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“HEY,” Dakota yells, sitting in the passenger seat the wrong way. “Hey William! We should only leave the highway on an exit that has ‘three’ in it.”
William swerves into the next lane and takes his eyes completely off of the road to look at Dakota. He gives him the Stare. “Dakota, why? ”
There’s the sound of tires squealing. Vyncent, in the passenger seat, looks back and forth from William to Dakota to the road with increasing panic. William maintains the stare.
“‘Cause it’s a lucky number! Three sides in a triangle, three primary colors, three wheels on a car! And besides, I’m boooooored. ”
“Wait, say that last one agai– WILLIAM LOOK OUT.” There is the sound of furious honking, and William jerks back around to look at the road, narrowly swerves out of the way of an eighteen-wheeler, and gets back in his lane.
Vyncent nervously hovers. “Hey Will, you must be getting tired! Maybe I could take over–”
“NO.” This is William’s car. The other two are fucking menaces, and he’s never letting them touch a steering wheel.
“ Pleeeeeeeeease.” Dakota whines from the back.
“... FINE.”
“YEAH.”
“There’s no point to this! Three is a dumb stupid number and I hate it.”
William reluctantly looks back to the road. The highways of this part of Prime are narrower, and hemmed in with tall black pines. They stand dark against the eggshell-blue sky and cut through ridges of exposed orange-yellow stone covered in scraggly little bushes. Every so often, a little green road sign will proudly announce a new small town or fast-food restaurant– or an exit. Vyncent and Dakota discuss the merits of various fast food restaurants while William watches the little exit numbers climb.
“But I like KFC! It’s way better than bear meat. Too lean.”
“I don’t like their mascot, though. He’s creepy. And wasn’t Kentucky overtaken by the Rats?”
“Vyncent,” William interrupts. “How do you even know about that?” He had taken extra precaution to make sure Vyncent didn’t learn about Kentucky in school, out of fear that Vyncent would take it upon himself to remove the Rats.
“I was homesick, so I wanted to know where I could find the best rat this place had! Turns out nobody sells rats. I did, however, learn about Kentucky and the other Lost States! I hear the rats from Kentucky are really big…” Vyncent uses his hands to emphasize exactly how big the rats are, and gets a concerning look on his face.
“Dammit.” William hisses and goes back to watching the road signs. Dakota begins to engage in Vyncent-Wrangling Plot No. 3. He and Vyncent also have Dakota-Wrangling Plots, and though William hasn’t had confirmation, he suspects that those two have William-Wrangling Plots, too. Not that they’ll work. William is un-wrangleable.
A little white on green sign comes up. Exit 11 , it says. To New Rockport. A few miles introduces Exit 12 , a truck rest stop. William uses his excellent investigation skills to deduce that the next exit will be Exit 13 , and he attempts to find the turn signal, struggles, gives up, and decides it’s not that important anyway. If Dakota really wants an exit with a three, he can have one. It’s not like they’ve got any real travel plan.
Exit 14 for Greenbury has a Holiday Hotel, a McDefenders, a gas station, and a population of 6,269. It does not, however, have a three in it.
This is distressing for a lot of reasons. Namely, what the hell happened to Exit 13, and where do they go from here? Will doesn’t expect another three until Exit 23, which will be hours out.
He could hope Dakota forgot how to count. Not entirely unlikely.
Or, he thinks, as his eyes light on a little red button on the dashboard, he could take the expedited course of action.
“Be sides, ” Dakota shouts. “Rats are, like, diseased and gross and stu–”
The mechanical whirring of the Dakota-Launcher sends Dakota into the stratosphere.
“Ope,” Vyncent looks up at the hole in the roof. “There he goes.”
“Yep.”
Dakota lands in a classic superhero crouch on a semi a few cars back. He parkours from roof to roof, causing some concerned swerving and yelps from everyday commuters, until there’s a thud from above the Winnebago.
Dakota sticks his head down from the roof of the car, raspberry hair falling upside down and wild. He knocks on the window indignantly, and Will sighs and lowers the passenger-side window.
He uses the top of the car as a fulcrum to swing haphazardly into the Winnebago. “ Hey , what was that for!”
“You looked a little antsy,” William lies like the excellent liar he is. “I thought you could use some fresh air.” Dakota-Wrangling Plot number 34B: “ Anyways , I’m hungry! Who wants pizza!”
“I’m not a child, y’know, William. You can’t distract me with pizza all the time.” Dakota says, disturbingly solemn. Will and Vyncent stare at him, wall-eyed. There is a tense, tangible silence in the car. “...I do actually want pizza though.”
“Pizza Shack or Father Jonathan’s?” William asks while driving in two lanes at once.
