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When he looked back, trying to trace the path to this strangest of strange places— honestly? It was the same fatal flaw as most villains. Grim had just gotten greedy. He'd always told himself: that won't be me. I won't be the one who slips up, I won't be the one who gets careless and exposes my weakness—
All he'd wanted was someplace to be himself. He'd worked his way up through the ranks of low-level henches and minor league independent rogues, and he'd thought things would be easier once he was settled at Lord Mordant's side. Mordant was one of the most powerful members of the Shadow League, almost untouchable. But upon taking his place at Mordant's right hand, Grim had quickly discovered that Mordant wasn't happy to be almost anything. He was constantly plotting and scheming to advance his rank, to embarrass or betray the other League members like Fatality and Lady Lethal. It was a dangerous game… and as Lord Mordant's sidekick, everyone assumed Grim was in on the plots as well.
It sucked. Some people in the League actually seemed like they were really friends. Some villains even managed to have relationships. But nobody trusted Grim. Why would they, when opening up to him obviously meant revealing their vulnerabilities to Lord Mordant, too?
"Ugh, that sucks, Wil," said Nell, pushing her heart-shaped glasses up her nose. "Can't you just, like, tell them you're not interested in all that corporate gunk?"
Grim scowled, tugged at the strings of his black hoodie, and sunk further into the crushed springs of the green velvet coffeeshop sofa. Outside, the rain was really starting to pour down, but inside the coffeeshop, he was almost too warm. Pretending to be a normie and double-talking about his supervillain career to these normies as if it were an ordinary job... it had used to be sort of fun, but today it was kind of depressing, and he didn't know why. "I mean, that's kind of..."
"The thing is, that's what you would say," Jake said, without looking up from his thick book of sudoku. "If you were trying to lull them into a false sense of security. Basic game theory. Makes less sense to trust..." He put his pen down for a second, drank from his cup of tea, then spent twenty seconds looking for the pen again. Finally Nell took pity on him, reached out and plucked the extra pen from behind his ear, and handed it to him.
"I guess," Grim said. "Most of the time I barely even know what's going on. My stupid boss... He always talks about loyalty, loyalty is super important, but he never tells me anything, you know? And then he gets upset if I like, question him, because he thinks I should just trust him implicitly..." Upset was an understatement, really. Mordant had a vicious temper, and would freeze Grim out at the slightest hint that he was being questioned in any way. At this point it was as predictable as clockwork. Grim would hesitantly bring up some problem with Mordant's latest scheme, and the next time they were around any other villain, Mordant would snap at him, contradict him, undercut him and generally make him look like an idiot. "At this point I just try to keep my mouth shut and just do my job," he finished up, looking down into his empty latte cup at the dregs of foam that were left. He knew he was being manipulated, but that didn't make it any less frustrating. All he could do at this point was hang on to the hope that the other League members knew how Mordant worked, that they didn't actually believe his little snipes and jabs. That someday if— well, if the worst happened— there might be some other villain who wouldn't think he was a complete waste of space and would want to take him on as a sidekick, or even a leader of henches. He gritted his teeth and tried not to sigh audibly.
Leaning forward, making the springs of the couch creak, Nell patted Grim on the knee, her neon bracelets and bright floral nail art standing out in sharp contrast to Grim's all-black hoodie, jeans and boots. God, all of Brendan's friends were so touchy-feely. Grim didn't know if he hated it or loved it.
"You know there are other jobs, right?" Nell said, but kindly.
"Complaining about jobs is just what people do, right?" Grim said, trying not to sound too sharp. "You're a youtuber. You whisper about combing people's hair. You don't have to deal with— office politics."
"There are things about every job that suck, though..." Nell frowned, and Grim's stomach flipped. He really didn't want to fight with Brendan's friends. Why couldn't he just keep his mouth shut?
"I'm not saying it's not a real job!" Grim said. He really didn't want to argue about it; there was no point hurting Nell's feelings over some comparison to a career that he didn't even have, that wasn't even real. "I'm not saying it's not a real job. I respect the hustle! But like... for most people, yeah, they hate their jobs, and I hate mine! If I didn't, you wouldn't have to pay me to do it. That's normal, right?"
"I mean..." Nell said, cocking her head. "I feel like that's not right..." She looked over at Jake, who blinked.
"I mean, I'm in academia, I've never had a real real job, so I might not be the best person to ask," he said with a shrug. "I could tell you some real horror stories about grad school advisors, though."
"Oh no, what's wrong?" Nell said, startled.
"Nothing, Dr. Lewis is great!" Jake said, then pushed his own glasses up his nose thoughtfully. "But, you know, other people have issues, it's pretty rampant honestly. There's no accountability, you know? Absolute power yadda ya."
"Oh yeah, that's how it is with my boss," Grim said. "He's— he basically founded the company, so. It would be a real hassle if they ever wanted to get rid of him."
"But it's possible?" Nell said.
Grim sighed. "Maybe..."
And maybe that thin sliver of cold hope should've been enough for him to live on. Maybe if Grim were a real villain, deep in his heart, he could've blocked out every other need, every other hope, and just waited patiently for Mordant to overplay his hand and get killed. Or maybe the reason Grim's days and nights felt so empty was that he wasn't spending hours grinding away on his own plots and schemes— setting up Mordant to fail, or even to get killed. Rumor had it that Mordant himself was responsible for the disappearance of his own mentor, Sister Skull. When you looked at it like that, maybe it made sense that he didn't trust Grim with his secrets.
"But I don't really want his job either," Grim admitted, glancing over his shoulder towards the coffeeshop's front door as a few patrons left in a shuffle of coats and umbrellas. Nell nodded understandingly.
The truth was: most villains weren't so bad. You had to play by the heroes' rules in order to be a hero, and there was no middle ground. If you weren't a hero, you were a villain. If you didn't want to fly into space every couple of years and fight in some alien war, trusting some space cop to tell you whose planet to protect, whose empire to topple, whose space fleet to explode? Villain. If you actually wanted to do something about some of the imperial forces being brought to bear here on Earth? Villain. So... Grim would rather be a villain any day. He just didn't want to be Mordant's kind of villain.
Another couple of people left the coffeeshop, one girl shrieking as a gust of wind blew a slap of rain in through the door before she finished buttoning her coat. Grim twisted around again, then realized he was being obvious and stopped.
"Where is Brendan?" Jake said absent-mindedly, not even looking up from his sudoku.
"Maisie had a thing," Nell explained. "Some bigger studio space opened up and she needed help moving, like, today. He should be back before closing though."
"Good luck for Maisie," Jake said, pencil moving swiftly across the page.
"Yeah, it's super exciting," Nell said. "Wil, you're coming to her big show next week, right? Or, not a show, what does she call it, Jake?"
"A Happening," Jake said, so dryly that Grim couldn't tell if he was rolling his eyes, or sincerely chiding Nell for not remembering.
"Oh, yeah, a Happening. Well, are you?" Nell tapped her nails expectantly, blinking at Grim from behind her big heart-shaped glasses.
"I mean it's tough, working graveyard..." Grim shuffled his boots.
"Oh," Nell said, looking honestly disappointed. "Well, I hope you can!" Like she really, sincerely cared if he showed up or not. How had this even happened? How was this his life, hanging out in a neighborhood coffee shop with these normies?
He barely remembered what he'd been thinking at the time. He'd been pissed at Mordant, left out of yet another intricate scheme until the day that Mordant had attacked Crimson Terror's lair and drained half his power. And Grim, of course, had no idea what was happening until Terror's sidekick Red Renegade had literally appeared out of nowhere in the middle of a midnight bank robbery Grim had been planning for weeks, screaming at him about betrayal and treachery, and stabbed him in the back with her energy beams. He could still feel the shock of it, like being stabbed through with a white-hot blade. He'd been forced to abandon the robbery and fight her. Grim was pretty sure that if the Golden Knights hadn't shown up and driven them both away— he might have had to kill her, or else she'd have killed him.
