Editing Perdition

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The Travelers talking about whether to keep Cody or Krouse on their gaming team:
Migration 17.1 said:
Luke went on, “Look, if we were talking about staying local, being casual about this, or even sticking to the national level, we’d keep Cody. He’s reliable, but he’s not at the level we need if we’re actually going international. He’s boring, he doesn’t have fans. He won’t get any future sponsors interested. To top it off, he’s too traditional. He won’t surprise our opponents. They know how to deal with people like him.”

Noelle nodded. “Say what you will about Krouse, like how he’s crap when it comes to calling shots-”

“Hey.”

“Or even the fact that he’s prone to ignoring orders if he thinks it’ll help us. Um, he’s right so long as it’s just him operating solo, but yeah… The thing is, if we’re talking about the big picture, international recognition and going head to head with the best in the world… Krouse has the natural ability to change things up, so we can adapt our strategies to whatever they’re able to pull off.”

“And he has fans,” Jess said. “As many as any two of us combined.”

Krouse couldn’t help but smirk.

“As a call for the good of the team, it makes sense,” Luke said. “But in terms of our friendships, well, Cody’s going to be hurt. He put in a lot of effort helping us get to this point. He’s my friend, just like Krouse is. This is a pretty big betrayal, kicking the guy off the team right before we get our sponsorship.”

“Will the sponsor be okay with this?” Jess asked.

“As long as we prove we’re ready this afternoon,” Noelle said.

“You know the arguments Cody’s going to make,” Marissa said.

“Yeah.”

“Can I say something?” Krouse asked.

He could see them glancing at one another, trying to decide.

“So long as it’s helpful,” Jess replied.

“Look. Cody is a type A personality. Like Marissa-” he saw Marissa’s expression change and added, “I don’t mean that in a bad way. Marissa and Cody are training the hardest and practicing the most. That’s respectable. The difference is, well, we’ve all seen how much time Cody puts in. And I think he’s hit his ceiling, and he knows it. He’s not keeping up, and I don’t know how much he’s going to improve over the coming months or years.”

“And me?” Marissa asked.

“I don’t know how close you are to hitting the ceiling, but you have natural talent and ability that Cody doesn’t. I would have zero worries with you backing me up, even on the world stage.”

She pursed her lips.

“Anyways, we’re talking about Cody. He’s not improving. If I’m on the team, I’m going to work harder, I’m going to improve in every department, and I fully expect you guys to kick my ass to make me do it. And I’ve been pretty excellent already.”

“If you fuck this up for us, you know we’ll never let you live it down,” Luke said.

“Of course.”

Luke sighed and said, “I’m caught between two friends, so I can only make this call in terms of the team and in terms of the business. I think we should go with Krouse. He’ll put in the work, and we all know he’s good. Some practice and we’ll get everything coordinated, and we’ll be far stronger for it.”

There were nods all around.

Luke continued, “Krouse was saying that Cody and Marissa are type A personalities. He’s not wrong. Marissa’s who she is because of the megabitch.”

Marissa frowned, but she didn’t argue the point.

“And Cody’s who he is because he can’t stand to lose. So how’s he going to react if he finds out he’s been bumped for Krouse?”

Nobody responded. It was too easy to imagine.

“We’re in agreement, then?” Noelle asked. She was hunched over her coffee, both hands wrapped around it for warmth. She didn’t look happy. “Last chance for objections, or to say if you’re having second thoughts. I won’t be angry if you do.”

Did she want there to be a good argument against this, so there wouldn’t be a confrontation?

Nobody spoke up.

“Let’s go deliver the bad news then.”

Cody carrying Jess out the window after the Simurgh transported them to Madison Earth Bet.
Migration 17.1 said:
Cody came up with Jess riding piggyback, her wheelchair abandoned. Oliver and Marissa were the last to ascend.

Cody was one of the first people to ask Noelle out and be rejected:
Migration 17.2 said:
It took a second to free her sleeves from around his shoulders, another second to work with Cody to lower her down.

As he watched Cody taking hold of Noelle’s arm and waistband, he was struck with the idle recollection that Cody had been one of the people who’d tried to approach Noelle, one of the first to ask her out and be soundly rejected. He’d nearly forgotten. It went a ways towards explaining some of Cody’s anger.

Cody telling the other Travelers to take cover:
Migration 17.3 said:
There was a distant rumble. The Simurgh ascended from the skyline a mile away, a half-dozen uprooted buildings orbiting lazily around her. As chunks of concrete came free of the ruined ends of the structures, they too orbited her, a protective shield.

Or a weapon. Each of her wings curled forward, and the smaller pieces orbiting her went flying ahead, simultaneously striking a hundred targets Krouse and his friends couldn’t see. Scion fired one beam, and she moved one of the apartment complexes she was lifting to put it between herself and Scion. The goal seemed to be less about blocking the attack and more about hiding herself from Scion’s sight so she could take evasive action.

“Cover!” Cody shouted.

The angle of the beam meant that they were in the path of the resulting devastation, the remaining chunks of the building sent flying in their general direction. Shouting incoherently and screaming, they ran to take shelter around the corner of the nearest building.

Chunks of concrete, pavement and metal hit with enough force that they cracked brick and etched divots intp the snow-covered road.

“Oh god,” Marissa said, sliding down to sit where the sidewalk met the base of the house, “Oh god.”

“How’s Noelle?” Krouse asked.

“Pale,” Jess answered. “You awake, No’?”

There was no response.

“She’s still breathing?”

“Yeah,” Jess said, pulling off a glove and reaching over.

