White Knight (down)

  Victoria caught herself mid-tumble, the shockwave still ringing in her ears as her forcefield shed debris like confetti. The announcement cut through her armband's static, clinical and cold, and her stomach dropped somewhere around her boots.

  No.

  By the time she snapped her head up, breathing harder than she wanted to admit, White Knight's body had vanished into the storm and churning water over a mile away. She didn't want to think he was dead. Knew he wasn't—not yet, not until the armband made it official with that awful final tone.

  But her heart hammered anyway.

  She'd been trying to catch up to the fight, burning through the air at speeds that would have made her eyes water without her shield. Even still, everything was moving too fast, too violent, the world a movie on fast-forward while someone shook the camera.

  Catching up to the fight with White Knight, the Triumvirate and Leviathan was more than she could manage no matter how hard she pushed her flight, and for most of it, all she could do was just watch.

  And watching was insane enough on its own.

  White Knight had been incredible against Leviathan. Better than incredible. Better than he'd been against Lung two months ago, and that had been — That has nothing to do with him saving me.

  Nothing at all, and no matter what Dean or Amy or anyone else had to say, it wasn’t gonna change that.

  The Endbringer blurred in the distance as she accelerated, arms stretched forward in perfect flying form, muscle memory from so many hours of flying, a couple hundred photoshoots and twice as many training sessions. Her path took her closer now as the rain screamed and water bashed at her, Glory Girl close enough to see details that made her pulse spike.

  Leviathan.

  It was Leviathan, but Vicky’s eyes only widened further as her eyes locked on to the one major difference. His arm… half his arm was missing, torn off at the elbow; jagged and open with cracks going up the rest of it and onto the shoulder. Its face was deeply scarred, missing an eye, and Alexandria was taking full advantage — hammering blow after blow into the Endbringer’s newly scarred face with the kind of precision and power combined that showed the world why she was the Alexandria.

  The thing wasn't bleeding— everyone knows Endbringers don’t do that —but it was still unbelievable. A whole arm… an eye! That was damage that actually mattered, more progress than Glory Girl had ever heard of in an Endbringer fight, and the person who'd made it happen might be drowning somewhere in the chaos below. …He better be okay.

  Or what, she didn’t know.

  The thing that did it, she couldn’t intimidate.

  Not even with her aura at full blast.

  All she could do was ho-”Son of a!”

  Everything was light and sound and steam and water as a wave rocketed her forward from behind at cannonball speed, the air tasting like copper pennies and electrical storms, thick enough to make her throat close up. The storm pressed against her forcefield like a living thing, rain hammering her field hard enough to create a constant percussion that—

  "Move. Move. Move. MOVE—"

  Her instincts fired first, aura flaring wide with raw aggression and barely controlled fear. Without thinking, Victoria snapped her position forty feet left before her conscious mind caught up with the fact that Leviathan had nearly tackled her full-on.

  Pure vector redirect, her flight cutting momentum dead before she launched herself horizontally through the rain like she was bouncing off an invisible wall. Wind shear from Leviathan's movements tried to toss her around and Glory Girl did what she knew how to. With a brutal burst of acceleration, she corrected hard, fighting inertia and momentum in a move that made her ribs ache against her costume.

  Her forcefield shed water in sheets, each droplet scattered like she was a moving wall cutting through the storm. Aching chest or not, it was for the best. She didn’t have to look back to know that the space where she'd just been exploded into mist behind her. The raw strength of it — Leviathan's afterimage, the water echo trailing his tail — had carved through empty air with enough pressure to crater stone.

  Victoria didn't breathe.

  Barely thought.

  Just moved.

  Again.

  The blonde shot straight down this time, dropping like a guided missile until she was skimming floodwater, then cutting hard right toward a half-submerged sedan. Without her boots even touching it, she redirected off the space above it, flight catching her momentum and hurling her back skyward in a perfect tactical arc.

  The chaos was exactly what she'd expected—it was an Endbringer, after all—but this was still her city. Brockton Bay.

  Her home turf.

  Capes scattered across a dozen blocks of ruins, moving light sources in the storm like deadly fireflies. She picked out the three fastest moving ones in the sky: Legend banking left in a shower of laser fire, Alexandria diving like a falling star, Eidolon darting around like a green firefly. All of them dancing around thirty feet of living hate. There were others, sure, but none of them seemed to matter against the monster wrecking her home.

  A lance of water cut through the rain like a liquid blade, shimmering like the edge of a guillotine aimed directly at her center mass.

