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Nathan Seymour made it a point to keep tabs on what the city was saying about him. It called for thick skin, but he had that. He had no intention of adjusting his behavior because of criticism; he just liked to know.
So when a blog entry defending him landed on his screen, he was more than a bit put out to realize he hadn't caught the original attack. He backtracked to the original.
Some opening summary of Lunatic's kills and attempted kills. The writer's bias was clear enough before he got to the meat of the entry: Sure, it's great that Lunatic's taking out criminals that would merit the death penalty anywhere else in the country. But he's also offering a shield to any other fire-based NEXTs who want to get in on the act. Say Fire Emblem decides to start taking out criminals convicted under Stern Bild's ridiculously restrictive "hate" crime laws - it'd just be attributed to Lunatic!
Scare quotes on "hate." Of course. He surveyed the blog briefly, but the writer's politics didn't concern him; he wasn't out to stop everyone from being wrong. It was the comment counts that were relevant to him, and the comments were full of agreement, tempered with occasional debates; some of the commenters felt vigilantism was just distracting citizens from the flaws in the justice system, others that what the world needed was more Lunatics. Nathan sighed, remembering roasting Tiger in his armor and melting cells, and backed up to the blog that had defended him.
Also standard. Notice how his "any other fire-based NEXTs" immediately leads to accusing Fire Emblem of murder, because he just cannot cope with an openly gay black man as a hero. Nathan supposed it was nice to have champions, but what he really wanted was Lunatic in a cell, because setting aside all his personal baggage — the police investigation, the threat of suspension from the show, Agnes putting on her professional face and telling him that cooperation with the police was part of Hero TV's founding mission —setting people on fire was barbaric. Nathan had never killed anyone with his powers, but he had his reasons to be careful with them. He'd seen two men burned alive during that investigation, and his intellectual acknowledgment that fire was a terrible way to die had been cemented after that. He'd grown much more careful, and defensive, with his own fire as a result. The last time he'd actually hurled fire directly at a human had been when they'd caught a serial rapist leaving a victim's house, and he still sometimes had nightmares that he'd actually hit the man.
Of course, he knew the catalyst. Lunatic had claimed another victim the previous night, in prison, this time. The man had been convicted of a convenience store robbery, but he had a prior conviction for killing someone in a drunk driving incident, and a history of domestic abuse charges. Not a great loss to society, but not a death anyone deserved, either. Nathan knew better than most how painful a death by burning would be.
It was a change in Lunatic's approach. Since he'd burned the church, he'd made a point of going after the heroes' targets, typically on the air. Nathan had always been frustrated that Tiger and Barnaby were the most successful at getting close to him, because, if he was honest with himself, he was still holding a grudge. He wanted to have it out with the vigilante. He didn't know if the quiet, after-hours strike meant anything. That was for the task force to hash out. All it meant to him was that his chances of getting a shot at Lunatic on the air were shrinking. That wasn't so bad, really. He didn't want to give the man any more publicity, and he certainly didn't want to play up some rivalry for the cameras — the last thing he wanted was to cement an association between the two of them in the public's mind — but he had frustrations to take out and grievances to air.
So a private showdown, of some sort. There'd been very little hope of making that happen when Lunatic only appeared to try to snipe the heroes' targets, and there'd be even less now that he was, at least sometimes, back to flying under the radar. It might be a temporary decision, or it might not, but Nathan finally felt like he'd waited long enough. A private confrontation would require getting in touch with Lunatic. And while he didn't know exactly how to make that happen, he had an idea.
He pulled his corporate PDA — no one man should have quite this many phones on his person, he thought, not for the first time — and called his secretary. "Veronica, sweetie, I need a huuuuge favor," he began.
"Of course you do," she said. "Does the cape need more tweaks?"
"Some magazine published an interview with Lunatic... what, six months ago? I want to find that."
He heard her yawn. "Got it," she said. "This was 'huge?' I'll email you the link."
"You're an angel," he told her. "Don't tell me how easy it was. I'm waiting on a sponsor meeting, I don't have time to search for, what, 'Lunatic interview?'"
She laughed. "Sure you don't."
The link to the electronic edition included the writer's email. E. L. Mendoza. He decided to use the official Fire Emblem address.
I need to get a message to Lunatic. I assume you won't put me directly in touch with him, but if you could pass him a message I would be very appreciative.