Krouse closed his eyes. There was nothing they could do for Noelle just yet. He glanced at each of his friends, to gauge how they were handling things. They looked scared, Jess most of all. But she was the one with the biggest idea of what was going on. She was the one who read the websites and magazines about capes, who had the best idea of how the Simurgh operated. Marissa looked lost in thought, no doubt grieving over the brutal death of her best friend. Luke’s face was drawn with tension, suggesting he was in more pain than he was letting on, and Cody looked angry.

Not that Cody was wrong to feel that way. The people who were supposed to be on their side were putting them in danger with attacks that sent chunks of concrete flying halfway across the city. Or, on a more mundane level, they were fencing them inside the city’s limits and threatening them with guns.
Cody breaking a window with a fencpost:
Migration 17.3 said:
They moved around the building until they found a door. Use of the doorbell and liberal knocking didn’t get a response from anybody inside. After Jess was set down, Cody and Oliver took turns kicking at the door, to little effect. They quickly abandoned that idea. Not like it is in the movies.

They had to wait while Cody used a fencepost to shatter a basement window and climbed inside. It would be a minute or two before he reached the front door and unlocked it from the inside.

Cody helping clean Luke's wound:
Migration 17.3 said:
Marissa had already returned to the living room by the time he brought the tray through, and was working with Cody to disinfect and clean Luke’s wound. Noelle wasn’t moving, and Oliver was still occupied elsewhere. That left Jess on her own, watching Noelle with an eye on what the others were doing.

The Travelers talking about the Cauldron Vials:
Migration 17.5 said:
“What’s this?” Cody asked. He advanced from behind, tapped his foot against the metal briefcase. “Medical supplies?”

“No,” Krouse replied. “And you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Give it to Jess. She’ll like it.”

Cody picked it up and carried it to Jess. She sat the thing on her lap, gave Krouse a wary look, then popped it open.

He waited as Marissa put antiseptic cream on his wound, laid down some thick white bandage pads and started binding it all in place with a cloth wrap. For all her inexperience with the other stuff, she seemed to know what she was doing with the wrap.

Jess dropped the papers onto the vials without putting them in the separate flap they’d been in, then shut and latched the case. “Destroy it.”

“What?” Cody said. “Wait, what is it?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jess said. “Destroy it.”
...
“What is it?” Cody asked.

“Superpowers,” Krouse said. “If I read it right, if I’m not losing it, then the contents of that suitcase tell you how to get superpowers. I found it with the stuff that got dumped here with the monsters.”

Cody’s eyes went wide. Marissa, Luke and Oliver reacted as well.

“You’re not getting it,” Jess said.

“What’s not to get?” Krouse asked. “We’re in a dangerous situation. Is this any different than taking a weapon when we go out there?”

“It’s a whole lot different,” Jess said. “It’s permanent. If it works, it’s going to change your life. And that’s if it’s not a trap. It could be poison, if it’s coming from the same place and the same culture that those monsters did.”
...
“They’re superpowers?” Cody asked. He reached for the suitcase and Jess twisted her body to shield him from getting to it. “Seriously? How?”
...
“Jess, you’re the one that’s always followed the superhero scene,” Krouse said. “You follow the lame ass superheroes and villains we’ve got running around, and the three or four who’re maybe actually worth something. You’ve followed Earth Bet, all the stuff that goes on with the real heroes and villains. And you’re saying no? Like I told Luke, that suitcase, it’s not my top priority, not even my second or third priority. Cross my heart. But this is a pretty big deal.”

“How is this not a priority?” Cody asked. “Powers.”
...
She nodded. She opened the case to grab the papers and held them out. Krouse reached for them, but it was Cody who snatched them from Jess’ hand.

Krouse took a deep breath, exhaled. Stay calm. Cody’s under the influence of the Simurgh.

“Six formulas,” Cody said. “Each designed to give different sorts of powers. It doesn’t say what powers, exactly. Really vague.”
...
“Guys,” Cody said, excited.

Krouse could have hit Cody. That attitude, that excitement, when Noelle could be dying? Being so excited about fucking superpowers, when a friend was seriously hurt?

“Wait, look, give me that,” he took the paper from Jess, “Listen. ‘Client three should be informed about the impact of the product on his cerebral palsy, blah blah, legal stuff about liability, no promises, blah, blah, where was it? Right. Product potentially offers a mild to total recovery.”

They stopped. More than one set of eyes turned towards Jess.

“I-I don’t have cerebral palsy,” she said.

“But cerebral palsy starts with the brain, right?” Cody asked. “That’s the most complicated, delicate part of the body. If something’s going to fix your brain, maybe it could fix other stuff. Let me read more, it’s-”

“No,” Jess said. “Even with that. Especially with that, I’m not going to take it. And I’m not going to let you guys take it either.”

“Why?” Cody asked. “Why especially?"

Cody fighting Krouse:
Migration 17.6 said:
“But how-” Oliver started.

He didn’t get a chance to finish. Cody was on his feet in an instant, his chair falling to the ground. He rushed Krouse, gripping him by the shirt collar. Once he had a hold, he swung Krouse around to one side, shoved him, throwing him across Jess’ lap and into the coffee table that sat between her and Luke.

Luke tried to stand from his chair, but Cody pushed him back down. While Luke fell back, Cody stooped down to seize Krouse’s shirt with one hand, striking at his face with the heel of the other.

“You fucker! Lying to us? At a time like this!? Fuck you! Fuck you!”

Krouse tried to shield himself with his arms, but it didn’t help much. He brought his knees up to his chest, between himself and Cody, then kicked outward, forcing Cody off.

