Out of the corner of his eye, McGuire saw Mod, Arsenal, and the giant black crow fly off toward the icy building and the fish-mage.
Serenity had called for two more supers to swap from other towers to replace Mod and Arsenal, but that didn't make McGuire feel any better. They weren't members of his team. Besides, Mod and Arsenal were monsters. Unless these replacements were absolute ringers, their roof was handicapped.
McGuire grit his teeth as he fired his slingshot. A bolstered marble slammed into the face of one of the monsters. The fish-soldier whimpered and slipped through the ice—presumably back into the waves below.
He'd lost count of how many marbles he'd shot, but his arm and shoulder were already burning with effort.
The marbles were similar to the sledgehammer rounds that Mod used in his pistol. They were imbued so that they were four times as light when in his backpack, and four times as heavy when out of it. He'd never wanted to carry a gun, so these were a nonlethal compromise.
The marbles were one of the first things McGuire created when he became a super. And the first time McGuire used them, he'd broken his sparring partner's arm.
He hadn't used them since.
Now he had hundreds of them in his backpack. Or had... Again, McGuire had no idea how many he'd fired already.
Sweat beaded on McGuire's forehead as he weaved between his teammates. Despite the crazy scene and despite being down their two strongest teammates, he couldn't help but smile. He wasn't having fun, per se. If they survived, maybe one day they'd look back on this fight and laugh, like one of those you-had-to-be-there jokes.
Maybe it was the ridiculousness of it that he was smiling at. Either way, McGuire felt like a lunatic. No one else was smiling—not even Krystal.
Deep Ones climbed over the barricade of ice spikes and were thankfully cut down just as quickly. These dudes gave McGuire the creeps; the only reason he didn't shiver each time their cold, white eyes glared at him was because McGuire was already sweating through his clothes.
The few Deep Ones that made it over the spikes were batted or blasted away. Larian's tree, despite its bulk, moved startlingly fast when it wanted to. The blue mage was another solid defender. She blasted enemies back with waves of force that reminded him vaguely of Athena—
Goddamnit, they could've used Athena right now. She probably could've taken half of these guys by herself. The next time McGuire saw Athena, he'd give her a piece of his mind... Which would really entail begging her to work with them again.
McGuire turned to see two fish-men climbing over the ice barricade. He loaded a rocket-powered bolas onto his slingshot and fired. The trap wrapped around both soldiers, pinning one's head to the other's chest.
McGuire slipped his brass knuckles over his fingers, then leapt forward. His boots hurtled him through the air and McGuire hit the tied-up soldiers with a flying punch. They tumbled back and over the edge, and McGuire ducked back into the ranks.
He spared a glance at the ice-covered building, wishing that Mod and Arsenal would hurry the hell up.
~ ~
Serenity hovered over the battlefield, both maintaining the soft psychic link between teams and probing the hive-mind of her enemies.
For now, Summit forces were holding their ground, but they couldn't keep this up forever. Some of the capes were better suited to prolonged fights than others, and she could already feel that some of them were getting tired.
In a smaller fight, she could've eased their exhaustion, but she would never attempt it with so many. Serenity knew her limits.
That was why they were out here—why they were risking their necks for a city that had already been evacuated. The Summit needed information, and a direct, small-scale confrontation was the best way to get it.
They needed to know how the Deep Ones fought, how they coordinated. When they would change tactics, and when they would retreat. ...If they would retreat. Hive-minds weren't known for valuing their individual members, so there was a very real possibility that Deep Ones would fight to the last member.
Serenity's own experience with hive-minds was limited. She'd come up against tethered minds before—psychics that had bonded to one or two other persons.
Tethering had a bad connotation in the psychic community. Most were unhealthy or even villainous, like The Freakshow. But there were examples of healthy tethers: The Brothers VaLance were twin capes who shared a familial tether. Serenity had even heard of romantic partners who tethered to one another.
There wasn't an exact formula for when a tethered group would dissolve into a hive-mind. It depended greatly on the relationship between members. There were reports of families of almost ten members that were tethered and still maintained their individuality. But there were also pairs where one person had usurped the other.
Thankfully, soft links were both easy to form and break. Serenity only considered herself a moderately powerful psychic, but maintaining the link between the three teams wasn't difficult. Of course, they could only convey the simplest of thoughts, like danger, but that was enough for Summit purposes.
Serenity had always thought of soft links like a climbing harness. It didn't communicate as much as a phone call or even a text message, but it gave you a general idea of where your teammate was and it would let you know when someone slipped and fell.
Despite all that was known about psychics, tethers, and hive-minds, there was no way to guess how the Deep One's hive-mind operated. So as the battle went on, Serenity turned the rest of her focus to probing the minds of the creatures.
She felt them, almost as clearly as she felt the connections between her own teammates. But each time Serenity pushed against the Deep Ones, she couldn't help but recoil. The connections between them were wispy and clung to her mind like a spiderweb. Each time she brushed against the web, it brought flashes of darkness, needle-sharp teeth, the taste of salt, and the feeling of drowning.
She felt like a child cracking open the door to a dark, creepy basement. She could only bear to look for a moment at a time before slamming the door shut again out of fear. Serenity had been scared by tethered minds before, but they had been small and, most importantly, human. Peeking at the hive-mind of the Deep Ones felt primal and horrifying, like catching glimpses of sharks in the darkness.
There were monsters behind the basement door, and the only salvation was that she was too small for the monsters to notice.
Despite the shivers each time Serenity peeked into the basement, she kept prodding.
Eventually, she felt the mage. It huddled on the edge of what she could see, like a spider hiding in the corner of its web. She could feel it plucking at the strings, directing soldiers and holding others back.
It wasn't direct control. Not really. To Serenity, it felt like the mage was simply a signal booster for the hive-mind. It wasn't the source. The source was out there at the bottom of the ocean. In the oppressing darkness.
And then she felt the mage die. It was unmistakable and final.
Serenity breathed a sigh of relief.
Mod and Arsenal had done it.
Somehow, Serenity knew they would. They were capable, dangerous, and full of potential. She just hoped they would work with the Summit and not be a thorn in their side.
She felt the death of the mage ripple across the psychic web of her enemies. It wasn't enough for the entire web to break. That would've been too easy. Still, the mage's death reverberated across the battlefield.
Then she felt something else. The psychic web that bound the hive-mind together began to writhe. It was like a once calm lake that was now filled with hungry piranha.
The fish-men were too far away from the underwater cities and now there was no mage to control them. Serenity felt the full force of the Deep One's stirring—felt the soldiers that had been lying in wait beneath the waves.
Now they had no direction, no guidance...
The nearest soldiers grew absolutely enraged. They lost all thought of coordination or self-preservation, and threw themselves at the capes. Serenity's teams cut down the first few, but more were climbing up the sides.
Serenity had opened the closet door to peek into the darkness, afraid to see a pair of eyes staring back. Now there were hundreds—too many to count. And they were pouring out of the sea, like a damn burst.
Serenity reached out to Mod and Arsenal. "Get back here!"
~ ~ ~