Mastermind

by Steven Kelliher

Leviathan looked me dead in the eye. “Meteora called me to tell me it was you. I’ve never heard her so angry. I told her she was a fool. A powerful fool, but a fool nonetheless. Killed by a tier five…”

  I didn’t know if he was a terrible actor or a great one, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t intimidating. Leviathan had never been a monologuer until recent years – and sponsors pushed him in that direction. Just a short while ago, he’d likely have pushed a building down to squash me without so much as a hello. Now, he needed to work the crowd, and the viewer bots had already taken notice of him despite the battles raging all around.

  “Been at full momentum for a while now, Despot,” Atlas grunted down the comms.

  “Keep it up a little longer,” I said. I wanted to see whether any other villains would take a shot first.

  Blackstrike started to circle Leviathan, probing for a weak point. I curled my left hand into a fist and tried to will him to stop lest he dash the plan. Castle moved up on my left side. He was still covered in dust, but he seemed largely unhurt, and he still had a gun. He had also picked up something else in the rubble – one of Luther’s Shock Spears – and handed it over to me.

  Leviathan frowned as he looked me over. “You a tinkerer?” he asked. He nodded at the spear I carried. Blue sparks leapt from the tip and I only realized then that I was pressing the button on the shaft. I smiled and slammed the butt of the spear into the cracked tile I stood on. The end flashed and Leviathan tensed, then relaxed as he contemplated the feeble, harmless – to him, at least – ball of electricity that now hung above the tip.

  “No,” he said. “You don’t look like a tinkerer.”

  “Not sure if I should be pleased or insulted,” I said.

  “A planner, then,” Leviathan said. He’d have spoken even if I still was. It didn’t occur to him to wait his turn. It didn’t occur to him to listen. “Yes.” He nodded to himself, looked past and through me, and appraised the damage done to his tower. It already seemed like he had gotten over the untimely death of his second-in command.

  His frown deepened a little, and he turned it on the heroes and villains battling in the square, taking in the whole situation just like he had in the old crisis event footage I’d seen. His glacial blue gaze was piercing, even haunting.

  I clenched my fist tighter around the Shock Spear. Our one advantage was we were safe from permadeath. Leviathan wouldn’t kill in an intentional, obvious manner, not in front of so many witnesses, because that would mean tiering down. And Leviathan wasn’t in the business of losing power. Still, he would be able to knock players out quickly. Many with one punch.

  As he took in the battle, I did a scan of my own. Sadly, no villains were bold enough yet to attack Leviathan head-on, but I saw some clustering together. I saw weapons pointed toward the center of the square. They were like hyenas on the edge of a lion’s kill, waiting for their opportunity.

  It seemed my forum posts hadn’t gone completely unnoticed, after all. Much good it had done me so far.

  “Well, then,” I said, “if you’re quite done gawking at the gawkers, I do believe we have a death match to begin.”

  Leviathan cracked his first smile. It made me want to crack him in the teeth.

  A dark green grenade landed at Leviathan’s feet with little fanfare. It had everyone in the square blinking, including the Titan-level hero, who only frowned as it exploded. We shielded ourselves from the bits of stone that flew out in all directions, and I cast about for the source of the explosive.

  Dozens of familiar faces rushed in from the south, all of them carrying guns, grenades and all sorts of toys Madam Post had secreted away. Some wore body armor they must have stolen off dead cops, while others wore the same overalls they sported at the docks. Their faces were as greasy as their hair, and I could almost smell the stink of them from here.

  Most attacked the nearest heroes with abandon, while a few arrayed themselves around me. Leviathan watched dispassionately.

  “Post sent us,” one said.

  I smiled.

  “Men!” I shouted, looking down the line of would-be soldiers on either side of me, but letting my eyes drift over some of the heroes and villains on the edges. Those who weren’t locked in their own private wars. “This man…” I jabbed the tip of the spear toward Leviathan, “considers himself chosen. He considers himself a god. But he was not chosen. Not by the people of Titan City. Not by me, and not by you. And he is not a god.”

