Broker-Chapter 264

While the world outside shook, Leiandra stumbled out of the elevator. One of Sonya’s armed security guards caught her and helped her steady herself. She nodded to him briefly as he turned and began leading her towards a side hallway. She grabbed him by the arm and turned back to the elevator. “Wait, give her a moment to come down. We need to make sure–”

“Miss Chernovna gave us an order to get you somewhere safe, ma’am,” the guard said sharply through the vocalizer built into his helmet, the nearly opaque faceplate revealing just enough of his face to make him distinguishable from the others. “Apologies, ma’am, but her orders trump her own safety. That’s how this works.”

Leiandra was taken aback. “Excuse me?” she demanded. “You’re her security team! How can her orders be more important than her security?”

“Because we trust her, ma’am. If she says she’ll be fine, she’ll be fine,” the guard shot back. “She’s not as helpless as you might suspect.”

Leiandra scowled, but the other guard stepped up behind her and nodded. The building trembled as a roar shook everything. She looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh. “Fine,” she muttered before checking the elevator one last time. The number was already rising towards the level Sonya was on. It wouldn’t be long before it picked her up. She could try to press for time, but there was no point in arguing. They’d drag her if she held off any longer. She started walking, grumbling under her breath about that stubborn woman.

Why does she need to see Handmaiden off anyway? she thought irritably as they entered one of the side halls leading towards the stairs down to the safe room. “How many safe rooms are there?” she asked, glancing towards the doors to the locker rooms as she walked.

“If you’re concerned about the participants in the locker rooms, the locker rooms double as safe rooms and are sealed automatically,” the guard explained. “The walls are reinforced.”

She huffed. “Fine,” she grumbled as they reached the steps. A door slammed open behind them, and she whirled in time to see Sonya running through. Leiandra let out a sigh of relief. “There you are!” she growled. “What took you so long?”

Sonya hustled over and slid to a stop, panting. “Couldn’t send her off without a word, could I?” The CEO chuckled and straightened her hair with a flip, smirking. “You look surprisingly relieved to see me.”

Leiandra’s nostrils flared. “I don’t want you dead, you idiot!” she snarled. “I just want you to own your shit and do your job in a legal and moral way. What about that is so difficult to understand?”

It was Sonya’s turn to look a little taken aback. Her smile turned almost… sad? She smiled and patted Leiandra’s arm before walking past her with a chuckle. “Never change, Leiandra,” she said and started down the stairs with a light hum and a skip to her step.

Leiandra watched her back, frowning a little. What was that? she thought as she tried to recontextualize every interaction she’d had with the woman so far. That one moment seemed more genuine than all the other wisecracks, jokes, and acts of mischief. She looked back as one of the guards put a hand on her shoulder, and she nodded, hustling down to walk with Sonya. The CEO kept her eyes forward, a smug smile on her face, but her eyes seemed steadier than usual. “You seem calm.”

“I believe in Marta,” Sonya said without missing a beat. “She can take him.”

“Kingshark? One-on-one?” Leiandra countered. “No offense to Handmaiden, but that’s a bit of a stretch. He crossed the planet in a day and slaughtered tens of hundreds of members of Liberty’s cult, destroying a small town’s worth of property.”

Sonya turned to meet her eyes. “And?” she asked. “How do First Wind’s collateral damage figures look?”

Leiandra paused and thought it over as they reached the bottom of the steps. The two escorts hurried back up. She’s right. The Committee declared Kingshark a Special-class villain because of his blitz attacks, but they were all carefully timed. He is powerful in his favored terrain, but… is he really all that different from any other high-end Mythic when you boil it down? She pressed her lips together hard. If any Mythic could be that strong, then…

Sonya came to a sudden stop, and Leiandra shook herself from her thoughts. She looked at the CEO, who was eyeing the pair of guards at the door with a puzzled expression before shrugging a little. Leiandra looked at them, but they didn’t look any different than the others to her. Same uniform, as far as I can tell. Sonya started walking again, smiling ear to ear, and extended a hand to the guard on the left. “You must be new!” she said brightly.

New? Then it hit her. Sonya can see their names! She doesn’t recognize them.

“Yes, ma’am,” the guard said. “Please get inside, ma’am.”

“Interesting!” Sonya said brightly as the door opened. Leiandra looked past her and saw nothing. Just a large room with some couches. She exchanged a look with the CEO, who snickered. “Those really are some nice cuffs you’ve got there, Leiandra. Are they ASTA brand?”

