DocTachyon

Vanguard: Calder City

Question for the class. If you could initiate a crossover between two characters who haven't met yet, what would you pick? Bonus points if neither character is yours.

For my money, I might like to see Archie and Eve. In particular I'd like to see how Eve's power interacts with Archie's book/phone and mag'ik that brushes against her. Also I'd love to see how Archie's awkward ass handles Eve's rather forward personality.

Vanguard: Calder City

<“Lift with your legs, Qing Yuan!”>

<“Oh sure, he’s not an air conditioner. So now you know all about lifting! I’m taking all of the weight here!”> Qing struggled with the crumpled Little Mountain. He was heavier than he looked.

Together, Qing and Bo Wen got him situated in the back of the van. His blood began pooling on the subfloor. All Qing could think about was how hard it would be to clean after this, probably to keep himself calm.

<”Stay with him, I’ll drive.”> Sliding the van door shut on the other pair whilst Qing’s stunned eyes could only stare back wide-eyed as the metal interior filled his vision.

<”But it’s my van!”> Qing protested, but Bo Wen was already climbing into the driver’s seat. Qing slid, before grabbing a handhold as Bo Wen hit the gas, saving the wounded hero from a blow from falling drywall with his other hand.

Looking at him, Qing Yuan didn’t know exactly what he should be doing that would really do him any good. He looked like Qing might have if the man from the alley was actually worth his salt with a sword.

He had cuts all over, big bruises, broken bones. Part of his chest looked caved in. Qing could at least try to stop the bleeding. There really is a lot of blood filling the van, isn’t there..?

Problem was, the closest thing he had to bandages were the rags he used to cover the floor during paint and other messy jobs. And they were hardly hygienic, let alone sterile. He raised his head to ask his father for suggestions, but was stopped short as he recognised the streets flying by out the front of the van. <”This is not the way to Calder General!”>

<”He is a superhero! They do not do regular hospitals!”> Bo Wen countered. He yanked the wheel and the van made a noise of protest Qing felt in his soul.

<”Then where do you suggest?”> Qing asked, incredulous. He realized he knew the route Bo Wen was taking. <”No. Noooooo. You’re bringing him to the shop!? This is not something we can fix! Once again, he is not an air conditioner! This is beyond duct tape and resin!”>

<”Have faith, Qing Yuan. We will figure something out at home. Maybe the Vanguard will come get him.”> Bo Wen said, as if his faith would keep the Little Mountain from bleeding out in the back of Qing’s work van.

<“Between your driving and his health, my faith doesn’t spread that far! How much blood can you even have in you?!”> Qing Yuan had his hands over the worst of the Little Mountain’s bleeds. His blood was warm but his skin was cold to the touch.

Cold. Ohhh. That’s not a good sign.

The dwindling flame of a candle.

<“Shit.”> < “Is he–”> “Eyes on the road! Let me worry about back here!”>

Breathe in.

Qing’s eyes closed. He dived deep internally. His hands moved as he felt his own body’s energy pool and sluice within, then took control. Diverted the flow.

Breathe out.

His hands aglow, he rested them over the fallen hero’s sunken core. It took a level of concentration beyond his ability to re-open his eyes. He felt certain he sensed a heart beating stronger, and pushed on choosing not to give way to what must have been overconfidence. The glow to his hands faded as he pushed the flow beyond himself and it re-dispersed, finding its level in the form that lay before him.

The next barrier he hit certainly wasn’t overconfidence, and he noticed it wasn’t concentration that was knitting his eyes. The lids started to feel heavy.

That’s not right, I know he’s messed up pretty bad, and I know it’s been a long day but I shouldn’t be–

As Qing slid down beside the fallen hero, his father’s words and a single thought went through his head.

Just because I wanted to buy drywall…

<“Qing Yuan! Your chi!”>

The words fell from Qing’s mouth absent of thought. < “Do not. Crash. _{mY vAn...}”>

Qing drifted away free of the moorings of consciousness, until being shaken awake once more at their destination by a father who couldn’t lift their wounded guest alone.

---

F L O W S T A T E
F L O W S T A T E

---

The bell chimed, the buzzer sounded, and a pair walked in - a young woman and an old white man. Qing realized in their rush to get the Little Mountain to a bed upstairs, he flipped the sign to ‘CLOSED’ but in his exhaustion had failed to actually lock the door.

“I’m sorry, we’re actually closed.” Qing put on his best smile, half-lidded as the events of the car ride still left him weary, and hoped he hadn’t missed any bloodstains trailing from the door up the stairs.

The woman and the old man did not turn to go. Instead she fixed Qing with a steely gaze.

“Ah, we’d be happy to help you another time but right now we --”

“What have you done with my brother!?” She cut Qing off. She had her hands wrapped in fists, thumbs tucked inside, like she’d never thrown a punch before.

Her brother…? Could this be the Little Mountain’s sister?

Qing put his hands up. “We didn’t hurt him! We just found him in a bad way. We tried to help.”

“And you brought him here instead of to the hospital?”

Qing Yuan cringed. He knew it was a bad idea. He saw Bo Wen at the bottom of the stairs, roused from their guest’s bedside by the commotion and gestured to him. “Ba, that question’s for you.”

The old man put his hand on the woman’s shoulder. “It was probably for the best, Shenden. Everything going on in this town, who knows what kind of farshtinkener got to him. The hospital might not have been safe. Better I can take care of him here.” Qing spotted the leather bag he carried. It was about as stereotypical of a physician’s kit as they come, complete with the ears of a stethoscope hanging out the lip.

“See. Was right! Superheroes don’t do regular hospitals.” He pointed to the doctor.

“It was literally the first thing she asked, Ba, and she’s his family…”

Bo Wen swatted away the criticism from his son like a gnat.

“Where is he?” The woman, Shenden, asked. Each syllable was measured, and her fists were still balled. Qing kept one hand open in passivity, and with the other he pointed to the sky.

“Yes, yes. This way, follow.” Bo Wen bade the pair upstairs with him.

Qing moved to follow the trio, then remembered himself and set to locking up Liu’s Fix-It properly. All three of the locks and the rolling shutters.

By the time he joined them upstairs, Bo Wen managed to convert the hallway outside the Little Mountain’s door into an impromptu waiting room with three mismatched chairs. Shenden sat in the middle, no longer looking ready to punch him or Bo Wen out, instead maintaining a steady focus on the door. Bo Wen stood by, wringing his hands, not in any of the seats he dutifully brought out, making a face that told Qing he was holding down a fit of nervous laughter.

”Ba?”

”There you are! This Qing Yuan, my son. We found your brother together.”

Tactful, Ba. Qing’s brow furrowed at the older man. He then noticed the seating arrangements. Middle. You sneaky old–. He picked the closest seat.

“I’m Shenden.” She nodded to him. “I’m very sorry about earlier. I was a bit panicked.” She said, not looking too much less panicked. Qing would be too, at the sight of her brother.

”Don’t worry about it.” Qing waved her concerns off. ”Where’s the Doctor?” Qing asked, trying to fill the silence. Stupid question.

”Doctor Idell is in with him now.” She answered anyway. “He says my brother doesn’t look good, but a lot better than he expected. He says you two stabilized him. Is one of you a doctor?”

”Only to air conditioners.” Bo Wen said.

”Ba!” Qing chided. ”Not doctors, no…” Qing scratched the back of his neck. How do you even explain chi to a layperson…? “Maybe he must have just got lucky..?” It didn’t even sound convincing to himself as he said it, and when he dared to make eye contact with Shenden he could see it hadn’t been with her either.

”You don’t have to say. Whatever you did, thank you.” Her grace shocked Qing to silence, a rare feat. They had essentially kidnapped her brother off the street, and now she seemed willing to give them carte blanche. Qing supposed it turned out well enough, but…

The silence hung over the hallway for a moment as each turned the day’s events over in their heads. Soft yiddish mutterings passed under the door.

“I’ll bring tea for everyone!” Bo Wen said, seeing his moment to diffuse the tension and disappearing around the corner into the kitchen.

<”Just for our guests, Ba.”> Qing called after him in Wu.

“You speak Shanghainese?” Shenden asked.

“We speak Wu.” Qing flatly replied. Just as the Liu family didn’t care for the North’s ideas to make China a monolithic culture where all regional dialects would give way to Mandarin according to the wishes of the Party, they also held true to their attitudes regarding the notion that their own native dialect was purely for those of ‘the city’ as it was so often colloquially called. Qing more than most.

“It’s okay.” Bo Wen re-entered the room with tea, wide smile across his face. “Qing just… get weird about these kind of thing. He’s a good boy, really.”

”I understand. I can ‘get weird’ about Burmese. It is one of the few things that belongs to us.” Shenden said. ”I have only had the pleasure to study Mandarin, and some Cantonese. My specialty is the South Eastern languages, Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese…”

“Well, it makes sense academically in respect to China. If they don’t speak Cantonese, it's a fair bet they’ll speak Mandarin.” Qing conceded. “So have you got your brother microchipped?”

She smiled sadly, flicking her gaze to the door where her brother fought for his life. “I really should, for all the trouble he gets himself into. He had one of my Dad’s old utility belts, and it sent a distress signal. It used to go to the Vanguard, but he hasn’t used it in so long it defaulted to Dad’s phone.” She fished it out of her purse and showed an ancient flip phone.

“...And anthropologists dusted that thing off and realised it was some kind of a communications device.” He jibed at the age of the phone. “So he went in alone, and got himself…” He trailed off. Had this guy alienated himself so much from everyone, or was he just so hot headed that he jumped in without backup?

If he were honest with himself he could see himself doing both. Because he had in his own past. His own experience just went very differently. He was the one who walked away when it was all done.

Qing yawned openly. His father never missed the opportunity.

“Oooh. You need Qigong in morning. Don’t forget!”

He needn’t have said anything. They never forget, but that wasn’t the point. Before Qing could find a way to stop him, Bo Wen continued, smiling broadly to Shenden.

“Qing and I. Run Qigong every morning before open shop. Moench Park. Very good way start day. Every day. Good for mind. Good for body. You should try some time.” Incredibly cheesy grin accompanying the open invitation.

Qing had not yet discovered a method to manipulate one’s chi, causing spontaneous combustion with only a glare. As evident by the fact that his father was not currently on fire.

Bo Wen instead moved on from the scene of the crime, returning to matters pertaining to her brother.

“Vanguard not with him?”

“Pardon–?” She struggled to follow the sudden rapid change in conversation.

“Brother.” Bo Wen pointed to the door. “Vanguard not with him?”

”Not exactly. Rock quit all this superhero stuff when he was a teenager. I saw him for the first time in a long time at the funeral and… He’s just been spiraling. But I…” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I think this is my fault. I think I told him something I shouldn’t have.”

Qing looked at his father. “I get that. Funerals, and their causes, can do that.” He winced at the clumsiness of his own choice of words. That funeral would have been for her father as well.

“Sorry. About your father as well.” He added.

“We always knew this was a possibility, him being a superhero. We saw so many of his friends go over the years. It just never seemed like something that would happen to him.”

It was a crazy thing to hear in such a matter-of-fact tone. A superhero. As if that were something someone could just decide to be.

Made only more crazy that in this case, the person in question actually unquestionably was one.

The word coming from someone who had long since made her peace with the nature of that being a perfectly reasonable thing for one to be. Over tea.

“Now that he’s gone it feels like the family is shaking itself apart. It figures that The Mountain disappearing would cause an earthquake.” She said, and she laughed, but Qing saw the tear in her eye.

“Is a lot. Time when, family have to really come together or everyone can fall apart. Is good thing that you’re here. Show that important, at time when he most needs.” Bo Wen was clearly getting frustrated that his English was falling short at this time in particular. “Qing like that when happened too. Even when people don’t show appreciation, sometimes just making sure to hold close when people need.”

Don’t do that. That’s not what this is. ‘Trauma bonding’ over dead parents. She’s not– He wanted to scowl at the old man, to tell him to shut up. But it was clearly too sensitive a situation for him to even call his father out.

“So he tried to go and beat the world into making sense himself.” He left no question to it and realised he could have been describing both Rock and himself, after his mother. An affirmation of understanding.

”It’s all he knows. Dad took him in in the first place to show him a better way, but he’s been fighting the whole world since before we ever knew him. We gave him so much love, and sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t enough.”

Qing wanted to ask exactly who ‘we’ was, in this family which was shaking itself apart. But knew he couldn’t plainly ask given the secretive nature of the lifestyle. He knew she’d probably just politely decline to answer because it was too personal, but for some reason he didn’t want to seem ‘stupid’ to her in asking it in the first place.

It was one of the few times he regretted that his father knew more about the lives of these types than he did. He looked across at his father for any sign of clues and only saw him nodding solemnly in understanding to what she had said.

He wanted a problem to fix. But all there was were feelings and hurt.

“Do you know what he was looking into? We found him only a few blocks from our place. If there’s someone or something that can do THAT to someone like your brother, I’d kind of want to know about it.”

Shenden looked at the ground. ”It was his father.”

”We’re ready for you, bubele.” Doctor Idell said, appearing at the door with his surgical mask drawn down. His face was perfectly neutral, no sign of how Shenden’s brother was faring inside. Qing could only hope it was good news, for her sake.

”Coming.” Shenden said, gathering herself. ”Thank you. Thank you both. For the talking and the tea, and the everything else. Wish him luck.” She followed the Doctor, the grief of her face giving way to focus as the door closed behind her.

Qing's brow furrowed with confusion once she had left. Wait... his father? Your father's dead..? Or is this how people in this business "retire"... nobody seeks revenge against a dead man...

R O C K
R O C K

Chapter Four

“Be aware of yourself, and accept yourself as you are. That is where your training should begin.” -Takehiko Inoue, Vagabond

"You’ll live to fight, and fight to live, or I will end you myself."

<“Lift with your legs, Qing Yuan!”>

<“Oh sure, he’s not an air conditioner. So now you know all about lifting! I’m taking all of the weight here!”>

"Get up, Rock. You can do this."

<”Qing Yuan! Your chi!”>

"What have you done with my brother!?"

"The Mountain and The Rock never quit."

"Sorry. About your father as well."

"Strike harder, whelp."

"If you hadn’t found him when you did, he’d be dead already."

"Will he make it?"

"If I have anything to say about it…"

"Wherever you go, kiddo, I’ll believe in you."

”Rise and shine, Rock…”

Rock woke to the circling ceiling fan casting a revolving shadow across his face. The room was still and spare, blank walls and no sound but the gentle thrum of the fan and the murmur of the city beyond the walls. He was wrapped in warm sheets, lying on a bed that felt softer than any he’d slept on in a decade. How did he get here?

He remembered the beating, the pain. The Count’s face twisted in disgust as he dragged Rock across the sand. Then nothing. Rock expected the pain to redouble any second now, but all that was left in its place was a dull ache.

