Even so, when I opened my eyes, looked through those lenses for their original purpose, all I could see was mud, grit, silt.  Black and dark brown, with only the faintest traces of light.  It disappointed me on a profound level, knowing that this might be the last thing I ever saw.  Disappointed me more than the idea of dying here, odd as that was.

Heh.

“What a shitty last sight. I couldn’t get to go while looking at something neat? Was that too much to ask?”

Through my power, I sensed Leviathan turn, take a step back toward the shelter, stop.  His entire upper body turned so he could peer to his left with his head, turned the opposite way to peer right.  Like a dog sniffing.

I wonder if he has some kind of power relating to his eyes. Like detecting lives to snuff out… actually, no, that’s the one eyesight power we can tell he doesn’t have, unless it counts insect lives.

He dropped to all fours, ran away, a loping gait, not the lightning fast movement he’d sported when he first attacked.  Still fast enough.

Hm. What did he spot? The reinforcements?

My chest lurched in a sob for air, like a dry heave.  I managed to keep from opening my mouth but the action, the clenching of every muscle above my shoulders, left my throat aching.

Eugh.

Two seconds later, it hit me again harder.

Two blocks away, Leviathan crashed down into the water.

…hm.

Another lurch of my throat and chest, painful.  My mouth opened, water filled my mouth, and my throat locked up to prevent the inhalation of water.  I spat the water out, forced it out of my mouth, for all the good it would do.

Of all the ways to go, I’m fairly sure drowning would be one of the more unpleasant ones.

I’d left the fat cape to die like this when the wave was coming.  Was this karma?

Back then, you didn’t have a choice. I don’t think this is how karma works, even by the pop culture definition.

My breath had been knocked out of me at the impact, but some primal, instinctual part of me had let me hold my breath.  I lay there, face down in two or three feet of water, counting the seconds until I couldn’t hold my breath any more, until my body opened my mouth and I heaved in a breath with that same instinctual need for preservation, filled my lungs with water instead.

Well, this ain’t healthy.

Is this when the cavalry comes and pulls Taylor out?

The lenses of my mask were actually swim goggles, it was a strange recollection to cross my mind.

Hah, that’s fitting.

I’d bought them from a sports supply store, buying the useless chalk dust at the same time.  Durable, high end, meant for underwater cave spelunkers, if I remembered the picture on the packaging right.  Tinted to help filter out bright lights, to avoid being blinded by any fellow swimmer’s headlamps.  

Huh, interesting.

I’d fitted the lenses from an old pair of glasses inside, sealed them in place with silicon at the edges, so I had 20/20 vision while I had my mask on without having to wear glasses beneath or over it, or contact lenses, which irritated my eyes.

Ahh, smart.

I’d built the armor of my mask around the edges of the goggles so the actual nature of the lenses wasn’t immediately apparent, and to hold them firmly in place.

Nice.

I’d either been torn in two and couldn’t feel the pain yet or, more likely, I’d been paralyzed from the waist down.

The latter also has a higher chance of Taylor believably surviving this Arc. If she’d been torn in two, she’d have to contend with bleeding out on top of everything else.

Oh.

Not like I really should’ve expected any different.  Neither case was much better than the other, as far as I was concerned.

…as I was just saying, the latter is marginally better. More survivable, even if Leviathan’s presence and current status of “actively out to kill Taylor specifically” mean it’s only a slight difference in her overall chances.

Water crashed into me, hard as concrete, fast as a speeding car.  I felt more pain than I’d ever experienced, more than when Bakuda had used that grenade on me, the one that set my nerve endings on fire with raw pain.

Yikes.

It was brief, somehow more real than what Bakuda had inflicted on me.  Struck me like a lightning flash.

I plunged face first into the water.  My good arm on its own wasn’t enough to turn me over – the road just a little too far below me.  I tried to use my legs to help turn myself over.  Zero response.

…Taylor is rapidly losing the use of her limbs. At least so far they’ve stayed attached, which is better than Armsmaster or the ghost of Kaiser can say about theirs, but I say this without knowing the exact reason why Taylor’s legs aren’t responding. It could be temporary lameness, or but it could also be that they just kinda… aren’t there anymore?

That said, I highly doubt we’ll have Taylor sitting in a wheelchair for the rest of this story.

I suppose Tinkertech prosthetic legs are an option, though…

I climbed to my feet at the same time he did, but I had a clear route up the back of the shelter door while he had to squeeze through the opening.  I was on the street and running well before he was up out of the stairwell.

Nice work, you lured him out! Now what, though?

I gathered my bugs to me, sent some to him, to better track his movements.  As he climbed up, I gathered the swarms into decoys that looked human-ish, sent them all moving in different directions, gathered more around myself to match them in appearance.

A false clone technique, nice. Which is the real Taylor, Levvy?

With the effects of my slash of the Halberd combined with the damage Armsmaster had already done, Leviathan didn’t have the mobility with his tail he otherwise would.

Excellent.

When he attacked my decoys, he did it with slashes of his claw and pouncing leaps that sent out afterimages to crash into them.  A swipe of the claw’s echo to disperse one swarm to his left, a lunge to destroy one in front of him.  Another afterimage of a claw swipe sent out to strike at me.

Uh oh, he found you.

I swallowed the scream, the grunting of pain that threatened to escape my throat, stood again, slowly.

With only one hand, I didn’t have the leverage to really swing the Halberd.  I had to hold it towards the top, near the blade, which meant having less reach, having to get closer.

Just… be very careful where you stick that hand.

When I was close enough, I drew the blade back and raked it just below the base of his tail.  Where his asshole would be if he had human anatomy.  Easiest place for me to reach, with him crouched down like he was.

This is incredibly risky but I love it.

Dust billowed and Leviathan reacted instantly, swiped with one claw, fell onto his side when the damage to his buttocks and the hampered mobility of his tail screwed with his ability to control the movement of his lower body.

Yesss

His claw swipe went high.  His afterimage was broken up by the the wall above the door, but enough crashed down in front of and on top of me to throw me back out of the shelter, into the toppled shelter door.

There’s a lot of in and out in this chapter.

I was pushed under the water, the Halberd slipping from my grip.

Welp.

I ran past Impel and Apotheosis, passed Laserdream, and reached the shelter’s entrance once more.

Honestly, Taylor accomplished more by running out and finding Impel’s armband than she’s likely to be able to pull off by going back in. Though at least she has the Halberd – maybe she can find some creative use for that.

Leviathan was further inside, crouched, his back to me.  His tail lashed in front of him.  Terrified screams echoed from within.

Honestly, with how quickly Leviathan acts, it’s a wonder there’s anyone left to scream.

It was agonizing to do it, but I moved slowly, to minimize the noise I made, even as every second allowed Leviathan more time to tear into the crowd.  To move too fast would alert him, waste any opportunity I had here.

It might. We still don’t know if he has a sense of hearing, but it’s best to give him the benefit of the doubt on that.

A backwards movement of Leviathan’s tail arced through the air, fell atop me, forcing me down into the water.  Gallons of cold water dropping down from ten feet above me.

Whoop!

Alright, part 3 in progress!