MGM - Chapter 72

The roar of Leviathan’s storm was fierce, but it wasn’t fierce enough to overpower the Blue Winds of Magic. Not with just how thick it was in the air. 

The world was nearly drowning in it.

My dark coat violently whipped around my body, a torrential downpour of rain lashing at my skin like hydrocutters, but Aqshy and Azyr worked tirelessly in synchronicity, heating the water into dissipating steam the moment it got centimeters away from my flesh, whilst the wind buckled and cried as it was forced to make way for me and my mount. My costume was bone dry, my skin untouched by the endless gallons of water that screamed from the blackening clouds, but no amount of magical shielding could make traversing these cursed skies any easier for me. 

Even with my chuuni eyes, this storm was blinding. So fucking loud that I could barely hear myself think over the sound of thunder, lightning, wind, rain, and the ever present blaring of the Endbringer sirens. All I could do was grip Snowcone’s saddle even tighter, pressing my body flush against the tough leather, and clench the orb of blue, spectral magicka that was gripped in my left hand. The Clairvoyance spell was my eyes and ears, and Snowcone was apparently capable of seeing it too, because he followed the ghostly trail of magicka like a bloodhound hunting an injured doe. 

We’d only been flying for a couple minutes, but at this speed, it was only a matter of time until-

WARNING BELLS.

“Roll right!”

I didn’t even need to say anything, because Snowcone was a Frost Dragon before he was a summon, and fights to the death was nothing new to the ancient beast. My stomach twisted itself into knots as up was suddenly down, my palm burned from the rubbing of hard leather, and a beam of hyper-compressed water the width and height of a semi-truck was slicing through the air to the right of me like a fucking Hydro Pump attack. It tore through the clouds, carving a massive, gaping hole through the blackness, and a massive bolt of lightning announced the sky’s disapproval.

It was through that hole, and that brief moment of freedom from the torrential downpour of rain, that I saw my enemy for the very first time.

Leviathan. And with it, my magic started a tune. Loud, aggressive, and foreboding.

‘... No way this motherfucker has boss music.’

Hidden Intuition screamed at me, a shrill, all-encompassing alarm that would’ve been debilitating if I was any weaker than I was. The Endbringer was tall, easily clearing twenty five feet tall and damn near capping out at around thirty. His slimy, moss green body was disproportional; absurdly wide shoulders and upper arms angling down into narrow hips, digitigrade feet, and sharp, wickedly long claws the length of buses. Behind him, a prehensile, whip-like tail sliced trenches through the roiling ocean, easily longer than the creature was tall.

Hundreds of feet above him, in that very split second, I locked eyes with the monster - sterling silver meeting four glowing green orbs hiding in the cracks that made up its face.

For a moment I was just hanging there, dangling from my upside down dragon with one hand, the biggest threat I’d ever faced staring up at me in ominous silence-

And then he was diving back beneath the black waves, and deeper in the rippling ocean, stretching nearly as high into the sky as we were and easily hundreds of feet wide, an enormous tsunami was bulldozing forward with a roar of thousands upon thousands of pounds of freezing cold water. It had to have been building from further back, hidden in the darkness and the rain.

It moved fast.

There was no time to issue commands. There was no time to do anything but act, and Clairvoyance showed me that Leviathan thought he was undetectable beneath the waves. The tsunami was his ‘fuck off’ attack. He was planning to direct it towards the beach.

But all I needed was close proximity and a few seconds to chant. Snowcone could handle a little tidal wave.

I released the saddle, and dove down.

BOOM!

Something vital to aerodynamics broke beneath my newfound speed when I blasted down towards the ocean, chasing after that spectral blue thread of magicka extending out from my hand. Rain scattered and dispersed like gunshots beneath the sonic boom, an overpowering crack filling my ears before I blinked, and I was suddenly skimming over the tumultuous surface of the black ocean, clocking in just over Mach 1. 

My ears rang, and my eyes blurred with tears. I hadn’t expected Sole Protector to more than double my max speed, but now wasn’t the time to look a gift Grimoire in the mouth. Leviathan hadn’t expected my sudden explosion of movement, or the distance I ate up in only fractions of fractions of a second.

