Something was shouted between the six capes fighting Leviathan at the moment. I saw Alexandria point at me. I gave her a thumbs-up. She jabbed a finger at me, then Leviathan.

  Oh fuck me. They need backup to get clear.

  “They need backup! We have to go in, hold still, I’m going to cocoon you!”

  “Leave my vision free! I’ll support you!” Narwhal shouted.

  I hit my power and the change hard. There wasn’t enough time.

  Heat bloomed in my chest, fiery and intense. Stabbing pain lanced through my shoulders and back, and I could hear flesh tearing with nauseating sounds. Two dozen tentacles coated in black, goopy blood wrapped around the three capes, bundling Night and Tattletale tightly, fully immobilizing them and squeezing them firmly into their seated positions. I left part of the front half of Narwhal’s head free, and she snapped a forcefield up over her face to shield herself from any projectiles.

  Hopefully, it wouldn’t be needed. I swooped down like a seven-winged bird of prey, my legs angled down and forward, claws fully extended, toes splayed on both my feet and tail. I tackled him from the air square in the back, sending him crashing down into the ground face-first. I had my tail wrapped around his, and the momentum of my dive carried us both forward. I rode him like an apocalyptic skateboard, plowing him headfirst through pavement and cement.

  Behind me, Myrrdin, Eidolon, Dauntless, and Legend took to the air. Alexandria scooped up Chevalier into a princess carry and took him airborne. The image struck me. The literal knight in shining armor, being scooped up like a fair maiden, and carried off by the proverbial princess. The queer girl inside of me trembled in excitement.

  But I had bigger things to worry about right now.

  Leviathan was trying to get up, but was struggling to find purchase sufficient enough to lift my massive bulk planted on top of his own. His hands were punching through the asphalt and pavement and failing to lift the two of us, and he didn’t have the flexibility to hit me with his legs the way I was positioned. His thrashing and flailing around below me was sending high-velocity water echoes my way, and they were battering me, but not as hard as his previous hits were. I managed to fold my wings to keep them from getting destroyed.

  “Apex! Stomp on him around his chest with your claws!” Lisa called out to me. I tried to angle myself via my uncanny flexibility so Tattletale could get a view of what I was doing as I did it. He bucked underneath me as I stomped around his chest a few times. I twisted, applying the full force of my core muscles into punching him in the back of his too-small head. That sent him back to the ground with a literal earth-shaking impact. Upper-story windows blew out on buildings to either side of us.

  “No good, try the abdomen!” Lisa called out.

  “Narwhal, hold his arms and head down if you can!” I yelled.

  Shields flew into place, angled like blades, and bit deeply into his skin. I started doing my best attempt at stomping his guts in. I didn’t notice any serious difference while he was squirming around under me and smashing my lower half with blasts of water.

  Lisa apparently did. “I got it! I got it!”

  “It’s time to go!” I called out. We had to leave urgently. Not just because of the horrible rushing and crashing voice of the tsunami getting dangerously close, but because my lower half was starting to look like I’d gone for a swim in rock-infested whitewater rapids. I wasn’t doing so hot. This maneuver was costing me dearly, and every second I stuck around, I was accumulating more damage.

  Narwhal deployed all of her shields at various points around Leviathan. Neck, two on each arm, two on the midriff, three on the tail, one on each leg. With that, I crouched down and launched off his back, driving him a few feet deeper into the ground in the process. The building between the coast and me shuddered as I cleared the roof, and Leviathan was swept under the tsunami.

  That was bad, so I poured on all the speed I could to get away from him before he got up. Leviathan was scary fast on land. He was violating the laws of physics fast while submerged. Like hundreds or thousands of miles per hour underwater. It was one of the reasons why tracking him and predicting his attacks was difficult.

  There were networks of buoys set up on coastlines around the world with sensor packages to try to provide an early warning system. One of Dragon’s many projects. It had likely been part of the reason why we had any level of early warning for his attack today.

  Once I was relatively certain we were out of the immediate danger range of Leviathan, I retracted the safety bubbles around my passengers.

  Lisa was yammering away into her wristband. Narwhal was craning her head and upper body around, calling out the movements of Leviathan. Night looked haggard; she might have been crying, but the torrential rain made it hard to tell if the eye irritation was whipping water blasting her face or tears.