And the silliest part was— he already had a secret identity, of course. An apartment rented in his name that he barely ever slept at, a couple of social media accounts that auto-posted generic status updates now and then; everything very convincing, set up by a few technologically inclined henches. Bills got paid online, lights went on and off at the right time, video games played themselves for a few hours each night. He even had a job; there was a laptop on the desk and every now and then if he glanced at it, some spreadsheets were being automatically updated, or downloaded, or whatever you did with a spreadsheet. He paid taxes. But it was all just on paper, mostly. Really the only point of having a secret identity was to keep reporters and power-hunters off your back. You couldn't be an aspiring athlete or an up and coming under-thirty science whiz and then go completely off the grid, vanishing from public view at the exact same time as a new hero or villain appeared on the scene. More than a few super-powered individuals had been tracked down and exposed that way.
Having a secret identity, as it turned out, wasn't the same as having a life.
He'd told himself it was just… a precaution. A bolthole. Just in case. It was always possible that some power-hunter would manage to track him down, or that Mordant would get paranoid and turn his treachery on Grim, and he'd need a hideout that Mordant didn't know about. It was honestly even more possible that Mordant would sell him out; he'd expose Grim's actual secret identity in a second if doing so served one of his intricate plans.
So it was just common sense to set up a second false identity. It wasn't hard to snag a wrapped stack of hundred-dollar bills for himself at the next bank robbery. It was even easier to acquire a fake birth certificate and fake IDs. The henches had the process almost completely automated, and Grim just slipped into the forgers' office after hours and made them himself.
His new fake apartment definitely wasn't as nice as his actual fake apartment, but it wasn't like he really spent a lot of time there. Not at the start, anyway. He mostly just hung around the neighborhood. It was nice to be able to just… get a coffee, sit outside on the street and drink it. He actually got to know some people by sight, just to say hi to; local shop owners, the librarian who worked closing shifts. The people who set up stands at the farmers' market every Saturday, selling burritos and pottery, homemade jewelry and wildflower honey. He'd even picked up skateboarding again, in the little skate park across from the coffeeshop.
That was how he'd met Brendan. He was— okay, he'd been scowling, trying his best to remember how the fuck you did an ollie without falling on your ass. He had superpowers, for crying out loud! These beginner tricks should have been easy. But he was slowly realizing, embarrassingly, that maybe being able to pull eldritch shadow powers from another dimension just didn't do much to help with his unpowered human state.
"Hey!" someone yelled from the edge of the parking lot, and Grim looked up, startled, somehow knowing instantly that the shout had been meant for him. His heart, already hammering with effort, did an embarrassing skip in his chest as he recognized the cute barista from his usual coffee shop, the one with the short blond beard, hair just a shade lighter brushed untidily back from his face. He had such deep, amused, oddly tender brown eyes, and he was smiling so brightly it seemed impossible to not return it. Even Grim's mouth had twitched, slightly.
Cute coffeeshop guy was clearly bringing extra supplies into the shop; he was carrying two small plastic crates of individually packaged pastries and cookies, one tucked securely under each arm. His muscles stood out clearly beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his flannel shirt, but overall, he was making the weight look stupidly easy. Grim stared at him, taken aback; had he skated too close to some little kids or something, or was there some other reason he was getting yelled at? But the cute coffeeshop guy just grinned, shifting slightly as he readjusted his grip on one of the crates, and continued, eyes narrow with delight, "Do a kickflip!"
Well. Now Grim fucking had to do a kickflip, didn't he?
Just one smile, one laughing command, no secret scheming motivation hidden under layers of lies. Just honest appreciation and joy... and somehow he'd ended up here.
"Hey, Wil!" Brendan said, a large hand landing on his shoulder, and Grim sat up so fast the couch creaked loudly. Nell laughed, but she wasn't mocking him, and her eyes were warm as she watched the two of them. Like she actually thought Grim could be good for her best friend.
"Hi," Grim said, tipping his head back, pushing a floppy lock of black hair out of his eyes.
"You don't have to work tonight?" Brendan said, and smiled more widely when Grim nodded. "Great— why don't you head up, I'll be up in a second." He kissed Grim upside-down, half-missing his mouth, really just a friendly brush of his beard. There was no reason why Grim should be blushing like a tomato when he pulled back.
He'd waited, that day, until later. He'd felt this same heart pounding strangeness. What the hell. It was just some normie. No reason to be nervous. Grim didn't get nervous. He'd planned bank robberies that didn't make him feel like this—
He'd pushed open the door of the coffeeshop, wishing he'd worn something a little nicer than jeans shredded at the knees and a faded old black t-shirt with the logo of some metal band he'd never even heard of.
The blond guy was behind the counter, and when he looked up and beamed, Grim's mouth went dry. He glanced around the sprawling, cozy coffeeshop, lined with bookshelves and the works of local artists. It was barely a third full, this early, just a few morning workers tucked into small niches or almost disappearing into overstuffed old-fashioned velvet couches.
He thought about it— being the kind of guy who could walk up to the counter and say 'With a smile like that you ought to own Starbucks, not work the early shift here' or— was that stupid? 'Who needs sugar with you around?' God, he could just die.
"Can I just get a plain black coffee?" he said, cringing inside at how sharp he sounded. He really needed to talk to normies more, not just henches and other villains. He wasn't used to having regular conversations.
"Yeah, you look like a plain black coffee," said the cute blond guy, teasing, and Grim narrowed his eyes. Okay, it was completely true, but he still wasn't sure how to take it. "I mean, I like coffee... obviously," the cute blond guy added with a laugh. Grim laughed too, a little after the fact, and watched as the blond guy quickly filled a large takeout cup, twisting the lid on with wide, strong hands. Then he added a biscotti to a little paper bag and pushed it across the counter towards him, along with the coffee. "On the house."
"Oh," Grim said, his wallet already in his hand. "Thanks."
"My name's Brendan," said Brendan, his hand still resting on the paper bag with the biscotti in it.
"I'm Wil," Grim said. He felt the strangest urge to say his real name, and suppressed it. When he reached for the biscotti, his hand brushed Brendan's, and a spark of static electricity passed between them. They both jumped, their eyes meeting, and Brendan pressed a hand to his chest in surprise.
"Destiny," Brendan had said, and at the time, Grim had just laughed.
Well, he wasn't laughing now.
Just six short months later... he was in so, so far over his head...
It was late, and very quiet. Grim shifted carefully, not wanting to wake his sleeping bedmate. The room was dim, blue-tinted light gleaming in through the cheap curtains and falling over the small, neat bedroom.
Of course even in Grim's unpowered human form, the room wasn't really that dark at all. And he really didn't need to sleep, certainly not as much as a normie. He could pretend, and sometimes it was nice to slip into an easy, relaxed trance, letting his breathing slow, letting his mind wander. You couldn't work day and night, no matter what Mordant said about mortal weaknesses. So sometimes he slept next to Brendan; sometimes he woke to Brendan puttering around in his truly understocked kitchen doing his best to make breakfast or coffee with whatever random groceries Grim had stashed there at the last minute. But other nights— especially nights like this— he liked to stay awake and watch Brendan sleep.
He was just so damned beautiful, it wasn't even fair. Like every dumb, sweaty, cheerful jock Grim had been stupid enough to crush on back in high school, except even better because Brendan actually liked him. Made homemade biscotti for him and just cuddled up to him when he was being sullen, listened to him talk like he actually thought Grim had interesting things to say—
It couldn't last, of course. Brendan was pretty respectful of Grim's privacy, and Grim had done his best to paper over the holes in his backstory with reasonable sounding excuses. He didn't have a lot of friends because he was an introvert and he worked nights, which was more or less true, from a certain point of view; he didn't talk to his family because they didn't approve of his 'lifestyle choices,' which was also more or less true. But even someone as patient and considerate as Brendan would start asking questions soon, questions Grim couldn't answer, like "why don't we just move in together" or "do you really want to be a graveyard security guard your whole life" or "why do you keep flaking out on plans and ghosting me without notice?" Not that he'd actually had to do that, yet— he'd been lucky as hell, up until now. But all too soon he'd get a text or an alert on his work phone and he'd have to just disappear from whatever they were doing— Brendan's birthday dinner or his grandmother's funeral or whatever kinds of things normies did. And Brendan wouldn't put up with that. He deserved better, and he wasn't a doormat; he wouldn't let Grim treat him like that. It was one of the things— it was one of the things Grim really loved about him, honestly. One of the things he was going to miss the most, that core of strength and determination that Brendan brought to even the smallest, silliest things in life.