Nathan wasn't expecting the call from Agnes, especially when she didn't bother greeting him with Bonjour, just asked him, flatly, "Why are you trying to get in touch with Lunatic?"
"And how do you know about that?" he asked.
"I went to J-school with Liz Mendoza. She wanted confirmation of your identity."
He cursed inwardly. "You get accused of murder and see if you don't hold a grudge," he said, his voice slipping into its lower register. "I want a word with Lunatic. Privately. No rivalry storyline, nothing on the air." Agnes was a friend, but he knew what her priorities were. "This is personal. They're still trying to link me to his killings."
"Nathan, those people are wingnuts. You can't take anything they say seriously." She sighed, and her tone was lighter when she continued. "You have to admit it'd make a good storyline."
"But it's not going to."
"Just ruin all my fun," she grumbled. "Have it your way. Just don't get yourself, or wreck one of our biggest ratings-booters."
"Wreck him?" Nathan asked, arching a brow. "Sweetie, that's not why I want to meet him." She laughed as she cut the connection, and Nathan leaned back in his desk chair. He could carry on his childish grudge match in peace. That was... something. He wasn't quite sure what, but it was something.
The email didn't arrive until late that night. Tell me your message and I'll let him know.
He'd been thinking about it all day, yet most of his ideas evaporated when he actually needed to type. Tell him I'm challenging him. We'll see whose fire is stronger. He knew he could speak a line like that, but written out on the screen... He deleted it, undid the delete. He was still Fire Emblem, after all. He can meet me on the roof of the old Helios power plant by the river. His company's property; no one else would be affected if there was property damage. Of course, it could be taken as arson, but he'd cross that bridge when he came to it.
Fire Emblem. Yuri Petrov pulled up the file, but his own impressions told him more than the facts in the computer record. He remembered the car, the flamboyant costume, the exaggerated, effeminate mannerisms on the air. He also knew that Nathan Seymour was the owner of Helios Energy at the age of thirty-three, which suggested there was considerably more depth to the man than his facade would otherwise indicate. And it was quite a facade. He was even more flamboyant in his civilian identity, if that was possible. The cars seemed to be a theme; Seymour collected them. The pink, however, he couldn't explain.
As the heroes went, Fire Emblem could have been worse. He did actually strive to arrest criminals, rather than just seeking publicity, and he'd made a point of donating his time, money, and fame to a range of organizations and charities that suggested personal involvement in their selection - LGBTQ rights, anti-bullying, child abuse prevention, scholarship foundations for students of color. The causes suggested a biography, but Yuri knew better than to read too much into them. He knew that Mr. Legend's list of causes had included anti-domestic violence initiatives.
Yuri knew about Seymour coming under suspicion of murder shortly after Lunatic became active. He knew because he made a point of attacking a second target while Seymour had an alibi, specifically to clear the man. His dossier of the heroes at that time was still bare-bones, and his interest in Fire Emblem had been limited to the similarities between their powers, but he didn't want someone who wasn't a killer being blamed for a death, just or unjust. Justice was the entire point of his mission, after all, righting the wrongs done by the law, not leaving the law to commit ever-greater injustices. That was the whole reason he'd placed himself in opposition to the heroes, who offered a distraction to the people so no one ever faced how broken their system truly was. Because they could see criminals being caught in the act and arrested, live, they didn't believe in police brutality, in flawed evidence, in the painful ambiguity of real cases investigated by the police without thousands of live witnesses. They believed that crime was resolved at the arrest, not at the trial. They had heroes, after all, to keep the world on its axis.
He signed into the proxy he used and sent the email to Ms. Mendoza. Signing up for an email address for Lunatic had been one of the more surreal moments of this whole peculiar crusade. You can let him know that I'll meet him there Thursday night at 10. Passing notes in class, he thought, so they could meet behind the bleachers after school to settle this. See whose fire is stronger indeed. Like this was just some pissing contest about their powers.
The old Helios plant was a landmark, or at least the sign on its roof, using the retro-styled logo from the 20s, was. Nathan had proposed turning out the lights on the sign and condemning the plant, shortly after he took over Helios; the board members had protested so strongly he'd had to not only retract the idea but make a couple of quiet, personal apologies. People who'd grown up in Stern Bild felt very strongly about this place. Lunatic might find some hidden meaning in Nathan's choice of venue, but that hadn't been Nathan's intent. To him, it was just a remote but easy-to-find location he could legally access, and potentially damage without significant consequences.
