Mastermind

by Steven Kelliher

  Just before he reached Leviathan, he leapt up high and somersaulted over the hero. Almost at the same instant, Leviathan reached out with his left hand fast as a striking serpent, looking to intercept the villain.

  He frowned when he brought his left hand back in, surprised that Blackstrike had managed the dodge. As Blackstrike twisted around, he brought his right leg down like a gymnast, swinging his head up and his leg down like a pendulum. The ball of his foot cracked into the side of Leviathan’s jaw and sent him sprawling, and Blackstrike landed deftly and then darted forward.

  Leviathan wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth. It was a surreal sight to see, and not just for me. His health was now at 95%. All around, heroes watched the exchange with unconcealed intrigue. They looked almost rapturous, while the villains who had yet to leap in looked hungry.

  Leviathan threw an uppercut that missed as Blackstrike leapt aside. The strike was faster than his last one had been, but still not fast enough to deal with Blackstrike’s Anticipation.

  Come on, Leviathan, I thought with venon. Shift, damn it. He’s a precog. Shift more into agility already.

  Leviathan growled, and then his eyes did that blinky thing indicating he was Shifting again. With that, Leviathan managed to snag Blackstrike by the collar, and snarled more than smiled as he raised a blue-gloved fist to take my ally out of the fight.

  Thinking fast, I called down the comms, “Hit him, boys.” Another hail of bullets struck him. Caught off guard, Leviathan dropped Blackstrike and raised his arms to shield his torso and face. Blackstrike took his chance and scurried back as my crew gave him cover. They were now spread out among the ruins and rubble and less bothered by the stunned heroes, letting fly until they were empty.

  But I’d seen all I needed to. The fact Leviathan had caught Blackstrike as though he were moving through water signaled his agility was high enough to out-speed a precog. Triple Blackstrike’s base stat of fifty was needed, meaning Levi was rocking at least 150 agility. Assuming that theory was correct, and assuming everything else was the same, that was sixty in mind and 140 in brawn, leaving his armor closer to fifty.

  It could always be lower, but now we were getting close to taking the shot. Bullets would be a good test.

  “Castle, get a few shots in.”

  Castle sprang into the fight without hesitation. He circled Leviathan from afar, peppering in short bursts of machine-gun fire that sent sparks flying from Leviathan’s temple and brow. He had much better aim than the rest of the crew, but his shots were just annoying Leviathan rather than damaging him.

  Leviathan: 93% HP

  But I smiled. He was taking some damage now. His armor had to be far lower than he liked.

  Across the ruinous square, the line of players buckled and bent inward. I thought the heroes were ignoring Leviathan’s command and coming to his aid anyway, but it was more villains. More villains than I had ever seen in Titan City, and all of them moving toward the embattled Leviathan.

  Atlas was at their head. The brute favored one arm, and his armor was cracked, but he limped forward, eager to rejoin the fight.

  “Come on!” Leviathan screamed, his rage redoubled alongside his strength and speed.

  The ensuing fight looked like a lion fighting a pack of wolves. I could see Leviathan at the center of the maelstrom of blades and gauntlets and pounding fists, but I couldn’t see the nuances, the little details of the fight.

  One villain flew backward and smashed through a window across the way. Another collapsed, clutching her chest, while a third – a muscle-bound behemoth – was launched skyward. In the center, Leviathan’s eyes bulged along with his muscles. His suit ripped. His fists became a blur of yellow and white, and each time a gap appeared in the circle of villains that leapt upon him, one from the outside would fire a ray gun, shoot a net the hero would tear through, or fire a taser or something else to harrass him with. He dodged most of the attacks, but not all of them.

  Leviathan: 88% HP… 85% HP

  I looked on, horrified and pleased. Leviathan was doing exactly what I wanted him to. He was draining his armor to feed his fists and feet just as he had drained it to feed his mind.

  The only issue was the brawl was now so packed there was no way Starshot could get a clean shot. Although at this rate we might not even need her.

