SSV3 Chapter 31 (Patreon)

I floated up invisibly behind Melody as she walked through a park. “We are almost in position. Mona says that they cleared out this place, and nearly everyone is a plant.” I prevented our conversation from spreading to anyone but the two of us.

She snorted. “I’m not some damsel, and this isn’t a repeat of Libertech. They are going to find out very quickly just how powerful I’ve become.” Melody walked with the slightest extra bounce to her step. I smiled; her confidence was infectious.

I moved closer and rubbed her shoulders. “I never said you even needed my help here. I’m mostly just damage control, and I need to go up in flames with you to put on a good show.”

“Damn right. Going to show these assholes.” Melody grumbled, her skin turning just slightly darker purple where she blushed.

“Darkstar!” Pix’s compact form bounded off a park bench. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Pix?” Melody stopped short. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Me? What about you? You’re one of the city’s biggest villains and here you are just strolling through the park. I would have thought you would have left for New Haven already. But here you are, so I came to talk.” Pix put her hands on her hips, emitting a dangerous aura despite being so small.

Melody shook her head. “We were going to leave today, but we caught wind of a problem brewing and came here to settle it.” Melody couldn’t help but glance around the park. The two were starting to garner attention.

Pix followed her line of sight. “Wait a second. What’s going on?”

“We are walking into a trap.” My voice entered Pix’s ear as she jumped. “The military wants to strike Melody and I.”

“Oh, shit.” The diminutive woman spat. “How do you know this?”

I had to think quickly on my feet. “I have a plant in the BSH. Demoness works for me.”

The small super’s eyes went impossibly wide. “Damn. Either way, you should just get out of here. I sent word to Daeva that you accepted her invitation, and I must say she’s never been so… giddy about a recruit before.”

“Daeva is in love with my man.” Melody grumbled.

Pix shrugged, seeming to give zero shits. “Not my place. Daeva has done a lot for New Haven and mutas in general. But she’s pretty intense. You should hold on to your man. Last I heard, she was hunting for a new power before I left.”

“New power?” I frowned.

She held up her hands. “Whoops. Just rumors around New Haven. You’ll find that Daeva is quite the celebrity and there’s a lot of talk. All I know is that I work for her, and she can do what she wants. But I am on the hunt for the power she wants. I love a good reward.”

“What sort of power?” I asked.

But before Pix could answer, the crack of a rifle split the air.

The noise was followed by the sound of a bubble popping as Pix disappeared, and I slammed kinetic walls down around Melody and I.

Turns out it wasn’t necessary as Melody threw up a ripple of gravity and threw the bullet off course before her right hand opened up and sucked in a park bench, her eyes locked on a building.

Melody’s left hand came up and a white beam hit the same window that a muzzle flash had come from.

More shots filled the air, and the ground shook as it cracked. Melody was throwing powerful gravity wells every which direction, making it almost impossible for anyone to take a shot at her.

“Stupid fucking snipers.” She growled before throwing herself into the air and opening her right palm again, sucking up loose soil and shrubs she had uprooted with her gravity wells.

Melody spun around, moving like she was in a dance. It was incredible to watch.

She was firing off white hot beams at any of the surrounding buildings she thought a sniper might be using.

The picnickers and people playing in the park went from a casual stroll to a militant stance, pulling weapons from picnic baskets and powers glowing in hands before they opened fire on Melody.

Melody’s right hand was open and drawing in everything that flew at her. It made for a fantastic shield. She was sucking in fire, bullets, and everything they threw at her.

I boosted her power from my position. All the hits getting anywhere close to her were wrapping around her body and sucked into her hand.

“You’re amazing.” I said, hovering quietly nearby.

“See, I can handle this.” Despite the confident reply, I could tell she was preening a little at my compliment. There was a light in her eyes; she was proud of herself.

Then she moved her hand, ripping the fence around a tennis court up and into her hand.

Having more than enough material, her left hand came into play and she raked a white beam across a section of the military ambush.

The beam was hot enough that the ground exploded on impact and anything flammable went up in smoke on contact.

“Heads up.” I cautioned, hearing something break the sound barrier.

A wing of fighter jets soared overhead. I didn’t even know the military could use them inside the city. They were supposed to just be for monsters outside the board of the city. But apparently the rules had changed now that they wanted to take out Melody to get to Void.

“Take this to the sky. It’s about time we move away from the city.”

Pix returned, popping into reality not far from Melody. “Take me with you.”