“Ah, the nudnik is finally awake.” Rock blinked the sleep out of his eyes and turned to the familiar voice. An old man sat on a chair pulled up to Rock’s bedside, leather bag lain across his lap. He smiled at Rock and his eyes twinkled behind his bifocals.

“Doctor Eye?” It was a face Rock hadn’t seen in a very long time. The last he could recall was Saw’s last battle against Darksaber. Doc Eye was Saw’s de facto physician, though The Mountain rarely needed such a thing. His grey abilities meant he could see and identify people’s ailments better than about any other doctor in Calder City. X-ray vision, telescopic vision, magnetic resonance vision, thermals, and more. When Rock was still a sidekick, Doc Eye was the chief medic of the Vanguard, but looking at him now in his old tweed coat and his bent spectacles, he looked like any other haggard primary care.

“The very same,” Doctor Idell opened one of Rock’s eyes wide and shone his ophthalmoscope.

“Where am I?” Rock tried to piece together more details, but the room was spartan, almost entirely unfurnished. It looked like an unused apartment. He saw Shenden snoozing in the corner, a handmade blanket thrown over her.

“Above a repair shop in Hudson,” Doctor Idell said, concluding his exam. “No brain damage, looks like. Besides what you’ve always had, anyway.” Rock glared at him.

”How did I get here? Doesn’t look like a Vanguard safehouse.”

”A couple kind souls plucked you off the street,” Doctor Idell said. He tucked the last of his equipment into his bag and stowed it under his chair.

”And then you found me from the belt signal?” Rock asked.

“I didn’t. She did.” Doctor Idell nodded at Shenden. “Asked me to come out of my retirement from this farkakte superhero business to make sure you were alright. I could never say no to her. You know, she’s the strongest person I’ve ever met.” Rock snorted.

“Aren’t you doctor to the superheroes? I know you’ve seen plenty stronger.”

“These old eyes have seen a lot. Have learned a lot. For one thing, I’ve seen that strength doesn’t always come from the muscles, shlemiel.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Rock said. He’d heard enough nonsense like that from Saw and from his Senseis over the years. Esoteric philosophizing about what strength is. No high minded philosophy could explain why he was brutalized and left stuck in this bed.

”How’s about you settle with the kvetching and give an old man a moment to say his piece?” He reached into his bag and produced a lollipop.

”Trying to bribe me with candy? I’m not five, doc.”

”You do act like it. But this is for me, something besides a cigarette I can suck on while dealing with difficult patients,” He said. He unwrapped it and stuck it in, rolling it around his mouth. “Now where was I… Ah! I’m sure you remember how tough Saw was, eh? Pain tolerance like I’ve never seen.”

It was true. It was something beyond his regeneration. Even through the brutal lethwei training before his abilities awakened, the worst of the body conditioning, the microfractures across every bone in his body, he’d push through like nothing happened at all. He could get shot dozens of times and smile about it.

“I can tell you Shenden doesn’t have it. You can always see the hurt in her eyes. And like your old man, she can’t use any painkillers either, her body shoots through them too fast. But still, I’ve had her on my table more times than I can count. A heap of topical griseosporine and I can open her up, let her donate things most people only get one or two of. Through it all she won’t whine or thrash, she just curls her hands up and lets herself cry about it. Then by the time I’ve wiped my ointment off and she’s knit herself up, she’s the one asking me when I’ll be ready to go again.”

Rock looked back at her, snoring softly. He put a hand against the ribs The Count shattered. They were intact, sore, but firm. ”Are you saying she just…?”

Doctor Idell nodded. “You were destroyed. Bad as anyone I’ve ever treated. But with her help, we took a recovery time of six months and shortened it to six hours. Her blood loses its potency the longer it's been out of her, but I was able to IV you two together directly. It did a lot to patch you up, and she was able to donate the parts the blood couldn’t hack. But it sure wiped her out. She’s been sleeping a long while.”

“She didn’t have to,” Rock said. This was his mess. He could get out of it on his own.

“Didn’t she? Her brother nearly kills himself and she’s just supposed to let him wither away? You might have missed it kid, but she’s the one that’s been fighting to hold your family together, you included. She’s never fought in her life but she marched in here ready to tear heads off if that was what it took to get to you.”

”She would never,” Rock said. The Shennie he knew wouldn’t hurt a fly, literally. She always made Rock or Khaing Min deal with the bugs around the house growing up, and insisted they put them in a cup and release them.

”She’d do anything for you,” Doctor Idell said. His tone did not brook disagreement.

”I’d do anything for her,” Rock said. It was Doctor Idell’s turn to snort.

”As long as you don’t have to push your ego down first, right?” Doctor Idell crunched into his lollipop.

”You’re on thin ice, old man.” Rock cautioned.

”That’s another thing about your sister. She’s always kind, to a fault. She’ll welcome anyone into her heart. She’s already gotten some kind of close to the folks running this place. But you? You push everyone away, with all that piss and vinegar. You’re too weak to let anyone get within spitting distance of you.” Doctor Idell tossed the stick of his lollipop into the trash as Rock stewed. What the hell did the old man mean by that? Where did he get off? Rock heard a pair of footsteps coming from somewhere else in the building.

“Ah, here come our hosts. The kid’s a real mensch, and his dad’s one hell of a balebos. Make sure to show them gratitude, sheygets, more than you’ve shown me. I’m going to go fix myself some more of this yuhua tea.” Doctor Idell grabbed a used coffee cup from Rock’s bedside table and excused himself as a pair of Asian men walked in. One was young and lean, with a beard that looked like it hadn’t seen a trim in a few days. The other was a little bigger, rounder, looked like an older version of the first. Father and son, Rock figured. The younger one’s eye held on the blanket his sister was curled up in, or maybe even Shenden herself, for a beat, before returning focus to the now conscious Rock.

“You’re awake. Supervillain hit you with a truck?” The younger newcomer asked, immediately undercutting everything the doctor had said about them.

“Felt like it,” Rock said. He laid back into the pillows and looked up at the ceiling fan. ”Ever think you’re gonna have an easy time and then it blows up in your face?”

“I caught a bullet today and forgot about it. So yes.” He uttered, accompanied with a yawn. Rock sat up and locked his eyes on the young man. Not just some slipshod repairman, was he?

”I might’ve been alright if I was that fast. How did you manage that?” Rock asked. An inkling squirmed at the back of his mind. Something about the way this guy carried himself, the tone of his body.

“No it’s not like that. I’m not… in your ‘field’.” He waved Rock off. “Just… wrong place, wrong time.”

“You don’t catch bullets by being in the wrong place,” Rock said, feeling the edge creep into his voice. He bit the inside of his cheek. He was supposed to be grateful.

“I’d say it’s the only place you catch them. If you’re in the right place, you dodge them. So… agree to disagree.”

”You seem like you get around to a lot of those wrong places,” Rock said. He looked experienced, trained. His hands looked right for it, thick and rough, not the kind you get from doing just anything. They looked like the hands of his senseis, seasoned after decades of striking. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Qing Yuan Liu. Just like the name on the front, Liu’s Fix-It. Well, you weren’t awake when we got you in here, so I can get how you’d miss that.”

”I’m Rock,” Rock said, offering his hand, “but I’m sure Shennie or the Doc already told you that.” When Qing accepted the handshake, Rock pulled it closer, turning it over and examining his fist. “For someone not in my line of work, you sure seem like it. Your knuckles are worn down from it. You fight,” Rock said, a declaration more than a question.

“I didn’t like having to catch a bullet.” Qing glibly replied, half-lidded.

“Who are you, really? The ‘God of Water’?” Rock asked. The pattern followed. Qing clearly had a lot more experience than he was letting on. The flow of his movements, even the way he weaved away from Rock’s questions. He said he could catch bullets. Even The Count had to dodge them. A guy with all that expertise, floating around The Count’s lair just in time to snatch him up? It was too perfect.

“That sounds ambitious. God of Plumbing, maybe. Apprentice to the God of Plumbing, more likely. I’d be happy to let you write my online reviews though, with that attitude.” Qing said. If he was a liar, he was a good one, but Rock didn’t put that past him.

The older man laughed at the thought of Qing being a god. Then laughed some more. Then laughed uncomfortably long until Qing closed his eyes and sighed, weary with everything. Maybe Qing was telling the truth. It didn’t track with The Count’s grandiose explanation that one of his ‘Gods’ would be living with his Dad in a mom-and-pop repair shop.

”Maybe I will. Not every day I get fished out of hell by a couple good samaritans, I can thank you with a review. I’ll make sure to mention you both, Qing Yuan and…?”

“Bo Wen Liu. And it’s my name on the front. That you weren’t awake for. Like Qing said.”

”I’ll remember it,” Rock said, realizing he actually meant it. Most people felt like set dressing to him. He couldn’t recall the names of any of his fellow pupils from his time in Japan. But these two, Qing in particular, had something special about them.

“You pick fight with gods? Lead with face? And things not as easy as thought?”

“Yes, he’s not short on confidence. I think it’s probably part of the lifestyle.”

”I was supposed to be out of this ‘lifestyle’ already,” Rock sighed. ”You know how it is. One last job.”

”Rock has a hard head…” Rock’s head snapped to the corner and saw Shennie was awake, still wrapped up in her blanket, smiling at him softly. “Some days it seems like what will get him killed. Most days it seems like it's what keeps him alive.”

”How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough.”

Qing’s eye again returned to the blanket, and his mouth fell open he turned to the older man, before he thought better of it and chose to say nothing at all. He changed tack and decided there was something more important than whatever was on his mind.

“We’ll just give you some time to talk. Knock sense back into his hard head. Things like that. Ba, downstairs.”

“Thank you both again. I’ll never forget it.”

Bo Wen gave Shenden a wide smile before Qing realised he wasn’t being followed. “Now, Ba.”

As the pair went back down the stairs, Qing’s words floated back into the open door.

“What a nice girl,” Qing said. Rock heard the footsteps stop.

“Not a damn word.” The older man’s laughter faded as the pair descended out of earshot.

”They’re amazing people,” Shenden said. She folded her blanket so it would fit onto her lap and pulled her chair to the other side of Rock’s bed.

”Amazingly odd, Rock said.

”Rock. They saved your life.” She leaned in, punctuated her point with a hard gaze. Rock’s expression didn’t shift.

”Maybe they shouldn’t have,” he said. He saw her heart break a little behind her eyes.

”What are you talking about, Rock?” She worked to keep her tone level, but she couldn’t hack it.

”Maybe if I died down there the Vanguard would have enough reason to come down on him and find proof of what he did.” It might be the only option left to them. The Vanguard would never move on him without something more substantial. The Count swore up and down he hadn’t been Saw’s killer, but what other lead was there?

”Why do you even believe it was him?” She kept the edge of the hurt out of her voice this time, but the question still cut Rock.

”Really, Shenden? Isn’t it obvious? Why even tell me he was in the city if you didn’t think he did it?” Rock snapped. He expected her to recoil, but she just scoffed.

”Because it was the right thing to do. Your biological father shows up to your dad’s funeral, and I’m supposed to keep that from you? I didn’t think you’d go on a tear through the city going after him. I didn’t think you’d wreck Uncle Phone’s store. I didn’t think Ben Knight would be calling me asking why you were beating on his son, and I certainly didn’t think you would go and do this to yourself.” She gestured at him up and down. His injuries were gone, but Rock got the point.

”Well what the hell did you think was gonna happen?” Rock said. Shenden knew him well enough to know this was how he solved problems. The way The Mountain had against his worst enemies. The way The Count did, he realized.

”I thought you might come home and grieve with us. I thought we might all work it out together, as a family. Make right of this.” She reached out and squeezed Rock’s arm. ”All this time, we just wanted you to come home.”

”We? Come on, Shennie. You know as well as I do how pissed Khaing Min and Thiri are. You know how much we fight.” He pulled his arm out of her grasp and rubbed where she touched like it would leave a scar.

”They did a lot of growing up while you were gone. I had hoped you did too.” She held her hand close to herself. It made Rock feel like he had slapped it away.

”It’s not about ‘growing up’. Do you remember that night when we were all at Doc Eye’s?” He offered his hand to her as a silent apology.

Shenden nodded cautiously, put her hand in his. It was one of the nights after Saw’s last fight with Darksaber, lacerated to the bone, hanging on in the way only he could. All his children gathered around, supporting him.

”Do you remember what we all promised him?” He met her eyes, deep and intelligent brown, grasping the memory.

”That we would always be there for him,” she whispered.

”Of everyone who made that promise, who left?” Rock asked.

”You’re a special case Rock, you know that. You had to go and heal on your own terms.” She massaged the back of his hand with her thumb.

”Our siblings don’t see it that way. I don’t see it that way. I thought he had nothing left to teach me, so I left to become stronger, but I couldn’t even manage that. I left, and now he’s dead. I wasn’t there to protect him like he protected us. It’s my fault.” He drew his legs up to his chest.

”He knew the risks, Rock, made sure we all knew them. Is this what all this is about? You can’t face us, you can’t forgive yourself until you catch whoever did this?”

Rock shook his head. He couldn’t. He fought the stinging feeling in his eyes. Shenden bit her lip and thought for a beat.

”I can’t tell you I wouldn’t want to see justice done. But I can tell you it wouldn’t matter to Dad. He died doing what he believed in. All he would want is to see you grow into a good man.”

”I’m trying,” Rock said.

”I know,” Shenden said. She wrapped him in a hug. ”Maybe part of the trying should be making amends. If you really feel you did wrong, you could apologize to Thiri and Khaing Min. I can come, keep them honest. Keep you honest.” Rock looked away.

”I can’t,” he said.

”Maybe you just can’t yet.” Shenden rubbed his back. ”What if you started with something smaller, and worked your way up? Try apologizing to Scott Knight.”

”I…” Rock sighed. ”I can try.”

Author’s Notes

-Another difficult chapter to write, harder than the funeral for sure, although Hound did help out a heap. It’s difficult to balance emotional storytelling, particularly with dialogue, against possible melodrama. Thankfully I’m emulating comics and manga which are famously melodramatic so it shouldn’t be a huge issue.

-If second characters ever opened up and I had the energy for it (which I won’t), I think I’d be interested in pursuing the Doctor as a secondary PC. I like the idea of fleshing out the verse from the eyes of someone who has seen so much of it, even more than someone like Dusk or Rock. I also liked the idea of a Doctor that did not have a straightforward healing power, but rather something that just made him more effective as a doctor. I floated around faceclaims of all kinds, but I found that an old Jewish guy seemed right for the character and his relationship with Rock. I’m Jewish myself but practically speaking I’m a goyim who wears the hat at Hannukah, so I hope my portrayal is not too overblown.

