In those terrible few seconds, when Leviathan started to fall, it felt like I had forever to think.
Contingencies for when your enemy out-escalated you?
I had those, from dealing with Lung. Disengage and try again later.
Good plan.
Little hard to pull off, under the circumstances.
Specifically, directly under a falling Endbringer.
Hit him while he was in the air? Leviathan was free-falling, and unless he had been hiding the ability to hydrokinesis his way into leaping from raindrop to raindrop — which would be complete bullshit — we might have a tiny window to hit him before he killed us.
Flechette hadn't reloaded her crossbow. She didn't have the arm to get anything up there that fast. Coordinating another shot with Aegis — besides the fact he had lost a hand — would take… too long.
And while my mind ran through those plans, I flinched away, my body instinctively trying to take shelter under yet another of those rooftop air conditioner units. My bugs started swarming up, my desperation reaching through them and telling them to attack the source of my distress.
Not that either would make a difference. I could see just about everyone else ducking away, too.
Not Aegis.
Aegis didn't take that moment to think, he just launched himself straight up.
He wasn't as strong as Alexandria, not even a fraction as strong. But he was strong enough, and moving fast enough, to momentarily halt Leviathan's descent.
The water shadow continued unchecked.
Which changed our situation on the roof from 'about to be killed by falling Endbringer' to 'about to be crushed by tons of falling water.' Immediately followed by the previously scheduled Leviathan, in case the water wasn't sufficient.
Clockblocker straightened, jabbing one arm up into the air… and the leading edge of the descending mass of water froze in place in a distorted dome around us, locked outside of time, transparent but temporarily immutable on some fundamental level.
Which is why we had a clear view of Leviathan landing on those scant feet of time-frozen water and smearing Aegis across the barrier like a bug on a windshield before launching a furious series of blows to no effect.
Clockblocker tilted his head, hand still upraised and tapped his helmet with the other, speaking through the radio to be heard over the sound of Leviathan trying to batter his way through the unbreakable shield.
"Gallant, you're in charge. Get them out."
His voice was terribly calm, without any of the laughter normally dancing beneath his words.
I looked again, and saw his hand embedded in the same time-locked water that even Leviathan couldn't scratch.
It hadn't been five seconds since Leviathan leapt, and this would be the second time a leader of our little team had sacrificed himself to give the rest of us a chance.
Above us, the battle resumed as some of the heroes attacked Leviathan, who batted one away on the approach before the melee began again.
Gallant gestured north, but Vista was already in motion. A few steps took her to the edge of the barrier. The scant space between water and roof widened, and the gap across the road distorted as she began to open the path we'd need to leave.
Flechette turned to Clockblocker, brandishing one of her quarrels. "Not without you."
He shook his head. "You could cancel my power, but then we all die. Go."
She cursed, and turned away… and then stopped.
"Anyone have a tourniquet?"
Vista turned around, removing her costume's belt and underhanding it to me.
I turned to Clockblocker and Flechette helped me wrap it around his right arm, a momentary application of her power punching the holes we'd need to tighten it enough.
It was pretty strange, watching Dauntless and Armsmaster fight directly overhead on the glass-smooth surface of the time frozen water with another part of my attention, the one taking blows on his forcefield or teleporting out of the way and the other simply dodging like he'd been fighting on ice his whole life. The one time I thought Leviathan had Armsmaster dead to rights, he was baiting him into position for Chevalier to pole-vault onto the roof using his momentarily enormous sword, taking the monster in the face with a kick that actually staggered him backward into a flying charge from Dragon.
She unloaded a barrage of missiles — more missiles than looked like could possibly fit into her suit — and then flew forward. Trying to push Leviathan off of the time-frozen water to give us a chance to get out? Whatever her aim, it didn't work. The Endbringer simply set his feet in the water flowing from his shadow, using it as firm footing, and moved through the missiles to meet her powersuit in melee.
A tremendous explosion resulted, and only one of them remained.
Trying to tie the tourniquet with my hands, when I could have been using my bugs for finicky work instead, was actively frustrating and I made a note to start carrying around silk threads in bulk.
Clockblocker's running commentary didn't help.
"Ladies, I don't mean to rush a moment I'm enjoying so much, but I don't know when this will unfreeze."
Flechette snorted, tapped her quarrel, and waved it through his arm just above the wrist like it wasn't there.
