In seconds, the marble entry room was empty. Wax shared a look with Wayne, then they walked to the large wooden doors at the far end and threw them open, to reveal a grand staircase leading up to some kind of ballroom with a skylight. Standing at the top were a man in a suit and a woman with a bowler hat, her head completely healed, flipping a dueling cane in one hand and trying her best — but failin’ somethin’ awful — to imitate a Wayne grin.
“These idiots again?” Wayne said with a sigh. “All right. I’ll tackle the one with the hat. You—”
“No,” Wax said softly.
“No?”
“No,” Wax repeated. “They were built and trained to defeat us. That man knows exactly how to hunt me.”
“So…” Wayne grinned. “I take the fellow, you take the woman?”
“Damn right,” Wax said, smiling. “Remember he’s a Leecher. Don’t get too close, or he’ll wipe out your Allomantic abilities.”
“Mate,” Wayne said, “I’m depending on it. Let’s do this.”
64
The Allomantic grenades in Marasi’s hands vibrated so powerfully, she thought they’d shake her flesh free of her bones. The Allomancers from the Community gathered around the edges of the glowing pool, which was rapidly vanishing — their hands thrust in to touch it, draw it in. Their skin glowed as they filled with power.
Marasi had waded straight into the middle. And she could feel those troops on the other side, in a place that was somehow distant and impossibly close at the same time. Waiting.
She needed this power gone. Now. Marasi continued to draw in strength, charging her grenades. She had no idea how much they could hold. She’d never had access to this kind of strength before.
“It’s too much!” a man cried. “What do I do with it!”
“Burn it!” Marasi shouted. “Use it!”
“For what?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Marasi yelled. “We only need to get rid of it!”
Bursts of emotional Allomancy washed over her as Armal used her powers to Riot. Metal in the radio room vibrated and ripped apart. The Allomancers in the room channeled every bit of energy they could.
The pool shrank further. Marasi thought — through the blasts of confidence Armal sent — that she could sense the troops on the other side getting agitated. Then she felt something different. Something emerging. They were coming through. She understood it in a flash — you had to want to come through the portal. To command it to let you through. They were beginning the process.
No you don’t, she thought. Then she dropped both her grenades, and used the same mental command to open the portal to them.
The movement on the other side stopped. Frozen in time as the Allomancers around her continued — wide eyed — drawing from the pool. Siphoning away the awesome power until, at last, the glow faded. The room was suddenly a normal ballroom again, with a hewn-out rock pit in the floor some three feet deep.
She was left with one final impression from the other side. Shock. Judging by how much energy she’d put into those grenades, it would be a while before the army discovered what had happened.
The other Allomancers slumped against one another, exhausted. She had never thought that using their powers would be so much work, but she felt wrung out as well. Not simply from what they’d done here — but from all of it, taking place in such a short time.
She limped to the edge of the pit and let them help her out.
“… Now what?” Armal finally asked.
“Now,” Marasi said, lying back on the rock, “we hope that my friends have had an easier time of it than I have.”
65
Figures, Wayne thought, dashing up the steps. Wax would want me to face the evil version of him. While he gets the easy job. My evil twin probably spent the afternoon drinkin’. She’ll be a snap. Especially since she’d gotten her face half blown off earlier in the day.
The steps led to a large ballroom, with red-carpeted floor and no furniture. A skylight kept out the mist above, but for the most part this was a wide-open room with high ceilings and no obstacles. No cover either. The two backed away a little as Wayne and Wax charged up the steps — Wax doing a steel-assisted flying leap at the end, because of course he did.
Wayne kept his eyes on the woman, pretending he was going to engage her. As soon as he drew close though, he broke to the left and tackled the Coinshot. The man cried out in shock as Wayne knocked them both to the carpeted floor.
Rusts. His cologne smells terrible.
The man scrambled to get free, but Wayne took hold of his suit coat and clung on. Wayne knew how to fight beside Wax, which translated into knowing how to fight against him. Gotta stay close to Wax, otherwise he’d do something smart, like fly up high and shoot you till you died of it.
The man grunted, trying to pry Wayne off, seeming baffled by the whole experience as they wrestled on the ground. Eventually he put his hand on Wayne’s face and Leeched him — the bendalloy in Wayne’s stomach vanishing.
Wayne grappled anyway, trying for a headlock, but the man was strong. Too strong.
“You know,” Wayne said, “you’re too handsome to be a copy of Wax. You oughta get a scar or something.”
The man tried to seize Wayne’s hand and pry it free, but Wayne let go with that hand — then grabbed the man with the other, grinning, staying close.
“You miscreant!” the man growled. “Go and fight Getruda, as is your task. I must prove myself against Ladrian!”
“Why?” Wayne said as he tried to get his arm around the man’s neck — but also palmed a bit of bendalloy and popped it into his mouth. “Why do you two have this freakish obsession with copying us?”
“Survival,” the man said with a grunt, “of those most worthy. Trell demands that her servants prove themselves. Against adversity. Against society. Against the roles we take. And when there are several who fit the same slot in life … well, only the strongest can survive and be rewarded.”
“Rusts,” Wayne said. “That is one of the most messed-up things I’ve ever heard, mate.”
Not-Wax pried Wayne’s fingers free with pewter-enhanced strength. “It is the way of Autonomy. To find our place in the coming pantheon of rulers, we must be the best versions of ourselves. It is not we who are copying you, but you who seek to take the places which are rightfully ours.”
Wayne shifted positions, but then felt something tremble on the front of the man’s coat. Wayne rolled out of the way as one of the man’s buttons — metal, evidently — burst free and shot off like a bullet.
“Damn,” Wayne said, rolling over. “Did you steal that button trick from Wax?”
The man stood, glaring at Wayne while pulling a gun from his holster.
“Of course you stole it from him…” Wayne said. “You really are tryin’ to become him. I thought you weren’t as freaky as the not-me over there, but you’re just more classy about it, eh?”
The man started firing, but Wayne tossed up a speed bubble. Anticipating the look of shock on the man’s face when he found out that Wayne still had his Allomancy, he repositioned.
* * *
The essential trick to defeating the not-Wayne, Wax knew, would be staying close enough to her that she couldn’t leverage her speed bubbles. So when Wayne broke left, Wax broke right, surprising the short, squat woman in the bowler hat.