And a simple, normal breakup was the best option, even if it would leave Grim with a broken, empty heart. He tried not to think about what would happen if Lord Mordant found out that he had— he didn't even know how Mordant would describe it. A side piece? A stupid fling? He didn't think Mordant would— he didn't think that Mordant would actually harm Brendan, he wouldn't kill him. Grim told himself that. He might scare him off, though. Send some henches to push him around, keep him silent. Grim could almost picture it happening. Mordant always said you couldn't be afraid to play rough if you needed to.
Grim sighed, brushing his hand over Brendan's shoulder, the bare skin almost grey in the dim light of the bedroom. And then, as if he'd summoned it by thinking about it, his watch beeped. Just once, then again twice, and Grim sat up straight, hanging on to his control tightly. It was almost instinctive to switch into his Grim form when he heard the watch beeping, but he couldn't do that here, next to Brendan. He grabbed his watch off the nightstand and slid off the bed, fist clenched in apprehension, but Brendan didn't wake.
Shutting himself into the small, cluttered bathroom of his apartment, he checked the message. His blood went cold. An all-League meeting was shocking enough— there hadn't been a meeting of the entire Shadow League for years. Grim had never actually been to one. Secondly, the invites to the meeting were supposed to go out in seniority order, which meant he should've been alerted almost immediately. But instead the message had been forwarded instead of sent directly to his watch. It should've come from Lady Lethal, but he didn't have the original message. He checked helplessly again, stupidly, as though he could've missed it somehow. But no. All he had was a copy of the message, forwarded from Red Renegade, who had added a little smiley face at the top— she'd intercepted the original message somehow, and sent this one on instead. Already knowing that he was totally fucked, Grim checked the header of the original message. Sent twenty minutes ago. Fuck.
Creeping back into the bedroom, he gently, carefully slid open the narrow kitchen window that looked out over the alley. He held his breath for a moment, listening, but Brendan was still sleeping peacefully. If he woke up before Grim got back… well, he would have to make up some kind of excuse.
He carefully crouched on the open windowsill, watching as a taxi appeared around the corner and pulled onto the street. Its twilight shadow was clear, trailing behind it on the street, and Grim stretched out a hand toward it.
Drawing on the power inside him, Grim triggered his transformation as he leapt from the window. He didn't know what it looked like from the outside. No one else had ever seen it, so he'd never been able to ask. His vision dimmed for a heart-stopping second, swirls of purple-black shadow energy curling and encompassing his field of vision. A sharp prickle, almost painful, swept over every inch of his skin, banishing all warmth. When the darkness cleared, he was fully in his shadow form. He rode in the taxi's shadow for a while, then got itchy and impatient and switched into the shadows of a flock of birds winging towards the far side of town. When he was close enough to transport without losing too much shadow energy, he slipped from shadow-form into Grim-form, dimension-shifting as he fell through the deepening twilight.
Landing in the bleak stone foyer of the Lair, Grim stretched out his bone-white, wiry arms, now intricately marked with occult shadow symbols. The same angular runic symbols decorated his face, triangles outlining his eyes and long jagged black lines framing the sides of his skeletally thin face. He didn't have to look into a mirror to see that his eyes and hair had also changed, his eyes fading to a pale yellow-white and his hair losing all hints of color, flattened into a deep black.
The transformation also shifted his clothing into Grim's customary costume: heavy black boots, tight black pants that resembled alligator leather, and a tight high-collared black vest that left his arms free. He rubbed his sweaty hands down his sides and tried to look aloof, untouchable, uncaring. He was in trouble, but if he could just get through this without looking weak, Mordant might not be too angry.
Walking quickly, but not too quickly, Grim pushed open the oversized, heavy doors to the council room and stepped into the Lair's meeting room, a chill running down his spine as he realized every other member of the League was already there, already seated. Some ignored his late entry, pointedly, while others sneered. Some looked to Mordant, sitting up near the head of the table, the only villain who didn't have a sidekick standing patiently behind his chair. Just an empty space where Grim should have been.
Grim swallowed as he headed for his allotted space. He tried to look unconcerned. If you didn't know Mordant like his sidekick did, you might have thought he looked calm. But Grim knew his mentor, knew his temper, and knew he was going to be in for it later. It wouldn't do any good to protest that Red Renegade hadn't passed the word about the urgent meeting the way she was supposed to. It wouldn't matter that she was clearly trying to sabotage Grim and make him look bad in front of the League. Excuses were for weaklings.
"Shall we continue?" Fatality said from the head of the table. She didn't have to speak loudly to draw attention; the glow of her power was strong. Behind her, Lady Lethal smirked openly at Grim. "Mordant, as your dependable young man has finally arrived, I'd like you to watch the harbor. Quickfire, circulate, and report in as soon as you hear or see anything. You all have your assignments, then. Everyone's clear?" She didn't wait for questions. "Go!"
Quickfire and their sidekick Whiplash vanished instantly, the cold air in the Lair whirling behind them. Other villain and sidekick pairs began to make their way back towards the circular twisting stairs that led back up to the Lair's aboveground entrance.
Pushing his chair back sharply, Mordant reached without looking and gripped Grim's wrist. He barely had time to prepare himself before they teleported directly out of the Lair. Grim flinched as the chill of Mordant's power clutched him, then breathed out, glancing around the shadowed alley where they'd landed. The teleportation had been a flashy waste of power, an arrogant display, and Grim knew he'd be blamed for it if Mordant needed that power, later tonight. Appearance was everything for Mordant.
"Let me guess. Sleeping like some mortal again, wasting your time on dreams?" Mordant said, releasing Grim' wrist as if he were too disgusting to touch. "I expected it, of course. I should have known you'd do your absolute damned best to make yourself look like a fool, and to make me look the greater fool for tolerating your failure. Tonight of all nights!"
Grim didn't even bother to protest that if Mordant expected him to miss the meeting, he could've alerted Grim as soon as he got the message. "I wasn't asleep," he said, which wasn't a lie. Call him crazy but even if he was getting away with having a second secret identity, he was still wary enough not to directly lie to Mordant's face. "Red Renegade is still salty about that thing at the bank."
"And?" Mordant turned and stared him down, pale sparks gleaming from the depths of the dark, bottomless holes in his gleaming ebony mask.
"And," Grim said, squaring his shoulders, clearing his throat. "And I'll make her pay for it," he said. "Obviously. She'll learn not to toy with me."
The words hung in the air between them. They sounded weak as hell to Grim, but Mordant finally grunted and turned away. Grim kept his shoulders straight and didn't relax. Not yet. He'd learned that lesson all too well.
"So what's going on? Why the all League meeting, what are we all looking for?" he said, although he had a creeping suspicion that he already knew the truth. Only one thing could pull everyone in the League together like this.
A superhero had gone rogue.
The last time a hero had really snapped, had gone completely off the rails and had to be put down, Grim had only been a child. Like every other resident of the city, he could remember exactly where and when he'd been on that awful day. That day everything had changed, for heroes and villains alike. Before Goldheart, sure, a few heroes had gone rogue now and then, but usually it had been pretty small-scale— killing an enemy or two, someone who they'd felt had personally wronged them, then turning on the heroes or stupidly brave government enforcers who came for them to take them down. Turning it into a battle, instead of going quietly, and not caring about the collateral damage; that's what people usually meant when they said a hero had snapped.