  I turned to look at Leviathan. He was smiling his best Hollywood smile, but his eyes were dead. He blinked, and it was a long, slow blink. I had seen him do it when he Shifted in the footage, and knew he was doing so now.

  Some of the men and women from the docks exchanged nervous glances. I had to give them one last nudge.

  “Do you want to die at the hands of a god today? Or kill one?”

  White icons began to sprout like weeds above the dockworkers’ heads.

  Alert: Madam Post’s Thugs have been Influenced.

  Sphere Update: 20/20 Slots Filled.

  While I couldn’t Influence every NPC Post had sent, it seemed that influencing friends and allies within the group had an effect on the others. They fought the heroes harder, and more turned their ire toward Leviathan in the center of the square.

  I stepped forward, holding my blue-tipped spear aloft, and Castle came up beside me, pulling the lever back on his own death machine with an audible click.

  “With me!”

  They unleashed a hail of gunfire into the smoking pit where Leviathan stood, his form fully visible now that the smoke from the grenade was clearing.

  Encounter Begins

  Despot vs. Leviathan

  The momentum of the passing bullets scattered the wind, and Leviathan simply stood and absorbed the projectiles, which sparked and flattened on contact with his hide.

  “That’s just going to tickle him,” I said. “Blackstrike, hang back until I call you. Atlas and Starshot, get as close as you can. I need to make him Shift points into mind first.”

  I took a few unconscious steps back. Castle shadowed me as I held up my other hand and closed it into a fist.

  “Cease fire and spread out! Buildings, rooftops, alleys. Keep the cops off us. Keep the heroes away.”

  My minions scattered as ordered, and Leviathan emerged from the cloud of bullets looking perfectly bored. I charged the tip of my spear and launched the electric sphere towards him. Just before the electricity struck, Leviathan darted toward me in a blue, white and yellow blur.

  Armor to stop the bullets. Agility to retaliate.

  Leviathan was undeterred and undamaged. Yet had he bothered to buff his other stats as well? He didn’t attempt to dodge my next attack as I took aim. He likely thought he could absorb the blow. He probably thought it was another mere bullet. I pulled the trigger on the stasis gun and a new blue orb raced to meet the oncoming titan.

  I only realized I had shut my eyes when I opened them. I nearly fell back in shock as the image revealed itself. Leviathan had one blue boot stuck into the stone we both stood on. His mouth was open in a lion’s roar, and his right fist was raised like a great blue judge’s gavel. Another millisecond and it would have crushed my skull.

  Stasis effect successful!

  Leviathan stunned for 30 seconds. Immune to all damage for duration. Any attack will break the stasis effect.

  As it stood, Leviathan’s entire form vibrated. He squeezed his eyes shut again and then opened them, and I saw his muscles bulging hard enough to cause tears in the skintight material.

  “Not going to work, bud,” I said. “Stasis doesn’t respond to brawn. Only—” I tapped the side of my head, and Leviathan’s pupils dilated. When he squeezed his eyes shut again, I knew he was Shifting points over to mind.

  It was a small victory. Very small, but my first assumption about Leviathan’s strategy had been proven correct. He was loaded up purely on the physical stats. Well, we’d just given him something to think about.
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  As the milky, vaporous shield that contained him started to pulse and rip, I started running, Castle at my heels, trying to put as much distance between myself and Levi as I could before he burst out of the field.

  I did some further quick calculations to guess at his new stat distribution.

  To break the stasis gun effect without allowing the time to expire would require a boost to mind. He’d likely throw in more than he needed just to be safe, around sixty. Best-case scenario, he’d take the surplus entirely from armor, bringing him down to about seventy. Worst case, he’d take twenty apiece from brawn, agility and armor, and assuming they were at roughly 130 each when the fight began, they’d all still be around 110.

  If the worst was true, his armor wasn’t low enough yet. Not nearly low enough to risk the kill shot. And I wasn’t about to gamble our one hit on a best-case scenario.

  Time to force another Shift.

  “Big guy, you’re up!” I said into my transmitter. “Starshot, get somewhere safe and charge up.”

