In Pursuit of Power: Chapter 26 (Patreon)

Chapter 26

Look Down

Okay, I’ll admit it. I was livid.

Ever since I woke up I’d had one thing after another to get worked up about. The world was a wreck. People were stuck living like trash. I was fighting to fix things like that. But it wasn’t until now, standing here, that a new kind of rage nestled into my gut, right behind the belly button and above the pelvis.

They trashed my city.

It was a wreck. There was nothing left of it. Rubble covered the streets. Buildings had collapsed. Shattered glass mixed with trash, filling alleys and coating cracked sidewalks. I couldn’t recognize anything. If every Titan appeared in front of me in that moment, I think I would’ve picked a fight, consequences be damned.

I’m not saying it would be smart. I’m just trying to show how mad I felt.

“Ahem.”

The cleared throat broke me out of my trance. I looked down at the wheelchair I had been pushing before I stopped, overcome by anger. As I did, the girl grinded her teeth.

“Are we going to stand here all day?” Reyna asked.

My mood was so foul, I almost pointed out that she wasn’t standing at all, but I caught myself in time not to be a complete dick.

“Of course not,” I said, beginning to push her again. “I was just… thinking.”

“Thinking. Yes. It’s a very complex thought, isn’t it, fantasizing about revenge.”

It was difficult to push her. We had to snake left and right through the streets, just to find asphalt her wheelchair could traverse. Twice I’d had to actually carry her over piles of rubble.

“I feel like you’re making fun of me,” I said.

“Don’t you feel ridiculous?” Reyna asked.

“Sometimes. Like when I’m so drowsy in the morning, I come out wearing socks that don’t match. Every time it happens I lose the faith of a believer.”

“You crack so many jokes,” she said. “Do you want to know what your best joke is? It’s that you think you can win.”

The handles of her wheelchair creaked slightly. I made sure to weaken my grip as I asked, "Whose side are you on?”

“There are no sides,” Reyna insisted. “You can fight as hard as you like. In the end, we all lose.”

We passed what used to be a school. The bricks were scattered across the playground, the entire building long since collapsed. Underneath the reddish brown debris, I stared at the metal bars of a play structure, buried like the relic of the past that it was. Against my better judgement, I wondered if a single child from this school was even still alive.

“Someone always loses.”

I had thought Reyna was done, so when I heard her voice still speaking, much quieter now, I couldn’t help but look at her.

“If someone wins, there’s always a loser,” she said. “That’s just how it works.”

“I guess. But I don’t really see why that matters.”

“Do you know where we met?” she asked suddenly.

“The Wolf House?”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you.” She snorted. “That might be where you remember me from, but I definitely remember you before. The Sea of Monsters.”

She paused, as if that said all that needed to be said, except it really didn’t.

“What about it?”

“Circe’s Island. You remember that at least, don’t you?”

“Sure.” I couldn't see where this was going. “We washed up on the shore. She turned me into a Guinea Pig. I got un-Guinea-Pigified. We made a break for it, and that was that.”

“And the staff?” Reyna asked. “I lived there. My sister checked you in. When you freed Blackbeard and his pirates in order to free yourself, they ransacked the island, and took us hostage. Girls with nowhere to go had their last haven ruined.”

She clearly wanted me to feel bad. And look, I wasn’t happy to hear she got taken captive. I didn’t wish that on anyone. But Circe’s staff knew what she was doing. When Reyna’s sister checked me in, she was leading me toward what could’ve been the end of me. I might pity them, but I wouldn’t feel guilty about this.

“I bet you don’t even regret it,” she said.

I stayed silent.

“Whatever. I didn’t tell you to get your pity. I just wanted to prove that even when you won, others lost. You aren’t used to losing, so you think you can get even and fix everything, but that’s just a fantasy. Some things can’t be fixed.”

I looked at the devastation around us. It was difficult not to, when everything was in ruins. Not a single building looked like it used to. As we walked the streets of what used to be a city of twenty million, nothing moved except us.

“Believe me, I know I can’t fix everything,” I said softly. “I just want the next best thing: to hit the ones that did it really damn hard.”

Reyna was silent for a while, before ultimately snorting. She didn't speak after that. The creaking of her wheelchair spokes and the thuds from my footsteps filled the street, piercing the deafening silence.

