Chapter 127 Nuts.

Chapter 127: 127 Nuts.

"Seems you’ve been busy," Khonsu observed, his voice carrying that booming, divine resonance he always used when he was in full character.

Understatement of the decade.

"Yeah. Things have sort of... happened," I said.

"Hm," Khonsu said, crossing his massive, linen-wrapped arms and giving me a close look. "I believe you should probably explain."

Well, that was fair enough. Leaning against Delirium’s dissolving skull, I gave Khonsu a highly edited rundown.

I cut out any mention of Rhea’s connection to Delirium, as well as Arman and the fight at the Nights, instead spinning a tale about how I’d foiled Delirium’s attack on the university, causing the crazed cyborg to come after me for revenge.

It was pretty tripe, but also pretty predictable. Villains didn’t really need too heavy a motivation to fuck around with people. I should know, and revenge was a perfectly believable motive for an egoist like Delirium.

But I had absolutely no intention of letting Rhea get tied into this whole ’super-arms’ business.

She had enough trouble with that life, and had left it behind. I was going to protect her. That much I swore.

Khonsu listened grimly, his starry eyes narrowing now and then. I could tell he didn’t totally buy the sanitized version of events, but he seemed satisfied enough when I finished.

He knew I was lying, you couldn’t lie to someone who was know as the God avatar of the moon, but the Finn in there knew I wasn’t trouble.

"I see," he said, his glowing gaze drifting past us to the ballroom roof, where the massive, scrap-armored tentacles of the Octoporian were still looming ominously. "So. You have an autonomous, eight-armed assault platform?"

"Seems like it was a wise precaution," I said carefully. "You never know these days. Especially outside the city limits. Crime in the rural areas has become just terrible."

"Quite so," Khonsu said dryly, turning his starry gaze back to me. "In that case, I suppose everything seems in order."

"Sorry to make you come all the way out here," I said.

"I didn’t mind. However, Polaris, I am a bit worried about all this new equipment. You aren’t going true villain, are you?"

"Me?" I said, feigning offense. "No! Of course not."

"Is that so? Because you do now possess a secluded mountain lair. And a city-leveling doomsday device. And a growing number of villainous underlings..."

"Well... yes. But that’s all very above board," I quickly said.

"Is that right?" Khonsu said, fixing me with a steely, glowing look. "Well. Perhaps so. But the BSA might be highly concerned about all this."

Oh, I didn’t like where this was going at all. "Uh huh," I said slowly. "Well, I understand their concerns..."

"Not to mention," Khonsu added, his voice dropping a fraction of its booming theatricality, sounding just a bit more like the tired Finn I actually knew. "The Bureau is also going to want to have a very detailed chat with you about exactly what happened with Golden Boy at the Omnidome earlier tonight. You put an A-lister in the ICU, Miles."

Fuck.

"Standard procedure when a city-level threat is encountered, and a high-profile hero is hospitalized," Khonsu continued, his divine persona slipping back into place. "You don’t have a problem with that, right? We would hate to think that you might have something to hide. And you must understand that a scene like this will demand a formal response."

Technically, I probably didn’t have to say yes.

In fact, Khonsu had no official legal authority to drag me in right now. He couldn’t arrest me, and Finn certainly wasn’t going to pick a fight with me here, but I knew better than to stonewall an A-lister of his caliber.

He had a lot of highly placed contacts and could make my life very difficult. And I was going to have enough problems as it was without getting the BSA breathing down my neck.

And... well, to be perfectly fair, I could see where he was coming from.

I looked back at the Octoporian. I sure as hell wasn’t sad that I’d let Rhea build the thing, but it was hard to look at a giant mechanical kraken and argue I’d only needed it for home defense.

"Nooooo," I said slowly. "Not at all. I’d be just... delighted to pay a visit to the Bureau."

Khonsu smiled beneath his wrappings, plainly able to see right through me. "Good. So glad we could come to an agreement. Divina? Let us go."

"Of course, Khonsu!" Divina said, banging a fist against her chest in a crisp salute.

Khonsu nodded and glanced back at me. "I’ll be in touch."

"Of course," I said dryly.

Khonsu wrapped his ethereal robes around Divina, the cosmic light flaring.

Without another word, they shot up into the sky like a falcon. The starry, impossible cosmos faded away with them, leaving the regular, overcast night sky and the distant glow of Metropolis in its wake.

I watched them go, feeling my stomach turn with deep unease. I sighed, scratching the back of my helmet, staring at the empty sky.

I was still doing that when I heard someone clear their throat behind me. I looked back to find Rhea standing not far away, the heavy chalet doors open behind her.

"Oh. Hey," I said.

"Hi, Miles," she said. She shuffled her boots in the snow. "I uh... tracked those heroes on the radar. They left our airspace."

"Oh. Good."

I looked back towards the monstrous, melting corpse on the lawn. Rhea stepped nearer and moved in close against me, her shoulder pressing against my armor. "I can’t believe it’s really over," she said softly.

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure. The problem with fighting evil geniuses was they often had backup plans and other bullshit.

Clones. Supercomputers designed to deliver a final payload of vengeance. A hidden daughter that’d come out of the woodwork a few years from now swearing revenge (though given Delirium’s twisted personality, I kinda doubted any kids he had would be too broken up about him getting offed).

But Rhea didn’t need to worry about that right now. Instead, I reached out and gave her messy, golden-brown dog ears an affectionate rub.

"Yeah," I said. "How’s it feel to be free?"

Rhea hummed, wriggling in her grease-stained work coat, her lashes fluttering as I pet her sensitive ears. "Ohhhh... It feels good," she giggled.

"Want to kick his corpse a bit?" I asked.

Rhea gasped with delight. "Can I?"

"Sure. Go nuts. Here," I said, magnetically floating a heavy chunk of metal over to her. "Whack it a bit with this, too. Really get that stress out of your system."

With almost manic glee, Rhea grabbed the metal bar and skipped over to the dissolving skull.

She drew back and started whaling on Delirium’s remains, smashing the bar against it like a mobster breaking kneecaps.

"And this is for making me hide in a basement for six years! And this is for trying to hunt me down! And this is for stealing my sandwich out of the community fridge! And this..."

I shook my head, chuckling as Rhea violently vented herself on the rotting corpse of her tormentor. I watched her, feeling a genuine grin pull at the corner of my lips despite the exhaustion settling into my bones.

What a fucking night...