Chapter 109

ASSIMILATE

Alexander adjusted the waves of Metallokinesis, weaving between buildings as they rocketed through the city streets. The drones carrying Annie kept pace, Droney coordinating the formation while she sat in the makeshift chair they’d formed.

Buildings streaked past. Concrete structures blurred into gray smears on either side. The packed dirt roads below became brown ribbons as they flew.

An attack erupted from somewhere to their left. Alexander banked right without slowing. The bolt dissipated behind them.

Another cultist taking shots. No time to deal with them.

The city center was ahead. Somewhere in that direction, the ritual continued.

“Any grenades left?” Alexander asked, focused on the path ahead.

“Nope!” Annie called back over the wind. “And I threw the box away after I ran out.”

A taller building loomed directly in their flight path. Alexander pulled up sharply, carrying them over the rooftop. The drones adjusted instantly, maintaining Annie’s stability through the sudden vertical climb.

From this height, the city spread out before them. And in the distance, Alexander spotted movement on the rooftops. Dark figures positioned around what had to be the ritual site.

“Alexander...” Annie’s voice carried a warning edge.

“I see them.” He angled down and toward the figures, already calculating. Drop Annie onto the roof, send the drones crashing into the cultists, then spread out to hit the other rooftops. Had to be the ritual location. Too many of them positioned in a clear perimeter.

He turned to ask if she was ready, the plan forming in his mind.

Then every hair on the back of his arms and neck stood up.

His eyes widened.

A black wave erupted from behind the cultists in the distance, spreading outward in a dome. The smoke-like energy was semi-transparent, dark enough to obscure what lay within but thin enough that Alexander could see shapes moving through it.

The cultists on the rooftops didn’t even have time to scream. They simply collapsed, lifeless, consumed by their own ritual. Fifty or more bodies dropping like puppets with their strings cut.

The dome kept expanding. Racing toward them.

“Alexander!” Annie shouted something else, but he was already moving.

Metallokinesis seized everything at once. His armor, his belt, his boots. The drones wrapped tighter around Annie, metal frames interlocking to secure her as he threw power into reversing their momentum.

They slowed. Hard. But the wall kept coming.

It washed over them.

Alexander felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. His skin began to itch everywhere at once. His eyes burned, tears instantly streaming down his face as he squeezed them shut. Then the burning spread across every inch of exposed skin, intensifying with each heartbeat.

He gave up finesse. Gave up the careful wave patterns he’d spent months perfecting. Pure survival took over.

Alexander hurled them backward with all he had. Metal groaned under the strain. His chest plate creaked. His lungs burned as he pushed harder, forcing them through the death field toward its leading edge.

Then the crushing weight on his chest vanished.

He opened his eyes. Everything looked blurry, unfocused. But they were outside the dome. Through his blurred vision, it appeared to be rapidly shrinking again. He caught their momentum with Metallokinesis, bringing them both to a halt above a rooftop.

All he could hear was the rush of blood in his own ears. His heart hammering against his ribs. The world seemed muted, distant.

He lowered them down to the roof. His legs gave out the moment his boots touched stone. Alexander landed on one knee, coughing, tasting copper.

Everything hurt.

Annie rushed over and grabbed him by the shoulder. He hissed. His skin felt like it had been flayed. Every breath hurt. But he was still conscious. Willpower had kept him alive, resisted the effect, kept the death energy from doing whatever it had done to those cultists.

Barely. His Constitution clearly needed work.

He couldn’t hear what Annie was saying. Her mouth moved but no sound reached him. Alexander reached out with Technopathy, connecting to Droney’s audio sensors.

Her voice came through, almost shouting. “Are you okay? Say something!”

“I’m fine,” he managed, voice rough. “I think.”

“What the hell was that? You look like you got partially fried. Your skin is peeling around your face and ears.”

Alexander coughed again, wincing at the pain in his chest. His hearing was starting to return, her voice reaching him through his own ears now instead of just through Droney. “Check the other rooftops. Are any of the cultists moving?”

Annie stood, looking out across the city. “None of them are moving.”

“And the death field?”

She squinted into the distance. “It’s stopped shrinking.” A pause. “I think it’s growing though. Like it’s rippling, then growing a bit.”

Silence stretched between them.

“Alex...” Annie’s voice dropped. “It’s definitely growing. And the ripple is getting faster each time.”

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Alexander looked up at her. She was full MetaMetal, the liquid metal covering her entire body. Not a scratch visible. “Are you hurt at all?”

Annie looked down at her hands, flexing her metal fingers. “No. I think... my metal absorbed it or something. It burned for a bit, then it only stung, and now I feel fine after you got us out. Still weird, because my metal doesn’t hurt. And I still can’t phase everything, so I had to phase just my skin and eyes and stuff, keeping my organs safe.”

Alexander pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the protests from every nerve ending in his body. His skin felt like severe sunburn. His body ached from the exertion. But he could function.

The problem remained. To stop whoever was powering the ritual, they had to enter the barrier. There was no other choice. And the longer they waited, the larger it grew, and the harder it would be to reach the center.

“You have to let me do it,” Annie said quietly, guessing his thoughts.

Alexander’s jaw tightened. He didn’t like it.

“Otherwise you might die,” she continued. Her voice was quiet. Resolute. “I can handle it.”

Alexander stayed silent, calculating. Running through scenarios. All of them led to the same conclusion.

“We’re going to have to go around though,” Annie continued. “Until we can see the ritual. Then you have to toss me in.” She paused. “Like a cannonball.”

He looked at her, thinking she was joking. It would be very Annie.