I glared at her, but I picked her up in my kinetic force and stuffed her in the invisible bubble with me. “Don’t cause any issues.”

“Pinky promise. I’m working for Daeva, and she wants you badly. She’d have my hide if something happened to you.”

I had a slight frown. I wasn’t sure I loved her reasoning, but it worked for the moment.

And I had other concerns. The fighter jets were coming back for another pass.

This time, the rockets dislodged themselves from under their wings and whirred through the air towards Melody.

“Won’t work.” Melody giggled with glee as her right hand continued to suck everything in.

But as I watched, the military tried a new tactic.

The rockets detonated early; the explosions catching Melody and sending her tumbling through the air as her power flickered out.

I cursed, entirely ready to burn some shit down. I caught her and officially joined the fray as I left my invisibility.

Wrapped in my signature midnight, I hovered over her, inspecting the damage.

Burns covered her body and half her suit was missing. But she was still breathing and her eyes blinked a few times. She was alive, but she looked stunned.

They had gotten her good.

“Hold on Melody.” I pushed ki into her, trying to heal her wounds. With the monster fruit, ki should help her improve and heal.

“Shit. She just got rocked.” Pix commented, still invisible beside me.

My anger was reaching new levels. Pratt had really pulled out all the stops.

I lifted my hand and closed my fist.

The jets stalled midair, and I drew them closer even as I protected myself with several barriers. “Yep. And now they’re going to pay the price.”

I ripped the jets apart, turning them into nothing but expensive scrap metal as I pulled out the pilots and spoke directly into their ears. “Die.”

All of them became nothing but a red paste shower as they dripped to the ground.

I wanted vengeance.

Bullets continued to come from down below, and I waved my hand, annoyed at the constant pings.

Using my power, it was like giant invisible plows ran through the park, tearing up every inch of ground and burying those below.

My fated, you’ve decimated their forces, but they are sending in their supers. It sounds like many of them were products of experiments on supers.

I paused. I hadn’t realized there had been more experiments. Just how many freaky supers had they created?

Beatrix is scrolling through an index of all the projects they sent our mad scientists. There are hundreds of experiments.

“Time to keep moving out of the city.” I told Pix and Melody, pulling the two of them higher into the air and flying over the city.

I took it slow so that Pratt and Hendricks could act. We still needed our big finale, and Stella had yet to appear with our exit plans.

Part of me hated that I had to feign my death, but doing so would allow me the cleanest exit from the city and keep Melody, along with the rest of my women, safe.

It hurt my pride a little to ‘let’ someone else win, but I would do it for my harem. And I’d at least satisfied my anger a little by destroying the forces that came to attack me.

As we moved, dots were rising above the towering buildings of Point City. Each of the dots was another super, sometimes carrying a second with them as they got ready to engage.

Melody grunted groggily. “Miles, what’s happening?” Her skin had lost the red meaty appearance of severe burns, and her normal purple skin was filling in before my eyes.

“Pratt’s little paper planes are gone. I might have gotten a little upset. They’ve now called in the supers.”

Her eyes flickered to the horizon where supers were gathering. It seemed like they were forming a half circle around us, meaning to push us out of the city.

And then we’d be pushed into all the recruits for the military’s expansion into the wilds that he’d called back.

I raised a hand, pointing a finger as a bead of destruction grew at the tip. If I wasn’t careful, I could make Point City much shorter.

My goal was to scare them, kill a few idiots who thought this was a good idea to make a point and then take my swan dive.

As much as I wanted to just blast away, I needed to be careful.

The flying supers parted like a bunch of mice scurrying for safety.

I looked around, finding the supers that would give the least collateral damage, finding a few without a skyline at the edge of the city.

The world flashed white, and the sky parted as a beam of compressed and complex energy tore out of the bead turning black and swallowed the group of supers.

There was a moment of calm before glass shattered out of the windows below the path of the beam.

They are freaking out over here. Angelina is doing a good job while Kim does most of the yelling. Hendricks looks like she’s about to piss herself.

I could feel Mona’s anger and more than a few thoughts of killing the two leaders who had tried to start a hunt for me.

I wanted it too, but they would get what was coming to them. 

We’ll get them later, when I’m back. I reassured her.

Don’t take too long. Just kill all the stupid supers and leave. She huffed, and I felt her attention shift back to something else.

“So… that was awesome.” Pix said, blinking several times and then staring at me. “You could totally just obliterate the city. Why don’t you?”