  He was taking damage willingly. A spray of blood wet the dusty stone beneath him, pink drool lolled from his split lip. Leviathan was taking damage, all so he could mete out his vengeance that much quicker. His eyes were madness incarnate. His body thrummed with the power it contained. He bled, but he wasn’t close to death.

  He bled.

  “That’s it,” I said, more to myself.

  “What’s it?” Starshot asked. “It’s time?”

  “No!” I said quickly. “No, you won’t get a clean shot in that mess. I’ve just had a thought.”

  “Well, we’d better make our move soon,” she responded.

  “I concur,” Blackstrike said. He had slinked away from the maelstrom of violence in the center of the square. Any one of those strikes could end him, and now Leviathan was moving so quickly, Blackstrike’s Anticipation power wasn’t enough to guarantee a dodge.

  “We need to pull him out of that brawl,” I said.

  “But how?” Starshot asked.

  But I was already running out from cover, already presenting myself in my garish purple getup. I knew what had to be done the moment I’d voiced the problem. He’d come for me. I’d caused this. Thanks to my forum posts, the whole world knew it. Castle hounded my steps, but I sent him back, out of harm’s way.

  This was my gamble to make.

  Through the melee, I saw Leviathan spit another gob of blood and took my cue from there.

  “He bleeds!” I yelled. I yelled so hard I thought my digital vocal cords might actually rip. “He bleeds. Even a god can die!”

  That got his attention all right.

  I saw that menacing gaze home in on me even through the chaos.

  Without warning, Leviathan opened his arms like a devil breaking its chains, and those villains closest to him were sent flying by the force of it. Atlas had worked his way back into the center of the pit, but he too was caught in the dispersion, flying through the wall of the building whose roof we had stood atop just a short while ago, and where Starshot was currently perched.

  Starshot fell to one knee from the force of the impact. She was a shining beacon now, but still few seemed to notice.

  I tried to see through the hole Atlas had made in the side of the building, but there was no telling what sort of state he was in. And I had closer concerns.

  Leviathan exploded into motion, and villains fled en masse. He jumped high, then descended a split-second later in a white and blue blur that sank into the stones not far from my position.

  There was an almost comical delay as the AI struggled to work out the force of the collision, but when it hit, the whole square shook. Great stone tiles shattered and expanded outward like a bomb blast, and the square was covered in a lethal hail that had hero and villain alike diving for cover. I even thought I saw some go down, tier sixes taking too much damage to stick around.

  I would have, too, if Starshot hadn’t slammed into me from the side, her own airborne arc taking her down in an L-shaped football tackle as she speared me away from the blast.

  Alert: Marchand, Tibbetts, Hoozer and Gale have been killed.

  Sphere Update: 4 Slots Vacated. 10/20 Slots Filled.

  I didn’t even remember who else had been snuffed out beforehand.

  We hit the grass on the south side of Heroes’ Square hard, and the sky was darkened with dusty smog once more as the reverberations of Leviathan’s wrath played themselves out across the ground and sky. My health had dropped to 80% just from the impact. Not great.

  Starshot rolled off me and we both got to our feet, then ducked back down as a delayed sheet of debris-laden dust swept out from the jagged, toothy square. When the torre
nt passed overhead like a retreating tide, we staggered back to the edge of the battlefield.

  Coughing and spluttering, Starshot managed to gather the strength to say, “I’m taking the shot, Despot.”

  “No,” I said, half-choking on dust myself. “Not just yet. Not a direct hit.”

  “We might not get another chance,” she said, gritting her teeth.

  I laughed on the inside. I was really beginning to like this one.

  “You’ll tier down,” I said. That gave her pause. The only thing more important to players than sticking to roleplaying their character was keeping their XP. Keeping their build. Keeping their identity. My heart sank a bit as she lowered her glowing golden hands, but I couldn’t blame her.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, stepping forward and shaking off Starshot’s reaching grasp. “You’ll have your shot soon enough.”

  “When?”

  “On my signal. Get out of Dodge for now.”