  I dove for cover behind a slab of the fallen tower but I caught Starshot shooting overhead to land on the rooftop we had been on before our assault. She perched there to watch from the edge of the melee, her hands glowing brightly as she soaked up the rays of the sun and started charging her beam.

  I heard Atlas’s thundering steps before I heard the shrieking pop of the stasis field shattering.

  Stasis field shattered

  Leviathan has broken free

  I pivoted, peering from behind my cover to find Leviathan’s eyes fixated upon me as though I were the only player in the world. I smirked, tilting my head toward Atlas’s incoming charge. Ol’ Levi only then noticed the big hulk closing in on him, and turned to meet the new threat.

  Atlas, charging at full momentum, got the jump on him. He snatched Leviathan by both wrists and bowled him over like a linebacker. Leviathan managed to twist in Atlas’s gargantuan grip and set his feet. Atlas’s success surprised me. The fact that he had forced Leviathan to move back so much indicated many more points had been Shifted into mind than I thought.

  I watched Leviathan grit his teeth and furrow his brow, working through another Shift to better counter Atlas’s out-of-proportion brawn. Dust and ash-covered masonry were chewed up under the grappling pair’s path, and though Leviathan managed to resist Atlas enough to slow him, he still wound up with his back slamming into a two-story-tall piece of the fallen tower’s foundation. Atlas pinned Leviathan’s arms back with his own and brought his forehead screaming in without hesitation, spearing the crown of his goliath dome into Leviathan’s perfect face.

  Blood shot out of his nose, the blow hard enough to damage him now that he was caught transitioning points from armor to brawn. Another headbutt, and Leviathan’s skull smashed into the gray stone hard enough to send a crack up to the top.

  Green health markers lit up above Leviathan’s head, and I knew I couldn’t be the only one in the square shocked to see it.

  Leviathan: 99% HP… 98% HP

  It wasn’t much, but it showed that some damage was getting through, and that Leviathan was going to have some decisions to make, and quickly.

  Finally, Blue Eyes made his move. When Atlas reared back for another big blow, Leviathan set his feet. Atlas swung one fist and Leviathan caught it. He swung the other fist and Leviathan caught that too.

  The muscles of Atlas’s huge back bunched and shifted like snakes under his skin, straining against the bonds of the leather straps that held his armor in place. He leaned forward onto the balls of his feet, attempting to smother Leviathan with his bulk and leverage, but it didn’t matter. The Shift was on in full, and now that Leviathan need not concern himself with an endless rain of armored fists, he was stacking his favorite attribute.

  The two titans – one as strong as he was large, the other far stronger than he looked – strained against one another. For the moment, they seemed locked together.

  Notifications began lighting my UI as my NPC soldiers lost consciousness at the hands of heroes or lost their lives in villain crossfire. I Influenced some passing thugs to fill the void, but things were so chaotic I gave up handing out direct orders. My attention had to be solely on the Leviathan fight. Castle was glued to my hip, defending me from the odd noble copper who tried to put me in cuffs.

  Atlas roared, and I brought myself fully back to the battle at hand. Leviathan had planted the soles of his boots against the cracked foundation of Gallant Tower, keeping his hands interlocked with Atlas’s the whole time. He bent his knees, pulling Atlas in closer, and then launched forward, bowling the big man over.

  The two went down in a tangle, and Leviathan came up on top of Atlas. He Shifted again, his bulging muscles shrinking just a bit, and snuck a lightning-fast strike through Atlas’s fumbling guard. A red spray spouted from Atlas’s head.

  Atlas had had the upper hand, but only briefly. Leviathan was now at well over 100 in brawn, and since he had needed to use his mind stat against my tech, he likely still had that topped up to prevent another stasis blast. That meant sixty in mind, maybe 140 in brawn to best Atlas so handily. That left just over 200 for agility and armor. He wasn’t moving any slower, so his agility should still be in the 110 range, leaving ninety points in armor at worst. A little closer to the kill shot, but not by much.

  What I needed was to force Levi into a huge agility spike.

  “Blackstrike? We need you on him now.”