Vanguard: Calder City

R O C K
R O C K

Chapter Three

“I am a shark, the ground is my ocean, and most people can’t even swim.” - Rickson Gracie

The Everyday Heroes Center was the jewel of the Narragansett Bay. It was designed in the style of all the United States’ greatest civic buildings, with wide arched roofs supported by marbled ionic columns. The base of the centermost column, beside the Center’s revolving doors was carved into the form of a man. The Mountain bore the column’s weight across his back, grinning wide beneath his half mask at passersby. It was based on a photo from his early years, using his hysteric strength to brace a bridge against the weight of the passenger train that roared across it. The statue was commissioned by the Lichtensteins as part of their donation to the center, revealed as part of the final design as the Center opened its doors. Saw always hated it.

They even wanted to call it the “Saw Chaw Center”, a prospect that made Saw sick. This place was meant to have food and clothing drives, dedicated social workers and services, housing assistance, legal support, public recreation spaces; all ways meant to hold up the average person, not prop up Saw’s ego. Rock never understood it as a child. It was his glory, so Saw should feel free to claim it, not shun it. Saw fought for it anyway, fought to keep his name off of it, used Thiri’s legal connections to ensure the place was made by and for the people of Calder. He swore as long as he stood he’d never let greed or ambition poison it.

Now, standing before it, Rock knew the poison had seeped in anyway. The Count’s money had wormed its way in, beneath their notice. Saw only drove support, he was a figurehead. He never kept track of the books or the particulars of the donations or donors. Had he seen The Count’s contribution he would have rejected it outright. It came from extortion and selfish deals. The Count would use his scientific mind to engineer some new innovation, medical devices and drugs that could save the lives of millions; then he would sell them to the highest bidder for private use only. It was blood money.

Blood money that had to have given him latitude in the Center’s construction. He had a portfolio of hideouts across the world and in the city over the years, and it figured he would conspire to place one at the heart of his greatest enemy’s desires. If it was like any of his others, it would be undetectable to passersby, hidden from even those that lived and worked in the Center every day. It would be almost impossible to find. But The Count was nothing if not vain: he would have left his signature.

Rock pushed through the revolving doors and into the main hall, greeted by a pair of bright eyed staffers who wanted to know how they could help him today.

“Gym,” Rock grunted, stepping down a hall he hadn’t trod in years. The gym was where the Center held its self defense and disaster response classes, preparing ordinary citizens to deal with the worst the greys could throw at them. But the gym was not Rock’s final destination. He unzipped his hoodie a fraction and consulted the compartments of the utility belt looped around his shoulder.

Saw was no gadgeteer, he preferred to solve most of his problems with might and vigor, but he tried to include gizmos to get around situations he could not punch out, especially in his kid sidekick’s iteration of the belt. Most of the equipment inside was sourced from or otherwise invented by other members of the Vanguard. There were the Mountain shurikens forged by Anvil, smoke bombs from Eagle Eye, a hi-power flashlight donated by Beacon, and the one Rock’s hand closed around: the TMPD, Techtronic’s Multi-Purpose Detector.

The TMPD could read barometric pressure and altitude, function as a compass, radar, automap, and detect about every type of wave there is. In this case, it was a geiger counter. Rock took the palm-size TMPD and cranked its sensitivity as high as it would go. The Count would have marked the entrance to whatever structure he’d hidden within the Center with a minute amount of radioisotope iodine-131, barely traceable above background radiation, undetectable by conventional equipment. In the event of a disaster, natural or otherwise, The Count could use it to locate the remnants of his strongholds to recover his research. It doubled as a calling card, his challengers would know what to look for. A sign Rock and The Mountain had found many times.

Ten minutes padding across the Center’s linoleum tiles brought Rock to his answer. In the east wing, beyond the gym and a battery of soundproofed study spaces, an anonymous fire control panel pinged hot on the TMPD. It was larger than standard, a thick red plate poking out of the wall. Rock stuck his fingers behind it and pulled, prying it open. It revealed a hollow space with a fireman’s pole.

Rock descended into the darkness, broken up only by muted strips of glowing green light. He didn’t know how far he slid, ten feet, twenty, a hundred, until his feet came to rest against unfinished concrete. The room was ten feet across, dominated by a curved, featureless steel wall all along the far end. A raised red button was all Rock could make out in the darkness. He pressed it and grinding gears filled as ears as the steel wall began to shift. Plumes of concrete dust fell around Rock and the wall turned inch by inch, revealing an elevator sized box. He stepped inside as the movement stopped and pressed another button. The passage sealed behind him and he was rotated once more. It felt like Rock was a kid again, back on one of Saw’s stupid family trips to Corsair’s Cove, being shuffled through lines, up and down rickety stairwells to disappointing slides that led to nowhere, a farce that did nothing but keep him busy. Maybe this was some joke by The Count, at the end of this he’d find nothing but a featureless wall, another statement of The Count’s superiority. Or maybe there’d be a bomb, to blast him apart for his insolence.

Instead of a killbox, the wall opened before Rock into a grand chamber. It reminded Rock of the colosseum in Rome, as though the ancient structure had a cast made in the bowels of Calder City’s infrastructure. Rows of gunmetal stasis tubes defined the outermost circle, filled with off-green liquid that reminded Rock of uncracked glowsticks. Each housed an organ or strip of bone floating in solution. Rock made out hearts, lungs, and lumps of replacement muscle, growing or stewing in their nutrient soup, ready to be fitted into The Count as needed. They were the open secret of his long life. He couldn't heal like Saw. Instead he flash-cloned every part of himself, replacing anything damaged beyond repair, had done for centuries.

Rock was born in a vat just like these. The Count harvested eggs from donors and defeated combatants he found genetically ideal and created batches of children. He would grow them, train them, break them. Pit them against each other. One of Rock’s earliest memories was of his hands around his vat-brother’s throat, as The Count coached him to squeeze harder and close the carotid. Many died. Many more washed out and were discarded at orphanages around the world. Not Rock.

Instead he trained harder and was allowed to grow older, in a place like the one at the bottom of the Count’s lair. It was a circular arena, filled with sand and the memories of the fights it housed: hair, teeth, fragments of bone and long since dried blood. In the center, he was there.

The Count’s throne sat on a raised dais a few yards across, steel, arched frame supporting plush red leather cushions and the immense stature of the man upon it. Linked screens supported by an arm from the ceiling fed him information from the four corners of the earth, but they were already ascending, now beneath The Count’s focus. His eyes were already on Rock as the young man descended towards him.

“So nice of you to join me, Kenneth.” The Count of Combat’s voice was posh and trim, deep and old. He was much larger than when Rock had last seen him, his physique pushed beyond that of a bodybuilder and into the grotesque; thick bands of hypertrophic muscle covering every part of his body. His fingers were steepled, displaying the girth and definition of his carefully sculpted forearms.

“How dare you. Here? Here, of all places. You couldn’t just kill Saw, could you? You had to poison his dreams just like you poisoned him.” Rock’s fists shook, balled so hard his fingernails cut into his skin.

“Out with the suspicions before the salutations, I see. Are you still so incapable of withholding your indignation?” The Count lazed back, draping an arm over the side of the throne.

“I know you hated him. Hated both of us. Strived to destroy everything he ever built.” Rock stepped forward. It took everything in him to not leap across the arena and start striking. He’d break The Count’s nose first, wet his fists with the blood and set to dismantling him.

“Understand that my hatred is a privilege that the pair of you rarely enjoyed. It is a fine vintage, uncorked only for the most special occasions. For you now I feel only pity, which itself is unbecoming for a man of my status. For Saw? I search my heart and I can only find respect.” The Count stroked his chin as he spoke, eyes half lidded, watching Rock boil as though Rock was paint drying across the wall.

“This is your respect?” Rock spat. He swept his arm out to the lab behind them, the bastard products of The Count’s cruel science.

“You cannot become the kind of man Saw was without a love of challenge, boy. It was what bound us together, each of our spats pushing us farther, elevating our arts.” The Count sat forward and the corner of his mouth turned up. “Something you could not understand.”

“I’ve travelled the world challenging myself, challenging others. Now I’m here to challenge you and make you pay for what you did,” Rock said, assuming his stance. It was the traditional pose of lethwei, two hands forward, front leg slightly raised, all nine points prepared to strike.

“You insist on this notion,” The Count said, ignoring the challenge. He stretched, rotating thick shoulders the size of basketballs. “You actually believe I would stoop so low as to poison him?”

“Not much lower to stoop when you’re already scum,” Rock said. He didn’t move an inch, eyes locked onto The Count.

“A most audacious claim from a stripling. You must understand I am fundamentally disinterested in any victory my body cannot bring me on its own. Even if I were to abandon this philosophy, abandon everything I am…” The Count flexed his bicep as if his physique was proof of his point. “I have already conquered Saw to my satisfaction.”

“You never beat us,” Rock sneered.

“Our definitions of victory were never symmetrical. As a pair, you were adept at destroying my facilities, souring my best laid plans, but these objectives come and go as the tide. Immaterial across the span of my life. But our combat?” The Count smiled and leaned back in his chair, the reminiscence playing about his face.

Rock knew it was true. Every battle with the Count would end once they freed a hostage, destroyed his latest device or ruined his lab. They’d run off, secure in their victory, as Saw worked to heal damage that would be far beyond mortal on any other man. Even as a kid, fleeing from the wreckage of The Count’s lab, Rock would look back and see him making that smile, that same one he made now.

“If you were so satisfied, why even come back here? Why taunt me by showing up at the funeral?” Rock’s fists lowered a fraction.

“Might I not pay tribute to one of the greatest fighters of our time?” The Count tilted his head at Rock, something in his eye twinkled. “Saw was, in his way, a genius. He was one of the five greatest living martial artists, a God, if you will. Without him there is something of a hole in our pantheon. I must sort out the matter of succession. He left behind no heritor to be slotted easily into his place.”

“You're looking at him.” Rock thumped his chest. His travels had turned him from a sidekick into a warrior. He had learned from the very best in the world. Learned enough to shove The Count’s words back down his throat.

The Count laughed. “Only in your view. I cannot deny you would do well in the televised fighting championships. Or perhaps the grey brawls about the Docks of this hovel city would lionize you. But in my world you are a mewling kitten.”

“Your world?” Rock asked. Was he not a part of it? Was he not a product of The Count’s ‘world’? The cycle of violence Saw sought to stop, the one The Count perpetuated, the one Rock had risen above in sublime skill?

“One that does not concern itself with ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’, but with the art. The pursuit of strength, and the balance of the strong. The Chinese devised a brilliant system of five elements, each balancing the others. So too do we balance each other. I have been called The God of Metal for a century. Saw, the latest to bear the name God of Wood, was one of my opposites. Without him, our system threatens to fall into disarray,” The Count detailed. It sounded like bullshit, some pretentious justification for what he did, what he’d keep doing. Maybe Rock could keep him talking and he’d present an opportunity. Then Rock would eat him alive.

“Look. I'm not here to hear about your system or your values. I'm here to put the pieces together. If you truly didn’t do it… If you really respected him… Why don’t you solve it? Clear your name? We both know you could.” Rock said, beginning to circle The Count’s platform, searching for a clear opening in his guard.

“The problem does not interest me,” The Count said, waving off the suggestion. “It has its scintillating features, but once one considers all the actors and motivations at play, its solution becomes quite elementary.” Rock bit his lip, had to force his legs to keep moving through the sand and not leap at The Count to tear his throat out.

“And you’re not keen on sharing?” Rock said.

“I would not dream of depriving you the pleasure of working it out for yourself,” The Count said, staring right back at him, flashing that smile and bearing those teeth that now seemed like fangs.

“So why should I believe you?” Rock contested. The Count shrugged.

“Believe whatever brings you comfort, child. Why would I bother deceiving you?”

“So you don’t have to face me,” Rock growled. He felt like a lion stalking his prey, completely unaware. The Count had no idea how big the gap between them had become.

“Does the sun fear the challenge of a penlight?” The Count looked away, not dignifying Rock with a glance, consulting the buttons on the arm of his throne.

“I’m not just some kid you can chew up and spit out anymore.” Rock opened the utility belt’s third compartment and his hand closed around something hard and sharp. It was a Mountain shuriken in the shape of Saw’s logo, excellent for severing ropes or attacking from a distance. Rock palmed it and continued circling The Count.

The Count shook his head. “The boy I remember bears a shocking resemblance with the one before me now. You fear true challenges. You are only here before me now because you believe you can best me without difficulty. Your ability gives you great latitude, that devil’s brain I birthed you with. You learn so quickly I began to believe I had finally created a worthy successor. But you balk at depth, you scorn it. You convince yourself you have learned everything worth knowing and move on. This is what drove you into Saw’s arms… And out of them. Martial arts are a mountain. You think you have reached the top, but have only arrived at a plateau. You must summit the peaks to become their master,” The Count said. More self aggrandizing bullshit, it was all The Count could muster to fluff up his ego. In his rant, in his distraction with his damn chair, The Count presented Rock with his moment.

“I’ve become more than you could imagine.” Rock hurled the weapon at The Count’s head, hard enough to punch through his skull and destroy his brain.

But The Count’s hand snatched it clean out of the air.

“This is precisely my point,” The Count waved the shuriken and looked back at Rock. “You allow yourself to play around with these… Toys.” The Count squeezed it between his fingers, bending the hardened steel into a half moon shape. He discarded it and it clinked against the teeth littering the sand. “You lack purity. You have made no real advancement.” He rose finally from his throne, moving with a grace that belied his titanic form.

“If you insist on this course, perhaps you should witness just how far the distance between us is,” The Count said. He reached into the throne’s armrest and produced a syringe, glowing green in the chamber’s fluorescent lights.

“Poison?” Rock accused. Maybe it was the same he used on Saw. “I thought you were ‘above’ poisons.”

“I am, indeed… On others.” The Count depressed a button on the throne and it and the dais descended into the sands as The Count stepped off, bare feet padding closer to Rock.

“This is a custom neurotoxin of my design, based on the chemical structure of griseosporine.” The Count pressed the needle to the inside of his elbow. “It will suppress the speed of my neurotransmission, and reduce the energy efficiency of my metabolism. It will induce fatigue across my entire body and produce pronounced joint pain, as well as acute acidosis in every muscle group. My vision will begin to blur, and my decision making faculty will be hampered. In effect,” The Count said, smiling, “it may make you an appropriate match for me… If you are lucky.” He breathed deep and rolled his neck as the syringe’s liquid disappeared into his bloodstream.

This had to be a lie, too. Surely it was some steroid, some shot of adrenaline and artificial vigor. But it didn’t matter. The Count could take every advantage in the world, and Rock would still obliterate him. He’d give everything. For Saw. For himself.

Rock assumed his pose, and The Count did the same. The Count used baritsu, a custom art of his design, based on the English combination art bartitsu. These facts both Saw and The Count beat into Rock’s head. It was all encompassing: traditional bareknuckle boxing, jujitsu, judo, shaolin kung fu, even dambe and sambo, a style as eclectic as Rock’s. But The Count had rested on his laurels too long. His style, as everything about him, had become more about the inflation of his ego than his real skill. Even his stance showed it: two open palms, no guard to speak off, as if he was about to wrap his opponent in a hug, as though he believed no one would be able to hit him. Rock was fresher, smarter, deadlier.