The city itself was not our first stop. In fact, it had been nearly a week since Prometheus moved us on to this new plan. We had worked our way around most major areas of the state, making a show of being a cripple and a teenager, all alone.

We got nothing out of it. Not even a whiff of any resistance members, and not even a Hydra for all our trouble. It was as if as soon as we stepped out of our camp, we were the only living beings in the whole East.

I looked up as a shadow crossed us. Despite all the devastation in the city, there was one structure in perfect condition, and it certainly wasn’t one I remembered being there.

Hyperion hadn’t moved into Olympus even with the old inhabitants evicted. Instead, he moved onto the bank of the Hudson, erecting a titanic fortress right in the middle of the city.

It was unnatural even from a glance. Its surface was smooth, like stainless steel or volcanic rock, but it was all bright gold. With its lumpy ramparts and blocky shape, it sort of looked like a gold tooth an aging gangster would have, if you yanked out the fake molar, sized it up by a couple thousand times, and plopped it in the middle of the city.

I didn’t like traveling this close to that place. The stillness in the air felt like it was getting worse, as if the quiet noises we made were traveling further, more likely to reach prying ears…

Just as I was about to call it for the day and take us back, creeped out by our proximity to the fortress, I heard something.

It wasn’t very loud. But trust me, when you haven’t heard anything but your own footsteps for hours, you’ll notice anything.

It was a rough sort of sound. To me, it sounded like… slithering. I leaned over Reyna, making eye contact with her from above.

“I’m going to pick you up now, and we are going to run,” I said.

She looked as cool and emotionless as ever. But I saw it. Her fingers were twitching slightly.

I tipped her wheelchair over. Maybe I could come back for it later. For now, I scooped Reyna up in my arms and ran.

I didn’t transform my legs. If I had, I could’ve leaped across half the city, escaping quickly. But Hyperion’s home base was right behind us. If the coward sensed something, if he figured out that there was a new immortal running around his domain, he’d call for help. I couldn’t risk discovery. For now, I was working with my normal body and nothing else.

It’s not like that was the end of the world. Even without adopting my true form, I was still faster and stronger than I had ever been as a mortal. I bounded up rubble piles and slid down the other sides. When wreckage barred our path, I sprinted over or around without breaking stride.

After about twelve blocks, I stopped. I strained my ears as the quiet restored itself. Even faster this time, I heard a noise. Before I started running and slipped around a corner, I spotted a glimpse of green scales.

A Hydra, then. One of Hyperion’s personally trained pets. I’d done a number on enough of them that I didn’t fear one. But if we got caught in a swarm, I’d have no choice but to reveal my true form. If possible, I was ready to do anything in order to avoid that.

The next time I climbed a rubble pile, I jumped instead of sliding down.

Dust and old bits of building were sent flying back as I kicked off, propelling us up. Reyna tucked her face into my shoulder. I landed on the roof of one of the still-standing buildings, bending my knees slightly to ease the impact for my passenger.

As strong as they were, Hydra’s were heavy and didn’t have wings or any type of flight. By going up, we should be able to place ourselves outside of their reach.

The last thing I expected was to find somebody else already up there.

It wasn’t a person. I didn’t think they were part of any resistance, either, because they were dressed in spotless kevlar body armor and urban camouflage pants. Where skin should’ve been, I could see only thick white fur. His hands had too many fingers, and his ears were so big they could tell you the direction of the wind on a blustery day.

“What the Hades are you supposed to be?” I asked.

He pulled a pistol off his belt and shot me.

Not only was it a completely rude thing to do, it threw me for a loop, because I’d never had it happen before. The only enemies I ever saw using modern guns were the mercenaries Atlas hired, and they had at least been mortals. This thing was clearly something else. It was just so off-brand for a monster to show up to a fight strapped.

So I caught the bullet and threw it back.

The projectile had flattened when I caught it with my hand. Unlike Rio’s magic revolvers, this was just a normal gun, so I didn’t even have to transform to deal with it. The small metal hunk whistled almost as fast as it left my hand as it did when leaving the gun’s barrel, but the furry thing just bent his head to the side, dodging it easily.