But it might not have been the best choice, Nathan reflected, wincing at the shriek of rusted hinges. He'd had to really put his shoulder into it to get the access open, and it was putting up even more resistance as he tried to wrestle it closed again. Security was light around the old power plant's grounds, an intermittent patrol aimed mostly at making sure nothing had been too visibly vandalized — the guards rarely even left their car — and Nathan had all the keys he'd need, but he didn't want any hanging-open doors to draw attention unnecessarily. The fight he was anticipating would be enough of a light show as it was.
With the door finally shut, he shed his civilian clothes — a rust stain on the sleeve of his jacket, he noted — and began the slow and sometimes frustrating process of pouring himself into the Fire Emblem costume. He'd debated when to make the change, worried about facing down Lunatic with cobwebs on his cape, but the sooner he was ready for anything, the better. Besides, while the plant might be out of service, that didn't mean no one ever came here. It was a popular destination for young people looking to explore abandoned buildings or spook themselves or a bit of both, though from what he could determine, they usually came in via a freight entrance that he'd dismissed as a possibility. There was no easy way to get from there to the roof-access stairwell.
No easy way, but clearly, the kids had some way to get to the stairwell; as he made his way towards the roof, he discovered occasional drifts of junk food wrappers and beer cans, at least three used condoms commemorating the classiest of nights out on the town, and regular deposits of graffiti, ranging from modest inscriptions of names and relationships to poetry quotations, traditional tagging, and one impressive but half-complete spray-paint portrait of the Goddess of Justice.
The door to the roof was just as stubborn as the entry door had been, but Nathan knew it faced toward the river and would be blocked from the city's view by the sign, so he just softened it up with a blast of fire and then knocked it off its hinges with a couple of kicks. It was a bit cathartic, after skulking through the abandoned factory with only the glow of his own powers and the flame on the tip of his finger to light the way. He turned on the time display, which showed on one of the screens that covered his eyes in his cowl — just before ten. Good. The last thing he needed was to walk into an ambush. Lunatic might claim that he didn't want to fight heroes, but this had been a direct challenge.
Gravel and dust crunched beneath his feet as he moved across the roof. The access door had let him out near the Y of "Energy;" he decided to place himself parallel with the N, looking towards the back of the lighted letters. And then he waited. Lunatic liked to make dramatic appearances at high altitudes, so the sign seemed the likeliest point to make his presence known. Nathan was braced for the appearance of the vigilante, perched atop the cursive L of Helios; what he wasn't sure of was if Lunatic had been there seconds earlier, because Nathan became aware of Lunatic's presence thanks to the sound of him setting his cloak aflame. It seemed so wasteful. Nathan's own cloak was a far superior piece of flashy showmanship.
"Fire Emblem," the man intoned, brandishing his crossbow. "Why did you issue a challenge? I have no desire to fight heroes who do not stand in my way."
"I fully intend to stand in your way," Nathan retorted, his own voice raised. They were both playing to imaginary cameras, he realized. At least, he was. It was entirely possible Lunatic just acted this way all the time. "I'm tired of letting you sully my name with your barbaric attacks."
"Barbaric?" With a flourish, Lunatic created one of his flaming crossbow bolts. "Is it not more barbaric for a society to allow murderers to live, giving them the opportunity to kill again in the name of some foolish notion of rehabilitation?"
So they were going to debate the death penalty with drawn weapons. Of course they were. "You think it's more barbaric to rehabilitate criminals then to set them on fire?" Did crazed vigilantes understand sarcasm? "Get down here if you're going to fight me, coward."
"A coward? I do not hide behind your notions of justice and your delusions of a functional society. I have the courage to face the truth." Lunatic stepped off the sign, appeared to evaporate in a burst of flame, then reappeared on the roof, stepping out of another fireball, a few yards in front of Nathan.
"And I don't fool myself into thinking my personal code is the way the world should be run," Nathan snarled, and let a blast of fire go, cutting to the left to avoid the bolt that was shooting his way at the same time. Lunatic's fire spread and clung, unlike his own; closer to napalm than simple flame. Not for the first time, Nathan wished he could pull off some of the leaps and twists of the more gymnastically-inclined heroes, get some altitude against his opponent. He was left to blast rapid-fire flames at the vigilante as he ran. "I'm sure it's easy for you, shooting off your flames at a distance! You never see them when they're actually burning."
