The Leviathan Stirs
The sky felt wrong. Thick clouds churned overhead, stained with ash and something else—something unnatural. The air crackled with a tension that set every nerve in my body on edge, like the world itself was holding its breath.
And beneath it all, a sound. Distant. Low. A pulse.
The heartbeat of something massive.
---
We stood on the shattered avenue just beyond the New Vale evac zone—me, Hart, Priya, and Orin—surrounded by the carnage of Apex corpses and the burning remains of Horizon's abandoned defenses. But none of it mattered.
Because the real enemy was coming.
Orin's voice was hard, clipped. "The Leviathan is Horizon's final failsafe. Mobile command node, fortress-class, armed with its own Apex-generation arrays. It doesn't just broadcast the Override signal…" She paused, her voice tightening. "It consumes."
Hart's eyes narrowed. "Consumes what, exactly?"
Orin's expression was grim. "Biomass. Apexes. Humans. Anything with neural potential. It harvests genetic data, adapting its weapon systems from whatever it absorbs." Her lips pressed into a thin line. "And if it reaches Bastion…"
I didn't need her to finish. If the Leviathan reached Bastion—our home, our people—there wouldn't be anything left.
---
Hypermind Projection – Leviathan Pathing Analysis:
✔ Target: Bastion.
✔ ETA: 4 hours, 12 minutes.
✔ Projected Kill Radius: Total loss.
---
Hart chambered her rifle, the sharp clack cutting through the tension. "So, we stop it."
Orin's voice turned cold. "You don't stop the Leviathan. You survive it. We've seen what it does. Echo Division lost three teams trying to kill it."
Priya, her voice steady but edged with her new Apex resonance, spoke. "Yeah? Well, they didn't have him." She jerked her chin toward me.
Orin's eyes flicked to me, calculating. "You think you can out-engineer something designed to adapt?"
I felt the pulse of Hypermind—faster, sharper than ever, its capacity amplified by my link to Priya's Apex pattern. The data flowed into my mind, a storm of probabilities, weak points, and opportunities.
"I don't out-engineer it," I said, my voice cold and certain. "I rewrite it."
Phase 1: Intercept – Engage the Leviathan before it reaches Bastion.
Phase 2: Sever – Disable its Apex resonance towers to halt the Override signal.
Phase 3: Override – Hijack its neural core and turn its systems against Horizon.
Hypermind's projection flashed the cold probability:
✔ Survival odds: 11%.
✔ Mission success: 22%.
I didn't blink. "We've beaten worse."
We loaded into the battered Horizon transport, its armor scorched from the last battle but its reactor humming with stolen Titan-core energy. I rerouted all auxiliary power into the forward shields and the roof-mounted Gauss cannon—one shot, one chance.
Hart took the turret. Priya sat beside me, her body still adjusting to the Apex integration—gold flickering in her eyes with every breath. Orin synced her Echo armor to our systems, her weapons calibrated to my Hypermind target relay.
Then we drove—straight into the heart of the storm.
The first sign of the Leviathan wasn't the machine. It was its children.
The ground ahead shattered, and from beneath, they came—Harvesters, Apex-construct hybrids—war machines sculpted from flesh and steel, crawling on jagged limbs, their bodies latticed with exposed neural conduits.
Their heads—split into triangular maws, screaming with the Leviathan's voice.
The transport's proximity alarms screamed—
Hart didn't wait. The turret roared, Gauss rounds punching through the first Harvester, its body detonating in a burst of black ichor and molten metal.
But three more pounced—
Priya was faster.
She leapt from the open side door, her Apex-augmented body blurring into motion. She hit the ground and ripped through the nearest Harvester with her bare hands—her Apex resonance lancing through the creature, disrupting its neural lattice.
It collapsed, screaming in binary agony.
Hart's voice over comms: "We're surrounded!"
Orin's Echo troops flanked, their rifles spitting white-hot plasma. But the Harvesters were relentless, their screeches vibrating on the same frequency as the Override signal, causing Echo soldiers to stagger, their neural implants flickering.
"They're hitting our implants—" one soldier screamed—then a Harvester split him in half.
Orin's voice snapped. "Fall back! Let the Engineer work—"
---
Hypermind Analysis – Harvester Weakness:
✔ Neural Core: Integrated into spinal conduit.
✔ Vulnerability: Resonance disruption through Apex frequencies.
---
"Priya!" I shouted. "Pulse the lattice—sync with me!"
Her Apex-gold eyes flashed, and I felt the link—Hypermind folding her resonance pattern into mine. We became a circuit, her power feeding my command.
I triggered the Screamer emitter—retuned to her Apex frequency.
The pulse hit the Harvesters—
And they froze, their lattice systems corrupted by the feedback.
Hart didn't waste the moment. "Lighting them up!"
