Chapter 134

  Alexander turned his full attention to the gateway. His Core activated, powers spiraling together into a unified point that he drove into the gateway’s center.

  It felt easier than before. The System’s suppression pushed back, but his powers cut through the resistance like it was barely there. He’d grown considerably since the cultivator gateway.

  He found the machine beneath. Targeted its function, its purpose. The metaphysical architecture responded to his touch. He disabled the one-way restriction.

  Maximilian’s chains stabbed into the gateway’s surface before Alexander could speak. No warning needed. They’d done this before.

  The chains pulled. Reality tore.

  The suppression spiked for a heartbeat, then vanished entirely.

  The gateway ripped open. Two layers of the same image, the topmost torn away to reveal what lay beneath.

  Julia burst through first. She was already airborne, snowflakes swirling in her wake. Annie followed immediately, her form shifting as she ran. Metal scales spread across her skin, her body elongating into the massive spinosaurus form. They split left and right without hesitation.

  Cash pranced forward. He stopped in front of Alexander and Maximilian, did a little spin, and gave them both a two-fingered salute.

  Then he blurred through the portal.

  Alexander wasted no time. He lifted off and flew through the gateway. The drones surged ahead of him, fanning out into a wall of spinning shield-blades. The formation stayed loose enough to see through, tight enough to intercept threats. Behind him, the barriers and turrets followed, pulled by Metallokinesis.

  The air hit him first. Thicker than Earth’s, humid enough to feel against his skin. It carried the rich scent of vegetation mixed with something musky that spoke of the creatures that lived here.

  Then the sky. The clearest blue he’d ever seen. No pollution. No haze. Just pure atmosphere stretching endlessly above.

  The ground beneath was packed earth and wild grass that grew longer than any lawn back home. Everything felt more. More vibrant. More alive. Nature unchecked by human presence.

  Distant trees rose beyond the hill ahead, their canopies massive. Too large for what trees should be. The forest was dense, old growth that had never been cut back or managed.

  The orangutan sat on the hill’s crest.

  Around the hill, the beasts were rousing. Hundreds of them scattered across the open ground and lounging on the slopes. Things that looked almost like wolves, but larger, with proportions that weren’t quite right. Reptilian creatures with too many legs. Something that might have been a bear once, except it was twice the size and covered in scales instead of fur. A cat-like predator with too many eyes and a tail that ended in bone spikes.

  All of them were moving now. Heads turning toward the intruders. Bodies rising from rest.

  Movement came from the forest behind the hill. Distant shapes between the massive trees as more beasts emerged.

  Sound rolled across the open ground. Low growls, then roars. The scrape of claws against earth.

  Alexander lifted higher, spreading the barriers and turrets into their defensive formation. His attention split between the positioning and the combat unfolding below.

  To the left of the gateway, Julia faced a giant scorpion. The thing was the size of a bus, with three dripping tails that moved independently. Venom glistened on their tips. Its pincers snapped with lightning speed, trying to catch her. She flung ice spikes at its joints, deflecting the spear-like tails as they thrust toward her.

  On the right, Annie squared off against something that looked like a rhino crossed with an armadillo. Overlapping plates of armor covered its body in segmented sections.

  It charged. Mid-stride, it folded itself into a ball and rolled forward like a living boulder. The impact sent Annie crashing away from the gateway, tumbling across the packed earth.

  Ahead, Cash had come to a stop. He let out a whistle. “Is it just me, or does two hundred look way scarier than it sounds?”

  Alexander focused on aligning the barriers into their arc.

  Cash clapped his hands together. Dropped into a runner’s stance and flexed once.

  Then there was a sharp crack of sound as he took off.

  He reached the first creatures charging toward the gateway in under a second. A sonic boom erupted as he collided with the lead beast. The shockwave rippled outward, smashing into the creatures behind and sending them flying in every direction.

  Then suddenly Cash was back where he’d started.

  Alexander blinked in confusion, then slammed the barriers down into position.

  Another crack. Cash was gone again, rushing into the oncoming horde. Another collision. Another sonic boom. Another half dozen beasts sent tumbling away.

  Cash reappeared at the same spot. “Whoo! Round three.”

  Crack. Gone.

  Alexander’s mind worked through what he was seeing. They knew Cash was fast. They knew he absorbed kinetic energy and converted it to speed. But this was something more. Some application of his power that went beyond what they’d understood. Banking momentum? Resetting position? He couldn’t quite parse the mechanics.

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  The turrets floated down into their mounts. A thump of wings sounded behind him, the only warning before a massive, radiant emerald dragon soared overhead.

  The sounds of everyone else rushing through the gateway reached him. Blasts of fire to the left. The crack of gunfire to the right. Shouts as the ground team moved to assist Julia and Annie.

  The defense was forming. The fight had truly begun.

  Alexander glanced across the battlefield.

  Fire tornadoes sprang up across the open ground, Sven’s power creating walls of flame that corralled the charging beasts. Augustus moved through the defensive line, rapidly conjuring shields onto ground team members. Near the center, some of the beasts suddenly turned on each other, confusion spreading through their ranks. Others vanished mid-charge, only to reappear elsewhere, completely disoriented. Mirror’s work.

  A loud crack rang out. One of the massive bear-like creatures collapsed, a hole through its skull. Talia, sniping from her position.

  The turrets opened fire, fully automated, cutting down the weaker beasts, but barely harming the stronger ones. The creatures, recognizing the threat from the defensive position the superhumans had established, began using the terrain for cover on approach.

  Movement caught his attention. A cloud rising from the forest. Flying beasts, dozens of them, emerging from the canopy.

