Unheroic Life of a Certain Cape

214 An Unlikely Alliance

The relevant passage from Perry’s letter surfaced in my mind with uncomfortable clarity.

“Nick,

“This part of the mission didn’t sit right with me, so I’m writing it plainly in case something happens.

“Foresthome wasn’t sent here to conquer Urbanite, sabotage Candyland, or even scout Kingdom. Officially, our task came directly from the Divine Forest King himself.

“We were ordered to retrieve a cape known only as the Botanist.

“The method is… strange. We were instructed to accrue two billion points and then spend them on a specific NPC. According to Huston, once the condition is met, the NPC will “find us” on its own.

“I don’t like it. Huston has been acting off for months now. He has become more distant and erratic. The forest is expanding at a rate that doesn’t make sense, even for him. Whole territories absorbed overnight. People going missing. Augmented behaving like they’re half-awake.

“If the Botanist is just an informant, none of this adds up. You don’t ask for two billion points for an informant. I don’t know what the Botanist really is, Nick. But I’m certain of one thing: Huston wants him back. And badly.”

At the time, I thought Perry was being cautious.

Standing before Huston’s soul, stitched shut and bound in white, I realized he had been understating the danger.

Gameboy stepped in front of me, one bare hand lifted as if that alone could stop what was coming. “I’d rather die, than let you free him. Do you hear me?”

Behind me, I felt an eager and almost childish desire. Mal leaned forward, cracking her neck, eyes alight with anticipation. “Ooooh,” she said, dragging the word out. “Can I fight him, Dad? Please?”

There was more here. Far more than a chained madman in a cell.

I didn’t take my eyes off Gameboy. “Then tell me,” I said. “Tell me what Huston really is.”

For a moment, Gameboy didn’t answer. Then he exhaled, long and tired, like someone reliving an old war.

“When I came here,” he said, “there were seven reigning warlords. Real ones. Not this watered-down executive nonsense you see now. Huston was already ancient by then, five generations removed from the original rulers. Whimsy was around the same age.”

He laughed humorlessly. “You know what he did? He broke the balance. Slaughtered four warlords in one upheaval. Whole territories vanished. Forests eating cities. Cities choking forests. It was chaos.”

Mal’s grin faded. Even she was listening now.

“That war,” Gameboy continued, “was the only reason I survived long enough to matter. Administrator and I… we took advantage of the mess. Cordelia, too. Always behind the scenes. Always pulling strings. According to her, if Huston regained his soul, he’d be too strong for us to stop…”

My jaw tightened. “Cordelia helped you seal him.”

Gameboy nodded. “His soul.”

“I hate nonsense,” I snapped. “If you’re going to talk about souls, give me something concrete. Something causal. Why would Huston grow stronger if he regained it?”

Gameboy spread his hands. “I don’t know. Cordelia insisted. Swore by it. Said power accumulates, fragments, echoes. Said the soul anchors it. Without it, Huston’s incomplete. With it—” He shook his head. “With it, he becomes something worse.”

I glanced around the park beyond the asylum walls, the laughing people, the children running through bodies they couldn’t touch.

“So this is it,” I said quietly. “Every NPC above… every mindless body in Urbanite… their souls are down here. That’s the nature of this world, huh?”

Gameboy didn’t deny it.

“A paradise,” he said. Then, more honestly, “Also, a containment.”

I inhaled slowly and reached into my coat, pulling Perry’s letter from memory like a blade. “Foresthome was ordered to retrieve the Botanist. Two billion points. Spend them on an NPC that would ‘find them.’ Huston planned to buy his way in.”

Gameboy stiffened.

“That’s impossible,” he said at once. “Only I can access this place. Me, Administrator… and the other exectives.”

Then his eyes widened, and his lips parted slightly.

“…Son of a bitch.”

The realization hit him harder than any punch. Huston hadn’t needed direct access. He’d needed a cooperative pawn. Something that would move Gameboy himself. Or force Administrator’s hand. Or a third party willing to do his bidding.

“He almost got me,” Gameboy muttered.