He was right below me. Our eyes met, silver on burning, baleful green, and in that split moment, as I aimed my hands down, palms out-

“Celest- GRRK!“

A pillar of dark water wider than I was tall crushed the breath from my lungs, and more than a few bones. It was only a hastily applied Ebonyflesh, casted in that last second, and the slightest shimmy that kept my skin and muscles from being torn apart as easily as a laser through a sheet of loose leaf paper. Words of power were choked off into the night sky, and I wheezed, my body tumbling back through the air for at least seventy feet. Pain wracked my body, each movement sending waves of white hot agony through my pulverized bones, but my soul had long since grown to ignore stupid bullshit like pain.

No whining. 

No stopping. 

A golden orb of restorative magic, clenched in my left hand, shrouded my skin in golden light and forcibly regenerated my pulped chest, even as I righted myself and teleported to the right, dodging another blast of water. It curved around my body attempting to corner me as another pillar - this one thinner, sharper, like a spear - shot for my midsection, but another blink and I was free of both attacks. 

An explosion of raw Aqshy, my passive shield forced out in a burst of red hot flame that lit me up like a bonfire, cleared my body of any lingering liquid. I wasn’t holding Clairvoyance anymore, but neither did I need its glow; not with Leviathan standing atop the ocean once more. It tilted its head, almost like a challenge, and the water coalesced around its body followed the slow movement.

Leviathan is going to lunge.

Hidden Intuition whispered its warning, and as I went to meet its charge-

The temperature plummeted.

My breath misted in front of my lips.

Behind me, Snowcone roared. 

Hail and snowflakes fell from the sky, pelting my body. The water beneath us turned to silvery-blue ice in the time it took to blink, spreading out so fast that waves were frozen mid-crest, as if time itself robbed the ocean of its momentum. Leviathan’s body twitched, paused, and glanced down to where its lower legs were encased in thick, glittering ice. It was more than strong enough to break free, I knew. But it hadn’t expected Snowcone’s breath to be so potent. It hesitated.

That brief moment was all I needed.

“Vinricto immobilis!”

Hysh was thin tonight, as dark and cold and miserable as it was, but I was no ordinary mage. I ripped the White Winds from the very fabric of the world itself, unapologetic and aggressive in my handling, and weaved its light across the sky with broad, sharp gestures of my right hand. It became a blur of motion, a righteous burning searing against my palm as I finished the spell, but I paid it no mind. I’d deal with any backlash from mishandling the Winds later.

There.

Leviathan, as silent as a grave, broke free from Snowcone’s ice and made to dash towards me, but in that moment, Hysh broke free from what looked like the Heavens themselves. 

Black clouds were dissipated by the blinding radiance of the First Lore, and its magic spilled a dazzling light across the ice-slicked ocean, chasing away the darkness for the first time. Massive tendrils of burning white light lashed down like chains cracked by Gods, too fast and abrupt for Leviathan to dodge. One snagged it by the neck, pulling taught and yanking him clean off of the ocean’s surface, while four more went for its legs and arms. It swung like a pendulum between their tendrils, long, lank limbs dangling, water echo moving in tandem with its sporadic movements as more and more strands of Hysh converged on its body.

The Net of Amyntok was a powerful spell. Incredibly difficult to cast, too, but I had a few cheat codes. Dully, I wondered how I matched up to other mages.

Regardless, I was leaving nothing up to chance. I flew forward, eating up the distance between the two of us in only three steps, and slammed my palm flat against the Endbringer’s comparatively gigantic face. Its flesh was odd. Spongy and moist, like damp moss.

But now I had him exactly where I wanted him, and the real fight could begin.

“Fuck off and die,” I muttered, glaring through the cracks in its face, directly into the viridian flames that were its eyes, “My Celestial Grimoire.”

My soul, the source of every iota of magic in the wider omniverse, rejoiced, even as more than over half of my mana disappeared from my reserves in the blink of an eye - going from damn near topped off to containing less than twenty five percent, if I had to hazard a guess. I grinned.

That’s fine. I’d expected it. But that wasn’t why I was cheesing.

No, it was the sight of reality itself breaking beneath the weight of my magic that brought me so much vindictive joy.

The ginormous rift of dimensional magic sliced through the fabric of space with the delicacy of a hacksaw, jagged fractals of magic energy flaking off from the gaping wound and fading away into the aether. It tore the world from the ice’s surface, all the way up to over forty feet in the sky - an abyssal gash that sparked and glittered on the inside with immeasurable motes of light shining like the stars in a night sky. 

It was beautiful. Deadly, but beautiful.

But Leviathan clearly did not think the same.

