71

Chapter 71: Promise 7-9

Promise 7.9

I took off almost before I had time to register what I was hearing, tearing down the road at speed. The route I'd been provided by my armband had twists and turns and would take me down side streets and along avenues and boulevards much like a standard GPS would a car. Functionally, it had assumed that I couldn't take a direct path, so it had given me one that was as short as it could make it.

But that was a colossal waste of time. The speeds I'd need to run at to make it there with any appreciable haste would tear up the roads when I had to turn a corner, and that itself would necessitate slowing down enough or braking for a moment so that I could turn.

I couldn't fly, no, so taking the most direct route possible wasn't something I could do…

I leapt as I came close to a nearby building, swinging myself up with the motion to reorient myself, and the instant my feet touched the side, I kicked off, shattering the concrete, and propelled myself up the side.

…but right now, I was a demigod. The laws of physics could take a backseat.

What I did wasn't really running up the side of the building, strictly speaking. "Running" implied a certain kind of motion and a certain kind of contact with the surface I was on. What I did was more like throwing myself up the side of the building by kicking off of it, using my momentum to keep myself from falling back down.

I reached the top in short order, flinging myself up and over the edge to land on the roof. It nearly collapsed under my considerable weight, but was sturdy enough to hold me at least long enough for me to start moving again. Then, I took a running leap and jumped to the nearest rooftop, and again, as I started in the direction of Leviathan.

I couldn't see him, just yet. He was deeper into the city and the buildings out here were too short.

"Adamant down, CA-3," my armband announced suddenly.

My lips pulled tight and I put on a spurt of speed.

The first injury, this fight. I'd hoped there wouldn't be any, but some part of me had known it wouldn't be that simple or that easy, no matter what.

I was midair, soaring through the square labeled CC-4 on my armband, when the next announcement came.

"Intrepid down, CA-3."

As I landed again, I chanced a quick glance down at my armband to check how far out I still was, then launched myself into the air again, up high and into the sky. Once I cleared the skyline and made it up high enough, I should be able to…

There you are.

You won't escape me again.

When I crested the tallest building, wind whistling in my ears, I finally saw him, still a ways away but clear enough for me to see exactly how far and exactly where he was. A black blur flitted about his body, zooming in for precision blows in his blindspots that hit hard enough to produce shockwaves, and several more fliers hovered out of reach of his claws, firing beams of light at every opportunity.

The scene disappeared again behind rows of tall buildings as I landed, but now that I knew exactly where he was, I raced to the edge of the roof, and rather than simply leaping up and forward as I had before, I planted my feet on the corner and pushed off with all of my strength.

The wind cracked and howled. The sound barrier shattered. The roof of the building I kicked off of all but disintegrated. The falling rain pelted my skin like the stings of a thousand angry bees, easily ignored.

And I flew forward like a rocket, arcing in a shallow curve that had been calculated to do one thing: deliver me directly to Leviathan's back.

CRACK

Green scales parted underneath the edge of my ax's blade as it bit deep into his shoulder. The shockwave of the air carried in my wake swept through the street, rattling windows and making the nearby fliers stagger. Even Alexandria was knocked back by it, thrown off balance, although she might have fared better had she been expecting it.

And Leviathan himself? He stumbled. The force of my blow, added to the weight of my momentum, pushed him forward enough that he had to actually catch himself with one of his legs.

Whether it was an affectation to make himself seem more vulnerable or I really had hit him so hard, I didn't waste time or effort trying to determine. Instead, I planted my foot against his flesh, tightened my grip, and pushed hard enough to yank my ax free and throw myself back.

Just in time to avoid his tail, as it turned out, because it passed by my head and came within inches of wrapping around my neck. The spray of water that hit me in the face was more a nuisance than anything else.

I landed with a splash in ankle-deep water. For everyone else, it would have been almost halfway to their knees.

He must be using other sources than the bay.

Not the aquifer, certainly, but with the rain falling in such quantities and storm drains within reach — something he had used in Khepri's fight — it seemed it didn't matter whether or not he could pull in waves from the ocean.

I grunted and dodged a retaliatory strike of his tail, ducking under it.

Either way, it was only a matter of patience and time before he had enough water to drown us.

"Alexandria!" I shouted. "Plan B! We need to get him back to the Boat Graveyard!"