And, just like that, his hand wasn't attached to him anymore.
I took his right arm over my shoulders and supported him as we staggered toward the now seemingly six-inch crack we'd have to leap to make it off of this doomed roof and across the street.
Down at the ambush site, things didn't look good. The incapacitation — or death — of Alexandria, Legend, and Dragon in quick succession had shattered what organization had been present before. In absence of strategy or command, some capes were moving toward the fight: I recognized Narwhal's distinctive scale-like forcefields manifesting in Leviathan's skin, ripping a cut that little bit wider and holding him in place for Chevalier to slam him onto them, embed them that much deeper.
Others were leaving the field.
More than were coming to the fight.
I saw Purity stoop to pick up a chubby kid wearing a ski-mask, and vanish into the distance, with Crusader following.
Myrddin, too, was withdrawing, Alexandria slung over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, limp and bleeding.
Leviathan recovered his balance with eerie quickness, and simply bullrushed Chevalier off the slippery surface and to the ground beneath, the others following him.
The rumble of the building shaking under my feet was the first warning. Just because we were protected from above didn't mean that was the only way for Leviathan to reach us, and I staggered beneath Clockblocker's weight. Gallant turned and grabbed Flechette, spinning her across the gap as the roof collapsed beneath us. I reached out my right hand to catch myself, and felt it shatter under the impact. The silken armor of my costume kept it from breaking all the way out, but that was definitely through my skin in places.
The fact I'd bitten most of the way through my tongue was hardly worth noticing in comparison, except when I realized that a full-face mask left me nowhere convenient to spit.
As I lay there in the rubble, dazed, Clockblocker's unmoving body to my left, I spread out my attention through my swarms.
Anything to avoid feeling that pain, or worse, to dwell on the limp form of Vista, blood matting her hair.
She'd complimented me on my costume's coverage and armor, once.
I hadn't taken the hint.
Gallant had fallen through Vista's spacial distortion bridging the street we had been trying to cross. It hadn't left him an exercise in applied topology, but a three story fall was danger enough, and he was face-down in a flooding street next to Flechette's arbalest.
Flechette herself had gotten clear, and was limping away on the roof across the street.
I didn't blame her for leaving us — it was the right choice. I was hoping that she'd succeed, come back in another fight with more planning and better support than we'd proven.
Vengeance wasn't enough, but sometimes it was all you had.
And on that note, I wasn't dead yet.
I worked my left hand free and raised my mask enough to spit blood.
Wouldn't do to choke and die a moment earlier than I had to. There was work to be done. If only I could see how…
My earpiece crackled with Armsmaster's voice. "Tactical command has fallen to me. All capes, retreat if able. Reform on the PRT headquarters, and follow Chevalier's instructions afterward, or Myrddin's."
I turned my attention outward just in time to catch the grouped bulk of the capes behind the barriers blink out of existence.
Dauntless, Chevalier, and Armsmaster remained engaged in melee, but the other scattered few remaining were running away from the fight.
Or limping, as was true for many.
The fliers had departed almost as quickly as the order was given. The Fafnir did dip to pick up Myrddin and some other wounded and then lifted, arrowing toward Downtown, which gave me some hope that Dragon hadn't actually died earlier. If she was remote-piloting one, why not both?
I saw Dauntless shake his head once, as the white flash from his forcefield taking a blow hid him from sight. Then he nodded, and blinked away, appearing a block away on a rooftop. Another flash of white fire, and he was further still.
Chevalier stayed in the fight with Armsmaster, neither of them doing any real damage to the beast, but neither of them dying to it either.
They hadn't earned their leadership positions through politics or PR, they'd earned them through surviving countless such killing grounds, and the experience showed. They covered each other's weaknesses flawlessly, distracting and attacking in turn. Finally, Chevalier took advantage of a momentary overcommitment to catching Armsmaster to deliver a great blow that knocked Leviathan back on his heels for a moment… and then he turned and ran, moving surprisingly quickly for a man in armor.
Armsmaster fought on alone.
He armed himself with the second halberd he'd been carrying on his back, and he was fighting better than he had been before, as if the presence of other capes in the fight had only distracted him. His dodges were cleaner, his strikes more precise, and his movements more efficient. He made the battle look like a dance, one he'd choreographed. Leviathan would strike here, and Armsmaster would be there, the water would rush up, and the hero's halberd would gush flame in answer. The Endbringer would claw, and Armsmaster would dodge and use the momentary blind spot to close. His halberd spat plasma or electricity whenever it struck… but even when it cut, the damage he did was superficial.