  I left her complaints and questions behind and began to walk forward, hoping to appear far more confident than I was.

  As the dust settled into translucent clouds of brown and white, I saw a re-gathering crowd. Many of them kept a healthy distance this time, not wanting to be caught up in Leviathan’s next seismic attack. Some still lay prone. Some of my soldiers were among these, but others got up, looking to me for orders. Castle looked to be in a bad state, hanging on the edge of consciousness.

  Leviathan stood triumphant and mad in the center of his newly made crater, his torn cape fluttering like a macabre banner. I’d achieved my latest goal.

  He was certainly out in the open now.

  The funny thing is, I didn’t get more frightened as I approached him. It was quite the opposite.

  It could have been that I just wanted Leviathan to make an end of things, to be forced to kill me directly this time rather than chuck a building across the sky and squash me by ‘mistake.’ Or perhaps I was just sick of it all, and had decided to pack it in.

  Or maybe, just maybe, it was because I felt that warm nugget glowing behind my heart. The one not so far from where I had secreted B5’s pulsing green heart. That glowing core that had embodied Streak, that had embodied me, and for which Titan Online had provided the rich soil with which to see it bloom into a sunburst, and one not unlike Starshot.

  Perhaps I was simply tired of sending others to do my dirty work, and wanted to get my own hands dirty. Besides, everyone else I’d come across in my current build had underestimated me. Why not add Leviathan to the list?

  “Hey,” I said. Leviathan didn’t respond. I edged closer, close enough that I could see the red rims around his bulging blue eyes. All the while, I fingered the row of silver balls locked into my belt. “Great Pretender. Now you’ve had it out with the knights of my court, what say you make a try for the king?”

  Leviathan was beyond the point of laughing. When he looked at me, he only seemed bewildered. He looked like a lion contemplating the boldness of a fox.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked. “Shoot me with that trap gun again? Because that worked out so well last time.”

  “Well, you are going to get shot,” I said aloud, and then whispered into the comm link, “Starshot, when I dive—”

  Leviathan started toward me then. I was ready. One squeeze of the notch on the swarm grenade in my grasp and Leviathan now had a courtyard of dusty, mask-wearing foxes to deal with, not to mention a whole lot of smoke and dust.

  Black viewer bots – those that had made it through the destruction – zoomed in from the cloudy murk and attempted to suss out which of my images was worth watching. Some shimmered here and there, and bots broke off from them. Others leapt over jagged spurs and fallen pillars.

  “You think I don’t see through this?” Leviathan asked.

  I smiled. “That confirms that, then.” Leviathan had kept his stat in mind high. Must be sixty-five or more to see through my mark two swarm grenade images.

  “Confirmed… what?” Leviathan asked, screwing up his face in confusion.

  I dove to the side. All of me did. A score of Despots in their gaudy purple suits all flinging themselves out of the way of something. Something Leviathan didn’t see until it was too late.

  Starshot’s beam – ostensibly intended for me – was bright as the sun, and thick as an old tree. It immolated several of my images, burning them up and helping to sell that the blast had been meant for them. Leviathan peered through the storm of fire and dust. His blue eyes were washed out in the amber currents as Starshot’s beam struck him full-on and sent him sliding back. He cried out as the beam burned into him, but when the light dimmed and the torrent shrank to a few tailing whisps, Leviathan wasn’t dead.

  The hero fell to his knees, his white suit scorched black on his arms and chest. He bled from a dozen wounds, and he looked unsteady.

  But he didn’t fade away.

  Twenty-Six

  If It Bleeds

  Leviathan: 75% HP

  It was the most damage Leviathan had ever taken in a single hit, and yet he wasn’t even halfway along the road to dead. Starshot had hit him with everything she had, her bonus damage and all. And it wasn’t close to enough.

  My stomach plunged in dread. Had I miscalculated? Or had I underestimated the number of stat points he had to play with? I’d assumed he had 400 in total, but perhaps he really did have 500. If so, he could have over 100 points still in Armor. Perhaps the AI truly had made him unstoppable after all, with no regard to limitations.