“Huh?” Leiandra looked down at her suppression cuffs as Sonya walked inside. “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “Your company is the only one that makes any good ones. Why do you-”

A strong hand grabbed Leiandra by the arm, and she was pulled away before she could even turn her head. She watched a group of thugs grab Sonya as well. They’d been hiding at either side of the door. A trap! She reached down for her suppression cuff.

“Bind her arms first,” a familiar voice came, and one of the men behind her grabbed her other hand, pulling it away from her cuff.

Shit!

She looked up and around the plain-looking safe room as her arms were painfully wrenched behind her back. A zip tie was wrapped around her wrists, followed by another to reinforce it before she was forced to the ground. Her heart was racing. Sonya was already on the ground when she saw the rear of the room bend. It twisted and rippled before shattering like glass, revealing a slightly longer room and several more armed men standing around the speaker.

“Sowards!” she snarled. “What the hell? You sniveling little shit!”

The rail-thin man had his hands in his pockets. His foot tapped rapidly against the ground as he looked between her and Sonya with a wild look in his eyes. He pulled one hand out of his pocket, and she saw it was trembling as he slapped the side of his head in shock. “She was right! It went down exactly like she said! That’s crazy!” he laughed. “This couldn’t have gone better! Both of them at the same time! I can’t believe it!”

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‘She’? Leiandra narrowed her eyes as a bad feeling coiled in her gut. Her mind was already coming to a conclusion that she didn’t want to consider. “Sowards,” she breathed. “You didn’t.”

He cackled and raised a hand; the air shimmered and shards of glass formed around him like a hundred tiny blades. He twitched his finger, and they twirled before floating into the air above them and spreading out. “You tell me, what didn’t I do?” he asked coldly.

“You made a deal with Ishtar, you bastard!” she snarled, her burning stare fixed on him as one of the men behind her grabbed her and dragged her to the center of the room and set her down with Sonya at her left. She checked on the CEO and found her staring flatly at Sowards without a flicker in her mute expression. “Are you okay?”

Sonya just blinked and shrugged without saying anything.

Leiandra looked back at Sowards, who was looking down at them from over his nose, his smile cruel. “The Voice of the Hero Movement and the Fanatic Inquisitor of the Pandora Committee. Both at the same time, at my mercy.” He let out a long sigh. “Oh, I should have switched sides a long time ago. It feels so good.”

Leiandra flinched at the nickname, and he snorted. “You don’t have a lot of fans back home, do you, Miss Firth? Sonya here may be a little shady, but at least people like her,” Sowards snarled, crouching down to look her in the eyes. “How does it feel knowing that most heroes hate your guts?”

“At least I’m not a pathetic coward who couldn’t take the heat and turned to the devil herself to-”

The side of her face and her nose exploded with pain as he struck her. She pressed her lips together as a trickle of blood dripped down onto her thigh. She stared him dead in the eyes, and he flicked his wrist, a blade of glass falling into his grip. He held it out and pressed it beneath her chin. “Want to say that again, Firth?” he asked, his pupils going small with warning.

She clenched her teeth and tried to move her fingers closer to the release, but a hand reached down and grabbed her by her hair. She grunted and forced herself to stay as still as possible, the instinct to jerk her head forward nearly killing her. Sowards barked out a laugh and tapped the blade of glass up against her chin. “Whoops! That would have been bad, wouldn’t it?”

“You’re a piece of shit, Sowards.”

“And you don’t know how to play the game, Leiandra.”

She spat at him, only for the bloody glob to slap against a pane of glass between them. He stifled a laugh and turned away, going to squat down in front of Sonya. Leiandra tried to pull herself away from the man holding her in place, but she could only watch.

Sonya just stared forward, her face unconcerned.

“You look confident as always, smug bitch,” Sowards growled. “Nobody’s coming to save you.”

Sonya shrugged. “If that’s what you think.”

Sowards looked up at the door. “You’re dead, Chernovna, and so is your bodyguard. That’s Kingshark out there. Get with the program. The villains have the advantage. Every one of them is worth at least two heroes of the same tier. Ishtar’s Inner Circle? They’re monsters beyond our imagination.”

Leiandra pulled against the grip on her head. “Handmaiden can handle him alone, and with other heroes he-”

“Shut your fucking mouth! I’m not talking to you!” Sowards snapped and whipped his hand out, a sharp flash of pain spreading across Leiandra’s arm. She gasped and looked down to see blood freely streaming down from her shoulder. Sowards turned back to Sonya. “Well? Anything to say? You usually know just what to say, Chernovna. You were full of it back at The Hague. No self-righteousness in you now?”