In the time it took him to dodge, I’d sprinted away and leaped off the building. I kept Reyna bundled in front of me as I fell, so that the next three bullets shot after us thudded safely into my back, achieving nothing except ruining a perfectly fine shirt. I dug my feet into the wall of the alley, slowing us down, before landing in a crouch and sprinting away.

I was going back to my original plan. Hydras could be scary, but anything that was intelligent and fast enough to dodge a bullet was the bigger threat in this situation. I’d take our chances with scaly and stupid.

I ran, and ran, and ran. I turned corners and whizzed around bends. The city was like a maze at this point, almost all landmarks and street signs worn away. It made it impossible to tell how long I ran, or where I was going.

“There’s multiple,” Reyna muttered after we caught another glimpse of a Hydra.

I was pretty sure she was right. The sounds were louder now, and I swore they were coming from different directions.

Eventually, I was forced to pump the breaks when I turned a corner to find a Hydra coming toward us. It wasn’t quite as big as the ones I killed by the phone booth. This one only had thirteen heads.

I spun on the spot, trying to hang a right, only to find another one closing in. Looking behind me revealed a third. When I turned the last direction, only to spot a monster, I grinded my teeth.

Looking up to see if we could escape that way, I saw him. The glock-wielding Easter Bunny was there, looking down with his cold calculating eyes, oversized ears twitching madly.

He tracked us by sound, I realized. The Hydras followed his directions. This wasn’t a case of getting unlucky, but of having a trap closed around us.

Slowly, I walked to the nearest building, laying Reyna down against the wall. Then I stood, cracking my knuckles.

“I think I’m going to try my luck,” I said. “Sit tight for a minute.”

I didn’t think I had the greatest chance at handling four Hydras without my powers, but I also thought it could work. Only, the moment I tried to leave Reyna’s side, a gunshot rang out. 

I hopped in front of her in time to block the bullet, glaring up at the monster on the rooftops. He stared back apathetically, loading a new magazine into his weapon.

“If I do cut loose, the first thing I’m doing is breaking him in half,” I said.

“Will you do it?” Reyna asked. “Will you transform?”

I didn’t want to. It was a risk. I wasn’t even sure if it was smarter to wipe out everything here so that they couldn’t talk, or run the moment I transformed, to lessen the chance of Hyperion sensing me. Neither choice was necessarily good. The Hydras were drawing closer. I could hear their big scaly stomachs dragging across the ground, while their many heads hissed violently.

Seconds before I cut loose, long after I’d given up hope for it, we were suddenly saved. And it came from a place I never expected anything good to come from: a New York sewer.

The manhole cover in front of me was flung into the air. Someone’s head poked out, greasy and smeared with what looked like grease. He had dark skin and manic eyes, but he waved his hand toward Reyna and I.

“Get on in here!” he said. “Unless your dream is to make like a pickled mouse and end up as snake food!”

The moment I saw another human, I’d already grabbed Reyna and run toward him. In this place, a single human was incredibly significant. They didn’t have lone survivors. They had a resistance.

For the first time, I saw real emotion on the furry creature’s face when I looked up. He was scowling. He pulled the trigger with two of his eight fingers, firing four more bullets at us.

I was ready to block them with my body, but I didn’t have to. From inside the sewer, arrows fired out, shot just as quickly as the gun’s bullets. Impossibly, the arrows hit the bullets in midair, knocking them off course.

“Inside! Now!” shouted a voice I swore sounded both familiar and not.

“You heard the boss lady,” said the dirty kid. “Get on in here!”

I handed Reyna into his outstretched arms.

“She can’t walk,” I warned as the boy helped her down.

He descended some kind of ladder, holding Reyna up with one hand. The Hydras were still coming, but they were no threat with Reyna safe. The manhole cover was sitting beside me. I looked up, staring at the scowling monster on the rooftop.

For less than half a second, my leg changed into its true form. It lashed out, striking the manhole cover. The disk flew.

It was on the roof in an instant. Anyone normal would’ve been stuck in its path, but despite it being faster than a bullet the monster managed to cross his arms in front of his face.

He was still sent flying. I heard both his arms break from over eighty feet away. He was catapulted off of the roof by the momentum, crashing down in the alley behind. I didn’t wait around and investigate if that finished him off.

I jumped down through the open hole in the ground, away from the charging monsters, just in time to meet the resistance we had gone through all this trouble to find.