Chapter 295 Lawn.

Chapter 295: 295 Lawn.

Oh, great.

I openly scowled as I spotted Divina. The Grecian heroine looked exactly as smug as you could possibly please, her dark brown eyes narrowed into a hateful glare as she strutted down the ramp of the airship.

Fuck. No wonder the hovercraft circled so aggressively. She had probably been actively advocating to blast my chalet from orbit.

Ever since I publicly dismantled the Five, she had made absolutely no secret that she wanted me dead, or significantly worse.

I reached out with my powers, trying to specifically sense the metallic casing of the gemstone embedded in her collar—the magical source of her divine powers—but I wasn’t getting much of a ping.

It looked like she’d finally found a tech who knew how to demagnetize or shield it.

Still, she wouldn’t exactly be hard to trounce in a vacuum. Mystic was an entirely different matter. If we went toe-to-toe while she was lucid, it would be a coin toss.

But either way, if it did come to an open, lethal fight right here on my front lawn, it would fundamentally smoke my career. And having a wildcard like Divina around just made a bloodbath that much more likely.

"Glacia didn’t do it," I said firmly, keeping my hands resting casually near my belt.

Divina snorted in disgust. "Sure she didn’t. We all saw the video feed, Polaris. Now hand the murderer over!"

I ignored her completely and looked directly at Mystic, aka the only sane person in this heavily armed clown show. "You know exactly how easy that kind of footage is to digitally fake," I said. "Glacia is innocent."

Mystic didn’t look remotely happy about the situation, but she shook her head sadly. "Then her innocence will be proven in a court of law. But until then, she must be properly secured. Please, Miles. Khonsu explicitly couldn’t be here for this exact reason. Don’t make this harder than it is."

"Come on, Mystic. You know that putting her in a federal prison is only going to start massive shit. Even temporarily holding her is going to cause catastrophic problems from the outside. And either way, I absolutely wouldn’t trust Glacia being helpless within an entire continent of her," I said, nodding pointedly at Divina.

That specific comment didn’t earn me any points with little miss goddess, who violently scowled at me. "Your psychotic ’henchgirl’ murdered a registered hero in cold blood, villain! She will be immediately taken in and put in heavy chains. Exactly where she belongs!"

"Try it, bitch!" Psyren laughed gleefully. She was suddenly wreathed in a blinding pink aura, her hair writhing wildly with raw psychic power. "In fact, how’d you like to spend the rest of your miserable days genuinely thinking you’re a toy poodle named Princess?"

The heroes flanking Divina instantly tensed, and the heroine herself growled, her lips pulling back over perfect white teeth.

"This entire estate should have been leveled to ash before it began to fester!" she snapped. Her hands curled into tight fists, her body beginning to glow with a blinding golden light as she called on her divine power.

"Everyone, relax!" I snapped, raising my voice. "Mystic, you know exactly what will happen if you take Glacia into federal custody. Her father will come down on Metropolis like a brand-new Ice Age!"

Mystic visibly winced at the undeniable truth of that, but she shook her head, gripping her scythe. "If we do not do the right thing purely out of a fear of the consequences, then who could ever depend on us?"

Fucking dammit! This? This right here is exactly why true, blue-blooded heroes could be such massive administrative problems. Absolutely zero sense of goddamn pragmatism.

"She didn’t do anything," I snapped. "It is a frame-up."

"Ha! That is what they all say," Divina sneered.

"Don’t talk to the boss that way, princess, or I will literally spank your mind back into fucking diapers!" Psyren barked.

"Try me, you pink harlot!" Divina snarled back. She pounded a heavy fist into her open palm, golden light pulsing violently from her belt. "I’ll show you what raw brawn does to brains the second I splatter yours across this lawn!"

"Big talk from a bipedal fap job!" Psyren snapped.

"Big talk from a... a... a bitch!" Divina shot back lamely.

Goddammit.

"Psyren!" I warned.

"Divina!" Mystic barked over her shoulder.

"Strapping Son!" Strapping Son announced randomly, for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

"You are not taking her," I told Mystic, dropping into a wider stance.