To an outsider, they would appear to stand totally still for a half minute, watching each other. This was the first step of their combat, move and countermove. Reading the other, the subtle twitches of their muscle that would belie their intention. To move first would mean commitment, to open oneself to brutal punishment. But Rock could see The Count getting lost in the strategy of it, his eyes beginning to glaze as he read intention beyond intention beyond intention. Rock would keep it deathly simple.

He shot forward for a takedown. He would ground The Count and pound the big man into submission. Rock’s arms blasted forward for the hold, but The Count, eyes still fogged, stepped backwards. Rock stumbled and The Count’s leg moved at impossible speed. A heel slammed into the back of Rock’s skull and he hit the ground, mouth filling with earthy, iron-specked sand as stars flashed across his vision.

Rock rolled out of the way, sputtering sand, and threw his arms up to block, but no attack came. He looked up, eyes stinging, and saw The Count with hands lodged firmly in his pockets.

“Your foresight lacks refinement,” The Count said. He gestured at Rock with his chin. “You seek to prove your strength… Can you even prove to me I need to use my hands?”

“Prove this.” Rock slashed his leg across the sand and shot up a cloud of dust to hide his motion. He shot out of the dust like a missile, aiming both hands at The Count’s sternum. With enough force, he could stop The Count’s heart with one shot and end the fight before it truly started.

The Count sidestepped the blow by a fraction and pushed Rock’s knee with the tip of his foot, sending Rock spinning out of control, off-center from his target, unrooted from his base, pinwheeling to crash into the sand again.

“I can read the flow of your power without complication. It has little stability.” The Count stood over Rock, leering at him as he pushed back to his feet. “I see you have improved your grappling, learned new methods of striking… But you still know nothing of ‘principles’.”

Rock roared and leaped, throwing his knee up at The Count’s chest. The Count turned to drive his shoulder into the blow and deny its impact, but Rock’s real strike was coming from higher up. Every muscle from Rock’s waist to his straining neck worked in one motion to slam his forehead into The Count’s face. It was the ninth point of lethwei, the signature move of The Mountain: the Calder Cudgel. Rock felt The Count’s nose break against his skull, felt his own brain rattle around in his head. If he wasn’t concussed before, he was now.

Rock’s ears were ringing, and he swayed from side to side, but he was still up. But so was The Count. He stood as a statue, bleeding freely from the nose, eyes darkened from his brow.

“A clean hit,” The Count remarked. He pulled his hands from his pockets and pressed his thumb into his left nostril, and pushed a fountain of blood from the right. “It will be your last.”

Rock stepped in with a straight and The Count’s backhand cracked across his face.

“Be serious,” The Count chided. Rock went for a muay thai roundhouse, forcing his full bodyweight into his shin, enough to destroy legs or ribcages in one strike. The Count’s hand moved faster than Rock could perceive and he felt two finger tips against his knee, an electric feeling across his hips as his motion was arrested. What?

“There,” The Count said, “the ‘point of force’.” He met Rock’s eyes. “Are you beginning to understand?” The Count’s hand moved from Rock’s knee to his chin and smashed his head back.

Rock’s world was a pinprick of clear vision that everything else swam around, dominated by the severe lines of The Count’s face. He had to change the game. Maybe he could hide and then mount The Count, force him into a rear naked choke and submit him. Rock’s hands found the utility belt and selected a half dozen small spheres.

The smoke bombs exploded in Rock’s hands and a pall of smoke enveloped him. Tears ran down Rock’s face, from the pain in his head and the migraine fraying the edges of his mind or the stinging smoke he could not tell. With the smokescreen Rock could recover and --

Out of the smoke, The Count’s huge hand closed around Rock’s neck. “Don’t think I can only hit what I can see,” he said, resolving out of the gas, lifting Rock into the air one handed as his son squirmed.

“Hrk--” Rock thrashed and felt the rough thumb driving into his neck, pressing on his carotid. His vision was starting to swim. He had to get out fast. Rock used every muscle in his abdomen and jerked his whole body upwards, wrapping one leg across the Count’s torso and the other around his neck, forcing the huge man into an armbar, threatening to break his elbow. The grip loosened and Rock sucked in a breath. The Count dropped and slammed his full weight across his arm and into the sand, forcing the air out of Rock’s lungs. Rock felt the sand’s teeth and nail fragments dig bloody gashes into his back as his grip came loose and The Count pulled his arm free. It was a small miracle his spine hadn’t broken, that a wedge of bone hadn’t worked itself into a vertebrae.

“Get up,” The Count said. Could Rock even manage that much? Somehow he found his feet again, legs trembling.

“Attack!” The Count demanded. Every muscle in Rock’s body felt heavy. He raised his arm.

“Your striking is pitiful,” The Count said. Rock’s elbow rammed into The Count’s abdomen and bounced off, sending Rock stumbling. It was like hitting a tree. “The relationship between technique and power is exponential, boy. The majority of the strength lies in the approach of perfection. Observe.” The Count drew back his fist and Rock knew it would be too fast to dodge.

Rock threw up his left forearm to block the blow. It connected and he could feel The Count’s knuckles grind against his bone, fracturing his radius and pushing Rock yards back across the sand. The bruise appeared instantly, a black splotch from his wrist to his elbow. The arm was useless. Even rotating his wrist a degree sent waves of agony across Rock’s body.

“Every part of your body can be a weapon, not the crude instruments you flail about with. A hammer, a spear, a knife.” The Count’s hand lashed out and knuckles scraped over Rock’s forehead. A cut appeared and a curtain of blood dripped over Rock’s right eye. Rock threw a right blindly and The Count caught it. He twisted Rock’s arm backward. He drove his left knee into Rock’s side. Rock felt his ribs splinter, needles of bone poking into his lungs.

“Perhaps you are worthy of my hatred, boy.” The Count said. Rock laid on his back, struggling to breathe. Was he dying? The Count kicked his side again and Rock felt something in his chest give way and a rattle of air pushed out of his throat.

“A braggart, with nothing to show for all his vinegar.” The Count shoved his foot under Rock and rolled him across the sand, gathering a new collection of cuts and friction burns from the debris. The pain was already too intense for them to be anything but a pleasant distraction.

“A spoiled brat, suckling on the teat of his betters.” The Count pushed his face towards Rock, and spat a thick wad of phlegm between his eyes. This close, spittle burning in his eyes, Rock saw the sweat across The Count’s brow, the pale in his face. He really had taken that poison, and there was still nothing Rock would do to him.

Rock pushed his arm down, dragging jagged bone across the interior of his elbow. His fingers pried the face off the belt’s clasp. The panel fell away and revealed a dark, inlaid Mountain sigil. He pushed his screaming palm against it and the sigil came to life, pulsing through primary colors.

“No aid will come from this trinket. This facility exists within a faraday cage.” The Count shook his head. “I should strip it off you and beat you to death with it.”

“Kill me,” Rock croaked.

“But I won’t do you that dignity,” The Count ignored him. “You are not even worthy of death by combat. I’ll dispose of you with the other trash.” The Count of Combat’s savage hand closed around the nape of Rock’s neck, and dragged him like a newborn fighting for life as the cold closed in all around him.

He was vaguely aware of the smell of rotten food and discarded plastic, the feeling of a soft, jagged bed of waste beneath him. Then the rush of pneumatics and the feeling of warm sunlight across his broken, bleeding form. Then, darkness.

Author’s Notes

-The elevator pitch for The Count is “what if Sherlock Holmes, Nikola Tesla, and Yujiro Hanma were the same guy?”

-Spinning from the Holmes inspiration, I thought it would be cool if The Count used “baritsu”, an incorrectly transcribed martial art first called such by Arthur Conan Doyle. The story goes that ACD attended a seminar by Edward William Barton-Wright, demonstrating his style known as “bartitsu”, invented after Barton-Wright became one of the first known Englishmen to study juijitsu. But ACD incorrectly noted the art down as ‘baritsu’ before making it Holmes’ speciality, inadvertently making his misspelling the much more commonly understood name of the art.

-This is also where I say that Rock’s character and the lore of his world is an adaptation of a personal martial arts worldbuilding project I work on occasionally with a friend, based heavily on the underground martial arts scene seen in shows like Baki or Kengan Ashura. At the time of starting this sheet there was no concept of ‘Rock’ though, and really the firmest character was The Count of Combat. A very loose prototype of Saw existed as well as the ‘God of Wood’, who we had determined to be a lethwei expert with an unusual ability to bounce back from his brawls.

-The ‘Gods’ system The Count mentions is also a holdover from the aforementioned universe that I thought about cutting, but decided to leave in the flesh out the idea of extreme martial arts ability as a kind of superpower. At the moment only the Count and Saw’s positions as the Gods of Metal and Wood respectively have firm holders, leaving Fire, Water, and Earth open.

Vanguard: Calder City

It was late and the caffeine, the burger had worn off from his late night visit from Sandra’s. Dusk rubbed his face with his hand, looking at the spread of documents before him. The missing person reports, the witness statements. The deaths. Atop one file he had attached the photo from the scene today. He lifted the photo and looked at the photo of her when she was alive. Paloma Torres. She was a first generation Grey, used her powers for her job as a courier. Her mother had even gone as far to say she always had her head in the clouds, if she wasn’t flying for work she was doing it for leisure. The only thing, her mother had said, that had grounded her was her fiancé. Ethan Bishop.

He looked at the two files side by side, and leaned back in his chair allowing a sigh to escape his lips. Paloma had come to him early on in the disappearances, it was a week before the wedding and Ethan just… vanished. She went to bed and he had been there beside her, and then he was gone. At first they thought it was a bachelor gone wild, but when his best friend denied any knowledge of it red flags started to go up. The police didn’t care, they chalked it up to him having cold feet, and considered the case closed.

Dominic was embarrassed to admit he had a large caseload at the time, and it hadn’t been his top priority. The last he heard from Paloma she felt like she had discovered a lead into Ethan's disappearance. He had told her to wait, but in her place would he have waited? Damn it, if he had just-

There was a knock at the door, and he nearly shot out of his skin.

R O C K
R O C K

Chapter Two

“A black belt only covers two inches of your ass. You have to cover the rest.” - Royce Gracie

Rock couldn’t remember the last time he’d done so poorly in a fight. He’d been hit before, but never by someone so amateur. If Scott had any real idea how to use that sword, how to maintain its edge alignment, the sense to actually keep it sharp, he could have filleted Rock. The blow to his side would have meant a punctured lung instead of a bruised rib. The one to his leg would have left him bleeding out on Phone Swe’s floor. Instead all he had were angry welts, reminding him of his failure with every step.

Had his weapon defense truly atrophied so badly? It was the first thing Saw taught him, he said it was one of the most critical skills in superheroics. Disarms, locks, feints. The need to protect the bases of your limbs against edged weapons. How to dodge bullets by reading the movement of the hand and the eye. On patrol with Saw, they fought against weapons every night.

But the man Rock was after tonight used no weapons. The Count of Combat claimed he did not need them, that he could always achieve victory from the might of his four limbs alone. Weapons or not, The Count would punish any gap in Rock’s technique. Just as he had with The Mountain.

As far as the public knew, only Darksaber could truly harm The Mountain. Saw’s healing was so robust, his body could even process large quantities of griseosporine with superhuman speed. But Darksaber’s cursed blade could bypass his regeneration entirely, forcing Saw to heal at the pace of a normal human. The only scars on Saw’s body came from that sword.

But The Count could deal damage just as devastating. He had encyclopedic knowledge of martial arts from around the world, a physician’s understanding of the body, and untold decades of combat experience. His attacks were relentless, and fractionally precise. He would target pressure points, shatter bone, remove eyes. He could deal damage so quickly Saw could not recover. It was some of the closest Rock had ever seen Saw to death. This man, who Rock had seen stabbed, shot, blown up, crushed, burned alive, could be taken apart by a simple martial artist. But in the end, Saw would always find a way out.

It must have gnawed at The Count's fighting soul that there was a man out there he could not defeat. The Mountain, the one who had taken his son and shown the boy a better life. It had to have pushed him beyond his martial arts, to dive into the realm of his cruel sciences that had kept him alive far beyond his natural lifespan and make a poison that could end his rival in the paroxysm of his hatred. With it, he could twist the bounds of their combat and leave Saw broken and dead in that alley. He was the only man alive with a mind that could accomplish it. Now, all that was left for him to do was appear at that funeral, and incense his betrayer son to find him and kill him with his own two hands.

But The Count could not have accounted for Rock. Saw was almost a match for The Count, but Rock was twice the fighter The Mountain ever was. He was ten times the fighter. His knowledge, his drive, had to surpass even The Count of Combat. Rock would beat him down and break him, just as The Count had done to his real father.

If only Rock could find him. He’d been across half the city, checking The Count’s old hideouts. The warehouse in The Docks that used to export exotic chemicals on his behalf was now used by a candy company. His lab in Corsair’s Cove in Pointe Bordeaux beneath the Swashbuckler’s Splashdown Park was ransacked, all the old equipment vanished. His waterside gym in Wicklow was converted to a Calder-Cola office. Rock knew The Count was still in the city. It was impossible for him to leave a job half finished, and Rock was still alive. Maybe he thought making Rock go through this hunt would make his defeat all the sweeter. But Rock was no investigator.

He couldn’t take it to the Vanguard. The Count was unknown to them, an enemy Saw kept close to his chest. He had never committed any major crimes worthy of their attention, only menaced Saw and Rock. Even if he had, Rock didn’t have hard evidence, only this burning certainty. But even with evidence in hand, the Vanguard would balk once they discovered The Count could not be brought before any court. Through a combination of force and bribery, The Count had convinced a group of Polish bureaucrats to grant him diplomatic immunity, an immunity the Poles would never challenge, lest the flow of his designer drugs and technologies cease.

That left the private sector. The business card William left him was burning a hole in Rock’s pocket. ‘Dominic Dusk’ sounded like a parody of a private investigator, but it was the only connection Rock had. He stood in front of the address stipulated on the card, one of many converted warehouses in Steel Acre. The corrugated metal siding had been painted a cherry red that had once been inviting, but now after years of weathering had the effect of a layer of rust. Darkened windows pocked the surfaces where there had once been industrial exhaust vents. A sign proclaimed it the “Coal House Building”

The doors were locked to anyone without a keycard. It figured, it was still early enough in the morning that the sun hadn’t come up. But Dusk’s card indicated no office hours, and if the name was any indication, he’d keep odd ones. It wasn’t the first building Rock had broken into tonight anyway. He made sure his old utility belt was hidden beneath his hoodie and zipped it shut, then forced the lock.