“Because that would be completely unproductive unless I wanted to live in a wooden hut in the wilderness eating monster meat.” I sighed. People sucked, generally, but society made lots of comfortable things.

Pix bobbed her head. “I see, I see. We don’t have too many comforts in New Haven. It’s still a little backward. Straw beds, wood and stone for building, that sort of thing.”

I hadn’t been sure what to expect of New Haven, but Pix wasn’t painting the brightest picture. “We’ll deal with it later. I can make a lot of things myself.”

My beam of destruction might have scared the other supers, but they were recovering and closing the net on me as I continued to fly out of the city.

“Let me go. I’m fine to fly on my own now.” Melody insisted as she wiggled in my grasp.

As soon as I let her go, she righted herself and flew just a little ahead of me, desperate to be independent.

“Sure you are okay? Those rockets hit you pretty hard.”

“Fine. Thanks for the ki.” Melody looked at the surrounding situation. “How can they be so stupid after your last attack?”

“Because they have a small army just outside the city walls.” I replied. “Pratt’s expedition is almost assuredly waiting just beyond the city limit. That’s where we’ll do it.”

“Do what?” Pix asked.

I frowned. She was a variable we hadn’t been expecting. “Do you have somewhere to be?”

“I’d like to get the fuck out of here, and you two seem to be a runaway train out of this crazy ass place. So, at the moment, I’d like to be right fucking here because we are going the same way.” Pix crossed her arms and glared at me.

“Fine.” I knew she wasn’t going to leave if we were her best chance at survival and escape. I’d just have to trust the little woman. “We are faking our deaths. Which means you’re along for the ride.” I told her.

“Fuck.” Pix spat. “Let’s get it going.” She shooed me to continue. “Just keep me invisible.”

I bristled at the order, but I let it go. 

We were approaching the edge of the city and arrayed just outside the wall were hundreds if not thousands of supers set into neat military lines.

“Well, fuck me with a rusty tire iron.” Pix gasped.

Melody reacted first, ripped up the wall at the edge of the city, breaking it in the process and floating them before us like a wall of debris.

The lines of supers fired. All sorts of blasts detonated the debris further as Melody threw the mess into the supers.

“Get us through.” Melody screamed, turning behind us where the flying supers closed in.

I became the eye of a storm as the wind whipped around me, spinning faster and faster. I collected debris and turned my surroundings into a twister. “Hold on.” I called out, throwing myself and the tornado forward through the supers.

“Shit. You are a walking natural disaster.” Pix swore. “I see why Daeva was so excited to get you on board with her little mission.”

Supers and chunks of concrete spun around us, as we ripped more and more up from the ground, spinning them up towards the top of the tornado. 

Even then, supers hanging onto their consciousness were trying to fire blasts from inside as they spun through.

Melody was wasting no time, ripping them apart with opposing gravity wells where she could. “Miles, I know this is supposed to be a show, but maybe we don’t wreck the city?”

“Na. This isn’t much damage.” I sensed we were through the lines of supers and continued the tornado on past us. “Besides, we have some really fun attendees showing up.”

“Huh?” Melody asked, confused. But in the tornado's wake there were four supers that seemed completely unperturbed by my fun. All of them were women, and each of them radiated an immense amount of ki.

Several of them were sporting drastic mutations. From the look of them, Pratt had been experimenting with his own use of monster fruit among the army.

“They are just as strong as you, Melody. These are the ones we are going to use.” Part of me was even a little excited at the prospect of fighting them.

Before Melody could act, one super grew, their body pushing aside debris and the few surviving trees as she grew to thirty feet and then well over eighty feet tall.

Another disappeared in a blur while two flew up to greet us.

“I got the big girl.” Melody flew higher in the air as she threw two rippling gravity wells on either side of the giant, but the giant was sturdy enough that it did little more than cut her.

Letting her handle that, I focused on the super that flew up, coating her body in metal, and came right at me. She must be physical.

I used a barrier to block her while I turned to find the other super raising herself even higher into the air. A moment later, an array of weapons poked out of the world behind her. Pratt must have peed himself when he saw her ability.

The super was focused on me as dozens of the gigantic cannons fired at me.

“Okay, so we’re dealing with a flying artillery barrage and a steely cunt.” I aimed a bead of destruction at Barrage, causing her to veer off to the side. Then I shot it straight up, scrambling any satellites they had watching us.

That action at least confused both of them as they circled me. And it was time for the hard part.