Two blocks away, Chevalier's sword extended to its full size and swept up in salute. Then down, and shrank again. The armored knight resumed his run, now at a ground-eating lope.
A pause in the battle, Leviathan looking down at the fly which had proven so hard to swat, Armsmaster glaring back up through his visor. He did something with his second halberd and it lit up, a gray haze forming around the blade.
The hero spoke. "Just you and me, then. Maybe that's for the best. Had been making this for Lung, hadn't finished it yet… but it won't be wasted on you. The predictive software certainly hasn't been."
Lung! I reached out, searching. He hadn't shown, so far.
Maybe that was for the best. Lung would aim for a long fight — he'd have to. And in a long fight, Brockton Bay ceased to be a city and became instead a body of water.
Some victories were all but indistinguishable from defeats.
Without waiting for Leviathan's response, Armsmaster charged. And when the gray haze reached Leviathan, it cut.
It cut deep, more deeply than I'd seen anything touch him besides Flechette's power.
Not deeply enough to sever anything, though he tried at the right wrist and again at both ankles, where Leviathan's limbs were thinnest, opening deep gashes. Still enough that I wondered for a moment whether he could pull victory from the jaws of defeat, draw out a death of a thousand cuts over minutes, or at least last long enough for reinforcements to come.
Leviathan's tail whipped around in the same move that had taken Alexandria — in the same move she'd let take her in Glory Girl's place, a very long half-hour ago, and I wondered if her overconfidence had been her undoing — and Armsmaster leaped above it, reaching down one halberd to let Leviathan amputate almost his entire tail against that smoking blade, and pointing the other at a roof, launching a grappling hook and pulling himself out of the way of Leviathan's clawed followup.
Leviathan's tail, twitching on the ground gave me hope.
The way that gray haze was sputtering… didn't. Pity he hadn't had time to finish it already, and still worse that he wouldn't ever have the chance, now.
Still no sign of Lung or Scion.
Hookwolf was four blocks north, almost at the limit of my range, and had stopped to cough blood, Flechette was down on street level and limping away northwest, and there were two armored capes supporting each other in a three-legged race south, but the area was otherwise almost deserted.
The dead and dying excepted.
Armsmaster held up his failing halberd, glanced at it, and spoke again. "Still the battery issues. But Dragon has the designs, you know — or you'd know if you understood language and could think, you overgrown animal. One day, one of us will end one of you."
He charged again, dropping into a slide just under Leviathan's claw and popping up into a scrambling run that took him behind the Endbringer, using one of those backward bending knees as a stepping stone for an astonishing leap, assisted by his powered armor. As Leviathan turned around, his face met Armsmaster's boot coming the other way.
It didn't do anything, of course — like punching a mountain with your fist — but I grinned all the same to see it.
If he was going to die, he was going to sell himself dearly.
After that bravura charge, Armsmaster settled into a different rhythm, abandoning any serious offense in favor of a more evasive style. He was still dodging by inches, but in exchange for giving up his attempts to cut the Endbringer in reply he was able to more precisely control the range and terms of the engagement. And while he stayed just out of arm's reach, he was a ghost, virtually untouchable. At some point, he'd run out of power for his armor, or his concentration would flicker, and that would be the end.
But not before.
I thought back to Carol's words, about death not necessarily meaning defeat.
I thought about how to fight opponents you couldn't, directly.
I thought about how to fight an opponent who could parry or dodge any projectile.
And then, through the blood, I smiled.
The bugs I'd had watching Hookwolf congregated into a mass before him.
He looked up, his torso visible above the mass of spikes and hooks like some misproportioned metal centaur.
"Skitter. Didn't think you'd shown for the fight."
"Leviathan's not something I can fight directly. But I can watch, and think."
He spat. "Your point?"
"If I gave you a way to hurt him… would you try it?"
His answering smile was as red as mine.
I reached awkwardly across my body with my working arm and tapped my earpiece, coughing and spitting to clear my throat.
"Flechette, see if you can get to Lord and Harbor. Hookwolf's setting up for a suicide run, and it'd be nice if he could do more than die trying."