He made his way to the second level of the warehouse, passing kitschy apartment decorations of plastic flowers and trite phrases on welcome mats. A few had put out impromptu memorials for The Mountain, hand sized statues of him in costume or trinkets bearing his emblem. One house had a Mountain action figure, paint worn away from finger oils, posed triumphantly at the doorside table. It turned Rock’s stomach. Saw always said he wanted to inspire people to do the right thing, but all he had gotten was worshippers.

Rock reached Dusk’s door. Unassuming, tucked between the apartment of some old bat that spewed chemical hospital smells into the hallway and the office of a landscaping company. You could only tell it was Dusk’s from the amateur nameplate and the sign that read “No case too small”. He rapped his knuckles on the door, still swollen from slamming into Scott’s helmet.

There was a stirring of movement from within, the main light turned on giving clear illumination to the sign upon the door. The faint rustling of things being moved about in the room and then the telltale echo of footsteps on a hardwood floor. They slowed as they approached the door, several locks clicked before the door opened until it could barely be considered ‘ajar’. A single eye could be seen through the gap staring out into the hallway, framed by the door’s chain. The figure’s entire body was at a slight angle that suggested he was twisted, holding something. A gun, Rock’s intuition whispered to him. He tensed. He wanted to kick down the door and wrest the weapon away, but he had to stay calm.

“Can I-” The man cleared his throat loudly, to free the croak from down his gullet. “-can I help you?” It was vaguely familiar to another voice Rock had heard only recently, one he hasn't heard for many years.

“Are you…” Rock worked to make the connection. “You're Albert, aren't you?” It tracked. William had given him the card. The Lichtensteins were a prime example of nepotism in the hero community. It figured it would extend to even The Beacon's failure of a son. He was always there, at the periphery of all the Vanguard gatherings, just like Scott was, until he wasn’t.

“And you're Ken, aren't you?” Albert bit back. There was an acid in it even his brother hadn't brought to bear. Rock bristled.

“Fine. Dusk. Dominic.” Rock felt ridiculous saying it. He had to cut to the chase before the urge to ridicule him much more bubbled up again. “I have a lead on The Mountain's death, and I think you're the only one that can run it down.” It was a bald faced lie, there was no lead but Rock's inkling, and he'd work with any other detective, had he known any. But here he could dangle it over a starving PI's head like a steak.

Dusk’s leering eye snapped open. A hand emerged from the darkness and removed the chain, and the door swung open. The hovel inside was a mess of corkboard and colored string. The desk that dominated the space was antique, older than Rock and Dusk put together, ruined with a lifetime of coffee stains, anonymous cuts and dings. It was home to a pyramid of used mugs and a wheezing, dust-caked desktop.

“You never were one for small talk,” Dusk said, ushering him in. Rock did not miss him tucking his pistol into its holster, trying to hide the action with his coat. Dusk gestured for him to sit in a wooden courthouse chair in front of the desk as he whirled around the apartment, hunting through his stacks of papers.

“You want coffee? You look like hell,” Dusk said, like he didn’t himself. Rock had been up for at least twenty four hours, he’d been awake since he landed, searching the city since the funeral. Rock eyed the pot, sitting on a heater. It was at least a day or two old, with a thick ring of burnt liquid bubbling on the surface. Rock waved the offer off.

“How was the funeral anyway? William passed the invite to me through Matilda but,” Dusk rambled. He scratched the back of his neck. “I couldn't go. It didn't feel right. I wasn't really part of that life. I owe him though, as do a lot of people... Ah! Here we are.” Dusk produced a manilla file, just a slice compared to the thick tomes of casefiles around it. There was a crude sketch of Saw’s logo on the cover, the Himalayas silhouetted.

“I'm not going to lie, I have a personal stake in this. So you give me what you've got, and I'll see what I can do,” Dusk said. He settled into the rolling chair at the head of the desk, a high-backed, moth-eaten office chair that looked like it’d been pulled out of a dumpster.

“I have a name. Does ‘The Count of Combat’ mean anything to you?” Rock asked, as if it would. He leaned in, put his arms on the desk.

“No. They give the Sesame Street character a new gimmick?” Dusk replied.

“Is this a joke to you? You --” Rock bit his tongue before he said anymore. He’d taken enough disrespect from the Lichtensteins and he didn’t need an ounce more. But right now, it seemed Dusk was his only shot.

Dusk shrugged. “Well, when you say you’ve got a lead and all you have is a name…” Rock took a deep breath.

“Real name Edward Baskerville. English nobleman and plutocrat. Publicly, he’s a diplomat. Privately, he’s a world class martial artist and scientist. Clashed with The Mountain more than once,” Rock said. It felt wrong to tell someone else. Like he was spilling the secrets of Saw’s private war. At the least Rock didn’t need to mention his connection to the Count.

“Plenty of people did,” Dusk countered. “Darksaber, Null, Colonel Carnage,” Dusk rattled off the greatest hits, but he didn’t need to. Rock was there for most of them. “Archfiend, Mister Mayhem--”

“There’s only two men I’ve ever seen actually hurt The Mountain for real,” Rock cut him off.

“Two?” Dusk crossed his arms and leaned back.

“Darksaber, and the Count of Combat,” Rock said.

“Why haven’t I heard of him?” Dusk asked, watching Rock’s expression. He looked like Saw used to when the old man was trying to suss out if Rock was fibbing.

“Did your old man ever publicize who kicked his ass the worst?” Rock snapped.

“Fair point. Still a dumb name though,” Dusk relented. He leaned back in his chair and knuckled his mustache as he thought. “You said he was loaded, right?”

“Invested a lot into Calder City over the years, carved out a lot of little niches. But all his hideouts are abandoned. I’ve checked.”

“I can look into that. Got a lot of financial records I can dig through, compare to his other haunts, see where his money’s ended up,” Dusk said. Rock nodded. It was as good a tack as any. Dusk’s hands set to work at his keyboard, thick keycaps yellowed with age.

“Then I’ll nail him to the fucking wall,” Rock mumbled, half to himself. He focused on the throbbing in his knuckles, to ignore the weight around his eyes. How they’d feel connecting with The Count’s face. Dusk looked up, frown illuminated in the monitor’s glow.

“Listen Rock, you look like shit. Like you haven’t slept in days. Take a load off. I’ve got this,” Dusk said. He gestured to his couch, a tattered two-seater draped in homemade blankets and a plain color comforter. Rock grunted and moved to it. He would sit and rest, but not sleep. He had to be ready to move on The Count as soon as the lead materialized, before the bastard had a chance to move on or prepare for him. He just needed a tiny bit of rest…

Rock opened his eyes and the room was filled with an ocean of sunlight, but something yellow was covering his eyes. He pulled a sticky note off his forehead.

‘Found him. Out for coffee, back soon to touch base - Dusk’.

The words bounced around in Rock’s head. Found him. Found him. Found him found him found him. He rolled off of the couch and squeezed his fists. The swelling was gone. Dusk’s computer was still unlocked. The record onscreen was listed as Form 990, donations pertaining to the creation of the Everyday Heroes Center. The crowning achievement of Saw’s charity work, a beacon of edification for every citizen of Calder. There were hundreds of donors listed, providing thousands upon thousands of dollars to the most desperate. But one name had put in more than anyone else: E. Baskerville.

Rock closed the PC and vanished into the morning light. He had his target.

Vanguard: Calder City

A fellow VGC player!? In MY Christian Minecraft Server role-playing game!? I'm not so good as to compete at that level but this is super cool to see! What archetype are you playing? Good luck at NAIC!!!

Vanguard: Calder City

R O C K
R O C K

Chapter One

”To do the right thing at the right season is a great art.” - Helio Gracie

Saw said that when he died, he wanted his funeral to be a party. It was meant to be a celebration of life, a balm for those left behind. There would be heaping bowls of kayuk kyaw, dancers, music, hell, maybe even a ring for some old fashioned pro wrestling, show off some of the best of the old man Mountain’s moves. It always sounded like some quaint fantasy to Rock. Like listing off what you’d get if you won the lottery (Saw’s answer was always a lot of meals down at the soup kitchen). As if The Mountain could die. He had to be a million years old, and he still rolled out of bed and into that costume every single day to deliver his nine limbs of justice to whatever chump needed to feel them.

Now, here Saw was, before Rock in a pine box. Rock was sure if Saw could crack those eyes open one more time, he’d grimace at what his funeral actually turned out to be. No peals of laughter ringing out, no gongs of knockout at his ring. Just sad faces drenched in black, crowded around a tiny pavilion in the rain, hiding the tears.

Rock missed the public funeral, but even here the sycophants were thick on the ground. He could only count a handful that had been true friends of the Mountain, in his time. Those heroes that had actually fought alongside them, the lawyers and workers that had most righteously supported Saw’s campaigns, and his children, now processing the loss of their second parent. The rest were alien to Rock, faces locked in pantomimes of grief, wanting to be seen mourning the legend, counted among his inner circle.

But he knew that could be wrong, too. Rock had been gone for almost a decade, and the Mountain never lived life standing still. They had to be invited by someone in the family to make it here. Perhaps these new faces were just as close to Saw as Rock ever was. Perhaps Rock was the real alien, even to the ones he recognized, only included out of obligation. He doubted they expected him to come. They probably thought he’d shrug off the invitation like every other message that had found its way to him.

If you asked Rock a week ago, he’d say he would never be back. The old man had run out of things to teach him. Rock had never been a real part of that family, he’d never cared to be. Since before Rock could remember, he only cared about the training, the work, the challenge. It gave him purpose. As soon as that challenge dried up, his purpose was elsewhere.

Then the impossible. The man who could not be killed was dead in an alley. Rock didn’t believe it until he saw it on the NHK. He didn’t ask his tutor’s permission, he bought the first ticket out of Japan. He thought of when The Queen of Blades died, the look on her brat’s face at her funeral. He said later how weak the kid looked, how undisciplined. Saw raised a hand at him for it, for the first time not for training but in anger. Saw never hit him, but now Rock wished he did, wished he had a hundred times, so Rock wouldn’t be burdened with this grief.

Now he was close to the pavilion, feeling the rain soak his hair, and the looks of recognition and shame wash off him. Saw’s kids were there, Saw’s real family, the ones who had earned their grief. Could Rock face them? Before he could decide, the sound of dress shoes across wet grass shook him out of his reverie.

“Been awhile, Ken,” William Lichtenstein said. Mirage, the Beacon’s boy himself. He had a shock of dark dirty blond hair, and a gleaming, chemical treated smile. He was meant to be a mentor to the kids of the Vanguard back in the day, perfectly placed as a role model of what a teen hero could be. Even as a kid, Rock thought he was more like a third rate youth pastor, clutching his pearls and riding his father’s coattails. He had an ability, but no talent. There was a difference. Now as an adult he came off more like a televangelist. Rock would call him a grifter if he didn’t seem to totally buy what he was selling.

“Too long, William,” Rock offered.

“Please, Ken, William is for business. My friends call me Will,” William said, like he was actually calling Rock by the nickname Saw had given him, the one he wore with pride. Rock just nodded and stared back at the pavilion. He saw Thiri, Saw’s eldest daughter, bent over the casket, clutching it like a life preserver.

“Tough thing they’re going through,” William said, like Rock wouldn’t understand, like he wasn’t one of them. Rock never counted himself as a true member of their family, but that was not for William to decide.

“I know, William,” Rock said, his jaw set.

“I missed you at the public ceremony. At least you’re here now, to support them,” William said, like Rock didn’t deserve that support. Like he was a prop for their grief.

“Least I could do,” Rock allowed. He clenched his fist in his coat pocket.

“I’m sure they appreciate the gesture. How long are you in the states for? They’ll need all the help they can get sorting through Saw’s things.”

“Don’t know. Few weeks. Months. Longer,” Rock said. He didn’t have a return flight booked. All he had was the hot anger in his gut, the questions boiling to the surface.

“Why so long? Don’t you have that dream of yours out there to chase?” William asked. Did he not have a right to stay?

“Maybe to see if you people are any closer to finding out how the hell this happened,” Rock snapped.

“Every official channel is on it. Vanguard is all over it,” William confirmed, putting his hand on Rock’s shoulder and squeezing, “and will stay on it until we have something more concrete to go on.”

Rock huffed and shook him off. “I thought you capes were supposed to be good at this shit.”

“You’d be surprised,” William joked, trying to defuse, but his smile dropped when he saw Rock’s expression. “Look. I said all the official channels are on it… But there are always the unofficial ones.” He produced a plain business card from his dress coat and passed it to Rock.

“Dominic Dusk?” Rock read aloud. “Really? You sure this clown doesn’t just do birthday parties for goth kids?”

William shrugged. “Apparently he’s been getting his clients results. Vanguard isn’t interested in him. You want to take another angle on it, you can start there.”

“Thanks.” Rock said. This guy was near the head of the Vanguard and the best he could do was PR promises and an edgy private eye.

“If you need anything else Ken, the Lichtensteins are here for you and the Chaws. Keep in touch.”

Rock expected him to float up and fly away on the high of his superiority, but he marched off along the wet grass to another gaggle of Vanguard suits. Probably to discuss how to best keep their thumbs lodged in their asses.

Until Rock's plane landed, he assumed that the Vanguard would already have the killer in hand, prepared to make an announcement. When he touched down and connected his phone once again, he was struck by the headlines: there were no answers. Vanguard represented the best lawmen and detectives in the world, but they couldn't find a shred on who had killed the greatest hero in the world. They couldn’t even find how he died. No one could hurt him for long. The only one that could, Darksaber, was rotting away in jail, with his broken, cursed sword sealed in a Vanguard vault.

But what was Rock supposed to do? He wasn't a hero, not anymore. Would he walk up to some low rent detective and say “I have no leads, figure out what the greatest detectives in the world can't”? All he could do was put one foot in front of the other and see the family.

He saw Thiri first, pulling herself up from the casket and wiping a line of snot from her face. She was tall, with austere features, and long dark hair that reached her waist. She was Saw’s first child, a product of tragedy. Thiri inherited Saw’s phenomenal healing ability, but his wife’s body disagreed with the foreign power growing inside of her. After countless complications, Aye Than Chaw died in childbirth. But Thiri would not squander the life she’d been given. Thiri and her wife were now a power couple of defense lawyers, Chaw & Munroe, Attorneys at Law. Together, they had defended hundreds of men and women put away by capes and Vanguard alike.

Her work always rubbed Rock the wrong way. As he and Saw fought to put these animals away, Saw just smiled as Thiri worked to let them spill back out onto the street. He insisted she was an important part of the system, keeping them honest. Saw said Thiri saw them a similar way, a check against the worst of the worst.

But Rock could tell just how she saw him from her look as he approached the casket. The tear streaks in her makeup turned her frown lines into a mask of rage, poised to unleash on Rock. But Thiri’s wife caught her before she exploded, nodding stiffly at Rock and ushering Thiri away.

That left just two figures, gathered close around the coffin.