Cody fell back, nearly hitting the coffee table in front of the couch. It would have been a good opportunity to close the distance, to hit back, but he didn’t. Krouse took the opportunity to stand, tenderly touching the spots on his cheekbone, chin and nose where Cody had landed some good hits.

“Fucker!” Cody shouted, from across the room.

Migration 17.7 said:
“Where’s Cody?”

“Here,” Cody said, from behind Krouse.

Krouse whirled around.

Cody was smiling, swaggering.

“You too?” Krouse asked, unsurprised. He’d left Cody in the house with the four remaining vials.

“Yeah. Me too.”

Everything in the room shifted. The curtains flickered and appeared in a fractionally different position, Noelle had moved a foot away, now squarely facing them, and Cody was in the center of the room.

“See?” Cody asked.

“What just happened?”

“I got powers. The paperwork said it was the ‘Vestige’ can. And as luck would have it, my power counters yours. Totally and completely.”

There was another shift, things moving all at once, and Cody was now a foot in front of Krouse. He was laughing.

Teleportation? No. The others wouldn’t move like that.

“Stop it, Cody,” Marissa said.

“He doesn’t care, he doesn’t know,” Cody said.

“Just stop!”

Everything shifted positions again, and this time, Cody was swinging a punch at Krouse. It connected and Krouse crashed to the ground. The punch had landed painfully close to where Krouse had been struck not long ago, and the resulting pain seemed to radiate across the surface of his skull.

“Only bad part is,” Cody said, shaking one hand as though it were sore, “If I use it on myself, I don’t get the satisfaction, and if I use it on him, he doesn’t even know.”

“Just leave him alone,” Marissa said.

Krouse looked at Noelle, saw her with gloved hands pressed to her mouth.

“What’s he doing?” Krouse asked, not moving from the ground.

“Time travel,” Luke said.

Cody shrugged, “Directed time travel, anyways. Backwards only, a few seconds at a time. You teleport away, I set you back to where you were, then kick you in the balls for being an asshole.”

“Well,” Krouse said, “Do you feel better now? After however many beatings you just gave me? Kicks in the balls?”

“I feel a bit better. But what has me tickled is that I can do it again and again, whenever I feel the urge,” Cody said, smiling.

“Don’t,” Luke said. “That’s…”

“Brutish,” Jess said, her voice low. She was glaring at Krouse.

“Not the word I would have chosen,” Luke said, “But yeah.”

Cody shrugged. He couldn’t stop smiling.

...

The room flickered.

“Stop, Cody,” Jess said.

“I’m tired of everyone catering to him. He fucked up, broke the rules he set,” Cody said. “So if he wants to run off and be the lone maverick, he can deal with the consequences. That means we don’t go out of our way to get him caught up.”

“You’re being as bad as he ever was,” Luke said.

Cody turned towards Luke, “No. No I’m not.”

“You’re making calls on our behalf. You’re not being a team player, and you’re making things harder than they have to be to get your way.”

“It’s not the same,” Cody said.

Krouse looked at Cody, then grabbed him from behind and threw him into a bookcase.

“Krouse!” Luke shouted. Marissa and Noelle hurried back to the hallway.

Cody appeared back where he’d been standing, in the exact same position. Krouse repeated the throw from behind. “Two!”

Again, Cody reappeared, setting himself back to where he’d been three seconds ago. Krouse shoved him yet again. “Three!”

On the next reappearance of Cody, Krouse shoved him and called out, “Four! Blade cuts both ways Cody!”

This time, Cody didn’t use his power on himself. He landed amid the fallen stacks of magazines and books, offered a snarling noise.

“Your power works against you,” Krouse said. “Using it to protect yourself? It doesn’t work if your opponent knows how you function and you don’t have backup to break the loop. You shift yourself back in time, you don’t remember, and I can use the same strategy over and over.”

“That’s not-” Cody said, then he stopped. His eyes narrowed. “I don’t have to put you back where you were after hurting you. Any time you do something to me, I can set you up to a position where I can hurt you, then leave you like that, hurting. Using my power doesn’t tire me out. I can set you back as many times in a row as I need to.”

Cody touching Noelle:
Migration 17.8 said:
“It’s Cody. He touched Noelle.”

Trickster froze. “How bad is it?”

“Three times, Krouse.”

“Three,” Trickster said. “Fuck me. I’m on my way.”
...
There’s no way Cody’s stupid enough to make contact with Noelle.

There’s no way anyone would do it three times. How?
...
He found his target not by spotting him, but by seeing the reaction from the crowd. People were hurrying to get out of his way, running away.

The guy was naked, covered in gnarly, tumorous growths, and was moving at a limping run, attacking anyone he could get his hands on. One of his arms was larger than the other, and a fluid-filled blister covered his entire stomach, sloshing with the contents. His jaw didn’t fit right, and had dislocated on one side, giving him a lopsided yawn.

A man shoved him and ran, sweeping his two children up in his arms as he fled.

Three seconds later, the man snapped back into the same position, in front of the creature. Perdition… Cody. Except not quite. The man carried through the shoving motion, but Perdition wasn’t there any more. Shoving empty space, the man stumbled and was clubbed over the neck and shoulders with a massive, misshapen fist. He hit the ground with enough force that Trickster doubted he’d rise again.

The two children had fallen to the sidewalk when the man disappeared. Perdition advanced on them.

Trickster crossed the street, swapping himself for one of the people who was fleeing the scene. The children were running, but Perdition wasn’t one to let his targets slip out of his grasp. The six year old didn’t get more than three steps before getting reset to his original position.

“Hey!” Trickster called out. “I’m the one you want!”

Perdition spun around, and Trickster was already swapping himself for someone else, not allowing his opponent more than a glance.