It was going to be harder than I'd thought, when Plan B had first been drawn up. Even with Khepri's memories, I'd underestimated exactly how hard it would be to move something Leviathan's size, shape, and strength, not simply because he could resist, but because he was top-heavy. Not just in terms of weight — nine tons really wasn't anything special to Herakles, who had once held up the entire sky — but in terms of how that weight was distributed, the way it affected Leviathan's balance. In many ways, moving even Leviathan would have been easy if his center of gravity had been near to the ground.

Alexandria gave no indication she'd heard me, although I was certain she must have. She zipped around to Leviathan's front, a sizzling beam of pale blue light shooting over her head to strike Leviathan's face, and when he flinched, acting as though Legend's laser had hurt, she shot forward and grappled his neck.

I saw an opening and I took it, rocketing forward and leaping up to bury my ax back into his shoulder, right where the socket joint would be on a person. Then, I planted one foot on his back, using my ax for leverage, and slammed my other foot on the back end of the ax head.

Leviathan reared back as though in pain, tail lashing out behind him wildly.

"Stormtiger down, CA-3."

I grimaced. Or not so wildly.

I grow weary of these pointless deceptions.

"NOW!" said Alexandria.

And two enormous forms, dressed in gleaming armor like a pair of valkyries, appeared from around a pair of buildings. Their weapons had been discarded, but Fenja and Menja, both nearly forty feet tall, closed in regardless, and each wrapped one arm around his torso while using the other hand to hold his wrists, so that he couldn't strike at them with his claws.

Then, they and Alexandria started pushing, and slowly but steadily, Leviathan started sliding backwards.

This was our chance.

I jumped from his back and put all my weight and strength into a kick that threw his tail to the ground. Immediately, a forcefield shot down from above and pinned it, as much as it was able. The instant I landed back on the pavement, I wasted no time; I rushed forward, bending down to take hold of Leviathan's tail when I came upon it. The forefield vanished and I dug my fingers in as deeply as I could, to the crunch of his crystalline flesh yielding.

And as I watched, a series of glittering panes of light shot down in front of me, angled at about sixty degrees, forming a line forwards that looked almost like a set of stairs. Each pane was large enough to accommodate my feet without being cumbersome to step over, tall enough to give me room without getting in my way.

A grin stretched over my lips.

Narwhal.

Clever girl.

I planted my foot on the nearest one, and with all of my strength, I pulled.

Water rushed in, trying to sweep me away, but the surface of the forefields was uniform, perfectly even, and there wasn't enough force behind the water to trip me up. I ignored it and kept going, one step at a time.

Leviathan tried to pull his tail up, drag me up off the ground, but yet more forcefields, dozens and dozens more, had formed along my shoulders like glimmering scales, and they pushed me down, kept me firmly planted. They gave me the leverage to keep walking without being pulled off of my feet.

It was working.

For those few seconds, we were moving him, the four of us working together. Fenja and Menja may not have been as strong as Alexandria or I was, but they had more leverage and a more equal size, and so more mass to throw at him than we did. Between that and two superhumanly strong fighters who were powerful enough to move him by strength alone, we were managing to drag him, slowly but surely, back towards the Boat Graveyard.

And then, he did something, a strange maneuver that was difficult to describe. Water rushed in, squeezing between his skin and the twins' fingers, under their feet. At the same time, he twisted around, slipping his arms out of their grips, and leapt up and over their bodies as they stumbled and fell on the slick pavement.

I, still clinging to his tail, was pulled along for the ride, felt the strange sinking feeling in my stomach as I was swung around, and as he performed a midair flip that looked utterly ridiculous on something so huge and misshapen, Alexandria's own grip faltered and she went flying off as he neck and head were suddenly no longer there for her to push.

And as he came back down, he used me like a hammer to swat her into the ground.

I grunted and tried to hold on, fingers wrapped tightly around his tail, but his echo came down next and more water pushed its way between my skin and his scales. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed and ease, it slipped out of my grasp, and I was left holding nothing.

I rolled to my feet, taking a short second to glance back at Alexandria — but that was a mistake. Wind whistled, Herakles' instincts blared like a siren in my brain, and my head snapped back around as my body started to move on its own — too late to avoid the lightning fast tail that whipped at me and snapped against my cuirass with all the force of a speeding train.