“Didn’t the owner of Father Jonathan’s go crazy?” Vyncent unwraps a Snockers and throws half of it at Dakota.
“I dunno,” Dakota catches the half-a-snockers and tears into it ravenously. “He went on a rant about the Pizza Rapture and Pencil Man or whatever. Pizza Shack is better, anyways!”
William narrowly avoids another car’s bumper and swerves onto Exit Fifteen, where he can see the Pizza Shack’s distinctive domed roof.
Somehow William parks the Winnebago over three spaces at once. It shimmers out of sight the second they step outside the vehicle, and William makes a mental note of where it is in his head, although that has never worked before. He’s holding out hope for this time, maybe.
When they get inside, the waitress gives Vyncent a weird look– maybe because he’s wearing his “knife” shirt.
“I don’t know why people don’t like my knife shirt! This is high fashion in my world!” Vyncent complains once they sit down at their table.
“I think it looks great, Vynce.” It really does; it brings out Vyncent’s suave coolness.
“You really think so, Will?” Vyncent looks deep into William’s dark brown eyes, glowing softly in the light of the Pizza Shack—
“NO.” Dakota waves his hand in front of the both of them. “NUH-UH. You two stop that. Absolutely not. A Pizza Shack is sacred land. ”
“What are you talking about Dakota?” William props up his cheek with one hand and gazes soulfully once more at Vyncent–
“Not in front of my pizza.”
William has no idea what he’s talking about. Before he can argue, however, the waitress returns to take their order. Vyncent tries to ask for rat pizza, unsuccessfully. William gets him and Vyncent a medium cheese, and Dakota orders three large pepperoni.
Four empty pizza boxes later, they are presented with a check and a problem.
“William.” Dakota hisses. “ William! ”
“What, Dakota?” William whispers back.
“We don’t have any money!”
“ I know, Dakota!”
“What are we gonna do, Will?” Vynce asks, perfect dark hair swept artfully behind one pointed ear–
“I got a plan,” Dakota says as he climbs up onto the table. This activates every single fight or flight response in William’s brain.
“TOO LONG HAS BIG PIZZA KEPT THE WORKING MAN DOWN–”
Every eye in the restaurant goes to their table. William first goes invisible, then intangible, gets one leg stuck in the floor, and falls all the way into the Pizza Shack’s basement.
When he finally recovers from the embarrassment enough to stop falling through every stair back up, half of the workers are unionizing and someone has called the cops.
A uniformed officer has cuffs around one of Vyncent’s hands. The indignant cop is trying to inform Vynce of his rights, which Will isn’t actually sure he has, since he doesn’t exist in this world. Dakota is gesturing wildly like he’s about to enact some serious criminal justice reform, starting with the cop’s face.
A choir of disgruntled employees have made picket signs. One of them is humming an old union song. Would you have mansions of gold in the sky, and live in a half-a-way shack? Would you have wings for heaven to fly, and starve here with rags on your back?
The words of the song bounce down the “Bad Thoughts Plinko” game that runs constantly in the back of William’s head, and lands somewhere in the “Ashe” category.
William remembers the chalk-white feathers burning Ashe’s back–
Would you have wings–
and the distorted, wrong smile the Trickster wore. The shudder-jerk motions of a friend becoming a demon’s puppet.
for heaven to fly?
There are a thousand pretty words that could express how he feels and a thousand ugly words more, but in the end it’s simple: Man, he fucking misses Ashe.
If you’ve had enough of the blood of the lamb, then join in the grand Industrial band, the worker sings under her breath. She is out of tune. The warm lights of the Pizza Shack illuminate the perpetually-sticky floors and ripped faux-leather seats. Outside, dark firs dig into crumbled limestone, ancient in their ways.
You know, William is just about done with all things Pizza Shack.
“DAKOTA. VYNCENT. BOTH OF YOU.”
The chaos-stricken restaurant immediately freezes. Hm. Maybe he is his mother’s son.
“GET IN THE FUCKING WINNEBAGO.”
Twenty minutes later finds William apologizing to Vyncent.
“Look man, I really didn’t see you–”
“REALLY? You really didn’t see me. This is the fourth time this week!”
“At some point, Vynce, you gotta stop standing in front of the Winnebago.”
“It is not my fault that you keep running me over! I’m not used to cars!”
“I wasn’t paying attention! I was more focused on the police officers who were chasing us!”
“You mean they were chasing you. I was being chased by the manager! And you guys didn’t help at all!”
“How was I supposed to know the manager had a fucking rocket launcher? You shouldn’t have tried to unionize the workers anyway!”
“That was Dakota! I had nothing to do with that! And those workers weren’t getting dental. That’s exploitation.”
Speaking of the devil, Will can hear the faint sounds of Dakota getting out of the shower in the back. He had gotten positively doused in tomato sauce during their Pizza Shack escape.