Hide in the crowd. Can’t allow him a chance to get me.

“Kroushe!” Perdition screamed. He couldn’t completely close his mouth, and slurred the words.

Inconvenient.

“Keell you! Mehk it shlow, mehk you beg an’ crah and sheht yershelf lekk a baby!”

The little kid was getting away. Trickster allowed himself a sigh of relief.

“Shheh wush mine! An’ you ruinn herr!” Perdition screamed at a volume that distorted his voice even further, left it ragged.

Trickster winced.

“Muh cahreer, muh frenndsh, my guhll! You ‘ook hem! Yer a ‘hief!“

Some of the time, the powers would be different. Most of the time, going by precedent, they were stronger. Trickster was left to wonder how Perdition’s powers had changed. Duration? Range? The amount of time reversed?

Then his surroundings flickered, half the crowd disappearing.

Trickster didn’t waste a second in swapping himself elsewhere, moving across the street.

Perdition was only just turning in the direction of where Trickster had been.

He doesn’t need to see me now?

Trickster saw everything shift again.

He’s got a lock on me. Not as strong when he does it this way, but he can track me, force little jumps backward.

Perdition charged, and the crowd scattered.

He reached for his belt, saw another shift, and Perdition was suddenly twenty feet closer, a few steps away. With no time to follow through, Trickster swapped himself out of the way.

-And only belatedly recalled that he was putting another person in Perdition’s path. Perdition knocked a young woman to the ground, grabbed her, and then slammed her into a wall.

She wouldn’t have survived the impact.

“Kroushe!” Perdition roared.

Another shift hit. They’re about ten seconds apart, and he’s hitting me for anywhere from one to five seconds each time.

Perdition was halfway across the street. With the way the crowd was scattering and the number of available people to swap with was dwindling, he was running out of options. He could run or he could stay and fight, virtually powerless.

He stayed, reached to his side, and unbuckled the largest pouch on his belt.

Perdition was getting closer. He seemed to have only a general sense of where Trickster was, wide, mad, bulging eyes roving over the crowd.

Trickster swapped himself for someone else, waited until Perdition started to turn, then did another swap.

Perdition paced from one side of the street to the sidewalk, between the last two of Trickster’s chosen destinations.

Only one or two seconds were left before the next automatic time skip.

Trickster swapped himself for the body of the girl who Perdition had thrown into the wall, drew his gun and fired it, all in one smooth motion. Screams of alarm erupted in the wake of the gunshot.

He stepped closer, then emptied the remainder of the clip into Perdition’s head and chest.
...
Krouse and Oliver dragged the body to the middle of the living room. It joined two others. Each was different in the mutations, in the distortions and impurities. Each of the three bodies was Perdition. Was Cody.
...
“What happened?” Krouse asked.

“We don’t know. Neither Cody or Noelle are saying.”
Click to expand...
Krouse talking to the Travellers about what to do with Perdition:
Migration 17.8 said:
“Um. He wants you to see him tonight. Nine sharp. And, um. He said that if I’m not the problem, he fully expects you to bring the real culprit. Did he mean Noelle?”

“Cody,” Krouse said. “Shit. Not the way I wanted this to go.”

“What!? Krouse, he’s going to kill him.”

“Probably.”

“We can’t!”

“We may have to. If we don’t give him a scapegoat, he’ll send assassins and homicidal underlings after us. We need someone to blame, not just for intruding on the meeting, but for the three very violent scenes that erupted in his territory earlier today. Not to mention that we can’t afford to pack up shop and move right now, not while Noelle’s as upset as she is. Between the two of us, I think we’ve charmed Accord enough that I’d bet we can get away with giving him Cody and paying him a fair sum. We do that, we can stay for ten days. We’ll gather some funds and give Noelle time to quiet down.”

“You’re talking about killing a teammate.”

“He was never a teammate. He was one of us, yes, but he never cooperated, never worked with the rest of us.”

“We made a pact, a promise. To stick together, no matter what. To do what it took to fix Noelle and get home.”

Krouse shut his eyes. “I know. Not an hour goes by that I don’t think about it.”

“You’re breaking that promise if you give Cody up.”

Krouse sighed, took a drag of his cigarette and blew smoke out through his nostrils.

“Krouse-“

“Mars. There’s no reason he’d enter her room and intentionally touch her three times. You know that, I know that.”

He turned around to glance at her, saw her frowning.

“What do you mean, Krouse?”

“I mean he waited until the rest of us were busy, then he entered her room and he enraged her. Because for there to be three points of contact, three uses of her power, she’d have to be the one making the contact. She’d be using her power on purpose, and she wouldn’t do that if she wasn’t berserk. I’m guessing he was badly hurt?”

“Broken arm, broken leg.”

Krouse nodded. He took another drag of his cigarette.

“Why? How?”

“He had a goal in mind, only he didn’t anticipate how fast she moves, how strong she is. He was trying to do one of two things. Either he did something general, said something, with the aim of making her go berserk… or he tried to kill her. One way or another, Cody wanted to end this. End our mission. Free himself. He doesn’t give a fuck about the promise, so I don’t see why the promise should protect him.”

“I don’t- I can’t believe that.”

“You can’t believe that Cody is that self-centered? Did you just come from an alternate universe with a different Cody?”

“No. I… I can almost believe it. But you’re talking about killing. Or giving him to someone else so they’ll kill him.”

Krouse finished the cigarette and tossed it to the base of the steps, crushed it under his toe.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Let me talk to the others. Maybe Cody too, just to confirm suspicions. We’ll see if the others come to the same conclusion.”

“Krouse, you’re talking about sentencing Cody to death.”