Once more, Leviathan sent me flying.

It wasn't as far as when he'd thrown me through a building, but it still must have been about fifty feet before I hit the ground with a splash. I rolled with the landing, twisting my torso, and pushed myself up to my feet with a maneuver that would have made an Olympic gymnast cry with envy.

Even as quick as it was, it still wasn't fast enough to do anything but watch as he tossed Fenja through an eight-storey building that collapsed on top of her, kicked Menja into a parking garage that fell like a Jenga tower and buried her in rubble, and in the same flurry of motion that would have been a blur to everyone else, swatted two more people with targeted geysers of water.

"Impel down, CA-3. Fenja down, CA-3. Menja down, CA-3. Quark down, CA-3."

I was running before the armband could even finish rattling off the casualties, but Alexandria got there before me, and he had her wrapped in his tail in a flash, even as his claws lashed out at the giant woman buried under concrete.

"Menja deceased, CA-3."

DAMN IT!

I roared as I charged, dashing across the street almost as fast as my legs could carry me. Ahead, Leviathan whipped out his tail and flung Alexandria at me like a bullet, but I took advantage of the water underfoot and slid under her as she passed, then stood back up and kept going.

I didn't go straight for him, not when he was looking at me and paying attention to me. No, I pushed off the ground and flung myself up and to the side, towards one of the buildings, and even as the force of my passing shattered the windows, my feet found the side and I pushed off again like a pinball, soaring past his shoulder.

And there, as though she'd realized exactly what I was doing, was one of Narwhal's forcefields.

It lit up as I hit and broke almost immediately — but almost was not the same as instantly, because there was enough time, a brief delay measured in mere fractions of a second, where it held. I kicked off its surface and slammed once more into Leviathan's back.

Right next to my ax.

With another roar, I tore it free of his shoulder in a spray of black ichor and gore, even as Leviathan reeled in his pretend agony. I didn't bother trying to stay on. No, I let myself slide down the slope of his back and took aim, now, at the base of his spine.

Let's see you fight half as well without your fucking tail!

I hefted my ax and prepared to swing.

Shooting the Hundred —

"NINE —"

With a maneuver equally as ridiculous as my own, Leviathan twisted beneath me, and his hand lashed out and slapped me down. I crashed into the pavement like a meteor, felt it crack and crumble around me, and I hadn't even had time to react and get back to my feet before his tail snaked out and wound around my ankle.

And then, because of fucking course, his tail whipped out and he flung me down the street, again.

I'm beginning to tire of this game of keep away.

This time, I flew through a restaurant, breaking tables and chairs alike as I went, and what eventually stopped me was a stove, still burning as some kind of soup boiled away. I found out first hand as it crumpled around my shoulders, spilling the soup itself into my lap. Some kind of noodle dish, it looked like. A tentative sniff revealed soy sauce.

Leviathan had flung me into a Chinese restaurant.

I grunted as I stood, letting bits of bent metal fall off, and raced back outside, where the fight still raged. Legend and the other flying artillery capes were blasting him with lasers and beams of light and force, and Narwhal was trying to hem him in while also blocking his attacks with her forcefields, but as fast as she could create them, Leviathan was destroying them. Alexandria still flitted about, but the rest of the close combat teams kept distance, as though waiting for me to come back.

I didn't rejoin it immediately, because it was now exceedingly obvious that Herakles wasn't doing it. He had raw might in spades, and against almost any other enemy, I'd bet on him any day of the week. Raw might, however, wasn't going to be enough to drag Leviathan into the trap I'd set. Leviathan was simply too slippery. Even when we had him pinned, he could find a way of slithering out and turning the tables.

Keeping Herakles out was just a waste of energy, now. As remarkably efficient as Nine Lives was, there was no point in spamming it endlessly when it couldn't hit hard enough to kill Leviathan in one blow.

Plan B for our Plan B, then. I was going to need to use someone with a more conceptual —

My armband beeped. "Urgent message incoming."

A bare moment passed, little more than a second.

"His chest!" came Tattletale's voice. "His core is in his chest! Dead center, right beneath the sternum! You want to kill him, you have to aim there!"