The taller figure was Khaing Min. He was a head taller than Rock with a shaven head and small, fierce eyes. He was a decade younger than Thiri, Saw’s first child with his late second wife. It took Saw time and a lot of prodding to decide to try again after Aye Than, but Mya Sein’s head was harder than even Saw’s. It was incredible, then, they were able to produce a boy with a harder head than either of them put together.

Khaing Min was the only other martial artist in the family, but the only one of the three kids entirely without Saw’s gift of healing, and the only one without his good sense. He worked like a fiend under Saw, studied the Lethwei of the masters. He was built for the sport, tall, broad, and strong. He’d travelled to Myanmar and back a dozen times, learning from the greatest, but still had never won a single match. In Lethwei there are no ‘belts’, only your measure against other fighters, and Khaing Min simply did not measure up, for all his heart. Despite his failures, he always held onto the hope that he would one day inherit the mantle of The Mountain… Until Rock came around.

“Rock! You came!” The second figure wrapped her arms around him before Rock had properly lain eyes on her.

“Hey, Shennie,” Rock put an arm around her and squeezed back. Shenden was Saw’s youngest, a few years older than Rock. Though she had received Saw’s ability, she had not gotten his height. Still, she held fast to her old man’s good natured smile and bright, cheerful eyes.

“Rock,” Khaing Min greeted him, “hell of a thing to bring you back.”

“Hell of a thing to see,” Rock said, nodding at Saw's box. It was a plain thing, six lacquered sides without other ornamentation. You couldn't tell there was a legend inside, had no sense of his prestige, his honor. Here he was anonymous, another name on a stone. Like wearing a mask.

“We missed you,” Shenden said. “He missed you.”

“I missed you all, too,” Rock said, lying through his teeth. He had hardly thought of them. Even Saw, his real Dad, seemed a thousand years away, ancient history. Over the past few days he’d wondered after them more than in the past few years. Saw especially, the question of how this could have happened.

“We could tell,” Khaing Min said, stepping closer, “from all the cards and the birthday presents and the visits.”

“Khaing Min,” Shenden cautioned.

“He couldn't even send us a text, Shennie,” Khaing Min said, in Rock’s face, “now he's here for his slice of an inheritance. To claim our legacy.” Rock bristled. He could always take Khaing Min, even when he was a boy and Khaing Min had the physique of an adult. Did he really want to make this a fight, here and now?

“That's enough, Khaing Min,” Shenden snapped, nominally at her brother, but Rock felt it was at him, too. “Go talk to Thiri.”

As her brother stepped away, muttering curses to himself, Shenden stayed close.

“You know he doesn't mean it,” Shenden said, rubbing Rock's arm, “he's hurting.”

“Aren't we all,” Rock said. The contact felt foreign to him. Over the past decade, the only times he'd been touched were for someone to grapple him or strike him, or otherwise correct his movements. But his body refused to move away.

“Give him grace, Rock,” Shenden said. Rock almost laughed.

“You know I've never been great at that.”

“Can you try, for me?” Shenden looked up at him. She'd been using the same look since they were growing up together to get what she wanted from him.

“Fine,” Rock said. Even a decade abroad hadn't diminished its usefulness.

They talked for a while, about Saw and the family as the funeral went on and the casket was lowered. All the cousins and the changes. While Rock was away, Shenden's healing grew to rival her father's. Unlike her brother, though, she never cared for violence. Shenden had never thrown a punch. Instead, she turned her gift towards healing others. She was born with an O Negative bloodtype, unique among the family, and had since used it to become the single most prolific blood donor in US history. She was in talks and testing now about the viability of organ transplantation. With any luck, her resolve would allow hundreds to see again, receive new hearts, lungs, and kidneys, among other miracles.

“You're incredible, Shennie,” Rock said. Together, they stood out of the pavilion and in the rain, watching as the cars began to peel away from the funeral. An icon was buried today, and they were all that was left to carry the torch. For a moment, Rock felt like they'd had some small shred of the ceremony Saw had actually wanted.

“I'm just my father's daughter,” Shenden said, “just like Thiri is, just like you and Khaing Min are his sons.”

“I'm just happy I get to call myself that,” Rock said.

Shenden's eyes darkened, as if in sudden remembrance, and she bit her lip.

“Something wrong?” Rock asked.

“Listen, Rock. You should know. At the public ceremony…” She began.

Rock put his hand up. They had a good hour together, she didn't need to ruin it by grilling him about the public funeral. He didn’t need to hear it, how everyone wondered after The Mountain’s boy sidekick. How many came to honor Saw, the tears, the performances. How beautiful his new monument was shaping up to be. It was useless. Shenden sighed.

“You’re not listening, so look.” She held up her phone, brightness maxed so Rock could see it through the rain and the shade of the pavillion. It was a zoomed in shot of the crowd, dozens of rows of seats packed well beyond the edge of the frame. It was shaky, out of focus, with a pixelated crisp like it was a shot well beyond the camera’s intended range, yet through the artifacts, a giant white man dominated the frame.

Through the all grain, Rock could only make out his silk suit, stretched over muscles even Saville Row could not hide. But Rock’s mind began to fill in the details the picture could not. The weathered knuckles elegantly clutching an ivory-headed cane that could not support his frame. The pale surgical scars tracing up his thick neck, hidden behind paisley cravat. The crooked nose, broken and reset countless times, supporting the designer bifocals that framed the intelligent, vicious eyes behind them.

His name was Sir Edward Arthur Barton Baskerville. In polite society, he was known as the Earl of Belgravia, scion of an obscure but powerful Anglo-German noble family whose forebears included the Counts von Ormstein and the Grand Dukes of Cassel-Falstein. But to Rock and The Mountain, he was best known under another name: The Count of Combat.

He was Rock’s father.

Author’s Notes

-This post was written in a number of parts, which is probably evident in the final product. In order written, it was Ending Stinger -> Introduction -> Rock and William -> Rock and Saw’s kids -> Minor polish. I couldn’t bring myself to edit it too much on account of how long its already taken, and the fact I don’t want to keep Sep waiting, he could code-bomb the thread again.

-Though I will expand on it heavily in future posts, I want to be clear that The Count of Combat is far from a public figure. Though he may have been The Mountain’s greatest enemy, he is known only to the Chaws.

-Looking back through my history as a writer, I tend to gravitate towards relatively stoic characters going through action setpieces. So, starting with an emotionally charged funeral scene was quite the challenge. Many writers in these games, like Stormy and Roman, have an amazing ability to weave in complex emotional realities, and inspired me to try and tackle these aspects head on. I still have a lot to learn (for instance, in the showing versus telling department), but as Miyamoto Musashi tells us, “Step-by-step walk the thousand mile road.”

-I don't remember who coined the phrase, but I worry about falling into the trap here of “lore, but no meaning.”

-Still settling in on Rock’s voice. I feel at this time it starts a little indistinct, and then proceeds to some tonal whiplash between how he talks to his family and then how he rattles off the Count’s titles.

Doc's Chop Shop

post 4

<“Lift with your legs, Qing Yuan!”>

<“Oh sure, he’s not an air conditioner. So now you know all about lifting! I’m taking all of the weight here!”> Qing struggled with the crumpled Little Mountain. He was heavier than he looked.

Together, Qing and Bo Wen got him situated in the back of the van. His blood began pooling on the subfloor. All Qing could think about was how hard it would be to clean after this, probably to keep himself calm.

<”Stay with him, I’ll drive.”> Sliding the van door shut on the other pair whilst Qing’s stunned eyes could only stare back wide-eyed as the metal interior filled his vision.

<”But it’s my van!”> Qing protested, but Bo Wen was already climbing into the driver’s seat. Qing slid, before grabbing a handhold as Bo Wen hit the gas, saving the wounded hero from a blow from falling drywall with his other hand.

Looking at him, Qing Yuan didn’t know exactly what he should be doing that would really do him any good. He looked like Qing might have if the man from the alley was actually worth his salt with a sword.

He had cuts all over, big bruises, broken bones. Part of his chest looked caved in. Qing could at least try to stop the bleeding. There really is a lot of blood filling the van, isn’t there..?

Problem was, the closest thing he had to bandages were the rags he used to cover the floor during paint and other messy jobs. And they were hardly hygienic, let alone sterile. He raised his head to ask his father for suggestions, but was stopped short as he saw the streets fly by out the front of the van. <”This is not the way to Calder General!”>

<”He is a superhero! They do not do regular hospitals!”> Bo Wen countered. He yanked the wheel and the van made a noise of protest Qing felt in his soul.

<”Then where do you suggest?”> Qing asked, incredulous. He realized he knew the route Bo Wen was taking. <”No. Noooooo. You’re bringing him to the shop!? This is not something we can fix! Once again, he is not an air conditioner! This is beyond duct tape and resin!”>

<”Have faith, Qing Yuan. We will figure something out at home. Maybe the Vanguard will come get him.”> Bo Wen said, as if his faith would keep the Little Mountain from bleeding out in the back of Qing’s work van.

<“Between your driving and his health, my faith doesn’t spread that far! How much blood can you even have in you?!”> Qing Yuan had his hands over the worst of the Little Mountain’s bleeds. His blood was warm but his skin was cold to the touch.

Cold. Ohhh. That’s not a good sign.

The dwindling flame of a candle.

<“Shit.”> < “Is he–”> “Eyes on the road! Let me worry about back here!”>

Breathe in.

Qing’s eyes closed. He dived deep internally. His hands moved as he felt his own body’s energy pool and sluice within, then took control. Diverted the flow.

Breathe out.

His hands aglow, he rested them over the fallen hero’s sunken core. It took a level of concentration beyond his ability to re-open his eyes. He felt certain he sensed a heart beating stronger, and pushed on choosing not to give way to what must have been overconfidence.

The next barrier he hit certainly wasn’t overconfidence, and he noticed it wasn’t concentration that was knitting his eyes. The lids started to feel heavy.

That’s not right, I know he’s messed up pretty bad, and I know it’s been a long day but I shouldn’t be–

As Qing slid down beside the fallen hero, his father’s words and a single thought went through his head.

Just because I wanted to buy drywall…

<“Qing Yuan! Your chi!”>

The words fell from Qing’s mouth absent of thought. < “Do not. Crash. _{mY vAn...}”>

Qing drifted away free of the moorings of consciousness, until being shaken awake once more at their destination by a father who couldn’t lift their wounded guest alone.

---

F L O W S T A T E
F L O W S T A T E

---

The bell chimed, the buzzer sounded, and a pair walked in - a young woman and an old white man. Qing realized in their rush to get the Little Mountain to a bed upstairs, he flipped the sign to ‘CLOSED’ but had failed to actually lock the door.

”I’m sorry, we’re actually closed.” Qing put on his best smile, and hoped he had not missed any bloodstains trailing from the door up the stairs.

The woman and the old man did not turn to go. Instead she fixed Qing with a steely gaze.

“Ah, we’d be happy to help you another time but right now we --”

”What have you done with my brother!?” She cut Qing off. She had her hands wrapped in fists, thumbs tucked inside, like she’d never thrown a punch before.

Her brother…? Could this be the Little Mountain’s sister?

Qing put his hands up. ”We didn’t hurt him! We found him in a bad way. We tried to help.”

“And you brought him here instead of to the hospital?”

Qing Yuan cringed. He knew it was a bad idea. He saw Bo Wen at the bottom of the stairs, roused from their guest’s bedside by the commotion. “Ba, that question’s for you.”

The old man put his hand on the woman’s shoulder. ”It was probably for the best, Shenden. Everything going on in this town, who knows what kind of farshtinkener got to him. The hospital might not have been safe. Better I can take care of him here.” Qing spotted the leather bag he carried. It was about as stereotypical of a physician’s kit as they come, complete with the ears of a stethoscope hanging out the lip.

“See. Was right! Superheroes don’t do regular hospitals.” He pointed to the doctor.

“It was literally the first thing she asked, Ba, and she’s his family…”

Bo Wen swatted away the criticism from his son like a gnat.

”Where is he?” The woman, Shenden, asked. Each syllable was measured, and her fists were still balled. Qing kept one hand open in passivity, and with the other pointed to the sky.

”Yes, yes. This way, follow.” Bo Wen bade the pair upstairs with him.

Qing moved to follow the trio, then remembered himself and set to locking up Liu’s Fix-It properly. All three of the locks and the rolling shutters.

By the time he joined them upstairs, Bo Wen managed to convert the hallway outside the Little Mountain’s door into an impromptu waiting room with three mismatched chairs. Shenden sat in the middle, no longer looking ready to punch him or Bo Wen out, instead maintaining a steady focus on the door. Bo Wen stood by, wringing his hands, not in any of the seats he dutifully brought out, making a face that told Qing he was holding down a fit of nervous laughter.

”Ba?”

”There you are! This Qing Yuan, my son. We found your brother together.”

Tactful, Ba. Qing’s brow furrowed at the older man.

“I’m Shenden.” She nodded to him. “I’m very sorry about earlier. I was a bit panicked.” She said, not looking too much less panicked. Qing would be too, at the sight of her brother.

”Don’t worry about it.” Qing waved her concerns off. ”Where’s the Doctor?” Qing asked, trying to fill the silence. Stupid question.

”Doctor Idell is in with him now.” She answered anyway. “He says my brother doesn’t look good, but a lot better than he expected. He says you two stabilized him. Is one of you a doctor?”

”Only to air conditioners.” Bo Wen said.

”Ba!” Qing chided. ”Not doctors exactly, no…” Qing scratched the back of his neck. How do you explain chi to a layperson…? “Maybe he must have just got lucky..?” It didn’t even sound convincing to himself as he said it, and when he dared to make eye contact with Shenden he could see it hadn’t been with her either.

”You don’t have to say. Whatever you did, thank you.” Her grace shocked Qing to silence, a rare feat. They had essentially kidnapped her brother off the street, and now she seemed willing to give them carte blanche. Qing supposed it turned out well enough, but…

The silence hung over the hallway for a moment as each turned the day’s events over in their heads. Soft yiddish mutterings passed under the door.

“I’ll bring tea for everyone!” Bo Wen said, seeing his moment to diffuse the tension and disappearing around the corner into the kitchen.

<”Just for our guests, Ba.”> Qing called after him in Wu.

“You speak Shanghainese?” Shenden asked.

“We speak Wu.” Qing flatly replied. Just as the Liu family didn’t care for the North’s ideas to make China a monolithic culture where all regional dialects would give way to Mandarin according to the wishes of the party, they also held true to their attitudes regarding the notion that their own native dialect was purely for those of ‘the city’ as it was so often colloquially called.

“It’s okay.” Bo Wen re-entered the room with tea, wide smile across his face. “Qing just… get weird about these kind of thing. He’s a good boy, really.”