Goldheart's rampage had been… different. If it'd been targeted at anyone specific, there was no way to tell, now; some days it felt like a quarter of the city had been flattened when Goldheart went rogue. There were memorials everywhere, dotting the city here and there; an apartment building, a school, an office, flattened in the fight. And it was all the more shocking because he'd been one of the oldschool heroes, one of the originals. Goldheart had been a founding member of the Shields, way back when they'd been called the Shield-Brothers.
The fight to take down Goldheart had gone on for two hours, maybe, but the people who'd lived through it afterwards felt like they'd lived through a war. Dozens of superpowered beings had worked together to stop him— and it hadn't been the heroes of the city who stepped up to do the job. They'd been slow to join the fight, claiming all kinds of excuses after the fact; that they believed Goldheart was being impersonated or mind-controlled, that they were trying to find the "real" villain behind his attack on the city. And they hadn't been there at the end, either; none of them had stepped up to do the real dirty work. It had been villains like Lord Mordant and Fatality, Dream Eater and Sister Skull. They hadn't even been members of League back then, just a bunch of squabbling warlords with their own domains. Fatality had founded the League afterwards, in the ashes of the city. In the rubble of Goldheart's rampage.
Say what you would about the League, but they had been formed for a single purpose. Not to take over the goddamn world, not to eliminate half of humanity for ecofascist reasons, not to cleanse Earth of sorcery or alien intruders or any of the other reasons people thought the League existed. Maybe there were individual members of the League who had their personal little crusades, but as a group? The League existed to take down rogue heroes, because the heroes had proven they couldn't be trusted to do it. Simple as that.
To this day there were members of the Shields who blamed Goldheart's death on the League, who claimed it had been some villain's trick or some evil influence that made him go rogue. That he could've been saved if the Shields had been given more of a chance to get through to him.
Of course that was bullshit, and it was one reason Grim had never aspired to be a hero. They claimed to care about protecting people, talked a lot of big talk about self sacrifice... but when it came down to it, they only wanted to protect themselves. At least villains were honest about it.
"We're going to kill a hero tonight," Mordant said, the hinged jaw of his helm cracking audibly into a hungry smile.
Grim swallowed hard. "Which one?"
"Artemis Lightbringer," Mordant said. "Our reports are that she killed half the keepers at the city zoo before Brightstar and Golden Bee drove her off… and transformed the rest into animals." He laughed, a low rattling cackle, and Grim breathed in, trying to settle himself. If it had been a tank or a fighter, that wouldn't have been so bad. Grim might even have been expected to hang back and let other trained fighters like Red Renegade take the lead and earn their stripes. But Artemis' powers came from sorcery, the same source of power that Mordant and Grim drew from. Sorcerous heroes were always hard to fight, because they held back so much. If you pushed them too hard they could lash out with some wildly unpredictable move you'd never seen before.
"Should we be at the harbor?" Grim could already think of three or four different places Artemis was more likely to be. If they ended up being needed on the front lines— wouldn't it be better to beg Fatality's forgiveness than her permission? He wasn't sure Mordant would see it that way, but if lives were at stake, could he really just knuckle under and follow orders?
Luckily Mordant didn't force him to make the hard choice. "She'll have her eyes out for us," Mordant said. "So I'll patrol the harbor. I want you downtown. Call me in when you spot Artemis."
"Yes, Lord Mordant." Grim said, and turned to go, flickering into shadow form. Somewhere along the way, he glanced up as a golden streak flashed across the evening sky, heading the same direction as he was. Well. Looked like at least some of the heroes had been alerted, and were on the case. Not that he really expected them to be that much help in fighting their former friend. Honestly, Grim only hoped they wouldn't get in the way.
A golden trail of power streaking behind him, Lucky Starr landed in front of the city courthouse, between the tall iron-wrought gates and the stone fountain centered in the courtyard. His partners Charm and Oddity hurried to his side. Charm threw herself into his arms, and he hugged her instinctively, then pulled back, trying to look into her eyes. She was relatively experienced, with several years of hero work under her belt… but she was shaking in his arms, and rubbed her white-gloved hand over her face before she would look at him.
"Charm? What's wrong?" He looked over her shoulder at Oddity, tall and slim, half-out of reality. Oddity looked away intently at something Lucky couldn't see.
"It's Artemis," Charm said, her voice wobbling. "They say— they say she's killed people— and no one can find Silver Arrow—"
"Shit," Lucky said, then set his jaw and tried not to look as terrified as he felt. "All right. You know what we have to do, then."
Oddity made a noise in protest. "Lucky! This is Artemis we're talking about!"
"If you two can't handle it, go home," Lucky said. Charm stared at him, shocked. "I'm not kidding. I wouldn't blame you for sitting this one out." He knew they both liked Artemis; well, so did Lucky. Back when Lucky had first become a hero, she'd always been kind to him when other heroes hadn't been so welcoming. He'd always remember her fondly, no matter what happened... but that didn't change what they might have to do.
"You don't think we'll really have to…" Charm said. This was the trouble with sidekicks her age. They were too young to remember a time before Goldheart. Too young to fully take in everything that had been lost. Oddity hung back, silent, and looked at Lucky over the top of her head. He remembered.
"I think we'll have to," he said bleakly. "And frankly, we should. It's our job. Villains take each other out all the time when they cross the line. It's time we heroes started cleaning up after ourselves, too."
He closed his eyes and started turning, pointing in random directions as he turned. Charm helped, taking him by the shoulders and pushing so that he spun faster, losing track of where he was facing. Yes, it looked stupid, yes, other heroes had pointed it out to him multiple times. But Lucky Starr didn't control his own powers, and the more he tried, the less control he had. Conversely, the less he thought anything through, the better it tended to work out in the long run. He just needed to trust that it would be fine. That he'd end up where he needed to be, wherever that was. He took a breath and stopped, pointing somewhere off to his left, and opened his eyes.
"What's in that direction?" he muttered.
"The art museum," Charm said suddenly, and flickered into twinkling lights, flashing forward like a tiny glittering comet.
"Wait!" Lucky snapped, but Charm had always been headstrong, not wanting to hang back and let Lucky's powers take care of things for both of them. He shifted into his own golden-dimensional form and shot after her like a shimmering beam of light. Oddity followed, an almost-invisible prismatic beam, bending and cracking through empty space. If they were all lucky, then tonight wouldn't be the night that Charm would learn a harsh lesson about her tendency to rush in.
The art museum's tall, narrow windows were dark. Hopefully that meant everyone was gone. Lucky blinked back into physical form in the middle of the broad marbled stone steps that led up to the front doors, closed his eyes, and listened. He could sense Charm and Oddity moving around nearby, circling the building in their other-dimensional forms. Good; as long as Charm stayed shifted into other-dimensional energy she couldn't really be harmed, maybe not even by a sorceress gone rogue—
Lucky froze as a dark shadow drew over him, just a flash of deeper darkness in the night. He drew back instinctively, ducking low so that the attack from above landed in front of him instead of smashing into his unguarded back. The attacking shape hit the ground clumsily, rolled and skidded along the steps, crashing into the broad stone balustrade at the side. The echo of the impact thundered against the stone and brick, and Lucky dropped into a crouch, bracing himself.
The attacker hissed, her mouth opening just a little too wide, her teeth just a little too white and sharp. Lucky recognized her, but just barely. Artemis had always been so quiet and unassuming, hanging back and sniping from a distance with her spells, calling up pale elfin familiars made of moonlight to fight on her behalf. Now she was eyeing him like some great predator, crouching forward, resting her weight on the knuckles of one hand, half-transformed into a beastlike shape with bony white wings.
"You're in my way," Artemis hissed.