Leviathan suddenly stopped fighting and went still, outright ignoring the attacks that pelted his skin, and then his head swung around in what my gut said was Tattletale's direction. I knew immediately what he intended to do.

Not happening.

My legs carried me forward with superhuman speed and I raced towards Leviathan, kicking up water and leaving the echoing boom of displaced air in my wake. There was no time, now, to switch. The precious seconds needed would not be afforded to me, not as long as Tattletale, Lisa, was in danger. Even a Hotswap might risk too much without at least a moment of breathing room, to deal with the pain or at least focus past it.

More's the pity I never thought to see if it was something I could train to make easier.

A warcry, really more of a growl than a roar, rumbled out of my throat as I came upon him — but Leviathan was done playing, was done humoring us, as he had been up until now.

His tail slammed into me, harder than before, far, far harder, so hard that I actually felt it. I felt three of my ribs buckle and snap, felt the shattered fragments dig into the flesh around them, even as my torso folded over and I was thrown back — back down the street, the rain-slicked pavement, and through the pain and the dizzying spinning of the world as I tumbled, something bent and broke around me.

What eventually stopped me was a storefront. I smashed through the glass display and came to rest on the floor just behind it. For a few disoriented seconds, I blinked up at the darkened ceiling, taking in rasping breaths with a lung that I was fairly sure was filling up with blood.

But I wasn't down for long. With a long groan and a pained grunt, I pushed past the pain and climbed to my feet. A cough deep in my chest dredged up a mouthful of blood, and I spat it out onto the ground like it was nothing more than snot. It swirled in the dirty water and was washed away.

This wasn't enough to keep me down. Not by a longshot. I was fucking Herakles. A demigod, scion of Zeus, the man who could do the impossible, who had conquered the Twelve Labors, who had outwitted Titans and gods alike, who had suffered through many debilitating wounds and gotten back up for more.

This was fucking nothing.

My ribs were already healing as I charged out of the storefront the way I'd come in, snapping back into place and gluing back together in their original shapes.

Need to keep his attention on me!

The Leviathan I raced towards had stopped reacting to attacks, even the bright, powerful beams of light that Legend and Purity shot at him. His skin was glowing in several different spots from them, and black ichor coated his body nearly as thoroughly as the rain had, even as it got washed away almost as quickly as it spilled.

His own attacks had become more precise, more brutal. He was not exactly going exclusively for killshots, but he also wasn't moving slowly enough for people to dodge, anymore.

"Mama Bear down, CA-2. Woebegone deceased, CA-2."

I put on another spurt of speed, ignoring the glass that shattered around me as I broke the sound barrier for the hundredth time today. I took aim, again, for his tail, at the base of his spine, because it wouldn't neuter him completely, but without his tail, he'd be at least a little less dangerous, and as I got close enough, I leapt, preparing my Noble Phantasm.

Shooting —

"Ni —"

But Leviathan spun around as though he knew I'd been coming and had planned for it. His arm lashed out, and my forward motion jerked to a neck-snapping halt as he caught me with one hand, wrapping me in his over-long fingers, and then swung me around and down with stomach-churning speed.

He pushed me down, slamming me into the pavement with his hand, and then his foot came down a second later and hit like a sledgehammer to my gut, pushing me even deeper in until the asphalt cracked and cratered. I gasped and drew in a lungful of putrid water, stale and disgusting and sour with unnameable pollutants, momentarily stunned.

The moment his foot was gone, I shot up, scrambling out of the new pothole he'd used me to make, and hacked up the water I'd breathed in.

Leviathan had already moved on. He leapt up, scaling the skyscraper like it was a ladder, and a geyser of water followed in his wake. The capes that had been positioned there, taking potshots and waiting for an opening to be useful, scattered and tried to escape, but he was too fast, and when he reached the top, he leapt into the air and spun, lashing out with every single one of his available limbs.

"Narwhal down, CA-2. Biter down, CA-2. Stardust down, CA-2."

His echo stretched outwards, flung about by his spin, and struck several more capes, knocking them from the air or off the roof.

"The Dart down, CA-2. Crusader down, CA-2. Iron Falcon down, CA-2. Elegance down, CA-2."

I staggered to my feet, stumbled once as I spat up more of the water I'd breathed in, and shook my head to dispel the lightheadedness, my mane of wild hair whipping at my cheeks.