”I understand. I can ‘get weird’ about Burmese. It is one of the few things that belongs to us.” Shenden said. ”I have only had the pleasure to study Mandarin, and some Cantonese. My specialty is the South Eastern languages, Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese…”

“Well, it makes sense academically in respect to China. If they don’t speak Cantonese, it's a fair bet they’ll speak Mandarin.” Qing conceded. “So have you got your brother microchipped?”

She smiled sadly, flicking her gaze to the door where her brother fought for his life. “I really should, for all the trouble he gets himself into. He had one of my Dad’s old utility belts, and it sent a distress signal. It used to go to the Vanguard, but he hasn’t used it in so long it defaulted to Dad’s phone.” She fished it out of her purse and showed an ancient flip phone.

“...And anthropologists dusted that thing off and realised it was some kind of a communications device.” He jibed at the age of the phone. “So he went in alone, and got himself…” He trailed off. Had this guy alienated himself so much from everyone, or was he just so hot headed that he jumped in without backup?

If he were honest with himself he could see himself doing both. Because he had in his own past. His own experience just went very differently. He was the one who walked away when it was all done.

“Vanguard not with him?”

”Not exactly. Rock quit all this superhero stuff when he was a teenager. I saw him for the first time in a long time at the funeral and… He’s just been spiraling. But I…” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I think this is my fault. I think I told him something I shouldn’t have.”

Qing looked at his father. “I get that. Funerals, and their causes, can do that.” He winced at the clumsiness of his own choice of words. That funeral would have been for her father as well.

“Sorry. About your father as well.” He added.

“We always knew this was a possibility, him being a superhero. We saw so many of his friends go over the years. It just never seemed like something that would happen to him.”

It was a crazy thing to hear in such a matter-of-fact tone. A superhero. As if that were something someone could just decide to be.

Made only more crazy that in this case, the person in question actually unquestionably was one.

The word coming from someone who had long since made her peace with the nature of that being a perfectly reasonable thing for one to be. Over tea.

“Now that he’s gone it feels like the family is shaking itself apart. It figures that The Mountain disappearing would cause an earthquake.” She said, and she laughed, but Qing saw the tear in her eye.

“Is a lot. Time when, family have to really come together or everyone can fall apart. Is good thing that you’re here. Show that important, at time when he most needs.” Bo Wen was clearly getting frustrated that his English was falling short at this time in particular. “Qing like that when happened too. Even when people don’t show appreciation, sometimes just making sure to hold close when people need.”

Don’t do that. That’s not what this is. ‘Trauma bonding’ over dead parents. She’s not– He wanted to scowl at the old man, to tell him to shut up. But it was clearly too sensitive a situation for him to even call his father out.

“So he tried to go and beat the world into making sense himself.” He left no question to it and realised he could have been describing both Rock and himself, after his mother. An affirmation of understanding.

”It’s all he knows. Dad took him in in the first place to show him a better way, but he’s been fighting the whole world since before we ever knew him. We gave him so much love, and sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t enough.”

Qing wanted to ask exactly who ‘we’ was, in this family which was shaking itself apart. But knew he couldn’t plainly ask given the secretive nature of the lifestyle. He knew she’d probably just politely decline to answer because it was too personal, but for some reason he didn’t want to seem ‘stupid’ to her in asking it in the first place.

It was one of the few times he regretted that his father knew more about the lives of these types than he did. He looked across at his father for any sign of clues and only saw him nodding solemnly in understanding to what she had said.

He wanted a problem to fix. But all there was were feelings and hurt.

“Do you know what he was looking into? We found him only a few blocks from our place. If there’s someone or something that can do THAT to someone like your brother, I’d kind of want to know about it.”

Shenden looked at the ground. ”It was his father.”

”We’re ready for you, bubele.” Doctor Idell said, appearing at the door with his surgical mask drawn down. His face was perfectly neutral, no sign of how Shenden’s brother was faring inside. Qing could only hope it was good news, for her sake.

”Coming.” Shenden said, gathering herself. ”Thank you. Thank you both. For the talking and the tea, and the everything else. Wish him luck." She followed the Doctor, the grief of her face giving way to focus as the door closed behind her.

Qing's brow furrowed with confusion once she had left. Wait... his father? Your father's dead..? Or is this how people in this business "retire"... nobody seeks revenge against a dead man...

R O C K
R O C K

Chapter Four

“Be aware of yourself, and accept yourself as you are. That is where your training should begin.” -Takehiko Inoue, Vagabond

"You’ll live to fight, and fight to live, or I will end you myself."

<“Lift with your legs, Qing Yuan!”>

<“Oh sure, he’s not an air conditioner. So now you know all about lifting! I’m taking all of the weight here!”>

"Get up, Rock. You can do this."

<”Qing Yuan! Your chi!”>

"What have you done with my brother!?"

"The Mountain and The Rock never quit."

"Sorry. About your father as well."

"Strike harder, whelp."

"If you hadn’t found him when you did, he’d be dead already."

"Will he make it?"

"If I have anything to say about it…"

"Wherever you go, kiddo, I’ll believe in you."

”Rise and shine, Rock…”

Rock woke to the circling ceiling fan casting a revolving shadow across his face. The room was still and spare, blank walls and no sound but the gentle thrum of the fan and the murmur of the city beyond the walls. He was wrapped in warm sheets, lying on a bed that felt softer than any he’d slept on in a decade. How did he get here?

He remembered the beating, the pain. The Count’s face twisted in disgust as he dragged Rock across the sand. Then nothing. Rock expected the pain to redouble any second now, but all that was left in its place was a dull ache.

“Ah, the nudnik is finally awake.” Rock blinked the sleep out of his eyes and turned to the familiar voice. An old man sat on a chair pulled up to Rock’s bedside, leather bag lain across his lap. He smiled at Rock and his eyes twinkled behind his bifocals.

“Doctor Eye?” It was a face Rock hadn’t seen in a very long time. The last he could recall was Saw’s last battle against Darksaber. Doc Eye was Saw’s de facto physician, though The Mountain rarely needed such a thing. His grey abilities meant he could see and identify people’s ailments better than about any other doctor in Calder City. X-ray vision, telescopic vision, magnetic resonance vision, thermals, and more. When Rock was still a sidekick, Doc Eye was the chief medic of the Vanguard, but looking at him now in his old tweed coat and his bent spectacles, he looked like any other haggard primary care.

“The very same,” Doctor Idell opened one of Rock’s eyes wide and shone his ophthalmoscope.

“Where am I?” Rock tried to piece together more details, but the room was spartan, almost entirely unfurnished. It looked like an unused apartment. He was Shenden snoozing in the corner, a handmade blanket thrown over her.

“Above a repair shop in Hudson,” Doctor Idell said, concluding his exam. “No brain damage, looks like. Besides what you’ve always had, anyway.” Rock glared at him.

”How did I get here? Doesn’t look like a Vanguard safehouse.”

”A couple kind souls plucked you off the street,” Doctor Idell said. He tucked the last of his equipment into his bag and stowed it under his chair.

”And then you found me from the belt signal?” Rock asked.

“I didn’t. She did.” Doctor Idell nodded at Shenden. “Asked me to come out of my retirement from this farkakte superhero business to make sure you were alright. I could never say no to her. You know, she’s the strongest person I’ve ever met.” Rock snorted.

“Aren’t you doctor to the superheroes? I know you’ve seen plenty stronger.”

“These old eyes have seen a lot. Have learned a lot. For one thing, I’ve seen that strength doesn’t always come from the muscles, shlemiel.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Rock said. He’d heard enough nonsense like that from Saw and from his Senseis over the years. Esoteric philosophizing about what strength is. No high minded philosophy could explain why he was brutalized and left stuck in this bed.

”How’s about you settle with the kvetching and give an old man a moment to say his piece?” He reached into his bag and produced a lollipop.

”Trying to bribe me with candy? I’m not five, doc.”

”You do act like it. But this is for me, something besides a cigarette I can suck on while dealing with difficult patients,” He said. He unwrapped it and stuck it in, rolling it around his mouth. “Now where was I… Ah! I’m sure you remember how tough Saw was, eh? Pain tolerance like I’ve never seen.”

It was true. It was something beyond his regeneration. Even through the brutal lethwei training before his abilities awakened, the worst of the body conditioning, the microfractures across every bone in his body, he’d push through like nothing happened at all. He could get shot dozens of times and smile about it.

“I can tell you Shenden doesn’t have it. You can always see the hurt in her eyes. And like your old man, she can’t use any painkillers either, her body shoots through them too fast. But still, I’ve had her on my table more times than I can count. A heap of topical griseosporine and I can open her up, let her donate things most people only get one or two of. Through it all she won’t whine or thrash, she just curls her hands up and lets herself cry about it. Then by the time I’ve wiped my ointment off and she’s knit herself up, she’s the one asking me when I’ll be ready to go again.”

Rock looked back at her, snoring softly. He put a hand against the ribs The Count shattered. They were intact, sore, but firm. ”Are you saying she just…?”

Doctor Idell nodded. “You were destroyed. Bad as anyone I’ve ever treated. But with her help, we took a recovery time of six months and shortened it to six hours. Her blood loses its potency the longer it's been out of her, but I was able to IV you two together directly. It did a lot to patch you up, and she was able to donate the parts the blood couldn’t hack. But it sure wiped her out. She’s been sleeping a long while.”

“She didn’t have to,” Rock said. This was his mess. He could get out of it on his own.

“Didn’t she? Her brother nearly kills himself and she’s just supposed to let him wither away? You might have missed it kid, but she’s the one that’s been fighting to hold your family together, you included. She’s never fought in her life but she marched in here ready to tear heads off if that was what it took to get to you.”

”She would never,” Rock said. The Shennie he knew wouldn’t hurt a fly, literally. She always made Rock or Khaing Min deal with the bugs around the house growing up, and insisted they put them in a cup and release them.

”She’d do anything for you,” Doctor Idell said. His tone did not brook disagreement.

”I’d do anything for her,” Rock said. It was Doctor Idell’s turn to snort.

”As long as you don’t have to push your ego down first, right?” Doctor Idell crunched into his lollipop.

”You’re on thin ice, old man.” Rock cautioned.

”That’s another thing about your sister. She’s always kind, to a fault. She’ll welcome anyone into her heart. She’s already gotten some kind of close to the folks running this place. But you? You push everyone away, with all that piss and vinegar. You’re too weak to let anyone get within spitting distance of you.” Doctor Idell tossed the stick of his lollipop into the trash as Rock stewed. What the hell did the old man mean by that? Where did he get off? Rock heard a pair of footsteps coming from somewhere else in the building.

“Ah, here come our hosts. The kid’s a real mensch, and his dad’s one hell of a balebos. Make sure to show them gratitude, sheygets, more than you’ve shown me. I’m going to go fix myself some more of this yuhua tea.” Doctor Idell grabbed a used coffee cup from Rock’s bedside table and excused himself as a pair of Asian men walked in. One was young and lean, with a beard that looked like it hadn’t seen a trim in a few days. The other was a little bigger, rounder, looked like an older version of the first. Father and son, Rock figured.

“You’re awake. Supervillain hit you with a truck?” The younger newcomer asked, immediately undercutting everything the doctor had said about them.

“Felt like it,” Rock said. He laid back into the pillows and looked up at the ceiling fan. ”Ever think you’re gonna have an easy time and then it blows up in your face?”

“I caught a bullet today and forgot about it. So yes.” Rock sat up and locked his eyes on the young man. Not just some slipshod repairman, was he?

”I might’ve been alright if I was that fast. How did you manage that?” Rock asked. An inkling squirmed at the back of his mind. Something about the way this guy carried himself, the tone of his body.

“No it’s not like that. I’m not… in your ‘field’.” He waved Rock off. “Just… wrong place, wrong time.”

“You don’t catch bullets by being in the wrong place,” Rock said, feeling the edge creep into his voice. He bit the inside of his cheek. He was supposed to be grateful.

“I’d say it’s the only place you catch them. If you’re in the right place, you dodge them. So… agree to disagree.”

”You seem like you get around to a lot of those wrong places,” Rock said. He looked experienced, trained. His hands looked right for it, thick and rough, not the kind you get from doing just anything. They looked like the hands of his senseis, seasoned after decades of striking. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Qing Yuan Liu. Just like the name on the front, Liu’s Fix-It. Well, you weren’t awake when we got you in here, so I can get how you’d miss that.”

”I’m Rock,” Rock said, offering his hand, “but I’m sure Shennie or the Doc already told you that.” When Qing accepted the handshake, Rock pulled it closer, turning it over and examining his fist. “For someone not in my line of work, you sure seem like it. Your knuckles are worn down from it. You fight,” Rock said, a declaration more than a question.

“I didn’t like having to catch a bullet.” Qing glibly replied.

“Who are you, really? The ‘God of Water’?” Rock asked. The pattern followed. Qing clearly had a lot more experience than he was letting on. The flow of his movements, even the way he weaved away from Rock’s questions. He said he could catch bullets. Even The Count had to dodge them. A guy with all that expertise, floating around The Count’s lair just in time to snatch him up? It was too perfect.

“That sounds ambitious. God of Plumbing, maybe. Apprentice to the God of Plumbing, more likely. I’d be happy to let you write my online reviews though, with that attitude.” Qing said. If he was a liar, he was a good one, but Rock didn’t put that past him.

The older man laughed at the thought of Qing being a god. Then laughed some more. Then laughed uncomfortably long until Qing closed his eyes and sighed. Maybe Qing was telling the truth. It didn’t track with The Count’s grandiose explanation that one of his ‘Gods’ would be living with his Dad in a mom-and-pop repair shop.

”Maybe I will. Not every day I get fished out of hell by a couple good samaritans, I can thank you with a review. I’ll make sure to mention you both, Qing Yuan and…?”

“Bo Wen Liu. And it’s my name on the front. That you weren’t awake for. Like Qing said.”

”I’ll remember it,” Rock said, realizing he actually meant it. Most people felt like set dressing to him. He couldn’t recall the names of any of his fellow pupils from his time in Japan. But these two, Qing in particular, had something special about them.

“You pick fight with gods? Lead with face? And things not as easy as thought?”

“Yes, he’s not short on confidence. I think it’s probably part of the lifestyle.”

”I was supposed to be out of this ‘lifestyle’ already,” Rock sighed. ”You know how it is. One last job.”

”Rock has a hard head…” Rock’s head snapped to the corner and saw Shennie was awake, still wrapped up in her blanket, smiling at him softly. “Some days it seems like what will get him killed. Most days it seems like it's what keeps him alive.”

”How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough.”

“We’ll just give you some time to talk. Knock sense back into his hard head. Things like that. Ba, downstairs.”

“Thank you both again. I’ll never forget it.”

Bo Wen gave Shenden a wide smile before Qing realised he wasn’t being followed. “Now, Ba.”

As the pair went back down the stairs, Qing’s words floated back into the open door.

“What a nice girl,” Qing said. Rock heard the footsteps stop.

“Not a damn word.” The older man’s laughter faded as the pair descended out of earshot.