The Net of Amyntok faltered. The Endbringer’s body spasmed in the glowing white bindings, its unnatural spine cracking and twisting as it silently fought to escape the magic. There was a newfound urgency to its movements, a primal desperation that quickened its body into a blurring, struggling speed that sent cracks of displaced air echoing through the storm. Within seconds he was struggling with so much fucking aggression that his body became a contained mirage, overlaid with so much water that it was hard to distinguish green from black.

Leviathan is desperate. Leviathan is frightened. Leviathan is no longer sandbagging-

It wasn’t enough.

And as my Reality Marble dragged me, the Endbringer, broken chunks of ice, countless gallons of pouring rain, and a snarling Snowcone inside of its abyssal maw…

I felt something click into place.

A realization. A guarantee.

And, unbidden, laughter bubbled from my chest.

I was going to make this motherfucker into a trophy, or die trying.

And then we were gone, and there was nothing but stars.

______________________________________________

Cassie wasn’t worried.

Of course not. 

Her boyfriend was just gone, dozens of miles off the shore of the beach, fighting fucking Leviathan out in the middle of the fucking ocean with no back-up despite three of the fucking Triumvirate members being right here. 

Absolutely nothing to worry about.

I got big nuts, he’d said with that reassuring grin, his hands ruffling her and Amy’s hair. Let’s let ‘em hang. I’ll take care of it.

Cocky asshole.

His reasoning and reassurance had been sound, if presumptuous and too fricking nonchalant (because he was apparently a ‘nonchalant dread head’, whatever that meant). His ‘Reality Marble’ forcibly disconnected Parahumans from their shards when they were pulled in, and while the mana expenditure for using it on Rune had been negligible, he wasn’t willing to risk the countless ways things could go wrong if he tried to use it on an Endbringer and several high-powered capes. 

Ergo, he would fight it alone.

But God damn did it still sound so fucking strange.

Let me solo it.

Jason Black was her Jason Black, and Cass knew firsthand how effective he was at kicking ass, but Endbringers- they were simply forces of nature. Undefeatable goliaths who you had to hunker down and weather the abuse of while heroes like the Triumvirate struggled to spook it off for humanity to survive until yet another day of destruction and loss. Jason hadn’t been born in this world; he hadn’t been forced to hear about the monsters destroying swathes of the world every few months completely on a whim, taking turns like they were jumping someone in an alleyway.

He didn’t realize just how polarizing his words were. How scary and awe-inspiring his confidence in his own power was. 

Invictus would back him up no matter what. Cassie knew that she, Amy, and Sherrel would go to bat against the entire fucking world if the entire world decided to turn on him, not even mentioning the rest of their motley crew. And here and now, crowded around computer equipment that wasn’t her own, men and women she didn’t know hustling back and forth around her very limited personal bubble as they all monitored Dragon’s satellite footage and ocean scanning technology, Cass came to the realization that she’d been subconsciously doubting her man, too…

Because her jaw dropped just as much as the others when the inevitable clash occurred.

“Avalon has made contact with Leviathan, approximately thirteen miles off the course of the Northern coastline! I repeat-“

“Holy fuck. Check wind speeds, Agent Omar. Agent Rook, look at these readings-“

“Is that- Shit, that is a big fuckin’ tsunami?! Hey, alert our Defensive Line right fucking now! It’s bigger than the fucking Endbringer!”

“God help us all…”

The hastily put-together control room became a buzzing den of nervous, incredulous hyperactivity as they watched the battle happening over the Atlantic Ocean. The satellite feed had already been routed to News Channels via Alexandria’s prompting, and the big screen towards the side of the room displayed the blown-up image of Avalon - coat flapping in the wind, full lips dipped into a focused frown - hanging upside down from Snowcone’s saddle. 

Through the darkness and rain, behind the colossal, silent form of the Endbringer itself, a tsunami surged forward like a black curtain of still oil- towards Jason, towards the dragon, and towards them, back on the beach. Like a shadow, Leviathan sunk back beneath the waves, and for a second, it looked like Jason would be overwhelmed. That’s how ginormous the tsunami was.

The newscasters were silent.

The room was silent.

It felt like the world was silent.

Cassie swallowed nervously, and, beside her, Dragon’s cool fingers intertwined with her own.

But then-

BOOOOM!