I opened myself to Barrage as I fought directly with Steely, wrapping myself in a thin layer of kinetic energy.

Exchanging blows with Steely was exhausting. I typically would just sap her power and paste her, but that wouldn’t work for what we needed. Some of them needed to live after they injured me. Now I just had to put on a show.

Giving Barrage the opening, she started a near continuous fire. The weaponry on her belonged to tanks and battleships, not a person.

I let the hits make their way through, cutting me and tearing at my darkness until it dissipated. I wore it like rags, making sure to keep my face covered.

“Not so tough now.” Steely smirked as a speedster jumped onto my back and tried to thrust something through me.

They’d moved too quickly for me to reinforce myself, though that didn’t stop me from trying.

Their weapon broke through the thin barrier and skewered me through one of my lungs. I was pissed and spun them, throwing vast waves of thermal energy off of me.

Trees wilted, and dust sparked in the air, but it wasn’t contained enough for an explosion. Instead, it just looked like it was raining fire as the wilted trees caught on fire.

I grabbed Pix and Melody, pulling us all further away from the city and into the fire.

“Wait, you are actually hurt.” Melody realized.

“Yeah. I’m doing a fucking great job of faking this, aren’t I?” I tried to keep the bitterness out of my tone. “Getting stabbed wasn’t part of the plan, but the speedster caught me off guard.” I clutched at my chest.

At least it put a good show on for everyone.

Melody came behind me to grab it.

“Don’t fucking pull it out. That’s only going to make it worse.” I told her.

“You have to pull it out to heal.” She retorted.

The speedster’s path was marked by flickering flames as they came at me again, but this time I saw them coming.

I threw up an invisible barrier of spikes, a petty revenge for earlier as they blasted straight into it, shredding themselves to scraps. “Fucking speedsters.” I coughed up blood.

I looked to identify where the others were. Gigantor was smashing her way through the fire while Steely and Barrage were hanging back.

“The giant is tough.” Melody observed. “And all of them have the city to their back, so you can’t just blast them to smithereens.”

“No. I’ll engage them again and get hurt. We need to make this look good. We need to make sure one survives to be a witness to our death in the fire.”

“Fine, but I’m fucking killing one of them.” Melody threw more gravity wells along the giant, but they did little damage.

Grunting, I pointed at Barrage. “She’s the weakest defensively.”

Melody grumbled something about ‘the easy one’ and flew out of the burning forest covered in soot to ground Barrage with her gravity and try to get close.

As she moved closer, the cannon fire boomed. Barrage was ready to take her on.

Melody had her right hand up, drawing in all the blasts before a shot from her left tore a hole right through the other super’s chest.

She got her kill.

I did a quick sweep of the area, then blasted it with heat, turning the forest outside the city into a burning hellscape. Even the giant had to turn back because it was getting too hot.

Melody landed next to me, and I kept the heat away from us. “We did it, now just to—“ I dodged to the left when I heard the pop of Pix’s power.

Excruciating pain exploded throughout my body.

“Cannon ball!” Pix screamed as burst out of my side like some sort of freak.

I grabbed at my organs, trying to keep them in. “Wha—?” I wheezed, completely surprised by the sudden attack that had taken out a huge chunk of my torso from my hip to my shoulder.

Her sudden attack and the pain had me confused, but then something clicked. There was the missing attack at the club. The one that I had failed to identify. Pix was in on Pratt’s plan.

Melody screamed, and the forest exploded as she fired the last of her discharge from her black hole in a furious white beam.

“Sorry.” Pix reappeared unharmed on a burning tree branch. Her clothes were burning, but she didn’t even seem to mind. “But I don’t think you’re good for my Goddess. She’s been obsessing over you, and we need her to focus on the task at hand. That, and Point City’s top brass pays BANK. I mean, holy shit. I think they robbed a few banks themselves to pay me to kill you.” Pix laughed like it was a joke between friends.

My body wasn’t working. When I tried to call on my power, all I got was a dull fuzz, as my mind felt like it was grasping at straws. “You were their backup. The attack at the club I expected but never came.”

“Bingo.” Pix shot a finger gun at me. “I like to watch my targets a little first. That job was too rushed.”

I grabbed hold of my power with my anger and threw a blast at Pix. It ripped the tree into sawdust, but she was gone.

I slumped to the ground, and she reappeared right beside me.

“See, like that. You have this cute little furrow of your brow when you try to use your power. I just need to not be where I was a moment ago when I see it. Watching someone and learning things like that can save a girl’s life.”