Gotta move, I told myself. Gotta get back in the fight.

I hefted my ax, took one step, and threw myself towards the skyscraper.

And above, Leviathan drew his geyser up, pulling in more water from his echo and the rain and any other source he could find until it resembled a waterspout more than a geyser, and he directed it off into the distance like a conductor at a concert.

"Lady Photon down, BZ-7," my armband announced.

A jolt of sudden fear, muted as it was by Herakles, zipped through my mind.

Oh no.

A sound pierced the haze of the battle, through the pounding of the rain, the buzzing of Legend's lasers, and the shouts of the other fighters. It was high pitched and faint, nearly drowned out by distance and by all of the other things that were so much closer and louder, but I caught it, if just barely, and I thought I knew what it was.

A scream.

It cut off just as suddenly as it began. No fading, no falling, no gradual decline. Just there and gone between one instant and the next.

"Tattletale deceased, BZ-7," the pleasant voice reported.

I froze and came to a sudden halt at the base of the building. My heart stopped beating entirely, and for an instant that stretched out forever, I stood there, unmoving, arms still raised to go through the motion of swinging. I almost didn't even notice the resounding crash of Leviathan landing back in the street.

"Tattletale deceased," echoed back in my head, repeating over and over.

My blood pounded loudly in my ears. My chest ached, and my lungs seized as my breaths came short and shallow. My mind had gone completely and utterly blank, as though I couldn't even comprehend what I'd just heard.

Tattletale deceased.

Something inside of me snapped.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

The echoing scream that tore out of my throat was altogether inhuman. It was bestial and monstrous, and if I had cared at that moment, I might have thought it something more befitting of Leviathan himself than me.

But I didn't care about that. There wasn't space in my head to think something so meaningless.

Because right then, the only thing I had room for was the furious heat that boiled everything else away.

My knees bowed, then snapped back again.

The ground beneath me tore and shattered.

The air cracked and howled.

The first step swallowed a dozen yards in one go, the second, two dozen.

The world around me became a blur, an unfocused blob of steel and rain and splotches of color shaped vaguely like people.

I didn't care.

They didn't matter at all.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

I was upon Leviathan seconds later, and the array of beams of light that struck him, the fliers that buzzed around his head, the black form of Alexandria as she zoomed back and forth, landing blow after powerful blow upon Leviathan's body, they were all so unimportant that I barely noticed them at all.

They didn't matter, either.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

All of Herakles strength and speed and mass were behind me as I threw myself at him, slamming into the beast's chest like a freight train. Leviathan staggered and bore me to the ground, flopping onto his back. I didn't even wait for the shudder of his fall to reach me before I lifted my hands back and started pounding.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

The air split and shattered with each punch, and I delivered into Leviathan's torso every ounce of my pain and my fury. Again, again, again. I slammed my fists into his chest. Again, again, again. I didn't wait, I didn't let up, I didn't listen as others called out for me — to stop, to keep going, I didn't know and I didn't care.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

CRACK.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

CRACK.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

CRACK.

With each blow, the crystalline skin beneath me splintered. With each blow, black ichor and shards of Leviathan's body splattered and flew. Underneath him, the street upon which we'd fallen began to sink and crater from the force of my blows, and the great beast attempted to stand, to throw me off, to escape — but I didn't let him, and everything he hit me with washed off or was ignored.

I didn't care. He could hit me with as much water as he liked. He could throw me off as many times as he liked. He could try and run as much as he liked.

I would come back. I would chase him down. I would keep pummeling him.

I would kill him.

Die. Die. Die.

With each punch, I laid this order into his body.

Die. Die. Die.

It was not a coherent thought. To begin with, no such thing existed in my world, right then. There was only me and Leviathan, and the only thing that mattered was that I crushed him, broke him, destroyed him for what he'd done.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

I'm sorry, Megara.

The doubts had held me back, before. I hadn't been sure, so I'd wanted to figure it out, first. That was why I'd asked her to give me space.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

I'm sorry, Therimachus.

How much of what I felt about Lisa was me? How much of our friendship was built upon my own feelings, my own experiences, my own wants and desires?

I'd wanted time to get all of it squared away, so I could know one way or the other.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! "

I'm sorry, Creontiades.