  "Jesus—"

  She banked hard, forcefield rippling as another water lance missed by inches. Godda- Too close.

  Close enough to feel the pressure wave pop her ears, close enough to make her stomach lurch in a way that made her wish she'd skipped lunch.

  With a grunt that made her head spin, she went inverted in a complete axis flip, feet where her head had been, using the near-miss as an excuse to gain altitude. He was slower, Vicky couldn’t help as the thought slammed into her head. Slower than when fighting White Knight. Her teeth worked at her bottom lip, threatening to break skin as she flew higher.

  Forty feet became sixty. Why is he slower now? The Leviathan she could barely even see before was now the same one that she could dodge again and that… that did not make her feel any better.

  Sixty became eighty, the storm thinning slightly as she hit an arc, giving her clear sight lines of the battlefield below.

  Purity arced through the chaos, the woman a twisted glowing comet, helixes of pale solar power spiraling from her outstretched arms. The blasts ripped through what used to be rooftops and carved into the harbor like molten drills, each beam hot enough to flash-boil water and erupting with steam. Each spiral beam that landed on Leviathan impacted with precision, carving marks into the Endbringer’s hide. Shallow ones —maybe a few inches deep, barely that— but marks nonetheless.

  Victoria hated her. Always had, down to her shiny face and everything she stood for, but at least she was helping. Kind of.

  At least the racist bitch knows which way to point her lasers.

  Rogue Sun (down)

  Nexuz (down)

  Fractall (deceased)

  Plume (down)

  Dole (down)

  Kerf (deceased)

  The casualty list rang off her armband's display too fast; too many names, each notification a life changed or ended. Think about it later.

  Two streaks of mismatched tech-light launched across the skyline, dragging her attention, taking her mind off it quicker than she could force the thought down. Blue eyes tracked the lumbering, glowing scrapmetal jetpack that looked like someone had duct-taped Christmas lights to a pair of leaf blowers and called it aerospace engineering. Tinker tech like that, she knew who it belonged to, but she couldn’t believe it either way.

  Uber rocketed through the air trailing pixelated rainbow exhaust, voice cutting through the storm with the kind of confidence that suggested the buff videogame addict had never met a situation he couldn't make worse. "Do a barrel roll!"

  L33t said nothing as he flew right beside his partner-in-crime, the Tinker himself on an over-sized quad-rotor drone, the thing he flew firing what looked like cartoonish bullets.

  With eyes.

  Actual cartoon eyes that blinked as they spun through the air toward Leviathan's general vicinity.

  "Are those... are those Mega Man bullets?"

  The words slipped out before she could stop them, Vicky’s eyes going wide as she realized. A split second later, those same eyes dropped to her armband to make sure she wasn't broadcasting. What she watched and played in her spare time was nobody's business, and it was hers to keep it that way.

  One of L33t's missiles exploded in a burst of confetti-colored EMP that Leviathan actually dodged. Thirty feet of living nightmare jerking sideways like it was avoiding a particularly aggressive fly, and Victoria felt something between hysteria and admiration bubble up in her chest.

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  The comedy duo streaked past her close enough that she had to barrel-roll to avoid collision, Uber's jetpack leaving a trail of purple exhaust that tasted like ozone and bad decisions when she flew through it. Her forcefield filtered out the worst of it, but she could still feel the chemical burn at the back of her throat as Uber shot directly towards Leviathan, L33t pulling away.

  "LIMIT BREAK: ICE EDGE!"

  Uber's voice cracked on the last word as he pulled a giant blue glowing plasticky sword out of nowhere, the thing looking like it would never work on an Endbringer.

  It didn't. The sword bounced off Leviathan's shoulder with a cartoon bonk sound effect that would've been hilarious if it wasn't happening during the end of the world.

  But it made the monster pause.

  Literally.

  For a full second, long enough for Uber to shoot past without getting hit, the Endbringer was stuck in place the way Clockblocker would have done to anyone.

  A single second of nothing meant over a hundred different Blasters in range opened fire on the Endbringer; Eidolon, Legend, Narwhal, Myrddin, Grumman, all of them.

  It did as much as Uber’s sword did, enough.

  Half a second later, head tilting like it was genuinely confused by what had just happened, Leviathan was moving again, but just a little slower, enough that you could see it. Victoria used the opening because that's what you did when someone handed you a gift. She dropped to street level, grabbed a chunk of concrete the size of a refrigerator, and hurled it underhand with everything she had.

  Her flight amplified the throw, turning debris into artillery that moved fast enough to whistle through the rain-soaked air.