Then he snapped his fingers.

The stitches sealing the Botanist’s mouth unraveled like rotten thread. Flesh parted. Blood beaded, then dripped.

The white-haired man inhaled deeply, greedily, like a drowning victim breaking the surface.

He smiled.

“Oh,” the Botanist murmured, voice hoarse but delighted, “how I missed the sound of my own voice.”

Gameboy’s patience snapped.

“How did you do it?” he demanded. “How did you get around me?”

The Botanist tilted his head slightly, lips curling into something almost playful. “Do what, exactly?” he asked. “You’ll have to be more specific. My memory isn’t what it used to be.”

The lie rang loud in my head. Empathy made it impossible to miss, a slick, smug satisfaction coiled beneath his calm exterior. I remembered Rachel and Selena, remembered the way Gameboy had lashed out when he felt control slipping through his fingers.

Gameboy snapped.

A knife appeared buried deep in the Botanist’s shoulder, the impact wet and final. Blood spread across the straitjacket.

“Ouch,” the Botanist said flatly, without a trace of pain.

Gameboy leaned forward, face twitching beneath the glitch. “I’ll ask again,” he said. “How did you do it? How did you turn my women against me?”

The Botanist’s smile sharpened. “Does it frighten you that much?” he asked softly. “That you can’t trust the people around you anymore? Even your dear little Mal?”

Gameboy froze and turned slowly. “Have you ever been in this room?” he asked her, suspicion bleeding into his voice. “I told you this place was off-limits. I told you to guard the building, not wander into it.”

Mal recoiled, eyes wide. “I swear,” she said quickly. “This is my first time here. I never came in. I never touched him.”

Gameboy’s gaze bored into her. “What about Rachel? Selena?”

“I saw them near here sometimes,” Mal said, voice trembling. “I chased them off whenever I could. They weren’t supposed to be here.”

I reached out and placed a hand on Gameboy’s shoulder, grounding him before paranoia could spiral further. “She’s telling the truth,” I said evenly. “Huston’s messing with you. That’s all this is.”

The Botanist laughed, a dry, delighted sound. “Oh?” he said. “There’s someone here who knows my name.”

I met his blindfolded face without flinching. “It would’ve been better for you if I didn’t,” I replied. “I know what you were planning. I know you were setting up a breakout.”

For the first time, something shifted. It was subtle, but I felt it through Empathy, a flicker of surprise quickly buried beneath layers of arrogance.

“That’s news to me,” Huston said lightly. Then he chuckled. “Which must mean I succeeded.”

I frowned. “Succeeded at what?”

He leaned back as far as the restraints allowed, tone almost conversational. “You see,” he said, “unlike the rest of you, I don’t believe in souls. Not really. What you’re looking at right now is only a manifestation of my consciousness.”

Gameboy stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“My body,” Huston continued, “still thinks. It still plans. A brain doesn’t stop functioning just because you cage part of the mind elsewhere. I simply gave it a goal so vast, so unthinkable, that none of you would ever consider it.”

The answer came to me before he finished.

“You planned to destroy Lockworld,” I said.

Gameboy’s breath hitched. “That’s insane,” he blurted out. “No one would even think of attempting something like that.”

Huston’s smile widened, proud and unrepentant. “Correct,” he said. “Which is why I’m here. Can’t you see? I’m insane! Ha ha ha ha ha ha~!” He turned his blindfolded face toward me. “Now tell me,” he asked, voice almost curious, “how did you know?”

I explained it to him step by step, not because Huston deserved the courtesy, but because Gameboy needed to hear it laid bare.

“Foresthome’s expansion was never organic,” I said as we walked. “Not if you look at it on a long enough timeline. Two hundred years of growth isn’t just spreading roots and territory. It’s modification. Iteration. Digging deeper and deeper with intent.”

Huston scoffed behind us. “You’re stretching.”

I didn’t even look back. “If all you wanted were minerals, you’d strip-mine. If it was energy, you’d experiment, fail, and adapt. If it was science, you’d leave records, structures, and redundancies. Foresthome did none of that. It kept going down. Always down.”