Well, him dying in the attempt was the plan, but I'd certainly take him potentially damaging Leviathan as a bonus.
I could feel Flechette alter her course in response — it wasn't much out of her way, really. One short block east of her escape to the north.
I could also feel another cape entering the zone. A pause, a burst of superhuman speed, and another pause.
Battery.
She was headed toward the rendezvous too, and I could bet she'd be trying to extract Flechette. Which was fine by me — after Hookwolf went in.
Interesting that they'd sent her back in. She was tough, and fast — not a bad profile for Search and Rescue, under the circumstances, and many of the other choices would have been on the front lines just now. But why would she be coming for Flechette right now, when…
Ah.
Another wave on the horizon.
Without the intense fighting, Leviathan was free to go back to calling the big waves faster. No wonder he'd been content to play around with Armsmaster: the real fight was elsewhere, with Eidolon trying to keep the waves from coming.
It looked like that fight was going about as well as this one, too.
Well, I'd done what I could. I lay back in the rubble, the bodies of the other Wards about me, and waited. No way for me to outrun or outclimb a wave like this.
I could feel Flechette touch Hookwolf, shake her head. She drew out a quarrel, waved it, and Hookwolf sprouted a scorpion's tail of twisted metal into which she sank it, so he had a long metal sting. Battery glowed, and as Hookwolf leapt over her he accelerated, flying toward Leviathan. She promptly turned and snatched up Flechette, moving away and for high ground.
Armsmaster was in the middle of rolling clear from another stomp when Hookwolf arrived like a javelin from behind… which Leviathan reached up and caught, for the third time this day, without even looking around.
The Endbringer squeezed, producing a terrible sound of metal grinding on metal. Hookwolf's 'tail' came around, and in two seconds of thrashing probed the wound Armsmaster had left, leaving the clawed hand hanging by a thread. Then by nothing, and Hookwolf fell, still wrapped in the right hand of Leviathan.
Leviathan really didn't seem to mind the loss of a hand. There was no gush of ichor, no flinch of pain: the Endbringer simply reached out with the other hand, pinning the villain with his foot, and ripped Hookwolf's steel tail out before picking him up.
At which point he started trying to beat Armsmaster to death with the Empire cape, squeezing all the while.
I shrugged, and then winced. It had been worth a shot. Like Cricket, the only way to hit him was to use his own reflexes against him: throw him something he could and would catch. It had worked, even… but success there hadn't been enough.
At least this way, Hookwolf wouldn't make it out either.
A pause in the noise drew my attention outward again.
Eidolon floated above the battlefield, looking down at Leviathan, who ignored Armsmaster in favor of looking back up.
I could still hear metal squealing, so Hookwolf was still being squeezed to death. Good to know the Endbringer hadn't lost all sense of his priorities.
I laughed, coughed, and laughed some more.
My left arm shattered while I laughed, and I choked and sputtered.
What the hell?
Leviathan threw Hookwolf at Eidolon. Through Eidolon, and he simply rippled like water when it hit, the ripples bouncing off the landscape and converging again, a hundred feet away, where Eidolon wavered back into solidity.
Still floating, still staring, still doing nothing I could see.
A red line appeared on his costume, and then Clockblocker's left hand just dropped off, blood spurting out with every heartbeat.
Fuck.
Another tourniquet.
That… both my arms were broken. This would be a lot easier if he were awake, and could just freeze his costume into a bandage.
Hookwolf landed almost half a mile away with an echoing crash I could hear with my own ears.
He didn't get up.
I nudged Clockblocker's arm out, and then sat on it just past the shoulder. Was that where the arteries were? I couldn't remember.
It wasn't a very effective tourniquet, and I set spiders to weaving thread. It would have to be braided thick enough not to just cut through his flesh if it were tight, and that would take time. Time I wasn't sure he had.
I underlined the previous mental note about carrying lots of silk around next time.
Unlikely as that seemed.
I could see new wounds appearing on Leviathan, shallow ones. Matching ones, arranged symmetrically. Nothing that had given him pause before.
But there was a line of ichor dripping around Leviathan's left wrist.
The hand dropped, and the Endbringer turned away, taking deceptively swift strides before transitioning into a strange ostrich-like run, and then a great leaping dive face-first into the oncoming wave.
He was retreating.
Leaving.
Leaving my city in ruins.
I closed my eyes before the wave reached us.