  “Night, are you good?” I looked back at her. She gave me a strange look, like she was confused by my question. “Are you wounded, any broken bones, or have a concussion?” I asked her.

  “Why do you care?” She countered back with.

  “Because we’re working together, and if you’re wounded, I’ll take you to get care!” I snapped back at her. I didn’t have time for this shit right now.

  “I am fine,” she said, but the wind was gone from her sails.

  “Apex! That building there!” I followed Lisa’s pointing. “Get to the roof, pick up the woman there!”

  “Copy that.” I banked and adjusted our course, keeping our speed quick, but not terribly fast. I needed to cool down.

  My lower body was beat to hell. Half the claws on my feet were ripped out entirely. Almost all my armor plates were shattered. Some were missing entirely, with chunks of tissue that anchored them torn out right along with them. I was bleeding from numerous places, but not too badly. The middle of my tail had a deep gash in it that was bleeding badly. I needed to get that fixed ASAP.

  I came into a low hover over the rooftop. There was a woman on top, shielding her lower face from the blasting wind and rain.

  “Is this the one?” I asked Lisa.

  “Yeah, grab her, she’s coming with!”

  Night spoke up: “Let me down on the roof! I will track down and fight the beast!”

  I grabbed Night from the back and under her arms with my tail and lowered her to the roof. “Good luck, Night! Ping if you need a pickup!” She looked over her shoulder, nodded once, then darted into the entrance to the building staircase. I heard screeching, clawing, and something tearing through the building below. I picked up the new addition and stuck her where Night had been.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Unfortunately, in the process of doing so, I also had a small river of my blood wash over her from where I was dangling my tail down.

  She shrieked. “Ahh! Gross! And hot! What is this!?”

  I flew over to the nearest parking lot and dropped to my feet.

  I looked over my shoulder at her. “I’m so sorry! I’m Apex. I guess I’m giving you a ride. That’s my blood. Can’t help it, Leviathan sliced my tail pretty badly.”

  “Eugh!” She flicked some sticky gobs off herself and flung them off to the side.

  “Give me a moment! I have to get this bleed taken care of or I’m going to run out of gas real fast!” I curled my tail around and held the gash in front of me. It was six to eight inches deep, and there were multiple finger-thick veins or arteries gushing blood from within the wound channel.

  “That looks extremely bad, Apex. Are you going to be able to keep going?” Narwhal asked.

  I attempted to push confidence in my voice when I told her, “I’m going to do some quick surgery on myself to try and fix this.”

  I pushed my power to do what I could to repair the internal damage. I brought my lower arm with a much larger Vivian forward. The egglike pod split open and took control of my arm. Six mantis-like limbs, and my hand darted forward and started cleaning up the interior of the wound, slicing ragged bits off. Several tubelike tentacles popped out of the side and started injecting a thick, dark red goop into the wound cavity. The insectile limbs reached forward, layering the goop around, grabbing the ends of blood vessels and bringing them together.

  Countless fine red strands, squirming and waving around like threadlike worms, were reaching out from the large veins, which had stopped pumping blood entirely. As Vivian brought the two ends of each blood vessel together, the strands caught one another, started weaving together and pulling tighter, knitting the flesh together.

  More and more started growing out from the meat and soft armor, following the lead of the others. Matching like to like, tying them together, and reconnecting things. The wound closed quickly, and within a minute, it had sealed completely, a strap of slightly off-color lighter blue soft armor covering it. The skin was steadily darkening to match the rest of me.

  There was a massive shuddering quake that ripped through the ground, like an earthquake, but more localized. I swayed to keep my balance. Another hit, followed by another.

  “What the fuck is that!?” I shouted.

  Narwhal replied: “He’s tearing into the water in the city and under it, in the aquifer!” Another shake. I jumped up and entered a low hover. My getting knocked over was potentially a death sentence for my passengers.

  “Alright, Tattletale, who do we have now, and what are we doing next?”

  “I’m Flechette. Wards, New York.”

  “Nice to meet you!” I told her. “Wish it was under better circumstances!”

  I started to gain altitude, but slowly.

  Tattletale and Narwhale introduced themselves with extreme efficiency.