"Artemis," Lucky said, bracing himself. "Please, don't do this. Please. We can talk—" Maybe it wasn't the most eloquent comeback, but what else was there? Whatever she wanted from the museum, some ancient artifact with eldritch powers or just to tear it to the ground and dance in the ashes, he couldn't let her do it.
She hissed wildly, a hideous bestial noise, flapped her wings once and slammed upwards into the sky, the blowback almost knocking Lucky off his feet. It didn't look as though she were going too far. He pushed himself up and raced towards the sculpture garden set near the museum, not bothering to waste time and energy in transforming.
He rounded the corner and stopped. The statues in the stone garden were lit by small lights set into the ground; some impact had cracked the marbled stone near the center of the space, and the lights were flickering on and off, some quickly and some slowly, throwing shadows everywhere. It almost seemed as though some of the statues were moving— and then Lucky took a few steps forward almost at random and saw that they were. Charm was perched on the side of the museum, boots wedged onto a narrow ledge above a window, and a skeletal bronze horse reared onto its back legs, its hooves clattering and smashing the glass as it attempted to bite at her. He couldn't see Oddity anywhere, and his heart sank. Oddity was only half-connected to reality on a good day; if today was a bad day then he might be off examining the starlight on the waves for the next few hours. Lucky might have to do this on his own.
Charm kicked at the horse, then raised an arm to shield her head as Artemis dove at her from above. She darted in to strike with her bony white claws, gouging deep strikes into the marble wall as Charm dodged, then lifted herself out of range with her wings.
Charm was clearly doing her best to focus and draw her power into herself, but even an experienced hero would've had trouble concentrating, and Charm couldn't help interrupting herself to shriek as Artemis lunged, cackling, again and again.
Lucky took a breath, and closed his eyes.
Grim slipped through the city in his shadow-form, following the gold streak. He lost track of it for a moment and stuck to just following the direction he'd seen it heading in last. Nothing, just empty streets, a car here and there. He cursed and slipped back into human form, shifting into another dimension for a moment to pull on the security guard uniform that he'd bought so that he could keep it in his closet, in case Brendan ever came over to his place. It might come in useful if he ran into any heroes.
It was a cold evening, and the city was still and quiet, most people already indoors and off the streets. Grim's dark tousled hair was pushed into his eyes by gusts of chilly wind blowing in off the river. The dim purple light of an overcast sunset was no hindrance to him; he could see as clearly as daylight.
Lights flickered off as Grim watched, offices and shops closing down. He didn't hear screams, or sirens, or anything that would lead him towards his quarry. He finally hissed in frustration and turned off in a random direction— then flinched and flattened himself back against the wall of a dark alley as two gleaming streaks of light went past him, almost close enough to reach out and touch. He followed at a jog, not transforming back yet; luckily, they weren't going too far.
Arriving at the art museum, he hung back and watched as Lucky Starr and Charm faced off with Artemis in the sculpture garden. Whoever had reported that Artemis had gone rogue was right; she brought the statues to life with a wave of her clawed hand, then cackled wildly as she joined them in attacking that pathetic little silver-haired heroine.
He watched Lucky Starr skeptically. All that golden armor... He was literally covered head to toe in other-dimensional power and all he ever seemed to do with it was be in the right place at the right time and not actually have to do anything. Well, it seemed as though he wasn't about to watch his sidekick get eaten by a weird horse, anyway. Grim watched, one eyebrow raised, as Lucky turned almost casually, lifted a thick, blocky stone bench from the ground and flung it towards Artemis. It smashed into her with a shuddering impact, carrying her straight through the window behind her and into the museum. The statues she'd brought to life were still capering and kicking.
Grim took the opportunity to slip towards the museum as Lucky Starr headed for his partner, carefully scooping her up from where she'd fallen. He helped her sit up, then drew back, placing himself protectively in front of her as he scanned the area for any immediate threat.
Slowly, Grim circled back around the museum until he spotted a vent. Shifting into shadow-form he moved into it, circling around until he spotted a crack that looked like it led into a larger room. Emerging into the shadows of the museum's interior, he let his shadow-self fade slightly, until he was sure that he couldn't be spotted.
Artemis was easy to track down; she was just standing there in the large entryway just past the lobby. To either side there were darkened galleries behind closed doors, and in front of her great staircases led up and down to different levels. From a higher landing the moon shone in through tall leaded-glass windows. Artemis stood still, not even turning her head; she'd have looked like a statue if her wings weren't faintly moving, lifting and settling in just the minutest fraction as she breathed.
Grim really would have thought that other villains would have shown up by now. Hadn't Artemis caused enough of a commotion out there? Normally he'd use a fragment of his shadow power and send it flying towards Mordant waiting at the harbor, but there were two problems with that; first, Artemis would probably notice, and she might even be able to block his sending. Second, he had a feeling that the instant she noticed him, he was going to need every fragment of his power that he could possibly collect. He could shift back into human form and send an alert to Mordant and the other villains using the encrypted messaging on his watch, but that was a risk too. You never dimensional-shifted in front of someone else; it was a moment of pure vulnerability, and If Artemis got her hands on him in that moment and stopped him from shifting… He might actually die before anyone could show up to save him.
He was stalling, he realized. There was no time to think about it any further; whatever was going to happen, it had to happen here, in an enclosed space away from civilians. And it had to happen now. In his shadow form he drifted back towards the left-hand gallery, slipping through a crack between the glass panes of the door. Flattening himself against the wall to the side, hopefully out of view and out of the range of Artemis' occult perception, Grim shifted back into human form, panic sweeping over him as he did so. He gritted his teeth against it, lifted his wrist and tapped out a hurried message with shaking hands.
He didn't hear anything from the entryway outside, but the thick glass windows exploded inward just as he sent the message— at least, Grim hoped he'd sent it. Before he could shift away or change form Artemis had her hands on him, an unearthly chill sinking into his skin as she dug her claws into his shoulders and back.
"Well, well. What have we here? Trying to be a hero?" she said, her tone sugar-sweet and her teeth needle-sharp.
"What, like you?" Grim said. He could have headbutted her or tried to kick her legs out from under her, but that might only have worked in his Grim form. As a human? There was no point, he might as well try to punch a brick wall. Better to face her down with some dignity. "Fuck you—" He grunted as she reared back, pulling him away from the wall and then slamming him back against it, hard. He gasped for air as the wind was knocked out of him, his ears ringing so loudly he could barely hear her wild cackling. If Mordant and the others didn't get here soon—
"Like me," she said, "oh yes, like me..." She slid her hand to his chest, and he choked again as the chill spread through him, like frost crackling through his muscles and the marrow of his bones turning to ice. It felt like she was pulling life out of him, almost like the shift when he moved to shadow-form but without the control. Horror shuddered through his body at the thought of not being able to change back into either form— being stuck as a shadow wisp forever— and despite his earlier determination he started to struggle wildly, hopelessly.
"Let him go!" someone shouted, sounding very distant, and bright, intense lights flashed, star-bright, all around Grim. Artemis screamed into his face and released him, her wings curling over her face and body to protect her from the new assault, just as Charm popped into existence above her, curled into a ball and dropping ten feet to land on Artemis' back with a sound like an anvil hitting a sack of potatoes. The cold and pain lessened as Artemis rolled away, retreating. Charm placed herself between the two of them, glancing back over her shoulder at Grim with concern. "You all right?"
He stared back, then realized she probably assumed that he worked here. "Sure," he said roughly, "Fine."
"Oh, my God. Charm, get him out of here!" Lucky Starr ordered, stepping past Grim, almost close enough that Grim could have reached out and touched him.
"I'm not leaving you!" Charm shouted back, then braced herself as Artemis shook off the hit and straightened up. Hissing at Lucky, she twisted suddenly, turning her back on him and dived at Charm, wrapping her up in her wings before Charm could teleport away. Grim crouched, sliding down the wall and pulling his arm into his lap, trying to unobtrusively check his watch. Had his message to Mordant gone through? But the screen was fully cracked, shattered into a thousand pieces; there was no way to tell.