"I am also not foolish enough to make assumptions," Lunatic said. "Your system is broken, Hero. Justice has been replaced with entertainment, and the citizens are too complacent to care, or to demand better." Another bolt fired at him, but Nathan met it with his own fire. Lunatic's overpowered his, but it gave him time to sidestep.
"And of course your publicity-seeking is pure as the driven snow," Nathan tried another blast, but Lunatic dissolved in flames before it reached him, reappearing yards away.
"I seek to highlight the injustices of our current system. You cater to the population's baser instincts with your sanitized violence and easy solutions."
"And you're not catering to any bloodthirst at all!" Nathan could hear the growl in his voice. Don't let him get to you, he reminded himself. Stay focused. He's just trying to get you mad, get your guard down.
"I answer only to the voice of Thanatos."
That again. Nathan gathered the fire in his hands, pulled them apart, and then pushed - a broader, shorter-range attack, as hopeless as any against a teleporter. "Drop the mysticism," he snarled, unable to heed his own better instincts. "You're a murderer, but you make sure your victims suffer first. Say what you want about your reasons, that's the truth."
"Is it not also true that you close your eyes to the failures of the system, to bias and corruption and brutality in the police force, to the vested interests that keep the courts from reform—" Nathan interrupted him with another fireball, one Lunatic countered with his own flames.
"I'm doing what I can, as one person, to make the world a better place. You are doing what you can, as one person, to spread painful death."
"For some crimes, a painful death is the only possible justice."
"For a certain fucked-up definition—" His PDA sounded. A call. Of course. "It seems you're saved by the bell," Nathan said, looking at Lunatic.
"Indeed. I was in terrible danger for a moment," the vigilante replied. So they do understand sarcasm, Nathan thought. "If you still wish to continue your attempts at persuasion, I will meet you here in a month's time."
"Oh, so you can make your dramatic, full-moon entrance? It's good to know that Thanatos is your only concern." Lunatic just vanished, in another gout of flame, and Nathan made his way to the stairwell, stepping delicately around the dented wreckage of the door.
In the days that followed, Yuri maintained his usual air of unflappable, distant calm, but he was surprised to find how much the encounter nagged at him during quiet moments. He'd maintained the Lunatic persona. He hadn't broken character to refute every point Seymour made. And now, he wished he had.
He knew how it felt to burn. He'd seen the effects up close, far too close, and to this day lived with the scars, his own and his mother's. He wasn't inflicting pain he didn't know, nor did he revel in it. He wanted to track the man down and tell him as much. He wanted to present Seymour with individual cases: with lenient plea bargains, with dropped charges, with crime lords jailed for tax evasion or bribery, convictions overturned because of jury instructions.
Tony Smith. Jack Brown. Bob Johnson. Kidnappers, murderers, who were finally imprisoned for theft and hijacking.
Nor was he some vigilante blindly attacking those he believed to be guilty without cause. He was only too well informed of the history of the criminals he hunted. Not just their convictions, but the cases the DA decided not to try, the jailhouse confessions, the unidentified victims of serial killers, the crimes for which a weapon or a body was never found. The wealthy killers whose expensive lawyers uncovered reasonable doubts that never seemed to arise for the poor. He did not kill indiscriminately, or senselessly.
And he found himself possessed of a powerful desire to make certain that Nathan Seymour knew that.
Nathan was edgy and restless for days after the fight, frustrated and unable to vent it no matter how much he battered the boxing bags at the training center. Facing off with Lunatic hadn't let him convince his opponent, or best him in a fair fight; his opponent had burned circles around him, mocked his beliefs, and vanished while mocking his powers as well. It was maddening.
It was maddening on so many levels. As if he'd been born fabulously wealthy. As if he thought that all the crime in the world was the kind that made it on Hero TV. As if he'd never heard of police brutality, or racist juries; his aunt was a prison-reform activist, for God's sake. Yes, Lunatic, let's talk about drug laws, he found himself thinking mid-workout, or while he was driving between events. Let's talk about prison populations. Why don't you tell me just how it feels to get pulled over when you're a twenty-year-old black man wearing eyeshadow. Money smoothed a lot of rough edges out of his life, but not all of them, and it didn't mean he'd forgotten them.
He wanted to make the man listen, not just intone his nonsense and flit around showing off his tricks.