Our biggest problem started before we could even leave the safe house. It was just mom and I left, the thugs gone and the dead bodies turned into black ashy outlines on the floor. My mind was still stuck on the smells, the sight, the feeling of the tar that stuck to my hand and hardened into a crust the second the fetus withered and died. I’ve done a lot of shit in my life, but that’s just about the most disgusting one yet. I helped mom pack several bags, each filled with files, documents, and vials of things that I wasn’t planning on asking what was inside any one of them.

  “How did you know?” I asked her. I was on the floor, kneeling beside a bag, trying to get it to close. Mom stopped moving behind me. I didn’t turn around to speak to her. “How did you know there were those things here?”

  “I didn’t,” she said simply, followed by the sound of a closing zipper. “It’s not the first time I’ve had to make sure they weren’t around. I’ve done it at home when Blight started being a problem with the Olympians, and I knew to make sure the people around me were actually living, breathing human beings ever since one of them tried to kill you when you were younger. Found an old lady willing to babysit you when I had to leave for work, but… I don’t know, call it maternal instinct, for however much of that I’ve got, but something didn’t sit right with me that day. The government knows about Blight. They also know he’s been AWOL for the better half of a decade. There hasn’t been a workplace of mine that hasn’t been swept through, and I doubt there are many government offices that don’t occasionally do the same.” Mom stood up, slinging a bag over her shoulder. “Need any help with the zipper?”

  I forced it shut and stood, the bag in my hand, my back still facing her. Then why didn’t you just help me out all the times I actually needed it? I could’ve avoided so much of this…this…bullshit if she’d just sat me down one day and explained a whole lot of it to me in one go. But I guess I wasn’t ready at that time. Knowing myself, knowing the person I was just a few months ago when I was still in high school, it would’ve been violent, probably even just a little bit stupid. I sighed under my breath and slung the duffel bag across my back, making sure the strap was tight enough to not fall off mid-air. Should’ve been a better superhero from the jump, Ry. Would’ve been easier.

  “Don’t,” mom said, as she turned off a lantern and then the next, engulfing us in tight darkness. The only light came from my eyes and through the blinds, where the fiery skies turned the darkness a deep orange. She ran her thumb over my chin and smiled. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for not knowing. I can see it on your face. You’re too hard on yourself, and I’ll take responsibility for not making sure you don’t get into that mindset every time you find out something new. Once this is over, I’ll be your open book, but we have to get through tonight, Ry.”

  I slowly nodded and stepped back, getting her hand off my shoulder. “I’m focused,” I said, forcing myself to believe the words coming out of my mouth. “I’m focused, but you need to come clean with me eventually, too.”

  “I should have done that years ago, but I guess there’s always a chance to start over, if you let me.”

  The moment I was about to answer was the moment our first problem arrived just outside the safe house. I froze, a chill running down my spine and spreading through my body. A deep silence filled the room. A shadow blotched the light slipping through the blinds. I glanced at mom, then slowly got in front of her. My nose shriveled. A stench ran down my throat, smelling like meat and blood and fetid skin. It was so bad mom smelt it too, swearing quietly and putting a hand to her nose. Then the door rattled as a fist slammed against it. It broke off its hinges and hung in the doorframe just enough for the stench to gush inside. I stepped back, an arm in front of mom, my heart racing, because the last time we were in the same room with some creature prowling around, Adam had been the one to save her, not me. But that’s not gonna happen a second time. It didn’t take much for the door to collapse onto the floor, shattering and throwing shrapnel into the air. A shadow in the doorframe, lit by the sky filled with burning smoke, stood quietly in front of us, their breathing labored, their bulbous shoulders rising and falling in rhythm.

  One arm was larger than the other, its back was hunched and its legs were wide and powerful, clinging to torn trousers soiled with blood and urine and something that clung to the bottom of his large padded feet. No, not feet, I thought, walking closer. Paws. It’s a Kaiju. One that’s got half its ribs exposed through its flesh, that’s got tubes and pipes going from one web of grey organs to his hammering heartbeat lost behind a layer of hard muscle.