“He knew what he was getting into. And whatever else happened, three innocent people are dead because he fucked up. So we’ll talk to the others. We’ll come to a consensus.”
...
“I was planning on doing it a little later. Things are kind of a mess out there, you know. The Cody situation.”

“Nobody keeps me company any more. Only you.”

“Yeah. But that’s not why I’m here.”

“You want to know what happened with Cody.”

“I know what happened with Cody. He tried to kill you.”

There was a long silence.

“I can’t die, Krouse. I’ve tried. Tried to end it. Spare you guys from looking after me. I can’t. Nothing works.”
Click to expand...
Perdition helping the Yàngbǎn fight Behemoth:
Interlude 23 said:
Lightning ripped across the landscape, following its own path, independent, breaking every rule that electricity was supposed to follow. It danced over the outside surfaces of houses, running across concrete and leaving glassy scorch marks in its wake. It touched objects that should have grounded it, channeling it into the earth, but leaped for another target instead.

The Yàngbǎn raised their hands, already reacting.

Twenty-third path, fifth benefit. Reflexes.

Thirteenth path, third form. Forcefield constructions, barrier.

The forcefields absorbed the worst of the energy.

Cody was already moving to use the thirty-sixth path to rescue anyone who’d absorbed the remnants of the shock. None. It hadn’t touched them. He was among the last of them to dismiss his forcefield. The forcefields drained their reserves of energy, and weren’t to stay up for too long. They’d been drilled on this.
...
There were forty-two paths in all. Forty-two powers. No, he corrected himself, there were forty-one now that Seventeen was dead. More would die by the day’s end.

The hope, the plan, was to demonstrate the Yàngbǎn’s strength, to show that they had the answer, a way to defeat the Endbringers. It wouldn’t happen today, but a solid demonstration would serve to bring others on board.

They hadn’t been asked. The expectation was that they would give their lives for this. He would have refused. He’d dealt with an Endbringer before, and he still hadn’t recovered from that chance meeting. He’d lost everything, been stripped of friends and family both.

“Yàngbǎn qiáng!” Five called out.

“Yàngbǎn qiáng!” The group responded in chorus. Cody’s voice joined theirs, quieter. His pronunciation wasn’t good. In all this time with the group, he hadn’t even managed to grasp the fundamentals of the language. Mispronunciation was punished, not by any reprimand, but in a subtle way. They would speak to him even less than they were now, he would get less food. Maybe for a few hours, maybe for a few days. The thought bothered him, and the degree to which it unsettled him was more disturbing still.

Something so minor as that shouldn’t have mattered so much to him, but it was all he had, now.
...
Cody joined the middle group in shearing through the remaining wreckage. Thirty-first path. The cutting lasers. The first group was slowing a fraction, and Cody slowed his flight to hold formation.
...
Zig-zagging down the streets, they naturally settled back into their established rank and file. With every member of the group having access to the same pool of powers, placement in the formation was a question of experience and how expendable they were. Cody was an essential defensive asset, no use if he was taken out of action, so he rested in the middle of the group, surrounded by people who could protect him in a pinch.
...
Cody could feel his skin prickling. His mask was filtering out the smoke, but the heat, it was getting unbearable.

“Zhàn wěn,” Ten said.

“Zhàn wěn,” the group echoed her, their voices strong. It was an encouragement, an affirmation. Cody didn’t know what it meant. He’d been with them for an indeterminate length of time, what felt like years, but he didn’t feel any closer to grasping the language than he had been on the first day. He’d had help, briefly, but that had been stopped.

Every member of the group was permitted to speak freely, but virtually every utterance was vetted by the group as a whole. If, like Ten, someone were to speak, and others were in agreement, deeming the phrase acceptable, then the response was clear. If the statement was poorly timed, or out of tune with the group’s line of thinking, then it was ignored, followed only by a crushing silence.

Cody had never experienced the adrenaline rush that Ten was no doubt experiencing over the simple act of getting a response from the squadron. The group had never deemed his statements acceptable, because his pronunciation was poor. He was a member of a tight-knit crowd, yet utterly, completely alone.
...
Like the others, the maneuver was a practiced one. The last forcefields dropped, and the group mobilized. Odd-numbered members of the squad crouched, legs flexing, while even-numbered members, Cody included, reached out.

Path fourteen. Vacuum spheres.

The odd-numbered members of the group pierced the barrier of cooled magma, and the vacuum spheres scattered the shards.

Another sphere was already in the air, aimed close to them, if not at the exact same spot.

Without even thinking about it, he trained a laser on it. Others were doing the same, or following suit. The glob of magma, still mid-air, was separated into loose pieces, no longer as aerodynamic as it had been. It expanded, fell short, disappeared into the cityscape between them and Behemoth.
...
Behemoth was there, standing amid leveled buildings, fighting some flying capes who strafed around him. He had built up some steam, and lightning coursed over his gray flesh, illuminating him. Only one or two of the metal ships were still fighting. Other craft, airborne, seemed focused on evacuating, but it was a gamble at best, as shockwaves and lightning struck them down.

The smoke filled the sky once more, obscuring Cody’s vision too much for him to see any further.

Behemoth clapped again, then again, each collision of claw against claw serving to extend the damage one step further, clearing obstructions out of the way for the next.

The Yàngbǎn backed away, spreading out inadvertently. Cody could feel the benefit of the second path fading, the enhanced powers the others granted slipping from his grasp.

“Tā shì fúshè kuòsàn,” Three said. He said something else that Cody couldn’t make out. Something about leaving.

The group moved out, flying low to the ground, and Cody was a fraction of a second behind, pushed himself to make sure he was in formation.