  “Okay, Apex. Don’t panic here, but we need to find your uh– Eclipse.”

  “Okay?”

  “Her armband is offline, reporting her deceased. But–”

  My heart lurched in my chest.

  Lisa continued, “I would be shocked if she were. But we need to find her. We need her or Clockblocker for this plan to work, and Clockblocker is listed as out of commission right now!”

  “Fine, where are we going!?”

  “We need Alexandria! That’d be the easiest way to find her and get her into position to use her power.” Lisa said.

  I held my wristband up and activated the voice command function. “Find me Alexandria and display her location to me.”

  Dragon’s voice came back through the armband, but it sounded tinny. “Standby. Request queued. Awaiting authorization.”

  “How sure are you of this plan working?” Narwhal asked Tattletale.

  “Very, but only if we can get all the pieces we need,” Tattletale said.

  I looked over my shoulder as I made my way towards Leviathan’s last known location. “She’s not foolproof, but when she’s fairly certain about something, there’s usually at the very least something to what she’s saying,” I told Narwhal.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Apex,” Lisa said dryly.

  “You’re good, Tattletale, but you’re not a precognitive. I’m not trying to undermine you here, but it doesn’t get more high-stakes than this.” I told her.

  She sighed. “You’re right. Listen, I am confident that I’ve narrowed down the location of Leviathan’s core. Flechette’s ability will let her attack it directly. But she has limited shots, and we’re on borrowed time here. If we can get Alexandria to find Eclipse and transport her on top of Leviathan, we can hold him in place to get the shots we need.”

  “And that will drive him off?” Narwhal asked.

  “No, Narwhal. That will kill him.” Lisa replied.

  “That’s an opportunity–we can’t let this slip past us,” Narwhal said, frowning deeply.

  “I know! Now let’s go!” Lisa practically shouted.

  Narwhal brought her armband up to her face and whispered something into it.

  A moment later, all of our armbands beeped and displayed a marker for Alexandria. It was right on top of Leviathan, which made sense. We were already fairly close.

  I started wrapping up my passengers. Flechette let out an alarmed shout. I stabilized her lower body and torso, leaving her weapon, arms quiver, and head free. I did build up a little neck roll around her helmet and under her chin in the event I got hit hard or had to maneuver quickly.

  “Sorry, Flechette, no time to explain! It’s to keep you safe and alive!” I glanced back at her. She was scowling, but nodded. I looped a tentacle through the shoulder rest of her giant crossbow. It already had a strap on it, but I wanted to be doubly sure.

  My armband squawked out loud.

  Alexandria down, CD-6.

  “FUCK! Brace!” I shouted into the wind. I gave them a split second to brace themselves, and then I rolled and dove straight at the ground. Flechette screamed like she was on the world’s worst rollercoaster ride.

  I wouldn’t argue with her.

  Leviathan had been holding someone under about two feet of water, and then leapt off them to attack some other heroes. Shadowy apparitions or clones of some sort. He was tearing through them two and three at a time, but more kept popping up. I flared my wings and blasted down hard, bringing us to a sudden high-G stop, and then dropped down to the street behind Leviathan.

  Being mindful of the side of my tail I’d just done surgery on, I coiled it around myself. And then I copied one of Leviathan’s moves from earlier. I spun myself up, crouched low, and lashed out. I whipped the last several feet of my tail, covered in claw-spikes, and smashed him in the side as he was spinning around to face me.

  I hit him hard. Harder than I’d hit him, charging and double-fist punching him initially. The sound of my tail hitting him was like a peal of thunder, and the shockwave from the collision blew water away from us. He was there one second, and the next, he was buried deep into a tall building. Capes were approaching to keep up the pressure on him.

  I had other things to do. I dashed over to where Leviathan had been pinning someone, scrabbling my big hands around on the pavement. I found someone and fished them out of the water.

  It was Alexandria, and she was unresponsive.

  Fuck–how!? She’s literally invincible! FUCK!

  I transferred her to my lower arms and took off, leaping back into the air, flying a few blocks to safety, and landing on a parking deck. The building groaned and shifted under my weight, but held.

  I partially unwrapped my passengers, laid Alexandria on her back, and crouched over her. Bringing my head down low over her, I checked for a pulse. Good. Breathing. Not good. Not breathing at all.