  I was a meter away when I stopped, and a meter was all I needed to see his split snout and fur-less head. I stared at him. He stared at me. Plumes of air escaped his jagged teeth smelling of the meat splattered on his face.

  “Mr Campbell?” I whispered. He hunched, a low growl echoing through his throat. “Who—”

  He lunged at me, clamping his jaw onto my shoulder so hard that pain shot through my system like an explosion of shrapnel. Blood gushed over his face. I screamed and smashed my fist into the side of his snout, breaking bone just enough to make him let go. Just enough to make him stumble backward. I stumbled and grabbed my shoulder. Puncture wounds in my flesh, deep enough to expose muscle. I cursed and bit down on my tongue. What the fuck? The holes slowly closed, but it stung, and it reeked, and my skin bubbled and hissed and sputtered like all there was on my shoulder was puss. Mr Campbell’s jaw set back into place with a loud snap. My blood fell from his maw, splattering onto the floor at his grotesque paws. He slowly straightened, towering over me.

  “The tomb,” I said over my shoulder. Mom unfroze and blinked. “How far away is it?”

  “Across the city,” she said after a pause. “Rylee, your shoulder—what the fuck is this thing?”

  “Okay,” I said. Deep breath. Agony burning through my arm. Skin still bubbling and hissing and growing large puss-filled welts that slowed down the healing. I gritted my teeth. Mom moved. Mr Campbell’s eyes tracked her, saliva pouring from his teeth and foaming at the edges of his lips. He’s after mom, not just me. Both? No. Whoever sent this thing would’ve sent more. It’s one of us—I’ve just got to find out who. “I’ll get you there, but you need to tell me why it’s so important, and I also need you to keep your head down and eyes shut for this, Ronnie.”

  “Ry—”

  “Fuck!” I snapped. “Start fucking runni—”

  He lunged at me. I threw myself to the side, rolling over my shoulder and into a crouch. He kept charging toward mom, throwing the table hard against the wall and making it explode in a cloud of insulation and wood. She stumbled backward, her bruised legs not yet quick enough, her injured body too slow to get to the ground. I slammed into his back, throwing us both through the wall and into the opposite room, lost in a heavy cloud of choking dust and slashing claws and a jaw that snapped onto my left forearm and didn’t want to let go, no matter how many times I slammed my knuckles into his eye socket, again and again until blood started spitting back onto my face—my blood, not his. I stopped, my fingers twisted, pain roaring through my body. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?! He jerked his head hard to the right, smashing me through a wall and swinging me around and back through the floor, sending us both plummeting into the dingy basement below. I groaned, my fingers trying to click back into place, but it was his saliva, the foam that covered my skin that made it ache and bubble and burn.

  He loomed over me, a shadow darker than the ones surrounding us. I spat blood out of my mouth, saw mom above him, staring at me with wide eyes and a parted mouth, panic on her face and helplessness carving lines across her brow, and then she vanished, the sound of her feet echoing through my mind. Good. I threw myself at his thick legs, swung myself around at the last second and drove my heel into his knee, snapping it backward and dropping him. He fell. I grabbed the back of his throat with the one hand that wasn’t too fucked, then exploded upward.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Through the first floor and through the second, out through the ceiling and into the sky—and then we met the pavement so hard a shockwave collapsed a tiny convenience store closest to us. Dust erupted into the air. Slabs of asphalt stuck out of the ground. I shook my head. My ears rang. Heartbeat punching against my ribs in painful stabs. A deep growl, an agonized bellow that sounded human, trapped, raging and brutal, then he exploded off the ground underneath me, slamming his body against mine and tearing us down the street in a torrent of rubble.

  I fought and struggled to get out from underneath him. His giant paws kept my shoulders pinned. Then he leered forward, jowls pulled back, exposing his teeth and the glint of blood that shone in the smoky firelight around us. Saliva dripped down out of his mouth and covered the symbol on my chest. I bit down on my teeth, trying and failing to push his body off me. So I did the next best thing—I forced my boots underneath his belly, his organs and his exposed ribcage, and used my flight to blast a hole through his innards, punching myself harder into the ground, dazing me like someone’s just knocked the senses clean out of my skull. Gore, like a geyser, shot out of his back and showered the street. He slumped forward and engulfed me. It felt like tons pressing against my chest. I could barely breathe until I struggled and forced his body off of me. I gasped for air and rolled onto my hands and knees, sucking in smoky oxygen and coughing and spitting until my lungs didn’t feel like they were on fire.