“Radiation,” Thirty-two said, her English perfect, unaccented. It was for Cody’s benefit, and the benefit of the other two English-speaking members of the group, who might not understand the more complicated words. She got glances from the other members of their squad, but continued speaking. “He’s using the shockwaves to spread irradiated material across the city. We’re retreating, okay?”
...
They passed injured, and didn’t spare a second glance. A family of five were caught in a ring of burning structures, and the Yàngbǎn didn’t even spare a second glance.

We’re military, not heroes.

The goal was to fight the monster, to support the Yàngbǎn and support the C.U.I. in any way possible.
Click to expand...
Perdition helping the Yàngbǎn teleport injured or dying capes:
Three changed course, and the rest flew after him, setting down. Their destination was a flattened building, with a group of dead, maimed and dying Indian capes lying in the debris.

Cody exercised the twenty-third path to find out what Three surely knew already. There was nobody nearby.

Three reached down, and others around him joined in, making contact with one of the dying.

It took nearly a minute, to attune everything the right way. But the effect took hold, and the injured hero disappeared.

Five looked to Cody and pointed at the next one.

Lowest rung on the totem pole. If I didn’t think Null would rescind my powers, I’d kill you here and now.

Reluctantly, still stewing with anger, he obeyed, kneeling by the body.

The forty-second path. Teleportation. He could see the destination in his mind’s eye, like an annoying spot of light in the center of his vision, gradually getting more detailed and focused. Each person that joined his side to assist sped the process along.

The wounded hero flickered and disappeared.

By the time they were done, all three bodies had been removed.
Perdition fighting Accord, Chevalier and Tattletale:
Cody didn’t care about either.

He entertained the notion that helping Behemoth go loose would almost be better. It could mean the end of the Yàngbǎn, Accord’s death. Even Trickster’s death, if they had decided to show up.

Except there was no reasonable way he could do that. Not for a lack of wanting to, but because he couldn’t hope to oppose the Yàngbǎn and the heroes at the same time.

Needed an opportunity.

The Yàngbǎn passed through the worst of the smoke, into the blasted, shattered ruins of the city. In the moment they joined the fight, Cody held back.

They sensed he was gone, but they couldn’t disengage, not as Behemoth gathered up a ruined section of building and melted it down, hurled massive globs of melted plastic, metal and stone at them.

The process took a minute at the best of times, with help. His destination couldn’t be a distant one, and he couldn’t hope to behead the Yàngbǎn on his own, not with the members they’d kept in reserve, the precious ones, with powers they couldn’t afford to lose, like Two’s.

He nearly lost his concentration as a massive crash knocked him off his feet.

The fight’s only beginning, Cody thought.

The teleportation took hold, and he found himself back at the building the Yàngbǎn had just left, three stories down.

The command center.

Accord, the lavender girl, and Chevalier were leaning over a table with computers arranged along it, papers strewn out across the surface.

It brought back memories of the moment everything had turned upside down, the computers, the interrupted tournament. Finding themselves in another world…

If he needed a push to act, that was it. The biggest one first.

The laser didn’t cut the armor. It was capable of cutting granite like a hot knife through butter, but it didn’t cut the armor. Chevalier turned, drawing his sword, a six-foot long beast of a weapon. The armor glowed orange as the laser concentrated on his belly.

“You lunatic!” he shouted, charging.

Cody switched tactics. A forcefield-

The sword shattered it with one swing.

He flew out of the way as another swing came within an inch of decapitating him.

A laser with one hand, a vacuum sphere with another, pulling Chevalier off balance.

Again, it didn’t work. The man barely reacted as the vacuum sphere caught his legs. He aimed his weapon, and a combination of danger sense and a nullification wave stopped the shot in the chamber, disabling the gun.

The x-ray vision was barely penetrating the sword or armor. Cody had to duck, back up and rely on his enhanced reflexes to avoid Chevalier’s attacks. He had forty-four powers and not one was letting him beat, what, a swordsman in a suit of armor?

It was the lack of the power boost. The Yàngbǎn were only strong as a group, granting the aura to one another. Here, now, he was feeble. Forty powers, and not one of them sufficient.

Always second best. Always alone, Cody thought. No.

Keeping the laser trained on Chevalier, he used his own power. Perdition’s power. The thirty-sixth path.

Chevalier was moved back to where he was seconds ago. Cody backed out of the way, kept the laser trained on the hero, and the instant his opponent got too close, he used his power again. It barely set Chevalier back two seconds, but it was enough.

Slow, steady, inevitable progress. Time was one of the fundamental forces of the universe, undeniable.

Accord and the girl in lavender made a sudden attempt to run to the door. Cody created a forcefield to bar their way.

They reached for phones. He used a vacuum sphere to pull them away.

It took nearly a minute to cut through Chevalier’s armor, using the time reversals to effectively put the man on hold while he put some distance between them, and the laser to cut. The man folded over the second the laser pierced flesh, cutting straight from the front of his stomach to his back.

Obstacle gone.

“Reckless,” Accord said, sounding more sad than afraid. “Lunacy.”

“I don’t care what you think.”

“I’d hoped your placement with the Yàngbǎn would temper you.”

Cody lashed out with the laser. Accord’s right arm was lopped off.

Another cut, for the right leg. Accord screamed as he fell.

The girl in lavender hadn’t reacted, only stared down at the two dying men. She clicked her tongue, “Tsk.”

“He’s asymmetrical in death,” Cody mused. “There’s a justice in that, isn’t there?”

“If there’s irony here, it’s the fact that his desire for order led to this,” the girl commented. “We just lost our strategist and our field commander, so there’s going to be more chaos than ever.”