Her metal face remained completely serious.

Alexander considered the idea. A couple seconds passed. He squeezed his eyes closed, then reopened them. The blurriness was mostly gone.

He didn’t like it. Didn’t like not taking the time to test alternatives.

But he liked the thought of him and his friends dying because he hesitated even less.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

Alexander reached out to the drones, checking their status. Battery reserves were down across the group. Thirty percent on average from that brief exposure to the death field.

All except Droney. The soul-bonded drone had lost only ten percent. The fragment of his soul must have provided some protection.

He frowned. They’d have maybe one good fight left before the drones needed recharging. He’d have to make it count.

Droney beeped loudly, confirming its status. The chair reformed beneath Annie. She jumped into it, but instead of sitting normally, she dropped into a runner’s crouch. Her body rippled once, metal shifting across every surface, reconfirming her full outward transformation.

Alexander lifted them both, rotating until they could see between the buildings into the plaza beyond.

The ritual circle sprawled across the stone courtyard. Hundreds of bodies lay bound, channels carved between them dark with blood. Six cultists stood at equidistant points around the circle, arms raised, chanting in perfect synchronization. Their voices echoed loudly across the plaza.

At the center, floating five meters off the ground, was an elderly woman. Gray hair whipped around her face as power streamed into her from every direction. The streams peeled away from the corpses on distant rooftops, from the dying bound within the circle itself, all flowing into her like a drain at the center of reality.

Her expression was rapturous. Eyes closed. Face showing something close to ecstasy as she chanted as loudly as the others.

She hadn’t noticed them. None of them had.

Alexander lowered them to almost street level. Still none of them seemed aware of anything beyond the ritual they were maintaining. He considered sending Annie after the woman directly, but the energy flowing into her gave him pause. And if she could resist a direct strike, like Flashpoint had, then the element of surprise would be lost.

He turned to Annie once more. “Are you sure?”

She nodded.

Alexander hesitated. Then he looked her in the metal eyes and firmed his resolve. “Okay. Let’s do it. But the goal isn’t for you to take them all on. Just get the closest one. Kill them. If it stops the ritual, I’ll be right behind you. If it doesn’t, get another.”

Annie gave him a thumbs up and a smirk. “Got it, boss.”

Alexander smiled back, still worried. “Get ready.”

Annie tensed into position.

Alexander reached out with Metallokinesis, feeling the combined mass. Several hundred kilograms between Annie and the drones. He’d never thrown something this heavy this fast.

Droney started them forward, building speed.

Then Alexander shoved with everything he had.

Right before they hit the dome, Alexander pulled back as hard as he could on the drones. Their metal frames groaned and shrieked in protest as their momentum abruptly reversed.

Annie shot forward like a projectile.

Then she crossed the threshold.

Alexander’s hands clenched. All he could do now was wait.

***

Every inch of her MetaMetal burned as she passed through the barrier. Worse, even. Like it was being unmade, dissolved even. Her power surged to replace what was being destroyed, cycling metal through her form in a desperate attempt to stay ahead of the decay.

The pain eased. Then returned stronger. Eased again. A pattern repeating over and over.

She stretched her right arm into a blade, willing it denser, sharper. The cultist ahead didn’t even turn.

Annie swung.

Her blade carved through him with little resistance. Just a brief moment of contact, then he was in two pieces, toppling in different directions.

The ritual circle screamed.

Energy erupted outward in a chaotic pulse. The black dome rippled, distorted, began churning like a storm. The burning intensified everywhere at once.

Annie landed hard, trying to roll with the momentum, but her foot caught on something soft. One of the bound civilians, cold, definitely dead. She crashed, tumbled, skidded across blood-slick stone.

For a moment she just lay there, staring up at the churning dome above her. Pain washed over her.

Then she forced herself up.

The dome was still in place. All wobbly now, unstable, but holding. Annie reduced her density and launched herself at the nearest chanting cultist. Still oblivious.

Her blade punched through his chest and erupted from his back in a spray of blood.

He sputtered. Coughed. Tilted his head to look down at her, eyes finally opening. “No... the ritua—”

He died.

The ritual collapsed inward.

Pain exploded across every inch of her metal body. The death energy wasn’t just attacking anymore. It was winning. She could feel her reserves depleting as her power struggled to replace what was being destroyed. Silver metal flickered to gray, to black, back to silver, cycling frantically.

Annie dropped to one knee, gasping. Her vision swam.

She glanced up. The woman at the center of the ritual was frowning now, brow furrowed in concentration. Still floating. Still chanting. But the ecstatic expression had shifted to something strained. Desperate.

There was no time. She had to break this ritual now.

Annie fought to her feet, forcing herself forward. Each step felt like moving through tar. But her power was shifting. In a way it never had before. The sensation rippled across her body, sparking an idea.

She thought about her power. It had always seemed a little strange to her. Like it should be called something more direct, something to do with metal phasing or shifting. Instead, it was called MetaMetal Adaptation.

A switch flipped in her mind.

Annie closed her eyes. Forced herself to stand straight.

Then, even with everything happening, she hesitated for half a second. Names flitted through her mind. She thought of all the times she’d given Augustus a hard time about the Storage Closet. She needed something… cool. And yet, none of the ideas sounded good enough.

With a groan, she gave up. It was now or never.

“ASSIMILATE.”

The burning stopped.

Her metal rippled, silver flowing to smoky black, taking on the same quality as the death field surrounding her. Becoming it. And with that change, resisting. Not fully… but more than enough.

Annie grinned through the lingering pain. Then sighted the next cultist.