Chapter 181: The Girl From Denvi
Back in the American alcove, Dana’s face squeezed into something ugly.
"This is bad." Her voice had gone hard and fast, all of her usual manager’s calm burned off entirely. "If they succeed, they can release every impure in the association prison back into the public. That’s over a hundred impures, all at once. We have to move. Right now."
Nobody argued with her.
It was the absolute worst possible moment for an attack to happen. The Hero Association Prison had been attacked three times over the past few years, and all three attempts had failed so completely that no one had seriously tried again in a long while. The security at the facility had loosened slightly during the quiet years, but it was still nothing to scoff at. The entire building was specifically built to hold the absolute worst monsters humanity had ever produced.
And someone had chosen to strike it on the single night when every elite hero worth the name was on the other side of the world, watching a global tournament. The timing was almost too perfect to be an accident.
But there was one small mercy in the situation, and Dana seized on it at once. The convention meant the strongest forces of a dozen different nations were all gathered in one single arena. Heroes who had spent the entire day as bitter rivals would not hesitate for a second when it came to a crisis like this.
"Other heroes will be there," Dana said, already turning toward the balcony rail, "but our strongest team is right here, which means we move in too as immediate support. Some of the impures in that prison are not going to go down easy. A few of them will need a massive collective force just to contain." Her eyes swept the alcove and landed on Vixen. "Vixen. I need you to teleport all of us there. Right now."
Vixen pushed herself up off a bench. She was still pale and unsteady from her own brutal fight earlier in the day, but she lifted her hands to open a spatial fold.
"Wait."
Selena’s sharp voice cut across the room, stopping Vixen mid-motion.
"Dana, I don’t think we’re asking the right question." Selena’s brow was deeply furrowed, her cigarette sitting forgotten and unlit between her fingers. "You’re asking how fast we can get there. But that’s not the question that actually matters. The real question is why. Why did they choose to attack now, of all times?"
Dana paused, the rest of her orders dying half-formed on her lips. Slowly, one by one, the other heroes stopped as well, turning Selena’s words over in their minds.
"...She’s not wrong," Nectron said, his deep voice quiet and heavy. He crossed his massive arms, frowning down at the concrete floor. "Nobody attacks the central prison on a whim. It’s a death sentence and everyone in the underworld knows it. But someone just walked through the front door on the one night the whole world is looking away." He shook his head grimly. "That’s not desperation. That’s careful planning. There has to be a specific purpose behind it."
"And if there’s a purpose," Vixen added, lowering her hands as her voice grew tight, "then there’s something specific they’re looking for down there. You don’t plan an operation like this for years just to open a hundred cell doors at random. You do it to reach one specific door."
The words hung heavy in the air.
And in the silence that followed, something icy cold moved through every single one of them at once. The exact same terrifying realization arrived in every mind in the exact same instant—a nightmare memory none of them had been able to fully shake for eight long months.
An entire town swallowed whole. Reality veils tearing in the sky. Streets filled with nightmare creatures that should not exist, drawn out of nowhere and made flesh. An entire district turned into a living hell by a single ability. It was the absolute worst impure event any of them had ever witnessed—the very same disaster Nicholas had walked into and dragged a young girl out of in his arms.
Denvi.
The impure behind the catastrophe at Denvi Town.
"Apocalypse," Selena breathed softly.
The name landed in the middle of the alcove like a stone dropped into still water. The blood drained out of every face it touched.
Because they had all seen the classified footage. They had all watched, eight months ago, as a single quiet ability turned a living town into a massive graveyard. Horrible monsters that existed nowhere in nature poured out of thin air while the sky itself split wide open. And that had been caused by one single impure—a girl who had been contained, heavily sedated, buried nine floors underground, and never spoken of again.
If that girl was what the attackers had come for, then a hundred loose impures was not the actual disaster. A hundred loose impures was just the distraction.
"They’re not there to break the prison open," Nectron said slowly, horror dawning in his voice. "The prison break is just the wrapping paper. They came specifically for her."
"Then we have even less time than we thought." Dana’s face had gone completely bloodless, but her voice snapped back into sharp command. "If they get their hands on that girl, and if she’s awake and unrestrained, this stops being a prison break and becomes an extinction event. Vixen, forget support. We are the main response team. Open the fold, take us straight to Sublevel Nine, and do it now."