The windows briefly rattled with the shockwave of one of Behemoth’s attacks, halfway across the city.

“Tsk.” the girl said, again.

The anger still burned inside him, not sated in the slightest. Did I end it too quickly? Maybe I should have drawn it out more.

He glanced at her. She was staring at him. “Can you use that computer to find someone? If they’re here, or somewhere else?”

“I can,” she said.

“Trickster.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I can tell you that without looking. He bit it. Some freaky monster calling herself Noelle freaked out, made clones of him. They ate him alive. Literally.”

He blinked. “When?”

“A month ago, Brockton Bay.”

The details fit. Cody nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Sorry, if he was your friend.”

“He wasn’t,” Cody snapped. He felt off balance. This was so unexpected. How was he even supposed to react to that? How long had it been since he’d really made a call on his own?

Slowly, he spoke, as if sounding out the ideas as they came to him, “No. I suppose that’s good. Thank you. I’d tell you I’ll make it quick, but… you worked for him. You probably deserve it.”

“Nuh uh,” she said. She’d backed away, gripped the edge of a table. Her entire body was rigid. “I’ll give you my phone, you can call any one of my buddies, tell them it’s Tattletale. They’ll tell you we were constantly fighting. Only reason we haven’t offed each other is that it’d be mutually assured destruction.”

“Trickery. No, knowing him, knowing the kind of people he associates with,” like Trickster, “there’s probably contingency plans. I won’t fall for that.”

“Spare me, maybe I can salvage this mess. I mean, you’ve still got to live on this planet, right? We can’t let Behemoth win. Not today.”

“I’m dead anyways.”

“Because of the Yàngbǎn. I could help. I’ll figure out a way for you to escape. Hopeless as this feels, there’s a way out.”

“No,” Cody shook his head. He felt so lost, so tired, so unsatisfied. There was one major enemy left to eliminate, one more group who’d wronged him. The Yàngbǎn. He already knew he wouldn’t get any more satisfaction from it. He knew he’d likely die in the attempt. “No, no point.”

“Fuck,” she said. “There’s definitely a point. Just… give me a second, I’ll think of it. Shit. Sucks I don’t know much about you. Don’t suppose you’d give me a hint?”

He raised a hand, pointing at her. “No.”

“Think about her,” the girl who’d called herself Tattletale blurted out the words. “What would she think?”

He hesitated.

Her? The first person that popped into mind was Thirty-two. The Yàngbǎn member who’d tried to teach him Chinese. They’d been close, had been friends, before the group segregated them, because they were more malleable as individuals than as a group. Members of the same team, but never given a chance to talk with one another. Always in arm’s reach, never together.

The second person he thought of was Noelle. His first love, the betrayer, the monster.

He shook his head, which only intensified the ringing in his ears. When had that started? With the shockwaves? During the fight with Chevalier?

Or before all that? Before the Yàngbǎn. Had it ever stopped?

He thought of the Simurgh, thought of all of this in the context of him being just one of her pawns.

His head hung.

Always a pawn. Always the expendable one. Kicked off the team, traded away to Accord for the team’s safety.

“There’s…” he started to speak, then trailed off. She didn’t interrupt him. “Who? Which her are you talking about? Which her? Be clear.”

He approached Tattletale, gripping her throat, feeling the added strength of the newest additions to the Yàngbǎn.

Tattletale’s voice was strained, “Honestly? I figured I’d toss it out there. There’s bound to be someone important, and saying her gives me a fifty-fifty chance.”

“I hate smartasses,” he said, and he squeezed, feeling her windpipe collapse in his grip.

She fell to the ground, and he watched as she struggled for air that didn’t come.
Click to expand...
-->{{Template:Worm Wiki: Character Template
| Image = TravHUM_1cOdy.jpg
| imagecaption = ''<center>Image by [http://pabelandnine.tumblr.com pabelandnine.tumblr.com].</center>''
| name = Cody
| alias = Perdition<ref name="17.8">Perdition… Cody.  Except not quite. - 
[https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/migration-17-8/ Excerpt] from [[Migration 17.8]]</ref><br/> Thirty-Six <br/>
| gender = Male
| age = 
| alignment= [[Villain]] 
| previous team = [[Yangban]]<br/>[[Travelers]]
| base of operations = [[Earth Aleph]] (Formerly)<br/>[[Chinese Union-Imperial|C.U.I.]] (Formerly)
| classification = [[Blaster]]([[Shaker]]) (?)
| web serial = [[Migration 17.1]]
| family = 
}}
'''Cody''', cape name '''Perdition''', is a [[parahuman]] formerly affiliated with the [[Travelers]] and the [[Yangban]]. 