Cheers erupted all around, grizzled and jaded PRT operators screaming and thumping each other on the backs as Jason - Avalon - dove down fast enough to break the fucking sound barrier, water exploding around him like liquidated shrapnel. As he jettisoned over the ocean, chasing down an unseen Levi, it was Snowcone who went for the larger threat. With one massive beat of its wings, the Dragon had already crossed half the distance between it and the massive tsunami, its head held high and its scales rippling with hoarfrost.

Everything happened so fast.

Avalon was tagged by Leviathan’s water attacks, but he was fast enough to conjure Ebonyflesh in time to tank through it. At the same time, Snowcone came to a spinning halt in front of the tsunami, its massive silver chest puffed up to near ridiculous size. When it roared, a veritable storm of icy wind and frost overtook the wall of black water, flash-freezing at least eighty percent of it, but Snowcone didn’t stop there. His roar shook the tides, mist blasting from his body and freezing the very ocean itself.

For a moment, it even froze Leviathan.

And that was the cue Avalon needed.

“It’s over,” Cassie breathed, watching with watery, bloodshot eyes as the love of her life snared the towering Endbringer with tendrils of light. A hushed silence fell over the cheering agents, ears twitching to hear her words. Some had even fallen to their knees, legs too weak to stand on, as the Heavens parted for the hero’s magic.

“Its ‘core’ - Alexandria said that it was located in its lower chest,” Dragon said softly, her hand still gripping Cassie’s with surprising firmness. She leaned forward, eyes wide and bright as they flickered over the screen, “Will he go for the kill shot now? The fact that he’s managed to bind it like this…”

Cassie shook her head in one sharp, decisive movement. Shivers ran down her spine, goosebumps tickling her flesh as she wat he’d him press one hand against Leviathan’s mask. The difference in sizes was staggering.

Unnatural.

She bit her lip. “Fish face is already struggling out of those magic ropes, but Avalon wasn’t planning to kill him here. Not enough time to actually keep him still and get to the core. He was just buying time to-“

She was interrupted by Jason tearing through the fabric of space and time.

Everyone inside of the room felt it, but none of them felt it as deeply as Cassie herself. A pulse of magical pressure so potent, so pure that men and women around her began to fall unconscious on the spot. It called out to her, a beacon of energy as scary as it was tantalizing, and the sorceress inside - the one not currently freaking out at watching her boyfriend hack open reality - crooned with pride and envy at the show of raw magical power.

Dragon blinked beneath her glasses, for brown eyes wide with alarm as she glanced around the room. “W-what just happened?”

Her being unaffected made sense, but Cassie was too preoccupied to do much else than shrug. She quickly turned her head to look back at the monitors. “If I had to guess? Magical feedback. Looks like using his Reality Marble sent backlash across the city because of how powerful it is. As to be expected from Archmage Black.”

She paused, tapping her index finger on her pursed lips. “I think. I dunno, this has never happened before. Jay’s breaking the frickin’ mould.”

The gynoid frowned doubtfully. “… Right. Magic.”

But, inevitably, her gaze found its way back to the monitors as well. They watched together, hands clasped, as Leviathan struggled against the fierce gravitational pull of the portal while Avalon and Snowcone relinquished themselves to it. Despite the Endbringer’s violent and desperate struggle, it was only a matter of moments until it was yanked through the dimensional rift, alongside its captors and a decent chunk of the frosty Atlantic Ocean.

The enormous rift even consumed the black clouds.

And then, like it had never been there in the first place…

It was all gone.

Poof.

“…”

“…”

They traded glances, both equally as shell shocked as the other.

“What is Avalon, Cassie?” Dragon whispered, barely audible over the confused and dazed voices of the PRT agents. Some had managed to stay conscious during what she was hereby dubbing the ‘Arcane Backlash’ in her head, and those ones were the people loudly proclaiming what they’d seen to the others.

Words like ‘unprecedented’, ‘scary’, and ‘portal’ were thrown around more than once.

Cassie didn’t care. She just hoped that the man she loved more than anything else would make it back to them alive.

It didn’t take her more than a moment to figure out how to respond to her friend’s inquiry.

“Jason…” She pushed away from the desk and rolled back in the stiff swivel chair they’d given her, a furrowing to her slim black eyes. “Jason is Jason. And that’s that.”

Dragon looked entirely unimpressed.

“Cass.” 

“No, I mean it! Look-“ Cassie wriggled her hips aggressively, forcing her swivel chair to roll closer to Dragon’s in short, stuttering bursts. Once she was close enough to touch the taller woman, she did so, gripping her by the knees and sliding so close that she could smell the scent of perfume in her hair. 