Sonya smirked at him and shrugged.

He scowled. “I’ll have you know I’m going for that bitch Carla Mint after I’m through with you.”

Leiandra watched Sonya’s face, but it really didn’t change. How is she so calm? Why? “Sonya, he’s going to kill you!” she shouted.

Sowards turned to shout when Sonya pointed at him with a confused expression on her face. She pointed at herself next and then burst into laughter. The hand holding Leiandra’s head loosened its grip a little as Sowards slowly turned his head to stare at Sonya’s hand. The entire room went very, very still. Sonya just blinked and looked down at her wrist. “Oh, was uh… was that not supposed to come off?” she asked and held up the remains of the zip tie.

Sowards stumbled back in surprise. “What the fuck?!”

Sonya held out her wrists. “Here! Try again!” she offered with a bright smile.

He leaned in towards her, a vein pulsing in his temple. “Why the hell would I do that if you’ve already broken out once?”

She leaned away from him and covered her nose. “Sheesh, I was just offering. It sounded like you weren’t done monologuing yet. Isn’t it rude to interrupt a villain mid-monologue?” she asked and turned to Leiandra, who couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Sonya jerked her thumb towards Sowards. “Get a load of this guy,” she said and waved her hand. “His breath reeks.”

Leiandra’s head was spinning while Sowards’ eye was twitching. “How did you do that?” he demanded.

Sonya made a frustrated expression. “Weren’t you there for the Darksider’s raid on HQ?” Sonya asked with a frown. “Also, I’m pretty sure you were part of the camp instructor subcommittee.”

Understanding ripped through Leiandra’s mind. No wonder she was so calm. She was confident in handling herself in a situation like this. She trained heroes in hand-to-hand combat. A bunch of thugs were nothing to her. She glanced up at the shards of glass hanging in the air over them. But can she handle that?

Sonya didn’t move to get up as Sowards watched her with a cautious eye. The thugs around them were all reaching for their weapons as the man stood up straighter and straightened his tie. The vein was still pulsing in the side of his head. “At least you know better than to make any other moves. I’ll shred you to pieces, Chernovna.”

Sonya snorted. “Do it then.”

Sowards bared his teeth. “I’ll do it when I decide to!”

The building shook, and Sonya glanced up. “Better hurry. Sounds like the fight is wrapping up. If Handmaiden wins, she’ll be a lot harder to deal with than me.”

“Sonya!” Leiandra shouted. “Are you insane?” What is wrong with her?

Sonya side-eyed her. “What? He’s a pussy.”

“I will kill you!” Sowards bellowed, holding out his hands.

“I’m waiting!”

“AAAHHHH!” Sowards shrieked, and… nothing happened. He waved his arms. His eyes twitched. He looked down at his hands and then up at the ceiling. The shards of glass flickered and destabilized, a few popping into glittering dust. His chest was heaving. “What the hell?” he demanded. “What’s wrong with my powers? She should be dead!”

He really tried to kill her, Leiandra thought before looking at Sonya, who was staring at him without a care in the world. How did she do that? Did she break his concentration on his ability or something? If he just recently got it, he must be unused to using it. Ingenious, if a bit reckless.

Sonya’s calm slipped into an almost pitying expression. “Performance issues, Sowards? Sorry, but we don’t have pills for that yet.”

Leiandra’s eyes bulged.

Soward’s right eye, on the other hand, literally turned red as a blood vessel popped. He staggered. “CHERNOVNA!” he shrieked and rounded on one of the thugs. “Give me a fucking gun!”

Leiandra tried to get to her feet. There was nothing Sonya could do about a bullet. She had to do something. She pulled hard against the grip on her head as Sonya looked towards Leiandra with a smug smile. “Peaches.”

“Huh?”

Click.

Mana flooded into Leiandra’s body. The instincts of her ability roared to the surface. Her awareness spread across the room. Every object in the room was suddenly in her reach. The sudden deluge of sense took her off-guard for only a heartbeat as Sowards rounded on Sonya and pointed the gun in her direction. He pulled the trigger as Leiandra tilted her head forward. Power burned behind her eyes. She didn’t have time to think it through. She only had time to act and put a proven threat down.

The next moment, Sowards was dead on the ground, with a bullet hole in his head.