The turret boomed, tearing through the immobilized swarm.
But even as the last Harvester died, the ground shook.
And then—
We heard it.
A howl. Deep. Metallic. Alive.
The Leviathan was here.
The ruins ahead collapsed—and from beneath them, the Leviathan rose.
A colossus, thirty stories high—a fortress of flesh, metal, and raw Apex biology. Its body was a nightmare of living armor and hardened plating, its underbelly latticed with glowing resonance conduits.
It walked on four massive limbs, each step shattering the earth. Towering above its armored hide were three resonance spires, each projecting the Override signal like a symphony of death.
The air screamed with its signal—my HUD cracking from the interference.
Hypermind recoiled from the data—its patterns crashing into static.
---
Leviathan Analysis – Impossible Threat:
✔ Apex-Class Signature: Omega-Pattern – Cannot be killed conventionally.
✔ Weak Points: Resonance Spires – Disabling all three will collapse its neural lattice.
✔ Danger: Leviathan will adapt after each destroyed spire.
---
Orin's voice was cold. "That's it. That's Horizon's god."
Hart, her voice flat but burning. "Then let's kill it."
I slammed the transport into high gear, weaving between the Leviathan's legs as its limbs crashed down, throwing debris into the sky.
"Hart!" I yelled. "Spire One—focus fire!"
Hart brought the Gauss cannon online and fired. The round hit—tearing into the first resonance tower, cracking the shield matrix.
Priya moved—her body warping into Apex-speed, scaling the Leviathan's leg, her fist glowing with resonance energy. She punched into the exposed lattice—
The Spire collapsed, shattered from within.
The Leviathan screamed—and the signal weakened.
But the Leviathan changed.
Its armored hide shifted, plates fusing over its remaining spires—an instant adaptation. Its resonance field pulsed, hitting Priya full force—
She crashed to the earth, her body writhing from the neural wave.
I felt the link—and her pain.
Orin yelled: "They learn! It's rewriting its defense—"
---
Hypermind Override – Pattern Breaker Protocol
Hypermind broke through the static. I saw the path.
Its shields weren't just armor. They were frequency barriers. But its Apex biology meant they could be overloaded.
---
Solution: Use Priya's Apex pattern to short-circuit the shield by triggering a frequency clash.
---
I hit the comm. "Priya—detonate your resonance field!"
She coughed blood but grinned through it. "That'll… hurt."
I growled. "Do it anyway."
Priya closed her eyes—and let go.
The resonance exploded from her—
The air ripped apart as her pulse collided with the Leviathan's field—
The shields around the second spire collapsed.
Hart took the shot—
The spire shattered.
The Leviathan screamed—
And evolved.
Its third spire folded inward, absorbing into its chest cavity.
Hypermind's warning was instant:
"Final spire integrated into CORE."
Orin's voice, sharp with panic: "You'll have to kill it from inside!"
I made the call. "Hart. Orin. Cover us."
Hart's voice tightened. "What are you—"
I turned to Priya. "We're going in."
She wiped blood from her mouth, her eyes glowing gold. "Hell yeah."
The transport roared—straight at the Leviathan's chest.
Hart screamed: "You're insane!"
I grinned. "Yeah."
---
We hit—
And the Leviathan swallowed us whole.
The world was alive—a maze of pulsating walls, glowing Apex veins, and screaming resonance conduits.
Hypermind synced to the Leviathan's lattice—mapping the neural network.
Hypermind warned: Core is self-evolving. In 3 minutes, it will assimilate your Apex pattern.
Priya's eyes burned. "Then let's finish this."
---
We ran—into the heart of the monster.
The Leviathan's body twisted—flesh-walls closing, tendrils striking.
Priya tore through them, her fists shattering neural nodes.
I hacked the conduits—rerouting the Leviathan's own defenses against itself—
The core chamber opened.
It was massive—pulsing, raw Apex matter, a neural lattice encased in an adaptive membrane.
Hypermind: Lattice too dense. Conventional attack will fail.
I felt Priya's hand grip mine. Our Apex signals synced.
Together, we could—
"Wait—"
I realized—
The Leviathan wasn't a machine. It was Apex. And Apexes… learned.
If we hit it together, it would absorb us—make us part of it.
Priya felt it too.
Her eyes softened. "I've got this."
My heart stopped. "No."
She smiled. "You made me. Now let me finish it."
She surged forward—
Her Apex pattern colliding with the Core—
The Core howled—
Priya detonated, her Apex pattern unleashed, burning through the Leviathan's heart.
The world collapsed.
I woke in the ruins. Smoke. Metal. Silence.
The Leviathan—gone.
Bastion—safe.
But—
I felt the link—
And it was silent.
---
"Priya—?"
The wind.
Nothing.
---
But Then—
A whisper—inside—
Faint.
"I'm… here."