On our way to the nearby command post for the Lincoln Park Fracture’s defense, Morgan asks me questions.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Seth Ryans.”

  She rolls her eyes as I step onto the empty road and begin heading east.

  “I don’t mean your government name. Do you really think my parents named me Morgan le Fay?”

  I’m glad that my face can’t blush in embarrassment.

  “Oh, that makes sense. I haven’t really thought about it, really.”

  She gives me a grin.

  “New body, new name! Well, if you want, anyway. Not like there are rules to this.”

  She runs her hands down her sides before stretching with a tired groan. Her greatcoat hides her curvy form, but she accentuates it with her hands.

  “Though I can’t say I changed nearly as much as you. How long were you under for?”

  “Three days,” I mutter.

  She stops and stares at me with wide eyes. They sparkle like emeralds in the early morning sun.

  “Three days?! Good lord. I was only under for a tad shy of a day.”

  I step on a piece of rocky rubble, and crush it into powder.

  “I actually have a question for you. How were your drawings able to come to life like that? Did it have to do with the strange mist from the Fractures?”

  She gives me a shocked glance.

  “You can see Potentia?”

  “I… maybe? Is that what that strange mist coming from the Fractures is? Is it magic?”

  She waves her in partial agreement.

  “Yeah, sort of. Potentia is what fuels magic. Just like how energy isn’t action, but the ability to take actions, Potentia isn’t magic but is used to fuel acts of magic. The Fractures pour hyper-dense, raw Potentia into our universe.”

  “Huh. Can you not see it?”

  She shakes her head.

  “I can’t see it, but I can sense it. It’s hard to describe how, but I’m very good at it. I can know where Fractures are from a couple miles away, and even through solid objects.”

  She floats next to me in silence as we make our way to the command center, as she’s clearly deep in thought. As for me? Well, I’ve never been particularly good with strangers.

  After a couple of minutes, she speaks up again.

  “Thanks again. For your help back there. The idea with the tow cables was a tad genius.”

  She looks a little uncomfortable for a moment.

  “I… I have a lot of power, but sometimes it’s not enough. I’m the best, but that’s not a high bar right now. I still have a lot to learn.”

  I wave her concerns away.

  “I should thank you, really. I honestly had no idea how we were going to kill that damn thing. You really are an amazing Sorceress.”

  Not that I’ve met any others yet.

  She takes a deep, theatrical bow, her embarrassment burned away by her melodramatic nature.

  “Sorceress Morgan le Fay, artist extraordinaire!”

  She looks up, green eyes glowing with an inner fire.

  “Call me for your monster-slaying and magic related needs!”

  “You’ve really taken to this new world we live in.” I tell her honestly.

  She holds her arms out wide, a grin on her face. She spins in the air, her red hair whirling around her as care-free as the rest of her.

  “How could I not? I finally get to be who I want to be, who I am!”

  Light pours from her finger tips, leaving a whirling vortex of rainbow light frozen in the air. With a snap of her fingers, they shoot high into the sky. For an instant, they form a huge picture of her smiling before they fade into sparks.

  “We live in a world with magic now! How could I be anything else than ecstatic!?”

  She looks at me, and the flamboyant, energetic smile morphs into a calmer one, though no less happy.

  “I finally get to be who I want to be, who I am.”

  “And who is that?”

  Morgan opens her mouth to answer, but McKinley interrupts us, panic on her face.

  “Sorceress le Fay! Mr. Ryans! Oh, thank God you’re here!”

  “Lieutenant? What is it?”

  “Check the news, any channel! Quick, Sorceress le Fay, you need to see this!”

  Morgan rushes inside, and I splice into a local news station in microseconds. Just a few seconds already has me horrified to the core. Seven of the eight Fractures in New York have ruptured. Despite the National Guard’s best efforts, the destruction and chaos is immense. Mantids, spiders, beetles, and even a few Goliaths roam the streets.

  A particularly brave reporter is just half a block away from a National Guard defensive position. Monsters swarm towards it like a wave of promised destruction.

  “—National Guard commanders are ordering a complete and total evacuation of Manhattan! Drop everything now and run! They’ll hold them back as long as they can! Go south!”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  A huge concrete and rebar spider, exactly like the one I fought earlier, jumps onto a tank, setting it’s explosive reactive armor off with a deafening explosion. The smoke clears, and while the spider is definitely singed and disoriented, it begins to gnaw at the tank.

  “—Holy fuck! This is Kenny Chu from SkyTen New York—!”

  With a jolt, Morgan sprints out of the command center and jumps into the air. She takes off flying north-east, quickly approaching the speed of sound.

  The Empowered that are in New York are barely able to slow the onslaught. Morgan was going pretty fast, she’d probably make it there in thirty to forty minutes. Hopefully she’ll be able to stem the tide.

  “Lieutenant! Get me a plane!”

  Lieutenant McKinley grimaces.

  “All the airfields are overloaded with evacuations! Nothing can land!”

  “Lieutenant, I don’t need to land. Just get me over the city.”

  She turns to look at me with wide eyes.

  “You’re just gonna jump out?”

  “Yeah. Come on!”

  She nods.

  “Get to Andrews. I’ll have plane there waiting for you!”

  Using the local map I pulled of the city days ago, my pathing algorithm picks the fastest possible route. I sprint off for the airbase without another word.

  I jog over to the cargo aircraft on the runway. A dozen technicians are crawling over it, checking it out and readying it for flight. A gruff looking man, overseeing the flurry of maintenance and preparation, turns to me.

  “How long until it’s ready?” I ask nervously.

  “Another ten minutes.”

  Too slow.

  “You can’t go any faster?”

  He shakes his head.