Her face turned utterly serious. “Jason isn’t a normal parahuman. He’s not like Eidolon, or Alexandria, or Legend. He’s better. He’s something different. That’s why I said he’s just Jason - because there’s no word in this God-forsaken world that can describe him. ‘Cept, like, broken, but this isn’t really the time for jokes.”

“Will he be okay? I wanted to join him. I have a few Dragonflight suits already stationed in the East Coast, and with my new freedom, acquiring funding is going to be significantly easier. I could’ve helped…” Dragon pursed her lips, glancing back at the monitors. People were fiddling with the controls, rewinding playback and going through each frame, but reality was clear. Leviathan, and Jason, were both gone, taking the black storm clouds with them.

The rain outside was significantly lighter.

“You get used to it,” Cassie snorted, the sight of calm weather soothing her nerves slightly. She patted Dragon on the knee. “Jay’s a big boy, and his Reality Marble… Look, you didn’t hear it from me, but I don’t think all three of those beasties could take down my man inside that thing. Trust me. The hard part was getting Fish Sticks inside. Now?”

A catlike smile formed on her lips as confidence filled her chest to the brim. “Brockton Bay’s gonna be eating Endbringer Sushi, baby.”

…

“D-did you hear me? I said, ahem, ‘Brockton Bay’s gonna be ea-‘“

Dragon raised her hand and smiled.

It was a pained one. 

“Please don’t say it again, dear.”

“Oh come on! Not you toooo,” Cassie pouted exaggeratedly, hugging her knees to her super sizable chest. “My one-liners are sick, Dragon. And since Jason is off fighting Atlantean Godzilla, I’ve gotta take what I can get! Do you know how hard it is to have a battle of wits with a guy who can literally read your every move?”

Her cringe flaking away into a much more amused smirk, Dragon shook her head. “Of course not, Cassie. I have no idea what that feels like. My eyes have only seen things clearly since my conception.”

And now it was her turn to wince. Good frickin’ job, Cass, shoving your foot down your own throat. “Crap. Sorry.”

Dragon waved her hand dismissively. “Hah! It’s fine, I understood what you meant. But forget about the one-liners; tell me more of this ‘reality marble’. Where, exactly, did Avalon take Leviathan? The sensors can’t find-“

BLIP.

Both women were interrupted by the glow of Cassie’s visor burning a bright, familiar silver - the same but used not more than a few days ago by a certain bloodthirsty AI. The glow grew contained, narrowing into a thin cone that formed a small, holographic screen that emanated from the upper left corner of the display. On that monitor, his digitally robotic visage as emotionless as ever, was one Pod 084.

The relief Cassie had just been feeling in her bones abruptly burned away to cinders.

084 couldn’t willingly disobey direct orders, and he was ordered to only commandeer her MagiLink during emergencies.

But wasn’t Jason already battling the Endbringer?

“Mistress,” he intoned coolly, his tinny voice reverberating directly through her headphones, “Dragon is present with you. Good. Then this Pod will pull her into our private channel. Alarming your government’s minions would cause unnecessary duress and conflict, considering the current state of the city.”

She and Dragon locked eyes. An unspoken agreement passed between the two of them.

“What is going on, 84?” Dragon asked without moving her lips, her ‘serious’ voice - as real as it was a minute ago - flitting through Cassie’s head like an arrow.

The robot’s holograph turned to regard her. 

“Invaders,” he declared simply, that one word spat out like caustic acid. “It would seem that the group of murderous flesh bags known as the ‘Slaughterhouse Nine’ is attempting to infiltrate Mount Invictus. Shall this Pod provide suppressive fire whilst you and your flesh sack constituents return to slaughter them?”

…

“What.” Dragon breathed.

“WHAT?!!” Cassie screamed, leaping to her feet. The room quieted, eyes and heads turning to stare, and she quickly sat back down with a flush of pink coating her cheeks. “… whaaat?! Like, right now? Fucking- Pod, switch display to Hidden Forest Cams 1-20.”

Her mind was already beginning to move a mile a minute. Even as she commanded the AI to pull up the forest cams, her other fingers were pulling windows and tabs apart in her holographic display, checking on the different entrances and exits that led into the Palace proper. There was no one home, sure, but…-

“Displaying camera feeds now, Mistress.”