How much of it was built upon Khepri? How much of it came from the regrets she'd had, the things she'd felt, the things she'd experienced with her own version of Lisa?

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

I'm sorry, Ophitus.

How much of it was real, and how much of it was just the lingering influence of who I could have been?

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅! ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

I'm sorry, Deicoon.

All of that…

I'm sorry.

Every part of that…

All of you.

Every single one of those considerations…

It was my fault.

All of my doubts and fears and worries…

You died because of me.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

NONE OF THAT MATTERED!

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

SHE WAS MY FRIEND!

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

AND YOU KILLED HER, YOU SON OF A BITCH!

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅ — !"

My scream choked off.

Pain bloomed across my chest.

Blood splattered over the ground, mingling with the sea water and forming swirling patterns of pink and red.

Five searing lances stabbed through my chest and stomach, my lungs, my heart. Leviathan's claws were plunged there, tearing through my impenetrable skin with ease. Godhand had offered no more protection against him than wet tissue.

There was no nose or mouth on the beast's face. No brow. No facial muscles to contort into fury or agony. To look upon him was to see only the smooth, dispassionate face of a monster that didn't care and killed without hesitation or worry.

As the edges of my vision began to blacken and Leviathan lifted me up and off the ground, still skewered, I stared into those unblinking eyes, and my field of view shrank until those dully glowing orbs were all I could see. Perfect spheres of light that looked upon me, unfeeling and unmoved, like the gaze of pitiless god.

No more remorse…than Hera.

He'd killed me. Just as easily, just as callously as he'd killed Lisa.

You…

"Apocrypha deceased —"

My lips pulled back into a snarl.

Bastard!

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

Blood and spittle flew from my lips as life and energy returned to my limbs, and I took hold of his wrist with both of my massive, muscled hands, squeezing until even the deepest, sturdiest layers of his arm began to strain and fracture.

And then I ripped his claws from my body like it was nothing.

It wasn't. It hurt. It hurt so bad. It was agony, five blazing points of pain that seared me down to the bone. He'd caused damage to the five most important organs in my body, from my liver to my heart to my lungs, and I could feel it with perfect clarity and it hurt so bad. Ripping his claws from my body so violently had only made it worse.

But it didn't stop me. It only made me angrier. It only made me stronger.

"Apocrypha up, CA-2."

I landed on my feet with a thunderous thud, still holding tight to his wrist. In my right mind, I might have thought about leverage, about how there still wasn't a good angle or good enough footing for me to actually try something as ambitious as throwing him.

But right then, I didn't care. Leverage didn't even enter into the equation.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▅▅!"

I planted my feet, pushing them down so hard that the pavement cracked and cratered, and then I twisted, pulling all nine tons of Leviathan's bulk behind me.

It must have looked comical from the outside.

Leviathan tipped and was pulled off his feet, and I threw him over my shoulder and slammed him back into pavement with a crash and a rumble that shook the buildings around us and vibrated up my legs.

There was no reprieve given, no moment of rest or second to relax; I was on him a moment later, letting his wrist go so I could leapt onto his chest, just above where Lisa had said his core was located, and once more, I started hammering at it.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

DIE!

The words never made it out of my throat, not coherently. But then, I didn't care about being coherent, right then. I didn't care about making sense. I didn't care if anyone else understood me.

I just wanted to fucking kill this son of a bitch.

DIE!

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

My fists slammed down. Flesh splintered, cracked, broke. More and more black ichor surged from the wound, splattering over my skin and staining my clothing black.

DIE!

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

With all my strength, I punched. With all of my rage, with all of my pain and anguish, with every gut-wrenching twist of my stomach and all the molten fire surging through my veins, I punched.

DIE!

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!"

But it wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough. Why wasn't it enough? Herakles had killed so many powerful monsters, so many of which could make Leviathan seem inadequate, and they had all died just the same, they had all died under his fists, his sword, his might, like they were nothing, so why… why…

WHY WON'T YOU JUST FUCKING DIE?!

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▅▅ —!"

Something yanked me back and off my feet, wrapped around my neck. It lifted me off of Leviathan's broken, bloodied chest, where I could see the shattered fragments of what might have been ribs on a human. It lifted me, and as it did, Leviathan stood, glaring at me with his lopsided eyes.