"Artemis, this is your last warning!" Lucky shouted. "Stop!"
Idiot— Grim almost said it aloud. Whatever had gone wrong with her, it wasn't going to be fixed by calm discussion.
"These silly games," Artemis said, breathing hard as she straightened. She had one hand locked around Charm's neck, the other curled around her waist and arms, holding her close. The gallery was dark but Grim could almost see Charm's eyes hazing over, fading to a pale white. "These silly rules. Go on then. Give me your last warning."
"Please don't do this," Lucky said, low and helpless. "I'll stop you if I have to, but please don't make me do it."
Grim thought about running. If he could get outside, out of Artemis' range, he could try sending a shadow-message to Mordant; risky, but these pathetic heroes clearly weren't going to be able to hold Artemis off for much longer. He scooted slightly towards the door, not standing up, trying not to make too much noise as his boots slid through the shattered glass.
He froze as Lucky made a horrible gasping sound, looking up to see Artemis reaching into Charm's chest somehow, her clutching hand disappearing into the sidekick's body like a ghost's.
"What the fuck," he said aloud without meaning to. His blood ran cold; it felt like the whole room was freezing, somehow being sucked into the unnatural cold that Artemis was projecting. Everything went distant, as though the events in the room were happening to someone else. Grim tried to move his feet, tried to lift his arm to reach the doorframe and drag himself out of the room if he had to— but he couldn't move. Even his attachment to his shadow-power, always just a thought away, sleeping under his skin— even that seemed too far away to touch, too exhausting to even think about. He cursed himself silently for his own arrogance, fighting to keep his head upright, his eyes open. He should've run when he'd had the chance.
Then something touched him in the dark, a flash of heat in his chest, golden light behind his eyes. Lucky Starr was crouched by his side, one hand gently lifting his chin, the other pressed to his chest. "Wait for me," he said, the words almost carried away by the howling cold. "I'll, I'll explain, just— wait for me."
Everything disappeared.
For one long, timeless, eternal blink, Grim was— nowhere, nothing. He couldn't feel whether he was shadow-form, human or Grim. He couldn't tell which direction was up or down. Then he landed hard on his back, hard enough to shock him. He lay still for a moment, vision still blurry, his body cold with sweat. Wherever he was… he'd landed on what felt like a soft rug, not the polished stone of the museum floor. And the temperature was warm…
He put a hand down, awkwardly pushing himself to his feet, stood up and looked around. He was in some kind of house with a long, open-plan layout. It was sparsely but nicely furnished, not too much personality. The kind of décor you saw in a nice hotel room or some architectural magazine. Everything had a weird, eerie glow to it, like when you went outside after a snowstorm and all the ambient light was bouncing off the snow. Over to Grim's left, the kitchen held the only signs of actual inhabitation, with a few mismatched mugs and dishes set out next to the sink. And behind him, the long side of the house was all glass, floor to ceiling windows that looked out on— on—
"Holy shit," Grim breathed out, unable to believe what every sense, normal and extranormal, was telling him. He closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment, then opened them again, startled and aghast. Where the hell was the door? He found it; it wasn't locked. He pushed it open, almost tripping down the low steps of golden brick. The view outside was real, not some illusion. Real. But it couldn't be…
Twenty feet from the house, and he was standing in a green-gold field, rolling hills spotted with buttercups and daisies, broad willow trees tucked into little valleys, and a sky made of beautiful cracked shimmering jags of gold and silver energy. It was all too beautiful, too weird to be real, and he had to accept it. This was Lucky Starr's core dimension, the source of his powers.
Every hero and villain had some kind of access to their own version of this place, though some called it different things: another dimension, or the fey realms, the domain of some obscure forgotten gods or just a home you made in your own soul. That was what made heroes— finding some way to access your own core dimension and draw from the weird energies there. Tanks and fighters did it through training their bodies. Science heroes and villains hacked their genes or supercharged their brains. Sorcerers and witches used meditation or claimed some mystic artifact granted them access; aliens had their own secret ways. Grim had gotten there through dreams, ironically enough. His own core dimension was nothing like this, though— he'd thought it was impressive enough that after only two years he'd been able to carve a coffin-sized, misty, ill-defined space out of the dark, jewel-like material of his core dimension. Even now it was only about the size of his apartment bathroom. It wasn't, like, a place he could spend time in.
Every villain and hero started the same, or so they said; discovering just the smallest, tiniest crack in reality that let them draw power and unreality into the human world. Some never progressed past that, and they'd always be henches or maybe even just everyday civilians with a spark, regular humans with a strange inexplicable talent in some random field. But if you knew what you were doing, if you were fortunate and talented and worked on improving your access— if you had someone to train you, a hero or villain as a mentor— eventually you might be able to reach a hand through, to pull fuel into your own body, to change yourself into whatever it was you were aiming to become. They said only the most powerful heroes and villains had ever managed to create enough space to build a decent lair, in those strange dimensional planes that lay just beyond normal reality.
Rule one of actually physically accessing your core dimension, of course, was never to let anyone else come with you— not a lover, not a trusted comrade, not even your own child. It was a rule even more serious than never letting anyone else see you shift between forms. In a world of shapeshifters, robot duplicates, possession and mind control, even your closest friend couldn't be trusted with that kind of access. Mordant had hammered that lesson into Grim's head with fearful intensity. You never let anyone else into your core dimension, because once they were standing in the heart of your power— if they knew what they were doing? They had full access to everything. They could draw on the very power that kept your heart beating and breath in your lungs.
He couldn't believe Lucky Starr had been so stupid. Surely he couldn't do this kind of thing all the time, stashing civilians in his core dimension just because they were about to get squished or have their soul sucked out or whatever Artemis had been doing. If he did make a habit of it, surely someone would have slipped up and mentioned it? Mordant and the others in the League would have heard about it, eventually. And then it would've been so easy to stage some kind of attack or heist, disguise someone as a civilian and put them in danger, and wait for Lucky Starr to sweep them back to the safety of his core dimension. And once they were there...
Now that he was here...
Well. He knew what Mordant would do. He knew what Red Renegade and other strivers like her would have done. But somewhere out there, back in the world, Lucky Starr was standing against Artemis, and if Grim started flipping switches and pulling plugs out of sockets, metaphorically speaking, that battle wasn't going to go well. Maybe five years ago Grim would have joined the battle simply for the sake of the city, for the ordinary people in it. But now he actually had connections to those people. To Nell, and Jake, and— to Brendan, sleeping quietly someplace back in his dark apartment over the coffeeshop. Grim couldn't let Artemis win.
He took another long, searching look around at the sprawling countryside. Once again he told himself— it had to be an illusion. That horizon couldn't be real. Somewhere out there he'd hit a wall with the sky painted on it, Truman-Show style. Even telling himself that, though— even if it were true, and the wall was just slightly too far out for him to detect from here— the amount of power Lucky Starr had under his belt was truly staggering. What was he doing masquerading as a third-tier hero? Everyone thought of him as more of a PR flack than a real hero. Sure, he was one of the team... he showed up to help put out wildfires and mop up oil spills, all of that. But mostly you saw him visiting children at the hospital, shaking hands at fundraisers for refugees, giving reporters tours of the clinics and schools built by the Shields and their charity drives. Who was this guy, really? If he couldn't start pulling this place down brick by brick and star by twinkling star, he could at least try to figure out some angle to take advantage of what he'd discovered. Jaw set, Grim turned on his heel and walked back into the house.
Call it creepy, but this was actually one of Grim's favorite things to do; slip into a stranger's house in shadow form and just investigate. It was amazing the things you could find, the things people didn't even necessarily try to hide. The pictures tucked behind the framed photographs on their desks, the patterns of things they left behind— a carefully preserved set of chewed pens while a diamond earring went carelessly lost behind a dresser. Rooms full of books whose spines had never been cracked. Condoms or candy wrappers or lotto tickets, stuffed into the pockets of a double-breasted suit. He'd provided a lot of blackmail material to Mordant, in his time. But he wasn't just searching for leverage, here, a convenient way to move someone stubborn into a more convenient state of mind. This was a mystery, and Grim needed answers.