  “That’s how long it’s going to take us to fuel it. Can’t pour fuel in any faster.”

  Damn it!

  I suppose I’m not as stoic as I expected, or maybe the Chief is more perceptive than the average person.

  “Look, I get it, you’re itching to get there. We’re going as fast we can. Nothing to do but wait.”

  It’s an agonizing ten minutes. I wish I could fly like Morgan. She’ll have probably landed by the time I get in the air. I keep watching the various news channels doing their best to cover the chaotic battleground that is New York. Kenny Chu has to be the bravest motherfucker I’ve ever seen.

  “—We’re here live, at 7th Ave and 23rd Street. The National Guard have a fort here! We’re currently under heavy assault from dozens of praying mantises made out of traffic lights! If you are still in Manhattan, get out! Long Island’s airports are currently running airlift evacuation missions! The Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, and Williamsburg Bridge are open and safe for now! Move—”

  He’s barely a block away from waves of abominations barely held back trying their best to rip everyone apart. A tank fires its main gun, pulping a pair of Traffic-Mantids. The boom deafens the microphone for a second. He doesn’t stop speaking, still trying to direct people to safety.

  The National Guard is throwing everything they have in a last ditch effort to slow the tide of monsters. The monsters from this wave of ruptures are faster and more durable than they actually should be, given what they’re made up of.

  Fucking magic.

  New York was a large city, and it has many people who were changed by the Apotheosis. Despite their best efforts, it’s clear that the weapons humanity has are simply not cutting it. Magic is the name of the game now. Here’s hoping it’ll be enough.

  My thoughts are interrupted by the Chief.

  “Alright Mr. Ryans, it’s ready to go!”

  I step into the open bay as the engines spool up.

  As the bay closes with a whine, the Chief waves at me, and yells to be heard over the engines.

  “Good luck Mr. Ryans! Give ’em hell!”

  The cargo door shuts and locks with a clunk. We’re in the air and heading for the embattled city just a few minutes later. The flight takes us an hour, and it’s a bitterly long one.

  Every minute spent in the air is another street the National Guard has to fall back from, another death. At least I won’t have to wait for a landing. As we get close to Manhattan, the Captain’s voice comes over the intercom. I quickly splice in.

  “Where do you want to land, Mr. Ryans? We’ll get you as close as we can!”

  I’ve been scanning every camera network I can connect to, and I’ve already got an answer to this question.

  “South-East Manhattan! North of Williamsburg Bridge, along FDR Drive!”

  A Goliath, exactly the same as the giant boulder monster I fought with Morgan in front of the Capitol Building just two hours earlier, is marching south down FDR Drive, towards the bridge. If it gets close enough, it could bring it down.

  Thousands of people are currently on the bridge, and it’s a vital line to get reinforcements into Manhattan and people out. If the Goliath takes it out, the devastation would be immense, and would spell the deaths of thousands of people.

  I can’t let that happen.

  I wasn’t able to kill the last Goliath on my own. I had the help of several of the best armored combat vehicles in the world. That doesn’t even include a powerful Sorceress, the self-proclaimed strongest of them all. I’ve got an idea, though. Right now we’re at 15,000 feet, and that’s a lot of potential energy.

  “How high can you get us?”

  “Not much higher than we are right now! The airspace is full of civvy airliners! What’s the plan?”

  “There’s a Goliath just north of the Williamsburg Bridge! I wanna land on it!”

  I splice into the C-17’s instruments, and my pathing algorithm is able to compute a flight path as well as when I should jump. I push it to the Captain’s flight panel.

  “Follow the flight path as best you can. I’m gonna stomp on that sunnvabitch from 15,000 feet.”

  The Captain doesn’t miss a beat, a grin audible in her voice.

  “Okay, you got it. Hold on!”

  The aircraft banks before smoothing out, and the cargo door opens up. The wind turns into a deafening roar, and a light next to the open cargo turns on, shining a blood red. I step to the edge, the wind whipping and scouring away at me. The light turns green, and I jump out. Right before I disconnect from the intercom, I hear the Captain one last time.

  “Fuck em up!”

  I twist in mid air, pointing head down. The air roars past me, and on this cloudless day, from so high up, I get a good look at New York. It’s fucked. Dozens of different fires from all over New York, not just Manhattan, burn brightly.

  Pillars of smoke grasp at the sky with their shadowy fingers. I fall faster and faster, doing my best to make sure I stay on target for the Goliath. It’s still on its way to destroy the bridge, closing the distance lumbering step by lumbering step.

  I have barely any control at all, but it’s enough. As the ground rushes towards me, I quickly twist again, leading with my boots. With my ability to think extremely quickly, I get a very long split second to think about how stupid this is.

  Shoulda thought about that before I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

  I slam into the house sized Goliath at the speed of sound, and it vanishes in an explosion that shatters every window up within two miles of me.

  I probably deafened a fair number of people on the bridge, on second thought. The thought unnerves me before I crumple it up and force it away.

  Better than being dead.

  The entire Goliath explodes into gravel and dust, and I blow through it to impact the road beneath where it was. I cause two apartment buildings next to the expressway to collapse as I drive a football field sized crater deep enough to swallow a four story building. I blast massive chunks of the East River Promenade off into the water.

  Oh, fuck!

  A rapid and panicked scan of CCTV footage as well as a deep scrub of the scans I took of the area on the way down show that the apartment buildings were evacuated several hours ago, so while I’ve just destroyed peoples’ homes, at least I didn’t kill anyone.

  Yet.

  I climb out of the crater, and set off to the south-west. The National Guard is holding Houston Street, but it’s hard fighting with heavy casualties. Time to make a difference.