“What’re you two on about?” Dakota shouts from the back, now sauce-free, and the argument is over.
“Nothing!”
“Workers’ rights!” Vyncent yells.
“Hell yeah!” Dakota returns from the back, damp but clean. “Have we found a place to chill for the night?”
“Yeah,” Will had managed to lose the police cars in pursuit and had, through the immutable power of GPS, located a free campsite in the middle of a national park. “I found this empty spot in the woods.”
William can see Dakota getting a little antsy at the implication of nature and adds: “AND, I checked, no bears this time of year.”
Dakota visibly relaxes, like a man free of the threat of bears. “Thanks, William. You got a movie for tonight?”
Vyncent begins to rummage in the cupboards under the sink, making clanking noises and strange thumps.
“I haven’t picked one out yet, actually. What d’you think?” What movie could they watch? Something actiony? Maybe something quiet, actually, there has been entirely too much action today.
“Wait!” Dakota shouts. “I’ve got it!” He sticks his hand into the Movie Pile and withdraws a blue box with an orange cat on the front. “The Three Lives of Thomasina! There’s, like, a cat in it, and it’s super sad ‘n shit but then it has a happy ending and it’s great. My aunt made me watch it with her.”
“Found it!” Vyncent pulls out a convoluted pile of cogs and wires. The projector.
“Ooh, nice, you got it!” William drags the couch over to face the wall. He then goes back for the table, where he sets the projector up. Dakota and Vyncent each claim their own side of the couch in practiced motion; Dakota vaulting onto the left side and Vyncent on the right. William snags a blanket from the messy floor and the dance of their nightly ritual ends when William lets himself fall into his spot in the middle of the couch.
Dakota pulls the disc from the box and puts in the projector, which starts with a whirrr-shick. As full of energy as the day was, he can always relax here, in this comforting dark.
Yeah, he can always find comfort here. So why is it that tonight, it feels like there’s something missing?
They never really had the chance to relax like this with Ashe. It was too busy and then it was too late.
Always in a rush. Always nervous or hunted or “between homes.” They could’ve done so much more. He was a Prime Defender . He was the best of them. Here they are, comfortable and warm, and Ashe is trapped inside his own body.
If you’ve had enough of the blood of the lamb–
He hopes Ashe isn’t scared.
“Will?”
That brimming, overflowing space where Ashe would’ve been almost hurts more than the practiced blank absence where he used to be.
“Hey, Will!”
There could have been so much more. He could have picked movies and fought crime and seen this whole beautiful, horrible world outside of his room.
“William!” Dakota bumps his shoulder and squints at him. “You’re thinking too much. I can tell. Stop it.”
“I–”
“Mmmnope. Stop it. No thinking. Shut your brain up.”
Vyncent puts his hand on Will’s shoulder. His palm is burning hot. He looks dangerously sincere. “I can tell, you know. I don’t know what’s wrong, but… it’ll be okay. Trust us.”
– then join in the grand industrial band.
William closes his eyes, leans back into the couch’s cushion, and takes a deep breath in.
In the pale new morning, the Winnebago curves along the light green mountain roads. They’re currently passing through a smaller mountain range that swirls in an s-shape along the ocean’s coast.
Fog rises sweet and thick from the river valleys in the shadow of the mountains, coalescing into great grey clouds that hover underneath the tallest bridges and murmur at the Winnebago’s wheels.
William can hardly see the car in front of him through the dance of the fog. Not that that’s really a problem– other people on the road are a distraction at best and an obstacle at worst. And driving in the fog is good for thinking.
When William had thought about what being a hero would be like, when his powers still stuck not-quite-right in his soul and Harlem Shade darkened his doorstep, he didn’t think it'd be like this. Though he’s definitely not a hero anymore.
Hell, William’s not sure he ever was a hero.
When they leave the shadow of the mountain, the fog burns into the orange-red day. Ahead, the winding road opens up into a valley, spilling green-yellow farmland and dark forests beneath the heights of the ridge.
William left the title Prime Defender in Overlord’s basement. He left it in Ashe’s tumultuous wake, threw it away because it grazed at every half-healed wound.
But here, Dakota looks out at the molten-steel horizon-line, and Vyncent’s smile is sharp and comforting as a blade’s edge, and even if they never were heroes, William thinks he might try.
Someday soon, Ashe’ll be in this Winnebago too, hitting the Dakota Launcher, keeping Vyncent away from the local wildlife, dining and dashing at Pizza Shacks, and they’ll be whole again.
And then, they can all try to be heroes.
Real ones, this time.
The land ahead is gilded, cast in shades of yellow by the heat and light of the rising sun. The world shines, new in its glory.