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’ddo 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 thewhole 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 wasstrong.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 thisfreakish obsessionwith copying us?”
“Survival,” the man said with a grunt, “of those most worthy. Trell demands that her servantsprovethemselves. 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, wemustbe 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 reallyaretryin’ 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.
“Oi!” she said. “That’s not fair! Fight someone your own size! Or at least your own stench!”
She tossed up a speed bubble moments before Wax drew close enough to be within its perimeter. From his perspective, she became a blur of motion. Fortunately, he’dworked with Wayne long enough to know what to do. He changed his trajectory and shot the floor with an ordinary bullet. As she came out of the blur, leaping for him, he Pushed himself out of the way to avoid getting hit by a dueling cane.
“Oi!” she said. “Stand in one place so I can clobber ya in a fair-type manner, ya rustin’ sod.”
“Is that the best you can do?” Wax said, backing away—dodging her strikes but staying close enough to be inside a speed bubble if she made one. “Really, I thought you’dbe harder than this.”
“Stop quotin’ lines from your wife last night,” she snapped, “and fight me!”
She tossed up another speed bubble, catching Wax—but making it appear that Wayne and the Coinshot were frozen mid-conflict. Wayne was wrestling the fellow for some reason.
Whatever. Wax shot the woman as she drew close, but she barely flinched. She seemed to have a lot of health stored up—and that made sense if she’dbegun preparing to fight him and Wayne years ago.
He jumped back, floating on a slight Steelpush to the perimeter of the speed bubble, where the air shimmered. He had to separate her from her metalminds. Wax clicked Vindication to a chamber with a hazekiller round, though she’dhealed from the last one of those he’dhit her with.
Where to shoot her?He’dmemorized the Hemalurgy book Death had sent them, but it would be hard to blast her spikes off her, as she would be wearing them deep in her core. Her healing power came from hermetalminds though, and many surgeries embedded those in arms or legs. A pin through the arm bones was easier to recover from than one in the chest, and easier to swap out if required.
She growled and dropped the speed bubble, then attacked—clearly trying to get him to dodge too far out. But his years beside Wayne had given him a gut instinct for the precise distance to stay from her—which unfortunately meant he had to stay dangerously close to her attacks. During his next jump to get past her, he had to stay low enough that she was able to get a solid hit on his leg. It didn’t break anything thankfully, butrustsdid it hurt.
She saw that and grinned wickedly. “Oh, that pain. That pain isdelicious.Get in here. That was just an appetizer.”