Goes Berserk

A sound pierced the haze of the battle, through the pounding of the rain, the buzzing of Legend’s lasers, and the shouts of the other fighters. It was high pitched and faint, nearly drowned out by distance and by all of the other things that were so much closer and louder, but I caught it, if just barely, and I thought I knew what it was.

A scream.

It cut off just as suddenly as it began. No fading, no falling, no gradual decline. Just there and gone between one instant and the next.

“Tattletale deceased, BZ-7,” the pleasant voice reported.

I froze and came to a sudden halt at the base of the building. My heart stopped beating entirely, and for an instant that stretched out forever, I stood there, unmoving, arms still raised to go through the motion of swinging. I almost didn’t even notice the resounding crash of Leviathan landing back in the street.

“Tattletale deceased,” echoed back in my head, repeating over and over.

My blood pounded loudly in my ears. My chest ached, and my lungs seized as my breaths came short and shallow. My mind had gone completely and utterly blank, as though I couldn’t even comprehend what I’d just heard.

Tattletale deceased.

Something inside of me snapped.

“▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!”

The echoing scream that tore out of my throat was altogether inhuman. It was bestial and monstrous, and if I had cared at that moment, I might have thought it something more befitting of Leviathan himself than me.

But I didn’t care about that. There wasn’t space in my head to think something so meaningless.

Because right then, the only thing I had room for was the furious heat that boiled everything else away.

My knees bowed, then snapped back again.

The ground beneath me tore and shattered.

The air cracked and howled.

The first step swallowed a dozen yards in one go, the second, two dozen.

The world around me became a blur, an unfocused blob of steel and rain and splotches of color shaped vaguely like people.

I didn’t care.

They didn’t matter at all.

“▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!”

I was upon Leviathan seconds later, and the array of beams of light that struck him, the fliers that buzzed around his head, the black form of Alexandria as she zoomed back and forth, landing blow after powerful blow upon Leviathan’s body, they were all so unimportant that I barely noticed them at all.

They didn’t matter, either.

“▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!”