WHAT?!

It was slim and scaly and strong, so strong that I couldn't pull it off as I scrambled for a grip on it.

His tail. He got me with his fucking tail, again.

You bastard…!

"▅▃▃▂… ▄▄▅▅▂… ▂▃▅▅▂▂▃▄▅▅…"

The tail slithered. It tightened. It squeezed down upon my neck, harder and harder and harder, until every breath was a ragged gasp, until my vision started to dim again, until…

"▄▅▅!"

The crack of my throat being crushed and the vertebrae in my spine splintering and breaking was something I heard more than felt. For a moment, my muscles locked into place and my limbs remained where they were, frozen in the motion of pulling at him, and then, like a ragdoll, my fingers slipped bonelessly from Leviathan's tail and they went limp and dangled. My head lolled to the side, and my view of the world tilted.

There was nothing, not even pain. The nerves in my spine were no longer connected to my brain. By the time any remnants of the agony could make it through the adrenaline, I'd already blacked out — the shock had killed me.

"— ypha deceased —"

"▅▂▃▄▅▃▂…"

But strength returned to me a moment later. Strength, then feeling in my limbs, then blood through my veins. The shattered bones in my spine crackled and snapped as they realigned and fused back together. My pulse thundered in my ears as more adrenaline flooded through me like liquid fire. My lungs burned as I drew in more fresh air.

Slowly, inexorably, my hands rose.

I don't care how many times you try and kill me…

"Apocrypha up, CA-2."

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄!"

I WON'T DIE UNTIL I KILL YOU, FIRST!

One reached out and took hold of Leviathan's tail, just beyond where it started to wrap around me, and I squeezed until the outer layers of flesh started to buckle and crack. With the other, I took aim.

SHOOTING THE HUNDRED HEADS

"▅▂▅▃ ▅▂▄▃▄▂!"

Once, twice, three times, I punched. Four, five, six. Nine, fifteen, twenty-seven. I didn't care about the numbers, I didn't care about keeping track, I just kept punching with all of the strength I could manage, no matter how awkward my positioning was.

Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.

Each blow hit. Each blow flung flesh and black ichor all over, soaking me. Each blow vibrated up my arm and shoulder.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄!"

CRACK

The final blow struck. It wasn't enough to sever the tail. It wasn't enough to free me. Leviathan gave no sign it bothered him, not even a flinch. Instead, he simply squeezed tighter, trying to snap my neck again.

Dark, vindictive pleasure curled in my gut when it failed.

That won't work on me twice!

With my punching hand, I took hold of his tail — just below where I had been punching him. Then, with one hand above the wound and another below, with muscles bulging, chest heaving, lips curled into a snarl, I pulled.

It took longer than I thought it would, and every second, it just made the furious blaze in my gut burn hotter.

But even though it took several seconds — several long seconds where Leviathan glowered at me, ignoring the lasers being fired into his body, and tried futilely to crush my throat again — eventually, inevitably, even the impossibly strong material that made up his body gave with a snap.

This time, Leviathan reeled backwards as I fell back to the ground. The tail that had been wound so tightly around my neck loosened and was pulled free, discarded like so much refuse.

I wasn't done.

"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄!"

My fists clenched as I braced myself. I planted my feet and tensed the muscles in my legs, because this wasn't going to stop me. One death, two, three, what did it matter? He could keep killing me as much as he liked, as long as I killed him before he stole my last life.

For Lisa. For the friend he stole from me.

I kicked off the ground, charging forwards.

And that was when Alexandria swooped down and slammed — not into Leviathan, but into me.

— o.0.O.O.0.o —

One more chapter of action and fighting to go.

This thing was actually only about 800 words shy of being split in half. If it had reached 7k, I was going to cut it right around the "Something snapped" part.

P a treon . com (slash) James_D_Fawkes

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Or if you want to commission something from me, check out my Deviant Art page to see my rates.

EDIT: 819 SQ. Five tickets. No sign of a SSR Servant, no Brynhild. I'm having flashbacks to the fiasco with Enkidu last December. If Delight Works was trying to tell me that going free-to-play was the right decision, then I don't think they could have picked a clearer way of sending the message. Rejoice, DW, your wish is granted.