He started in the kitchen, checking the fridge. Not much, just half a six-pack of expensive beer, a pitcher of filtered water and some leftovers neatly packed in cardboard clamshell boxes, the same kind that Brendan used at the coffeeshop for to-go sandwiches and panini.
"Wait…" Grim said, staring. He picked up the cardboard box. He recognized that writing. It was Brendan's favorite Thai place. "Gr Bf 5" … Green beans and beef, extra spicy. Brendan's typical order. Coincidence? Was this place picking up his thoughts? Jesus Christ, hadn't he made fun of Brendan for ordering that stupid fancy beer that one time—?
He looked around suspiciously. But he hadn't been thinking of Brendan. If there was something here that was telepathically picking up his thoughts and showing him what he unconsciously expected to see, wouldn't he have seen the contents of his own fridge, the neatly packed ready-made dinners and lunches from the expensive meal service that didn't even get eaten half the time?
Grim closed the fridge and went to the bedroom, tense and wary.
The room was built (if it had been built) for two people. Two hooks on the back of the bathroom door, both empty. Two nightstands, both empty. Two dressers, both empty… except... Grim's breath caught in his throat, and he stared down into the open drawer. There was nothing in it except one neatly folded black t-shirt, a familiar ragged hole near the collar, the worn edges of a familiar black metal band's logo peeking up over the fold. Why this shirt? He'd lost it somewhere at Brendan's— it had been the first night he'd stayed over, he realized, a flush creeping up his cheeks. He remembered Brendan gently helping him pull it off, over his head; Brendan's hands had been shaking, and Grim had sworn to himself that he'd never hurt him, always protect him—
Well. Looked like maybe Brendan didn't need his protection.
It would make a lot of sense. All the questions they'd never asked. All the topics they'd conveniently avoided, common "getting to know you" questions that people in the city usually asked— have you ever met a hero, have you ever toured the Shield hero compound. Where were you the day Goldheart went rogue—?
Grim clenched his hands into fists. God, he'd been a fool. Had Brendan— Lucky— had he known this whole time? But even as the thought occurred to him, he dismissed it. No, that was stupid. If Brendan had known he was a power-user, if he'd ever even suspected it, he'd never have transported Grim into his core dimension. It would have been suicidally stupid. Grim could've torn this place down piece by piece, stealing every shred and gleam of power. And if he even managed to transfer ten percent of Lucky's power into his own core dimension, he'd be— judging by the control Lucky had over this place? The amount of power under his control must be incredible. If Grim could steal it away, he wouldn't just be twice as powerful as Mordant, as Fatality, as the rest of the League put together. He'd be more powerful than any hero or villain that Grim had ever heard of. It was so fucking tempting, even knowing that he couldn't, that Lucky was out there fighting Artemis—
That Brendan— Brendan was out there fighting Artemis—
Shit, what the fuck was he doing here?
Lucky vanished for only a moment, tucking Wil into his core dimension. He'd have a lot of explaining to do later, but— well. Wil would be alive. He'd be safe. That was the important part. When he reappeared Artemis was standing over Charm's still body. Between her open hands Charm's energy twinkled and glimmered frantically.
Without looking, Artemis flicked her hand in his direction, and Lucky went smashing back out of the gallery into the museum's entryway. He hadn't been prepared to be hit with Charm's power. Artemis swooped in, circled around him and kicked him in the side. "You'll be on the other side of this someday, you know. Someday you'll get tired of it too, protecting these little ants. Letting them control how you use your power."
"You don't know anything about me," Lucky grunted. He brought his hand up in a swift arc, flinging a handful of broken glass shards into Artemis's face. Artemis screamed and reared back, scrabbling at her eyes, and Lucky pushed himself up and half-crawled away, his aching body screaming in protest with every inch. It was being close to Artemis that was the problem; the closer she got, the more intensely the cold rushed in, like a jagged, icy wave. If he could get behind cover— he rolled over onto his stomach, the better to drag himself along, then bit down a yelp of pain as Artemis's boot-clad foot landed heavily between his shoulder-blades, pinning him to the floor. Once again, the cold started spreading through him.
"Sad," Artemis breathed above him. "So much power… and you were always too weak to use it! Too afraid!" She kicked him hard in the side, flipping him over onto his back, and Lucky hissed. It wasn't like he'd been under any illusions as to whether Artemis could actually kill him, but as the chill spread around them, terror followed it, rushing through his veins. He could actually die here, and then what would happen to Charm, what would happen to Wil, stuck in his core dimension— Terror gave him an extra dose of strength, letting him make a panicked lurch up onto his hands and knees. Artemis only laughed and shifted, slamming him back down and holding him there easily.
Under the pain, under the panic, under the twisting, bone-cracking chill of Artemis' cold aura, Lucky felt something suddenly shift. Something different, at the core of his power. Was Artemis pulling his power out of him, the way she'd done to Charm? But this felt different, as though it wasn't coming from outside. Some sourceless pulse of strange energy, under the gleaming clean yellow-gold shine that gave him his strength and his abilities, was rising from some distant place... Lucky closed his eyes for a moment as a crash of bone-white light brightened the cavernous museum entry hall, and when he opened them again, a black-clad stranger was standing above him, feet apart, hands on hips, facing down Artemis.
"Get away from him!" he ordered in a ghastly howl, and Lucky recognized him— it was Grim or Wight or something like that, wasn't it? Mordant's latest junior partner, the one who'd lasted longer than most of the others already. What the hell? As if he could sense Lucky's confusion, Grim glanced down at him, an odd distant look in his golden eyes. "You all right, hero?"
"Sure," Lucky said, even more puzzled. Had Grim's eyes— had they always been golden? Lucky didn't remember that. Yellow, maybe, but he felt like he would have remembered golden eyes.
Grim nodded, then flexed his fingers and took a deep breath, stepping forward to take on Artemis.
"Don't get too close!" Lucky shouted after him in warning.
"Oh, lucky boy... it's way too late for that," Grim said in his odd, low howling voice.
Lucky flinched and brought his arm up to cover his face as Grim struck, moving with impossible swiftness, his fist smashing into the white wall behind Artemis as she dodged out of the way just in time. The fight was suddenly moving almost too quickly for Lucky to follow, just a series of explosions and the sound of walls and windows falling before their fury. He hadn't known that Mordant's sidekick had that kind of power— well, more power to him, anyway. Lucky managed to get himself to his feet and staggered forward to check on Charm.
They smashed through enough walls that eventually they were outside again, in the parking lot. Grim was wild with power, his chest heaving with it; he felt as though it were dripping from his fingertips, sparking off him like static electricity. He flung a car in her direction, then flinched back as Artemis ducked under it and was suddenly all too close. Grim recoiled, twisting and shoving Artemis away, hard. Artemis leapt back, gracefully tumbling over the fender of another car and landing on her feet, laughing wildly.
"You of all people!" she said. "Mordant's boy! He brought that thing into the world!" She stared away in disgust; Grim had no idea what she was talking about. She stared at him with shadow-black eyes gleaming faintly in the dark, oddly and weirdly wet, like melting ice. "And you don't even understand what power you hold."
"I understand it," Grim lied. He honestly wasn't sure what the hell was going on. He'd left an anchor in Lucky's core dimension, a piece of his own power in the form of a small white shard of summoned bone, hastily buried and hidden under a stepping-stone in the garden. He didn't really know anything about the fine points of invading someone else's core dimension. No one really did. He'd mainly been hoping to be able to find his way back in, to be able to get back once he'd left. But something about leaving a part of his power there— it felt like he'd left a door open, left a phone off the hook— that connection was still open, and he had access to power he'd never imagined. He was almost afraid to grasp for it, and probably wouldn't have dared to draw on even as much as he'd already taken, if Artemis hadn't been such an obvious and hideous threat.