I tapped my temple with two fingers. “And I didn’t come to this conclusion alone. I have two precogs who tore your patterns apart from every angle. Past intent. Future vectors. Probability curves. Everything you are doing right now was already screaming at them.”

Silence followed, thick and uncomfortable.

I turned slightly. “Gameboy. Restrain him.”

Gameboy hesitated for half a second, then snapped his fingers. The Botanist’s bindings reformed instantly, the straitjacket tightening, the blindfold sealing back into place, the mouth stitched shut once more. Huston didn’t resist. If anything, he seemed amused.

We exited the mental asylum together, the artificial light of Undercity washing over us. The city buzzed on, blissfully unaware, souls looping through routines they didn’t remember choosing.

I nodded toward Mal. “You don’t need to be here.”

She crossed her arms, scowling. “Like hell I don’t.”

Before either of us could argue further, she vanished in a blink of teleportation, leaving only disturbed air behind.

I stopped walking and faced Gameboy fully.

“You should understand this by now,” I said calmly. “I’m not part of your system. I’m not Candyland. I’m not Foresthome. I’m not Kingdom. I’m my own faction.”

Gameboy’s glitching face tightened. “Then explain this,” he said, snapping his fingers.

Screens bloomed into existence around us. Images froze mid-motion: a dragon standing amidst ruin, scales crackling with power; a superhuman seated casually beside a split skyscraper as if resting after a jog; a swordsman surrounded by mangled cars, blade still dripping.

“I’ve never seen capes like these,” Gameboy said quietly. “Not here. Not ever. What are you?”

He snapped his fingers again. “Are you some relic from an older generation? Something the Box forgot to erase?”

I shook my head. “No.”

I let the answer hang for a moment before continuing. “I have access to world-hopping technology.”

That finally broke through him.

“What?” Gameboy said sharply. “That’s impossible. I can’t even warp one into existence, and you’re telling me you built one?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I researched it.”

His voice dropped. “Power ratings are capped at six. Isn’t it?”

I didn’t answer that.

Instead, I said, “And before you ask how the Box missed me fiddly with portal technology, I already accounted for that. I have a man inside SRC. He made sure my work stayed invisible to precogs, psychics, researchers, and whatever else you rely on to feel safe.”

“Just who are you?” asked Gameboy slowly in disbelief.

I extended my hand.

“Eclipse,” I said. “Leader of Godslayers.”

I met his gaze squarely. “I’m offering you one chance to join hands with me.”

He stared at my hand for a long moment, then clasped it firmly. “Fine,” he said. “But don’t misunderstand. This is an alliance of equals.”

I smiled faintly.

“That depends.”

We shook on it.

Gameboy exhaled slowly, the earlier tension settling into something colder and more deliberate.

“So,” he said, folding his arms, “what’s next?”

“Diplomacy,” I answered.

He blinked, then laughed once, short and incredulous. “That’s rich, coming from you. Wait, it totally makes sense… Still… How exactly do you plan to do that, and what do you want me doing in the meantime?”

I didn’t waste time dressing it up. “I want resources. Real ones. Materials that don’t exist naturally in Lockworld, tolerances that don’t crumble under multiversal strain. I need you to generate them with your power. Not just that… I need a place to hide the work. Somewhere even the Box won’t casually scrape.”

His head tilted. “And you’re just trusting me not to steal it? Or use it to run?”

I met his gaze without flinching. “I’d advise you not to.”

For a moment, I thought he might snap back with something theatrical, but instead he shrugged. “Relax. Outside Lockworld, I’m powerless. You should know that, if you knew how my powers work. Urbanite took me centuries to build. I’m not abandoning it on a whim, even if I could.”

That answer was honest enough to be useful.

“As we build,” I continued, “we send invitations. Not quietly, not indirectly. We call a summit. Candyland. Foresthome. Kingdom. Everyone who still thinks they’re a sovereign power.”

Gameboy frowned. “And after they show up?”

I didn’t hesitate. “They bend the knee,” I said evenly, “or I kill them.”