Vixen’s hands rose again, space already warping and folding around her fingers.
Nicholas pushed himself up off the wall, using his palms to steady his swaying weight against the stone.
"I’ll come too," he said through gritted teeth, testing his footing. "If it’s as bad as you’re saying, you’re going to want another pair of hands down there. I can still throw a punch or two."
A hand pressed flat against his chest, stopping him firmly in his tracks.
It was Selena.
She had stepped directly in front of him, and she was not budging an inch.
"No," she said flatly. "Not you."
"Selena, I’m fine."
"You are not remotely fine." Her voice was hard and uncompromising. "Look at yourself. One eye is swollen shut. Broken ribs—I watched the blow happen. You just fought five grueling matches in a single day and then traded punches with a god until the sky tore open. You can barely stand up straight right now, and you want to teleport into a building full of loose impures to help?" She jabbed a finger directly into his chest, right over his heart. "You would be a liability down there. You’d be one more person they have to protect. Sit your ass down."
"I’ve fought in worse shape than this."
"And I’ve watched you nearly die doing it," she shot back without backing off an inch. "You’ve done your part today, Nicholas. More than your part. Let someone else carry the load for once."
Nicholas opened his mouth to argue, but Dana’s authoritative voice cut in before he could say a word.
"She’s right, Nicholas." Dana didn’t look up from the glowing spatial portal Vixen was preparing, but her tone left zero room for debate. "You are my strongest card, and right now you’re running on absolute fumes. If I bring you down there in this condition and you collapse, that’s a hole in my line I can’t fill. You’re far more useful to me resting here than you are dead on a prison floor." She paused, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Stay here. That is not a suggestion."
For a quiet moment, Nicholas held both of their gazes, carefully weighing the situation.
He could feel his own body giving him the exact same answer they were. He felt the severe tremor in his legs, the sharp grinding in his side with every breath, and the swollen dark closing over half his vision. He wasn’t emotional or stubborn about it. He simply ran the tactical math the way he always did, and the result came out identical to theirs: at this exact moment, in this broken state, he would be dead weight. And dead weight got team members killed.
He exhaled slowly, and the fight drained out of his exhausted shoulders.
"...Fine," he said, sliding back down against the stone wall. "Your call. Just try not to lose anyone down there."
"You just rest." Selena turned back to the rest of the team, her voice snapping into command mode. "Go. All of you. Hold the line until the rest of the global heroes arrive. I’ll stay here with him."
Dana nodded once. She glanced at the two remaining support staff hovering near the balcony rail—a young medic and an analyst who had gone pale at the mention of Apocalypse. "You two, stay up here with them. Everyone else, on me."
She looked at the glowing tear in reality. "Vixen. Now."
The spatial fold tore wide open, a shimmering wound in the air at the center of the alcove. One by one, the strongest heroes of America stepped through the portal and vanished. Nectron went first, followed by Vixen, and finally Dana, all disappearing toward the distant grey facility and the subterranean wheel at the bottom of it.
The portal sealed completely shut behind them. The alcove fell dead quiet, with only the muffled, distant roar of the confused stadium audience washing over the high walls.
Nicholas leaned his head back against the cold stone and let his one good eye drift shut.
’Attacking the prison on the one night the whole world is over here watching a tournament,’ he thought silently, the tactical pieces turning idly behind his heavy exhaustion. ’Whoever planned this isn’t stupid. That’s not some random smash-and-grab. That’s someone who waited a very long time for this exact opening.’ His brow creased faintly. ’Which means they’re after something specific. And if it really is her...’
He didn’t bother finishing the thought. He was far too tired to chase the implications, and it wasn’t his problem to solve tonight—not in this condition. The others were handling it. He had more than earned the right to sit this one out.
"Give it a few minutes," Selena said softly, settling down on the floor beside him. For once, there was no sharp bite or sarcasm in her tone at all. "Then, if you still insist on playing the hero, I’ll help you catch up to them. But not a second before then. Just breathe, Nicholas."
"You’re getting it wrong supervisor, I had no interest in playing hero. Just didn’t want my money to go"
Nicholas closed his eye and breathed.
Selena rubbed her forehead with a sigh.
"Goodness, you still haven’t changed"