  My left arm buckled, collapsing me onto the ground. I groaned in pain and fought to get up. The wounds were still healing, but my arm was numb, completely out. The costume was torn, shredded, but like a skin of its own, it slowly grew over my shoulder and covered my forearm, fixing itself. I shut my eyes and thanked Bianca, mine or an alternate future version, it didn’t matter. The agony almost stopped immediately, feeling like the suit was pumping my body full of pain killers. Either that, or I was so out of it that I couldn’t tell what ached anymore, too.

  It didn’t matter. I got up, adjusted the bag over my back, and looked down at the body.

  His organs were slowly rebuilding, squelching back into place. I stepped back, then…

  No.

  I kicked his head so hard it crushed his snout back into the depths of his skull, forcing his brain out through his eye sockets in a short squirt. I panted, thanked my old high school coach, and was about to fly off when his hand jerked out and grabbed my ankle. I stared down, then at his mangled face, and the body slowly rising.

  My skin prickled for a split second.

  And then a body landed on Mr Campbell so hard, so fast, so suddenly, he collapsed the street and nearly sent me into the blocked sewer system below. I hovered above the hole in the ground, staring at the figure standing ankle-deep inside of a Kaiju corpse. Adam looked up at me, white hair covered in filth, t-shirt covered in gore. Fuck me, I thought, as he slowly hovered onto the street beside me. He looked down into the hole, then looked at me.

  “Need I even ask what the fuck that thing is?”

  “Why’re you here?” I said. “I thought your bosses wouldn’t want you anywhere close to this nightmare.”

  “Conflict of interests,” he muttered coldly, rolling up his shirt sleeves. “A superhero saves the city, even if we were given direct orders to stay out of the conflict for another few hours. Red tape. Legal frameworks. All they’re doing right now is watching everything unfold.” He ran a hand through his hair, his jaw hard in the dim light. “And besides, I heard Veronica scream from across the city, and I thought to make sure she wasn’t dying because of you.” I glared at him, waiting for the ‘again’ to come out of his mouth. All he did was fold his arms. “What’s happening?”

  “What does it look like?” I asked. “My city is burning and there’s a bunch of shit that’s not going right. If you want to help, go and make sure buildings stop burning and people don’t die ‘cause of Supers in the street.”

  “I’d listen to you if I trusted you’d protect Veronica,” he said. “Which I don’t, in case you weren’t aware. I’ll make sure she gets to safety, whilst you go and do everything you’re saying needs to happen. It’s your half of the city, isn’t it? The half that I protect is doing just fine, so pick up the slack for once and do your bit, Olympia.”

  How about you go to hell instead, clone? How about I put my fist through your face?

  “Rylee!” I spun around just in time for mom to wrap her arms around me in a hug so tight I briefly lost the ability to breathe. She put me at arm’s length, wincing when she tried to move her arm in the sling. She looked me over, at the blood dashed across my face and my quaking hand—it felt broken, but I balled it into a tight fist, letting the pain fade into my blood. “Are you Ok? And what happened to your shoulder? It looked like a reaction to his saliva, or maybe his blood. Whatever it was, we need to make sure your body is fine.” Then she looked at Adam, her mouth slowly closing and her posture suddenly straightening. She looked back at me. “We need to leave. Now.”

  I grabbed her shoulder before she could pull me along. “What’s in the tomb, before we get there and I’ve got to fight something or kill someone that’s gonna try their damndest to rip my heart clean out of my chest, V.”

  “Everything, Rylee,” mom said. “Everything Lucian needs to do what I think he might be doing. I’m not sure if he’s breached it yet, and there’s no way I can tell from here. What we’re going there for is to make sure it’s still safe—everything from his costumes, his capes, his technology and even his body are down there right now.”