Twenty screens lit up her sight, each one warped in that funky way that fish-eyed cameras tended to do. Most of them showed nothing, just trees and nature and underbrush, but there were several that showed exactly what Pod had been describing; dark, shadow figures, moving through the trees with an absolutely unsettling confidence. At least seven that she could see, though the cameras were not made for visual acuity. 

One of the figures was huge, though - at least the size of one of Bitch’s transformed dogs before Amy upgraded them. It was armored, ugly, with iridescent black scales the color of oil and mismatched fangs that dropped bright green acid down its chest. On his back was a little girl no more than thirteen years old, wearing a bloodied white apron and waving what looked like a half-eaten arm.

And that was just the most eye-catching of the group.

Trespassers.

It was like watching a fucked up carnival troupe head to their next gig, except, in this case, watching the freaks filled her with as much revulsion as it did anger. Everyone knew who the S9 was, even if their name wasn’t really spoken aloud just in case Siberian was waiting in the shadows to bite your tits off. They were depraved, bloodthirsty murderers who got off on euthanizing entire fucking communities, pissing on and burning their remains, and moving onto the next wanton slaughter. They were no Endbringers, but why the fuck did that matter when they all thrived on the same desperation, fear, and chaos?

No, better yet… Why were they here already, when they usually showed up after these sorts of attacks? They had to have had plans to visit. They were on Mount Invictus, not even an hour after Jason went to go battle an Endbringer, but there was no way they could’ve known he was going to do that by himself. Were they guessing? Why Invictus specifically? Who-

‘I’m asking the wrong questions,’ Cassie realized, biting her bottom lip hard enough for the coppery taste of blood to fill her mouth. ‘I’m asking the wrong frickin’ questions. The why doesn’t matter. The how doesn’t matter. I don’t even care when those chucklefucks infiltrated the city! That isn’t what’s important right now.This is…-“

“-our crucible.”

“What?” Dragon repeated her previous question, looking quite put-out that she had to do so in the first place.

But Cassie could barely hear her. That cinderblock of worry and shame that had sank into her feet the moment she realized that they’d be relying on Jason once a-fucking-gain even after he went to fight an Endbringer alone… Its load lightened. It didn’t completely disappear, but she knew what she had to do. What they had to do.

“Pod,” she began, her high, melodic voice turning calm, controlled, “Notify every member of Invictus of the threat pushing in on our home, and tell them to meet me at these coordinates, close to the mountain. We’ll rendezvous there.” 

Her fingers danced against another screen, and Pod nodded his head.

“Dragon,” Cassie apologetically eyed her long-time online friend, “I’m sorry. We-“

“You are a very, very foolish girl if you think that I am leaving you and your team to fight the Slaughterhouse Nine alone, Cass.” Dragon’s lips trembled from the urge to talk aloud, her dark brown eyes narrowing with genuine annoyance. She stood sharply, and with only slight hesitation, the hacker followed suit. “I’ve already rerouted Cawthorne’s destination to Mount Invictus - ETA twenty minutes. It mobilizes quickly. Mark Two will need to stay here for security reasons, but my Mark One suit is stationed nearby. I will be accompanying you personally. They are clearly preparing an ambush.”

Her tone brokered no argument, and honestly, Cassie had no intention to refuse the help. She was determined and stubborn to a fault, but never stupid. She would stack however many chips she could in order to defend her home.

“I-… Okay. Okay! Pod, talk to me.” They moved briskly towards the exit, and though they received second glances, the majority of everyone’s attention was on the camera feeds and monitors. To them, Avalon’s magic was unprecedented. Impossible. They had no idea what to do or say about the Endbringer just… Disappearing. Neither did the news reporters.

“All members have responded affirmatively, and in Cerberus’ case, quite aggressively. They’re pulling back from the frontlines now,” Pod intoned, before pausing. His voice was slightly colder when he continued, “Warning: The one known as Mannequin is attempting to bypass the Palace’s native defenses. Requesting permission to act, Mistress. This Pod feels… aggrieved to have its home molested like this.”

The rain was cold but bearable when they made it out into the empty, barren streets of Downtown Brockton Bay. The command center was stationed miles inland, away from the water, but the entire fucking city rested above water ducts. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

Cassie hissed under her breath as they began jogging down the sidewalk. “Don’t get yourself destroyed, 84. They won’t be able to get inside!”

“This Pod is… unsure about Siberian.”

