a lot of things.

I start by pressing a button.

Thunder roars behind me. Furious winds whip at me, pushing the dry suit tight against the words of my abbreviated black dress shielded by the red fabric. Waves crash at the rocks behind me until white spray reaches high and above.

"Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough!" I mutter without being able to stop myself.

And, at the brief passage, the offhanded mention sent through a magic bracelet gifted to me on a battle's eve…

A giant, defiant man wearing a naval uniform surges from my words, gesturing at the sea behind me in glared challenge, his clawing left hand raised upward in the same gesture I imagined the one time that Mom read the scene to me, changing her voice to suit every character, trying to get her too-young daughter to clap and laugh at an improvised rendition of Shakespeare's Tempest that Dad smiled and shook his head at.

The wind screams back, a chorus of hellish shrieks coming from every rocky crevice of the breakwater guarding two sides of this parking lot. It rages as the long black coat of the colossal boatswain staring down the ocean flaps around his legs, the thick fabric snapping above me, Alexandria, Legend, and the floating Eidolon. Yet the gale blows harder and harder.

And then, as thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of listeners lend me their ear… Leviathan's heralding storm…

Quietens.

I gasp at the expenditure of my power, the electric feeling thrumming in my chest, the sheer need in my lips and tongue to read more. To share each and every single one of my tales. To give the entire world the treasures I jealously guard like the Dragon of Brockton Bay that Lisa fashioned me as.

In front of me, wide-eyed parahumans try to understand what just happened, even as a no-longer acrimonious, armored girl looks away from me with clear embarrassment.

Dad's there, standing in front of my vacated chair with Armasmaster and Miss Militia flanking him like he is the veteran hero that has protected Brockton Bay through bitter, hard-fought years.

He… He may be.

I smile at him and repress the urge to launch into the first passage that flits through my mind, under the fingers of the Wordsworth that never leaves my inner library, through whispering pages and creaking covers of ancient leather.

Because I… I have a purpose.

No.

I have many.

There are groups of melee fighters who think they can take Leviathan's blows. Search and Rescue. Healers. Snipers.

I could be with any one of them, turning my stories into tools for the very purpose those groups are meant to serve.

Instead?

I will turn my stories into stories. Into the very purpose they have always been meant to serve.

And, today, I will talk about heroes.

***

Emma

She speaks, and the world listens.

It always should have.

"Look, Emma. Look and brand it into your heart," Tattletale whispers in my headset.

I nod.

The camera conveys my gesture to her, and I remain silent as I should always have when Taylor spoke. As I should have each and every time that I mocked her, ridiculed her, cut her off, and… and struggled to make her feel small, weak, and impotent.

Unlike Taylor.

As unlike Taylor as I was unlike Emma Barnes.

Dark Blue slowly covers my skin, my weight increasing enough that the weakened wind is no longer a bother as I let the regret and… and sadness cover me. They are familiar enough, useful enough, that I can afford them, unlike the anxious worry for Anne and Mom and Dad or the unfamiliar tingling in my chest that I feel at the gathered heroes staring at Taylor in awe as the giant sailor dissolves into black words.

She stands straighter, and not even the faintly ridiculous gear she's wearing to protect herself from the water can disguise her… her majesty. The way it feels like she's finally found her place in the world, or like the world has finally acknowledged where she belongs.

"She's… breathtaking," Tattletale whispers, sharing that brief spark of wonder with me, knowing I'll understand it better than anyone else ever could.

Her black lips open, silently molding unheard syllables as if tasting whatever it is that she's about to unleash on an unsuspecting world.

To my right, Vista stumbles, and I am already catching her before I think to feel any kind of Red at her for depriving me of even a single second of Taylor being herself now that she doesn't realize I'm in the audience.

"Wha… What is she…" the young girl asks, her eyes unfocused behind her visor as she tries to focus on Taylor before giving up and looking up at me.

"What else?" I answer with a self-deprecating smile. "A hero."

***

Wordsworth

There are thousands of words I could say.

They all clamor inside of me, my chest about to burst with the thundering of leather covers slamming open and closed. They all rush to my lips, swifter than they have ever been.

But I shouldn't let them all out. It's… it's not about the number of words, but about the choice. The perfect word.

Le mot juste.

I smile at the notion because there's very little 'just' about what I intend to unleash here today. Because this isn't a fair fight, and I don't intend it to be.

Because this is a fight against a monster.

And heroes… the first thing they ever were was monster slayers.

So come, Leviathan. Come to these gathered who are not a Fellowship, or an order of Knights. Come to those ready to die at your claws, under your waves, to be torn apart by cruel waters. Come to the heroes who have come to you.