”They’re amazing people,” Shenden said. She folded her blanket so it would fit onto her lap and pulled her chair to the other side of Rock’s bed.

”Amazingly odd, Rock said.

”Rock. They saved your life.” She leaned in, punctuated her point with a hard gaze. Rock’s expression didn’t shift.

”Maybe they shouldn’t have,” he said. He saw her heart break a little behind her eyes.

”What are you talking about, Rock?” She worked to keep her tone level, but she couldn’t hack it.

”Maybe if I died down there the Vanguard would have enough reason to come down on him and find proof of what he did.” It might be the only option left to them. The Vanguard would never move on him without something more substantial. The Count swore up and down he hadn’t been Saw’s killer, but what other lead was there?

”Why do you even believe it was him?” She kept the edge of the hurt out of her voice this time, but the question still cut Rock.

”Really, Shenden? Isn’t it obvious? Why even tell me he was in the city if you didn’t think he did it?” Rock snapped. He expected her to recoil, but she just scoffed.

”Because it was the right thing to do. Your biological father shows up to your dad’s funeral, and I’m supposed to keep that from you? I didn’t think you’d go on a tear through the city going after him. I didn’t think you’d wreck Uncle Phone’s store. I didn’t think Ben Knight would be calling me asking why you were beating on his son, and I certainly didn’t think you would go and do this to yourself.” She gestured at him up and down. His injuries were gone, but Rock got the point.

”Well what the hell did you think was gonna happen?” Rock said. Shenden knew him well enough to know this was how he solved problems. The way The Mountain had against his worst enemies. The way The Count did, he realized.

”I thought you might come home and grieve with us. I thought we might all work it out together, as a family. Make right of this.” She reached out and squeezed Rock’s arm. ”All this time, we just wanted you to come home.”

”We? Come on, Shennie. You know as well as I do how pissed Khaing Min and Thiri are. You know how much we fight.” He pulled his arm out of her grasp and rubbed where she touched like it would leave a scar.

”They did a lot of growing up while you were gone. I had hoped you did too.” She held her hand close to herself. It made Rock feel like he had slapped it away.

”It’s not about ‘growing up’. Do you remember that night when we were all at Doc Eye’s?” He offered his hand to her as a silent apology.

Shenden nodded cautiously, put her hand in his. It was one of the nights after Saw’s last fight with Darksaber, lacerated to the bone, hanging on in the way only he could. All his children gathered around, supporting him.

”Do you remember what we all promised him?” He met her eyes, deep and intelligent brown, grasping the memory.

”That we would always be there for him,” she whispered.

”Of everyone who made that promise, who left?” Rock asked.

”You’re a special case Rock, you know that. You had to go and heal on your own terms.” She massaged the back of his hand with her thumb.

”Our siblings don’t see it that way. I don’t see it that way. I thought he had nothing left to teach me, so I left to become stronger, but I couldn’t even manage that. I left, and now he’s dead. I wasn’t there to protect him like he protected us. It’s my fault.” He drew his legs up to his chest.

”He knew the risks, Rock, made sure we all knew them. Is this what all this is about? You can’t face us, you can’t forgive yourself until you catch whoever did this?”

Rock shook his head. He couldn’t. He fought the stinging feeling in his eyes. Shenden bit her lip and thought for a beat.

”I can’t tell you I wouldn’t want to see justice done. But I can tell you it wouldn’t matter to Dad. He died doing what he believed in. All he would want is to see you grow into a good man.”

”I’m trying,” Rock said.

”I know,” Shenden said. She wrapped him in a hug. ”Maybe part of the trying should be making amends. If you really feel you did wrong, you could apologize to Thiri and Khaing Min. I can come, keep them honest. Keep you honest.” Rock looked away.

”I can’t,” he said.

”Maybe you just can’t yet.” Shenden rubbed his back. ”What if you started with something smaller, and worked your way up? Try apologizing to Scott Knight.”

”I…” Rock sighed. ”I can try.”

Author’s Notes

-Another difficult chapter to write, harder than the funeral for sure, although Hound did help out a heap. It’s difficult to balance emotional storytelling, particularly with dialogue, against possible melodrama. Thankfully I’m emulating comics and manga which are famously melodramatic so it shouldn’t be a huge issue.

-If second characters ever opened up and I had the energy for it (which I won’t), I think I’d be interested in pursuing the Doctor as a secondary PC. I like the idea of fleshing out the verse from the eyes of someone who has seen so much of it, even more than someone like Dusk or Rock. I also liked the idea of a Doctor that did not have a straightforward healing power, but rather something that just made him more effective as a doctor. I floated around faceclaims of all kinds, but I found that an old Jewish guy seemed right for the character and his relationship with Rock. I’m Jewish myself but practically speaking I’m a goyim who wears the hat at Hanukah, so I hope my portrayal is not too overblown.

Vanguard: Calder City

Better not let Sep read it. He might find some new formatting in there and break the site again.

Vanguard: Calder City

R O C K
R O C K

^{"It is not important to be better than someone else, but to be better than yesterday." - Jigoro Kano}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ (FC: Tony Jaa; Dialogue: Green) _________________________________________________________ S U M M A R Y S U M M A R Y _________________________________________________________ Ken "Rock" Chaw _________________________________________________________ February 12th | 26 _________________________________________________________ Single | Male | Bisexual S T A T S S T A T S _________________________________________________________ Height | 5' 8" _________________________________________________________ Hair Color | Black _________________________________________________________ Eye Color | Brown _________________________________________________________ Hometown | Calder City P O S T S P O S T S _________________________________________________________ The Story So Far... Rock #1 Ace of Blades #2 Rock #2 Rock #3 Rock #4 Ace of Blades #7 -

H I S T O R Y H I S T O R Y ___________________________________________________________________________________ The Mountain was one of Calder City’s most distinguished heroes, a living legend. A master of Lethwei, The Mountain was able to turn his very body into a weapon against Calder City’s evils. The Mountain had an incredible healing factor, allowing him to push his body far beyond its limits and always get back up again. This is where he got his name, he was said to be as enduring and unbreakable as the mountains themselves. The Mountain's real name was Saw Chaw, and he was a fixture among the Vanguard, in and out of costume. A social worker by trade, Saw fought to keep the Vanguard fair, inclusive, and invested in the communities it sought to protect. He created community outreach programs, food and clothing drives for the homeless, and charity fundraisers. Even as The Mountain, Saw advocated for better protections for heroes' privacy and compensation for their appearances and likeness in media. Perhaps his biggest contribution was his fight against the practice of child sidekicks, striving to create protections for the youngest superhumans and prohibitions against their presence in the Vanguard. This crusade made it all the more surprising when The Mountain debuted his own child sidekick: Rock. Not one of Saw’s three biological children, but an adopted child, not from the local Saint Dymphna’s, but from parts unknown. Despite the pressures from Vanguard to return the child to civilian life, from colleagues and friends alike, Saw grinned and bore it. He seemed to know something everyone else didn’t. Persevering through the disapproval and the dangers of superheroics, Rock proved himself more than a capable student. He lacked The Mountain’s remarkable durability and healing, but made up for it in agility and martial prowess, demonstrating phenomenal mastery of Lethwei and Muay Thai for a boy his age. With every ounce of power his small body could muster, he could just stand alongside The Mountain as a worthy sidekick. But as Rock grew larger and his blows fell harder, The Mountain’s expectations grew. Rock had to be better: not just a better martial artist, but a better man, a better hero. It wasn’t long before their paths diverged. As The Mountain dedicated himself to his community, Rock found himself drawn into the world of combat sports. Enchanted by the depth and breadth of technique available to him, Rock found a way to better himself the same way he always had, straightforward training and mastery, free of The Mountain’s sensitivities. Growing into a young man, Rock travelled the world, training under a dozen masters and learning scores of moves, kata, forms, and more. He had, to his mind, nearly perfected his style. He competed in underground tournaments and took the hidden world of martial arts by storm. Yet, for every victory under his belt, every challenge overcome, each of his masters would insist he was not ready. He was not ‘complete’. He felt as though he was still the same sidekick, wasting away under the vanishingly little The Mountain had left to teach him. Until one week ago. Front page news: THE MOUNTAIN, SLAIN. Who could have done it? A hero of his adoptive father’s stature would have enemies, to be sure, but it was hard to imagine one that could cause The Mountain to crumble. How do you kill a man that can’t be killed? That can bounce back from almost anything? The only thing left for Rock to do is return to Calder City and find out. A B I L I T I E S A B I L I T I E S __________________________________________________________________________________ Belu Cortex - Saw thought of the name of Rock's ‘power’, evoking the indomitable ogres of Myanmar's folklore. The Belu were monstrously powerful man eaters, and Rock's talent allows him to defeat his opponents just as easily. Saw said that Rock could ‘devour’ the techniques of his enemies. It toes the line between human skill and superhuman ability. With a unique cortical structure, Rock's brain is optimized for hand to hand combat. He has spent his life immersed and training in all manner of martial arts, and his upbringing has produced a kinesthetic genius. He can duplicate most movements he observes with a handful of repetitions, especially those movements used against him in combat. The ability is distinct from other superhuman's Adoptive Muscle Memory in that he is not simply copying what he sees by rote, but rather developing complex understandings of movement and combat systems on the fly. This allows him to further iterate and produce variations of what he sees, rather than being locked into a cloned motion. This ability has allowed him to master dozens of combat systems at a stunning rate. Among others, he is a master of Lethwei, Muay Thai, BJJ, Judo, American Kenpo, Okinawan Karate, and Taekwondo. M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S __________________________________________________________________________________ Rock wants to find the one who killed his mentor and break them. Despite the years of distance between himself and Saw, the man was still the closest thing he had to a father. More broadly, Rock has always wanted to be the best. It was what Saw wanted, too. For Saw, being the best meant being the best at helping others, whether through the might of his muscles or the strength of his arguments. For Rock, it has only ever meant growing more knowledgeable, more powerful, for an end that seems less and less clear.

Vanguard: Calder City

Heard this is the game where light powers are allowed?

Light Armor Warrior

R O C K
R O C K

^{"It is not important to be better than someone else, but to be better than yesterday." - Jigoro Kano}

C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ (FC: Tony Jaa; Dialogue: Green) _________________________________________________________ S U M M A R Y S U M M A R Y _________________________________________________________ Ken "Rock" Chaw _________________________________________________________ February 12th | 20s _________________________________________________________ Single | Male | Bisexual S T A T S S T A T S _________________________________________________________ Height | 5' 8" _________________________________________________________ Hair Color | Black _________________________________________________________ Eye Color | Brown _________________________________________________________ Hometown | Calder City -

H I S T O R Y H I S T O R Y ___________________________________________________________________________________ The Mountain was one of Calder City’s most distinguished heroes, a living legend. A master of Lethwei, The Mountain was able to turn his very body into a weapon against Calder City’s evils. The Mountain had an incredible healing factor, allowing him to push his body far beyond its limits and always get back up again. This is where he got his name, he was said to be as enduring and unbreakable as the mountains themselves. The Mountain's real name was Saw Chaw, and he was a fixture among the Vanguard, in and out of costume. A social worker by trade, Saw fought to keep the Vanguard fair, inclusive, and invested in the communities it sought to protect. He created community outreach programs, food and clothing drives for the homeless, and charity fundraisers. Even as The Mountain, Saw advocated for better protections for heroes' privacy and compensation for their appearances and likeness in media. Perhaps his biggest contribution was his fight against the practice of child sidekicks, striving to create protections for the youngest superhumans and prohibitions against their presence in the Vanguard. This crusade made it all the more surprising when The Mountain debuted his own child sidekick: Rock. Not one of Saw’s four biological children, but an adopted child, not from the local Saint Dymphna’s, but from parts unknown. Despite the pressures from Vanguard to return the child to civilian life, from colleagues and friends alike, Saw grinned and bore it. He seemed to know something everyone else didn’t. Persevering through the disapproval and the dangers of superheroics, Rock proved himself more than a capable student. He lacked The Mountain’s remarkable durability and healing, but made up for it in agility and martial prowess, demonstrating phenomenal mastery of Lethwei and Muay Thai for a boy his age. With every ounce of power his small body could muster, he could just stand alongside The Mountain as a worthy sidekick. But as Rock grew larger and his blows fell harder, The Mountain’s expectations grew. Rock had to be better: not just a better martial artist, but a better man, a better hero. It wasn’t long before their paths diverged. As The Mountain dedicated himself to his community, Rock found himself drawn into the world of combat sports. Enchanted by the depth and breadth of technique available to him, Rock found a way to better himself the same way he always had, straightforward training and mastery, free of The Mountain’s sensitivities. Growing into a young man, Rock travelled the world, training under a dozen masters and learning scores of moves, kata, forms, and more. He had, to his mind, nearly perfected his style. He competed in underground tournaments and took the hidden world of martial arts by storm. Yet, for every victory under his belt, every challenge overcome, each of his masters would insist he was not ready. He was not ‘complete’. He felt as though he was still the same sidekick, wasting away under the vanishingly little The Mountain had left to teach him. Until one week ago. Front page news: THE MOUNTAIN, SLAIN. Who could have done it? A hero of his adoptive father’s stature would have enemies, to be sure, but it was hard to imagine one that could cause The Mountain to crumble. How do you kill a man that can’t be killed? That can bounce back from almost anything? The only thing left for Rock to do is return to Calder City and find out. A B I L I T I E S A B I L I T I E S __________________________________________________________________________________ Belu Cortex - Saw thought of the name of Rock's ‘power’, evoking the indomitable ogres of Myanmar's folklore. The Belu were monstrously powerful man eaters, and Rock's talent allows him to defeat his opponents just as easily. Saw said that Rock could ‘devour’ the techniques of his enemies. It toes the line between human skill and superhuman ability. With a unique cortical structure, Rock's brain is optimized for hand to hand combat. He has spent his life immersed and training in all manner of martial arts, and his upbringing has produced a kinesthetic genius. He can duplicate most movements he observes with a handful of repetitions, especially those movements used against him in combat. The ability is distinct from other superhuman's Adoptive Muscle Memory in that he is not simply copying what he sees by rote, but rather developing complex understandings of movement and combat systems on the fly. This allows him to further iterate and produce variations of what he sees, rather than being locked into a cloned motion. This ability has allowed him to master dozens of combat systems at a stunning rate. Among others, he is a master of Lethwei, Muay Thai, BJJ, Judo, American Kenpo, Okinawan Karate, and Taekwondo. M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S __________________________________________________________________________________ Rock wants to find the one who killed his mentor and break them. Despite the years of distance between himself and Saw, the man was still the closest thing he had to a father. More broadly, Rock has always wanted to be the best. It was what Saw wanted, too. For Saw, being the best meant being the best at helping others, whether through the might of his muscles or the strength of his arguments. For Rock, it has only ever meant growing more knowledgeable, more powerful, for an end that seems less and less clear.

_sike