  “Little busy,” Blackstrike scoffed. “Some heroes are on me, but I’m handling it.” I heard a sickening crunch over his comms before it sparked off.

  Leviathan peeled Atlas’s meaty hand away from his throat and landed another hard blow, this one to the chest. It was just as well Atlas’s superpower kept his stats higher as he fought, otherwise I think that blow would have snuffed him out. I heard metal crack under the force and saw Atlas’s determined fighting turn into more of a panicked thrashing. Another blow sent Atlas down, and a kick sent him sliding to the left, where he skidded past a group of watching heroes and fell off the platform entirely.

  And then a purple energy beam slammed into Leviathan, smashing him against the foundation.

  That one seemed to hurt.

  Leviathan: 96% HP

  My heart leapt. Another player had decided to help.

  Was that really all it took? Just one sign that he could take damage and the wolves would spring?

  A strange, mech-riding monstrosity had fired that purple beam. A villain by the name of Kancer. The pilot was a small man in makeshift armor that looked like something out of a junkyard, but the crab-like mech beneath him was impressive. It jutted one pincer forward, opened the claws and let another beam out.

  Leviathan dodged this one by shooting up into the air in what looked to be more of a leap than true flight. He came down atop the mech, and rather than punching, began ripping away, tearing it apart limb from limb as the pilot covered his face with his hands.

  Two more players charged in from the north side of the square. One looked like a werewolf wearing commando armor with bullet chains for shoulder straps, while the other was a woman with gray skin and black eyes. She had a cloak over her head, and as we watched, she disappeared. I looked up and saw her hovering above Leviathan as the hero ripped into the innards of Kancer’s mech like a wolverine. She conjured an obsidian spear in her hand, took aim and let fly.

  The shaft hurtled down toward Leviathan, but he saw it at the last second, squeezed his eyes shut tight again and then dodged far more quickly than he could have just moments before.

  He was Shifting into agility, now. Not many places to draw from. He must be leaking from armor, and if he wanted to keep his guard up against my tech and Atlas’s fists – not to mention the other physical forces that were coming against him now – he still needed both mind and brawn.

  What I really needed was the confirmation he was at 150 agility by defeating Blackstrike’s Anticipation.

  Leviathan shot up toward the
spear-wielding villain in the sky, but she dissolved into smoke once more. It seemed her range was limited, as she appeared directly below him, wide-eyed. When Leviathan’s tracking eyes found her, the wolfman howled. He was carrying two guns that looked more like turrets, the kinds with spinning barrels. He snarled and took aim at Leviathan.

  Before the barrels could start spitting, a green blur shot across the square and a sharp crack resounded. The wolf man went flying, and a speedster with green armor and yellow highlights appeared where he had been, fist extended and crackling energy dissipating around him.

  “Back!” Leviathan roared at him. I vaguely recognized him as Jolt, one of the Gallant Tower crew, and a tier-three speedster. “No interference.” Leviathan swept his gaze across the embattled square. Even the NPC police officers that had been exchanging fire with Madam Post’s men – with my men – ceased their fire.

  Jolt frowned but stepped aside, and Leviathan descended with speed. The woman in the black cloak managed to dodge the brunt of the blow, but after Leviathan landed, he punched her in the stomach, and she collapsed, her HP flashing all the way to red. She started crawling toward the back stairs as Leviathan watched her dispassionately.

  Kancer had barely managed to drag his ruined shell of a mech to the edge of the square, and now Leviathan stalked him like a hungry tiger.

  “Blackstrike,” I hissed down the comms. “Where are you?” I peered around from my cover but couldn’t see him in the battle.

  “Down, sir,” Castle warned, pushing me back down as a jet of black energy surged over head. This one really was worth his four slots.

  “Should I come down?” Starshot asked.

  “No. Hold your position,” I said. “Can’t afford you getting bogged down in the fighting. Can you see Blackstrike from up there—”

  “Put a sock in it, I’m coming,” Blackstrike called, the volume of it giving me a headache. I risked looking back to the fight and saw him rejoining the main fray, charging forward, his white gi pants streaked with black ash to approximate his former villainous look.