Come, monster.

And meet a monster's end.

Tale, legend, and myth leap to my lips. Poems that were born as songs. Songs that were old when we were still naming the stars. All of them about heroes. All of them about slayers.

I catch Dauntless out of the corner of my eye, gleaming in gold, clad in the guise of Mars.

I see Dad surrounded by a host of shadows like a promised king returned and wielding the Flame of the West.

I see… colorful clothes betrayed by the shadows of a black sky. Capes laden with the weight of rain that would be a Tempest. Hair matted to grim faces. Lights that flicker between falling water, cast over wet asphalt and rippling puddles.

There's a poem pushing to be first, one I already used. A charge, of those who couldn't question why, who could only do or die.

It would be appropriate: a reminder of the horror ahead, an exhortation to courage in the face of insurmountable odds. It would work if I only meant to take Legend's speech and turn it into an inspiring message; each of us gathered here turned into soldiers about to do battle. To face that which no man alone should ever face.

It would work, yes.

But…

There's another speech. A cliché. Something that is now trite.

This is how clichés are born:

By being brilliant.

"The fewer men, the greater share of honor," I say.

And in a single second, it's not me saying it: it's a king. A king that could be Arthur, at this very moment. A man facing certain death with his most loyal followers.

Agincourt. St Crispin's Day. Henry the Fifth.

Shakespeare.

I smile as the crown disguises my red hood with cascading black chainmail that glows despite the storm above as my words weave a royal cloak around my shoulders.

And I keep speaking, making my voice as vibrant as Arthur's would've been at the Battle of Camlann, even if this one king was real and thus no Arthur. But, for this brief shining moment, by the power of masterful words, the man became a legend, and then we turned the Bard's legend into a cliché.

Washington quoted it, and so did Nelson. Churchill asked for a film of the play to be made.

It, in some ways, is the speech.

It's not one that I treasure from childhood memories. There's no personal connection, no way in which Mom made me learn the words as something other than ink on a page, no tainted recollection of Emma asking me to explain it to her. It's just… there.

The speech.

And not many in my audience recognize it at first. Certainly not when my voice catches in a king's emotion at the list of English noblemen standing by his side as he dreams of the day they will share tales of the scars they each earned in the battle of St Crispin's Day.

My words keep crawling out of me, skittering over gleaming asphalt, covering oily puddles, and they touch each of us. Each of the few, we happy few.

We Band of Brothers.

I can see it, the looks of wonder in most eyes as my words turn into lustrous black armor, Armsmaster hurrying to check that his own equipment still works through my own reinforcements, Glory Girl's eyes widening as she witnesses her half cape turn into something regal and knightly, Miss Militia adorned by an archer's cap that has her snort in amusem*nt that disturbs her scarf.

There are… a lot. A lot of heroes, each and every single one of them shielded by my words.

But that's only the very beginning.

I look up at the floating drones that Kid Win has turned into the first cameras that will broadcast an Endringer battle, and I salute them, suppressing my embarrassment and thinking only of Lisa watching me on her array of tablets, yelling at the people she's sharing a shelter with to stop crowding her as she doesn't even bother to disguise her pride and enthusiasm at seeing her scheme unfold precisely how she'd expected it to.

Then, of course, because Clever Foxes deserve some surprises from time to time, I turn my back on the cameras and gesture at the ocean below the breakwater.

"For he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile," I say nearing the very last verse.

And the rest of my words pour forth, a black wave darker than a stormy ocean can manage, exploding outward at the speed of speech, thought, and imagination.

I don't have to look behind me to know the shape of the rolling hills covering up Brockton Bay's buildings.

I just have to look ahead at the field of battle extending past where the ocean no longer rages.

And at the furious dragon crawling up on top of black land and grass, at the very edge of where my words have reformed Agincourt and stolen a piece of the Atlantic Ocean from our foe.

It's not the only thing we'll take from him today.

And all the heroes in the world shall think themselves accursed they were not here.

=====================

This… is definitely not how I expected this to go.

It, of course, turned into the only way it could go as soon as Wordsworth was given half a chance to derail my years-old outline for how this fight would go.

This also means that, despite a long, long list of scenes sitting in a doc in my Wordsworth folder, we're now in uncharted territory. Much like the entire cape population of Brockton Bay as their city turns into something very much not like actual Agincourt.

Anyway, yeah, I got delayed writing the next chapter. For hopefully understandable reasons. I hope you enjoy it when it comes out and that the rest of the arc doesn't hit me between my eyebrows each and every time I sit down to write it.

As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on