  Leviathan caught it.

  Crushed it to powder without even looking.

  But after Uber, L33t was following up, the Tinker on the drone strafing from three angles while firing oversized paintballs that exploded on impact with enough force it would probably send a normal Brute fly. Against Leviathan they were just colorful pops of light, but still working. The Endbringer's attention scattered across multiple threats instead of surgical strikes against individual capes.

  The air was cluttered now: too many fliers, too much chaos, dozens of attacks at once on a still-lagging Leviathan. They were hitting it, staggering it, slowing it even more.

  And then a wave launched up high, exploding outward in a bomb made of liquid force.

  Water rose and the sky fell, half a dozen capes with it.

  Dauntless dropped like the others, his glowing shield no match for the pressure wave, usual grace replaced by an uncontrolled tumble that made Victoria's stomach clench. His armor shed pieces as he fell, trailing golden light like a dying star.

  Manpower, her uncle, half-dragged someone back toward cover, blood streaming down his face from one ear. His usual confident demeanor was gone, replaced by determination that made him look older, more tired, almost. The person he was carrying wasn't moving, their limbs hanging limp in a way that made Glory Girl look away as she realized something her uncle hadn’t yet.

  Mush and Circus, both dead, bodies splattered and waterlogged against a wall.

  Dragon's suit was struggling to stay airborne, massive frame listing to one side with servos whining in protest, one wing completely shredded. The Tinker suit moved differently now, a wounded animal, powerful but no longer graceful.

  Her eyes tracked Krieg's corpse slumped over a collapsed wall. Several villains from out of town, one missing most of a torso, all of them just as dead as the Nazi in all black. Another cape she kinda-sorta-knew from Boston's villain scene was little more than a torso and a pelvis.

  Glory Girl turned her head away, forcing herself to focus on the fight in front of her before she threw up on herself. N-no.

  Leviathan moved differently now. Not faster.

  Smoother.

  It wasn’t as slow as when it had started, but it definitely didn’t seem to be slowing down like it did when it was on land, compared to being surrounded by water. The monster seemed to be enjoying itself, like the fight with White Knight had been a workout and now, it was just jogging around for a cooldown.

  Cooldown or not, it was still a monster.

  And it didn’t pretend any different.

  Glory Girl fought back a yelp as she darted back, shooting up into the sky as Leviathan whipped out again, backhanding Alexandria a full block back as its tail carved through buildings like a scythe.

  Calliper (down)

  Redact (deceased)

  Fermata (down)

  Jiangshi (down)

  The casualty list kept scrolling, each name a life that had been there seconds ago and wasn't anymore. Leviathan was deeply cut in places, White Knight had hurt it, maimed it, carved visible gouges that should've been impossible, but the monster didn't slow down. If anything, the damage just made it angrier.

  It played with the blasters now, juking their fire like it was some kind of game. It hated standing still, never giving them a clean shot for longer than a heartbeat.

  Victoria tried to flank it; thought she saw an opening in its blind spot, a moment where its attention was focused on Alexandria's relentless assault.

  She didn't.

  It turned.

  Slapped her midair with a wave she didn't see, only felt, and the sensation was like being hit by a moving wall made of liquid concrete.

  The tail didn't sweep. It snapped.

  A whip-crack motion faster than her eyes could track hit, and Victoria's forcefield popped with the familiar sensation of pressure release, a translucent golden bubble bursting inside her chest.

  She tumbled and twisted, flight trying to compensate, but momentum carried her into the water tower with enough force to buckle steel. The impact rang through her bones, the kind of hit that would've liquefied a normal person, and even with her powers absorbing most of it she still tasted blood, copper-sharp and warm.

  The tower crumpled around her, metal shrieking as it deformed, as Victoria’s mouth, chest, and back exploded with pain. A split second later, she ricocheted off the wreckage in a spray of sparks and twisted steel. She righted herself with effort in the air, flight kicking back in full force just in time to keep her from eating asphalt.

  Blood ran from her nose, warm and sticky, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand before anyone could see. "Fucking h—"

  Alexandria dropped from above, cutting Victoria off mid-curse as she shoulder-tackled Leviathan into a submerged street and reminded everyone present who the biggest Brute was.

  The impact registered as an earthquake, no other word for it, Victoria feeling the shockwave through her bones even in the air. Alexandria didn't just hit, she obliterated the space where Leviathan had been standing, driving thirty feet of Endbringer down through asphalt with punch after punch that classified as ballistic missiles.