  “What the hell would Lucian want with a corpse? I understand the tech, but—”

  “Can somebody fill me in on the conversation?” Adam asked. “I’d appreciate it.”

  “It’s a family thing, you wouldn’t get it.”

  Mom spoke before he could. “All you need to know is that the most important thing in this city is a dead body and a book that should have never left the House of One. Once we’ve secured them, it’ll all be simple.”

  “Simple?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Your objectives shift from that to making sure Lucian’s face never appears again. I have my personal beliefs about superheroes, and it’s hard to shake off years of hatred, but I trust you, and I know damn well just how strong you are. Your father never beat him. Not once. But tonight, you’re going to make sure you do.”

  “I’m sorry,” Adam said. “Lucifer? As in—”

  “Get with the fucking program,” I said hotly. I looked at mom. “Alright, first we get there, then we—”

  The beast inside the hole made sure I didn’t finish my sentence. He erupted from the sewers, guts still hanging loosely outside of his body when he slammed into the asphalt opposite us. He growled and tore the organs that were now grey and flaccid and weak, then he brought them to his mouth and ripped them apart, chewing and swallowing until nothing was left. Mr Campbell kept low, crouching, powerful shoulder muscles quivering. He stared at us and we stared at him. Adam stepped forward. I took the bag off my back and forced it against his chest.

  Then, like a bullet, I was racing toward the Kaiju—he shot toward me just as fast, bounding across the asphalt with powerful lunges that split the tarmac. He leaped into the air. I arced upward, then dipped past his body the second he was close enough to rake his claws through the air. I grabbed his shoulders from the back, spun around, then launched him high, high into the sky. I exploded upward and met his face with my fist. He grabbed my wrist and attacked, wild and violent and flinging his putrid saliva all over my face. He tore through my costume. Ripped it apart faster than it could repair itself. We tumbled through the sky, punching and biting and spilling blood that trailed us through the air. I slammed both my heels into his face the moment we were about to hit the ground, making sure he met it skull-first, just before I jackhammered him back into the sewers. We landed in a river of sludge and melted snow, of trash and decay that sent my lungs into shock the moment I rose from the waters.

  I spat, head ringing. I’m done fucking around with you, mutt. I just hoped Adam would do the smart thing for once and do as he was told, even though, yeah, it bit me where it hurt, knowing he was playing protector again.

  I’d rather Rhea come and save my mom this time around. At least that way she can meet my cousin.

  As for Mr Campbell, like a beast out of hell, he rose from the river of waste to his full height, almost like… Was he bigger? I backed up, boots skimming the piles of trash and waste, watching as his flesh strained and broke and healed as his muscles swelled and his bones thickened. The sounds alone nearly made me puke, but it was his hands, how the bones inside them grew over his fingers like deathly sharp white claws that went all the way to his elbows, ending in a series of jagged spikes. I slowly shook my head, staring as he roared—roared so loudly I winced and cupped my ears and felt the dust of concrete coming loose from the bricks above us. Then he stared death at me.

  “I don’t know what happened to you,” I said quietly, the sounds of gunfire and yelling and chaos from Lower Olympus echoing through the sewer, “but I’m also not willing to find out right now. Either you quit, or I kill you, or you do the smart thing and you play dead like a good boy so Ava can ask you a couple of questions.”

  I didn’t know if he understood a single word that came out of my mouth. Not a single flicker of recognition in those eyes, not a single moment when he twitched at the sound of my voice. Scars littered the flesh on his head, and the sewer grates and manhole covers above us lit him in sporadic red shadows. Someone had gotten to his brain, his mind, and turned him into this thing. Maybe right after Ava’s group fell apart. Maybe it had already begun a long time before any of the fuck ups started. I guess it didn’t matter. Not when I had a Supervillain to kill.

  But there was a beast standing in my way, one that I was gonna have to put down permanently.

  I cracked my knuckles, the sound like bones breaking in the dark. “I hate having to kill Kaiju,” I said. He lowered and bared his teeth, muzzle pulling back and spit frothing wildly. “But let’s see how well they made you.”