  I pressed on her chest, and a gout of black, filthy water came out of her lungs.

  Oh. Oh fuck. She’s drowning.

  I gave her chest compressions, and each time I did, more water came up, but she still wasn’t breathing. I brought Vivian up and activated her. She reached out and clawed at Alexandria’s chest, but her claws weren’t able to find any purchase on her flesh.

  Fuck! Invincibility! What am I going to do!?

  I have to evacuate the water and give her mouth-to-mouth. I don’t know how long she’s been unconscious for. She could be nearly dying already. I don’t… Wait, why am I trying to fix this the normal way!?

  I hit my power hard with a request. It bounced back instantly, and I started a change. While that was going on, I gave her a few more compressions, which produced a heck of a lot more water. The burning in my tongue finished. My change was ready.

  Forgive me, Alexandria. This is going to be gross.

  I leaned over, opened my mouth, and then stuck my tongue down her throat. I inhaled, and as I exhaled, fresh air was pushed down my tongue into her lungs.

  More chest compressions, more air. Rinse and repeat. She gasped, taking a breath through me. Her hands blurred up and grabbed my tongue, partially crushing it. Her breathing was cut off. She let go, and I pushed another lungful into her, then slurped my tongue out.

  I rolled her onto her side and whacked her on the back a few times, and she vomited out a few plumes of water between breaths. She went to climb to her hands and knees and fell flat. She waved me away when I went to help her up, and she got up on the second attempt, still coughing heavily and spitting wads of phlegm, mucus, and gobs of dirty water.

  Her voice was hoarse and ragged when she spoke, wheezing around her words. “Th-thank you. Status?”

  I rushed my speech. “I rescued you and knocked him headfirst through another building. Other capes engaged. I came here to give you CPR. We’re a few blocks away. I need your help, urgently.”

  She bent over, placing her hands on her knees, heaved a few times, and vomited out some more liquid.

  “Tell–me–” she wheezed between hurling.

  “We have a plan to fight Leviathan–” I started.

  Narwhal cut me off. “Potential to kill Leviathan, Alexandria. We need a cape to do it. Need you to find them and help deploy their power.”

  Alexandria was still bent double, but she looked over at Narwhal at the mention of killing Leviathan. I wish I could see her eyes. She rolled one hand in a ‘continue’ gesture and hacked some more.

  “Eclipse. Reported as dead, our thinker thinks she’s still alive, but her armband is offline. Need her found and brought to rendezvous with us. From there, when we’re all ready, we split up and attack. You fly Eclipse into close range. Her shaker power will immobilize him, but the range is short. Nearly touching.”

  “Like Clockblocker,” Alexandria said, and I nodded.

  “Yes, but we can attack him, unlike with Clockblocker,” Lisa said. “We need you to get Eclipse either by his feet and tail, or by his shoulders and head. We need to shoot his lower abdomen. If the abdomen is too close to the field, the bolt might not hit.”

  “Got it,” Alexandria said. She righted herself, touched the side of her helmet, and spoke a few words.

  “She’s alive. Getting medical treatment,” Alexandria reported.

  Oh no… Melody.

  “It’s not life-threatening. I’m going to get her now.” I went to nod, and Alexandria disappeared. The thunderclap of her flying away explained where she went.

  “Thanks. I didn’t need eardrums,” Tattletale shouted.

  I looked at my armband. Front and center was a top-down view of the city with my location and Leviathan’s location marked along with a compass and heading.

  “Are we ready?" I asked the group.

  “Couldn’t be better, even though the seating sucks,” Lisa said.

  “Ready when you are, Apex,” replied Narwhal.

  “No. But I’m never going to be ready to fight an Endbringer.” Flechette.

  I twisted around and put a lower hand on her shoulder, making eye contact. Or trying to. She also had a mirrored visor.

  I cleared my throat. “I’ll do my best to keep you alive and breathing back there, no matter what. You let me worry about keeping you safe, and you worry about doing what you need to do to make your shots.”

  She clenched her jaw, then nodded quickly.

  With that settled, I turned back around, wrapped up my passengers, and took to the air. Doing so caused the top deck of the parking garage to collapse around where I’d been standing.

  I winced a little.

  They’ll have to bill me later.