  Steam erupted from the crater, superheated water from the friction of Alexandria's flight meeting hydrokinetic armor. Legend’s lasers fired off, searing the air, dozens in a constant volley that angled around each other and still managed to land on target, an accompanying light show to Alexandria’s drumbeat.

  Eidolon followed, the most powerful cape in the world not wasting a moment as he dropped lower. An instant later, the space around him bent, and Victoria's depth perception started failing her because his hands looked simultaneously close enough to touch and miles away. The distortion field pulled at her, trying to drag her into whatever impossible physics he was manifesting, and she fought it, flight pushing against gravity's sudden confusion to keep her position stable while the air tried to tear itself apart around them.

  When Eidolon released the attack, reality snapped back, a rubber band stretched too far.

  Everything went distorted.

  Victoria's ears popped, the pressure change sudden and dense, eyes going wide as she saw arms stretched longer than they should be, time slipping sideways for a heartbeat.

  Leviathan shouted.

  Not with a mouth.

  With water pressure; the blast hitting her forcefield and making her feel it, even at a distance.

  Around her, others regrouped, and Victoria found herself part of a coordinated assault without conscious decision, flight positioning her at exactly the right angle to support Purity's next attack run. The Empire cape built light between her hands, a miniature star, the woman herself barely scuffed despite everything they'd been through, and without warning, she let it go.

  The helix of light twisted, carving through air from her position to Leviathan's chest, a line of destruction that existed for less than a heartbeat.

  Victoria timed her dive to follow the beam's path, Leviathan staggering back from the light attack, and she was there. Fist connecting with the crater Eidolon had left, driving deeper as she struck alongside Alexandria, her flight turning the punch into a jackhammer blow that felt like what she remembered concrete as, before powers.

  The hit landed solid. No tricks, no water echo deflection, no last-second defensive maneuver, nothing close to it. Pure kinetic transfer from her fist alongside Alexandria’s to Endbringer flesh that actually seemed to give under the impact.

  Leviathan's stumble became a fall. The monster went down on one knee, and Alexandria's follow-up strike hammered him deeper into the crater with the sound of a building collapsing in reverse.

  A shark woman, a villain from Boston she had seen on the news weeks ago, streaked past her underwater. The shark cape moved through flooded streets as fast as Leviathan could on land, and Glory Girl watched as the villain leapt out, latching onto Leviathan's tail with jaws that could probably bite through steel cables. The villain gnawed mindlessly, tearing small chunks of flesh that Leviathan didn’t seem to notice, but it was something. The damage was adding up, visible gouges and torn sections that were taking forever to heal, compared to the near-patched crater in Leviathan’s chest.

  Uber swung what could only be a flashing red Chain Chomp, the thing's sharp teeth gripping down on a free section of Leviathan's tail with cartoon sound effects that should've been ridiculous but somehow worked. Even L33t's pixel grenades were finding targets, disrupting Leviathan's hydrokinetic focus with each colorful explosion that bloomed in perfect 8-bit squares, impossibly bright primary colors that turned the battlefield into a corrupted video game.

  Somehow, someway, the Tinker’s gaming-themed arsenal kept functioning even when it should have long went boom; the thing kept hitting and kept being exactly what they needed in a fight that had no business including cartoon physics.

  That's when she heard it.

  Something moving.

  Not Leviathan. Something else. A rush of displaced air, weight behind the wind that made her flight stutter for reasons that had nothing to do with physics and everything to do with instincts that were screaming warnings she didn't understand.

  The armband chirped: White Knight, active.

  Her head snapped around, searching the chaos for movement that wasn't Endbringer or cape or falling debris, and there—like the sun breaking over the horizon after the longest night of her life—something massive stood up from the wreckage where he'd fallen.

  Victoria's eyes went wide. Her mouth dropped open, perfect hero composure cracking under pressure because what she was seeing didn't compute, didn't fit into any category her brain had available for processing.

  "What the f—"

  A single sentence split the rain, carried by a voice that shouldn't have been able to cut through the storm and chaos but somehow did anyway, reaching every corner of the battlefield with the kind of volume that suggested either massive amplification or something that had stopped caring about the limits of human vocal cords.

  "LIVING HERE IN BROCKTON!"

  Greg Vs is currently on Chapter 12 of arc 9, a full 20+ chapters and a whole arc ahead.

  If you want to read my original novel (Shattered Ladder, Book 1: Empty) ahead of time before it lands on Royal Road, it's currently free to all members on my

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  Thank you for reading the story by the way.