“Even if she can get them inside,” Dragon spoke up, her tone calculative, “They do not know that we know they are there. Jack Slash’ modus operandi is ‘shock value’. Theatrics. They put their victims through games in order to push them past their breaking points, and then they force them into their horrible little family.”

She went quiet for a moment, before spitting, “They most-likely want to recruit Avalon. So they will lie in wait, hoping to ambush him when he’s weakened after Leviathan. It is unlikely that the rest of you are even on their radar after everything he’s accomplished. …No offense.”

There was no jealousy, only a fierce pride and overwhelming love for her dream husband’s badassery. Though, the anger in her gut soured the warmth.

Cassie clicked her teeth. “None taken, don’t worry. So what you’re saying is that we, meaning Invictus, are probably just the… noobs who got carried by their fed APC?”

“League of Legends references? Right now of all times?” 

Dragon’s body abruptly veered off to the right, down an alleyway, mid-sentence; the movement was so automatic and mechanical that Cassie knew that the AI was probably piloting multiple bodies at the moment. She kept her eyes straight ahead, sliding over the slick hood of an abandoned Toyota and taking the sidewalk down Martin St., towards the very same warehouse they’d met Aisha and Deadman in.

“My point is that they think we’re garbo. That works for us; Sun Tzu said, ‘There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent’, and these fuckers have no clue that they’re playing with fire.”

“This Pod believes that it was Lao Tzu that said this, Mistress.”

“Nope,” Cassie popped the P like it was bubblegum, her sprinting pace slowing to a huffing jog as she neared an expensive looking cafe, “It was definitely Sun Tzu - I would know. Anyways, hold off on responding, 83. Let them get cozy, but keep an eye out for any funny business. I’m about to steal this Tesla, and it’s illegal to drive and look at your phone, so I won’t be able to focus on the cameras.”

“Understood, Mistress.”

“What?” Dragon asked for the third time, but Cassie had no non-incriminating answer to give her.

She’d spotted the 2010 Tesla Roadster a block back, glistening wetly beneath the pouring rain. It was her best bet to meet up with her teammates in a timely manner, because there was no way her unathletic ass was actually sprinting across the city without passing out midway through. They were back on the Beach, having gone with the vanguards to hold the lines and support on-site. Ironically, that made them closer to the meet-up spot than Cassie, the one who’d rallied them.

She needed wheels. Like, yesterday.

Thankfully, Elon Musk made electric cars just for law-abiding citizens like her.

The sleek red vehicle purred quietly with very little urging from her MagiLink. It was like controlling a vehicle in Grand Theft Auto IV - a 3D model of the car coalesced at the bottom of her visor, holographic, and a touch of her fingers saw it move to her command. She saw that it belonged to someone named ‘Mary Beckham’, but considering Mary Beckham wasn’t around to protest, she could only hope that the woman would understand the extenuating circumstance.

Within moments she was sitting in the driver’s seat, her HUD now appearing like something straight out of a racing game. There was no need to even grip the steering wheel - not when her tech overlaid the controls for her. That was a good thing; Cassie didn’t know proper hand placement for a steering wheel. 

“Cassie,” Dragon spoke up cautiously. A quick glance towards the console showed that, sure enough, her voice was coming from the radio. Neat.

“Yeah?”

“Do you even have your license?”

That was a really good question, actually. A very responsible one, as well. It was just like Dragon to be concerned about vehicular safety.

“… No?”

The radio sighed. “Then let’s start with a seatbelt. Clip it from-“

“Can’t hear you, toots - got an evil band of supervillains to beat up with my friends. Just hold on!”

“Cassie!”

The best thing about hacking the world was that you imposed your own limitations and boundaries; you didn’t have to adhere to society’s.

So when Cassie commanded the Tesla to go its max speed of 250 miles per hour immediately?

It didn’t refuse. It couldn’t.

“CASSIE, YOU WILL CRASH!”

“I PLAYED ALL FOUR GRAND THEFT AUTOS, GOD DAMN IT! I’M A PRO GAMER!”

She made it to her destination before the others.

Just as planned.

___________________________________

A/N: Next chapter is going to mainly be Jason's POV in the RM, so don't worry - I just wanted to set up for what's happening outside of the Leviathan fight, so that we can alternate efficiently. Hope you guys are ready!

Two fronts are going to be fought here - one in the Reality Marble, and the other on Mount Invictus! Cassie the Speed Racer is on the case!