  “The orangutan is retreating,” Raelene said. “Switch to A-3.”

  Confirmations rang across the raid communications they’d organized via the System’s functions.

  A-3. Alexander processed it quickly. Primary plan with overhead support. They’d worked through dozens of variations depending on how the beasts and the orangutan responded. The letter designated the overall strategy. The number indicated specific tactical adjustments. A-3 meant the ground team held the gateway while the aerial team pursued, but they’d provide damage on approach rather than breaking immediately for the target.

  Alexander located Annie. She’d shifted back to human form but remained fully metal, standing near the barrier line. When their eyes met, she raised her arms and jumped a few times, mouth opening and closing each time.

  He sighed and clamped down on his cursed Hyperawareness, not wanting to know what she was saying.

  Alexander reached down with Metallokinesis and seized her. There was resistance, her metal body fighting his control even as she tried to allow it. Her Willpower pushed back instinctively. He pushed harder and lifted her into the air.

  She rose up beside the emerald dragon. He deposited her onto its back next to Raelene. Annie grabbed one of the conjured chains and locked herself in.

  Maximilian stood at the dragon’s neck, hands tucked behind his back. He gave Alexander a single nod.

  With a powerful pump of its wings, the dragon took off toward the forest.

  Alexander followed, lifting higher into the air alongside them.

  Behind him, the swarm of drones split. Twenty-five of them reoriented downward toward the defensive perimeter, moving to reinforce the ground team. With the loss of the other heroes, and the Golden Lotus refusing to join, their numbers were fewer than they’d hoped.

  Droney remained at the center of the formation. For a moment, Alexander felt strange leaving the little drone behind. It had been a constant presence since its creation, present during every fight.

  It was necessary to get the most out of the other drones.

  But Droney’s response came through their connection. Clear and resolute. A sense of duty and understanding that needed no words.

  Alexander sent his thanks across the bond.

  Seven drones followed Alexander upward. Five were the shield-blade type. One was an ‘Annie Special’, painted in glitter.

  The seventh was a larger drone with an angular, faceted surface studded with what looked like small pyramids. He’d been working on the surveillance drone’s design for months. The risk of having to pursue the orangutan into the forest had prompted him to finalize it while crafting his arm and rebuilding his drone swarm.

  And all of it had been funded by Ambassador Marcus. Councilor Marcus now. He’d been surprised to find that the man had both anticipated his need, and the workshop he’d chosen after researching his options.

  Annoyed, too, if he were being honest, though he’d made sure to get the last word in about the man’s power play. He doubted Marcus had anticipated paying for materials for all the new drones. Or the dozens of large spools of rare alloys Alexander had slipped into Augustus’s Storage Closet for future projects.

  He would have paid good money to see the man’s face when that bill arrived.

  Movement below pulled Alexander’s attention back to the battlefield. Hjordis carved through a charging beast with her massive sword. Then flame wings erupted from her back and she launched upward, joining the aerial formation.

  Julia rose from the left side of the battlefield, ice crystals trailing in her wake. She paced herself next to Alexander as they headed for the forest.

  Ahead of them, the emerald dragon banked lower, diving toward the densest concentration of beasts. Its jaws opened and corrosive breath sprayed across the horde below.

  Creatures screamed as their armor dissolved. Flesh sizzled where the acid touched. The central charge faltered as beasts scattered from the caustic spray.

  Hjordis followed after the dragon, flame wings carrying her in a tight spiral through the panicking horde. Her massive sword carved through necks and torsos as she spun. Blood arced through the air. Bodies fell in her wake.

  She carved a path toward something larger than the rest. A crocodilian creature standing upright on two legs, easily ten feet tall. Goat horns jutted from its skull. It was roaring at the other beasts, directing them, organizing them despite the chaos.

  Julia slammed down onto it from above.

  The impact sent up a plume of dirt and dust that obscured them both for a heartbeat. Then Julia shot back up through the cloud, gripping one of its horns. The commander thrashed in her grip, jaws snapping toward her.

  She kneed it in the throat.

  The creature choked, its jaw going slack. Julia punched it in the side of the head. Once. Twice. Three times. Each impact rang out across the battlefield.

  A loud crack. The creature went limp.

  She dropped it. The body crashed back down into the horde below.

  Alexander reached into his belt pouches and pulled out handfuls of needles. Hundreds of them. He flung them upward as he spread both hands wide, the needles forming a cloud above him.

  Then he slammed his hands down.

  The needles rained across the battlefield in a wide arc. They punched through melted armor and burned flesh, exploiting the damage the others had created. Weaker beasts died instantly, needles piercing vital organs. Stronger ones staggered as metal embedded deep into muscle and bone.

  Alexander reached out, clenched his right fist, and pulled.

  Every needle that had found a target fought him. Each one contested by the Will of the creature it was lodged in. Dozens of individual battles played out simultaneously.

  His teeth ground together. The strain pulled at him from every direction. Some resisted harder than others, their Wills anchoring the metal inside their bodies.

  He let those go immediately. There was no time to overpower them.

  The rest he yanked back in one sharp motion.

  Blood sprayed as needles tore free from flesh. Some ripped clean through, leaving gaping wounds. Others carved channels through muscle as they emerged. Creatures collapsed, crippled. More died where they stood.

  The needles converged into a single dripping mass that shot back to his hand.

  The aerial team accelerated over the carnage, turning back to face the next threat.

  The horde of flying beasts spread out before them.

  And below, the orangutan reached the treeline. It paused, turning to look back up at them. Even with the distance between them, Alexander could see the creature’s teeth as its lips pulled back into a snarling smile.

  Then it disappeared into the forest.

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