"We will," the Norse heroine replied with equal, unyielding firmness. She raised her heavy scythe with a sudden blaze of blinding static, her eyes violently crackling with raw thunder. "We must."

The heroes stepped forward in unison. My iron visor immediately slid up and snapped over my face. The metal all around me began to hum with a deafening vibration as I slowly, deliberately lifted a few inches off the ground. Well, it had been a highly profitable career while it lasted.

"Targets actively acquired," the Rhea-Search androids announced in perfect, synchronized chorus. Their chrome arms rose sharply, the artificial flesh of their hands peeling back with a mechanical shhhck to reveal the glowing, spinning barrels of heavy energy blasters.

Mystic swung her scythe in a tight arc. Heavy static violently crackled over her armor, actively warping her own magnetic field to keep me from directly manipulating her metal.

"Stop!"

Oh, no.

My helmet swung around. The heavy front doors of the chalet had been thrown wide open, and Glacia stood squarely on the threshold.

Her pale face was set with solid, unbreakable resolve. Her chin was lifted high, and her white fur-trimmed cape fluttered dramatically in the approaching storm winds.

"Glacia!" I yelled. "Don’t—"

"Forgive me, sir," she said loudly, striding down the stone steps with the flawless posture of a tragic queen. "But I simply could not allow this. I could not stand by and see you sacrifice all you have meticulously built, just for me alone. I will go with them, sir."

"Glacia, no!" I commanded.

"I must, sir," she said, stopping right beside me. She looked up at my visor with a look of absolute, selfless devotion. "For the good of us all."

Mystic slowly rose out of her combative crouch, the heavy static fading away around her weapon. "A wise choice," she breathed. Then she looked sharply back to Divina. "Bring her. Gently," she added pointedly.

Divina looked rapidly between Mystic and Glacia, utterly dumbfounded by the sudden de-escalation.

"But... just like that?" she demanded. "But they aggressively threatened us! We can’t just—"

"Divina!" Mystic snapped. A massive clap of thunder boomed directly overhead to violently accent her voice. "We are absolutely not here to fight a war today. We are here to take this villainess into lawful custody. Our task is officially complete. Get the cuffs. Now!"

Another heavy crackle of thunder rumbled across the sky like the crack of a whip. Divina seethed, her jaw working furiously, but she stomped forward, pulling out a pair of heavy-duty, glowing manacles that probably had some kind of high-end anti-freezing tech built into the steel.

I turned back to Glacia as she gracefully offered her wrists to the heroine. "Glacia, you absolutely cannot do this," I told her quietly.

"I can, sir," she said, looking my way with a devastatingly sad, gentle smile. "I must."

And then, she winked.

And for just a fraction of a second, her icy blue eyes flashed a bright, reptilian yellow.

No way.

I literally swayed where I hovered, entirely dumbfounded. Chamelea smiled beautifully with Glacia’s serenely regal face. Then, she turned smoothly and let Divina clamp the heavy cuffs over her wrists. Divina grumbled a curse and aggressively shoved what she entirely believed was Glacia toward the waiting military hovercraft.

Mystic watched them walk up the ramp with a heavy sigh, then turned back to face me.

"I promise you on my honor, Polaris," she said sincerely. "Absolutely no harm will come to her while she is in our custody."

"Huh?" I said, my brain violently rebooting as my boots touched back down on the pavement. My mind was rapidly spinning with the sheer, tactical implications of what I had just witnessed. "Oh! Uh, you’d damn well better," I said, forcing the gravel back into my voice. "And keep Divina entirely away from her."

"I will," Mystic said with a curt nod. She turned and marched up the ramp after the group. The remaining heroes looked like a bizarre mix of deeply relieved and bitterly disappointed. No doubt they had wanted the viral fame of taking down the Iron Polaris on live television. Well, too fucking bad for them.

"We’re just actively letting them go? Just like that?" Psyren protested hotly as the heavy hydraulics hissed.

"Yeah," I said, watching the heavy metal hatch of the hovercraft definitively seal shut. "We are. Now, come back inside the house. Quick!"

I grabbed Psyren firmly by the shoulder, steering her around and aggressively hustling her back through the front doors.

I absolutely couldn’t risk spilling the beans out on the lawn.