  I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees and saw my images doing the same in my periphery. I found Starshot nearby. She was breathing heavily, her glow all but gone. Seeing that Leviathan hadn’t been killed, she squared herself toward me as my images faded, and began charging her fists again. The light around her white gloves was faint, like candlelight, and I knew it would be some time before she was fully charged again.

  Too long.

  A swarm of viewer bots abandoned their various angles and crowded in around Leviathan like carrion birds.

  Leviathan rose. He looked unsteady at first, but quickly regained his composure. He glared openly at Starshot, but seeing her with her palms together, aiming another attack at me, he spat another wad of blood into the dust and shook his head.

  “Meteora was right about you,” he said. “Amateur.”

  He started to rise. Just then, a huge figure cut a swathe through the swarm of viewer bots. A great hand fell upon Leviathan’s shoulder, turning him around.

  Atlas had come again. I didn’t even think he was rocking his full momentum at this stage, but still he came. He lifted Leviathan up bodily, and I rolled away to relative safety as the titan’s attention turned to the giant.

  “Atlas, no,” I called out. But it was too late.

  I watched the struggling pair. Leviathan kicked at Atlas as the bleeding, dust-covered, half-naked barbarian snarled. Leviathan had stacked too much in brawn. Too much in agility. He was too much for us.

  He tore Atlas’s hands aside and wriggled loose. When he landed, he darted forward and extended a blur of a fist. He stopped the killing blow an inch in front of Atlas’s chest, and the crowd I had forgotten about gasped. Instead of bringing it down to crush Atlas, Leviathan pressed his gloved forefinger against his thumb and snapped.

  I saw a red laser sight flick on in the crowd of players and NPCs on the north side of the square, and recognition dawned.

  “He’s using villains,” I said into the transmitter. “That explains it.”

  “Explains… what?” I heard Blackstrike croak back. I cast about for the lithe warrior but couldn’t see him among the wreckage in the immediate vicinity.

  “I knew all of those player deaths couldn’t be attributed to environmental damage alone,” I said. “I damn well knew it. Heroes aren’t the only ones licking his boots, helping him tie up loose ends.”

  Atlas’s face was too battered and swollen now to show any expression. Leviathan could poke him with a finger
and send him to the knockout screen. But it seemed we’d pushed the tyrant too far.

  The red dot landed on Atlas’s forehead. Leviathan smiled and I even thought I saw him wink as Atlas’s head jerked back. The villain in the crowd had cut him down. Atlas disappeared in a haze of pixels.

  Atlas has been killed by Spydar.

  “On her” I screamed, and my remaining soldiers, led by a limping Castle closed in on the villain.

  Her eyes were shining green lights. She leapt up and back like a frog, her blue-skinned legs perching on a broken, leaning pillar, and started picking off my soldiers with rapid-fire shots from her sniper rifle.

  There was a grand commotion behind the pillar. A white whip that looked to be made of energy wrapped itself around Spydar’s ankle, and the female hero wielding it yanked. Spydar cracked her jaw on the broken pillar as she fell, and when she landed, I saw a pack of heroes swarm the sniper. One lanced a kick into her jaw and sent an expensive-looking pair of goggles flying. Another snatched her gun and snapped it over a knee made of stone, and a third hooked her behind both arms and lifted her, kicking and screaming, dragging her inexorably away from the square.

  Leviathan’s brow twitched in annoyance, but he still didn’t fully admit what seemed obvious to so many now that circumstances had forced his hand.

  The hero dusted himself off and began to walk toward me once more. He was wearing a victorious smirk.

  A green and yellow flash passed between us. It gave Leviathan pause. When it came back, the hero reacted too late. Jolt’s speed-boosted fist smashed into his jaw and sent him tumbling. The only hero so far with the guts to take his king on directly stood on the spot Leviathan had a second before, his form thrumming with energy. He must have put his full might into the strike.