==Personality==
Cody is prideful and short-tempered and cannot stand being defeated or isolated, even in situations not typically considered competitive; [[Francis Krouse|Krouse]] describes him as a "Type A personality"<ref name="17.1">“Can I say something?”  Krouse asked.<br/><br/>He could see them glancing at one another, trying to decide.<br/><br/>“So long as it’s helpful,” Jess replied.<br/><br/>“Look.  Cody is a type A personality.  Like Marissa-” he saw Marissa’s expression change and added, “I don’t mean that in a bad way.  Marissa and Cody are training the hardest and practicing the most.  That’s respectable.  The difference is, well, we’ve all seen how much time Cody puts in.  And I think he’s hit his ceiling, and he knows it.  He’s not keeping up, and I don’t know how much he’s going to improve over the coming months or years.” [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/01/08 Excerpt] from [[Migration 17.1]]</ref> and a "coward at heart".<ref name="17.7 e1">You’re a coward at heart, Krouse thought, as he watched Cody head upstairs.  And I’m too stubborn to back down or give up.  As long as that’s the case, I’ll always come out ahead. [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/01/14 Excerpt] from [[Migration 17.7]]</ref><ref name="23.x c1">Cody being dead was never explicitly stated. It was heavily implied, on the other hand, that Accord had sent him away to the Yangban, in Accord’s chapter. (killing is messy, fitting good customers into the Yangban is orderly and good business).<br /><br />Cody recieved a great deal of training with the Yangban. He’s fitter, his reaction times are better, and that’s without the additional powers, the enhanced strength and agility, the reaction times and enhanced speed. Even at a fraction of what he’s got, it’s a significant upgrade. His power is one that doesn’t suffer as much for being reduced in effect, because (as 32 says) – every power gets reduced in different ways, and his power wasn’t reduced substantially in terms of the time window.<br /><br />As far as the other powers, it’s not 1/40th. Even if you assumed an even divide among the surviving members, he’s granting himself the power boost.<br /><br />This was planned from some time ago. I knew that Cody was the most affected by the Simurgh (after Noelle), as, like Noelle, he was already unstable/in an emotional state before the whole business started out. I knew he was in the Yangban, and that this would be his moment to act. As for what his action was, that was what was decided late, on little sleep. - [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/2013/06/06/interlude-23/#comment-26791 Comment] by Wildbow on [[23.x|Interlude 23]]</ref><!--Cody’s eyes narrowed as he glanced away.  “I don’t like you, Krouse.”

“This isn’t exactly the time to hold onto old grudges.”

“I know.  I know that.  I’m just saying, I think you’re an asshole.  I think you’ll fuck the rest of us over if it means serving your own ends or helping Noelle.  But we can’t afford to fight between us.  Whatever I think of you, we can’t afford to be enemies.”

“That was never a concern,” Krouse shrugged.  He heard Marissa, Jess, and Luke exchanging words in low voices.  He stepped closer to the door to listen in, keeping his eyes averted.  He couldn’t make out the words.  He wasn’t really hearing the screaming in his head, but it was almost drowning out the faint, muffled words.

Cody muttered something under his breath.  “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Put me down, act like I’m not worth your attention.”

“I wasn’t.  I was saying I wasn’t stressed about us being enemies.”

“You phrased it like you wouldn’t care even if I was your enemy.”

You are, and I don’t, really.

Krouse shrugged.

“You have no problems benefiting off my hard work, but you look down on me, you talk down to me.  I’m inconsequential to you.”

“I thought we weren’t enemies,” Krouse said, turning.

“We aren’t.  I’m just saying you’re making it really hard to be allies.”

Krouse shook his head.  “Okay.  Whatever.  Change of topic: what kind of stuff was in the basement?”  -->

==Appearance==
He was physically bigger than [[Trickster]].<ref>[[Migration 17.5]]</ref><!--Cody doesn't get a physical description Except

“You’re not capable of love,” Cody said.

“We’ll agree to disagree.”  Krouse pushed the presence against Cody, surrounded himself.  No, not quite.  I’m smaller.  Need to suck in some air…

They swapped places in a flash.  Cody staggered. -->
Unlike the other Travelers, he never received the high-quality red and black costumes that [[Accord]] made for them.

==Abilities and Powers==
Cody can cause himself or any person or object he sees to be reverted to their state and location as of a few seconds earlier.<ref name="17.7">[[Migration 17.7]]</ref> Any object so transferred, including himself, do not retain a memory of the event.

His time with the Yangban increased his fitness and reflexes,<ref name="23.x c1" /> as well as an extremely rudimentary understanding of Chinese, but not much more than he'd had to start with.<ref>[[23.x|Interlude 23]]</ref>

==History==
===Background===
Cody was a member of a professional-level video game team on [[Earth Aleph]] consisting of himself, [[Noelle]], [[Sundancer|Marissa Newland]], [[Francis Krouse]], and [[Ballistic|Luke]].<ref name="17.1" />

When [[Simurgh|the Simurgh]] attacked Madison, Wisconsin, on [[Earth Bet]], she teleported several buildings from Earth Aleph to Earth Bet, including the one Cody and his friends were in. After Krouse found a suitcase full of [[Cauldron]] vials, Cody drank the one containing the [[List of Cauldron vials#M-0-0-4-2.2C .22Vestige.22|Vestige]] formula and gained his powers.<ref name="17.7" />

===Story Start===
Cody was a member of the [[Travelers]] for some time until they moved to [[Boston]] on Earth Bet. Due to his problems with [[Trickster|Krouse]] being the leader of the group, he touched [[Noelle Meinhardt|Noelle]] three times, releasing three clones of himself. She became infuriated and broke his arm and his leg, while the other Travelers subdued the clones.

After this happened, [[Accord]] sought out the real cause of tension within the Travelers, found Cody, and sold him to the [[Yangban]], where he was trained intensively and forced to conform. During his time with the Yangban, he bonded with [[Thirty-Two]] over their mutual foreignness, but the group segregated them.

===Post-[[Battle against Echidna|Echidna]]===
During the New Delhi attack, he rebelled against the Yangban, killing Accord and wounding [[Chevalier]] and [[Tattletale]].

==Chapter Appearances==
{{Appearance/Perdition Worm}}

==Trivia==

*The [[List of Cauldron vials#M-0-0-4-2.2C .22Vestige.22|Vestige]] formula has been theorized to be the same cauldron vial as [[Epoch]] and [[Gray Boy]].
*After [[Noelle]] he was the most affected by the Simurgh.<ref name="23.x c1" />

{{Reflist}}

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