"Artemis!" Lucky said, suddenly appearing in the rubble of the massive hole they'd smashed in the wall of the museum. "Stand down!"
"Walk away, shadow," Artemis hissed. "My hunger hasn't been sated yet."
"Bring it on," Grim said. Artemis crouched, her legs bending weirdly, as though the longer this fight went on, the more inhuman she became— her eyes fading to full blackness, her skin bone-white, her clawed fingers extending. Grim just had time to brace before Artemis leapt at him. This time he was ready, though— something in him felt ready, and he brought his arm forward and a wild, spiraling beam of golden light swept into existence, forming itself in his grip and around his hand, resolving into a golden sword. He knew what to do without words; the strength filled him, as though Lucky— as though Brendan had been standing behind him, hands on his shoulders. He braced himself.
It almost looked as though Artemis tried to stop herself mid-leap, at the last second, her skeletal wings stretching wide, almost seeming to grow and expand in an attempt to arrest her momentum. But she couldn't stop, and Lucky could only watch helplessly as she skewered herself on the blade, several feet of it emerging from her back as her own weight pressed her forward. A gout of black blood splashed from her mouth onto Grim's shoes.
"What the fuck," Lucky said. That was his sword, Lucky's sword that he'd created himself from golden energy in his core dimension. He'd never brought it forward into the real world; he didn't even know why he'd made the thing, honestly. Just that it had— it had needed to be made, for some reason, and so he'd made it, and then felt incredibly stupid and wrapped the thing in a blanket and stuffed it under the bed. Most of the things he tried to do in the world didn't require a weapon, let alone a goddamn sword. And how— how had this villain gotten ahold of it?
Grim was still standing, frozen, staring into Artemis' eyes as she died. Lucky flinched as she brought her hand up, weakly, and touched the side of his face, but Grim stood still and tall. Lucky thought maybe she whispered something to Grim, and then she slumped back, and he lowered his arm… and her body fell, limp, sliding off the sword and landing in a heap on the pavement.
Swallowing hard, Lucky jumped down into the rubble piled up against the museum wall. He crossed to Artemis' body, ignoring Grim. Maybe it was stupid, to turn his back, but— he knelt down and gently closed Artemis' eyes. The unnatural chill was already fading from her skin, and he took a moment to sit in silence, then glanced up at the moon above them, silently watching. Whatever had happened, wherever Artemis had gone wrong… she hadn't deserved this. But for heroes and villains, so often, there was just no other way.
Finally he straightened up, looking Grim in the eye. That gold tint was still there, at least when Lucky tilted his head just right. His heart was starting to pound again, and he wasn't sure why. "Who the hell are you?"
"Don't you know? You fucking idiot!" Grim said, and leaned forward over Artemis' body, cupping Lucky's helm in his hand. His eyes flickered, and Lucky breathed in sharply as the faceplate of his own helm retracted— how? How did this villain have control over Lucky's power?
Grim pulled Lucky forward by the neck and kissed him on the mouth, right there in the rubble above the dead body of one of Lucky's former teammates, and Lucky was instinctively recoiling when the truth finally, finally washed over him.
Oh, God.
"Wil?"
"My name is Grim, and you're an idiot! You didn't do a background check? You didn't have anyone look into me? Nothing?" Grim said, still in that charnel-house howling voice, like the wind in a graveyard. "You just— I could have been anyone, I could have killed you a hundred times. I could kill you right now," he said, lifting the heavy sword in his hand as though it weighed nothing.
Lucky stared; he wasn't sure he could do anything else. "Are you going to?"
"I should," Grim said furiously, "I really should! God, the power you have! Why haven't you told anyone, why doesn't anyone know?"
"They know," Lucky said blankly. "You know, now." It was all still hitting him— his boyfriend, his lover, his sweetheart was a villain. A dark sorcerer, Mordant's heir. Impossible. He ought to be— something. Fighting. Running. Begging for his life, maybe. He turned away, not wanting Grim to see the hot tears of shock and pain springing into his eyes.
"Hey!" Grim said sharply, taking a step after him and grabbing him by the arm. "You think you can walk away from this?"
"I don't— I don't know," Lucky said. His whole life, he'd just followed along with what the other heroes told him. Trusted that everything would work out, that things would happen the way they were supposed to, but— how was this going to work out? He shook his head and pushed a hand up through his sweaty hair, trying to think.
"You could fight me," Grim said, low and amused, as though he were reading Lucky's mind, and Lucky pressed his lips together and shook his head. He didn't want to think about it. Even if he occasionally had to fight people, he was never going to raise a hand to someone that he loved.
"No, I couldn't."
"No, I guess you couldn't." Grim said. He took a deep breath and looked over his shoulder at Artemis, lying still and cold. "I'm— I'm sorry about your friend."
Pity— that was it. That was the thing that broke Lucky, and he covered his mouth helplessly, unable to stop a terrible sound of shock and pain from tearing itself out of his throat.
"Oh, don't— baby, don't," Grim said softly, moving closer. Was he mocking Lucky? He was right, Lucky had been stupid, too trusting, too desperate, too easy. He was sure they'd all think it was very funny, back at the League council meeting they were sure they to have about this. Lucky turned sharply, almost grateful to be able to transmute his pain into fury.
"How dare you," he began, then stopped, shocked into silence by Grim raising his bare, rune-marked arms and wrapping them carefully around him, armor and all. He nestled in, as trusting as a friend— as a lover.
"I guess you win," he said, in a whisper like wind through a graveyard.
"I win what?"
"That argument we were having about moving in together," Grim said, laughing, and pulled them both together out of the world.
A hero and a villain stood together, hand in hand, under a strange golden sky.
"Where do we go from here?" Lucky said, looking sideways. Summoning up one last bit of determination, he dropped his hero-form and stood barefoot in the dirt, bruised and tired. Not a hero any more. Just Brendan.
Grim cocked his head at him, skeletal face betraying almost nothing of his emotions, for a long moment. Finally he raised his hand to his side and dropped the golden sword; it landed point-down in the dirt and stuck there. He screwed up his face and closed his eyes, breathing almost imperceptibly for a long moment. Then gritted his teeth in frustration and rolled his shoulders back, growling.
"Stuck?" Brendan said, amused.
"It's not so easy for all of us," Grim muttered under his breath, then changed back suddenly, looking as if he even surprised himself. He blinked at Brendan, eyes that rich deep blue again, dark hair flopping forward over a face that was pale, but— not inhumanly pale. Not untouchable. Not cold. "So. We have a lot to talk about."
"I guess we do." Brendan rubbed a hand over his beard.
"You probably have to go... talk to people," Grim said, and Brendan nodded. "Wait, shit. Your friends— Nell and Jake! They're Charm and Oddity, aren't they?"
"No!" Brendan said, and Grim looked at him skeptically. "No, really, no! I don't hang out with heroes, they... They don't really like me. Nell and Jake are just— they're just people. They're my friends."
"What do you mean, they don't like you? Why not?" Grim said, squinting.
"Can that be another story for another time?" Brendan said, pleading. Especially after tonight... he just didn't know if he had it in him, to reveal every truth about what made him what he was.
Grim stared at him solemnly for a long moment. "So there's going to be another time?"
"I told you," Brendan said. "I'm coming back. I promise. You and me, what we have— it's real, isn't it? Beyond all this."
Grim said nothing, but he reached out and drew Brendan in, kissing him, and the sky itself flared, dozens of strange shimmering metallic streamers coiling and springing up into life, like the Northern Lights but made of platinum and copper and bronze and white silver, the colors falling over their faces and lighting up the strange night.
After a long, long moment, Brendan pulled back, looking up at the strange sky. "Well. That's different." He looked back at Grim— at his human boyfriend. "You'll wait for me?"
Grim kissed him one final time. "I promise you," he said. "I'll be here when you get back."